by Dana Nussio
Her fingertips trailed down his arm, past his elbow, and settled on his hipbone. He rested his free hand on hers, preventing it from exploring.
“What I want to know is why? I mean why now?”
“Does it matter?”
“Hell yes, it matters.”
She’d pulled her hand from beneath his and would have touched him again, but his words stilled her movement.
“You said we couldn’t be together, and then after everything that happened tonight—”
She shook her head, wishing the movement could sweep away memories so clear from the convenience store that night. And fuzzier ones from further in the past. “I don’t want to talk more about tonight.”
“Well, I can’t have you coming to me because you’re grateful. Or, worse, because you’re just trying to forget the memories that were stirred up tonight.”
He leaned over to flip the lamp switch, flooding the room with unwelcome light. Then he sat up with his back against the headboard, the sheet puddled near the waistband of his shorts. The bravery she’d mustered in the shadows faltered. Maybe she wasn’t ready for this. Because he appeared to have left the sheet for her, she tucked it around her as she still lay on her side, propping up her head with her hand.
“Is that what you think? That I would use you to forget?”
“Wouldn’t you think that if you were me?”
“Maybe.”
Had she meant forever or just until the end of the investigation when she’d pushed him away? Even she wasn’t sure, so how could she expect him to know? She’d been right to say they couldn’t afford to be distracted, and that had been before they’d discovered they were targets.
Had it been more than that all along? She could admit to herself now that being with Tony had frightened her because it had been more than just sex. Her heart had been as exposed as her body was.
“I’m sorry. Maybe I...” Kelly didn’t know what else to say. She hadn’t thought her seduction plan through, hadn’t considered what she would tell him if he didn’t take her in his arms without asking questions.
“Now don’t get me wrong. I’m interested.” He shifted. “More than you can imagine. But I can’t be only a way you can block out the past. Not this time.”
“You aren’t. Never were.”
Tony rolled his head against the headboard and then stared down at his hands in his lap.
“I wasn’t going to do this again. I wasn’t going to be this stupid. Wasn’t going to let...”
Kelly’s heart thudded in her chest. Why hadn’t he finished what he was saying? Didn’t he want her? Unable to stop herself, she reached out to him, her fingers curling over his hands.
“What are you trying to say?” she asked him.
Though he didn’t pull away, he continued to focus on their hands instead of looking up at her.
“Maybe we’d be better off if we just—”
“What? Walked away. No. That can’t be better. It’s not better for me. I’m hoping it’s not better for you.”
“Why?”
This time, he did look over, his gaze boring through, demanding answers she still wasn’t sure she could give.
“You pushed me away.”
She shook her head. “Not because I didn’t want to be with you.”
“Then why?”
“I was scared.” Her words came out in a rush of air.
His eyes widened, but he didn’t ask again. He continued to watch her, waiting for her to explain herself.
She cleared her throat. “You touched me that night in places I’d never been touched before.”
His lips lifted slightly.
“I didn’t mean it like that. It was deeper than just skin or erogenous zones.”
He blinked and opened his mouth but closed it again without responding. If he did answer, he might reject her, so she rushed on before he could.
“And now the idea of living in a world where I can never touch you again seems just...empty.”
His tongue darted out to dampen his lips. “Empty?”
“I don’t want that life. Do you?”
His gaze lowered to her hand that gripped his so tightly now that her knuckles and the fine bones were outlined against her skin. She forced her fingers to loosen.
“I don’t want to,” he said without looking up.
“To?” she asked when she couldn’t wait any longer.
Finally, he lifted his head, his gaze unwavering.
“I don’t want to walk away.”
* * *
In a rush of movement, Kelly untangled herself from the sheets and scrambled to face him in his lap. He was waiting to catch her, shifting forward so her legs could slide behind him. She was barely settled before he crushed his lips to hers, claiming them with a desperation mirroring the feelings overwhelming her.
His arms encircled her, pressing her so tightly to him with his palms that she struggled to breathe. She didn’t care. When he finally dragged his lips away to trace kisses down her jaw, she gulped air.
Tony pressed his forehead to hers, his fingers tracing mesmerizing circles on her back. “Sorry ’bout that.”
His chuckle rumbled from his chest against hers. As he leaned against the headboard again, his hand slid forward, bringing a tress of hair with it.
She rolled her forehead against his and drew in a few more deep breaths before she could speak again. “Don’t ever be sorry.”
“Now what?”
“You don’t have any ideas?” She rolled her bare bottom over his clothed lap, the insistence of him beneath her hinting he might have a few suggestions.
He drew in a slow breath between his teeth, but his serious expression jolted her. This would be no playful seduction, where she could hide her nervousness behind flirtation and titillation. He deserved more.
“You have to be sure.” He cleared his throat. “I need you to be sure.”
“I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life.”
That must have been enough for him, as his lips covered hers again, tentatively at first, then with insistence and, at last, with barely constrained need. She followed him through the first two steps and took the lead on the third. She couldn’t get enough of him. His taste. His heated, masculine scent. The roughness of his fingertips as they glided with mastery over her skin.
