by Sandra Brown
“No, it wasn’t.”
The contradiction was another turnabout. He covered his surprise with an abrupt laugh. “I beg your pardon?”
“He wasn’t wearing the uniform of our neighborhood patrolmen.”
A trickle of cold sweat slid down Thomas’s spine. “You saw him?”
“I looked over the balcony as he was leaving. Was he…Did it have something to do with Tiffany?”
He gave an exaggerated sigh of impatience. “There was a break-in at one of the office buildings I own. The alarm went off and scared the intruders away. The officer came to report the incident to me personally. Nothing to it at all.”
“Then why did you lie about who he was?”
“Because I never want to burden you with trivial matters. I’d forgotten all about it.” She said nothing. As they stared across the room at each other, Thomas imagined the chasm between them widening. “Try to sleep,” he said. “Good night.”
Almost as soon as he pulled the door shut and headed down the hall toward his bedroom, his cell phone rang. Greta’s uncharacteristic curiosity had unsettled him. He answered with a brusque “Yes?”
Jenks said, “Bad time?”
Thomas went into his bedroom and closed the door. “What do you want?”
“I caught John Trapper snooping around The Major’s house.”
“When?”
“This afternoon. Our man in common thought you should know.”
Thomas had expected that by now Trapper would have followed up on their meeting in his office. He had anticipated hearing something from him today, and it was perturbing, and a little disquieting, that he hadn’t.
“Did he say what was he doing there?”
Jenks told him how Trapper had explained himself. “But I didn’t buy it, so I circled back and checked the house, inside and out. I didn’t notice anything missing or disturbed. But just Trapper’s being there is disturbing enough.”
“I’m sure it is to you.”
“Should disturb you, too.”
“Why? I didn’t flub the attempt on his father’s life.” He could imagine Jenks gnashing his teeth over the insult. “Anything else?”
“This morning Trapper created a ruckus in the sheriff’s office over the suspect.”
“Who anyone with half a brain can see is being set up. It does sound as though Trapper has had a busy day, but I haven’t heard anything that warrants this call at this time of night.”
That was a lead-in for Jenks to tell him about finding the flash drive in Trapper’s wall and to share with Thomas what was on it.
But Jenks said, “That’s it for now.”
No mention of the flash drive? Thomas couldn’t ask outright about it without revealing that he knew of its existence, and the only way he could know was through Trapper.
Either the men in Lodal didn’t have it, or had it but couldn’t crack it, or were purposefully keeping from Thomas that it existed and what was on it. Each of those eventualities was worrisome.
With feigned nonchalance, Thomas said, “If that’s it, please tell our man in common to stop whining to me about his own failures, and Trapper.”
Before Jenks could offer a comeback, Thomas disconnected. He crossed to the bar, poured a scotch, tossed it back, and poured another, something he rarely did. More than he wanted to admit, even to himself, Jenks’s call had upset him.
If the men in Lodal were in possession of Trapper’s flash drive, they wouldn’t be overly concerned about his snooping around the crime scene or creating ruckuses.
But if they hadn’t raided Trapper’s office and taken the flash drive, who had? Who had it now, and just how incriminating was the evidence on it?
Thomas had gambled on making a preemptive move, but possibly, in his eagerness to get justice for Tiffany, he had left himself vulnerable. Trapper might yet go to the authorities with no intention whatsoever of negotiating a deal for Thomas, with or without his flash drive, with or without anything substantive.
Thomas didn’t believe he would. He was still smarting too badly from the humiliation he’d suffered three years ago. He wouldn’t risk ridicule again by making unprovable claims.
But Trapper was unpredictable. He might surprise him.
Fortunately, Thomas had safeguarded against surprises and unpredictability.
He still had his insurance policy, and it was brassbound. Even to Trapper.
Chapter 28
Trapper didn’t know what Kerra saw in his “look.”
Whatever it was, it aroused her. The second time was as intense as the first, the only difference being that he pulled out just before he came. Now they lay belly to belly, idly stroking, nibbling kisses.
“Your skin tastes salty,” she said.
“Price you pay for keeping this room like a sauna. My sweat’s drying.” He rolled off her. “Let’s shower.”
She complained as he took her hand and pulled her off the bed and into the bathroom. “That shower stall isn’t big enough for both of us, and, besides, I like salty.”
“I’m not showering to get clean.” He bobbed his eyebrows. “I do some of my dirtiest play with soapy hands.”
She laughed, and, although he enjoyed that husky sound, he loved the sighs and moans and whimpers she made when he proved it wasn’t an empty boast. He examined her with the precision of a diamond cutter.
Her body still bore bruises and scratches from her fall. Those he could reach within the confines of the minuscule shower stall, he kissed. Those he couldn’t touch with his mouth, he gently caressed with fingertips and palms, being especially careful with the two stitches on her thigh. Facing each other as warm water sluiced over them, they kissed endlessly, the notch between her thighs nestling him, her nipples small and hard against his chest.
He washed her hair and turned her away from him as he rinsed it just so he could watch the shampoo suds slide down her back and funnel into the cleft of her amazing ass. She didn’t quite believe him when he told her it was necessary for his hands to be there to ensure that all the soap had been rinsed away.
