by Jill Shalvis
“Yes.”
She accessed her mail, and the files she’d saved, clicking on the first of Blake’s. “It’s going to take a while. It’s a big file. And it’ll take even longer to flip through it all and see if there’s even anything in it that we can use.”
“Your caller suggested there was.”
“Yes, but how did he know? What did he know?”
“Let’s find out. Kenzie—”
“I’m not ready to talk.”
He stepped closer, a big, tall, badass outline. “What are you ready for?”
“How about the only thing we’re good at?”
With a low sound that might have been an agreeing groan, he came even closer. “Kenzie—”
“No. I mean it.” He was hard. She could feel him. Could feel, too, the tension shimmering throughout his entire body. It matched hers. “No talking.”
“Fine.” With a rough tug, he hauled her up against him. His body was warm and corded with strength, his hands hard and hot on her. And his mouth…
God, his mouth.
He was the most amazing kisser, his lips warm and soft and firm all at the same time, his tongue both talented and greedy and generous.
So generous that she moaned into his mouth and held on for the ride until she couldn’t stand it anymore. “Clothes,” she muttered, and yanked off her own top, gratified to see him doing the same. She stared through the dark at his bared torso as she worked the buttons on her jeans while simultaneously kicking off her shoes. God, he was gorgeous. Sleek, toned and so damned yummy she wanted to gobble him up on the spot. She shoved down her jeans, watching him do the same, but unlike her, his underwear went bye-bye with his jeans, and her mouth actually went dry.
Riveted by the sight, she stood there in her bra and panties and socks. Staring.
He stood there in nothing. In glorious, mouth-dropping, heart-stopping nothing. Yeah, she’d seen it before, all of it and more—but, damn.
“You cheated,” he said, reaching for her bra.
His erection nudged her belly, and forgetting to finish stripping, she wrapped her fingers around him.
He hissed out a breath.
“Too tight?” she asked as she stroked.
“No, your fingers are frozen.”
For some reason that made her laugh. How the hell that was even possible with all the sensations crowding and pushing for space in her brain was beyond her but she stood there, her fingers wrapped around a very impressive erection and laughed.
“Yeah, see, you’re not really supposed to hold onto a guy’s favorite body part and laugh.”
Which, of course, made her laugh harder.
With a shake of his head, he just smiled, clearly not too worried because he remained hard as a rock in her hand…
As his fingers worked their magic and her bra fell to the floor at their feet.
When he stepped even closer, her nipples brushed his chest, and it was her turn to hiss in a breath as they hardened.
And then she couldn’t breathe at all because he dropped to his knees, hooked his thumbs in the edge of her panties and tugged.
At the sight he revealed, he gave a low, ragged groan and slid his hands up the backs of her thighs, cupping her bottom in his big palms. “God, look at you.”
“Aidan—”
“You’re so pretty here.” He ran a finger over her. “All wet and glistening. For me.” There was a deep, husky satisfaction to his voice that made her thighs quiver.
“Spread your legs,” he murmured, skimming hot, wet, openmouthed kisses up an inner thigh. “Yeah, like that.” He pulled her forward, and right into his mouth.
At the first unerring stroke of his tongue her knees nearly buckled but he had a grip on her, one hand on her hip, holding her upright, the other exploring between her legs, working with his tongue to drive her out of her mind. “Aidan—”
“You taste like heaven,” he whispered against her. “Heaven.”
And he felt like it. She strained against him, her fingers tunneled into his hair, her head thrown back as he took her exactly where he wanted to her to go, which was to the very edge of a cliff, so high she couldn’t see all the way to the bottom, couldn’t speak, couldn’t do anything but feel.
And she was feeling plenty. Mostly a need for speed at this point, but he purposely slowed her down, dancing his tongue over her as light as a feather. She tightened her fingers in his hair, silently threatening to make him bald if he didn’t get back to business. Her business. “Aidan, dammit.”
“I could look at you all day.”
“Look later. Do now.”
“Always in a hurry.” He tsked, but obliged.
Oh, God, how he obliged, skimming his hands up the front of her thighs, gently opening her. For a moment he pulled back, admiring the sight before him, wet from his tongue, wet from her own arousal.
Standing there so open and vulnerable, she let out a growl of frustration and need, and he leaned in, this time sucking her into his mouth hard, giving her the rhythm she needed to completely lose it.
When her knees gave out, he let her fall, catching her, rising to his feet, spinning toward the bed, his mouth fastened to hers. His hands moved over her body, thoroughly, ruthlessly, ravenously kissing her as they went, until from somewhere behind them, from the pocket of her pants, her cell phone went off. She couldn’t even think about getting it. Hell, the entire place could have gone up in flames right then and there and she doubted she would have thought about it. “In me, in me.”
He let out a rough laugh.
“Now.”
Because now was the only thing that mattered, and this was the only thing that registered, the feel of his hands on her body, molding, sculpting, flaming the wildfire flickering to life inside her.
Aidan crawled up her body. He’d found a condom, and made himself at home between her thighs. Then he stared down into her eyes, his unwavering and fierce. “This is not just sex.” His voice was low and rough. “It’s not. Not for me.”
