by Naima Simone
“Oh, God,” she breathed, tangling her fingers in his hair and holding him to her. Each tug reverberated in the core of her, pushing her closer to the edge she both raced for and backpedaled away from, wanting this wicked torture to last.
His fingers and mouth played her like an instrument, tuned her tight and made her sing. He plucked, strummed, and stroked her body, drawing forth the sweetest pleasure, resonant notes that echoed in her head, her belly, and lower, deeper.
One hand abandoned her breast and slid down her stomach, passed over her skirt. The soft, urgent caress reversed at the hem and began its ascent up her thigh. The material hiked and bunched over his wrist. Cool air washed over her inner thighs and the wet, pulsing flesh between her legs.
Except for their labored breath, a heavy silence weighted the air, almost like the pregnant pause before the fury of a storm struck. He lifted his head, stared down at her spread thighs and the white panties that had to be damp and almost translucent by now. Her chest rose and fell as she sank her teeth into her bottom lip and gazed at the top of his dark head. She tensed, fighting against the urge to close her legs, hide the obvious evidence of her need.
Maybe he sensed the impulse within her, because he shifted, cupped her. Pressed the heel of his palm against her clit. Hard.
She broke. Cracked wide open and everything poured out of her—ecstasy, cries, whimpers, words, doubts, fears. Everything. The orgasm crashed over her, through her, leaving her shuddering, weak, and craving more.
And as Raphael levered his hips up, jerked his wallet from his back pocket, and snatched out a small foil square, the yearning sharpened. He tossed both to the seat and reached for his belt.
And she reached for him.
Chapter Three
“I, um.” Greer cleared her throat. Twisted the strap of her purse. Studied the empty street in front of her brownstone. Everything but meet the incisive, dark-blue gaze of the man she’d spent the last three hours having sex with in the backseat of his truck. “I— Thank you.”
Oh, Jesus. Had she really just thanked him for…for… Images of all he’d done for her and to her flashed across her mind’s eye in vivid detail.
A dark eyebrow arched high, joining the slight quirk at the corner of his mouth. “You’re more than welcome, princess.”
She closed her eyes, heat pouring into her face. Which was ridiculous in itself. After all they’d done, all he’d seen of her body, all the places he’d touched, kissed—oh, God, licked—embarrassment should be the last emotion bombarding her. But there it was. And damn it, why couldn’t she be more mature about this? Say good-bye like an adult? Play this off as if fucking him on a public street wasn’t a big deal?
Because it had been. To her, at least. And as silly and schoolgirl-crushing-on-the-quarterback as it seemed, she didn’t want to say good-bye. Not to tonight. Not to Raphael Marcel.
A big palm cradled her cheek, the warmth of his skin against hers like a shield against the cold night air.
“Hey,” Raphael murmured. She lifted her lashes as the pad of his thumb swept over her cheekbone. “I thought you said no regrets.”
“I don’t.” How would he react if she confessed the only regret she harbored was letting him walk away tonight and never seeing him again? No one had ever made her feel more cherished, more desirable…more beautiful. “I don’t,” she repeated softly.
“Then kiss me good night like you mean it before I have any more shrinkage.”
His last words took a moment to sink in. But when it did, she laughed, amusement warring with mortification.
“I really think you say certain things just to make me blush.”
He grinned. “Would I do that?”
“Definitely,” she said, voice wry. Maybe she’d only known him less than a few hours, but that wicked sense of humor? He seemed to get a kick out of needling her.
He lifted his other hand to her face, tipped her head back. Brushed the back of his fingers down her temple, over her jaw. “You have it wrong, princess,” he whispered. “I’m the one who needs to be thanking you. For staying with me. For trusting me with your body and pleasure. For trumping every kinky, fucked-up fantasy I’ve played in my mind over and over since the second I saw you in my office.”
She laughed once more, but this chuckle was softer, more breathless. God, he had a habit of stealing her breath.
“Now”—he swept his mouth across hers—“give me a kiss.”
