He bucked under her touch and then lay still, his muscles straining beneath her with the effort it took to lie motionless. “Take, Maggie, whatever you want,” he invited. His heart thundered under her right nipple and it blossomed to the rhythm of his life force.
Back at the river, the clerk stared unseeing at the night, but she and Sullivan were alive, alive, her heart beating over him, his under her, closing a circuit.
And yet…
Sullivan, vulnerable and aching, lay tensed beneath her, his hunger as great as hers and unsatisfied. He had eased the ugly memories for her, denied himself.
Enclosed in their small cave, they were wholly dependent on one another. “Oh, Tin Man,” she breathed, “not rusty at all. All heart.” And she bent and kissed him where his body throbbed to the rhythm of hers.
“Maggie,” he said, his voice rough as he lifted her away from him, “are you sure?” He held her absolutely still. “Do you understand what this would be?”
“Yes,” she murmured, “heaven.”
“No. Nothing more than two bodies coming together, nothing else. Not love, not friendship. Lust, sex, call it what you want, but that’s all this—” he pointed to where they still touched “—will be. Don’t kid yourself. We won’t be ‘making love.’ We’ll be screwing.” He spat the word out, making it as ugly as it could sound.
Maggie knew what he was doing, even if he didn’t seem to. Smiling, she stroked his cheek. “So cynical. Making sure the boundaries are laid out. Are you afraid I’ll take advantage of you, Sullivan, if you don’t keep me at a distance?” She leaned forward. “I won’t, you know.”
He tightened his hands on her waist, forcing her to keep her distance. Through gritted teeth he said, “I can give you pleasure, Maggie. I can do that for you. I can even make you forget for an hour or two that all I’m offering is technique. Not my heart. Not my soul. They’re gone.”
Listening to him, Maggie wondered if he knew how hard he was working to dissuade her, how much his actions contradicted his words.
But she wouldn’t tell him. Not yet.
“There’s nothing left for you, sweet Maggie. Will you settle for technique? For skill?” His hard grip on her waist conveyed his anger. “Is anonymous, wild sex good enough for you?”
“Is that all you think it will be? Who are you working so hard to convince, Sullivan? Me or yourself?” She arched over him, giving him the gift of herself. “Are you sure, Sullivan?” she sighed into his ear. “Anonymous? I know you, Sullivan Barnett. I know you.” She opened her arms to him. “And I want this moment for me, no matter what it means to you. Don’t worry, Sullivan,” she jeered gently, moved by his constraint, “I’ll still respect you in the morning. And more importantly, I’ll still respect myself. I won’t regret this moment.”
“Are you certain?” he repeated. “Be sure, because there’s no going back.”
She eased over him. “Do you promise it will be wild?”
“Aw, Maggie, what am I going to do with you?” he groaned, pulling her down and kissing her with a ferocity that rattled her bones.
“You know what you’re going to do with me. You just finished telling me.” Leaning her elbows on his chest, Maggie smiled down at his grim face. Poor Sullivan, trying so hard to convince her that he was conscienceless. “Or was it all talk, no action,” she murmured, skimming her face over his abdomen, letting her hair trail over him.
So fast she wasn’t prepared, he flipped her onto her back and he was over her, his face dark and determined. “You don’t want this, Maggie, believe me.”
“Believe me, I do,” she insisted softly, rising to wrap her arms around his waist. “You don’t know how much I want this,” and she repeated his earlier gesture, looking down where their bodies touched, him heavy against the silk of her panties. “The question is, how much do you want me?”
His harsh laugh was filled with self-derision. “I can’t hide what I feel, Maggie, but it’s not love.”
“I know,” she whispered, kissing the taut cords of his throat. “But it will do.”
He cupped her in the softest, most yearning part of her body, and his stroke wasn’t anonymous at all, it was familiar and very personal. Whether he admitted it or not, more than his masculine drive was involved.
His movements were urgent now, all constraint suddenly gone, only him, Sullivan, driving toward her. His callused fingertips snagged on the silk of her panties, rough prickles against the skin of her thigh as he slid his fingers under the bottom of her panties, twisting the silky fabric against her as he kissed her inner thigh, his mouth hungry on her skin, hot.
