Protector’s Temptation

by Marilyn Pappano

  He dropped a handful of condoms on the nightstand. “Just thinking how many times will be enough.”

  She swallowed, and her stomach clenched. Suddenly she felt very naked. “And you’re thinking five?”

  Looking absolutely clueless regarding the knot in her stomach, he grinned. “For tonight.”

  Warmth seeped through her. She would like promises for much longer, but in the end, tonight was all she could ask for.

  She touched his cheek, rubbing across his bristled jaw. “Decker—”

  “AJ.”

  “AJ,” she repeated. Her throat was choked, her lungs tight. She gazed down his body—incredibly nice chest, flat stomach, impressive erection, muscular legs—and forgot about talking. Drawing him close, she murmured against his mouth, “Four to go, partner. We’d better get started.”

  He advanced on her, and she backed up until the bed bumped the back of her knees. She climbed onto the mattress, and he came after her, his muscles rippling, his look intense. That first night, the only light had been a nightlight in the corner farthest from her bed, enough to see by, not enough to see too much. Any moment she’d expected levelheaded bud Decker to snap to, explain why they couldn’t go any further than the kisses they’d already shared, then beat it the hell out of there.

  Tonight it was nice to have the overhead lights and time and the assurance that, no matter what might happen later, AJ wasn’t going anywhere. His home this time. His bed. The most incredible look of hunger on his face.

  When he cornered her, she lay on her back, but logistics failed them. If he rested on his left side, it left only his casted arm to touch her, and lying on his right side put too much pressure on his sore wrist. With a laugh, she gently pushed his shoulder, forcing him onto his back. “Ooh, I get to be on top again. What a hardship for me.”

  Kneeling between his legs, she leaned far forward and kissed his mouth, his jaw, the base of his throat. She gave a moment’s attention to his left nipple, then to the right, then left a long trail of wet kisses across his stomach, his abs, the muscle that ridged his thigh.

  Plastic crinkled, then appeared before her eyes. “Before it’s too late,” AJ said, his voice harsh.

  She eyed the condom, then tore open the package and held it in two fingers. To her way of thinking, if she put it on, it was already too late. She was thirty-six and wanted to have babies, and she couldn’t imagine a better father for at least the first one than AJ Decker. Even if things didn’t work out between them, if she stayed in Dallas and he stayed in Copper Lake and these days were nothing more than a moment out of time, having a child would be an incredible gift.

  And getting pregnant with his child without his agreement would be so wrong.

  She unrolled the condom into place with as much touching, stroking and kissing as possible, leaving him hot and hard, and she climbed astride and slid herself into place, making herself hot and melty-soft. When he touched his hand to her thigh, she damn near sizzled, her nerves firing millions of tiny little explosions, and when he sucked her nipple into his mouth, she whimpered at the intensity of it.

  Four to go. Dear God, she hoped she survived it.

  Chapter 11

  Friday afternoon was dark, rainy and even steamier than usual. Though the storm had passed soon after they’d gone to bed, the rain hadn’t yet stopped pounding the earth, providing a sound track to everything they’d done. Masiela hoped the yapper Pepper next door had gotten a good soaking—and was inside now, dry and snoozing.

  She and AJ had passed a leisurely morning making love, showering, dressing and eating lunch—and spent most of the afternoon on the couch, the computer between them, reading, discussing, arguing their way through her evidence. Now he set the computer on the coffee table and picked up the coffee she’d made an hour earlier.

  “Give me that. I’ll make fresh.”

  “Just stick it in the microwave for a minute.”

  Making a face at him, she took their cups into the kitchen and set them both in the sink. Within a minute, she had fresh coffee brewing and was filling a glass with iced tea for herself. “Leave the cast alone,” she admonished without looking at him. He’d reached the cranky stage: if his wrist didn’t hurt unbearably, if the cast didn’t hamper everything he tried to do, then his arm itched down inside it enough to drive him crazy.

  His gaze narrowed, and his clean-shaven jaw—he’d actually trusted her with his razor in the shower—set stubbornly. “It itches,” he said for the tenth time.

