by Nikki Duncan
“They’re the only two people I talked to yesterday about the story. Given how quickly I was attacked after meeting with the herbologist I’d lean more toward Lance’s girlfriend, or someone at the company who could’ve seen us talking. They’d have had more time to find out who I am, where I live and plan their move.”
“Did you mention Dr. Grayson to them?”
“Yes. Maria brought the name up first though.” Lana shook her head as she edged off the bed. “I learned more about plants in two hours with Maria than I’ve learned my whole life.”
“She gave you the one in the other room.” His smile conveyed a knowledge and insight she wasn’t fully comfortable with given their instable friendliness.
“She says I can’t kill it.” Lana shrugged, actually hoping Maria was right. She always felt bad when a plant died on her watch. “Time will tell.”
“You liked Maria.”
Her heart thunked with a stumbling beat. Aidan read her too easily for a man who wasn’t interested in permanence. “Genuinely. She’s the kind of woman I could see as a close friend.” Something she had few of. “So I really hope she’s not involved.”
“Careful, Lana. If you allow your views to be colored by personal involvement you’ll regret it.”
“I know the rules, Aidan.” His softly stated command made sense. Journalism was definitely a profession where listening to that rule was necessary. It was also one, like being an FBI agent, which thrived under the ability to follow instincts and read people. Every part of her said she could trust Maria as deeply as she trusted Aidan, Kieralyn, Ava or any other member of their team.
“I also know there are times when personal involvement makes you better. And sometimes it’s just nice to have a friend.”
He slowly angled his head, studying her words as if they were under a high-powered microscope. She recognized the double edge of her response, wondered if he would pick up on it. He was quick, so he probably would. Then the question was if he’d acknowledge her feeling with an answer, because even as he cautioned her against involvement and she felt him pulling away from whatever they’d started to explore, he hadn’t left. Something on a personal level had to be driving his contradictory actions.
“You’re right.”
“What?”
“You’re right.” Aidan moved off the bed as casually as she had and headed toward the living room. “Personal involvement gives some people more reason to fight. For other people… Well, for other people it’s something they learn to fake to the point it becomes a hammer in their tool belt.”
“Is that what happened between you and the mystery journalist? Were you her nail?” The curiosity over what had happened was growing. The preference to hear him talk about it was beginning to lose its voice beneath the roar of the desire to know the truth even if she had to do her own research.
Chapter Ten
Aidan embraced the shooting reality of a mental jab. Despite his inner protests his feelings for Lana continued to deepen. So many things made her taboo.
Her skill at getting beneath his skin.
Her skill at attracting danger.
Her DNA-based ability to get him fired.
Her profession.
Her profession especially made her taboo, and while she was as driven as his ex, shared the same goals, she wasn’t quite the same. She’d taken precautions on the kidnapping case that had led to a slam-dunk conviction in court. She’d bravely confronted a serial killer after bringing his team in for backup. And though she’d still been targeted by a killer, she had backed off Dr. Grayson like Aidan had asked.
Damn if he still couldn’t let go of the past or forget the potential risks of being with an ambitious reporter. Neither could he forget the way she felt against him skin-to-skin or the way she’d curled into him while dreaming.
Lana’s pros and cons filled his brain like a shifting kaleidoscope that grew and grew until the colors blurred into an unrecognizable pattern of chaos. He wanted to scream against the pressure in his skull. Instead, he buried his hands in his pockets, fisting them until tremors of pain slid up his wrists and forearms.
He nodded toward her closet. “Get cleaned up and changed.”
“What are we doing?”
“I’m going to work on this case.”
“And me?” she asked after a pregnant beat.
Her hair fell around her shoulders in small sleep tangles, shadows edged along her eyes, and a dare tensed her lips. Vulnerable sex. The woman wove her way into his mind until rational thought evaporated. Her image before him shifted until he saw her struggling for breath with a rapidly spreading rash covering her or felt her shaking in the throes of whatever nightmare had gripped her.
“You’re staying with me until this is over.” Desire burned the lining of his throat. Or maybe, judging by the thick coating of moisture, it was something more akin to fear.
“You…”
Abandoning his internal struggles for the moment, Aidan closed the short distance between them, grabbed her by her biceps and yanked her close.
On a small cry he recognized as arousal, her head dropped back and her lips parted. Lana gripped his biceps and curled herself against him. Her tongue slid along her teeth beneath her upper lip and any reasonable argument or desire he might have had to resist tasting her again disintegrated.
He moved his hands to her hips and nudged her closer still. He bent his knees, shifted until her pelvis brushed his. Until his dick rested at the juncture of her thighs.
Lana purred and rolled against him. Her hardening nipples stood from beneath her bra, bumped lightly at his chest with each slow gyration. Starving to feast on her, he walked her backward to the bed and eased her down until her choices were to spread her legs for him or wrap them around his waist. Predictably, she wrapped him in strength and held his body close to hers, exactly as she did when they were naked.
Leaning over her, constantly rubbing against her sex, Aidan kissed the softness not covered by clothing. Her rash-covered arm and the clear one. Her neck. Her throat. Below her ears.
