One thing he knew, this wasn’t going to end with just one kiss.
It stayed languorous and lazy for a minute or so, then got more intense. He couldn’t seem to taste her deeply enough. He sunk his fingers in her hair, twining them in the silky strands, and turned her head a little so their mouths could join more intimately.
Olivia shifted, moving up onto him. She didn’t weigh much, and when that bent leg moved farther, so she could straddle him, he groaned, deep in his throat. Her breasts pressed against his chest, her nipples puckering against her shirt, tempting him beyond belief.
He hardly noticed when she tugged his dress shirt up out of his pants and slid her hand over his stomach. His skin sizzled upon contact, and every part of him that wasn’t already hard got that way pronto.
He wanted to do the same, to touch her, stroke her skin. Fortunately, her soft, filmy skirt draped over his pants, not only leaving her warm sex pressed against his groin—Lord have mercy—but also baring her legs. He reached down to cup one bare thigh, marveling at how soft she was. How feminine. How perfect.
How goddamned strong.
And a witness. A goddamned witness
Not to mention an incredibly vulnerable woman who’d been through hell.
That did it. As much as it pained him, physically hurt him, he let go of her leg and slowed the kiss, finally ending it. Olivia stayed close, still on top of him, her face an inch or two away from his. They both breathed deeply, raggedly. But before she could lean down to kiss him again, which he suspected she wanted to do, he carefully shifted out from under her.
Her whole body went stiff. “Gabe?”
“I’d say that was a little more than being still, darlin’,” he said with a tender smile, wanting her to understand that he didn’t regret kissing her even though he wasn’t ready to do it again. “Now, I think maybe we should go downstairs, if you’re feeling up to it.”
She swallowed, her throat working with the effort, and her bottom lip, so luscious, so well kissed, trembled.
“It’s not that I don’t want to,” he said, hearing the thickness in his voice. Oh, he most definitely wanted to. At this moment, he wanted to make love to her more than he wanted to hit his thirtieth birthday, and, frankly, he’d always kinda wanted to get that far, since everybody in his hometown had predicted he’d have a short, rough, wild life.
She nodded once. “It’s not exactly the ideal situation, is it? Not to mention the fact that we met less than a week ago.”
It seemed crazy that they’d only known each other for five days, considering how she now filled his thoughts. They’d shared some incredibly intense moments and some nice ones, too, the last few being right up there at the top. He hoped there’d be a chance for more of them.
Are you crazy? She’s totally out of your league.
The inner voice sobered and disturbed him, mainly because it wasn’t wrong. Olivia’s grandfather had been a senator; Gabe was the abused grandson of a dirt-poor farmer. She lived in the Victorian District in a house that probably cost about twenty times his annual salary, and he’d been proud of himself for being able to scrape up the money to buy a tiny little two-bedroom condo a year ago. She was all soft Southern gentility, and he was one step above po’ white.
There was no way this could go anywhere, and he’d been crazy to even think about kissing her, much less doing it. He needed to remember that, and, if necessary, point it out to her as well. But not now. Not when he was here, in her bed, because she’d put herself through a horrific, painful ordeal and had fallen asleep in his arms.
An ordeal they had yet to even discuss. “I think we should . . .”
His words trailed off when he heard a door slam, then a voice calling from downstairs. Olivia’s eyes widened in surprise, and for the barest second he wondered if she’d forgotten to tell him she had a husband or live-in boyfriend lying around somewhere. Then he realized the voice calling Olivia’s name was female.
“Livvie? Where are you?”
“That’s my sister. She has a key,” she whispered, quickly rolling off him, then sitting up on the edge of the bed. “I’ll be right down, Brooke!”
Gabe sat up, too, trying to stuff his shirt back into his pants and wondering where his shoes had landed. He’d kicked them off when he’d realized he would be spending part of the afternoon in Olivia’s bed with her. He sure hadn’t anticipated what would happen when she woke up from her much-needed sleep.
