“We’re going to be soggy as hell shortly. We should go in.” He pulled his shoulders up to his ears, “You really want to talk, Olivia?”
“If you do.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Okay, yes, I want to talk.”
He wiped a hand across his face. “Let’s not go inside and risk waking anyone up. There’s a bench in the boathouse. Not too luxurious, but real private.”
Olivia took hold of his elbow and steered him in the direction of the boathouse. “It’s beautiful here,” she said. “One of those parts of the world you don’t hear about—or think about where I come from, but golly, is it gorgeous.”
“Yeah, it is,” he agreed. “I’m a city guy myself, but I can appreciate beauty when I see it. You’re beautiful.”
She forgot to take her next step and almost stumbled. Aiden held her arm tightly until she found her balance.
“Well, you are. And you don’t have any vanity about it.”
“Thank you, but we’d better take your temperature. I’m okay to look at, but beautiful is something I’ll never be.”
“Don’t argue with me. Every time I look at you, I… I want you.”
“Just like that? You want me? So matter-of-fact.”
Aiden guided her up the steps to the empty boathouse, to the promised bench near the end feat opened to the water. He waited until she sat down, then joined her. “It is a matter of fact. I didn’t say I was smooth or glib. What I’ve said, I mean, and it couldn’t be more inconvenient. Even when you first arrived and I didn’t know who you were, I felt something.” Olivia wrapped the damp robe more tightly around her. “You don’t have to say anything about that,” he said. “We both realize we’re caught in a highly dangerous mess we’ve got to find a way out of—and that it’ll take careful planning.”
“It smells of tar in here,” she said.
“Uh-huh. Reminds me of the docks in New York.”
“You like it there, don’t you?”
He sat very straight and said, “I like it well enough. Olivia, what I did—what happened that first night on the road—was wrong. It shouldn’t have happened, and it was all my fault.”
“And you regret it.” She would have snatched the words back if she could.
“I—I didn’t exactly say that.”
Olivia rested her elbows on her knees and her jaw on her fists.
“I didn’t say it because it’s not true. Do you believe a man and woman can live together and be happy? Not just happy— happier together than if they were apart?”
The question caught her by surprise. “If I didn’t believe it, I’d be very sad.”
He fell silent. Water swayed, black and glossy, below them. “I think I know what you’re trying to say,” she told him. “If you like, I’ll make it easy for you.”
“How? By second-guessing what I’m thinking?”
“You’re prickly.”
“I’m caught, dammit. And I don’t know if I like being caught and want to stay that way, or if I should run like hell.”
As if she could tell him the right answer. She didn’t know it, for either of them. “I can’t help you, Aiden. I can’t help myself.” But she did know what she thought she wanted and had at least an inkling of what she’d face without it.
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s try this another way. Do you think some people are meant to live alone?”
“Yes.” How could she say anything else and be honest? Her own father had probably married because it was the thing to do. To Olivia, he had always seemed an irritated man who tolerated domestic life with barely restrained disdain.
Aiden slapped his knees and stood up. “Do you have to be so honest?”
“You wouldn’t like it if I weren’t.”
“Look—“ He began pacing back and forth in front of her.
“Be careful,” Olivia told him. “You’re too close to the edge.”
“I’m good on my feet. And I grew up a long time ago.”
Olivia pulled her own feet onto the bench beside her and covered them with the nightie and robe. She wasn’t going to enter a sniping session about whether or not showing she cared was motherly behavior.
“I’m sorry,” Aiden said. “I guess I wanted you to tell me no man or woman can be complete without a partner.”
“No, you didn’t, Aiden. You want to escape from all this, but at the same time you’re afraid you may regret it later. That doesn’t make you different from anyone else. A lot of people want everything but don’t want anything to have a price. And we’re all terrified of missing the best opportunity ever to come our way.”
“Okay, okay.” He sat down. Olivia was behaving so well, and he was being a creep—and an ass to boot. How did a man learn to follow his heart without messing with his head? He needed his bead for his work. But his work was second to Olivia in importance.
