by Lori Wilde
Because making love to Cass was wrong and not just because she was a robbery suspect. Even if she was innocent, he was not. He’d set her up, used her. But the problems ran deeper than that. They were from two different worlds. She lived a champagne lifestyle and he had a beer budget. She resided in a light, airy fantasy world. He was firmly rooted in a much darker reality.
Face facts. Much as you want her, she scares the living hell out of you.
By nature he was the kind of guy who went with the flow, took things in stride, and easily meshed with his fellow man. He was unhurried, deliberate and reliable. But Cass, with her giddy, carefree, impulsive style, disrupted his equilibrium. Being with her made him feel as if he was pushing against the force of a great rushing river, swallowed up by the sheer power of her enthusiasm.
“Your stubble is scratchy.” Cass breathed against his ear and sent a hot shaft of longing bolting straight through him.
“Sorry,” he mumbled. “I have a heavy beard.”
“I think it’s kind of hot.”
What was hot was the way her legs kept rubbing up and down against his flank.
“Don’t go all rich, airhead, hotel heiress on me,” he growled. “You’re too smart for that.”
“You think I’m smart?”
“I know it.”
“Most people think I’m a flighty ditz.”
“You can be a flighty ditz and still be smart.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Are you bored? We could sing ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall, if you’re bored.”
“Don’t even.”
Speaking of flighty. There she went again, off on a tangent. Bored was not one of his problems. How could he be bored with a gorgeous woman on his back?
“Okay, no singing. So what do you do for fun? When you’re not being a snarly cop that is.”
“I hang out with my sister’s kids.”
“You’re an uncle? How nice. Is that fun?”
“It has its moments.”
“Okay so when you’re not being a cop or an uncle what do you do?”
He shrugged and the movement brought his shoulder blade into contact with her breasts. He had to close his eyes briefly and swallow in a big gulp of air to get himself under control. “I dunno. Work out at the gym.”
Cass let out a sigh of exasperation. “Let’s say you’re not at work, your sister is out of town with her kids, it’s Saturday night and you’ve already done your workout for the day. Now what does Sammy do? Parties, clubs, pool halls?”
“I might go to a concert.”
“Really? What kind of music.”
“I like jazz.”
“Oh.”
He could tell from the disappointed sound in her voice that she didn’t like jazz and he felt as if he’d failed a very important pop quiz. “But really,” he said. “I like just about any kind of music.”
“Pop?”
“Sure,” he lied, not knowing why he did so other than he didn’t want her to think ill of him.
“Gotcha!” she said gleefully. “I hate pop. You just said you liked it because you thought I liked it.”
“Yep, you got me,” he said, peeved at her for leading him on. But she was right. He did have a tendency to go along with whatever the person he was with enjoyed. His opinions on trivial things didn’t matter that much. He saved his battles for the big issues.
“So what else?”
“I go to baseball games occasionally.”
“Mets or Yankees?”
He hesitated.
“Don’t try to read me. What team do you like?”
“Well, the Yankees are the Yankees.”
“So you’re a Mets fan.”
“Yeah,” he said and smiled. He didn’t often admit it.
“Good, good, we’re getting somewhere. Me, I’m a Yankees fan, but not so strongly that I can’t keep company with a Mets fan. So what’s your passion?” she said, her heels brushing against his flank as he walked.
“Passion?”
“You know what gets you charged up? Me, I’ve got tons of passions. Clothes and shoes and jewelry. I adore fashion. Food—eating it that is, not cooking it. Hate to cook.”
He loved listening to her chatter, her wild little monkey mind spinning excitedly, sucking him into her orbit. She was so passionate that it was easy to get lured in by her.
Be careful. You’re a cop and she could very well be a thief.
Rationally, he knew this, but as a man, he felt something entirely different.
“And parties of course and games and movies and books and horses.” She sucked in her breath rapturously. “I love horses but I haven’t been riding in so long that it really is a sin.”
