by Louisa Trent
"A dossier?"
"A case history on a person. It makes it easier to trace a suspect if you know how he or she thinks."
"Will you excuse me? I forgot to ... to ... spritz myself with that new perfume we bought yesterday " Emily rushed for Steve's bedroom, collapsing against the door as soon as she closed it.
Did Steve know who she was? Did he know Lee Packet was really Emily Parker?
Ronnie obviously didn't know, but Steve could have figured it out, despite the disguise.
Of course, he knew! He had to know! He was playing with her, toying with her, stringing her along with this summer romance thing.
But why? To what end?
There was only one possible reason: He was only keeping her around to see what she knew about The Cuzin.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
At midnight, with rain coming down in sheets, Steve flew back into Logan Airport exactly one month to the day after leaving town, dog tired and wolfishly hungry for the woman who waited for him back at his waterfront condo.
After collecting his luggage, he raced out the terminal's door. Rain splashing down on him in wind-driven torrents, he flagged a parked Yellow Taxi, telling the driver an extra large tip was in it for him if the trip was made in twenty minutes or less.
The taxi's windshield wipers dealing with the wet deluge, the cabbie dealing with his hydroplaning vehicle, Steve sat forward in the seat, not dealing so swell at all with the ache in his balls. Wanting to keep his arrival a surprise, he hadn't called ahead which meant Emily would most likely be asleep.
In his bed.
Without him.
She should have been sleeping with him! They should have been making love in France. Paris was the world's most romantic city, made for lovers. But because of The Cuzin he had traveled there alone.
He would never again allow his work to come between them. Study in Light might be a masterpiece, but it was still only paint on canvas. Had Emily missed him in that big empty bed as much he had missed her? Had she thought about him at all?
Every night in Paris, he had thrashed the bedcovers, wrapped in carnal dreams. Of Emily. All his dreams were of Emily.
Sex was a big part of those dreams, but sex wasn't the only part. He genuinely liked Emily Parker, a companionable, buddy kind of liking. The kind of liking that came from shared interests. They were on the same wavelengths in a lot of different areas, the stuff that really mattered, family stuff, a sense of responsibility, work ethic. Because of the early loss of her mother, because she graduated from the school of hard knocks, Emily knew life wasn't a free ride. And at his family barbecue, she had been great with his nieces and nephews. He could easily picture her with a houseful of noisy, happy, messy, kids...
Whoa! How'd he go from thoughts of getting laid to thoughts of having kids? A man needed a wife to have a family.
Family ... love ... marriage-that part of him was dead, destroyed. Twisted into a bitter knot and discarded. After walking away from the cemetery that dark day after his wife's burial, he had used what remained inside him into making something of himself, into pulling himself up. All his raw anger went into his career. Grief was the driving force behind the establishment of Gallagher Investigative Services. Anger came in handy for keeping him on his toes in a cutthroat business, but anger also corrodes. There was nothing soft, nothing sweet, nothing left over for a woman. Especially, for a woman like Emily.
They'd had erotic sex, but what would ordinary sex be like with her? Wake-up sex, for instance, when they would cuddle first and slip sleepily into doing it?
Damned hot, is what it would be, wake-up sex or not. Anything done with Emily would be hot, Steve conceded, his fantasies working him up, his hard-on making the remainder of the cab ride uncomfortable. Too late to get any tonight, Emily would be sleeping.
He had meant to catch an earlier flight but a lead at the last minute had sent him roaming the French countryside. For nothing. Another dead-end. Another fool's errand. He had the distinctive feeling The Cuzin had never left the States.
It made sense. If Emily was the courier, and she hadn't used those airline tickets, the painting had to be someplace local, close enough for a fast retrieval. From the very beginning, he had suspected this was the case, but he had to check out every possible avenue. Running up against brick walls made his job frustrating, and it wasted invaluable time. Where was the damned painting? It didn't have legs; where had Fritz stashed it?