She smiled at his grunt of frustration when she pulled her mouth away to trail kisses over the firm line of his jaw and that perfectly formed ear. Then she gripped the sides of his T-shirt and started shimmying it up his torso.
“One of us is wearing too many clothes.”
He tightened his upper arms against his sides to slow her progress. “Too soon.”
The sound of frustration came from her this time.
“Patience, sweetheart. I only want to appreciate my gift for a while first.”
“Well, when you put it that way—”
She didn’t get the chance to finish what she was saying as he flipped her over in a move that would have impressed wrestling coaches and kneeled above her to make good on his promise to appreciate. Tony seemed to have no other agenda than to explore her body at his leisure, cherish each discovery with his hands and mouth and draw sigh upon sigh from her lungs and heart and soul.
“I need you,” she breathed out when even that bliss wasn’t enough.
Those words must have reached him as he sat back on his feet, his eyes hooded, a sensual smile on his lips.
“You need me, huh?”
“I do. And now, if you don’t mind.” Again, she reached for his shirt, grazing him beneath the hem.
He reached for the tag of his shirt and yanked it over his head. After backing off the bed, he shucked his shorts and underwear and stood there nude, confident and utterly male. He lifted the sheet to climb back in but sto
pped himself and stepped to the dresser. He returned with the partially filled box of condoms from the other night.
As he lay back to cover himself, she settled herself over his legs and began her own thorough exploration. He gently pressed her palms together and brought her hands to his lips.
“But I’d like to return the favor.”
He kissed each pair of matched fingertips by turn. “No favor. A gift.”
“Then I’d like to give you a gift of my own.” She swayed her hips against him, earning another of his coveted gasps.
“Plenty of time for that.” He closed his eyes and chewed the corner of his lip. “Anyway, you are my gift.”
“Yes, I am.”
She lifted herself above him and, her gaze never leaving his, brought them together in a gentle shift. His hands settled low on her hips, his fingertips pressing in, drawing her closer and closer still.
Neither spoke again as they moved together, sharing their bodies and their breaths. Kelly had no voice anyway, not with the enormity of feelings blossoming inside her.
Her heart hammered in her chest. Her skin slickened with perspiration, not entirely from the heat the two of them formed together. She wouldn’t pull back this time. She wouldn’t run the way she always had from anything that pried her from the comfort of numbness. Just for tonight, she would give him everything and take all. She would allow herself to be more exposed than from nakedness, more vulnerable than any threat could show.
Another kiss. Another touch. Tantalizing sensations building until she could think of nothing but Tony. About how the jagged points of her suspended development were so easily completed in him. The crest took her by surprise, rolling her in waves of delight. Tony followed her through the tumble.
Afterward, they lay together, Kelly curled into the curve of Tony’s body, his arms still holding her close. She couldn’t have imagined a more perfect moment. Tomorrow, outside their cocoon, she might retreat to her corner as she always did. But just for tonight, she would revel in the magic of loving Tony.
Chapter 22
“I love you.”
Tony’s breath caught as Kelly’s whispered words punctured the stillness in the darkened room. The silence returned, but he could only exhale in tiny puffs. She’d spoken the words. He shared her feelings, so intensely that his chest ached from squeezing so many emotions into that small space, but she’d put it out there in this room where the air was already dense and had suddenly become heavier.
Was she waiting for him to respond? To admit the truth that she already had to know?
The answer came quickly as her breathing settled into a steady rhythm of sleep. No wonder she’d sounded so drowsy. He chuckled as she startled but didn’t awaken. Only a confession made in her twilight period between wakefulness and sleep.
She probably wouldn’t be able to recall saying it tomorrow. Maybe she didn’t even mean it. Or at least would tell herself she didn’t, during her rational daylight moments. He, on the other hand, would never forget it.
From behind her, he reached around and brushed back her hair from her face. Why did it have to feel like silk? Why did everything inside him still warn him of the risk of loving her, and yet she’d skimmed past his walls as effortlessly as smoke through an open window. He didn’t even want to bar her access anymore.
She wiggled in his arms, scooting back against him and probably seeking only warmth. How just the brush of her could still reawaken his passion after their lovemaking that night, he wasn’t sure. He should have been sated by now. Yet he was beginning to realize he would never get enough of her.
He snuggled closer until her hair brushed his face, the satin texture and floral scent enveloping him in a world he could have easily called home. As his eyes closed, an image of another day danced temptingly before him. In his daydream, his hands slid around her again, brushing the frothy white fabric of her nightgown as they settled on the lush roundness of her belly. She carried a child. His child.
His eyes popped open, and he blinked several times in the darkness. His hands, which had been rubbing a circular pattern over her flat tummy, froze against her skin. Was this a premonition? Had he gotten her pregnant, despite their careful precautions? His gaze slid to the bedside table, where even now outlines of several empty packets remained. No, that was silly. They’d been smarter than that.
