Page 11 of Only the Wicked (The Sinful State #1)

Chapter Nine

Sydney

The cool air teasing my sensitized nipples as I saunter through the hotel room to dig out my vibrator wars with my conflicted brain.

During training, of course we covered sexual attraction as a tool. But it’s not a requirement. Official policy doesn’t condone its use. But I’m no longer working for the CIA.

Still, when Hudson recruited me and we jointly developed a plan, he made it clear the goal is to breach Rhodes’ electronics. Which, after tonight, I hope I accomplished on his phone. His laptop is bound to be in his hotel room.

You’re not a freaking red sparrow. The Russians stooped to seduction to gain access. You don’t need to resort to their honey trap tactics. You’re smarter. Better.

At the same time, a male officer might engage when it suits. Why can’t a woman do the same? Why can’t I have fun?

Alena’s soft smile comes to mind. A Russian living in Paris, she had dreams. She might have been a member of the embassy cleaning crew, but she’d been a valuable asset.

She reported on schedules, meeting attendees, and the kind of inner politics one can only glean from tone of voice and respect.

She’d been found on a street, an apparent OD. But no one believed that, not really.

Rhodes MacMillan didn’t take part in her death. He might not have even sold the asset list that ended lives and terminated my CIA career. But intelligence suggests someone in his company did.

I unzip my cosmetics bag and catch his heated gaze, glued to my naked form.

He’s fully dressed. I wiggle a finger at him.

“Take that shirt off. I don’t like being the only one barely dressed.”

He grins as he unbuttons his shirt, but it’s the way he’s looking at me like he’s a wolf and I’m a lamb he’s about to devour that’s almost enough to make me call off the charade and locate a condom.

The need to take control is a strong one.

And in this situation, if I give in to my desire, it only puts me closer to finding answers.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting sex. Enjoying sex. We’re both consenting adults. It’s not like I have to share intimate details with my new boss or the team. We’re looking to understand who he’s cutting deals with. Which countries or individuals are benefitting from his AI surveillance system.

The man undressing is a brilliant engineer. An unscrupulous truth finder. Wildly successful, brilliant, and possibly morally gray.

And far too gorgeous for his own good.

This man could have anyone, but right now, he’s in my hotel room, staring at me like I’m a worthy centerfold. Of all the women in the world, at this moment, he wants me. I have the power.

My thumb presses on the flat end of the lavender device, checking the charge. Vibrations emanate through my thumb to my wrist, and as the pressure continues, the low hum increases in decibels exponentially.

He tweaks his finger in a slow, come-hither command.

The gravitational pull to those molten eyes is so intense my knees weaken, yet my legs deliver me to him.

He holds his palm out, asking for the vibrator.

Obediently, I place it on his palm. The pads of my finger brush his skin, and in return, every inch of my skin awakens—a live wire.

“This is what you use?”

He holds it up and inspects the simple design. The circumference is about that of a lipstick case, the length slightly longer.

“It’s good for travel.” Feeling braver, I add, “Minimal embarrassment through TSA.”

He smirks.

“Lie down.”

My gaze tracks his broad shoulders, down to his pectoral muscles, and lower to his firm abdomen.

I itch to run my fingers over every divot and curve, to press against the firm muscle beneath his unblemished skin, to tease the smattering of black hair over his chest and the thickening trail that leads lower.

I crawl back on the bed to assume my prior position, stomach down.

“On your back. If you like, place your head on a pillow.”

As if in a trance, I do exactly as he says. I shouldn’t. No, I should feign cramps, ask to see him in the morning, tease him along. He’s not going to share anything with me tonight.

I captured his phone information and sent it on to Quinn earlier tonight when I went to the ladies’ room. They could have everything they need. My mission might be accomplished. Done. Over.

Yet here I am. If my mission is completed, if I’m doing this solely because it’s what I want to do, does that make what I’m doing less reproachable? Less wicked?

“Gorgeous.” Rhodes’ appreciation, in his guttural, deep breath, pools between my legs and I literally feel my clit pulse.

