She blinked with surprise, glanced up to discover just how close his face was, and found herself a little unnerved. He was looking down at her, frowning slightly. Her eyes were on a level with the top of his shoulder, and in the space of a heartbeat she took in the wide expanse of those shoulders in the dark green T-shirt she had only felt until now, absorbed the sturdy bronze column of his neck and the flexing muscles of his arm that was in the process of dropping away from the light switch. She saw that his chin was once again dark with stubble, and his hair was mussed like he’d been running his hands through it, and his brows had twitched together so that there were faint lines corrugating the space between them. His mouth was only inches from hers. She fixated on that hard, masculine mouth and felt her own lips part. He seemed to be breathing harder now than his strictly stationary posture called for, she realized. She could feel his chest rising and falling against her breasts, and the warmth of his breath brushed her face where she hadn’t been aware of it before. Their eyes met, and in the coffee-brown depths of his, she saw something—a hot little flicker. An awareness ...
The air between them was suddenly charged. Maddie felt the electricity, and heat curled somewhere deep inside her. Her breathing quickened. Her body began to tighten, to throb.
Oh God, she thought, panicking. I want him.
His eyes slid to her mouth. Which promptly went dry.
Then his gaze dropped lower still and his frown deepened.
“What the hell?”
Confused, Maddie followed his gaze and discovered, to her own surprise, that she was still clutching the can of hair spray. It was sandwiched between them, its little black spray nozzle pointed directly at his chest.
“Oh,” she said, feeling foolish. Apparently, while she’d been busy getting all hot and bothered, he’d been passing the time wondering about the hard, round thing that was poking him in the chest. Struggling to think of this amorous lapse on his part as a positive development, she looked up at him. “Uh—it’s hair spray.”
“I can see that.” His lips twitched, and then he grinned, a lopsided, charming grin that warmed his eyes and brought those to-die-for dimples into roguish life. “Planning to style somebody’s hair?”
“I was in the bathroom. It was the only thing I could think of to use as a weapon,” she said with dignity.
He laughed out loud. “Pencils. Hair spray. Darlin’, God help the bad guys if you ever get your hands on a gun.”
Outraged, she pushed against his chest, aerosol can and all.
“Let go.”
“You don’t want me to,” he said.
Then he kissed her.
Maddie was so surprised that, for the space of maybe a heartbeat, she didn’t even move. She just stood there with her eyes wide open, clutching the aerosol can while he pulled her so close that the can’s metal edge dug into the side of her breast, and slanted his lips across hers and licked into her mouth with a hungry urgency that sent fire shooting clear down to her toes.
How long had it been since someone had kissed her like this? Too long. Never.
The question, complete with its telling answer, ricocheted through her stunned brain even as her body reacted quite independently. Her eyes closed, her lips parted all on their own, and her free hand slid around his nape, her fingers curling into the short, crisp hair at the back of his head. He deepened the kiss, and the heat of it melted away the last rational thought left to her name. Head reeling, she kissed him back, feeling the hot, slick glide of his tongue against hers, tasting the faint tang of Diet Coke in his mouth. His hands splayed over her back, big and strong and hot through the thin nylon of her gown. Pulse racing, she surged against him, loving the silky slide of her gown against his clothes. Hot little ripples of pleasure slid down her thighs as she discovered the hard bulge beneath his jeans and moved sensuously against it.
He broke off the kiss, lifted his head, sucked in air.
“McCabe,” she whispered, rocking against him then going up on tiptoe to seek his mouth again.
“Christ,” he said and bent his head, kissing her harder, exploring her mouth with an expertise that made her dizzy. The hot, sweet throbbing in her loins that he’d awakened earlier was back, times ten. Her breasts swelled, and her nipples contracted until they were needy little nubs pressing urgently against his chest.
