by Nancy Gideon
“Don’t.”
She sank down at his feet, her head resting on his lap as he’d once done in this same place. “All I could think was that I’d said such terrible things to you, and I’d never have the chance to take them back.”
“Do you? Take them back?”
Her tears fell unashamedly as she clung to his knees. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean them. I didn’t expect— I didn’t know you would be with someone else. It shouldn’t have been such a surprise, but it was. I was so hurt and angry, I couldn’t think. I know I have no right to expect so much from you when I give so little.”
“Charlotte, don’t.”
“You’re mine, Max. I don’t want to think of you with anyone else. I don’t want you to be with anyone else. It’s not fair for me to ask—”
He gripped her by the elbows and lifted her up. She couldn’t meet his gaze.
“You don’t have to ask, Charlotte. I don’t want anyone but you. I’ve never wanted anyone but you, and I never will. You’re it for me. I’m sorry if that scares you. I know it’s not what you want to hear from a criminal, killer, monster, but it’s the truth. You are my every dream, and that will never change.”
Her eyes lifted slowly, glazed with fragile hope.
“You can thank me, detective.” He tapped his mouth with two fingers. “Right here.”
She said his name, her voice soft and choky, as her arms circled his neck tightly.
He held her close, his face buried in her hair. Then he complained, “My kiss. Now, if you please.”
The taste of his mouth was like coming home. All the anxious, edgy panic fell away in an instant, replaced by glorious sensation, familiar yet exciting.
Max took her down to the mattress beneath him, where his tongue played about hers and his heart beat fast, answering the hurried tempo of her own.
“I apologize,” he breathed into her kisses.
“For what?”
“For how quick this is going to be. I’m embarrassed to say that just the smell of my soap on your skin has just about finished me.”
She drew in his lower lip, worrying it gently with her teeth before moaning, “I’m right behind you on that.”
Her body shuddered deliciously, welcoming his. His breath shook, his eyes closing, then opening, so his stare could fall into hers as he withdrew, then slowly sank home again. Just watching him, feeling him come apart before he concluded that claiming stroke was enough to push her over with him.
And then he was laughing softly against her lips. “I’m sorry. That didn’t even last long enough to be called quick.”
She made a contented noise. “It lasted long enough.”
His fingertips fanned along the strong angle of her jaw as he promised, “Tonight we’ll take that ride to the Grand Canyon. I’ll have you for hours and hours, until you beg me for mercy.”
She was smiling. “Make me beg, Savoie.” She carried him on the strength of her happy sigh. “I love being here with you.”
“Move in with me. I get so lost in this place when you’re not in it.” His words were quick and impulsive, surprising him as much as her. But he didn’t take them back. His gaze searched hers with a hopeful intensity.
Cee Cee wanted to cave in just to see him smile, because leaving him was suddenly too awful to contemplate. But part of her still held back.
Her lips pursed. “Now that was quick.” She knuckled his cheek tenderly.
“I’m serious.”
“We’ll talk about it.” Before his mouth could form a frown, she kissed him sweetly and gestured toward the door. “How about a compromise?”
He glanced over to see a duffel bag.
“I brought some clothes.” Her voice grew shy and nervous as she admitted, “I’ve been carrying them around in my trunk for the past few weeks. Teddy brought them up for me. Can I unpack?”
“Absolutely.”
He lay sprawled and naked on the bed, watching her pull out her belongings while a feeling of complete and utter bliss got so big, it made him shiver.
After she carelessly heaped her things on the corner of his dresser, she returned to his arms for a long, urgent kiss. Then she glanced back at her clothes. “That wasn’t so bad. At least now you won’t have to borrow underwear for me from the staff.”
“I love you, Charlotte.”
He said it so easily, with such warmth and depth, her soul trembled. She ran a fingertip over the shape of his mouth. “Max?”
“Charlotte?”
“Tell me about Rollo.”
Fourteen
HE REGARDED HER with a cool, remote stare.
