Friction (Red Hot Private Eye, Novella, Vol. 2) Read online

  “Good. Come,” she panted, never slowing her movements, or even breaking to process what he had said.

  “I mean...have you...are you...?” he stammered.

  “Just come,” she ordered evenly.

  He opened his mouth to argue, but was seized at that very moment by the most powerful, most visceral, most all-encompassing and pleasurable orgasm that he had ever experienced in his life. He thrust his hips upward, every muscle in his body tensing, a raw and ragged cry tearing from his throat.

  He was aware of nothing for a moment but the sensation of his physical release. When he did come back to himself, he saw that she had moved off of him. She was sitting on the couch right next to him, gently massaging his dick as he came, guiding him through the overwhelming physical experience.

  She looked more beautiful than he had ever seen her – skin shiny with a thin film of sweat, face natural and fresh, hair loose and mussed around her face.

  She must have sensed him gazing at her, because she looked up and smiled. Mateo felt a moment of true connection, true intimacy pass between them.

  He reached out and brushed his fingertips against her hair.

  “That was amazing,” he said reverently.

  His words seemed to bring her back to reality, because her smile froze on her face, and her expression became more distant. “It was fun,” she said, a flippant tone in her voice that sounded forced to his ears.

  “Did you come?” he asked, feeling bolder with her now, as a result of what they had just experienced together.

  She shrugged.

  “Why not?” he asked, “I could've tried to last longer. I would have done…”

  “It's fine,” she cut him off with a wave of her hand.

  “It's not fine,” he insisted, “I wanted to give you…”

  “Look,” she said casually, standing up and stretching, “It's not something that I like to do in front of other people. It feels too personal. Too…out of control.”

  She smiled wickedly, and then added, “Don't worry about me, though. I'll take care of myself later.”

  Mateo smiled as well, but not at her innuendo. He was smiling because he wasn't going to let her get away with that.

  He stood and walked over to her, wrapping his arms around her from behind, running his hands up and down her belly, grazing her breasts.

  “You don't have to be in control all the time,” he whispered raggedly in her ear, his voice gravelly with desire, “Not around me. You're safe around me.”

  He grasped her nipples between his thumb and forefinger and began to slowly but firmly roll them, causing her to gasp.

  “I'm gonna make you come, Raiza Diaz,” he said confidently, “Count on that.”

  He felt her trembling underneath his hands, and her head fell back against his shoulder as she groaned.

  Hey. It wasn't quite an orgasm, not yet – but it was a helluva good start.

  Just then, however, he heard his phone ringing and froze.

  God dammit! It was Dominic's ringtone. He had to get it.

  I mean...right? Dominic was his boss...or...maybe it could wait....

  As he stood frozen in indecision, however, the choice was taken out of his hands. He heard another ringtone start up, and he realized that must be Raiza's phone.

  “That's Cristal's ringtone,” she said, immediately disentangling herself from Mateo's arms, her voice brisk and business-like, “I've got to get that.”

  Shit.

  Chapter Ten

  Mateo walked into the conference room to find Cristal and Dominic already seated. He pulled out the chair closest to the door and took a seat. The chair felt solid against his still shaking legs.

  Cristal raised an eyebrow. “Where’s Raiza?”

  “Here,” Raiza’s voice came from behind him.

  He turned his head and saw that her hair was pulled into a sleek ponytail. She wore minimal make-up, but it was flawless. She now wore a black tank top with a pin-striped blazer with the sleeves rolled up and skin tight jeans. What the...they had gotten their phone calls at exactly the same moment. How the hell had she gotten ready and made it here so close to the same time that he had?

  Other than her swollen lips and flush in her cheeks, there were no clues that anything had just gone on between them. Her face was an unreadable mask…even to him.

  He hoped that he was doing as good of a job at hiding what had just happened between them at her home. His heart was still racing. His mind was swimming, or more accurately drowning in the explosiveness that they had just shared.

