by Desiree Holt
“And we can talk about other things,” she added.
It occurred to her with a sudden jab that in all the time they’d spent together, they hadn’t really discussed the things most couples dug into. Common interests. Shared interests. They hadn’t really looked beyond the upper layers of who each of them were. Kari was sure it had been because Slade was so afraid to create something that had the appearance of a relationship. She hated to tell him but they were well on their way to one, whether or not he wanted to accept it. She was getting damn sick and tired of the same old song. She often wondered if he was protecting himself, more than another person. Whether he was more worried about the death of a relationship than getting killed himself and leaving mourners.
I’m strong, she wanted to tell him. I can survive. I survived the stalker, didn’t I? Trust me to not be afraid of this.
But not tonight. Tonight was about celebrating and talking about the other things that made up their lives. Movies, books, even sports. Slade had a sharp mind and a depth of interest that she hadn’t found in a lot of men. Or maybe before she’d left Chicago she’d just been hanging around with the wrong men.
Slade Donovan was a man of many faces. He was a warrior first. She’d started watching movies like Lone Survivor and Zero Dark Thirty to try to get a better understanding of what he did. He was a rancher. She could visualize his lean, muscular figure sitting easy in the saddle, well-worn jeans outlining his long legs and fantastic butt. And he was a man with an incredible mind and a thirst for knowledge. Conversation flowed so smoothly dinner was over before she realized it.
“How about a carriage ride?” he asked when he’d settled the bill.
Outside in Alamo Plaza were fancy horse-drawn carriages available for romantic rides.
“Oh! That would be nice. I’ve never done one before.” They were both silent for a moment as they realized why that was.
“Then tonight is the right time for it. Come on.”
He held her hand as they walked the two blocks to Alamo Plaza. Slade negotiated with one of the drivers and before she knew it she was sitting in the seat, nestled against Slade with his arm cradling her. It was a typical old-fashioned buggy, with large wheels, two steps up to the body of the carriage and bench seats lined with plush velvet. A variety of colorful flowers decorated both the carriage and the horse, and bells attached to the horse’s bridle jingled as the animal slowly trotted around downtown San Antonio. All around them people enjoyed the warm night, strolling, stopping to chat, sitting on the low wall where she and Slade had enjoyed their ice cream cones. They rode in silence, neither of them requiring conversation. It was nice, Kari thought, to just be.
That same feeling of latitude still wrapped itself around them on the ride back to her apartment and after they were inside. Kari did her security check then, by unspoken agreement, they undressed slowly, gazes locked together. When they were naked, Slade simply stood and looked at her for a moment. She loved the hunger and heat flaring in his eyes. She loved even more the way he ran his hand so slowly over her curves, following the line of her hips and her buttocks. Coasting up her arms and over to cup her breasts. Hefting them in his palms, he brushed his thumbs lightly back and forth against the nipples, now tightly beaded. Kari sucked in a breath at his touch. Her taut buds were so sensitive to his touch that the lightest caress had them tightening even more and flashes of heat racing through her system right to her core.
He took his time, stroking and caressing. It amazed her again that no matter how much sex they’d had last night and today, he wanted her just as much. Maybe even more. And certainly as much as she wanted him. When he lowered his head to string kisses along one shoulder, she tilted her head back, giving him access to that delicate spot at the hollow of her throat where she could feel the heavy pounding of her pulse. He traced the indentation with the tip of his tongue, shivers racing over the surface of her skin. And in her pussy her inner walls flexed as her body demanded his cock.
By the time he slipped his hands over the curve of her hips again, she was shaking so badly with need she had to sit on the edge of the bed. Slade nudged her to lean back, urged her thighs apart and kneeled between her legs. His thumbs were hot when he used them to gently open her labia, but that was nothing compared to the heat that shot through her with the first swipe of his tongue over her clit.
Oh, God!
How was it possible that sex with him just got better and better?