Someplace dry, but with enough humidity in the air so the oils wouldn't crack. Most likely rolled, but not rolled too tight. Maybe not rolled at all, maybe hidden behind another painting...
Emily sure as hell didn't have a clue to the painting on her. She had arrived with only the clothes on her back, a backpack, and a sleeping bag. He had checked her stuff-Emily had nothing.
He wanted to give her everything. Most of all, he wanted to give her the truth. Tomorrow, he would tell Emily where he had been and why. He was tired of the secrets, tired of the evasions. He wanted honesty between them, at least on his side of the equation. He hoped the truth wouldn't drive her away. He hoped she would finally open up to him and give him her trust.
The taxi pulled up to the curb. After handing the driver the fee and the promised mega-tip, Steve raced inside the building. When his private penthouse elevator opened inside the foyer, it was none too soon. His luggage dropped from his hand and he was inside his bedroom in a fierce beat of his heart
Emily stood before the open patio doors, her face in profile, heedless of the stormy weather blowing in on her. Her white nightgown, transparently wet from the windblown rain, clung to her slender body. She turned, opened her arms, no questions asked, no reproaches given for his unexplained absence.
"I missed you," was all she said.
Too choked up to speak, Steve closed the distance between them. Sweeping her up into his arms, he moaned against her neck, then took her lips, sealing their mouths. They fell backwards through the open doors, ending up on the patio in the eye of the storm, Emily straining against him, her white nightgown plastered to her skin, her arms wrapped tight around him, bringing him closer, mouthing his jaw while rain pelted them, the water steaming against the heat of their lust warmed skin.
He tugged at the elasticized neckline of her nightgown to get at her breasts; she went for his fly to get at his cock, both simultaneously capturing their intended quarries. Christ, her hand felt good! He wanted her to feel good too. When she reached into the gape of his dark trousers and cupped his balls, he felt better than good.
"You don't need this," he said gruffly, and peeled the wet cotton off her shoulders, leaving it settled around her waist. "You don't need this," he said more determinedly, and yanked the nightgown lower so her concave belly was exposed. "You don't fucking need this," he raged, and his fingers dug into the nightgown, tearing it the rest of the way down her body, leaving her naked in the rain.
His hands were moving, touching, exploring ... grasping. He couldn't get close enough, couldn't get near enough. He sank to his knees, bringing her with him, his mouth eating her mouth, his tongue pushing to her throat. They stayed like that in the rain, kissing in the rain, touching each other in the rain as though they were both of them starved, until he finally picked her up in his arms, her feet leaving the patio deck, her legs opening and circling his hips. He plunged up into her outside in the rain, his throat working convulsively at the painful pleasure of being inside her body again. Then he was moving in time to the thunder, each stroke as elemental as the weather, each thrust as untamed as the lightning ripping across the sky. And Emily was answering the wildness around them, the wildness within him, answering it and adding to it with her own wildness, gasping, screaming, her leg muscles clenching as she climaxed. He followed, letting his orgasm take charge, not caring about anything but this, this one moment, when time stopped and there was only Emily. And fucking. Fucking Emily.
Both hands filled with her bottom cheeks, he walked her back into the room,
to the bed, and still inside her, started moving again, a little slower this time, but deeper, much deeper.
"Too much?" he asked, watching an expression he couldn't define move across her face.
"It's never too much," she whispered, her expression open and radiant, misty from the rain. She was beautiful and his and he had been gone much too long for a tempered penetration. There were days of sensation he needed to make up for, weeks of pent-up arousal calling for release. He needed this, sex, more than he needed to sleep, more than he needed to tell her where he had been and why.
"Don't let me hurt you," he pleaded, pushing her legs higher, over his shoulders, grinding his cock into her, welding himself to her, their bodies meshing, fusing as one, so deep inside her he could touch her womb. "Tell me to quit if I get too forceful."
