by Lucy Farago
“There was no time. Besides, I sent you a text.”
He shook his head. “I didn’t get any text.”
“Yes—I—uh—I know. It didn’t deliver.” She shrugged apologetically. “I need a new phone.”
“You need more than a new phone.”
“Are you going to lecture me?” she asked, more curious than mad.
“I might.” He hadn’t when she’d gone after Hannah because he’d understood Maggie’s motives, but this wasn’t the same. He knew how frantic she’d been. Hell, he couldn’t blame her. But if there’d ever been a time to wait for him or the police, this was it.
“What I did is no different from what you do.”
Was she really going to compare what he did to that insane stunt she just pulled? “I’m trained. You?”
She headed for the bathroom then turned, hands on her hips. “He had Shannon.” Like that was enough of an excuse.
“We’d have figured something out.”
“He told me to come alone, and I left you a note,” she countered.
“Yeah,” he scoffed “the only smart thing you did.”
“Better than nothing,” she threw back, slamming the door and, with a soft click, locked it.
If he slept with her again it would complicate things, but even pissed off, when he heard the spray of water hit flesh—hers—he wanted to break the door off its hinges and join her. She was already under his skin. Anymore and he’d be making a fool of himself, professing his love and devotion like some lovesick teenager. They weren’t kids. Then again, maybe he was being too cynical … or too ridiculously hopeful. Trouble followed her like a dog to country ham.
Needing his own cold shower, he walked into his own bathroom, stripped and let water rain over him. Remembering the first time he touched Maggie’s naked body, he turned the water to cold and tried to drown his desire.
A short time later, she, in a fluffy hotel bathrobe, hair combed but wet, he, with a towel wrapped around his waist, emerged at the same time. Exchanging wry glances, she went into the living room.
“You know there’s another robe in there.” She pointed behind him, her gaze darting from the knot in his towel to the bathroom and back to him.
“I’m not a robe kind of guy.” Too bad she wasn’t sitting, because she’d be crossing those sexy legs of hers. “How was your shower?” He’d known how his was—lonely.
Sitting, she lifted her feet and balled her knees into her arms. “I had some time to think.”
Was that a good or bad thing? “And?”
She met his eyes. “Do you think Desilva knew Wright was a serial killer?”
“I think the bastard lucked out. Wright would have kept killing regardless of Juan Desilva. You were just a convenient means to an end, and a lucrative one.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that those women died because of me. And I hired Jason. I thought I was doing him a favor. And here I thought I knew people.”
He sat beside her, considered wrapping his arms around her but figured he needed to get this out first. “I don’t think you got the kid wrong. Cooper said he was scared shitless. Looks like his father put him in your club to keep tabs on your dancers and to get a list of your employees. Complicated stereo equipment isn’t Jason’s only forte. He admitted borrowing your computer. Wright used Jason’s friendship with your dancers to lure them. He had no idea what his father was doing.”
“He hurt Rhonda,” she said.
And Maggie. “That was an accident. It traumatized him speechless.”
“Is he going to be all right?”
“Can’t help but care, can you?”
“Like you said, he had no clue what his father was up to.” She fell silent, thinking. And Christian could tell that more than Jason was on her mind.
“What is it, Maggie?”
Her eyes closed, and for a long-drawn-out minute he thought she wouldn’t answer.
Then she met his worried gaze. “I know Wright would have found other victims to kill. I get that. I do. But,” she added, “if I’d had the courage to shoot Desilva five years ago, this horrible chain of events wouldn’t have played out. I wouldn’t have bought Heart’s Desire and I’d have kept counseling on the streets, instead of hiding behind the club.”
“Wright was killing women long before you—. Wait. What? You own the club?” he asked, too stunned to say anything smarter. “How did that get past me?”
