[Cutthroat Business 01.0 - 03.0] Boxed Set

by Jenna Bennett

  “That, and because you love me. You know the kind of trouble I’ll get into if Mother and Todd find out about this.”

  “You should have thought of that,” Dix said and hung up. I grimaced and did the same.

  OK, so that hadn’t gone as well as I would have liked. Still, I thought I could trust Dix not to tell Mother and Todd where I was. He’d call them and assure them I was fine, but he’d keep my whereabouts to himself. I hoped.

  The phone didn’t ring again, so whatever he’d told them must have done the trick. Tomorrow, I’d have to call Todd myself, to reassure him—he wouldn’t be satisfied until he heard my voice, and my personal apology—but for now at least, I could rest easy.

  That proved to be more difficult than anticipated. Between the worry over Todd’s and Mother’s reactions and the encounter with Mr. Threatening earlier in the day, it took reading “Desire Under the Desert Moon” through to the end before I was ready to turn out the light. And even then I found sleep elusive. My mind spun, going over the events of the day. When I closed my eyes, the Hispanic man was looking at me with that lack of expression that had sent my stomach plummeting. The way he’d sounded when he told me that Rafe was alive, like it was just a matter of time before he wasn’t anymore, sounded in my ears. I re-experienced Mrs. Jenkins’s fear, palpable enough to touch. I saw the sinister tinted windows of that black SUV that might have been following us. Again, we drove across town, watching for it in the rearview mirror...

  It all translated into another uneasy night haunted by nightmares. I was running again, this time from the Hispanic man, who was coming after me with the sharp knife that had been used to slash my nightgown the other day. The sharp knife he was planning to use to slash the nightgown I was wearing, and me along with it. And I was running from Mother and Todd as well; they were looking for me, to drag me back to Sweetwater and the Martin plantation, where they’d wrap me in cotton wool and put me on a shelf, up and away from harm. Under the circumstances, the idea should have held more appeal than it did.

  Through the middle of these dreams wove the plot of the book I had just read: I was the virginal Lady Serena, running from the lecherous Sayid Pasha and from the conventions of my proper British family. I was looking for someone to save me, not only from the harem but from a life of propriety and boredom as the wife of some chinless sprig of British nobility.

  Enter the dashing and dangerous Sheik Hasan, who, when he showed up in my subconscious, bore an uncanny resemblance to Rafe.

  After that, the dreams changed. The need to hurry, to run away, became a different sort of need; no less frantic and even less controlled, but not so terrifying. Or perhaps just as terrifying, but in a different way.

  So vivid were the dreams that the next morning, in that state between sleep and full wakefulness, with the sun shining on my closed eyelids, I could still feel the warmth of his body at my back and smell the citrusy, spicy scent I had come to associate with him. One of his hands was skimming lazily over my shoulder and arm, warm and hard, and I stretched luxuriously, lips curving with remembered pleasure. I’d feel guilty when I came back to my senses—a lady doesn’t entertain dreams like those, and if she does, she certainly doesn’t enjoy reliving them in the morning—but for the time being, I reveled in the warmth and smell and the drowsy heaviness. Until reality intruded, in the form of an insistent melody from my cell phone. My eyes popped open, the drowsiness gone. The hand, however, remained.

  For a second, I went as stiff as a board, in total shock and denial. There couldn’t really be a man in my bed, touching me. There hadn’t been a man in my bed for two years, and I’d certainly remember if I’d had one there when I went to sleep. The only logical explanation was that I was still asleep and I just thought I’d woken up.

  A soft chuckle gave the lie to that explanation. I knew that chuckle, and the voice that accompanied it. Sex-appeal incarnate, that voice. Dark and husky and full of things a woman shouldn’t be faced with at daybreak. “Morning, Goldilocks.”

  The ringing phone fell silent when I didn’t pick it up. I was afraid to turn around. “Rafe?”

  “Who else?”

  I glanced over my shoulder, cautiously. Just in case I was losing my mind and it was the man from yesterday, here to rape and kill me, to send a message to Rafe. Or just in case the past two years hadn’t happened, and I was still married to Bradley.

