Burning Ache

by Adrienne Giordano

  “I see,” Roni said. “Can I offer an opinion?”

  So much for keeping quiet. “Somehow I think you will anyway.”

  “You do know me.”

  They shared a laugh and, damn, that felt good. To just sit around this fire and let Roni’s laugh bring him from a black hole threatening to swallow him.

  “Go ahead,” he said. “Let me have it.”

  “I think, intellectually, you understand that not giving him the glasses didn’t cause his death.”

  “Of course.”

  “But somewhere in your heart, where grief and anger and fear come together, you feel like his life would have been different if you’d done it.”

  Of course. He held his hands. “I know it would have. That’s the point.”

  “Yes, but the glasses wouldn’t have saved him. The reality is, he may have been nearsighted and the glasses fit someone farsighted. The glasses, Way, may not have even helped him. And all this time you’ve been dealing with this guilt. I hate that for you, I really do.”

  The glasses may not have worked.

  He sat back in the chair, looked off into the blackness beyond the yard, where only twinkling stars and what looked like a plane dotted flashes of light across the sky.

  “Way?”

  “I’m…listening.”

  “Ha. A man who listens? I should marry you.”

  He peered back at her. The dimming fire threw a magical glow over her stunning face. Be careful what you ask for, honey. Everything about this woman—her ballsy attitude, her willingness to offer support, her street smarts—stirred something in him. Dug down deep and forced him to acknowledge what he’d been missing.

  Companionship.

  Intimacy.

  Getting laid was easy. Intimacy? Not so much. The minute he started talking, women wanted more. As if talking was a free pass to a lifelong commitment.

  Right now, sitting with Roni Fenwick, something told him she’d never be that woman.

  And he wanted her.

  What the hell? He might be losing his mind. He’d seen enough of Roni to know she wouldn’t be easy. With her skills, she might be the queen of the mind fuck, and he wanted more of her?

  Yeah. He did.

  He leaned sideways over the arm of the chair, focused on her lips, then looked her straight in the eye.

  “I’m not ready for marriage. I’d sure love to kiss you, though.”

  A flirty smile drifted across those luscious lips. “It was a joke.”

  Even as she said it, she moved closer, her gaze hot on his. Everything about her body language said yes, but he hadn’t heard her agree. And he wanted that. To hear her say it. In his thirty years, he’d never pushed himself on a woman before and he sure as shit wouldn’t start now.

  Barely an inch from her, he backed away and she narrowed her eyes. “What?” she asked.

  “You didn’t say it.”

  “Say what?”

  “Yes. I wanna hear you say you want me to kiss you.”

  “Ah. A man of honor.”

  “You bet that fine little ass of yours. Tell me yes.”

  “Yes.”

  He kissed her. A full-on assault of lips and tongue and—holy shit, the woman was a firecracker. But the arm of the damned chair made things seriously difficult. He wanted that gone. Wanted her next to him. Against him.

  Skin on skin.

  Visions of her naked on his bed flashed and he leaned farther over the arm of the chair, sliding his hand over her cheek. She let out a soft moan as her tongue played tag with his and the bulge in his pants became painful.

  God, he was on fire. And it had nothing to do with the burning logs in front of them. All this came from under his skin.

  Frying from the inside out.

  She lifted her hand to the back of his head, holding him there. One thing was for damn sure; he wasn’t the only one on fire.

  The thunk of the last log brought his mind to attention. And away from the raging hard-on that pressed against his jeans.

  In his mother’s yard.

  What the fuck was he doing?

  Way eased back an inch and dragged his thumb along her jaw. Her soft hum didn’t help reduce the pressure in his pants.

  “I knew it,” he said.

  “What?”

  “I knew if I touched you, I’d be toast.”

  * * *

  He wasn’t the only one feeling toasty.

  Lordy, the man’s hands, all calloused and warm, brought Roni’s extremely dormant libido roaring to life. The flames in the fire pit were nothing compared to the heat Way whipped up.