They probably would have been fine, could have gotten themselves put back together, if her sister had stayed downstairs.
She didn’t.
“Oh, thank God you’re all right,” she said as the bedroom door flew open. “I’ve been trying to reach you for . . . oh!”
Feeling like a kid caught making out by his girlfriend’s parents, Gabe stood, uncomfortably aware of his lack of shoes and the untucked part of his shirt. Judging by the sister’s expression, she had come to some obvious conclusions, and she definitely did not like them.
“You jerk!” the woman snapped. “How could you take advantage of her like this?”
“Brooke?” Olivia gasped, sounding shocked.
“She’s vulnerable and came to you for help!” The woman stalked closer, almost shaking with anger. Funny, Gabe had considered her kind of a mousy thing this morning. Now she was more like a lion. And this lion had obviously been talking to somebody who’d filled her in on the true nature of his relationship with Olivia.
Olivia obviously realized that, too. “Brooke, you’ve misunderstood. Gabe carried me up here because I needed to lie down. I asked him to stay, and I just woke up,” she explained, her voice calm and reasonable. “He was a total gentleman.”
Yeah, right. Given his desire to rip her clothes off, gentlemanly was the last word he’d use to describe himself.
The apple don’t fall far from the tree, boy, and don’t you forgit it!
Angry with himself for remembering what his grandfather’s voice sounded like, much less one of his favorite expressions, he shook his head hard.
“I’m fine, really, Brooke,” Olivia said.
It was probably the reasonable tone that got through to the other woman. She finally stopped glaring at him long enough to focus on her sister, whose upper arms she immediately grabbed. “Are you sure?”
“I promise. But, Brooke, what are you doing here?”
“We couldn’t reach you! We tried everything, your house phones, cell phones. Then somebody you work with said you were here.”
Somebody she worked with? How the hell . . .
“He saw Gabe carrying you into the house.”
“Your coworkers stake out your house when you’re not aware of it?” he snapped, disliking these people a lot, even though he’d only ever met one of them. But frankly, if they let Olivia do what she’d done today and, in fact, capitalized on it for “business,” he felt nothing but disgust for the lot of them. If he had his way, Olivia would never get within ten feet of a dead body again for as long as she lived.
Olivia shook her head and lifted a hand to her brow. “Morgan.”
“That’s right!”
Shocked at the intrusion of another voice, Gabe looked over and saw yet another woman, this one a very attractive brunette, standing there. He recognized her immediately from the pictures on her Web site. This was Julia Harrington, owner of eXtreme Investigations.
“FYI, your partner’s downstairs, too,” Julia said with a smile that was almost a smirk. She might have come here out of worry for Olivia, but she looked amused at seeing a Savannah detective caught in a compromising position, since he was her natural enemy these days.
The enmity was pretty mutual as far as Gabe was concerned. He didn’t know that he was ever going to forgive Olivia’s colleagues for what they regularly put her through.
Then her words sank in, and he realized what she’d said. “Wait. Wallace is here?”
“Jesus, you brought an entire army and walked into my house?” Olivia snapped.
Brooke nibbled her lip, for the first time looking a little sheepish at her brash entrance. “I’m sorry. I was worried. I’m your sister, that’s my job.”
Huh. And to think he’d always wondered what it might be like to have a sibling. Right now, the whole concept didn’t seem very appealing.
“Why don’t we all go downstairs and let Olivia splash some cold water on her face. She just woke up.” He shot Julia Harrington a glance, daring her to say a word. She remained silent.
Olivia nodded her thanks. “I’ll be down in a few minutes.”
Pausing to grab his shoes, he found himself not giving a damn that Olivia’s sister and boss were eyeing him like he was some low specimen who belonged on the bottom of hers. All that mattered was that he’d been here for Olivia when she’d needed him. It was the least he could do. Especially because, sooner or later, she was going to have to tell him exactly what had happened back in that coroner’s examination room.
So much for seduction.