Nuzzling her ear through her wet hair, he whispered, “However, the only truly reliable way to know for sure is by tasting.” Reaching around her, he turned off the taps, one with each hand, then stayed that way, holding the levers. Drops of water plunked from the showerhead. The drain gurgled its last swallow.
Kerra turned within the circle of his arms and looked into his eyes in that slumberous way that made his cock rigid and his knees weak.
He pushed open the shower door and assisted her out. Maintaining eye contact, he dragged the two towels from the bar. With them in one hand and taking Kerra’s with the other, he pulled her back to the bed.
Trapper guided her down onto the two towels, which he’d spread end to end on the bed before going to his knees. She lay with her hands palms up at shoulder level, thighs together. With his index finger, he again traced the V, ending at the point. Just that was enough to spread a fever upward from beneath his fingertip. She became full and achy, yearning.
He curved a hand around each of her thighs and, as he drew them apart, bent down and kissed her between them. His lips were closed and soft and, after that first contact, unmoving. They remained like that until she thought she would die from wanting to squirm, move, indicate in some subtle way that she craved more.
When she didn’t think she could stand the anticipation for one more heartbeat, his lips parted and she felt the first touch of his tongue. It was a swirl of caresses, a thrusting invasion as though staking her as his, followed by a succession of French kisses, the last one deep and searching and ending with a slow withdrawal that left her melting.
She bowed up, seeking—
But he knew. He slid one hand under her and tilted her up, his strong fingers kneading her bottom. The other hand he splayed wide between her hipbones, his thumb perfectly placed to gently pull back the softest of skin. Then his mouth was on her again, hotter, wetter. His tongue was in turns fervid and
barely there, still and firm, then fanning and feather-light.
She sank her fingers into his hair, a silent plea.
He increased the pressure and the tempo. He laved her, loved her, until she was shattered by her orgasm. He held her, drew on her with tenderness but also unquestioned mastery, and didn’t stop until her body went limp.
When she opened her eyes, he was standing at the side of the bed, one knee planted on the edge of it between her open thighs. He was looking down at her with a slight frown, and suddenly she realized why. There were tears on her cheeks.
When she’d climaxed, not only had her senses become untethered, her emotions had as well. She had expected Trapper to be skilled. She hadn’t expected him to be so unselfish, so sweet.
“You okay?”
“Yes.” She sniffed and wiped away the tears as she came up on her elbows. “Yes.”
“Tears of joy?”
“Something like that.”
His features relaxed. “It was good for me, too.”
“So I see.” His erection couldn’t possibly have escaped her notice. A bead of semen was clinging to the tip.
“Could I impose on you to do that thing with your thumb again?”
“Absolutely not.” She came up the rest of the way, and reached around him to place her hands on his butt. Leaning into him, instead of her thumb, she applied her tongue.
“I fantasized about that,” Trapper said in a drowsy voice.
He had already told her that her hair felt as silky against his belly as he’d imagined it would. Now he was sifting his fingers through it although it wasn’t completely dry. They had pulled back the covers and had gotten into bed. They were half lying, half propped against the headboard, legs braided together under the sheet, her head on his chest.
Idly she explored its contours. “You seem to have an extraordinary number of fantasies.”
“Guilty.”
“All of them erotic.”
“Got me again. But my fantasy women never had a face before.”
She stopped her play and tilted her head back to look at him.
“Recently,” he said, sweeping his thumb over her cheek, “the rock star of my fantasies has this bewitching beauty mark.”
She swallowed. “Does she?”
“Hmm. Eyes the color of a Hershey bar. And lips…” He rubbed the lower one. His voice dropped in pitch. “Two minutes after you knocked on the door of my office, I was fantasizing your mouth taking me.” He pressed her lower lip with his thumb. “I thought it was sexy then. Now…Damn.” He continued staring at her lips, gliding his thumb back and forth across the lower one.
Eventually, though, he withdrew his hand. His forehead furrowed. He cleared his throat. “Kerra—”
“You won’t respect me in the morning.”
He smiled, but his eyes remained serious. Realizing that he was done teasing, she moved off his chest and onto her own pillow.
“It’s about Marianne.”
“That’s none of my business, Trapper. I should have kept my observations to myself. You don’t owe me an explanation.”
“But I want to explain, without losing my temper the way I did before.”
“Bad timing on my part. You were already mad at me.”
He acknowledged that with a nod, but she could tell that he wished to stay on track. He’d given thought to what he wanted to say, and he wanted, perhaps needed, to say it.
“Usually I don’t give a shit what anybody thinks about me, or what I do, or how I conduct myself. But since you’ve met Marianne, seen the kind of person she is, I want you to know how much I hate that she got hurt. No,” he said sternly. “That’s too lenient. I hate that I hurt her.”
He paused as though waiting for her to comment, but, when she didn’t, he continued. “But the way it turned out really was for the best. If she hadn’t miscarried, and we’d gotten married, it wouldn’t have changed the outcome, except that there would be another kid in the world growing up without a live-in daddy. Because eventually Marianne would have gotten sick of me and run me off, or I’d have left.
