Falling into the cocoon of warmth and security offered in his arms, Carley closed her eyes. “Don’t go anywhere.” She hoped she didn’t sound too needy.
“I won’t.”
Though she thought she’d detected a slight trace of hesitation, she didn’t push it. He was here, and that would have to do for now.
Chapter Ten
He watched her as she slept and every now and then he allowed himself the luxury of brushing his knuckles down her cheek. She was even more beautiful now than when he’d first seen her standing in his bedroom. And just as dangerous.
When had she become more important than his badge, his duty? He couldn’t pinpoint an exact time but his heart had crossed the line his mind refused to accept. Walking away from his career was unthinkable but the thought of letting Carley go caused an ache so deep inside he couldn’t breathe.
He leaned over to brush a kiss against her cheek, was surprised to find her eyes wide open and looking at him. “I thought you were still asleep.”
Her eyes crinkled with her smile. “And do you always watch people when they’re sleeping?”
“Only the beautiful ones.” He touched a finger to her nose.
She curled her arms around his neck and brought his face closer, just hovering there for several moments. “How is it that you make even the simplest of words sound so sexy?”
Hunt caressed her mouth with his. Soft and silky, her lips melted beneath his. He could kiss her for hours, just listening to the breathless little sounds she made, and when she turned in his arms, bringing her bare breasts in close contact with his chest, his body stirred to life. How much time would it take to work this woman out of his system? The question gave him pause. Was it even possible? He guessed the real question would be did he want to.
Sliding one hand up alongside his jaw, she rubbed his chin with her thumb. “What’s on your mind?”
He opened his mouth to say something but the shrill ring of his cell phone redirected his attention. Didn’t even need to guess who that was calling. No doubt Deputy Director Ryan Baulding had discovered Hunt’s abrupt break in cover.
Shit. He rested his head in the crook of Carley’s neck for a long second. The ringing stopped but he knew better than to hope it wouldn’t start again. Once Baulding caught the scent of blood from a wounded victim, he went in for the kill.
“Don’t you think you should have answered your phone?” Carley smoothed away the frown lines on his forehead. “It might have been your boss.”
“Exactly why I didn’t answer.” He kissed her again to prevent further questions, and when he lifted his head her cheeks were flushed. He ran a thumb over her lower lip and tried to think of a way to tell her this would be the last time they could be together. Once he answered that phone he would no longer be a cop. He would shift back into FBI mode, and his focus would have to be on the case alone.
She nipped at his chin. “You can’t avoid him.”
Was he that easy to read now? He let loose a sigh and bumped his forehead to hers. “I know.” One hand slid down her arm. “But the longer I can put him off—” He broke off, rolled to his side and sat up, the sheet draping across his lap. “He’ll order me back to Virginia and someone else will take over this case. Someone who will only see it as a case, nothing more.”
Carley pushed herself up on her knees and slid close to him. Nimble hands massaged his neck. “So what are you thinking?”
Things he shouldn’t be thinking. Like ignoring his boss. Staying in South Carolina with Carley. Or taking her back to Virginia with him. All impossible things and yet, when the phone rang again, he still didn’t answer.
He wasn’t ready yet, not when he’d given so much of his time and energy to this case. Hell, who was he kidding? Carley was the biggest reason why he wasn’t ready to leave, which was too fucked-up for any psychiatrist on the planet to figure out.
For most of his adult life he been putting criminals behind bars and now here he was in bed with one. Defied logic. Made him crazy.
Breaking into his self-deprecation, Carley climbed onto his lap, creating havoc with his concentration. “Well if you’re not going to answer the phone, the least you could do is silence it.” She squirmed against him.
All thoughts of logic faded into the background. But his senses went on high alert. He inhaled the unique scent of her body while the sun filtered in through the blinds, dancing across her face. Her eyes seemed to glitter, and when her hand slid up his chest wall his muscles tightened.
He felt her everywhere. Even her slightest touch ignited him, and he could only pray he’d have the strength to walk away, to leave all of this behind when the time came.
How much time had passed, and did it really matter? Carley could have stayed like this forever, her head on Hunt’s chest, hearing the steady thumping of his heart. Her hand splayed across his abdomen naturally, like it belonged there, like she belonged with him.
Hunt stirred, pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “What are you thinking about?”
“Me. You. This.”
“Me too.”
She leaned her head back to see his face, committing each feature to memory. Those eyes that had first held her captive. Those lips that could steal her breath. There was nothing about him she would allow herself to forget. “So what are you thinking?”
“It’s crazy to feel something so powerful in such a short amount of time.” He brushed her hair away from her face, sifting his fingers carefully through the strands as if they might be fine pieces of silk ribbon he didn’t want to tear.
She laid her head back down so she could feel the gentle rise and fall of his chest with each breath. One hand toyed with the edge of the sheet that had slipped below his bellybutton. “Life doesn’t always happen on a timetable. At least that’s what my dad always told me.”
“Tell me about your dad.” He shifted on her bed so he could wrap his arm around her waist, pull her closer against him.
