No Stranger to Scandal - By Rachel Bailey Page 0,43

could keep up with. She caught him as he stopped to open the door with the key card. He grabbed her around the waist, pulling her through the door with him and nudging his carry-on bag through with a shoe.

The heavy door shut behind them and she had a few seconds’ glimpse of the opulent room with a gas fireplace and a majestic view of the mountain before Hayden dropped her bag and took up their kiss where they’d left off in the elevator. This time she wasn’t wasting any time and, as his tongue moved in her mouth, she undid his belt and slid it out of the loops on his trousers before throwing it as far across the room as she could.

When she reached for his zipper, Hayden pulled her hands back and wrenched her shirt over her head. “I need to feel your skin, to taste it.” His mouth came down on her shoulder, his tongue moving, teeth scraping across to her collarbone.

She moaned and felt for the wall behind her, taking a small step back, using it to help her stay upright. Hayden followed, pinning her against the cool wall as he found her mouth again. She pulled his shirt from his trousers as she’d wanted to do in the elevator, and he broke away for the seconds it took to grab it from the back and yank it over his head. When he came back to her, the feel of his bare chest on her sensitized skin made a sob rise in her throat. The dark, crisp hair brushed against her cheek while she tried to catch her breath, the muscles moving under her fingers as he kept moving, unzipping his trousers and kicking them away, divesting himself of his boxers, then sliding her skirt up her thighs and moving on to her panties.

“Condom?” she asked with what was probably her only remaining brain cell.

He held a foil packet up between his fingers. “I threw a couple in my pocket in case of an emergency.”

“This certainly qualifies as an emergency,” she said and took it from him, ripped it open and rolled it down his length, luxuriating in the solid feel of him.

The instant she was finished, he lifted her and brought her legs around his waist. She pushed against the wall at her back to give her traction and slid down onto him, all the breath leaving her body in a ragged sigh as she did.

He stilled and looked at her with such hunger, such raw need, that her pulse spiked even higher. “You know there’s a bed about ten feet away,” she whispered.

“Too far,” he said as he moved inside her, and all thought stopped. All she could do was feel—feel his hot mouth on her throat, the building wave inside, the frantic need that grew with every touch, every movement, until it was too big to contain and it reared up and crashed down over her, through her, and she was helpless to do anything but hold on to Hayden with every last bit of strength she had. Within moments, he rasped her name and shuddered, and she gripped him even tighter, panting, never wanting to let him go. Never.

Never.

Her skin turned cold. Never? This was a fling. Of limited duration and purely physical. She unwound her legs and slid down his body, and let him lead her over to the bed. Had she left her heart unguarded? Hayden pulled her down and under the covers, then wrapped her in his arms. Squeezing her eyes tight, she ignored the fluttering in her belly and let herself enjoy him for the time she had left. She’d deal with the fallout of a bruised heart when—if—it happened.

* * *

A couple of hours later, Hayden pulled the rental car up in front of a little cottage with bright pots of flowers and plants clustered on the porch and the paved walkway that led from the front gate. A little painted sign on the mailbox proclaiming “Jessup” showed they’d found the house of the former maid to the president’s family. His gut told him this was where Angelica Pierce’s phone-hacking odyssey had begun.

Lucy undid her seat belt and turned to him. “What are we looking for?”

Hayden straightened his tie, reconsidering the wisdom of bringing Lucy. His main thoughts had been about getting her out of D.C. while he was away, and keeping her safe from Angelica, but when he’d been trying to convince her to come,