And, as he’d promised, a killing pleasure speared through her, piercing and devastatingly sweet.
A pleasure to die for, to live for.
She longed for him, every cell in her body flowing toward him.
When she reached down for him, to urge him to her, he clamped her wrists above her head, holding her captive and still with his hands and thighs, cruelly letting the deep, internal shaking subside to flutters, twinges and tiny cramps dying away, leaving her stranded in a barren land.
“Maggie—” his mouth was a slash of white “—I promised you—”
“I know what you promised,” she said wearily, struggling to free herself.
“I promised that you wouldn’t be hurt tonight. Aw, Maggie,” he said, taking her into his arms, his words slow and awkward, hesitant, “I didn’t plan…” He pressed her against his heart which still boomed in his chest. “I can’t protect…”
Not understanding him, she lifted her throbbing head. “But you did.”
“No. I mean now. I can’t protect you now from us, from me. I don’t carry safeguards around in my wallet.”
Maggie curled her arm around his neck, tenderness filling her. So Sullivan thought he only wanted anonymous, wild sex. He had made two promises to her. He’d sworn to keep her safe and he’d promised to give her pleasure. He’d kept both promises. In his own way.
Regardless of what he said he wanted, it wasn’t anonymous sex. Caring in some fashion for her, he’d pulled back. He’d stopped when some men would have complained that they’d gone too far to quit. How Sullivan had controlled that rocket rush, she couldn’t imagine.
Because, lost where he’d taken her, she would never have stopped him.
“Thank you.” She kissed the base of his throat. His pulse pounded against her lips. His restraint was costing him dearly. Resting her head under his chin, her arm still around his neck, curling to that slowing pulse, held against Sullivan’s heart, she watched the starless sky turn toward morning.
*
Sometime in the night, Sullivan slept. In a half sleep, tuned to the twang of a trip wire, he was restless, his dreams muddled and disturbing, his unfulfilled body aching. In those dreams he wandered through a moonlit arctic waste where ice burned the soles of his feet and his mouth grew dry with thirst. Fire and ice and the world destroyed.
Then, just before morning, his dreams changed. In the distance, shifting, changing, Maggie and Lizzie opened their arms to him and he was running, running to them—
He jerked awake, his heart juddering. Wiping his mouth, he swallowed. God, he hated dreams. Treacherous, deceptive.
Maggie was still in his arms, her cloudy hair spread across his chest and clinging to his skin. Her mouth was slightly parted in sleep, a faint b-b-b pursing her mouth with each breath. Above her ear, a butterfly hovered, its wings catching in the wisps of her hair with each flutter.
Someone had discovered he was meeting the clerk. How, he had no idea. But he would find out. That someone was going to pay. He would see to it.
By raking him over the coals, Maggie had done him a favor. He was involved. He was responsible for incidents unwinding around him. He’d set events in motion. He would follow them to the end.
As for Maggie—
He brushed the butterfly free of her hair. No matter what she’d insisted, she deserved more than he could give her. After Tag
gart’s he’d known how vulnerable she was. But he’d forgotten that underneath her sweet spunk she was fighting to bring her life together. He’d taken advantage of her. Oh, not meaning to—he’d give himself that, at least—but he’d stormed her senses. She’d been tired, keyed-up from the incident on the river and defenseless.
He’d used that vulnerability and turned her senses against her, made her betray herself.
He grimaced. His own behavior didn’t bear examining in the bright sun of Seth’s Landing shining through the palmetto branches over them.
Not liking the possibility that she had gotten under his skin, he stirred, stretching his legs and flexing them in the cramped space. In spite of the way he couldn’t seem to keep his hands and mouth off her delectable self, he nurtured that residual caution that warned him against trusting her.
And yet he had. During everything that had happened on the river, he’d never doubted her. In the daylight, though, he remembered her friendship with Royal, remembered the seeming coincidence of her investigating his case. That question kept pecking away at his brain. Why had she, a brand-new detective just back on duty after a long convalescence, been turned loose on an old case?
