Ultimate Kill (Book 1 Ultimate CORE Trilogy) (CORE Series) by Kristine Mason Page A

stomach clenched with desire. He wanted her to come. He wanted to come. But now wasn’t about him. Everything he’d done from the moment he’d met and fallen hard for Naomi had always been for her. The pleasure he could give her, the life she deserved, her wants and desires. He’d loved her more than life itself. He still did, and still wanted to please her in every way possible.
    Her inner muscles clenched around his fingers. Her breathing grew labored. The leg she stood on trembled. Knowing she was close, wishing he could taste her orgasm, he quickly moved away from her breast and sought her lips. He captured her mouth as her body went rigid. Her groan vibrated against lips as she kissed him back, this time unhurried and with so much damned tenderness it made his heart ache.  
    With reluctance, he let go of her leg, slipped his fingers from her heat and tugged her shirt back down. She drew away slightly, a small smile tilting her lips as she kept her arms twined around his neck. “Still thinking about that room at the Lodge?” she asked.
    “I’m having a hard time thinking about anything right now,” he admitted with a half-smile.  
    “Then don’t think. Stay.”
    The day she’d told him she needed to leave Bola and what they’d just begun to build there, he’d asked her to stay. To give their new life a chance or to at least try to maintain a long distance relationship until his term as sheriff had ended. But she’d refused.  
    He wouldn’t stay now out of spite or childish recourse. He’d leave to keep the small amount of restraint he possessed intact, and to give himself time to come to terms with the confusing emotions unraveling inside him.
    “Not tonight,” he said, tucking a lock of her silky hair behind her ear. “Can I see you tomorrow?”
    He swore he caught regret in her eyes before she hugged him. “Yes,” she said against his chest, then quickly took a step back. “Be here at nine for breakfast.”
    “Good night, bossy,” he said and touched her cheek, then opened the door and left before his willpower completely dissolved.
    As he drove away from her quiet street and headed for the Lodge, his body and mind waged a vicious battle. Spending the day and evening with Naomi hadn’t brought him any closer to putting the past to rest. Instead, being with her was not only a bitter reminder of what they could have had if she’d never walked away, but that he was still in love with a liar.

Chapter 3
     
    HE STARED ACROSS the table at his wife of six years, wishing she would do them both a favor and die. Liliana had once been a means to an end, a way to gain her father’s trust, confidence and the share holdings of a failing shipping company. A vessel to implant his seed in and create two children. Now, he no longer needed her. He’d wiped that long-standing shipping company, which had once been an American icon and his competition, from existence. In the process, he’d ruined her father and forced him into an early grave.  
    Yes, he wished she’d slit her wrists or swallow a bottle of pills. Or maybe drive into a telephone pole at eighty miles per hour. He could and should simply do as Ric had suggested and have her throat slit in a staged robbery. But then he’d have to deal with the press and the police, not to mention his children who would likely need therapy and coddling.
    The pretty young kitchen maid he’d been meaning to fuck entered the dining room with a serving cart. Shy and no more than twenty-two, he could easily picture her coming to his office, dropping to her knees and taking him into her mouth. Maybe after he was through with the maid he’d let Ric have her. He eyed her pert tits as she leaned over and set a plate in front of Liliana. Yes, Ric had been working hard lately and deserved a little fun. He’d just have to make sure Ric didn’t take the fun to a level that required disposing of the young maid’s corpse.
    “Thank you, Alison,” Liliana said to the