Memories of Luis’s slick, practiced self-absorption and Roger’s mechanical detachment were torn away in a surge of raw, powerful greed. More. She wanted more, in the way the girl she’d once been had wanted more, before disappointment and disillusionment had taught her to accept so much less.
Stephanie curled her trapped hands into his button-down shirt and pulled, baring a V of rough male flesh. She purred into his mouth and thought she felt his hands tremble where they gripped her upper arms.
She’d known it would be like this between them. She’d known since the first moment she’d seen him, asking his professionally detached questions while the horror of what had happened to Genie Watson in the darkroom lurked at the back of his eyes, and his need to find the perpetrator burned in him like flame.
Though she’d just started dating Roger, Stephanie had taken one look at the intense detective with the strange amber eyes, and had yearned for something she couldn’t have. Couldn’t name.
Then Roger had betrayed her. Or perhaps she’d betrayed herself by falling so completely for a murderer, for a man who beat her into a coma when she had discovered him outside Genie’s house and recognized his face.
When she’d awakened in the hospital and seen Reid Peters at her bedside, she’d thought, Thank God, he’s here. Then she’d realized that he was there to take her statement, and that her poor judgment had nearly gotten her and Genie killed.
She’d given her statement in monosyllables and turned her head away. She’d been so ashamed.
But she wouldn’t turn away now. She pressed closer to him, feeling the blood, muscle and bone beneath her fingertips as though it was her own.
Her child was safe with Mortimer. Her aunt as well. She couldn’t stop the voice on the phone from knowing that the police had come to her house. She couldn’t change it now. She could only take pleasure in this kiss, knowing that the dawn would come soon enough, and with it all the problems she’d had the day before, and more.
He loosened his grip on her upper arms and started to let her slide to the floor. Still locked lip to lip, Stephanie felt them both shudder as her breasts rubbed along his chest, as her thighs slid along his legs, and—
Boots thudded on the stairs.
She jumped away from him just as a small herd of uniformed officers tramped into the kitchen.
“We’re all done up there, Detective, and…” The elder uniform trailed off as he took in the state of Peters’s shirt and the almost palpable energy buzzing in the room. Steph felt a wash of heat bloom on her cheeks, which felt raspy and raw from his stubble. “Problem in here?” the uniform asked with a sparkle in his faded gray eyes.
“No! No problem at all, officers. Detective Peters was just…” Steph trailed off, not thinking clearly enough to come up with a believable lie, and feeling heartily sick of the need. She’d done nothing but lie for the last twenty-four hours.
“Doing nothing that is any of Patriot’s business,” Peters filled in smoothly. He aimed a glare at the uniforms. “Got it?” When they nodded with knowing grins, he glanced over at Steph. “And you can call me Reid.”
THE UNIFORMS left not long after, and once the black and white was gone, Maureen called to see if she and Jilly could come home. She swore the child couldn’t sleep because their neighbor’s mynah bird kept singing dirty limericks, but from the look on Mortimer’s face when he walked the ladies home, Reid supposed there was a bit more to it than that.
“Are you sure you don’t want to stay at my place, at least until the upstairs window’s fixed?” the mountainous ex-marine asked once they were inside the house.
Stephanie was engrossed in cuddling her daughter, so Maureen answered for both of them. “No, thank you, Mortimer. We’ll be fine with Reid here.”
“You will?” Reid was just as surprised as Mortimer. He hadn’t been thinking of staying. He’d been planning on stopping by his apartment for a quick check on She Devil before heading to the station to see whether there had been any similar stuffed animal beheadings in the city.
Though he hadn’t objected to her method of distraction, it hadn’t escaped Reid’s attention that Stephanie had avoided his questions. But lord, what a distraction. The anger that had twisted in his gut had exploded in an instant into a white-hot lust like none he’d ever felt before. From the moment her lips had touched his, he’d felt like some sort of primitive, powerful caveman dangling his prize in the air while he had his way. Only he hadn’t been alone in the project—she’d been fully involved in the pillaging…
“Right, Detective Peters?”
