Danger and Desire: Ten Full-Length Steamy Romantic Suspense Novels

by Pamela Clare

  “Okay.”

  “Bathroom’s at the top of the stairs, though I can’t guarantee you’ll find the seat down. There’s beer and cola in the fridge, if you want something cold. Coffee and tea in the cupboard to the left of the stove, if you prefer hot. I’ll make up a bed for you when I get back.”

  “Okay.”

  “I should be back as soon as Bandy does his business. Ten minutes, tops. And I won’t be more than a block away, close enough to keep an eye on the house.”

  She smiled. “John, it’s okay. If I were at home right now, I’d be alone.”

  No, she wouldn’t. He’d be parked a discreet distance from her house with Bandy snoring in the back seat like a lumberjack sleeping one off.

  “Okay.” He turned to the dog. “C’mere, mutt. Let’s get you leashed.”

  *

  Suzannah sagged against the wall when John closed the door behind him. Had she imagined it, the hunger in those hooded, sleepy eyes as he’d watched her fix her hair? She closed her eyes and saw it again, felt the awareness arc between them. No, she hadn’t imagined anything.

  She pressed a hand to her chest to try to slow her racing heart. Lord, what was she doing here?

  Because he said he cared about her and she believed him.

  Because he could offer her safety.

  Because she was tired of pretending she didn’t want to be near him, close enough to feel the pull of his magnetic energy. Because when he looked at her, she swore she could feel his gaze brush her very skin. Because he made her feel like she hadn’t dared to feel since she was seventeen.

  Oh, God, she wanted him, more than she could ever remember wanting a man. And he wanted her. She’d known it from the first. But did she have the courage to reach out and take what she wanted? Or would it be the same as every other time? She gnawed her lower lip. Would this precious, sweet desire wither on the vine? Could she afford the price of finding out?

  Kitchen. Drink. Now.

  *

  Suzannah was nowhere in sight when Quigg let himself back in the house, but he could hear Mark Knopfler’s lazy vocals emanating from the living room. “Suzannah?”

  “In here.”

  The volume of the music dropped. He unleashed Bandy, who shot off to find his newest friend. Stashing the leash in its customary place, he followed in Bandy’s footsteps.

  He expected to find her sitting on his aunt’s flowered sofa sipping tea, but instead she crouched by the mantle, scratching Bandy’s ears. She stood, but this time, stepped back out of reach before the dog could register a complaint about the cessation of petting.

  “Quick study,” he observed.

  “He made quite an impression.”

  She picked up an old-fashioned glass from the mantle, took a healthy sip, then cradled it in her hands. Judging by the amber contents, she must have found the bourbon in the cupboard.

  “I see you found yourself a drink.”

  “Umm. Jack Daniel’s. My favorite. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Of course not.”

  “Care for one?” She gestured toward the coffee table, where the bottle sat.

  Strong drink with Suzannah under his roof? A Suzannah who herself had been drinking strong drink? Bad idea.

  “Nah, I think I’ll have a beer. Be right back.” Heart thumping, he retreated to the kitchen. Twisting the top off a Moose Dry, he took a swig, then set it down on the counter. Keep it cool, old man. She’s tired, she’s scared, and she wants a drink to unwind. Big deal.

  He went to the cupboard, extracted a small bag of dog chow and shook some into the empty dog dish. Bandy immediately came running.

  She’d also given him the look.

  Oh, hell.

  He grabbed Bandy’s water dish, rinsed it under the tap and refilled it. “There you go, buddy.”

  Okay, no more procrastinating. Suzannah Phelps was sipping bourbon in his living room, waiting for him to rejoin her. And she’d given him the look. The green light. The all systems go.

  At least from any other woman, that’s how he’d interpret it, but who knew with Suzannah? He had no experience of a woman in her league. Hell, apart from an ill-advised engagement when he was too young to recognize good old-fashioned lust for what it was, he had limited experience of nice women.

  Christ in his high chair! He’d just mentally characterized the woman his friends referred to as She-Rex as nice.

