As Lili watched, he eased out of his suit coat and shoulder rig. Frowning, she touched the bloodied sleeve. "You're hurt. Maybe we shouldn't—"
"Don't worry about it." Like he'd let a little blood stop this.
"You're sure?" she asked, and when he nodded, she began unbuttoning his vest. After she tossed it aside, he leaned back toward the door so they could stretch out. Ignoring the window handle jabbing him between the shoulder blades, he reached for his shirt buttons, but Lili pushed his hands away.
"Let me … I've wanted to do this for a long time."
He sat absolutely still as the deliberate progress of her fingers, lower and lower toward his erection, knotted his gut. He welcomed the cool night air on his chest. God, he was perspiring like some nervous kid with his first girl.
His exhaustion left him hypersensitive, and he was very aware of Lili's long nails trailing down the skin of his belly, her breath tickling his cheek, and the faint swish-swish sound the beaded skirt made as she moved.
A quick glance showed all the windows were steamed up. Good.
Lili had pushed his shirt open and started working on his belt buckle when Matt grabbed her hands, and murmured, "Hold on. It's my turn."
Without protest, she let him press her back on the opposite side of the seat, and he slid his folded coat behind her head as a pillow. The parking lot lights – a pale smear through the fogged windows – provided just enough illumination for her beads to glisten as he pushed her skirt upward, revealing a white garter belt and her stockings.
"I've always had a thing for garter belts," he said, and his muscles tensed with anticipation. God, there was nothing sexier than a woman in stockings.
"I was aiming for authenticity." Her breath caught as he ran his finger up along her thigh and traced the elastic of her white lace panties.
"As if anybody was going to know."
She sighed, her hips rising to meet his fingers. "I was hoping at least one body in particular would notice."
Matt's fingers stilled their soft stroking. "You mean me?"
"Don't be dense, Matt. I've wanted to get you down to your underwear for days."
Her admission filled him with fierce satisfaction, and he smiled as he slid the tip of his index fingers inside the elastic of her panties, brushing against the soft hair there, feeling her moist heat. Lili's eyes fluttered closed, and her lips parted.
Watching her response aroused him almost to the point of pain, and he couldn't wait one second longer. Matt leaned forward and kissed her as his finger traced her sex, dipping lower.
"God, I want to make love to you," he murmured against her mouth as she let out a soft "oh" of pleasure. "I want to be inside you. Right now."
"Yes," she said, more a moan than a word. "Oh, please … I swear I'll start screaming if you don't do something really fast."
"You don't want fast."
"Yes I do! I do…"
"Whatever the lady wants," he whispered, raising his chest and hips so that she could unfasten his belt and open the zipper of his trousers. "She gets."
The next thing he knew, her soft, warm hands were on him, stroking his erection with an unmistakable urgency.
"That feels so good," he managed to say, eyes closed, totally focused on the touch of her hands, on the tight desire and obliterating need sweeping over him.
"Mmmm," she sighed, her hips again rising against his hand. This time, as he slipped his hand below her panties, he pushed his finger into her and heard her gasp.
He nearly lost it right then and there. The hot, moist feel of her was too much. Too much.
Lili made a soft mew of protest when he slid his finger out, but he deftly unfastened the stockings from the garter belt. Then he eased her panties down, along with the stockings and shoes, and tossed all the soft, feminine things aside.
His only thought was to be inside her, to find release and ease in her body and the soft comfort of her arms – and to give her the same, to show her, better than words ever could, how he wanted to care for her.
Matt pushed the dress up past her hips and moved over her, his erection nudging her. He braced a hand above her head and slid the other upward, over her belly and beneath her bra, and cupped the soft roundness of her breast. Her nipple was taut and hard against his palm. He rubbed his thumb over the tip, and she arched beneath him.
"Now," she whispered. "Matt, don't make me wait…"
"Okay," he breathed, angling his hips against her, feeling himself slide inward – until a sudden realization stopped him cold. "Ah, damn … Lili, I don't have a condom. Please tell me you're on the pill … on something, anything."