  “Yelina found an ivory chopstick worked wonders.”

  His scowl drew his brows tighter. “Yeah, sure, just let me pull one out of my chopstick drawer. You have any reasonable ideas?”

  She carried a plate of leftover brownies to the couch, leaning past him to set them on the table. With a sweet smile, she said, “I can make you forget that it itches.” Deliberately, she ran her tongue over her lips, leaving them shiny and moist—and his expression turned dry.

  “Yeah, you could finish what you started in the shower,” he said, his voice parched.

  Her smile got sweeter. “Or I could smack you with a cast-iron skillet. That would make you forget a little itch.” She swatted his leg. “Man up, Decker. Your little cousin Yelina didn’t—”

  He made an obscene gesture with his good hand, and she laughed. God, it felt good to laugh.

  Once she was back with the coffee and tea and they’d each eaten a brownie or two, the mood grew somber again. “Donovan won’t be happy that there’s enough evidence to get a new trial for Rodriguez, but not enough to get the real killers,” she remarked.

  “But getting Rodriguez a new trial—and an acquittal—is your goal. Let DPD be responsible for anything more.”

  “If DPD hadn’t been involved in the first place, Rodriguez would never have been charged. Unless Donovan can find something substantive to use against the Brat Pack, it’s going to be business as usual in homicide.”

  “Maybe he’ll find it. He’s got access to stuff you don’t.”

  She shifted on the sofa to face AJ. She’d worried the day before that convincing him the cops were involved in Teri’s death would draw him in, that he wouldn’t rest until they were punished. But right now, he was looking as if the case interested him only in a general cop sort of way, not as if he had any personal stake in it. “You could live with them getting away with Teri’s murder?”

  “If it keeps you safe, yeah.”

  The simple, flat answer touched her deeply. It didn’t come from Decker her ex-partner but AJ, the man who’d broken her heart and done a pretty good job of mending it again.

  But right now she needed Decker the ex-partner, not AJ the lover.

  She made an effort to inject a careless, casual tone into her voice. “Then you wouldn’t be too thrilled with the idea of setting me up as a target for them, would you?”

  He slowly brought his gaze to hers. She’d seen the look plenty of times before, but it had never been directed at her. It was the Jesus, you can’t be that effin’ stupid look, the one reserved for the most moronic of criminals, cops and civilians alike.

  “Remember why you’re here? Phone call, break-in, gunshot? You’re already a target.” His voice was sharp with scorn, echoed in the thin curl of his mouth.

  “I’m a target they can’t find. If they could find me—”

  “No.”

  “—then they’d be reckless enough to try something—”

  “No.”

  “—and we’d be ready. You’d be ready. You’d catch them.”

  “I said no, damn it!”

  His shout vibrated the very air, skittering along her bare arms, making her instinctively shrink back. They stared at each other, Mas surprised, AJ revealing such raw emotion. He wanted—needed—to protect her, she realized. Needed her to survive this unscathed. Unlike the last woman he’d tried to protect.

  She reached for his hand. “AJ, I’m not Teri.”

  He continued to stare, but with cynicism in h
is hazel eyes. “You think I’m confusing you with my hooker-doper-informant?”

  God, she hoped not. “You felt responsible for her. You made keeping her safe your job, and she died anyway. But I’m not like her. I’m not your responsibility.”

  He straightened his shoulders. “No, Mas, you’re my life, and damned if I’m going to let those bastards have another shot at you. If Donovan can’t make a case against them, what the hell. As long as they leave you alone, I don’t give a damn what happens to them.”

  Wow. Masiela couldn’t even find words to respond. He’d said yesterday that she’d been his life, the other part of him, and she’d believed him, but…wow.

  After a long, tense moment, AJ managed a weak smile. “I’m going to remember this date a long time—the first time I ever saw Masiela Raquel Leal at a loss for words.”

  Her smile was lame, too. “I’ve just never seen you so committed to—” To a woman. To me. “—to nonaction. You’ve always been the law-and-order, right-or-wrong, strict moral code guy.”