  They hadn’t been having just sex. It was more than that. It was indescribable. He tried to push down the feelings that were flooding through him. They were for a different time.

  Dominic and Cristal were both staring at him and Raiza. Right. They needed a breakdown. Mateo needed to quickly snap out of his lust-mush brain.

  Mateo began debriefing Dominic and Cristal on the assignment. Raiza stepped in to fill in the areas that only she was privy to. He could tell from her body language that Cristal thought Razia had made the right call by staying in the room to finish planting the equipment. Dominic did not seem as happy about it.

  Dominic turned to Raiza, his tone deadly-calm, “Do not ever put yourself in that position again. If your point person tells you to get out. You. Get. Out.”

  Cristal’s jaw tensed and her eyes narrowed as she slowly turned her head to Dominic, “She did her job. She did it well. And now you're lecturing her.”

  “She didn’t follow the chain of command,” he snapped back at her.

  “Excuse me, but Raiza was lead on this. It was her contact. Her ass on the line. She followed protocol,” Cristal’s voice remained steady but Mateo had a feeling that she was as far from calm as you could get.

  “Mateo was her point person. Protocol would dictate that she follow his directives,” Dominic stated firmly.

  Mateo felt the same way that Dominic did, and in fact had gone over to Raiza's house to say those exact things...but he never got to that part. He couldn’t help but shoot a look at Raiza to see how she was reacting to Dominic and Cristal’s discussion, but she stared straight ahead, giving nothing away.

  Raiza’s phone buzzed and she stood, “I need to take this.”

  She was out of the room before anyone had a chance to say anything. They all sat for a moment silently. Probably all thinking the same thing—that if Raiza left in the middle of a meeting, it was important.

  Dominic looked straight at Mateo, “Do you know what that’s about?”

  Mateo assumed that it had something to do with her aunt and although he knew that Raiza considered the people here at Red Hot family, he still did not feel that it was his place to say.

  He shrugged in response. Dominic nodded. Cristal tilted her head clearly indicating that his non-response was absolutely not acceptable. Mateo was pretty sure he was about to get an earful when Raiza stepped back into the room.

  The fresh scent of clean, flowery crispness floated in with her and he felt his jeans getting snug. Damn. Even her scent got him going.

  “Everything okay?” Cristal asked as Raiza sat back down in the seat she had just vacated.

  “Fine,” her clipped tone clearly broadcasting that everything was not fine, but she was not going to be discussing it further. Her posture was stiff and rigid.

  Mateo desperately wanted this meeting to be over so he could find out what was going on. He assumed it was her aunt, but what if it wasn’t. All of his protective instincts were on high alert. He wanted to fix whatever was upsetting her, or at the very least just be there for her—which was definitely not his normal after-sex impulse.

  Usually he liked some space. He didn’t want to get involved in anything even coming close to personal. But this was different.

  This was Raiza.

  ---~---

  All I have to do is make it through this meeting and then I can go home and have the nervous breakdown that I so very much deserve, Raiza told h
erself. She did not even know how to begin to process the day’s events. So much had happened since her coffee this morning at seven a.m. Most of it had been bad, all of it had been unexpected, and some of it may even be life-changing.

  Raiza heard the door open behind her and Jerry stuck his head in the conference room, “They left the hotel room. We’ve got about three hours of footage to translate. We will have the transcripts to you by morning.”

  Dominic and Cristal both nodded and Jerry exited the room.

  “Alright, moving on,” Dominic said harshly.

  He still seemed upset about Raiza’s chosen tactics and the fact that Cristal had her back. In most situations Raiza respected Dominic’s opinion, even before he had been the one signing her paychecks. He was smart, he had good instincts and he always made calculated decisions, at least in circumstances that Cristal was not involved in. But in this case, Raiza knew that she had made the right call staying and planting the bugs.

