Just Beyond Reach

by Candace Irvin

  Madre de Díos, such warmth.

  They inhaled in unison—sharply.

  He jerked his fingers back. "Forgive me."

  "N-no—" Those ivory curves swelled even more as she drew her breath in deeply, then cleared her throat. "No problem."

  If he was any sort of gentleman at all, he would raise his gaze and assure her recovery for himself. But he could not. For in doing so he would be forced to look into those expressive eyes. What if, once again, he saw desire there? Though false-blue, he suspected even the errant color would not save him tonight.

  He redoubled his concentration, cursing the perspiration that now dampened his fingers, indeed his entire body, despite the breeze washing over them. He managed to secure the first of four buttons regardless. But as his fingers inched to the second, they slipped again, this time bumping clumsily against the curve of her breast before sliding into the lace cup. His finger came to a searing halt over the spot where he now knew that enchanting birthmark to reside.

  Dios mío. He drew his breath once again, want and need carving into him as they never had before. How he desired this woman. Here. Now.

  He hovered there upon the very cusp of temptation—until, somehow, he was able to call upon a reserve of strength he had not known he possessed. He tugged his fingers free, clenching them fiercely to purge the sensation, the image.

  He should move. Withdraw. Let her finish on her own.

  Surely Hernández had seen enough?

  But he could not move. The need had been too swift. It had already thundered through him, settling deep and low. Heavy.

  Thick.

  Shame and reason attempted to follow, but his increasingly disobedient body would have no part of the chastisement. Six years of need became six thousand as they stood upon that beach. And then, his eyes turned traitor as well. His gaze began to move on its own, to raise, to seek. Until he found hers. Even through the blue, he swore he could see the emerald fire he so loved, feel the warmth, the answering hunger. Drawn to this woman as he never had been before, he reached for her—

  But she was not there.

  She had jerked backward.

  His mind muddled, his heart desperately wanting, it was all he could do to watch as Teresa shoved the remaining buttons of her shirt through their corresponding holes on her own, all the while avoiding his glance as she looked to the ocean beyond. Before he could even regain his senses, she had finished, turning back with an over-bright smile as she took yet another step backward.

  "All done."

  His hand shot out without his mind's urging, wrapping about her wrist in time to prevent further retreat. The soft lapping of the waves taunted him with their ease as awkward quiet stretched between them for perhaps the hundredth time this past week alone. Embarrassed at the noiseless working of his throat, he finally forced air through, then speech. "You are…okay?"

  "Fine."

  She was not.

  Her gaze no longer met his, but had dropped to the hand locked to her wrist. He prayed she would shift her attention, and soon. Before Satan himself succeeded in drawing upon it, using it to seduce him into acknowledging the silk that was, once again, beneath his fingers.

  "Joe?"

  He shook his head to escape the spell as he met her glance, but from the confusion in hers, she had mistaken the motion.

  "Please, let me go. I'm sure Eddie as well as everyone else in that damned house believes I've been chastised by now."

  No doubt they had. But what of her?

  "Do you intend to go upstairs with this man?"

  "What do you think?"

  It mattered not what he thought; her strategy was plainly visible.

  She did.

  She also attempted to tug her wrist from his hand, but he refused to let her go. Just as he refused to let her partake of this foolishness. "Teresa, as your backup, I must ask that you respect my caution regarding Hernández and his intentions."

  "As my backup, you have no right to dictate to me—"

  "Enough." He drew his breath slowly, carefully, the image of his parents rising unbidden, as it was wont to do of late. "Please. Let me rephrase. As your…friend…I ask you to respect—" The remainder was lost as she wrenched her hand free.

  "Damn it, Joe. Just once on this case I'd like you to respect my decisions and my instincts." She jerked her arms to her chest and folded them tightly, her fierce whisper pushing forth just as tightly. "I wish to God you'd just chill out. I sincerely doubt Eddie is stupid enough to hand me something I can inject on the first pass. And if he is, and he presses? He'll get the usual: I don't snort and I only shoot up with men I know. He'll be stuck with pills. He's a pharmacy tech, for crying out loud. I think I can manage to distract the idiot long enough to stuff whatever he offers down my bra."

