Читать книгу Just For Kicks - Susan Andersen - Страница 13

WOLF WOKE UP THE following morning to Niklaus playing music at top volume. The discordant notes and screeching guitar licks found a corresponding pulse in his left temple, which began pounding in tune with the inharmonic sounds wailing out of the living room speakers. With a groan he rolled to the side of the bed, where he sat with his elbows dug into his knees and his aching head propped in his hands.

God, he felt awful. Burning his candle at both ends didn’t even begin to cover it. He’d been running his ass off the past seventy-two hours, working his shift by night and squiring his folks and Niklaus around Vegas and its environs by day. He’d eaten rich foods he was no longer accustomed to and worked like a dog to live up to his mother’s expectations.

Which had meant talking. Smiling. Being frigging pleasant.

What he’d netted from so much unaccustomed sociability was a dangerously volatile temper. Generally a well-managed animal, it was suddenly hurling itself at its cage doors, slavering and snarling for release. Having to listen to crap music at high decibels on too little sleep verged perilously close to the key that beast was searching for.

But even if he believed in the self-indulgence of losing his temper, this wouldn’t be the time for it, since it would be the height of unfairness to take it out on Niklaus. The kid was having a rough-enough time as it was. Wolf remembered too well what it was like being ordered to pack up your belongings just when you finally got yourself settled in, only to have to start the whole lousy process all over again somewhere else.

And that was on top of the guilt he felt at leaving Niklaus to fend for himself last night.

After seeing his folks off at the airport for their flight back to Bolivia, Wolf had fully intended to take the teen home, order whatever pizza Niklaus wanted and ease him into his new situation. Instead, they’d arrived home to a message on the answering machine from the Avventurato Surveillance team’s number-one man, Dan McAster. “Emergency’s come up in the casino,” Dan’s voice had snapped out in its usual gruff-spoken way. “I need you here, ASAP.”

So he’d had to leave Niklaus alone in a strange condo in a strange city practically the minute the teen’s grandmother—the only person to provide Niklaus with a modicum of security—had left town. As if the kid hadn’t already had enough to contend with moving in with an uncle he barely knew.

All the same—Wolf dug his fingertips into his pounding temple—that music had to go before his head exploded.

Climbing to his feet, he reached for the shirt he’d draped over the desk chair last night and pulled it on. Not bothering to button it, he grabbed a pair of khaki shorts out of a drawer and yanked them up his legs, zipping the fly as he walked into the living room.

He strode straight over to the stereo and cranked down the volume.

Niklaus, slumped on his tailbone on the couch, glowered at him, and Wolf jerked his head at the wall connecting his unit to Carly’s. “Show a little consideration, Nik. We’ve got a neighbor.”

To his surprise, the boy’s expression lit up. “I know, I saw her out on the balcony last night. She is hot! And she’s got like a hundred dogs and cats. How totally great is that?”

The mention of Carly’s animals made Wolf want to furrow his brow and curl his lip back from his teeth. He managed a noncommittal expression, however, because he didn’t want to ruin the first sign of pleasure he’d seen on the kid’s face since Niklaus had learned his grandparents were dumping him in Las Vegas.

“Yeah,” he grunted. “Great. Totally.” My ass.

God, she made him nuts. He’d cooled his heels in Surveillance last night for a good hour after the la Stravaganza show was over, waiting for her to show up. But had she? Hell, no. She’d blown off the one simple request he’d made of her, and he was still steamed about waiting for her to make an appearance when he should have been back home with Niklaus.

He was hardly blown away by surprise. But he was plenty steamed.

What did surprise him was how close he still felt to losing the tight rein he had on his temper. The need to be nice these past few days must have taken even more of a toll on him than he’d realized. All the same, he had to put it behind him. Get his head screwed on straight.

Niklaus suddenly surged to his feet. “I’m gonna go take a shower.”

“Okay, good. I’ll take one when you’re done, then we’ll go grab some breakfast and visit a couple of schools to see if we can find one that fits.”

The boy scowled at him. “I don’t suppose any of the schools in this town has a decent soccer team?”

His tone was pure teenage, don’t-give-a-shit boredom, but Wolf took one look at his nephew’s stiff posture and intense gaze and realized the answer mattered a great deal to him.