When Olivia had awakened in Gabe’s arms, breathing in the warm, masculine scent of his body, feeling his muscled form pressed against her, the idea of sex hadn’t exactly galloped into her mind, but it sure had come at a fast trot. Her senses had gone into overdrive, but this time they combined to entice her, not to terrify her. He looked so good, smelled so good, felt so damn good. And she’d wanted him.
She wanted to think it was only because she was attracted to him, had been affected by him from the moment they’d met, but she knew it was more than that. She needed physical connection. Needed to be touched, stroked, filled. She needed to feel the utmost physical pleasure, the most perfect delight life had to offer, in order to undermine the dark foundation that was trying to build up inside her soul.
Not just because of today, as horrific as it had been. The darkness had been coming on for a long time. Every time you do it.
But today . . . Oh, God, today had been beyond anything.
A little over three years ago, when she had told Julia Harrington she would work for her at eXtreme Investigations, there had been one condition, one absolute, completely inflexible rule. Olivia would help solve murders and cold cases if they really thought she could be of use. She would not, however, agree to be involved in any drowning or suspected drowning cases. Period.
Julia, who knew enough of her story to understand why, had agreed without reservation. So, the only time she’d ever experienced that horrifying sensation of her lungs filling with water had been when she was fifteen years old and it was really happening.
Until today.
Thank God Gabe stopped it. She’d started to go into that water, and then he’d pulled her away, breaking the faint touch between her and Jack’s remains and breaking the psychic connection as well.
She had never been so glad to have somebody break a promise.
If she’d known the boy had actually been drowned after he was strangled, she would have had to think twice about touching him. Now that it was over, though, she couldn’t bring herself to regret it. Not when the experience had uncovered such shocking truths. Which was why she needed to put all these thoughts and wishes and desires for Gabe Cooper aside for now. Because she needed to talk to him, needed to tell him everything.
She’d had a chance to think about it all the way home as she’d drifted off to sleep. She’d put it all together—all the clues, the visions, everything that didn’t quite fit—and had come up with a whole new picture.
It changed everything. Nothing was as it had always seemed.
While the realization she’d made didn’t shock her quite as much as she’d have expected it to, since she’d been thinking along these lines since yesterday, it did make her feel sick. Even now, hours later, and after that wonderful interlude with Gabe, she felt the horror trying to claw its way back into her.
“Don’t,” she told herself as the fear tried to take hold. “Don’t let it.”
Looking at her reflection in the mirror, she swallowed, then licked her lips. She’d done as Gabe had suggested and splashed some water on her face, though she still looked pale and drawn. Reaching for a facecloth, she wet it, then pressed it to her closed eyes, hoping to bring down the swelling her tears and fatigue had caused. As the coolness penetrated her forehead, she suddenly became aware of an unusual intermittent warmth on the back of her neck. Not like a breath, certainly, but more like warm air falling from a ceiling vent. But there were no vents in the bathrooms of this old house, only radiators that she hadn’t turned on for months.
Strange. But on the strange scale, definitely nothing compared to the rest of her day.
Finally, after counting to sixty, she lowered the cloth.
And gasped.
The shower curtain had moved. It hung from a round loop on the ceiling, draping down over the clawfoot tub, and it had just visibly fluttered, as if someone had brushed past it. Someone who’d been standing behind her, between her and the doorway to her bedroom.
“Who’s there?” she asked. Her mind worked frantically. “Gabe?”
Nothing.
He wouldn’t play games with her, wouldn’t stay silent if he were really in her room and knew she might have seen him. Nobody else in her house would, either. They all knew how unraveled she’d been earlier, or at least she assumed they did by now.
So who had been there?
“Nobody,” she told herself in a firm voice.
It had been a blur, a trick of the eyes after she’d dropped the cloth and let the light back in. Nothing else at all. She was jumping at shadows now, and that was one thing she couldn’t let continue. The horror in her life was compartmentalized; all the ugly, scary, dark stuff was only supposed to happen when she was working. Here, in her home, it simply wasn’t allowed.
