“Yes.” He tossed back another sip.
“Anyway, I didn’t really come out of my shell until college. No, actually, I should say grad school.”
He swirled his drink and leaned back in his chair. Grad school. Troy hadn’t even gone to college. It was one of the major differences between them and definitely not his favorite topic. But still, it was nice talking to her about something besides a murder investigation.
He glanced at her and saw that she was giving the blue agave another chance. “So what happened in grad school?”
She rolled her eyes. “I fell in love. Or at least I thought I did.”
“You thought you were in love, and then… ?” He waited for her to fill in the blank.
“He was a law professor. She was his T.A.” She took a gulp, and this one seemed to go down easier than the rest. “And yes, I’m fully aware of what a cliché that is. What can I say? He was a cheat, and I was an idiot.”
“Love makes people stupid.” Troy downed the rest of his drink and offered her the bottle. She nodded, and he filled up their glasses.
“How do you know?” she asked.
“Just what I hear.”
They stared at the sky, and his buzz started to kick in. They didn’t talk for a while, just drank and listened to the waves. It felt good. This was one of his favorite pastimes, but usually he did it alone.
“You haven’t asked about the ketamine.”
He’d known it was too good to last. He turned to look at her. “What about the ketamine?”
“I bought some. No prescription necessary. It’s entirely possible our unsub is buying his supply at a veterinaria just over the bridge.”
“Great. Now what?”
“I don’t know. The clerk there started to ID someone from my photo array, then clammed up when her manager walked in.”
Troy closed his eyes and muttered a curse.
“I did, however, find a waitress who could ID one of my suspects as being a frequent customer right around spring break. First thing tomorrow, I’m going to see if we can get some surveillance on him.”
“Elaina.” Troy leaned forward on his elbows. “You think it might be possible your undercover operation is the reason you were attacked?”
She looked at him.
“Don’t you know you can’t just go waltzing down there, trying to pull some sting op with the local vendors? Shit, drugs are a serious business here. You’re lucky you didn’t get a bullet in your brain.”
Troy tipped back his glass. Forget driving. If he took her home at all tonight, it was going to be a half-mile walk down the beach.
“It’s okay to ask for help,” he said. “You don’t have to be Superwoman all the time.”
He could feel her tension now. He glanced over at her. She was pissed off at him. Again.
“You don’t think I can do my job?”
“Don’t get defensive. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying I would have gone with you. Purely as a friend, not a reporter,” he added when she sent him a wary look. “Weaver would have gone with you, too. Or Cinco or Maynard. Law enforcement is a team effort. You have to ask your teammates for help when you need it.”
She didn’t reply, and he wondered if she’d heard this advice before. She could stand to hear it again, obviously.
“At the very least, next time take someone who speaks Spanish. Someone who can fish for information without ticking people off.”
She stood up. Here it came. The big adios.
She surprised him yet again by picking up her drink and taking it to the wooden railing. She rested it there and looked out over the beach.
“I think you’re right,” she said, and the words were almost lost on the breeze.
He got up and joined her, resting his glass beside hers.
“I get this feeling all the time that so many people expect me to fail,” she said. “Sometimes I even think they want me to fail. My boss. My coworkers. My own father.” Her hair blew around her face, and she gathered it up and twisted it into a knot. “I guess I’m distrustful of people’s motives. I don’t think they really want to help me. I think I need to do everything myself. Prove to everyone that I’m capable.”
She looked at him, and he saw the vulnerability in her eyes. She gazed back out at the beach. “You want to know the worst thing about tonight?”
He watched her closely. She was letting her guard down. Slowly, but surely, she was doing it. And it had only taken countless hours alone with her and half a bottle of Don Julio.
“What was the worst thing about tonight?”
“I felt completely helpless. My whole life I’ve spent trying to get away from that feeling. Ever since my mom walked out.”
She shook her head. “I think about how hard I worked at the Academy, all the weapons training, the hours of sparring. And it only took two thugs with a switchblade about one minute to reduce me to a defenseless, terrified woman in that alley.” Her voice wasn’t quite steady now, and he knew she was revealing a side of herself—a weakness—that she usually kept hidden. A lone tear slid down her cheek, and she quickly swiped it away. She looked out at the water, and he had the urge to wrap his arms around her and say something protective and comforting. But he sensed she wouldn’t want the usual weepy-female treatment. Hell, he didn’t want to give it. If either of those guys had pulled a gun, Elaina would likely be dead right now. And her death would barely make the news—just one more casualty in the border wars. She knew it, too. She knew just how close she’d come to being a statistic.
She took a deep breath, and Troy watched her get her composure back. She shivered, and he hoped it was just because of the cool breeze.
“Sorry,” she muttered. “Too much information, right?”
“No.”
“Must be the tequila,” she said. “I’m not usually this chatty.”
“I like you chatty.”
She went back to the table and got the bottle. She poured a few fingers into his glass, then hers.
Troy pushed the last of his prurient fantasies out of his mind. She was trying to get good and drunk, and he didn’t blame her. She’d been through a trauma tonight. She felt emotional. And if he manipulated the situation to his advantage, he deserved to end up in the seventh level of hell.
