That maybe...the best way to get information from Rush Atkinson might be to employ a bit of good old-fashioned flirtation.
But the idea was so base that it was almost embarrassing.
Almost? she asked herself with a mental headshake. It’s stooping to the lowest of the low. Feminine wiles. What is this...the 1800s?
But she couldn’t shake the thought that it might work.
He was attracted to her, she was sure. She caught the way his gaze lingered on her lips for a second too long. Felt the quickening of his pulse when their palms were pressed together. If she could distract him with flirting, it might make it easier to slip in a more significant question or two. An extra touch here. A little query there.
Of course, a seduction on any level would mean actually having a set of eyelash-fluttering, giggle-giving, suggestive-comment-delivering skills. And Alessandra wasn’t convinced she did. She’d always been too straightforward to play games.
“I like you...do you like me...” she muttered under breath. “What’s so wrong with that?”
Rush stopped so abruptly that she nearly crashed into him. He turned his head. “Did you say something?”
Alessandra’s whole face heated. “No. Well. Uh. Yes. But it was nothing. Talking to myself.”
She couldn’t see his eyes or his forehead, but she got the feeling he was frowning at her. Thankfully, he didn’t push it. After a second, he just swiveled forward and resumed his trek up the stairs. And Alessandra waited until he was almost at the top before continuing behind him. Just in case.
Yeah... said her reasonable, internal self. So. About that flirting in order to extract information thing...how’s it going so far?
She rolled her eyes, brushed off the thought and focused on the moment. Rush was on the porch now, and showed no sign of exertion as he set down her bag. Alessandra recalled his easy strength when he’d boosted her out of the hole in the woods. Clearly, he was in good shape.
Well, she thought. Two can play at that game.
Channeling her inner fitness guru, she took the stairs quickly, pleased that she didn’t break a sweat. But when she reached the last step, she turned just enough to catch sight of the panoramic view, and all thought of cardiovascular superiority and botched seductions completely slipped away. Even the torn-up letter took a back seat. Awe took everything else’s place.
She couldn’t help but step forward to lean on the railing and take it all in. They weren’t all that high up, but the visibility was still incredible. On one side, it was trees as far as the eye could see, broken only by the narrow strips of road that cut through the mountains. On the other side, there was just a hint of the town. Alessandra imagined that at night, that hint would be made up of warm lights. And she bet that overhead, there’d be a million stars. She inhaled deeply. Fresh air and the scent of pine filled her nose and made her toes tingle. She exhaled, then breathed in again, wanting more. But this time, a muskier scent came in with the woodsy one, and she knew before he even spoke that Rush had moved in closer.
“Hell of a view,” he murmured.
His voice was right beside her ear and full of genuine pleasure. And Alessandra’s toes tingled for a different reason. Smiling, she started to turn. But he was even closer than she thought, and when she spun, she bumped right into him.
“Whoops!” Her face tipped up with the exclamation, and her breath caught.
Rush was inches away. He’d taken off his sunglasses and stuck them on top of his hat, and his chocolate gaze was trained her face. Warm. Caring. Lacking the resentment she would’ve assumed would be there. Like the mountain air had washed it away.
Then his eyes dropped down, and she realized it wasn’t just them that was inches apart. It was their lips. So close that she could feel the heat of them. And he didn’t move away.
“It’d be nice at night,” he said, echoing her own silent sentiment.
“Yes,” she agreed, her voice breathier than she would’ve liked.
Flirtation, a voice in her head reminded her.
Maybe it wouldn’t be quite so hard after all.
She leaned forward a little more and put her hand on his forearm. “I can see why my parents liked it here so much.”
He didn’t pull away. “You know what’s kind of funny...”
“What?”
“I’ve never appreciated it quite so much before.”
That, she thought. That right there is what you need. Smooooooth talking. Flirtatious words. Dammit. He’s not supposed to be saying them, you are. Get it together, Aless—
Her thoughts cut off abruptly. They had no choice. Because Rush’s lips came down, stopping any and all reason from working through her brain. Instead it did a Goldilocks routine.
His mouth warm, but not overpoweringly hot. Soft, but not too yielding. Not so big as to overwhelm her, but just big enough to encompass her. In other words, everything about his lips—everything about his kiss—fit her just right.
She actually felt a small moan building in her chest. It was a primal reaction. Her body liked kissing Rush and wanted to tell him. To show him, too, if her hands’ movement was any indication. They came up to Rush’s forearms, dancing over the tattoos she couldn’t see but knew were there. They slid over his pushed-up sleeves, then paused on his biceps. She could feel the thick muscle there, and her mind filled with an image of it. Of him. Bare from the waist up. Lean and tanned. Pressed against her. The thought of it brought the moan up higher. It slipped from her diaphragm to her trachea. It hung there for a moment, making the back of her throat ache. Then Rush’s tongue came out to touch—just barely—her bottom lip, and there was zero chance of Alessandra being able to hold in the sound any longer. It pushed free, vibrating between them. And it made Rush pull abruptly back.