Just touch me.

The mattress dips with his weight, sinking as each balled fist and knee crawls closer. He hovers over me, biceps straining, the hum of the vibrator intense thanks to the proximity to my ear and the physical tremor through the rumpled comforter.

He lowers, consuming the oxygen between us and slowing time. His lips are soft, his tongue’s exploration slow, and his thigh, the one between my legs, presses down, hard and firm over my core. My hips instinctually roll against him, seeking pressure my body craves.

His finger softly traces my lips.

“Fuck, you make me want you.”

His lips find my neck, my throat, my breast bone, and finally, my peaked, needy nipple. His tongue swirls and my back arches.

His is a slow seduction, one that makes it clear my ploy worked against me, because he’s made this entire episode all about me. Perhaps of the two of us, he’s the red sparrow, the seducer, the one using physical prowess to break down walls and infiltrate crevices.

His lips trail lower, to my belly button, and with his hooded eyes, he watches. The press of the vibrator flat against my seam has me rolling my eyes up to the ceiling. The scrap of lace does nothing to blot the cool metal or the tremors.

“Do you like that?”

I force myself to swallow, to nod.

His teeth graze my thigh, and he nips.

“I think you do,” he says, altering the position, placing the blunt end right over my center. My knees rise and my thighs squeeze.

“On your side.”

I lift my head, uncertain.

He slides his body beside mine.

“Roll against me, gorgeous. Back to me.”

I do as he says, and his body wraps around mine, spooning me.

My ass presses to his groin, the motion smooth until he ratchets up the vibrations, playing with the speeds.

My thighs clamp together, but with his placement of the vibrator and the heat of his body on my back and over my mound, it’s not long before my body trembles with an orgasm, arching into him.

His hot breath on my shoulder, along my neck, in my ear relaxes me into his body.

“Fuck, that was hot.”

I agree, but I’m too spent to utter a word, and maybe, just maybe, too embarrassed.

“Only thing better…” His words trail.

He releases the vibrator, which he turned off at some point and cups my breast, thumbing over my nipple in an intimate gesture.

“Is if you had been inside me,” I say, finishing his sentence, rolling onto my back and looking up at him.

This close, under the room’s golden light, I spot the variations in his irises. A subtle striation of earthy shades, comforting, grounding, and intense. I suspect always intense.

My fingers roam the coarse skin along his jaw, down his throat, and across his firm chest, and along the divots of his abdomen.

He lifts my fingers and presses his lips to the backside, then to my knuckles, and pushes up off the bed.

“What’re you doing?” I ask, puzzled. “Don’t you want?—”

“Tonight is about you.” He taps my nose. “Only you, gorgeous.”

The door closes to the bathroom and I sit up. Shell-shocked.

A bolt of thunder draws my attention to the balcony. The night sky lights up, eerily illuminating a path across the roofline through the courtyard and silhouetting the flowers swaying in the wind.

Pat. Pat. Pat.

Streaks of rain ping against the glass in a torrent.

The bathroom door opens as a flash of light brightens the room for a tenth of a second and a loud boom sounds.

“Looks like I’m about to get drenched,” Rhodes says with a grin as he reaches for his shirt.

“Where’s your room?”

“I’m in a villa. Back of the property.”

“Stay.” The word slips out thoughtlessly, without strategy or design. “You don’t need to run off.”

“I won’t melt. Trust me.” His sexy smirk is only topped by the way his eyes glide over my breasts.

“I’ve always read that southern thunderstorms are no joke. Don’t people die in Florida?”

His smirk breaks into a high wattage grin.

“You want me to stay. To sleep?” His teeth bite down on the corner of his lip and his eyebrows lift.

The rain patters against the glass, blowing sideways onto the panes.

“It can be done. Up to you.”

I’m honestly uncertain what I want him to do. Part of me wants him to leave so I can clear my head and process. But a warring faction wants him safe in bed with me…and not to sleep.