by Lori Wilde
Swallowing past the lump in his throat, Dante opened his eyes. One thing was startlingly clear. He had to make sure that what had happened here tonight with Elle must not happen again.
Awkwardly, he slipped his arm out from behind her neck. She looked over at him and an emotion he couldn’t name overwhelmed him. Her hair was tousled and her eyes looked so damned vulnerable, as if she too were having serious second thoughts.
“We better get out of here before someone catches us like this.” Purposefully he took her by the shoulders and put her away from him so he could sit up. He saw a flash of what he took to be hurt in her eyes but it was quickly gone and he told himself he was just imagining it.
She tucked her bottom lip up between her front teeth. If she’d said one single thing to encourage him he would have kissed her again.
Dumb ass. Chump.
Fool.
But she didn’t say anything at all, just scooted away from him, swung her legs over the side of the pool table, modestly pulling up her clothes.
He wanted to say something to her. To make this awkwardness go away, to fix things between them, but he couldn’t find the right words.
And regret had him bound up like titanium twine.
“Elle—”
“Yeah?”
She peered at him as she wriggled into her panties. His dick hardened all over again as he watched her. Apparently the physical effects of Rapture lingered long after the regrets had settled in.
This was bad.
He’d mishandled everything.
Plus, he’d just had the best sex of his life. He pressed his lips together, threaded his fingers through his hair, tried to ignore the tenderness pushing against his heart.
The drug. It’s the drug. He struggled to convince himself. It wasn’t Elle. She was nothing special.
The minute the thought popped into his head, he knew it was a lie, an excuse. She was special. That was the problem.
She smoothed the skirt of her dress, ironing out wrinkles with the flat of her hand.
Fifteen minutes ago, his palms had been skimming over that luscious body of hers. But a lot could change in fifteen minutes.
She slipped her feet into her shoes and that’s when Dante realized he was still naked, sitting up on the pool table, watching her get dressed, his dick as hard as steel between his legs.
Elle dropped her gaze and he saw that she’d noticed the condition he was in. She looked at his face again.
Tension radiated between them. It was almost as powerful as the passion they had just explored.
Dante gulped and tracked his eyes from her smoking-hot body to her face. The woman was a showstopper with those full, feminine hips, narrow waist and high, pert breasts. Her hair, which she normally wore pulled back or pinned up, tumbled about her shoulders in a riot of red curls. He’d nibbled off her lipstick during their lovemaking, but her mouth was slightly swollen and it had turned a deep, rosy pink from the pressure of their kisses.
Her expression was inscrutable, her gaze steady, eyes revealing nothing of what she might be feeling. He’d never met a woman who could tuck her real emotions away so surely.
Where had she learned that self-protective trick? Did it come naturally? Had she picked it up from her demanding job as a nurse? Or was it something living with Mark had taught her?
“Um,” she said. “Thanks.”
“Thanks?”
“You know.” She lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “For the sexual release.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, feeling awkward and stupid.
“It was…er…nice.”
Nice? Nice?
His masculine ego took a helluva hit, because for him, it had been phenomenal. Then Dante realized she was covering her tracks, shoring up her defenses. She didn’t want him to know how much it had affected her. She didn’t trust him any more than he trusted her.
And rightly so.
“I’ll see you around the hospital,” she said.
“So this is it? A onetime thing.” Why was he saying this? Of course it was a onetime thing. It couldn’t be anything else.
“It’s for the best.”
She was dumping him? He was nothing more to her than a one-night stand? He felt like he’d been sucker punched, even though he’d been telling himself he had to make sure nothing like this happened again. He couldn’t allow his sexual indiscretion to compromise the investigation.
“Sure,” he said, making certain it came through in his voice that he didn’t give a damn. “Whatever you want.”
7
“ELLE? ARE YOU OUT HERE?”
The sound of Julie’s voice echoing through the bottom part of the garage yanked Elle’s attention away from the naked man on the pool table.
Their lovemaking had been brain-stunningly amazing.
No, not lovemaking, she corrected herself. Sex. Just scratch-an-itch sex. Nothing more.
What they’d had was raw and uninhibited sex and she’d loved it. She’d never had casual sex before and it felt a little weird but freeing. She wouldn’t read anything into this encounter other than what it had been—two people coming together to give each other momentary pleasure.
No promises. No commitment. No strings attached. This was exactly what she needed.
“Elle? Where are you?”
“You better get dressed,” she whispered to Dante. “It’s my friends.” Turning, she hurried toward the door leading down to the lower level, trying her best to ignore the alien feelings churning inside of her heart.
“Elle?” This time it was Vanessa.
“I’m on my way down,” she called out, sending one last lingering look at Dante before she opened the door and plunged down the stairs.
The expression in his eyes was both sultry and dismissive. She could tell he wanted her, but he also wanted her gone.
Good. She felt the same way.
Liar.
She shoved that voice aside, forced a bright smile on her face as she spied her friends. “Hi, guys.”
Julie and Vanessa stared at her.
Self-consciously, Elle raised a hand to her hair. “What?”
“Hmm,” Vanessa observed with a tinkle in her eye. “Looks like somebody just got lucky.”
