Deadly Chemistry (Entangled Ignite)

by Teri Anne Stanley

  He looked at Crawford, who shrugged and said, “I just got here, too. I didn’t tell her I called you.”

  “You called him?” Lauren bestowed a huge smile on Crawford. “That was really nice.”

  “Are you drunk?” Mike asked.

  “I think I might be, a little. I was kinda freaked out when I got home and found…” She trailed off, and the smile morphed into the forerunner of an apocalyptic meltdown. “My cat is—and I don’t know—”

  “Lauren, it’s okay. I can help if you let me.” He squatted next to her.

  “I’m not so sure about that.” She prepared to tip the bottle to her lips again.

  Mike took it from her. “Let me hang on to that until we’re done with the police, okay?”

  “Oh.” She looked at the uniformed cop. “Tony, you wouldn’t write me a ticket, would you? These are extenuating circumstances, right?”

  “I think that, as long as you wait to finish that until later, we can let the open container charge slide this time.” The officer suppressed a smile before walking away.

  Lauren wobbled to her feet. Mike rose, steadying her. She took a step forward, and then wrapped her arms around Mike’s waist, surprising him. She had to be loaded, because the last time he’d seen her, she’d looked ready to murder him. He tentatively put his arm around her shoulders and tucked her against him.

  “I’m sorry,” she said into his shirt.

  “What are you sorry for?”

  “I have to tell you something bad.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Lauren woke up with her face smushed against something hot and hard, something like a denim-covered tree trunk.

  “Hey, there you are.”

  She blinked at a big naked foot propped on a coffee table next to an empty white zinfandel bottle. There was a television a little farther out, with some sort of sepia-toned gangster movie playing softly. This was not her place, most definitely. In fact, that was Miss Posy, er…Possum, sitting on the floor next to the TV, alternately grooming herself and growling. Huh. Mike’s cat looked better. Her hair was already starting to fill in the bald patches she’d gnawed into her skin at the shelter.

  Lauren realized she’d been sleeping on Mike’s thigh. Which meant the back of her head was right next to… “Oh, boy.” She sat up too quickly, her head spinning. She focused on the streetlight that she could see through his living room window, shining through the night and anchoring her.

  “Are you gonna be sick?”

  “Um. No?”

  He snort-laughed. She was afraid to turn and look at him, to let him see the pillow marks—well, the leg marks—that no doubt creased her face. She wiped at the side of her mouth, sneaking a look down at his lap to make sure she hadn’t drooled on him.

  One of his hands came up to the back of her neck, under her hair. He gave her a quick caress and then stood.

  “You want something to drink?” Without waiting for an answer, he walked to the fridge in the little kitchen that she could see through a doorway. He pulled out a Diet Coke and a bottle of water, which he carried back to her. He even unscrewed the cap, which was thoughtful, because her hands weren’t ready to do anything so complicated yet.

  She took a long drink, then finally looked at him.

  He gazed back at her. “You okay?”

  She tried to smile reassuringly. “I think so.” She tasted the inside of her mouth. Not too bad. They’d gone to the Quick Stop on the way from her house to his and bought her a toothbrush, which seemed to have warded off hangover breath. “I don’t usually drink very much,” she finally said.

  “Yeah, I guessed that.”

  She scooted over a little bit and he sat back down, put his arm around her, and pulled her against him. There was tension in his embrace.

  “Do I smell icky?”

  His nose brushed her hair away from her neck and he inhaled, sending a shiver along her spine and heat to the rest of her. “Nope.”

  “Oh. My.” She vaguely remembered telling him that she thought Dylan was the bad guy. He’d taken it fairly calmly, but she figured that was because he already believed the worst.

  She’d wanted to finish her wine on the way to Mike’s house, and she vaguely remembered telling him he was the sexiest control freak she knew after he’d taken it from her and screwed the top on, tucking it into the tool box in the bed of his truck for the ride home. When they’d gotten inside, she pushed him down onto the couch, and then climbed on top of him, straddling him, leaning for a kiss before remembering that she’d thrown up less than an hour earlier. At which point, she thought, but wasn’t sure, she’d burst into tears and run into the bathroom to use her new toothbrush.

  She sat up, pulling away. “Oh, God. Well, at least I didn’t drunk-text you. I didn’t, did I?”

  “Nope. Just drunk-groped me, but my virtue is still intact.”

  She smiled at that, then the rest of it came rushing back to her. “My cat’s dead. Murdered.”

  He nodded. “I’m really sorry about that.”

  “Thanks.” She was quiet then, not sure what to say.

  “Crawford texted me a little while ago. He said he’d have someone check around off and on all night to keep an eye on things around your house until morning. They went inside but couldn’t tell if anything was taken.”

  “What about…Kevin?”

  “He took care of him, too. Crawford will show you where he’s buried in the back yard later, if you want.”

  “I wish I could figure out who’s doing this. If someone wants my drugs, I get that, but why hurt Kevin? He was innocent. This feels…personal. I know I said I think Dylan might actually be involved, but I can’t believe he’d do that.”

  “He’s not alone in this. And the other people, other Devil’s Rangers? They’d do anything to get what they want.” He paused. “Do you have anything at your house? Anything from work?”