“Why don’t you go riding?”
“So many bright and shiny things, so little time.”
“Here we are.” He slogged into a dry creek bed at the bottom of the hill.
“Here we are what?”
“Where the reproduction is hidden.”
Sam found a nice-sized boulder, walked over to it and helped Cass dismount from his back. They sat side by side while he rested.
“Let me see the map.” She held out her hand.
He plucked the map from his back pocket and passed it over to her. Her expression turned serious as she studied it.
“According to this the amulet is supposed to be right here. So is it just lying around somewhere?” She looked over her shoulder, peeking at the ground. “Are we supposed to dig someplace?”
Sam lay back on the rock, resting his tired shoulder muscles. He put one hand up to shade his eyes.
“Nope,” he said. “It’s not lying around somewhere and we don’t have to dig.”
Her forehead knit together in a frown. “What is it then?”
He pointed up at a tree limb ten feet above them.
She lay on her back next to him and followed his gaze. From one slender branch dangled the replica amulet strung on a bright red ribbon. The faux jewelry winked in the sunlight, mocking them.
“Bunnie Bernaldo is an evil, evil witch,” she said.
“On that we can agree.”
“At least it’s a climbable tree,” she said after staring up at it for a good five minutes. “Lots of low, strong branches.”
“Let’s shake it,” Sam said. “See if we can knock the amulet loose.”
“I’m all for the easy way.”
They shook the tree. Vigorously. It was a no go.
“Looks like we’re going to have to climb.”
“I was afraid you were going to say that.” A tree, why did it have to be a tree? Why couldn’t it be water? He was a great swimmer, had no fear of that. No. It had to be a tree. And a very tall one.
“Could you boost me up to the first limb?”
“In handcuffs?” The logistics were laughable. Except he wasn’t laughing.
“No. Here, let me show you what I mean.”
She had him brace his back against the tree and squat in a sitting position. Then she climbed his knees like he was a chair, twisting around to accommodate the handcuffs until she’d seated herself on the bottom limb.
“Now what?”
“You come up too.”
“This is ridiculous, you’re going to fall.”
“Don’t be so negative.”
“I’m not negative, just realistic.”
“Realism is all well and good, but it’s spirit and imagination that’ll take you to the stars.”
“I don’t want to go to the stars,” Sam grumbled. “I just want to get that thing and get out of here.”
“Why are you so cranky all of a sudden?”
“I don’t want to climb this damned tree.”
“Come on. It’ll be fun.” And then she turned and started climbing higher, giving him no choice except to follow her or pull her to the ground.
The wind picked up as the sky darkened, blowing a lock of hair over his forehead. He made it to the
first branch, but by then she was already on to a second one. Her bare feet were at his eye level, his left arm raised high to help facilitate her upward mobility.
Then he made the mistake of glancing at the ground. Even though they were only about three feet up, his stomach started to roil.
Don’t look down.
Fair enough. He would look at her toes. That should take his mind off his fear of heights. Cute tiny toes painted up whimsically in glossy turquoise polish with little diamond heart nail jewelry embedded at the center of each big toe.
His fingers itched to reach out and stroke her elegant feet. His pulse pumped. He’d never understood foot fetishes before, but now, he did. There was something so compelling about her toes. He had a mad urge to take one of her pinkie toes into his mouth and suckle it.
He dragged in a deep breath, shocked by what was going on in his head. This was almost as dangerous as looking down.
“I’m going higher,” she said. “You with me?”
Then Sam made the fatal mistake of looking up.
One glance was all it took. One look at that glorious round butt of hers, encased in a pair of lacy scarlet panties and it was over the edge. Over the limb. Tumbling backward onto the hard-packed earth.
Taking Cass with him as he fell.
SAM WASN’T BREATHING. His eyes were wide, stunned, staring at the sky.
