What the h.e.l.l was this, junior high?

Clearly, because my heart was thudding against my ribcage like a f.u.c.king tribal drum at the innocent, ridiculous, childish contact of his hand on mine, his fingers in mine.

We were holding f.u.c.king hands.

HOLDING HANDS.

I'd never held hands. I'd skipped the silly cute innocent stage of my s.e.xuality, going straight from thinking boys were stupid to making out in janitor's closets within the s.p.a.ce of a single grade-fifth grade, if you want specifics. I'd sucked my first c.o.c.k in sixth grade, and was pretty well experienced in the basic missionary position by the end of seventh. By ninth grade, I was on the prowl.

Holding hands wasn't exactly on the itinerary, needless to say.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"Mogi das Cruzes," he said. "It's an offshoot of So Paulo. Thresh has a safe-house prepped for us." He let go of my hand and pulled a cell phone from his pocket, dialed a number, and put the phone to his ear. "Thresh. We're ten minutes out. No, just secure the perimeter and then head for Rio as we discussed. Affirmative." He hung up, and shoved the phone back in his pocket, doing that uniquely male thing where he lifted his entire body off the seat to wedge the phone into the pocket.

And then he reached out, took my hand in his once more, and threaded our fingers together. His eyes cut to mine to gauge my reaction; I'd felt strangely disappointed when he'd let go of my hand, and giddy when he took it back. None of this had crossed my face, though, hopefully.

Or maybe it did, because the corner of his mouth quirked up in a small, pleased smile.

Somehow, over the next ten minutes, my position on the bench seat shifted. I'm not sure how, or why, but I kept sliding further and further left, closer and closer to Harris. And then he let go of my hand, but only to rest his palm on my knee. This made it hard to breathe, and impossible to swallow.

When his fingers found the tender skin of my thigh just beneath the hem of the skin-tight shorts, I had to focus on forcing each breath in, and each breath out.

I lost track of my left hand, and found it on his thigh.

What the h.e.l.l was going on?

We were in a residential area, quiet, sunny, hilly, So Paulo proper in the distance, the buildings more well-kept, the cars a little newer. Kind of like Clawson or Livonia in Metro Detroit, not super wealthy but not run-down either, where people were getting by and weren't exactly poor, but weren't really close to even upper-middle cla.s.s.

Harris drove with his left hand, not taking his right off my leg. His eyes were in constant motion now, though. I could feel his attention, and it was laser-focused on our surroundings, checking the mirrors and the rooftops and each doorway we pa.s.sed. He slowed, made a left turn, and then stopped outside a small house with white siding and terra cotta roof tiles, a gray fence separating the driveway and front door from the street and sidewalk. A momentary pause, and then a truly ma.s.sive human being emerged from the house, ducking under the lintel and straightening to a full height that had to be close to seven feet tall. The man was nearly as broad as he was tall, which was a terrifying distortion of physical proportion. Despite his gargantuan size, the man moved with the same predatory grace that Harris possessed. Quick motions unlocked the gate and slid it aside, letting Harris pull the Range Rover into the driveway.

My door was pulled open and I climbed out, straightened, and turned to face the giant. And he was, truly, a giant.

"Jesus Christ on a cracker," I said, "you're the biggest person I've ever seen."

"I get that a lot," he said. His voice was...I'm not sure I have a word for how deep it was. Metaphor also seems to fail, but I'll do my best: it sounded sort of like mountains crashing together, the sound emerging from the depths of the Marianas Trench.

"Layla, this is Thresh," Harris said, pulling his bag of guns out of the back of the Defender. "Thresh is Rambo's worst nightmare."

"Well. That's a fun thought." I held out my hand. "Nice to meet you, Thresh."

Thresh took my hand in his and shook it once. His grip was surprisingly gentle, as if he had to consciously focus on the act of not crushing my hand like a pretzel stick. "Glad to see you in one piece," he rumbled.

