Betrayed by Trust

by Ana Barrons

  Ned. It had to be.

  She rinsed out her mouth and went to the door. She would tell him politely that she was exhausted. She was already dressed for bed, for God’s sake. She unlocked the deadbolt, opened the door—and stood perfectly still. Joe stood there in worn jeans and a blue oxford shirt with the sleeves rolled up. The contrast of the blue with his tan was striking. Large, unsmiling brown eyes were gazing into hers with laser precision. His arm was propped against the door frame.

  “I need to talk to you,” he said. “Are you going to let me in?”

  She gripped the door, feeling off balance. “What are you doing here? It’s after eleven.”

  “I noticed.” He pushed off the door frame and straightened to his full height. Keeping his eyes on her, he pushed the door open and stepped inside, then closed it and leaned against it. She could feel the heat from his body, only inches from hers.

  She stepped back. “Is something wrong?”

  “How was your date with Ned Campbell?” He glanced over her shoulder at the closed bedroom door. “He’s not waiting in your bed, is he?”

  A flush rose up her cheeks. “What? No! Not that it’s any of your business. Why are you here, anyway?”

  “I think it is my business,” he said, advancing on her. “I think everything about you is my business.”

  She backed up as he moved forward. “You didn’t answer my question. And who’s with the kids?”

  “Mrs. Z.”

  “But you still—”

  And then his arms were around her and his lips were crushing hers. His tongue, thick and hot, slid into her mouth, sending a current of liquid heat sizzling through her body and pooling in the place where she suddenly and desperately wanted to take him inside of her. Instinct pushed her hips forward, and she felt herself opening, softening, readying for him. She wanted this, all of it. She wanted Joe, and had for so long.

  He slid his hands down her back to her bottom and lifted her, and she wrapped her legs around his waist. His erection was rock hard, and she couldn’t wait to feel it moving inside her.

  There was no doubt how it would end this time.

  He kicked open the door of the bedroom and followed her down onto the bed, his large body warm and heavy on her. His mouth was still on hers, his tongue moving deep and slow, tangling with her own. When she could no longer breathe she moved her face away and dragged in air.

  “Am I crushing you?” he asked, panting as much as she was. He came up onto his forearms and gazed down into her face. His eyes were at half-mast, same as hers, his lips red from kissing her so hard. A thrill shot through her at the fierce expression on his face, one that said he was going to take what he wanted and damn the consequences.

  “No,” she whispered, wrapping her arms more tightly around his neck and pulling him down for another breath-stealing kiss. His pelvis rocked against hers until she thought she’d come without removing any clothes. Again. This time he backed off first.

  “Tell me you don’t let Ned kiss you like this.”

  “God, no,” she said, running her fingers through thick brown hair.

  He ran soft kisses along the underside of her jaw, then nibbled at her neck, driving her wild. He rose up on his knees long enough to yank her nightshirt over her head, leaving her in nothing but lacy black bikini panties. “Your body...” He trailed off, shaking his head. “Every part of you. You’re so beautiful, Catherine.” Then he took her breasts into his big, warm hands and she arched, pressing them deeper into his palms, wanting him to take all of her, touch all of her.

  He ran his tongue around one hard nipple, then the other, slowly laving while he held her breasts in his hands, as though she were a delicacy he would not let out of his grasp. If watching him lick her breasts weren’t erotic enough, he took one nipple into his mouth and sucked hard.

  “Joe!” she cried out, and then again, when he took the other nipple and drew on it. She ran her hand over the huge erection straining against his zipper and he groaned his pleasure around her nipple.

  He raised his face to her. “You have no idea how badly I’ve wanted you to touch me like this.”

  “Take them off,” she demanded in a choked voice. “Take everything off.”

  He slid off the bed and quickly shucked his shirt, pants and shoes. Catherine raised up on her elbows and took in the gorgeous male body and an erection long and thick enough to intimidate. Almost. “You’re beautiful, too,” she whispered, and heard the awe in her voice.

  “I can’t see all of you yet,” he said, and pulled her panties down her legs.

  She was already wet, but the raw desire on Joe’s face made her throb with need. He sank to his knees and pushed her legs apart, opening the most private part of her to his view. He closed his mouth around the inside of her thigh, sucking lightly as he moved his way up. When his cheek grazed her curls she gasped his name and he switched his mouth to the other thigh, sucking and nibbling, little by little spreading her wider.

  “Please,” she begged.

  “Please what?” He nuzzled her with his cheek, sending sharp bursts of pleasure through her. “What do you want, baby?”

  She took his head between her hands and tried to steer him where she wanted him. “I want your mouth...your tongue in me. Please, Joe.”

  “Like this?” Hands on her ass, he lifted her to him and licked into her with hot, silky strokes that drove all thought from her brain except Want. Need. More. Yes. More. More. He licked and sucked and speared his tongue inside her until the pleasure crested and she exploded.

  “Joe!” she cried as the spasms began. “Don’t stop!”

  His tongue knew exactly where to soothe, where to stimulate as orgasm after orgasm rolled through her. When she came back to earth she rose up on her elbows and pulled him to her. Her blood sizzled for him, for the taste of him.