His lips left hers, found the soft, sensitive spot beneath her ear, then slid down her neck. His mouth was hot and wet and firm, and the feel of it crawling over her skin made her dizzy. Her heart lurched, her bones liquified, and if he hadn’t been holding her so tightly, she thought she would have melted into a sizzling little puddle at his feet.
She made a small, hungry sound deep in her throat and pressed as close to him as she could get. His head lifted, and then his mouth was on hers again. He was unmistakably turned-on, hard and hot with wanting her, holding her close and kissing her silly and making her feel things she had almost forgotten she could feel. She was on fire for him, burning deep inside, wanting to get naked and horizontal with him so badly that if he hadn’t been bigger than she was, and stronger than she was, and such a really impressive kisser besides, she would have thrown him down on the floor and stripped off her nightgown and had her way with him there and then. But then his hands flattened on her back, slid lower, and she shivered, glad she had waited. They were big and long-fingered and strong, the kind of hands she loved, and she tracked their sensuous glide over the silky nylon with quivering anticipation. They slid over her butt, cupping her cheeks, and she moaned her pleasure into his mouth. She could feel the heat and strength and size of those hands with every nerve ending she possessed, even as he pulled her tight against him and rocked into her.
A quick hard knock on the front door made Maddie jump. McCabe’s hands froze, and he lifted his head. They both looked toward the sound.
“McCabe ...”
The voice, a man’s, was muffled but clearly audible nonetheless. Maddie was too dazed and confused to feel so much as the first flicker of fear, and, anyway, a hit man would not be knocking on the front door and calling out to McCabe.
“Shit,” McCabe said and looked back down at her. Her eyes met the superheated gleam of his, and held. For a sizzling instant she would have been hard put to remember anything as basic as her name. Then his arms around her loosened and dropped away. He headed for the door.
“Go put your robe on,” he said over his shoulder.
Breathing too fast, heart racing, her body tingling in places she’d almost forgotten she had, Maddie took a moment to process what had just happened, while her eyes tracked him to the door. His hand wrapped around the knob. Shrouded in shadows now, he glanced back at her. It was only then that she realized that she was still standing in the bright oblong of light that spilled out of the bathroom, wearing nothing but her thin, white nightgown that, backlit as it was, undoubtedly revealed as much as it concealed.
He was still looking at her with his hand on the knob when the knock sounded again.
“McCabe ...” The voice was louder now, impatient.
Maddie fled toward her bedroom.
“Don’t turn on the light,” he said as she reached it. “If he’s got any idea about doubling back, we don’t want to scare him off.”
She stopped, standing stock-still for a moment as she registered the idea that whoever had been on her steps might be coming back. Then she heard the metallic click of the deadbolt unlocking. By the time McCabe had the door open, she was safely in her room.
In order to have any light at all, she had to leave her bedroom door ajar. Maddie crossed to the dresser, put down the can that, ridiculously, she discovered she was still holding, found her robe, and pulled it on. Then she hesitated. She was still shaken, from the dream and the fright and, yes, that impossibly hot kiss. She was alarmed. She was befuddled. What she could do—what she should do—was try to thrust her worries out of her head until she could think them through more calmly on the morrow, go back to bed, and trust
McCabe to keep watch. But even as she had the thought, she knew that she couldn’t do it. Sleep was clearly going to be impossible after what had happened. And the lure of the murmuring voices was too strong. She badly wanted to know what was going on. And there was no way she could just leave things as they were with McCabe.
Tightening the belt on her robe, Maddie padded out into the dark living room. The front door was closed, and McCabe was there in front of it with his back turned to her, standing in the dark with two men that she didn’t at first recognize. But the bathroom light was still on, providing just enough illumination to allow her to discern features in the gloom. As she drew closer and they acknowledged her presence with glances and nods, she realized that she was looking at Gomez and Hendricks. All three men fell silent as she stopped beside McCabe.
“So what’s happened?” she asked, thrusting her hands deep into the pockets of her robe.
“He got away,” Gomez said. There was chagrin on his boyish face.