Aiden felt cold. Not just the cold from being wet and out in the elements. This was the kind of cold that attacked when you came face-to-face with a truth that could change your life— and you didn’t know if the result would be good. He didn’t want to want her so damn much.
“Why can’t women be satisfied with having a really good affair?” he said, and was only mildly shocked at himself.
She touched the end of her robe belt to her nose and kept her eyes lowered.
“We’re not kids. We can cope with thinking about things like that, can’t we?” he asked.
“You obviously can. I’m not sure it works for me. I’m in danger here, Aiden. It wouldn’t be hard for me to give you enough power to make or break me.” She gave a short laugh. “I already have. You know how I feel. Women have affairs just as often as men, don’t they? The answer to that is obvious. Some are satisfied, some aren’t. Are you asking me to have an affair with you?”
Was he? “I feel like a worm, or maybe something lower.”
“Is it what you want, Aiden?”
“We’re hanging out in the wind. The best thing I can say about what’s happened in this case so far is that no one’s gotten badly hurt. If we were dealing with normal people—I should say normal criminals—I know the story would be different.”
She settled the back of one hand over her mouth.
“Olivia, will you be patient with me? Will you give me a chance to work my way through what I feel and decide if I can even be what you deserve?”
Although he waited, she didn’t answer him.
“A man isn’t a man until he can take responsibility for the way he is. If he’s ever going to be free of the stuff we all carry around, different stuff for different people, he has to forgive anyone who made him second-guess who he is and what he’s worth. I’m not going to bore you with old stories, but I am telling you I’ve still got forgiving and understanding to do.” She tapped her hand against her parted lips.
“Olivia—”
“I understand you better than you know. For what it’s worth, for a man who doesn’t like to talk about what he’s feeling, you do a great job.”
“Give me some space, at least until we’re out of danger. Let me figure out what’s going on all around us, then see how I feel when it’s just life as usual?”
“Is it ever life as usual for you?”
“I deserve that,” he said. If she wanted him to declare himself now, then she wanted more than he could offer. “It quiets down to a dull drone sometimes. But in the current case, if I’m tied to you, all wound up in you, that could get in the way when I need a clear head to make a decision that could mean life or death.”
“And you think it’s going to come to that?” Her eyes, when she looked up at him, were black and glittering with tears. “Of course you do. We’re outlaws. Ryan Hill never expected you to become involved, but he must be glad you did because you’re making it easier for him. If we can’t stop him, he’s going to walk away like an innocent man.”
Aiden didn’t like the fury he felt. He stepped closer to Olivia, “Don’t make that suggestion to
me again. It’s not going to happen. I’m going to keep you safe and get us out of this.”
“But while you do, you want me anywhere but where you are?”
“No, dammit—” He took her by the shoulders. Keeping his hands off her any longer wasn’t an option. “What I want is exactly what you say people like me want. I want everything, but I don’t want to pay for it—not yet. Maybe I want to lease with an option to buy.” And maybe he couldn’t stop sabotaging himself with his mouth. “No, that’s not what I mean. Help me, Olivia. Be my strength and my conscience.”
Taking one of his hands from her shoulder, she held it so tightly that the bones rubbed together. “You never told me what the old scars on your hands are from.”
The comment distracted him. He shook his head. “Barbed wire. I got hung up on barbed wire.”
“In New York?”
“Uh, no, on top of a fence at home. It doesn’t matter. I was being an ass—again.”
“Your strength and your conscience?” She didn’t take her eyes from his. “Just do what you have to do to get us safely through this.”
“That’s my strength.”
She nodded and finally looked away. She looked away and held his hand to her cheek. “I can’t be your conscience. Just wait and see, Aiden. And don’t worry about me. I’m not ashamed to tell you that I’ll take whatever you want to give. Let’s go inside. We both need sleep if we’re going to be sharp for what’s coming.”
Not fair, Aiden thought. Why didn’t she get mad and tell him she didn’t want him anymore?
