Gritting his teeth, he slid back inside her, and this time, he went deeper, faster, until he was inside her to the hilt, his balls floating against the soft globes of her ass. She rolled her hips, using her grip on his body to grind against him and he lost it, carrying her quickly over to the side and pinning her against it. With one hand braced against the edge of the pool and the other at her hip, he rocked against her with deep, hard thrusts, the water slapping against the tile with every motion.
“Oh fuck, that feels so good,” she gasped, throwing her head back, her skin wet and slippery, her eyes closed.
He barely heard her, all his attention focused on the sight of her naked in his arms, her pert breasts thrust toward him as he buried his dick in the red hair between her legs.
“More,” she said, squeezing him. He obliged, letting himself fall into the contrast of the cool water and the heat of her body. “I’m about to come. Just a little more.”
When she came, she dug her nails into his shoulders and let out a long shaking sound, almost as if she were in pain. He pressed deep, feeling her ripple and shudder around him, and he lost control, coming in long spurts that jerked him forward.
They collapsed on each other, sinking into the water. Roland held her as they caught their breath, stroking the silky wet hair that trailed down her back. After a few minutes, the room lapsed back into quiet, only a swoosh and glug as the water entered the filters and returned. Now that he heard the quiet, Roland realized exactly how much noise they’d been making. His own throat hurt from shouting, though he didn’t remember doing it.
“You locked the door?” he asked.
She leaned back far enough to look at him, but her arms were still around his neck. “I did.”
“Smart woman. I like that about you.”
She touched his chest, laying her palms flat on the muscles bunched beneath her fingers. “Gorgeous body. I like that about you.”
“So you’re using me for my body.”
She slid her hand down between them, where his dick, slightly softer now, nestled in her curls. Measuring him with her hands, she murmured, “You don’t mind, do you?”
Roland didn’t mind at all.
MAURA LAY WITH her head on Roland’s chest and listened to his heartbeat. She had to get up in a few hours and go back to her room before her father and Maddie woke up, but something kept stopping her. Roland’s room was huge, that was to be expected, and the sheets felt softer than clouds against her naked skin. There was something he’d said earlier, about not sleeping well, that made her want to comfort him somehow. Ridiculous. But there it was.
“Why do you really have a skating rink in your house?” she murmured. He might mean that “Because I can” bullshit—how would she know how she’d act if she had billions of dollars?—but she thought he had a better reason. She was learning him now. He didn’t do anything just because he could. There was always a plan.
He sighed, playing with her hair. “Maybe I just like hockey. Believe it or not, I was a kid once.”
“You?” She lifted her head to smile at him. “I don’t believe it.”
He shoved her head back down and she laughed.
“Sometimes the local foster home program in Boston uses the house for their summer and winter retreats.”
The cynical side of Maura wanted to believe that he was telling her what she wanted to hear, making himself out to be the good guy so she’d like him, but why would he bother? She was already in his bed, already sharing information with him about Keenan. He went on before she could ask him why again.
Picking up her hand, he ran his thumb over her palm and fingers. “My dad taught me to steal when I was young. I was good at it.”
“I’ll bet. You’re good at everything.”
They were both naked, having showered and changed in his enormous bathroom before going back to bed, where he’d given her the best massage of her life and then fucked her again, turning her on her side and lifting her knee toward her chest. She smelled like almond oil and sex, a combo that she wouldn’t forget anytime soon.
He ignored her comment. “But then my mom married Jack Chandler, and suddenly there was this whole world of wrong and right, of good works and helping others. No one had ever told me that I had an obligation to other people. My dad told me just the opposite.”
“Confusing,” Maura guessed.
“Yeah. Jack can be a pompous prick, but he really does care about other people.” He lifted her fingers to his lips and kissed the tips.
“I’m surprised you didn’t just rebel. Your father is . . . charming,” she temporized, not able to come up with anything better.
“He’s a sociopath, but yes, charming. I knew by the time I was ten that my father only cared about one thing—himself—but he’s not a man who is easily refused.”
Maura thought about that, thought about how confusing it must have been for a young boy with Roland’s intelligence, caught between two very different fathers. She’d seen firsthand how very charming his real father could be. Even in prison, the man radiated confidence and control. Like his son. “I can see you now,” she teased to lighten the moment, “a serious young man in a suit trying to decide who he should follow.”
“Survival’s a funny thing,” he murmured. “Our minds lie every day, telling us one thing even as our eyes tell us something else. Most people just go on believing it, just go on even if they suspect the truth. I knew that my father was a bad man, knew that Keenan was as well, but I told myself they weren’t. I told myself that it was okay to love them.”
“You were just a kid.” She planted a kiss on his chest.
He squeezed her hand and set it down, turning onto his side and dislodging her in the process. “I knew better,” he murmured, looking at her face. No man had ever looked at her like that—she wasn’t entirely sure what it meant.
Snuggling into the pillow, she studied him, reaching up to touch his cheekbones, his rough jaw, his beautifully cut lips, and his deep-set eyes that seemed to contain a well of sadness, even when he was laughing.
“What happened?”
