by Lisa Childs
She reached for the door again. But instead of walking out it, she shut it and turned back toward him.
“Webber is such a sleaze,” she said.
He was far worse than that.
“He either killed her or he let her die in childbirth.” Pain squeezed Lars’s heart. His sister was gone. And Myron Webber needed to be held accountable—but not until Blue was safe.
Nikki tilted her head, and her curls brushed across her cheek. He wanted to push them back, but he’d already touched her too much. He could smell her on his clothes, feel her warmth against his skin. And he wanted to touch her some more…
Maybe he just needed the consolation he’d refused from his friends. Maybe he just needed to feel close to someone. And Nikki was close. But not close enough…
Before he could reach for her again, his phone vibrated in his pocket. He pulled it out and glanced at the screen. “Cooper…”
Nikki snorted. But the second his stopped, her phone began to ring. She didn’t even pull it out before murmuring, “Cooper…”
She must have had a special ringtone for him. Or she just knew.
“Why haven’t you told him?” she asked. “My brother is your friend.”
“That’s why I haven’t told him,” Lars replied. “I don’t want him getting in trouble with me, jeopardizing his new business and family.”
“I don’t under—”
“There’s no way I can legally compel Webber to hand my nephew over,” he explained. “No proof that he’s mine.”
“DNA—”
“Is inadmissible unless it’s court ordered.”
She cursed.
And he narrowed his eyes to study her face. “Did you…?”
“Take a sample from Blue along with a sample from you?”
“Yes?”
She shook her head. “I have his. But I needed yours.”
He knew how he’d like to give her a sample. But she needed it in a vial—not inside her. He forced his mind from the tension gripping his body—from the attraction that overwhelmed him every time he got too close to Nikki Payne.
He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. Like I said, it’s inadmissible. We can’t compel him to give up the baby’s DNA. I can’t even prove that Emilia really met with him. She just told me in her last letter that she was going to.”
“She didn’t tell you why?” she asked. “Was she going to give up the baby?”
Lars sucked in a breath. “I don’t know. I don’t think she would have.”
“How old is she?” Nikki asked.
Was she…
How old was she? But he didn’t correct her. He couldn’t bring himself to fully accept that Emilia was gone, either. “Twenty-two.” His voice cracked as emotion overwhelmed him. “She should be graduating from college in a couple of months.”
Instead she was gone forever.
Nikki stepped closer to him and like she had that day in her office, she wrapped her arms around him, holding him. “I don’t think she’s dead.”
His breath shuddered out in a wistful sigh that stirred Nikki’s already tousled curls. “I wish I could believe you, believe in this notion that you think your mom and brother and you just know things…”
She chuckled. “I don’t have that ability at all,” she assured him. “Not like Mom and Nick.”
But he wasn’t as convinced. She’d been ready for him in the nursery. “Since Nick inherited the ability from your mom, you could have, too.”
She snorted. “Nick didn’t inherit it from my mom,” she said. “He isn’t her biological son, although he should be. He is more like her than any of her kids.”
“So he’s your adopted brother?”
“He’s the product of an affair my dad had while he was undercover,” she said, and there was resentment in her voice. “He cheated on my mom—while she was pregnant with Cooper. He and Nick are nearly the same age.”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She shrugged. “You’re not the one who cheated.”
But he had kept a secret from her. Would she see that as big a betrayal as what her father had done? She was obviously still upset about what her dad had done. No wonder she said she had no interest in ever getting married. She couldn’t trust that it would last.
“But no,” she continued as if she hadn’t just shared a very big part of herself with him. “I’m not like Mom and Nick. I’m just observant. Webber’s been getting breast milk for the baby. Where’s that been coming from if Emilia is dead?”
His heart stopped beating for just a second as hope swelled in it. Then it started up again, almost violently hard. “No…” He shook his head. He couldn’t allow himself to hope, only to be crushed again. “Are you sure it’s breast milk?”
She nodded. “I’ve sent some of that away to be tested to find out if it belongs to the baby’s mother.”
“Would another woman sell her breast milk?” Lars asked. “And why would Webber care if Blue was fed breast milk or formula?”
“Health,” Nikki said. “A lot of people believe breast-fed babies are healthier and smarter.”
“But why…” Then the answer dawned on him.
But Nikki said it anyway. “The healthier the baby, the higher the price.”
“He’s going to sell my nephew?”
“A couple checked him out this morning.”
Lars cringed. “Like they were kicking the tires on a car?”
She sighed and pulled back. “Unfortunately, yes.”
“I’ve already lost her,” he said. “I can’t lose her baby, too.” But he could feel him slipping away from him. Could feel it all slipping away…
Even Nikki since she’d stepped back from him. He felt cold without the warmth of her touch, of her comfort. As if she knew he needed her, she moved toward him again.
“I don’t think Emilia is dead,” she said. “We will find her.”
“I already checked the morgues and hospitals—”
She tensed. “You found her?”
He shook his head. “No…”
“Then she’s alive,” Nikki insisted, and a smile brightened her face. “Blue’s mother is alive.”
