Prologue
Hong Kong
He was Secret Service. She was CIA. He wasn't hiding that fact.
She was.
But right now they weren't hiding a thing from each other. A desire, no, a raging passion she'd never imagined existed inside her, was taking complete command. Ciara loved every second of it. And from the look on his face as she shoved open his trousers, so did he.
She drove her hand inside the dark fabric and he groaned and pushed her against the nearest wall, taking her mouth with an excitement so powerful, so hot, it would burn out of control in no time. She was counting on it. She had wanted him the minute she saw him. She wanted to be wild and escape and spend this one night with him. He was head-turning handsome with a hard body, and that sexy to-die-for look of a secret agent. Coal-black hair, Nordic blue eyes, and a chiseled jaw she wanted to kiss 'til dawn. Add to that a gentlemanly southern drawl, slightly disguised, and she was melting for him with the first word.
Behind them in the hotel room lay a trail of clothes—black, inconspicuous. Just what their jobs called for. But the situation now called for none. Naked. Ciara was nearly there. He wasn't getting there soon enough.
He ground against her, letting her know he was ready for whatever she had in mind, and she pushed his trousers lower and cupped the tight curve of his buttocks, pulling him into her and sending the same message.
"You're driving me insane, you know that?" he said, his voice whiskey rough as his mouth rolled over her throat, her shoulder. He made quick work of her slip, adding it to the trail with her dress.
"No more than you are me."
He unclasped her bra, pulling it off, tossing it aside, then filling his palms with her breasts.
Ciara gasped, then gasped again as his thumbs circled her nipples deeply. Oh mercy, his touch was all she needed to explode.
"The instant I saw you, I thought about this."
She smiled. "Did you imagine this?" she asked, then slicked her tongue over his nipple. He flinched and made a helpless sound she already loved.
"Yeah, I did."
His knife-creased black slacks hit the floor, and she bent to help them all the way off. And when she stood, she scrubbed her hands over his corded thighs, his trim bare hips. He was built like a wall of muscle, twisted, ropy, delicious to touch and she could tell that he liked watching her touch him. It made her burn for more. She wrapped her hand around his arousal and stroked him harder than he already was.
He couldn't take it and suddenly he grabbed her against him, and growled, "My turn." He knelt, peeling her panties down as he went and just the motion made her breathless. He laid wet, grinding kisses to every inch of skin he exposed, rolled her thigh-high stockings down like unrolling a piece of candy and he murmured, "I had a sneaky feeling you were wearing these."
Just knowing she had, in a roomful of attachés and dignitaries and the former first lady, drove him wild. Now she was wearing only a strand of pearls.
"My, my, secret agent man. You were fantasizing a lot more than I thought," she said, then howled when his mouth covered her soft center. He licked and played, probed and stroked until she was biting her lip to keep from screaming and bringing hotel security. For an instant, a sliver of time, she wondered about letting a complete stranger do this to her, then she didn't care. He was all she'd imagined and more, and when he threw her leg over his shoulder and drove deeper, Ciara thought she'd come apart at the seams.
He chuckled darkly as she melted, her leg slipping limply off his shoulder as she sank down, sliding down the wall and straddling his thighs.
"There's a bed a few feet away," he said.
"Too far," she gasped, rocking against his thickness.
He reached for his trousers, fumbled in the pocket, and she barely noticed because he never took his mouth from her. He bent her back over his arm, and then he was inside her, driving upward and clasping her against his wide chest.
"Oh, sweet heaven," he groaned, cupping her bottom and giving her hips motion because he couldn't stop it. Bryce pushed his fingers into her hair, loving the sounds she made, that she was as demanding as he, because he craved her. Craved. He'd never hungered for a woman from first sight, never had instant fantasies and instant arousal as he had with just looking at her. The moment he spotted her in that plain black dress, standing off to the side, he'd been preoccupied with her. Wondering what was under that simple dress, enjoying the shift of silk as she walked. Wondering what she looked like with her hair down instead of in that tight, reserved twist. He even liked the way she sipped champagne. And the way she looked at him, slow and possessive. As if she knew what he looked like naked, and she was in a hurry to see it firsthand. As if she knew one touch and they'd be unrestrained and reckless like this.