He turned over onto his back until he was looking up at the ceiling again and put his arms behind his head. “When I was twelve, my father had the crazy idea that there was gold hidden in this bookstore near where we lived, swore that the owners were Russian agents, so he had Keenan and me help him with a plan to steal it.”
Maura remembered the story his father had mentioned, about the bookstore in Watertown where there was hidden gold. She started to bring it up and stopped, not wanting to interrupt the flow of his story if she could help it.
“It was my job to go into the store and run reconnaissance, but it was a high-end bookstore, and there was no reason for me to be in there. Even if I was wearing a suit,” he said wryly, casting her a look.
She smiled.
After a moment, he went on. “Keenan told me he’d set up a distraction, so the store owners would leave. I told myself that the small explosive he’d had me design would, at most, scare people, maybe cause a little damage, but he set it on top of some stored chemicals at the dry cleaner two doors down. When it went off, it ignited the dry-cleaning solvent, causing an explosion and subsequent fire that killed the owner and his wife, a passerby, and a young mother named Ellen who lived in the apartment upstairs. Her daughter, Georgia, was put into foster care. She was our age. I knew her.”
Hence letting the foster program use his house, Maura thought.
“I couldn’t believe it was happening,” he said, his voice soft. “People were screaming. There was blood and glass everywhere. Keenan was just watching it, his expression fascinated.” He paused and met her eyes. “He knew what he was doing. And I helped him do it. I showed him how to make the explosive. When I looked back on it, I realized that he was always asking me things about school, about what I knew about chemistry, about engineering. He said it was an accident and I wanted to believe him, but I still told the cops what happened.”
> “You studied chemistry at twelve?”
“Ten,” he said without a hint of pride.
“So he used you?”
Roland nodded. “My stepfather intervened in my arrest, and I was sent abroad for several years, to a private boarding school, and then into the CIA until I had completed my ‘service’ for my crimes. Apparently I was too intelligent to waste in prison.”
“And Keenan went to jail,” Maura finished. “That’s why he hates you?”
“Partly,” he said, nodding. “And partly because he thought he owned me. He didn’t think I’d tell on him.”
“Wow. So that’s why he’s doing all this, for revenge? Why didn’t he just kill you when you came back to Boston? He was already back in your hometown, right? Already dating Blake?”
“I expected him to try,” Roland admitted. “But when I returned, he seemed happy to see me. No threats, no recriminations. He said he hadn’t meant for the bomb to hurt anyone, that it really had been an accident. It was like he was my brother again. I’d been gone so long, alone. In strange countries.”
“You wanted to believe him.”
“Yeah,” Roland said. “And then he had Blake steal a game we’d invented and nearly killed her. She told me afterward that he was running the neighborhood like his own personal gang, gaining power and influence. I guess seeing the success I was having at MIT was too much for him.”
“Jealousy? Seems like a pretty weak motivation, especially since it’s been over a decade, and he only recently started to come at you full force.”
Roland scrubbed a hand over his face. “Yeah, well, I think I’ve figured that out as well.”
“Really?” She sat up on one elbow. “Tell me.”
He gave her a wry smile. “You know the software program I designed, the one that reads facial micro-expressions to predict whether someone is about to commit mass murder?”
Maura nodded. “Yeah. MOMENT or whatever. Stupid name, by the way.”
He nodded. “My father taught me sleight of hand, distraction, but it was Keenan who taught me how to read people. Keenan taught me how to read expressions. MOMENT was his idea, more or less.”
“His idea?”
Roland nodded. “He wanted to be able to have a program that could do what he did naturally, read people’s true feelings and emotions.”
“So you built it, only instead of using it to gain power over people, you gave it to the government to use to hunt down people like Keenan.”
He put a hand on her hip, no longer smiling. “That about sums it up,” he agreed.
“And all the rest of us are just part of your punishment, I suppose. My brother just happened to get in the way that night ten years ago. When he lost it and tried to strangle Blake?”
“I’m sorry, Maura. I never intended for you to be caught up in this.”
Shaking her head, Maura sat up, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. “You didn’t put me in this situation, Roland. Keenan did.” She looked back at him. “I lost my brother. Maddie lost her parents. I don’t care what his reasons are. I don’t care why he’s doing this. I just want to stop him. As much as you do. More than you, probably. I am not quitting, and I won’t be pushed to the side to hide out in this fortress.”
He was silent for a long moment. “Even if you’d be risking your life?”
“Yes.” Shit, she was already risking it.
“No, I mean really risking. Like, putting yourself front and center.”
He has a plan, she realized. She crawled back onto the bed until she was kneeling next to his head. “You better start talking, Roland Chandler.”
“ENGAGED? ARE YOU out of your mind?” Still bare-ass naked, Maura sat cross-legged next to him on the bed while he lay on his back, the sheet pulled up to his hips. He’d turned on the bedside lamp, bathing them in a small pool of light in his otherwise dark room. His eyes kept fixing on her breasts, which had drawn to taut points in the chilly air of his bedroom. God, she was beautiful, especially when she was dumbstruck. He didn’t think she wore that expression very often.
“I can turn up the heat,” he offered, thumbing one of her sweet little nipples. “Or turn on the fireplace.”
