Love Letters Volume 4: Travel to Temptation Read online

  He threw the knife aside. It clattered across the rough cement floor and he felt Winnie go lax against him as she realized who he was. It didn’t help that every curve of her fit every hard plane of him perfectly.

  “Silas, thank God, I—”

  He kissed her. Shoving his fingers under the elastic that held her hair, he curled his fingertips against her scalp and lifted her to his descending mouth. Whether it was relief or real desire, he didn’t care—she kissed him back.

  He didn’t bother with gentle preliminaries or with easing her into the outlet for his anger. He shoved his tongue against the seam of her lips and splayed his fingers as wide as they would go. There was a faint snick of breaking elastic, and the hair tie that had been keeping her tresses confined shot to the floor.

  She gasped, and he swallowed the sound, smiled when her hands came up to his shirt. He kept at her mouth, and it only took a moment before she pushed back at him—tongue and teeth, the latter catching his lower lip and sinking in, just on the edge of breaking skin. Her fingers snaked in between his shirt buttons and ran through his chest hair, her nails scoring his skin.

  Silas pushed her back against the edge of the kitchen counter and made a fist in her hair, pulling his mouth slowly from hers. She let him go just as slowly, releasing his lip in a slow slide out from between her teeth, sending a tingling wash of awareness zipping down his spine.

  She isn’t afraid. Maybe it’s me who should be afraid.

  “You’re an idiot to come here alone.” He spoke against the heavy rush of her breath. He knew the words were harsh, but so was the pounding of his heart.

  “You’re the idiot that’s holed up in a slum. I left civilization to track you down. How about a little appreciation for doing so? You’re a hard man to find.”

  “D.C. is the worst of slums, and as for hard to find…honey, you have no idea.” He laced his fingers in hers and brushed the backs of her knuckles against his straining erection.

  “That’s not the kind of hard I meant.” She didn’t pull her hand away.

  “Mmm, Winnie, I really mean it. I still have dreams about Dubai. It was incredibly memorable.”

  “I agree. I remember waking up alone quite clearly.” She yanked her hand from his and pushed past him. He let her put space between them, because she had obviously come for a reason—and the reason was most likely not to have mind-blowing sex in a shantytown. Dreams dashed again.

  “You made your feelings well known at that gala. I can’t imagine what you would come all the way to Brazil to tell me.” His curiosity was piqued, though.

  “Can’t you? It’s been two months, what could happen in the span of two months that’s really urgent?” The wan smile on her face had the color draining from his.

  “You’re not… I mean, we used…”

  Her laughter took a moment to sink in.

  He frowned at her. “Not funny, Winnie.”

  “It serves you right. I woke up in Dubai feeling like there should have been money on the dresser.”

  He grimaced. “I’m sorry, okay? It was wrong of me to leave without saying anything. I’m not exactly a man you take home to meet your parents. I’ve never made any pretenses otherwise.”

  “You’re right, you haven’t.”

  Why was there that twinge of sadness in her voice, and why did it create an answering echo of guilt in him?

  Winnie had found the pack of matches that lay on his small dinette and struck one, lighting the waxy white candles he kept for nighttime. She moved through the room, lighting the few sconces that were mounted to the rough cement walls. The flicker of candlelight threw her face into sharp relief, and Silas was a bit taken aback by the warm rush he felt at her just being here.

  He had just been abroad for too long, that was all, and she was a familiar face. She could have been any number of people—his sister, his father, his mail carrier. He would have been just as pleased with one of his Capital Hill colleagues. Liar.

  “What are you doing in Brazil?” She lit the dozen candles that he had stashed around the room, and the smell of burned-out matches lingered in the air.

  He sensed that her question was not innocent, but he answered her anyway. “I got an offer to teach at Museu Nacional. Sociology of Art. It’s one course, but my students are bright and it forces me to keep my Portuguese sharp.”

  “Interesting. And you’re staying here?”

