Colton 911--Unlikely Alibi

by Lisa Childs

  “You can’t believe that was just a car going too fast tonight,” he said.

  Heath shook his head while a muscle twitched above his tightly clenched jaw.

  The elevator doors opened, drawing Joe’s attention to that small foyer on the top floor. One hand holding open the doors, the other on his weapon, Joe scanned the area for any threats before letting the couple step off the elevator. He gestured at the steel door. “Unlock it and then step back,” he advised them.

  “We’re safe here,” Heath said, but he kept one arm protectively wrapped around Kylie Givens and his body between hers and the door to the penthouse and to the elevator. Once he turned the key in the lock, he stepped back as Joe had requested.

  Joe checked out the apartment, inspecting every room before joining them in the living room. They looked nervous, and he knew a couple of reasons why. Someone had tried to kill them and he’d just noticed Kylie’s things in the guest room.

  “I don’t want you to admit it because then I’d have to do something about it,” he said. “But I know you lied about the alibi.” He focused on Kylie. “After checking out your background and your mother’s case, I think I understand why.”

  Once again Heath Colton stepped between her and a threat—in between her and Joe. Joe smiled. Her stuff might have been in the guest room, but he doubted she’d actually been sleeping there.

  “You didn’t want to lose someone else you love,” Joe finished. “Because of that, you both need to be careful. No more investigating on your own.”

  “Will you?” Heath asked. “Will you check out Arvock Pharmaceuticals and Tyler Morrison?”

  Joe nodded. “Of course. I already have people working on those leads. So you don’t need to do anything but lock yourself inside this penthouse and stay put and stay safe.”

  Heath shook his head. “We can’t.”

  The anger ignited again, but then the man added, “The funeral is tomorrow.”

  And Joe felt only sympathy now. That was probably going to be as tough on Heath as nearly getting run down and shot at.

  He nodded. “I’ll request a police detail at the church,” he said. “But you both still need to be careful.” With a sigh, he turned and headed toward the door.

  Heath stopped him, his hand on his shoulder, before he could walk out. “Thank you, Detective,” he said.

  Joe figured the man’s gratitude was more over ignoring their fake alibi than for seeing them safely back to his place. “I really do want this killer caught,” he assured him. “Almost as much as you do.”

  Almost...because while Joe was going to pursue all suspects, he wasn’t going to willingly put himself in danger like Colton and Givens had.

  “Be careful,” he said again before he walked out and left the two of them alone for the night.

  * * *

  Careful...

  Heath had thought he’d been, that he’d been vigilant, that he’d been on guard for vehicles and gunshots. But that car had come out of nowhere; the lights suddenly flashing on had nearly blinded him. Thankfully he’d been able to pull Kylie back and hurled them to safety before it had struck them.

  It had been too close.

  “Are you okay?” he asked her like he had after the car had nearly run them down.

  As she had on the sidewalk, she nodded. But she’d spoken so little—so very little—since they’d nearly died. Again.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “I keep putting you in danger.”

  “I was the one who insisted on going with you,” she reminded him.

  “You should have stayed here,” he said. “And stayed safe.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know if we’re going to be safe anywhere until this killer is caught.”

  “Parker checked out this place,” he reminded her. “You’re safe here. Maybe you should skip the funeral tomorrow and stay here.”

  She shook her head again, this time vehemently. “No way. I’m going.”

  He couldn’t deny her right to go and pay her respects. He couldn’t deny her feelings. She’d loved Pop and Uncle Alfie, too.

  And maybe, selfishly, he wanted her there for him, to support him. He had his entire family, but he didn’t feel as close to any of them as he did to Kylie. She understood his relationship with Pop and his uncle best. She’d been there with all of them.

  Tears rushed to his eyes, and he blinked hard, admitting, “I don’t want to go.”

  Her hand touched his, her fingers entwining with his. “I’ll be there,” she said. “I’ll be with you.”

  He could have lost her, too, tonight. Could have lost her the night before and the day before and that time she’d had the allergic reaction.

  He shuddered at the realization. She was so much a part of his life. Not just as a coworker but as a friend.

  And more...

  A lover and...

  He couldn’t think beyond lover now, not when desire gripped him suddenly and powerfully. “I need you,” he admitted, and he swung her up in his arms, carrying her toward the bedroom.

  She wound her arm around his neck, holding her body close to his. She was trembling, so much that when he lowered her to her feet, her legs nearly gave beneath her. “You’re not okay,” he said.

  She shook her head. “No.”

  He moved to lift her again, to carry her. “I’ll bring you to the guest room then.”

  But she gripped his shoulders. “No. I want to stay here. I want to be with you.”

  He could understand her not wanting to be alone; he didn’t want to be alone either. “I’ll just hold you then,” he said, not wanting to pressure her. Not when she was so vulnerable.

  Her lips curved into a slight smile and she teased, “I sure hope that’s not all you do.” Her hands were steady now as she attacked the studs on his shirt, pulling them loose to bare his chest. She pushed the silk from his shoulders along with the tie that dangled from the collar.