  Okay, not nice, then. Respectable. Socially upstanding. That better described his experiential deficiency. When he did indulge his libido, his style was more the women who hung out at the local watering hole. With them, you knew the score. It was about the badge, and that was quite all right with him. It made it that much easier to gather his clothes in the grey light of pre-dawn and get the hell out of there.

  “John?”

  Whoops. Time out was over. “Be right there,” he called. Then, to the dog, he said, “’Fraid you’ll have to stay here, Bandy Man. The lady will probably have to wear slacks for a week as it is.”

  Closing the kitchen door on a disappointed Bandy, Quigg snagged his beer and walked back to the living room where Mark Knopfler was now husking his way through “Are We In Trouble Now”. You and me both, buddy.

  She smiled when she saw him enter the room. He shot a look at her glass. Eek! Nearly empty.

  “This is a great song.”

  “Yeah.” He took a swig of beer. “The whole CD is great.”

  “Umm,” she agreed, depositing her glass on the coffee table beside the half bottle of JD. “Dance with me.”

  He gripped his bottle tighter. “You think that’s wise?”

  “Probably not.” She strode over to him and plucked the beer from his hands, plunking it on the coffee table beside her drink.

  Instant arousal. Just like that, he was hard. She was barefoot, which left her several inches shorter than him. For a moment, he mourned her loss of height. He liked her mouth at the level of his, her eyes able to look right into his.

  She moved into him, soft against hard, and his arms went around her. She linked her arms around his neck, the loose embrace somehow effectively cutting off the supply of oxygen to his brain as she swayed against him. Or maybe that was being accomplished by the rush of blood to another part of his anatomy.

  “You’re not moving,” she pointed out.

  For pity’s sake, he didn’t trust himself to move. In the background, Mark Knopfler crooned that it wasn’t the music or the wine sending those shivers up his spine. Suzannah swayed against him again, her breasts under the sexy halter dress brushing his chest. Beneath his hands, the bare skin of her back felt like fine, warm satin.

  Her hand came up to touch his face and he was lost. Groaning, he went for her upturned mouth, covering it hotly.

  She threw herself into the kiss. There was no other way to describe it. Even as he plundered that lush, bourbon-ripe mouth, she plundered right back, giving as good as she got. And all the while, her hands slid through his hair, shaping his skull, pulling him closer.

  He lifted his own hands to her hair, finding and releasing the clasp that held it. Then her hair was free, sliding around her shoulders like fragrant silk. He fisted his hands in it and pulled his own head back far enough to break the kiss. She mewled a protest at the loss of contact, but he held her there with a gentle tension on her hair, nipping at her lower lip, grazing her throat, her ear, the corner of her lip. Lord, it was good. He wanted to hold her that way for hours, days, weeks, torturing himself and her with almost-kisses and nibbles, but she was too far gone for that. Using considerable force, she pulled his head down for another hot, open-mouthed kiss.

  Any thought of slow, prolonged, torturous kisses was instantly obliterated. He dropped his hands to her breasts, kneading them beneath the slippery material of her halter dress. One tug, he knew, and the whole thing would come off.

  Not yet. Slow down. Savor this.

  He tried to pull back to look at her, wanting to see the thrust of her nipples thr
ough the fine material, but she held him fast. She was like a freight train that wouldn’t be slowed. Sweet heaven, she was ravenous. Starved. Wild.

  Finally, an alarm bell went off in his head.

  Oh Jesus oh Jesus oh Jesus oh Jesus.

  He had to stop.

  *

  “Stop.”

  God, what now? Couldn’t he see they needed to do this right now, this very moment, while her blood was singing? To prolong it was to risk dousing this sweet fire before it could consume her, and she just might die if that happened. With renewed fervor, she pressed closer, abrading her breasts against him.

  He put her away again. “Suzannah, we have to stop.”

  “No, we can’t. Not now.”

  “Suz, sweetheart, we have to … oh, Jesus.”

  She smiled wolfishly at the way his voice broke as her right hand found and cradled the hardness beneath the fly of his jeans. “It doesn’t feel like you want to stop.”

  “I didn’t say I wanted to,” he gritted. His hands closed around her upper arms, and this time, he succeeded in putting her away. “Dammit, Suzannah, I’m trying to protect you, here.”