The soft swipes of his tongue lit every nerve in her sensitive tissues. Her muscles quaked each time his tongue took a pass over her sensitive bud. He licked the smooth skin of her inner lips and drew lines with his tongue the length of her slit. She tried to urge him with her hips to go faster, do more, but he went at his own pace, determined to torment her. She was so ready for him, hanging off the edge of that erotic cliff.
Now! Please, now!
In the next instant, he had her legs resting on his shoulders, his thumbs holding her apart and his tongue probing her with strong, hard thrusts. She quivered and shook at the assault on her senses, locking her ankles behind his back to keep him in place. He moved his tongue faster now, in and out, easing one thumb to her center to torment her aching clit. God! She wanted to come so much she was willing to beg for it.
“Please, Slade. Please, please, please.”
“Please what?” His deep voice was muffled against her flesh.
“Please let me come.”
He looked up at her for a brief moment. “Slow and easy wins the race, darlin’.”
She had to stifle a cry of impatience, knowing there’d be no rushing him now. And there wasn’t. He held her just at that place, so close to the edge, for what seemed like forever. Until her limbs were like jelly, her pulse stuttered and her body begged for release. When her orgasm rocked over her, it came so slowly she didn’t realize it at first. It wriggled its way up from deep inside her, uncoiling with maddening slowness until her entire body shook with the force of it. The spasms went on and on and on, as if they’d never stop, the release hitting her everywhere, her inner muscles clenching and clenching. Slade’s tongue still did its sensuous dance, lapping up every bit of her juice.
By the time the last of the tiny aftershocks had subsided, she was little better than a wet tissue. She didn’t even have the strength to lift herself from the bed. Fortunately Slade took care of that for her, stripping back the covers and arranging her just the way he wanted her. He grabbed one of the condoms he kept in the nightstand, rolled it on while his gaze still locked with hers, then he was there. Right there. His thick shaft easing into her pussy made slick by the juices of her orgasm.
Again he took her on a slow ride, thrusting in and out in slow motion, until she was ready to beg him to just do it. Do it! When he did, with her legs over his shoulders again and his hands beneath the cheeks of her ass, their shared release exploded through her, seeming endless, on and on.
Slade collapsed onto her, catching his weight on his forearms. “I could stay like this forever.”
A little bubble of hysterical laughter burst from her. “We might have trouble going to work.”
One corner of his mouth kicked up in a half-grin. “Maybe they’d let us work from home.”
Kari had no idea how much time passed as they lay there in that position. At last Slade eased himself from her body, went to dispose of the condom and slid into bed next to her, spoon fashion.
“Thank you,” she said at last.
He chuckled against her ear, his warm breath tickling her skin. “My pleasure.”
She dozed off curled into him, wishing things could stay just like this forever and wondering if there was a way to make it happen.
Chapter Seventeen
The night had been perfect—the elegant dinner, the romantic carriage ride and the slow, delicious sex. Now they lay in bed together, sated for the moment, her head on his shoulder, his hand stroking her arm. She felt freer than she had in a long time, now that her stalker had bee
n caught and was safely tucked away in jail.
She woke about three o’clock and went to get a drink of water. When she came back into the bedroom, Slade was also awake and sitting up in bed.
“I’m glad you’re here this weekend to celebrate with me.” She set her glass on the nightstand and crawled back into bed. “I can’t begin to tell you what it feels like not to be running from shadows all the time.”
“But you haven’t been running from them here, right?” Slade asked. “Nothing’s happened since you left Chicago? He has no idea where you’ve disappeared to and it doesn’t matter now as he’s been caught?”
“Right. Not a sniff or a sign of him, thank the Lord. But that doesn’t mean he’s given up—he won’t be in jail for ever.” She rubbed her upper arms as if trying to warm herself. “That stolen mail still spooks me. I don’t know how he would have used it to trace me. In any event, I’m relieved to have it over for now.”