  “It’s not a very high-paying job.” But it’s far away from distractions like you.

  Her reply irritated him. “I’m sure the lucrative antiquities trade here in Rio didn’t influence your choice of location at all.”

  Silas fought a sudden spike of anger, felt the frown as it settled between his eyebrows. “I don’t know what you’re implying, but it’s about to storm pretty severely, so you should say what you came to say. Unless you want to wait, in which case you can swim down to the bottom of the morro.”

  She crossed her arms as he began blowing out the candles nearest to him. He needed to save a few, in case the weather stayed gloomy for the next few days. Actually, honestly, he didn’t want as clear a view of Winnie as the blazing light afforded.

  He was having the damnedest time not thinking about how easy it would be to coerce her into his narrow bed. If they touched again, he had no doubt that he would be inside her in less than ten minutes. It was making it hell to moderate his erection.

  His body wasn’t the only traitor—his mind kept wandering back to that night in Jumeirah Beach and how responsive she was, how stunning they had been together. Winnie Caesar was one of the only women he knew who he considered worthwhile out of bed. She was also the wildest thing Silas had ever put his hands on.

  He’d first seen her at the Spice Souk. She was wearing a brightly colored pashmina headscarf and he was haggling over handmade clove cigarettes. His Arabic was atrocious. Hers was impeccable. They discovered that they were both not only American, but also both from the District—she a transplant from some Southern gothic clan that had roots as deep as the trees and he a native, born to the bustling city.

  They shared two days together, seeing Dubai, before a goodnight kiss lingered too long—and led them into bed. They had smoked one of those clove cigarettes together afterward. He’d thought of her almost constantly since the night they’d shared. Smart as a whip. Warm, funny, surprisingly brave. Dangerous.

  “There was an Egyptian sculpture stolen from the Support Center. I thought you might know something about it.”

  He snorted in mild disgust. “Some dime-a-dozen Greco-Roman relief? Please, I wouldn’t waste my time.”

  “Predynastic.”

  “Holy shit.” It took a minute to realize why she had come. “You think I took it?”

  She shrugged. “Did you?”

  “Fuck you.” That drew a raised eyebrow and the barest ghost of a smile from Winnie. He felt his face go hot. “You came here to accuse me of stealing, but you didn’t bring the police. Were you just going to ask me nicely to hand over this…this…”

  “Statue—a bird deity statue.”

  As if to reinforce the seriousness of the situation, thunder clapped loudly outside. Silas felt the rumble of it all the way to the soles of his feet.

  “I didn’t steal your damned statue. I don’t have your damned statue, and…”

  “Can you help me find the person who did? The person who does?”

  He paused, stemming the tirade that he was about to launch into.

  “Silas, please.”

  Just because he’d done a little artifact copying here and there to fund his travels didn’t make him a thief, but it did make him the right person to come to when you wanted to find such a thief. He could help her, but he didn’t need the temptation. He didn’t need the complication. “The answer is no.”

  “What do I have to do to convince you?”

  Shit. She put just enough suggestion in the question to make his temperature start to climb. Another long roll of thunder was followed al
most immediately by a crack of lightning so bright and close it lit up the inside of the room.

  “Where are you staying?” he asked, the traitorous, hormonal part of his brain supplying a silent but hopeful in my bed? Softly, and then, progressively harder, rain began to pelt on the roof.

  “Hotel Praia Linda.” The interior of the shanty started to cool as the rain came down in earnest.

  “I know the place. You like the beach.”

  “I do.” Again, that half-quirked smile that said her mind was also going back to Dubai. Her lashes dropped and, when she looked back up, there was a deep, simmering heat in her eyes.

  Silas drew in a slow breath. Elements of disaster: small space, Winslow Caesar and no way or will to escape.

  “You can’t go back now. It’s pouring.” He was walking toward her. Even in the low, flickering light of the remaining candles, he could see enough to still want her fiercely.