  Perhaps her fury fed his own, or perhaps it was the image that taunted his mind as she blithely threw this man into his face yet again. He knew not. Nor did he care.

  She thought she could handle a man like Eduardo Hernández?

  She thought she could sink low and taste the true darkness of this world, and live to tell of it? Very well, let her have her taste. But let her have it here and now, whilst he could ensure it did not choke her. He reached deep into his heart, pulling the blackest part to the fore as he hauled her in close and locked her there within his arms so that she could neither escape, nor fend him off. "You think stuffing some pill down your shirt will stop this man? It will not. And then what will you do when he chooses to chase after it?" With not so much as a warning, he slid his right hand into her bra to demonstrate, cupping his fingers and his palm to her bare breasts.

  Rudely.

  "How dare you?"

  He sealed his lips to her ear, ensuring his breath came hot and harsh as he raked his fingers across her flesh, gripping her nipples intimately as she gasped in shock. "Oh, I dare, querida—I dare. And so may he." With that he jerked his hand free, offering her a shadow of the chilling smile, as well as that single word of wisdom, that had once been bestowed upon him some twenty years before in the doorway of his childhood home by a vile monster he had been pursing ever since. "Remember."

  And then turned on his heel and left.

  Tess gaped at Joe's retreating back as he stalked across the beach and up the steps to the deck of Eddie's beach house, flinching as he slammed the sliding door shut.

  No, she hadn't heard it. She hadn't needed to.

  She'd felt it.

  She was wrong. What she'd experienced earlier today hadn't been shellshock. It couldn't have been—because this was shellshock. The symptoms might be the same, but this time they were a thousand times more intense.

  Why else had she just now realized that she was no longer standing at the edge of the ocean—but in it?

  Tess dropped her gaze, staring at the seawater soaking though her canvas tennis shoes and halfway up the calves of her jeans. She couldn't tell if the water was cold or not. All extraneous sensation had been seared from her brain and body the moment that animal had reared its ugly head inside Joe.

  No, not all sensation.

  She could still feel the sweaty, nervy dregs of fear sliding over her tongue as she swallowed the flood of bile beneath.

  And his hand. Good God, she could still feel his hand.

  That hand did not belong to Joe.

  She didn't give a damn if he hadn't touched her breasts before. Hell, it wouldn't matter if he never touched them again; she knew in her heart that touch was not his. It had been base and filthy. Possessed. As dark and as dank as the brine swirling about her legs.

  Of course, she'd heard the stories. Who in the agency hadn't?

  But until now, she'd never truly understood them. Agents had been talking about Joaquín Cortez and his dark side for years, but she'd never quite believed it. How could she? She'd never seen it. And didn't she know Joe better than anyone?

  Except…she didn't.

  Six years almost to the day, and she'd finally figured out she reall
y didn't know Joe at all. The reality of it hit her square in her gut and damn near sent her tumbling back into the ebbing surf. And then, she started shaking. Soon her teeth were chattering, and it was all she could do to grip her arms and rub the bare skin frantically as she tried to coax the warmth and the blood back in as the next wave of salt water rushed in around her lower calves.

  "Tess?"

  She flinched. Why, she had no idea. It wasn't Joe. Hell, it wasn't even Eddie. It was Nicole. She lifted her chin. "Y-yes?"

  "Oh my God, you're freezing."

  "N-no, I'm f-fine." She tried shaking her head for emphasis but her teeth just ended up rattling even more when her fellow nurse drenched the hem of her sarong as she waded out into water to wrap a comforting arm about her.

  "Come on, let's get you inside and get you warmed up."

  "Th-Thanks."

  Why not? She might as well let the woman think she was cold. It was better than the truth. That after all her dreaming and fantasizing of the past two days, having Joe's hands on her breasts had not turned her on as she'd anticipated.

  But it had rocked her to her core.