Without hesitation she parted her lips, allowed him in. Even though he’d asked her for the kiss, he snatched control of it, dragging her further into the erotic world he commanded and ruled. His tongue curled around hers, sucking on it, coaxing her to get hot with him even as they stood on her doorstep. She fisted his long, dark hair, rose on the toes of her boots to delve deeper, demand more. She moaned. Almost begged him to follow her upstairs and pick up what they started and finished in his truck.
But she pulled away and released her grip on his hair, panting hard.
His hooded gaze seared her, tempted her. Urged her to invite him upstairs and indulge in an encore performance of the last few hours. She wanted to. Shivering, she almost buried her hands back in his hair, dragged his head down, and recaptured his mouth. Damn, did she want to. But at the last moment, she inched backward a step.
“Good night, Raphael,” she whispered.
The corner of his lips quirked before he gently rubbed the back of his fingers down her cheek. “Don’t forget to call your brother so he doesn’t send out SWAT after me,” he ordered, and she soaked up the satisfaction of hearing the slight rasp in his voice.
She smiled even as her mind silently screamed, Grab him. Tell him not to leave, that you don’t want him to go. Something—what she couldn’t identify—urged her to convince him to come up to her apartment, spend the night in her bed like true lovers. To not leave her alone. But she remained quiet. With a small nod, she turned, unlocked the door, and closed it behind her before she did something stupid.
Like beg.
Forcing her feet forward, she climbed the steps to her apartment, her mind still on the doorstep with the sexiest man she’d ever met. It’s for the best I walked away. She twisted the key in the front door lock. I mean, what kind of couple would we have made, anyway? She snorted to herself, knowing she was probably far more inexperienced than the women someone like Raphael usually dated. Hell, can’t I even have a one-night stand right? Only I can mentally turn a hot few hours into a potential relationship.
She turned the knob and pushed the door open.
And skidded to a halt.
What the hell?
Gavin? She took a faltering step forward. The blond hair. The sharp line of his jaw.
She squinted, unwilling to believe what her eyes were telling her. Gavin. On her floor. Red splattered his body like a Rorschach test. His back. The floor. Oh, dear God. Who—?
The blue-and-white pin-striped shirt she’d given him last year for his birthday. A shirt now stained with blood. His blood.
A whisper of sound crept through the room like a lethal intruder. She jerked her head up. Fear slammed into her, swallowing her…
…
Light. Blinding. Hot.
It tried to pierce her closed eyelids and stab into her brain.
Greer gasped, turned her head to the side to avoid the relentless assault, but it followed her. Please…
“Ms. Addison.” A cool hand touched her forehead, accompanying the gentle, patient voice. “Ms. Addison. Can you open your eyes?”
Yes, but it was going to hurt like hell with that light piercing them like an ice pick. Still, she fought past the glue that seemed to have sealed her lids shut, prying them open. Instantly, pain punched into her head. Loosing a whimper, she slid back into the welcoming blackness.
Minutes, hours, days later, the same feminine voice called her name again. She moaned, cracked her eyes open, and waited, breath suspended in her lungs for the sharp, cutting pain. But it didn’t come this
time. A dull, insistent ache throbbed at the back of her skull, but compared to the previous agony… Well, it just didn’t compare.
A young, pretty woman in a white physician’s coat smiled down at her.
“Ms. Addison,” she said. “I don’t want you to panic. You’re in the hospital.”
Terror coursed through her in spite of the doctor’s calm assurance. The hospital. Why? How? Her heart thudded in her chest like a wild beast. Fear clawed at her throat, and she dimly realized the keen, high-pitched whines she heard were coming from her.
“Shh.” The doctor patted her hand before clasping it, offering her a raft to grasp in the turmoil her announcement and the resulting confusion had cast her into. “Ms. Addison, calm. You’re okay. I promise. But I need to ask you a couple of questions. Okay?”
Unable to squeeze the word past her constricted throat, Greer nodded.
“Can you tell me your full name?”
Of course. What a silly question. Her name was… It was… Panic spiked as she scrambled for the information she should’ve easily known. Her name, damn it! Why couldn’t she…? Wait, wait. “Greer.” Relief poured through her like a river breaking through a dam. “Greer Caroline Addison.”