She took another sip and held the glass up to the moonlight. “Is this stuff really three hundred dollars a bottle?”
“That’s if you smuggle it in. Retail, it’s more.”
“That’s ridiculous,” she said, and took a gulp. “Wasteful. I can’t believe I’m drinking it. Every sip is what, twenty bucks?”
She wanted to change the subject, and he was happy to oblige her.
“Depends on your definition of wasteful,” he said. “How much is a line of coke?”
“I have no idea.” She shot him a peevish look, like the Elaina he knew, and he felt reassured that she was back in control. He wasn’t about to have a soggy drunk on his hands.
“How much is a Louis Vuitton purse?” he asked. “Or an iPhone? Or a pair of Bulls tickets?”
“Okay, okay, I can see your point. I love basketball.” She cast him a sidelong glance, and he saw the faintest trace of a smile now. Progress.
She turned to face the water. For a few minutes, she got quiet and he tried not to notice how pretty her neck looked with her hair pulled up like that.
“I can’t believe you live on the beach,” she said. “Do you ever wake up and look out the window and have to pinch yourself?”
“No.”
“Really?”
“I grew up on the bay, so being surrounded by water’s pretty normal for me. I think I could swim before I could walk.”
She sighed wistfully. “I’ve never been skinny-dipping. It’s on my list. Or it was.”
He looked at her for a second, not sure he’d heard her right. “What list?”
“My ‘Things I’ve Never Done But Secretly Want To’ list.” She glanced at him. “When I joined the Bureau,
I crossed a lot of stuff off it.”
“Why’s that?”
“Well, anything illegal is out. Plus anything ethically questionable.”
He turned around and leaned back against the railing, enjoying the conversation now. “What’s unethical about getting naked in the ocean?”
“I’m not sure.” Another sip. “Probably something. Oh, yeah. Public indecency.”
“What if you own the beach?”
“Do you own this beach?”
“No, just hypothetically.”
“Then it wouldn’t be a good idea,” she said.
“It’s a great idea. It feels good. You should go sometime. Hell, go now if you want to. I won’t tell anyone.”
“Really?” She grinned. “Would you go with me?”
Would he go skinny-dipping with her? She didn’t even have to ask. But he looked at her, smiling at him in the dimness, and he realized just how very, very inebriated she had to be right now. Time to take her inside and tuck her in on his couch with a glass of water nearby. And he knew that was the dead last thing he was going to do.
“Never swim alone,” he said. “That’s my motto.”
“Oh, you’re not serious. I can tell.” She poured another shot of tequila into her glass. Troy watched her, and something tightened in his gut.
Her gaze met his as she brought the glass to her lips.
“Better watch it, Elaina.” His voice was low and dark now, and her eyes widened slightly.
“Why?”
He eased closer and watched the uncertainty flicker over her face. He nodded at the bottle. “You think you drink enough of that tequila, I won’t touch you?”
She put the glass down. “No.”
“Don’t mistake me for a nice guy.”
She gazed up at him, her eyes big and luminous in the moonlight. “I know you’re not a nice guy.” She swigged the rest of her drink and plunked the glass down defiantly. “This is for me.”
“How’s that?” He put his hands over hers, trapping them against the railing as he eased his body against hers. A taunt. A threat. A promise. It was up to her.
“It’s my liquid courage.” She gave him a cautious smile, and her voice was barely a whisper. “The way I feel around you scares me to death.”
CHAPTER 14
He stared down at her but didn’t move. Finally, she rose up on her toes and kissed him. That was all the invitation he seemed to need, and the next instant his mouth was on hers—hard and taking.
His hands moved into her hair, holding her head in place while he opened her up to him. He tasted like the tequila they’d been drinking, and her tongue started to tingle. She curled her fingers around his neck and just tried to keep up. He was an amazing kisser. She had a faint thought that he was probably much better at sex than she was, and she was way out of her league. And then his hands were on her hips, gripping them, pulling her up, off her feet, and planting her on the railing. She wrestled her mouth away and glanced back and felt woozy.
“I got you,” he said huskily, and took her mouth again and his fingers dug into her hips, and she knew that he did have her and she wasn’t going anywhere except where he wanted her to. He pushed her knees apart with his body and settled into the space between and turned his attention to planting kisses in a line down her jaw and her neck.
She hooked her ankles behind him and tipped her head back. The breeze wafted over her and she was basking in moonlight and it felt wonderful and she breathed up at the sky.
“Hold on,” he whispered, securing her thighs tight around his sides as he let go of her hips and slid his hands to the back of her neck. A little tug at the ties of her dress, and the fabric dropped to her waist. Her gaze met his as she felt another tug and her bikini top fell, too. She saw his eyes heat and she shivered, more from the way he looked at her than from the breeze tickling over her skin. And then his big, warm palms slid around her back and pulled her closer at the same time his mouth found her breast.
She closed her eyes. She let the sensations wash over her—the night and the cool air and the hot, delicious suction of his mouth. She’d never felt this way, like she could just float away and let sensation take over, and she gave into it and tilted her head back and used her legs to hug him closer. Through the fog, she heard laughter and then a whoop from the beach below.
