by Lisa Childs
“I need to be inside you,” he said. And he reached into his nightstand and pulled out a condom packet.
She jerked it out of his hand and ripped it open, then she rolled the latex over his engorged flesh. He was so long, so hard, pulsating within her grasp.
“You’re killing me, Kylie,” he said with a groan.
So she guided him inside her, and with a gentle thrust he joined their bodies.
“You’re so hot, so tight...” he said with another groan.
So full. He filled her and ignited her passion again. Need clawed at her, making her buck and writhe beneath him. He moved, sliding in and out of her.
She locked her legs around his lean waist, clutching him close with her inner muscles as she came again, screaming his name. Then his body tensed and he joined her in release.
He dropped back onto the bed next to her, panting for breath. “Damn it...”
Hearing the regret in his voice, she tensed. “What? What’s wrong?”
If he said it was a mistake, she would die of embarrassment and regret.
“I went too fast,” he said. “Now we’re going to have to do it all over again.”
She chuckled as he reached for her. And they did it all over again and again and again.
* * *
His phone vibrated on the nightstand, drawing a murmur of irritation from Kinsey who lay against his side. Joe brushed a kiss across her forehead before reaching for his phone. Had there been another attempt on the lives of Heath Colton and his vice president at Colton Connections?
He’d told Dispatch to call him if there was. He’d also told the crime-scene techs to call him, too, and that was the number that showed up on his caller ID.
“Parker,” he answered the cell, his voice gruff with sleep.
“I’m sorry to call at this hour, Detective,” the tech replied. “But you said—”
“I know,” Joe said. “If you discovered anything interesting to give me a call. What did you find interesting? Do the ballistics match?”
“Not even close,” the tech said. “Different caliber. Different weapon from the murder scene.”
He sighed.
“Killer could have dumped the previous weapon and be using another one,” the tech speculated.
“Could be,” Joe agreed. But that would make it harder for him to catch the killer.
Or there was a whole other possibility...
That someone else was trying to kill Heath Colton and Kylie Givens. Which meant Joe had two killers to find. Or one killer and one would-be killer.
He had to find that second one before he or she actually became a killer. Before Heath and Kylie wound up as dead as Heath’s father and uncle.
“Thanks,” Joe told the tech before disconnecting the call. He kept the cell close, though, waiting for it to ring again, waiting for Dispatch to call.
Because he had no doubt, there would be another attempt on the lives of Heath and Kylie.
Chapter 18
Heath squinted at the computer monitor on his desk at Colton Connections. Despite the size of the screen, he could barely see the words on it. Maybe he needed glasses.
His eyes felt gritty and raw, and he blinked, trying to clear his vision. More likely lack of sleep was causing his inability to focus on the screen, on anything but last night and how amazing sex with Kylie had been.
Her passion had overwhelmed Heath but it hadn’t really surprised him. She had always been passionate about work. It was one of the things they had in common. That and, apparently, an insatiable appetite for sex.
She’d reached for him last night as many times as he’d reached for her, his body aching with the need for another mind-blowing release. He’d gotten greedy.
Or maybe it was like she’d said—that their near brushes with death had inspired him to take what he wanted with no thought of the consequences of his actions.
And there would be consequences, like his inability to focus, and the hardness of his body every time she popped into his office. Even in clothes—dark slacks and a gray sweater—she looked beautiful, sexy, desirable.
Dark circles rimmed her eyes, though, attesting to her lack of sleep. It wasn’t just because of the sex, though. Even when they’d been lying together in the dark, neither of them had slept.
“Someone tried to kill us,” she’d murmured, as stunned as he’d been when those shots had rung out.
That was when they’d decided to get up early and come into the office before everyone else.
Pop and Uncle Alfie had been killed. There had been attempts on his and Kylie’s lives. Colton Connections was what connected all of them.
“The answer has to be here,” he said as he focused again on his lists of pending patents and recently acquired ones.
Oftentimes he had beaten some other company to filing because he was fast and had connections but mostly because Pop and Uncle Alfie had been so brilliant that they’d always been ahead of everyone else when it came to inventions and ingenuity. When he was a little kid, he’d wanted to be an inventor like them. He’d even had some good ideas, he’d thought, and while they’d encouraged him, he’d known that he would never come close to their brilliance. What he’d excelled at was helping them ensure they got the credit for that brilliance and that they reaped the rewards.
Now they were gone—even before he’d secured that last patent. Not that anyone was going to challenge it with a pre-issuance submission. It was going to come through, and they would never know. He had to blink again, to clear emotion, not sleep, from his vision.
“You need to take a break,” Kylie said, her voice soft with concern.