“What city do you live in?” The doctor—she glanced at the badge clipped to the other woman’s coat—Dr. Davidson asked, clicking on a penlight and lifting one of Greer’s eyelids, then the other. Her smile didn’t falter as she waited for Greer’s response.
Yes. Greer clenched the sheet beneath her. The answer came quicker than the first. “B-Boston. Back Bay.”
“Good. Can you tell me who is the president of the United States?”
“Barack Obama.” This information even faster.
“Very good.” Dr. Davidson tucked her hands in the pockets of her coat. “Greer, you suffered a pretty significant head injury. You’ve been unconscious the last twenty-four hours. We’ve run several tests, including a CAT scan, but didn’t find brain trauma or bleeding. Now that you’re awake, we’ll run some more. You have a concussion, and we’ll want to keep you for observation just a little longer. How’s your head? Does it hurt? Do you feel nauseous?”
Greer started to nod, but when the throb threatened to upgrade to a hammering, she whispered. “Yes, my head hurts. Not as bad as before, though. And I’m just a little nauseous.”
“Both to be expected. Can you remember anything about the head injury?”
“Excuse me, doctor,” a low, male voice interrupted. “We’ll take it from here.”
For the first time, displeasure crossed the physician’s expression. Her mouth tightened as her eyes narrowed. “Fine. But she’s still my patient. Please keep that in mind.”
The woman stepped back, and an older, graying man in a slightly creased brown suit and white shirt entered her line of vision. Lines fanned out from the corners of his eyes. A shiver worked its way down her spine at that hard, dark gaze.
“Ms. Addison, I’m Detective Marshall. I’d like to ask you a few questions about your fiancé, Gavin Wells.”
“Gavin?” She frowned. What did Gavin have to do with her being in the hospital? She’d broken up with him. Hadn’t seen Gavin since she found him in bed with Aubrey. Had he put her here? “Where is he?” she rasped. “Is he here?”
“No,” Detective Marshall said, tone as flat as the stare fixed on her. “He’s dead. Gavin Wells is dead. Murdered. Found in your apartment. And we need to ask you a few questions.”
Chapter Four
“Let’s start from the beginning, Ms. Addison.” Detective Marshall leaned back in his chair, large hands folded over his slightly rounded stomach. The bare walls of the police station interrogation room seemed to close in on Greer as he studied her from across the scratched gray table. Studied her. As though she was an amoeba under a microscope. Scrutinizing her for any signs of weakness. After three days in the hospital and now hours of this intense interrogation, she was so…tired. And she longed to just surrender and give him what he sought: a confession. An admission of guilt. But she couldn’t. Even if she could remember what had happened that night in her apartment where the police said she killed Gavin, she wouldn’t confess to something she didn’t commit.
“I’ve told you, Detective,” she said wearily. “Earlier that evening I was at my parents’ home—”
“Where you told them your engagement with Gavin Wells was over because you’d discovered he’d cheated on you.”
“Yes,” she conceded. “Afterward—”
“No, let’s go back to that. You walked in on your fiancé screwing another woman. You mean to tell me that didn’t make you mad?”
She sighed, pinched the bridge of her nose. “Yes, of course I was mad. But that doesn’t mean I killed him. I broke off the engagement. He wanted to stay engaged, not me.”
“Hmm.” Which could mean anything, but the cynical twist of his lips telegraphed his disbelief. “That’s not what his parents believe. They said you wouldn’t let go.”
She shook her head, winced as the low-grade ache in her head protested the action. “That’s not true. I don’t know what he told them, but he called my father, asked him to convince me to change my mind about ending the relationship. You can ask my father. It’s why we argued.”
“You mean your father would want his little girl to marry a man who’d already cheated on her?”
She didn’t blame his sarcasm or doubt. How could she? Part of her could still barely comprehend that her father had been willing to sell her off to a weak, unfaithful man to solidify a business relationship. While the other half—the half that had witnessed her father operate for twenty-six years—could fully believe and accept that he was just that damn cold.
