At least now she knew the cause of it.
Craig jammed the gearshift into neutral and flipped off the engine. The rain pounded on the roof and rivers of water sluiced down the windshield. There was no air. No space. No protection from a man she didn’t know at all.
“What do you want me to say?” she asked, working to modulate her voice, because he was wound way too tight. “I’m sorry how things ended. But what do you want me to say or do?”
“You’re going public with this whole…paternity issue, aren’t you?”
Was image that important to him? “I’ve decided to donate a kidney to Travis Chastaine so that he can live. We’ll do our best to keep it out of the media.”
“We?” The single syllable was laden with revulsion.
“Are you one of them now?”
She bit hard on her lip. “It was a figure of speech,” she said softly.
He grabbed her wrist and twisted her toward him. “What about your father, Celeste? The one who raised you? Have you thought about how he might feel?”
She tugged her hand, but his grip was firm. “No more than he thought about how I might feel when he had his hands all over some girl in his office.”
Craig blew out a disgusted breath. “Get real. That’s life.”
A burst of anger gave her the strength to yank her hand free. “That’s life? That’s pathetic.”
“So you’re going to punish him by telling the world he’s not your father? That your mother was a trailer park whore and your father is white trash?”
She slapped his face, the sound echoing through the car.
Craig glared at her and touched his reddened cheek. As he reached up, the cuff of his shirt slipped back, revealing bandages with dried blood around his wrist.
Had Craig tried to kill himself?
Then she remembered. There was blood in the motor coach.
Horror gripped her, closing her throat and sucking off the air to her lungs. He couldn’t have. He couldn’t have.
She had to get out of this car. Without looking down, she inched her fingers toward the seat belt latch. Bridge be damned; she had to get out.
“I tried to tell you that you don’t belong here.” His voice wavered between desperate and enraged. “I tried to warn you.”
“How did you know where I’d gone?”
“Gavin saw you on TV. He knew you had run away to find that—that redneck.” Craig frowned at her as if he was chastising a wayward child. “Don’t you know what that could do to his campaign?”
“So he sent you to scare me home?”
“He sent me to talk sense into you.”
She studied his ashen face, noticing the puffiness under his eyes, the deepened creases in his forehead. It was the face of exhaustion and fear. And guilt.
She swallowed. “What happened to Olivia, Craig?” Her fingers reached the seat belt release.
At her question, he sighed, his gaze momentarily moving past her. Celeste seized the opportunity to push the release, flip the door handle and fling herself outside. She tried to run, but her sandal slid in a puddle and the cement barrier slammed into her chin as she stumbled.
Crying out, she struggled to get her footing. But Craig was out and running around the back of the car toward her. The open door trapped her between the car and the cement barrier. She had nowhere to go but over the low wall, onto the jogging path. Inches from the edge of the bridge, the rain pelted her face as she screamed and waved her arms, hoping someone would see. In an instant, Craig grabbed her hair from behind and pulled her back to him.
“Let me go!”
He seized her arms behind her with his other hand. “You want to know what happened to the drunken bimbo in the sprayed-on green suit?” he whispered in her ear. “What the fuck do you think happened, Celeste? I thought it was you in the trailer.” He jerked her head as if to punish her for not being the right woman that night. “I went in to talk to you. Tripped over a damn dog as it ran out.”
Celeste gagged. He really did it. He’d killed Olivia Ambrose.
“I heard someone crying in the bathroom. I banged on the door, but nobody answered. So I started screaming at you. I tried to tell you that we could work this out, and no one would ever know that redneck was your father. But then she opened the door.”
Celeste thrashed to get loose, but his strength immobilized her, denying her the chance to even look at him. She closed her eyes and saw the lifeless body the firefighter had dragged out of the blackened shell of the motor coach.
Craig did that. Craig Lang was a murderer.
He tugged furiously at her hair. “She was like a banshee, all wild-eyed and insane. She had your wallet in her hand, waving it at me, talking about calling the papers and telling everyone who you were. And that”—he pulled her head so far back she thought her neck would snap—“was exactly what Gavin told me to avoid.”
“Couldn’t you have stopped her without killing her?”
“I didn’t kill her,” he ground out. “She grabbed my cell phone off my belt and started dialing, and I fought her for the phone. She went berserk. She had a fucking razor and started attacking me and screaming. I had to shut her up. I had to—I pushed her into the kitchen, and she tripped. It was her fault. She was wasted drunk and hit her head on the counter.”
Celeste imagined Olivia slamming against the unforgiving granite. She tried to turn toward him, but he angrily jerked her face up toward the blackened sky, like a sacrificial animal’s.
Oh, God. Now she knew too much. He’d killed once, and he’d do it again. “I can tell the police it was an accident. That you didn’t mean to kill her.”
He dragged her closer to the edge and shoved her against the railing. “Shut up, Celeste.”
“Please.” She forced the word out of her constricted windpipe. “I’ll help you get away.”
She heard him blow out a dismayed breath. “Gavin hates it when people screw up.”
A car rumbled by and she tried to get their attention, but it was impossible. The Porsche looked like any other sports car that might pull over to wait out a downpour, and the rainy darkness obliterated their figures.