He did, but she didn't, so he continued. Hard. Driving up into her body, unable to stop the pounding fury of the fuck. Even after the second climax, breathing hard, heart pounding, the urgency wouldn't stop. It wouldn't stop.
Switching on the nightstand lamp, he knelt on the bed before Emily's open legs, his sleepless eyes burning on her cunt.
"Your pelt has grown back," he panted, combing his fingers through the fair curls that looked so pretty against her nearly translucent skin.
Her beauty affected him so that he had to look away. "I need it again," he whispered.
"I need you too," she said on a sigh.
He didn't analyze why her statement seemed truer than his. Taking hold of her ankles, he spread her legs wide, and watched his cock slide in.
He moved in and out of her perfect body, his thrusts a little more controlled ... until her internal muscles milked him.
He groaned. "When you do that, I can't ... you know ... I can't..." The thought went incomplete because Emily, the little sexy imp, was grinning up at him.
"Too much?" she asked, the smile on her face, ear to ear. "You can quit if I get too forceful. Don't let me hurt you."
Too late for that warning. Much too late. He had known all along that for Emily he was prepared to bleed.
No pride left, he said, "I can't quit. Even if it kills me, I can't stop. You're like drug to me." He was feeling everything too profoundly. This wasn't sex; this was mating. And it hurt.
The pain was his own damn fault. He went into this with his eyes wide open. There was no one to blame but himself. The realization that he couldn't let her go exploded in a hot and wet culmination that left him devastated.
He would never walk away from this woman. Emily was in his heart, and he didn't have the strength to save himself.
"Again," he begged.
In answer, she reached up and touched his face.
He had only just ejaculated, and so he knew it would take him a while to come, and he was glad because it meant he would need to stay in her body longer to climax.
His back dripped sweat; beads of moisture rolled into the crack of his pumping ass. His arms trembled. His cock was sore. Emily's skin was damp with perspiration too, and her soft whimpers told him her passage was getting tender from too much sex in too short a time.
Twenty minutes? An hour? He didn't know how long he went at it.
"Please, Angel, a little longer," he pleaded when she started to cry. He kissed the salt of her pain from her lips. "Just a little while longer and I swear I'll let you rest."
But he lied. He didn't let her rest. Shamed by the excess, but unable to stop his hunger for her, he flipped her over onto her belly and went into her back to front, letting the pillow capture her tears.
He was crying now too. When was the last time he had shed a tear? He couldn't remember ever giving into the raw need to let go, to surrender, to hand himself over, weakness and all, dark desire and all, to another person.
An hour later they left the safe harbor of the bed and went outside again in the rain; the wild elements of the night suited his mood.
"I want you," she said.
He felt himself blanch. He wanted it too, but the memory of her whimpers still rung like a bell of accusation in his ears. "No! Your pussy is sore..."
She turned and faced the terrace wall, stuck her bottom out. "This way," she said, her hands going to her buttocks and opening herself up for him.
Anal.
His twitching cock jumped with joy. Too far gone to be a gentleman, he cut through the romance and asked for the truth. "Are you sure you can you take it in the ass?"
"Yes."
"All the way up?" he checked, just to make sure, because he couldn't swear to stop if she couldn't. And he needed it, wanted it, had to have it, all the way up.
"All the way in, Steve. I'm a tough chick. Remember?"
Not willing to leave her, even to go get the essentials, he lubed her with pre-cum. He wanted to say, 'I'll be careful,' but he could make no promises, and he wouldn't lie. Not now.
As wet drops of rain cooled his overheated skin, he gave it to her, a nudge, the start of the entry. The water streaming down his back felt good, felt cleansing, as he penetrated her buttocks.
She gasped as the head rimmed and buried itself that first little bit. "Steve?" she questioned, going up on her toes to escape the inevitable.