A moan rumbled up, vibrating her chest and his so intensely he wasn’t sure which of them started it. Lana’s arousal soaked her pants and warmed him. His balls tightened. Tension coiled at the base of his spine. He didn’t even have her clothes off and the pin was slipping from the grenade of restraint.
Her spirit.
Her passion.
Her ability to arouse a fever in his blood.
Unable, unwilling, to ignore the ideas of why he shouldn’t be with her, why he should avoid her, he bent down and claimed her mouth. She opened instantly, tangling her tongue with his. Meeting him thrust for thrust and rub for rub—tongue and body—she called for his passion and answered with her own.
His body heated until a flush of fire coated his skin despite the running air conditioner.
The coiling tension tightened.
Trembled.
Tightened.
Trembled.
Tightened.
He wanted to latch on to some part of her and suck until he marked her for days. Instead, he kissed her deeper, bent his knees, and with a long and slow grinding rub against her wet sex, he orgasmed. When she arched against the bed, quaking beneath him he knew she’d found her pleasure too.
“Holy damn.”
“I haven’t done that since high school.” She laughed.
“I’ve never done that.” He levered himself off her slightly and kissed her tenderly. Her eyes were heavy with the satisfaction she’d just found and damn if the pleasure of putting that look in her eyes didn’t crow happily through him.
She traced her long fingers over his face as her lips curved in a lazy smile. “I think I should say I’m sorry.”
“I may have to accept it.” He pulled her up to sit, but she didn’t unwrap her legs from his waist. As much as he expected to want to leave after something so juvenile, he didn’t find himself in a hurry to move. “I may have to do it again sometime.”
“Just let me know when.” Lana kissed his throat and hummed when she lingered a moment. “I don’t normally like clothed quickies, but you bring something out in me, Aidan Burgess.”
He kissed her throat and lingered a moment. “Ditto, Lana Quinn.”
But with the passion of the moment passing he wondered if he fully liked what she brought out in him. Or more importantly, could he trust it?
Several long moments passed, oddly free of awkwardness, before Lana unhooked her ankles from behind his waist and lowered them. “We should get back to finding out who is killing people so things can get back to normal.”
She said it with such nonchalance, Aidan almost thought she was including things between them. For them, normal meant him avoiding her. It meant no complications. It meant no sex. It meant a mixed bag of happy and shitty.
“Right. Killers and normal.” He turned away and tried to battle the unexpected hurt in private. “Two things a journalist like you thrives on.”
“That’s right, Aidan. We journalists only love to fuck feds for a story.” She moved off the bed, but he didn’t turn to see her. He wasn’t ready to meet the truth of her words in her eyes. “I’ll get changed and meet you in the living room. Then when this case is over we can go back to our normal lives, and you can go back to assuming the worst of all journalists without the sloppiness of sex messing things up or jeopardizing your job.”
Shit. “Lana.”
The bathroom door clicked closed as he turned to argue. He’d wanted a safe distance between them, sort of, but not at the cost of her pain. As easily as the woman aroused his desires she aroused his ability to behave like a complete asshole, and she had the uncanny knack of making him not like himself.
In fact, she was as effective as a wrecking ball at making him feel like a cyborg incapable of feeling emotion.
It’s something he’d said about Liam more than once, but now he wondered if he didn’t have it all wrong. Maybe his twin wasn’t so much unfeeling as he was locked off. Maybe he’d felt too much for someone he shouldn’t and he’d shut himself down out of self-preservation.
Aidan couldn’t think of anyone Liam had known who’d have been able to get so close. He’d certainly never mentioned a woman, and aside from several years ago when Liam had visited their family in Scotland for a month longer than Aidan, they’d pretty well always been together. Even before that trip Liam had been the cooler of the two. He’d always been the one to leave the bar alone, to never get emotionally involved. Aidan had only blurred the line of professionalism once.
“Are you going to stand there and sulk all afternoon or are we going to work the case?”
Aidan pulled himself back to the moment and turned to face Lana. He didn’t recall walking to the living room, didn’t recall leaving the bedroom where her scent was stronger. The void in his memory suggested how profoundly Lana impacted him.
It suggested danger.
“Aidan?” Dressed in wide-legged jeans, a white blouse with tuxedo shirt piping and heels with a faux lace look, Lana checked the contents of her purse.
“Don’t you ever dress sensibly?”
She regarded him over her shoulder for a moment and slipped a pen and notepad into her purse before turning to face him.
“There is nothing wrong with my outfit.” She made a production of checking the buttons concealing her breasts. “In fact, it’s quite conservative.”
“Conservative is not a word to be used in a sentence with those shoes.”
She lifted one foot and studied her thick-soled shoe. She never wobbled as she balanced several seconds on one foot. “I assure you, these shoes will not slow me down. In fact, they are a great weapon against pushy men who lose sight of proper boundaries.”
Her body language appeared relaxed as she moved toward the door. She revealed no indication she might use those shoes on him or that she’d been the least bit bothered by anything he’d said or done. Lana Quinn did many things well, but amiable wasn’t among them. Amiable Lana was scary.
