Breathless

by Nancy Warren

  “Lighten up. It’s part of the job.”

  “Okay, cuddlebutt.”

  “Very funny.”

  “No. I’m serious. I thought about it today while being teased by every second employee in the bank. Cuddlebutt is perfect.”

  “Don’t even think about it.”

  “But you have a great butt. The women’s bathroom committee all agree.”

  A horrified groan had her smirking in bitchy amusement. “All right. I won’t call you Soph anymore.”

  “Great decision, CB.”

  While she unloaded the groceries for tonight’s dinner, he set the table. “You know, I’m starting to feel like an old married couple.” Except she didn’t think many old married couples spent their days tracking money launderers. And Blake hadn’t had any more luck than she.

  After dinner, the door buzzer sounded. “Are we expecting anyone?” she asked.

  “John and my other handler, Mitch, for our regular briefing session.”

  “I’ll give you some privacy and go take a bath.”

  When she emerged, she picked up her new lavender-scented body lotion and squeezed some into her hand. She crept to her door to listen, but there were no voices, so John and the other man must have left.

  She felt tired and dispirited. Loan after loan, deposit after deposit, they all looked fine to her. What had Phil discovered? And why couldn’t she and Blake find it, too?

  She’d never before realized how utterly tedious detective work was. Her eyes were strained from staring at the computer all day, her shoulders were tight from concentrating. As she rubbed the lotion into her skin, she realized how tight she was, and how much she needed a break. The lotion sliding against her flesh was making her feel womanly and sexy, and the very best mini-holiday she could think of was outside in the living room.

  Right now, she didn’t want to talk about blackmailers and bank defrauders and murder.

  She wrapped herself in her new baby blue bathrobe, picked up the bottle of lotion, then opened her door and walked out to the living area.

  Blake was sprawled out on the couch, reading the paper, his cast resting on one arm, his other bare foot resting on top of it and his head comfortably propped on the opposite arm. He fit the thing so perfectly, it crossed her mind he’d had the couch custom-built.

  “Blake?” she said in her best sultry, come-to-bed voice.

  “Mmm?” he answered in a classic male I’m-reading the-sports-page-don’t-bother-me tone.

  She smiled to herself and said, “Blake, can I show you something?”

  “What?” He turned his head.

  Putting the lotion down on the blanket box, she unbelted her robe and let it drop to the floor so she stood there naked, still slightly damp and warm from the bath, the scent of lavender hovering in the air.

  “What am I going to do with you?” he groaned.

  “I hope you’re going to make love to me,” she said slowly.

  “That,” he informed her, dropping the paper to the floor, “is the best idea you’ve had all day.”

  “No, wait. I’ve changed my mind.”

  She watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. “You have?”

  “Yes.” She paused for a moment, taunting him. “I’ve decided I’m going to make love to you.”

  A slow grin lit his face. “Just to prove I’m a sensitive New Age guy, I’m going to let you.”

  She kissed the grin right off his face, then ran her fingertips across sandpapery stubble at his chin, to the soft smooth skin at the base of his neck where a pulse beat strong and fast. Down to the curly dark hair on his chest. She unbuttoned his shirt and spread it.

  She loved his chest. The ridges and furrows, the coppery nipples, the secretive darkness of chest hair.

  She pressed her lips to the pulsing hollow in his neck and flicked her tongue against the warm flesh.

  His shiver had her smiling against his skin. She moved down, kissing and licking. He tossed restlessly as she took a small hard nipple into her mouth. It tasted like more so she continued her leisurely trip down his chest to his belly.

  He started to struggle off the couch, but she pushed him back. “You look so comfortable there. Don’t get up.”

  She unfastened the wide-legged khakis, and he raised his hips for her so she could slip them over his cast.

  She rose to inspect him, naked, his erection looking ready to burst.

  “You’re still overdressed. When do you get the cast off?”

  “Is it cramping your style?”

  She thought about that for a moment. “Not really. In fact, it makes you just helpless enough to suit me.”

