Fool Me Forever (Confidence Game) Read online

  With Mom home, Mal wouldn’t be alone. She and Halsey could hole up in a hotel, where she could spend the weekend wearing the complimentary robe, or just a sheet, and bear the cost of the walk of shame home on Sunday in her cocktail dress. On Monday, she’d smarten up and start putting this all behind her.

  When Halsey wound his way back to her, with his eyes narrowed and his brow crumpled, she took hold of his suit lapels, concerned. “Everything go okay?”

  “I need a shower.” She felt a shudder go through him. “That man is truly one of the greatest narcissistic psychopaths I’ve ever dealt with, and my whole working life is dealing with entitled evil pricks.”

  “I think I can make you feel better.”

  He kissed her forehead, his expression softening. “You do?”

  “Slowly at first, with a lot of skin contact, and then faster with trembling and flashing lights and just the sweetest ever release for both of us.” She ran a finger over his eyebrow, and the smile he gave her made her nipples tighten. “You can shower either side or even during that, if you like.”

  With a hand that trailed down the back of her beaded dress, and briefly, possessively spanned her butt, he said, “I like where your head is at,” with such grit in his voice she bit her lip.

  “Sex hotel.”

  He blinked hard, and she laughed. He certainly wasn’t uptight anymore. “If that’s what you want. How long are you going to give me?” he said.

  She explained about the bonus of Mom being home, but the necessity to find somewhere to go to be together.

  Turned out, Halsey had a loft apartment in Tribeca and complimentary robes. She knew he didn’t live in a shoebox in Queens but going to his home felt like crossing a line. Not that she hadn’t already crossed most of them with him, but she’d know him better when she saw how he lived, and there was every chance she’d love his style and that would be too awful, since even now they were on the verge of breaking up.

  “What are you thinking, PowerPoint Girl?”

  That she’d signed herself up for certain heartache. That it was stupid to worry about seeing how he lived. Stupid to try to guard her heart. Despite her better judgment and her hard-won resolve, she’d already given it to him. And since she believed in finishing what she started, there was only one thing to say. “Do you have a spare toothbrush?”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The first thing Halsey showed Lenny when they got home to the loft was a new brush head for his electric toothbrush still in the packaging. He might’ve guessed she’d be more interested in his apartment.

  “This is amazing. Now tell me you own it,” she said, her back to him, shoulders drawn up as she looked out at the street. “Purchased with the proceeds of crime.”

  Coming here, she was meeting his life outside of the fantasy they’d contrived, and there was a chance it would be too real for her.

  “Paid for with my salary and my company bonuses. I have a job with health and dental, stressful performance hurdles, and a demanding boss just like everyone else.”

  And he was close to pulling off a once-in-a-lifetime heist that would put hundreds of millions of dollars stolen by Cookie Jar back into the hands of people who needed the money most. He’d been confident enough to attempt it because Lenny had been there beside him.

  He was a better version of himself with her. More comfortable stepping outside his box, and he didn’t want to lose that new freedom so soon.

  “Not like anyone else you’re not related to.”

  Shit, he didn’t want to lose her. Not in this moment. Not ever. But he’d have to give her up. And when she left, the part of him she’d tempted out from behind his desk and ignited would gutter out and die.

  It was a bitter truth he couldn’t con his way around. Everything on the other side of his time with Lenny would be duller and quieter and contained, and those things, neat and tidy and careful, weren’t what excited him anymore.

  She didn’t move away when he stepped in close behind her. Close enough to smell her floral perfume, for his body to react to her nearness; a low-grade tremor buzzed through his limbs, a stimulus he’d begun to crave.

  “Being super rich can wreck your soul. Something deep inside a person can be corrupted by the power of fuck-off wealth.” All he could do was try to explain why he did what he did and hope she saw enough gray in the black and white. “Super rich people don’t look at the world the same way as regular people. They don’t value the people around them. They have more than they can ever need, but all that interests them is the accumulation of more. More money, more power, and the influence that buys. There are exceptions, the rich who work to make the world a better place. People who have their own charity foundations like you. But the exceptions don’t rule.”