  “Just some notebooks and my laptop. But that stuff isn’t going to make any sense to anyone without an organic chemistry or pharmacology background.”

  “Someone who also knows a lot of biology.”

  “What? Like who?”

  Mike was staring at her. Did he think…?

  “Surely you’re not thinking it could be Evan, are you? I mean, yeah, he’s got the background. Heck, even if he didn’t, he’s smart enough to figure it out. But it’s not Evan.”

  Mike paced to the window and pulled down a slat on the shade, let it go, and walked back across the room. “I don’t really think so, either. Just throwing ideas out there. Besides, Evan’s always been the good brother.”

  She remembered what Evan had revealed to her yesterday, about how Mike had taken so many licks for him. She imagined Mike as a teenager, angry, protective, scared but standing up for his siblings anyway. “Evan doesn’t think he’s the good one,” she said.

  Ignoring that, he asked, “Does Dylan have enough science under his belt to take your algae stuff and make it into the drug?”

  “Probably,” Lauren said, but something was tickling the back of her brain. She just couldn’t grasp it. She needed to get home and look at her laptop. “I should go.”

  “Where are you going to go?” He took his hand away from his neck.

  “I’ve imposed on you enough, and I— I have to go home and see if anything was taken. Maybe that will help me figure out who did it. You don’t have to take me, I can call the Night Walk van.” That was a program the women’s student association had so that no one had to walk around campus in the dark alone. They would make off campus trips, if it was within a few blocks of campus, too.

  “The hell you are. You’re not going home alone.”

  “It’s okay. I can go by myself.”

  “And I can take you. If you’ve really got to go right this minute.”

  Did he want that? Or was he just being nice again? She didn’t want him to hang around with her just because he felt obligated. She wasn’t going to be another responsibility that he had to ta
ke care of. Besides, she was on a roll. No big, strong, he-man was going to tell her what to do. “No, I’m fine, I’ll just call—”

  “Why not?” He was mad now. Sparks practically shot from his eyes.

  “Because…because… God, because I want you to go with me so much, and I can’t ask you to help me!”

  And then his arms were around her, and he was kissing the mad, crazy confusion right out of her.

  His lips, and teeth, and tongue met her lips, and teeth, and tongue and sent every thought of not needing him straight to hell. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, and his big, hot muscles flexed under her hands as he ran one hand up her back, under her hair, and the other down over her backside, gripping the back of her thigh.

  He yanked her leg up around his waist, and she gave a little hop, then wrapped her other leg around him as he pressed her body into the door behind her, aligning everything, pushing his erection against her, hard heat nudging through layers of denim, trying to get where he was supposed to be.

  And that was the thing, wasn’t it? Getting him inside her was all she needed. That would solve the mysteries of the universe, wouldn’t it?

  Mike ended the kiss and pulled back, staring into Lauren’s eyes, chest heaving with a shakiness that moved something deep within Lauren, something that wasn’t a reproductive organ, something that felt curiously like her heart, cracking open to let in this man, this dark, complicated man full of secrets, this man who wanted her. Her. He wanted her. And God help her, she wanted him.

  …

  “So,” Mike said, breathing heavily against Lauren’s lips. He felt her heat through their jeans and groaned but managed to get out, “I’ve got a brand-new box of condoms.” He heard his own voice crack. He had to get inside her.

  She shifted, pressing against him, rising up and then down a little, and moaned. “I don’t—” she gasped. “I think maybe—”

  He headed down the hall, holding her legs around his waist, her arms around his neck. He stopped a couple of times to kiss her, tongues tangling, pressing against her, so desperate to be inside her that he was almost capable of doing it through layers of denim.

  But they’d been there before. This time was going to be the real thing.

  “Put me down,” she told him when they got as far as the hall bathroom door.

  “I don’t want you that far away from me,” he told her.

  “I want to be in your bed as soon as possible, and if you put me down, we have a better shot of making it before I spontaneously combust.”

  He laughed as he let her slide down his body until her feet were on the floor. It felt good. God, he loved this woman.

  His brain froze for an instant, then his heart pushed hot blood through. He couldn’t be in love. Could he? Whatever it was he felt, it was good, and he could worry about it later. “When you go up in flames, it’s not going to be spontaneous. It’s gonna be because I sent you there, one stroke at a time.”

  They made it to his bedroom, and he started pulling at her clothes while she was pulling at his. Their hands tangled as they reached for one another’s waistbands at the same time.

  It nearly killed him, but he stepped back from her. “I’ll do me, you do you.”

  “Oh, God. The visual I just got of that…” she said.

  Which made him have the same visual. Or at least, the counterpoint. Jesus. “Maybe next time. Right now…”

  He pulled his jeans down. His aching cock sprang free as she revealed her tiny red panties, and then the dark triangle beneath. She stopped for a moment, looking at him, letting him look at her. “Wow,” she said, reaching out to run her hand down his chest.

  And didn’t that make him feel ten feet tall.

  “Shirt. Off. Now,” he said.

  After the briefest hesitation, she complied, ripping her top over her head and unhooking her bra in record time. It was one of those front clasp things, and then her breasts were there for his viewing, his touching pleasure.

