And just like that, before she realized it, she was having a really good time.
So much so that when it did come time to leave, she was amazed that so much time had gone by so quickly.
“Well, you survived the Cavanaugh clan en masse,” Andrew Cavanaugh told her with a low, rumbling laugh as she and Chris were saying their goodbyes to him and his wife. A tall, imposing man, the former chief of police gave her a quick hug. “I think that speaks very well for your endurance ability.”
“Don’t listen to a word he says, dear,” his wife, Rose, told her with a wink. “He thrives on this and goes out of his way to make sure that everyone has a good time. He wants to make sure you all keep coming back for more.”
Andrew put on the same innocent face that Suzie had seen on Chris. “All I did was open my doors. Oh, and cooked,” he added modestly, as if it was just an afterthought.
The chief wrapped his arm around his wife’s shoulders. Even those who weren’t aware of their back story—of what he had gone through to find Rose when a cruel act of fate had separated them, taking her away for years—could see that the man adored his wife, as she did him.
The unspoken affection between them seemed almost contagious, Suzie couldn’t help thinking. She could have sworn it filled the very air.
“Everything was wonderful,” she told the couple with enthusiasm. “Thank you for having me.”
Andrew’s eyes crinkled as pleasure etched his features. “Well, now that you know the way, don’t be a stranger,” he told her. Looking over her head, his eyes met Chris’s. “See to it, Chris.”
“I’ll do my best, sir.”
It was an automatic response. Chris knew damn well that he couldn’t get the woman beside him to do anything she didn’t want to. Today had been an unexpected triumph, one that he felt she really needed. But that had come about because of her promise to Sean. It didn’t automatically mean Chris could get her to come back.
Escorting her out the door and down the residential blocks to where he had left his car, Chris seemed conspicuously quiet. Too quiet.
So much so that Suzie thought maybe she’d done something to annoy him at the gathering.
It wasn’t like the talkative detective to keep to himself this way. It almost made her uneasy.
By the time they reached the car, she was about to demand to know what she’d done wrong to make him lapse into silence this way.
She never got the opportunity, because Chris turned to her and asked, with amusement in his eyes, “So, did you have a good time?”
Denial wasn’t even an option. Not that she wanted to, but then again, it was difficult to come right out and tell him that he’d been right in his prediction about today. Still, he deserved to know that she did have a good time. Besides, even if she didn’t come right out and say it, her expression at the gathering must have been a dead giveaway.
“Yes.”
He smiled, thoroughly enjoying his triumph. “I was right, wasn’t I?”
“Yes,” Suzie admitted, even though she was a tad reluctant to do so. “They’re a really nice bunch of people.”
“I think so,” he told her.
Despite that brief conversation, the short ride home was spent in almost eerie silence. There wasn’t even an exchange of small talk, because she had fallen silent, lost in another set of thoughts, descending into wishful thinking regarding something that she had absolutely no ability to change.
She knew why she was being quiet, but why was O’Bannon? she wondered as he pulled up into guest parking at her apartment complex.
Suzie slanted a glance in his direction when he pulled up the hand brake, but said nothing as they got out of his vehicle.
“I’ll walk you home,” he told her, when she looked at him quizzically.
This wasn’t exactly a date, she argued to herself as he began to walk beside her. It was more like just two coworkers attending a function together. He wasn’t bound by any so-called dating etiquette.
“You don’t have to,” she told him.
“Sure I do,” Chris quipped. “It’s part of the package.”
Reaching her door, Suzie couldn’t remain silent any longer. She swung around to face him. “You know, don’t you?”
“Know what?” he asked.
She blew out an exasperated breath. “Don’t pretend to be dumb, O’Bannon. It doesn’t suit you.”
He smiled in response. “I think that’s the nicest compliment you’ve ever given me.”
“It’s the only compliment I’ve ever given you,” Suzie pointed out.
Chris inclined his head, giving her the point. “There’s that, too.”
She didn’t understand. If he knew—and she was pretty sure he’d known ever since they questioned Eldridge—why had he kept it to himself? Why hadn’t he confronted her with it?
“Why didn’t you say anything?” she asked. Then before Chris could answer, because this wasn’t the kind of conversation she wanted to have out in the open, even if it was after midnight and, from all appearances, all her neighbors were in for the night and most likely asleep, Suzie pushed open her door. “Would you like to come in for something to drink? I think I might have something vaguely alcoholic.”
“Vaguely sounds good,” he answered, following her inside. He eased the door closed behind him, never taking his eyes off Suzie.
Meanwhile, she was taking inventory of her refrigerator and found an unopened bottle of red wine pushed all the way to the back. She held it up for his benefit. “I have this, orange juice and diet soda,” she told him.
He made his selection. “Wine—as long as you have some with me.”
“Fair enough.”
Bottle in hand, she went in search of a corkscrew. She found it in the top drawer of the kitchen cabinet, after rummaging through an assortment of things she’d meant to throw out. Turning around, she held the corkscrew and bottle out to him. She wasn’t all that good at removing corks.