  Too late, he realized he’d just described her father. She was still, her arms folded across her chest, her weight on the leg farthest from him as if that distance might protect her from this tangled thing they were. The pulse of their attraction strong and yet fragile. His investment in her too deep not to wager it all.

  “I know you detest what I do, and I understand why. The lies, the deceit, the private wealth, the whole breaking the law and should be in jail thing, but I do it because I believe in it, and I know you understand that, too.”

  She forced out a breath. “Did you ever think of walking away?”

  “Going legit? No. I was born to this. It’s a part of me.” It was the part of him she would never accept. “I understand if you want to leave.” He’d hit the gym, walk the streets, keep moving till he tired out his body and no longer ached for the need to have her.

  “It’s okay. I get you. You’re methodical and organized. You have great taste and beautiful manners. You do work you’re passionate about, and you’re proud of it, and I’m conflicted about that, but I admire you for it. You’re good with kids and muggers, and you’re kind and warm and smart. You have a thing for unicorns. And you kiss me like you’ve never wanted to kiss anyone more, and I love that. I really love that. I feel safe with you.”

  A thing for unicorns. She had no idea.

  “I want to play a game.” She uncrossed her arms and shifted her weight on to the hip closest to him. “I want to forget for the next forty-eight hours that you’re a con man and I can’t afford to know you.” She hip-checked him and didn’t shift away on contact, and when he wrapped an arm around her back, he felt her tension ease. “I want to be Lenny and Halsey who started out ducking and weaving, but grew to trust each other.” He tightened his hold on her as she turned in his arms and pressed close. “Respect each other.” He could sprout wings and fly from the way her eyes had gone dark and her body molded to his. “Like each other.”

  Like was a hot thread of tension pulled tight enough to vibrate in his muscles and open a space in his chest that was filled to the brim and sloshing over with the need of her. He didn’t have to lose her yet. He stopped himself from taking her mouth only long enough for her to get the words, “Who want each other,” out.

  Lenny’s lips were sweet, and the nips of her teeth were maddening and forgiving and something of a warning that she broke away to give.

  “Love me now, but when the weekend is over, we go back to the real world where you’re a man on the wrong side of the law, and I’m a woman on the right side who once helped you with fieldwork. Is that okay with you? Mallory would want to know I got your enthusiastic consent.”

  The wager won, he brought a hand down persuasively on her ass and felt the prickle of all the little sequins and pearls sewn into the fabric as he squeezed. “I guess you’ll want that toothbrush, then.”

  He pretty much dragged her through the living room, her laugher trailing them. “You can have the tour later.” Everywhere except behind the fake wall that hid his safe, multiple passports, and his everything has gone to shit, get out of town now, go-bag. “It’s impressive. I get paid a shit load because the risk factor is beyond sensible. I have fuck-off money, and I know how to use it r
esponsibly. I’m organized and methodical, and you left out determined and dedicated. And I forgot to mention, I adore cunnilingus.”

  Lenny shrieked, and it was the wildest, happiest sound on the seduction express. He’d make her do that again and again. He hit the bedroom with her hand in his and his shirt and belt unbuttoned. The lighting programmed to come on with their motion lit up the room in a warm glow. “Lights on or off?” He wanted her comfortable before he made her squirm.

  Say on. I need to look at you.

  “Ah.” He caught the quick flicker of nerves in the uptick of her voice. Off it was.

  “Do they dim?” she asked.

  “Alexis, lamp one, 25 percent.” The overhead light went off, and one bedside lamp sent a soft amber circle of light over the bed. He’d see plenty of her lovely body and enough to know how to please her. “How’s that?”

