The Trouble With Temptation (Second Service Book 3) (9 page)

Chapter Ten

“Hey! That hurt.” Ty leaned over to rub his leg, and hid the amused smile spreading across his face. The woman had a vicious sting.

“Good,” she said, and turned away from him.

Of course, if that was what he got for carrying her up a flight of stairs, he shuddered to think what she was going to do to him when she found out the truth.

And he had to tell her.

He’d been turning the situation over in his head the whole way here. He couldn’t wait any longer. The
Bratva
didn’t come after someone unless they meant to take them out permanently. Morgan needed protection.

He’d bolted from her apartment with every intention of taking her back to his office, but somewhere around Valencia Street he’d changed his mind. She’d be safer spending the night at his place.

And it wasn’t just his little head doing the thinking. If the
Bratva
knew that Morgan had been taken into protective custody they’d destroy every bit of evidence connecting them to Kincaid’s, and Ty would lose his only chance of bringing Barinov down.

And as long as Barinov was walking the streets Morgan would be in danger. Ty was willing to guess Morgan wasn’t the kind of person who would be happy to sign up for witness relocation.

He glanced up to see her walking across his kitchen. Without asking, she opened his fridge, pulled out a bottle of cold bubbly water and jumped up on the counter. Her feet kicked out from under her polka-dotted skirt, her bright hair shown in vivid contrast to his neutral oak cabinetry.

Something told him that, even if she did consent to protection, she wouldn’t be the best at blending in.

“So,
Ty
, if that is your real name,” she said, fixing him with a dramatic stare. “Now that you’ve carried me up here, are you finally going to tell me who you really are?”

The woman
did
watch too much television. 70’s cop shows by the sound of it.

Ty walked over to the island in the middle of the kitchen and pulled open one of the drawers. He reached inside and pulled out his badge case.

“What’s that?” she asked with a slight quiver in her voice. She put the green glass bottle down at her side.

“Your answer.” He tossed it over to her. She caught it and looked down at the dark leather cover. Her shoulders rose and fell with a deep breath. Finally, she cracked open the fold, and her face drained of color.

Morgan stared down at his silver badge and identification for a long moment before she lifted her head. “FBI?”

Ty nodded.

“W-what is an FBI agent doing in my club?”

“The same thing you were doing—investigating the connection between your brother and the
Bratva
.”

“You’re going after Gregg?” There was a note of panic in her voice that pulled at the soft spot in the center of his chest.

“He’s not the focus of my investigation. I’m after Barinov. But I have reason to believe your brother is using Kincaid’s to launder money from the
Bratva’s
underground gambling operations.”

“Oh God. That
is
what he’s doing.” Morgan slumped forward. She cradled her face in her open hands and shook her head back and forth. She stayed that way for almost a minute.

Ty gave her the space. Heaven knew, this couldn’t be easy. And he had the feeling that she wasn’t in the mood for comforting. Not from him at any rate.

Which was just as well. After that kick at the door, he had the feeling the only thing he’d earn from his particular kind of comforting was a slap across the face.

Eventually, Morgan lifted her shoulders and peeled back her hands. She looked like she was holding it together…but just barely.

“So what happens now?” she asked. “Are you going to interrogate me, or something?”

“Why would I do that?”

“I don’t want to tell you how to do your job, but usually it’s to find out what I know.”

“You don’t know anything of value.”

Morgan’s brows pulled together. Two cute little crinkles appeared between her eyes. “How can you be so certain?”

“Last night, you were trying to break into your brother’s office to find out more about his financial involvement with the
Bratva
, weren’t you?”

Her cheeks flushed at the mention of her failure. “So?”

“So, you wouldn’t need to fumble around with paper clips if you already had proof. And I know from your argument that he hasn’t shared any information with you.”

“You heard all that?”

He stepped closer and rested his back on the counter across from her. “I would have heard more, but I thought it would be better to break you two up before Gregg hurled that lamp at your head.”

Morgan gave a dismissive wave of her hand. “Gregg wouldn’t hurt me.”

Ty cocked a brow. “Are you certain of that?”

“My brother can be a major pain in the ass sometimes, but he’s never been violent.”

“Just like he’s never hung out with mobsters before,” Ty said. Morgan’s mouth screwed up as she cast him a glare. “I’m just saying Barinov has a way of manipulating people to get what he wants.”

“Something you know nothing about, Agent—” Morgan arched her eyebrows as she glanced down at his ID. “
Brannigan?
”

“Daniel is my middle name.”

She tossed his badge to her side, and crossed her arms. The move pressed the swells of her breasts up above the neckline of her dress. “Well, as long as it wasn’t a
total
lie.”

“I was undercover. There’s a difference.”

“Well, at least now I know why you didn’t want to come up for a drink tonight,” she said with a dark laugh.

Ty fixed his eyes on hers. “I never said I didn’t want to.”

Morgan’s lips parted. She uncrossed her arms but her hands danced at her sides for a second as if she didn’t know where to put them. After a moment she settled at propping them behind her.

“So what happens now?” she asked.

“You’ve had a difficult night. You should probably get some sleep.”

“I’m fine,” she said, brushing him off.

“Now who’s the liar. You have to be exhausted. You didn’t sleep at all last night.”

She went totally still. “How do you know that?”

Shit
.

“I staked out your place last night.”

“You were watching me?” Her eyes were wide.

“I was watching the perimeter of your building. I wanted to make sure that Barinov didn’t make good on his threat.”