  Protection. She hadn’t even thought of that. Could they be derailed for lack of a prophylactic? “Are you saying you don’t have a single condom in this huge two-story house?”

  “It’s not that.”

  Then what? Was he having second thoughts because of her job? His job? Her blood cooled as another thought occurred to her—could he have sensed her deficiencies already?

  Noooo! She was losing it, this sweet, wild wanting. But his breathing was as ragged as hers, his chest was rising and falling like he’d run the hundred meter dash. Maybe it could still be salvaged.

  “Then what is it?”

  “The way you’re feeling right now, it isn’t real.”

  She struggled to process his words. “Excuse me?”

  “I mean, it is real. Of course it’s real. You’re feeling it, right? But it’s just a post-adrenaline thing.”

  “Post-adrenaline thing.” She parroted his words.

  “Yeah, you know, from the fire. The shock of seeing all those emergency vehicles in your driveway, the danger, the fear. It all triggers an adrenaline dump, the old flight-or-fight response. Except you responded to the crisis with your brain, not your muscles, which leaves your body screaming for release.”

  Her face felt numb. Numb and tingly all at once. She took a step back, and he released his grip on her arms. “I don’t believe this.”

  “I strong-armed you into coming over here, for your own safety—which I still believe was the right thing to do. And then I spouted off like a sixth-grader with a crush on the prettiest girl in the class—which is also pretty much the case. But dammit, Suzannah, I can’t now take advantage of you.”

  Every breath she drew now seemed to burn her lungs. “Do I look like I feel taken advantage of?”

  “Suzannah –”

  “And you’ve never indulged in a bout of sex in the wake of one of these adrenaline rushes?”

  “We’re not talking about me.”

  “I’ll take that as a yes.” The flame was well and truly doused now. It was sheer anger that made her pursue this. “So, did you feel taken advantage of in the wake of those encounters?”

  “Suzannah –”

  He spoke her name like a warning, but she paid it no heed. “Answer me. Did you feel victimized?”

  “Of course not,” he growled. “I used those women, okay? And they used me. Mutual using. But that’s different.”

  “How?”

  “Someone’s threatening you. You’re frightened. I’m supposed to be protecting you, not exploiting the situation.”

  “Bullshit.”

  His jaw dropped.

  “I’m not your charge, John. As far as your employer is concerned, I’m your girlfriend. You have no special fiduciary duty. Investigating this case is someone else’s job.”

  “I realize that, but –”

  “You wanted to call a halt just now, that’s fine. But don’t hide behind professional ethics at this juncture.”

  His face turned thunderous. “What are you talking about?”

  “I want to know the real reason you stopped.”

  He turned away, shoving a hand through his hair. “I told you, the adrenaline … sometimes you don’t make the best decisions. I didn’t want you to wake up regretting this one.”

  “I would think that would fall squarely in the category of not your problem. And please don’t say you expect me to believe you have objections to—how did you put it?—mutual using.”

  He whirled back to face her, his eyes glinting dangerously. “What if I do? Huh? What if I object to being your adrenaline tumble? What if I wanted something more? What if I’d rather you didn’t look at me like something to be swept under the carpet come morning?”

  *

  Quigg heard the echo of his words reverberate in his head. Had he really said that? Suzannah was staring back at him, blue eyes rounded, her reddened, kiss swollen mouth finally at a loss for words. Just as the silence began to grow intolerable, Bandy scratched at the door.

  Stifling a curse, he strode to the door and let the dog out of his kitchen prison. The mutt shot over to Suzannah. She bent to lay hands on him, though it was debatable whether her intent was to demonstrate affection or merely to protect herself.

  “Just tell him when it’s enough and he’ll leave you be, if you use a firm tone.”

  She glanced up at him, and said, deadpan, “Yes, I see you’ve mastered that particular command.”

  He felt a flush climb his neck and lifted a hand to rub it.

  “It’s okay.” She gave the dog a last pat and a firm word, and stood, though she kept a wary eye on him until he wandered over to a throw rug and flopped down. “I guess I kind of jumped on you, there.” She turned to look him square in the eye. “You had every right to call me off. It was the smart thing to do.”