  “You expect me to sacrifice you just to see these guys punished?”

  “Well, in my theoretical exercise, I survive.” When he didn’t respond immediately, she hesitantly went on. “It wouldn’t be so difficult. We let them know where I am. If I’m right, one or more of them will show up here to kill me. And we—you, Detective Maricci, Detective Gadney—will be waiting.”

  AJ shook his head as he munched on the last brownie. “No way.”

  “The odds would be in our favor—four against three.”

  Stubbornly, he shook his head again. “Three cops plus an ex, against three dirty cops who won’t care who gets in their way. They could take out half the neighborhood.”

  “Then we control the confrontation. You tell them I’m with you. Arrange for a handover at some out-of-the-way place where no civilians would be in danger.”

  “Convince them that I’m no better than they are.” AJ muttered something she was probably better off not understanding.

  She drew a breath to keep her voice calm. “It’s been six years, Decker. People change. They’re so damn arrogant they’ll just think that you finally got smart, like them.”

  “I wouldn’t buy me as a dirty cop. You think they would? They used to call me By-the-Book Decker, for God’s sake.”

  “Convince them that a few pages have fallen out of the book.” She knew he could do it; she’d seen him undercover before. He could make anyone believe anything.

  He leaned toward her, his eyes flashing. “We’re not using you as a target, Mas!”

  “I am a target!”

  His shrug was jerky. “Like you said, one they can’t find. You wanna give them one they can find, let Donovan set himself up. He’s got the same information you do, and he can get better protection. Let him risk his life to make the case.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t imagine he’s anxious to do that.”

  “He doesn’t have a death wish. Imagine that,” AJ muttered.

  “Let’s talk to him.” Masiela leaned toward him. “Donovan’s a smart guy. He’s seen this stuff. He’s reached the same conclusion we have—we can get Rodriguez a new trial but we can’t charge the cops. Let’s ask his input.”

  For a long moment, AJ merely stared at her, his expression hard and forbidding, but not intimidating her in the least. Not when she knew it was motivated by concern for her. Then he picked up his cell from the table, scrolled to the number and pressed Send.

  “Tell the secretary you’re his old buddy from Georgia. It worked for Ty.” She said it lightly, but didn’t get even a faint smile from him.

  He did as she suggested, though. Cradling her tea between her palms, she watched his face, trying to read something there. At first it was flat, nonexpressive, then his brow furrowed and something flashed through his eyes. The muscles in his jaw taut, he murmured the kind of words that encourage people to go on—“Really? Then what?”—then suddenly he disconnected.

  Masiela’s stomach knotted, as did her fingers on the glass. “What is it? What happened?”

  “Donovan went to lunch today and never came back. His car’s still in the parking garage, they found his cell phone in the gutter, and he missed court. He just vanished.”

  After a moment’s stiff silence, he stood up and paced to the window, lifting the sheet a fraction of an inch to check out the quickly darkening sky. “Hell, Mas, you might get the chance to play target, after all.”

  Masiela swallowed hard. Sure, it’d been her suggestion, but it wasn’t one she’d put a lot of thought into. It wasn’t one she’d actually expected to carry out. People who set themselves up as targets were brave, had nerves of steel and were usually desperate. This evening she matched only one of the three.

  Man up, she’d told AJ earlier. Looked like it was time for her to do the same.

  “Worst case.” Masiela came to stand beside AJ, and he automatically put his arm around her. It felt natural, he noticed. Like she belonged at his side. “Kinney and the others have kidnapped Donovan and have gotten, or are trying to get, my location from him.”

  “I don’t see him standing up to their brand of persuasion. Donovan’s a good prosecutor, but he’s not a tough guy.” His life had been pretty pampered. He wouldn’t even know how to resist the sort of interrogation the detectives would put him through. “Maybe we should get the hell out of here.”

  “And go where?”

  “We’ve got a nice clean jail. Immediate occupancy, no waiting.”

