“Be grateful for the nose. The nose pulls it all together and makes it special. Otherwise you’re just another pretty face.”
That last bit was just spin, but whatever. He shrugged off his jacket to better display the results of all those hours in the gym.
Gazed at his face in the mirror. Pallid, haunted. Not very pretty.
Fuck it. His looks weren’t important enough to command his attention right now.
The faculty office had a subdued atmosphere of shock and grief. People in the office were bunched up in tight groups, nervously muttering. Some wept. One hefty old dame with an iron-gray cap of hair and a body like a brick approached him. “Can I help you, sir?”
He tried flashing the teeth at her. She looked grimly unmoved.
“Ah, yes. My name is Miles Davenport,” he offered. “I was wondering if I could speak to Dr. Joseph Kirk’s personal assistant.”
“We all helped Professor Kirk,” she said. “You can talk to me.”
Okay, fine. He regrouped, and dug out a card. “I’m with a private investigative agency. Professor Kirk’s family has hired me to look into—”
“Are you a journalist?” she demanded.
He blinked. “Uh, no, as I said, I’m with a private—”
“The police have already been here.”
“I’m collaborating with the police,” he said, though it wasn’t quite true. Only a matter of time, though. He would indeed col-laborate with the police, at the earliest opportunity, and to the very best of his abilities. “The professor’s family—”
“Professor Kirk had no family,” she said triumphantly. “His ex-wife died years ago. His daughter disappeared last year.”
“I’m looking into that, too. I was hired by Lara’s cousin.”
Leetle bitty stretch, that one. “I’m trying to figure out if what happened to Professor Kirk is connected to his daughter’s disappearance. I know that he was planning on traveling today, to Denver. Do you know why?”
The woman folded her arms over her large chest and stuck out her chin, studying him. He gazed back. No bullshit with the pearly whites or the biceps was going to work with this Amazon.
He went for the earnest, sincere, grim and yet studly vibe. A Davy McCloud approach. Easier to execute than sparkling charm.
She scrutinized him, gave him a nod. “Come on back, then.”
He followed as she stumped through cubicles. He drew curious glances as he went, but kept his eyes trained on the Amazon.
This was her domain. If anyone had the goods to give up, it was going to be her.
She led him into a small, crowded office. “I probably shouldn’t be talking to you, but Joseph was sick with worry after Lara disappeared, so thank the good Lord if someone is trying to find her. The poor girl doesn’t have anyone left to nag the police.
You’ll keep looking for her?”
He opened his mouth to explain that he actually hadn’t made any progress on Lara Kirk’s disappearance, since he had just learned of her existence yesterday. He met her anxious, reddened eyes, and stopped.
“Yes,” he said. “I will.”
She looked satisfied. “Good. Now, I already told all this to the police, but I’m not sure how well they were listening.”
“Did you ever meet her?” he asked.
“Joseph brought her by last spring. Beautiful girl. Talented, too. Joseph showed me a catalog of her sculptures once. I’m not one for visual art, but even I could see she had something special.
Joseph was so proud. When she disappeared, he . . .” Her mouth began to shake.
Miles discreetly turned his head, and caught sight of another Lara picture on the professor’s desk. Lara, in a bathing suit, hoisting herself up onto a wooden dock. Her slim, curvy body was beaded with drops of water. Innocent, fresh, drop-dead, blow-your-mind gorgeous.
“That’s her?” he asked, pointing.
“A trip they took to Lake Tahoe, a couple of years ago,” she said, digging a crumpled tissue out of her pocket.
“They were close?”
“Oh, yes. He doted on her. He just wasn’t the same since she disappeared. This whole semester, he was like a man in a dream.
And then, he got that letter.” Her tone changed, gaze shifting side to side, like she was going to tell him a secret.
Miles leaned closer. “A letter?”
She nodded. “I opened it. I opened his mail, even though it’s not my job. He was supposed to handle his own mail, but things were getting out of hand, so I started sorting it for him. You know, throwing out the junk, spoonfeeding him the rest. I felt so bad for him, you see.”
“Yeah, I see,” he said. “So? This letter?”