He glanced from the monitor to her, and as usual now, desire gripped his body. He shook his head, trying to fight off his feelings for her so that he could focus. “We need to look at everything we’ve received, any kind of threats or opposition or challenges to our patents,” he said, “any reason why someone might have shot at us after killing Uncle Alfie and Pop.”
She blinked now as her eyes glistened with tears. She’d loved his dad and uncle, too. “I know there’s a lot of money involved in these inventions, but it’s hard to believe that someone would kill over a patent.”
“There are a lot of ruthless businessmen out there,” Heath said.
Her lips curved into a slight smile, the one that got his pulse quickening because it usually meant she was about to tease or challenge him. “You’ve been called one of them.”
Instead of smiling or chuckling, he flinched.
She hadn’t missed his reaction because she hastened to apologize. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it as an insult and I don’t think the people who’ve said it about you did either.”
“Detective Parker thought I was ruthless enough to kill my own father,” Heath reminded her. He would never forget being a suspect for those murders. Hell, he probably still was one because the detective seemed to think it was possible that either he or Kylie had fired those shots at his vehicle.
“He doesn’t know you,” Kylie said.
“No, he doesn’t,” Heath agreed. “And he doesn’t know anything about this company. You were right that we need to investigate on our own.”
Hadn’t she been the one who’d suggested it in the first place? He couldn’t remember now. So much had happened over the past few days.
Them...
They’d happened over and over again.
“The police aren’t going to find out who’s responsible,” she agreed. “That’s why we need to look at everything to do with the company from the patents and competitors to our own employees.”
He gasped. “You think an employee might have killed them? Might have tried to kill us?”
She knew them better than he did. As well as the finances, she handled human resources and all of the fifty employees.
�
�I don’t want to think that,” she said. “Especially that one of them could hurt your dad and uncle. Everybody loved them so much.”
He nodded. The employees had all loved Pop and Uncle Alfie. He wasn’t so sure about him and Kylie, though. They had to do what was best for the company on the whole and sometimes that made an individual feel slighted. Like Tyler Morrison.
“But it’s a possibility,” he agreed, albeit reluctantly. “First Dad and Uncle Alfie are killed right in the parking lot.” Since his office was at the front of the building, he couldn’t see the lot where the murders had happened, where Kylie had been when she’d noticed someone watching her from a window on the ninth floor. “And now someone is trying to kill us.”
“What do we all have in common?” she finished for him as she gestured around the office.
He knew she wasn’t talking about just his space but the whole damn company. He’d give it all up, just as he’d told Parker, if he could bring back Pop and Uncle Alfie. Nothing was going to bring them back, though, but at least he could bring them justice.
And he could keep Kylie safe from the shooter. He wasn’t sure if he could keep her safe from him, though. He wanted her again.
Still...
His body ached with desire. He was just about to tell her to shut and lock his door when her cell phone rang.
She pulled it from her pocket and answered it, “Kylie Givens...” She hadn’t put it on Speaker, so he couldn’t hear what was being said to her but he could see the alarm cross her lovely face as her skin paled and her bottom lip quivered a bit. “I’ll be right there,” she murmured before clicking off the cell.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. “Where are you going?”
“My house was broken into,” she said. “I need to go.”
He jumped up from his chair. “Not alone.”
“The police are already there,” she said. “That’s who called after a neighbor called them. They want me to see if anything’s missing and file an official report.”
“I’m going with you,” he insisted. Because he knew the break-in hadn’t been random.
It had to have had something to do with last night and the attempt on their lives. Was this another attempt?
Had the police really called or was someone just trying to lure her out by herself? Not that she was any safer with him. Hell, he might have been the reason she was in danger in the first place.
* * *
Kylie closed the door behind the uniformed officer and leaned back against it, her knees shaking. She shut her eyes, unable to look at the destruction of her property, of her grandmother’s property.
But even with her eyes closed, she could see the damage. Holes had been knocked into the plaster. Mirrors and pictures had been broken. Cushions had been torn apart.
“Was someone looking for something?” she wondered aloud. “What would they think I had?”
After her mother had gone to jail, there had been a couple of break-ins at her old apartment. Even as young as she’d been, she remembered the police telling her grandmother that they’d probably been looking for her mother’s drugs. Like her mother had been a drug dealer.
She’d just been a fool for love.
And the break-in had probably been her mother’s old boyfriend looking for more of her prescription pads to steal.
Kylie had always been so careful to never fall as hard or as fast as her mother had for men. Except for now.
Not that she was falling for Heath. No. She was just falling apart right now. With fear...
She shuddered and opened her eyes and found Heath staring at her with concern.
Or suspicion?
“I don’t have anything valuable here,” she said. “Nothing of the company’s, except for whatever is on my laptop, and I brought that back to your place.” She’d learned not to leave it at the office in case someone was compelled to snoop. “But maybe they didn’t know that. Maybe that’s what they were looking for.”