  Lenny put her hand to the back of her dress, and he stopped her. “Let me.” He moved around her and kissed the back of her neck, luxuriating in her perfume and the thrill of her permission. Her hair was up, and he put a hand to it. “Tell me what to do here.”

  “There are pins.”

  He took them out one by one, tossing them on the dresser, sifting his fingers through the hanks of hair that fell about her shoulders. He pictured them draped over his chest when they lay together sated. “My sisters stay here sometimes. You’re welcome to use whatever you find in the guest bathroom. There’s a robe on the back of the door in a dry-clean bag. I’ll get you a T-shirt if you want something to sleep in.” Not that he intended to let her sleep much.

  He ran his hands down her body and hugged her, his nose in her hair. When she turned, pearls and sequins scratched over his skin, pinpricks of pleasure.

  “You’re going slow. You’re concerned about my needs.” Her voice had gone thready. “That is the hottest thing ever. I am so turned on, right now.”

  He lost himself in her touch and her mouth. Wanting more of her skin, he got the zipper of her dress down and his hands to her ribs before she pulled away with a low moan, holding his shirt tail scrunched in her hand. “The guest bathroom?”

  “Across the hall.”

  She pulled on his shirt and put her teeth to his chest. “Meet me in bed.” And she was gone.

  He finished undressing, dismissed the need to shave again, but ran the electric razor over his face anyway, washed up, and cleaned his teeth, using the routine to calm the fuck down. He got one of his nicer T-shirts out and left it folded on the dresser for her. He put glasses of water on each bedside table, the whole time smiling until he realized he’d likely missed out on the opportunity to undress Lenny, go to his knees and peel her hosiery off her legs, pull the straps of her bra down, and follow that silk with his lips till her breasts popped free and he could fill his palms with their fullness.

  The rest of that fantasy about removing her underwear, learning how she liked to be licked and sucked, was making it hard to sit still in bed. He held off touching himself to wait for her, the sheet rucked at his waist, his back against the padded headboard.

  In his mind, her underwear wasn’t tight and constricting, and he wouldn’t have to wrestle with it. He totally understood why she didn’t want him doing that.

  When she appeared bundled in the robe, covered up neck to toe, her eyes bright gems and her hair brushed out, he exhaled hard. Anticipation was part of the fun, but Lenny was the woman to wreck him.

  “Wow. I wondered a lot about what you looked like under clothes,” she said, teeth grazing over her lip.

  She might have been closing her mouth on him, his hips twitched. “That robe suits you, but you could take it off now.”

  “I could. I will. Bodywear leaves ugly marks and—”

  “Leave it on and come over here.” He patted the place beside him, but she didn’t come any closer.

  “Why am I nervous? It’s not your fault. I really want sex.” She puffed out an exaggerated breath and crossed her eyes, trying to lighten the moment.

  “Lenore Bradshaw, you’re an amazing person, and you’re so goddamn sexy no matter what you’re wearing, but if you want to talk, we’ll talk, if you want to watch TV, we’ll watch. I really want sex with you, too, and we can go as slowly as you need. Bring that robe over here and tell me what you want.”

  The time it took for her to walk forward and kneel on the end of the bed, to crawl across his legs and take his face in her hands, was seconds, but he saw a whole life unfold in her movements. Cooking for her, making her laugh, dancing together, arguing and holding hands, and loving. It was an illusion, but when her lips touched his, he could almost believe they had a future. And when her kisses went from hello, I’m glad you’re here, to endlessly deep and full of longing, he was overheated and stung with stupid hope.

  It was Lenny who untied the belt of her robe and gave him access to her body, soft and warm and fragrant, making him groan out loud. It was Lenny who sighed and trembled as they both gloried in the skin-on-skin contact. It was Lenny who ran her hands down his torso, her gaze down on his erection.

  She sat back on her heels, her arms still in the robe, her body framed by it and the contours of shadows thrown by the light, her hair thoroughly messed by his hands, and her eyes big and dark and scoping him out. “You’re something else.”