  She made it across the beach without stumbling, in part thanks to Nicole's steadying arm. But as they climbed the deck and reached the slider, humiliation set in.

  Everyone was watching.

  Oh, they were trying not to. Most of them. But with every stride she and Nicole took deeper into the kitchen, a guest would glance over, before quickly averting his or her gaze. Everyone but Miss San Diego, that is. The blond just stood there at the entrance to the foyer, openly smirking.

  Fortunately—or unfortunately, Tess wasn't sure which—Eddie chose that moment to head down the staircase.

  The blond finally managed to wipe the smug grin from her face and sidle her healthy expanse of tanned flesh over to the tech.

  He brushed her off and made a beeline across the foyer, those beefy arms outstretched. "Tessa, what happened?"

  As if he didn't know.

  Thankfully, Nicole cut him off at the pass, smoothly shifting her body until she was standing firmly between them. "Eddie, Tess has sand in her eyes. I'd like to get her upstairs and take a look."

  "Of course. Use my room, love. It's private."

  Damn, but he was good. She almost believed the oozing sympathy as the tech smoothed a finger down her cheeks, catching the infuriating tears she hadn't even realized Joe's grope-fest had wrenched from her.

  At least one good thing had come out of the manhandling, though. It would get her past the door to Eddie's room—without Eddie in tow. Even as she continued to curse Joe to hell and back, she was forced to thank him.

  Speaking of which, where was Joe?

  Her worry must have shown, because Eddie hooked a thick finger beneath her chin and tipped it. "Tessa, do you need something to…calm your nerves?"

  Though her instincts had long since reasserted themselves, she managed a deceptively wobbly smile. "M-maybe later."

  He smiled.

  The sleaze was itching to take advantage of her supposed grief.

  She turned to Nicole, more determined than ever to nail the tech's ass to the wall. "My b-bag. I need my contact solution."

  "It's already on my bed, Tessa." Again, Eddie. "I found it at my feet after your husband herded you outside."

  Wonderful.

  She hadn't even realized she'd dropped the thing. Hopefully Eddie hadn't found the concealed pocket and the switchblade tucked inside. Because if she could manage to get Nicole to leave her alone in the man's room, she'd be needing it.

  "Come on, Tess. Let's get a look at your eyes."

  Eddie let them pass.

  Moments later, she and Nicole were climbing the stairs to the second floor. The same path she'd taken that very morning, only this time the room and the escort were different. "I really do think there might be a grain of sand wedged beneath my right contact." She inhaled slowly for emphasis. "It hurts like hell."

  From the way Nicole patted her hand as they stopped in front of the door at the end of the hall, the woman obviously assumed the excuse was a ploy to grab a few minutes alone to gather her nerves.

  Whatever worked.

  "You go ahead. Lock the door behind you—and don't argue. Eddie's parties tend to attract some pretty unsavory guests."

  Tess nodded. She'd just bet they did. "Nicole?"

  She turned back. "Yeah?"

  "Thanks."

  The nurse returned her smile. "Not necessary. Just do me a favor. When you're ready—leave. You'll thank me in the cold light of morning." Nicole turned before Tess could stop her, shooing a couple who'd come of the guest room, clothing still in disarray, down the hall before her. At least Joe wasn't in there.

  Tess turned back to the door to Eddie's room, pushing it open as she entered—and gaped.

  Good God Almighty. She'd thought the leopard spots on the guest coverlet were gaudy. They were downright bland compared to this. The scarlet satin bedspread combined with its coordinating king-sized walnut headboard, dresser and nightstands gave the room the distinctive feel of a brothel. The row of gilt-framed posters only added to the effect. Consisting of various shots from Babe-Watch, the gallery of scantily posed actresses bordered on erotic. Why had Eddie even bothered? Why not just go all the way to porn? Tess shoved her disgust for the soft-core posters to the back of her mind as she closed the bedroom door and checked the lock.

  Secure.

  Then again, he'd opened the guest room door on her and Joe despite its lock.