“What do you want to know? How he got started doing what he did? How he got me involved in it?” She gave a little laugh. “My dad was a thief long before I was born but he preferred to be called an acquisitions dealer.” Hunt’s chuckle rumbled pleasantly in her ear.
“He always targeted corporations and he never took unless he already had a buyer in place.” Her father had always said it was his way of righting the cosmic balance. Carley thought he favored himself as some sort of modern day Robin Hood, stealing from the mega-rich and giving to the not-as-rich…only he didn’t exactly give the loot away.
“So I guess you and Dani lived the high life thanks to your dad’s dealings.”
“If you call moving from place to place every other month, never knowing where we were going to lay our heads that night or who was going to be watching us living the high life then, yeah, we were on top of the world.” She moved her head closer to his heart.
“How did your mother feel about that?”
A quick pain lanced her heart. “My mother died when I was barely eight so my dad raised us.”
Hunt started stroking her back. “What happened to her?”
The lump in her throat surprised her. She didn’t talk about her mother very often. Maybe this was why. Her memories were fuzzy at best but she did recall the scent of cinnamon and the way her mother always called her “my sweet”.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories.”
“You didn’t. The ones I have of my mother are good ones.” She pulled in a breath. “She died in the middle of a heist. She and Dad were removing a painting from an art museum in Paris when something happened to her cable. It malfunctioned and she fell sixty feet onto a marble floor. My dad never forgave himself for that.” And no matter how many times Carley tried to reassure him, Ben had waved it away, telling her his wife would be alive if he hadn’t been so careless. Carley didn’t doubt her father went to his death still believing he was at fault.
Hunt rubbed his cheek against her hair. “He tho
ught it should have been him, that he should have been the one to die.” When she looked up at him he traced a tear from the corner of her eye to the middle of her cheek with his index finger then answered her question before she could ask. “Guilt and I are old friends.”
She wanted to ask more but his face had closed, his expression going blank. Maybe he had a couple of painful memories of his own he was carrying around. She wouldn’t push him. God knows there were many times she’d shoved away people who’d tried to get too close to her, ask too many questions.
He cupped her cheek gently and brought her head back down to his chest. “So you followed your father into the business but not Dani?”
“No, not Dani. Dad used to say she had all the grace of a herd of stampeding buffalo. But that was okay. She wasn’t interested in doing anything illegal. Dani had enough morals for all three of us combined. She wouldn’t even throw a piece of paper out of a car window.”
Carley smiled. “Once she grew up enough to realize exactly what it was that Dad did she started her weekly barrage of lectures. Up until he got sick, she was convinced he would stop and lead a normal life, a life that didn’t involve theft.”
“Did you want to follow your dad in the life he’d chosen?” Tension crept into his voice.
Was he asking her if she’d gone into a life of crime willingly, or if her father had bullied her into taking over the family business? She tried to move out of his embrace but he held fast. “I think this conversation has gone about as far as it can go without one or both of us getting pissed off.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked that. Your reasons are your own.”
She didn’t looked at him, couldn’t look at him. “But you still want to know.”
“You want me to lie to you?”
“Maybe.” Then she shook her head. “No, I don’t want you to lie to me.” If the truth were told, it was only fair that he learn more about her, considering she’d studied his life so well. All he knew about her was what she’d told him.
Feeling his gaze on her face, she finally replied. “At first I didn’t think I would follow my father, but then he got sick and couldn’t complete a job. So I did it for him. After that,” she lifted her shoulders in a shrug, “I guess it got a little easier.”
Her fingers stroked his chest. “When I was growing up my father was larger than life. There wasn’t a job he couldn’t do, and I worshipped him.” This time Hunt let her pull away, maybe realizing she needed the distance. She rolled to her back and looked up at a stain on the ceiling, wondered if the hotel knew it had a leak in one of the upper rooms.
“I started training with him when I was only ten but I never thought I’d actually use what I’d learned. But I guess it’s true what people say. You learn by watching your parents.” She pushed herself up on her elbow to see his face. “My father was a thief but he wasn’t a bad man, Hunt. He loved me and Dani unconditionally. I can’t fault him for the way he raised us.”
Using two fingers, he turned her face to his, stroked her cheek. “I think that’s enough talking for now, don’t you?”
She looped her arms around his neck. “I could be persuaded to participate in some other activity. What did you have in mind?”
His kiss answered the question for her.
The blast of the explosion brought a smile to her face. Fortunately for JT, Rena knew more about bombs than most women knew about hair care. Well it was fortunate in that he didn’t suffer. Didn’t even know what was happening.
Her cold gaze studied the remnants of the warehouse. She wasn’t so sure how his wife had fared. The meek little thing had been so hesitant following JT into the warehouse that it was possible she didn’t step across the threshold quickly enough to be engulfed in the blast. Which meant she could have experienced some pain.
Rena realized at that moment she really didn’t care. That might make her sadistic in the eyes of the everyday person but in her world, it made sense. She couldn’t allow any feelings to surface toward any of these women. To her they were chattel, a means to an end.