  He stalked toward her, and she fell backward onto the mattress, then scooted back so that her head was almost at the other side of the bed. He landed on his knees, on the bed, and pulled her thighs apart. Holy hell. She was wet and swollen and he hadn’t even touched her yet.

  He moved back, and then fell to his belly, erection pressed between his stomach and the bed. He inhaled her scent and then looked up at her face. She watched him, eyes wide, lips parted, breath fast and shallow. Holding her gaze, he lowered his mouth to taste her. The sound she made, part cry, part groan, nearly made him come apart.

  As he licked and sucked and nuzzled, she writhed against him. She put her hands in his hair, holding him against her. He smiled. She liked this. Her thighs tensed. She was ready. He was ready.

  He rose and advanced up her body, kissing her belly, her ribs, the undersides of her breasts. The hands in his hair were still pulling, but it was to get him to move higher, faster.

  He sat back, out of her reach, but she sat up, following him. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him, her tongue diving into his mouth.

  He unwrapped her arms and held both of her hands in one of his. “Hang on, babe.”

  “I need you,” she said, but stilled, panting, her frustration clear.

  He reached for one of the condoms he’d put on the nightstand and tore it open with his teeth. He had to let her go to roll the damned thing on, but then her hands were on him again.

  Finished with the condom, he reached for her hands again, capturing them and pushing her back onto the bed. With one hand, he held her hands above her head, and with the other, he pulled her leg open so that he could position himself between her thighs.

  Quiet, still now, she waited. He brushed against her slick folds. Even through the latex, he felt her heat, felt her quiver against him.

  “You ready?” he asked. Please, God, let the answer be yes.

  She nodded.

  He entered her, just a fraction, and then forced himself to retreat.

  “Please. Please, Mike, please. Just fuck me, for God sakes.”

  And that was it. He pushed into her and began to move. Inches from her face, because he was still holding her hands above her head, he stared into her golden eyes, so full of…his own reflection.

  “Oh, oh, oh oooh!” she cried, and her spasms rocked him.

  He moved faster and faster, feeling his whole world narrow into throbbing heat at the base of his spine before sensation exploded through him, sending the top of his head somewhere into the next county.

  His last thought before he lost consciousness was that he should die now, because he wouldn’t survive doing this again.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Lauren stifled a chuckle as Mike released her hands with a little snore after withdrawing from her body. He’d barely rolled them to their sides, and was, in fact, still mostly on top of her.

  She took the opportunity to touch him and look at him up close. While he was completely relaxed, she felt energized and wide awake. But she was too comfortable, snuggled up against his naked heat, unable to move from beneath him.

  And didn’t that scare the living hell out of her.

  She was crazy, over the top, skull over tarsals, in love with a man she’d known for less than a week. A take-charge, get-things-done, alpha man. Like Alex. But no, Alex had been a control freak. That was different. Wasn’t it?

  How had she gotten from trying to go home alone to naked with Mike and in love? She had no idea. She probably needed to get somewhere that her mind wasn’t clouded with the sights, smells, and sound of a giant, sleeping, sex god. Somewhere that she wasn’t tempted to crawl under the covers and use kisses and licks to wake the giant’s, uh, beanstalk. After which, he would probably tell her again that she couldn’t go home alone.

  Lauren pushed at Mike’s shoulder and he muttered something about “again soon,” but gave her room to move. She rolled out of bed and scrambled for her clothes, then pulled the quilt up over Mike’s sprawled nakedness
and tiptoed into the hallway bathroom to dress. She had to get out of there. She’d seen a bicycle leaning against the garage in the backyard. She could borrow it and ride home.

  “What are you doing?” Mike murmured.

  She jumped. “Uh, leaving, actually,” she said. Not slick, but hey—it was true.

  He sat up, rubbing a hand across his jaw. “Huh? No, you’re not.”

  See? He was bossy. That was the crux of the matter. “Yeah. I am.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’ve got to… I need to get some things done.”

  “What things?”

  “Just…things.” She needed to go home and check on her house.

  He stood, yanking the condom off and tying it in a knot before walking across the room to drop it in the trash can. “Give me a minute. I’ll take you.”

  “No, you don’t have to do that. I don’t want you to do that.”

  He stopped on his way into the bathroom and turned halfway back toward her. She couldn’t help but appreciate how nice he looked from behind. Michelangelo’s David had nothing on Mike Gibson’s back view.

  “You can’t go running off,” he said, voice low and growly.

  “I’m running off.”

  “What the fuck for?”

  “Because…because you’re not the boss of me.” Oh, hell. She sounded like she did when her cousin Melanie had been in charge of babysitting her.

  “Who said I was?”

  “You just said I couldn’t leave without you.”

  “Because you don’t have a car here!”

  “I can walk.”

  “I’m sure you can.” He turned fully around then. Oh, hell. That old David statue was way underperforming compared to Mike’s front view. He walked—no, stalked—toward Lauren.

  She backed up, right against the wall.

  He leaned over her, his full height and weight surrounding her, closing out the world, cocooning her in scent and warmth.