Slade scratched his cheek, frowning.
A familiar sense of foreboding tied her stomach in tiny knots. “What is it? God, Slade. I’ve barely had time to enjoy being free of all this. What’s bothering you?”
“Don’t be upset with me, okay? I’m just having a hard time thinking of someone like this person you describe, almost a nonentity, being as inventive and clever as your stalker has been.”
“You’d be surprised what kind of people turn out to have obsessive personalities.”
“But that’s just part of it, right? You have to be clever and devious to pull it off.”
“Stalkers come in all sizes and shapes,” she pointed out. “They can be aggressive, insanely jealous and possessive, insecure and obsessing from afar. There’s no set personality type.”
Slade rubbed the back of his neck. “I hear what you’re saying, but—”
“So you see?” she interrupted. “He fits one of the two stalker profiles.” When he didn’t comment, she nudged him. “Slade?”
He stroked her arm again, a lazy sensuous gesture, his fingers raising little goosebumps on the skin, but still made no comment.
“Okay.” Kari pushed herself up to a sitting position, uncaring that the sheet fell to her waist, leaving her breasts exposed. What the hell. He’d already spent time worshiping every inch of her body. “Tell me why this has got your brain in a twist? I can smell it burning and I’m not sure I like it.”
Slade sat up beside her, shoving pillows behind his back. He took one of her hands in his, rubbing her knuckles the way he had a habit of doing, but Kari jerked away. That little thread of panic she’d had as a constant companion since the first ‘gift’ from her stalker was wiggling inside her again.
“I’m trying to look at this as if I were analyzing one of our missions. Sometimes when we have to identify a target, it’s not as easy as it sounds. Terrorists stay alive by being clever. There are times we have to question ourselves three or four times to make sure we’ve identified the right target.”
“I thought your commanding officer got that information and handed it off to you to plan the mission. At least that’s what I’ve been given to understand.”
He nodded. “Except it isn’t always as clear as we’d like it to be. Every so often we get what we call a false positive. Someone who appears to be the target, but is in fact covering for someone else and taking their place.”
She stared at him. “But that’s absurd. Why would anyone do that?”
“Terrorists are a unique breed. They’ll gladly accept death for what they consider a martyr’s cause.”
“Please don’t tell me you think they’ve arrested the wrong man here?”
When he didn’t answer her at once, a chill slithered the length of her spine. She wanted to bury herself against Slade, take the heat from his body. Pretend he hadn’t said what he had. Instead, she slid out of bed, grabbed a robe from her closet and belted it in place. She began to pace, something she did often when she was trying to work out kinks in a case.
“Kari, listen to me.”
“Listen to what?” She had a feeling that for a smart woman, she was becoming unreasonable, but she couldn’t seem to help herself. Just when she thought she could breathe again, Slade and his damned reasoning knocked her sideways.
He was silent for a moment. Then he rose from the bed and walked over to her in all his naked glory, resting his hands on her shoulders. “I’d be a lot happier if I didn’t get this uncomfortable, itchy feeling that what happened is just that—they might have the wrong man.”
Kari raked her fingers through her hair. “I don’t understand. He knew everything about it all, down to the last tiny detail. How is that possible if it wasn’t him?”
“I don’t know, darlin’.” He planted a soft kiss on her forehead, a gesture obviously meant to soothe her. “Could be I’m seeing trouble where there isn’t any. But like I said, I just have this crazy little itch I get when things feel off kilter. I want to make sure they’ve got the right person and you really are free of this whole thing. That’s all. And something about this has been bothering me all weekend.”
She dropped into the slipper chair and leaned her head back, rubbing her temples.
“Slade. I have lived with this over my head for nearly two and a half years. It got so bad I had to leave Chicago and move to Texas, and do it under the radar. I couldn’t contact any of my old friends, for fear whoever this was would be watching them to see if they knew where I was.”