Heath picked up a broken picture of her and her grandmother at her high school graduation. “In a frame or a pillow?” He shook his head. “This wasn’t about someone looking for something. It was about them looking for someone. You.”
She forced her lips to curve up in a slight smile. “In a frame or a pillow?”
He shook his head. “Here. And when you weren’t here, they left you a message.”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t make any sense. Why go after me?”
Heath lifted his broad shoulders in a slight shrug. “I don’t know. But we’re going to make sure they don’t get you. You’re staying with me until we find out who the hell is after you.”
“But that’ll put you in danger if this person is only after me and not you.”
“I think they broke in here because there’s no security. If they could have gotten past it at the penthouse, they probably would have broken in there, too,” he said. “That’s why we need to be so careful, why we need to stick together, to keep each other safe.”
But he looked grim about spending all that time with her, as grim as she probably felt. Because she wondered what the greater danger was. Being at the mercy of whoever was trying to kill her. Or spending so much time with Heath that she wound up falling for him.
Not that that would happen. She wouldn’t let that happen, just as she’d assured him the night before. She knew him better than anyone else. She knew he wasn’t looking for a commitment to her or to anyone.
And she wasn’t one of those women who believed, like her mother had, that she could change a man, that her love could bring out the love in him.
Kylie didn’t want to fall for Heath Colton. But she didn’t want to fall into the hands of the killer either. So she would stay with Heath. But she was sure as hell going to step up their investigation so that she wouldn’t have to stay much longer with him.
She wasn’t going to wait for Detective Parker to find the killer because that might never happen. In order to get her life back and stay alive, she had to find the killer herself.
* * *
Almost getting run down and being shot at hadn’t gotten through to that little bitch that she was out of her league. The break-in at her sad little house probably wouldn’t affect Kylie Givens either.
No. It was time to send a message that she would never forget—because it would be her last.
That message was: death.
Chapter 19
Sean always kept his promises. So as he’d promised January, he’d called to warn her cousin. He’d worried that he was too late though when Heath’s phone had gone straight to voice mail. The businessman had called him back just a short time ago, though.
With that conversation over, Sean figured it was time for another, and he dropped into the chair next to Joe Parker’s messy desk. “Hey...”
The detective glanced up and narrowed his dark eyes at his colleague. “You know you can’t get involved in this case,” Parker warned him. “You’re too close to it.”
“That’s why I have to be involved,” he said. “January’s heart is broken.”
And that broke his, as well. She was grieving her father’s and uncle’s deaths. She didn’t need to grieve anyone else, like a cousin who was as close to her as a brother.
Joe exhaled a ragged breath. “I know, and I’m sorry. From all accounts, it sounds like her father was a great man. Her uncle, too.”
“What about her cousin?” Sean asked.
“Heath?”
Sean nodded.
Joe shrugged. “I don’t know. I can’t get a handle on him. I still think he hasn’t been totally forthcoming with me.”
“Do you know about the break-in?” He only knew because he’d talked to Heath. Officers from another department had responded to the neighbor’s call since Kylie’s house was in the burbs.
Joe tensed. “No.
Was it at the company?”
Sean shook his head.
“His penthouse?”
“No. Kylie Givens’s house.”
Joe cursed. “I told all of them to stick together—”
“She was with Heath last night,” Sean said. “She wasn’t home when the intruder got inside. A neighbor saw lights on this morning and knew Kylie wouldn’t have been home then, that she would have been at work. So she called the police.”
Joe jumped up. “So the intruder was caught?”
Sean shook his head again. “No. By the time a patrol unit got there, the intruder was gone, and the damage was done.”
“Damage?”
He nodded this time. “I talked to the unit that took the report. Lot of petty destructive stuff.” Which had reminded him of the petty comments a certain disgruntled employee had shared about Kylie Givens. He shared those now with Joe, whose eyes narrowed.
“I told you not to get involved,” Parker reminded him.
“I know.”
“But that doesn’t mean you don’t share with me whatever you learn, the minute you learn it,” Parker said.
Sean nodded. “I know. I just didn’t think...”
“You know how cases like this are—you have to look at everyone as a suspect.”
“Even Kylie and Heath?” Sean asked, wondering if his colleague had finally ruled them out as suspects.
Joe nodded. “Especially them—because they haven’t been forthcoming about anything except that damn alibi.”
“Is that why you suspected they’d made it up?”
He nodded. “I just felt like there was more going on with them than they were admitting.”
“That’s what the rest of the family said when we found out they’ve been seeing each other,” Sean said. “You could always tell that there was more than a working relationship between them.”
“Yeah, and I’ve been trying to figure out what kind,” Joe admitted. “Romantic or coconspirator?”