“Let me do this,” she whispered. “Touch you.”
He nodded once, his gaze not leaving hers.
She reached down until her fingers brushed his hard length. He sucked air through his teeth, and then gasped when she wrapped her hand around his cock. She stroked him gently, delighting in his shudders and the sounds he made. This was a very different Jonah from the brooding hulk who frequented the diner. He was engaged, responsive…alive.
His breath quickened, his eyes rolled back. Then he moved so suddenly that she lost her grip. For a split second she panicked—had he seen something? Heard something?
But he was over her, hands planted on either side of her body and fire in his eyes. “I can’t,” he said. “No more touching. Not yet.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ll lose control. And I don’t want this to be over.”
She smiled. “That’s a good reason.”
He kissed her tenderly, as though he feared she might break. His breath feathered her cheek as he nuzzled her, then moved down to press his lips to her throat, her shoulder, her breastbone. “You’re hard to reach,” he murmured.
Firm, warm hands gripped her waist and urged her up, until she was propped on the pillows against the headboard. She reached for him instinctively—and he caught her wrists, held her gaze. “Do you trust me?” he rasped.
“Yes,” she said without hesitation. “I trust you, Jonah.”
“Good.” Flashing a wicked grin, he used one hand to pin her wrists to the wall above her. “No touching, then…until I’ve finished touching you.”
His fingers skimmed her ribs, a trembling caress that moved to her breasts and sent flutters through her body. He cupped her gently, bent his head and touched his tongue to her nipple, making her gasp. For long moments he teased her with tongue and fingers, until she jolted with every contact and strained against his grip.
She was damp and hot, aching with need for him. He rested his free hand on her thigh, sliding up with aching slowness as he suckled her. Then his thumb found her sensitive spot, pressed gently, and she uttered a breathless cry.
He licked and stroked her into a blind haze of bliss. And when she came with her wrists still captured in his hand, the powerful sensation nearly undid her.
Jonah shifted slightly, allowing her to catch her breath. He raised his arm, took one of her hands in each of his, and brought them down to press them against his chest. His grip loosened slowly and he lingered on her skin, rough fingertips brushing down her arms. “I want to be inside you,” he whispered. “Need to.”
She shivered. “I need that, too.”
When he entered her, it was with exquisite care. His cock was hard and thick as the rest of him. The firm heat gliding into her felt incredible—like completing a connection she hadn’t known was broken.
He buried himself fully and stopped, breathing hard. “My God, you’re tight,” he groaned through clenched teeth. “Am I hurting you?”
“Never.” She tightened around him, and he cried out. “It’s a perfect fit.”
With a soft groan, he pushed reflexively and drew a sharp breath from her. Then he started to move—slowly, with long, deep strokes that set her quivering inside. He was so careful, so tender. Such a contrast to everything he believed he was. This was Jonah unguarded and vulnerable…his truest self.
It was a gift she’d treasure as long as she lived.
Soon his pace increased and his breathing grew erratic. She held to him, feeling his muscles slide and tense beneath her hands as his thrusts lengthened, stretching the sweet ache of fullness. She could feel him holding back, wanting her pleasure before he took his own.
She gave it to him in a single motion, arching against him with a rough cry that matched the strength of her orgasm. He shuddered hard, plunged deep. Finally, he let go and shouted hoarsely, pounding the wall with a closed fist as he spilled.
It took a moment for his eyes to refocus. Still panting, he lowered himself alongside her and cradled her body in both arms. The leisurely kiss that followed needed no words.
Utterly sated and feeling more alive than she had in years, Piper allowed herself to relax against him, until sleep claimed her moments later.
Chapter 10
Jonah could only allow himself a few moments to enjoy the miracle in his arms. Much longer, and he might decide to stay right here with Piper beside him for the rest of the night. But that was an indulgence he couldn’t afford.
Not if he wanted the miracle to survive.
He’d never intended this, and now he wondered if he should have fought harder to prevent it from happening. It had nothing to do with desire, and everything to do with leverage. The more he cared, the more leverage Eddie had.
And he cared a hell of a lot. More than he’d thought possible.
There was no taking it back. The brutally honest part of him, the one with zero survival instincts that enjoyed mouthing off to his deadly boss, didn’t want to take it back. Because if he failed and Eddie killed him, at least he’d die with this experience—the most incredible, intimate and beautiful thing in his life.
But now he’d promised two people he cared about that he’d stay alive. And in the ultimate twist of irony, his biggest risk of dying was in attempting to keep that promise.
Piper’s breathing was soft and even, her body a warm, slack weight against him. It was actually painful moving away from her. It left him cold and empty…more than before, because he knew what he was missing.
She was worth the pain, though.
He eased carefully from the bed, found his pants and shoved them on. It was three in the morning—either too late or too early to do anything, but he couldn’t let his guard down. This place was only off Eddie’s radar, not impossible to find. Safe was a relative term.
He’d been watching out the window for maybe twenty minutes when he heard Piper stirring, and then turned to find her looking at him with a faint smile. “Don’t you ever sleep?” she said.
“Not really.”
“Uh-oh. We’re back to cranky Jonah.”
He frowned. “I’m not cranky.”