  He was still partially covered by the sheet. “Then, why are you all the way over there?”

  She yanked at the sheet until she drew it away from his cock, thickened and so connected to his racing heartbeat he felt it pulse. “I’m enjoying the view,” she said.

  “Lose the robe, Bradshaw.” His voice came out low and dirty. She laughed and shrugged so the robe pooled on the bed behind her. “I have condoms and lube.”

  “I have an IUD and no diseases except this one where I’ve lost my head over you.”

  “Strange, I have that same disease.”

  “And no others?”

  “No others.” Just the one that was a memory trick, about this being a two-day vacation from the truth.

  They moved together, wrapping around each other. Halsey lay back, pulling Lenny across his body, before he flipped them, sending her back to the sheet and rearranging her so she lay sideways and he could slip to the floor, kneeling by the bed between her legs.

  “Oh, you. Oh,” she said, 5 percent strained protest, 95 million percent trembling with, “yes, please.”

  He started with his hands on her shins, then put his lips to her knee, before opening her legs and trailing kisses along her inner thighs. He listened to her breathing, hiccups of anticipation, read the squirming of her body and got off on it. When she reached out, he took her hand and neither of them let go when he licked through her, making her hips jolt in response.

  Lenny guided his way, told him what to do to make her feel good by the erratic sound of her breath, by the way she sucked in her tummy and arched her back. Her eyes stayed closed, and her hand squeezed his. He used his other to cant her pelvis and hold her to his mouth.

  She had her first orgasm that way, her whole body curling around it, torso lifting from the bed, as it rippled through her. The sounds she made, a chorus of whimpers and moans that fed his own need, made it heavy and urgent, a feeling he held off by pressing into the side of the bed. He wiped his mouth and chin and watched while she settled, and when she opened her arms to him, he crawled into them, notching his cock between her legs. Ready, so ready.

  “That was beautiful. Are you up for more?”

  She laid an arm over her eyes. “It was amazing.” There was a tremor to her voice, and the fact she wouldn’t look at him meant she needed a minute. “How did you know?”

  “Know what?”

  She moved her arm back to her side. “Where to touch me. How?”

  Odd question. He smoothed a hand over her head. “I don’t understand.”

  “I didn’t tell you what I liked.”

  “Yes, you did. Your body did. I paid attention.” He pressed against her wetness. “I’m pr
etty damn excited to pay some more attention.”

  She hooked her legs over his hips and put her hands to his shoulders. “I’ll take all the attention you can give me.”

  He held her gaze as he eased inside her slickness. The hot, wet joy of that making him shake. “Okay?”

  She let the held breath go and dragged another in. “It will be.”

  He pulled back and pressed forward again. Lenny’s chin lifted and she hissed out, “Yes,” her knees widening and her hands slapping down on his shoulders.

  Now he needed a second just to catch hold of the fit of her: around him, under him, with him. Smooth and tight and so fucking good. “I’m going to move. You tell me if it’s too much.”

  She bit her bottom lip.

  She needed his mouth and to be held more firmly so they could fall apart deeply, thoroughly together.

  “I’ve got you.” He claimed her lips and it was pure electricity, a jolt to his heart. Lenny’s throaty murmurs and her hand to the back of his head, an all-clear siren to his hips.

  She had her second orgasm, right before his first. He knew by the shriek, the fingernails in his back, the way her body went rigid before going soft, and the heat, the heat of her shut his brain off until his own pleasure centered and sharpened and shuddered through him.

  He rolled them to bring her on top, rather than crush her, and held her while they came back to themselves. “I’m going to want more of that,” he said, as Lenny tucked her face into his neck and rested her hand on his ecstatically happy heart.

  “Yeah, I don’t know. It was okay.”

  He spread an open palm on her rump, hoisting her slightly higher so they were face-to-face. He tucked her hair behind her ears. He loved to look at her, and now he didn’t have to veil his interest, tamp down his desire.