  “I suppose I can’t.” She held her ground and a gust of rain-laden wind whistled in through the gap under his door, lifting tendrils of her hair and whipping them into her eyes. He ran out of floor between them.

  She brushed the errant strands back behind her ears. Her eyes fixed on his mouth, and she said, “We’re bad for each other.”

  “Says who?” He reached up and popped open the top button on her shirt.

  “I’ve already been with a criminal. I keep telling myself that once is enough for a lifetime, but—here I am.”

  “Alex Ellington was a trust-fund brat with a cushy do-nothing job and too much time on his hands. He didn’t deserve you.” He leaned in to kiss her, a soft peck that was brief and teasing. Her own hands lifted and she undid one of his buttons.

  “Yes, well, he wasn’t quite as bad as the papers made him out to be.”

  “That last opinion was formed from personal experience.”

  “Oh.”

  He stilled on her second button. “Winnie, I’m very sorry for sneaking out on you. I’m afraid that I like you too much.”

  “Too much for what?”

  “Your own good.”

  Oh, that secret smile. It tilted her lips as she untucked his shirt. She stopped at the small of his back, and he remembered the pistol. He pushed her hands away and took the gun out of his waistband, setting it aside on a small side table.

  “Tell me how you’re any different than Alex,” she said, her eyes clouding.

  He shrugged and grasped her chin, letting their eyes lock. “I won’t lie to you about what I am. I’m not a nine-to-five guy. I’m not even a stay-in-one-place kind of guy. I won’t trick you into thinking that there will be picket fences and upward mobility and a possible Senate run in our future.”

  Her hands had returned to his shirt and she released the last button as he went to work on the rest of hers. He sucked in a breath when she splayed a hand over his stomach and began to relearn him.

  “I just want you again, plain and simple. If the answer is still no, you should go.”

  “Said the spider to the fly.” Her voice was husky.

  He pushed her shirt off her shoulders and yanked her close. “Lady, you’re the one who’s got me trapped here.”

  Winnie cupped his cheek. “Keeping your Portuguese sharp? Say something to me.”

  “Dêem-me uma noite a mais.” He bent to kiss her, but she playfully avoided him.

  “Say it in English.”

  “Give me one more night.”

  A strange expression flitted across her face. “It’s never that simple.”

  “It can be. One night. Yes or no.”

  “Outra noite. Sim.” And she rose to meet him and he dipped to meet her and even though the sky roared angrily outside, neither of them noticed.

  *

  Winnie couldn’t believe this was happening. Damn you, Harri, for sending me on this stupid errand. There was no such thing as willpower where Silas was concerned. The second he touched her, her body remembered how good he was, and every ounce of restraint flew out the window, washed away with the torrent outside. Every ounce.

  They were both shirtless and as he kissed her, dizzyingly, they pressed closer until their chests touched. Her nipples were hypersensitive against the fabric of her bra and she moaned when he gripped her tighter.

  She wanted the damned bra off. She wanted every stitch of clothing she had on to be scattered across the cool plank floor. She wanted to tear off his clothes and shove him onto the nearest solid surface and sink down onto him over and over until they both forgot their names.

  Why did he have to be so ridiculously irresistible? Not just physically, though the muted gold-green of his eyes and the sharp cut of his jaw would turn any head, but—damn it, just when she had convinced herself that she despised him, he had to up and redeem himself by being honest.

  She hated him for his honesty, hated that she couldn’t fault him for telling the truth—about himself, about whatever it was that was happening between them. She could only blame herself for still wanting him desperately, despite it. They were no good for each other, but she was going in knowing it.

  He had a good six inches of height on her, and he was twice as broad. There was only one way she was going to get any control in this encounter, and that was to get them horizontal. His mouth was all over her neck and shoulders now, and he was walking them over to the bed. That would work. That would work very nicely.

  “You know, sometimes it rains for days here. You may have to stay for longer than tonight.”