He blinked down at Alessandra for a second, his brown eyes full of undisguisable want. Then he gave his head a visible shake, and he stepped away, his expression turning stony as he extricated himself from their brief embrace. When he spoke, his tone was equally stiff.
“Alessandra,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” Her voice was as puzzled as her body, which was anything but apologetic.
“That was incredibly unprofessional of me.”
This is it, said the little voice in her head. Time for the flirting. Time for reaching out and telling him that you’re not sorry. That you wanted him to kiss you.
But she hesitated. It was something in the way he said “unprofessional” that gave her pause. Maybe it wasn’t in his best interest to kiss the woman he’d been tasked with babysitting. Alessandra could see that. But his emphasis made her think what he said had a little more meaning than that. He didn’t exactly give off a suit-and-tie, all-aboveboard vibe. And he definitely wasn’t afraid to argue with his boss. So stealing a kiss—one she was willing to give—hardly seemed like a serious offense. It piqued her curiosity, and as Rush snapped her bag up from the ground and moved toward the cabin door, Alessandra couldn’t help but wonder what she was missing.
Chapter 6
Rush jammed the key into the lock and cursed his own stupid impulsivity.
He’d never considered himself to be a cautious man, and he was also a big fan of the whole action-over-words adage. But he was still perfectly capable of being patient. He knew damned well that sometimes, timing was everything. That waiting was just a prelude to doing. None of that meant a lack of self-control. Not usually.
He pushed open the door and stepped into the cabin. In spite of the temperate air outside, the interior of the small building was chilly enough to necessitate a fire in the pellet-burning stove. Which was actually a relief. Rush needed the reprieve. The required prep work was a perfect excuse to avoid talking to Alessandra. Unfortunately, the busyness couldn’t shut off his brain. His mind insisted on turning things over, demanding to know what the hell he’d been thinking
.
The problem was that when he’d leaned down and brushed his lips to Alessandra’s, it had felt like that moment. The one at the end of the wait. He’d been swept away. By the warmish mountain breeze. The amazing view. The way Alessandra leaned into him a little when he spoke to her. Her scent and the way her hair caught strands of sunlight and became living fire.
What the hell, Atkinson? You’re a sucky poet now, too?
With a self-directed growl, he slammed the stove shut and spun toward Alessandra, determined to shift things back to the task at hand—finding out what she knew about Garibaldi. Except whatever he’d been about to say died on his lips. When he’d started with the fire, he’d caught her sitting on the couch from the corner of his eye. He’d assumed she’d still be there. She wasn’t. Instead, she was standing in the opposite corner of the room, her fingers running over an exposed beam, a look of wonder on her face. Then she turned his way, and the smile she directed at him made him want to kiss her all over again.
Dammit.
He needed to find a way to get a hold of his libido. At least Alessandra seemed unaware of the way his need roiled under the surface.
“Look at this!” she said excitedly.
“At what?” he replied.
She didn’t wait for him to figure out what she meant. She walked quickly across the cabin, grabbed his hand and tugged him back to the spot where she’d been standing. Without letting him go, she pulled his fingers up to a beam and pressed them to a groove in the wood.
“Feel that?” she asked.
He could feel something under his fingertips, but he was far more aware of her than he was of anything else. Her shoulder brushed his chest, and her hip bumped his thigh. It was more interesting than whatever she was making him touch, but he shifted his feet anyway, trying to focus.
“All I feel are some dips in the wood,” he admitted after a moment.
“Here,” she said. “I’ll show you.”
Her hand dragged his over the grooves, slowly this time. The she spoke, her voice dropping low, like whispering would help him feel whatever it was she wanted him to feel.
“See?” she said softly. “That first one...it’s an M. Then there’s a little plus sign. And an R at the end. Mary plus Randall. My parents carved that there. My mom felt so guilty about the vandalism that she tried to sand it off. But my dad stopped her and left a hundred-dollar bill with a note instead.”
Her fingers finally left his, but Rush kept his hand up for a moment longer, tracing the thirty-year-old carving once more.
“Sounds like they were really in love,” he said.
“They were embarrassing with it,” she told him with a laugh. “It drove me nuts when I was kid. All that mushiness. But when my dad passed...”
“You missed it,” he filled in.
She nodded. “A lot. I had no idea how much I’d wish he’d walk into a room and give my mom an over-the-top kiss, or make some lovingly suggestive comment that I never should’ve heard. For a long time after, it felt like my mom was half a person. I was just so used to them being a unit.”
She eyed the carved letters one more time, then brushed past him to sink into the couch. Rush only hesitated for a second before following suit. He was careful to leave a space between them, but he felt a compulsion to be near enough to reach out if she wanted him to. He could see that she might, and if it was a little odd to feel so compelled to offer a stranger any comfort she might need, he simply brushed it aside.