  He chuckled at her impatience. He was impatient to get her naked, too. But there were more buttons on her dress, from neck to hem. He only managed to undo a couple of them before she pushed his hands away.

  He expected her to pull the dress over her head and get rid of it. But instead she teased him, with a twinkle in her eyes, as she slowly undid those buttons herself. One at a painstaking time...

  He groaned with impatience, with need. But even as desperate for a release as he was, he enjoyed the anticipation. His pulse quickened. His heart pounded. And somehow he found himself holding his breath until finally she parted the dress and slipped it slowly from her body, leaving her clothed in only a black lace bra and a black lace thong.

  Then his breath shuddered out in a ragged sigh. “You are so beautiful,” he murmured in appreciation.

  Her smile widened slightly before she tugged it back down.

  “I’m not lying,” he said, before she could utter the accusation again. “You really are beautiful. Why can’t you accept that?”

  “Because you never told me before,” she said.

  “I didn’t want to harass you,” he admitted. “I didn’t want you to quit the company.” He needed her in the office too much. But he was finding that he needed her even more in the bedroom.

  “I’m not going to leave,” she told him.

  And he didn’t know if she was talking about Colton Connections or him. He would make sure she couldn’t leave the company because he wanted her to have a stake in it, as well. Once the will was read and he knew if he had the authority, he was going to make her partner.

  “Good,” he said. “Because I would tie you to the bed this time.”

  She chuckled. “Promises, promises.”

  He scooped her up then and gently tossed her onto the bed. She giggled as she bounced on the mattress.


  And something shifted in his chest, his heart clenching. She really was so damn beautiful.

  “What?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”

  He shook his head. “Nothing.”

  She sighed. “Everything.”

  “Not now,” he said. “Right now everything is right. Here. In this bed. With just you and me.”

  Even as he said it, his cell phone vibrated in his pants pocket. He pulled it out and tossed it down on its screen but not before he noticed who was calling. Gina. Again.

  “Is it important?” Kylie asked, pointing toward his phone.

  “No,” he said. “What’s important is finding something to tie you to this bed.”

  She giggled again. “You don’t need to. I’m not going anywhere.” She reached out, grabbed his hand and tugged him toward her. “And neither are you.”

  “I don’t want to,” he promised her. And he didn’t want anyone but her. He wasn’t ready yet to admit that to himself, though, let alone her. So he showed her instead.

  He joined her on the bed, pressing his lips to her cheek and her chin and the side of her neck.

  She giggled and wriggled. Then she was touching and kissing him, too. And his skin heated and flushed as desire consumed him, as she consumed him.

  She pushed him onto his back and unzipped his pants and she tortured him with her soft hands and her silky lips...

  He could have come, needed to come. But he wanted to be inside her, part of her. So he pushed her onto her back, and he unclasped her bra and pulled down her panties. And he made sure she was as hot and desperate for release as he was. When he shifted away from her to kick off his pants and boxers, she tugged at him.

  “Heath, I need you.”

  He needed her, too.

  His hand shook as he reached for a condom. He had to tear open the packet with his teeth like she had. Then, sitting on the edge of the bed, he rolled it on.

  Before he could turn back toward her, she straddled his lap and guided him inside her. Her hands gripping his shoulders, her legs wrapped around his waist, she rode him.

  He lowered his head and kissed her, deeply, intimately, as he slid in and out of her body. Then her inner muscles gripped him, convulsing around him, as she screamed his name.

  Then he came, too, his body shuddering with the power of the release, with the amount of pleasure he found with her, inside her. “Kylie...”

  He’d never felt like this before—never so much—with anyone else. And for the first time he wondered if his problem with commitment had less to do with him than it had with his significant other.

  Or was he only caught up in the adrenaline again like she’d been the other night? Once again they’d escaped death. Was that why everything felt so much more significant than it ever had before?

  He didn’t know. But he had to be sure before he shared any of his thoughts or feelings with her. He didn’t want to hurt her like he had the other women he dated. And he didn’t want anyone else hurting her either.

  * * *

  One minute Heath had been buried deep inside her. The next he was gone. First he’d slipped into the bathroom to clean up, but then instead of returning to bed with her, he’d said he was going to bring them some food from the kitchen.

  So he would be back.

  He had to be back. He’d promised Detective Parker that he was going to stay here until the funeral. Not that they hadn’t lied to the lawman before.

  Fortunately, for their sake, even though the man realized that, he wasn’t going to press charges against them. Someone trying to kill them yet again must have removed the last of his suspicions about them, about Heath.

  If only Kylie could feel the same.

  She wasn’t suspicious of Heath regarding his dad’s and uncle’s murders. She knew he would never have harmed them or the company. But it was the way he talked to her, looked at her, made love to her.

  She wasn’t sure she could trust it. She knew him too well, knew that he had never fallen really deeply for anyone before. Not that she wanted him to fall for her.

  But...