Lars touched her face, running his fingertip along her smile. Her lips were so silky. She was so damn beautiful. So hopeful…
He couldn’t allow himself to hope, though. “She’s not like you,” he said. “She’s not strong. She’s used to me taking care of her, handling her problems.” When he hadn’t been around, she’d turned to the wrong person for help.
“My brothers underestimate me, too,” Nikki said as if she’d already formed a kinship with Emilia.
His sister would have been in awe of the little brunette spitfire. And she would have been grateful for how much Nikki had already come to care for Blue.
He was grateful for so much that she’d done. His heart warmed and swelled with it. It wasn’t hope. He refused to let himself feel that. So he wasn’t sure what it was.
Just that he couldn’t fight it anymore.
“You are incredible,” he murmured. And he reached for her now, closing his arms around her.
She stared up at him, her eyes wide with surprise. “Wh-why?”
“You should be furious with me—”
“Oh, I am,” she assured him.
“But you covered for me with Cooper,” he said. “And now you’re trying to make me believe Emilia could be alive.”
“She could be,” Nikki insisted. “She—”
He pressed his fingers over her lips and shook his head. “I need to focus on what I know for certain.” At the moment the only thing he knew for certain was that he wanted her, that he had to have her.
So he replaced his fingers with his mouth and kissed her passionately. But his desire was no match for hers. She nipped at his lips with her teeth and clutched his shoulders, bending him even more toward her.
She was so tiny. And he was so big. He had to lift her, which was easy given her slight weight. But despit
e that, his legs began to shake a little with need. He’d never needed anyone as desperately as he needed Nikki.
She wrapped her legs around his waist, rubbing her core against him. The erection strained against his jeans, making him ache to drive inside her. She pulled away from him slightly, lifting her mouth from his.
Maybe he was going too fast, being too presumptuous. She’d already admitted to being furious with him.
But instead of telling him to go to hell, she asked, “Do you have a bed in this place that’s not in a box waiting to be assembled?”
Relief coursed through him along with amusement at her boldness. He chuckled. “I have a mattress upstairs.” And he carried her up the creaky wooden steps to show her.
“This is a bad idea,” she murmured. But she clutched him tighter instead of struggling to free herself.
He knew it, too, as his phone began to vibrate again. “A very bad idea…”
“Cooper is going to kill you,” she said. “Logan and Parker might help him.”
“Not Nick?”
“He couldn’t be a hypocrite. He got his best friend’s sister pregnant.” Her face flushed. “Not that…that’s not going to…we’re not…”
He chuckled as she stammered. Maybe she wasn’t as bold as she acted. “We’re not going to do this?” he asked as he stepped into the bedroom where the king-size mattress lay on the floor.
He dropped his arms from around her and she slid down his body, her soft curves brushing against his every tense muscle. He groaned with desire—with need.
“We’re going to do this,” she said. “We’re just not going to make a baby.”
Lars pulled a condom from his wallet. “No, we’re not.” Maybe if he and Emilia hadn’t been too embarrassed to discuss it, he could have prepared her more so that she wouldn’t have gotten pregnant. But he hadn’t wanted to think about that…with her. And now he didn’t want to think about her. It hurt too much.
Nikki’s fingertips brushed along the rigid line of his tense jaw. “I’m sorry,” she murmured.
Had she changed her mind?
But instead of stepping away, she reached for the buckle of his belt. She easily undid it and then her knuckles brushed along his fly, where his erection strained. As her fingers closed over the tab of his zipper, she froze.
And he did, too, every muscle straining, sweat beading on his upper lip. He needed her to release him. But maybe this was her revenge for trying to overpower her. She’d told him she was furious with him.
Then she reached for her gun, and he wondered just how furious…until he heard it, too. First the creak of the front door opening and the creak of the floorboards. They were no longer alone. He had an intruder. Then he heard the front door open again and realized there was more than one.
Had Webber figured out who he was and sent his guards after him?
*
He shouldn’t have let them leave—separately and definitely not together. Tension pounded behind Cooper’s eyes so intensely that he could barely focus on the person who walked into his office.
“Are you okay, honey?” his mother asked.
He wondered why she bothered with the question when she already knew the answer. She must have known before she’d even shown up; it was undoubtedly why she’d come. Because Penny Payne always knew when one of her kids needed her.
He suspected he was not the one who needed her the most. That was Nikki.
Where the hell was she? Why wouldn’t she answer her phone? She wasn’t the only one ignoring his calls, though. He groaned as he tossed his cell down on his desk.
“No,” he needlessly answered his mother.
“Nikki?” she asked.
And again he wondered why she bothered. She knew. But he replied anyway. “Yes. I want to think that she’s ignoring my calls because she’s just pissed I pulled her off duty.”
But she actually hadn’t seemed very upset about Candace taking over for her. In fact, she’d been eager to leave—with Lars.
“You think it’s something else,” Penny said as she settled nervously onto the edge of one of the chairs in front of his desk. She was here because she felt it—that damn feeling he had—that something bad was going to happen.