“No, I guess you’re not. You’re just…you. And that’s a good thing.” She stretched, and he looked anywhere else as the sheet fell away and exposed her. One glance and he’d want her all over again. “Well if you’re going to be awake, then I am, too,” she said.
“You should get some sleep.”
“Hey. We’re in this together.” He risked a look back and saw her smiling again. “Aren’t we?”
He managed to smile back. “Yeah. We are.”
“Good.”
She got up and dressed, and he watched the parking lot intently. He sensed her coming up behind him. “I take it we’re still waiting on Patrick,” she said.
He nodded. “Can’t say that makes me happy, but yes.”
“Well…what if we could do something else?”
“Like what?” he said slowly, not liking the eagerness in her voice. The situation was risky enough already, and he couldn’t let anything happen to her.
“You said when Eddie found Celeste, she was at a storage place. Right?”
“Yes,” he said.
Piper looked thoughtful. “Now we know she was working with Patrick to bring him down—or at least we’re pretty sure,” she said. “So what if there’s something in that storage unit they were planning to use against him? It would make sense for neither of them to keep evidence at home, or in places Eddie knew.”
But Jonah was already shaking his head. “It’s been eight years,” he said. “Even if there was something there, those storage places empty everything out of the units when you miss a few months’ payment. Whatever was in there is long gone.”
“Maybe not.”
He raised an eyebrow. “How?”
“Before she left, Celeste said she’d made arrangements to keep all the bills paid, so I wouldn’t have to worry,” she said. “I’m willing to bet that included the storage u
nit.”
He started to object, thinking that Eddie would have searched the unit years ago and found anything incriminating. But then he realized that was impossible—because Patrick was still working for him. If he’d found out Patrick was trying to take him down, the man would be dead. He must not have known the two of them were working together.
So maybe there was a chance, after all.
“Okay,” he finally said. “The storage place isn’t far from here. If we’re going, we head out now—and we make it fast.”
“We? So you’re not going to insist that I stay here because it’s too dangerous?”
He grimaced. “I want to, believe me,” he said. “But you’re the one who knew her. If there’s anything important there, I might not recognize it. You will. And…I don’t want to leave you alone.”
She reached up with a smile, held a hand to his face—then stood on tiptoe and kissed him. “Thank you,” she said. “That means a lot to me.”
He nodded, unable to say that he felt the same. Afraid to, because he couldn’t afford to have anything more to lose. “All right,” he said. “Let’s go.”
* * * *
Piper was beginning to see what Patrick meant when he said this wasn’t her world.
When they arrived at the storage place, Jonah told her to unbuckle and crouch down, below window level. Then he made two full circuits of the area, going down each aisle between buildings and looking everywhere. He finally came to a stop and said, “All right, it’s clear.”
By the time she pulled herself back into the seat, he had a crowbar in his hand.
“This is the one.” He nodded at the side window, a unit to the left of the car. “It’s still locked. That’s a good sign.”
“Oh, no.” She hadn’t even thought about it being locked. How stupid could she get? “Um. I don’t have a key,” she said. “If Celeste had one, I have no idea where it’d be.”
Jonah offered a sardonic smile. “Don’t worry about it.”
“But how—”
“Come on.”
He got out of the car, and she followed him around to the trunk. There was a big metal toolbox inside, and he opened a small drawer on the front and took out a slim piece of metal with a slightly curved end. “Here’s the key,” he said.
“And that would be…”
“A lock pick.”
“Oh.” She shouldn’t have been surprised, but it was a little unsettling—if only because it reminded her that all of this was real, and dangerous.
He shrugged. “Learned a few tricks here and there.”
Without another word, he headed for the door of the storage unit. He had the padlock open by the time she caught up. He removed it, handed it to her, and then rolled the aluminum door up. “Let me grab a flashlight,” he said.
As he went back to the car, she peered into the dim interior of the unit. There were a lot of bulky shapes that looked like furniture, a few stacks of boxes against one wall. Going through all of those would take time they didn’t have—but she had a feeling Celeste wouldn’t have stored anything important in a cardboard box.
Jonah returned, switched the light on and panned it across the contents. The beam revealed a large table and three smaller ones, a couch with two easy chairs overturned on it, and an upright mattress and box spring. “Anything look promising?” he said.
“I don’t know.” She walked inside slowly, looking at the mattress set. “I think…there’s something behind these. Can you bring the light?”
He came up beside her as she reached the box spring. It wasn’t leaning directly against the wall. She reached out and brushed the cool side of a metal cabinet, black and dull, the color of shadows. All the furniture had been stacked deliberately in front of this. “Here,” she said. “Think we can get to it?”
Jonah nodded and held the flashlight out. “Hold this.”
He had everything shoved aside in a matter of minutes. The cabinet was closed with a padlock, much thicker than the one on the door. “That has to be it,” she said. “If there’s anything, it’s in there.”
“Let’s find out.” He produced the lock pick from somewhere—she guessed up his sleeve—and made short work of the lock.
The cabinet contained only two things. A locked metal box, and a clear plastic container full of photos and papers.
Piper’s heart sped. “Looks like something to me.”