“He must have seen us,” Hendricks added. “We were careful as hell, too.”
“It was that damned streetlight. We were right under it when he started leaping back down the stairs.” He cast an accusing look at Hendricks. “I told you we should have gone around it.”
“If we’d gone around it, he would’ve had time to get up here and kick down the apartment door and blast the hell out of everybody inside before we got to him.”
Maddie felt a cold chill snake down her spine at this graphic description of what might have happened. She had to fight the urge to lean into McCabe.
“Anyway, we’re not even sure he saw us,” Hendricks said to Sam. “Something spooked him.”
“Yeah, probably he’s afraid of spiders and there was a big one about halfway up the stairs,” Gomez said in disgust. Hendricks shot him a dirty look.
“Whatever happened, he’s gone,” McCabe said. So far he hadn’t so much as glanced at Maddie, who had noticed.
“Maybe the locals will pick him up. They’re out there cruising around now.”
“Maybe,” McCabe said. “You guys did good, by the way.”
“Thanks,” Hendricks replied without enthusiasm. “Come on, Gomez. We better be getting back.”
“We’ll get him next time,” Gomez said. “He’s not getting away again. It’s uncomfortable as hell in that van.”
With that, they left. McCabe locked the door behind them. Looking at his broad back as he closed the door and tried the lock, Maddie felt her heart speed up again.
Wanting him was such a stupid thing to do.
He turned away from the door and their eyes met. Heat surged between them, as sudden and electric as a bolt of lightning. The tension in his stance told her that he felt it, too. But she could see his face clearly enough in the gloom to realize that he didn’t look particularly happy about the fact. Not at all the way a man should look if he thought he was about to get lucky. In fact, she registered with a slight knitting of her brows, he was looking downright grim.
“At a guess I’d say that’s all the excitement for tonight,” he said, skirting around her like she was giving off radioactive cootie rays to head for the kitchen. “Whoever was on the stairs almost certainly won’t be back. You should go on to bed.”
O-kay. Clearly, sweet nothings weren’t in the cards. To say nothing of down-and-dirty, really hot sex.
Damn.
“Where did Gomez and Hendricks come from?” she asked, following him. She’d thought that only he, Wynne, and Gardner were sharing guard duty. Discovering that she had more babysitters even than she’d thought was just a little mind-boggling. Pausing in the doorway, she watched him open her refrigerator door. The faint, frosty light illuminated the front of him from the top of his tousled, black head to the toes of his sneakers. He wasn’t looking at her. He was perusing the available food instead. But his eyes were narrowed, his jaw was clenched, and his mouth was tight. Unless he was having an emotional reaction to the leftover salad, that expression was for her.
“They’re watching your back door from a van in a parking lot two doors down. I’ve got two more guys out on the street in a Blazer, watching your front door. We stay in touch.” He reached for a quart of milk—she usually drank skim, but this, courtesy of Wynne, was whole milk—and glanced at her. “You mind?”
He was asking if she minded if he drank some of what wasn’t even properly her milk.
“Help yourself,” she said and declined his offer to pour her some with a shake of her head. He filled his own glass, returned the milk to the refrigerator, shut the door, and drank. Way to avoid a difficult conversation, she thought wryly. With the curtains drawn over the windows and the refrigerator shut, the kitchen was almost as dark as the rest of the apartment. But not quite. The streetlight that Gomez had complained of filtered through the thin cotton panels so that she could see McCabe tip his head back to finish the milk, then hear the faint click as he set the glass in the sink.
By then she had made up her mind. It was her life and she could be stupid if she wanted to. And, yeah, she wanted to. A lot. The problem was, he didn’t seem inclined to cooperate any longer. Leaning against the doorjamb and folding her arms over her chest, she decided to take the battle into the enemy camp.
“That kiss was a mistake, okay?” she said.