“Yes, Detective. He’d want it and expect it. He’s the head of one of the largest banking institutions in the state. His daughter married to the heir of New England’s wealthiest real estate mogul? The connections alone mean more than whether or not Gavin was, or could remain, faithful to me.”
For a long moment, Marshall remained quiet. As if her matter-of-fact explanation surprised him. As a Boston police officer, he most likely witnessed many examples of how cold and cruel humans could be to one another. Yet a father banking on his daughter’s marriage—literally—seemed to take him aback.
“Okay,” he finally said. “Say it’s true. Say you did end the engagement. Why was Gavin in your apartment, then?” He dropped the lazy drawl, shot forward, and slammed his palm down on top of a manila folder that sat on the table. “Explain to me how he ended up like this?” He slapped open the folder and slid it in front of her.
She recoiled, pressing her spine back against the chair as if she could escape the horror of the crime scene photos. Of the ugliness of the violence depicted in graphic, garish color.
“Oh, God,” she rasped. Gavin. She reached for him with trembling fingers. As if she could smooth the familiar blond strands off his forehead. As if that gesture would somehow erase and heal the obscene wounds puncturing his back. As if it could clean away the blood. Jesus Christ, all that blood. He’d cheated on her, lied to her, used her. But he hadn’t deserved this. Not the terror of this death. She snatched her hand back, cradled it against her chest. “I—” She swallowed, shaking her head so hard, her ponytail swished against her shoulders. “I didn’t do this.”
“And how do you know that, Ms. Addison?” Marshall sneered. “I thought you didn’t remember anything.”
He didn’t believe that she couldn’t recall anything about the night of Gavin’s murder. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. She remembered the ugly confrontation with her parents about the cancelled wedding, going to the bar with Ethan afterward, and…Raphael Marcel. She remembered leaving with him and having sex in the backseat of his truck. She briefly shut her eyes, those memories all wrong in this scary, depressing place. But after he’d dropped her off at home…she couldn’t dig those minutes and hours out of the black hole her brain had become. After sliding her key into the lock and opening
the door, her mind had become a blank slate, her memories gone as if wiped away with a chalkboard eraser.
The amnesia, Dr. Davidson assured her, might not be permanent. She’d received a blow to the back of the head, and a concussion had been the result. Add the head injury to the trauma of Gavin’s death—and possibly what she’d witnessed—and the combination had probably been too great. The brain’s response was to “protect her” by blocking it out. As she healed, the memories might come back slowly, even all at once. Or not at all.
But Detective Marshall wasn’t buying the excuse—or the lie, as he apparently believed. How could Greer explain the fear that had taken up residence inside her chest since waking up in that sterile hospital room? Violated. Broken. Damaged. Anything could’ve happened in the block of time she couldn’t recollect. And she couldn’t remember. She. Couldn’t. Remember.
“I don’t, Detective,” she said, answering his accusation. God, she was tired. So damn tired. And terrified. And alone. So damn alone. “But I couldn’t have done this. This”—jerked her chin toward the photos—“isn’t me. It’s not in me. I couldn’t…” She trailed off, understanding no matter what she said, the man across from her with the hard, cynical eyes wouldn’t just take her word.
“Maybe you and Mr. Wells had an argument. Maybe it turned violent. He grabbed you. You were scared. Maybe you picked up a knife in self-defense…”
She was already shaking her head before he finished the sentence.
“No. Gavin isn’t—wasn’t—that type. He’s never touched me in anger.”
“Be that as it may, you were the only person in the apartment besides Mr. Wells. You were found next to the body. With the murder weapon in your hand.”
Again, she shook her head. The detective had informed her that she’d been found gripping the knife used to kill Gavin. That it’d been one of a set located in her kitchen—a set missing a large butcher knife. But as a firm believer in takeout and delivery, she’d never used the blades before. The set was more decoration than anything. Yes, the weapon had been hers, and she realized how bad the circumstances appeared. But even with the hole in her memory, she couldn’t believe that the first time she used the knife had been to stab her ex-fiancé.