“A sicko.”
“Has there been a demand for ransom?” Brandon asked.
“Not yet.” A woman two tables away waved to get Candace’s attention. “Duty calls. Good luck on finding your brother, Mr. Reed.”
“Thanks.”
With that she went to the other table, glancing frequently at the television. A news anchor reported there were still no leads to Melinda’s whereabouts.
“Why do you think she was kidnapped?” Eliza asked.
“Hard to say. She’s a popular professor. Who would be against her?”
Jillian’s harsh words came to mind. “Didn’t Jillian go to Darby?”
Brandon shot a look her way. “She disagreed with Melinda’s thinking, but is that enough to kidnap her?”
And film her being miserable? “Maybe she wants to make a public statement.”
“By turning to violence?”
“She yelled and pounded on your door after you broke up with her.”
“She wasn’t expecting it, that’s all. I should have waited until the next day to do that.”
“When it’s time to run, it’s time to run, right?”
“You would know more about that than me.”
Did he really believe that? Seeing the passion in his eyes, she knew he did.
“You could make any girl run, Brandon.”
Stormy anger flared in the radiance of his dark eyes, shadowed by a tensing brow. “Some of them should.”
Did he mean her? She should run from him? She’d already done that, to save her heart. But why did she get the feeling he was referring to something else entirely?
* * *
Against Eliza’s wishes, Brandon took her with him to track down Naomi and, hopefully, David. It seemed like his brother was all right, but Branson needed to be sure. He couldn’t shake the nagging instinct that told him something was wrong.
Near the Darby campus, they waited in the parking lot of a plain, square brick apartment building with metal-framed windows. It was old and in need of a face-lift. The lines of the parking spaces were badly faded, and weeds grew from cracks in the lesser-traveled areas. Brandon had found Naomi through her Facebook page. One of her posts mentioned this apartment building. She should be more careful.
He spotted her get out of a car and head for the building as he walked beside Eliza. Her words still bothered him. He could make any girl run. She couldn’t have stabbed closer to what he held inside if she tried. He hadn’t made any woman run. Eliza held the only record for that one. He did try very hard not to, however. Priority number one with women was not making them feel like running. The first red flag was when he felt cornered, as he had with Jillian.
He’d felt the same with Eliza back when he was eighteen. She’d been his first lesson. The woman he married would complement him so perfectly, there’d be no conflict, no waters disturbed in the relationship. No stubbornness. No arguments. No insecurities whatsoever.
He glanced over at Eliza in her capri jeans and silky soft green top that brought out the green in her eyes. And no need to be the center of attention instead of the object of a man’s love.
Gaining ground on the woman as she reached a narrow, uneven sidewalk leading to the front entrance, he called, “Naomi Peterson?”
The woman slowed long enough to look back but didn’t stop walking.
“I’m Brandon Reed, and this is Eliza Reed.”
“I’m David’s wife,” Eliza informed the woman.
That made her stop and turn. Brandon watched how she visibly stiffened and stared in fear at Eliza. Then she pivoted. “I’m running late.” She walked faster up the sidewalk.
Brandon went after her. “Wait.”
“I don’t have time.” She half walked, half jogged to the apartment entrance.
“We know you were with David yesterday morning,” Eliza said from behind him. “We just need to know where he is now.”
With her hand on the door handle, the woman hesitated and glanced over her shoulder.
“He hasn’t contacted us,” Brandon said. “We’re concerned.”
After hesitating a bit longer, Naomi said, “He dropped me off here after we had breakfast. I haven’t seen him since.” Her gaze shifted to Eliza. If it was after breakfast, then she must have spent the night before with him. From a little after 1:00 a.m. onward.
“What time did you have breakfast?” Brandon asked.
“Late. Around ten.”
“Do you know where he was going?” Eliza asked.
“No. It was just one of those nights. I didn’t care if I ever saw him again. We had fun, and that was it. He went his way and I went mine.” She spoke to Brandon, giving Eliza only a brief glance, nervous about what she might do after discovering another woman had slept with her husband.
“Where did you meet him?” Brandon could see it was easier for her to talk to him than Eliza.
“At the Vengeance Hotel. I attended a wedding reception there. He was getting a room. I went with him for a drink. The bar was closing, so we took a couple more to his room.” Again she sent Eliza an uncomfortable glance. “Do you think something happened to him?” she asked.
“We’re not sure.” He put his hand on Eliza’s back and guided her to turn around. They weren’t going to get any more information out of her. “Thank you for talking to us.”
Eliza looked back at the woman, who stood there for a few seconds longer watching them, no doubt wondering what that was all about and why Eliza hadn’t gone after her for sleeping with her husband. She was holding up rather well, more interested in David’s whereabouts than his infidelity. David had been with Jillian when they’d found him and then had taken another woman to bed. He’d been on a quest. Determined to find someone to cheat on her with. And aside from crying last night, it didn’t bother her all that much. His lack of respect had hurt her more than anything. Or was it her mistake in marrying him that had upset her?
Brandon avoided analyzing that any further as he walked beside her toward his truck. Her arm brushed against his and almost directed his attention to a more scandalous place.
