The Bliss Factor

by Penny McCall

  “Not until you get your head out of your ass. This is getting serious, Rae. Harry and his friends may come off as Stooges, but they’ll kill for those plates.”

  “And I don’t have the necessary training. I got that earlier. When you told me you didn’t want a partner anymore. And yet here you are.”

  He blew out a breath, staring into the fire for a minute.

  “What do you want?”

  “It would be easier for me to concentrate on what I have to do if you weren’t mad at me.”

  “Fine. Or as you so charmingly put it, my head is out of my ass. Harry and his friends are all yours. Hell, take on the whole mafia for all I care.” Rae kept her voice down; she even managed to sound like she’d come to terms with his high-handed, obnoxious, insulting ultimatum. Then she tried to cap it off with a dramatic exit, but the low beach chair tripped her up and she fell back into it, crossing her arms and not caring if Conn knew she was actually fuming.

  “Need some help?” he said, not making much of an effort to hide his amusement.

  “I’d say yes, but I know you have a problem with teamwork.”

  She boosted herself out of the chair, temper taking her to her feet in one jack-in-the-box move. Temper took her out of the circle of firelight and into the blessed darkness beyond. Stubbornness kept her from doing anything rash. She stayed in the shadows at the edge of the fire, watching the re-enactors quietly celebrate another successful weekend, and refusing to give Connor Larkin the satisfaction of knowing he’d sent her running again—and really, he hadn’t. She was hurt and angry, but taking it out on Conn wasn’t going to change that any more than distance from him would.

  Besides, it wasn’t any more his fault that it was hers. Sure, he was an undercover agent, but he hadn’t known that a week ago. And sure, he’d gotten his memory back and kept it from her, and yeah, it ticked her off, but she wouldn’t appreciate him interfering in her work if she was in the midst of an accounting emergency . . . Okay, accounting wasn’t exactly a life-or-death career path, but it was the principle of the thing. Her job was to sit at a desk and protect people from the IRS, his was to carry a gun and protect democracy, or at least capitalism. Both their lives were on the line, and in both cases failure meant unemployment, but she would only lose her job, and maybe her house. Conn might be moving to a much smaller piece of real estate. Six feet under.

  The Renaissance folk were as exhausted as any so-called normal person after a long couple of days of work. Considering the week Rae had just been through, she could identify. Her problem, however, was with tomorrow.

  Her parents had already gone off to bed, others trailing out of the firelight in ones and twos, including Conn. He’d pitched his tent outside the entrance to the Airstream. Rae hesitated between the two, torn. She wanted to clear the air with Conn, just in case, but she was pretty sure that wasn’t her only motivation

  Conn took the decision out of her hands. “I’m not asleep,” he said, flipping open the front flap.

  The moon was nearly full, enough light leaking through the trees to see his expression, including the surprise when she said, “I owe you an apology.”

  “For?”

  “You’re doing what you think is right.”

  “But you still don’t agree with it.”

  “I still think you’re being an idiot. But it’s your life to gamble with.”

  “Then the apology is really about your conscience. That and you have no confidence in my job skills.”

  “Well, you’re being a jerk, and I think that’s about you pushing me away in case something goes wrong tomorrow.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  She crawled into the tent, shoved him onto his back, and laid her body on his. “This is why,” she said, taking his mouth but not letting him deepen the kiss. “You can pretend—” No, she wouldn’t be that woman who asked for reassurances, even obliquely. Her feelings were her feelings; they didn’t give her the right to push him into an emotional corner. She could show him how she felt, though. She couldn’t help it, really, pouring herself into another kiss, offering him more than her body. Offering him everything she was.

  And Conn accepted, without hesitation and without words. It stung, made the joy a little bittersweet until she gave herself to sensation, to the slide of his hands over her skin as they slipped clothing off, the feel of him against her, strong and sure, the pull of his mouth at her breast as his fingers slipped between her legs and entered her, and the building of pleasure, layer on layer, drawing her into a knot of coiled need, winding tighter and tighter until his mouth replaced his fingers and she unraveled, Conn drawing the orgasm out to an impossible length that left her spent, but wanting to curl into herself so she could hold on to that magic just a little longer.