  Feeling the power she had over him, she smiled down. “I’m going to have to punish you.”

  “For what?” he said, not looking nearly scared enough.

  She narrowed her eyes. “For wrinkling my freshly ironed shirt when you mauled me this morning.” She placed her bathrobe on the blanket box and sat on top of it, right across from him so he’d have a great view, then picked up the lotion.

  “Will it be bad?” He sounded more excited than nervous.

  “Not as bad as the punishment for making me look like a lovesick fool in front of my colleagues,” she told him, warming to her theme. She squeezed a big dollop of cream on her hands, stared at his erection long enough for him to think it was the intended target, then, with a sneaky smile, put her hands to her own breasts, rubbing the cream into her skin while he watched.

  “Don’t forget I called you Soph,” he reminded her in a husky tone.

  “Oh, I haven’t forgotten,” she said, and her own voice had grown hoarse. She pulled on her nipples, slick with cream, while he lay there, watching her. “For that I’m devising a special torture.”

  “Will I survive?”

  She smiled at him. “I doubt it.” She squirted more cream, this time applying it to her belly in long, smooth strokes, lower and lower. She slipped her legs apart so he had a great view of her own rising excitement.

  “But I’ll tell you one thing, you’ll die happy.”

  He reached for her, but she evaded him. His hand fell back to his side. “You’re killing me already.”

  She chuckled softly. “I haven’t even started.”

  She worked all around her throbbing core, knowing she’d blow apart if she so much as touched herself there, wanting him inside her when it happened, but he didn’t have to know that. So, she teased while he watched, his hands fisting with frustration, his hips rocking as the desire built.

  Her plan, such as it was, had been to cream his body as thoroughly as hers, but it was hopeless. She didn’t think either of them could survive that much delaying torment. Instead, when her body was so thoroughly moisturized it glistened, she straddled him, keeping her eyes on his while she slowly lowered herself onto him.

  She cried out as he filled her body, hot and hard within her. His hands, deprived of her earlier, made up for it now, rubbing and sliding over her cream-slick breasts, her back, hips, everywhere he could reach, while she moved on him, setting a pace that kept them both on the edge until she had no more control left.

  She bucked and rocked, then she screamed. Finally, shuddering and spent, she held him through his own climax.

  “HOW LONG CAN YOU KEEP working on this case?” Sophie asked when they’d recovered their breath. She plucked at his chest hair as though she was weeding a flower bed. “Obviously, the unproven bank fraud and a suspicious death aren’t going to hold a busy detective full-time forever.”

  He placed a hand over hers on his chest, feeling the fine bones beneath her skin, the slight flutter of nerves. “I’ll be around as long as you need me,” he promised, wondering how long that would be.

  She gazed up at him from under her tousled blond hair, her eyes both trusting and nervous. “But, if you don’t discover anything working undercover…”

  “We will. They’ve got a guy from commercial crimes working this from the other side. I send anything that b
others me his way. There are some files of Ruby’s that check out, but still seem kind of funny.” He hugged her to him, her naked body feeling so right tucked against his. “I’m not going anywhere. This is only one aspect of a complex investigation. These things take time. We’ll get these guys, I promise you.”

  He might preach patience to Sophie, but he felt like throwing his computer out the window as, again and again, he hit a dead end.

  Their frustrating investigation proceeded. Day after day, while they checked and rechecked files, loans, trade orders, looking for anything out of the ordinary. In the four weeks since Sophie’s apartment fire, he’d helped Ruby land another big client, which made her almost nice to him. He was also pretty certain Ruby and Ellsworth were doing more than flirting by e-mail. Other than that, Blake was becoming bored and frustrated and more glad than ever that he’d chosen policing over banking as a career.

  When the stress grew too great, there was always inventive love play to be had—everywhere but the bedroom. He was starting to fantasize about Sophie in his bed. He’d lie there at night, his body drained from whatever crazy new place they’d found not to do it, and want her with a fierceness that had him gritting his teeth to stop himself yelling for her to get her butt in here.