  She chuckled and slid her fingers down into his cargo pants, cupping the swell of his ass. “Thank you for thinking of my safety.”

  Once the back of her knees hit the bed, she turned, pushing him back onto the mattress. Climbing to straddle him, a knee on either side of his hips, she tipped his face up and then she was the one leading the kissing.

  But Silas was a fantastic multi-tasker. His hands found her hips and pressed her into the evidence of his arousal. She gasped, and he slid his tongue into her mouth. Though he held her still against his straining cock, he thrust his tongue slowly, licking into her, mimicking a more intimate rhythm. The suggestion tore straight through her midsection to echo between her thighs.

  So much for control. She was about to lose it big time. She closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around him, meeting his tongue as it pulsed behind her teeth, taking his breath and giving hers back to him in a soft rush that was half moan. He growled and wrested back dominance over their embrace, flipping her onto the narrow metal cot, hovering over her.

  “I think I must have willed you here, Winnie. I haven’t stopped thinking about you. Even after the museum, even after you said no…”

  “Really?” she said breathlessly, squirming as he yanked at both her shoes and then the fastening on her skirt. She wriggled to help him get the garment down her legs and off completely.

  “Yes,” he admitted, and he put both hands under her hips and wedged between her thighs, pulling her into him. He bent to catch the needy sound that escaped her as her shivering thighs flanked the unmistakable outline of his cock.

  “The real world has a thousand reasons why we shouldn’t do this, a million rules about right and wrong…”

  “Since when do you care about rules?” she managed to get out, rocking her hips up, bold. He gritted his teeth and lifted away to shuck off his pants and boxers, settling again, nothing between them now but the thin cotton of her panties, which he thumbed aside. She was already too aroused—if he touched her now, she would explode into a thousand glittering pieces and wash away with the storm.

  “This is too fast, we should slow down.” His breath was labored, his pupils dilated, and he most definitely did not look like a man who could easily put the brakes on. “Besides, we don’t have—shit, Win, I don’t have any protection.”

  He put his forehead against hers and she could feel the tension racking his shoulders, his back as she ran her hands over the cords of muscle there.

  “It’s okay,” she soothed.


  “It’s definitely not okay.” His hands were skimming up her legs, sneaking back under the elastic at the leg of her panties. “We can still…”

  “We can do…other things,” she agreed.

  Silas was a smart man; he was already ahead of her. He pulled down one side of her bra and latched on to a nipple. She nearly cried in relief.

  He parted the wet, swollen lips of her pussy and glided a clever finger up to caress her clit. “Like what things? This?” He made broad, light circles around her most sensitive spot, never applying the pressure she wanted, never as fast as she needed.

  “Almost like that, almost.” Winnie reached for his cock and teased at the head, mimicking the nearly-there perfection he was creating in her slick folds. He was pressing toward her within moments, a victim of his own game.

  When she didn’t respond with a firmer touch, Silas relented, stroking her with intent, finding the pressure and speed that brought her so close to coming that she was lifting her hips off the bed, panting with exertion.

  He slid as close to her as he could get, his cock jutting over the hand that was partly buried inside her. “Touch me, Winnie, please, God, touch me.” She reached for him, her heart pounding. He fell over her and her knuckles grazed the hard plane of his stomach as she moved fast, fingers wrapped around his soft steel flesh.

  Silas shifted, sliding two fingers inside her and letting his thumb burrow up to flick at her. He was thrusting into her hand in exact time with the movements of his fingers. The pace was rough, but she ignored the soreness in her legs from her long climb up the hill. The way Silas curled his fingers made her forget every tiny twinge of protest from her calves.

  His touch was expert, but she ached for more—fuller, thicker, closer. She could almost imagine he was actually there with her, that he was actually sliding in and out of her, driving her higher and higher. She begged, not caring that she sounded desperate between kisses, that they were likely as loud as the thunder and lightening.