by Lora Leigh
Skye was fucking good. If he hadn’t helped install the new electric box himself during one of the brief furloughs he’d had, then he would have never known there had been an additional wire run to it. The job was that damned good and that well hidden.
What the hell had she been up to? And had it been her or someone else?
This job hadn’t required not only time but also experience and patience. Did Skye actually possess enough of each to install this electric line? And what the fuck did it go to?
Evidently the background check Crowe had done on her hadn’t gone nearly deep enough. That had been proven when her connection to Governor Jefferson hadn’t been revealed.
“We have a problem here,” Logan reported as he stood and moved into the spacious bathroom to see if he could track the cable farther.
There was no carpet there, he thought as he heard a puppy’s excited growls at the sound of his voice on the other side of the communications device. The open receiver was the only way to keep that little mutt from howling for him.
Frowning, he scanned the floor carefully.
The ceramic tile was a bronze and sunset hue. The dark, blended colors would make it damned hard to find the cable if it ran through this room.
Bending to his hands and knees, he began running his fingers over the grout, checking it carefully. It was all well maintained, and the color matched from line to line.
Probing at the wall and the tile, he narrowed his eyes before pulling the high-powered magnifier from the back pocket of his jeans and moving to the baseboards.
“Bathroom tile has been replaced in at least one spot,” he murmured to Crowe. “I can’t find where it goes, where it ends, or what it’s for.”
“Sucks, bro,” Crowe drawled. “But I’d be moving out if I were you. One of her lunch partners just got a call and now both of them are paying their bill and getting ready to leave. She’s flown.”
“Not possible,” Logan argued quietly as he probed at the baseboard again. “No way she could have known.”
Sitting back and preparing to rise to his feet, Logan suddenly came to a stop, his body stiffening in surprise.
Against the back of his head cold steel pressed into his scalp, assuring him that it was indeed possible.
“Never mind,” he murmured, “I think I just found her.”
Or, more to the point, she had found him.
CHAPTER TEN
With the cold barrel of the gun pressed against his head, Logan rose slowly to his feet, careful to keep his hands slightly out from his body.
“I’d take that damned thing from you, but I have a feeling you’d use it,” he stated, trying to hide a smile and wondering why in hell he found this so funny.
When the weapon eased from the firm pressure against his scalp eased and Skye stepped back, he turned slowly.
Yep, she’d probably shoot him.
But he still wanted to grin.
Her expression never wavered, though. However, there was no amusement on her face, no affection in her gaze. As a matter of fact, her eyes were as flat and hard as any soldier’s.
“Give me the earbud,” she ordered. “Crowe and Rafer have no business in this conversation.”
“Just Crowe,” he murmured, wondering if she was simply guessing where Rafer was concerned. “And I don’t know if I want to turn over my only link to help. If you shoot me, who would know?”
An imitation of a smile that didn’t even come close to reaching her eyes curved her lips, making him a bit wary.
“I can sincerely make you regret being here without killing you. And how did you slip in without tripping the house alarm?”
His brows arched. “Evidently I did trip it; you’re here, aren’t you?”
She gave a quick shake of her head. “That wasn’t the house alarm. I have a separate alarm on my bedroom. You tripped that one.”
Logan removed the earbud slowly. He had a feeling he didn’t want to know the many and varied ways she could make him regret anything.
“You might want to turn that off; it has good range,” he offered as she held the earbud loosely. He could practically hear Crowe laughing his ass off now.
“I know.”
Flipping the hidden little button at the side of the earbud, she pocketed the device, then without a word turned and stalked from the bedroom.
Logan followed her curiously, especially when she jerked open the double doors on the walk-in closet and moved inside.
Standing at the entrance to the closet that could have arguably doubled as a good-sized bedroom, he watched as she began pulling clothes off the rod in the back of the closet and placing them on the rods on each side of the wall.
It took a minute, but the clothes were moved out of the way and she was stepping back once again.
Turning to him, she stared at him, her gaze still flat, her expression remote, as she indicated the wall.
Moving to it, Logan surveyed it closely. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, he then peeked into several areas that would have indicated if the wall was solid or part of it was hollowed or had something built behind it.
Checking the corner joints and telltale indents of nails in the drywall, he finally stepped back and turned to her. Clearly, she was trying to show him something. He just couldn’t figure out what.
Logan stepped back, looked at her, then arched his brow in question.
Her demeanor bothered him.
The silence, the air of complete emotional distance and hardened, icy anger, assured him that the woman who had sought him out, who had been willing to tease him, had given way to another side of her. This side he didn’t like much, not when it was directed at him.
It reminded him too much of fellow soldiers, of the look he sometimes saw in his own eyes—that of someone who had seen too much blood and death. Just what kind of life had Skye O’Brien lived, he wondered.
