by D. D. Ayres
“Stop, Carly. No going there.” But the sensation of feeling trapped rose up around her for a second time. She needed to do something. Never one to sit and stew, she needed to be active to work through her demons. That meant getting out of here. Fast.
Without thinking about the reasonableness of what she was doing, she slipped into a pair of skinny jeans and pulled a heavy sweater over her head without bothering with undergarments. It was a habit from years of having to strip for lightning-quick changes at shows. Bras and undies slowed down the process and left marks on the skin. Besides, she wasn’t going far, or meeting anyone. She just needed to get out.
Instinct drove her into the night.
* * *
Noah sipped his thermos of coffee. At his feet was a plastic bag containing a can of dry-roasted peanuts, a couple of protein bars, a pack of gum, and a sack of doggy treats. He and Harley were set for stakeout.
Harley suddenly sat up and woofed quietly from the backseat. It was followed by a soft poot.
“Geez. You’re killing me here.” Noah waved a hand before his face as he rolled down the driver’s side window. Harley barked again, this time a little brighter. “Yeah. I know. Time to take a doggy dump.”
Harley was off schedule. Having not eaten until late in the afternoon, he’d demanded both morning and evening portions together. Or maybe it was the pieces of bratwurst his owner had slipped him at dinner. Either way, Harley was manufacturing farts foul enough to run off the baddest bad guy.
Noah exited his truck, parked in a lot diagonally across the street from Flawless so that he could simultaneously watch the front and rear exits of the building complex. While he couldn’t see the rear door, he could see if a vehicle turned into the parking lot behind the strip of stores.
He stood perfectly still, ignoring the buffeting north wind that had turned a warming spring back into a wintery shiver. Only his eyes moved as he scanned the area from A to B to C. Nothing moved in the shadows on either side of the street. Two cars passed as he stood watching. One blasted a beat that registered in his chest from a block away. Nothing to hide there. The other was moving fast, late for something. Or moving quickly away from something. But not interested in him, either way.
He really wasn’t expecting his arsonist to return to the scene of the crime this long after the event. The man after him was smart. He’d gotten the drop on Noah because Noah hadn’t suspected anything until it was too late.
He shook his head. He was thirty-four and jaded as hell by a life in law enforcement. He should’ve seen trouble coming. He should have bruises or cuts, something to prove he’d put up some sort of struggle. But he didn’t.
What women said after being roofied was true. He didn’t know what he’d said and done, agreed to or argued about. The lost hours were a complete blank, as smoothly opaque as polished black marble.
He scrubbed a hand up and down the back of his neck. He felt stupid. He felt violated. He felt he’d somehow let himself down. He didn’t like any of those feelings. Or the fact that the men and women he worked with in mutual respect were now eying him with suspicious gazes. As if he were no longer one of them, maybe even a traitor.
Damage control. He needed to do it, and fast. He wasn’t here just because he’d promised Carly he’d make certain her store was secure. He wanted to watch the place. Maybe something would jog loose in his memory of the night before if he sat here in the dark.
Finally, satisfied that the night was empty of threat, he reached for the leash he wore like a second belt around his waist.
Harley, breathing excitedly with the opportunity for fresh air, waited patiently for the leash to be attached to his collar.
Once out of the car, he sniffed around carefully on the ground but never lost eye contact with Noah for more than a few seconds at a time. He was in his harness. That meant they were working. Harley didn’t know whether this was the real thing or a test, with a whiff of accelerant or bomb-making component hidden anywhere, even in the wheel rim of their car. His handler was like that, hiding test strips in a drawer or waste basket right in the Fire Investigation offices. It really didn’t matter that Harley couldn’t make the distinction between a test and a real search for explosives. But Noah suspected that Harley detected the pheromone change of excitement in his handler’s scent and so knew when he’d done something important. Those were the moments the K-9 lived for.
