Dangerous To Love

by Toni Anderson, Barbara Freethy, Dee Davis, Leslie A. Kelly, Cynthia Eden, J. Kenner, Meli Raine, Gwen Hernandez, Pamela Clare, Rachel Grant

  “Chance!”

  Yes! He surged up. Yanked for the condom he’d put in his wallet and he was in her within seconds. Driving deep.

  Her hands were on him, her arms holding him tightly. She was still climaxing when he plunged balls-deep into her. Still coming around him as he thrust, again and again, and her release kept going—he could feel her pleasure and it propelled him right into his own climax.

  A climax that seemed to completely consume him. That had him choking out her name and holding her tight.

  That had him realizing…I never want to let her go.

  * * *

  Gwen’s eyes opened. The hotel room was dark…the only light came from outside, spilling in through the curtains that she’d left open. She was naked in that big bed, and the sheets were soft against her body.

  Naked, but not alone.

  Gwen turned her head. Chance was there, asleep next to her. His arm was wrapped around her stomach, and she found that oddly sweet. He was still holding her, even while he slept.

  He was naked, too. They’d made love again—at least twice more during the night. The pleasure had washed over her, so hard and strong. Taking away fear and anger, leaving her with hope. Hope for her future—a future with Chance.

  Gwen eased toward him. A month ago, she wouldn’t have thought that a future with Chance would be possible. A week ago…same thing.

  But right then…

  Gwen leaned close. She pressed a kiss to Chance’s throat. Softly, because she didn’t want to wake—

  His eyes opened. His arms locked around her and he rolled Gwen beneath him. “Missed you…” His voice was gruff, little more than a growl. “Shouldn’t have let you go…now only have dreams…” He was holding her so tightly. “Have to find you again…can’t let go…”

  “Chance, I’m here.” He thinks this is a dream. “It’s me.”

  Silence.

  She felt his awareness then, in the stiffness of his muscles and saw it in the way his head whipped up. In the darkness, his eyes gleamed down at her.

  “Had so many dreams…” Chance said. “All about you. Then I’d wake up, and you’d be gone.”

  His words tore at her heart. And to think…Chance had said that he couldn’t say the right things to her. “I’m not gone.” I’m not going anyplace.

  She was exactly where she wanted to be…well, actually…

  Gwen pushed against his shoulders. Chance immediately rolled back. “Gwen, baby, I—”

  She climbed on top of him. “You weren’t the only one with dreams. I think I told you that before.” She straddled him. Her sex brushed over his cock. His already swelling cock. The guy certainly had stamina. Her fingers slid over his chest. “I want to live out one of my dreams right now, too.”

  His fingers closed around her hips. “Gwen?”

  She rubbed her sex over his cock. Skin on skin. Nothing between them. She kept up that friction, rubbing lightly, and Gwen could feel herself getting wet for him. “I’m on the pill.”

  His hold tightened, nearly bruising. “I’m clean.”

  She wanted to be with him like this, with nothing between them. “So am I.” She wrapped her fingers around his wrists and pushed them back near his head, chaining them against the pillow. “So now it’s your turn, Chance. Let’s see just how long you can stay still.”

  Her left hand slid down and she pushed the head of his cock against the opening of her sex. She arched and took him in, not too deep, not yet. His free hand immediately tried to grab for her hip.

  Her left hand caught his wrist again, and she forced his hand back up to the pillow. “That didn’t last long.” Her voice was husky, her body aching. “Let’s try again.” And she took all of him inside in one long, hot drive.

  She moaned. He growled. It was perfect.

  She slid up, then down again, keeping her pace slow. Gwen’s nipples were tight, sensitive peaks, and the long length of his erection slid over her, into her, at just the right angle.

  Gwen stared into Chance’s eyes. She saw them go darker, saw the desire flaring. But he wasn’t moving his hands from that pillow, wasn’t touching her.

  Good. To reward him, Gwen’s motions became faster. Harder. Her breath panted out and she used her hold on his wrists to better brace her body. Her heart thundered in her chest, her knees dug into that mattress, and his cock was so big as it pushed deeper into her. Again and again and again…

  “Can’t stay still…” His voice rasped at her. “Can’t…control is…”

  She stared into his eyes. Saw it happen.