Pulling what appeared to be a television remote from her back pocket Skye pointed the device at the wall and pressed several buttons. Detecting the order used was damned impossible, but when she pressed the “SELECT” button he frowned. A slight pop and the wall that should have been, had appeared to be, nailed into the joint there separated about an inch.
Logan turned back to her, glaring. “Your rental agreement demands permission, in writing, for any construction made inside or outside the house.”
The irritation surging through him didn’t have a damned thing to do with her knocking down some walls. It was the fact that her secret room was a hell of a lot bigger and better than his room was.
It should have been insulting.
Instead, it was rather arousing.
His dick was hard.
She’d lied to him. Well, perhaps not lied, but she’d deceived him.
Again. Another part of her that wasn’t as she’d led him to believe. Another part that she’d hidden from him and kept him in the dark with.
Damn her, his dick shouldn’t be hard, not while his stomach was clenched with the fury burning through him.
He’d trusted her.
He’d let her into his life when he’d known better.
When he’d sensed the deceptions but couldn’t prove them, he’d convinced himself it was the situation. It was the danger swirling around him. It was a defense mechanism to protect a heart already opening up to her.
And now she was there and all he wanted was to rip her the fuck out.
Her arms crossed over her chest as her hip cocked with such feminine arrogance his balls tightened and the anger seemed to burn higher.
Why hadn’t he acknowledged the fact that he knew, knew his instincts were so finely honed for a fucking reason?
Her brow arched mockingly then. “And as you’re the silent owner and received no such request, then you of course had no idea it was here. Neither did the rental agent, the agent, or the assumed owner.”
In other words, it was a complete secret to everyone, with the exceptions of her and whoever had helped her.
<
br /> Turning back to the wall, Logan opened the wide panel to inspect the narrow room. About three feet of the closet, as well as perhaps three feet of the large kitchen pantry behind it, had been taken.
The wall of the six-foot-wide room held six monitors, each screen split with a different camera view.
There were twelve cameras total.
Two of those views covered the entire perimeter of the side yard that separated his house from her rental.
He turned to her slowly. “You had proof all along that I never left the house the night Marietta was taken or killed. Yet you revealed your ties to the governor instead and put yourself smack in the middle in the sights of a killer?”
The anger was like a beast, gnawing at his soul. It was doing nothing to soften the hard-on filling his jeans, though and for a moment, he almost hated her for that.
There was nothing arousing about the fact that she had deliberately placed herself in danger. There was nothing that should have cooled his desperation to have her faster.
“The detective pissed me off,” she told Logan with a shrug, her tone icy cold.
That tone, the lack of emotion on her face and in her eyes, the emotional and physical distance between them, was beginning to do more than irritate him.
“You’re lying to me.”
She laughed then, a sound devoid of humor.
“I wouldn’t bother lying to you, Logan. I had no reason to. You never suspected I was anyone other than a renter, and an irritating one at that.”
That wasn’t necessarily true. At least not the irritating part.
“Why?” he asked, turning to her fully as anger surged as hot, as furious, as the arousal tearing through him. “Why are you here, Skye? A governor’s daughter, real or fostered, doesn’t just up and move to some two-bit county in the mountains of Colorado.”
“Medical leave.” Her brow arched, her lips thinning as a spark of anger began to gleam in her eyes then.
“Medical leave?” He turned to the room, then back to her. “Don’t fucking play with me. Trust me, I won’t tolerate it.”
“Let’s say I’m here because of a hobby then.” The curve of her lips was strained, tight. “And I’m paranoid.”
He shook his head slowly. “No, this is no hobby. You’re here because of me. To prove I killed those girls. To prove I killed Amy.”
“Wrong.” The anger wasn’t just a glimmer in her eyes anymore. It was burning bright and strong between one heartbeat and the next.
It flushed her face, made those damn dark eyes of hers spark.
“Don’t you fucking lie to me!” he yelled at her.
He was the laidback cousin.
He was the one who never became pissed off to the point that he raised his voice.
But this was Skye. And she was lying to him.
He wouldn’t have it from her.
Not now.
Not after the deliberate challenge she had thrown out to a killer.
Not after deceiving him with the clear intent of, one way or the other, putting more blood on his hands.
“I never believed you were guilty of anything but being a prick and an asshole when the mood suited you,” she snapped back.
Moving to her, his gaze holding hers, the challenge gleaming in them only intensifying, he backed her into the bare wall next to the hidden room. He placed both hands on either side of her head, and leaned in close, until he was nearly nose to nose with her.
“You’re here because of Amy,” he bit out, his body so tight he wondered if, for the first time in his life, he was going to snap. “You’re here to find her killer. You thought I was her killer.”
She, like everyone else, believed he had killed Amy Jefferson and the other girls who had died that summer.
“Wrong.” Straight, pretty teeth snapped together furiously. “Yes, I’m here to find a killer. But I never, for even a second, believed you were that killer. I didn’t believe it any more than Amy did.”
Tearing himself away from her, he turned, and cracked his fist into the wall.