“Want to do the honors?” she asked.
Taking them, Chris quickly separated the cork from the bottle, then passed both back to her. “You don’t strike me as a wine drinker,” he mused.
Taking out two fluted glasses—the only two she had—Suzie poured a little wine into each. “I’m not.”
Chris accepted the glass she handed him. “Then why have some in the house?”
Suzie shrugged as they went to sit on her sofa. After kicking off her heels, she tucked her feet beneath her.
“In case my brother ever decided to hop a plane and pay a visit. He likes wine,” she confided. They were back to the subject that had caused her to invite him into her apartment to begin with. Suzie repeated her question. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Well, it wasn’t exactly the easiest topic to just start talking about out of the blue,” he stated.
She thought of the people in her town, the individuals she’d viewed, up to that point, as friends. “Other people would.” There was bitterness in her voice.
And then her mind went to Warren Eldridge. Had she not cut him dead the way she had when he’d called her a different name than the one she gave him, it was apparent the billionaire would have asked her all sorts of probing questions.
“That’s for you to talk about—or not talk about,” Chris told her. He never took his eyes off her as he sipped his wine.
Suzie stared into her glass, but didn’t raise it to her lips. All sorts of emotions were churning within her. “You are an unusual man, Christian O’Bannon.”
He laughed as he set down his wineglass. “I’ve been trying to tell you that.”
“You were right,” she told him. “I did have a good time. And I did need that—to attend a party and be around a normal family.” She looked at him. “But I think you knew that, too.”
He shrugged, making no comment on her observation. “Well, I think that might be stretching the meaning of the word normal.”
“Not really,” Suzie replied. “You’ve got good peo
ple in your family. And there’s no danger of finding out that one of them is actually a serial killer,” she added, her voice quavering. Struggling to regain control, she closed her eyes.
“You don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to, Suzie Q,” Chris told her softly. He felt for her, he really did. He couldn’t begin to imagine what that must have been like, to discover that the man she’d loved and called “Dad” all her life was a monster she couldn’t begin to recognize.
She opened her eyes and looked at him. “You know, that’s the first time you’ve said my name where I haven’t wanted to punch you.”
He smiled at her. “I guess that means we’re making progress.”
Suzie sighed, remembering. Both hating and, yes, loving the man she was talking about. “He really acted like such a nice man, you know. My father,” she added, in case O’Bannon thought she was referring to someone in his family.
“I know,” he told her, his tone quietly encouraging her to continue—but only if she wanted to.
She started to talk, to unload. “My father was a textbook model dad. He never raised his voice, never missed church. He coached my brother’s Little League team, was a Scout leader. The neighborhood kids adored him. He took us on camping trips. Eric Quinlan was the perfect husband, the perfect father, the perfect everything. Until he wasn’t.”
Tears of anger and hurt began to fill her eyes. “We never saw it coming. None of us. It was right there in front of us and none of us ever had a clue what he was doing. What kind of a monster he was.”
Chris put his hand over hers. He doubted that she was even aware of him doing so, but he wanted to comfort her somehow. “No one else did, either.”
“But they weren’t his family,” she insisted, looking up at him. “That was what everyone in town said when the case broke and the bodies just kept on turning up and up.” She pressed her hand to her stomach. “For a while, it didn’t look as if it was ever going to stop. And everyone, just everyone, kept asking, ‘How could you not have known what he was doing?’” She pressed her lips together, keeping a sob back. “That’s what I keep asking myself. How could I not have seen it? How could I not have known what he was doing all those years?”
“We see what we think we see,” Chris told her, “Don’t beat yourself up about it, Suzie. Your father was an expert at deception, at living two lives. If he hadn’t been, his other life would have been exposed a long time ago.”
She was crying openly now. She hadn’t actually cried since the news about her father’s serial killings had broken. She’d kept a steel-like hold on her emotions all through the trial, her mother’s suicide, everything. Suzie was terrified that if she loosened her grip just a little, she would fall completely apart.
The way she was doing right now.
When Chris took her into his arms, she immediately resisted. She tried hard to push him away, to somehow regain her self-control and keep everything at bay, the way she had these last three years.
But he persevered, holding her until she stopped fighting and slumped again him, letting the tears come. She didn’t know how long she cried like that, and how long he just held her without a word. But eventually, her tears subsided.
Moving her head back just enough to look up at him, she murmured, “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” he asked. “For being human? Don’t be. I’ll let you in on a little secret. The rest of us are human, too.”
“Why are you being so nice to me?” she cried. After all, she’d been nasty to him on so many occasions, given him a hard time over and over again. This would be a perfect time for him to exact revenge if he wanted to.
“Have to,” Chris told her. “I left my whip in the trunk of my car.”
It was a perfectly ridiculous statement. She had no idea why it struck her as being so funny.
Or why, once she began to laugh, she just continued to, unable to stop. But she did. She laughed so hard that there were tears in her eyes, tears of laughter to mingle with her tears of anguish and pain.