Bright eyes shining in the darkness, Harley kept a close eye on Noah’s hands, waiting for a command to “Seek.” Instead, Noah said, “Free,” which was permission to take care of his doggy business.
Snuffling in the night the way his handler had drunk the details through his human eyes, Harley processed the scents of the grassy patch at the edge of the parking lot. The area was perfumed with cigarette butts, chewed gum, gas exhaust from the hundreds of cars that had passed, raccoon scat, and the faint scent of cheeseburger from a wrapper that had landed briefly before being blown away in the chill breeze. But overwhelming everything was the strong urine of other dogs. Male and female, young and old. One with a gastric infection that made Harley back up a step. Another fresh pile so rich in the remnants of prime rib and pork chops, he was tempted to sample.
He swerved his gaze toward Noah, who would be sure to stop him if he tried. He sneezed, blowing the temptation out of his nostrils. And moved on to find a place to squat.
As Harley finished, a flashlight winked in the darkness across the street. Noah’s pulse jumped and his body went rigid. Yes, there it was again, inside Flawless.
“Damn.” He spoke softly but it was enough to stop Harley from investigating whatever new odor had taken his doggy fancy. He came quickly to stand before Noah, ears forward and head straining up toward his handler.
Noah reached back to touch his pancake holster, nestled behind his right kidney at his back. Inside was his Sig P239. As an arson investigator, invested with arrest powers, he was allowed to carry at all times. It would be just too good if the arsonist had come back. More likely it was a B&E trying to pick up some easy loot to fence.
He gave Harley the command for “silence,” then crossed the street quickly on the opposite side, glad for the boarded-up plate-glass windows. While they prevented Noah from seeing inside, they also protected him from being spotted easily from the inside. He scanned the shadows before and behind him as he proceeded down the side street across from the shop, looking for any signs of a lookout.
After a moment of dawdling, while Harley marked a fireplug, Noah determined that his B&E was probably alone. And just as probably he was a novice at robbery, or desperate enough not to care that his flashlight was dancing all over the interior.
Noah gained the nearside sidewalk quickly and made the decision to go in at the rear, the way the culprit had most likely entered. Sure enough the door was standing ajar. He glanced back at the rear parking lot, one last time, and noticed a familiar Mazda in the only occupied space. Well, hell. Carly Harrington-Reese was inside.
He gathered up Harley’s leash and pulled out his own flashlight. Just in case she was of the kind of woman who carried, he knocked hard on the doorframe before entering and called out, “Police. Show yourself.”
“Okay. I’m Carly Reese, the owner.” She often omitted Harrington when she didn’t want to call attention to her former occupation.
He recognized her voice and switched on his flashlight, sending the high beam straight at her as he stepped through the backdoor of the store.
Her dark eyes were wide as a nocturnal creature’s. Her hair was equally wild, streamers of curls exploding in every direction about her head. Happy hair, he thought fleetingly, but pinched off his smile. Because the last thing he expected tonight was to find her stumbling about in the dark. Anything—and he had been a cop who knew firsthand the results of those possibilities—could happen to a woman alone in an empty building.
Fear for her safety expanded in his chest as anger. He and Harley moved inside and closed the door before releasing
a bit of it. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Noah?” She swerved her light his way for confirmation, then shoved a hand through her crazy hair, setting off little curl quakes. “I forgot to look for something earlier.”
He bit back an expletive. “You’d think last night would’ve discouraged you from taking risks. Even a child knows, once burned, twice shy.”
That pricked her. A chin lift and frowny stare came into play. If she hadn’t looked so pissed off, he might have smiled at her. He was learning her temperament.
“My place. I have a key.” She stuck her flashlight into something so that it stood upright, flooding the ceiling with light. “Why are you here?”
“Protecting your property. And now your beautiful butt.”
She cocked her head to one side. “You took the job? Why?”
He hated giving her a clue to his thoughts, but what the hell? “Because I figured I owed you.”