“What?” He snapped back to the reality of four pairs of eyes watching him questioningly and a pair of pants that were beginning to take on a life of their own. He coughed and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Yes, of course.”
Maureen nodded in satisfaction. “You see, Mortimer? Detective Peters will stay the night, so you don’t have to worry your crew cut over us.”
“Detective Peters needn’t stay,” Stephanie objected. “We’ll be fine.”
Which is why she was clutching the kid like she might disappear at any moment. Keeping his hands firmly in his pockets lest he be tempted to shake the truth out of her—or drag her upstairs, whichever she preferred—Reid shook his head. “Your aunt is right—that upstairs window isn’t secure. I think your daughter should sleep with you tonight. I’ll stay in her room in case the perp comes back to mess up any more toys—” or some people “—and I’ll call a locksmith I know in the morning. He’ll fix the window.” And install historically inaccurate dead bolts on every point of access, whether Stephanie liked it or not.
At the mention of her toys, the little girl’s lower lip trembled. Her dark hair was sticking out in all directions and she looked pretty miserable. Reid had to fight the sudden desire to give the kid a hug and tell her it was going to be okay. It was just as well he resisted, because a moment later she started to cry, and for such a quiet kid Jilly Alberts cried loud.
Unable to argue with him over the escalating wails, Stephanie finally glared at Reid, huffed, “Fine!” and carried her daughter upstairs to bed with Maureen at her heels. The cries abated some with distance and walls, and Reid let out a grateful breath.
“So you’ll stay?”
Reid cocked an eyebrow at Mortimer, feeling like he’d been set up, but not nearly as annoyed as he might have been by the prospect. “Seems so.” He paused, looked the big, capable-looking man up and down. “You see anything unusual this afternoon? This evening?”
“Nah.” The hoop in Mortimer’s ear glinted as he shook his head. “Would’ve told the other cops if I had. But,” he paused and looked sideways at Reid, “I had a sort of…feeling about eight o’clock. Know what I mean?”
“Yeah,” Reid said, resisting the urge to scratch his back. “I do.”
“You think this had anything to do with Jilly wandering off yesterday?” The way Mortimer said it made Reid think the ex-marine didn’t like the story any more than he did. “Because Maureen didn’t have her eyes off the little tyke for more than a second, and she and I both scoured the park right after she vanished. She wasn’t there.”
“It’s still under investigation.” Reid fell back on the standard line.
“And?” Mortimer wasn’t buying the evasion any more than Reid had forgotten about the questions Stephanie hadn’t answered earlier.
Reid shrugged. “And I’ve got a feeling of my own.” He glanced upstairs as blessed quiet reigned once again.
Mortimer nodded. “I’ll take the daytime watch then. I don’t have to play at the pub until tomorrow evening, so I can hang around here. It’ll drive Maureen crazy,” he didn’t seem bothered by the prospect. “Stephanie should be safe enough at the lab.”
Reid didn’t bother pointing out that Boston General hadn’t proven itself the safest of hideouts in the past. He simply nodded, knowing where he’d be the next day. “Good to meet you then, Mortimer.”
The large black man nodded his gray-fro
sted head. “Nice meeting you, too, Peters, though I might’ve wished it was under other circumstances.” He headed for the door, tossing over his shoulder, “Oh, and you might want to know that your shirt’s missing a button, Detective.”
Reid ground his teeth as the door closed on Mortimer’s reminder of his lapse. Anger rose, but it wasn’t the familiar impotent rage he battled on a daily basis. He was mad at himself. Not only had he kissed a witness and a victim, he’d kissed a woman who had lied to him about an ongoing investigation.
He scrubbed his hands through his hair and blew out a frustrated breath as the taste of her swam through his body like a drug. It wouldn’t happen again, he told himself as his heart pounded out the message on the little girl’s bed. It couldn’t happen again. If his father had taught him nothing else, it was that there was nothing more important than the job. Not family. Not happiness.