None of it added up.
If she were an innocent pawn, as he began to suspect she might be, she was in over her head, and he’d be stupid to trust her, not knowing what she might reveal.
And foolhardy on his part to yield again to the pull of her sweetness.
As for Maggie… His thoughts came full circle in conclusion, resolving his doubts.
Not comprehending he had nothing to give her, she would be hurt by any involvement with him. Emotionally, at this point in her life. Physically, because involvement with him could put her, innocent pawn or not, into danger.
The thick rim of lashes lifted, lifted again, and she was looking at him. His heart, that shriveled kernel, turned over in his chest.
She yawned, her pink mouth parting. Her smile was tentative. He wasn’t surprised. He’d told her she’d regret making—having sex, rather— In the morning with her uncertain smile facing him, he didn’t know which to label what they’d shared. What they’d not shared. He took the easy way out. “Good morning, Detective.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Okay.” She stretched and looked down at herself in surprise. “Oh.” She snapped her jeans, the sound a metal punctuation to her discomfort.
Sullivan had sensed that she would feel that way when she awoke, so he’d dressed her while she slept. It had seemed important to him at the time that she not wake up embarrassed by her nakedness.
“Thanks.” She went bright red.
He flushed, too, remembering the moment when he’d broken apart from her, his aching unsatisfied.
She scooted to the end of the rowboat and retrieved her scarf, blushing again. “Don’t suppose you have a comb?”
Shaking his head, Sullivan raked his fingers through his own hair, sweeping it free of his face.
“Any visitors during the night?”
“Nope.” He rummaged for his wallet, which had worked itself free of his jeans pocket; handed her her notepad which had fallen out of his shirt.
He ignored the spark that leapt from his hand to hers. He’d made his decision. He would take care of her. He wouldn’t get involved with her. He should feel relieved that he’d finally worked through his conflicting emotions and reached a sensible, rational decision. A decision that was best for her. For him.
He should feel relieved.
He felt, instead, ticked off and irritable. And frustrated.
He would get over it.
“Are we going to the car now?” Her face was wistfully hopeful. “We have Lala’s cookies and peanut-butter sandwiches in the back. I’m hungry, Sullivan,” she moaned, her stomach gurgling in proof.
“Yeah.”
“And we’re going to the police?” She was turning the notepad over and over.
“Maggie. You’re the police. We’ve officially reported it to you.” He didn’t want to stroll into the police station with Maggie in tow.
“You’re going to go in with me.” Her tone was firm.
“What? If I don’t, you’ll arrest me?” He stepped out of the rowboat and peered through the brush to the clearing and the chickee.
“Hey, I might. Don’t tempt me.” She climbed out right behind him.
In the interest of his own sanity, he let her comment pass without the easy jab, Do I tempt you, sweet Maggie? He ignored the voice in his head and pulled the palmetto cave apart.
“Yeah, I’ll go with you.” He reached back into the boat for his compass. “Come on.” He stared up at the glare of the sun shining through the dank air, estimating the hour. “It’ll take us over an hour to drive into town. You’ll want to shower first,” he said, looking at her wrinkled pink shirt. No longer spanking fresh and new, it was smeared with mud and glop from the boat. Twig bits decorated her hair, and the scratch on her check was a dried red line.
“People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones,” she said, reading his inadvertent grin. “Take a look at yourself.”
His shirt and jeans were in worse shape than hers.
“Hmm. Wonder what this is?” he said, scrubbing at a large greasy stain on his shirt.
“If you find out, don’t tell me,” she answered with a shudder. “But we’re not going to stop to clean up. I want the evidence techs out here as soon as they can gear up. Too much time has already passed. We disturbed the crime scene. Animals will mess it up more, and while I don’t think anyone’s going to come back to check on him, I’m worried. Too much time has passed.”
“You realize the only chance you have of discovering who killed him is finding out how someone knew he was coming here,” he said conversationally. “Two people knew originally about the meeting plans. Me.” He held up a finger. “The clerk.” He held up a second finger. “I told you.” He unfolded the third finger. “You were with me from the time I told you, so I know you didn’t pass on the meeting place.”