“Why do you think Jillian was with David last night?” she asked.
David might have slept with her if she’d let him, but Jillian had gone with him for other reasons. Eliza had picked up on the undercurrents, too.
“Not to spend the night with him,” he answered.
“She said David was on his way into the party. What happened to change his mind?”
“Maybe Jillian told the truth. He might have asked if I was there with you.”
Her profile turned down with a disgruntled pinch at the corner of her mouth. She disliked their undeniable physical attraction as much as he did. And she didn’t want to believe that was why David hadn’t come inside.
“David must know something about her that she doesn’t want anyone to find out,” he said.
She lifted her head to look at him. “Or something she doesn’t want you to know.”
Jillian did seem desperate to have him. Any negative detail getting out about her might be horrifying. “Then maybe it’s nothing. Whatever she stopped him from saying was probably nothing.” Insignificant gossip.
At his truck, Eliza faced him. He hadn’t expected her to do that, and now he stood too close to her. The mood changed in an instant. Her eyes drank in his upper torso and then his face.
“She seemed really tense,” she said, sounding mechanical, as though she forced herself to say it to keep from doing something naughty.
“She didn’t want to go with David.” Putting on his sunglasses, he looked down her body and back up again, envisioning her legs where they didn’t belong right now. Around him. Long and slender. Firm. Just the way he remembered.
“But felt she had no other choice.” Her breathy reply wasn’t in response to his perusal. His sunglasses had hidden that, but she still picked up on it.
“No,” he managed to say. How would her butt feel in his hands with her legs anchored to
his hips?
“She scares me.”
Luckily that snapped him back to attention. He opened the door for her. “She won’t try anything.”
And if she did, he’d be ready.
* * *
Eliza tried calling David’s cell phone again, more to dull her awareness of Brandon than anything else. The call went straight to voice mail. It was after eleven. She’d changed into her pajamas, a pair of silky white pants and a short-sleeved shirt that Brandon had spent several agonizing seconds taking in with a hungry look.
Now he reclined on the sofa, his bare feet up on the big coffee table, jeans cupping his crotch and black T-shirt tucked in. Feet had never been sexy to her, but his sure were. There wasn’t an inch of him that wouldn’t turn her on. She was convinced.
Giving up on the phone, she dropped it onto the coffee table. “He isn’t coming back.”
He must have left her here. She’d tried calling their home number and looked up their credit cards to see if he’d charged an airline ticket. If he had bought a ticket, he hadn’t used credit. Was he with another woman? The college girl? Or was he in trouble, as she had originally thought?
Brandon had called Jillian earlier. She didn’t answer at first but later that night she did. She still hadn’t seen David, and he hadn’t called her.
Brandon stood up. “You should try and get some rest.”
His brown eyes were shadowed and grim, and his mouth was in a flat line. It had been a stressful day for both of them.
She wouldn’t be able to sleep, but she nodded. She’d go to the guest room and turn on the television. Maybe that would settle her mind enough.
As she started toward the hall, a sound stopped her. Something outside. Some scraping and then a crash. Something, or someone, was on the patio.
Brandon went to the back double doors and peered through the glass. He had no blinds on them. Why bother with so much remote isolation surrounding him? He flipped on the light.
Eliza moved around the kitchen table and stood close behind him. A squirrel was chewing on the edge of the wood railing. It had knocked a flowerpot onto the patio floor. She breathed her relief. All her thoughts of gangsters and David had her edgy.
As she turned to go to bed, her bare foot slipped on the cool tile floor. Brandon caught her around the waist. Her hand came against one of the chairs, and it tipped over with her unsteady weight. Brandon tried to keep her from falling but she tripped over the legs of the fallen chair.
She brought him down with her. He let go of her waist as he tried to avoid crashing on top of her. She landed painfully on the toppled chair. Holding her side where the seat had dug into her flesh, she grimaced.
Above her, Brandon straddled her with a chuckle. “Are you all right?” He stood up.
She rose to her knees, which put her face right in front of his crotch.
Brandon took hold of her arms and lifted her. She put her hands on his forearms, unable to answer. Being so close to his man parts had flustered her.
“Are you okay?” he repeated.
She could only stare up at him.
Still smiling, the first levity of the day, he lifted her pajama top and inspected her ribs. They were a little red but otherwise unscathed. Eliza watched his hands on her, one curved around her bare waist and the other caressing the reddened skin with his thumb. Instant heat washed any and all negative tension away. If he moved his hand up he’d find her bare breasts.
It was unreasonable how much she craved him to do it. Her nipples hardened with the thought.
His hands stilled.
She lifted her head. He was staring down at the very thing that ached for him. Her top button had come free in her fall and gave him a great view. All that was left to the imagination were her nipples, and their jutting only made that more erotic.
She watched his impassioned face. Then his eyes met hers and a moment of question passed between them. Something beyond control took over. She saw it in him and felt it inside her. There was no stopping this.
He moved his hands up.
Her skin tingled, and drugging passion intensified. When his hands cupped her, she thought she’d erupt with sensation. How could something so wrong feel so right? She didn’t understand it and didn’t have the wherewithal to try now. She only knew that Brandon had been her one and only true love. He hadn’t reciprocated when they were teenagers, but he was now. That’s all that mattered to her in this moment, this moment that could vanish any second. She held on to it.
