by BETH KERY
“What?” he mumbled, not really paying attention. He lowered his head to Clarissa’s beading nipple, his entire attention focused on the sensation of every tiny bump rolling across his tongue. Single-minded, that’s how Clarissa always described him.
She moaned in pleasure, so it surprised him when she jerked at his hair with the hand he wasn’t restraining behind her back. He glanced up at her.
“I think you’re trying to change the subject. I think you’re exhausted, that’s what I think. You’ve worked nonstop this week on that corrupt cop investigation only to have another speaking engagement tonight at the Magellan Club. You’re burning the wick at both ends, Dom. Why do you feel you have to hide your fatigue from me?”
“I don’t feel the need to hide anything from you, Clarissa,” he assured her before he bent his head again to attend to a tight nipple.
She snorted.
Shane regretfully straightened to his full height. He didn’t need to be an expert on human behavior to know that she wasn’t going to allow him to make love to her until she said whatever was on her mind.
“If you refer to my work, you know I can’t tell you much beyond what the press releases about any Bureau investigations,” he said as he removed his overcoat and hung it on the entryway armoire. The jacket to his tuxedo followed.
“Give me a break, Dom. You know that’s not what I’m talking about.”
He hid a grimace when he saw the expression of stark annoyance on her face. He’d let the familiar phrase out of his mouth before he’d had time to censor himself. But worse, he’d apparently delivered the line in that brusque manner that never failed to push his fiancée’s red button of irritation.
Don’t you dare use that Special-Agent-in-Charge tone with me. Christ, no wonder they say you’ve got a heart of stone, Dom.
Clarissa’s past accusation echoed in his head as he gently pulled the fabric of her dress back into place on her shoulder.
She had a right to be pissed at him. He’d barely spoken with her in a week and a half, he realized guiltily. Robert Elliot, the United States Attorney for the northern district of Illinois, had just handed him those much-sought-after arrest warrants four nights ago designated for several cops in the Chicago Police Department.
But no matter how good his reasons for doing so, Clarissa wasn’t likely to appreciate him ignoring her for the past ten days only to have him maul her the second he had her to himself.
He led her into his book-lined study and sat her down on the leather couch.
“I know I haven’t been able to see you much this week. Tell you what,” he said softly. “Let me go and get out of this monkey suit. I’ll make us a drink and we’ll talk.”
Her dark eyes swam with tears as she looked up at him. Clarissa was one of the smartest and most successful financial analysts on LaSalle Street. She didn’t cry easily.
“We’re going to be married in two months, Dom. Why can’t you even admit to me that you’re exhausted? Can’t you show even a shred of vulnerability in front of your future wife?”
He smiled. “You want me to tell you that I’m exhausted? Okay. I’m about ready to fall flat on my face. I’ve probably slept a total of eight hours in the past week and my eyeballs feel like they’re going to burn through my eyelids. My vision is so blurry that I told the president of the Magellan Club that he needn’t bother with getting me a drink from the bar because another gentleman was already getting me one.”
“What’s so terrible about that?”
“That other gentleman was his wife.”
Clarissa’s lips twitched with humor. “You didn’t.”
Shane shrugged sheepishly.
“You also told the superintendent of police that you were going to give a nice Liverpool kiss to the next man who ribbed you about being named the ‘Sexiest Man in Chicago’ by Chicago magazine. I didn’t understand that you were threatening him until John McNamara explained to me that a Liverpool kiss was a street-fighting technique—a brutal head-to-head blow.”
“That threat counts for women, too,” Shane said with a mock somber expression. Clarissa grinned.
“Maybe you should have threatened someone besides the superintendent of police, considering the fact that more than half the city sees you as being responsible for taking away their trust in the Chicago Police Department.”
Shane’s eyebrows went up at that. “Operation Serve and Protect exists for the sole purpose of returning the public’s trust in the CPD. Jake Moriarity knows that. That’s why he’s backed the FBI’s investigations of CPD corruption one hundred percent.”
“Are you sure that’s the only motivation behind your mania for this investigation?”
Shane paused in the process of untying his bow tie. “Mania? That’s a bit harsh.”
Clarissa didn’t break their stare.
“This case falls directly under several FBI directives for investigation. Christ, we’ve uncovered the largest organized theft ring in known history, one that crosses multiple state lines and is run by public officials. What other motivation do we need?”
Clarissa looked vaguely uncomfortable at the question but she didn’t look away, nonetheless. “Well . . . there are those insinuations that Channel Six News made about your connections to the Vasquez family.”
Shane rolled his eyes. “I know a quarter of the cops and most of the detectives on the CPD. I not only have worked with dozens of Chicago cops, I call many of them friends . . . including Joey Vasquez.”
“But how many of those cops did you attend elementary school with like you did Joey Vasquez?” Clarissa persisted. “And . . . and that news report said Huey Mays’s wife is Joey Vasquez’s sister and that you’ve known her for ages . . .”
She trailed off but continued to study his face hungrily.
Shane froze before he jerked the bow tie off his neck, the sliding silk making a hissing sound. “I knew Laura Vasquez, Clarissa. I haven’t spoken to her in over a dozen years. What’s your point?”