“You don’t have to do this for Gavin, Craig. You don’t need him. I can help you. I can tell the police it was an accident and you didn’t mean to kill her. Or we could say she was still alive and the fire started accidentally after you left. I’ll cover for you, Craig. I’ll tell them you were with me.”
His laugh was low in her ear. “Right, Celeste. You and the race car driver. You’ll cover for me.”
He slammed her into the railing but mercifully released his grip on her hair. “It’s gotta look like suicide.”
She would not die like this. Celeste made another attempt to free herself, but he wrenched her arms farther back, sending pain down her shoulders, down her spine.
Then something cold and hard stabbed at her chin. He had a gun.
“A nice, clean suicide, Celeste.”
She swallowed a cry of terror.
“Jump,” he demanded.
She shook her head. “I won’t.”
“I’ll shoot you.”
“Then it won’t be clean.” Tears stung her eyes. If she was going to die, he’d have to do it. She clung to the slippery metal as he pushed her higher, the railing now at her hips.
She kicked hard and nearly flipped over as her balance shifted. The gun slid to her chest, and she heard it cock.
“Noooo!”
Suddenly her scream was drowned out by the deafening shatter of steel and glass, as the whole bridge trembled with a long, violent quake.
She fell back to the ground as Craig lost his grip and swore viciously. Whipping around, all she could see was the massive grille of a red truck that had just obliterated the Porsche.
Chapter
Twenty-nine
The look of panic on Lang’s face kept Beau from leaping over the wall to save Celeste.
“Get the fuck out of here!” Lang hollered. “I
’ll fucking kill you both.”
He was a cornered man. He just needed to be managed. As long as Beau maintained eye contact with him, maybe he wouldn’t pull the trigger.
“Let her go,” Beau said quietly, taking imperceptible steps closer. “We can work this out between us. Let her go.”
With each step, he saw the grip on Celeste tighten. This guy was wired up and ready to fire.
He couldn’t lose her. He couldn’t.
Lightning flashed, followed by a crack of thunder. Celeste jerked at the sound and Lang jammed the gun harder into her neck.
Beau was within two feet of them now. Lang looked confused, blinking away rainwater and losing control with each passing moment.
“Let me make this real simple for you,” Beau said, taking one slow step closer. “If you hurt her, I’ll rip your heart out of your chest with my bare hands.”
The gun wavered. All he needed was one nanosecond and this guy was toast. Anticipation tingled down his arms, as if he were holding a steering wheel and driving two hundred miles an hour. This loser was no match for his hand-eye coordination.
“Let her go, Lang.”
Craig just kept a wild-eyed stare on Beau.
“Let. Her. Go.”
A siren pierced the night. Lang jumped back and looked toward the sound as Beau lunged for the gun, pulling it away from Celeste just as it fired into the air.
Then he wrapped one arm around her and landed a solid kick to Lang’s stomach.
Lang doubled over, then staggered in the opposite direction. Beau held tightly to Celeste, watching Lang disappear into the darkness. She clung to him, shuddering as shrieking sirens and flashing blue and red lights lit up the bridge from both directions. The first squad car stopped and both doors flew open.
“Hold it!” someone yelled out.
A brilliant flash of lightning illuminated the sky just as Craig Lang threw himself into the rushing black waters of the Intracoastal Waterway.
Celeste collapsed into Beau’s arms.
Celeste’s shivering had finally subsided after Beau found a blanket at the police station during the endless interviews with the detectives. Over and over, she’d told her story. Beau gave her warmth and support and strength, and when they could finally go home, he practically carried her to his bedroom.
“You need a hot bath,” he said as he led her toward the bed. “Wait here.”
He drew a bath and retrieved some of her belongings from the guest room. She wasn’t sleeping anywhere but in his bed, and in his arms tonight. The ordeal was behind them. Lang had been rescued without drowning, so at least he’d have to pay for the life he took.
Thank God he hadn’t taken one more. Beau squeezed his eyes closed at the thought of how close he came to losing Celeste.
Not that she was his to lose. But now that they’d made love, he wanted…more. More of her body. More of her heart. More of her.
Damn, he wanted the whole deal.
He tugged the dirty NASCAR sweatshirt over her shoulders, then coaxed off her jeans and panties. Whispering softly, he scooped her into his arms and carried her into the bathroom.
She opened her eyes enough to see the billows of white overflowing from the tub. “Bubbles?”
“I stole them from your bag.”
He eased her into the fragrant clouds, and she immediately dropped her head back and sighed. “Oh, thank you, Beau. Thank you.”
Man, he wanted to get in there with her.
She jerked up again. “What about Harlan and the money? What about the team and Travis and my mother, and my…Gavin?”
Easing her back, he said, “The team’s the least of our problems, and Travis is going to be fine, thanks to you. I called your mother from the police station. And the Connecticut police are probably chatting right now with the man who won’t be senator.” He knelt beside the tub and began rubbing her shoulders. “It’s three in the morning, babe. Let it go.”
He kneaded her shoulders and neck, resisting the urge to dip down and explore her body.