“I don’t know, but I’ll see what I can find out. Your grandmother mentioned you’ve got a real talent for the sport.”

Niklaus shrugged and slouched off toward the bathroom.

Wolf was on the phone trying to get sports information from the nearest school when hysterical barking broke out next door. It continued unabated throughout the remainder of his conversation, and his temper was straining at its leash by the time he finally slammed the phone down. “Son of a bitch!”

He looked down the hallway toward the bathroom, but the shower continued to pound unabated. With an abrupt, decisive nod, he snatched up the incident report that he’d brought home from work and strode over to pull his door open with a force that damn near removed it from its hinges.

A UPS driver who was turning away from Carly’s door jumped, and Wolf wiped the scowl from his face as he approached her.

“Is that for Carly Jacobsen?” he asked, nodding at the package in the woman’s hands.

The brown-uniformed woman glanced down at the name on the label, then nodded.

He reached out for it.

She took a step back. “I need a signature, and it has to come from the recipient.”

“How about from the recipient’s husband?” he said, and reached for it again. “I was just visiting next door.” He could hear the dogs’ hysterical barking on the other side of the door, and at the end of his patience, he roared, “Sitz, dammit!”

Blessed silence fell.

He turned his attention back to the woman. “Look, I don’t know why Carly isn’t answering the door, but give me the package, will you, please? If she has to wait until tomorrow for you to attempt another delivery, she’ll be hell to live with.”

It was apparently a complaint with which the woman was familiar, for she handed him an electronic device and a stylus to write his signature, then passed him the package. “Have a good one,” she said, and marched off down the hallway, disappearing a moment later down the stairs.

He waited long enough for her to exit the building, then whirled around and knocked on Carly’s door. The dogs started barking again and he lost the last tenuous grasp he’d had on his wrath. Hammering on the door, he half expected the solid wood to give way beneath his fist at any second. “Open. The. Goddamn. Door!”

Over the thundering of his own heart and the clamoring of the dogs, he somehow heard the slap of feet against the tile foyer on the other side of the panel. Then Carly’s voice snapped, “Sitz!” and once again the mutts fell silent.

His jaw sagged at the sound of the German command coming from within her apartment, and he barely managed to snap his mouth shut again before the door whipped open.

Then he caught his first good glimpse of her standing on the other side of the threshold, and it was all he could do not to let his jaw drop all over again.

But, holy shit. Her face was scrubbed clean and her hair was wet. She was all gold and pink as water dribbled along her temples, down her smooth throat and over her chest, soaking into a white tank top and turning the edges of the material transparent. As he watched, the transparency spread across the uppermost thrust of unbound, truly spectacular breasts. Puckered nipples that he imagined were the result of leaving a steamy bathroom for the air-conditioned chill of the rest of the apartment poked against the still-dry portion of the top’s stretchy fabric. Her feet were bare, and the sun filtering into the foyer from the living room window turned her pointy-hemmed skirt translucent enough to highlight her mile-high legs. He’d take a wild stab here and guess that she’d recently climbed out of the shower.

Hands hanging limply at her sides, she, too, looked him over as if she’d never seen him before. Even as the thought crossed his mind, her slender eyebrows drew together over her nose and her gaze rose to his face. “What do you want, Jones?”

“Uh…” He couldn’t remember and latched onto the first thought to waft across his mind. “You spoke German.”

Color washed up her chest and climbed her throat. “So?”

“So, nothing. I just…didn’t expect to hear it.” He took a step closer and the shift of weight caused the sharp edge of the cardboard box under his arm to dig into his inner elbow. It jerked him back to reality. “Here.” He thrust it out at her. “The damn dogs were going crazy, so I signed for your package before their noise made my head implode.”

“Oh, for—” Snatching the parcel from his hands, she whirled away and stalked into the living room. “Don’t even start on my pets. There’s not a dog alive who doesn’t bark at the UPS man.”

“Woman,” he corrected. But he was operating purely on autopilot, for his brain was cutting out like a combustible engine laboring on its last fume of fuel.