Lili went still, and her eyes snapped wide. "Oh, God," she moaned, and he heard the answer in her voice, thick with frustration.
Matt rested his forehead on hers, struggling to get his breathing under control – as well as the urge to bang his fist against the side of the car.
"Shit," he snarled, as he pulled out of her.
She wriggled, clearly as frustrated as he was. "Maybe if you—"
"No," he cut her off, his voice roughened with the need hammering away at him. "I won't risk that."
To his surprise, Lili burst out laughing. Disgruntled, Matt stared at her, not finding the situation at all amusing. At this rate, he'd have to lock himself in a bathroom and take his hand to himself before he went crazy.
"I'm sorry," she said with a soft chuckle. "It just struck me as kind of funny … tonight you were shot at, saw your friends nearly killed, and you stole a car. But you won't make love to me without protection because it's too risky."
Put that way, his refusal sounded pretty damn lame. His anger faded. "I'm supposed to be protecting you, Lili, not knocking you up."
She frowned. "Don't be crude."
Matt moved away to sit next to her, and dropped his head back against the seat. He cleared a small space in the back window, and the stars twinkled merrily down on him. "I'm not feeling very happy right now."
He hiked up his trousers while Lili groped around the floor for her underwear. She found them, and with a biting disappointment, he watched her slip them back on.
"I'm not exactly happy, either," she retorted a shade grumpily.
"If you want, I could … you know, take care of that," Matt offered.
A sudden heat flushed his face. What the hell was the matter with him? He'd never acted so knotted up or clumsy around a woman before – or felt even a twinge of embarrassment at discussing a basic sex act.
Lili smiled – which kind of pissed him off – and leaned over to kiss his cheek. "That's sweet of you, but I prefer a joint event. I can wait."
He rubbed at his jaw, feeling the rough beard stubble. No razor. No clothes. No condoms. Sure, he was in total control of the situation.
"I guess we should just sleep," she said, and snuggled against him. "Good night, Matt."
"Yeah," he murmured, and smiled ruefully into her softly mussed hair. "Sweet dreams."
Matt tucked the wrinkled wrap around her, and a lump rose in his throat at the sight of her lying trustingly against his chest. No matter the cost, no matter the risk to himself, he had to keep her safe.
For a long while he remained still, listening to Lili's breathing grow slower and deeper. Her heat soothed him, soaking all the way into him, lulling him. He closed his eyes, unable to keep them open any longer, and, amazingly, fell sound sleep.
Eleven
Conroy Cove Resort
Little Moccasin Lake, Wisconsin
Willis Conroy never wasted any more time than necessary on sleep. Figuring his number would be up soon enough, he might as well pass what time he had left doing something more exciting than snoring.
Not that he could do a hell of a lot, anymore. His niece Susie – grandniece, if a body wanted to get picky – wouldn't let him drink, and he hadn't had any nice juicy romance in over twenty-five years. These days he had to watch damn near everything he put in his mouth, and just walking down the road to the mailbo
x tuckered him out. What he could do was play cards, take short walks, and watch TV.
So here he was, at six in the morning, parked in front of the tube in the resort's lobby watching CNN. Behind him, the clattering racket and smells of frying eggs and bacon and percolating coffee told him Susie and her husband, Frank, were busy serving breakfast to the handful of guests who were hell-bent on squeezing in one more fishing trip before the lakes froze over. The Moccasin Lake chain was known for the best bass fishing in Wisconsin, and Susie and Frank did good business.
Over the drone of the TV and the buzz of voices, he heard the clomp-clomp of shoes coming his way.
"You're up early today, Uncle Willis. You want anything to eat? Coffee?"
Willis looked up at Susie. Sixty-something, thin as a rail, with short iron-gray hair and tanned skin weathered by years in the sun and wind, she was no beauty. But she always had a smile – even for him, the family embarrassment.
