“Me? I’m just getting started.”
After using his tongue, his mouth and his hands to reduce her further to boneless ecstasy, he encircled her ankles with his fingers and tugged her legs over his shoulders. He loomed above her, his face dark with desire and primal need.
He filled her again and again until he shuddered once, lifting her bottom from the bed. He looked deep into her eyes as he climaxed, bringing her along for the ride.
He collapsed beside her and traced a bead of sweat between her breasts with his tongue. “You are a feast of sensual pleasures.”
“How poetic.” She lifted an eyebrow in his direction. “And did you get your fill?”
“Not—” he kissed her ear “—quite.”
His words and the way he worshipped every inch of her body flooded her with a deep satisfaction. She’d fulfilled him on every level in every way. It wasn’t one-sided.
He pulled her close, his warm, damp skin reawakening every cell in her body. When he stroked her back, she arched against him.
She kissed the hollow of his throat where his pulse beat against her lips, a slow, steady beat.
“Kylie…”
Whatever he was about to say got cut off by someone pounding on the door of his room.
Matt’s hand froze on her back. “Who the hell could that be at this hour?”
They soon had their answer.
“Conner! Conner! Open this door. It’s Chief Evans and we gotta talk.”
Kylie tipped back her head to look into Matt’s face. “Is he kidding?”
“Does it sound like he’s kidding?” Matt rolled from the bed and snagged his jeans from the floor. He stuffed one leg inside and hopped to the closet where he yanked a terry-cloth robe from a hanger. “You’d better put this on if you want to hear what he has to say.”
Rolling her eyes, she shoved her arms into the sleeves. “It would be kind of hard not to hear what he has to say.”
He glanced over his shoulder. “Are you decent?”
She tied the sash of the robe and nodded.
Matt peered through the peephole, detached the chain and threw open the door. “What is it, Chief? You’re going to wake up the whole floor.”
Chief Evans stormed past him and stopped when he saw Kylie, his eyes narrowing. “Good. You’re both here.”
“Kylie has the room next door, after the attempts on her life…” He trailed off as Evans’s gaze darted from Matt’s bare chest to her robe. “What do you want?”
The chief leveled a finger at Matt. “I want you to stop harassing my son.”
Matt’s lids dropped half-mast over his eyes as he stared at the accusatory finger. The chief licked his lips and dropped his hand.
“Harassing? Is that what he told you? We just had a few questions for him.”
“Why?”
“He knew Bree Harris. He was around at the time of her disappearance.”
“How do you know that?”
Matt shrugged. “Common knowledge.”
“Then it should also be common knowledge that Eric didn’t have anything to do with that girl’s murder.”
Kylie shoved her hands into the pockets of the robe. “Oh, now you’re calling it murder? You’d always treated the case as a missing person.”
“I’m not naive, Ms. Grant. Just because we never found the body, a murder weapon or had a suspect, we never doubted Bree had been murdered.”
“Seems like there were plenty of suspects.”
“But not my son.” He smacked his fist into his palm. “Lay off.”
Matt wedged his shoulder against the wall. “We’ll go wherever this investigation takes us, Chief.”
Evans stopped at the door and turned. “You do that and I’ll have your brand-new P.I. license. Private investigator. What a bunch of bull. You lost your job with the LAPD for being a screwup, just like your old man. What makes you think you can do any better as a P.I.?”
He slammed the door behind him, but Kylie didn’t even flinch. She met Matt’s eyes and saw the truth. Finally.
He’d been lying to her all along.
Chapter Thirteen
Matt made a move toward her, but she held out a hand. He could overcome all her doubts and fears just by holding her, and she didn’t want that…not now.
The chief’s parting words had socked her in the gut, and she folded her arms across her stomach. No wonder Matt had never answered any of her questions about his previous cases. He didn’t have any previous cases. This was his first.
Had he been lying about the drinking, too? Evans had accused Matt of screwing up like his father. Was he an alcoholic? Had he been using her this whole time to make a good impression for his first case?
“Kylie.” Deep lines marred his face, and he hadn’t dropped his hand.
“You lied to me.”
“I didn’t lie to you.”
“You misrepresented yourself.”
“I’m a P.I. working on the Harris case. Mr. Harris hired me. That’s not misrepresentation.”
“It’s not the whole truth either.” She swallowed and yanked on the sash of the robe. “Why didn’t you tell me you’d been a cop? Why didn’t you tell me about your…your screwup?”
“I was going to tell you. I’d planned to tell you after we solved this case.”
She snorted, trying hard not to cry. “After we solved this case? You mean after you used my talents to solve it, so you could run back to Mr. Harris with your first triumph.”
Two red spots formed high on his cheekbones and his dark eyes flashed. “Is that what you think?”
“What am I supposed to think? If you’re not up-front with me, it leaves me to form my own conclusions. And that’s the one I formed.”
“You’re wrong.” He finally dropped his hand, shoving it into his pocket. “I want to explain everything to you.”
“Oh, now you want to explain everything—now that Chief Evans has blown your cover.”
