by Peggy Jaeger
“What good’s having a pet if you can’t spoil it?” he murmured, his mouth dragging along the column of her throat.
Speech was impossible. Her brain shut down the moment his breath caressed her neck. She hummed in response.
“Good morning,” he said, then planted a sweet kiss across her lips.
Abby closed her eyes and sighed. “Why do you smell like cinnamon?”
Rick swiped a finger down her nose then across her lips. “Apparently Kandy hasn’t been able to sleep. The baby’s been doing a salsa most nights, so she’s been up, baking and cooking at all hours. Josh dropped off a half-dozen cinnamon swirl muffins and a loaf of banana bread this morning. It’s the definition of fresh baked,” he added with another grin.
Abby groaned and dropped her head to his chest. “I love my sister.”
“You’ve said that more times than I can remember.” He brushed back the hair from her face, cupped her cheeks and kissed her nose again. “Sit down. I’ll make you some tea.”
“This is weird,” she said, moving to the table.
“What? Me making you tea?”
“No. Not that. Well, maybe. Yeah. But…”
Rick turned from the stove and cocked his head. “Oh. I get it. Morning after weird.”
She fidgeted under his direct stare. “There really is no morning after weird. We didn’t…” She waved her hand in the air.
“You’re overthinking again, Abby. I know you can’t help it. It’s the lawyer in you. But don’t obsess about it.”
“I’m not obsessing.” She frowned, the words stinging. “It was just unexpected.”
Rick brought her mug and a plate filled with the muffins, then sat across from her. “It wasn’t. Not really. You and I have been circling around one another for years. You said it yourself at Kandy’s wedding. We were both attracted to one another. It was true then and still is.”
“Yeah, but you said we weren’t going to act on it. In fact—” She dropped her mug back to the table with a thwack. “You called me Abby.”
A grin pulled at one corner of his lips. “Yeah, well, you called me Rick.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did.”
“No—”
“Think about it.”
When the memory came back to her of how she’d screamed his name, why she’d screamed it, heat raced up her neck and face.
Rick’s grin turned cocky.
Annoyance chased away the embarrassment. “You mean all those times you’ve called me Abigail, knowing how much I hated it, and after pleading with you not to, all I had to do was call you Rick for you to stop?”
“Seems fair, doesn’t it?”
“You are such a pain.”
He flashed his teeth and lifted his hands. “And still.”
She found her own lips lifting despite her irritation. “What does that even mean? You say it all the time, and it makes no sense.”
Rick stood and put his cup in the sink. “That’s a discussion best left for a day when we have more time. I’m gonna grab a shower. You drink your tea and eat something. I know you want to check on Lila and the judge before we head to your office. Plus, I’ve got some things to tell you about what we were working on last night.”
“Tell me now.”
He shook his head, came back around the table, and kissed her brow. “I need time to lay it all out.” Right before he disappeared into the bedroom he turned and, tossing her a level, serious look, said, “I hope you haven’t forgotten what I said to you before you fell asleep.”
Abby choked on the muffin piece. “N-no. I haven’t.”
“Good. Because I meant it. Every word of it.”
He left her alone with her cat and that promise.
****
While the steaming water sluiced over his shoulders and down his back, Rick fisted his hands and placed them on the tiles in front of him. Closing his eyes, he played back the memory of how Abby had come apart in his hands. The way her pale skin had flushed with passion as his tongue swirled inside her; how she’d curled her toes and drawn her knees up the moment before she came. The memory of her in that fuck-me-like-there’s-no-tomorrow underwear had him hard and panting along with all the other images he’d conjured.
Their relationship had certainly changed. And if he had anything to say about it, it was going to change even more. He wasn’t going to fight the attraction he had for her any longer. He’d kept his reasons for staying away from her hidden, and no one else suspected what he’d known since the first moment he’d met her. Abby was the type of woman who could make him want things he shouldn’t—couldn’t—have. The type he’d give up everything for.
The type who would, once she knew the real Rick Bannerman, walk away from him.
Leaving her to get some needed sleep had been one of the hardest things he’d ever had to do. And speaking of hard…
He was about to switch the water temp to cold when the shower curtain pulled back. The object of his mounting lust stood there, her hair pulled up in a topknot, and a determined gleam in her eyes.
With her fingers wrapped around her robe tie, she raked her gaze up and down his wet body. When she landed on his throbbing erection, her eyes widened and she swallowed. Slowly.
“I’m wide awake now,” she said. One tug and the robe slipped to the floor revealing she was gloriously naked under it.
He wrapped a hand around her wrist so she wouldn’t fall when she stepped into the tub. Abby swatted it away and skidded her hands up his wet torso and around his neck, flattening herself against him.
His dick jumped against her belly.
“You always smell so good,” she said as she nuzzled his neck.
“Abby.” He snaked his hands around her and pushed against her beautiful butt to bring her in even closer.
She grinned up at him. “Rick.” With a gentle tug, she brought his head down to hers. Her lips hovered above his, almost touching. Almost. “You’ve got my full attention now, like you wanted. So…”
No almost about it this time.
