pressure of the night had gotten to him after all. Because, even as his brain was screaming at him to avert his gaze and give her the privacy she obviously thought she had, he couldn’t do it.
Especially as her nimble fingers kept going, giving him more. Suddenly restless, he couldn’t stay still. His muscles twitched, pulsed. Three minutes ago he’d been nursing the beginnings of a headache. Now the ache had moved much farther south.
It had been a very long time since any woman had pulled this kind of immediate physical reaction from him. Spending most of his nights surrounded by inebriated females on the prowl, he’d become a little jaded. After years of being immersed in the cat-and-mouse games, day in and day out, he was long past tired of being a player—or played.
Perhaps it was her air of innocence that not even the windowpane and ten feet of alley could camouflage. Or the fact that she wasn’t playing at anything right now. She was simply herself—unconsciously sensual.
Shifting, Beckett dropped his foot and settled his waist against the hard edge of the railing. Why, he had no idea. It wasn’t as though he could span the space between them. Not really. At least, not with anything other than his gaze.
He wanted to be the one uncovering her soft skin. Undressing her slowly, like a present he’d been waiting all year to receive. To run his fingers over her body. Hear the hitch of her breath when he discovered a sensitive spot. Watch her pupils dilate in response to his touch.
The need was staggering, compelling. It scared him. But not enough to turn away. He wasn’t certain anything could have forced him to do that.
Maybe it was his movement that caught her attention, or the weight of his heated gaze finally penetrating her preoccupation. But suddenly her head snapped up and she looked straight into his eyes.
He watched the movement of her startled gasp, the swell of her breasts as they surged against the cups of her lace-edged bra. Her fingers stilled midmotion. Surprise, embarrassment and anger flitted across her face before finally settling into something darker and a hell of a lot more sinful.
Her head cocked to the side, considering.
She hadn’t screeched down the place. Or slammed the blinds shut.
Without breaking eye contact, Beckett relaxed against the wall, as if settling in for the show, and crossed his arms over his chest. Lifting a single eyebrow, he dared her to keep going and held his breath, praying she would.
It was late. The craziness that was the last weekend before Fat Tuesday permeated the atmosphere. Maybe that spell was working them both.
Heartbreakingly slowly, she turned, giving him a full frontal view. The fingers that had gone still began to move again, making quick work of the few buttons that were left. The edges of her shirt fluttered open. His eyes sharpened, trying to see every minute detail of her body through the distance and the night.
Flat stomach, gorgeous expanse of perfect, creamy skin. He registered the slight pink tinge that swept up her chest and throat. Was it embarrassment, arousal or both?
Tugging each cuff at her wrists, she held her arms wide open and let the gauzy material slither against her skin. Down, down, down, until it puddled on the floor at her feet.
The cups of her bra sat low, barely containing the curve of her breasts. He could see the top arch of her areolae, a deep, dark pink. The color of raspberries. Would she be just as sweet and tart against his tongue?
Lace edged the top of her bra. He imagined it tickling across her sensitive nipples. Two teeny, tiny straps, looking as if they might snap at any moment, curved over her shoulders and strained against the heavy weight of her breasts. Never in his life had Beckett wanted so desperately for fabric to break.
Then she spun away. A growling protest was out of his mouth, and he’d taken a step forward before he realized she wasn’t stopping, simply giving him her back.
Heavy lines of ink curled across her skin. Over her ribs, black, blue and purple twisted together into a picture. He couldn’t see all of it, but enough to get the gist. Delicate wings, ethereal body, flowing hair. Just like her, the lithe fairy was turned away, showing only her back and bowed head.
For some reason, the picture she’d permanently placed on her skin made his chest ache. It reminded him of how she’d looked when she’d first walked into the room, exhausted and a little tragic.
Before he could follow that thread of thought, her arms reached behind her, blocking out his view of her ink. Her palms slipped down, smoothing her skirt. The material clung to her body, hugging the curve of her ass in a way that made his hands itch to do the same. Because he couldn’t, Beckett curled his fingers into fists.
The skirt pulled in, following the contours of her hips and narrowing to skim her thighs. The hem hit just above her knees, a perfectly respectable length. But that didn’t stop him from feeling sorry for every poor bastard who had to work with her, watch her prance around in that skirt and know his chances of getting beneath it were slim.
She took a single step forward, opening the slit that lined up perfectly with the seam of her thighs. This time, the groan Beckett bit back had nothing to do with fear that she was going to stop.
The slit ended near the tops of her thighs, hinting at what lay beneath. That hint was torture. Because, with the slit held open by her position, all he could see were shadows promising him so much more than she was giving.
Beckett’s mouth went dry and then flooded with moisture. He wanted to taste her. To discover the musky scent of her arousal and press his face right there into those shadows.
Twisting, she set her pointy little chin on her shoulder and watched him as her fingers tugged at the zipper. Her hands eased the material down, inch by excruciating inch, revealing the scorching-red panties that matched her bra.
Satin and lace, the boyshorts covered her sweet curves. Something about them was both chaste and tantalizing. Like her, a contradiction. Adorably innocent yet devilishly tempting.
His eyes had been trained so intently on her rounded curves that it took him several moments to notice she was wearing thigh highs beneath that skirt.
Dear God in heaven.
Lace wrapped around the expanse of each thigh, cutting in and holding on. He could practically feel the silky texture of them against his palms, rubbing up and down his ribs as her thighs gripped him. Beckett swallowed. Hard. And the tiny, taunting smile that played across her lips told him she knew exactly the reaction she was pulling from him.
Dammit. It had been a very long time since he’d let a woman have the upper hand. How had this one managed it? With ten feet and a pane of glass between them.
When she walked several feet away from him, he got an unbelievably amazing view of her entire body. Killer legs he could imagine around his waist. Hips that swayed seductively. The firm curve of a good ass. The curl of ink, proof that she wasn’t as buttoned up as her outward appearance suggested. Long expanse of elegant spine, riotous curls begging to have a man’s hands twined in them and holding her close.
This woman was a siren. That’s all there was to it.
Lifting a single foot to the bench at the end of her bed, she plastered her body down the length of her thigh to lean over and unbuckle the heel still strapped on. Her breasts swayed, straining against the material barely holding them