“I’m clever,” she offered tentatively. “It was Shannon,” she admitted. “I lent her the money on paper, and she,” Maggie used air quotes, “purchased the club. You have to know what you’re doing to trace it back to me. Shannon knew how to hide my name. I couldn’t risk anyone finding out that Reverend Hopewell’s daughter owns a strip club. My friends thought if I let the women come to me, then I would still feel like I was doing something.” She paused, swallowing hard. “After the run-in with Desilva, I’d have panic attacks every time I went to work. After I couldn’t pull the trigger and shoot the bastard.”
“Come here.” Unwrapping her arms from around her knees, he pulled her legs across his lap, cuddling her close to him. “I saw the file. It gave me PTSD just reading it.”
“Horace made me see a therapist, but counselors don’t make good patients. Once I got a handle on the nightmares, I stopped going.”
He wished she hadn’t, but it was her call. If it had been him, he doubted anyone could get his ass on a couch. “But you were left with the panic attacks?”
“The panic attacks, no way to reach out to the cases I’d left behind, and a very angry father.”
Enjoying the feel of her face, her breath as she spoke against his naked chest, he rubbed her arm. “Is that when you and he parted ways?”
“He tried to convince me to find another way. Not that he liked what I did in the first place. But by then I’d gotten to know the women in the club. My grandmother’s money could help them. There was so much of it. I don’t put them through medical school because most of my girls don’t have the educational background. So their class schedules allow them to work part-time. At the club or somewhere else, I insist on it. The ride can’t be totally free, or it means nothing. I send anyone who needs rehab out of state, so they can be somewhat anonymous. When they’re ready, they decide the next step. Some, like Heather, stay, the rest I see from time to time, like my caterer, or they work at another of our businesses.”
Her fingers traced the ridges across his abdomen as she began to relax. He felt a twinge of guilt, because if she looked down, their conversation would be over. But for the first time, he truly understood why she worked in the club. “Desilva. It’s why you asked how I felt about shooting someone. Maybe why you were so determined to take on Wright?”
“Maybe. I think I’d have gone after him no matter what. He had Shannon. But a part of me had to prove something to myself.”
How he wished she didn’t have that need. “And did you?”
“My therapist said I could take one of two paths. I could let my fears control me, let them consume me, or I could take back control. I couldn’t go back to work, so I guess my staying connected to the group home was my way of taking some control. Now I know it wasn’t. But after today, I can put Juan Desilva behind me.”
“Good. But you know you do a lot of good at the club. You don’t need to be on the streets.”
She was silent.
“Maggie?” If she hadn’t hung up her wings, they were going to have a serious talk. “Are you thinking about going back to counseling?” Please someone tell him she wasn’t, she wasn’t making butting heads with pimps a daily event. How long before no one made it in time to save her ass? If he’d lost her to her own brash reactions … well, had she learned to think before reacting? Look where it had gotten his sister, mother, the women he’d been paid to bail out, Samantha Wiseman. Maggie couldn’t end up like them. It would destroy him.
“I’m considering it,” she said.
He pushed her down on the
couch and trapped her beneath his body as if somehow that would protect her. Her warm hands splayed over his bare chest. He wanted to strip her naked, make love to her until she couldn’t stand and then demand she go help the Girl Scouts. “You’re going to get yourself killed,” he growled.
Momentarily stunned, Maggie pressed her head into the cushions, looking up at stormy, chocolate eyes narrowed on her. “I haven’t yet,” she assured him, and she wasn’t going to, she told herself, feeling a bravado she hadn’t experienced in years.
She’d survived countless incidents. How many times had she repeated that mantra and never believed it? Today, she’d lived through the mother lode of evil and taken back her life. She wasn’t sure what the future held, but she’d handle it. Fear was inevitable. Without it she wouldn’t be human, but she’d work with it when the need arose and learn to respect it when it overwhelmed her. She didn’t need to prove anything to anyone.
“Maggie.” His frustration rolled over her like an angry tidal wave and a little of her newfound courage drowned in it.
She wanted him to understand. “I’ve been such a coward. But no more.”
