She opened her eyes and stared at him upside down. “Thanks for ruining my massage.”
“Oh, you want him and you know it. Admit it, Rain.”
She turned around quickly, aiming straight for the jaw. It surprised her that his reflexes were as fast as they were. And when he grabbed her fist, his fingers clamped down hard enough that she worried for a second he might break bones.
“You’re good, Rain. Damn near one of the best.” He pulled her to him so quickly she stumbled and then his arms were around her, his lips searing her flesh when he began feasting on her neck. “But my dear, you’ve met your match with me. If I catch you fucking Steve, or anyone, without me, I’m going to be pissed.”
His last sentence broke the spell he’d too quickly put her under. And this time she didn’t allow him a moment’s notice to learn her actions. She spun around, punched him hard on his arm, hurting her fist when she hit incredibly solid muscle.
Noah straightened, and she quickly moved away from that virile body of his. His dark eyes burned with more emotion than she’d seen in them before.
“Suggest again that I’m low-life enough to allow such a despicable man to have his way with me and I’ll kick your ass,” she told him, and started for the hallway.
Noah lunged at her, his fingers scraping her back when she darted for the hallway. “I’m not talking about Steve Porter,” he growled, making another attempt and managing to pull her backward into his arms.
All air left Rain’s body when her backside slammed against Noah’s chest. “I know what you’re saying,” she said, sounding breathless. “You think I would succumb to these married men’s advances because in their world having sex with women other than their wives is allowed.”
“Would you?” He held her in a death grip but then moved one hand up her front, between her breasts, until he cupped her chin and forced her to look over her shoulder at him.
“No,” she whispered, her heart pounding way too hard in her chest, making it impossible to catch her breath.
Noah held her a moment too long, allowing her to drown in his gaze and see what she feared he possibly saw in her eyes. They were falling for each other. And after just a few days.
“Let me go,” she added, and wasn’t sure if she was relieved or regretted it when he obliged.
She felt light-headed when she hurried down the hall to the bedroom. They really needed to find their killer. Spending many more days under the same roof with Noah Kayne could very well prove more dangerous than hunting down a murderer.
THIRTEEN
Joanna was a hell of a lot more upset about Patty’s death than Steve was. Rain hung up the phone and dragged her fingers through her hair. It was tough consoling Joanna—and understanding her while she cried over the phone. But worse yet, now Rain knew the details concerning Patty’s funeral. She couldn’t go back to Wright’s Funeral Home.
“Patty Henderson’s funeral is at the same funeral parlor—” She stopped, closed her eyes, and dropped her cell phone next to the keyboard. “It’s the day after tomorrow.”
Patty’s murder was terrible. There wasn’t any such thing as a good murder. But Rain didn’t feel the sting of loss for her the way she did for her father. She’d seen a lot of dead bodies and investigated some atrocious murders, but since her father died, talking to those left behind hit her harder than it used to.
She cleared her throat and reached for her soda.
“I can’t go to the funeral,” she told Noah, feeling her eyes burn from dryness when she looked up as he stood in the doorway. She drank, willing the scratchiness in her throat to disappear.
“Okay,” he said slowly, tilting his head slightly while watching her. “Do you want to tell me why?”
Rain drew a line with her finger around the name of the funeral parlor. She’d written down the address also, although she didn’t need to. Rain knew exactly where it was.
“I’ve been there before,” she muttered, not really wanting to offer more.
“Isn’t there a reception?”
“Yes.” Her vision blurred as she stared at the information Joanna gave her. “Her family is actually holding the reception at her home. Joanna didn’t approve. She said they’re probably going to spend the entire time they’re there taking pictures off the wall and going through all of her silver and other valuables.”
“Funerals are a blast.”
Rain picked up her pen and doodled on the notepad, thinking just the opposite. They sucked. There wasn’t any greater pain than the person you loved more than yourself being yanked away from you.
“What’s wrong, princess?” Noah asked quietly.
