“I love the sound of the surf,” she said. Leaning to the side and looking up at him, she smiled. “Nice, huh?”
His heart rate picked up a notch at the affection shining in her eyes, compoundinghis guilt tenfold. For the flash of an instant, he saw them sharing many moments like this one. But then he remembered he was a liar and she’d probably never speak to him again once she found out, so he quelled that thought.
Yet, he couldn’t shake the words of caution he’d heard his father speak so often to him and his brothers. Beware the woman who captures your imagination, because she too shall capture your heart. Or some such wisdom, usually spoken after one of them had caught his mom and dad being playful with each other.
He pushed that thought aside and gave the fingers of Alyssa’s left hand, entwined with his, a light squeeze. “Yeah, it is,” he agreed. “A fire pit would be nice, though.” Maybe it was his East Coast blood protesting, but June on the beach was chilly once the sun went down, even in Southern California.
She let out a sigh and pulled his arms tighter around her. “We should probably talk about earlier.”
“Which part?” he asked cautiously. They should probably talk about a lot more than that, but until he received word to the contrary from his supervisor, coming clean was out of the question. He’d make it up to her, he vowed. Somehow.
“The part where we had sex—twice—without a condom.”
“Ah. That.”
“Yeah. That. Doing the deed without protection was incredibly dumb. I’m clean, but you could be a man-whore for all I know.”
He laughed. “Not even close.” He wasn’t exactly a monk, not by any stretch of the imagination, but as a rule, he didn’t go in for casual sex. Respect for women had been instilled in him by both parents, and the lessons had stuck.
“My last relationship ended over a year ago,” he admitted. “I haven’t been with anyone since.”
“That’s good to know,” she said. “But I haven’t been in a relationship in a while, so I’m not on birth control. There just wasn’t any need.”
“Oh, shit.”
“That’s one way to put it,” she said dryly. “Especially since I think I might be ovulating.”
Good thing he had his ass parked on the sand, because he’d swear he’d suddenly gone all lightheaded. Christ, he hadn’t even thought about that. The lack of a condom and the health issues were bad enough, but he could’ve knocked her up.
Oh, shit.
What did that say about him? What he’d done was not only stupid and immature, but damned irresponsible. He’d put not only his own health in jeopardy, but hers, as well.
She could be pregnant. With his child. Despite the coolness of the sea breeze blowing in from the ocean, he broke out in a sweat.
Fidelity. Bravery. Integrity.
So much for the Bureau’s motto being his own personal credo. He’d managed to fuck up all three in less than twelve hours all because he couldn’t keep his dick in his pants. One very careless moment could very well change both of their lives forever.
He tightened his arms around her. “If you are pregnant, I will be around to help out.”
“Gee, free babysitting.” She laughed. “How lucky can a girl get?”
He frowned. “I don’t think it’s funny, Alyssa.”
Something in his tone must’ve caught her attention because she scooted forward slightly and looked at him over her shoulder. A frown drew her eyebrows shly together. “Sorry. The sarcasm was apparently lost on you.” The fear and uncertainty in her eyes belied her blasé tone.
He cupped her cheek and dragged his thumb over her lower lip. “Anyone ever tell you, you have a smart mouth?”
“My mom,” she murmured, then kissed his thumb. “Every day. Got me into more trouble, too.”
She shifted in his arms until she was facing him. “Look, I don’t know your religious affiliation or where you stand on the woman’s right to choose issue, but you should know that if I am pregnant, I will be keeping the baby.”
“You don’t have to do it alone,” he told her. How exactly he planned to manage that when he lived on the East Coast and she was in California, he wasn’t sure. But there was never any question in his mind that he would do the right thing.
“I was raised by a single mom after my father died. My mom was raised by a single mother with no father in sight, either,” she said. “But the difference was, my Granny Belle was rejected by her very uptight Southern Baptist family. She left home, moved to California and raised my mom on her own. She did what she had to do to give my mom what she’d needed. Love, support. She waitressed, picked up bit parts and worked as an extra. Whatever it took, she did, so don’t worry about me. I come from a long line of strong women.”
His own frown deepened. He didn’t like where this conversation was heading. “I accept responsibility for my actions.”
She stood and dusted sand from her backside. “So do I,” she said. “But I might not even be pregnant. And if I am, I’ll handle it, thank you very much.”
She bent to scoop up her shoes. “I’ve had enough fresh air.” She extended her hand, which he took and pulled himself to his feet.
“You don’t have to do anything alone,” he said, bending over to pick up his own shoes.
“Look,” she said, stuffing her arms into the sleeves of his jacket, “we really don’t know each other. We screwed up. In a few weeks, we’ll know if I’m pregnant. Let’s not compound an already stupid mistake by making promises neither one of us intends to keep. Okay?” She turned away and stalked off toward the hotel.
What the hell? No, it wasn’t okay.
He willed his feet to start moving, but all he could do was stand there and stare at Alyssa as she hurried across the sand toward the hotel. What if it turned out she was pregnant with his kid? What would she tell their son or daughter about him? That he was some guy who blew into town, lied to her about who he really was, knocked her up, then hightailed it back to wherever he came from?
