Provocative Attraction
Page 16
“That sounds pretty mature... Do you think we’re finally growing up?”
Her question sounded small in the dark. Rook’s smile renewed and he leaned down to brush his mouth to her temple.
“Feels like it,” he told her, his mouth then gliding down to travel over her small uptilted nose and over her cheekbones to the curve of her jaw.
Then his lips were melding with hers and they were engaged in a delicate, seeking kiss that harbored a sweltering undercurrent of desire. Tangled limbs moved into new positions as the kiss intensified. The lovers were unconscious of the articles of clothing that became more entwined between their bodies.
During the kiss, Rook chuckled softly. “Your panties are around my ankle.”
“Of course they are,” she purred. “I have to find some way to bind you to me.”
He nuzzled her neck. “You don’t need them. You’ve always had my heart and always will.”
Their kiss resumed, delicacy and desire humming more urgently then.
“Rook?”
“Mmm...” His tongue tangled lazily with hers and then took full possession of her mouth once again.
Groaning, Viva gave in to more kissing. “Rook...” she managed after more deliciously languid seconds had passed. “You’re vibrating.”
“Damn right I am.” He mouthed another curse though when he felt the vibrations and realized it was his phone.
“Should you get it?”
Rook was more interested in exploring the valley between her breasts. “Somebody just hasn’t gotten used to the time change yet. Now stop talking...”
Kissing resumed, along with the vibrations moments later. Giggles overwhelmed Viva, happiness and passion for the man she loved mounting inside her. She kissed his cheek and then spoke against it. “Maybe you should answer and tell whoever it is that people here are trying to sleep...and do other things.” She bit down softly on his earlobe.
“I’d like to be doing other things besides answering the phone,” Rook grumbled, but took the call when the vibrations set in once again.
Viva stretched, smiled in the dark while waiting for Rook to handle the call. When a lengthy quiet followed his initial clipped greeting to the caller, the tone in his next response piqued Viva’s curiosity. She was sitting up by the time his voice crept into a more lethal octave.
“What is it?” She’d watched him in the weak moonlight and could tell when he’d pulled the phone from his ear. “Rook?”
“That was the gate.”
“What’s wrong?” She heard the rustle of fabric and knew he was getting into his jeans. His words had sent a dull shiver racing up her spine.
Soon, golden light pooled the room from a lamp that Rook had turned on. He continued to dress while Viva squinted to adjust to the unexpected illumination.
“Looks like we gave your friend the benefit of the doubt too soon. They’ve got Murray outside.”
Stunned, Viva could only sit unmoving on the rug as she tried to make sense of the dizzying turn of events. When she finally snapped to, she realized Rook was gone.
Chapter 14
“Sophia...authority agrees with you.” Murray Dean’s attractive features were relaxed, whether from relief that he wasn’t dead of frostbite or by Rook’s hand, it wasn’t certain.
“You may not feel so cordial later.” Sophia’s expression was as bland as everyone else who joined them in the room.
Rook had instructed his staff to transport Murray to the house where he’d been heading before he was spotted.
“What the hell are you doing here, Murray?’
Waves of tension surged at Viva’s question. The house had awakened shortly after Rook left to meet the crew en route with Murray.
Sophia sent a nod in her sister’s direction. Anything Murray said needed to be shared during an official police interview. Viva knew the nod meant that her sister was willing to forgo procedure just then.
“Did you come here to kill me, Mur?” Viva asked when there was no response to her prior question.
The query sparked a flash in Murray’s observant walnut-brown eyes. “Hell no, Viva! No, never. I—”
“Never? And what about what happened to Reynolds and Bevy? And these supposed burglars that Fee Fee Spikes walked in on? All a coincidence?”
“Fee...? Reynolds and Bev? Jesus, V, how could you think I—”
“Answer her, Murray.” Rook’s order earned him a glare from his trespasser.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Murray’s sneer accompanied the accusation in his glare. “You’d love to make her second-guess me, wouldn’t you?”
“It’s not him who’s making me do that, Murray.”
Viva’s admission had Murray slumping in the chair Rook had shoved him into when the guards brought him in.
“I didn’t do this, V.” His voice was weary.
“But you know who did,” Rook countered.
Again, Murray glared at him accusingly but the look didn’t hold. Instead, he nodded.
“What’s going on with you, Murray?” Arms folded over the powder-blue PJ top she’d changed into, Viva moved closer to her agent. “What are you doing here? You had to know Rook would have mad security. You had to know you were walking into certain capture.”
“I owed you an explanation.” Murray’s eyes were soft upon Viva, and then sobered with caution when he glanced toward the others in the room. “I had to try. Chances are I wouldn’t get the opportunity...later. I wasn’t trying to kill you, Veev. I’d never do a thing like that no matter what type of screwy crap you’ve been told I’m into.”
“Are you here to tell us you’re innocent?” Cold laughter caged Rook’s words.
“Far from it.” Murray snorted and rubbed both hands across his shaved head. “I knew what I was doing.”