  She had had a gut feeling when she had heard that the mark was not meeting a woman that he was having an affair with, but rather two known cartel members, that she needed to get the room bugged.

  Had it been risky? Yes. Had she been scared? Yes. Would she do the same thing again? Yes.

  “So what exactly happened when we lost eyes and ears on you?” Dominic asked.

  Even though Raiza knew she would have to go through all of this again in her report she understood that they would want to hear it from her lips, not just read about it.

  “When Mateo informed me that I had mere seconds before the men would be entering the room I texted my contact at the hotel and told him that I would need back-up. I went into blackout mode. I then stripped down and got into the shower.

  “I sang loudly so that the men entering would know two things, first that someone was in the room, so they wouldn’t be surprised and second that that someone was a female. When the men came into the bathroom to see who the hell was in there, I started screaming in Spanish, which I knew they would understand.

  “Within seconds my contact came in, he was radioing the hotel manager. I grabbed my clothes and got dressed, yelling the entire time. The hotel manager was there in under a minute apologizing to all parties involved. I acted furious at the mix-up and stormed out.

  “My contact followed me, 'comforting' me, and I was in the elevator in under three minutes. When I got to my car I activated the surveillance and all the men still seemed to be talking about my ‘assets.’ I don’t think we missed anything crucial, but - ”

  Raiza was cut off by the sound of the door opening behind her again. This time it was Detective Tall-Dark-and-Handsome.

  “When you get a minute, I have an update,” he said to Dominic and Cristal.

  “We’re just about through here, come on in.” Dominic stood and nodded at Mateo and Raiza, indicating that the meeting was over.

  As Raiza and Mateo stood to make their way out of the office, Raiza noticed that when Dominic sat back down in his chair, he was sitting even closer to Cristal. She had to smile to herself. Dominic was one smitten-kitten.

  As she passed by the detective, she felt his assessing gaze. When she lifted her head, she noticed the heat in his eyes as he said, “Ms. Diaz, I look forward to meeting with you tomorrow.”

  Raiza felt her cheeks get a little warm. Not from the undivided attention that the detective was giving her. Nope, that didn’t make even the slightest blip on her hormone radar. Her cheeks were flushed because, she realized, she was actually a little embarrassed by the detective’s appraising gaze with Mateo right behind her.

  That was ridiculous, though, because what had happened between them was a one-time thing. A blip in their professional relationship. An anomaly.

  She wasn’t with Mateo. They weren’t a couple. It had been a hook-up.

  A hot, smokin’, knock-your-socks-off-hook-up. But still, just a hook-up.

  She smiled politely at the tall, good-looking detective and then walked purposefully down the hall to her—now shared—office. She could feel Mateo, hot on her heels as she opened the door and crossed to her desk.

  She sat down and instantly felt a sense of relief. Ahhh, her desk. She looked down, everything was in order, in its rightful place. She moved her hands across the hard surface and let its solidness flow through her.

  “Everything all right with your aunt?” Mateo’s deep voice pulled her out of her moment of Zen.

  She looked up at him and for some strange reason what she saw caused tears begin to form in her eyes. His eyes were filled to the brim with caring and concern. Raiza wasn’t sure she could handle caring and concern. In fact she didn’t have a clue how to respond to it at all since neither were emotions people tended to have around her.

  Well, Cristal and Red had both shown those things, in their own ways. But not men. Especially not a man that she had just slept with. Men usually saw her as strong, independent—some had even called her a ball-buster. And most of the time, that was fine with her. Most of the time, that was how she preferred it.

  But sometimes…sometimes she just wished she could feel cared for.

  The events of the day crashed down on her as she looked up into Mateo’s vivid green eyes and she knew that she needed to get out of there or she would do what she never allowed herself the luxury of doing. She would let herself lean on him.

  Standing on shaky legs she collected her things as she said, “I’m heading home. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  He reached out and touched her hand as she wrapped her fingers around the strap of her purse, “Raiza.”