“Are you all right? What happened?” Cass peered anxiously down at him, biting her bottom lip in concern. She’d landed astraddle his lean muscular waist, his body breaking her freefall.
He wheezed. His face was red, his lips tinged blue. He held up one finger indicating that she should give him a moment.
Poor baby, he’d had the air slammed from his lungs.
She rolled off of him, lying side by side with him on the ground, squeezing his hand tightly while she waited for him to catch his breath.
“I lost my balance,” he said, once his breathing had returned to normal.
“Did I move before you were ready? We’ve got to figure out what it was, so we can coordinate our movements. I don’t know how many times we can fall out of a tree without breaking something.”
“It wasn’t you.”
“What was it?” Cass sat up. “Was it the wind? Did it gust hard enough to knock us out of the tree?”
“It wasn’t the wind. It was me.”
“You?”
“Forget the amulet. We’re not going back up that tree again.”
“Why not? I could have reached it. Just a few more feet.”
Sam swallowed.
Cass could tell that it was costing him a lot of pride to say what he was about to say. “I’m afraid of heights.”
“You? You’re afraid of heights?”
“Yeah, me.”
“But…but…that’s impossible. You came after me on an eighth-floor ledge.”
“You have no idea how much that took from me.”
“Why, Sam, that makes your actions even more heroic.” She turned misty-eyed and a lump of emotion hardened in her throat.
Without warning, he reached up with his unfettered hand, buried his fingers into the hair at the nape of her neck and pulled her head down to his.
Cass gasped, startled. Her stomach contracted. His actions were so passionate, so sudden, that every ion in her body sang, charged with erotic tension.
His mouth crushed hers, demanding, intense.
She was shocked by the great, unexpected force in him. His lips burned hers. A flame, bright and glowing and golden.
Danger, a challenge, the unexpected, the unknown, anxiety, fear, excitement all converged inside her to produce a wild euphoria. She felt as if she’d been given a shot of adrenaline.
The sexual guarantee embedded in that commanding kiss damaged Cass’s ability to reason. Every nerve in her body was electrified. The contour of him; the rich roundness of his bottom lip, the chiseled angle of the upper, the boundary where the masculine texture blended into the damp softness of his inner mouth.
Slowly, her lips relaxed, dreamlike as a strange calmness stole over her, a foreignness that provoked her. She surrendered into the feeling, into him.
Then just as abruptly as he’d grabbed her, Sam turned her loose and pulled his mouth from hers, saying gruffly, “Don’t make me out to be a hero.”
He sat up, rolling as far away from her as the handcuffs would allow.
What had just happened? Tentatively, Cass fingered her bruised lips.
How unexpected. The many layers of Sam Mason. She turned and studied his face. He looked away from her and Cass realized she’d underestimated him. He was far more complex than she’d ever guessed.
Cass understood why he’d done what he’d done. It had cost him so much to confess his weakness that, desperate to hide his frailty, he’d countered with the unexpected, taking her by surprise, kissing away his embarrassment.
But no matter what he might think, his fear of heights was not his flaw. He hadn’t gotten upset until she’d called him a hero. That’s where his discomfiture lay, even though he would probably deny it if she pointed that out to him.
No, Sam didn’t like being seen as special or different or unique from anyone else. He liked fitting in, liked being part of a team.
Unlike Cass who reveled in the limelight, he shied from it. Seeing undo attention as a threat to his inner stability. This new knowledge of him was both striking and seductive.
Sam’s vulnerability touched her deeply. He was much more mysterious than she’d ever believed. She wanted to unwrap him like the biggest present on Christmas morning, ripping off the attractive wrapping, opening up the sturdy box, ruffling through the stratum of delicate tissue paper to find the treasure buried deep inside the heart of this man.
“Stop looking at me like that,” he growled.
“Like what?”
“Like you’re psychoanalyzing me.”
“You just can’t keep doing that, you know. Leading me on, then thrusting me away.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Push-pull. Push-pull. I’m tired of you yanking me around.”
