Because he was too old and too dignified to stand around and argue with a thirteen-year-old, he turned on his heel and descended the stairs.
His shoulders weighted with fatigue, his eyes lined with concern, Carl waited for him at the bottom. “Well?” he asked. “Any luck getting through to him?”
Eli merely shrugged, sighed. “I guess we’ll see tomorrow.”
“I wish I knew what to do,” Carl told him, casting a troubled look upstairs.
Eli swallowed, clapped him on the back. “You’re doing everything you can,” he said. “And Colin might not appreciate it now, but he will.”
That was the trouble with lucky people—they’d never seen the other side of the coin.
“Thanks, Eli,” Carl told him. “You’re a good man.”
Eli momentarily froze, shaken at the comment. No one had ever said that to him before, ever, least of all someone he admired and respected. Pride crowded into his chest, so foreign he almost didn’t recognize it. His ears buzzed and his throat went dry.
Carl Holland thought he was a good man...now. But would he hold that same opinion when he found out about his relationship with Shelby? Eli would like to think so, but ultimately, who knew?
That was a bridge he’d just have to cross when the time came, he thought. He just hoped like hell he wouldn’t have to burn it.
* * *
JAW SET SO HARD SHE WAS listening for the resulting crack, Shelby watched Eli’s expression go from confused concern to blistering anger in the space of about sixty seconds, which was exactly how long it took him to thumb through the letters. He glanced at up at her, obviously trying to rein in his temper before speaking.
“This is all of them?”
Seated at her kitchen table, Dixie at their feet, Shelby nodded. “This—” she pointed the newest one with the picture “—is the one that came today. Mavis found it on the floor. Someone had shoved it under the door.”
“And the rest arrived in the mail?”
“They did,” she confirmed. “Postmarked locally.” She leaned back and pushed her hair away from her face. “I’ll admit that they’ve been vague, but disturbing. But knowing that this person is actually watching me, saw us...” She shook her head. “It’s got me a little creeped out.”
So much so that instead of spending the night at the cabin again, she’d insisted they stay at her place. She’d ridden out and picked him up, and they’d left his truck in the driveway so that it would look as if he was there, alone. Meanwhile, she’d closed every blind in the house.
Explaining the letters to Mavis hadn’t been fun, but had been necessary, all things considered, and she’d sworn her friend to secrecy about them. She hated not telling Mavis the complete truth—she’d left out the circumstances of Micah’s death—but she just couldn’t do that. She and Eli were the only people who knew what really happened and it had to stay that way.
Thankfully, Mavis had been distracted when a gorgeous bouquet of white calla lilies arrived for her—from Les, of course—and had let the issue drop without further comment.
“Had the picture arrived on its own, I would have assumed that Katrina was behind this,” Eli said. He made a face. “I can certainly see her hiding in the bushes, spying on people.” He frowned, then shook his head. “But with the letter...I just don’t think so. I don’t think it’s her.”
Shelby didn’t, either. And honestly, she didn’t expect to hear anything else out of Katrina. Eli had thwarted her advances—which had to be infuriating for her, Shelby thought with vengeful glee—and had threatened to sue the paper if she intimated in any way that he hadn’t told the truth. And regardless of whatever Katrina had on Les Hastings, he was an honest man. He wouldn’t print anything that couldn’t be verified from multiple sources. She grimaced.
Unfortunately, by ruling out Katrina, that left the “suspects” column on their clue sheet empty. She’d received the occasional tut-tut aren’t-you-sorry-now? look from various people after Micah’s death, but no one had been unkind. And she sure as hell had never been called a whore.
Eli scanned the letters again, his forehead creasing into a puzzled scowl. “These just don’t make sense. This ‘I’m going to tell.’” He looked up at her, cocked his head. “Tell what to whom? It’s almost like a nah-nah nah-nah boo-boo sort of thing. Juvenile.” Something shifted in his expression and his gaze sharpened.
“What?”
Eli looked up at her, hesitated. “It’s probably nothing.”
“What’s nothing?” she asked grimly.