She gave him the benefit of the doubt, taking a moment to slip away to pull on a fresh set of clothes while he had time to mull over his answer. But when she turned back to him, he was still silent.
“Max, you talk to me now. How long have you known he’s the one I’ve been looking for?” It was hard to keep anger from her tone, but she managed. They were trying to shore up a relationship. It wouldn’t do her any good to start poking holes in their precarious levee.
“Yesterday.”
“And how long had you suspected?”
“Suspecting isn’t the same as knowing, detective.”
“Words, Max. Just words. Find some better ones.”
“Since the night you arrested me.”
“And you didn’t think that was something I’d need to know before I snapped the cuffs on you?”
“I didn’t want to spoil your bondage fantasy. I knew you wouldn’t let me stay behind bars for long. At least there you wouldn’t have to worry that I’d start seeing someone else.”
Hurt scissored across her expression, then her jaw set tight. She snatched her stack of belongings off the dresser, but before she could turn he was there in front of her.
He pulled the clothing from her hands, jerked open one of the dresser drawers, shoved his things to one side, and carefully deposited hers beside them before shutting the drawer.
“Not an option,” he told her quietly. “Why can’t you trust me, Charlotte? Why can’t you ever believe that I’m trying to do the right thing?”
“Are you?”
“Yes.”
“You could have told me.”
“I tried. I tried to talk to you. I tried to get you to listen to me.”
Yes, he had. The rest of her argument fell apart into miserable, petty pieces. “I was . . . too busy believing the worst.”
“What else were you supposed to believe when I rubbed your nose in it? I’m so sorry, sha. You were never supposed to see that. I tried so hard to keep things from you so you wouldn’t be hurt by what you didn’t understand.” When her brow furrowed in upset, he put his arms around her. It took a minute of struggling to draw her in close. When he got her there, he had no intention of letting her squirm away until things were resolved between them. “I had to convince him that you weren’t important to me. That’s the only way I could get close enough to find out what I needed to know.”
“So you were just pretending to enjoy having that woman in your arms?”
He smiled into her hair. “How could I enjoy her when she didn’t feel like you?” His embrace tightened. “Or smell like you.” He nosed behind her ear. “Or taste like you.” His tongue slid down her neck, inciting a shiver. “She did have a really nice rack, though, and some interesting ideas about what she wanted to do to me.” He quickly sidestepped her knee. “I’d better get dressed before you decide to neuter me.”
She held her scowl until his back was turned, then did a slow, appreciative sweep of his bare posterior as he pulled on loose-fitting jeans. Her gaze jumped up to his face when he turned back to her.
“Now, where were we?”
“I believe you were trying to feel up that waitress.”
“With a jealous girlfriend who carries a gun? I don’t think so.” He rooted through the dresser looking for a shirt, making a mess that was very unlike Max.
He was still distracted, st
ill holding things back that she needed to know. Things she wouldn’t like. More things that would hurt her? More secrets that would push her away?
She placed her hand on top of his shoulder. He went still beneath her touch even though he didn’t look at her. Her palm circled slowly, over smooth skin and sleek muscle. Nothing had ever felt so arousing as that inviting warmth stretched taut over hard, deadly power. He was so deliciously made, it was all she could do not to bend over to taste him. She turned her hand so the backs of her fingers and short nails grazed down the ripple of his rib cage. He released a stuttering breath.
She could be distracting, too.
“Speaking of trust, Savoie, you weren’t overflowing with it, either.”
His gaze flickered to hers, wary and worked up over the brief physical contact. “I trust you. I trust you to do your job. I didn’t want to compromise that, detective.”
“Hmmm. A tactful way of telling me you wanted me out of the way until you got what you wanted.”
He paused, choosing his words carefully for fear he would be choking on them later. “It wasn’t business. It was personal.”
“I see. I can respect you wanting to keep business matters to yourself, but if you can’t share the personal things, then there’s no reason to continue this conversation—or anything else—is there?”