He laughed, a dry sound that contained no humor. “It’s not a cover, Kylie. Something…unpleasant happened to me at the LAPD and I didn’t want to burden you with my problems. Not in the middle of this case. Not when you had your own issues.”
“How thoughtful of you.”
He shrugged. “Do you want to hear the story now?”
“In bed so you can sweet-talk me?”
His eyebrows jumped to his hairline. “The last thing I want to do with you in bed is talk.”
Her belly fluttered and tingles raced across her skin. She turned so he couldn’t see her confusion. She wanted to be mad at him for keeping an important part of his life from her, a part that could impact their investigation. But the man had saved her life—twice. He’d been there for her.
It couldn’t have all been an act.
She glanced over her shoulder. “You know, Matt, I don’t want to hear it right now.”
She stumbled through the door connecting their rooms and slammed it. Then she locked it.
Crossing to the foot of the bed, she took in the jumbled covers and Matt’s boxers and T-shirt crumpled on the floor. She fell face-first onto the covers and inhaled Matt’s musky, masculine scent.
I told you so. You can’t trust men.
Kylie grabbed a pillow and covered her head. “Not now, Mom.”
* * *
MATT FELT THE SLAM of the door like a slap to the face. He slumped in a chair by the window, propping his bare feet on the windowsill.
He figured she’d find out about his dismissal from the LAPD before he had a chance to tell her. He hadn’t meant to hide it from her.
Or had he?
The termination hadn’t been his fault but he’d had a hard time convincing anyone of that except his partner and his attorney. Hell, maybe Andy didn’t even believe him.
He didn’t want Kylie to see failure when she looked at him. He’d been her hero the past few days. He always had to be the hero, always had to be the knight in shining armor. It gave him his sense of worth.
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How pathetic was that?
He kicked against the windowsill. He should’ve told her from the beginning. She’d probably always carried warnings in her head from her mom about guys like him.
But she’d been having second thoughts about her mom’s advice since Rosie’s suicide.
He’d met Kylie at precisely the right time—when she’d decided to can Rosie’s dire warnings and trust her own instincts. Like a ripe peach, she’d fallen into his lap, and he’d been ready with his superhero act to take a big, juicy bite.
After Evans blurted out the truth about his past, Matt had crashed back into the phone booth. And he’d have to pick up the pieces.
Not just for Kylie, but for himself.
He pushed up from the chair and stripped off his jeans. Yanking the covers back on the bed, he glanced at the solid door between his room and Kylie’s. She had his boxers and his T-shirt.
Naked, he slid between the smooth sheets. That’s not all she had…she had his heart, too.
The following morning, Matt rubbed his eyes against the sun spilling through the slit in the drapes. He fumbled for the hotel alarm clock on the nightstand and held it two inches from his face.
He dropped the clock on the bed. The superhero had overslept. Must’ve been all that rescuing yesterday…and the good sex.
He slid out of the bed, dragging half the coverlet with him, and then dug through his gaping suitcase for a pair of clean boxers.
Grimacing at the closed adjoining door, he walked up to it and tapped. “Are you awake?”
Silence.
He tried the door handle, but she’d locked it after she slammed it in his face. He knocked louder. “Kylie? You in there?”
The continued silence caused his heart to hammer. Kylie didn’t get up as early as he did, so maybe she was still sleeping. Maybe the good sex had worn her out, too.
He grabbed the receiver of the hotel telephone and punched in her room number. The phone rang in stereo—in his ear and in Kylie’s room. With each unanswered ring, his heart rate hitched up another two beats. He slammed the receiver in the cradle.
If she were sleeping, the ringing phone would have awakened her…unless she knew he was on the other end and she wanted to torture him.
With tension tightening knots in his gut, he stepped into the boxers and scooped up the jeans he’d been wearing last night. He pulled on a T-shirt and shuffled into a pair of flip-flops and rocketed out of his room.
He paused at Kylie’s door in the hallway and banged his fist on it. “Kylie, are you there? I’m about to go ballistic in thirty seconds, so don’t mess with me.”
He pressed his face to the paneled door and heard his own heartbeat reverberating in his ear.
A housekeeping cart trundled down the hall and Matt sprinted toward it, startling the maid behind it. “Can you open room three twenty-six for me?”
The hotel maid’s eyes widened. “No. A lot of trouble on this floor. I don’t open doors for nobody.”
“Okay, okay.” Matt held up his hands and backed away from the cart toward the elevator. He smacked the button and then jogged for the stairwell.
In the lobby, he scanned the tables in the café. He descended one more floor and poked his head inside the gym and the pool area. A few kids stopped screaming and splashing long enough to eye him with distrust. Guess they knew he’d lied about getting canned from the LAPD, too.
He paced in front of the reception desk while the two clerks handled other guests. When one was finally free, Matt lunged forward and hunched over the counter.
“You know the woman I’ve been with…I mean, my friend? Long, dark hair, about medium height?” Matt held his hand shoulder high.
“Sure, I know her. Ms. Grant.”
“Yeah, that’s right. Have you seen her this morning?”
The hotel clerk raised his brows and glanced over his shoulder.
Matt flattened his palms on the counter. “You know, she was near that house that got blown up yesterday. We have adjoining rooms and I didn’t hear her get up this morning. I’m concerned about her.”