“Coward? How do you figure?”
“My whole life I’ve been a chicken-shit. Afraid of going to hell if I wasn’t good enough, afraid my father wouldn’t love me, of failing and finding another dead kid. I’ve been afraid,” she repeated, resigning herself to the fact that a part of her was still terrified of those things. But her life was hers now.
“Are you kidding? You left home at sixteen, went to a school on the opposite coast from your parents. You took on Cooper how many times and shut down a human trafficker.”
“I couldn’t defend myself. If Horace hadn’t come to my rescue, Desilva would have raped and probably murdered me.”
He winced, his eyes closing. When he opened them he pressed his mouth to hers. Hard and possessive, the kiss sent a message. Just what she wasn’t certain, but in his kiss she was whole. She was no longer a woman taking shelter in his arms, but a woman in control. And this woman wanted more. But he broke the kiss, taking her breath with him.
“Just so you know, killing a man isn’t an act of courage. Cooper found you because you had the common sense to turn your cellphone on. But you have to stop sacrificing yourself to save others. You’re no good to anyone dead. Cut the hero act.”
“I … no.” She wasn’t playing the hero and she resented the comment. “I did what I had to do,” she argued. “He’d have sold those women. I couldn’t let him do that.”
“You’d found his location. You should have waited for the police.”
She got angry then, remembering why she’d jumped the gun. “He was raping one of those girls.”
“So you what, you charged him?”
“I thought I could distract him long enough for the police to show up.”
“That was too high a risk.”
She shivered. It had indeed almost cost her. “I know that now.”
“Doing things half-cocked,” he touched a finger to her chest, “and with too much heart, is what’s gotten you into trouble. Get that first kid out of your mind, Maggie. They don’t all end up dead in alleys. If they do, it’s not your fault,” he pressed another kiss to her mouth, driving his point home.
She wondered who exactly he was trying to convince. “Aren’t we a pair? Trying to right a wrong from so many years ago.”
“You didn’t kill that kid they found in your alley.”
“You didn’t kill your sister,” she countered. “How many women has that job of yours allowed you to save? Huh, smartass?”
He rolled to her side, pressing her between the couch and himself. He brushed the tips of his fingers over her lips, back and forth, his breath deepening as if the caress somehow soothed him. With a tender smile, he looked into her eyes. “You got me all figured out?” Hooking his hand under her knee, he lifted her leg over his hip.
“Maybe,” she admitted, realizing for the first time her rash behavior must have hit a sore spot. He was right. She had to listen to her instincts, instead of ignoring them when they warned of danger. “I’m smart, you know,” she said defying him to argue. “I’ll always wear my heart on my sleeve, but I promise not to sit on my brain.”
He seemed relieved. The strong muscles that pressed against her relaxed, helping their bodies mold into each other. “You’ll wait for help?”
“Help’s not always around.”
“I’ll say it again. You’re no good to anyone dead.”
Did anyone include him? She realized she was holding her breath for more. But for what exactly? Did she think he’d profess his love and they’d live happily ever after? No matter how much she promised to ask for help, part of her knew that, on occasion, rare as she promised herself that would be, she’d get herself into situations that he wouldn’t approve of. Knowing him, he’d have a hard time accepting that. Her friends may not like the risks Maggie took, but they’d stick by her. In the end, they were her friends. Beck wasn’t dumb enough to intentionally stay with a woman who might, on occasion, push the one button that set him off.
He kissed her then, the tip of her nose. She closed her eyes to let him kiss each eyelid, then her cheeks, and lastly, gratefully, her mouth. That tidal wave of frustration she’d picked up on before was replaced with a tsunami of sexual heat as their tongues explored, tasted and stroked. It rose to dangerous heights with each deep thrust, submerging her in a lustful storm of passion.
Abruptly stopping the kiss, he stood, taking her with him. “Bedroom. No more couches. Not tonight anyway.”