“I’m not yanking you around.”
“The hell you’re not.”
“What do you mean?”
“You honestly don’t see it?”
“See what?” He sounded exasperated.
“Last night, in the car, before we went into the party. You pulled over the car, acted like you were going to kiss me and then stopped with your mouth less than an inch from mine. Then later, when you got into bed with me, totally naked and didn’t make a move. And now you kiss me and then just as quickly shove me away. And you don’t want me psychoanalyzing you? How the hell else am I supposed to figure you out?”
“Have I really been doing that?”
“Ya-huh. If you were a woman you’d be called a cock tease, but since you’re a guy I suppose that makes you a…”
“I get it.”
“So what gives? Is it me? You’re attracted to the naughty girl, but too clean to make a move on her?”
“No! God, no.” He shoved his free hand through his hair. “I would never think that about you.”
“Then why won’t you just do me?”
“Here? In a public place?”
Cass glanced over her shoulder. “I don’t exactly see the public lined up for a trolley ride. Besides, you lost your virginity in the laundry at Camp Wonamunga. That’s a lot more public than this.”
“I lied about my first time,” he said. “I wanted it to sound exotic.”
“Really?” She grinned. “I lied, too.”
“No rich Russian pianist at the Augusta hotel in Boston?”
“Nah.”
“Too bad. It was a great story.”
“I’m in PR. It’s sort of expected. So how did you really lose your virginity?”
“Pool table in Jenny Miller’s rec room.”
“Get out! Me, too. Not with Jenny Miller, of course, mine was Brad Harper.”
>
“I’ve never made love outdoors,” he confessed.
She clicked her tongue. “You’ve been sadly deprived. We need to rectify that. Now.”
“I can’t. I’m a cop. It’s indecent exposure.”
“Only if we get caught.” She winked.
Clouds bunched. The wind kicked up. The air molecules quivered around them, thick with delicious anticipation and luscious innuendo. The changing weather escalated her lust, the elements pushing Cass toward something monumental. How exciting to make love with an electrical storm headed their way. How taboo. The mad rush of desire dizzied her head.
“Come on, Sam, do it. Take me right here, right now on this rock.”
“It’ll be rough on your back.”
“Don’t be so practical. Lose yourself.”
“I don’t want to bruise you.”
“I don’t care about bruises. I want you that badly. Don’t you see that’s what great sex is all about? Being daring, being spontaneous, wanting someone so damned much that you don’t care about the inconsequential things like bruises.”
“Cass.” He was sweating, his eyes dark with desire. “It’s not right.”
“So what? Let it be wrong. Let’s be wrong together.”
She was risking it all. Throwing herself at him, caught up in the whirl of the weather and the moment. Her gamble twisted her stomach, knotted her shoulders with spine-tingling tension. And a real vulnerability that torqued her erotic feelings for him into overdrive.
She didn’t care if she got hurt. Her passion was that reckless, that headlong. All she wanted was to feel him inside her. She flung her arms around his neck.
“Take me, Sam. I want you.”
But Cass never got to finish her seduction.
Lightning flashed. Thunder boomed.
And rain bucketed down.
9
“MY MANOLOS. They’re gonna be ruined. I knew I shouldn’t have let you leave them hanging in that tree.”
A fork of yellow-hot lightning smacked the ground not a hundred yards away. Thunder crashed.
“Forget your damned shoes,” Sam yelled, wind lashing rain into his face. “We’ve got to find shelter. Lightning could kill us, not to mention flash flooding.”
Cass stood beside him shivering, her fair hair plastered against her skin, highlighting the faint dusting of freckles across her nose Sam had never noticed were there. Her wet sweater lay flat against her breasts, close as a second skin. Her nipples were beaded tight, with cold or arousal he didn’t know which, but the sight of those puckers aroused him enormously. What an inconvenient time for an erection.