And especially not love.
UPSTAIRS, STEPHANIE lay in her bed and stared at the ceiling while her mind conjured up dead, dark eyes in the corners of the room and she shivered with dread. What would the voice do now? He had to know the police were in the house.
She reached out and touched the curls on her sleeping daughter’s head. Safe. For now.
Steph shuddered. She’d almost hoped the harsh, oily voice would call so she could tell him that she hadn’t turned over the true DNA results to the police. So she could explain why Reid was there.
And perhaps explain it to herself as well.
Steph rolled over and punched her pillow for good measure. She was hot and itchy, and the still weight of the child sleeping beside her in the bed didn’t bring her the usual comfort.
She lay still for a moment, listening to the dark. Thinking of Reid. Thinking of kissing him. Of how it had been everything she hadn’t allowed herself to want and more, because she had found an unexpected sweetness in him beneath the layer of tough cop and man. Of how she couldn’t afford to think that way when she was bound and determined to deceive him, even though the kiss had reawakened parts of her that had lain dormant ever since that first night Luis had come home smelling of cheap wine and perfume and cursed at her when she complained.
It had not been a tender kiss, but she hadn’t needed tender. Hadn’t wanted it. She had wanted the rush of pure heat to burn through her and leave nothing behind—not lies, not fear, not anything.
And she’d gotten more than she bargained for. If it hadn’t been for the interruption…
She blew out a frustrated breath, rolled over in the bed and punched the pillow again, feeling hot and churned up.
After their kiss, Peters had huddled with the Patriot cops and Steph had put Jilly down to sleep and brushed her teeth. She had glanced at the ratty white lab coat that usually served as her robe, and changed into a flowing blue satin nightgown that covered more than a ball gown, but clung in all the right places. Luis had hated the nightgown, and that alone was enough to make it one of her favorite articles of clothing, though it hadn’t seen any action since he’d gone.
Then again, neither had she. Her one attempt at a relationship since had been Roger. She had—thankfully—never slept with him.
So she’d smoothed the soft blue material over her hips and belly, feeling daring. Feeling safe and terrified at the same time. Feeling confused and thinking she was a terrible person to think of her daughter’s safety and the detective’s tight backside in the same breath. Then she lay down beside her daughter and waited for sleep to come. Waited for him to come.
And waited.
And waited.
The house was silent. The grandmother clock in the downstairs hall bonged occasionally in a random pattern that had absolutely nothing to do with the actual time. Normally she found it charming. Tonight it annoyed her, especially when she was sure it had been at least an hour since she’d heard any movement in the house and longer since the phone had last rung.
The voice wasn’t going to call. The detective wasn’t going to beckon her into the hallway.
And there was no way in hell she was getting any sleep.
“Darn it.” She sighed again and thought of hot chocolate, a poor substitute for safety or sex, but as close as she was likely to come to either for the night. On the way to the kitchen, she glanced into Jilly’s room, almost afraid of seeing a shadowy figure waiting in there with a dark, oily voice and a thirst for little girls.
She froze at the moon-gilded shadow.
Peters lay sprawled across Jilly’s bed in a jumble of ruffles and stuffed animals. Fast asleep.
Steph stepped farther into the room. She couldn’t help herself. The light from the hall played across the hard planes of his face, softening them and making him look younger. More vulnerable. When he was awake, it was hard to get past the golden, almost wolfish color of his eyes.
As he slept, she thought she could see the hint of a dimple on one cheek. She wondered why she’d never noticed it before, and had to stop herself from reaching out to touch.
His shirt was open where she had pulled at it during that wild, wanton kiss, and Steph thought that if she lay down on Jilly’s tiny bed beside him, she could rest her head against his shoulder and touch her tongue to that V of exposed flesh.
Then she saw his badge lying open on the child-sized night table. She stepped back toward the doorway.
Her track record was horrible. Her taste ran to liars and thieves. And to make it worse, this time she was the liar and the lawbreaker. She had no choice.