For a moment, she almost thought her father had asked the question.
Rain stood up quickly, unwilling to allow the pain to resurface. “I told you never to call me that,” she said, feeling deflated but then hugging herself when she started trembling.
Noah didn’t move to her, which she silently thanked him for. He remained relaxed, his large frame leaning against the doorway, where he’d been standing ever since the call came through from Joanna. With his arms crossed over his bare chest, the sex appeal radiating off of him created a raw tingling that mixed with the agonizing pain inside Rain.
“Why don’t you like me calling you princess?” he finally asked, his dark, probing gaze giving her the impression she was all that was on his mind. More than likely, he had bestowed many women with that look over the years.
She couldn’t allow herself to fall for Noah. If her dad were still alive, he probably would have thrown a fit about her living with Noah in this house, even if it was undercover work. But then her father always kept her on a pedestal, especially since it was just the two of them. Rain didn’t have a lot of memories from when her mother was still alive, other than her hugs were warm and comforting and she never yelled. Rain’s father yelled all the time, but never at her.
Rain shook her head, willing memories of her dad to go back into the comfortable spot where she kept them, and where they wouldn’t bring her pain. “Because I told you not to, repeatedly. It’s not a complicated request. Why can’t you follow simple instructions?”
She marched toward him in an effort to leave the room. Instead of moving, he tried taking her into his arms. But her insides were too raw. Memories of her father’s funeral, of that funeral parlor, of all the people who showed up and told her again and again how wonderful he was, bit at her repeatedly until she just wanted to run.
Noah touched her bare arms and then stroked her flesh until he gripped her wrists. If she couldn’t run, striking out worked, too.
“Stop it,” she yelled, yanking her hands back and then pounding his chest.
Noah still didn’t move. “Stop touching you? Or stop calling you princess?”
“Don’t mock me. It just makes you look like an idiot.” She shoved hard against his chest, knowing she wasn’t making a lot of sense. But damn it, she didn’t have to reveal to him the pain and loss she still endured over her father. She’d never shown anyone that pain. Just because she and Noah were forced to remain together 24-7 didn’t mean she needed to open up to him that much.
When he still didn’t move, she backed up a step and squared off, imagining throwing him backward. Anything to exert enough energy to cleanse her insides and free the rising pain that would make her cry if she didn’t release it through anger. “Get the fuck out of my way, Noah.”
“I don’t think so. You’re not making sense. Until you tell me what suddenly crawled up your ass, I’m not budging.”
“It doesn’t work like that. I don’t have to tell you shit. Now move!” Again she went after him, shoving hard, and this time forcing him to move backward a step.
“Rain, stop,” he said, his voice still annoyingly calm.
“Quit telling me what to do.” She raised her fists and he grabbed her arm.
Rain couldn’t hold it in any longer. She hated him at that moment. His calm resolution, his continual efforts to console
and be there for her, and his stubborn refusal to quit calling her princess made him as strong as her father. As perfect as her dad. And she couldn’t let Noah have that rank. If she did, he would replace her father.
And then she might risk loving him. Rain couldn’t handle loving and losing again.
Noah forced emotions she would just as soon keep buried to come forward. And they did, like a goddamned avalanche. Rain was slightly aware of her hair clasp sliding down the back of her head when she spun around and tried kicking him.
She had training—a hell of a lot of training. At the moment, it didn’t bother her a bit that Noah had at least as much knowledge in aggressive maneuvers and self-defense. If anything, striking out at someone who could defend himself, could fight as well as she could, and wasn’t weak helped more than Noah would ever know.
Rain attacked furiously, blinded by rage, and feeling only a bit of warped satisfaction when she connected with hard flesh. Her adrenaline peaked quickly, and all of her buried feelings for her father surfaced. Beating the crap out of Noah, telling herself he needed to be put in his place, would show her he didn’t have what it took to fill the void left from her father.