“Hank accused me of not caring about anything except myself and what’s eating me. I know that’s how it looks. To him. To everybody. But he’s wrong. I cared enough about Marianne to leave her. I knew if I didn’t, I’d make her miserable, and she deserved better.”
He inhaled deeply. “Sometimes I think about the baby we lost. Wonder if it was a boy or girl, if it would’ve looked like me. It haunts me some. But I believe it worked out the way it was supposed to. I’m not glad it happened. God, no, nothing like that. And I’m not rationalizing, I swear. I’m—”
“I know,” Kerra said, interrupting him. “I know you regret the temporary unhappiness you caused her. But you were right to leave. Marianne knew it was right, too.”
“How do you figure?”
“If she had believed you belonged together, she wouldn’t have let you leave. Did she go after you, ever reach out, try to contact you?”
He shook his head.
“If she’d really wanted you, you, warts and all, she would have fought like hell to keep you.”
She could tell by his expression that he’d never thought of it that way before. Relief flickered in his eyes. Then, in typical Trapper fashion, he dodged the seriousness of the subject with a quip. “I don’t have any warts.”
Kerra didn’t let him get away with it this time. “Come here.” She clasped his head between her hands and pulled it to her chest, then wrapped her arms around it. His arm closed around her waist and hugged tightly. Though his cheek rested on her breast, it was with intimacy of a different sort.
She studied the growth pattern of his hair on the crown of his head and kissed it. “Did The Major ever know about the miscarriage?”
“No.” He worked free of her embrace, making her wish she hadn’t asked. Back on his own pillow, he said, “My ‘skipping out on Marianne,’ as he put it, was one of the hot spots of our quarrel. The miscarriage would have confirmed his belief that I was throwing my life away on a fantasy. And not the erotic kind.”
“Have you checked on him today?”
“He’s been moved to a private room. I stopped by the hospital after I went to the house.”
She shook her head in confusion. “The Major’s house? Catch me up. Is that where you went after dumping me at the café?”
“I didn’t dump you. And, anyway, it was for your own good.”
“Well, I decided against it.”
“Yeah, and look where it landed you.”
She shifted her legs to rub against his.
“Not that I’m complaining,” he growled. Then he turned serious again. “The Major asked about you. I told him you were safely back in Dallas, which at the time I thought you were. He accused me of driving you away. As usual, we got into it.”
“I hate that you got into it over me.”
“Wasn’t over you.” He smiled without humor. “He started out by telling me he thought my conspiracy theory had legs and that he admired my integrity.”
She leaned up, at attention. “That’s good.”
“For a few minutes there, I thought so. I’d been waiting a long time to hear him say he thought I was right about something. Anything. Any fucking thing. The weather forecast. So you can imagine my astonishment when he commended me for having integrity. But then he told me I should let go of my obsession, drop it, and get a life.”
“That’s contradictory.”
“Damn sure is.”
She waited for him to add whatever it was that had caused his brows to pull together in a frown, but he didn’t. She rolled onto her stomach and came up on her elbows so they could talk face-to-face.
“Was there anyone in your division of the ATF, or an FBI agent, anyone who believed in you and your suspicions about Wilcox?”
“There were a handful who didn’t laugh out loud.”
“You could take what you have on that flash drive, plus the cell phone recordin
g I made of Wilcox, go to someone you trust, and lay it all out.”
He was shaking his head before she finished. “The number one rule of bureaucracy is CYA. If they even saw me coming, any of my former associates would use both hands to cover their asses. They remember what happened to Marianne.”
“I’ll go with you. They wouldn’t laugh at you with me there. They’d fear a media smear campaign.”
He took her hand and kissed the palm. “I appreciate the gesture. But—”
“You have to do this alone.”
“Not out of vanity, Kerra. It’s not that, I swear. It’s that I’ve got to be right. There’s no guarantee that I’ll get even one more shot. But if I do, it has to count. I must have Wilcox’s balls in one hand and his goddamn insurance policy, whatever that is, in the other.”
“Wilcox said he wouldn’t give up anything until you can guarantee him immunity.”
“I know.” He sighed. “It’s called an impasse.”
“How are you going to break it?”
“Hell if I know.”
They were quiet for a time, but she could practically hear the gears grinding in his mind. She reached up to smooth out his brow. “You could let the dust settle for a while, Trapper.”
“That’s what I’ve been doing for three years, and I’m choking on it.” He gave a small shake of his head. “I gotta get this off me, Kerra. Not that my life counts for much, but yours does. Now it’s not just The Major I’m worried about. If I turned my back on you, on this, and one day you were found—”
He didn’t go on, but she filled in the blank, and it was troubling to acknowledge that she was vulnerable.
Speaking softly, but with ferocity, he said, “It’s gotta be now.”
She leaned over and bit him gently on the shoulder. “I knew you’d say that. And if The Major expects you to drop it, he doesn’t know you at all.” She wished to say more. Emotions were welling up in her throat, her heart, but she kept them to herself for now. “Why did you go out to his house?”