Searing Need

by Tracey Devlyn

  He leveled a look on Riley. “Did you teach her how to spy too?”

  Riley grinned. “I didn’t have to. Camilla’s observation skills were already razor-sharp by the time we met.” She refocused. “What did you hear?”

  “They were hired to remove every last Timbroma from the wild.”

  “Sounds like an impossible task,” he said.

  “It wouldn’t be,” Riley said. “Timbroma can only be found in that part of Costa Rica. Of course, it would take a while to deplete the seed bank.”

  “What’s a seed bank?” he asked.

  “In basic terms, it’s seed that has been deposited and stored in the soil for years. Some can remain viable for a long time.” She turned to Camilla. “Did you learn why they wanted to remove it?”

  “So that they could have a—” Camilla frowned, searching for the word.

  “Monopoly,” he offered, crossing his arms.

  She nodded.

  “Smart,” he said. “They’re regulating supply and demand. If they’re the only company who has access to this Timbroma, then they could charge whatever they wanted for the drug. Competition wouldn’t exist.”

  Tears gathered in Camilla’s eyes.

  Riley brushed a thumb over the young woman’s wet cheek. “What’s wrong?”

  “I killed them.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I took their store of Timbroma seeds and sent them to the team for safekeeping. Now they are all dead.” She lifted tear-blurred eyes to Riley. “Except you.”

  Riley sat back in her chair and stared at her former assistant. “There has to be another explanation.”

  “Why did you send such a cryptic note with the package?” asked Coen.

  “Cryptic?”

  “The note’s meaning was unclear.”

  Camilla closed her eyes. “Not enough time,” she whispered through trembling lips. “It would have taken me all day to write something more detailed to each of you, and I could not chance the delay. I did not want to be around when he came for me.”

  “That’s the second time you’ve referred to he,” Riley said. “He, who?”

  “Nick Landry.”

  “Nick? Why would he come for you?”

  “There is darkness in him.” Camilla caught Riley’s gaze. “But I think you knew that—or at least sensed it. He is a dog as well as a brute.”

  Riley didn’t blush or send him a sideways glance at the mention of her near miss with catastrophe. Lines of concentration bunched on her forehead as she no doubt sifted through past encounters with her former colleague.

  “Like every other human,” Riley said, “Nick had quirks—some quite irritating, but I never picked up on a brutish quality. If I had, I would’ve demanded that Dr. Hathaway replace him.”

  “The dead scientists,” he said. “You think Landry killed them?”

  “I’m sure of it.”

  “But why?” Riley asked, clearly unable to see her friend as a cold-blooded murderer.

  “He changed after you left and the other scientists arrived. He became… harder.”

  Riley sat back, visibly overwhelmed by all of Camilla’s revelations. “I can’t believe that Dr. Young would condone such behavior. He wasn’t my favorite person. He cared little for those around him and everything for the research. But I’m having a hard time believing he would agree to all this.”

  “Money motivates people in different ways,” Coen said. “For some, the accumulation of wealth—or power—is their attempt to fill a black, bottomless void in their soul. What they don’t understand is that there’s not enough money in the world to fill the hole.”

  Riley stared at him as if he’d prophesized the exact date of the next coming.

  Self-conscious, he turned to the window. A red Doberman pranced alongside an elderly woman down the sidewalk. The mismatched pair made him smile, despite the serious tension at his back. He followed the duo’s progress until they disappeared from his line of sight.

  “Despite the danger,” Camilla said, “I had to come see you to explain what happened.”

  “I’m glad you did,” Riley said. “You’ll be safe here.”

  “I am not concerned about me. Nick must have asked the others if they had seen or heard from me, and they told him about the package. Now he is on the hunt for the journal, the seed, me, and anyone else who knows about them.”

  Coen asked, “When Landry was here, did he question you about Camilla or the journal?”

  “He was here?”

  “Nick visited several days ago.” Riley’s eyes caught his. “I hadn’t received Camilla’s package yet. I think it had been delayed because of some damage to the envelope.”

  If the package had been delivered as planned, she might have shared the information with Landry, effectively signing her death warrant.

  He stalked over to Riley and slid a hand around the back of her neck. “It’s time to update your sister.”

  Dazed, she shook her head. “He’s gone. I dropped him off at the airport the same day I had dinner with him.”

  He thought a moment. “Smoke and mirrors.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because I suspect he’s Audi Guy and also the one responsible for trashing your greenhouse.”

  Realization lit her eyes. “He didn’t believe me.” Her expression flipped through emotions like a rich, page-turning story—surprise, anger, sadness, and… horror.

  “What’s wrong?” he demanded.

  “He might have been in my house.”

  His grip tightened. “When?”

  “Two nights ago. When I got home, I noticed the bedspread was rumpled.”

  “Maybe you sat on it and forgot.”

  She shook her head. “Making my bed is the last thing I do before leaving. It’s a Kingston rule. The rest of my bedroom could’ve been a disaster, but my dad didn’t care as long as my bed was made.”

  “Why am I just hearing about this now?”

  “Part of me thought it may have been Randi or Britt.”

  “And the other part?”

