by Diana Palmer
His eyes narrowed. He wasn’t buying it.
“I don’t know anyone who was with you overseas, Kilraven,” she said reasonably.
“Then how did you know that?”
She grimaced and looked away. “I don’t know.”
He was remembering what they said about her mother’s intuition, and then came the memory of Winnie painting the raven and sending backup when he was in great danger in Jacobsville.
“You have the same ability your mother does,” he said aloud.
She grimaced. “I guess so. I didn’t know where it came from. Not until tonight.” She glanced at him apologetically. “It’s freaky, huh?”
He sighed and started the Jaguar forward again. “Not so much. It just takes a little getting used to.”
“And you don’t like talking about personal things.”
“No,” he replied at once. “I don’t.” He glanced at her. “But I’ve told you more than I’ve ever told anyone else, except Jon, about my private life. So I guess I trust you.”
She smiled. “Thanks.”
He pulled into the parking lot at his apartment building and led her inside, where a security guard kept watch from a desk.
He walked to the desk. “Kilraven,” he said, “Apartment 5A. I brought a woman here for illicit purposes….” He indicated Winnie, who gasped and flushed and started protesting.
“It’s okay, ma’am,” the security guy chuckled. “He says the same thing when he brings other male agents home with him. We’re used to it.”
Winnie burst out laughing and slapped Kilraven on a big, muscular arm. “You beast,” she muttered.
“Actually, we’re getting engaged,” Kilraven told the security guy with a grin. “You can see why. She’s a trouper. She’s a 911 operator in Jacobsville.”
“I’m impressed,” the security guy said. “My sister is one for San Antonio EOC. Tough job. You have to love it to do it.”
“Isn’t that the truth,” Winnie agreed.
“We won’t be here long,” Kilraven said. “I just need enough time to convince her that I’m a good prospect. She’s reluctant.”
“Well, if you didn’t go off on secretive missions, shooting people and coming home with wounds, I might try to help you convince her. She probably thinks she’ll be a widow in a few months,” the guy replied.
“You shut up, or I’ll tell everybody who comes in here that you wear women’s lingerie under your uniform.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” the security guy said indignantly.
“Just try me.”
The security guard gave him an international signal with one hand.
“Yeah, and the horse you rode in on.” Kilraven chuckled.
They went into the elevator and up, silently. Kilraven opened his apartment with two keys and invited her inside.
It was amazingly elegant and neat for a man’s living space. There were original paintings on the wall and the furniture was good quality leather, white and spotless. The television was state-of-the-art. Several gaming consoles were connected to it. The carpet was beige, and the curtains were earth-toned.
“You said you didn’t watch television,” she accused.
He chuckled. “I don’t. But I have two, one here and one at the rental house in Jacobsville, to play games on.” He looked around. “How do you like the apartment?”
“It’s very nice,” she said, surprised.
“Did you think I lived in a cave?” he asked.
She grinned. “It wouldn’t have shocked me.”
“Well, this is my cave, and you’ll notice that I can pick up after myself.”
“I did notice that. Good job.”
“Don’t be condescending or I won’t marry you,” he assured her. “Coffee?”
“I’d love some.”
“Come on.”
He led her into a spacious kitchen with built-in appliances. There was a microwave, and sitting next to it, a huge coffeepot.
“I drink a lot of it,” he explained as he made coffee. “Most nights, I don’t sleep.”
She could see why, but she wasn’t keen to bring up his past. “It’s a nice kitchen.”
“Spacious,” he agreed. “And bright. I don’t use half the gourmet appliances I’ve got, but my brother comes over once in a while and cooks something for us. He’s a gourmet chef, very accomplished.”
“I heard that.”
He put out mugs and sat down at the kitchen table with her. “You’ve got a brother you didn’t even know about.”