Disconcerting images continued to settle around him, refusing to budge or vanish in respect for his scars. One with Kelly pressing his palm to her abdomen so he could feel his child kicking. Another with a tightly wrapped infant suckling at her breast. Still another with him coaching a team of pint-size soccer players with the pride of knowing one of those children was theirs.
He shook his head, hoping to force away those forbidden images. He’d said he didn’t want children, but had he been honest? Had it been just another way to wall himself in and avoid pain? The baby-that-never-was still haunted him, no hypothetical child to him, but a son or daughter who’d been ripped away. Had he always feared the possibility of losing another child, one he’d had opportunity to know?
He smiled into the darkness and shook his head, startling her once more. He brushed her hair again to ease her back to sleep. Knowing it was a mistake to be with Kelly hadn’t stopped him from wanting her. Nothing could have. A child with Kelly’s eyes, hands or laugh would be like that. Even if the idea of it terrified him, he would want nothing more than to raise the child they would make together.
He was getting ahead of himself. They hadn’t even defined what was between them outside of this hotel bed, and he was already decorating a nursery. Kelly would get a kick out of how their gender roles had been reversed on this one, if he ever had the guts to tell her about it.
Still, as he drew her closer against him, and she snuggled with her head in the crook of his shoulder, he released the tight hold he’d had over his dreams. He’d thought that happiness was something he would never have the chance to enjoy again. Then he’d met her. Finally, he could give himself the freedom to believe that there just might be a chance for Kelly and him.
* * *
The police report on his computer screen made gooseflesh form on his arms beneath his dress shirt’s rolled-up sleeves. That only pissed him off more. Usually, he wouldn’t have blinked at an arrest like that one. They were worse than a dime a dozen in his world. Maybe half a penny.
Usually, he would be thinking that someone who’d been busted for those crimes would make a great customer, later, after a good attorney arranged for him to plead guilty to a lesser charge.
This time was different.
Now he had to take time away from his business to study this arrest and other mundane developments through a more critical lens, and it was all their fault. He pounded the side of his closed fist on the keys of his laptop, which only caused the apps screen to pop open and hide the arrest record. Something else he had to deal with, and he was tired of playing fixer because a pair of law-enforcement lovebirds couldn’t keep their noses out of where they didn’t belong.
He opened his geotracking software and checked on the status of his two subjects. Sure enough, one car was parked again at the park and ride, while the other was back at the hotel, where they were tucked in for the night.
If only he could have ended this little game in a highway accident or hotel fire, but he wasn’t an impulsive man. Like in chess, the moves required forethought and strategy.
“All in due time, my friends.”
Part of that master plan required him to stay several steps ahead of those who might be moving too close. He clicked back to the police report and read again.
“The suspect, who identified himself by his screen name, BIG DADDY, also addressed the officer serving as a decoy by the name of one of the task force’s online personas.”
The name of both the female task-force officer and the screen name were redacted in this vers
ion, but he could fill in both blanks himself. Trooper Kelly Roberts and INVISIBLE ME. It wasn’t as if the highly male task force had a plethora of choices to act as a lure. He rolled his eyes and then studied the report once more.
“Don’t think even a good lawyer’s going to help you out—” he paused to scroll to the top of the screen “—Mr. Clive Billingsley.”
So, the destructive duo had moved beyond monitoring the chat rooms to arresting nearby suspects. Why now? Why when they were investigating two murders and an abduction? Could they have found a connection between the newest resident of Livingston County Jail and those other cases? Somehow, he didn’t think so. If they had, he would have at least heard rumblings that an expedited search warrant for the guy’s place had been granted.
As it was, he wouldn’t even have known about the arrest if he hadn’t been sipping a beer earlier at one of area law enforcement’s favorite late-night haunts. It was amazing how much information someone could glean when surrounded by those who thought they weren’t oversharing.
BIG DADDY... That screen name sounded familiar. Had he seen it while creeping on the boards as MR. SUNSHINE? Was that the task force’s plan now? To take down local suspects, one by one, until they located one on whom they could pin those crimes? Sure, it was like a needle in a haystack, but it could work eventually if the pile of dried grass was small enough. Especially if Cory Fox was hiding inside with a bad case of hay fever.
“Where are you?”
The little weasel had yet to resurface. Even in Boca. His friend had come up with zilch while checking for a thirtysomething guest at a certain seniors-only condo complex. No activity in Fox’s apartment, either. He’d vanished. Did the idiot think even the laziest probation officer in Livingston County wouldn’t pick up on it eventually?
At first, he’d been able to talk himself out of the suspicion that Fox might be involved in the double murder, but his doubts had grown each day the guy remained out of touch. His disappearance was also too coincidental, given the current abduction case. If he was involved with the murders, would he have been stupid enough to strike again so soon? The answer to that question nauseated him. The guy clearly had no impulse control and not enough brains to even try. Worse than that, if he was in some of the chat rooms where the task force was baiting the hook for locals, he would be biting in no time.