He turned away then and took the bag from Harris, brought it inside the house, once again ducking his head and turning slightly sideways to fit through the doorway. Let me reframe this for you. The doorway was average height and width, but Thresh was of a size that he had to not only duck to fit vertically, but had to twist sideways to get his shoulders through the door. The bag, meanwhile, which Harris had carried with visible effort, Thresh dealt with by threading two fingers through the straps. He was carrying it like it was a grocery bag full of bread. I watched his acres of tan muscle and s.h.a.ggy blond hair vanish into the interior of the house, and then I turned to Harris.

"Where the h.e.l.l did you find Goliath, there?" I asked.

"I was in the Rangers with him."

"Is his name really Thresh?"

Harris shrugged. "Would you ask him his real name? I know very little about him besides his qualifications, which are pretty self-evident. I mean, sheer size aside, he's a stone-cold killer. He's deceptively fast and silent, which should be impossible for a man of his size. I've seen him use at least four different kinds of martial arts. He's a dead shot with a rifle, proficient with explosives, fluent in four languages, good with computers, and is, obviously, the strongest person I've ever met."

"And he's unquestionably on our side?"

"I trust Thresh with my life."

"You trust him with your life, but you don't know his real name?"

"His name is Thresh. That's all I need to know. His personal life is his business, not mine."

Thresh returned at that moment, a khaki rucksack on his back. "Perimeter's clear. Sensors are in place. I'll have us a ride out of South America by the time you reach Rio." He handed Harris a set of keys. "This place is good for seventy hours, no more. See you in Rio."

Harris unlocked the gate, let Thresh through, and locked it behind him. I glanced at Harris as he pocketed the keys, and when I turned back less than two seconds later, Thresh was gone, as if he'd never been there in the first place.

"Where the h.e.l.l'd he go?"

Harris just shrugged. "Who knows? Man's a ghost."

"How can a seven-foot-tall giant just f.u.c.king vanish into thin air?"

This earned me a grin. "See why he's the only one I brought with me to come get you? Now get your a.s.s in the house. We need to keep a low profile."

I preceded Harris into the house, heard him close the door behind us and turn several locks. The interior was dark and cool, and I noticed the shadow of bars across the windows and the front door. There was a couch under the front bay window, thick tan curtains pulled across the gla.s.s. The couch was out of the seventies, lime green fake leather. Everything, in fact, was seventies, I realized as I moved through the tiny house, from the window treatments to the appliances to the wallpaper.

There was a minuscule galley kitchen, a single bathroom not much larger than an RV bathroom, and one bedroom.

I heard Harris prowling around much as I was, peering out of windows, testing locks and windows. When he was satisfied, he pulled his phone out of his pocket, swiped it to unlock the touch screen, tapped an icon, then tapped and swiped at the screen a few times.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

He moved to stand beside me, showing me the screen. "Just making sure I'm connected to all the cameras and sensors Thresh installed. See?"

He cycled through several screens, one of the front of the house as seen from the roof across the street, one of each side looking out, and two from the back, one looking out and one looking at the house from some tall structure behind the house. There were also blank screens with "armed" and "clear" written in green letters, which I a.s.sumed were motion sensors.

The next thing Harris did was pull weapons out of the bag and hide them in various places around the house: in a box in a cupboard, duct-taped to the wall behind the fridge and behind the toilet, between the mattress and box spring in the bedroom, between the cushions of the couch, a huge a.s.sault rifle stood on its stock in the broom closet. He set another handgun on the nightstand beside the bed with two spare clips beside it.

I watched him the whole time. Meeting Thresh had momentarily distracted me from my hyper-s.e.xual awareness of Harris, but now that we were alone again, it came rushing back at me like a runaway freight train. I was aware of the way his sweat-darkened BDU shirt was sticking to his spine; of the way each movement he made seemed to have a specific purpose, no wasted motions, no wasted energy. I was aware of the bulge in the front of his pants, lessened at the moment. I was aware of his corded forearms and chiseled biceps.

I was aware of his gaze as it slid away from his phone and to my eyes.

