Heavy Netting

by Nicki Greenwood

  “Not quite. I am in my underwear,” she sassed.

  “And a very nice choice in underwear, if I may say so.” He slid a fingertip under the edge of her bra again.

  “Bran,” she begged. The sound was pure pleasure on his ears. She wriggled toward him.

  An indescribable warmth washed over him, and he kissed her again. “All right,” he soothed, “all right.” He balanced himself on an elbow, and with the other hand, he guided hers to his jeans. He watched her eagerness hungrily as she unfastened the button.

  What an amazing woman, as passionate as she was playful. What a gift she was. Bran almost thanked the computer hacker who’d sent him to this out-there island town at the edge of nowhere.

  And then, all other thoughts blasted out of his head as she slipped his pants and underwear off. She found his straining erection with her small, nimble hands and circled his hips once more with her legs to pull him closer. When he pressed against her, he found himself trembling with the need to be inside her.

  Slowly, now. Slowly, he reminded himself. With a measured pace that pained him, he slid her undergarments off.

  His breath stuttered to a halt. “You are…God, you’re stunning, Jenna,” he murmured, and he wasn’t even looking at her naked body, but those beautiful blue eyes.

  She smiled such a gorgeous, heartfelt, open smile that something in him shook and crumbled. He stroked her bare skin, almost reverent,. He’d never been with a woman who stirred such a startling mix of emotions. Gently, oh, so gently, he caressed her, starting at her face and then moving downward.

  When he reached the silky folds between her legs, he found them moist. She cried out and clutched him to her, and it was hell not to take her, then and there. She made a desperate little sound that almost undid him as he circled his fingers around her center of pleasure. A faint tremor went through him at the sight of her bliss-glazed eyes.

  Christ, how much longer could he hold out? he wondered with distant shock. This amazing woman was tearing him apart from the inside out.

  “Please. I need you,” Jenna moaned out. He helped her roll on a condom, all the while burning him with those sensual eyes. She wrapped her legs around his hips to pull him to her.

  His erection brushed her center, and he knew he was lost. Giving up the fight gladly, he eased home.

  Jenna sighed a long, musical, erotic sigh that battered against his veneer of control. He just managed to keep a measured pace, rocking his hips slowly and deliberately. She met him, motion for motion, with her hair spread out over his arms and her gaze hungry for that tantalizing summit. The clock spring of his need wound tighter and tighter. “So gorgeous,” he whispered between kisses.

  “Bran,” she cried. Her eyes flew wide and her lips parted to drag in a breath. She clutched him close and went to pieces in his arms.

  Helpless to stop it, he tumbled over the brink with her, and only one thought stayed in his head: How am I going to let go of her after this?

  Chapter Six

  Jenna woke to sunlight in her face. She’d forgotten to close her bedroom curtain last night.

  But then, she’d been distracted.

  With a smile, she reached toward the bed…only to find it empty.

  She rolled over to look. The sheets and pillow were rumpled and cold.

  Her first, unreasonable reaction was pain, followed by humiliation. Last night had been so wonderful. Was Bran a been-there-done-that guy? He didn’t seem it, but after all, how well could she say she knew him?

  Rising from the bed, she went to the back of her door, where she pulled down a lightweight satin robe.

  The moment she opened her bedroom door, the smells of coffee, pancakes, and bacon drifted to her. Disappointment morphed quickly into delight.

  He made breakfast.

  With a smile, she went down the hall to her tiny kitchen. Bran sat at the small table with a laptop, his hair adorably mussed. He tapped away at the computer with a steaming cup of coffee beside him. A covered dish sat in the middle of the table, and he’d set her a place already.

  He looked up when she entered, closing the laptop as he did so. “Good morning. I was going to wake you once the second pot finished brewing.” He indicated the coffee maker gurgling on the counter.

  “What are you doing?” she wondered, nodding at his laptop.

  “Cramming in a little work.”

  She uncovered the serving platter, and the scent of the pancakes curled upward. “Mmm. What did you put in these?”

  “Cinnamon. My mom’s made them that way since we were kids.”