She waited inside the luxurious interior of her Mercedes until she heard the sirens of the approaching fire trucks. Then, with one last look at what had been home base for the past six months, she turned the key in the ignition, revved the engine and accelerated out of the deserted parking lot.
After hitting the redial button on her cell phone, she activated the speakerphone. The line of cars attempting to merge onto the interstate stretched ahead and brought her to a sudden stop just as her husband answered.
“I told you not to call me on my cell while I’m at the office.”
“I know, but it was important.” When silence was his only response Rena pushed on. “Look, I know you’re still irritated with me but honestly, don’t you think this little spat has gone on long enough?”
A chair creaked, providing a mental image. At that moment her husband was sitting in his chair behind a desk piled with manila folders and unopened mail. His hair would be mussed, whether from lack of sleep or too much agitation from his fingers she couldn’t be sure. And his eyes would be bloodshot, a fitting testament to the latest drama taking up most of his time.
“Spat?” A sharp click brought his voice closer to her ear, letting Rena know he’d taken her off speakerphone. “Is that what you call our separation?”
She tapped her nails on the leather steering wheel, her brow knitted. God, could the man be any more impossible? After she finished this last bit of business in Charleston she’d need a place to lay low for a while. What better place than her old home, safely tucked away as the wife of a prominent community member? She could return to her former life for as long as it took for the auctions to end and the merchandise to reach the winners. That was all the time she needed and like it or not, her husband was going to give it to her.
“Rena?” His voice held that note of authority she despised. He probably didn’t realize she’d gotten into this business because of him.
Oh he thought she didn’t know about his little affairs, the secretaries he went through like syrup on pancakes. But she knew about every single one of them. The last one had proven to be the icing on the cake though. The slut hadn’t even bothered to hide behind the usual spate of lies the others had told, but then, the others had left pretty quickly once they’d discovered her husband had no intention of filing for divorce.
Not Tina. She’d hung on, determined to take Rena’s place. Stupid bitch had been so confident. That had been the last straw for Rena. She’d wanted to get Tina out of her husband’s life but, more than that, she wanted payback for the suffering she’d endured.
Maybe she should have blamed her husband, but if all those trollops hadn’t paraded themselves in front of him, shaken their asses and worn those low-cut blouses, he wouldn’t have cheated. Those types of women were the scourge of society, and they needed to be taught a lesson.
And that was when Rena had gotten the idea of using these women just as they’d used her husband. It had taken her a few months to put her plan into action. She’d had to be extra careful to hide her identity, to hire the lowest of the low, men who didn’t give a damn about human rights.
Yes, Tina had been confident, right up until the morning she’d awoken in the back of a van with her hands and feet bound with duct tape. She’d brought a nice, tidy sum on the market and, with a little extra investigation, Rena had made sure Tina had gone to a buyer with some of the worst proclivities in the bedroom. She thought it was fitting considering how the woman had targeted her husband, had thrown down the gauntlet.
Rena had accepted eagerly, knowing she had the upper hand. Not only did she work with some very powerful people, she knew her husband well enough to know he always kept up appearances, and a man in his position did not, under any circumstances, divorce his wife.
“How many times do I have to tell you this wasn’t a separation? I needed some time alone. That’s all.” She hardened her voice. “And I
believe the words you used were ‘solo vacation’ when your new secretary asked about me.”
“What do you want?”
“To tell you I’m coming home.”
“When?”
“Now.” Rena relished the silence, pictured her husband’s face, the way his jaw would clench when he was angry. She imagined it was clenched right now. And those dark blue eyes of his would be blazing. “So I should be home tomorrow morning.”
“You left.” He snapped each word out like he despised each syllable. “Why do you think I’d let you walk back into my life?”
“Because I know your secrets and I stay anyway.”
He sighed and the chair squeaked again, this time much more rapidly. “Fine. I’ll see you tomorrow then.”
“Oh, one more thing,” Rena lowered the window, letting in a blast of fresh air. “I hope you were a bit wiser in your choice of assistants this time around.”
“Don’t start that shit with me again. I told you I’ve never cheated on you.”
“Don’t be silly, Ryan. There are many things you can call me but stupid isn’t one of them.” She disconnected the call and wondered if his new assistant was a blonde. They always tended to sell better. Perhaps her husband’s steady stream of busty secretaries might not be a bad thing after all.
After tuning the radio to a hard rock station she cranked up the volume, the traffic not bothering her nearly as much now. Though the muscles in her neck were a little tense, by this time tomorrow she would be on the front porch of her house sipping a margarita, and all her worries would fade away.
Hiding behind the protective shield of her husband’s powerful position always reassured her, despite her abhorrence of the man. And, if nothing else, she would enjoy watching him squirm a bit.
Chapter Eleven
“I should call in.” Hunt didn’t want to move but he figured he should make a token effort to look like he gave a damn about his job. Right now, though, forming a coherent thought wasn’t high on his list of priorities, not with Carley tucked so close to him, her long, limber body wrapped around his like sensual silk.
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