  “Yeah? Then how come I feel like such a dumb ass?”

  Her lips curved in what looked like a genuine, if somewhat tight smile. “It’s just that I haven’t…” Her voice trailed off and she shrugged. “I don’t know. It felt nice. I guess I wanted to hang onto it.”

  Her words were casual, easy, yet he was left feeling like he’d robbed her of something precious. Suddenly, he had the disconcerting conviction that he was letting some important detail elude him. “Am I missing something here?”

  For a second, he thought he saw indecision darken those lovely eyes.

  “Suzannah?”

  “No.” Her lifted her chin, and her eyes were clear as a summer sky again. “You didn’t miss a thing, Detective. Now, where am I sleeping?”

  He considered challenging her, then discarded the idea. Patience, he was beginning to think, would get him further with Suzannah Phelps than this butting of heads. And patience was his long suit. Or at least it had been until he’d come up against a certain hard headed defense lawyer. It would be again.

  “Spare bedroom,” he said at last, in answer to her question. Picking up her bag which she’d left beside the couch, he nodded toward the stairs. “Come on. I’ll show you.”

  He led the way, and Bandy scrambled up behind them, making more noise than a herd of buffalo. “Bathroom,” he pointed out as they passed it. Reaching the spare bedroom directly across the hall from his, he pushed the door open and motioned for Suzannah to precede him. He heard her draw in a breath.

  “It’s lovely.”

  Quigg put her bag down and regarded the interior with all its wicker and floral fabric and fussy cushions. “I’d like it noted that I had no hand in this. It’s my late Aunt Charlotte’s handiwork. The only rooms I bothered with are the master bedroom and the TV room, mainly because they’re the only rooms I use.”

  She smiled. “Thank you. I’ll be quite comfortable.”

  Bandy padded in, giving the empty wastebasket a sniff, no doubt in the wistful hope it contained something e
dible.

  “Towels in the linen closet outside the bathroom. Anything else you need, just give me a shout. My bedroom is across the hall.” He gestured with a nod of his head.

  “Thanks. I’m sure I’ll have no trouble.”

  Get moving, man. You’ve been dismissed. A flash of what could have been if he hadn’t called a halt downstairs ripped through his mind. Suzannah on his bed, under him, as wild and ravenous for him as he was for her.

  “I’ll leave you, then.” He backed out of the bedroom, nearly stumbling over his own feet. “C’mere, Bandy.”

  Bandy turned languid eyes on him, then promptly leapt up onto Suzannah’s bed. Well, scrabbled up might be a better description. The combined challenges of height, girth and arthritis had left his leaping days behind him. He called the dog again, but it played deaf, circling a couple of times and settling at the foot of the bed.

  “Stupid mutt,” he muttered, starting back into the room to remove him by the collar.

  “It’s okay, he can stay,” she said.

  Quigg held up. “You sure? He snores.”

  “I’d appreciate the company.”

  Damn, damn, damn. Don’t think about the company she could be keeping.

  “Okay.” He backed out of the room. “Goodnight, then.”

  “Goodnight.”

  He was halfway to the head of the stairs with a drink of that bourbon on his mind when she called his name. He turned back. “Yes?”

  “It wasn’t about the adrenaline.”

  The words were still ricocheting around inside his head as, smiling, she closed the bedroom door softly.

  Chapter Seven

  The next day was a busy one for Suzannah.

  She’d woken at six to a persistent pawing of her leg through the blankets. Bandy. He obviously needed food or water, or maybe to take a whiz. While she was debating what to do, John had stuck his head in the door. At the sight of his leash, her devoted companion of the previous night leapt off the bed and trotted after his master.

  In John’s absence, she hurried to the bathroom, completing her toilette before he returned with a much happier looking Bandy. She’d taken the risk of putting coffee on herself—did he like it industrial strength or merely strong?—and they danced around each other in the kitchen. John fed the dog; Suzannah edged past him in the narrow kitchen to get to her wheat toast, which had popped. Around and around they circled, the awareness between them as palpable as a third person. Eventually, he’d driven her to work, leaving her with firm instructions not to go home alone. If she needed to go back to the house before end-of-shift, he’d arrange to be there.