  Control is gone.

  He lunged up, wrapped his arms around her and Gwen laughed with the surge of power that she felt. She wanted him this way. So wild for her that nothing else mattered. She wanted to know that she could make him this way. It was only fair really…

  Because he drove her way over the edge of her own control.

  They wrecked the bed. Rolling, twisting, nearly fighting for the pleasure. The release hit Gwen first, a pounding, body-shaking orgasm that had her crying out for him, and then Chance was with her. The hot surge of his release filled her as he held her so tightly. The pleasure didn’t crest—it kept going and going and she almost couldn’t catch her breath.

  He kissed her. Savored her. And her sex greedily clamped around him.

  “I always knew…” Gwen whispered. “It would be like this…with us.”

  Chance kissed her again. “So did I.” He pulled her against him. Curled his body around hers and made sure the covers were tucked around Gwen.

  She smiled as her eyes began to close. She was safe. She was happy. She was—

  “It’s what I was afraid of…”

  Gwen almost didn’t hear his whisper.

  Almost.

  “That I’d have you,” he said softly. “And never be able to let you go.”

  * * *

  The ringing of his phone woke Chance hours later. His eyes opened. He squinted as he tried to adjust. Bright light poured in from the window, momentarily blinding him.

  The phone kept ringing.

  “Want me to get it?” Gwen’s sleep voice murmured.

  And Gwen was there. Cuddled against him. So fucking perfect and very much not a dream. Her tousled hair slid over his pillow and her eyes were still closed. She was naked and her arm was around him.

  She’s real.

  He swallowed. “I…got it.” He reached over her. Grabbed the phone. Saw Lex’s number on the screen and tensed as he put the phone to his ear. “Lex, what is it?” he demanded as the last bit of sleepiness vanished.

  “Ethan’s out,” Lex said flatly. “The judge granted bail first thing this morning.”

  Chance sat up. The news wasn’t completely unexpected. It wasn’t welcome, but it wasn’t unexpected.

  “He’s with his lawyer now. And…there’s something else you need to know about Sophie Sarantos. I’ve been doing some checking on her.”

  “Sophie? Why?” He knew Sophie Sarantos. In D.C., most people wound up at the same parties, at some point. Sophie was smart, driven, and he’d heard that she was on track to becoming one of the highest paid defense lawyers in the area.

  “Because from what I can tell, Sophie is the one constant in the guy’s life. They might not be lovers, but they’re close. If some psycho out there really is attacking all the women Ethan cares about, then why didn’t he go after her? She’s the one in the limelight with him most times. The one photographed at his side. She seems like the obvious choice of a target.”

  Gwen had sat up, too. She pulled the covers with her. She was leaning in close and Chance knew she was listening to Lex’s words.

  “I found out that Sophie’s parents died when she was seventeen. A gunman broke into their house and killed them both. That shooter was never identified, the murder never solved. But…medical records Dev managed to access indicated that there was a…history there.”

  Managed to access? Right. He knew Dev had probably hacked into the
system.

  “Sophie had over a dozen broken bones during her teenage years. She was admitted to the hospital again and again, and though the docs suspected abuse, no charges were ever filed against her parents. The police cleared them every time.”

  Chance met Gwen’s worried gaze.

  “There was absolutely no evidence left at the scene of her parents’ murder. Nothing at all. But…but my gut is telling me there is a lot more going on here. Sophie’s past is bloody and dark and with her tied so closely to Ethan—she should have been the stalker’s victim.”

  “But she isn’t,” Chance said softly, “Gwen is.”

  Gwen’s gaze never faltered.

  Chance understood exactly what Lex was saying. “You think she could be our perp.”

  “I think the stalker should have gone after her,” Lex responded carefully, “but he didn’t…and I want to know why.”

  “So do I.” Maybe he and Gwen needed to have a little sit down with the lawyer. “Keep me posted.”