  Sure, the sex was great, but so was turning over in the night to find a warm woman to snuggle up to. Waking early in the morning to lazy, half-asleep loving.

  Damn it, all he wanted was a normal affair. Was that so much to ask?

  As they were driving home from work, he decided to see if he could start nudging her in that direction.

  “I have a surprise,” he said, trying for a light tone.

  “A good surprise or a bad surprise?” He couldn’t blame her for asking. She’d received too many of the latter over the past few weeks.

  “A good surprise. Tickets to Tristan and Isolde for Saturday night. I thought we’d do it right and have a nice dinner somewhere afterward.”

  His distraction worked even better than he’d hoped. She wriggled with excitement. “A real date? Blake, are you asking me for a real date?”

  “I’m asking you to the opera.”

  She grinned at him, blue eyes sparkling. “I accept.”

  SOPHIE GLOBBED ON AN antistress mud mask she’d found in the bathroom that she assumed was Blake’s sister’s. It was from a local spa, so she could replace it, and, the way her life was going, she needed any kind of stress-reliever she could find.

  Having slapped gray, gooey mud all over her face she tried to lie down and relax but that just brought the tension roaring to the forefront of her mind. She removed the cucumber slices, somewhat the worse for wear, from her eyelids and hoisted herself off the bed.

  Blake had been on some mysterious errand all afternoon, after which they were going on their date, the opera followed by a late supper. Since she didn’t want her stomach rumbling louder than the baritone, she decided a late-afternoon sandwich was just the thing. It would give her something to do besides obsess over her problems, the bank’s problems, or the world’s economic crisis she’d read about in this morning’s paper.

  These days, stress was drawn to her and she seemed to be sucking it up as avidly as her skin was supposedly sucking up the moisture and free-radical destroying enzymes in the facial mask.

  She pulled out a fresh loaf of rye, sliced turkey breast, cheese, lettuce, sprouts—was that overkill? Lettuce and sprouts? Ah, the hell with it. Tomatoes, pickles, mayo. Avocado? She shrugged. Why not?

  She stacked the layers on a cutting board and pulled out a chef’s knife to cut her towering creation when she heard Blake’s key in the lock. Odd, he always knocked first before entering his own apartment—a courtesy which endeared him to her.

  Unease prickled at the back of her neck. He’d said he wouldn’t be home until five. It was only three o’clock. And he hadn’t knocked. The person crossing his foyer made a clack-clack sound, not clack-thunk. Two shoes, not one shoe and a cast.

  The knife handle grew slippery in her grasp as she clutched it tight and backed up against the counter. She then edged to the doorway so she’d see whoever was coming in before they saw her.

  Was it a member of the triad sent to kill her?

  She held her breath. Could she do it? Could she stab someone if she had no other choice? Sophie didn’t know, and she didn’t want to find out. Her best plan was to wait and hope the intruder checked out the bedrooms first, then she’d make a run for the front door.

  Whoever was in the apartment was either a very bad assassin or so cocky they didn’t care if she heard them. They made no attempt to creep about, but walked, with a steady tread down the hallway that would pass the kitchen doorway.

  She saw a slim shadow. She grit her teeth and raised the knife just as the shadow became black-clad reality.

  The intruder must have seen or sensed the movement for they turned.

  And screamed.

  Sophie screamed, too. The knife slipped from her sweaty grip and clattered to the kitchen floor.

  The woman, for Sophie’s overloaded senses had made out that the person was a woman, cried, “Where’s Blake?”

  Sophie registered details: the intruder wasn’t much older than she, with shoulder-length straight brown hair, black leather jacket, black T-shirt and black hip-hugging pants over chunky black boots. She was Caucasian, not Asian.

  Then, Sophie realized what she’d said. Oh, my God. It wasn’t her they wanted. It was Blake.

  The women glared at each other for a long moment. Sophie fixed her concentration on breathing, and wiped her damp palms on her housecoat, ready to dive for the knife if the other woman made a move for it. But she didn’t. And after a second, Sophie realized she was as pale and trembling as Sophie herself must be.