  “That’s a temporary solution. You can’t keep me locked up forever.”

  The idea held a certain appeal, enough to make him grin briefly before taking out his cell again. “I sure as hell hope he’s shacked up somewhere with a beautiful woman, and this is all for nothing,” he muttered before the dispatcher answered. Even as he said it, he knew it wasn’t possible. Donovan was the most ambitious man he knew. Nothing, not even the most beautiful woman in the world, would make him miss court.

  A few phone calls later, he pulled Masiela down the hall and up the stairs with him. Letting go of her inside the bedroom, he kicked off his running shorts.

  “Now?” she asked drily.

  Grabbing a pair of denim shorts from the dresser, he held them out. “Help me get these on.” When she complied, he took his pistol and a clip-on holster from the closet shelf and offered them to her. While she holstered the weapon, then attached it to his waistband, he pocketed two extra magazines.

  His calls had been brief and discouraging. “Kinney, Myers and Taylor all called in sick today,” he said grimly. “And Donovan’s plane took off from the airstrip where he keeps it more than five hours ago. No flight plan; the guy can’t be sure, but he thinks he had passengers.”

  AJ knew in his gut they’d headed east. If private plane had been the easiest, safest way to get Mas here, why not the same for his old friends?

  His last call had been to Maricci. He and Gadney were on their way over.

  With her own weapon clipped in place, they returned downstairs. All the lights were off in the front of the house—the rooms with uncovered windows—and he dimmed the lights in the kitchen, lessening the chances of casting a shadow on the makeshift curtains.

  “How long did it take you and Donovan to get here?”

  “About four hours, then another hour to drive from the airport.”

  AJ stared at the big window behind the couch. The others could already be in place in the woods out back. Had they brought Donovan to Copper Lake with them? Left him tied up inside the plane? Killed him? How desperate were they? Did they think they could kill Masiela and Donovan, then return to life as normal in Dallas? Arrogant, but possible. They would have set up an airtight alibi before they picked up Donovan. There were probably a dozen of Dallas’s finest ready to swear on their honor that Myers, Kinney and Taylor had spent the entire weekend with them.

  And they didn’t intend to leave alive anyone who could say differently.

  AJ’s cell phone vib
rated in his pocket, rattling against the extra magazines there. He fished it out and raised it to his ear.

  “We just drove past your house,” Maricci said. “Everything looks quiet. You want us inside, outside, in the woods, or what?”

  “Why don’t you take a walk through the woods?” AJ suggested. “Just be careful. You never know what kind of animals you might run into.”

  There was sound in the background, the engine cutting off, the bell dinging as the car door was opened. It stopped abruptly. “We’re always careful in the woods around here.”

  AJ returned the phone to his pocket, then rummaged through the drawer of first one end table, then the other, before finding a compact flashlight. He handed it to Masiela and located another, heavier Maglite in the hall closet.

  “I don’t suppose you’d want to trade,” she said drily, holding up the lightweight one. “I always preferred steel to aluminum.”

  “Easier to break windows and heads, huh?” He switched with her, then went into the laundry room. She followed, closing the door behind her so the small room remained in the dark.

  He lifted one edge of the curtain. The newly replaced security light brightly illuminated a portion of the yard; next door, at Pris’s, another light did the same. Beyond that, though, were shadows, deepening until they blended into the moonless sky. A small army could be hidden back there, unseen as long as they remained still.

  He smiled faintly. The problem was, the enemy couldn’t achieve their goal if they stayed hidden in the woods. Sooner or later, they had to come to their target.

  Reaching out, he found Mas’s hand. Her skin was clammy, her fingers tightening for a moment around his. “You still like the idea of yourself as a target?”

  She made an ugly face in the dim light. “I like the idea of ending this. Living scared is no fun.”

  Neither is dying. But he kept the comment to himself. She wasn’t going to die tonight. He intended to make sure of that.

  “If they get inside the house,” he said grimly, “you get to the front room. Slide into that space behind the stack of Sheetrock. It’s not much of a hiding place, but it’s the best we’ve got.”