  She served up a dish for him then helped herself. By then, the coffee pot had ceased gurgling, and she went to get it.

  “No,” he said, rising. “I’ve got it. You sit.”

  Beaming, she sat in her chair then poured out two glasses of orange juice from the pitcher on the table. “You really didn’t have to cook,” she said softly.

  “Sure, I did. You work at a diner. I’m sure you’re sick of waiting on other people by the time you get home.”

  She wondered if his thoughtfulness was a southern thing, or just him. Warm all over, she said, “It’s not so bad…but thank you.”

  He filled her mug and returned the coffee pot to its burner. Sitting down, he pushed aside his laptop then drew his plate toward himself to start on his breakfast.

  She stared at the computer and felt the faint burn of a rising blush. By now, she knew him in the most intimate of ways. He’d been so wonderful, so unhurried, making certain she wouldn’t regret an instant of their night…and she didn’t. Again and again, he’d urged her over the edge of reason, as patient and passionate a lover as she could have dreamed.

  But she knew almost nothing about him. What she did know wasn’t her right to know. “What were you working on?” she asked, trying to keep her voice light.

  “Stuff from home,” he responded. Those chocolate-brown eyes avoided her. He concentrated instead on cutting a slice of pancake.

  She struggled to keep her mouth shut and lost. Her cheeks burned hotter. “I know it’s none of my business. I just thought, you’ve seen what I do for a living…” She straightened in the chair and turned her attention to her own plate. “Never mind. It’s okay.”

  “It’s not that important, anyway,” he said.

  Not that important? A case that had been unsolved for six years? She fought with the ache in her chest. It was his own business if he wanted to tell her about his work. Last night, they’d shared something wonderful, but one night didn’t give her the right to pry.

  “I have some errands to run this morning. Do you work today?”

  “Only for a half day,” she said. “My co-worker and I are working on a booth for Maggie’s Diner at the Lobster Crawl festival, and I volunteered to do the books for it.”

  His gaze sharpened, but Jenna couldn’t tell what about her reply had caught his attention. With the taste of coffee on her tongue, Bran’s eyes reminded her of the espresso chocolate cupcakes at Julie’s Coffee & Sweet Shop. She forgot everything else and just sat there blushing. Blushing, as if she really needed to, after what they’d done last night.

  A little smile tugged at his lips. His look lightened into amusement and wickedness, rolled into one.

  But then he glanced at his computer, and the expression left his eyes again, replaced by something harder—that same, all-business look he’d worn the day he walked into Maggie’s Diner.

  Turning her gaze to her plate, she said, “If you’re free for lunch, we could head to the pier.” Remembering his aversion to seafood—and probably anything to do with the sea—she suggested, “Or…we could just eat at the diner…or…” I’m not asking him to come back here, she thought with a residual pinch of humiliation. Not if she wanted to avoid sounding clingy, anyway.

  “Are you trying to ask me out on a date, Miss Sanborn?” Bran’s voice held a note of laughter.

  She peered underneath the table with a desperate longing to crawl under there bef
ore calling the fire department to put out her flaming cheeks.

  He cleared his throat. “Tell you what. I have some work to do today, but meet me at the Sea Crest Inn, say, six o’clock, for dinner. If you want fish, you can eat fish. Sound like a plan?”

  Uncanny, the way he read her. She wondered if that was part of his job. As quickly as embarrassment had swamped her, it washed away in an overflow of delight. When was the last time anyone had asked her on a real date? Oh, God, was it as far back as high school?

  “Jenna?”

  “Yes?”

  “Dinner? Six? You and me? With food and stuff?”

  “Oh. Six. I mean, yes. I’ll be there.”

  His eyes took on that spark again, and Jenna passed a few glorious minutes thinking about their night instead of the breakfast sitting in front of her.

  The faint buzz of her alarm clock filtered into the kitchen from her bedroom. “Oh, shoot. I’m going to be late unless I get in the shower now.”

  His eyes gleamed, and Jenna thought wildly of chucking it all to go back to her bedroom with him again…but his look faded before she could make up her mind to do it.