He looked at the picture again. “This looks like it was taken with a cell phone, doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” Shelby said. “But why is that important? Everyone carries a cell phone nowadays.”
“It might not be important at all,” he said vaguely. “I’m just thinking out loud.”
“You’re not thinking that clearly, or else I would know who you suspect,” she pointed out, annoyed at his reluctance.
His mouth twitched, evidently finding her irritation amusing, which naturally irritated her more. She pushed back from the table and headed for the door. “Fine,” she said. “Don’t tell me who you think called me a whore. I’ll just—” She yelped as he scooped her up from behind and threw her over his shoulder.
“You’ll just what?” he asked, a chuckle in his voice as he walked unerringly into her bedroom and dropped her onto the mattress. He followed her down, lifted her hands over her shoulders and pinned her down.
“This isn’t going to work,” she lied. “If you think that a blatantly masculine show of strength is going to make me forget that I’m mad at you and that...” His nose slid along the side of her jaw and he pressed against her suggestively, making her gasp.
“What was that?” he murmured, his voice low and husky.
A helpless laugh escaped her as need swept through her. She was melting beneath him, putty in his hands. “You don’t...play fair,” she said brokenly, her breath stuttering out of her lungs as he did it again, that hot, hard suggestive thrust of his hips against hers. She opened her legs and rose up to meet him, squeezing his fingers.
She felt him smile against her throat. “Haven’t you heard? I’m breaking all the rules now.”
She rocked her hips against him again. Two could play at this game, dammit. “Am I a rule?”
He chuckled again, then sighed into her ear, sending goose bumps racing along her overheated skin. “A rule? No. You’re the exception to every rule.”
She smiled against him and pressed her lips to the side of his head, desperate to feel more of him. “Hmm. I sound powerful.”
“Are you going to abuse it? Or will you trust me? Let me handle this letter business?”
Ah... “You did this on purpose, didn’t you?” she accused, her eyes widening in mild outrage. “You knew that if you got me into bed and blew in my ear you’d be able to get exactly what you wanted.”
He drew back and looked at her, his golden eyes twinkling with humor, yet hot with need, and he grinned, completely unrepented. “A man has to play to his strengths,” he said. “Can I help it if you can’t keep your hands off of me?”
She laughed and squeezed his fingers significantly. “Who has a hold of whom?”
“Semantics.” He bent forward and kissed her, his skillful lips sliding expertly over her own. Heat boiled up beneath her skin and she groaned. “You know you want me.”
God help her, she did, Shelby thought.
“You never answered my question,” he said, letting go of one of her hands so that he could unbutton her shirt. He popped the front closure of her bra, baring her breasts to his heated gaze, then rolled her nipple between his thumb and his forefinger, bringing it to a fuller peak, before pulling the aching bud into his mouth and suckling hard.
Her eyes all but rolled back in her head and her back arched off the mattress. They were wearing too many clothes, Shelby thought. “You asked a question?”
He shaped his hand around her
breast, massaged it, then licked at her again. “I did. I think you should say yes.”
He scooted down the length of her, flipped her skirt up over her thighs, tore her panties off then hooked her legs over his shoulders and set his wicked mouth against her sex.
Her eyes widened as shock and sensation tore through her and she fisted her newly freed hands into the coverlet. Her neck bowed off the bed and it was all she could do to keep her hips still, to keep from grinding against his talented tongue. He lapped and licked and suckled, drawing hard on the delicate hood of her clit while simultaneously tugging at her nipple.
She came, hard. “Yessssssss!”
Eli quickly shrugged out of his shirt and shucked his jeans and underwear, then dragged her by her feet to the edge of the bed and plunged into her, sending another wave of unbearable pleasure cascading through her.
Masculine pleasure clung to his smile as his hands found her hips and he rocketed into her once more. “See? That wasn’t so hard now was it?”
She grinned and tightened around him. “Oh, I don’t know. It feels pretty damned hard from my position.”
He chuckled low, his gaze rife with humor and something else, something that made her heart skip a beat. “You’re something else, you know that?”