“Why, Murray?”
Murray at first shrugged at Viva’s quiet, confused question. “I wanted the gloss,” he said at last. Simply. “I wanted it fast. Who could blame me?” he asked then to no one in particular. “Who could deny the attraction to it?” He studied his fingers resting idly along the edge of the table. “The life, the lifestyle...” He observed the table as though it showed the lifestyle he then imagined.
“The way those people live is insane—cars, boats, houses. And they have them just—just because... So much money...” He brought both hands to his temples and seemed to go ashen beneath his light honey complexion.
“They’ve got so much money and no clue what to do with it. I only wanted a piece—only a piece of that life. The great car, the eye-popping house...that would’ve been enough. I swore to myself that’d be enough, that I’d never be like the others, never take it all for granted.
“They did, you know?” Murray looked up to Viva then, punctuating the query with a knowing smile. “The cars and all that did nothing for them after a while. It lost its mystery, didn’t grab them at all after a while.” A sadness eased in alongside the acknowledgement.
“Because of that,” he sighed, “they were looking for a new fix. For most of them, it wasn’t even about making more money and that’s when I knew the attraction wasn’t in the things themselves, but in the ownership—the sheer will to acquire, the control, the power of it all.
“I’d made ins with folks on the force when I first came out to LA. My business was security and all, so our paths crossed from time to time.” He looked to Sophia. “Unfortunately, my path crossed with some of your colleagues who weren’t so loyal to what the badge stood for. Some actually sought me out when they heard I was from Philly. Wasn’t long after that I was tied into a more direct pipeline and dealing with folks you probably shook hands with every day, Sophia.”
Murray sighed, stretched his long legs beneath the table. “Mix in my studio contacts looking to dabbl
e into more than property and vehicle acquisitions...and it was the start of a beautiful friendship.”
“So they were laundering the money through the studios?” Sophia sounded incredulous.
“Some but those execs had their hands in lots of pies. There were tons of opportunities and tons of places to wash cash.”
“And did that get you any closer to what you wanted?” Viva asked.
Murray seemed to be contemplating his answer. “For a while...yes, it did.”
“And then?”
Murray looked to Clarissa seated next to Elias at the opposite end of the long table where everyone had gathered. “The tiniest ripple had a chain reaction no one could’ve guessed,” he said. “Your aunt was as smart as she was lovely, Ms. David.”
“She was.” Clarissa confirmed the words, her smile fueled by the memory of Jazmina Beaumont.
“People with money like your aunt’s usually leave their financial concerns to others. She and Mr. Cole were very tight.” Murray crossed middle finger over index to insinuate Jazmina’s close relationship to her then business manager Waymon Cole.
“He never caught a whiff that she was looking over his shoulder,” Clarissa said. “My aunt’s been on her own since she was fourteen, Murray. No one watched her back better than she did.”
Murray gave a reverent nod. “Whatever bread crumbs she left for you to follow upset the status quo for damn sure.”
“Upset, but didn’t topple,” Sophia noted. “There’re still a few of your partners who we’d like to upset to the tune of a jail cell.”
“I’d like to see that too, Chief.” Murray smirked, having noticed the looks of subtle surprise that appeared on the faces of his audience. “My...partners are making it personal by attacking my clients.”
“Threatening to kill us if we talk about anything we may have seen?” Viva asked.
“No, sweetness.” Murray’s smile was apologetic. “Threatening to take out all of my clients if I don’t talk. If I don’t talk and spin the story they deem acceptable, they’ll keep going after my clients.”
Viva blinked, her back stiffening. “They want you to confess to it all.”
Murray chuckled. “As if anyone would believe the buck stopped with me on a take that substantial. Hell, if that was the case, I’d have a whole fleet of associates handling you guys while I chill on a beach.” He shook his head, winced. “Anyway, that’s how they wanted it. I’ve been ducking and dodging, trying to stay under the radar until I could find a time and place to get Sophia’s ear.” He looked at the chief of detectives then. “I knew I couldn’t just talk to you in Philly, so I kept an eye on your movements hoping for a chance.”
“You’ve been following her.” It wasn’t a question. Tigo’s voice, as dark as his expression, left no doubt as to the murderous trail of his thoughts.
“Old habits, man.” Murray raised his hands defensively. “Security was once my job and surveillance was a huge part of it. She was never in any danger from me, Santigo. I only wanted a chance to tell her what I was dealing with and see if she could help me.”
“Help you get out of it?” Eli asked, his voice and expression as dark and menacing as Tigo’s.
Murray was already shaking his head. “Help me, by accepting the story I’ll give you. The one that lays all this at my feet.”
“You’d do that?” Rook’s expression was more curious, not quite as dark as the ones worn by his friends.
Again, Murray was responding before the query was complete. He nodded. “My clients are my dearest friends—my only friends. Some are like family.” He looked to Viva. “They are family.”
Viva didn’t dare blink, knowing the movement would send the water pooling in her eyes streaming down to wet her face.
“You know I can’t do that, Murray,” Sophia said.