“Do you have any idea who is behind the deaths?” Aidan asked as they headed to his car. He didn’t love the idea of actually working a case with Lana, but it was the only way to control her moves, keep her safe and, if Lady Luck was feeling generous, figure out how to dig himself out of the quicksand known as involvement that he was sinking into.
“Do you really want my opinion, or are you trying to manipulate me into compliance?”
“Both.”
“Well, at least you’re honest.”
“So, do you have a theory?” he asked when she slipped into a long silence.
“I went into this suspecting Grayson, and though I haven’t written him off, he’s not as obvious as he was.”
“Why not?”
“Maria.” Lana’s voice softened with fondness when she spoke of the other woman. It had done the same thing earlier. “She spoke of him with respect. With the same level of respect she had when she spoke of her parents and the man who helped her find sunlight.”
“Excuse me?”
Lana explained briefly about Maria’s skin disease, the son of the Indian healer, his treatments and then his training. “Maria said she had a greener thumb and Dr. Grayson was more gifted at healing.”
“You think his heritage and the way a woman feels is enough to exonerate him?”
“I don’t know, Aidan.” She turned sideways in the seat as he drove toward the Bureau offices. “I do know that not all women are liars. Some women are capable of real love for a genuinely good man.”
And some women are simply skilled actresses.
“You sit there in your judgmental silence,” Lana continued after a moment. “Go on and stew in the betrayal of whoever you trusted, but stop lashing out at me when you lose yourself. And stop asking for my opinion when you’re not going to consider it.”
Again she saw into him too easily, and again she made him hate himself. The habit was becoming annoying.
His phone rang with the team’s ringtone and cut off whatever he might have said. Not that he was sure what to say because he wasn’t going to change.
“This is Aidan,” he answered the phone.
“I guessed it would be since I didn’t call your girlfriend’s phone.”
For all the control he had over his emotions, Liam never bothered to control his mouth if he wanted to say something. “What do you want, Liam?”
“Grumpy. I see how you’re going to be.”
“I’m going to pound you until you look like shit. Did you find something?”
“I’ll pound back, and given your face, I won’t have to pound as long. And that cop buddy of Lana’s just called. Lionetti. He’s holding a scene for us.”
“Who? Where?” He listened to the details Liam had, acutely aware of Lana’s interest, which filled the space between them. Shit. Things were about to get personal.
“You not telling me what Liam said isn’t going to keep me from finding out.”
“Nope.”
“Then why not say it? What are you afraid of, Aidan?”
He passed the Bureau building and remained silent for several more blocks. He thought he was unreadable, but Lana had spent too long studying him at every chance to not know his tells. His hands lightly worked the steering wheel, never quite fisting it but never relaxing. His jaw didn’t appear tense, but the skin along the square curve twitched. His pulse beat a little harder in his throat.
“You don’t need to coddle me, Aidan.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
He turned down Everglade Lane and the need for answers evaporated with the rise of her pulse rate. She’d made this drive the day before, and though she’d considered a second visit she’d predicted it would be under different circumstances. Circumstances not including a hardening Aidan.
Hardening. Distancing. Bracing.
She’d dealt with Aidan off duty and on, seen him relaxing with friends and at work on cases. She’d never witnessed his transfor
mation from cantankerous man to in-charge fed, and she wouldn’t distract him from the job. Maybe this was her chance to earn a little of his respect.
“It’s Maria.” Proud of her calm tone, of her ability to compartmentalize despite the sibilant slide of pain pumping through her heart, she stated what he wouldn’t. “It’s worse than the others and you want me to stay in the car when we get there.”
“Yes.”
“Too bad.”
“Lana—”
“It’s Maria. I’m not staying in the car, but I won’t intrude.” She would take it all in, learn as much as she could and make damn certain Maria’s death wasn’t unheard of. “Besides, I was here yesterday. I might notice if anything else seems off.”
He pulled up to the curb in front of Maria’s home. A patrol car and an unmarked were parked in the driveway behind two other cars, one of which she recognized as Maria’s. Neighbors crowded the lawns next door, craning for a glimpse of tragedy and talking amongst themselves.
“With this crowd, TV news will be here before long.” The thirst to swoop in and circle death and destruction, to behave like vultures feeding on the glorified remains, was another reason she’d stayed with newspapers. Her features didn’t require the glory and gore.
“The team will be right behind us. Kieralyn or Breck will handle the press. You’re with me.”
She touched his arm briefly before they moved up the front steps. “Do you have any faith in my ability to handle this right?”
“I want to.”
He’d given her honesty again, but again it held no comfort. Rather than focus on their issues, the reasons they would never work long term, she funneled the disappointment into determination and followed him inside.
Unlike the brightly lit home from the day before, the front rooms were almost completely dark with light filtering between slits in the blackout drapes and from the sunroom in the back. Lionetti stood in the doorway to the kitchen. Maria’s body lay in the living room.
Aidan moved too close to one of the plants. Lana grabbed him, pulling him a step away. “Don’t touch any of the plants. A lot of them are toxic at even a touch.”