  He pushed out his chair then stood. “I should make some calls and get my business wrapped up. See you tonight?”

  She nodded, her mind still on the too-pleasant consideration of whether they’d both fit in her little shower.

  Before she could emerge from that reverie, his tall, broad-shouldered bulk loomed before her. He leaned down for a lingering kiss, and she tasted cinnamon and coffee on his lips. “Thank you for last night,” he said, his voice as smooth as whipped cocoa. The sound sent a lovely little shiver through her. “See you later.”

  Only after he’d gone was she able to focus on the day’s demands. The first thought that swam to the surface of her mind left her wonderful daydream in pieces.

  What about when he goes home?

  ****

  Branson had done a number of dumb things over the course of his life. Topping the list was his night with Jenna. Since making love to her, his hormones had been screaming at him for being anywhere but in her bed. He hadn’t been able to think straight all morning.

  Now, at Sang Freud with his laptop and the coffee practically on intravenous drip, he was trying to wrap his head around the hacker’s trail.

  Six years, the cops—and he—had been chasing this guy. It started with few odd-looking transactions that surfaced in the Ludlow & Harper Bank and Trust—a deposit here, a withdrawal there, always just under the red-flag mark that required reporting. Rudy had called him in as a personal favor. Bran had lots of friends in the financial arena because of his job, and he could spend more time on it than Rudy. He put feelers out. When they buzzed with trouble more and more frequently, his contacts’ individual gut feelings began merging into one big headache for Bran.

  Someone was shuffling an awful lot of money, and as they said in the movies, “Follow the money.” He’d followed it, all right, all the way up the coast to Nowhere, Maine, in spite of Obsidian’s attempts to disguise his IP address by rerouting it around the world. Bran knew all the tricks.

  “Another cup?” Carlos asked.

  “Yeah, sure,” he murmured, resurfacing from his head full of numbers.

  Carlos gave him a smile. “You look too serious, my friend.”

  “Serious work,” he said, tilting his head at the computer.

  Carlos poured him a fresh cup. “What sort of work?”

  “Can’t say much about it,” Bran admitted.

  “Must be important, then. Wondered what brought a Southerner up to Maine,” Carlos said.

  “Not by choice…no offense,” Bran said. “Just not a fan of fish.”

  “Understood.” Carlos wiped down an adjacent table. “How’s Jenna?”

  A mental flash of her gloriously naked body tied Bran’s tongue for a minute. “Uh, fine…she’s fine.”

  Carlos grinned broadly. Bran caught the look and returned it with a philosophical, one-shoulder shrug.

  Carlos disappeared for a minute, then came back with a little box. He slid it onto the table. “Chocolate chip muffin. She likes chocolate.”

  Bran’s cell buzzed, saving him, and he snapped it up. “Cudahy.”

  “Cuddy, it’s Rudy.”

  “What’s going on?” Bran replied into the phone.

  “Chief wants to know exactly that. Obsidian’s online right now, and the signal’s right where you are.”

  Bran had been catching criminals enough years to remember his cool. He stayed loose, gathering up his notebook and the muffin with a nod of thanks to Carlos, who grinned again and moved away to tend to other customers. “Talk to me,” he said to Rudy.

  “We’re going to need footage. This might be the only chance we get for a visual on this guy. Are there security cameras there?”

  “I’ll check into it,” Bran said.

  “Stay on with me. If he moves a muscle, we’ll know it.”

  We’ve got him, Bran thought. After six years, we’ve got him. He leaned back in his chair with a smile. Few things in life felt better than helping to collar a known crook, and rarer still was a collar he’d been waiting on for years. “Sure thing.”

  “Don’t go all hero on me, Cuddy. Tail him, and that’s it. Arrest isn’t your job anymore.”

  “Don’t need to remind me, bro,” he said. He kept his tone smug and casual, but his pride stung a little. Every sense had alerted to the dozen and a half people currently in the coffee shop. He gathered up his things. “Thanks, Carlos,” he called, holding up the box with the muffin.

  “Anytime,” he said. “Tell her hello.”