The hazy view of her thighs and butt beneath her gauzy skirt didn’t improve matters. From what he could see, only a narrow blue thong that widened to a little butterfly above her firm cheeks stood between her and an indecency charge. Sternly pulling his gaze away, he followed her into her apartment. “You are training Doofus in German?”

“Rufus!” She whirled around, blue eyes snapping. “His name is Rufus! How would you like to be called da Wolfgangsta?”

“I wouldn’t,” he admitted stiffly, his head continuing to pound. “I apologize. I will remember it is Rufus.”

“Oh.” She blinked. “Well. All right, then.” She straightened her shoulders and met his gaze squarely. “As for the German command, yes. It seemed to work for you, and contrary to what you obviously think, I’ve been knocking myself out trying to find a way to get through to him.”

“A whip and a chair might do the trick.”

He wished the words back the minute they left his mouth. But it was too late. Carly’s eyes narrowed, her chin shot up and she took an incensed step forward. “Listen, you— Buster!”

Her older dog, the one so goofy-looking he was almost a caricature, with his springy tufts of brindled fur sticking up atop his head and poking out like ruffles around his ankles, stepped between them, seeking her attention. Wolf didn’t know exactly what happened next but thought that Carly must have almost caught the mutt with her foot. It occurred so fast that all he knew for certain was that when she pulled her stride to avoid kicking the dog, she pitched forward.

Buster scrambled aside and Wolf reached out to steady her at the same time that she flung out her hands to be caught. Given their mutual athleticism, they should have been able to right her with the minimum of contact.

But somehow the outsides of her arms slid along his inner forearms, knocking his hands aside. Her hands plowed inside his unbuttoned shirt, shoving back the open sides, then skidded along the bare skin over his ribs. As he reached for her hips to brace her, she grabbed the folds of material and hung on so tightly that she jerked the shirt clear off his shoulders to well beneath his shoulder blades. Her actions yanked his arms to his sides and the reflexive step backward that he took slammed his back against the wall. Her pets scattered, yipping and hissing, and Carly and Wolf slapped together, breasts to diaphragm. Her chin bounced off his collarbone, snapping her head back.

“Ow,” she said, working her jaw. “Shit.”

Wolf didn’t say a word. He couldn’t. Every Y chromo-some he possessed was aware of the scent of soap and heat and woman—not to mention the feel of that long, lush body mashed against his. He was also howlingly aware of the dampness of her thin tank top, which was all that separated her breasts from his flesh. They were real breasts, too, soft, full globes that flattened where they met corded muscle, not the artificially enhanced tits so many of the showgirls seemed to sport these days.

He noticed for the first time that Carly’s eyes had little golden flecks around her pupils and a deeper hue circling the clear blue iris. And her abrupt stillness told him she was suddenly as aware of him as he was of her. Or at least that she was aware of his awareness. Of course, the latter would be damned hard to ignore when he was half erect against her stomach.

Okay, all the way erect.

He saw her pulse tripping madly in the little hollow at the base of her throat, and he reached out to peel her off of him before he did something irrevocably stupid.

Trouble was, his shirt pinned his arms, preventing their usual full range of motion. He could still move well enough to get his hands on Carly’s upper arms, and he did just that, fully intending to move her away from him, if only the couple of inches his currently shackled condition would permit. At least she wouldn’t be pressed right up against the evidence of his happy-to-see-you dick.

That was the plan, anyway.

But somehow his hands, which had reached out with every intention of following the exact commands his brain issued, slid right up those smooth, firm arms and onto her warm-skinned shoulders. Then, since they were already in the neighborhood, they eased up her slender throat to frame her face. With a will of their own, his thumbs gently pressed the underside of her chin, which had a shallow dimple he’d never noticed before, and his fingers tunneled into her short, damp hair. He tilted her head back and to one side while tipping his own in the opposite direction.

Then, his heart thumping against the wall of his chest in slow, hard thuds, he rocked his mouth over the soft curves of her lips.

And, ah, God. They were sweet and pliant, and he wanted them to open up and let him in.

Now.

He widened his mouth around Carly’s, then dragged it closed, sipping at her with steady, demanding suction. Let me in, let me in, let me in.

His eyebrows furrowed when that didn’t gain him the immediate entry he sought, and he raised his head, came at her from a different direction. He tickled the seam of her lips with the tip of his tongue.