Like hell.
Regardless of what she might think of him, he wasn’t the kind of man to leave her high and dry. He didn’t shirk his responsibilities. End of story. If they had created a child together, then he’d see to it he was a part of his kid’s life.
And if he had to get a court order to make it happen, so be it.
That thought finally got him moving. He took off after her, jogging to catch up with her before she reached the hotel.
The situation had changed. He had to tell her the truth. Now. They wouldn’t know for at least a couple of weeks whether she was pregnant or not, but that didn’t change the fact that she deserved—no, needed—to know the true identity of the man who could very well have fathered a child with her.
“Alyssa, wait!” he called out, but he was too late. She’d skirted around the building and had slipped inside the warmth of the lobby before he could reach her. Fine. He’d tell her as soon as they were in their room. Better to do it where there was no chance of distractions.
He caught up with her just as she was stepping inside the elevator. He slipped in behind her and pushed the button for the third floor. “We’re not finished,” he said.
She pursed her lips and stuffed her hands into the pockets of his jacket. A half grin suddenly tugged her lips as she pulled out the box of condoms. “I guess we’re not.”
His dick hardened. Against his better judgment, he grabbed hold of her and hauled her up against him. He urged her head back and caught her lips in a hot, openmouthed kiss, a kiss meant to possess, to stake a claim where he had no business staking one. At least not until she knew the truth.
Still, that didn’t stop him from sweeping his tongue into her mouth. Didn’t stop him from pulling her closer so she knew exactly how much he wanted her. And it didn’t stop him from coaxing a sexy little moan from her lips.
Using every ounce of willpower available to him, he refrained from hitting the Stop button and taking her right there in the elevator
. The car came to a halt and he reluctantly ended the kiss and took a step back. Satisfaction reared up inside him at the dazed look on Alyssa’s face.
With a self-satisfied smirk, he grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the elevator. He led the way to their room, with her trotting behind him to keep up. When he reached their door, he tugged her close, backed her up against the door and lowered his head. “I think it’ll be a while before we’re finished,” he whispered against her ear.
They could talk later. Conversation was overrated, anyway, especially when he couldn’t stop thinking about all the ways he wanted Alyssa.
“Oh, God,” she whispered against his mouth. “I’m wet just thinking about it.”
He chuckled. He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket for the room key, intentionally dragging his fingers across her breast.
She sucked in a sharp breath, then glanced up and down the corridor. A wicked gleam in her eyes, she rubbed her hand over his full-blown erection. “I want you in my mouth,” she breathed against his lips.
He nearly swallowed his tongue.
He couldn’t get them into the room fast enough. Before he had the door closed behind them, clothes were hitting the floor so fast, he couldn’t determine what belonged to whom. Not that it mattered. He was naked and so was she, and they couldn’t keep their hands off each other. She shoved him up against the wall and settled to her knees in front of him. She took him into her hot, moist mouth, and he could swear he’d died and gone to heaven.
She tortured him with her tongue, using her teeth and mouth to exquisite perfection. When she used her nails to scrape his balls, his knees went weak. The tension built faster than he could handle. He was on the edge and he reached for her, but she pushed his hands away and shoved him mercilessly over the edge. His release came hard and fast, and she took all he had to give.
Once he could see straight again, he reached for her and dragged her up his body. The buzzing in his ears slowly subsided, as did the beating of his heart as he clung to her. “I can’t move,” he said. His voice sounded rough even to his own ears.
“You will,” she said, her tone filled with sassy confidence he thought completely sexy.
A hard knock on the door them both frowning. “Who is it?” he called out, because he didn’t think his legs would carry him to the door to look out the peephole.
“Room service.”
“Shit.” He tensed, then gently set her away from him. “Get dressed,” he quietly told her. They’d just walked into the room and she’d blown him and his mind, but they hadn’t ordered room service.
“Just a minute,” he called.
She didn’t argue. In seconds she had her clothes on, had the closet open and was hauling their bags toward the balcony. He opened the room safe where he’d put his weapon when they’d gone to dinner. “Stall them,” he whispered to her.
“We’ll be right there,” she called out. “Just another second.”
He opened the safe and didn’t bother with the shoulder holster. He readied his weapon and released the safety. Then he pulled Alyssa close to whisper in her ear, “The next balcony should be an easy jump. Think you can do it?”
She nodded.
“I’ll be right behind you,” he whispered, “and we’ll figure a way out of this mess.” He kissed her quickly, then gave her a shove toward the balcony door. She had the slider open and was tossing their bags across to the next balcony when he heard the ping of a silencer, just before the larger of the two goons who’d chased them earlier came crashing into the room.
Noah leveled his weapon on the creep with the silencer. The guy lifted his own gun and took aim. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Noah told him.
The second man came into the room. Immediately, he holstered his own weapon and raised his hands in the air. “Take it easy, pal,” he said.
Noah didn’t know if the guy was talking to him or the thug with the silencer. He looked to the one with the gun still aimed at him. “I suggest you do as you’re told,” he said, “so we can both walk away. Otherwise, one of us gets hurt, and it isn’t going to be me.”