“So one day, I open this letter, no return address. Just a single sheet of paper, right in the middle of the page, bolded, all caps. It said, “If you want to know what happened to Lara, go to the Greaves Institute Fund-Raiser.”
Miles was perplexed. “That was all?”
“That was all. I tried to convince him to give it to the police. I thought it might have fingerprints, right? Like on TV. But he begged me not to tell anyone. He said, if she was alive, telling the police will get her killed.” She pressed her hand to her shaking mouth. “So I didn’t say anything. Now he’s dead. If I’d told someone . . .” Her face crumpled.
Oh, sweet Jesus. His throat was tight. Her rounded shoulders, the gray cowlick at her nape, her shaking dowager’s hump. It burned his ass, that a nice old lady should feel this way. Like it was her fault that these sons of bitches were out torturing and killing.
“It’s not your goddamn fault,” he said, with some force. “It was those evil bastards, not you. All you did was try to help your friend, as best you could.” He reached out, and pulled her into a fierce hug.
He stepped back hastily, horrified at himself for taking such a liberty with a complete stranger. But she didn’t seem offended.
She just blinked at him, her reddened eyes glistening, and dabbed her face with a tissue. “Ah. Well,” she murmured.
“Thanks for saying that, young man. It’s good to hear. Whether it’s true or not.”
“It’s true,” he insisted. “Don’t take it on. The blame is not yours.”
She blew her nose. “Be that as it may. The police have the letter now. And the invite from the Greaves Foundation is long gone, so I—”
“There was an invite?”
“Yes, about the fund-raiser. He’d gotten it weeks ago. I asked him then if he was interested in going, but he seemed to barely hear me, so I just recycled it. But you can read about the event online if you want.”
“When is it?” he asked.
She pursed her lips, and frowned. “Tomorrow. Saturday night.
After he got the letter, he asked me to get him a ticket to Denver.”
He grabbed her hand. “Thanks so much, ma’am.”
She twitched her hand away. “Don’t you ma’am me. My name is Matilda Bennet. But if you think you’re just going to walk into this party, think again, young man.”
“Yeah? Why? What’s special about this party?”
“Fifteen thousand dollars a head, that’s what’s special about it.”
Miles sucked in a pained breath. The lady nodded glumly.
“Yes, I thought about going, too,” she said. “But I don’t know where to start. I’d be throwing away fifteen grand I can’t afford to eat a tough old chicken fillet, like as not. But who knows what a sharp, resourceful young man all full of fresh ideas might come up with, eh?”
He nodded again. Yeah. Who knew. God help him.
She cleared her throat. “Well, then,” she said briskly. “Off with you. Get to it. Do your best for that poor girl.”
Miles headed for the door, but she called again. “Mr. Davenport?”
“Call me Miles,” he said.
“OK, Miles. You’ll tell me how it all comes out, won’t you?”
Her face looked so anxious, with those reddened eyes and nose, it just mad
e his heart hurt. “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “I will.”
Staring down Aaro in this mood was like standing in a strong headwind. She had to brace herself, to shift her emotional center of gravity to face that much raw male sexual energy coming her way.
She couldn’t say no, so it was a damn good thing that she didn’t want to. He’d burned her before. Now he wanted to do it again.
Great. Bring it on. She’d burn him right back. They’d burn together.
She shrugged off the sheer blouse, and peeled off the tank.
Undid the clasp of her bra, laid the clothes on a chair. The house was cool, but she felt like she was on fire. She shimmied out of jeans, panties.
He walked toward her, slow, graceful, catlike. He pulled the gun out of the back of his jeans, and laid it on the nearby table-top. He made no further move to touch her. Yet she felt stroked.
Seen, in every detail.
“Turn around,” he said.
She did so, squeaking in surprise when she felt him sink down to a crouch and laid his hot mouth right at the small of her back.
She gasped, at the startling sensation. Light, heat, streaming up her spine, down her legs. Tightening her nipples, making her thighs squeeze together. He was kissing the dimples over her tailbone. Petting her, his big hand sliding up between her thighs, finding her damp and soft. Caressing, nuzzling. Making her feel adored, from the inside out.
