Possession by Tori Carrington

convinced herself she’d been attracted to, and had fallen in love with, her ex. She and Dan had been on stakeout together, putting in double time as they tailed a suspected felon in a small town outside Oklahoma City. Their cover had been as young honeymooners on a cross-country road trip, so they’d stayed in the same motel room to perpetuate the roles.
    Only their faked attraction to each other had turned quickly into the real thing.
    It wasn’t until after they’d married and had Daisy that they’d figured out that, aside from their jobs, they didn’t have much in common. Not even passion.
    Still, with Claude so close, Akela couldn’t help thinking it had been so long since she’d allowed her body to take precedence over her head. Too long.
    The bed beneath her was softer than anything she’d felt in a long, long time. While she’d been sitting on it for the past four hours, she hadn’t noticed how soft it was until she was lying fully against it. The mattress nearly cocooned her in its layers of down, the high thread count sheets like silk against the exposed areas of her skin. The bedding smelled subtly like wildflowers. Narcissus? Orchids?
    Then Claude had stretched out next to her and it was as though someone had struck a match and thrown it on top of her after dousing her with accelerant. Every nerve ending leaped to pulsating life. Her heart pounded an uneven staccato in her chest. She couldn’t seem to draw a breath deeper than a shallow gasp. And her lower abdomen felt as if Claude had pressed a hot hand against it, eliciting a riot of longing in her.
    Though they were touching, it wasn’t in that way. Instead, he appeared to be going out of his way to make his actions seem casual, only her reaction to them was anything but.
    This man had been with another woman that morning. That woman had died shortly thereafter, possibly at the hands of this man. None of this mattered to her. She only knew a burning desire to experience what he so openly seemed to be offering her.
    Somewhere in the back of her mind she knew the wantonness of her thoughts should startle, if not scare her. She’d never been one to let go of her self-control. All decisions she made were in concert with her brain—which may be exactly the reason for the full-scale rebellion her body was staging now.
    She felt something against her right nipple and gasped. No longer capable of pretending sleep, she threw her eyes open and stared at where Claude was leaning on one well-muscled arm, staring down at her, his expression sober. His other hand was above her chest, a finger having traced the edge of her slip.
    “Ah, cher, I thought that might get your attention.”
    It did more than get her attention. Her nipples were bunched so tight they ached. And her stomach quivered from his attention.
    But when she might or should have asked him to leave her be, tell him that molesting a hostage would only put him in hotter water, an unfamiliar voice whispered, almost pleaded, with her to give herself over to sensation just this once.
    She licked her lips as her chest heaved from the difficulty she was having breathing.
    Up this close and personal, she noticed how very attractive he was. Not in a Greek statue way. Rather in a wild Cajun way, with tousled hair, dark skin and an even darker allure that left her scanning his mouth and wondering what it would feel like to be kissed by him.
    His finger grazed her skin again. Akela arched her back, pressing her breast into the palm of his hand and groaned, a response so outside her normal one that she was shocked—until Claude leaned over and showed her exactly what it would be like to kiss him.
    Firm and probing and hungry, he slanted his mouth against hers, tentatively at first, as if givingher the option of pulling away, then more insistently, a low groan of his own filling her ears.
    Long moments later he broke from her mouth and buried his nose along with the fingers of his right hand in her hair.