“Do as he says,” the second man ordered. “He’s not our guy.”
Without taking his eyes off Noah, the guy lowered his gun, then tossed it on the bed to Noah’s left. Noah motioned for the second guy to hand over his weapon, and he immediately pulled it from his holster, checked the safety and tossed it on the bed as well.
“Who hired you?” Noah asked them, not that he expected either of them to give him a truthful answer. “Was it someone from Bastian Pharmaceuticals?”
Keeping both of them in his sights, he snagged his BlackBerry from his pocket and dialed 911. “Federal agent requires assistance,” he said when the 911 operator answered. He answered a few standard questions, then disconnected the call.
“Exactly who the fuck are you?” the second guy asked him.
Noah let out a long, weary sigh. “Special Agent Noah Temple. FBI’s White-Collar Crimes Unit,” he said. “And you’re both under arrest for firing on a federal agent.”
“What did you say?”
Noah didn’t dare turn around, but did catch a quick glimpse of Alyssa in the full-length mirrored doors of the closet. And she looked like she wanted to tear him apart with her bare hands.
CHAPTER 8
Going against everything she knew about herself, Alyssa sat in absolute stillness. And waited.
Perched on the edge of the blue velvet chair, quietly absorbing the activity around her, she impressed the hell out of herself. Waiting was, as a rule, not something she did well. Patience never had been her strong suit.
The two big, scary bad guys, Milo Simms and Gordon French, had been taken away by a pair of uniformed officers with the Manhattan Beach Police Department. Turned out they never were the hired guns of Bastian Pharmaceuticals. Instead, they were private investigators, licensed to carry firearms, who’d been retained by the federal prosecutor, Kyle Houston, to keep tabs on Charles Rolston. When she and the guy she’d believed to be Charles Rolston had run, Simms and French had wrongly assumed they were trying to give them the slip in order to avoid testifying at the criminal trial.
She’d overheard the detective from MBPD say Simms would be free to go, but there was still the issue of French firing on a federal agent. French claimed said federal agent had fired first, but she knew that was a line of crap. Even if she’d bothered to open her mouth on the subject, she still had a feeling the charges against French would eventually be dropped.
Still, if the big lug hadn’t fired at them in the first place, they might have discovered much sooner that they were essentially on the same team. But then nothing about the last eighteen hours had gone as it should have, starting with her assuming sexier-than-sin Special Agent Noah Temple was Rolston.
She should’ve trusted her instincts. She’d known he didn’t look like a Charles. He wasn’t a Chas or a Chuck either. He was Noah Temple, a special agent from the FBI’s White-Collar Crimes Unit based in Quantico, Virginia.
And he was the worst kind of liar.
Too bad for him, she now hated the name Noah, too.
With their small hotel room packed to the gills with law enforcement personnel, she hadn’t had a chance to tell him what she really thought of him. But she could wait.
From what she’d gleaned from the various conversations going on around her, she might be waiting until God knew when to give the man a piece of her mind because the situation was a jurisdictional nightmare. There were two Los Angeles County Sheriff’s investigators, a detective from the Manhattan Beach Police Department, along with three uniforms and one sergeant from his department. A supervisory agent from the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office had been called in, as had someone from the federal prosecutor’s office. In addition, the local FBI had notified Homeland Security.
In her opinion, the whole mess was nothing more than a macho pissing match that she wanted no part of. In fact, the sooner she got the hell o
ut of there, the happier she’d be. Sort of. Only problem was, she wasn’t going anywhere until she had a word or two with Whatshisname.
She didn’t care if she was pregnant. After she ripped him a new one, she never wanted to see Whatshisname again. In fact, never again would be too soon for her.
She hurt. Her heart hurt and during the ensuing chaos, she’d had moments when her chest ached so much she couldn’t draw her next breath. Telling herself the pain would eventually subside did little to alleviate her hurt, or the anger simmering inside her. With him. With herself. With whatever Fate had thrown them together.
The women in her family were destined to be alone. Her Granny Belle had been shunned by her family after she’d discovered she was pregnant, two days after she’d received word that her fiancé had died in the Pacific during World War II. Her own mother, who’d died from leukemia when Alyssa was only ten years old, had never recovered emotionally after her husband had been killed by a drunk driver not two months after they’d been married. And now, here she sat in a blue velvet chair, with a pain in her chest that had nothing to do with heart disease, wondering if she was destined to follow in the footsteps of prior generations.
Her pride had taken a hit. A bad one. But that’s all it could be because she sure as hell wasn’t in love with a man she didn’t even know. Her mother and grandmother had both believed in love at first sight and what had it gotten them? Nothing but a broken heart.
She looked up at the rat bastard in question and for just one moment she wished he’d been honest with her. She didn’t like feeling this way. Didn’t like feeling—lost.
Another person entered the room, this one a hotel employee carrying their bags, which she’d thrown over to the balcony next to theirs when she’d thought they would be running for their lives. He set the bags next to the dresser and left without waiting for a tip.
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