by Lora Leigh
“Because I don’t know what he wants from me.” Frustration filled her voice now. “He wants me to guess, or to beg, I don’t know,” she bit out furiously. “And I can’t stand not knowing.”
“Maybe he just wants you,” her father suggested gently.
Sheila turned her gaze back to the flowers as she shook her head. “He wants more. He has to.”
“What do you want from him?”
Her gaze swung back to him in surprise. “I just want him, Dad,” she whispered. “That was all I ever wanted.”
“His love?”
She nodded slowly. “Just his love.”
“Maybe, Sheila, you’re wrong. Maybe that really is all Casey wants from you.”
Her lips parted to argue the suggestion. There had to be more. Casey had to want more. No one had ever wanted just her love, and she couldn’t imagine Casey did either.
“Cooper has intel ready to come in,” he told her before she could argue his opinion of Casey. “He’ll be waiting on you in the office tonight at nine sharp. Don’t be early, Sheila, and don’t be late.”
She wanted to roll her eyes at the order. Her father was a stickler for punctuality.
“And what time should I be home, Daddy?” Unfolding herself from the top of the desk, she slid from the seat until she was standing beside his chair, looking down at where he pushed his glasses back atop his head.
“Getting back isn’t the problem,” he told her. “Cooper and his wife Sarah are leaving town tonight and want to get on the road early. Cooper knows how I am about chain of evidence.”
Anyone who worked with her father knew that. Cooper was always present if he wasn’t the one to turn over the flash drive.
“I’ll be there at nine sharp,” she promised as she turned to leave the office.
“By the way, Annie said you were at the house looking for me last night?”
Sheila composed her expression quickly before turning back to her father with a quick smile. “I was just bored.”
Or scared. One or the other.
Scared, she decided. “I’m heading home, Dad. If I’m going to be there at ten sharp, then I have some things to do before I leave.”
“Of course, dear. I’ll see you tomorrow.” He waved her away as he turned his attention to the files on his desk. “Afternoon if you don’t mind. I’ll be leaving in a few hours myself for Corpus Christi. A meeting with the other network commanders.”
“In the morning then,” she agreed, lifting her hand in a farewell wave as she left the office and headed for the front door.
If she was going to chance seeing Casey, then she was going to do what she did every night before picking up the flash drive. Shower. Choose just the right outfit. The right perfume. The right shoes.
Just in case she saw Casey.
TEN
Was it good luck or bad luck? Fate or karma? Whichever it was, when Sheila slipped into Ethan Cooper’s office, Casey was there as well, waiting.
His arms were crossed over his broad chest, his expression stoic, his gaze swirling with dark emotion. It seemed as though his emotions reached out to her, wrapped around her. Her chest tightened and the tears she had shed only in the darkest part of the night for the past week threatened to fill her eyes as their gazes met.
“Hey, Cooper, Sarah.” Shoving her hands into the pockets of the light blazer she wore over the sleeveless top, she glanced toward Casey again. Clearing her throat she said, “Hello, Casey.”
“Sheila.” His expression didn’t change, but something in his eyes did.
Dropping her gaze for a second, she turned back to Cooper and Sarah as they watched both her and Casey silently. She could see confusion in their expressions. And she understood why they felt it. After all, the last time she and Casey had been in the same room together, it was all they could do to keep their hands off each other.
They weren’t having that problem now, though.
Sheila couldn’t tear her eyes off his broad chest, covered by the short-sleeved denim shirt, or the powerful cut of his thighs encased in jeans and framing the hard, heavy length of his erection.
He was aroused, and the proof of it had her womb clenching, her pussy tightening, and her juices spilling to the silk of her panties.
Perhaps she shouldn’t have worn the skirt. It was short, gauzy, frilly, and intensely feminine. The camisole tank and light silk blazer she wore emphasized her feeling of femininity.
The four-inch heels only topped it off.
Sitting down in the chair next to her, Sheila slid the left shoe off, pressed the small indention at the side of the heel, and watched as the tiny spring-loaded opening slid to the side to reveal the compartment just big enough to hold the tiny flash drive.
Taking the black stick that held the information gathered the night before, she tucked it into the small recess before activating the mechanism once again, closing the small hollow.
Her gaze lifted to Casey once again. He had been the one who had come up with the idea for the hiding place. It had been a hell of a decision for her to make, to allow him to cut into several pairs of her favorite shoes.
His excuse for using more than one pair of old boots was that it would throw suspicion further away from her if she altered her dress often. Any electronics created to scan her purse or clothing would miss the tiny drive nestled just beneath her heel.
He was staring at her feet, his gaze narrowing as he lifted his eyes back to her.
She felt lost in his look.
Sarah was talking, and though Sheila heard her, answered her, nothing really existed for her except Casey. Except the pure hunger and latent anger that burned in his eyes.
“Okay, that’s it then,” Cooper announced as Sheila signed off on the acceptance of the small card.
She used the code name her father had assigned her, just as Cooper used his.
“Yeah, that’s it,” she repeated, her gaze sliding to Casey once more as she rose to her feet. “Good night, Cooper. Sarah.” Her lips trembled as she glanced back at Casey again. “Good night, Casey.”