“That’s okay.” She leaned away and snagged a throw from the bottom of his bed.
The long line of her flank and rounded buttocks were displayed so beautifully, he couldn’t help but stroke his hand from her lower back to her butt and back again.
As she arranged the throw around herself, covering her body, he said, “Seriously, I prefer naked. I’ve got a remote for the fireplace.”
Ignoring his comment, she said, “You need to explain.”
He slid his hand beneath the throw and drew small circles on the silken skin of her inner thigh.
“Roland.” She removed his hand and placed it on her knee. “Why do you think we should get engaged? That’s crazy.”
He continued to stroke her skin slowly, but he put his other hand behind his head on the pillow. He’d known she’d react this way. It was stupid to take it personally. “Keenan has the advantage; I’ve known that for a while now. And the fact is, I can’t protect everyone I care about.”
“Okay, I’m with you so far.”
“So, if his true goal is to hurt me, then he’s going to go after the person he thinks I care about the most. Oh, he’ll target my friends, my family, my company, my employees. I have no doubt that he could hurt me a dozen different ways, but I think that if I gave him the perfect target, someone I cared about enough to be my wife, he wouldn’t be able to resist making that person the focus of his plan.”
“Won’t he be just a little bit suspicious? He’s far from stupid.”
Roland had thought this through. Keenan would be suspicious; he’d think it was a trick, but he’d also see it as a challenge.
“I know him, Maura. He’ll suspect a trap, but he won’t be able to resist sticking his head in the noose, anyway. He’ll want to prove that he can take you away from me, whether I love you or I’m just using you as bait.”
She had a strange expression on her face, almost like she was ill at the thought. He didn’t blame her; he was asking her to risk her life in a big way. He wouldn’t have even considered it, had always intended to take on Keenan alone rather than risk anyone else, but he knew her well enough now to know that she wasn’t going to stop, and she wasn’t going to be pushed to the side.
“So, what? We just announce our engagement?” She hunched in a little on herself as she said it, drawing the cashmere blanket tighter around herself.
Removing his hand from her leg, he sat up and mirrored her sitting position. “I was thinking we would go out on a date tomorrow . . .” He looked at the clock on the wall. “I mean tonight. Something flashy that will get a lot of attention. I’ll make sure the press follows us and gets plenty of pictures.”
“Okay, but—” she began, but he interrupted her.
“We’ll go out every night this week and have dinner with my parents next weekend. By then, you’ll have the ring on your finger and the press will be having a field day.”
Maura shook her head. “It’s one thing for my family to hide out here, but I have to go to work. I have cases to work on: the murder at the chemical company, the car bomber, Keenan. My station is apparently bugged. I’m a detective. I can’t just spend the week running around like a socialite—the other cops will think I’ve lost my damn mind.”
“They might,” he agreed. “But wouldn’t it be worth it if we caught Keenan?”
She chewed on her lower lip. “I still don’t see how we’re going to catch him. At best, we may just get ourselves killed instead of everyone else.”
“That’s the tricky part. But we’re just trying to draw him out, keep his attention. I know I can find him, Maura.”
Maura was shaking her head even before he finished the sentence. “He has people willing to set off bombs for him, kill for him. He could send any of them, and we’d be dead and no closer to catchin
g Keenan.”
“I don’t think so, Maura. I know him. We’re going to be the most outrageously in love couple Boston has ever seen. An irresistible target. An easy target. And he’ll want to be there when he punishes me with your death.”
“He’ll know it’s a lie,” Maura protested. “Everyone will know it’s a lie.”
She sounded so certain. He frowned at her. “He’ll know it’s a trick, but no one else will. They’re going to want to believe it. People always want to believe in true love.”
“True love,” she repeated, her eyes wide, her mouth slack and trembling.
Roland touched the curve of her cheek and gave her his most tender expression, one that he rarely wore, but that came to him easily enough. “That’s right, my darling. True love. The billionaire and the detective fall in love as they hunt the man who killed her brother.” He straightened his expression. “See?”
She stared for a moment more, but then she closed her mouth and swallowed. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“So you’ll do it?”
“I’ll have to tell the truth to Bert and my family.”
“No,” Roland disagreed. “Your family, at least, needs to believe it. Their reactions are important. I won’t tell the truth to anyone but Nick and Milton. I need them to help me find Keenan. If you need to tell Bert so he’ll keep sharing information with you from the station, that’s fine as long as you think he can play the game in public.”
“Bert will be fine,” Maura insisted, “but my dad is going to be furious with me. Not to mention my captain. I’ll have to take time off, and we’re dealing with a cop killer who targeted the station. He may just fire my ass.”
“I’ll make sure you get your job back afterward.”
She shook her head and half smiled, staring at him. “This is crazy. You know that.”
“No, what’s crazy is that we’re going to have to go to see my father at some point, my real father.”
Now she looked really confused. He dropped a kiss on her cheek and then her astonished mouth, sliding his tongue along the inside of her lower lip. She made a sound of protest that faded away as he fit his mouth to hers and sent his tongue deeper. He kissed her until she was straining toward him, her hands clutched in the throw in her lap.
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