She nodded once. “Damn straight. I’m the exception to every rule.”
And he’d become a rule breaker. Clearly they were meant for each other...and she desperately hoped he reached the same conclusion.
12
SNIFFING A SINGLE FLOWER from her bouquet, a smile curling her lips, Mavis rang Les’s doorbell and waited impatiently. She’d decided that yesterday was simply an aberration, a fluke, that she’d been so desperate to get laid that she’d imagined how good it had been, how many times he’d brought her to climax.
It couldn’t have possibly been as fantastic as she remembered, she’d concluded and, even if it was, then he wouldn’t be able to repeat the performance.
The door opened and Les, looking smart in a French blue oxford cloth shirt and a pair of worn jeans, did a head-to-toe perusal of her frame, his attention lingering on her legs, the curve of her hips, her breasts, before finally finding her gaze.
The look in his eyes—enigmatic, hot and intense, and the same shade as his shirt, which she’d never noticed before—made the air thin in her lungs and her pulse rate leap into an irregular rhythm.
He silently offered her his hand, escorting her over the threshold, then closed the door behind her and swiftly backed her up against it, the heat of his body surrounding her as his lips descended to hers. He kissed her fiercely, probing the tender recesses of her mouth with certainty and expertise, his tongue sliding provocatively over hers.
He’d win the Golden Tongue Award, too, Mavis thought dimly, the blood hammering in her ears as it rushed through her. A flash fire of heat ignited in her limbs, spread through her body so swiftly she felt as if she were going to self-combust...and he’d only kissed her.
The thought had no more formed then fled, when his hand found the knot of her wrap-style dress and he loosened it, baring her right there in the foyer. He licked the seam around the top of her bra, tracing the curve with his tongue while his hand reached boldly into her panties, cupping her mound, circling it with his warm, wide palm.
Her head fell back against the door and she moaned, her eyes fluttering shut, the bloom hanging forgotten in her hand. She bit her lip as his hot mouth closed over her breast through the sheer fabric, suckling her, the fabric abrading her nipple, while a clever finger parted her weeping folds, swept at her clit and then slipped deep inside her body. She tightened around him, cried out.
“Les, please...”
In answer, he pulled her forward, drawing the dress completely off in the process, then bent her over a low chair. She felt his finger slide down the middle of her back to the tune of the whine of his zipper.
“Look,” he said, his voice low and controlled.
Mavis glanced up, noted the leaning mirror against the wall right in front of her. But it was the reflection of the woman in it that thrilled her. Her pale skin was flushed, her lips swollen, her breasts covered with black lace. He stood behind her, the thick swell of his penis riding high on her rump. He pinned her with his gaze, much like a butterfly tacked to a display board, then swept her panties to the side and pushed into her in one long, sure stroke.
His gaze never left hers, held it firmly as he pumped in and out of her, his hands braced on her hips.
She couldn’t have looked away if she’d wanted to.
Her breath came in ragged little puffs as her feminine muscles tightened around him, bore down as she came nearer and nearer to climax. He reached around and stroked her throbbing, engorged clit, then pressed a thumb against the rosebud of her bottom.
Mavis felt her eyes widen as the most powerful orgasm she’d ever experienced burst through her. Her mouth opened in a soundless scream, her body quaked and she hung her head, too weak to support it on her own.
“Look at me, Mavis,” he said gruffly, and she did, because she needed that connection, realized that he’d made her watch so that she could see herself the way he saw her. Beautiful, desirable, a carnal creature.
He thrust harder, grasped her hips and again and pistoned in and out of her as though the very hounds of hell were on his heels. His tight balls slapped against her rump and he hardened further, nudged deeper then buried himself the root and wrapped his arms around her middle as he emptied himself into her. A thick rush of warmth burst into her channel, setting off another sated tingle of pleasure.
“Look at you,” he said, his eyes smoldering and earnest. “A goddess.”
Mavis swallowed, moved by the compliment as much as she was by his lovemaking. She quirked her lips and released a small sigh. “I do like to be worshipped.”