He inclined his head slowly and Sheila felt as though her heart had been ripped in two.
Dragging in a hard breath, she turned and strode quickly to the door, desperate to get away from him now, to find the privacy she needed to release the tears building in her eyes.
She hadn’t known it would hurt this bad. She hadn’t known that being without him would slice through her soul like a jagged knife, ripping past her defenses and leaving her so very vulnerable.
Holding back the tears was impossible.
By time she reached the dimly lit shadows of the building’s side parking lot, the first one had escaped. Cupping her hand over her mouth, she fought to hold back the cry that would have spilled free with it. Allowing it to escape would only lead to more tears, to the pain erupting inside her like a tightly capped volcano spewing free.
She was unaware she had been followed. Unaware that the man who caused the tears was no more than a step behind her.
Casey heard the hitch of her voice, and as though the knowledge of her tears was borne in the air following a storm, he knew the pain suddenly raging inside her.
He’d never felt another person’s tears or another person’s emotions as he felt hers now. As though they reached out to him and pierced his chest like an arrow, shooting straight to his soul.
“Sheila.” He reached for her as the door slammed behind them, the shadows of the night wrapping around them.
He gripped her shoulders, turning her, overcoming the instinctive struggle, the pride that had her stiffening against him as he pressed her body between his and the side of the building.
“God, baby, you’re killing me.” The words, whispered at her ear, seemed to break something inside her.
Her body slumped, her shoulders trembling as he felt the silent sobs that suddenly escaped and the tears that spilled to the thin white dress shirt he wore.
She cried silently, which was all t
he more heartbreaking as her fingers tightened and fisted in the shirt over his chest. Wrapping his arms around her, Casey held her as closely, as tightly to him as he could, and still, it didn’t seem to be enough. He wanted her under his skin, to be a part of him, locked so tight to him that neither of them could escape.
Bending his head to her shoulder, the soft flesh bared by the thin straps of her camisole top, he let his lips press to her flesh, his tongue ease out to taste the soft, feminine taste of her.
As though that small hint of her essence only intensified the need, he allowed his lips to part further, his tongue to take more of her taste as he kissed the fragrant flesh.
“Fuck. Roses,” he growled as that hint of a taste penetrated his senses.
God, he loved the taste of roses against her flesh.
His hand smoothed up her arm, lifting until he was cupping her neck, his thumb pressing beneath her chin to lift her face to where the moonlight gleamed on the damp trails of her tears.
Her eyes glittered in the darkness, filled with pain. And God knew he understood how she hurt. How the hunger and the need beat inside her soul, because it beat inside his own.
As her lips parted on a ragged breath, he couldn’t resist the taste, the soft, crushed-silk feel of them.
His head lowered and he took instant advantage of the parted curves, the damp, tear-drenched saltiness, and the heat and pleasure he’d found only with his Sheila.
Her breathing hitched, but this time in response to his kiss rather than in response to the pain.
Lifting her closer as his knees bent, one hard thigh pressing in between hers, Casey pulled her to the furiously hard flesh pounding beneath his jeans.
Her skirt slid back, revealing tempting, creamy thighs in the dim light as her legs lifted, her knees bending to grip his hips and ride the cloth-covered erection raging beneath the denim.
Damn her. His body craved her like air. She was as natural to him as breathing, and he couldn’t seem to exist without finding a way to see her, to touch and hold her.
He let his palm slide up her thigh, beneath the skirt. His fingers tucked beneath the tiny square of material that barely covered her sex to find her hot and wet, the silken folds drenched in sweet, feminine honey.
He was so damned hungry for her it was all he could do to keep from ripping the zipper of his jeans and impaling her with the stiff flesh of his dick.
He wanted inside her so bad he could barely think for it, barely concentrate on anything but the remembered feel of her pussy milking the come from his dick.
As he snarled his head jerked back, his hips grinding between her thighs as a soft, desperate little moan escaped her lips.
“Tell me, Sheila.” He had to hear the words. “What do you want from me? Tell me, baby, and I’ll give you what we’re both dying for.”
He left his fingers tucked between the folds of her pussy, to rub against the snug, clenched entrance in a sensual promise to fill her if she gave him what he needed.
“Casey, just tell me.”
He froze. Staring down at her he could see the confusion in her gaze, the desperation, and he could see how much she loved him.
A love so strong, so deep was what he felt for her.
No, his was stronger, deeper he decided, because he knew it for what it was, felt it for what it was, and she continued to hide from it. From him.
His fingers eased back.
“Casey, please,” she cried out, her voice hoarse with tears. “What do you want from me?”
What did he want from her?
Hell.
“As strange as it may seem, baby, I want you to see without being shown.” He sighed as he eased her back to her feet and steadied her until she was standing on her own. “Come on, I’ll take you to your car.”
Before he ended up fucking her against the wall.
That was a serious danger if he didn’t get her the fuck away from him. He would end up taking her there in the shadows and he wouldn’t give a damn who caught him.