  If she could crawl into his lap, she’d do it. Just settle in and hold him for the next twelve hours. Maybe longer.

  That was saying something for a girl who’d spent the last twenty-four years battling the urge to get close to a man.

  She hadn’t sat on a man’s lap since her father passed, and she sure as hell wouldn’t start now. Not with Way Kingston, someone caught smack in the middle of a CIA investigation.

  But, wow. She wanted him.

  Sex.

  That’s all this was. Sex and lust.

  Had nothing to do with the story he’d just told her. Or his loyalty to his sister.

  Sex and lust.

  That’s it, Veronica. She’d keep telling herself that.

  She dropped another kiss on his lips, this one a playful smack.

  “Toast,” she said. “That’s rather extreme, no?”

  He laughed, all deep and throaty. Her nipples didn’t just harden, they waved a white flag.

  Sorry, girls. Business to transact here.

  “Extreme or not,” he said, “it is what it is.”

  Her gaze still locked on his, she rested her head against the back of her chair. “I like you.”

  “Well, since you just sucked my face off, I suppose that’s good.”

  “Actually, it’s not. I don’t want to like you. Not when we’re in the middle of an agency investigation. And not when I live in DC and can’t just pop over every time I want my hands on you.”

  He shrugged. “There’s this thing called an airplane.”

  “So every time one of us wants a booty call, we need a plane?”

  The only noise was another wolf howling in the distance. Way’s lack of response wasn’t a shock. Roni, with all her faults, knew exactly how to back a man off. Particularly one like Way Kingston, who she knew from her research didn’t like to be tied down. The quintessential rambling man off on his motorcycle for weeks at a time.

  A not-so-casual reference to an ongoing relationship was enough to make him turn tail. And yet, disappointment settled on her. Why? Why? Why?

  Because everything she’d said was true. She did like him. A lot.

  Sex and lust.

  That’s what she needed to focus on. The voice in her head, the one that sat, waiting patiently for her to get too close, snickered.

  Silly girl. You know nobody ever stays.

  It was true. People came and went. To date, her longest standing relationship had been with Cassidy—Cass—and her family. She’d known them twelve years now. That alone felt like a miracle.

  Way leaned his elbows on his chair’s armrests. “You think you’re slick, don’t you?”

  Not by a long shot, pal. “I’m sorry?”

  “I know what you’re doing.”

  “What am I doing?”

  “You think dropping that hint-bomb about commuting from DC will scare the shit out of me.”

  Bam. She stiffened, her whole body just…frozen. She broke eye contact and watched the last of the wood in the fire burn.

  Roni knew certain tricks to insulate herself, to stay alone, safe from life’s unexpected twists.

  It worked for her. Kept her emotionally controlled and thoroughly lacking disappointment. If a girl didn’t get too close, nothing bad would happen.

  After her history, did she really believe that garbage?

  Worse, she’d become an emotion
ally bankrupt, thirty-two-year-old woman trying to annihilate whatever this was with Way before it even started.

  Because he terrified her.

  In the short time she’d known him, he had sparked something in her she didn’t want to fight.

  She closed her eyes for a second, breathed in the fading scent of burning wood and pondered the heat of that kiss. And the…want.

  She wanted him. Or maybe she wanted the dream of him. A good guy who’d stick around. Forever.

  “If my sneaky plan was to scare you,” she said, “you don’t look very spooked.”

  He blew her a kiss. “Sweetheart, you definitely terrify me. And it has nothing to do with your job. I have no interest in long-term relationships. Marriage, for me, means stuck inside my life. Caught up in routines and expectations. My life is my own. The emperor of the Kingdom of Way.”

  What did that mean? “I’m sorry?”

  “It’s a joke in my family. They call me the emperor of my kingdom of one.”

  “Ah. We’re both loners, then.”

  “Yeah. Normally, I’d be gone by now. And I sure as hell wouldn’t have told you about Guam.”

  “And, yet, you’re still here.”

  “I am.”

  “Why?”

