Just the thought of slipping his fingers into those divots as he pumped into her from behind, her soft, pale ass slamming against his lower belly, had his cock jumping between his thighs. But that would come later. The dirty part of the slow, hot, dirty sex he figured Eve liked would come later. For now, he just wanted slow and hot.

The gentle glow of the overhead light danced over her black tresses, sparkled in her half-lidded eyes. And the smile she offered him was as warm and soft as the air inside the cabin.

“Are you ready?” he managed to ask through a throat that’d nearly swollen shut around a giant lump of lust.

“I-I’ve been ready for twelve years, Billy,” she told him, her usually sweet-sounding voice all low and husky, and so damned sexy. He barely resisted the urge to plunge into her. No finesse. No skill. Just straight-up rutting.

But resist he did. Just enough to nod and drop his heated gaze so he could watch as he grabbed his dick and guided it toward her slick opening. He circled once, spreading her wetness onto himself, and then he gently, softly, oh-so-slowly pressed himself inside. Just the tip. The very tip of himself. And then he held still, his breaths shuddering from him, his chest working like bellows.

“More,” she moaned, wiggling slightly, and he felt like the top of his head would blow off. Then he couldn’t stand it any longer, he pressed into her. One long, wet, heated slide of hard flesh invading soft. And the sight of himself disappearing into her, the sight of her body swallowing him whole, was, hands down, the most erotic thing he’d ever seen. Because she was so tight, and so pink, and so plump, and so—

“Oh, God, yes,” she moaned, tossing her head back on the pillow. She grabbed his shoulders to pull him down over the top of her and eagerly sought his mouth. He obliged, giving her a penetrating kiss.

And then he began to thrust. Slowly. Again and again. Long, slick slides out until only the head of him remained inside her, and then slow, forceful plunges that seated him to the hilt, that pressed his throbbing balls tight against her ass. And all the while she was kissing him like her life depended on it, like she drew breath only from him. Her tongue was halfway down his throat, her hands were skating over his shoulders and down his back to clutch his ass as her knees drew up higher on his hips. And every time he buried himself in her, she made that little purring sound at the back of her throat. Jesus! He swore he could feel that gentle vibration deep in his gut.

It was amazing.

Better than amazing. Because for this moment, the woman he’d been dreaming about for years was his to hold, his to touch and kiss and caress. The hot female flesh between her legs was his to quicken to pulsing, wet release. Unremitting lust fueled his thrusts, driving them faster until they were primal and persistent. And the friction produced by her sultry walls? It drove him to the brink.

And then he felt it. He felt her sex clamp down on him. Hard. She wrenched her mouth from his to scream, “Oohh, Billy! Oohh, Goddd!”

She strained around him, against him, digging her nails into his ass as she held him to her. And that was it. He followed her straight over the edge, pouring himself into her, pumping and thrusting and coming harder than he’d ever come before. And in that moment, as they hurtled over the brink together, he experienced the kind of rapture that managed to create an entire universe out of two intertwined bodies. The kind of rapture that only happened once in a lifetime…

He didn’t know how long he lay atop her afterward, his heart thundering like he’d just cut the leads on an IED, his breath sawing from him in ragged gulps. But eventually, he became aware of her sweet softness beneath him, of the smell of her—and sex—all around him, of the sound of her gently breathing in his ear.

He reveled in it. In her. And then her inner muscles spasmed around him again, and he pushed up on one elbow to find her eyes half-closed and sleepy. Spent.

He knew just how she felt. Wonderfully, completely, fantastically spent.

“Eve?” he whispered her name as he bent to nuzzle her neck before opening his mouth over the bruises circling her throat. He gently pressed kisses there, until he moved back to suck on the soft spot just beneath her ear. She rewarded him by sliding her hands up his sweat-slicked back.

“Mmm?” she mumbled, that little purr sounding at the back of her throat.

“I’m going to want to take you again in about five minutes,” he told her, nipping at her deliciously naked shoulder. The sweat from her skin had mixed with her lotion until she tasted salty-sweet.

“Mmm,” she sighed dreamily, lifting her legs to hook her ankles together just above his ass. “I approve of this plan.”

And right then he realized he’d been fooling himself. Having sex with Eve hadn’t brought him any closer to some sort of closure where she was concerned. It hadn’t taken the mystery or angst out of their history together. It certainly hadn’t sated his hunger—because, if anything, he wanted her more now that he’d had her, and he wasn’t sure that would go away even if he had her a thousand times again. And it definitely, most definitely, hadn’t clarified his yo-yoing feelings about her.

Shit. What’ve I gotten myself into?

Although when her inner muscles squeezed his semi-erect penis, causing it to twitch as it once more filled with blood, he knew what he’d gotten himself into. He’d gotten himself into Eve. Into smart, beautiful, sexy Eve. And right at that moment, that’s all that mattered. That’s all he would allow to matter…

* * *

Somewhere on Lake Shore Drive

2:51 a.m.

He was leaning against the wall of his condo, sweating like some sort of blue-collar cretin as he listened to Devon Price’s cultured voice ask, “Tell me, what do the police have on you?”

Sometimes it amazed him how unlike the stereotypical gangbanger Devon was. The man had a degree in finance from Northwestern University, for Christ’s sake. Yet instead of going to work on Wall Street or down at Chicago’s Board of Trade, he’d taken his education back to the streets where he’d been raised. He’d taken his degree, combined it with his criminal genius, and built the most well-funded, well-disciplined, and well-insulated gang in Chicago.