He turned back from the sink to look at her. She could see the shape of his head and the outline of his powerful shoulders silhouetted against the curtains, but his expression was lost in darkness.
“I think that should’ve been my line.” His voice was dry. “I shouldn’t have kissed you. I’m sorry.”
Great. He was apologizing when all she really wanted him to do was kiss her again.
“Stuff happens.” With a delicate, no-big-deal shrug, she turned and padded back into the living room. A wiser woman—or a braver one—would undoubtedly have headed back to her bedroom, jumped into bed, pulled the covers over her head, and thanked God for saving her from her own folly. She sank down on the couch.
“Don’t you have to get up and go to work in the morning? It’s almost two a.m.” He had followed her into the living room and now stood beside the TV, looking at her—was it warily? It was difficult to be sure, given the vagaries of the light, but she thought so.
“Like I’m going to be able to sleep after that. Maybe it’s just me, but knowing that there’s somebody out there who’s trying to kill me kind of gives me insomnia.” It was so true she shivered, then firmly thrust the thought of marauding hit men out of her mind. That was a subject to be pondered when her mind was clearer. “Can we turn on the TV, or would that be a violation of the blackout?”
“Go ahead and turn it on. I was watching ESPN when I got the word that someone was headed up your back stairs.”
“I hate ESPN,” Maddie said, picking up the remote from the coffee table and pressing the power button. The TV flickered to life.
“Watch whatever you want.”
The irony of being invited to watch what she wanted on her own TV was not lost on her. Settling into a corner and curling her feet up beside her, Maddie started clicking through the channels. McCabe, meanwhile, crossed to the bathroom and turned off the light. Then he returned to the seating group and lowered himself into the big green chair.
“So, what is this we’re watching?” he asked after a moment.
Maddie flicked a look at him. He was slouched in the chair, his long legs thrust out in front of him. He’d kicked his shoes off, and his thick, white athletic socks glowed faintly in the bluish light.
“Dark Victory,” she said with relish, naming the 1940s Bette Davis weeper. She’d chosen it deliberately as a kind of subtle revenge for all the hours of sports she’d been forced to listen to since the FBI had barged into her life—and also for his reaction to that aborted kiss.
He gave a grunt of disgust. “Why you women like that kind of stuff ...”
“The end makes us cry. It’s cathartic.”
“Well, the middle’s goi
ng to put me to sleep. Do you think we could possibly watch something else?”
“Like what? Not sports.”
“I’m open to compromise.”
Since she wasn’t really feeling like a weeper, either—if she felt like being depressed, she had plenty of things in her real life at that moment that would more than do the trick—she flipped channels. After a few minutes of negotiation, they settled on a Seinfeld rerun.
“I’ve been meaning to ask,” McCabe said as the screen switched to a commercial, “did you get that account you were trying for?”
The memory came complete with its own special little glow. The one great moment in a really crappy week.
“Yeah, we did.”
“Good for you.”
“It’s a really big deal for my company.” Despite everything, she was starting to feel sleepy. The couch was huge and comfy and upholstered in chenille, which made it cozy, and, after wrapping her robe closely about her legs to make sure she stayed decent, she scooted down so that her head rested on the big, squishy armrest.
“So how did you come to be the owner of an advertising agency?” McCabe asked as Seinfeld reappeared on the screen.
“I worked there. The previous owner wanted to sell it. I wanted to buy it. So I did.”
“What, do you have a rich uncle?” There was the faintest note of humor underlying the question.
“I wish.” Maddie made a little face and snuggled lower into the cushions. “Since Creative Partners was barely turning a profit, it wasn’t all that expensive. I had enough saved up for the initial payment, and Mr. Owens—that’s the previous owner—arranged it so that I make monthly payments to him until I own it one hundred percent.”
“That new account large enough to help?”
“Oh, yeah,” Maddie said, smiling a little at the thought. “It’s large enough.”
“So what does your family think about you being a big, bad business mogul?”
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