Hours later, after she’d done some reciprocal worshiping in the form of a lengthy blow job and a harder ride—honestly, the man’s stamina was incredible—Mavis lay on the rug at the foot of Les’s bed and watched his lovebirds play in their antique Victorian cage while he sipped champagne from the small of her back.
“They’re beautiful,” she said, enjoying the bubbles against her skin, his hot mouth against her. “What are their names?”
She felt him smile against her. “Bonnie and Clyde.”
Mavis laughed and shot him a look over her shoulder. “Bonnie and Clyde? Seriously?”
Les smiled. “Watch them. You’ll see why.”
Intrigued, Mavis turned around and did just that. Clyde flitted around the cage, moving from one shiny object to another, then settled in at their food bowl and started kicking the seeds out. Every once in a while he’d stop and cock his head at Bonnie as if to say, “You see this? I’m a badass.” Bonnie would fluff her feathers and preen and gradually moved closer until she, too, joined him in removing every bit of food from their bowl. Once they were finished, they took turns chasing each other from perch to perch until they reached the very top of the cage, then cuddled close, wrapping their necks around each other.
Mavis turned, stunned. “She follows him into trouble, then they make out. Like a couple of teenagers.” She shook her head. “Wow. Did you watch them before you named them or did you just get lucky?”
“I watched,” he said.
She wasn’t surprised. “You watch a lot, don’t you?”
His blue gaze was steady, seeming to wonder if there was a hidden meaning in what she’d just said. Finally, he lifted a shoulder. “People fascinate me,” he said. “Especially you.” He released a small breath, a cloud moving behind his eyes. “Which is why I need to tell you something that is likely to come out by the end of the week. It’s best if you hear the news from me. I only hope that you won’t judge me too critically.”
Mavis felt her brow wrinkle at his grim tone, the reluctance she heard in it.
She sat up, drawing his silk robe with her and turned to face him. “What’s wrong, Les?”
By the end of the conversation, she knew exactly what Katrina Nolan thought she had on Les—who’d called her Kat to avoid the r’s, which she’d found oddly endearing—and his noble answer to her threat, even if it meant losing his reputation.
“If you don’t want to see me again, I’ll abide by your wishes,” he concluded, ever the gentleman. Which was so incongruous when she considered only a few minutes ago he’d been eating strawberries from between her legs.
He was fascinating, Mavis thought. She was merely opinionated with an interesting past.
“Why would I not want to see you again?” she asked. “Do you think I care that you’ve occasionally used an escort service?” Her eyes widened in blinking astonishment. “Have you forgotten that I asked you to have sex with me and I wasn’t even so nice as to offer to pay you for it?” she said, her lips curling into a smile.
He grinned, almost sheepishly. “I’m cheap.”
Mavis leaned forward, slid a finger down the side of his cheek, affection welling in her chest. “You’re the best lover I’ve ever had, Les,” she said. “And it’s going to take a lot more than an old romp with a call girl to get rid of me.” She paused, then bit her lip. “That said, I’m not fond of sharing.”
In fact, the idea of him doing with another woman what he’d been doing with her made her distinctly ill.
“I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist on exclusivity,” she said. “Is that going to be a problem?”
He leaned forward, grabbed the back of her neck and kissed her, and she discerned the faintest trembling in his hand. For whatever reason, that unsteadiness moved her more that she would have ever imagined.
“No,” he said. “I belong to you.”
Relief swept through her. “Good,” she breathed. “And don’t you worry about Katrina,” she said. “I’ll take care of her.”
And she would.
* * *
THOUGH HE COMPLETELY ignored Eli, Colin was at breakfast the following morning and shadowed his father around on the site, determined to outwork everyone else involved in the process. He measured and cut willow branches, hauled shingles up the ladder, carried debris to the small Dumpster the city had arranged for them on-site, and generally did everything that was asked of him and more. Occasionally, he’d send Eli a mutinous glare, but as long as Colin stepped up for Carl, he was willing to overlook it.
The Rule-Breaker Page 12