The muscles in the man’s face relaxed. “Yeah, I heard about the explosion. Ms. Grant left this morning, over an hour ago.”
Matt swallowed. Why would she go out alone when she had a target on her back?
“I suppose you don’t know where she went?”
“Couldn’t tell you that, but she’ll be okay.”
“Really?” What did this pipsqueak know about the dangers stalking Kylie?
He waved his hand. “She left with Kenny and Toby. They work here, and I’ve seen her talking to them before.”
Matt blew out a breath. Did those guys have more information for her? Another clue?
Did they understand that someone had Kylie in his crosshairs?
“By the way, Mr. Conner. A package, a box, arrived for you yesterday. You had to sign for it, so we sent it back to the post office.” He slid a slip of paper across the counter. “Here’s the receipt to pick it up.”
“Thanks.” Matt frowned at the post office receipt—a package from L.A. Must be from Andy and he’d started sending stuff to the hotel already.
A commotion at the hotel entrance made Matt jerk up his head. Harlan Sloan breezed into the lobby with his usual entourage of groupies and yes-men. His gaze flicked toward Matt and then trailed back again. He dropped his shoulders as if coming to a decision and approached Matt.
“I heard about that young woman who hung herself last night.”
“One of the last people who saw Bree Harris alive.”
“Guilt is a terrible emotion to bear.”
“You speak from experience?”
“I think we all have our regrets, Detective.”
“I was set up.”
A light kindled in Sloan’s cold eyes. “I had an ownership interest in the club you raided that night.”
Matt nodded. The news didn’t surprise him. Sloan had him pegged as a cop from the get-go. “Then you were set up, too, because that drug dealer and his stash of money and drugs were planted.”
“Clubs come and clubs go.” Sloan smoothed back a lock of silver hair. “It didn’t ruin my life.”
“Didn’t ruin mine either. Have you seen Ms. Grant?”
Sloan clicked his tongue. “You misplaced the medium?”
“She’s not my possession.”
“Could’ve fooled me.” He turned and then stopped short. “Any luck finding out what happened to that poor girl?”
“We have a few leads.” Like the killer is still in town.
“That’s good. That’s good.” Spinning around, he clapped his hands at his minions. “It’s a go, people. First sound check in less than an hour.”
Matt ran his tongue around the inside of his dry mouth. The music festival started tonight. Were he and Kylie really any closer to finding out the truth?
He glanced up when the front doors of the hotel swooshed open and warm relief soaked into his skin as Kylie floated into the lobby, distraction clouding her eyes. He strode up to her, not knowing whether to kiss her or shake her.
“Where were you?”
“I ran into Kenny and Toby at breakfast this morning, and they told me another roadie remembered seeing Bree the night she disappeared.”
“And you just ran off with them without telling me?”
Her lips flattened into a stubborn line. “You’re not my bodyguard, Matt. In fact, maybe we should go our separate ways on this case.”
On this case or in their lives?
“You’re not going to allow that misunderstanding between us to endanger your life, are you?”
“It’s broad daylight. I took a couple of waiters over to the concert grounds and interviewed a roadie.”
“It was broad daylight when the lights almost crashed on your head and when you stepped into a house rigged for explosives.”
“Right.” She fashioned her fingers into a gun and shot at him. “And you were there both times and c
ouldn’t stop those events from happening.”
“No, but I…” He pinched the bridge of his nose. He wasn’t going to remind her that he’d saved her from something worse on both occasions. “What did you find out? Why didn’t this guy say something before?”
“He’s with one of the opening bands and arrived last night. This band played three years ago, too, and Charlie, that’s the roadie’s name, remembered Bree from when he was here before.”
“Did the police ever question him? I don’t recall his name in the report.”
“He got sick, left early and didn’t even realize she’d gone missing until some people were talking about it last night.”
“What did he say?” Crossing his arms, Matt watched the play of emotions across Kylie’s face. She really was considering holding out on him.
She puffed out a breath of air between tight lips. “He saw her backstage that night, so I guess Sloan did get her backstage passes even though he was dumping her. She was tipsy, stumbling around a bit.”
“Ripe for someone to take advantage of her.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“You looked—” he pinched her chin between his thumb and forefinger “—disturbed when you walked in here.”
“Did I?” Her cheeks turned pink at his touch.
So he wasn’t the only one who still felt that electric current flowing between them.
“Did something happen out there?”
She shook her head, dislodging his fingers. “No. It’s just…”
“Yeah?”
“Creepy.”
“The concert?”
“I have this feeling that something is going to happen again.” She pressed her hands to her cheeks and sank onto the edge of an ottoman strategically placed in the lobby.
“A feeling feeling? Or just a feeling like the rest of us mortals?”
She didn’t even crack a smile at his lame attempt at a joke. Must be a feeling feeling.
“It’s in the air, isn’t it? It’s hot today. Hotter than usual for the coast. People are jumpy, irritable.”
He hadn’t noticed, but just then a mother and father snapped at their two kids, who were complaining about carrying all their beach gear and a couple glared at each other over a folded-out map.
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