Page 11 of Dangerous Secrets

He’d even had to fuck Consuelo, Gonzalez’s sister. Christ, that had been hard. Not because she was ugly—no, Consuelo was a looker. Worked at it, too. She spent more than the education budget of some third world countries on clothes, jewelry and cosmetic surgery.

The instant she’d laid eyes on him, she’d staked her claim. Guillermo found it funny. He’d once walked in on Consuelo giving head and had stayed to watch, critiquing her style.

Nick had had more sex in that 12-month period than a teen pop star and every second of it had been sheer, unadulterated, vomit-inducing hell. Consuelo was heavily into pain—her pain, not his, thank God. He drew the line at that.

Still,herpain had been bad enough. She was into bondage and whips, with a hellish range of sex toys and sex paraphernalia she kept in a big red chest. She liked her sex so rough he sometimes spent the rest of the night driving the porcelain bus when he finally crawled back into his small, spare bedroom.

Nick never got used to it, never found it got easier. When he fucked her hard, knowing he was hurting her, her face got red, her eyes glassy, grunting then screaming while she came, urging him to hurt her even more.

It had been the hardest thing he’d ever done in a hard lifetime.

He’d seen quite enough pain during his childhood. Stopping people from hurting others was what he was all about. Being forced to hurt a woman made his gut clench, turned him inside out.

He was seriously contemplating quitting when all of a sudden, in a flurry of activity, Gonzalez put together a guns-for-cocaine deal that was the biggest Nick had ever seen. Two tons ofcocaine for enough firepower to keep an African civil war going for years, which had been the point.

They had a system in place for Nick to get the word out and Gonzalez had gone down in the raid, caught in a crossfire so vicious the only thing left of him on the warehouse floor had been human hamburger.

The cocaine had gone into a warehouse instead of up yuppie noses, the arsenal had been destroyed and 57 people slapped in jail. Enough work to keep an army of DAs busy for the next ten years. Not bad for his first mission in the Unit in terms of results. It had been hell, though. The mission had lasted a year, but it had felt like a century.

This was a better mission. Way better.

The waiter rolled a cart to their table and started plating the food. It smelled otherworldly. Nick took in a deep sniff and Charity smiled at him. “You’re in for a treat.”

“Smells like it.”

He waited until she picked up her fork, and dug into what looked like a plump ravioli that the menu called afagottino. When he brought the fork to his mouth, he nearly moaned. Cream, mushrooms and truffle shavings in feather light pasta. God.

Charity had her eyes closed, too, chewing delicately. She’d chosen a mushroom risotto.

Charity had the daintiest manners he’d ever seen. She enjoyed her food and didn’t treat it as if it were radioactive like other women did. But though her pleasure was visible, every movement was delicate.

Nick watched her smooth, slim white throat work as she swallowed and swallowed heavily himself. He caught himself watching her next bite avidly. His eyes were riveted on her fork as the tines speared the morsel of mushroom and followed itevery inch of the way into her mouth. That lovely, delectable, soft pink mouth.

He flashed suddenly on a vision of Charity opening that pretty mouth over his dick. It was a disturbingly intense vision and very, very detailed. He could see it, as clearly as if it were happening right now. Right in front of his eyes.

They were naked, stretched out on a carpet in front of a fire, exactly like the one in the big dining room. Nick was stretched out on his back and Charity was bent over him, the smooth shiny bell of her hair tickling his thighs, watching him out of her witchy, uptilted light cat’s eyes. That soft mouth opened. He could feel the heat of her breath against the sensitized skin of his dick. She licked him once and . . .

Goddamn! What the hell was he doing?

Nick shook himself out of his fantasy—a fantasy so lush and enticing his dick had twitched in his pants, hard. Jesus. Of all the places and times . . . getting a hard on in a fancy restaurant while dining with a woman he needed to pump for information.

Andfuck. The instant his mind thought the word pump, his head was filled with another vision. This time it was a picture of Charity stretched out under him while he pumped in and out of her.

It was like he was on the ceiling, looking down. He saw everything. Her slim thighs twined around his hips, slender arms around his neck, his butt working as he moved in and out of her . . .

He swelled fully erect.

Right there, in Emilio’s elegant dining room, in the middle of at least fifty other patrons happily eating and drinking, unknowing that there was a hard on in the room. How fucking lame was that? Luckily his lap was covered by the peach linen tablecloth, but he didn’t dare move.

If he’d had on his stiff jeans, maybe he could have hidden it, but he had on very expensive lightweight pure virgin wool pants that outlined him completely.

If someone yelledfire!he was a dead man.

This was unheard of. His dick obeyed him at all times. When he saidgo, it went. When he saidstop, it stopped. When he saiddown, it went down and stayed down.

And Christ, he wasn’t hurting for sex. True, he hadn’t had a woman for a couple of weeks, except for one girl who’d picked him up in a bar the night after the take-down, when he was still pumped full of adrenaline. Four whiskies and he was more than ready for the brunette who’d sidled up to him and told him exactly what she wanted. Waking up next to her had been depressing, though, particularly since he couldn’t remember her name.

All the sex he’d had in the past year had been depressing, come to think of it.

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