Clarissa exhaled slowly. “I don’t know what my point is. You’ve just seemed so obsessed with this case.”
“You tell me I’m always single-minded about whatever’s on my plate.”
“You are. You have a one-track mind, Dom.” She shook her head and laughed softly when he lifted an eyebrow and lowered his gaze to her still erect nipple pressing against thin fabric.
“They showed a picture of her, you know,” Clarissa said, laughter still clinging to her lips. “On the news. Laura Mays, I mean. She’s extremely beautiful.”
“Is that what this is about?”
“Maybe. I don’t know.” Her expression turned a little sheepish. “Of course you have good reason to be obsessed with this case. Some of the things those cops were doing . . .” She shook her head in mixed disbelief and disgust as she removed a clip at the back of her head. Her dark blonde hair fell around her shoulders. “I mean, using the police department resources to steal from innocent people, severely beating some of those innocent people, three of them nearly to death in the process, extorting untold amounts of cash from drug dealers and other criminals . . . it boggles the mind, to be honest. They were nothing more than a vicious organized gang operating out of the offices of the CPD.
“Hello? Dom? Where’d you go?” Clarissa asked a few seconds later.
Shane blinked, realizing that once again he’d been lost in his thoughts.
Lost in this case.
Why Clarissa put up with his late hours and divided attention was beyond him. She even was good enough not to hold over his head the fact that he’d postponed their wedding—not once now, but twice—every time they got in a spat. He’d been starting to experience those old, familiar doubts about marrying her yet again, and he knew as well as anyone what a jerk that made him.
“I don’t deserve y
ou, Clarissa,” Shane muttered, wishing for the thousandth time that he could rid himself of these uncertainties. Surely it was just the longtime bachelor in him getting the jitters?
But at the same time he couldn’t help but think that if Clarissa was truly the woman for him, there wasn’t a chance in hell thoughts of her would so rarely cross his mind for ten days in a row, no matter how compelling his work was.
The sultry expression she wore as she looked up at him went a long way toward erasing his doubts for the time being. His eyelids narrowed as he watched her lean forward and plant a kiss on the root of his cock. Despite his fatigue he felt himself stir with arousal.
“You’re right. You don’t deserve me. I have to admit one thing though. Chicago magazine was dead-on. You’re downright edible in this tux, Dom.”
“Is that a promise?”
She arched her golden eyebrows. “Why don’t you go and get comfortable and pour us a drink. Then we’ll decide if you’re in the mood to sleep or fuck.”
“I know what I’m in the mood for and it’s not sleeping. I owe you after this week, Clarissa,” he murmured as he pressed his thumb to her lower lip.
“We’ll see if you’re up for it.”
“Oh, I’m up for it all right,” he assured her.
The sound of Clarissa’s appreciative laughter followed him out of the den. He grinned. She really was an amazing woman. She’d just thrown down the gauntlet, knowing full well that he never walked away from a challenge. He may be tired as hell but it was the exhaustion that came after a bloody battle. Some lusty sex would be the perfect way to celebrate his triumph.
Not to mention make him forget his doubts in regard to marriage.
He wasn’t a young man anymore. He needed to settle down. So what if he wasn’t necessarily eager to rush home to see Clarissa at the end of a workday? He’d just have to try harder to be considerate, that’s all. She was a fine woman. He enjoyed her company. There weren’t a lot of smart, independent women out there who could meet his needs sexually, but once they were behind bedroom doors, Clarissa submitted very sweetly to him.
Still . . . those doubts lingered.
Thirteen and a half years, for Christ’s sake. How lame could he be to carry a torch for a woman for so long? Not just any woman, either. A woman who clearly didn’t want him.
A woman he obviously shouldn’t want.
Clarissa was standing directly in front of the television set when he returned a few minutes later wearing pajama bottoms and carrying two brandy snifters. He was used to her occasionally switching on CNN business news for any recent headlines, but he was a little surprised that her attention remained fixed on the screen when he came up beside her.
“Oh no, Dom,” she whispered.
“What?” he asked
“Look . . .”
His gaze shot to the television screen. It showed a handsome man with dark hair graying at the temples dressed in an expensive, immaculately tailored gray suit exiting the doors of the Dirksen Federal Building. Shane knew the footage had been taken two days ago, just after Huey Mays had been released after posting bail.
A feeling of profound hatred swelled in Shane’s chest, the magnitude of it shocking him a little. It must have been the unexpectedness of the image that had taken him off guard.
“Yeah, that’s Huey Mays. They’ll be running the story about the arrest of a captain of the Organized Crime Division running the most extensive jewel, fur, and rare coin theft ring in history from the offices of the Chicago Police Department for quite a while,” he muttered with grim satisfaction.
“That’s not the story they’re running,” Clarissa said as she looked up at him anxiously. She took the drink that he offered her without seeming to be aware of what she was doing. “Or at least that’s only part of it. The story is that Huey Mays shot himself earlier this evening. He was just pronounced dead at Northwestern Memorial a half hour ago, Dom.”