He grabbed a silky black pullover and yanked it on. Her hands were on his chest and the soft fabric pooled over her wrists. He met her uplifted gaze, then slid his away in agitation. His heart hammered against the flat of her palm.
What the hell was he keeping from her? What could be so awful, to have him wound this tight and distressed? She wasn’t going to let him back away from her. Not again. She’d drag it out of him with the brutal finesse of an inquisitor if she had to.
“Talk to me, Max.”
“He knows things about me, Charlotte. Things about who and what I am.”
“And you think he’s going to tell you? Can you trust him to tell you the truth?”
“I have to. I don’t have any other choices.” He caught her hands, holding them tightly, kneading them anxiously before letting them drop. “I need a few days. Will you give them to me?” He met her stare, his intense and desperate.
What the hell was it?
“What if he kills again?”
“I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen. Please, Charlotte. I need the time. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t so important.”
“What is, Max? What’s so important about him that you’re willing to risk . . . everything?”
“He’s my father.”
She couldn’t react at first, then finally murmured faintly, “My God.”
He pulled away emotionally as he watched her expression. And he held himself very still as she reached out to him, her fingertips gliding across the back of his hand, curling into his palm to squeeze gently.
“What does that mean to you, Max?”
“I don’t know. I—I don’t know.”
She stepped into him, holding him as he rested his head on her shoulder. “Oh, baby, why didn’t you tell me?”
And just like that, her tender empathy melted away all the panic and uncertainty of the past weeks. He let it go with a soft exhalation, and relaxed in her embrace.
“What are we going to do, Max? What do you need me to do?”
He couldn’t speak through the sweet ache in his throat. He lifted his head and looked down into the dark eyes usually filled with passion and fire, now steeped in dewy concern. At the wide mouth so often curled back in a combative snarl or ripe with sultry invitation, now softly parted. At the bold, exotic features so frequently shaped by fierceness or pride, now left naked of all but the most vulnerable emotions. For him.
He touched her cheek, rubbing his thumb over the swell of her lower lip. Her eyes glistened, close to overflowing. How had he gotten so lucky? Why had this tough, practical woman thrown all logic away to give him a second look, a second chance? What had she seen in his dark, solitary soul that convinced her to look beyond his lengthy rap sheet, past his vicious deeds, over the insurmountable differences between them, to take a risk on him so unwisely?
He could still feel the stroke of her fingertips on his altered face, on his ferocious, inhuman face, and hear the quiet awe in her voice as she whispered, “Oh, Max. You’re magnificent.” All the lonely fetters around his heart had fallen away at that moment, and he’d known with certainty that he would love her until the day he died. He wouldn’t risk her, not for anything.
Puzzlement rose in her expression when he was silent for so long. There was just a hint of wariness, always swimming below the surface, that shadow of anxious readiness—just in case. She said she wasn’t afraid of him, that she didn’t fear his touch the way she had every right to. And perhaps she believed it. But he could sense it—that slight pause, that infinitesimal jerk of her heart, when a movement would catch her by surprise. Amazingly it had nothing to do with what he was, but what had been done to her. And he would spend the rest of his days trying to quiet that jump of fear, trying to convince her that she would never have cause where he was concerned to expect harm to come her way.
He leaned toward her, waiting until he read anticipation in her expressive dark eyes, letting her meet him halfway. He sank into the luxury of her kiss, his mouth shaping to the pliant sweetness of hers. Marveling, as always, at her eagerness to pursue that thrill of reacquainting need that rose whenever they touched.
A pragmatist, he always expected to find she wanted him just a little bit less, to discover her passion a bit cooler. But he never did. If anything, he found more urgency, more greed in the way her lips parted, in the way her tongue chased his in an intimate tangle. The sound rising up from his soul was a contented, rumbling purr.
The sound of his cell phone ringing was an annoyance.
He groped about the dresser top, then flipped it open.
“Savoie.”