  Guilt streaked across her features, but she didn’t apologize.

  “Did you at least tell your sister?”

  A pained expression replaced her guilt. “I meant to, when she was over at my house.”

  “But?”

  “We got distracted by”—her eyes shifted from his—“by another topic.”

  Him.

  Coen would wager his bank account on it.

  Camilla shot from her chair and grabbed Dr. Young’s journal from the table.

  Riley snatched the journal from the young woman’s hand. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “Leaving.” Camilla held out her hand. “Give it to me. I will take the danger with me.”

  “Not a chance.”

  “Riley—”

  He stepped between them. “No one is going anywhere. After we fill in Maggie, I’ll move my things here.”

  “I appreciate everything you’ve done so far,” Riley said, securing the journal beneath her arm, “but I still don’t feel right about your getting involved in this.”

  Ever his protector.

  Stepping close, he used his index finger to push her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “If you think that I would walk away while a murderer who is, if not in love with you, definitely in lust with you, stalking you like prey, then you don’t have the slightest measure of my character.”

  The worry lines around her eyes softened but didn’t disappear. She rested a hand against his heart.

  “I don’t want you… injured because of me.”

  “It would injure me far worse to walk away.”

  She closed her eyes, fighting an inner battle. When she opened them again, she whispered, “Thank you” before lifting up onto her toes and pressing a kiss to his lips. Her kiss was tentative at first, then it deepened, lengthened, heated.

  He molded his body around hers, wanting to absorb every beau
tiful, courageous, irritating inch of her.

  A throat cleared, and they broke away.

  “Sorry, Camilla,” Riley said, her knuckles brushing over his erection as she turned toward her houseguest.

  His stomach clenched and his teeth clamped together around a curse. She would pay for that bit of mischief.

  “Let’s get you settled into the spare bedroom, then we’ll discuss this situation with the sheriff. I also need to alert Dr. Hathaway about Nick and Dr. Young.”

  “No policía.”

  “There’s no need to worry,” Riley said. “The sheriff is my sister. She’ll protect you while helping us find Nick.”

  Some of the tension eased from young woman’s shoulders. When Riley turned away, Camilla turned her dark eyes on him. In their depths, a question hovered.

  He nodded, and a pact to keep Riley safe, at all costs, was reached.

  43

  “What makes a person brave?”

  The question had clawed at Riley’s thoughts, over and over and over since they’d returned home.

  After wrestling the greenhouse back into some semblance of order and having Camilla share her story with Maggie, Riley had brought her exhausted friend back to the bungalow for another hot meal and a place to lay her head. Camilla had clutched at Riley’s hand until exhaustion hip-checked her fear.

  Sitting next to her on a cushioned glider wide enough for two, Coen used his outstretched foot to keep the seat moving in a lulling rhythm while they watched birds flit between the feeder, birdbath, and redbud tree.

  “Circumstances, self-preservation, love, fear,” he said. “All of which can also make a person curl into the fetal position.”

  “How do you tell which type of person you’ll be? Brave or coward?”

  “Jump into the flames and see what happens.”

  “Even in the military? Couldn’t a soldier’s courage be gauged through training and scenarios?”

  “Many have tried, myself included. But there’s no way of truly knowing how someone will respond to a life-and-death situation until the shit hits the fan and they’re in the spatter zone.” He cut her a look. “Why do you ask?”

  She ached to burrow into his side and let him rock her to sleep. It had been years since she’d indulged in that kind of idleness. Not since spraining her ankle in high school and being forced to keep it elevated for hours on end. Even then, she’d read, did her homework, or packaged things up to sell at the market.

  When in Coen’s arms last night, her ticker tape of questions had stopped. Vanished like a bunny in a magic act. Somewhere between his expert attention on the outer aureole of her left breast and him sliding into her damp heat, she’d lost her ability to think.

  Unable to meet his eyes, she turned her attention to the backyard, marveling at the secluded paradise Randi had made for herself. A fusion of pink, purple, and yellow petunias perched in the window boxes of an adorable pale yellow she-shed at the back of the property. A high privacy fence was made less off-putting by a 3D layout of towering trees, low-clustering shrubs, and blooming perennials. Not a single prying eye could penetrate Randi’s garden.

  “I wonder what I would’ve done in Camilla’s place. Fought for what I believed in? Or walked away?”

  Rather than ply her with confidence-building platitudes, he angled his face away and swallowed hard.

  Her attention flicked to the hand resting on his thigh. To his knuckles, where they pushed against his skin. Pushed until blood leached from the veins.

  Don’t ever touch him.

  Way’s warning ripped through her mind and she laced her fingers together.

  “Don’t mind me,” she said. “It was a stupid question.” She beamed sunshine into her voice. “There’s no need for you to stick around. Maggie’s going to increase the patrols on my neighborhood.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “There’s nothing for you to do here.”

  The rocking motion stopped, and he draped an arm over the back of the glider. His warmth penetrated her T-shirt.

  “I disagree. There are all kinds of things to do here.” His mouth closed over hers, putting an end to the argument.