“Got it? Not allowed,” she told her reflection.
Taking a quick glance at her face, she remembered she hadn’t worn any mascara this morning, knowing it might be a crying kind of day. So no emergency makeup repairs were required. That was a good thing, because she’d kept Gabe and the others waiting long enough.
Stepping into the bedroom, she glanced around quickly, confirmed the emptiness, then headed out the door. Descending the stairs, she followed the sound of their voices, all coming from the den: two masculine ones, Julia’s brusque, throaty drawl and her sister’s light, lyrical tone. God, how did Brooke get sucked into this?
Entering the room, she found Gabe, Brooke, and Julia, of course, plus an extremely attractive man who looked a little like that actor from Criminal Minds—Shemar Moore. Wow, they grew them nice at the Savannah PD. At least she assumed this was Gabe’s partner, Detective Tyler Wallace.
Gabe had been leaning against the fireplace, his hands in his pockets, when she came in. The pose was casual, but she saw the tension in his broad shoulders and the frown on his face. “You okay?” he asked, ignoring everyone else.
She nodded. “I’m fine.”
Julia had been sitting on the edge of the desk, her long legs swinging as she talked to Brooke about heaven knew what. Now she hopped off and walked over. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to be nosy. It’s just, when Brooke called, looking for you, and was so upset . . .”
“You asked Morgan to check on me?”
She nodded. “He told me a strange man had carried you into your house. I panicked, called her back, and we all raced over.” She glanced at her watch. “Hell, we should probably listen for the doorbell; I bet you anything Mick will be showing up soon.”
Oh, wonderful. “You called him?”
She merely shrugged, unrepentant. “Hey, we’re a team, remember? But don’t worry. I couldn’t reach anybody but Mick.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Gabe grimace. It didn’t take a genius to see that he didn’t think much of Julia, though they’d only just met, as far as she knew. That surprised her; most men liked sexy, ballsy Julia a lot. Not that she had eyes for any of them. Olivia suspected her heart still belonged to a man who was thoroughly
beyond her reach.
Gabe’s partner walked over and extended his hand, which she shook. “We didn’t get a chance to meet yesterday. I’m Detective Wallace—Ty.”
“Nice to meet you.” Though it would have been so much nicer to meet him and to see Julia and Brooke anywhere other than in her house minutes after they’d interrupted those wonderful moments in Gabe’s arms.
Lie. It was over before they walked in.
Perhaps. But she liked to think she might have convinced him to change his mind.
“Now,” Julia said, “Detective Wallace filled us in on what he knew, and he,” she waved at Gabe, “told us the rest. Everything except the Final Jeopardy answers.”
“Questions,” she murmured absently.
“Whatever.”
“Stop browbeating her,” Gabe snapped. “Can you at least let her sit down?”
That sounded remarkably protective. Well, she supposed his protective instincts had gotten all worked up today. Frankly, that had been good, at the time. Now, though, she didn’t need that. She just needed him—all of them—to listen. And to understand.
So, without hesitating, she told them what she’d learned about the final moments of the boy who’d once saved her life. They didn’t interrupt, not once, though she saw Gabe’s brow furrow in confusion when she mentioned one thing: that she’d seen the boy’s face and recognized his reflection as the sunlight gleamed on the water in the washtub.
She should have known he’d be the one to realize something was wrong with that statement, even if he couldn’t puzzle it out right away. He was quick, always thinking, alert and attentive. She admired that about him.
He’d also frowned when he’d heard the boy had called his attacker “Uncle Johnny,” which in no way sounded like Dwight. But he’d probably assumed the kidnapper had used a false name.
Though it was difficult thinking about the most pitiful, heartbreaking part of it, she also shared one more detail, the one that had been so very hard to hear. “He said something at the end.” She swallowed, trying to find some moisture in her very dry mouth. “His last words were ‘My name is Zachary.’”
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