I was aware of the way he slid the phone back in his pocket and prowled over to me, bulge in his pants getting larger as he approached. I was aware of his eyes on my chest as I breathed, intensity and antic.i.p.ation and arousal making me short of breath, which meant my b.r.e.a.s.t.s swelled with each breath.

"Where'd you get these clothes?" he asked.

"I stole a car from the valet in Vitaly's hotel. He gave them to me."

"They don't fit you."

I shook my head. "No, not really."

A moment of silence then, as if that was all he could think to say.

I watched his chest expand with a deep breath, which he held for a moment and then released slowly. His hands curled into fists at his sides, and his eyes fixed on mine, conflicted, heated green.

And then, with a growl of irritated acquiescence, he moved so he was pressed up against me, erection hard against my belly, face tipped down, mouth centimeters from mine.

"Tell me no," he murmured.

I should have.

I couldn't.

"Layla." It was a demand, a repet.i.tion of his injunction to say no.

"Nick?"

At my use of his name, he seemed to swell and his fingers gathered the skin-tight cotton of my T-shirt into his fists. "Last chance, Layla. Tell me to stop."

f.u.c.k that. I wanted this. I wasn't thinking beyond the moment, because that's how I worked. I wasn't thinking about anything except need, except want, except the ache between my thighs, except the way my nipples pulsed and my core was going damp and hot. I couldn't have told him no even if I'd been able to summon words. Which, incidentally, I wasn't.

He growled again, and this time it was a groan of need. Harris's jaw clenched and I felt his fists tense in my shirt at the center of my spine. He pulled, and I heard cotton rip. His arms went rigid, and the frayed crew-neck collar parted.

Holy f.u.c.king s.h.i.t; he was literally ripping the clothes off me?

The maroon fabric hit the floor, and I was bare from the waist up. My nipples tightened, and I lifted my chin, stepped back, hands at my sides.

Harris's gaze roved over me, and I was rewarded by a groan sc.r.a.ping past his clenched teeth as he took in my body. "Jesus, Layla."

"What?" I asked, even though I was pretty sure I knew exactly what he meant.

"You," he said. "You're the s.e.xiest thing I've ever f.u.c.king seen."

Somehow, coming from him, that meant more than any compliment I'd ever gotten, and that scared the f.u.c.k out of me. I shoved that little box of emotion way, way down, closed the lid, locked it off, and buried it. Nope nope nope. Not going there. Not with him, not with anyone.

"t.i.t for tat," I said, running my hands over my b.r.e.a.s.t.s. "My shirt...for yours." I crossed the s.p.a.ce between us and gripped the edges of his shirt.

I ripped it off him with a rough jerk, and Harris took the garment from me, let it fall to the floor, and now we were both naked from the waist up. I ran my hands over his chest, rubbed my palms on his nipples and through the dark, curly hair on his chest.

"You've got a hairy chest, Nick."

"Sure do." The question was there in his gaze, unspoken.

I ran my palms in circles on his chest, placed a kiss to the indent on his shoulder where it wasn't quite shoulder, wasn't quite chest. Another, over his breastbone. "I like it. Real men have hairy chests."

He sc.r.a.ped his hands up my belly and cupped my b.r.e.a.s.t.s in his big, rough hands. "Glad you think so." There was a smile in his words, but I was too busy tracing the grooves of his abdomen, the concavity of his sides, the smooth plateau of his broad back to actually see it.

A breath, another kiss to his chest, right above his nipple, and then he was kneeling in front of me, yanking open the b.u.t.ton of the shorts and jerking them down past my hips. I stepped out of them, and looked down at Harris, meeting his gaze. He had a double-handful of my a.s.s, and his lips were pressed to my left hipbone. Just beneath my navel. Then over to my right hipbone and to my thigh, high up, just underneath the thin strap of my tiny red thong, then over, a breath away from where the silk cupped my p.u.s.s.y.

He glanced up as he hooked his fingers into the side of the thong, preparing to rip it off.

I grabbed his hand. "Don't. It's the only pair I've got."

"I brought you clean clothes from the Eliza. They're in my bag," he said, and then ripped the thong apart anyway.