“It came as a shock. Like my mother’s profession. I’ve spent years hating her for what Dad did to me,” she said heavily. “He hated her. I guess he thought the child was my uncle’s and he couldn’t forgive her for it. I’m sure she tried to tell him that Matt was his. Obviously, he didn’t believe her. My father was a proud man, but inflexible. He didn’t forgive people. Boone’s a lot like him, but less judgmental.”
“I like your brothers.”
“Me, too.”
The coffee was ready. He poured it, black, into two mugs and handed her one as he sat back down. “Down to business. We can get married by a probate judge here or in Jacobsville. Where do you want to do it?”
“Jacobsville,” she said without thinking about it.
“No frills,” he added firmly. “It’s a temporary marriage.”
She nodded. “Got you.”
“And no roomful of witnesses. Just Boone and Keely. I might have asked Jon, but he’s going to be out of town.”
“Okay.”
He scowled. “You’re taking this very calmly for a woman who wanted to beat me up a few days ago when I suggested it.”
“I changed my mind,” she replied.
He sipped coffee. “I won’t change mine, Winnie,” he said suddenly. “If you’re thinking I’ll be reluctant to end the marriage when this case is closed, don’t. I meant it when I said I didn’t want to remarry or have a child.”
“I know all that.”
He drew in a long breath, and suddenly he looked older, worn. “Rogers got shot working this case. Marquez got assaulted. A man who wanted to tell me about it was murdered and left unrecognizable.” He glanced at her worriedly. “I’m not sure it’s a good idea to involve you at all. Maybe Boone was right. I could be putting you in the line of fire.”
That was flattering, that he was worried for her. “You also told Boone that there was no man around who could protect me better than you could.”
“Well, that’s true.”
“Of course it is. And it’s not like I’m going to be walking into a machine gun,” she added wryly. “I’m just going to help you get in touch with the senator’s wife.”
He sipped coffee again, thinking. “She’s the only hope we have of getting any inside information. The junior senator has already tried to stop the investigation. If it wasn’t for Senator Fowler’s help, we’d already have been forced to give it up. But I’m still not sure we won’t face more roadblocks. If the junior senator’s brother is involved in these murders, he’ll probably go the limit to try and save him. It’s just human nature,” he added solemnly. “I’d do anything to protect Jon, although he’ll never need it. He’s as honest as any man I know.”
“So are you,” Winnie said.
He smiled. “Thanks.”
“Why did you offer to let Matt stay with us?” she wondered.
He gave her a sardonic look. “Birth control.”
She flushed.
He chuckled. “Nothing gets by that young man. He’ll keep us honest. Besides,” he added, “he’s great at video games.”
“So am I,” she pointed out.
“Suppose you prove it?” he challenged with a grin.
He turned on the television and his game console and loaded the newest Halo game. They sat down and took up twin wireless controllers, and the game began.
But, as always, the dire Hunters started taking Winnie out the minute she encountered them. Kilraven gave her a sympath
etic look and proceeded to take down the Hunters as if they were the humorous little grunts in the game instead of the sturdiest villains.
“How do you do that?” she exclaimed, breathless.
“It’s not that hard. Watch.” And he proceeded to show her his tricks.
Two hours later, they were still playing, except now Winnie wasn’t getting blown away by the Hunters every few steps.
She glanced at the clock and gasped. “It’s two o’clock!”
“Awww, and the coach turned back into a pumpkin, didn’t it?” he sympathized, blasting his way through a barricade.
“You don’t understand, I have to be at work at eight!”
He blinked. He looked at her. “Eight?”
She nodded.
He sighed and turned off the console. “Bummer.”
She chuckled. “It is, but I have to go.”
He put the controller down. Then he turned her into his arms and looked down at her with quiet, piercing silver eyes while her heart hammered up into her throat.
“Pretty and brave and plays video games,” he murmured. His eyes dropped to her mouth. “And tastes delicious…”
He bent and kissed her. It wasn’t like any way he’d kissed her before. It was soft, tender, teasing. And then, quite suddenly, it was fierce and hungry and demanding. He wrapped her up in his big arms, riveted her to his hard body that grew harder by the instant. He groaned, his mouth insistent as it pressed her lips apart.