“So you put yourself in—hah.” She pointed a finger at him. “You’re hoping the arsonist will return.”
His mouth straightened from downward grim to flat annoyed. “This isn’t about me.” He came toward her, Harley at his side. “We’re discussing you. Were you born without the self-protection gene? Or, do you have some kind of martyr complex?”
She didn’t back away from him. In fact, she stepped into his path. “Why are you so angry?”
“Because.” Because she was a little too close for his comfort. It was a hell of a time for his libido to wake up. Just being close to Carly, his body suddenly remembered what it was like to get an erection, and ache for release.
“What if I’d come in with my gun drawn, thinking you were a thief, and shot you?”
She folded her arms and cocked a softly rounded hip to one side. “I’d have sued your ass for reckless endangerment.”
Damn. She had an answer for everything. Why did that please him so much? Most women found him intimidating. She wasn’t easily impressed. Even if her greatest defense was her mouth.
With that thought his gaze latched onto her mouth. Those full soft lips knew how to take him to task and put him in his place. He wondered what they tasted like. Would they be as sweet as they looked, or as tart as her tongue?
She seemed to realize the exact second he stopped thinking of her as a crazy lady and began viewing her as a most desirable woman. He expected her to back up, self-preservation, an instinct in the female/male world of lust. She only stood there.
Harley, also brought on line by the testosterone spilling off his owner, began a nervous dance. It was called “emotion down the leash.”
Noah almost smirked. With the hard-on he was getting, poor Harley should be howling at the moon.
Not professional. The phrase flashed across his mind. He was on the job, informally or not. This wasn’t the time or place to indulge his ego, and other parts.
He took a step backward but she went with him, her face lifted with a question in her gaze.
“You don’t—” His voice gave out. He didn’t want to talk. He didn’t want to follow protocol. He didn’t want to do anything but kiss her.
CHAPTER TWELVE
He’d been out prowling.
The high from the fire on Shelby Road hadn’t lasted. Maybe it was the static charge in the air. About midnight the wind had changed directions, stirring up the atmosphere with electrical energy and reigniting his urge.
Two beers in, he’d left a dive in White Settlement without bothering to inform the crew he regularly drank with. Another beer, and he might have said things he’d regret. The only way to prevent that was to stay sober, and be alone.
With the native paranoia of a creature with many predators, he never slept long when the urge was on him. Or in the same place two nights in a row. Sometimes, like tonight, he roamed.
But a man had to be somewhere. Driving around aimlessly might draw attention. The last thing he needed to deal with tonight was cops. “The Boss’s” song State Trooper hummed through his head. Please don’t stop me.
He knew to stay away from Glover until he was ready. But that turned his thoughts to the woman who’d ruined his perfect crime.
Curiosity had sent him to her apartment complex. Finding her was as simple as looking her up on the internet, courtesy of the Flawless card he’d pocketed.
Carly fuckin’ Harrington-Reese! A real honest-to-god nasty girl. He’d seen the pictures to prove it. Sure, they said it was fashion. But, fuck that! She was naked. That was nothing but high-class porn.
Sitting in his truck in her parking lot, he hadn’t expected she would appear on one of the top-floor balconies. Picking up the binoculars he kept for fire watching, he’d watched her while he chafed with an itch he hadn’t scratched in weeks.
That was because Darlene hadn’t let him back in after he’d slapped her around for burning the pizza she was reheating.
He would have forgiven her tonight. If she’d opened her door. Instead, she’d threatened to call the police. So, he’d driven on. And ended up at the Reese woman’s location. When she went back inside, he’d almost finished jacking off to the fantasy she’d evoked. Deprived of the sight of her, he’d slowed down and made the pleasure last.
Then she’d suddenly appeared in the parking lot. He thought he’d been made. Panic made him fumble his glasses as he ducked behind the steering wheel. And, fuck, wouldn’t you know it? One lens had struck his gearshift and cracked. By the time he’d looked up, she was getting in her car. He followed her.