“I don’t know you mean,” Elle said, not particularly anxious to come clean to her friends.
“Mused hair, swollen lips, cat-that-ate-the-canary grin. Please, I know a well-fucked look when I see it,” Vanessa said.
Elle laughed because she didn’t know what else to do. “Guilty as charged,” she confessed.
“Honestly?” Julie looked shocked.
Elle couldn’t help grinning. Her head was still pleasantly muzzy, her body warm and soft and wonderfully sated. The world looked kind and welcoming and loveable. “Um-hm.”
“Who was it with?” Julie clasped her hands together. “Please don’t tell me that it was Mark.”
“Gag me!” Elle exclaimed. “Of course it wasn’t with Mark. Why would you even think that?”
“Sometimes,” Julie said, “when a girl is—”
“Horny,” Vanessa finished for her.
Julie glowered. “I was going to say lonely. A girl will do things she normally wouldn’t do.”
“Like having mad sex with a near stranger on a pool table in Pete Russell’s garage?” Elle supplied.
“A near stranger?” Vanessa asked, confusion marring her expression. “So not a total stranger. It’s someone you’re acquainted with, but not well?”
“Anyone we know?” Julie asked. “Or is it a celebrity?”
“Shh.” Vanessa winked and rested a finger against her lips. “We’re from Confidential Rejuvenations. Your secret is safe with us.”
Elle prayed Dante would keep quiet in the loft and not pick this moment to do something embarrassing like come strutting downstairs with his chest chuffed. “I don’t kiss and tell.”
She swished past her friends, eager to get out of the garage. She was still caught betwee
n feeling guilt and the lovely afterglow of phenomenal sex, and she didn’t want to share either with her friends.
Selfish? Maybe. But she hadn’t ever felt this sexually empowered and she wanted to keep this unexpected feeling all to herself.
A heated flush rose to her cheeks just thinking about what she had dared. She ducked her head and hurried toward the exit. Vaguely she heard Vanessa and Julie follow her past the Harleys, the Bentley, the Hummer and the Escalade and out the door into the late night breeze.
She checked her watch. Correction—an early-morning breeze. It well was after two on Saturday morning. She’d gone into the garage with Dante around midnight. Had they really made love for almost two hours? She’d been caught in such an exquisite time warp it had seemed like only minutes.
“Hey, wait up for us, why don’t you?” Vanessa called out.
Why? Because she desperately needed to get away by herself, think things through and make some sense of what she was feeling.
“Well,” Julie said as she and Vanessa caught up with her. “I for one think it’s a good thing. You deserve a little happiness.”
“It’s not happiness. It was just sex,” Elle said, trying to convince herself as much as her friends.
“Either way, it’s smart to get back on the horse after you’ve been thrown.” Vanessa nodded. “I think it is a good thing that it’s just sex. You don’t need any romantic complications. Not at this point in your life.
Vanessa was absolutely right. She was finally starting to get over Mark’s betrayal, but she was far from emotionally ready to trust another man, especially one as darkly secretive as Dante Nash.
Elle stopped walking and hugged herself against the night air. She swayed, still feeling oddly loopy after her encounter with Dante. Smiling, she looked at Julie and Vanessa in the moonlight. “How did I get so lucky to have such great friends in my life?”
Julie laughed. “That’s so like you, Elle. You’re always there to pick up the pieces for us when we need you. It’s our privilege to be there for you. Don’t you know how wonderful you are?”
“Come on, chica.” Vanessa was the one who had trouble expressing her more tender emotions. “I’ll drive you home. You might have only had one cosmo, but the way you’re swaying tells me you’re too hopped up on the afterglow of great sex to be driving.”
Elle didn’t resist Vanessa’s invitation. The truth was, the thought of sliding behind the wheel and having to concentrate on the road was daunting. Because no matter how hard she tried not to think about him, her mind kept slipping back to the pool table.
Back to Dante.
DANTE WOKE ON SATURDAY morning the day after Pete Russell’s party with a pounding headache. Rapture, my ass, he thought. Lawson should have named the damned drug Fracture. That’s how badly his head was hurting. Fracture would have gone over big with the Goth crowd.
And then he remembered Elle.
Guilt, vicious as a rabid dog, bit into him.
What in the hell was he going to do about Elle?
Before he had time to follow that train of thought, his cell phone rang. He sat up, one hand pressed flat against his aching temple, the other reaching for his cell phone on the nightstand. “Hello?”
“Nash, Briggins here.”
“Yeah?” Dante squinted at the clock and was appalled to see it was after nine.
“What happened last night?”
“Huh?” For one panicky moment he thought Briggins was talking about what he’d done with Elle.
“What’s your progress with Lawson?”
“He gave me a tablet of Rapture last night at Pete Russell’s party.”
“No shit?” Briggins said excitedly. “Bring it in and we’ll get the lab to analyze it.”
“I had to take it—it was a test. I had to prove to him that he could trust me. I think he’s going to make me his business partner.”
“Well done, Nash. Are you okay?”
“Fine.”
“No adverse reactions?”
“Other than what feels like a hellish hangover.”
“What was the drug like?” Briggins asked.