  I felt all the air go out of my lungs when I met a pair of brown eyes, long-lashed and dark as those on a Jersey cow, smudgy with fatigue.

  “Oh, my God. It is you.” I scrambled all the way around, not sure whether I wanted to throw myself around his neck in relief, or disappear under the covers in abject embarrassment. I compromised by pulling the sheet up to my nose and peering at him over it. “What are you doing here?”

  He quirked a brow, glancing around. “Don’t you think that oughta be my question, darlin’? You’re in my house, my room, my bed… Guess you musta missed me, huh?”

  I flushed. “Maybe just a little.”

  He grinned. “Looks like maybe more than a little.”

  I avoided his eyes. “Actually, I’m only here because of Marquita. Spicer and Truman found your grandmother wandering the streets two days ago, and she says Marquita never came home the day before that. They were going to take Mrs. Jenkins back to that awful place she was living when we met her, and I couldn’t let them do it. So I said I’d take care of her until Marquita came back or until I could get in touch with you and you could make other arrangements. But then someone broke into my apartment so we couldn’t stay there, and I didn’t want to sleep in Marquita’s bed, just in case she came back, and of course your grandmother’s in her own bed, but yours was just sitting here, empty…”

  Rafe’s grin had been getting wider and wider as I babbled on, trying to justify my actions. My reasoning had made perfect sense two days ago, but now, with him sitting on the edge of the bed looking like he wanted to crawl in beside me, I was wondering what the hell I’d been thinking. If this ever got back to my mother, she’d drop into a dead faint on the spot.

  “Did you sleep well?” The end of that sentence hung in the air, unspoken. In my bed…

  I flushed. “Reasonably well.”

  “Dream of me?” He winked.

  “Not at all,” I said robustly.

  “Uh-huh. I’ve told you before, darlin’, you’re a lousy liar.”

  “Fine. So maybe you turned up in my dreams once or twice.” More like two or three dozen times, really, over the past few weeks, but telling him that would make him insufferable. More insufferable than he was already.

  His voice was smooth. “You know, darlin’, it’s OK to admit that you like me. Most women do.”

  “I’ve noticed,” I said. “Just out of curiosity, how many women threw themselves at you during the time you were gone? A dozen? Two?”

  “I wasn’t counting. Any chance you’ll be throwing yourself at me anytime soon?”

  “None at all.”

  “Pity.” His eyes slid over me, from my disheveled bed-hair over my naked shoulders down to the not very demure neckline of my nightgown, on display now that I’d forgotten to hold the sheet up to my chin. I blushed again, asking myself why on earth I hadn’t made sure to wear something that covered me a little better than this frothy confection of satin, ribbons and lace. Just in the unlikely event that he’d come home and catch me red-handed, so to speak.

  Or had I, in my heart of hearts, secretly wished that he’d arrive to find me sleeping in his bed? Wearing this nightgown that was as good as an invitation?

  I don’t know what showed on my face, but something did. His eyes turned darker and his lips softened in a way I’d seen before, usually as a precursor to his kissing me. And with me in my nightgown—and in his bed—that seemed like a very dangerous proposition. Before he could act on what I knew he was thinking, I put out a hand to stop him. The cotton of his T-shirt was soft against my palm, and I could feel the heat of his skin and
the steady beat of his heart through the fabric. He glanced down, then up again. “No welcome home kiss?”

  “Not here.” If he kissed me here, I wasn’t sure I’d make it out of bed today.

  His lips curved. “Who are you afraid of, darlin’? You or me?”

  “Both,” I answered honestly. “I know how… persuasive you can be. And I’m at something of a disadvantage at the moment.” In his bed, in my nightgown. And because I was really, really happy to see him. So happy that I couldn’t be trusted to remember all the reasons why getting involved with him was a bad idea.

  “You’re gonna be the death of me one of these days, darlin’.” He took the hand I had planted against his chest and lifted it to skim a chaste kiss over my knuckles. I smiled, but then caught my breath sharply as he turned the hand over and pressed another kiss against my palm. And there was nothing chaste about this one. His eyes caught mine, and the rest of the world receded until there was just him.

