Real Men Do It Better

by Lora Leigh, Susan Donovan, Lori Wilde, Carrie Alexander

  “We found several hidden caches of cash. Some drugs.” Craig was shaking his head. “And some more journals. Man, he was sick, Joe.”

  Maggie watched Joe’s expression even out, become distant. Grant had nearly destroyed a part of Joe. The two men had been friends for most of their lives. Joe claimed him as a brother, a confidant. He hadn’t known the cruel, bitter side to Grant that she had.

  “Any clues in the journals?” Joe leaned forward, balancing his elbows on his knees as he watched the other man.

  “Pretty much what we found in the others.” Craig shrugged. “Different topics, same shit.” He shook his head wearily. “We really didn’t know him, did we?”

  Grant had often laughed over that. How the others didn’t really know him, had no idea how much smarter he was, how he could always stay one step ahead of them. Especially Joe. Poor dumb Joe, he would snicker, who would never know how easy he was to fool, how easy it was to use him. Right down to the car Joe had treasured. The ’69 Mustang Joe cherished …

  The Mustang. Grant had hated that car. He always sneered when he spoke of it, with an edge of smug satisfaction.

  That taunting, self-satisfied gloat had always entered his voice.

  She turned from the two men slowly, praying she appeared casual as she moved into the kitchen, toward the coffeepot. She didn’t know Craig well enough, and she could be wrong. And, oh God, if she managed to lead Joe to the information after all, he was never going to believe she had nothing to do with Grant’s illegal activities.

  She pressed her hand to her stomach, breathing in deeply when she paused by the counter. If he didn’t believe in her, he would never have dared to risk a pregnancy with her, she thought with a surge of hope. Joe was very family-oriented. Even though he had many disagreements with his family, she knew he loved them and she knew he was fiercely protective of them.

  She hated this. Hated the position Grant had placed her in. He was so lucky he was dead; if he weren’t, Maggie believed she would have been tempted to kill him herself at this moment.

  As she reached for a coffee cup she heard the two men in the living room moving for the front door.

  “Let me know what Johnson says,” Joe was saying as the front door opened. Maggie knew the “Johnson” in question had to be the DA she had met at the police station.

  “Will do, and you watch your ass,” Craig grunted. “Hopefully this will be over soon.”

  “Hopefully,” Joe answered just before Maggie heard the door close.

  She left the cup sitting on the counter in front of the coffeepot as she waited. Within seconds, she felt him. First, it was just an impression of strength, of warmth, then his arms were coming around her waist and his lips were pressing into her hair.

  “What’s wrong, Maggie?” His voice was husky, the dark undertone of arousal threading through it.

  She breathed in roughly.

  “Grant wouldn’t have hidden that information at the house.” Her heart was racing in fear. “It would have been too easily found. He didn’t work that way.”

  “I figured as much.” He kissed the top of her head again before pulling away and allowing her to turn and face him.

  Meeting his gaze wasn’t easy, but she did. She found the dark chocolate depths of his eyes filled with warmth and a question. The suspicion she had feared wasn’t there, but that did little to temper her fears.

  “What did you remember, Maggie?” He tipped his head to the side, watching her closely as she clenched her fingers together in front of her.

  “You’re so sure I remembered it? Not that I already knew it?” She was slicing her own throat, and she felt the breath strangling in her throat from it.

  A small smile quirked his lips.

  “I deserved that,” he admitted with a small nod of his head. “I’m not stupid, baby. You lived with him for two years. It’s only logical that you may have heard of something that you’ll eventually remember.”

  “Not that I was working with him?”

  “Maggie.” He reached up to push back the strands of hair that had fallen over her face back behind her ear. “I don’t believe you were involved with this, so let’s stop tiptoeing around each other and finish this up. If you’ve remembered something, then let me know. We’ll get this taken care of, get the danger off your back and start our lives together.”

  She inhaled with a trembling breath, tears filling her eyes at the gentleness in his voice.