“Heightened sensory awareness. Heightened sexual desire and response. I can see why people take it.”
“That good, huh?”
“The allure always has a dark side,” Dante replied. “You’re totally out of control. Basic instincts take over and you’re operating on a primal level.”
“You must have hated that,” Briggins said. “You’ve got more self-control than most of us.”
“It felt damned dangerous.”
“Move forward cautiously. Remember, Gambezi is who we’re really after. Lawson’s small potatoes.”
As if he could forget that—Leeza’s death was forever burned in his brain. But Mark was the trail and Rapture was the breadcrumbs that led to Gambezi’s door.
“I called because we’ve got another angle for you to follow.”
“Oh?”
“We’ve just had an alert that one hundred thousand dollars in cash has been deposited into the checking accounting of Lawson’s ex-wife.”
“Excuse me?” His head was throbbing so badly, Dante thought he’d misunderstood.
“Looks to me like Elle Kingston might be on Gambezi’s payroll. Either that or she’s blackmailing her ex-husband and he paid her with the dirty money Gambezi paid him.”
“Where is this assumption coming from?”
“The bills deposited into her account matched the serial numbers from an armored car heist last year in Houston that we suspect Gambezi’s henchmen pulled off.”
Dante drew in a harsh breath. He wanted to tell Briggins that it was impossible, that Elle simply could not be involved with Gambezi. She was too honest, open and aboveboard for that. He sure as hell didn’t want to believe it. “You’re certain?”
“I’ve got the computer printout of her bank statement right here.”
“It seems fishy,” Dante said. “Elle’s no dummy. She’s got to know large cash deposits are automatically reported to the IRS. Maybe she got the money from somewhere else.”
“She’s a middle-class nurse from a family of cops. Where’s she going to get her hands on that kind of cash? And if it came through legitimate sources, there would be some kind of a paper trail.”
“So what do you want from me?”
“Check it out. Find out where she got the money. Find out if she knows anything about Lawson’s little hobby. If she’s met Gambezi.”
“Oh yeah, like that’s going to slip nicely into a conversation.”
“You’ll find a way.”
The notion bothered him. He didn’t want to get any closer to Elle than he already was. “Why can’t we do all this through Lawson?”
“We don’t want Gambezi getting wind of this and going underground. The woman’s safer than Lawson, but don’t take any unnecessary chances.”
Dante fisted his free hand. He thought of his mother, who’d abandoned him and his sister when they were just children. Thought of Leeza who’d turned to a gangster instead of her own brother when she’d gotten into trouble.
Somehow he’d failed her; he wouldn’t fail Elle.
He shook his head. You couldn’t save them, no matter how much you loved them. The pounding in his brain was severe and a nauseating knot had formed in his stomach. “I don’t think this is such a good idea.”
“What’s the matter?” Briggins asked. “You’re male, she’s female. Turn on your brooding-loner charm, women love that dark and tortured stuff.”
“My charm isn’t the issue, sir.”
“No? Then go romance her and get her to spill all her secrets.”
“It feels underhanded.”
“No more underhanded than spying on Lawson.”
“I don’t want to hurt her.”
“Nash, snap out of it and do your job.”
Dante thought of how Elle had challenged him over Travis Russell. She was a good nurse. He simply could not believe s
he’d be involved with anything so harmful. He’d seen her with patients; Briggins had not. “We don’t know for sure she’s involved.”
“We know she was married to Lawson and now there’s one hundred thousand unexplained dollars in her checking account. Get over to her house, gain her trust and find out just where in the hell she got her hands on that kind of cash.”
At the thought of seeing Elle again, Dante’s spirits soared. Even without Briggins’s orders, he’d been wanting to spend more time with her, needing to see her and make sure she was okay.
Now he had a perfect excuse and he couldn’t get over to her house fast enough.
AT THE SAME TIME DANTE was talking to Briggins, Elle was waking up alone in her bed. Unlike her staff who pulled rotating days off, as head of the emergency department, Elle had her weekends free. She felt empty-headed and disoriented. What on earth had happened to her last night?
Her memory was fogged, but her lips were sore and her elbows skinned and the ache between her legs was something new. Then she glanced across the room at her rumpled green party dress flung carelessly over her vanity and it all came rushing back.
Dante.
The pool table.
Everything.
Her face flushed and she flopped back against the pillow, covering her eyes with her hands as each vivid detail filled her mind with startling clarity. The implications of her actions hit her full on and she groaned aloud.
How was she going to face Dante on Monday?
Dante Nash. Big and broad-shouldered and mysterious.
Her fingers tingled in memory of what it had felt like to touch his well-muscled body. What it tasted like to kiss his brooding lips. What his groans of pleasure had sounded like echoing in her ears.
A fresh shot of adrenaline whipped through her body and she gripped the sheet in her hands.
Last night, for the first time, she’d seen him away from the hospital and out of his expensively tailored suits or the standard-issue green scrubs. He’d looked crisp and fresh and collegiate in starched chinos and his white button-down shirt.
Preppy.
She wondered what his background was like. Where was he from? What did he do in his spare time? Who were his parents? Did he have any brothers or sisters?