“Yeah. Maybe.” Jonah grabbed them both, tucking them under one arm. “We need to get back to the motel,” he said. “We can check this stuff out there.”
“Right.” She wasn’t about to argue. The vague sense of foreboding she’d felt since they left the room had grown stronger, and she could almost believe Eddie was watching them right now. She knew this was what Celeste had gone down to protect—and she didn’t want to think about what Eddie might do if he got his hands on it. To Jonah, and to her.
Chapter 11
Piper sat cross-legged on the bed, her laptop open in front of her, and tried typing in her own first and middle name. No luck.
The lockbox, which Jonah had picked open easily, held a couple of flash drives and an external hard drive. All of them were password protected. She’d tried everything she could think of—names, places, numbers that might mean something to Celeste. She hadn’t struck anything that worked, and by now she doubted she would. She was decent with computers, but nowhere near an expert hacker.
Meanwhile, Jonah had taken the other bed to go through the plastic container. She glanced over and saw him surrounded by small stacks of photos, envelopes and sheets of paper. The container was still halfway full. If he’d found anything useful, he hadn’t mentioned it.
With a sigh, she heaved herself off the bed and stretched the kinks from her neck. Jonah looked up as she approached with a questioning glance. “Anything?” he said.
“No. You?”
“Not really. A few pictures of her and Patrick, but they don’t help.” He pointed to a stack of envelopes. “Lot of those. Letters marked ‘return to sender’.”
Frowning, Piper picked up one of the envelopes—and her heart constricted. It was addressed to Lisa Gretzel, a name she hadn’t so much as thought in years. “My mother,” she whispered, fanning the envelopes out to reveal the same name, over and over. “That’s my mother’s name. But wait a minute.” She looked closer at the address. “The zip code is 00000. That can’t be right.”
She opened the envelope in her hands. Inside was a newspaper clipping, folded around a photograph of a much younger Celeste wearing a skimpy outfit that wasn’t like her at all, in front of a bar called Flanneghan’s. She was clearly drunk, with her arm around a man in a pinstriped suit who looked like…
“Eddie Verona.” She held the photo out to Jonah. “That’s him, isn’t it?”
Jonah looked. “Yeah,” he said slowly. “That’s him.”
She unfolded the article. The headline read Mafia Boss Raphael Drago Sentenced to 10 Consecutive Life Terms. The short piece didn’t contain much detail—only that Drago had operated out of Manhattan’s Lower East Side and was suspected of drug trafficking, loan sharking, murdering at least 20 people and assaulting countless others. The photo of the crime boss with the article wasn’t familiar. “Have you heard of this guy?” she asked Jonah.
“No,” he said after glancing at the newspaper clipping. “Maybe on the news, when I was a kid. But I have no idea what he’d have to do with Eddie, or your aunt.”
“Malory said that Celeste died in Manhattan,” she said.
“Malory?”
“The lawyer.” Sensing they were finally getting somewhere, she grabbed the next envelope and tore it open. “Can you see if there’s any more of these in that box?”
“On it.”
The more envelopes she opened, the harder her heart pounded. All of them contained one or two photos and a newspaper article about Raphael Drago. Celeste and Eddie were in quite a few of the pictures, mostly together. In the fourth envelope, she found one o
f Eddie and Patrick Stiles, and another with Celeste between the two of them.
“Patrick was there,” she said, tossing the photo to Jonah.
“Not surprising.” He placed two more envelopes on the stack and pulled a fresh handful of material from the box. “But we need to know why.”
Envelope number nine yielded an article titled Drago Trial Heats Up, and a photo that chilled Piper’s blood—Raphael Drago at some kind of party, his arms slung companionably around the two men flanking him. Eddie and Patrick.
And the picture beneath it was Drago and Celeste.
“They knew him. The mafia boss.” She passed the photos over carefully.
While Jonah silently studied the pictures, Piper read the article that accompanied them. It was a longer one, with a play-by-play of the trial. But the focus of the story was the testimony of three key witnesses, high-ranking employees of Drago who’d delivered a mountain of damning evidence against him. The witnesses’ names were listed as Eric Minola, Paul Vecchio…and Candace Gretzel.
“Oh my God,” she whispered hoarsely. “They worked for him, and they testified against him. All of them.”
“What?”
She turned the article toward him and pointed out the names. “They start with the same letters,” she said. “Eddie. Patrick. Celeste. Gretzel was my mother’s last name…I always wondered why Aunt Celeste had a different one. Neither of them were married.”
Jonah frowned. “So how did they end up in Covendale? I get they’re in hiding from the mafia, but why here?”
“And why did Celeste go back?” she murmured. Suddenly, she was filled with a cold certainty that her aunt’s death had been no accident.
She read the rest of the article, and another name jumped out. Malory King.
“The lawyer,” she said. “Malory was part of the…defense team? She was defending Drago. So why was she representing Celeste?”
Jonah didn’t answer, but she wasn’t really expecting a reply. She was just thinking out loud—too many questions without answers. There were four more envelopes, and she opened them all. More photos, more articles. The final newspaper clipping froze her blood.
Dawson's Honor (Welcome to Covendale Book 6) Page 9