She blinked, trying to clear her fuzzy head.
“And if that’s all it is for you, I want to know it now.” He lifted her hips, his strong callused fingers gliding over her flesh, making sure she was ready for him.
She was.
Beyond ready.
“Tell me,” he demanded, holding still, waiting on her word. She stared up at him, her heart swelling at the truth. “It’s more,” she admitted, which—ding, ding, ding—was the right answer because then he spread her thighs wider and drove himself into her, hard and fast, the way she’d wanted, and took her right where she needed to go.
Halfway there, with her breath sobbing in her throat, with their bodies straining with each other, she cupped his jaw and looked into his face.
He was damp with sweat, hard with tension, and so damned sexy she could scarcely speak. “Aidan.”
“Don’t stop me.”
She shook her head at his rough plea. Stop him? Was he kidding? She wanted him to never stop.
Never…a terrifying thought. “Aidan…”
His mouth nuzzled at her ear. “Yeah?”
“I missed you,” she whispered, letting him in on her biggest secret, giving it to him without reserve, letting him look deeply into her eyes.
She absorbed both his surprise and his next thrust, and then that was it.
She burst.
And so did he.
14
AIDAN LAY ON HIS BACK, a hot, naked, still quivering Kenzie in his arms, and let her words soak in.
She’d missed him. “Kenz?”
“Mmm.” Her face was pressed against his throat, her mouth sending shivers of delight down his spine even now, when his bones had turned into overcooked noodles and he couldn’t have moved to save his life.
Well, except a certain part of his anatomy, which appeared to have segregated from his brain. That part moved. That part wanted round two.
And possibly round three, please.
Kenzie lifted
her head and looked at him, all sleepy-eyed and still glowing. Waiting for him to speak.
He found himself cupping her face, and bringing it in for a kiss that lingered.
And deepened.
“I missed you, too,” he whispered against her lips.
She pulled back and closed her eyes.
Staring down at her, he let out a breath. Okay. So she hadn’t meant it. It’d just been the heat of the moment talking. He supposed he could understand that. Had to understand that. After all, the moment had gotten pretty damn heated. “It’s all right.” God, listen to him lie. “I get it.”
Across the room sat his laptop, with answers. Or so he hoped. “We’d better get up.” He was relieved to note that his voice seemed to sound normal, that he was still breathing and that the heart she’d just stabbed was apparently still in working order.
Even if it was bleeding all over the place. Internal carnage…
But he had no one to blame but himself for opening it up to her in the first place. She’d warned him, hadn’t she? She’d warned him and he’d been cocky enough not to believe it possible.
“Aidan?”
He managed to look at her.
“I did miss you. I missed this. But…”
“But life intrudes. I get that, too.”
She looked into his eyes, sighed, then slipped from the bed. Gloriously naked, she walked to his computer. Lit only by the glow of the screen, she afforded him a particularly fine view. “Huh,” she said, and bent over a little so that her fingers could move over the keyboard.
She was absolutely clueless about the picture she made in green glowing profile, with her hair wild around her head, a whisker burn from his face across a breast and her ribs, and her very sweet ass looking good enough to bite.
“That’s odd,” she muttered, her fingers moving faster, the furrow between her eyebrows deepening as she frowned.
He opened his mouth to ask what was odd, but she bent a little farther and he couldn’t gather enough working brain cells to do anything but stare. Her spine was narrow and pretty, and his gaze followed it down past the indention of her waist and the gentle flare of her hips to one of his favorite parts of a woman’s anatomy. Her legs were spread slightly, her thighs taut, allowing him a peek of the treasure between—
“Aidan?”
At the tone, he managed to squelch the lust. Barely. Rising, he walked up behind her. Also naked. Curling his body around hers from behind, a good amount of that lust came barreling back, hitting him like a freight train. He couldn’t help it. His chest was against her back, her world-class ass pressed into his crotch. His hands went to her hips, one slipping around to her ribs, his fingers just brushing the underside of her breast. Pressing his lips to the side of her neck, he let his hand skim up, gliding over her nipple, which hardened gratifyingly in his fingers.
Oh, yeah.
His other hand slid to her belly and began a southward descent—
“Look.” Catching his hand, she pointed to an opened Excel worksheet. She had brought up an interesting list. “My mysterious caller said to look at the demos,” she told him. “I didn’t know what he meant, but all the burned buildings have been razed to the ground. I saw the photos in Zach’s file—not all of those buildings were severely damaged.”
With great difficulty, he frowned at the computer and not at her nude body, his hands still full with warm, sweet, sexy-as-hell woman. “It’s true,” he said. “But the properties were demolished anyway. Except for the last two.”
“On whose orders?”
“The records have been sealed.”
“Why?”
“That’s the question. Zach tried to get the answer to that and it cost him.”
Forcing his concentration from her body, he took in the worksheet in front of him. “Pretty impressive information here.” Blake had been busy.
So had he been keeping track of his own handiwork, along with what happened to each property after the fires?