  I was in his arms before I had any recollection of having moved. Mouth to mouth, chest to chest, my arms tight around his neck. I could taste coffee on his breath, and surprise, before desire knocked them both out of the way in a headlong rush. And then it was like being back in my dream from last night, all blistering need and desperation: a frantic rush to kiss, to touch, to caress.

  I was vaguely aware of my back hitting the bed, of him following me down, the weight of him heavy on top of me. He had both hands fisted in my hair, the slight sting keeping me in the present instead of letting me step back, emotionally check out, the way I usually do when I’m this close to him. I’ve always thought it was from terror, but maybe it’s just simple self-preservation. Now that I wasn’t guarding myself, determined not to feel anything or remember this later, the sensations were overwhelming. I was drowning in need. His lips slanting over mine, his tongue licking into my mouth, his body, hard against mine, even through the padding of the comforter. Smooth skin, like hot silk under my hands. A thunderbolt of pure lust hit me low in the stomach, making me shiver, and I could feel his lips curve against mine. If I’d had any sense of decorum, of self-preservation left, I would have been upset by the fact that I’d given myself away, that he knew I wanted him when, as a properly brought-up Southern Belle, I should be above such base desires, but I couldn’t muster the proper outrage at my own weakness. Not even the knowledge that I’d given him ammunition he could use against me if he chose, was enough to make me feel ashamed of my need for him.

  The phone rang.

  “Let it go,” Rafe murmured against my mouth.

  I turned my head to the side, which only served to allow him access to my neck instead. I didn’t recognize my own voice. “What if it’s important?”

  “They’ll call back.” He ran the tip of his tongue down my throat as the phone continued its rendition of the Alleluia-chorus. I didn’t want to think about how embarrassingly appropriate the ringtone was, under the circumstances.

  “They’ve already... oh, God...” He was moving south, pushing the comforter away, his hands bunching fistfuls of my nightgown, pulling it up and out of his way. If I were going to do something, it had to be now. Another minute of this, and there’d be no return. “They’re already calling back.”

  The phone had rung earlier, and I’d ignored it in my shock and surprise that he was here. But if whoever it was, was calling again, it might actually be something important.

  I made a superhuman effort to get my hands up to his chest. I didn’t push hard enough to budge him—with his hands on me, and his lips on mine, I had no strength left to speak of—but I managed to show him that I wanted him to move. He rolled over onto his back as I scrambled out of bed and snatched up the phone, adjusting the nightgown with my other hand. My fingers were shaking when I pushed the buttons, my eyes still on Rafe, unable to look away.

  He lay back against the pillows, breathing hard. Pushing a hand through his hair, he scooped it back and off his forehead. He must not have had it cut in the past six weeks, because it was longer than I’d ever seen it, at least since high school. And it was a shade lighter than I remembered, too: not black but brown, like espresso. The same color as his eyes, which were hot and liquid. “Come back to bed.” His voice was rough, husky with heat and promise.

  I swallowed, scared by how much I wanted to ignore the phone and do as he said. “Hello?”

  He was bare-chested, with a pair of faded jeans low on his hips. I had a vague recollection of running my hands over naked skin, smooth and hot, but I couldn’t remember helping him off with the T-shirt. It was on the floor, several feet away, and I crossed to it on unsteady legs.

  “Ms. Martin?” the phone said.

  “Detective?”

  Just the other day, I’d imagined Rafe in this bed, his skin warm against the white sheets, his eyes simmering with desire when he looked at me. Now I was looking at my vision, and I realized just how woefully inadequate my imagination had been.

  “Did I wake you?” the voice in my ear asked.

  I grabbed the T-shirt off the floor and tossed it toward the bed. It landed on the comforter, a white blotch against the black satin, but Rafe made no move to put it on. His eyes didn’t leave mine. “Come here.” He crooked a finger. His low voice had the roughness of velvet, trickling over my skin, raising goose bumps.

  “No,” I said, my voice a little too loud. He smiled, damn him. “No, you didn’t wake me. I was... um... up.”