“Rain,” he said several times, dodging her blows at first. She didn’t want nice. She didn’t want compassion. “Fight back, motherfucker,” she hissed.
“Damn it, woman,” he growled.
“What? Going to let a cop kick your ass?” She pulled out of his grasp and directed a blow straight to the kidneys.
“Nope. But I’m not going to hurt you, either.” Again he successfully dodged her attack.
“You’ve already hurt me.” She leapt at him, using all of her weight to try to knock him backward.
Noah caught her in mid-leap and then threw her over his shoulder. Then lunging forward, he tried entering the bedroom. Rain let go of him to grab the doorway frame, but Noah didn’t release her.
“We’re not going there, asshole,” she said, her teeth clenched while her fingers burned against the door frame that she fought to hold on to.
“We’re going wherever we need to go so that you’ll quit attacking me and start explaining.”
He flipped her over, like he would throw her to the ground, and her loose hair blinded her. Before she could balance herself or grab ahold of him, Noah caught her, crushing her against his chest and damn near folding her in half as he entered the bedroom. And then not too lightly, he threw her onto the bed.
She bounced off of the mattress and barely managed to not fall off the bed. The adrenaline crashed inside her. His hard expression was lined with concern and worry, not anger, and that was her undoing.
Looking down and breathing heavily, she adjusted herself until she sat cross-legged and then dropped her head into her hands. Noah’s strong, warm arms were around her in a second and he pulled her against him.
“How have I hurt you?” he asked gently, way too gently for a man with the strength to lift someone her size into the air and throw them.
“Stop it, Noah. It doesn’t matter.”
“Yes. It does. Tell me.” He crawled onto the bed and tried pulling her onto his lap.
Rain backed away from him. The tears were there. She hated crying. Hated it more than anything. Her father didn’t want her to cry. He probably hated it more than she did. The only time he ever walked away from her was when she cried. If she didn’t cry, he would be there.
But he wasn’t there. And he never would be again.
“My father.” God. How did she get here?
She didn’t want to talk about her father. Dad was gone. She was alone. That was simply how it was.
Noah touched her. His fingers were warm, soft, and she ached to curl into him, lean against all of that strength. But the tears …
“Just don’t call me that anymore.”
“Your father called you princess.”
The tears burned her cheeks. They fell without invitation and wouldn’t stop. Rain wanted to die. She wanted to disappear and flee to somewhere the pain wouldn’t be able to touch her.
His arms were around her, strong, powerful, and comforting. Time flew backward and for a moment her father hugged her, taking the pain from some childhood agony away while saying soothing words that helped form her into the woman she was today.
But her father wasn’t holding her. Noah’s strength and unique smell, a faint aroma of Irish Spring and Old Spice, filled her lungs with every breath she took. His heart beat solidly against her while he wrapped her tighter into a hug that would make it hard to breathe, if she fought him. But there wasn’t any fight left. The tears were here. And in spite of how much she loathed crying, they wouldn’t stop.
It took a few minutes before she could quit crying, but humiliation and yelling at herself to get tough helped a bit. Her cheeks were damp and she knew her eyes had to be puffy and bloodshot, but when she tried pulling away from Noah he tightened his grip on her.
“The other morning when I checked in at the field office and morgue and talked to Brenda on the phone, she told me you were the daughter of one of the best detectives in the Midwest. Double H, huh?”
Rain attempted a laugh at the mention of her father’s nickname. It came out sounding more like a loud exhale. “Hugh Huxtable. He thought his first name sucked, and a lot of people called him Double H,” she said, and tried pulling away from Noah again.
He loosened his grip on her but then reached around and pulled out the loose hair clip. “I heard that in spite of his great track record, he continually fought with child services over you.”
Rain felt a wash of embarrassment flood over her still too-sensitive psyche. “I was a pain-in-the-ass kid.”
“Imagine that,” he said dryly. “So it wasn’t because he fought for you in custody battles?”