But after a few minutes, she opened her eyes and gave him a look of open invitation. “This tub was obviously built for two.”
He had his clothes off in less than five seconds, and climbed in behind her. “Scoot forward so I can give you a proper massage.”
He wrapped his legs around her, his wickedly hard erection pressing into the small of her back. He continued his ministrations, gently rubbing and caressing her back and shoulders until he felt her slacken with relaxation.
He kissed her hair and ran some of the bubbly water over it to get the smell of rain out of it. She leaned back against his chest, and he ran his hands up and down her arms and glided around to her breasts. He lathered them, circling and teasing the nipples to hardened buds, hearing her breathing quicken with arousal. She moaned softly and moved her hips against him.
He nibbled at the skin of her shoulders, murmuring her name and some vague promises of what he wanted to do to her. As she turned to him for a wet, warm kiss, he slid his hands between her legs and dipped his fingers into her. She was swollen and ready for him.
“Let me make love to you, Celeste.” His voice was husky with desire. “I want to be inside you again.”
He repositioned her to face him, and she wrapped her legs around him and took his erection in her hand. “I want you too,” she said, kissing his mouth and guiding him into her.
He held back. This time he wanted it to be different. Lovemaking, not sex. “How about we try it on a mattress for a change?”
“You’re so conventional, Beau.” She arched back and offered him her breast.
“I am not,” he denied hotly, taking a moment to lick some bubbles from the peak and suckle her hungrily. “If I hadn’t wrecked my truck taking out that German scrap metal, I would have thrown you in the flatbed on the way home.”
She laughed, offering him the other breast. “We’ll start with the bedroom. Then we can work our way through the house and garage later.”
In one swift movement, he stood and brought her with him. He grabbed a fluffy towel and wrapped her in it and took one for himself.
“You know what I love about you, Celeste?”
Her eyes widened in surprise. “That I included the garage?”
“Yeah, that too.”
She looked at him questioningly. “What else?”
Everything. I love everything about you. He put a single finger on her lips. “Let me show you.”
He ushered her to the bed and laid her down, then slowly opened the towel, as if unwrapping the most incredible present anyone had ever given him.
Her sweet little breasts were swollen and pink from all the attention. He ran his fingers along her rib cage, around the concave plateau between her hips, and down to the treasure trove of her femininity.
“When I met you,” he whispered as he kissed the tender skin between her breasts, “I thought you weren’t my type.”
“When you met me”—she closed her eyes as his tongue traveled over her flesh—“I wasn’t.”
He lifted his head and looked at her. “You are.”
She threaded her fingers into his hair and pulled him toward her. “I changed.” She took his face in her hands and kissed him. “I used to be so scared of who I really was, of what I came from, of how much I didn’t belong anywhere.”
“You know where you belong now, don’t you?”
She smiled. “Right now, I belong in this bed with you. After that…we’ll see.”
His heart constricted. She had changed, but not entirely. He couldn’t expect her to give up her classy life in New York, her powder puff apartment and high-profile position on the board of the Guggenheim, to live in a trailer on the infield of a racetrack thirty-six weeks a year. No matter how much he wanted her there.
She traced his lower lip, her emerald eyes smoky with arousal. “Love me, Beau.”
“I do.”
He waited. Do you?
She moved her hips under him in
a silent message. No, maybe she didn’t love him. But he’d take this moment. This was enough.
He kissed her, gliding his tongue over her lips and delving deep into her mouth. She smelled like peaches and tasted like honey. He kissed her cheeks, her throat, her shoulders. She reached down and closed her hands over his shaft. “Please, please,” she whispered, urging him inside her.
The envelope of her flesh was too much—hot and wet and ready for him. His brain went blank as he plunged into her. Every cell in his being was focused on the rush of pleasure as he moved in and out of her.
He watched her, flushed and out of control, demanding that he move faster and harder. Her legs gripped him like a vise, her expression shifting between pain and pleasure, the sound and fury of her orgasm ringing in his ears and overtaking all his senses.
His body rocked with release, his whole world spinning out of control like he’d just hit the wall at two hundred miles an hour. Only this time, it was fatal.
He was in love.
Chapter
Thirty
As Travis’s eyes adjusted slowly to the morning light, he remembered the events of the previous night. Kaylene had been there until midnight, and she’d told him all about Cece’s ex-fiancé and what happened out on Broadway Bridge. Beau had called from the police station and filled in some of the missing pieces. They sure had a mess on their hands with Dash.
And his solution, he realized with a thud in his gut, wouldn’t work now. He couldn’t touch that money if he wanted to keep his daughter in his life. He knew that was the price to pay for signing that piece of paper thirty years ago, knew he could regret the stroke of his pen, but he’d signed it anyway. It was the right thing to do, he’d told himself a zillion times, even if it never felt right. But now, everything was different. No amount of money would keep him from the possibilities that girl presented. Hell, it was like being handed a second chance at life.
The smile that had tugged at his cheeks all night took over again. Like it did every time he thought about Celeste. And when he realized that his life was not going to end quite as quickly as he’d feared.
Killer Curves Page 26