Son of a bitch. At this rate, he was going to end up breaking his hand. However, a broken hand would be preferable to what he was feeling now.
Emotions that made no sense.
Feelings that were tearing through him, tightening his stomach and ripping through his guts with enough force to lay his soul bare.
Fists clenched, he turned back to her slowly and just stared at her.
Wariness filled her gaze, but there was no fear.
She had no reason to fear him. She had no reason to be wary of him either.
He wondered if she knew he would give his life for her? That he would die to ensure she never suffered so much as a day in her life?
Because he loved her.
He stiffened. That knowledge was like a spike of agony tearing through his guts.
It ripped through his system and jerked aside the veil of deception he’d been practicing on himself as well as her.
“She said once that you were going to be her best friend,” Skye whispered now, and Logan hated the words falling from her lips. “The night before she disappeared, she was crying, Logan, because she was certain whoever was trying to frame you was going to succeed.”
“Shut it up!” His hand sliced through the air. “Pack your shit. You voided your rental agreement and you’re being evicted. I won’t have you here.” His voice rose again, though not as loud this time. “Do you fucking hear me, Skye? Listen to me well or I’ll have you tied, gagged, and locked in a room so fucking secure I never have to worry about so much as a motherfucking scratch marring your flesh, let alone a rapist’s knife tearing into your goddamned flesh.”
Rage, powered by a fear for her life that nearly weakened his knees, and for one, impossible moment, stole all hope of control.
Before he knew it, he had crossed to her again.
Logan’s hands moved, his fingers wrapping around her upper arms, tightening just enough to ensure she didn’t escape, before pulling her to him.
The hunger was impossible to deny.
He’d want her on his deathbed. He’d ache for her, crave her touch, and crave touching her no matter where they were or what was going on between them.
He would ache for her, hunger for her, he would die for her no matter the lies she told, or what she might or might not suspect him of.
“Don’t lie to me, Skye,” he snarled.
He wouldn’t have it from her. Not now. Not after the deliberate challenge she had also thrown out to a killer.
“I never believed you were guilty of anything but being a prick and an asshole when the mood suited you,” she snapped back.
As he moved slowly to her, his gaze held hers, the challenge gleaming in it only intensifying as he backed her into the bare wall next to the hidden room and placed both hands on each side of her head, flat against the drywall, and leaned in close, nearly nose to nose with her.
“You’re here because of Amy,” he bit out. “You’re here to find her killer.”
Him. Skye, like everyone else, believed he had killed Amy Jefferson and the other girls who had died that summer.
“Yes.” Straight, pretty teeth snapped together furiously as he and Skye leaned closer, now, definitely nose to nose. “I’m here to definitely find her killer. But I never, for even a second, believed you were that killer. I didn’t believe it any more than Amy did.”
Logan’s hands moved, his fingers wrapping around her upper arms, tightening just enough to ensure she didn’t escape, before jerking her to him.
*
As her body came flush against his, the hardened length of his cock pressing into her lower stomach, a startled cry fell from her lips and heat washed through her.
A shudder tore up her spine.
Her pussy clenched, her juices spilling in a wave of pure, erotic sensation.
God, she loved it when he went all dominant and fiercely male on her. She’d sensed the need inside him to loosen the reins on
his sexuality, but she hadn’t expected the effect on her.
His hands were just that extra bit firmer, his lips plundering. His tongue thrust and surged past her lips to conquer her kiss as her body began to sensitize.
Pleasure whipped through her body, need firing inside her with a suddenness that left her gasping.
Skye had intended to fight if he dared to touch her.
She had meant to deny him if he even thought to have the nerve to suggest he touch her.
He’d been an ass from day one when all she’d wanted to do was get to know the man her foster sister had thought so much of, while trying to find a killer.
Skye was trained in a hundred ways in how to get out of a man’s arms.
A kidnapper’s grip.
A killer’s hold.
But she had never been trained to break free of the hold of the owner of her heart.
She should have used that training to kick his ass.
If possible.
Instead she moaned as his lips covered hers forcefully, taking them, mastering her, and overwhelming any objections she might have had. Any objections she might have had flew out the window the second he touched her, though. Just as they always had.
It was like being caught in a whirlwind. Jerked into a realm where sensations were living, breathing, and possessing her with a strength she had no hope of fighting.
It was a pleasure she had no desire to fight. All she wanted to do was sink into it, enjoy every second of it, because for the first time in her life there was something worth fighting for, for herself.
He did this to her.
Pleasure like this wasn’t usual, she thought hazily as her hands smoothed over his broad shoulders. Finding pleasure like this was a once-in-a-lifetime event.
It was something neither of them would ever have again with anyone else.
Something that would tear their souls apart if they decided to walk away from it.
Pulling back to nip at her lips, Logan ran his tongue over the little sting before sipping at her lips again. Deep, drugging kisses that had her moaning into them and desperate to get closer to him.