Killer Smile

by Marilyn Pappano

  Ben was grinning when the chief left. Why not? It wasn’t his potential for having sex today that they were hinting about. After making an effort to wipe away the smile, he gestured toward the door. “Come on. I’ll take you home.”

  They left the same way they’d come, through the sally port, and pulled to the curb in front of his house a minute later. Ben and Natasha remained in the SUV while Daniel went inside and walked through the house. It was as still and unviolated as ever, bearing only one presence—his own. He wondered briefly what she would think of it, but then dismissed the question. It was where he lived. Nothing there would surprise her because nothing about him ever surprised her.

  Except, in the beginning, how much he had really loved her.

  Liam Bartlett was pulling his patrol car to the curb across the street when Daniel waved for Natasha and Ben to come in. He waved at the older officer, too, then subjected everything around them to a fierce glare. Everything, because other than them, the streets, sidewalks, yards and porches were empty. Not even the fat cat was roaming.

  He followed Natasha inside the door then faced Ben. “I’ve got a few hundred hours of video to go through, courtesy of my friend in LA. You mind coming over for dinner and helping?”

  “Sure. I’ll even bring food from Mom’s. Give me an hour’s notice.” Ben’s mouth twitched with the need to grin. “Before I leave, I’m going to check the perimeter, and I’ll talk to Liam and Simpson. And like the chief said, cell and radio.”

  “Thanks.” Daniel closed and locked the door, armed the security system and turned expecting to find Natasha a few feet away. She wasn’t. He walked to the double door that led into the living room, where she was slowly making her away around the furniture, trailing her hand over the back of the leather couch, the gleaming wood of a family antique then the rougher aged surface of a primitive bench. She’d always been a tactile person, to the point that he’d had to hold her hands in museums to stop her from touching things.

  She’d made him more of a tactile person, though the only surface he’d really been passionate about touching was her body.

  His fingertips tingled just at the thought.

  “I like this.” Now she was rubbing the rough stone of the fireplace. “I see Jeffrey’s touch a few places. And Archer’s, too.” She nodded to the exquisite inlaid coffee table.

  “You know me and shopping,” he said inanely.

  “I know. You’re very good at following people and, if need be, carrying their purchases. As long as you don’t have to make any choices.” She reached her starting point, smiled faintly at him then stepped back into the hall. To the right was the stairs and his office, to the left, the dining room, kitchen and powder room. She chose left, walking beneath a broad archway and turning into the dining room. “Wow.”

  His skin flushed, his nerves tingling, he moved after her. He found her where he expected: standing next to the simple rectangular dining table with its simple Shaker-style chairs, gently tracing over the seams of a very complicated compass rose inlay. “A hundred years from now, some young Harper is going to take this set to Antiques Roadshow and say, ‘My great-grandfather made it for my grandfather, and it’s been in the family ever since.’”

  “I hope so.” He shrugged. “My father loves to show off his talents.”

  “Yes, he does,” she agreed, then added with a knowing smile, “Like his son.”

  She wandered into the kitchen, stuck her head into the mudroom then walked to the other end of the hall. After taking a quick look at the office, she stopped at the foot of the stairs. She didn’t offer an invitation, didn’t say anything at all. She just looked at him, and that sense of expectancy he’d seen in her earlier expanded until somehow it burst inside him. Did he want to take a chance?

  Oh, hell, yeah.

  He walked to her, not stopping until he was too close, and said in a raspy voice, “Do me a favor. Walk up those stairs in front of me.”

  Her smile came slowly, sweet and wicked and womanly. She knew how he liked watching her move, that he marveled how she could have the same equipment as all other women and yet she was the only one whose every movement he found enchanting and seductive and sexy and just pure pleasure. She turned her back, sashayed up the first few steps and then, with a giggle, she broke into a run, reaching the top before he’d thought to take even one step.

  Seeing her smile like that, all the ugliness in her life pushed to the back of her mind, touched something in him. Humbled him. Made him weak.

  But before he got too weak, he dashed up the stairs after her. Shrieking in a manner that would have done Stacia proud, she spun and ran down the hall, bypassing the first three doors as if instinct led her, racing into his bedroom at the end, darting around to the other side of the bed. There she peeled off the hoodie, dragging her shirt halfway up with it, exposing her flat, tanned middle and just a hint of a purple bra.

  “Blinds closed, curtains closed. Don’t want to shock the nosiest woman in town.” Natasha tossed the hoodie at the chair in the corner and missed, then smoothed her T-shirt down. Fingers laced together, she swayed side to side. “This is...”

  Daniel’s throat tightened. “Second thoughts?”

  “No. Oh, God, no. I just feel...bold.”

  The tension faded. “Men adore bold women. But if you’d feel more comfortable...” He crossed to the stereo, sorted through CDs there, then selected one and put it into the player.

  “Ooh, an old-fashioned man. I like that.”

  “My fathers still have a turntable and all their old vinyl. At least I’m a few steps closer to catching up with technology.” With the press of a button, Ella Fitzgerald’s voice filled the air.

  He offered Natasha his hand. “Dance with me?” She was a sucker for slow dances. So was he. If either of them was still coherent when the song finished, they weren’t doing it right.