She had made her decision. She was going to send an innocent man to prison for a rape he hadn’t committed. The alternative was unthinkable and Jilly and Maureen had to be protected at all costs. But law-abiding, justice-defending Reid Peters would never understand. He didn’t like kids and he didn’t believe in letting the bad guys win.
He’d never forgive her for what she was planning to do the next day. Never. And knowing that was harder than she’d thought it would be, because it meant there could never be more between them than a single kiss in her kitchen.
She backed toward the doorway, turned and went back to her own room, curled around her daughter and willed herself to sleep. Willed herself not to cry.
REID WATCHED her go through slitted eyelids and wondered at the play of emotions on her face.
A brief stint undercover had left him with a wicked scar high on his right thigh and an aversion to being snuck up on while asleep, so he’d come instantly awake when she’d paused in the doorway. Having taken a necessary moment to identify the intruder and shift his hand away from the gun he’d stuck under a pillow shaped like a purple dragon, Reid had feigned sleep, curious about what she’d do next.
At first, her face had looked tender, almost madonna-like. Then he’d seen a flash of something that might have been desire. The nipples beneath that slinky blue satin had slid into view for a bare moment, and not all of his body parts had stayed as still as he might have liked. But then her expression had shifted yet again to wariness. Fear.
Deception.
She’d backed from the room and he’d let her go, knowing that in the morning he would take her to the station and make it official. She was the job now, not the woman. It had to be that way. He had to be that way.
Restless now, half-aroused by the sight of her in that long cool slide of blue satin and the rest of the way hard from the memory of their kiss in the kitchen, Reid prowled down the stairs and rechecked the pitiful locks on the ground-floor windows. The routine soothed him and he felt the cop’s calm descend. It was a shield of sorts, built to keep him apart from the horrors he saw every day, built to protect others from the rage that rose within him.
Perhaps tonight the shield would save him from himself.
He prowled back upstairs and heard a soft noise, like a bird chirping. It drew him down the length of the hall.
The sound came again, seven notes, a pause, then a repeat. Reid relaxed a fraction. It was the kid whistling again.
Telling himself it was just to make sure t
hey were both okay, Reid stepped inside the bedroom and was instantly surrounded by the scent of female flesh and baby powder.
Stephanie.
The job. She was the job now. She could be nothing more.
The soft glow of moonlight outlined mother and child. Stephanie was sound asleep atop the covers, the blue satin cupped around curves enough to make a man beg. The gown had fallen aside at the high slit, showing off a long, tapered leg.
Chirp?
A pair of eyes gleamed in the darkness as the little girl peered over the dip at her mother’s waist. Reid waggled his fingers and held one to his lips, then pointed down at Steph. “Mommy’s sleeping,” he mouthed, and the child nodded solemnly. She held up her arms.
She wanted to be picked up? Reid shuddered. He’d rather walk into an armed camp of drug smugglers in his underwear.
Ignoring her gesture, he sat down on a rocking chair beside the bed. It protested with a loud creak, and the little girl giggled, high and sweet. Steph shifted and murmured in her sleep, and Reid gave in to temptation and stroked her cheek, feeling his heart turn over in his chest when she smiled.
Chirp? There was a tug at his wrinkled pant leg, and he looked down to discover that Jilly had somehow ended up on the floor, looking up at him. She raised her arms.
Oh hell, he thought, and lifted her up into his lap. How bad could it be? The anger was far away now, hidden under layers of unidentified emotion and worry and that cool cop calm.
Her body snuggled warm and trusting against his chest, and he shifted far enough to pull his cell phone out of his pocket and place it on the bedside table. When the material twisted around his body and annoyed him, Reid pulled the ruined shirt over his head and resettled her. He’d keep the gun at the small of his back for now, safe from sticky little fingers.
Her tiny heart tapped against the bare skin of his chest, and her sweet, soapy scent rose to his nostrils as he dozed in the rocking chair and listened for the danger he knew was out there. Somewhere.
Secret Witness Page 6