She didn’t want it to end, but when he eased his finger inside her and teased her clit with his thumb, she came as if she’d been primed for it for hours, a huge crashing and rushing. It left her feeling clean and soft.
She got pulled back into the space-time continuum by the sound of his belt unbuckling behind her. She turned, but he jerked her back into position, facing away from him and bent her over the back of the couch, kicking her legs wider apart. “I don’t have condoms here,” he said. “We left those behind at the hotel.
But I won’t come inside you.”
“Ah . . . OK,” she murmured, although he didn’t sound like he’d been asking for permission, and was, in fact, already opening her body and positioning himself. “Aren’t you going to take off your clothes?”
“No. I want to be ready for anything, and armed. Always.”
“But . . . but . . .” She looked down at her naked self, and tried not to laugh. “That’s not fair!”
“No, it sure isn’t,” he agreed, and before she could protest, he thrust inside her. She cried out, the sensation was so intense. Not just his body’s invasion, although that was considerable, sore as she was from the excesses of the night before. It was all of him, the thundering wave of hot energy that masqueraded as Alex Aaro, crashing through her. His restless anger and fierce hunger made her fierce and hungry, too.
He held her down against the couch as he slid heavily into her body, seeking out the angle that would stroke his cock against the hot spots. Finding them, teasing them, tormenting them. He knew just how to drive her mad. He reached around and slid two fingers down to tease at her clit, pinning her with his weight. She couldn’t move at all, just twitch and strain and whimper at the slow, juicy slide and stroke and push, slide and stroke and push . . . again, again, again, oh please.
Her face was shoved against the dusty sheet that covered the couch, mewling and jerking desperately, but he had his agenda, and he adhered to it ruthlessly. Every time she was about to crest, he stopped, held her still until the energy subsided. Then he surged in again, and drove her farther than she ever knew there was to go.
By the end, she was screaming into a tear-soaked sheet. They shot out together into that timeless otherwhere, merging. Fused.
When she floated back, his scorching warmth curved protectively over hers, she found that she had brought something with her. Like a souvenir from the whirlwind trip inside Aaro’s well-armored mind.
It floated to the top as he withdrew himself from her. A haunting image of a girl, lying on a rocky floor in some dark place.
Beautiful, dark haired. Big, dark, empty dead eyes, full of silent reproach.
She straightened, feeling the hot trickle of his come on her back, her bottom. “Who’s Julie?” she asked.
Chapter 21
Aaro jerked back. “Where the fuck did that come from?”
She edged back at his harsh tone, bumping against the back of the couch. “Ah, I . . . I don’t know. I just . . . I saw . . .”
“What? What did you see?” He hadn’t intended to yell at her, but she flinched, arms flying up to protect her face from a blow.
That made his face burn, with a weird toxic mix of shame and anger. “I will not hit you,” he said. “So don’t flinch. It’s not necessary.”
“I know that,” she said. “It’s just conditioned muscle memory.”
That pissed him off more. “That’s real tragic and all, but don’t guilt-trip me with your kinky Stan conditioning. I don’t deserve it.”
Her eyes burned, even in the dim light. “Guilt trip? You think I did that on purpose, just to make you feel bad? You arrogant butthead! You think it’s all about you!”
“Just don’t blame me for shit I didn’t do!” he yelled.
“Then try not to be such a fucking diva!” she shot back.
“I don’t like you turning over rocks inside my head! If there’s a rock on something, it’s there for a good reason! Just leave the toxic waste dumps in my head alone! Is that so much to ask?”
She scooped her clothes up and clutched them. “Then you’d better stop fucking me, Aaro. I did not go looking for that. You pulled me in, and gave it to me. Keep your distance, if you don’t like it. I did not ask for any of this. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to wash.”
She marched into the bathroom, her back elegantly straight.
Aaro sagged down over the table, spitting the most vile obscenities in any language that he knew. None of it helped. The fucking microwave was beeping, grating on his nerves. Probably had been for a while. When his cock was inside that woman, nothing else existed.