Seconds later, she was stretched out on the leather couch with Kilraven’s body over hers. One long leg was in between both of hers and his hands were all the way under her blouse and bra, bent on exploration.
She would have protested. She just couldn’t get her mouth away from his long enough. Then he had her bare to the waist and he was poised over her, looking down at small, firm, pretty pink breasts with hard little dusky tips, and the expression on his face stopped the words in her throat.
He touched her as carefully as he’d have touched a butterfly’s wings. “My God,” he whispered, and the words sounded reverent.
She was breathless. She watched him, watching her, and her eyes were dark and soft.
He traced around a hard nipple, propped on one elbow, fighting for control. “I wondered what you’d look like,” he whispered deeply. His silver eyes glittered as he studied her with soft appreciation.
“I’m…small,” she managed.
He laughed. It had a predatory sound. “I like small.” He bent and brushed his lips very softly over the warm flesh, drawing a shocked gasp from her. He lifted his head and searched her eyes. “You haven’t done this before,” he said, surprised.
“I told you I didn’t believe in that sort of thing,” she managed.
“Yes, but most women indulge in petting at some point.”
She swallowed. “I’ve been rushed, grabbed, lunged at…” She searched his eyes. “You make it feel…”
“Dirty?” he asked shortly.
She remembered what she’d said to him, at the roadside park, and she winced. “I didn’t mean that,” she said. “I was scared.”
“Of me?” he asked, shocked.
“You’re a steamroller, Kilraven,” she told him. “You walk right over people. I was afraid you’d rush me into something I wasn’t ready for, and I fought the only way I knew how. It’s not dirty when you touch me,” she whispered. She managed a self-conscious smile. “I like it.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You do?”
She nodded. “I might point out that I am lying here naked,” she began.
“No, no,” he said, “naked is when you have all your clothes off.” He grinned. “Shall I demonstrate that?” he asked with gleaming eyes.
She slapped his hands when they went to her slacks, but she was laughing. “Don’t you do it!”
“Spoilsport.” He sighed. “Okay, I’ll do my best to exercise some restraint.” While he was saying that, he was stripping off his shirt.
Winnie’s breath caught at the wide, thick wedge of curling black hair that covered him to his belt buckle, and probably beyond.
He pursed his lips. “Impressed?”
“Oh, yes,” she said, far and away gone from hope of subterfuge.
“And I will tell you, it feels as good as it looks,” he murmured, easing down over her, so that she got the full impact of the soft, curling hair as it tickled her breasts before it settled down on them. He nudged her legs apart. “No, no, you mustn’t discourage me, you’ll hurt my feelings,” he chided as he bent to her mouth. “You wouldn’t want to make a grown man cry…?”
She couldn’t have answered him if she’d wanted to. He was immediately passionate. He never seemed to lead up to it. He didn’t need to. The impact of his sexuality was so intense that it just blew away all her defenses at once. She arched up into his hard body and slid her arms around him, her nails digging into his muscular back as he kissed her, as if he never meant to stop.
At the same time, she felt his hips shift. There was a threatening hardness where their bodies met, and she started to protest just as he moved in. The feverish motion of his hips brought a surge of pleasure so unexpected and intense that she cried out, gasping.
He felt that explosion of breath against his mouth and lifted it. She was shivering. Her eyes were wide. He looked into them, seeing her innocence, her shock, her enjoyment as he moved sensually against her.
“Feel it?” he whispered.
She gasped. Of all the outrageous things to ask…!
“Now, think how it would feel, pushing slowly down into your body,” he whispered at her lips, “into that warm, moist darkness, hard and deep!”
“Kilraven!” she gasped at the outrageous comment.
