Just One More Night by Caitlin Crews (fb2 epub reader .TXT) 📗

she was breathing too hard. He liked it. And though he saw a kind of dismay on her face, or possibly impatience, she didn’t argue with him. She settled back on her heels, giving him the opportunity to miss that flowy little red skirt she’d worn before that had fueled any number of fantasies since. She shoved the silken mass of her hair back from her face and smiled at him.

As if this was a proper dinner date in whatever squeaky-clean world she came from.

Though he knew what her world was like. All its fresh, bright, happy details. A man might trust a vision all he liked—but a wise man verified it.

Only wise men survived the kind of life Stefan had built for himself, then destroyed.

“I was at a club,” she told him, and her voice was as lovely as he remembered it. Sweet and sultry all at once, with that American Dream accent of hers. “It was just down the street in some crumbling-down warehouse I couldn’t find again if my life depended on it. I wanted a breath of fresh air and a little walk and then there I was. In the middle of your... Situation.”

That was significantly less celestial. He studied her, the laziness giving way to a frown. “You wanted to walk. At that hour. You didn’t notice what kind of neighborhood you were in?”

Indy shrugged, and his eye was drawn to how delicate she was. She was such a little thing. He remembered, vividly, picking her up. Holding her against him, his imagination wild with all the ways a man of his size could indulge himself with a tiny little creature like her—but he’d urged himself to be careful.

He might not have been a good man, but he didn’t break his toys.

Then she’d proved herself more than his equal. She’d showed him a libido to match his and better still, the ability to take his cock even if she hurt herself doing it.

Men changed their lives for far less.

That night had been warm, as he recalled. She’d worn a strappy little tank top, a tiny little backpack like the one she’d tossed aside here, and that filmy red skirt that had haunted him ever since. And loads of necklaces and bracelets that marked her as one of the carefree backpacker set who polluted most of Europe—and the world—with their vast privilege wrapped up as wanderlust. Today she wore skinny gray jeans that seemed pasted to her and a flowy sort of T-shirt that did as much to expose her midriff as cover it. She still wore a ton of bracelets, but the only necklace she wore today was the key to his villa.

Back in the alley, his first thought had been angel. His second thought had been bohemian—in the sense of a certain beach culture style popular with both Californians and those who aspired to look like Californians. Not in the sense of the Bohemian region where they currently sat that had nothing at all to do with Californian anything.

When she’d spoken, he had not been surprised to hear that she was an American, though he hadn’t known how to feel about that. And then he hadn’t cared, because it made his path clear.

He had practically been able to see the white picket fences of her people stamped all over her.

“Those kinds of clubs are always in terrible neighborhoods,” she was saying, almost dismissively. As if he was being...silly. Something Stefan had never been in his life. “I never got into trouble before.”

Stefan leaned forward. He rested his elbows on his knees and got his face close to hers.

She was even more perfect than he’d recalled. Flawless, really. That pretty face of hers, eyes like chocolate and that sweet and dirty mouth. She looked soft and breakable, but he knew better, didn’t he? His Indiana was wild, and a little crazy, and her pussy was voracious.

God, she was perfect.

Even if, right at this very moment, he was pissed at what could have happened to her if he hadn’t been the situation she’d stumbled into.

“Do you know how much trouble you were in?” he asked quietly. “Do you really know?”

Her melted chocolate gaze glittered. “I think the gun to my head was a clue.”

Stefan reached over and slid his palm over her jaw, her cheek. Not sure if he was holding her there...or assuring himself that she was real.

That he had not simply lost it in that alley two years ago, as many had claimed since. That there had been a reason and it was her.

That she was here.

“The man who held a gun to your head no longer exists,” he told her, making no attempt to keep the darkness from his voice. “But he was a very bad man, Indiana. You should have been terrified of him. Why weren’t you?”

She smiled and pressed her cheek deeper into his palm. “I don’t know.”

“I gave you that key and an address. You could have come here any time you liked, but you didn’t. You could have forgotten all about one strange night in Hungary, but you didn’t. You waited two years. You came to Prague. You showed up tonight at precisely the right time and now look at you, down on your knees with your skin already flushed with arousal.” He shook his head, his gaze all over her. “Why?”

“I trusted you.” When his scowl deepened, her smile widened. “And it didn’t occur to me to come here any sooner. I guess I could have come straight to Prague after Budapest, but I went to New York instead. And by the time it occurred to me, much later, that I had the key and could come over here and see if it fit in anytime, I was too busy... Recovering.”

He searched her face intently, something in him going still. “You were hurt?”

She shook her head. “No. But it was...”

Stefan nodded. Because he knew. “A beautiful catastrophe.”

Indy’s eyes glowed. “Yes. And then I thought I might as well