She wrinkled her nose a little. “Too much information, right? I’m sure the last thing you want is to hear a woman you don’t know rambling on about her dead parents and their honeymoon. I’m just feeling overwhelmed.”
Rush shook his head, then said something that surprised himself—something true, and which had nothing to do with his undercover backstory, and which he rarely brought up voluntarily. “Unload all you like. I lost my dad, too, fifteen years ago, so I get it.”
Alessandra’s eyes immediately sought his, their brilliant blue muted with empathy. “I’m sorry.”
Rush leaned back, his mind dancing around the part of his past he kept roped off. “S’okay, Red. Like you said about your dad...it was a long time ago.”
“It’s still hard sometimes, though, isn’t it?”
Deflect, he ordered silently.
But for no good reason at all, he answered honestly. “It’s not just hard. It’s hell. My parents weren’t happy like yours. They fought constantly. My dad was a good man. A really good one. My mom was a bit...messy. And when my dad was alive, she always tried to play us off against each other. It worked a lot of the time. Made me a rough and pretty troubled kid.”
When he paused, he saw that Alessandra was studying him intently. Listening, for sure. Maybe trying to figure out if he was still rough and troubled now.
Deflect, his subconscious repeated.
Instead, he went on, and the spilled words were strangely therapeutic. “I’ve gotta admit that my dad’s death changed me for the better.”
“How so?” Alessandra asked, her voice infused with just the right balance of curiosity and sympathy.
“Things went steadily downhill after he died. My mom never held it together all that well. But without my dad...all the already-frayed edges came loose. She was even angrier at him after he died than when he was alive. I was no help. I was too angry, too. Mad at the whole world. Typical teenager with a big giant chip on my shoulder. A year went by of us only talking to scream at each other. Then something happened that made things worse. But it was a wake-up call for me. I needed to be a man like my dad.”
When he finished, he braced himself for a question about the “something.” He knew he’d have to lie, and that he’d more or less set himself up for failure by even mentioning it. Telling her the truth—that fifteen years ago, Jesse Garibaldi, then a minor with a protected identity, had gotten away with murder—wasn’t an option. Alluding to the situation was bad enough. It risked his life. The lives of his three partners. Alessandra’s life, too.
So why did you bring it up, then? he wondered.
He honestly wasn’t sure. What he was sure of was that he didn’t want to lie to the pretty woman sitting beside him. What the hell would he say to her, if—when—she asked?
Deflect. The voice in his head was an insistent whisper now.
Except when she spoke, it wasn’t to say what he’d been expecting.
“Did you succeed?” she asked.
“Succeed?” he echoed.
“In becoming a man like your dad.”
“I’m closer, I think. But still a work in progress.”
“I think that applies to all of us, don’t you? I know I’m far from perfect.”
“I think perfection is relative.”
Without meaning to, Rush swept his gaze over her. When he finished his quick head-to-toe look and brought his eyes back to her face, he found her stare hanging on his lips. He knew she had to be thinking of the brief kiss. He sure was, and he couldn’t quite recall why he’d stopped it. Being professional seemed awfully unimportant.
As the moment dragged on, the heat in the one-room cabin spiked, and it had nothing to do with the toasty woodstove in the corner. Her knee bumped his, and he realized he’d unconsciously slid closer to her.
Alessandra looked down at their touching legs, then back up at him again. He saw uncertainty in her eyes, and it was enough to bring him to his senses. He wasn’t supposed to be thinking about how her lips felt; he was supposed to be trying find a way get her out of Whispering Woods. If he kissed her again, he’d not only jeopardize everything he’d been working for, he’d jeopardize her chances of staying alive for another two days.
Trying to look like he wasn’t jerking back too suddenly, and pretending not to feel a stab of disappointment, he pulled away, cleared his throat, and smiled. “So...after all
that...which one of us is doing the whole too-much-information thing?”
She smiled back, but it looked as strained as his own felt. “It’s good, actually. It makes you seem a little more...”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“No, seriously.”
Her cheeks were pink. “A little more human.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “What was I before? A robot?”
“No.”
“Worse?”
She frowned. “What’s worse than a robot?”
His mouth twitched. “I dunno. Two robots? Or maybe a single evil, sentient robot, hell-bent on world domination?”
She stared at him for a moment before a laugh burst out of her mouth, the sound filling the cabin. It made Rush glad he’d opted for a bit of humor.
“So not a robot, then,” he said. “Alien?”
Her pretty blue eyes rolled in spite of her blush. “No, not an alien.”
“Now I’m extra curious.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“You saying that makes it matter even more.”
“Okay. Look. Don’t take this the wrong way...” Her cheeks went even brighter. “But you give off a bit of a thug vibe.”
Rush would’ve laughed it off—it was the appearance he was aiming for, after all—but it provided a perfect segue back into the discussion he was supposed to be having with her.
He still made sure to keep his reply light. “I don’t know if I should feel insulted, or just be concerned that you think your old friend employs thugs.”
Undercover Refuge Page 6