She dropped her notepad and floundered for it on the dump ground as he continued.
“We don’t know who the clerk might have told, but having talked with him, having seen the care with which he set up this meeting place, not giving me any more information than I had to know, I don’t believe he blabbed. He struck me as an extremely careful man.” Holding his fingers up, he concluded, “Three people we know of. But someone, somehow, found out.” He scooped the notepad out of the mud and wiped it on his jeans before returning it to her. “And when we know how the killer found out, we’ll know who he is.”
“Maybe,” she said, her tone unconvinced.
“Not maybe. Definitely.”
The trek to the car and the ride to town passed in silence. Sullivan didn’t feel like talking. He was having enough trouble staying reasonably human with irritation chomping at his gut, and Maggie, apparently, had her own thoughts.
Obviously spent, she drove at the speed limit, nibbling cookies from Lala’s stash. When a sprinkle of crumbs dusted her small chest, she flapped her T-shirt with one hand, and Sullivan looked away from the winking flash of smooth stomach, satisfying himself with a stale peanut-butter sandwich.
Maggie pulled into her parking lot at the station shortly before ten.
Roaring with laughter, a group of uniformed cops stopped and stared as Sullivan climbed out of Maggie’s car.
“Whooee, Mags, rough night?”
“Shut up, Clancy.” Her glare frosted Clancy where he stood.
“Don’t get mad, Map, get even!” yelled a blue-uniformed woman with frizzed yellow hair sprouting under her hat. “Clancy’s due for some intense,” she emphasized, “consciousness raising.”
As Maggie pushed open the glass doors, preceding him to the front-desk area, Sullivan saw Royal’s head jerk as he saw her. Looking up from a form he held casually in his hand, he watched her approach, his green gaze tracking her. Until he saw Sullivan at her heels. Then shutters slammed over his a
lert eyes and he slouched against the duty sergeant’s desk, his lizard-skin boots crossed at the ankle, waiting. But he still watched Maggie, cataloging the rumpled pink shirt, her slim legs in the filthy jeans, his green-eyed gaze lingering on her curling, out-of-control hair as she approached.
Sullivan had never liked Royal, liked him less as he stared at the arm the detective slung possessively around Maggie.
“What’s up, Mags?” Keeping Maggie at his side, Royal turned sideways to Sullivan, asserting territoriality. “Who’s your … friend?”
“I’ll explain later. We have to see the chief. Is he in?”
“Johnny’s always available.” Royal laughed. “You know Johnny. Afraid the building will fall down in a cloud of plaster dust if he’s not here to see personally that every i is dotted, every t crossed.”
Sullivan didn’t like Maggie’s wide smile, the crinkling of her nose at Royal. In his pressed jeans, the expensive cotton shirt gloving his health-club-defined chest, Royal was too perfect, too golden. Even his hair had every barbered strand sleekly in place.
Rumpling his own hair, Sullivan closed in, invading Royal’s space. He knew Royal recognized him. They’d seen each other around town. He’d bet good green dollars Royal had read the series he’d written on corruption. Sullivan stuck out his hand, forcing Royal to drop his arm from around Maggie or ignore the extended appendage. “Sullivan Barnett.”
A glint in Royal’s eyes acknowledged his appreciation of Sullivan’s tactic. Acknowledged it and countered, “Nice meetin’ you, Barnett. Good series awhile back. Stirred up a hornet’s nest, didn’t it? Haven’t seen anything lately. You been busy?” he asked, his blandly courteous question concealing the knife.
“You should know,” Sullivan said, putting a spin on his words and deriving mean pleasure at the man’s quick glance at Maggie. “Lots of cute little scams to keep us reporter types busy. You know how it is,” he wound up, enjoying the flicker of confusion in Royal’s eyes. Either Royal knew something or he was thrown off balance by seeing Maggie with him and wondering about them. Didn’t matter. Let him wonder. Sullivan liked sneaking in a knife jab of his own, but a second later he wasn’t sure which had given him the most gratification, the hint that Royal was hiding something or Royal’s uncertainty about what he and Maggie had been doing.
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