  “And you keep your lady safe,” Lex said.

  “Count on it.”

  * * *

  “You’re welcome,” Sophie told Ethan as the driver shut the back door of Ethan’s car, sealing them inside. “Because, yes, I did manage to work a minor miracle in there…”

  “I’m out on a million dollar bond,” Ethan said as he leaned his head back against the seat and closed his eyes. “That’s not so much a miracle as it is huge chunk of change.” He heard the driver’s door shut and the vehicle began to accelerate.

  Sophie didn’t speak.

  Hell. His eyes opened. “Thank you, Soph,” he told her. “You know I can’t repay the shit you do for me. I’d be lost without you.”

  “So you say.” Her smile was bittersweet. “But I’m the one who’d be alone. After my parents…you were all I had.”

  Her parents. His gut clenched when he remembered that particular nightmare. He’d wanted to kill Sophie’s father for years, and…in a blink, Sophie’s hell had been over. He knew her secrets, just as she knew his. Secrets that he would take to the grave.

  His fingers reached for hers. Twined. They’d never been lovers. They never would be. They were family. Closer than blood.

  He glanced toward the front of the car. His driver and sometimes bodyguard, Daniel, had just braked at the light. “Take Sophie home first. I want to make sure she’s safe.”

  Sophie laughed. “Right. Because I don’t know how to take care of myself. Have you forgotten that most of the criminals in this city know me on a first name basis?”

  His hold on her tightened. “You matter to me. I want you safe.”

  Her eyelids lowered. She stared down at their hands. “He’s targeted women close to you.”

  Yes, the bastard had.

  “Lex Jensen made me wonder…” Sophie stopped talking and glanced out of her window.

  “Soph?”

  “He works with Chance. He, um, stopped me at the station.”

  Ethan waited, wondering where this was going.

  “I was never targeted.”

  “That’s a fucking good thing.” He brought her hand to his lips. Pressed a quick kiss to her knuckles. “Because without you, I’d go insane.”

  She glanced back at him, a faint smile curving her lips. “How do you think I’d be without you? You’ve been my rock for all of these years.”

  “I’ll always be here for you.”

  Sophie nodded. Her dark hair was pulled back and her eyes—they seemed even bigger without the thick tumble of her hair falling near her heart-shaped face. Bigger, but…sad?

  “It’s going to be all right,” Ethan told her. How many times had he said those words or something similar to Sophie over the years? “We’re going to find him. We’re going to stop him.”

  “You’ve said that before.”

  Unfortunately, he had.

  Exhaling slowly, he looked toward the front of the vehicle. Daniel turned the car to the left, not saying a word to them, and they headed for Sophie’s home.

  Chapter Eleven

  The elevator doors opened and Gwen stepped out into the lush hotel lobby. Plenty of people were buzzing in that space—guests checking out, bell hops carrying luggage.

  And Dev was there, standing in the middle of the lobby, staring right at her and Chance. Dev’s face appeared grim. Dark circles were under his eyes and a serious five o’clock shadow lined his jaw.

  “We’ve got a problem,” he said as they approached him.

  Another one? Gwen was really over any new problems. She had more than enough to deal with as it was—

  “Marjorie West is dead.”

  Gwen stilled.

  “Ethan gave her a new identity and sent her to Europe, yeah, that part of his little story was true, but the woman sure as hell didn’t get away scot free.” Dev rolled back his shoulders. “I kept digging until I found out what became of her. It took a while and some serious string pulling…but an unknown female was killed by a hit and run driver in Paris, four months after Marjorie supposedly started her new life.”

  “You don’t know that it was her,” Gwen said. “You can’t know, you can’t—”

  “I compared that victim’s dental records with Marjorie’s. They were a match.”

  She could only stare blankly at him.

  “You don’t want to know the connections he has,” Chance said, his voice rough. “Or the laws that he probably broke to make that match.”

  Dev cleared his throat. “Laws were bent, not broken. There’s a difference.” Then he shook his head. “Based on the police reports for that accident…”

  She was too numb to be surprised that he’d accessed French police records.