  His tongue swept inside, and the heat of his erotic caress made her press into the kiss, harder. Her body followed, and she soon found herself draped over him, from torso to groin. She clung to his jaw, his neck, his head while wanting more and more from his kiss.

  Large hands wrapped around her hips and lifted her. She straddled his lap, thankful for her loose-legged running shorts.

  A roll of his hips brought his hardness in contact with her center, making them both groan their pleasure.

  Releasing her, he scraped her T-shirt out of the way, brushing his lips over one breast, then the next, before freeing a tight, aching nipple from its silken cocoon. He rolled the bud between his fingers. Her back arched, wanting, wanting, wanting—

  Liquid heat brushed against the peak, once, twice, three times before the whole of it disappeared into his mouth.

  She almost came. Warmth pooled between her legs, and her inner muscles clenched around a bolt of white-hot need.

  While he teased and tantalized with his mouth, his hand skimmed along her thigh. The backs of his fingers soon met the thin barrier of her panties.

  “You’re so hot down here,” he said in a thick voice. “I want to be inside you so fucking bad.”

  Like last time, his dirty talk excited her on a primal level. A wildness entered her bloodstream, and she wanted him as much as he wanted her.

  “Neighbors?” she asked.

  “Clear.”

  “Protection?”

  “Pocket.”

  “Fit?”

  He hooked a finger in her panties and shoved them aside. The cool air felt delicious, but it did nothing to soothe the inferno building at her core.

  Nostrils flaring on a deep inhalation, he said, “Say the word.”

  She couldn’t take her eyes off him. His intensity, strength, and breath-stealing handsomeness excited her. She worried that if she moved or looked away for one second, he would disappear and she would be left alone, aching and unsated.

  One thick finger eased inside, and her head snapped back. Her body bowed and clenched around him with a ferocity she didn’t realize she possessed.

  “Say it, Riley. Tell me what you want.”

  Throat thick, she said nothing. She closed her eyes and concentrated on his intoxicating torture, the sensations—

  His finger drew away.

  The hollowness he left behind made her stomach cramp. She opened her eyes, preparing to beg him to continue.

  “Say it.”

  Heart pounding, she stared at him with burning eyes.

  “Do you want to come?”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  “Then tell me how I can shatter you to pieces.”

  When she still said nothing, his jaw tightened and he grabbed her hips as if to set her away. She dug her nails into his shoulders, preparing to fight like a cat for what she wanted. The words built in her chest, rose in her throat—

  “Make the world disappear.”

  The fierceness left his features, and he kissed her hard, thoroughly, then more gently. “Anything for you,” he whispered against her neck, reaching into his pocket and rolling on a condom.

  Her fear of losing this—him—receded against an onslaught of sensations. When the blunt tip of him slid along her wetness, the tears she’d been holding slid down her cheeks in silent thanks.

  Pushing inside, he eased into her, deeper and deeper and deeper. Their bodies sat flush against each other. The summer air caught their uneven breaths as he set an even rhythm meant to draw out their pleasure until it became an agony of unfulfilled release.

  “Feel me, Riley. Take me. Take it all.”

  Closing her eyes, she set her mind free.

  The glider sailed along with them, increasing the friction between their bodies. He broke their kiss to rub his thumb alo
ng the seam of her lips. She opened her mouth and rolled her tongue around the soft pad.

  Without breaking eye contact, he used his wet thumb to find and manipulate her clit. Pressure mounted until—

  Her world exploded.

  She buried her cry into the L of his neck at the same time his hips pumped one last time and a guttural groan vibrated against her breast.

  How long they sat there, with him embedded inside her and their pulses clamoring for calm, she didn’t know.

  Memories of their lovemaking punctuated the silence that grew between them. Why did she find it so difficult to tell him what she wanted?

  In no other facet of her life was she so unsure, so Beta. Since the moment she could toddle around on two feet and issue commands, she’d organized everything in her life to suit her end goal. Whether that be making Way tie his boots a dozen times until she duplicated his technique or nagging Cash to certify her in CPR so she could land a summer job at the pool or forcing Shep to take her zip-lining in order to overcome her fear of heights (she was still perfecting that skill) or wheedling Maggie to teach her how to drive, she’d always taken control of her destiny.

  Until Coen or, more specifically, Coen’s lovemaking made her want to follow his every move, his every command. In his arms, she liked to be commanded, liked the anticipation of the known yet unknown.

  He skimmed his lips over her neck. “There will be no more talk of my leaving. Understood?”

  Closing her eyes, she nodded, though she whispered, “But you will. Eventually.”

  “Not tonight.” He pressed a hot, openmouthed kiss against her flesh. “Or tomorrow.” His tongue burned a line beneath her jaw. “Or tomorrow night…”

  Tilting her head back, she peered into the night and commanded it to never end.

  44

  “What do you mean you still don’t have it? Didn’t the girl show up?”

  Nick pulled in a breath, willing calm into his voice. He hated the pompous ass, but their unavoidable connection and a generous paycheck ensured Nick’s allegiance. He readjusted the cell phone against his ear. “Yes, she arrived last night.”

  “What’s the problem? Get the journal.”