"Don't fight it," he said, making no move to withdraw. He kissed her mouth coaxingly, as he went in deeper, loving it, loving everything about it, loving it so much, he stepped to one side to watch his cock there, between her round, perfect bottom cheeks, the head buried that first little bit. No other man had ever done this to Emily. Pride filled him as he filled her. She was giving this to him when she hadn't given it to anyone else, giving him her trust along with her ass.
Her ass. Emily was giving him her ass.
He cleared the emotion from his throat. "Exhale, then relax and just let me," he said, talking her through the mechanics of anal.
She did. Letting go of a breath, her muscles surrendered to the unaccustomed penetration, and he was in. Though not all the way.
He wanted all the way.
"Just a little deeper, just let me get it in a little deeper, " he urged. "You feel so good," he crooned and pushed, her lush body accepting the invasion and sucking him in.
He had all to do not to cheer, to holler, to boast his ownership of Emily's ass across the city rooftops.
"Cunt too," he demanded, way past the niceties of politeness.
"Take it," she moaned, moving away from the wall so he could get at it, giving her body over completely to him, letting him have everything.
Like a bad case of greed, he took all she offered. Every inch she offered, every scream she offered, until she had nothing left to give. And still he kept driving up into her body. Pounding up into her body, his testicles melding to her buttocks, one big hand squeezing a breast, the other parting the tender lips of her sex and rubbing her swollen clit as he thrust into her ass again and again.
His mouth opened on the side of her neck, and he bit the silky skin there. "Stay with me, stay with me, stay with me," he groaned, and heaved and exploded, his cum gushing out of her ass when he eventually withdrew, the ejaculate dripping down the backs of her legs, rain washed away.
He took her back inside his room again, spooning her wet body to his wet body under the bedcovers, his sore loins nestled to her bruised bottom. "Sleep now, Angel," he spoke low into her ear, holding her, listening to the soft fall of rain that continued unabated outside.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
By morning, the storm had ended. Muted sunlight painted the walls of his bedroom in a palette of golds. Unbelievably, Emily was in bed with him, sleeping on her side faced away, the cool white sheet low on her shapely warm hip, his palm tattooing her softness, imprinting her with each of his hungry fingertips while she dreamt on.
What did Emily dream of when she slept? Did she see Bernard Fritz's ruined face, the top of his skull blown off? Did she fight off pursuing art thieves? Did she envision the money she would get from fencing a stolen painting?
Her sleep certainly wasn't peaceful
. Crying out, her head had thrashed back and forth on the pillow during the night. And he could do nothing more than hold her, comfort her, soothe her with his body in the darkness, telling her everything would be all right, that he would make everything all right.
He hadn't slept at all. Too keyed up. Knowing they had to talk, but too worried about what he would say, Steve couldn't close his eyes. He wouldn't lose her, not now. He would lay his cards on the table, get things out in the open. He was tired of the lies. Tired of the games. He wanted her to realize she could trust him, and that he would be there for her, no matter what she was involved in.
He would start by saying he understood there were mitigating circumstances and that he didn't condemn her for anything she had done. He would go on and say that in the same position he might have done the same thing.
Steve eased away from Emily, and like a lovesick bull, wandered around the bedroom. Needing to touch something that she had worn close to her skin, to inhale the fragrance of Emily clinging to the fabric, he searched her bureau.
Way in the back of the bottom drawer, concealed within a pile of neatly folded nightgowns, he found an antique necklace.
Before even picking it up and holding it in his hand, he understood what the antique pendant was and why Emily kept it hidden. The large, oval shaped locket was really not a necklace at all; in actuality, it was a key holder. A wealthy lady in a bygone era would wear the pendant, not around her neck, but around her waist. Inside, for safekeeping, she would keep the key to a chest where all her valuables were stored...
Fingers trembling, Steve pressed the secret spring at the back of the locket.
The front plate of the pendant creaked open and a smallish key fell into his sweating palm. He knew immediately the key would fit the lock in the Dusenberg, the one he hadn't been able to open. He also knew inside the storage compartment he wouldn't find a jack for changing a flat tire, but The Cuzin.