“I understand,” he began, but she held up a hand.
“Kip Reyes had someone else listed as the lead attorney on all my cases. No one cares about the second chair, even in a big case. And it wasn’t as if anything I tried was even that newsworthy. Besides, the only time the media haunt the courthouse is when there’s something very high profile or extremely salacious. So my name never made it into the media.”
She stopped and drew in a breath.
“Kari,” he began again.
She shook her head. “I’m not done. I was afraid to start a social life here for fear somehow, someway word would get out.” She stood and began to pace the floor. “That night at the Huttons’ was the first time I’d been anywhere except work and home for three months. I feel like I’ve been let out of prison, finally, and you want to make me question that?”
“Not one bit. I’m trying to make sure you’re really safe.”
“I trust the people who uncovered the stalker and questioned him,” she insisted.
“Okay, tell me again how they identified him.” He crossed his arms and glared at her. Even naked he was formidable.
“I told you. Someone saw him stealing mail meant for me from Kip’s admin’s desk. Ross just kept asking questions in a low-key way until someone finally remembered.”
He stopped her pacing. “Just ask yourself this. Could someone so meticulous about sending you specific flowers and other things, and breaking into your home without getting caught, be so disorganized as to allow himself to be found out that way?”
“First of all, could you please put some clothes on?” Staring at his cock wasn’t helping her state of mind any.
He chuckled. “Sorry about that.” He grabbed his boxer briefs from the foot of the bed and dragged them on. “Better?”
“One hundred percent.”
He crouched down, taking her hands in his. “All I’m saying is, sometimes the wrong person gets arrested. Maybe it’s a misidentification. Maybe it’s circumstances. Hell, it could be almost anything. You’re a prosecutor. I’ll bet anything you’ve had a case go south at one time or another for one of those reasons.”
“But Schreiber admitted it,” she protested. “He pleaded guilty in return for a reduced sentence.” She brushed her hair back from her face. “I’ll bet mistakes don’t happen in your world.”
“You’re right, but the parameters and environment are a little different.” He lifted her hands and squeezed them, as if infusing her with his strength.
“You understand the people who caught hi
m aren’t amateurs, right? They know what they’re doing. It’s not their first rodeo.”
“Are you saying you don’t want to call your boss and ask him to double-check? Kari, I don’t understand why you’re fighting me on this.”
Because! she wanted to shout.
But that was no answer. Shouldn’t she want to make sure they got the right person? Except she wanted to believe there was no doubt about it. If she questioned it, that meant someone could still be out there searching for her. Stalking her.
She pulled her hands from Slade’s grip. “I know I’m not making any sense to you,” she told him. “But I want to believe—no, I have to believe—that people I trust got this right. Why would they arrest this man and tell me everything was wrapped up if it wasn’t? Ross wouldn’t do that to me.”
“Listen to yourself, Kari. You’re a smart, savvy woman. A sharp prosecutor. Tell me that you don’t have questions about this. That you don’t have a gut feeling something is off here. Tell me that and I’ll back off.”
The problem was, now that he’d opened that door, she couldn’t tell him that and it was killing her. The objective Kari knew she should pay attention to him, but the emotional Kari hated the fact that he had planted doubts in her mind. That the fear was creeping back again, gripping her in that invisible vise.
“Okay.” She blew out a breath. “Tomorrow morning first thing I’ll call Ross and be sure he and the police double- and triple-check this John Schreiber.”
“Thank you. I don’t mean to rain on your parade, Kari, but something about this just doesn’t feel right. Okay? I’m used to reviewing mission details a dozen times, until every piece of it adds up. Something here just doesn’t make sense to me. I’m glad I’m here, not off in some hellish hot spot, so I can look at this thing from all angles. When I leave, I’ll feel a lot better if I know this thing is really over.”
Why was she fighting him so hard on this? She wasn’t stupid. She was well aware that people got things wrong. A lot, as a matter of fact.