Her kiss was wanton and wild and wanting. In a heartbeat, he pressed her flat against the tiled wall, the shower raining down on his back and spraying around them. His knee parted her thighs, and he swallowed the moan she let out when he ground it against her.
His replaced his knee with his hand.
“Rick.” Her gasp echoed off the walls. She dropped a hand from his shoulder and fisted him. “You’re so hard,” she whispered as she squeezed, tugged, and then ran her thumb across his tip. “And so…big.”
Rick hissed in a breath, his stomach going concave. He slid two fingers inside her, pumped them, making it her turn to hiss.
“Worried?” He bit down on her earlobe, then the column of her throat. Her pulse pounded against his lips as he growled, “I think I’ll fit inside you just fine.”
She stared straight into his eyes while she milked him with her hand. The bright blue had shot to cobalt, deep and dark and dangerous. “Prove it.”
His smile took its time to cross his face. “Gladly, Counselor. But I left my pants in the other room.”
Her brow furrowed. “What—”
He watched the meaning grow on her face. The heat from the shower had given her pale skin a fresh, rosy glow, but the blush dancing up her neck and cheeks charmed him.
“I’ve got it covered,” she told him while still holding him in her hand.
“I’m clean, Abby.” He kissed her nose. “I swear. Got tested for insurance purposes last month.”
“I trust you.”
As they had once before, her words humbled him.
“Care to prove yourself now?” Her mouth twitched at the corners of her kissable lips. He never could resist a dare.
“You’re sure?”
“About this? Us?”
He nodded.
“Yes. Are you?”
He answered by devouring her mouth.
In the next instant, he spun her around, f
lattening her back to him. He reached around and cupped her breasts, his thumbs rubbing against her tight, puckered nipples. Abby arched, her butt pushing against his jutting erection.
“Put your hands on the wall,” he commanded.
Without arguing, she did.
He gripped her hips and gently pushed down on her lower back. “Bend a little. Push that gorgeous ass out.”
She did, the glee in her giggle tinkling through the steam.
He spread her thighs and, with one hand, trailed across her swollen flesh, slipping between her throbbing lips. With the other, he reached around her and palmed her mound, rubbing one finger along her clit.
Abby began bucking against his hands. Watching the hot shower spray pounce against her trim back, rivulet across her perfect skin, and then sluice down her long legs made him shudder and take a breath. He wanted this to last, for both of them, but he was so close to the edge of oblivion right now, he knew he couldn’t wait much longer.
“Rick.”
She tightened around his fingers.
“Wait for me, sweetheart. Don’t come yet. I want to be inside you.”
“Then…get…there, because I can’t…hold…”
With a sound part growl, part laugh, he pulled back his hand and slid into her.
Abby tensed for a second, her breathing shuddering to a halt. When Rick drew out and then glided back in, she tightened around him as she had to his fingers, her muscles throbbing as she met him move for move, thrust for blessed thrust.
With her name on his lips, Rick flew over the edge a half second before her inner muscles clenched and held.
No finesse, no patience, no time to savor. When was the last time he’d lost control so fast, so completely? Probably not since he’d been a horny teenager and his hand had been his favorite companion.
He grabbed her waist and gingerly slid them to the tub floor. Their breathing was labored and loud, as if they’d both run a marathon, uphill, and in the swelter of summer. Abby dropped her head down onto his shoulder as the water continued to beat down on them, the steam from the spray fogging up the room.
“Okay.” She dragged in a breath. “Verdict for the opposition. You win.”
Rick kissed her forehead. “What are you talking about?”
She sat up and faced him. The steam had forced tiny tendrils along her hairline to curl. Her eyes were heavy lidded, and she was still breathing fast.
She placed a hand on top of his chest, over his still-pounding heart. Rick joined his own hand over it. “You proved your point. You fit just fine. You win, hands down.”
Rick laughed and kissed her hand.
The woman simply undid him.
Chapter Thirteen
“So you’ve got over twenty cases filling your requirements?” Abby asked as she forked in some of the takeout salad she’d ordered for lunch. Rick was on her office couch, his long legs sprawled out in front of him while he took a bite of his double cheeseburger. Before answering, he washed it down with a gulp of soda.
“Yeah. All of them were brought before Judge Aaronson, all of them were represented by Marty Fields, and all of them had Eleanor Castle as the case worker. Coincidentally, your name is in a few of the files as well.”
“Since I was Marty’s paralegal”—Abby nodded—“that makes sense. Now what?”
“I need to go more in depth with the cases. Whittle them down until I can find a common denominator explaining why those three were attacked. Figure out where the people in the files are now.”
“Phoebe can help with your research. She’s got access to the court records, case intakes, and current statuses. When she gets back from lunch, I’ll ask her.”
Her desk phone beeped. “Yeah, Verna?”
“Detective Pecorrini is on line one for you.”
“Thanks. Hey, Tony. I’m gonna put you on speaker. What’s up?”
“I wanted to give you a heads-up. Genocardi was spotted this morning.”
Rick sat forward, pulled out his cell phone.
Abby asked, “Where?”
“Jersey City.”
“Marisol lives in Jersey City. Is she okay?”