  She stilled and looked up at him again. His eyes looked even more intense than the before. The air between them crackled. The empty space that separated them seemed alive with connection.

  “Mateo, I need to go,” she explained.

  Understanding crossed his eyes and he lifted his hand from hers. The instant she no longer felt the comfort and heat of his touch she missed it. Well, she told herself sternly, you can’t have it both ways.

  She was almost out the door when she heard Mateo’s voice behind her, “Call me if you need anything.”

  Not looking back, she nodded in agreement and then high-tailed it out of there. She couldn’t be here. With him. She needed to go.

  Chapter Eleven

  Mateo rubbed his eyes and then stretched his arms over his head as he yawned. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. As soon as he did, flashes of Raiza popped into his head. This was the reason he hadn’t had sleep the night before. He couldn’t get her out of his head. Visions of her were playing like a broken record in his mind’s eye.

  Her skin. Her lips. Her eyes.

  “Sleeping on the job I see.”

  Her voice?

  Mateo opened his eyes to find Raiza sitting down at her desk turning on her computer, “G...” something or other. From the looks of her she had not suffered the same restless night of sleep that he had endured. She looked fresh, well-rested, and gorgeous.

  “Good morning,” he could hear the deep timbre in his voice and felt his pants getting tight.

  She looked up and her eyes flickered with heat before her brows knitted together.

  “Who did that?” she asked looking at his desk.

  Mateo looked back to see what she was talking about. He had no idea what she was referring to. “Did what?”

  “Cleaned your desk,” she said in disbelief.

  He had to look back at her to confirm that she was actually serious. Yep, she looked serious.

  “I did,” he said, trying not to be offended by her shock.

  “Why?” she asked with genuine surprise.

  He turned in his chair to fully face her, tilting his head before asking, “I was moving in yesterday. That’s why my desk was a mess. Did you think I would even consider sharing an office with you if I had an issue keeping my work environment clean? Did you think I had a death wish?”

  She narrowed her eyes. Nodding her head down to his duffel sitting
beside his filing cabinet she asked, “What about your bag?”

  He raised an eyebrow before picking it up. He opened it to reveal all of the cords rolled and wrapped in perfect order.

  Raiza’s mouth opened, then shut, then opened again. “Then why didn’t you take the zip ties when I offered them?”

  “Now, what fun would that have been?” He smiled as he winked at her.

  Her lips pursed together and he knew that she was fighting a smile. Damn, that mouth. He wasn’t sure if he could pick his favorite body part on Raiza but her mouth had to be in the top ten.

  She stared at him for several seconds. He wasn’t sure if she was going to laugh or throw something at him. Her body relaxed and a small smile spread across her face as she turned back to her computer, “Well played.”

  Pride welled up in him. Which was ridiculous. That had barely qualified as a compliment.

  “How’s your aunt?” he asked as he also turned back to work.

  He heard her let out a small sigh. “She had another episode; I’m flying out to see her tomorrow.”

  Mateo couldn’t believe that she had offered up this personal information. Sure she might just be telling him because she knew he would find out when she didn’t show up to the office but the admission felt more personal than that. Of course, that could very well just be wishful thinking on his part.

  “Well, I’m sorry to hear that, but heading home might be nice.”

  She looked like she was weighing whether she wanted to say something then she blurted out, “I hate flying.”

  It took Mateo a minute to reconcile what Raiza had just admitted to, with who he thought she was. Raiza had always seemed fearless. He would have never guessed that she would have had a fear of flying.

  “I’ll go with you.” The words were out of his mouth and into the universe before he had even had a chance to think about what he was offering. Immediately he wished that he could hit rewind on the last thirty seconds.

  A look of…something crossed her beautiful features but before she had a chance to respond to his offer their office door opened.

  The young blond headed girl that had just started walked in. “Hey guys,” she raised her hand in greeting, “I’m Alyssa. I’m here to train.”