He was tired, so damned tired he didn’t want to even remember what had to be dealt with. Swinging a leg over, he sat astride the bench and tried to gather Olivia against him.
She resisted.
“Come on,” he murmured. “Let me hold you.”
“Because you feel guilty? I don’t want you to feel guilty, and I don’t want you to throw me crumbs if you do.”
“Ouch. Maybe I don’t deserve that for being straightforward.”
Maybe he didn’t. “Forgive me. It’s hard to be objective when you’ve fallen in love at the most inconvenient time imaginable.” Let him deal with that, Olivia thought. Sure she was being cruel, but she was hurting, and human.
“Quit fighting me,” he said and wouldn’t stop pulling her toward him until she gave up. “Yeah, I like your head on my shoulder, sweetheart. I like hearing you say you love me, too. I like it a lot.”
She closed her eyes. He liked it, but wasn’t ready to return the sentiment. He probably never would be ready.
“Look at me, Olivia. Please.”
“No.” Wrapping her arms around as much of him as they’d reach, she held on and kept her face buried in his neck.
His big, sensitive hands combed through her damp hair, pushed under the collar of the robe to her back, and smoothed her shoulders. Then, with palms and flattened fingers, he caressed her from collarbone to waist and finally rested his fingertips on her breasts. “Look at me,” he repeated.
She did look, and saw intense need and desire in his eyes. The sharply defined angles of his face were set and tensed. He kissed her, and still his eyes didn’t completely close. She saw how they lost focus behind slitted lids.
This was power of a kind. She had the power to excite him—something she would never have believed such a short time ago.
Olivia closed her own eyes and gave herself up to feeling, not thinking.
“Stay with me,” he said when he paused to let them both breathe. “Don’t go. Even if I do things that make you want to leave, don’t go. Beat on me, threaten me, make me see I need you.”
“You ask too much.” Beneath the sweatshirt, his skin felt hot. The texture of the hair on his chest delighted her. The way he sucked air through his teeth when she squeezed his nipples incited and aroused her.
“You’ve got to promise you won’t let me sabotage myself.”
His chest hair was both rough and smooth and became a narrow trail to the waist of the sweatpants. “All I can do is ask you to let me be whatever you are, wherever you are,” she said. “If you’re lonely, I want to be lonely, too—lonely with you until you decide to let me in again. And if you decide to go away, I want to go with you. I want to live inside you and have you live inside me. Now doesn’t all that help a man with the jitters? Probably doesn’t even make sense to you.”
“It makes sense.” He spun her around on the bench and sat her facing him, a leg on either side, just like him. His attempts to hike down the robe were futile. “Not very modest,” he said.
Olivia smiled at him. She gripped his hard thighs and leaned to nuzzle his neck. “The morning’s going to come fast,” she whispered, licking his salty skin.
“I don’t think I can go in without making love to you.”
“Sure you can. And you will if I insist, won’t you?”
Aiden raised her knees and smoothed the backs of her calves.
“Not now,” she told him, shuddering. “That destroys me.”
He smiled. Destroying her in the way she meant had a lot of appeal. When he played his fingertips on the skin behind her knees, she let him know he’d found a new erogenous zone. She snatched at his wrists when he concentrated on the insides of her thighs.
“Relax,” he murmured. “This is all in the name of research. And you’ve got to sacrifice your bit.”
Olivia wasn’t cold anymore. Her body burned. It was turn-the-tables time. She thrust her hands between his legs and pulled gently.
“No you don’t,” Aiden said. He caught her around the waist and lifted her onto his thighs. He undid the robe and lifted the nightie until her breasts were naked. She wore a pair of the panties they’d bought—a red thong that would seem out of character if he didn’t already know that his lady was much more than she seemed.
He bent his head and kissed her full flesh. Again and again he kissed until she captured his head and fastened his mouth where she wanted it to be. The sound that escaped her, a softly keening sound, pleased him. It didn’t satisfy him.