“Wait.” The fingers of both hands wrapped around his wrist. “Were you at the house last night? Did you come to see me?”
He could hear the need in her voice, the same desperation that he had. What the hell did she want? To ensure he made the first move?
“No, I wasn’t.” But he knew it wouldn’t be long. He would break, and the thought of that sent a wave of anger rushing through him.
She had to know what he felt for her. She had to have realized it. No woman could be so fuckin’ obtuse that they couldn’t see when a man was so engulfed in her that he would gladly die for her. Or worse, kill for her.
He’d wondered several times, and prayed he was only being facetious, when he’d wondered who he had to kill to convince her he loved her?
“Oh.” She released him slowly.
Catching her hand, he drew her to her car.
“Where’s your key?” He couldn’t keep the anger from his tone.
Pushing her fingers into the side pocket of her skirt, she pulled out the small electronic key and the snick of the door locks filled the silence.
Jerking the door open, he held it for her, watching as she moved around him to slide into the driver’s seat.
“Why are you doing this?” she whispered as she stared back at him. “What kind of game are you playing with my heart, Casey?”
And that only pissed him off more. If she thought he was playing a game, then it could only be because she was playing one herself. And the thought of that lit a fuse to his temper that went straight to his lusts.
He’d find out the game she was playing.
He hadn’t been at her home last night, but tonight? Oh baby, he promised her silently, he’d be there tonight.
“Go home, Sheila,” he told her gently as he stepped back, gripping the edge of the door. “And think about it. I’ll give you one more chance to figure it out on your own.”
He closed the door before she could argue and stepped back, his gaze still connected with hers, his expression, harder than she may have ever seen it.
She had him ready to explode. Not so much in anger as in pure dominant male lust. A dominance and a lust that went far beyond anything he had ever wanted to give another woman.
He wouldn’t allow her to play games with what he knew existed between them. He’d be damned if he’d ever seen the love a woman felt for him in her eyes. But he’d seen it in Sheila’s. Just as he’d felt her pain, her longing, her fucking confusion.
The vehicle started, and as he watched, she backed out of the parking space and turned, heading to the exit.
He watched until her taillights faded around the curve ahead and several other vehicles pulled out behind her.
And he promised himself, he silently swore to her, that before the night was over, she would know to the soles of her feet who the fuck she belonged to, and why she belonged to him.
After tonight, she’d know better than to ever again ask him what game he was playing with her heart.
ELEVEN
By all accounts and research, Sheila Rutledge was a good girl.
Her heart had been broken once by Ross Mason, a young man who had used her to further his own ends. He had, at a very vulnerable time in her life, used her to get to her father and to gain an important government position within the financial sector.
The knowledge of Ross Mason deception had caused Miss Rutledge to retreat behind a wall of frigid unconcern where men were involved. Until a man named Nick Casey had arrived in town five years before to work for Ethan Cooper at the Broken Bar.
Gossip, it appeared, had been focused on Miss Rutledge and her bouncer since the day she had met him.
And in the past nine or ten months, it had only become stronger.
Since the night Miss Rutledge had left the bar with her bouncer and spent the night at his apartment.
They were an item, despite the fact that it seemed the young miss was determined to hold on to the man whose past was shrouded in sha
dows.
Strange, the fact that Captain Rutledge seemed blissfully ignorant of the fact that Nick Casey wasn’t who he said he was.
Of course, Rutledge himself had a rather shady past as well. A man in his fifties and he’d never risen above captain? For all his connections and political friends, his rank should have been far higher. Which meant somewhere, in some way, Rutledge had compromised his position and his values.
Ahh, such tangled webs.
A sigh filled the pickup. Following Miss Rutledge, knowing the task ahead, weighed heavily on the shoulders.
It wouldn’t be easy, terrifying her, harming her. She was a gentle person, a kind person, and forcing her to pay the price for a past she had nothing to do with would be a haunting act. It would be a memory that would haunt not just the present, but the future as well.
Hands tightened on the steering wheel. The vehicle began to accelerate. No, harming her wouldn’t be easy, but what other choice was there?
Beau refused to make the call.
There was no gossip that his woman was in danger, Miss Rutledge had kept her suspicions to herself. No one else knew her home had been broken into. No one knew a vehicle followed her a little closer each night.
No one else knew about the phone message she had on her recorder.
Beau had no idea his lover had been targeted and had not yet made that all important phone call.
It was time to ensure that all knew Miss Rutledge had a stalker. One willing to kill her to achieve whatever ideal she represented.
The vehicle accelerated further, moving steadily closer to the small car ahead and the future Sheila Rutledge might well pay the ultimate price for.
TWELVE
Sheila watched in her rearview mirror as the headlights behind her accelerated at an unusual speed. They were moving faster, coming up on her at a speed that was rarely used on the back road that led to the exclusive estates outside Simsburg.
The mostly retired residents didn’t drive like bats out of hell. Like the vehicle behind her and the one that had ridden her ass for the past several trips to the bar. For some reason, she never failed to miss the driver who came up on her like an Indy Car driver and, after a few seconds, zipped around her as though she weren’t even there.