“Did you bug the place too?”

“No.” He shook his head. He pushed off the counter and closed the distance between them in a single step. “But I’m not going to lie. I would have done it in a heartbeat if I thought it would have helped to keep you safe.”

“Why?” Her voice was low and breathy. “I thought I didn’t know anything of value.”

Did she really not know? Was it possible that she didn’t see the affect she had on him? Or did she just want to hear it from his lips?

He inched forward, moving his hips right up against her kneecaps.

“But you’re valuable to me,” he said. “And the more time I spend with you, Morgan, the more valuable you become.”

He rested his hands on the tops of her thighs and slowly pushed them up to the curve of her waist. She drew in a long breath.

“I’m not going to let anything happen to you. I promise,” he said, pulling her close. “But you’re going to have to trust me. Okay?”

“O-okay.”

Ty lowered her down to the floor, and looked down into her big caramel-brown eyes. “Right now, the best thing is for you to get a little sleep while I come up with a plan for what to do next.”

Morgan bit into her lower lip. “Okay.”

Ty slowly pulled his hands back and forced himself to take a step away. “You can take the bedroom.”

“Okay,” she said with a slow nod. She didn’t move.

Ty balled his hands into fists at his side and willed himself not to move forward. Not to wrap his arms around her, lift her back on top of that counter and kiss her so hard she didn’t care what his real name was.

Ty swallowed hard. “It’s for the best.”

“Yeah,” Morgan said. She finally turned and started walking out of the kitchen.

She made it three steps before she stopped.

“Oh screw what’s best,” she muttered under her breath.

Morgan pivoted around on her heel. She met him halfway across the floor. Her arms wrapped around his neck. A fraction of a second later, her lips crashed against his.

***

Dear God, he felt good.

Morgan wrapped her arms around Ty’s shoulders and pressed herself against him. Her hands traveled up his hard back. Her fingers tangled in his hair. She was desperate to touch all of him. Every part of him, all at once, if it was possible.

Morgan didn’t know where this fever was coming from. Sure, she burned hot for Ty. Who wouldn’t? Every look the man gave promised the kind of slow, deliberate pleasure that made her knees go wobbly. She’d tasted it in his kiss once before. He wasn’t fooling around. The man was practically a walking sex god.

But she’d been able to resist the urge to act like a lust-crazed lunatic before.

Okay, the last time they’d kissed there had been a row of armed thugs watching them, and, if that didn’t cool a girl’s passion, Morgan didn’t know what would.

She would have thought the same would be true of surviving an attempt on her life, but apparently, it was just the opposite. If anything, her blood burned hotter.

So what if her life was in shambles? She could deal with the wreckage tomorrow morning. Right now, she burned with desire. Desire for Ty. Desire for comfort, for pleasure, for anything other than the fear and pain that threatened to overwhelm her. Right now, she needed to feel something powerful just to prove that she was still alive.

Morgan’s heart pounded as Ty responded to her kiss. His hands gripped her hips and lifted her up. Instinctually, she wrapped her legs around him.

He sucked her lower lip between his teeth, teasing it as he sat her back down on the counter. He pulled her closer, his hand cradling the back of her neck as he intensified the kiss.

Then his lips went lower. Morgan’s head fell back as Ty’s mouth found the column of her neck. Hard stubble rubbed against her tender skin, but Morgan didn’t care. She was hungry for more of him…all of him.

She pulled her shoulders back, arching her back and flattening her breasts against the hard plane of his chest. He let go of her just long enough to bring his hands down to her knees. He slowly pushed the fabric of her skirt back, inch by inch. He stepped into the empty space.

Morgan’s eyes popped open and a rush of breath escaped her lips as the hard outline of his cock pressed against the juncture of her thighs. She looked into his quickly darkening eyes and was surprised by what she saw there.

He wanted her. He was just as hungry for her as she was for him. This wasn’t an act. It wasn’t a part he played for his undercover work. He didn’t want something from her. He wanted
her
.

Badly.

Acting on instinct, Morgan tilted her hips, rubbing her body against his. Ty’s fingers curled into the flesh of her hips.

A surge of satisfaction rushed through Morgan at the effect she had on him.

She did it again, and was rewarded with a deep, guttural moan. She smiled in victory, but it quickly faded as his hands slid down the inside of her thighs to the edge of her panties. She gasped for air as he slipped one finger underneath.

“Oh God, Morgan,” he whispered, going stock still. He rested his forehead against hers. “You’re so damned wet.”

His fingers curled into the material and slowly dragged the thin silk fabric down her legs. Morgan sucked in a sharp breath as Ty fell to his knees. Her fingers wound through the thick, dark strands of his hair as his lips closed around her clit.

Stars appeared behind her eyelids. She held on to him—barely breathing some moments, gulping great lungfuls others.

Morgan struggled to keep her perch on the edge of the counter. Her legs shook. Her arms trembled. Her strength threatened to leave her at any second.

And then his fingers joined the mix, and she was lost. Morgan cried out as her body clenched around him, but she didn’t fall. He effortlessly held her weight on his shoulders, but he didn’t give her time to soak in the satisfaction.

A moment later, he slid back up through her open legs. One arm hooked under her ass, the other around her back. None of the intensity had faded from his kiss. If anything, it had increased. She could practically feel the passion buzzing inside of him. And it was contagious. The fire inside her reignited almost instantly.