She made a sound deep in her throat, and her fingers unpleated the shirt they gripped and shook free of its voluminous folds. A second later, her hands were splayed against his back, bare skin to bare skin.

And her lips parted.

Yes! Wolf plunged his tongue inside.

She tasted even richer and more addictive than he’d imagined she would and every coherent reason why this wasn’t a good idea evaporated like dew in the desert when she kissed him back. The control he took such pride in disintegrated and his mouth turned rapacious.

Carly wrapped her arms around his neck and rubbed her breasts against his chest, returning his kiss with one that was every bit as voracious.

He stroked his hands down her soft nape, over her shoulders and down her back, following the long line of her spine to her round, firm ass. Gripping her through the thin, silky material, he bent his knees and yanked her to him—and his hard-on discovered a little piece of heaven in the soft, giving notch between her thighs.

But it wasn’t enough. He wanted his hands on the bare skin her diaphanous skirt had hinted at, and he began gathering fabric up by the handfuls, inching the garment up the backs of her thighs. Got to have some of this, his out-of-control testosterone insisted, and he wedged a thigh between hers and widened his stance, nudging her legs farther apart.

Got to have some of this now!

Nothing else mattered at the moment. Not the fact that she wasn’t a woman who fit into his master plan. Not the fact that they didn’t even like each other. Not Niklaus waiting for him next door. Not—

Oh, shit, Niklaus!

Damn, something did matter. The recollection of his nephew, who could come looking for him at any minute, splashed cold water all over the hot haze of lust that had made every other consideration seem incidental. Hell, he’d left Carly’s front door wide open when he’d followed her into her apartment, and it was only blind luck that no one had poked their head in to see what was going on.

Dropping her skirt back into place, he jerked his hands away from the tempting territory they’d roamed. He reached up to thread his fingers through her short hair and pull her head back.

She blinked unfocused eyes at him and licked her bottom lip. Then her lips, ruddy and swollen from his kisses, curled up in a sultry little smile and he groaned, his new resolve seriously threatened. He wanted to return that carnal smile, wanted to dive back in and pick up right where they’d left off.

But indulging the Jones wild streak wasn’t in his makeup—even if he had forgotten that fact in a moment of blistering arousal. He gave her a stern look. “I can’t do this.”

She returned a melting, slightly dazed smile that he felt clear to the pit of his stomach and rotated her pelvis against his erection. “Oh, honey,” she assured him. “You can.”

His hips pushed back at her until he caught himself and forced them to still, and he slid his fingers from her hair, gripping her shoulders instead to set her back a step.

The damn shirt pulled him up short again, but he shoved away from the wall so abruptly that it did the chore for him, tumbling her back a step. While she was still off balance, he hitched the shoulder seams of his abused shirt back into place. Then, heart pounding a savage beat, he stared at her.

What the hell had he done?

“No,” he finally said when she locked eyes with him. “I really can’t. You’re not part of my plan.”

Her eyes held confusion. “You have a plan that doesn’t allow for sex?”

“No.”

“No?” She took a tiny step forward. “Well, then…”

He put a hand up, warding her off. “I mean yes, I have a plan that doesn’t include unscheduled sex.” And it was high time he dragged it back front and center where it belonged.

“You schedule sex?” she said in disbelief. “What, between filing reports and busting card counters? My God. You are one seriously screwed-up individual.”

He’d always considered himself a seriously organized individual. Still, looking at the mussed, sexy blonde he was voluntarily walking away from, he wondered if she wasn’t onto something.

But, no. He knew what he wanted out of life, and this wasn’t it. Well, it was, but it would be a mistake he’d regret the moment satisfaction faded. And he had no room in his agenda for mistakes.

So he managed a negligent shrug and slapped his best emotionless expression on his face. “You may be right,” he said coolly as he headed for the door. “But at least I’ve got a plan.”

As he stepped out into the hallway, he heard a sound like steam escaping an overheated teakettle.

“Yeah, well, plan this, you jerk!” Carly yelled.

Closing the door behind him, Wolf thought it was just as well he couldn’t see the precise gesture that undoubtedly accompanied her directive.