  He stood, held his hand out to her. “Because for whatever reason, when it comes to you, I have no interest in being predictable.”

  Oh, this man.

  Trouble. With a capital T.

  13

  On the drive back to Mrs. Tasky’s, Roni sat in the passenger seat of Way’s Tahoe peering out at Steele Ridge’s quaint downtown. The ornate streetlamps seemed straight out of a Rockwell painting.

  “Answer me one question,” Way said as he turned off of Main Street.

  After the conversation they’d just had, she wasn’t sure how much more she could take. All this honesty was too damned hard. “I’ll try.”

  “How does an FBI agent become a psych trainer for the CIA?”

  Easily. Painfully so. “Aside from my masters in psychology, I spent ten years in foster care, being shuttled from home to home, never getting too comfortable. Bad shit happens when you’re comfortable. Throw in a slice of abandonment issues and PTSD from my dad dying, and I’m insanely good at distancing myself from people enough to really screw with them.”

  Yes, that did just come out of my mouth.

  When all else failed to scare a man off, why shouldn’t she resort to sounding crazy?

  Way jerked his head. “Good to know.”

  “Hey, you asked.”

  “I did. How’d you get the job? I don’t think they post these positions on recruitment sites.”

  She thought back to the party Jeff had invited her to last summer. “I met my boss at a cookout. It was actually Jeff’s—my ATF friend who died—party. Maggie was there, too. Every year he threw a Fourth of July party at his mom’s place.”

  “Hang on a second. You met your boss from the CIA at a barbecue?”

  “Hey, government employees have friends. Jeff’s mom is a retired NSA analyst. Her list of contacts reads like a who’s who of the spec ops world. NSA, CIA, SEALs. Absolutely awe-inspiring.”

  Roni wouldn’t mention the SEAL she’d met at the same party and dated for a month afterward. In bed, they were pure combustion. Outside of that, between the two of them, they harbored too much pain. Neither was ready for the emotional rubble and she chalked it up as another failed attempt at a relationship.

  “And you got a job out of it.”

  “I did. Jeff introduced me to some friends of his and his mother’s. One of them wound up being a friend of my boss.”

  He clucked his tongue and made a left. Gone were the adorable streetlamps. Now, only porch lights from quaint bungalows illuminated the street.

  The darkness, combined with silence, set her nerves crackling.

  When a man like Way Kingston went quiet, there were reasons. And she suspected she wouldn’t like them. “What are you thinking, Way?”

  “Not sure. It’s interesting that you were invited to a party that was basically a who’s who of DC. Add to that your ATF friend investigating a certain gang, one of whose members is now dead from a bullet I more than likely designed.”

  “You think Jeff knew about your bullets because he had acquaintances at Langley?”

  Way glanced over at her, then turned back to the road. “Could be. You said this party was over the summer?”

  “Yes. July.”

  “I’d already sent the first batch of bullets to Langley. They wanted modifications, so I sent them a few more.”

  Ugh. Roni didn’t want to go there. “You think someone at that party knew about the bullets and maybe made some kind of deal with Jeff?” She shook her head. “No. He was a straight-up guy.”

  “He could’ve been the middle man. Connected the shooter with whoever stole the design.”

  “I don’t want to believe that.”

  Way pulled to the curb in front of Tasky’s and parked before turning to Roni. “Yeah, I get that. I’m probably wrong. If I am, I’ll be the first to admit it. But let’s look into it. We’ll disprove it and move on.”

  Oh, she’d make sure he admitted it. No one accused her friends of being traitors. “Okay. I’ll go along. For now. I suppose you want the list of who was at that party.”

  He nodded. “That’s exactly what I want.”

  “You want me to call his mother and just ask for the invitation list? That might be awkward.”

  “Nah. We’ll hack his e-mail.”

  * * *

  The next afternoon, while Micki took the lead in her competition with Jonah by attempting to hack Ambrose’s e-mail, Way and Roni decided on a trip to see Bernadette Ambrose, Jeff’s mother. Why not see if she might offer up any intel. And with the sun shining, it wasn’t a bad day for a ride with a beautiful woman.