  The smile turned to a grin, and I had no problem reading his thoughts. Yeah, he was up, too.

  I turned my back on him, deliberately. How was I supposed to think when he looked like that? When he looked at me like that? “What can I do for you, Detective?”

  “I wanted to give you an update.”

  At—I pulled the phone away from my ear and squinted at the display—seven twenty-eight in the morning? “Has something happened?”

  “You might say that,” Detective Grimaldi said.

  “What? Did someone try to break into my apartment again? Have you figured out who did it? Arrested someone?”

  “No, no, and no. This is about something else.”

  Uh-oh. “What?”

  “Remember yesterday, when you suggested I ask Sheriff Satterfield in Sweetwater to send someone to check out that trailer park where you told me Mrs. Johnson had grown up? Where Mr. Collier grew up as well?”

  “Of course I remember.” I snuck a glance at Rafe. He still hadn’t put his shirt on, and all those muscles against the black satin were distracting, but the heat was gone from his eyes. His face was serious.

  “Deputy Johnson drove out there first thing this morning.”

  Oh, God. “Did he find anything?”

  “I’m afraid so,” Tamara Grimaldi said. “He found his wife’s body. Still in her car. Which was parked out of the way, behind one of the trailers.”

  Mobile homes, in my new professional lingo. I didn’t bother correcting the detective’s phraseology. “Which trailer?”

  Grimaldi’s voice was carefully neutral. “I’m not sure it matters, but it was Mr. Collier’s old place. Deputy Johnson remembered.”

  Of course he did. And why I had expected anything different, I didn’t know.

  I swallowed. “How...?”

  “She was shot,” Detective Grimaldi said. “Once, through the head. Entry wound at the right temple. Close range, most likely by someone sitting in the passenger seat.”

  “Someone she knew, then?”

  “If not, it was someone she trusted enough to let him or her into the car with her. As far as we can tell, it must have happened a few days ago. Most likely the same day she left Nashville, or perhaps the following day. We’ll know more when the M.E. is finished.”

  “God.” I closed my eyes against the picture her words painted. Over on the bed, Rafe grabbed the T-shirt and pulled it over his head. “Did she... um...?

  “Do it herself?” Grimaldi suggested. “It’s possible, but too soon to tell. We’ll have her brought
up to Nashville for examination, along with the car. My team will be cooperating with Sheriff Satterfield’s staff in Sweetwater. We’ll investigate on our end, they’ll investigate on theirs, but because our facilities are better for crime scene and forensic investigations, we’ll be handling that end of it.”

  “Plus, she lived here.” I watched Rafe uncoil from the bed, smoothly as a panther. I had to force myself to stay where I was and not to step back when he moved into my personal space, and didn’t stop until our bodies brushed. Then he grabbed my wrist and adjusted the phone so he could hear the detective, too. I wondered if he could feel my pulse tripping under his fingers.

  “That, too,” Detective Grimaldi agreed. “I’m going to need you and Mrs. Jenkins to come in this morning and make a formal statement about the last time you saw Mrs. Johnson.”

  “Of course.” Gracious, how would this affect poor Mrs. J? Yet another person she cared about, another presence in her life, gone. Yet more violence heaped on violence for the old lady.

  “You haven’t heard from Mr. Collier, have you?”

  My eyes shot up to Rafe’s. His lips thinned, and he shook his head.

  “No,” I said into the phone, “I haven’t heard a word.”

  Grimaldi didn’t answer.

  I added, “Surely you’re not thinking that he...?”

  “I’m not thinking anything. But I do need to talk to him. So when you see him, please tell him to get in touch.”

  I promised I would, looking up at him the whole time. His face was grim, and those eyes that had been filled with simmering heat just a few minutes ago were cold and hard.

  “I’ll expect you around nine.” The detective hung up the phone, over my babbled assurances that yes, I’d be there, with Mrs. Jenkins in tow.

  Chapter Seven

  Rafe’s face might have been carved in stone for all the expression it showed.

  His voice was equally neutral. “She’s dead.”

  It wasn’t a question. I nodded anyway. “I’m sorry.”