The Black Apostles were untouchable, unbreakable, and…unrelenting. Which should’ve been enough to keep him from throwing in his lot with them. But he’d needed the money. Damnit! He still needed the money. Only now, he needed it to pay Devon back…

What a god-awful, unimaginable mess.

“Nothing,” he assured Devon. “They don’t have anything. And they won’t have anything.”

“Hmm,” Devon murmured, a huge amount of skepticism evident in that one small utterance. He lifted a hand to wipe at his perspiring brow. It should’ve never come to this. It should’ve never— “You may be right,” Devon cut into his rapid-fire thoughts. “But that doesn’t solve our little problem now, does it? Eve Edens is still alive. You still owe me two million dollars. And I’m running out of patience.”

The seed of fear that’d been planted in his belly when his last big gamble failed to pay off grew into a redwood of terror. “You c-can’t kill me, Devon,” he insisted, hating the fact that his voice sounded weak. He wasn’t supposed to be weak. He was supposed to be a man of power. “You’ll never get your money if you kill me.”

“Yes,” Devon hissed out the end of the word like a snake. “But it’ll send a strong message to others that they shouldn’t cross me unless they want to find themselves encased in a cement block at the bottom of Lake Michigan. And I find that scenario increasingly appealing.”

“I didn’t cross you, Devon,” he insisted, his pulse racing out of control. “The deal went south and I—”

“I’m tired of listening to your excuses. This arrangement of ours has reached its conclusion, I think. And I—”

“No. No, I-I know where she is,” he panted, sliding down the wall until his ass landed on the cold marble tiles. “I know how you can finally get her. I know how you can end this thing once and for all.”

And thank God he’d managed to overhear that tidbit of conversation about the sailing trip to Ludington. If he hadn’t, he had no doubt he’d be a dead man.

Silence on the other end of the line had his stomach jumping up to lodge in his throat. Then, finally, “I’m listening.”

“She and one of those thick-necked bikers she hangs out with are sailing her boat to Ludington, Michigan. Tonight.” That last part was a guess. He hadn’t overheard exactly when she planned to make the trip, but he didn’t want to give Devon a reason not to believe him. “You can send a couple of your men to meet them at the dock there. Then…then…” The plan was formulating in his head at the same time he was laying it all out. “If your guys have a second boat, like a rental, or hell they could just hotwire a boat there at the marina that they could tow behind the sailboat until they were in the middle of the lake, then they could kill Eve and the biker, sink the sailboat, and motor back to shore.” And even though it was an on-the-spot plan, he figured it might just work. “No one need be the wiser. Ships go down on the Great Lakes all the time. I mean all the time, so it’d be just like we discussed. An accident. It’ll be—”

“Shut up,” Devon interrupted, his tone as sharp as a rapier. “I’ve heard enough.”

He swallowed, licking his lips, looking with longing toward the decanter of scotch sitting by his favorite armchair. This fiasco was turning him into a goddamned drunk. And he hated drunks. His mother had been a drunk. And just look where that’d gotten her. And him, come to think of it…

“I agree with your plan,” Devon said, and his heart leapt with hope.

“Good. That’s good,” he wheezed. “And you’ll see, Devon. This will still work out.”

“You’re going to ensure it works out,” Devon said, his tone just this side of malicious. “Because you’re going to be the one to do it.”

“What? But—”

“This scheme started out as yours, and you’re going to be the one to finish it.”

“But, the police…They may want to question me some more, and—”

“I’ll supply you with a believable alibi,” Devon said. “Chartreuse just loves to spin tales of her Johns. She’ll come up with a great one for you.”

Chartreuse…One of Devon’s many gap-toothed whores. She was always meant to be his alibi if he came to need one. But he hadn’t really thought he’d ever need one until now. Because the police were likely to demand another interview, and when they couldn’t find him, he’d have to rely on Chartreuse to tell them he’d been with her the entire time. And considering the woman was about as skanky and rundown as the Southside project where she peddled her trade, it would absolutely ruin his reputation to be known as one of her clients.

Then again, if Devon killed him, he wouldn’t have a reputation to ruin…

“Fine,” he said through gritted teeth. “But I can’t very well take my own car. I can’t have traffic cameras catching me exiting the city.”

“I’ll supply you with a vehicle whose plates aren’t in the system.” Devon said and gave him the address where he could pick up the car. “It’ll be there in thirty minutes.”

He consulted the Rolex on his wrist; he had just enough time for one drink. So, he’d make it a big one.

“And one more thing,” Devon said.

“Yeah?”

“This is your last chance. You fuck this up, and you’re dead.”

* * *

Lake Michigan

3:10 a.m.

Well, if this wasn’t the sexiest, dirtiest, craziest thing she’d ever done—screwing Billy’s brains out—she didn’t know what was. And you know what? It felt divine. It was divinity. Like consecrated by the Gods or something…

Oh, sweet Lord in heaven…

She arched her back, biting the pillow beneath her cheek as Billy pumped into her from behind. His strokes were smooth and deep, his thighs rock hard against the backs of hers, his fingers doing something magical at the top of her sex where he had an arm wrapped around her.

The temperature inside the little cabin had jumped at least fifteen degrees since they’d started…well…going at each other she supposed was the best way to describe it. And, boy, oh boy, they should’ve done this years ago. She’d been an idiot to hold off. Because Billy was…well, he was Billy. Sexier, manlier, more physically inventive and more naturally talented than anybody she’d ever known. Yes, they should’ve done this…Oh, God.