  First, he had a delivery to make. Otherwise, he’d have suggested they take his motorcycle. That would’ve been fun.

  On the way out of town he stopped at the animal shelter to drop off the supplies he and Roni had purchased. He drove into the rear lot, parking near the back door so they could unload.

  He hit the buzzer, then went back to the Tahoe and lifted the rear hatch. Thirty seconds later, LuAnn, the shelter’s director, swung the door open with—ah shit—a puppy in hand.

  She greeted him with a sly smile and a snuggle for the pup. Totally wrong on so many levels. This would be why he never went inside. Puppies were too friggin’ cute.

  She held up the puppy, giving Way a full view of its long legs and giant paws—oh man. He’d be a big one for sure. And a fucking brindle to boot.

  Was she serious right now?

  The pup’s head was solid black with a long patch of white stretching from his jaw all the way down his chest. His ears were the killer. Big and floppy and sitting crossed on top of his head. Probably deciding whether they wanted to stand up.

  This shit? Totally unfair.

  He poked a finger at LuAnn. “Dirty pool, Lu.”

  “Isn’t it though?”

  She rubbed her nose against the puppy’s snout, receiving a lick for her troubles. Affectionate little sucker.

  I’m screwed.

  He didn’t have to be, though. He just wouldn’t look. Keep his eyes averted and thoughts on his task.

  Sort of like with Roni. At that, he let out a frustrated laugh.

  The passenger door of his SUV opened and Roni slid out. “What’s happening?”

  Way hauled her donation from the cargo area. “This is LuAnn, the shelter director. She’s got a puppy. Trying to get me to take him home.”

  And then the whole thing went to hell with Roni rushing toward LuAnn and puckering her lips, making kissing and cooing noises and, holy smokes, forget the puppy, Way wanted those kisses all to himself.

  Ignore them. That’s all he’d do.

  “The cart is right inside there,” LuAnn said as Way went by her muttering about the unfairness of lif
e.

  “This is quite the haul,” Lu said, passing the pup off to Roni. “Those wee-wee pads’ll come in handy with this little guy. In case you’re interested, there are two of them. This is Hugo. His brother is Boss. I already put a call in to Maggie to see if she wants one for her K-9 unit. Seeing as these babies’ll grow up to be big and strong.”

  Shit.

  As usual, the cart sat in the small alcove just inside the door. He wheeled it back outside and cut a sidelong glance at Roni, holding the puppy up for his viewing nightmare.

  Stay strong. That’s all he needed to do. “What the hell kind of dog is that anyway?”

  “No idea,” Lu said. “We think he’s part black lab, part border collie. We got them from a shelter in Louisiana.”

  “Oh my God.” Roni accepted a few licks from Hugo. “He’s so darned cute. His paws are huge!”

  Dammit, dammit, dammit. He couldn’t look. If he did, it’d be over. Between his wicked thoughts about Roni and now the dog, seeing the two together would wreck him.

  Still, if he was here to get a dog, which he wasn’t, this would be the perfect one. By the size of those paws, he’d be a sturdy beast Way could train to do all sorts of cool stuff. And his Steele cousins had all that property a big dog would love to run through.

  Dammit.

  Dammit.

  Dammit.

  Not looking.

  He needed to keep moving and get the fuck outta here. He loaded the last box on the cart, shut the Tahoe’s rear hatch, and, ignoring LuAnn, wheeled everything inside. “I’m not taking that puppy.”

  “Well, that’s a shame, seeing as I know you like the big boys. Of course, he’ll be here if you change your mind. Maybe Maggie’ll want both.”

  Way stormed by her, giving her a backward wave. “The shopping bags are from Roni. I’ll bring you another load next week. Let me know if there’s anything you need.”

  “Thank you, Waylon.”

  “Dirty pool, LuAnn!”

  He hopped into the SUV, fired it up, and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel while sneaking a peek in the sideview mirror. Roni and Hugo bumping noses.