He slapped the microwave door open and shut to silence it, and kicked a kitchen chair across the room. It hit the fireplace and splintered. Shit. He was ashamed of himself. Miles had begged him to be careful, and here he was, throwing a tantrum.
Trashing the place.
Fuck it. He couldn’t fight this. He wouldn’t be able to move or breathe or think straight until he fixed things with Nina.
The bathroom opened off the bedroom. He stopped there, stripped off his clothes and holsters and harnesses, leaving them and the guns on the bed. He went into the bathroom, which she had foolishly neglected to lock, naked as the day he was born, and as defenseless.
He’d lain down his defenses. Sacrificed them on the altar of brainless idiocy. It was the only way he knew how to tell her he was sorry for being an asshole. All the other channels were bricked up.
He climbed into the shower with her, over her voluble pro -
tests. Didn’t even register the meaning of the stream of sharp words. He deserved all of them, so why bother to respond? Yeah, he was a pig-dog from hell. What did she want him to do about it?
He shampooed her hair, staring at how drops of water slid along the perfectly engineered grain of her eyebrow hairs and then tangled into her wet eyelashes like trapped diamonds.
Soaping her up with shower gel, rinsing her, again and again.
Rinsing was excellent. The truncated nature of his previous sexual adventures had never involved morning-after showers, so it was a happy discovery, all those tender, slippery inside bits that required protracted petting and delving and stroking to get them soap-free. Lather, rinse, repeat . . . repeat . . . repeat. Fingers deep in her pussy, seeking out that hot clenching pulse.
God, he loved to make her come. Any way was fine, fingers, tongue, cock, it was all good. He dropped to his knees to nuzzle Nina’s belly, parting rivulets of water with his nose, licking, kissing right down into that sodden puff of hair that he’d been lathering up
. He buried his face in it. Sweet relief, oh, God, yes. Oh, God, yum.
What with the curly ringlets and juicy pink pussy folds and the constant rush of water over his face, he wasn’t getting much oxygen. Fuck oxygen. He’d gasp and choke and snort along without it, as long as he was drawing out that slick, slippery, sweet pussy nectar.
He had no clue how long he was actually at it. Tonguing her pussy put him in a trance that was light-years out of time, out of everything. Finally, there it was. She gave it up, sobbing. He held her hips to keep her steady, thrust his tongue deeper to savor the sweet, bright bursts of energy against his face. He drank it in, famished.
He stumbled to his feet, rinsing off his face. His cock bobbed hopefully between her thighs, wanting its turn to bathe in that sweet nectar, prod its way into that tight, hot hole, and thrust and heave its way to heaven on earth. No way. Chill out, mad dog. She had to be sore, after that last bout, bent over the couch. He had not been gentle.
Nina pushed waterlogged springy curls off her face, and reached down, clasping his cock in both hands. She gave him a questioning look. He almost laughed. Like he would refuse? Not in this lifetime.
He was sore, too, he realized. He’d lost his calluses, after six months of celibacy, but what was a little rug burn compared to a volcano threatening to lay waste to miles of countryside? Discomfort was all a matter of degree. He’d be walking funny for the rest of his life if he didn’t come again, and soon.
She reached for the bar of soap. “Should I use—”
“No.” He put the soap back, shut off the water. The silence was startling. A foggy, hazy, humid quiet. Hollow plops and drips.
“No?” She blinked water out of her eyes.
He slid his hand between her legs, slicking it up in the slippery well of delicious girl juice that his tongue had brought forth, and rubbed it liberally over his cock. “Balm of the gods,” he said.
“Way better than soap. I shut the water off so it won’t rinse off the lube.”
It made him almost faint with lust watching her touch herself to anoint her hands, and then she got down to business, slender hands wrapped around his shaft. He clamped his own hands over hers as she worked his cock, in the steamy, echoey quiet, her face intent, absorbed in the task. Long tight squeezes and strokes that made him gasp, stopping from time to time to moisten her hands in the sacred well. Slip and slide, twist and swirl, pull and squeeze, and oh, God . . . oh, fuck . . .
One Wrong Move Page 26