  “The hit and run scene went down much like the recent one with Gwen here. The driver was waiting on the side of the street, waiting for his moment to strike. Witnesses said he didn’t slow down, that he deliberately accelerated when he aimed for his prey. He swerved to hit her, and when she went down, he roared away.”

  He. “So it is a man. It’s not Sophie.” Gwen had spoken to Sophie Sarantos at dozens of charity functions over the years. She’d…liked the other woman. Sure, Sophie could be a little withdrawn, but she was nice. Dedicated. She cared about helping victims of domestic abuse, and Gwen had worked with her on a special domestic violence prevention fundraiser at the gallery just last spring. They’d raised over fifty thousand dollars at that event, and Sophie had been crying at the end of the night. Silent tears that she’d swiped away before she thought anyone saw them.

  I saw them.

  When she’d overheard Lex talking about Sophie, Gwen’s first instinct had been denial because well…

  Sophie seems too nice.

  But she knew appearances could be deceiving.

  “Actually…” Dev winced. “I don’t know the driver’s sex. The windows were tinted, so no one got a good look at the driver. The perp could have been a man…or a woman. But what I do know is this…whoever we’re looking for, the perp doesn’t let his prey get away from him. If he tracked Marjorie all the way across the Atlantic Ocean, that should sure as hell tell us something. He doesn’t give up. He doesn’t stop.”

  Not until his prey is dead.

  “That does tell us something.” Chance took Gwen’s hand. “Ethan said that only he and Sophie knew where Marjorie had gone. If it was just the two of them—and Marjorie wound up dead—then one of them killed her.”

  Sophie or Ethan.

  “Lex needs to move in on Sophie,” Chance said. “And I’m going to have another little chat with Ethan. One that doesn’t involve the cops.”

  Gwen shook her head. “No, that isn’t a good plan. You can’t—”

  He turned toward her. “He was choosing every word he said in that police station. He knew the cops were watching. Knew that every word he said was being monitored. The guy wasn’t going to screw up there.”

  “Chance—”

  He kissed her. A quick, hot, open-mouthed kis
s. “I’d do anything for you.” His words were low and she was aware of Dev easing back a step. “I’d fight for you, lie, hell, I’d kill without a second’s hesitation.”

  She grabbed his arms. Held tight. “I don’t want you killing for me.”

  “You’re what matters to me.” He searched her eyes. “I need you to know that. I fucked up before, but I won’t ever do it again. I…I love you, Gwen.”

  No, no, he had not just said—

  “I want to end this nightmare. I don’t want a threat hanging over you. I don’t want you looking over your shoulder every time you go out.”

  Gwen couldn’t look away from him.

  “I want you safe. I need you to be safe. And when this is all over…” He drew in a ragged breath. “If you…if you want, we could go forward. See if we can make it together. Because I want to be with you.”

  From the corner of her eye, she saw Dev take another step back.

  “Maybe I’ve screwed up too much,” Chance muttered, “and—”

  Now she was the one to stand on her toes. To brush her lips against his. “We are going forward.” Nothing would stop them. Because he wasn’t the only one who’d fight…she’d fight for him. Lie. Kill. Did he think he was the only one who’d be pushed to the edge—and beyond?

  He smiled at her. When he smiled, the man was absolutely gorgeous.

  I love him.

  “No more fear,” Gwen said. Sophie or Ethan. “Let’s see where this ends.” Ended…for the stalker.

  But for her and Chance—things will begin.

  Chance pulled out his phone. Got Lex on the line. She heard him updating the other man, telling him to close in on Sophie.

  Then Chance put the phone down. He stared into Gwen’s eyes. “This isn’t going to be easy. To get the truth, I’ll have to play dirty.”

  So will I. She wasn’t going to flinch away from what was coming. Two women were dead, and Gwen wouldn’t be next.

  She had far too much to live for.

  * * *

  Lex stared up the brownstone. Sophie’s home. She’d gone in an hour before, right after Ethan had dropped her off. Lex had watched as Ethan walked Sophie to the door, as he’d pressed a light kiss to her cheek.