He should have never let Nikki leave. Instead of having Candace protect the baby, he should have had her protect Nikki. She was the one in danger.
And even though she wasn’t alone, Lars might prove the greatest threat to her safety.
Chapter 13
Before Nikki could draw her Glock from her holster, a big hand closed over hers.
“If we start shooting, the police will be called,” Lars warned her. He’d shoved the condom back into his pocket and buckled his belt again.
“And that would be a bad thing…why?” she asked. She wasn’t opposed to the police being called until she remembered that Nick was still running River City PD. So the police wouldn’t come alone; they would come with at least one of her brothers.
She dropped her hand away from her holster.
“We can take them without guns,” Lars said.
We…
Her pulse quickened with nearly as much excitement as she’d felt when she’d reached for his zipper. He was so damn big—so hard—so hot. She ached inside with desire, with need. But she would use all that tension to fuel her fight.
Lars stopped talking and gestured toward the open bedroom door. He stood on one side of the jamb while she moved to the other side. Night had fallen some time ago, and they hadn’t turned on any lights. Their eyes were accustomed to the darkness. Hopefully the intruders were not.
The first dark shadow walked through the door and right into Lars’s strong grip. He pulled the man’s arms behind him and flung him against the wall.
The second dark shadow—even bigger than the first—rushed inside to the aid of his partner. And Nikki dropped him with a knee to the groin. He fell to the floor, writhing.
She wasn’t prepared for the third. She hadn’t heard him. But Lars must have. As the guy reached for her, his strong hands gripping her arms, Lars broke his hold and nearly his neck. Until the guy who’d fallen against the wall flipped on the lights.
Dane gasped for breath and tugged at the forearm Lars had wrapped around his throat. Now that they could see more than shadows of each other, his friend released him, and he dropped onto the floor next to where Manny writhed yet.
“Guess we should’ve rung the bell instead of breaking in,” Cole remarked from where he leaned against the bedroom wall, his hand still on the light switch.
“You think?” Lars asked with a grunt.
“What the hell is wrong with you people?” Nikki asked. Even though she’d grown up with all males but for Penny, she doubted she would ever fully understand them.
“I don’t know,” Dane replied. “What did you do to Manny? Neuter him?”
“Good thing I don’t want to have a family,” Manny said between gasps for breath. He kind of sounded like he was having a baby.
Regret flashed through Nikki. But she’d had no way of knowing who they were.
“Why didn’t you ring the bell?” she asked. “Or at the very least call out to let us know who you were?”
Cole snorted disparagingly. “What’s the fun in that?”
She gestured down at Manny. “Does that look fun to you?”
He shuddered. “No. Guess I’m lucky Lars took me.”
“If I’d known it was you, I might have done that,” Lars said with a glare. Then he told her, “They had a blanket party for me the other night.”
“Blanket party?” Somehow she didn’t think he was talking about what he and she had nearly had, if they hadn’t been interrupted.
“We wrapped a blanket around his head and abducted him,” Cole explained.
“Yeah, but it took all three of them to take me down,” Lars said with pride.
She shook her head pityingly. “And today I took you down all by myself.”
Manny lifted his h
and from where he’d been checking himself—probably to see how much damage she’d done. “I see how you did it.”
“We came over here to find out what happened,” Cole said. “Why the plan failed…” He turned toward Nikki. “Guess we got our answer.”
Anger coursed through Nikki again, that Lars had intended to trick her. And to overpower her.
He very nearly had in this room. His kisses, his touch, had nearly overpowered her common sense. She never should have let him touch her again. Never should have touched and kissed him back…
Her face heated. And she was the one who’d asked about the bed.
Not that she could deny the desire—or the need. It ached inside her yet.
“He underestimated me,” she told the others. But she had underestimated him, as well—had underestimated how he could make her feel. So much…
“Did you tell Cooper?” Dane asked.
She shook her head again.
Dane glanced at Lars and then back to her and then down at the mattress on the floor. “Why not?”
“I gave him a chance to explain.” She wasn’t sure what the hell she’d been doing up here—with him. After what he’d tried, she could never trust him. He’d intended to use her—setting her up as Blue’s bodyguard only to betray her.
“Did you?” Dane asked his friend, and he glanced—more pointedly—at the mattress again. Obviously he was worried that Lars had tried to distract her with sex.
Maybe he had—from what she’d been trying to tell him. “I know about Emilia,” she said.
“I’m glad he told you,” Dane said with a sigh of relief.
“But what are you going to do with that information?” Cole asked as he helped Manny to his feet. “Are you going to tell Cooper?”
He sounded almost hopeful. And she realized it hadn’t been easy for any of them to keep a secret from her brother. They loved him like he was their brother, too. But then they’d all been through so much together.
Cooper would want to know what was going on, even if it jeopardized his career.
She glanced at Lars. “Maybe I should tell him.” Then she turned back toward the others. “He might listen to me because your lunkhead friend won’t.”
“What are you telling him?” Dane asked, his voice gruff with frustration. “To tell Cooper? To go to the cops? I’ve been telling him all that, too.”