  Conn was there, though, gathering her close, holding her almost too tightly. If she could have, she would have brought him closer still. She would have crawled inside his skin so he could never leave her behind. She had to settle for nuzzling her face into the crook of his neck, absorbing his heat, breathing his scent, listening to his heartbeat under her ear.

  They stayed that way for a little while, Rae not letting herself read anything into the embrace. Conn couldn’t be worried about the next day; he was never uncertain. And she already knew he cared for her, the friends-with-benefits-but-no-future kind of caring. Not enough to call it love, but enough to be gentle, and gentle he was. He made love to her slowly, as he’d done that first time, with the intensity that stole her breath, and a tenderness that made her heart ache.

  His hands and mouth were everywhere at once—her neck, her breasts, her center. He joined his body to hers, a long, slow slide that made her toes curl and her back arch and every cell she had come alive. He pulled her knee up and went deeper, keeping to that same agonizingly slow pace until she shoved at his shoulders and he rolled to his back, taking her with him.

  Rae rose over him, filled with an urgency she’d never felt before, not just a physical drive, but an emotional one. And the emotion was anger. She slammed her body against his, balancing on the razor’s edge between a nearly unbearable level of pleasure and complete sensory overload, rocking her body into his, harder and faster, more desperate with each stroke until he grabbed her hips and said gently, “Let go,” and she did, felt him go over as her climax blasted through her, a collision of sensation and emotion too intense to bear, let alone hide.

  She eased down beside Conn, but any hope he wouldn’t notice her upset flew out the window when he wiped a tear from her cheek.

  “What’s this?” he said softly.

  “It’s been a hell of a day,” she said, swallowing hard and willing the tears back.

  “I’m sorry for the way I handled things today, but you have to trust that I’m right.”

  “I do. You’re the one with the trust issues.”

  “I know,” he said on a heavy exhale. “I guess I’ll have to work on that.”

  If he was still around after tomorrow.

  Neither of them said it, but it hung between them all the same.

  “Tomorrow morning I’ll take you home to get your files, then I’ll take you to work,” he said.

  “See? You don’t trust me.”

  “It’s not mistrust, it’s just . . . I don’t need any distractions tomorrow. It’ll help me to know you’re safe while the meet goes down.”

  Rae digested that for a few seconds, then said, “Okay,” without actually coming to terms with what it might mean. In the matter of hopeless causes, ignorance was definitely bliss.

  She sat up, but Conn pulled her back down next to him.

  “Worried about my safety again?” she teased.

  “Yeah, it’s your safety I’m thinking about.”

  “Okay,” she said, settling down beside him, “because being an accountant is dangerous, so I need all the protection I can get.”

  chapter 28

  CONN WOKE ALONE EARLY MONDAY MORNING. Despite his solitude he stayed w
here he was, replaying the night before and smiling. Rae had slipped out of the tent in the early morning hours. He’d known she was leaving and chose not to stop her. She needed the distance and so did he. Much as he would have enjoyed starting the day the way he’d ended the last one, it wasn’t exactly conducive to keeping his head in the game. Just remembering Rae, naked and warm, that amazing red hair tousled, her eyes sleepy and inviting . . . And what the hell was he supposed to be thinking about?

  She came out of the Airstream, bright smile, bright eyes, no sign of sadness or resentment, and he gave up on reloading his former train of thought.

  “What’s your problem?” she asked him when he crawled out of his tent.

  He wiped the frown off his face, although he couldn’t quite make it to her level of chipper. “I expected less Sunny and more Rae.”

  “Ouch.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  She bumped up a shoulder. “What would be the point? You have a life, I have a life.”

  “Yeah, we both have lives,” Conn said, irritated.

  “There’s no we. You said it more than once.”

  “Not like that.”