“Stop,” she said suddenly, raising his face and holding it between her hands. “Don’t talk. Don’t say a thing,” she told him.
The sweatpants and thin silk panties might as well not have been there. Aiden raised his hips the slightest fraction, but Olivia gritted her teeth. Her decision was made. She balanced on her toes, and with his willing help, worked his pants down. Seeing him spring free swelled her breasts, dried her mouth, set up an ache where she needed him to be.
She held him, guided him into her, wrapped her legs around him, and crossed her ankles behind him.
Any closer and there’d be no knowing where she ended and he began. He arched his back, let his head hang back, and moved with her.
Vaguely she heard the water caressing the dark confines that welcomed it. A lone gull cried, declared its freedom.
Aiden entered and withdrew from Olivia with restrained strokes that dragged hissing breaths from both of them. He held back his desperation, gave her the time he knew she needed to get as much as he could give her.
Her fingernails, digging into his biceps, brought her his complete—almost complete—attention.
With tears standing in her eyes, she smiled at him, rose over him, and set her own relentless pace. It was Olivia who controlled the pace and orchestrated his climax, and her own. When she had him groaning, it wasn’t enough for her. She reached down again to support and squeeze him. He barely held back a shout and released his hold on her to remove her hands before she destroyed him.
“Aiden,” she wailed. “Oh, Aiden.”
Locked together, still moving, they slid sideways. He did his best to hook a leg around the bench, but failed.
Olivia squealed, and then laughed.
“Don’t laugh,” he ordered. “Do you have any idea what— oh, hell.”
The only thing he accomplished as they landed in a heap on rough boards was to make sure he was still beneath Olivia.
They l
ay there, gasping, chuckling, then trying not to chuckle, and inevitably starting to kiss all over again. Olivia cradled his head, and the kisses grew more urgent, and they rocked together, going deeper and deeper.
She was wonderful, wicked but wonderful, and if he did decide to leave, she could go with him. And if he was lonely, she could be lonely, too—with him.
What did that mean?
The little muscles inside her squeezed him, pulled on him with the throbbing rhythm of her own release, and he could do nothing but empty himself into her.
Twenty-four
Ryan took hold of the small finger on Fats’s right hand and said, “You have caused me too much trouble.” He held the hand down and forced the finger back until Fats opened his mouth to yell. “Don’t forget where you are, chickenshit.” With a final jerk, he released the finger.
Fats wiped his sweating brow and said, “Like hell, I’ve caused you trouble.” He stuffed both hands quickly under the table. “Someone’s finally making some smart moves, and you’re pissed off because it’s not you.”
“Let’s get this straight,” Ryan said, facing Fats across a yellow, Formica-topped table in a diner near O’Hare. “Fish and Moody got arrested at the airport because you slipped a gun into Moody’s pocket.”
“I didn’t want them in Seattle messing with my plans. And the piece is clean. No way of tracing it to us.”
“To you, you mean. And what exactly are your plans?” Ryan said, slamming a fist down on top of the bottle of beer Fats had been about to reach for, and smirking when Fats jumped. “Your plans seem to have changed, haven’t they? What happened to docile little Kitty, who was going to wait for you in Seattle, holding the bag for you to grab? And while we’re on the subject, where did I figure in those plans?”
“I was going to hand it all to you in a fancy package,” Fats said, squirming now. “Honest I was. You didn’t want to run the risk of Fish and Moody finding out you were around and then putting the extra squeeze on you. That’s what the secrecy’s all about, right? So all I did was to try to make sure you got what you wanted.”
“Crap. I’m the boss. You work for me. I make the decisions, you carry them out. But you decided you wanted to be The Man and you fucked up. Instead of me keeping a back seat and pulling the strings, you’ve made sure I’ve got to run the risk of coming out in the open. Did you think I’d like finding out Fish and Moody are back in New York? Unsupervised? How safe do you think it is for them to be running around trying to pull themselves out of trouble with the big shots who paid them big bucks for nothing? And Kitty? Where the fuck is Kitty?”
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