Not waiting for approval, Beck bent down, picked her up, and carried her to the bedroom. He set her down beside the bed then went to stand behind her. He reached around to untie her robe. Fisting the lapels, he pulled them down, baring her shoulders. She gasped when his open mouth clamped down on the sensitive base of her throat. A shiver rocked her body, her thighs squeezing together at the delicious ache his tongue created with each taste of her skin. She couldn’t wait for more.
He tugged her robe off, let it lie in a heap by her feet as he stripped off his towel, tossing it with hard flick of his wrist. Pressing his chest to her back, he cupped her breasts, his stiff erection nestled against her bottom. Unable to stop herself, she arched into him, loving the deep groan Beck made.
He moved his lips to her ear. “Do that again, Maggie.”
She complied, hearing a “Sweet God” from Beck. In only seconds, she was flat on her back with him beside. He reached for a remote on the bedside table. A soft beep later, the gas fireplace burst into flames and the lights switched off.
“Never let it be said I’m not romantic.”
“No, just sanctimonious.”
“Never again,” he promised, closing his eyes as she traced circles around one nipple.
Who knew a man’s nipples could be so sensitive? Making a mental note to return, she slipped her hand down his six-pack, caressed his hip and made a grab for his tight ass. She gave him a squeeze before returning to the space between their bodies to wrap her hand around his hard shaft.
Beck drew a sharp breath through his teeth, his mouth so fast on hers she forgot to inhale. Before she could think, he clutched her bottom and pulled her close. He continued to show her how a good old southern boy made a woman never want to leave his bed. He left no skin untouched, either by hand or mouth. When he parted his lips to speak, it was to say her name in that sexy drawl. Even his groans of pleasure carried the enticing accent. She’d never get enough of it, of him.
And wasn’t that her dilemma? Because in her heart she knew this would be their last night together. Or rather, it should be. He might consider extending his stay, but he had a job to return to and it wasn’t in Vegas. She’d enjoy a few more days with him, but in the end it would only make it harder. No, tonight had to be their last.
He teased her, tasted her, and showed her heaven twice before she was able to speak and ask him for a condom. He smiled, reaching out to th
e bedside table, pulling out the gold wrapper.
“Let me,” she offered and snatched it from his hand.
“You know what you’re doing?”
“Relax. How hard can this be?” Then looking down, she knew exactly how hard. She grinned.
He made a grab for the condom, but she held it out of his reach. “Are you rejecting my charitable assistance?” she asked, grinning mischievously.
“You’re not going to hurt me, are you?”
“Trust me.”
He gave her a nervous laugh. “Maggie.”
Using her teeth she carefully tore into the wrapper. She removed the condom and tossed the rest over her shoulder. Straddling him, completely unabashed by her nudity, she inch by slow tortuous inch unrolled the latex over the length of him. The muscles in his stomach tightened and she made sure to prolong her act of charity, although she figured he wasn’t seeing it that way. She then ran her thumb and index finger over his flesh. “Just checking for tears,” she said, loving the way he tossed his head back and groaned. After several minutes of ensuring there were no rips in the condom, she heard a whoosh of air as he exhaled. A drop of sweat trickled down the side of his handsome face.
“There you go again, taking chances,” he rasped.
Puzzled, she trailed her fingers over that rippled stomach. “Huh?”
“You’re playing with fire, teasing me like that.”
She shrugged, letting her hand slip lower. “As I’ve just discovered, I can take the heat.”
“Darlin’, I plan on giving you all you can take.” He flipped her off him, covering her body with his.
That drawl would be the death of her. “Shut up and kiss me.”
He obliged her, kissing her until her lips grew numb and tingled. He kissed her until her body squirmed with a will of its own. He kissed her as he parted her thighs with his knees and positioned himself between her legs. He kissed her until he owned her, plunged deep inside, filled her until she didn’t know where he began and she ended. His lips continued to seduce her as his hips tormented her, thrust after thrust.