She ran her hands down his arms and then under the hem of his shirt, racing further out of control with the feel of his six-pack abs. This was nothing like what she remembered. This was new. He was all man to her touch. His chest. His shoulders. Back down to his abs and around to his lower back.
He unbuttoned her pajama top. Thumbed her nipples. And then she met his eyes. The wrongness of this remained just far enough away. She tipped her chin up as he lowered his mouth to hers. Gentle. Maybe hesitant. Wrong but, oh, so right.
When she moved her arms up over his shoulders, he lifted her and she wrapped her legs around his waist. He carried her up the stairs. She had never been up here and didn’t pay much attention. Instead, she kissed his mouth and jaw and cheeks, loving how his eyes watched where he was going and how his gruff breathing revealed his passion.
In his large bedroom, he put her gently onto the mattress. She removed her pajamas while he undressed. He had his boxers off before she had her underwear off and came down onto the mattress to slide them down her legs himself.
On his hands and knees, he looked down at her, from her legs to her hips to her breasts and at last her face, where he hesitated. She vibrated with yearning, felt him doing the same. And yet...
David was gone. Her marriage was over. Soon it would be nonexistent. But David was Brandon’s brother.
Brandon lowered himself down onto her, his breath sighing out of him as he put his head beside hers.
He couldn’t do it. She couldn’t do it.
“Why does this keep happening?” she asked.
He lifted his head without replying. He didn’t understand it, either. His hand was beside her face and he caressed her cheek.
“I thought you didn’t like party girls,” she teased. Best to lean toward humor.
“You’re not a party girl anymore.”
When had he drawn that conclusion? The heat lingering between them stirred in her. His voice was low and deep. His body warm and hard. Eyes windows to the struggle he shared with her.
David would always be his brother, so even if she were no longer married to him, there would be a barrier between them. He’d never be able to be with her like this. Make love to her. Over and over. Daily. Maybe that wouldn’t even be enough.
Eliza ached for him. No other man could make her ache the way Brandon did.
David would be hurt if anything happened between them now. He was already hurt.
Bittersweet regret made the ache deeper. She saw a mirror image of it in Brandon’s eyes. They couldn’t have each other. And beyond the physical, they lived completely different lives. Eliza couldn’t picture herself tucked away on his ranch any more than he could picture himself traveling to all her events, thrown into the throng of social frivolity. And yet they hungered for each other. The tastiest steak, the most succulent crab, the richest chocolate, none compared to the delicacy of having Brandon.
This was the last time she’d feel him against her. His caressing fingers, his legs entwined with hers, his stomach, his erection.
Eliza lifted her head to kiss him. One last kiss.
He kissed her back. She arched upward for more, a rush of desire numbing her thoughts. He kissed her harder. She sought a deeper mating with her tongue. He accommodated, holding her head for the devouring.
She parted her knees, so hot for him she couldn’t stop it. She couldn’t stop the inevitable.
“Eliza,” he rasped, caution flying away.
“Just do it, Brandon.
Please.” She squeezed his rear, urging him to satisfy this gnawing hunger.
His hips moved in answer.
She moaned in unbearable pleasure as he probed into her soft, warm opening. Slid deliciously inside. He groaned with her and pulled back for another incredible stroke.
Eliza arched her body, electrified with mindless sensation. She came apart from the most powerful, instantaneous orgasm she’d ever experienced, pulsing deep and endlessly. Sensations didn’t abate as he continued to move, nowhere near finished.
Carried away in the aftermath, Eliza was powerless against the swell of adoration and love that consumed her. His face, strong jaw and impassioned eyes, breathing with her, his mouth coming down for a searching kiss.
It restarted her. Having not come completely down from her pleasure, she was urged onto a new wave. She kissed him back, meeting his tongue and taking each of his slow and tortuous penetrations in rhythm.
The next slide was harder. And the next after that. Her flames reignited into a roar. One hard slide after another fueled the inferno to white-hot intensity.
“Brandon.” She was out of her mind with lust.
He began pumping faster, gruff sounds coming from him.
“Brandon,” she rasped again, raising her arms above her head.
He took one of her nipples into his mouth and then kissed her sternum. The side of one breast received his loving next and then the other. One more sweet caress of her other nipple and then he resumed his hard thrusts. Her breasts jiggled with each impact. Her thighs were high and wide. And he saw it all.
Watching him enjoy her body sent her over the edge. Closing her eyes, she peaked with an incredible explosion.
Her release brought on his own. She was his instrument, and he’d just played her beautifully. Groaning, he finished and collapsed onto her.
She caught her breath with him, still throbbing from him. Had anything ever felt this good? Eliza stayed on the soft billowy cloud of ecstasy for a while.
Brandon’s fingers were in her hair. She reached to run hers through his. He turned his head and planted a kiss on her neck. She smiled with the sweet gesture.
Then the throbbing eased, and her breathing became normal. She opened her eyes and looked up at the ceiling. Brandon’s bedroom ceiling.
A Rancher's Dangerous Affair Page 8