  “Maybe not, but you got your message across anyway, and I understand that’s the way it has to be.”

  She didn’t have to sound so damn happy about it. He sure as hell wasn’t happy about it. He wasn’t exactly sure what he felt, but happy wasn’t anywhere on the list.

  “Get your purse,” he said, “I’ll take you back to your life.”

  “Okay,” she said, with what he swore was a slight smirk.

  He ignored the smirk. “Where are your parents? They’re coming with us.”

  “Let’s go find them.”

  She nipped into the trailer and retrieved her purse, and they headed straight for her parents’ booth. Sure enough they were there, packing up.

  “The festival has a couple more weeks to run,” Rae said.

  Annie reached for the packing tape. “We thought it would be best to call it a day here.”

  Conn looked around the crude wooden building. Most of the textiles and clothing they hawked were still on display. The back room was empty, so was Nelson’s loom. They’d gotten rid of the evidence against them. He looked at Rae and knew she’d come to the same conclusion.

  “It won’t matter,” he said.

  And there was the sadness he’d expected to see earlier. But it was her disappointment that made him look away.

  They followed Annie and Nelson out of the booth and through the eerily deserted Grove. Pennants waved, booths were filled with merchandise, and the stages beckoned. The place was like a hooker in suburbia at noon, he decided—all tarted up and no john in sight.

  There was, however, activity at the staff entrance, which was also the service entrance. A UPS truck was parked to one side, and people, some of them in Renaissance garb for a reason Conn couldn’t begin to fathom when there were no tourists around, were queued up to ship merchandise or sort through the stack the driver had already off-loaded.

  A couple other trucks were parked there as well, a small U-Haul and a similarly-sized white truck with TWO MEN AND A HAND TRUCK printed on it in Home Depot press-on black lettering. Some sort of small-time home-based business, Conn guessed.

  He tuned in to the activity in the small Grove, keeping one eye and one ear on the Blisses, not that they were doing any talking.

  “Loosen up,” he said under his voice. “You look like there’s a firing squad in your future.”

  “There’s probably a jail cell,” Rae snapped, although she kept her voice down, too. “You’re clearly not going to do anything about it.”

  “That’s for the lawyers.”

  “Cop-out.”

  “Let’s just worry about today, shall we?” Nelson said, always the voice of reason.

  Rae went silent and sulky.

  From the corner of his eye, Conn caught movement from the U-haul, shifting his eyes in that direction and turning his head only enough to get a better look—at Kemp exiting the driver’s door.

  Conn put Rae and her disappointment out of his mind. Words would only be an empty reassurance anyway. The best he could do for her was finish this thing and stand for her parents when the time came.

  Kemp was wearing a brown cape and a bald cap, trying to be Friar Tuck. Rae and her parents didn’t notice him, which was only more justification for wanting them far away from the op today—no sense of danger, although Rae looked over at him, her “Conn” radar apparently humming. He lifted a brow in question, radiating Nothing wrong here for all he was worth.

  Nelson put an arm around her shoulders and said something, and she turned away. Conn was thinking fast and moving slow, dragging his feet while he took stock and made a game plan.

  Being short and camouflaged, Kemp blended in with the small crowd. He kept his head down, trying to look innocent, and completely missing Rae and her parents. Conn kept track of the shiny pink plastic scalp with the fringe of faux hair. Not a problem from his height.

  The U-Haul was for moving Lockner’s printing press, but Kemp was going to have a problem—besides figuring out a way to move the thing by himself. Kemp was about to have a close encounter with a cattle prod . . . Okay, Conn wasn’t going to actually torture him, unless scare tactics counted.

  He caught up with Rae and her parents, handing Nelson the keys to the Jaguar. “Take Rae to work, then find yourself a crowded place to spend the day,” he said. “There’s a mall not far from her office building. That’ll work.”

  “You said you were going to take me.” Rae stepped close and lowered her voice. “You said you needed to know I was safe.”