  “In my mouth,” she whispered.

  “No, I won’t be able to—”

  “Yes. In my mouth. Now, Joe.” She pulled herself up to a sitting position and leaned against the headboard.

  He moved toward her on his knees, his cock dripping, and she took him into her hands. She raised her eyes to his as she sucked him into her mouth, tasted his salty maleness. He hissed his pleasure, head dropping forward, his hands grasping the headboard behind her. “Catherine...oh God, baby, it’s so good.”

  She squeezed his balls and took him as deep as his thickness would allow, desperate to devour all of him. Her tongue dipped hard into his slit, lapping it up, wanting it all.

  Mine.

  He began to push into her, rhythmically, groaning his pleasure, and she sucked him, loved him with her mouth, feeling her own need rise again until suddenly he pulled away, tore open a foil pack and rolled it over his cock.

  “Quickly,” she begged. He lifted her hips and plunged his cock inside her in one long, slow thrust that had them both crying out.

  “Look at me,” he demanded. “At us. When you come I want you to see me inside you.”

  “Yes. Please.”

  His body was magnificent above her, large and broad and strong. Fingers gripping his hard thighs, she pressed her heels into his ass and moved to match his strokes. Flesh slapped against flesh as he thrust into her, over and over, the friction sending spirals of ecstasy ricocheting through her body, the intimate connection between them stronger than she had ever fantasized it could be.

  This was Joe inside her. Joe.

  She begged him to go faster, to push harder, and he did it all, driving her into a frenzy until she flew apart, crying out his name. Then he went still, his features twisted into a mask of ecstasy and pain as the throbbing began inside of her. He cried out once, then shuddered and collapsed on top of her.

  For a while they lay still, and then he moved down the bed and into the circle of her arms, his che
ek resting on her breasts. She wrapped her arms tightly around his head and shoulders, holding him to her. Never before had she held a man like this, but she knew instinctively that this was their position. Their limbs were entwined, locked together as tightly as two bodies could get. This was where she needed him to be. Joe’s deep, contented sigh told her it was where he needed to be as well. She stroked his hair, and he nuzzled into her breast.

  There would be time to consider the ramifications of taking Joe Rossi as her lover, but it felt too good right now to go there. What she was feeling for him scared her out of her wits, but she would step back and sort that out later. Right now she was with a big, virile man who brought her body shockingly alive, and she was choosing life.

  “Make love to me again, Joe,” she whispered.

  They dozed after they made love the second time, but Catherine’s overactive brain wouldn’t let her rest for long. She rubbed her nose and lips through Joe’s hair, taking in the citrus scent of his shampoo mixed with the pungent smell of sex.

  Lovers. They were lovers.

  They had explored and electrified one another’s bodies with hands and mouths, and she had taken him inside her—had begged him to come inside her. She’d never experienced this kind of passion with another man.

  No other lover would do. Not after tonight. Not after Joe.

  She kissed the top of his head and wrapped her arm more tightly around it. His whiskers irritated her skin, but she didn’t want to move him from her. Ever. A thrill ran up her body at the thought of keeping him. Living with him.

  Slow down.

  As always, on the heels of happiness came the fear. When she married Alan she had assumed he would be faithful to her. Blair had taken care of that bit of naïveté.

  And here was Joe, lying in her arms, naked and asleep. All the while they were making love, Catherine hadn’t thought once about being in Blair’s bed. It was Joe, after all, and she associated Joe with home—with her own bedroom, where she had talked to him on the phone late at night. Where he’d been the last person she thought about before she fell into fitful sleep, and the second person she thought of when she awoke. Her first thought had always been of Blair.

  Blair had meant fear. Regret. Darkness.

  Joe had meant hope. And laughter.

  And love.

  But he had betrayed her once, no matter how necessary the truth about Blair and Alan had been to the story, no matter how he tried to justify it. And it had hurt. It wasn’t easy to shake off hurt like that.

  And then, of course, there were his feelings for Suzannah. Whatever they were.

  Fool me once, shame on you.

  * * *

  Joe lifted a heavy eyelid at three thirty-two. Shit. Mrs. Z would be sound asleep on the couch when he came in. He rolled onto his back, expecting to connect with warm flesh, but the other side of the bed was empty. The bedroom door was open, but there was no light from the living room, or from the bathroom.

  Then he smelled the smoke.

  He lunged out of bed and ran smack into an end table, knocking over a lamp. Cursing, he raced into the living room and stopped short when he spotted her. He stood trying to catch his breath, more alarmed by Catherine’s stillness than by the fire he’d imagined blazing somewhere in the apartment.

  She was standing by an open window overlooking Connecticut Avenue, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, smoking a cigarette. The room felt humid in spite of the icy blast of air-conditioning. She didn’t turn around or acknowledge his presence.

  Bad sign.

  “Catherine?”

  “I’m here.”

  He didn’t know what to do with himself, so he sat on the couch. “I didn’t know you smoked,” he said.

  “I don’t.”

  Ah. That was enlightening. Cold fear settled into his gut. Damn it, he should have seen this coming.