"Getting up early every day is what keeps me so young and good-looking." At her grin, he added, "Coffee'd be good."
"You got it. I'll be right back."
When Susie returned, she set a cup on the table beside him and said, "I don't know how you can watch the news all day. I think it's depressing. Wars here, plagues there, planes dropping out of the sky, kids killing kids … makes me afraid to walk out my front door."
Ignoring the palsy he couldn't do anything about, Willis had just raised the cup to his lips as Susie chattered on, when the anchorman said, "And in other news this morning, police in Chicago are baffled by a shooting at a fund-raiser late last night, involving fashion designer Lilianne Kavanaugh—"
"Quiet," he barked.
At once Susie stopped her yammering.
"—the second attempted assault on Ms. Kavanaugh this week. Few details are available, but two of Ms. Kavanaugh's security escort were wounded, one of them critically. Police have confirmed that Ms. Kavanaugh and the third member of her security escort were unharmed, but sources say that the police are unaware of Ms. Kavanaugh's exact whereabouts at this time. Angela Darling is on scene with the latest update…"
Slowly, Willis returned the cup to the table, his hands shaking so badly that he spilled the coffee.
"Don't worry. I got it." Susie whipped out her dishrag, which she always carried in her apron pocket, and wiped away the spill. She bent down, her expression concerned. "You okay?"
"Yeah. Damn shakes," he muttered. "It's hell, getting old."
Willis stared blindly at the screen, lost in old memories and a helpless frustration that he could do nothing but wait.
The last thing he wanted was to see anybody in trouble because of those shoes, or let another innocent girl die on account of his damn fool pride. He'd thought of calling the gal, this Lilianne, but knew he'd never find her. She was probably staying in some swanky hotel, and Chicago was full of swanky hotels with people who asked too many questions when they answered phones.
But one thing Willis knew for sure: Crazy Tony wanted Rosie's shoes, and he wouldn't give up. For years, the man had searched for the bag, and had questioned Willis more than once. It didn't sound like Tony had managed to get his hands on the shoes yet – and it sounded like the girl had been smart enough to make herself disappear. Maybe her hired gun had more brains than usual.
Once that designer gal or her bodyguard figured out it was all about Rosie's shoes, though, the old shit would hit the fan.
Goddamn, he'd thought for sure those shoes were lost for good.
"See what I mean?" Susie said in disgust. "Now they're shooting each other in museums… I don't know what this country is coming to."
"It's a shame people can't even have a little party without somebody getting shot. The trouble, see, is that nobody's got respect for nothing these days. In my day, I never killed nobody that didn't deserve it."
Not true; and he remembered bewildered eyes in a face not much older than his own, the badge shiny and new on the blue uniform. So puzzled, not understanding that what he was feeling was his own dying.
Susie frowned. "Don't talk about that. You know I don't like it."
His niece liked to keep her head in the sand about what he was. She didn't mind the many nights he'd spent entertaining her guests with the stories of his wild old days in Chicago – it was part of the draw of her place, and he was something of a local celebrity – but the men he'd killed were never, ever mentioned.
Ghosts were better suffered in silence. That way a man couldn't share the pain of it; he had to take the burden all on himself right to the end of his days.
Twelve
"Have you decided yet what to do about our clothes?"
"I'm working on it right now," Matt answered, peering intently through the car window as they drove down a narrow country road out in the middle of what appeared to be endless miles of farmland.
Everywhere she looked, Lili saw red barns, herds of cows, and acres and acres of tall stalks of drying corn looking golden in the morning light. She had no idea where they were, or why Matt had turned off the main highway.
"I hate to break this to you, but I don't see any shopping malls," she said dryly.
"Forget malls." He slowed the car, his gaze sharpening. "The fewer people who see us the better."
Curious about what had caught his attention, Lili glanced out the window but saw nothing except another neat, square white farmhouse, with a red tractor parked outside the garage, bedsheets and clothing on a clothesline, flapping in the breeze—
She jerked straight in alarm. "Oh, no. Absolutely not. You are not stealing any clothes!"