  She laid her hand in his, and heat stirred deep in his belly. He drew her closer than he had in the ballroom, wrapped his arms around her, took a moment to enjoy the anticipation and greed and need. It had been five long years since he’d felt this way. Yes, he’d had sex since then, and he had enjoyed it, but it hadn’t been...this.

  Because it hadn’t been Natasha.

  And he’d still loved her even if he’d been too proud to admit it to himself.

  Even though they’d already proven that love wasn’t always enough.

  They could dazzle on the dance floor if they wanted, but at this moment, they were hardly moving, just pretending, just enough to keep those sparks striking and flaring and burning. Just enough to kill him if they kept at it long enough.

  Best female singer ever, she’d said of Ella. Her eyes were closed to better enjoy the song, and the dance, and the promise. Her hands felt small where they rested against him, burning even through the fabric of his shirt. The movement of her breasts and hips, tantalizingly brushing him, and the shallow sighs of her breath on his throat teased and aroused him, turning want to need to hunger to desperation to fierce satisfaction to humble gratitude.

  Her first kiss was light, her lips feathering across his neck, so insubstantial that he shouldn’t even have felt it, but oh, yeah, he felt it. In every nerve, every muscle, every part of his body. Her second kiss landed on his jaw and started a quivering deep inside him, one he’d experienced every single time they’d made love. It sapped his energy and made him strong. It left him vulnerable and greedy, and it made him want everything. Anything.

  No, everything.

  God help him.

  * * *

  It had been dreamlike, dancing to music only in their heads in the dusty, unused ballroom, but here in the smaller space of the bedroom, with Ella crooning over the speakers, all of Natasha’s womanly parts were so close to swooning. What little she’d noticed of the room was pretty—a deep chocolate wall, a super-thick geometric rug, a queen-size bed�
��but none of it mattered.

  This, her and Daniel, touching, kissing, making love, making right... This was all that mattered.

  Her next kiss went on his mouth, and his arms tightened around her, his hand sliding into her hair and tilting her head to the perfect angle for him to take control. He thrust his tongue between her lips, and she melted against him. The day they’d met, he had told her he was an expert kisser, and then he’d proven it when they said good-night. Her lungs had forgotten their function, her knees had gone weak and the only word her flustered brain had remembered was more.

  She had told Stacia, “This is the one.”

  You always say that.

  But this one really is.

  You always say that, too.

  But that time, she’d been right.

  Just not smart enough or mature enough or whatever enough to realize it.

  Though Ella had segued into another more up-tempo song, their rhythm didn’t change. Natasha roused herself from the hazy stupor of indulgence and slid her hands to his middle. She had experience with removing his gun belt—when you dated a cop, you learned interesting things—but today she left it alone and tugged his shirt from the waistband of his pants. The nubby fabric was warm from his body heat and bunched softly over her hands as she pushed it up over his stomach, his pecs, reaching the barrier of their kissing.

  He was loathe to let her go, she knew from the way he’d back off then come back for just one more stroke, one more nibble. Finally she was able to yank the shirt over his head and drop it, not caring where it landed. His skin was smooth, marked with only a few wisps of hair, his muscles lovingly defined, and he was responsive, so responsive to her every caress. Skin rippling, nipples hardening, gooseflesh rising.

  And with a very impressive erection already risen.

  Was it any wonder she liked to touch things when they were as beautiful as he was?

  “Natasha.”

  He said her name in that strangled, you’re-killing-me way that sent a thrill of feminine power through her. It never went to her head, though, because he had the same sweet power over her: to make her body hum, to deliver such satisfaction that she shattered, to put her back together even better than before.

  Love. And lust. And trust. A heady combination.

  She pressed hot, damp kisses to his chest while unfastening his gun belt. Since she couldn’t just let it drop the way she had his shirt, he took it from her, laid it somewhere a few steps away, quickly balanced on first one foot then the other to unlace his boots and then came back to her. While she made agonizing work of unfastening his pants, drawing more than a few groans from him, he worked the boots off, kicking them to the side with soft thuds.

  “Remember the time...” Her thoughts as well as her fingers got lost somewhere between undoing his zipper and sliding the pants off, finding instead that warm, solid, silken part of him.

  “I got a concussion.” His words were breathy, the look on his face strained and taut.

  “Just a little one.”

  It had been early in their romance, when they couldn’t get enough of each other quickly enough. Undone pants plus boots plus trying to move beyond the door where she’d grabbed him while he kissed her had equaled tangled feet, a fall, a lot of kissing to make it all better and, a few hours later, a trip to the urgent care clinic for a diagnosis of concussion.

  “You didn’t tell the doctor what we’d really been doing.”

  “I didn’t need to tell him. One look at either of us, and people always knew.”

  Knew they had just been or soon would be intimate. Knew they were infatuated. Knew they were in love. Arguing with him had even been hard, because she still had that look in her eyes and he still had that tenderness. Sometimes when she was ranting, he had looked at her—just looked—and everything inside her had gone all soft and gooey, irritation forgotten.

  He had been such a gift. She had been so honored.