He picked her up and set her on her feet, and she grasped for her bathing suit and the fabric of her dress.
“What?”
“We got company.” He took her hand. He grabbed the bottle of tequila with the other hand and pulled her toward the house.
His house. She looked at the house now. She looked at him. He must have seen her hesitation, because he pulled her close and gazed down into her face and asked her a question with his eyes.
She answered by kissing him, still holding her clothes to her chest, and even though their hands were full, the kiss went on and on, and finally he stepped back and gave her a little yank toward the door.
Inside, the air was cooler. He put the tequila down on a table inside the door, and she paused to let her eyes adjust to the gloom. He pulled her through the living room, and she watched his tall, dark shadow and her heart did a little jump. This man. This beautiful, sexy, fascinating man wants me. She stumbled behind him toward the bedroom wing, and her mind started to swim again, and she knew it was the liquor and the dizzying prospect of what they were about to do together. That low, deep throbbing that had started outside intensified now as he pulled her down a narrow hallway. And then they were in the dark cave of his bedroom and his hands were on her again, tangling in her hair as he kissed her and walked her backward across the room.
She reached for his jeans, pulling him closer and loving the feel of the denim under her hands. Her top was gone now—lost somewhere along the way—and the hardness of his chest pressed against her bare breasts. She wrestled the shirt off him, greedy to touch him now, like he was touching her. She wanted to feel his skin and the solid contours of his body. He lifted his arms to help her, and the shirt disappeared. She paused and blinked at him. The outdoor light seeped through the blinds and cast pale lines across his body. He could have been an ad for jeans or cologne or sex, and just looking at him made her breath back up in her lungs.
He smiled slightly, as if he heard what she was thinking. She knew he’d had many other women before her, and something twisted inside her, but she ignored it and let him pull her into his arms. He guided her back until her thighs bumped up against his bed. He stopped kissing her long enough to push the dress down her legs until it was a heap on the floor. And then she was standing there in only her yellow bikini bottoms, and he was kissing her and murmuring things as his tongue explored her mouth and his hands explored her breasts and hips and thighs.
Heat gathered between her legs and the room started to spin and his hands were on her and she felt like she was in the center of an erotic dream. She knew it would end tomorrow, but right now all she wanted was for him to keep touching her and making her feel this magnetic pull of desire, stronger than anything she’d ever felt. I’ve never done this.
“What’s that?”
She opened her eyes and gazed up at him and realized she’d spoken out loud.
“This,” she whispered.
“Huh?”
“A one-night stand.”
He stared down at her in the dimness. “Guess we better make it count, then.” He pulled her against him and kissed her roughly until her lips were numb and her legs started to quiver. And then he leaned her back onto the bed, and she felt the cool slide of the bedspread beneath her skin. He pinned her to the mattress, and the hard, heavy weight of him settled right between her legs. She whimpered and tried to roll her hips. He moved down her body, licking a path to her navel as he went, and she felt his thumbs slide into her bathing suit. He peeled it off, and it landed with a swish somewhere on the floor, and she lay there, holding her breath. The room started to spin, and her mind registered his hand cuppin
g her heel and the light kiss against the top of her foot—first one, then the other. Her body felt tingly everywhere. She heard him shucking off his jeans. She felt his skin against hers and the rasp of his stubble over her body as he made his way back to her mouth. And then he was in, without warning, and she cried out.
He went still. He brushed her hair out of her face and rested his forehead against hers and it was damp with sweat. She clutched him to her, felt the tension in his muscles. And then he pulled back and braced his weight on his hands and started the long, powerful strokes she’d been craving since their very first kiss. She moved under him. She tried to keep up. But she was swimming in water that was much, much deeper than she’d ever imagined. Her mind was reeling, and her nerves, and her heart, and she wrapped herself around him and tried to hold on. Her muscles burned. Her vision blurred. She clung to him and tried to make it last and last and last, and she never wanted it to stop.
“Now,” he said against her ear, and then the wave broke, and she arched against him, and he made one final, powerful plunge and collapsed on top of her.
Mia was fantasizing about a glass of wine and a hot bubble bath when she whipped into the parking lot of her apartment building. She gathered the groceries off her front seat and immediately sensed that she wasn’t alone.
She scanned the lot, searching for any sign of trouble. Nothing. No shadows between the cars. No quiet grumble of an idling engine. She slung her purse over her shoulder and told herself she was being paranoid—an occupational hazard given the amount of time she spent around blood stains and rape kits.
She pulled her Mace from her purse as she strode purposefully toward the stairs leading to her one-bedroom apartment.
The hair on the back of her neck stood up. She darted her gaze around. Something moved in her peripheral vision. She glanced at the pickup parked closest to the mailboxes.
Inside the truck, an arm reached up and adjusted the mirror.
She halted.
The door swung open, and the light inside the cab came on. Mia’s heart lurched as a man climbed out. He slammed the door and moved straight toward her in the darkness.
Tracers 02 - Unspeakable Page 18