  “So, where’d you get them?”

  She knocked the cigarette ash into a saucer on the windowsill. “I walked down to the 7-Eleven.”

  At least she was answering him. “Did you sleep at all?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe a little.”

  “I can’t remember the last time I slept so soundly. I guess that’s how you managed to slip out of bed—I wasn’t paying attention.” He studied her body language, saw her shoulders slump ever so slightly, then the shaky breath before she spoke. She was searching for words he didn’t want to hear.

  “Before you tell me that making love was a mistake and you want me to leave, tell me one thing,” he said.

  “Joe—”

  “Did tonight mean anything to you?”

  She ran a hand through her hair. “Getting involved sexually will only complicate things.”

  If that wasn’t a bullshit answer. “Well, this may come as news to you, but it’s been sexual since we met at Betsy Eberhart’s. It was like you were some kind of magnet, and it wasn’t only because you were so fucking beautiful it made my head spin. And you knew me, you said it yourself. So—”

  “It was your voice.”

  “And before that, when you were in New Hampshire and we talked every day. And every night. I couldn’t get you out of my head.”

  “Joe—”

  “And in case you haven’t noticed, we’ve been building up to this.” He knew he was blabbering, saying too much, making himself too vulnerable, but he couldn’t stop. “We both wanted this, and it finally happened. Is that so terrible?”

  “It’s not that simple,” she said quietly. “Not for me.”

  “It’s not simple for me, either.”

  He went to her then, turned her to him. Her expression was a mix of sadness and confusion, but he could see something else she thought she could hide from him. Longing. It was there, in her eyes. Or did he just want it to be?

  “You didn’t answer my question,” he said. “Did tonight mean anything to you?”

  She refused to meet his gaze. “Let it go, Joe. What’s done is done.”

  “And that’s it?” When she didn’t answer he grabbed her by the shoulders, alarmed by how desperate he was to get through to her. “This was just a little friendly sex to pass the time while we investigate a murder. Is that about right?”

  “Please go,” she said, her voice trembling.

  After a long moment in which he had to stop himself from shaking her, Joe let go and stalked into the bedroom to get his clothes. His gut felt ripped to pieces. He pulled on his clothes hastily and forced his legs to the door without opening his mouth and making a bigger fool of himself than he already had. Catherine had gone back to the window. He watched her long enough to see her shoulders shaking—she was crying silently. Proud to the bitter end.

  He left without a word.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Joe was impossibly cranky. By midafternoon on Sunday he had to get out of the house and be by himself for a while. It was the kind of oppressively hot, humid day when the weathermen advised people to stay indoors if possible and drink a lot of water if they must be in the sun. Mrs. Z told him he was crazy to go out. He didn’t care for that bit of wisdom, either, and nearly bit her head off. Then he took off running at a punishing pace he figured would kill his knees if he didn’t succumb to heatstroke first.

  He ran down MacArthur past the reservoir to Wisconsin Avenue, across the Key Bridge, which connected Georgetown to Rosslyn, Virginia, down the bike path that ran along the George Washington Parkway and into the crowded parking lot at Roosevelt Island. There he stopped and collapsed under a puny dogwood tree on the thin strip of grass that bordered the Potomac River.

  He gazed across at the tiny island, known only for its monument to the other Roosevelt, Teddy. Until recently he’d rarely come here, preferring the trails in Rock Creek Park if he wanted a leisurely run off the beaten track.
He pulled himself up and jogged over the wooden footbridge to the island, then headed left onto the trail through the trees in the direction of the swamp.

  It had been roughly two months since Blair Morrissey’s remains had been discovered on the island. The Park Service had closed the gate, and the parking lot had been filled with police vehicles. News helicopters had hovered over the area until the police had threatened them. Three weeks ago the area closest to the swamp was still blocked off by yellow tape and a ranger was turning back the curious. There was no ranger around now, and a crowd of photo-snapping tourists had crossed the yellow tape and lingered on the boardwalk that spanned the half mile of swamp that would otherwise be nearly impassable. It was in the trees, a hundred yards or so across the swamp from the boardwalk, where Blair’s remains had been found.

  Joe stood there with his hands on his hips, sweat dripping down his face, soaking through his sleeveless running shirt, rolling down his arms and legs. He rested his forearms on the wood railing and hung his head.

  Jesus, he felt bad.

  Catherine had managed to slip through the defenses he had built up over the twenty-seven years since his mother had walked out on him and his father. He had been seven years old and his world had collapsed. He had felt agonizingly helpless at the time, and had vowed that he would never need a woman that much, ever again. He’d enjoyed women, as friends, colleagues and lovers, but he had never broken that vow. Not even with Suzannah, although she’d argue that she had been and always would be the one great love of his life.

  Not until now. Not until Catherine Morrissey.

  He let out a sigh that sounded pitiful. It didn’t make sense that a woman he had known for such a short time could hurt him this badly. Granted, they’d become closer in the months before they met than some married couples would ever be. But he had only been with her for a few weeks, and the first time he saw her she punched him in the mouth.

  “You should have known then how this would play out, asshole,” he murmured.