  Regret made a tiny break in the desire still bubbling inside her, and she pushed it away. She rarely appreciated her mother’s advice, but there was one piece she was going to wholly embrace right now: live in the moment. Why would Natasha spend one minute in regret when Daniel was standing there, half-naked, touching her, hard for her?

  One long swoop, and she removed his pants and boxers. She stared at him, the whole picture, head to foot. He was gorgeous fully dressed. He was gorgeously impressive naked.

  And for the next however-long, he was hers.

  Vaguely aware of tugging, she blinked a few times and realized he was undoing the buttons of her shirt. The first time the back of his fingers touched her skin, energy crackled, sharp and electric, and she dragged in a pitiful breath. “It’d be faster if I do it.”

  All the buttons were loose except the top two. He pushed the fabric to either side and slid both hands over her middle, and then around to her bottom, lifting her snug against him. “Who says I want to go faster?”

  His mouth touched her jaw, her eyes fluttered shut and her head tilted to the side so he could more easily continue the kisses. She was hot and tingly, and her muscles were quivering as if she’d just completed a one-mile vertical hike. The air in the room had gone thin, and pressure was building inside her, starting low in her belly and working its way up and out. It had been so long, and it was a fine line that separated want from need, pleasure from pain, savoring from immediate gratification.

  “Oh, my—”

  He moved her back, onto the bed, his mouth taking hers as they fell. His body landed on hers without real force but with real, incredible, smoldering, leave-nothing-behind-but-ash heat. His fever spread, heightening her own, and when he thrust his hips against her, she damn near whimpered for relief.

  He was naked. She was fully dressed. Something was wrong with this picture.

  She pressed her pelvis into the mattress, making room to slide her hand between their bodies, to wrap her fingers around his penis, to stroke up and down, then lower, cupping his—

  His entire body went rigid, and Daniel, for whom not swearing wasn’t an option except in moments of great stress, gasped and blurted out a curse, an obscenity, a plea. Together they removed her clothes in a fraction of the time he would have taken, then he put on a condom and sank deep inside her with a groan that echoed her own.

  Who said faster wasn’t sometimes better?

  * * *

  When her brain became functional again, Natasha felt as if she’d completed a two-mile vertical hike. Making her own trail. In rain and heat and wind. Her body was heavy, her nipples tender, her skin raw and shocky. Her heart beat strongly, taking its sweet time returning to a normal rhythm, and her brain was still oxygen deprived, and her life-couldn’t-be-better gauge was pinging over the top.

  She was satisfied. At peace. Happy. Even—blissful.

  Daniel lay facing her, arms around her. His eyes were closed, his hair damp with sweat, his breathing deep but slowing. During their whole lives, he had shown her nothing but love, loyalty, compassion and the calm she’d longed for, and she had loved him, oh, like no one had loved him. Hurt him like no one had hurt him.

  It was beyond rational explanation that he lay there beside her, handsome, sweet, tender, passionate. Forgiving. She’d never thought him a forgiving man.

  Or maybe she’d never thought she was worth forgiving.

  Tears pricked, but when he opened his eyes, she blinked them away.

  “What are you doing?” he whispered.

  “Looking at you,” she whispered back.

  He released his hold around her middle and raised his hand to her face, wiping away a tear that had escaped despite her best efforts. “I never stopped loving you, Tash.”

  The admission was barely audible, but it rattled her universe. It overwhelmed her, caught her breath in her lungs and switched off everything in her brain but the emotions. The te
ars welled, filling her eyes and turning her world watery. “Oh, Daniel.”

  He caressed her cheek, along her jaw, down the curve of her neck. “Is that an ‘Oh, Daniel, I wish you hadn’t said that’? Or maybe an ‘Oh, Daniel, couldn’t you have waited?’”

  A smile burst onto her face. “No, that’s ‘Oh, Daniel, you really are perfect.’ I’ve been wondering if my memories are just heavily biased in your favor, if I was delusional myself, if I was forgetting the bad and playing up the good. But we didn’t really have any bad, and all the good was totally you.” She grew serious, laying her palm against his chest, feeling the steady thump-thump of his heart. “Daniel Harper, you’re the best man I’ve ever had the honor of knowing and trusting and depending on and loving.”

  Before she could say anything even sappier, his phone chimed on the opposite bedtable. He was leaning toward her, as if he might kiss her, and after an instant’s consideration for the incoming text, he went ahead with the kiss. Just a sweet one, gentle, a kind of claiming kiss. She was surprised because, between possible emergencies with his fathers and work, he never ignored the phone.

  Then he released her and rolled across the bed to reach the cell. He returned to her side, snuggled her back into the warm spot next to him and checked the message. His muscles went taut, but nothing like a while ago, when she had kissed a meandering trail from his shoulder all the way down to his second erection. He’d been so rigid then, she’d thought he might break.

  “‘Message for Nat,’” he read aloud, his expression grim. “‘Why did you go home with him? Do you think I can’t reach you at his house just as easily as I can at the hotel? It seems, Nat, that you’re deliberately trying to upset me. We’ve made vows to each other, till death do us part vows. Look at the ring you’re wearing.’”