“Who has the power to order a demolition of a burned property?” Kenzie asked him.
“The owner, anyone acting on the behalf of an owner or the fire department, if the property is deemed unstable or unsafe for any reason.”
She pulled free and went for her clothes, which were strewn across the room. He watched with great regret as she found the pieces one by one and covered up that gorgeous bod.
With a sigh, he reached for his jeans and slid them on. Back to the grown-up world apparently…“How is it you’ve never looked through Blake’s files before?”
“I never thought to. We regularly sent each other files, just in case. It was our backup system.”
“What did you send him?”
She lifted a shoulder. “Rough drafts of stuff.”
“Stuff?”
“I’ve been writing. Scripts.” Another lift of her shoulder. “For the day I finally ate too many donuts and didn’t get asked to audition anymore.”
“I bet you’re a great writer.”
“Really?”
He thought about how deeply she felt things, how good she was with words, and nodded.
Looking touched, she smiled. “Thanks.”
“How long ago did he send you this file?”
“He sent me a backup file every week. We were supposed to keep only the latest version for each other, but I was always too lazy to go back and delete the week before, so I should have them all—” She stared at him for a beat before whipping back to the computer. Her fingers raced over the keys as he bent his head close to hers, looking at what she brought up.
An entire list of arson-related backup files from Blake, starting shortly after the first suspicious fires, until the day before he died.
“So,” she said slowly. “Either he was a damned stupid felon, or he was investigating the arsons himself.”
Her tone made it clear which she believed.
“Or,” he said softly, knowing she was going to hate him. “He’s keeping track of the arsons for a partner.”
She looked at him again, her eyes cooling to, oh, about thirty-five degrees below zero.
“Open the first file.”
Without a word, she clicked on it. It was a Word document, a diary of notes with a running commentary. The first read:
Hill Street fire:
Second point of origin mysteriously vanished on day of cleanup. Wire metal trash can, unique enough in design that it should be traceable. When I mentioned this to the chief, he said I should stick to fighting fires.
Kenzie read the entry out loud, twice, then scrolled down to the next entry, several weeks later.
Blood is thicker than water. I was told that today and apparently need to remember it. If I want to live.
Kenzie whipped her gaze to Aidan. “What the hell does that mean?”
“Sounds like a threat,” he said grimly.
“Blood is thicker than water,” she repeated. “Who is he talking about? We have no family. At least no family who cares about us, anyway.”
He hated the look on her face, the faraway, distant, self-protective look she got whenever she had to talk about her past. There was no doubt, she and Blake had had it rough growing up, being shuffled from one foster home to another. The saving grace was that they’d been kept together. It was what had made their bond so strong—they’d been all each other had had. “Is there possibly a blood relative somewhere?”
“A few, scattered here and there across the country. A great-aunt in Florida, an uncle in Chicago, a cousin in Dallas…” She crossed her arms, closing him out mentally and physically. “Just no one who wanted us.”
Gently he turned her to face him. “Could he be talking about you, then?”
“Definitely not. We were in touch all during that time, but we never had a conversation about any of this.”
Aidan went back to reading the entries, one of which mentioned employee hours. Copies of the schedules were attached. So was Blake keeping track of his alibi, or someone’s wher
eabouts?
Blake had somehow gotten Tommy’s first official reports on the arsons as well. Aidan and Kenzie discovered that he hadn’t been on duty at any of the suspicious fires, a fact that Tommy had apparently considered evidence since it left Blake without an alibi for when the fires had been lit. Aidan scrolled down the list.
“Whoa, stop.” Kenzie pointed to the second fire. “There. That one can’t be right. He had an alibi for that one, he was with me. He’d come to Los Angeles that week. I remember because he was my date for the Emmys. He flew home immediately after, catching a red-eye because he said he had to be back at work for an early shift.”
“Okay.” Aidan pulled up the employee schedule for that day. “But he’s not listed as on duty.”
Kenzie stared at the screen, shaking her head. “He wouldn’t have lied to me.”
She said this with utter sincerity, and Aidan was inclined to absolutely believe because she believed. But if Blake hadn’t lied to Kenzie, then there was only one other explanation.
“The schedule got changed?” she asked.
“It could have happened. Someone traded. Or—”
“Or something physically changed the schedule after the fact,” she said flatly. “And Blake isn’t here to defend himself.”
“No, but we are.” He was looking at the screen, until he realized that she wasn’t. She was staring at him. “What?”
Her eyes were shimmering brilliantly with anger and something else, a deep, gut-wrenching emotion. “I didn’t think it was possible.” Her voice sounded thick. “I didn’t want it to be possible. Oh, God.” She covered her face. “This is so stupid.”
“What?” He looked at the screen again, trying to figure out what she was talking about. “What’s stupid?”
“That I could like you more than last time.”
The words reached him as little had in all these years. “Kenz.” Melting, he pulled down her hands. “I—”
She put a finger in his face. “Don’t get excited. I don’t want to feel this way, and I’m telling you right now I am going to fight feeling this way.”
His heart was squeezed tighter than a bow. “We were just kids, Kenz.”