  On her guard, she approached that hideous bed. Her bag was exactly where Eddie had claimed it would be, resting between the twin scarlet button pillows at the base of the plump ebony ones. She grabbed her bag, unzipping it and withdrawing the switchblade as she walked the perimeter of the room to size up its potential hiding places. A silent snick and the blade was ready to double as the instant screwdriver it had served as on more than one occasion—and served well.

  Joe was wrong; she hadn't underestimated Eddie.

  But Joe had underestimated her.

  For one thing, she knew the tech was not the brainless brawn he appeared to be. There was no way he could've skimmed syringes and drugs from the pharmacy for as long as he had if he was. And he had been skimming for some time. Gaudy as the house was, the deed was in Eddie's name. At his age, with his social upbringing—and the lack of money therein—that had to be the direct result of quite a few refills of his illegal stash. She just hoped that stash was secreted somewhere in here.

  Keeping her hypothesis of the man's functioning intellect to the fore of her own mind, she left the obvious dresser drawers and the mattress behind, heading into the adjoining master bathroom to dump her bag on the floor and begin her search. Since she knew for a fact Eddie was stealing sterile syringes, she also bypassed the toilet with its hollow flushing float as well as the narrow linen closet. The float was too small to hold much beyond a sealed baggie of pills, and the closet was as obvious as the mattress.

  However, the laundry hamper, the garbage can with its plastic liner and the baseboards contained more than enough room—not to mention potential. Unfortunately, the first two were empty save for a pile of musty laundry and a disgusting collection of wadded-up mint-green Kleenexes. The baseboard yielded nothing either. It was securely glued beneath the maroon wallpaper. The air-conditioning grating came off next, the screws twirling smoothly from their holes beneath the edge of her switchblade. Tess tucked her hand inside.

  Nothing.

  Sucking up her disappointment, she reattached the grating in a fraction of the time it had taken to remove it and headed for the oversized vanity mirror. So much for the medicine chest Eddie had promised to open up for her in front of Joe—there wasn't one. Not knowing how much time she had left, she bypassed the screws holding the mirror in place and settled for systematically tapping the butt of her switchblade over and around the glass.

  No void in the wall behind the mirror.

  Now what? />
  Syringes were large. Maybe Eddie was stupid enough to shove them under the mattress after all? No. Her gut was definite. She glanced up and studied the combination light/fan fixture overhead.

  Possible.

  Five seconds later, she'd scooted her bag aside and climbed up onto the green marbleized sink. She was almost too short to reach the plastic grating on the vent.

  Almost.

  It popped off in her hand.

  She was definitely too short to see inside from this angle, so she hopped back off the sink and craned her neck.

  Pay dirt.

  One of the sides of metal flashing that made up the anodized tin box had been carefully sawn off. But the clincher was the capped needle that was visible poking over the edge of the exposed ledge—along with half the top of an opaque graduated tube from a tuberculin syringe, sterile clear plastic over-wrap intact.

  The sting was all but over.

  Joe would be overjoyed. She no longer needed the supplies she'd marked to show up on the street to make their case. There was enough right here. But since this search wouldn't stand up in court, she had to get Eddie to show her the stash. Given the pubescent poster gallery in the bedroom next door, all it would take was the promise of a live, private showing in exchange for a little something to loosen her up beforehand.

  Tess locked the fixture cover back into place then scrambled back down from the vanity. But as she was reaching for her bag, she caught the series of soft raps on the bedroom door.

  Joe?

  She forced the swift lump back down her throat. If she was lucky, that was him. She'd have to face him eventually. Better in private than downstairs, in public. But just in case it wasn't—

  "Just a minute!"

  She snapped the switchblade shut as she grabbed her bag from the floor, shoving her hand inside it to secrete the knife and snagging the trial-size bottle of saline on her way out. Ten seconds later, she'd washed her hands, popped her left contact out into her palm and added a squirt of the saline. She was rubbing the contact as she headed for the door. Nicole smiled back as she opened it.

  "Finished?"

  "Just a sec, I need to slip this back in." She headed to the bathroom while Nicole perched herself on the foot of the bed.