Then finally, she began to get some control over herself. Suzie let out a shaky breath.
“You must think I’m crazy,” she told him.
Chris shook his head. “Nope, don’t think that, either.”
She took a deep breath, trying to steady herself. She still felt as if she was coming undone, and dragged a hand through her hair. “I must look like a mess.”
“Not possible,” he told her, reaching into his back pocket and taking out his handkerchief. “Just a little wet, but I can fix that,” he added with a smile.
Very carefully, his eyes on hers, he began to wipe away the tears from her cheeks. “See,” he murmured, still wiping, “better already.”
The last word faded on his tongue as he drew closer to her, being pulled by the look in her eyes, by the very real desire that had suddenly risen out of nowhere and seized him.
Before he knew exactly how it happened, Chris found himself lowering his mouth to hers and kissing her. Kissing away her pain.
Cupping her face between his hands, still sitting beside Suzie on the sofa, he deepened the kiss. The next thing he knew, he had pulled her closer to him, taking her into his arms as if he had been waiting his entire life to do just this very thing: to bind his soul to hers.
She was vulnerable. Anyone looking at her could see that in an instant. What kind of a man would he be to take advantage of that?
With what felt like the last ounce of his strength, Chris put his hands on her shoulders and held her away from him.
“Suzie,” he cautioned. “You don’t want to do this.”
She felt bewildered and not a little dizzy and stunned. “I don’t?”
He tried again. “I mean, you don’t want to do something you’re going to regret.”
“Then don’t make me regret it,” she whispered, taking hold of the front of his shirt and pulling him back to her.
The next moment, her mouth was sealed to his. The time for discussion was over.
Chapter 17
Chris had never been one to be ruled by his emotions. He responded to them when it suited him, but he never allowed himself to be ruled by them. He’d always made it a point to be in charge of his own actions and ultimately, his own feelings. Thus he’d never had that feeling that he was being taken for a ride.
Until this time.
This time it was different.
This time, Chris could have sworn that he had caught a huge tidal wave and that he’d gotten swept up in its crest.
Just inhaling the fragrance that he detected in her hair and along her skin made his blood rush so quickly that he felt dizzy.
Chris responded to her without any clear thought accompanying his actions.
As he pulled Suzie even closer than he already had, his lips left hers. Moving aside the tiny gold cross she always wore, he began to kiss the slope of her neck and then to imprint a network of kisses along the swell of her breasts.
Desire continued to build within him rather than being satiated. The more he lost himself in her, the more he wanted to be lost. The sound of her heavy breathing stoked the fire in his veins, making him want to possess her the way he’d never really wanted to possess another woman. Utterly and completely.
It wasn’t enough for him just to make love with her. Chris wanted to make her want him, to make her feel these pounding needs that were assaulting his own body, and reciprocate in kind.
What began almost politely escalated at the rate of a raging forest fire that had gone completely out of control.
Everywhere he touched her just seemed to heighten his desire tenfold. He’d fallen down an abyss and there was no bottom, no end in sight.
He didn’t care. As long as they were here together, nothing else mattered.
*
Suzie’s head began to spin the first moment his breath touched her skin, even before Chris kissed her. And once he had, there was no turning back for her, even though a part of her watched, stunned an
d awed at what was transpiring right before her.
Right within her.
She’d never reacted to a man this way before, never gotten to this stage with one. She’d never felt like this about a man, never experienced the need or desire to have this happen. Love, romance, lovemaking—they were things that happened to other people, not her. And because there had been no intense feelings present, there had never been any reason or need for things to go this far.
Before the scandal revolving around her father had hit, when her life was simpler, she’d never found anyone who made her heart skip a beat, much less beat faster. It wasn’t that she wasn’t interested in finding love, just that no one had attracted her enough to make love a reality.
After the scandal, she’d been so caught up in guarding her feelings, in keeping the world and all its hurtful words at arm’s length, Suzie had refused to entertain the very idea of having love in her life.
But right from the start, there had been something about this man, who was cocky and sweet at the same time, who butted heads with her and then put his arm around her. Something about Chris O’Bannon broke through every single protective defense mechanism she had put in place to shield her from the pain she was certain was waiting for her.
That he had gone to the trouble of unearthing her secret and yet hadn’t confronted her with it had been the last straw—and the winning coup. He’d quite simply won her heart—or whatever she had left that still passed for a heart—with that one single action. That one act of kindness.
All along, she had been fighting what she both felt and knew was inevitable: her attraction to him. And tonight, when he’d brought her home, it had overpowered her and she had just allowed that feeling to take over.
She had surrendered.
Succumbing to those feelings, Suzie began to tug at his clothing even before he began to unzip her sundress.
While she worked away at the uncooperative buttons on Chris’s shirt, struggling to get them through the holes, she shivered as she suddenly felt the zipper slowly being coaxed down her spine. It kept sliding lower until her sundress slipped off her shoulders and then down her body, descending to the floor like a sigh.
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