  Bran took a last sip of coffee—really, that stuff was ambrosia—then shouldered his computer bag, and walked out.

  When he got to his car, it was all business. Sitting in the driver’s seat, he pinned the phone between his ear and shoulder, then flipped open his laptop again. “What have you got, Rudy?”

  “Still sitting there. I hope you’re not planning on sitting there in the parking lot like a red flag.”

  “What kind of stupid do I look?” Bran started his engine then pulled out of the Sang Freud lot. “Putting you on speaker,” he said, then hit the button and dropped the phone into his console. He cruised down First Street. On Oak Avenue, he slid into a vacant space on the side of the street bordering the town square.

  Across the road, a few shops down, was Maggie’s Diner. Bran squinted into the café-curtained windows, but the sun glancing off the glass obscured any people he might have seen within. “He move yet?”

  “No. Still stationary. How’s the seafood up there, bud?”

  “You’re an ass,” Bran drawled.

  Rudy chuckled.

  Bran’s gaze wandered down from the diner to an empty building three spaces down, tucked between some sort of gift shop and what looked like a bakery. A big For Sale sign obscured the large front window. He glanced up at the empty windows of the room above the space.

  A lot of these old shops were a throwback to the days when people lived above their businesses. Lexington had its share of character, but in the growth of its metropolis, it had left behind some of the old-school charm Lobster Cove seemed so proud to display. Flags lined up along the street lights, and buntings draped the gazebo in the park. Signs advertised the upcoming Lobster Crawl festival.

  If he didn’t hate seafood so much, it might be nice to live in a little town like this.

  Other reasons floated to the surface of his mind. Well, one reason, really. He shifted his gaze toward the diner again before realizing he’d done so.

  “Cuddy, he’s moving.”

  Bran snapped back to attention and put his car in gear again. He knew enough to track Obsidian and get information so that the Lobster Cove Police could do their job, but sometimes he missed chasing down the bad guys himself. “Get me a fix.”

  “Turning onto…Maple. Moving slow.”

  Bran looked across the town square, but the courthouse and
jail blocked his view of Maple Avenue. He stifled a swear word and wove into the light traffic. “Keep talking. I’m going to tail him.”

  “North on Main,” Rudy reported.

  “Got it.” Bran made the turn, scanning the traffic. Three or four cars, a few bicyclists, a pair of girls on the sidewalk chattering busily. Nothing with a Kentucky plate, but Obsidian wasn’t likely to stand out, flashy name notwithstanding.

  “He’s taking a side road,” said Rudy. “Hidden Cove Drive? Whatever that is coming up, bear right.”

  Bran took the fork with his mind spinning. The signal was heading along the shore. Did their quarry own a boat?

  The cars thinned out until the only other thing on the road was a kid on his bicycle. Bran couldn’t see much, except the back of the kid’s baseball-capped head and the backpack over his shoulders. “You sure, Rudy?”

  “You’re right behind him. Are you not seeing him?”

  “Hold the line.” Bran stepped on the gas hard enough to overtake the bicyclist by several yards. He pulled over then lunged out of the car to stand on the sidewalk facing the oncoming bicycle. He jerked his wallet out of his back pocket, preparing for the kid to bolt.

  “Hold it a second, kid,” he said, flashing his CCI license.

  The kid skidded to a stop and looked up at him with wary blue eyes. He couldn’t have been more than seven or eight years old. Was their hacker using kids to do his dirty work?

  “Was I doing something wrong?” the kid asked. His gaze darted toward the license with its official seal. Bran’s gut sense picked up nothing more than honest confusion in the boy’s expression.

  “No. My name is Branson Cudahy. I solve computer crimes. What’s your name, son? Where are your parents?”

  “Ross Waldron,” the boy said. “My mom and dad own a boat,” he added, pointing toward the water glimmering past the mansions perched on the edge of the shoreline. “We were going to go fishing.”

  “You live here?”

  “Yep. On the end of Maple Avenue.” The boy pointed across town.

  That might rule out his being an accomplice…unless Obsidian’s network went a lot deeper than Bran had thought. He hoped not.