  “Who the hell are you?”

  “I’m Tanya,” the other woman said. “Blake’s sister. Who the hell are you?”

  Sophie’s mouth dropped open. “His sister? Oh. I’m Sophie. Blake’s ah…”

  The woman sagged against the counter. “Remind me to call first, next time I’m in town.”

  “Oh, God. I’m sorry. I thought you were an intruder.” She held out a trembling hand. “Sophie Morton.”

  The other woman clasped it with her own cold and shaky hand.

  “Can you ever forgive me?” She might have been tempted to ask the woman for proof of her identity, but the resemblance between Tanya and her brother was striking.

  Tanya cracked a grin. “For half that sandwich and a glass of wine I might be tempted to forgive you. I’ll even stay away from bad jokes about backstabbers.”

  Sophie winced. “I’d appreciate it.” She bent to pick up the knife and placed it carefully in the sink, taking a clean one from the knife block.

  “How’s the antistress mask working?” the other woman asked with almost a straight face.

  Her hands flew to her mud-encrusted cheeks and her eyes widened in horror. She thought about running to the bathroom to wash the stuff off, but what was the point? She moaned. “I have a real talent with making a great first impression around your family.”

  “No kidding?” Tanya reached across the counter and grabbed a slice of pickle. “You swept Blake off his feet by attacking him with a knife?”

  “No. I broke his leg.”

  Tanya choked, and Sophie didn’t think it was from pickle juice.

  “It was an accident. I didn’t know he was a cop.”

  “Evidently.”

  Realizing how insane that sounded, she tried again. “I’m not saying I break men’s legs who aren’t cops.” She sighed noisily. “It’s a long story.” One good thing she could say about the antistress mask was that it covered her blush.

  “I’ve got all afternoon.” Tanya rose, and now that she wasn’t in terror for her life, Sophie noticed the easy, athletic grace of her gait and a firmness to her jaw that was like her brother’s. Tanya had green eyes too, but hers were a lighter green, more reminiscent of spring meadows than a winter
storm at sea.

  Tanya knew her way around Blake’s place, Sophie noted, as his sister pulled a bottle of white wine from the glass-fronted temperature-controlled wine fridge and opened it with the same kind of smooth efficiency as her brother.

  Sophie cut the massive sandwich in half, put the halves on two plates, then pushed one toward Tanya, accepting a glass of wine in exchange.

  “So, you’re living with my brother and I’ve never heard a word about you. What’s that about?”

  Sophie damn near spewed her wine in the other woman’s lap, which, she figured, would pretty much cement this promising friendship. After choking for a while and gulping more wine to get her breath back, she wiped her eyes on a napkin. “You don’t believe in beating around the bush, do you?”

  “Nope. He’s my brother. You hurt him and I’ll have to hurt you.”

  Sophie glanced up startled, to see serious intent behind the glint of humor in Tanya’s eyes. The woman was bold and obnoxious but also straight up, a quality Sophie admired. And she obviously loved her brother, which meant she couldn’t be all bad.

  “We’re not living together.” How much could she tell this woman? She didn’t imagine Blake wanted her blabbing his undercover secrets, not even to his own sister. On the other hand, she didn’t want Tanya getting the wrong idea about their relationship.

  “You’re in my brother’s apartment in a mud pack. I’m guessing intimacy has occurred,” Tanya said, spearing Sophie with a gaze, in much the same way she speared another pickle with the glinting blade of her knife.

  “Would you give me a minute? I don’t think I can have a serious discussion in a face mask.” And, in the time it took to remove the mask, hopefully she could decide just what to tell Blake’s sister about their relationship.

  Ten minutes later her skin gleamed with a notable absence of free radicals, but it was the free radical out there at the breakfast bar that really scared her. No mud bath would neutralize Tanya’s prying. And yet, being a sister herself, she understood, even applauded, the impulse to protect a much-loved big bro.