  “Your car,” she whispered. “Grant was always going on and on about that Mustang. While you were talking to Craig, I remember how smug he acted the last time. The expression on his face. I think he might have hidden the information in that car someplace.”

  His eyes narrowed as he rubbed at his jaw.

  “He helped me put that car back together,” he finally sighed. “We worked on that for months.”

  The painful knowledge that the man he believed was his friend had betrayed him still lingered in his eyes, in the tight grimace in his expression as he turned away from her.

  “He would have hidden it where you would never think to look,” she pointed out. “He didn’t expect to get killed. This was insurance in case he needed to buy his way free of a conviction,” she said slowly. “The last few months, before he was killed, he was so certain he was suddenly better than you were. I never thought he would go this far.”

  She had thought he was insane, not criminal. She should have known better, she admitted. Grant had dropped enough hints, she just hadn’t wanted to hear them.

  “We’ll head back to Atlanta tonight.” He nodded abruptly. “The Fuentes family will know by now that I’m the one watching you. They’ll be watching my house. I doubt very seriously Grant was the only spy they had in either the Atlanta Police Department or the DEA. So we’ll go in quiet, check out the car, and if it’s there, we’ll head straight to the department from there.”

  “What about Craig?” she asked nervously.

  Joe’s broad shoulders tightened before he turned back to her.

  “Craig’s my backup,” he sighed. “But at this point, I’m not trusting anyone else with your life.” His expression hardened as he faced her. “We’ll go in alone. I’m not taking any chances.”

  “And if the information is there?” she asked him. She could see the doubt in his eyes that it could be.

  “If it’s there, then we’ll do just as I said.” There was a fighting tension in his body now, a readiness that assured her he was planning, plotting out each move from here on out.

  “And where will that leave us? Your DA, Craig, and everyone else involved will believe I knew where it was all along, Joe.”

  “We’ll cross that bridge if we come to it,” he growled. “And we won’t. The DA doesn’t give a shit one way or the other as long as he gets what he wants, and neither do the Feds. And I’ll make certain they don’t want you.”

  Which didn’t reassure her on the fears rising inside her. But did it really matter? The main objective was to see if the information was there. If it was, then she would deal with whatever came later the best way possible. The way she had always dealt with unpleasantness. Straight ahead. She was going into this with her eyes open. Joe was here to get the information. If he believed in her, then he would trust in her. If he didn’t … Well, if he didn’t, then she would face it, and she would survive, just as she always had. The main thing was to get the proof needed and get Fuentes and his men off her back.

  She nodded slowly. It was only a matter of hours before dark, and the trip to Atlanta wouldn’t take long.

  “Do I need to pack?”

  He shook his head. “No need. If the information is there then your part in this will be over. The DA won’t need your testimony or much of a statement. I’ll bring you back here until we’re certain it’s safe.”

  But where would he be? Suddenly, she felt as distant from him as she had the first day they had come here. On the periphery of his life, a job, and nothing more. And the thought of that
truly terrified her.

  9

  Joe could feel Maggie’s fear. Not her guilt, just her fear. It was amazing how easily he could read her. The way her green eyes would darken to the color of shadowed moss, the frown that puckered her brow. The way she caught the corner of her lower lip between her teeth and worried it absently. That was worry, concern, not guilt.

  He remembered guilt. During the months they had spent together, Joe realized he had learned quite a bit about Maggie. Things he hadn’t known he had learned until this past week.

  Guilt was a careful absence of expression. She had used it several times during their earlier relationship when she tried to deny that she was pushing for more—more commitment, more emotion from him. It was the way she would look down as she played with the hem of a shirt or she picked at her nails. It was the shadowed tone of her voice that deepened her accent. That was guilt.

  What he saw now was fear, and it wasn’t fear for herself. It was the same fear she showed just before he took her virginity, staring up at him, her eyes dark, her teeth worrying that lower lip, that little frown between her brows. The fear of a broken heart, of putting herself in a place where she truly wasn’t wanted.