Matt stopped the car, put it in reverse for a short distance, and pulled off the road by a copse of trees along a lazy little creek, hiding them from the farmhouse.
"It won't be stealing," he said, looking at her. "I'll leave more than enough money to cover the cost of overalls and old flannel shirts."
Lili shook her head. "It's a bad idea. We can just go to a store and—"
"No stores," he interrupted, his tone uncompromising. "I've got blood on my clothes, and by now the shooting will have made the news. The papers and news stations probably ran your photo, and I'm pretty sure the cops will know we're in Wisconsin. People may or may not make the connection if they see us, but I'm not taking that chance, dressed like this. The people after you will not hesitate to kill, Lili."
"What about staying at Moccasin Lake? People up there read the papers and watch the news, too."
"I know, but I'm trying to give us as much of a head start as possible. If Conroy can tell us where the bag is, we'll be in and out before anybody realizes what's happening. Then the local police can step in. At that point it won't matter if the cops, or anybody else, knows where we are."
She tried one last argument. "You could go to the door and offer to pay."
He shook his head. "They'll remember us, and word spreads fast in small towns."
"You still can't be sure they won't report a bunch of missing laundry to the cops, Matt."
"Maybe, but there'll be no way to connect it to us. They'll probably just assume some kids pulled a prank."
"Fine." She glared at him, letting him know she wasn't happy about his idea. "So how do you intend to do this without getting caught? And what am I doing while you're off stealing overalls and flannel shirts?"
For an answer, he popped the hood on the jalopy and turned on the hazard lights. "Keep the doors locked and windows shut while I'm gone. I'll leave the keys in the ignition in case you need to leave in a hurry." He slipped his cell phone out of his pocket and gave it to her. "If that happens, just park and wait. I'll find a phone and call to tell you where to meet me."
Obviously he'd thought this through.
"If someone stops, say you're having engine trouble," he added, "but you don't need help because your boyfriend's gone up the farm to use the phone to call for a tow truck. So keep the cell phone out of sight."
Lili arched a brow. "Boyfriend?"
"You gotta
call me something." A faint red tinged his cheekbones, despite his even tone of voice. "I'm going through the woods, which come up against the back of the barn. I'll follow the barn around to the clothesline. The big tree up to the left will hide me from the house, and all the bedsheets are to the front of the clothesline, which will help keep me out of sight."
She stared at him in astonishment. "Is this something else they taught you in bodyguard school? How to rip off farms?"
"No." A sudden coolness settled over his face. "Quickly sizing up situations for points of entry and exit, potential areas of concealment, where trouble might come from and how to avoid it, is what I do for a living." He reached for the bag of money he'd hidden under the seat. "And for the last time, I'm not ripping anybody off."
"What if there's somebody in the barn?"
"Then I'll come back and we'll try some other place."
He watched her lock the door behind him, then disappeared into the woods.
Lili sighed and closed her eyes, dropping her head back against the neck rest. She didn't like this, even if she couldn't find much fault with his logic.
The hazard lights made an annoyingly rhythmic tink-tink sound as they blinked away, breaking through her attempt to relax, so she opened her eyes. The car keys dangling from the ignition caught her attention, and she noticed for the first time that the key chain was in the shape of a naked woman.
Smiling, she wondered what Mama Espinosa thought of her son's taste in key chains.
Her butt had gone numb hours ago, and she stretched, trying to ease her cramped muscles. How long would Matt take to do his thing? She wanted it over and done with already. She checked her watch, and sighed. He'd been gone for only five minutes.
She stared out at the woods and creek, her head resting on the seat. Without the distractions of the passing countryside and Matt's conversation, she couldn't stop thinking over what had happened earlier that morning.
Warmth flooded her as she recalled what Matt had done to her. Sometimes she wondered if it was all a dream, a delirium brought on by exhaustion – except patches of beard burn on her face, not to mention a lingering, aching frustration, told her otherwise.
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