“Yeah. Her husband was home with the kids while she had Michael at the hospital. One of Maria’s kids was in the backyard playing when ‘Uncle Joseph’ approached her. Told her to be quiet. Asked about Michael. Kid told him the boy was at the hospital with Aunt Lila. Genocardi got all upset, red like a cherry lollipop was how the kid described him, when he heard the wife was alive.”
Rick was speaking in a low voice on the phone.
“Did she tell him which hospital Lila was in?”
“He asked, but Maria’s husband called the kid into the house, so she never answered.”
“Tony, it’s Rick.”
“Hey.”
“Was the kid able to tell you what he was wearing?”
“Actually, she did. She said she didn’t realize it was him until he started speaking. His hair was different, darker she said, shorter. And he’d shaved. No more mustache. I’m having our sketch guy do a mock-up based on her description. I put an extra guard on Lila, too. Can’t hurt.”
Abby cocked her head at Rick. He shook his.
“Okay. Keep us in the loop.” She disconnected the call. “Why didn’t you want him to know Josh has people watching them?”
“It’s better if he doesn’t. Trust me. The police don’t like being second-guessed or told someone else is keeping an eye on things. Trust Josh to know what he’s doing.”
“I always trust him. Was that who you called?”
“Yeah. He said his people never saw Genocardi. Probably because he’d changed his appearance.”
Abby sat back in her chair. They’d visited Lila before coming to the office. The woman was still listed as critical, but she was able to stay awake for brief periods of time. She’d recognized Abby and squeezed her hand when she told her they were doing everything they could to find Joseph. Michael was safe, and so was she.
A quick stop down the hall and she was able to ask the guards stationed outside Judge Aaronson’s room about her status. The officer who’d been assigned to stand guard knew Abby and said the judge was “holding her own.” Taking it for a good sign, Rick and Abby left the hospital and headed for the courthouse.
By the time they got to her office, it was lunchtime, and Abby had a full afternoon client load.
Phoebe returned right before they finished eating. Abby left Rick in her capable hands and spent the next several hours fulfilling her appointments.
It was after seven by the time they arrived back at her apartment. All day Abby had been able to force what had happened between them that morning from her mind. But now, alone again with him in her home, she grew a little apprehensive.
Possession was what she’d attributed her out-of-character behavior to that morning. Her mind, spirit, and body had been taken over by an unseen being. Never before had she been so aggressive, so assertive, with a man. She’d wanted Rick, knew he wanted her as well, and without thinking of the consequences or the illogic of what she was doing, she’d simply risen from the kitchen chair the moment she heard the shower go on, determined to finish what he’d started the night before.
Caution thrown, logic disregarded, she’d headed into the shower with her eyes and body open. The best part of the experience aside from the obvious—Rick was every bit the amazing lover she’d imagined he would be—was that she’d surprised him. The shocked expression on his face when she’d pushed back the shower curtain was her proof. His mouth-watering erection told her he’d been thinking about her, and his capitulation to her assertive commands assured her what she was doing was right.
So right.
Every sexual fantasy she’d ever had about him paled when compared to the reality. She knew in her heart having sex with him could lead to a serious Rick Bannerman addiction, and she wasn’t sure she’d survive the inevitable withdrawal.
After kicking off her shoes and picking
up a screaming Moonlight, Abby made her way to the kitchen.
“I swear she’s getting louder with each passing day,” Rick said as tossed his laptop down on the couch.
“You’re just not used to it y—” She’d almost said yet. But there most likely wouldn’t be a yet with Rick. As soon as he was assured there was no threat from Genocardi and she didn’t need to be watched twenty-four seven, he’d be gone.
She slid to the floor while the cat ate.
“Why do you watch her eat?”
“The people at the shelter told me she wouldn’t eat if they just placed the food down and left it. She’d hobble after them, then the other cats would finish it all and she wouldn’t get any. If I sit with her, she’ll start eating without worrying I’m going to walk away.”
“Do cats worry?” He settled down next to her, pulled one of her hands into his own and with the other stretched to run a finger along the cat’s back.
Both gestures were so remarkably endearing, a lump formed in Abby’s throat.
“Maybe worry isn’t the right word,” she said. When he lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles, Abby sighed. Without thinking, she dropped her head down on his shoulder.
“Tired?” He bussed her temple.
She lifted back and stared at him. “Rick, what are we doing?”
He slid one of her knuckles between his lips. The panty-wetting grin flashed when she gasped. “I don’t know about you, but I’m trying to seduce you,” he said, cocking his head. “How’m I doing?”
His eyebrows rose up and down comically, and his grin turned to a leer.
She couldn’t keep from laughing. With her free hand, she socked him in the bicep, met concrete, and then shook her head. “You are such a pain.”
When he flashed his teeth at her, she laughed again.
“Don’t overthink everything, Counselor,” he said, kissing her hand once more.
“I’m not overthinking. I’m just…” She shrugged.
“Well…” Rick rose and pulled her up with him. Slipping his hands around her waist, he pulled her flat against him. “I’m just hungry. Why don’t you go get changed out of lawyer Abigail and into relaxed Abby, and I’ll cook dinner.”
“Are you actually going to cook or just reheat something? Because there’s a difference.”