  Maggie was easy to read, unlike Grant. Grant had been trained to lie—being with the DEA demanded a certain talent in subterfuge—and Grant had always done amazingly well at it. So well, in fact, that when it blended into the friendship Joe thought they had, he had never suspected.

  Or maybe he had.

  He remembered the uneasy feeling he had just before meeting Grant’s “fiancée.” The feeling that the other man was playing a carefully calculated game. Joe had pushed it behind him, especially after meeting Maggie. Little things, Joe admitted, that he should have taken into consideration long ago. Grant had shown brief spurts of mocking jealousy. It had made Joe uncomfortable at the time, though he had fought to ignore it. He should have never ignored it.

  As he watched Maggie turn back to the coffee, he saw the sorrow in her eyes and knew he should do something, anything, to alleviate it.

  She had no idea, even now, how much he did love her. Hell, he hadn’t known himself until early this morning, until the need to tie her to him for all time had overtaken him.

  Primal. He had been like an animal taking his mate, and damn if he didn’t want to do it again.

  He watched her, the defensive hunching of her shoulders as though expecting a blow, the careful movements as she poured her coffee. She kept her face lowered, but he swore he could feel the fear and pain radiating from her. As fiery as she could be, he knew Maggie had a core of sensitivity that was often her downfall. A sensitivity that would be breaking her heart right now. He bet dollars to donuts that her thoughts weren’t on herself, but rather on him, and how it would look to him that she had thought of a possible place Grant could have hidden the information.

  Trusting might be the biggest mistake he had made in his life, as Craig obviously believed. Joe had fought trusting her, just as he had fought loving her once before. A battle he had lost, and he hadn’t even had the sense to realize it.

  She lifted the coffee cup and sipped before sitting it back on the counter. She knew he was behind her, and in most people that avoidance would apply to guilt. Thankfully, Maggie wasn’t most people.

  “Craig wasn’t pleased by what he saw when I came in the room,” she whispered.

  Joe heard the uncertainty in her voice, the fear that Craig’s misgivings could drive a wedge between them. His track record with her wasn’t the best, and he admitted that getting past her fears wasn’t going to be easy.

  “Craig is still dealing with what happened with Grant.” Hell, so was he. Out of a four-man team, only he and Craig were left. They were both still aching with the grief over Lyons’s loss, as well as Grant’s betrayal.

  “Aren’t we all?” Her painful comment had him grimacing in regret.

  “It’s a lesson learned,” he sighed. “I trusted Grant to the point that I never ran the required security checks on him, and I pushed back doubt when I should have followed through with it. It’s a mistake I won’t make again.”

  She still didn’t face him. God, he hoped she wasn’t crying. He didn’t think he could handle Maggie’s tears; they would break his heart.

  “I should have protected you better,” he finally said, his voice rough with his guilt. “I was so damned jealous of what I thought he had with you that I couldn’t bear coming around. If I had, I would have known something was wrong.”

  “So you’re just going to take the blame for my marriage as well?” Her vibrant red hair rippled over her shoulders as she shook her head. “You’re a glutton for punishment, Joe. And you’re wrong. I would have never let you see the nightmare that marriage had turned into. I couldn’t have borne it.”

  She sat her cup down then turned to him slowly, crossing her arms over her breasts as she stared back at him, sorrow shimmering in her eyes.

  A weary smile edged his lips. “I would have known, Maggie.” He would have seen it in her eyes. She wasn’t a liar. Her emotions were always so clear in her eyes, so easy to read, that he had always been able to stay one step ahead of her in their previous relationship. “I would have known and I would have gone crazy with it.”

  “Because you loved me?” The doubt in her voice was clear.

  “Because I loved you, because I’ve always loved you,” he amended. “Because no matter how hard I’ve tried, you were a part of me. I knew, without seeing you, that something was wrong. For two years I avoided that house and I avoided you, and that’s not like me. And I couldn’t understand why I avoided it. I think a part of me always knew.”