***
Shane slowed his car on Erie Street next to the entrance of Northwestern Memorial Hospital. He spotted one of his nemeses, Blaine Howard, a reporter for Channel Eight News, dashing toward the doors leading to the east side of the massive building, his cameraman huffing and puffing to keep up with his long-legged sprint.
In Shane’s experience the only characteristic that exceeded Howard’s ignorance was his arrogance. It wasn’t a pretty combination. But if there was one thing Blaine could do it was smell blood.
Shane recognized her immediately when she exited the glass doors and jogged down the sidewalk. A bevy of reporters and cameramen followed several feet behind her, shouting questions and clicking off photo after photo. Shane saw the trace of panic in her rigid features as they closed in on her.
He knew how much she hated crowds. When they were teenagers her brother Joey had slacked off on studying for his entrance exams to Whitney Young Magnet High School and had had to attend St. Ignatius instead. So when Laura had started at Whitney as a freshman and Shane had been a senior, he’d taken Joey’s kid sister under his wing. He’d coached her in order to get her through a required public-speaking class. She was a bright student and a brilliant artist, but she was reserved. Not shy necessarily.
The public arena just wasn’t Laura’s domain.
Or at least it hadn’t been when he’d known her, when innocence still clung to her like morning dew to an exquisite, unopened rose. Things were different now, of course. Huey Mays had seen to that. Huey and whoever else he’d granted rights to the use of his stunning wife’s body.
To his stunning slave’s body.
There were a lot of things an officer of the law learned from electronic surveillance that he’d rather not hear. In Laura’s case they’d been things Shane would have paid any price to permanently erase from his memory banks.
She abruptly broke free and sprinted ahead of the pursuing reporters and photographers. He pulled up a few feet in front of her as she ran down Erie Street and slammed on the brakes.
“Get in,” he barked through the lowered window.
She pulled up short, her eyes widening when she saw him. She hesitated.
“Get in the damn car, Laura. They’ll be all over you in a second.”
Once she’d made her decision she moved fleetly. He stomped on the accelerator the second she’d slammed the door. One of the members of the rushing media slapped the back of his car in frustration as it took off down the street.
For almost a minute neither of them spoke as he merged onto Lake Shore Drive south. It struck him as surreal to be driving a car with Laura Vasquez in the passenger seat. This morning he’d never have guessed in a million years that this was how his day would end.
“You shouldn’t have done that, Shane. One of them might have seen your license plate and figured out that I was just picked up by the Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Chicago offices—the same man who was responsible for Huey’s arrest.”
“Huey was responsible for his arrest, Laura.”
His stern tone might have been an attempt to neutralize the effect her low, husky voice had on his body. She was one of three people on the face of the earth who actually called him by his given name—his mother and father being the other two. He hadn’t heard it coming off her tongue for more than a dozen years now.
He glanced over at her, taking in the clean, harmonious curves and angles of her profile against the lights of the city, a flawless diamond set among glittering rhinestones. She appeared calm and untouched by his provocative statement.
How did she really feel about her husband’s death? He forced his stare back to the road.
As usual it was impossible to plumb her depths. She was the one person he’d ever encountered who represented incontrovertible truth that his ability to judge another human being’s character was grievously flawed. His peers would say that was Shane�
��s expertise—the ability to comprehend people’s motivations, to predict how they’d act given a certain set of circumstances.
The fact that his feelings toward Laura were such a stark discrepancy of what they should be given reality bugged the shit out of him. It’d been like a burr under his skin for thirteen and a half years, a wound that just wouldn’t heal no matter how he tried to forget her and move on with his life.
“So what if they do realize it was me?” he muttered. “I’ll say that I picked you up for questioning.”
“Is that really what you’re doing?”
For a brief second their eyes met in the shadows. “Questioning you has never gotten me anywhere in the past, has it, Laura?”
She looked like she was about to say something but then she stopped herself. Her face looked set and pale—the most beautiful mask he’d ever seen in his life. He resisted an urge to pull the car over and shake her until she showed him something. Her rage. Her sadness. Her passion.
Anything but this cold indifference.
“Where are you taking me?”
He blinked at the mundane question in the midst of such a charged moment. Charged for him, anyway.
“I don’t know. Where do you want to go?”
“So you’re really not taking me in for questioning?”
He cast a hard look in her direction. “Didn’t the police question you?”
“Yes. At the hospital. They said they’d be contacting me in the morning to clarify a few other things. I received the news that Huey had passed away as they were questioning me . . .”
He didn’t say anything for a few seconds when she trailed off. Huey Mays’s unexpected death by suicide pissed him off so much that he’d practically been blind with rage for a few seconds as he stood there in front of his television set forty-five minutes ago.
Oily little weasel to the finish, wriggling free of the snare he’d caught himself in like the coward that he was. Shane seethed.
Mays had been the linchpin to the FBI’s continued investigations into corruption at the CPD. The man was slimier than the stuff that got stuck to the bottom of your shoe in a sleazy dive’s john. Except Mays was worse because he was handsome enough to appear on the front of a men’s magazine and just as slick as the glossy cover.