He laughed. But the need was growing by the second. His hips curled down into hers, hard, emphasizing how capable he was. He groaned softly and shivered. “There’s a big soft bed just a few feet down the hall.”
She groaned, too, but her hands were pushing, not pulling. “No,” she managed in a husky little voice. Her face was flaming, and not only from the intimate position. She hadn’t dreamed that men would say such blatant things to women! “I’m not on the pill!”
That stopped him dead. His mind wasn’t working. It was enslaved to the throbbing hunger in his lower extremities. He dragged in a harsh breath, and then another. He didn’t have anything, either. He didn’t carry around prophylactics because he never slept with women. She could get pregnant. Just for an instant, he thought about a baby in her arms and his whole soul felt grief like a lance. No! Never again!
He dragged himself up into a sitting position, his head in his hands as he fought down the nausea and pain. He’d almost let it go too far. He didn’t dare look at her. She was even more perfect than he’d imagined, under her clothes.
She hurried back into her things, swallowing down her embarrassment. But she realized, belatedly, that he was still struggling to regain his composure. It made her feel better about the loss of her own. She sat back down beside him, a little uneasy.
He lifted his head and met her wide, worried eyes.
“I know. I’m a bad man. Luring you in here with video games, seducing you with promises of cheats and victory codes…” He chuckled when she hit him playfully.
“Seducing women with video game cheats,” she accused, relieved that he wasn’t mad. “You villain.”
“Hey, whatever works,” he teased.
“Take me home, so I can get enough sleep to do my job.” She chuckled, getting up.
She got her purse and waited until he turned off the television and the lights and opened the door.
“It amazes me,” he said.
“What?” she asked.
“How very innocent you are,” he remarked quietly, staring straight into her dark eyes.
She colored prettily. “I’m getting less innocent by the day,” she said tautly.
He grinned. “Didn’t know men said such blatant things to women?”
S
he colored even more. “Kilraven!”
He laughed. “I shouldn’t tease you. I can’t help it. You fascinate me,” he said involuntarily. He caught her hair at her nape and drew her face up to his. “Pretty little breasts,” he whispered, and brought his mouth down on hers, hard, before she could protest. “We’d better go.”
THEY WERE ON THE WAY to the car. He studied her admiringly. “You’re richer than sin, your whole family is, but you work at a minimum-wage job.”
“The work ethic was pounded into us at an early age,” she said simply. “Boone works on the ranch with his men.”
“I know. I read the magazine article in Modern Ranching World.” He chuckled. “In fact, there’s a copy of it on my coffee table. Your brother is unique. So is Clark, in his way.”
“Clark is always trying to be Boone, and knowing that he never will be,” she said sadly. “I think it must be terrible, to be the younger sibling of an overachiever.”
“Don’t tell my brother that. He’d never understand.”
She laughed. “Your brother is like you, an overachiever with an abundance of intelligence and courage. He could never feel like a second son.”
“No, he doesn’t,” Kilraven agreed, warmed by her opinion of him. “He’s excelled in his chosen profession.”
“So have you.”
He shrugged. “I had reasons for overachieving, though.”
“Yes, I know you did,” she said with sympathy. She stopped at the Jaguar and turned to face him. “You’ll break the case,” she said. “I’m sure of it.”
He touched her cheek gently. “Blind trust or some secret knowledge of the future?” he teased.
“I don’t know. Both, maybe.”
He sighed. “Maybe. We’d better go.”
He drove her down to the big Sinclair mansion in Comanche Wells and let her out at the front door.
“I won’t come in,” he said from behind the wheel. “It’s too late.”
She noted the lights still on in Clark’s room. “I guess they’ll be up all night playing video games,” she said enviously. “Clark has the new Halo, too. So does Boone.”
“You can tell Boone how to get past the Hunters,” he chuckled.
“And I will. See you.”
“Tomorrow,” he said. “I’ll drive you and Matt up to see your mother. What time do you get off?”