  She had him there, and for a moment it worried him that Harry and Joe were wandering around somewhere, concocting who knew what harebrained schemes. What worried him more was that Rae wouldn’t cooperate.

  “Fine,” he said. “Go to the Airstream. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Just go. I’ll be right behind you. Trust me.”

  Those last two words did it. She snapped her mouth shut, regarded him out of narrowed eyes for another few seconds, then turned at her father’s urging and walked off with them.

  Conn did an about-face, located the fake scalp, and weaved his way around everyone else so he could come up behind Kemp, saying, “Hey, man, it’s been a long time,” pretending to hug him but locking his hand around the back of Kemp’s neck. He felt Kemp’s muscles bunch and said, “Don’t even think of it,” letting his light jacket gape open.

  Kemp took a look at the gun holster beneath Conn’s left arm and aborted whatever misguided hopes he had for escape. Conn quick-stepped him to the Airstream, but five adults, one of them with Kemp’s girth, exceeded the available space, so Conn cut right to the chase.

  “This is why I need you to go with your parents,” he said to Rae. “Kemp is going to tell me everything he knows.”

  “I don’t know anything,” Kemp said.

  “Shut up or I’ll sic her on you.”

  Rae played along, glaring at Kemp. When her eyes dropped to his crotch, he hunched, knees clenched together, shuffling backward as far as he could, which was all of two inches before he came up against the galley cabinets.

  Then Rae turned her glare on him, and Conn resisted the urge to do a duck-and-cover routine of his own, except the body part he would have covered was a lot higher than his crotch. That body part was also covered by heavy muscle, but that didn’t seem to be much protection against Rae.

  “Are you going to torture him?” she asked.

  “Only if he makes it necessary.”

  “I hope you’re feeling uncooperative,” she said to Kemp, looking avid. “Conn has a really excellent collection of knives.”

  Kemp looked a little green, but Conn had to hand it to him. “I’m not telling him anything,” he said to Rae.

  “Is there any way you can take pictures? Maybe video?”

 
Okay, now she was scaring him. “Maybe I should let you question him.”

  “Don’t you mean interrogate?”

  “It’s a good thing she has to go to work,” Conn said to Kemp, not to mention reminding Rae.

  “Yeah, you have to go to work,” Kemp said, visibly relieved, almost cheerful at the idea of Rae taking herself elsewhere.

  “We only work on the weekends,” Annie said, and not because she was trying to cut in on Rae’s fun. She looked like she wouldn’t mind getting a piece of Kemp.

  Kemp was wise enough to keep his mouth shut.

  Conn thought that was a good idea, catching Nelson’s eye and trying to let him know without words—and the messy female emotions they would spark—that the safety of his woman was in his hands.

  “Let’s go,” Nelson said with steel in his voice.

  It caught all of them off guard, but not for long.

  “You promised to take me,” Rae said to Conn.

  “You can’t break a promise,” Kemp said. “And you should walk her right to the door, make sure she gets there okay.”

  “Then again, I hate to interfere with your work,” she said, more for Kemp’s sake than anything else. Her eyes, when they met Conn’s, were troubled.

  He took the gun out of his holster, flipped off the safety, and handed it to Nelson, checking to make sure there was a bullet in the chamber. “If he moves, shoot him.”

  “I’ll assume you don’t mean I should hit him anywhere . . . final.”

  “Man,” Kemp said, “your whole family is crazy.”

  Rae looked like she was about to prove him right. “Save something for me,” Conn said, pulling her down the hallway and into the bedroom.

  “You’re not actually going to torture him,” she said when they were out of sight. “He doesn’t know anything.”

  “He knows where Harry and Joe are. Since Harry isn’t answering his phone, it’s a start.”

  “Oh. Then you are going to take on all three of them.”

  “Not at the same time.”

  “Okay,” she said, but that look was in her eyes again, and it wasn’t the worry that bothered him, it was what the worry might push her into doing—namely, getting herself in trouble in a misguided attempt to help him.