Rain looked up, surprised, but then quickly looked away again, imagining she probably looked like shit. “God, no. Dad worked long hours, and although he kept me in day care when I was younger, when I was in high school he thought chores would keep me out of trouble. I hated him during that period of my life for being a cop. I couldn’t go anywhere, or do anything—or at least I thought—without the law breathing extra hard down my neck.”
“We take care of our own.”
God damn him for repeatedly saying things her father used to say. She managed to crawl off of the bed and headed for the bathroom. Noah was on her ass, though, and leaned, once again, in the doorway while she splashed water on her face.
“Dad used to say when it rained, it poured, meaning that I couldn’t do anything without taking it to the extreme. If a bunch of us kids wanted to TP a house, I would be the one organizing the army, and arming us with not only toilet paper but chalk for messages on the sidewalk, and eggs, and anything else I could think of.” She patted her face with the towel and then surveyed the damage in the mirror. Let him watch if he wanted, but she was going to put herself back together. She grabbed foundation and blush out of the medicine cabinet. “Mom died from cancer when I was pretty young, and although I remember crying forever, Dad kept us together, and wouldn’t let anyone take me from him.”
And it wasn’t fair that he was taken from her. She found that spot deep inside where she could stuff her painful emotions, and promptly put them there. Then patting her face with powder, she managed to dull the puffiness under her eyes.
“So what about the story about your name?” Noah looked fascinated watching her apply makeup.
His eyes no longer looked full of pity when she focused on him but instead glowed with that intensity that would get her in trouble if she stared at him for too long. She returned her attention to the mirror and grabbed her brush.
“Story,” she muttered, drawing a blank, but then it hit her. “Oh shit. You mean the one I told Steve about why I was named Rain?” The sudden urge to laugh hit her almost too hard. Noah would think her an emotional seesaw wreck if she didn’t clamp down on her reaction to everything. “It was a lie. My dad loves rainy days, always has. They
named me Rain because when it rained, it always made him happy.”
Noah walked into the bathroom, crowding her between the sink and toilet. It crossed her mind to try to escape, but he was already there. She looked at his reflection, shocked when he took the brush from her hand and then started pulling it through her hair.
“I lost my dad a few years ago,” he told her, glancing at her reflection while he brushed her hair for her. “We never got along and I hated going to his funeral. He was a true bastard, but I still wished it had been different. You’re lucky to have such wonderful memories.”
“They don’t feel wonderful.”
“How did he die?”
“In the line of duty,” she said, finally feeling numb. Her scalp tingled, though, as Noah brushed her hair, and his free hand pressing against her shoulder was warm. She watched his face in the mirror. He looked so serious while he focused on brushing her hair. “He was so close to retiring. When the doctors told him he had cancer, I was positive he’d turn in his badge. But not Dad. Not Double H. He endured the pain, and I know it was becoming too much for him. But I liked him strong. Dad was invincible. No one could take him down. And, I believed, not even cancer.”
She sighed, closing her eyes and enjoyed Noah brushing her hair. He didn’t say anything, and he didn’t stop brushing. Rain blinked, her eyes dry, the tears once again gone, leaving her empty inside.
“I was working on a different case and he’d wanted to meet for dinner. We did that a lot, bounce ideas off of each other and brainstorm while both of us tried solving our cases. Dad was growing more and more tired. I know others noticed. But no one dared try and stop Double H. He didn’t sound good when he called, but he told me to meet him at his favorite restaurant, Montana Mike’s. But I’d just got a call, and couldn’t meet him. He decided to return to a crime scene and ran into his perp while there. The guy fired first, but Dad fired last.”
Noah met her gaze in the mirror. “He get him?”
She nodded, praying her dad died knowing he got his man. “Both were DOA.”
“Damn.” Noah put down the brush and then pushed her hair over her shoulders so that it tumbled over her breasts. “And you were his princess.”
Long, Lean and Lethal Page 21