  Oh, hell, she was beginning to fall for him. And she knew better. She knew him better than to make that mistake. But she must have gotten caught up in how heroic he’d been, in how he’d protected her the past few days.

  But yet...

  That suspicion still lingered, and she reached for the phone he’d put facedown on the bedside table. The screen lit up with a missed call.

  Gina.

  He hadn’t locked his phone, so the screen opened, revealing more than just that one missed call and several voice mails, as well.

  Gina was still in his life, which left no room for Kylie. She wasn’t going to be the other woman Gina had accused her of being.

  Not even for Heath.

  Chapter 22

  Heath’s eyes burned with the tears he’d fought back and with the ones that had slipped out. The funeral was even harder than he had imagined it would be.

  But it was worse for his mom and Aunt Farrah. Every sob that slipped from their lips struck him like a blow to the gut, making him want to double over with pain. With their pain.

  They had loved their husbands so much. It wasn’t fair that they’d lost them so soon. Too soon. It wasn’t fair for any of them to have lost Pop and Uncle Alfie.

  No. They hadn’t lost them. The men had been stolen from them, robbed of their lives by some vicious killer. That killer had to pay.

  Was it a single disgruntled greedy worker like Tyler Morrison? Or was it a heartless corporation like Arvock Pharmaceuticals?

  More tears slipped through Heath’s defenses as the caskets were lowered into the graves that had been dug side by side. Pop and Uncle Alfie would spend eternity like they had their lives—together. He’d once envied them that—envied them and his mom and aunt having a twin. He’d figured, because he’d been born alone, he was destined to always be alone.

  Single.

  Was that why he’d always considered himself incapable of making a commitment? Because he hadn’t believed he would know how to be a couple?

  He blinked and cleared his gaze, so that he could focus on the woman standing at his side. Tears trailed down Kylie’s beautiful face. She had one hand holding a tissue pressed against her cheek and the other on his arm. But it was almost as if she’d forgotten it was there, that he was there.

  Ever since last night she’d been distant. She’d claimed she was just exhausted when he’d come back to his bedroom from the kitchen. She’d been too tired to eat, or even drink the tea he’d brewed for her, she’d said before she’d slipped off alone to the guest room.

  Leaving him alone. Like he felt now.

  But then her grasp on his arm tightened as she gently squeezed and he discovered her staring up at him, the pain in her dark eyes echoing the pain he was feeling. That tight, achy sensation in his chest eased slightly with the sympathetic smile she offered him.

  Then the service concluded, and her smile slipped away and so did she, as the other mourners started to exit the cemetery. Where had she gone?

  Panic caused an even tighter feeling in his chest, stealing his breath away until he found her with Carly. “Go with your mom,” she told him when he joined the women. She gestured at the limousine that the widows were going to ride in back to Aunt Farrah’s house from the cemetery. “Fallon needs you.”

  He shook his head. Even though Detective Parker had kept his word about having police protection at the funeral, Heath wasn’t sure it was safe for him to be too close to his mom. “She has Aunt Farrah and Grandmother.” He was the one who had no one...now...that she was growing distant from him.

  Why?

  What had happened?

  Had she realized that being with him was putting her in danger? Was she angry with him? Scared to be with him?

  He pe
ered closer at her face, and he discerned something in her eyes that looked almost like fear. Was she afraid of him?

  He wanted to ask her—wanted to talk to her—alone. But Carly looped her arm through his and leaned against his side. “Can I ride back with you two?” she asked.

  “Of course,” he said, and he lowered his head to kiss her forehead. Today had to be especially hard on his sister. Hell, it was hard on all of them. Kylie, too.

  He reached for her with his other arm, linking his through hers and pulling her close. She tensed, but she didn’t fight him. She also didn’t lean against him like Carly did. Something was definitely going on with her.

  With them...

  They would talk later—when they went back to the penthouse. Right now he had to be present for his family. Kylie felt like family to him, though. She had since the day he’d hired her, and they’d just clicked.

  And it suddenly clicked with him.

  Maybe Gina had been right. Maybe Kylie had been the reason he hadn’t been able to commit to her—because even then he’d been falling for the dark-haired beauty. Did she know?

  Was that why she looked scared of him? Maybe she didn’t want him to confess his feelings and ruin their friendship and working relationship.

  Kylie hadn’t ever been any more eager than he was to make a commitment. He’d just thought it was because, like him, she cared more about work than her personal life. But now he was beginning to care more about her. Much more.

  But he had a horrible feeling—from the way she was distancing herself from him—that he was about to get his heart broken. Maybe that was only fair. Some kind of karma for all the hearts he’d broken.

  * * *

  Despite how distraught they all were, Heath’s family was still welcoming to Kylie, still treating her like one of them. And she felt like a fraud.

  She hadn’t just lied to Detective Parker; she’d lied to them, too. She wanted to come clean to them, but she knew now was not the time. Hell, she just wanted to cook or clean or do something to help out. But she found the kitchen in pristine condition.