  Admitting that was like cutting out his own heart. He had let her down in a way so fundamental that it ached through ever portion of his being. It was bad enough that he had let her go, but he hadn’t made certain she was safe.

  “Grant was very good at his lies,” she whispered, rubbing her hands over her arms as though to ward off a chill. “He fooled us both.”

  Yes, he had, and Joe would never forget that lesson. It didn’t mean he was going to let Maggie pay any more than she already had.

  “Maggie, have I ever taken you on a kitchen table?” The need to have her was growing by the second.

  Her eyes widened in shock, as though the change in subject had come too quickly for her to process. “Do what?”

  He moved closer, his hands going to the snap of her jeans, as her fingers curled over his wrists in surprised reflex.

  “Have I ever fucked you on a kitchen table?” He lowered his voice, watching the small shiver that raced over her body at the sound of it.

  Maggie was a sensualist. Taste, touch, the sounds of arousal, turned her on as much as the act itself.

  As he slid the metal button of her jeans free, her eyes darkened further and a flush filled her face. Her lashes swept over her eyes as her gaze became drowsy, hungry, and suspicious.

  “Sex doesn’t solve everything.” Her breathing was rough, causing her breasts to rise and fall in quick little movements.

  Hard little nipples pressed beneath the cloth, and Joe’s mouth watered to taste them. She had the softest, sweetest flesh, and the hardest nipples he had ever taken into his mouth.

  “Sex doesn’t solve everything, but it can sure as hell make life sweeter.” He laid his forehead against hers as he slid the zipper to her jeans down. “I trusted Grant with your life once,” he whispered, staring into her eyes, giving her the truth of himself, as she had always given him the truth of who and what she was. “I’ll never trust another man to protect what belongs to me, or to hold what is mine to hold, Maggie. You taught me to trust you in a way Grant never did. With your heart and your soul, long before I ever learned of his betrayal.”

  It was the most basic truth that he knew how to give her. Two and a half years ago she had walked away from him rather than staying in half a relationship and hiding what she felt, as he had been content to do. She had broken away and t
ried to go on, tried to live without him. Any woman greedy enough to involve herself with Grant’s schemes would have never done such a thing, especially considering the cushy little life he offered her as his mistress. And he had made the offer, exactly four hours before he arrived at that party with another woman on his arm.

  She had shown him then what she was. Who she was. A woman willing to walk away from what she wanted most, rather than to lower herself to meet the selfish needs of someone else.

  “You didn’t believe me at the station,” she reminded him, though her voice broke as his hands pushed beneath her T-shirt. “I could see it in your eyes, Joe. And after we came here…”

  “I didn’t believe in me, Maggie.” He lifted the shirt along her smooth stomach, over her breasts and finally leaned back to pull it from her. “It was never you I doubted. Every instinct inside me pushed me to get you the hell out of there. It was me I doubted. For a little while.”

  She wore a lacy white bra that did nothing to hide the swollen mounds of her breasts, or the spiked tips of her nipples.

  “Have I mentioned I love your nipples?” He released the catch between her breasts before peeling the cups back from the rapidly rising and falling mounds.

  “Not in a while.” She was panting now. He loved it when she panted for him. “We need to discuss things, Joe. Not have sex.”

  “Hmm, I’ll have to remember to mention that. And nothing else matters Maggie, not right now. The rest we’ll deal with as we have to.”

  He lowered his head, licking over one straining tip with a slow, wet glide of his tongue, as he heard the tremulous gasp that left her lips.

  That was how he liked her, soft and melting in his arms, those strangled little gasps falling from her lips as pleasure began to overwhelm her. Words would never convince her at this point that he trusted her. That trust would have to come in time, and he understood that. He expected it. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t edge the odds in his own favor. Her body knew what her mind hadn’t yet accepted. She belonged to him just as surely as he belonged to her.