Jesus. You read about a s.e.xy brute of a man ripping a girl's underwear off, but the reality is a little different. It kind of hurts a little, where the strap on the opposite side digs into your hip with the pressure of the pull, until it gives. And then there's the fact that it kind of creates a bit of camel toe. But then the string parts and you're bare, naked, completely bare. And that was what he did, just ripped it off, tore my underwear right off. It s.n.a.t.c.hed my breath away.

Yeah, it is exactly that s.e.xy.

And then his mouth was over my core, his tongue spearing into me, and I had to grab his shoulders for balance. "Holy s.h.i.t, Nick."

I went from turned on to o.r.g.a.s.m in the s.p.a.ce of a heartbeat. One swipe of his tongue against my c.l.i.t and I was ready to come apart, aching, throbbing, a spear of raw intensity cutting through me.

"Come now, Layla," he said.

He reached up and twisted my nipple sharply, and then slid three fingers of his other hand into my p.u.s.s.y. No buildup, no adding them one at a time, just a quick rough thrust and I was shredding into a million pieces. He sucked my c.l.i.t between his teeth and flattened it against the roof of his mouth, twisted my nipple, withdrew his fingers and f.u.c.ked them back up into me.

"f.u.c.k, Jesus, Nick. f.u.c.k." I tried to push him away. "I need a shower, I stink."

"Don't f.u.c.king care," he murmured. "Now...I told you to come, Layla," he growled.

"I am-oh...holy f.u.c.k-I'm coming, Nick." I felt everything clench, felt my muscles contract, felt the heat blasting through me, a wordless moan escaping my lips. I squeezed hard with my PC muscles, clamping down as hard as I could on his fingers, trapping them inside me. He groaned at the pressure on his fingers, glancing up at me with an appreciative glint in his eyes.

Abruptly, he was standing up in front of me and he was kissing me, p.u.s.s.y on his breath and his tongue demanding mine, commanding and insistent. His fingers dug into my hair, trying to undo the rubber band keeping it in place.

"It's an actual rubber band," I murmured, breathless from his kiss. "Gonna be a b.i.t.c.h to get out."

He reached into a pocket and I heard a snick of a pocketknife as he pulled my head toward him. "Hold still," he ordered.

I sank to my knees instead, and got to work on his pants. I felt him playing with the bun on the top of my head, looking for the best spot. I unb.u.t.toned the fly, and tugged his pants down, and they fell to the floor at his feet with a thud. He was utterly focused, though, I had to give him credit for that. Even as I pulled his black briefs down and bared his c.o.c.k, he was focused on my hair, cutting away the rubber band piece by piece until he could shake my hair free.

Only when my hair was loose around my shoulders did he fold the knife and glance down at me. "Still got my shoes on," he said.

"True." I leaned closer to him, teasing him, mouth close enough to his c.o.c.k that he could feel my breath as I unlaced his boots one at a time and helped him tug his feet out of them.

He toed his socks off, kicked the pile of clothes away, tossed the pocketknife onto the pile.

And then he waited.

I took a moment to admire his p.e.n.i.s; it was a lovely organ, long and thick with a very slight inward curve to it as it stood flat against his belly. That curve, I couldn't wait to have it inside me, pushing against me just right, hitting that spot as he thrust into me....

I wrapped both hands around it and stroked him, and then leaned over him, wrapped my lips around the head.

I got one good suck in, and then he was lifting me to my feet. "Later, Layla."

He twisted me in place and guided me to the bathroom, turned on the shower stream, adjusted the temperature so it was somewhere between cool and warm. Normally, I like scalding hot showers, but for once I was simply too d.a.m.n hot and sweaty to be able to tolerate a hot shower.

Here's a thing: shower s.e.x isn't actually s.e.xy. It's hard to have good shower s.e.x without anyone getting hurt, and someone is always left out of the water stream so they get cold, and there aren't really any good positions that don't involve feats of acrobatics or powerlifting-especially when you consider that I'm not exactly dainty.