“These people are serious. They laced Reynolds’s drug stash to make it look like he OD’d.” Murray shifted pleading eyes to Viva. “Bevy isn’t supposed to be in the hospital. She’s supposed to be dead.” He managed a grim smile. “Guess those defensive driving classes she had to take to prep for her role on the show paid off. But she should be dead, Viva.” He returned his gaze to Sophia.
“These people are serious,” he insisted.
“So am I.” Sophia’s eyes glinted fiercely. “I want the truth, Murray.”
“Dammit, aren’t you listening to me?” Murray brought his fists down on the table. “Do you think they’ll let Bev live once she’s out of the hospital?”
Sophia wouldn’t relent. “You telling me the truth is the only way we’ll get these snakes off the street. You say you care about your clients. Do you care enough to give me the truth?”
Murray regarded his hands for a long time and then he was looking back to Viva. “I never meant for this to happen.”
“Oh, Murray.” Going to him, Viva gathered the man’s trembling hands and squeezed. She smiled when he squeezed in return, bowed his head and kissed the backs of her hands. “Do you remember the time you came to drag me out of that party Reynolds threw?”
In spite of his distress, Murray gave in to a brief laugh. “Yeah, he promoted the hell out of that party. ‘Wear your white to drink the white.’ Rumor was he’d gotten the liquor flown in special from his cousins in West Virginia.”
Viva laughed then too. “Well, it sure tasted like the real deal.” She sobered some, but a soft smile remained. “Do you remember what you told me that day?”
Murray’s lips thinned and he nodded. “I told you you were better than this. Rumor also had it that Reynolds’s career was circling the drain. I thought I could prevent that when he came to me looking for representation. Reynolds and most of the folks he associated with were talented as hell, but they couldn’t get or keep jobs because they were too busy sleeping off highs and hangovers for most of the day.
“You’d already made a lot of mistakes in a short span of time,” Murray recalled. “Out of my own selfishness, I let you because I hoped it meant you were buying into your life out there.” He flicked a glance toward Rook.
“Then I realized you weren’t buying in. You were trying to be something—someone—new. I told you that who you are got you everything you’d become and that you didn’t owe anyone else for that, but you. I still believe that.”
Viva nodded, recalling the old lecture that had somehow penetrated the edges of her moonshine-soaked brain. “Do you remember what else you said?”
“I said this was the coward’s way out.”
Viva gave his hands another tight squeeze. “You do realize these bastards are playing on your fear, don’t you?”
“They’re powerful people, sweetness. Your career—”
“Is one I’ve made. I don’t owe anyone else for that but me. Knowing that, I can be brave enough to handle whatever this dishes out. Can you? Can you be brave enough to live by your own words, Mur?”
His weary expression made a slow transformation into one that showed fleeting glimpses of amusement and resolve. “I didn’t realize you’d paid so much attention to what I’d said that day.”
“People tend to pay attention to the truth.” She gave his hands another squeeze. “They’ll pay attention, Murray.” She looked to Sophia, standing next to Paula, and nodded before turning back to Murray. “Give them that.”
A nod gradually took hold of Murray and then he inhaled hugely as if the gesture had added fortification to his resolve. Viva cupped his cheek and he moved to cover her hand with his.
“Do you forgive me, Veev?”
“There’s nothing to forgive.” She squeezed her eyes against stinging tears when he drew her in for a fierce hug.
* * *
Viva warmed her hands about the porcelain mug and delighted in the tea’s soothing aroma while she studied the scene beyond the windows.
The reason for Murray’s insistence was no mystery. He wanted the names on record in the event that he didn’t make it back to Philadelphia alive. As the man had yet to lawyer up, Sophia decided to accept the information being offered and use her mobile to record the statement.
Bundled in hats and jackets, they walked the snowy acreage behind the chalet. The mountains loomed in quiet majesty. Keeping an appropriate distance were Tigo, Linus and Eli. To maintain an additional air of propriety, DA Paula Starker remained absent from the informal proceedings. She and Clarissa met in the den to program films for an afternoon of movie watching that would begin following Sophia’s chat with Murray.
Viva sipped more of the calm-inducing tea and smiled when Rook walked into the kitchen. He retrieved a liter bottle of juice from the fridge and indulged in a generous gulp once he was standing next to Viva at the sink.
“Don’t worry, I’m sure Murray’s safe,” he said as he observed the meeting from the window. “He’s got three bodyguards to make sure Sophia doesn’t try anything.”
Viva sipped her tea, smiled. “Tell them I appreciate it. My little sister can be lethal. I’ve had enough fights with her to know.”
Once the soft laughter had settled, Rook rested a hip along the counter and faced Viva. “I’m sorry about giving you such a hard time about this, V. About Murray.”
“Rook, we’ve been through this.” Viva set her mug on the counter. “No more apologies, remember?”
“Can I at least tell you why I gave you such a hard time about it?”
“Haven’t you done that already?” She faced him fully, mimicking his leaning stance against the counter.
“Not all of it.”