Here—to Flawless.
Christ! It was like she knew he was there, waiting for a chance to get her alone. His hands were slick on the steering wheel. The bulge in his jeans harder than before the handjob.
Good thing he’d had the presence of mind to circle the block and park a ways beyond. She’d barely entered through the back door when Glover appeared.
Watching the store now, knowing they were inside together, he had half a mind to finish what he’d started. They were probably in there fucking, while he hid in the bushes like a pussy.
The searing unfairness of it all made his heart pound and his eyes burn. The urge to do something made his hand shake as he reached for one of the incendiary devices he’d pocketed before leaving his truck.
It wouldn’t be neat, or solve all his problems. It would, however, ease the tension coursing through his veins like corrosive acid.
But instead, he swerved his hand at the last second to his Ka-Bar at his ankle. He withdrew and pulled it across his palm. He stared at the blood pooling, letting the sting of the wound remind him that he had made mistakes lately. He couldn’t afford for rage to control his actions.
Whatever was going on inside, he would wait and use it to his advantage. When he was calm and ready.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Carly blinked when Noah shut his flashlight off. Then he reached out and did the same with hers. She could no longer see him. But every one of her other senses intensified to make her aware of his presence.
They weren’t quite touching. Even so, she could feel the heat from his body, judge the expanse of his body from it. A moment before he touched her, she sensed the raising of his hands. She met him halfway, her arms lifting to rest on his chest as his hands found her shoulders and pulled her close.
When his lips found hers in the darkness, she sighed in relief.
It was the moment they had been building toward all day, perhaps even since the night before. It didn’t make sense. Desire never really does. That hunger for another person doesn’t consider anything but its own needs. And right now, her desire was running the show.
She felt his hands sliding over her, one moving up to cup the back of her head while the other moved down low on her hips. Without breaking the kiss, he pressed into her, bone and muscle, molding her perfectly to his harder frame. Somehow her hands found their way inside his jacket and then around to his back until she was clutching his shoulders from behind. He was hard and sinewy beneath the soft cotton of his s
hirt. He tasted of peanuts and coffee, and some subtle indefinable essence that was his alone. She even liked the drag of his whisker-roughened jaw along hers. In every way, this tough guy seemed to have the answer to a question she wasn’t sure she’d asked.
She heard him moan low a moment before he released the kiss. Shaken to her core by a simple kiss, she was no longer certain of anything.
When he dropped his hands from her body, she knew she should do the same. They weren’t a couple, or anything close. Not even friends. Clinging was definitely not part of the scenario, whatever the hell the scenario was.
Her hands came away slowly, sliding down the firm contours of his back before falling free from beneath his jacket. And then she retreated, back into the shell she had developed years before, when too many men thought “model” equaled “sex object” and were more interested in what she was than who she was.
She even knew how to let him off easy. “Mistake, huh?”
She felt him staring at her even though she couldn’t see him. Staring and wanting her, without a doubt. It was in his voice, deep and a little harsh with flecks of surprise, when he finally spoke. “I’ve been wanting to do that ever since I opened my eyes last night and saw you bending over me like a guardian angel.”
The confession startled her. She’d expected his interest was more recent, fanned by the pictures of her he’d seen. It took a few seconds to form a flip reply. “You’re just saying that because I saved you.”
She couldn’t see his smile. But she knew she felt it.
“Is that what you were doing just now, saving me?”
Saving him? Her heart had started to pound. She had no idea, no idea at all, what she was doing. She only knew she didn’t want to stop now.
She ran her hands up his chest and clenched her fingers over his pecs. “Shut up and kiss me again.”
This time there was no pretense at moderation or control. His mouth engulfed hers, hot and demanding, his tongue stroking hers in urgent persuasion. She’d never felt weak-kneed before, as if her passion demanded instant surrender, on the floor, right now. But suddenly she was all wobbly and clutching him for balance.