“I’m becoming familiar with the sound of being a third wheel. Let me talk to her.”
He handed the phone to a puzzled Charlotte. “It’s your conscience calling.”
She took the cell phone and immediately started to complain. “Babineau, you have the absolute—”
“Worst timing. Yeah, whatchu gonna do? I was beginning to wonder if you were going to Aruba for that coffee.”
She shifted the phone to her other ear, and eased slightly out of Max’s arms.
He understood. Duty called. He took a few steps back to give her privacy, but wasn’t too proud to eavesdrop.
“I had an urgent personal emergency come up.”
“If you’re talking about tending to Savoie’s sex drive, that’s not an emergency.”
“No.”
His voice lowered slightly. “Everything all right?”
She reached out her other hand to rub Max’s shoulder. “It is now. Why are you calling on this phone?”
“Couldn’t get through to you on yours. Figured if you were distracted enough to forget to put it on the charger, I could guess where you’d be.”
There was a funny pitch to his words that put her on guard. “Alain, what’s going on?”
“Ceece, how long have you been with Savoie?”
“Why?”
“How long?”
“From the time I left my desk until this minute. Again, why?” Her hand fisted in Max’s shirt.
“Noreen Cummings was attacked.”
Cee Cee cursed fiercely. “When? Was she killed?”
“Apparently she’d gone out into their backyard this morning a little before five when their dog didn’t come back to the door. She was slashed up pretty bad, but apparently her screaming brought her husband out and the attacker fled on foot. She’s in surgery now.” His tone toughened. “Cee Cee, Hammond’s on his way over to Savoie’s. I’m meeting him there. I’d suggest you not be. You don’t want to be caught in the middle of this.”
“Thanks.” She shut the phone and lifted her somber gaze to
Max. “You heard?”
“He’s right. You need to go.”
“Max, I’m not leaving. They’ll arrest you if you don’t have an airtight alibi.”
“And if you give me one, your career is as good as gone. And that’s what I’m going to be.”
Her other hand gripped his wrist. “What do you mean?”
“I can’t let them take me in. I’ve got no time for it. I have to find him. I have to get my answers now, while I still can.”
“Max, you can’t run. They’ll swear out a warrant and put an APB out. They’ll hunt you down.”
“They can’t take me if I don’t let them.”
“Max.” She cuffed both his wrists with the circle of her hands, terribly afraid of the cold determination she saw in his face. The “they” he spoke of so savagely were her friends, her colleagues. “Don’t do this. I don’t want anyone getting hurt.”
“Charlotte—”
“Please, Max. Please. For me.”
He gave a heavy sigh. “I suppose Giles and Helen can give statements. If I call D’Marco now, he can start on the paperwork. But you stay out of it. Your car’s in the garage, out of sight. You do the same. Stay up here until I’m gone. All right? Charlotte?”
Her palms glided over the sides of his face. “I love you, Max.”
He didn’t look pleased. “Why are you telling me this now?”
“Because it’s true.”
“What are you up to, detective?”
There was a tap at the door.
“Mr. Savoie, there’s a police person downstairs.”
“Put him in the parlor, Helen. I’ll be right there.” His suspicious gaze never left Cee Cee’s, even as she pulled him down for a deep, soft kiss. His response was hedged with caution.
“I’ve missed you, Savoie,” she whispered gruffly against his mouth. And he was lost.
He crushed her to him in a fiercely possessive way he didn’t quite understand, but when it got a hold of him there was no reasoning with it. He wanted to growl over her, a dog with a tasty bone he didn’t plan to share. He wanted to sweep her up and away from the dangerous lives they both led, and closet her away with him someplace where he’d have her to himself and have time to explore all the things he’d fantasized about during those unrequited years before their first kiss. But for right now, he’d settle for a quick feast off her lips and the feel of her poured against him. A taste of Charlotte Caissie was better than a seven-course meal of anyone else. Still, he let her go reluctantly.
