by Julie Miller
Not because she was hurt. Not because she was scared. Not because Dominic Galvan had killed one cop and wounded another trying to get to her.
She wanted to cry because A.J. had tears in his eyes.
But he blinked them away and turned his face into an emotionless mask as soon as someone picked up the other end of the line.
“The safe house has been compromised.” She read the words clearly on his articulate mouth. “Repeat. The safe house has been compromised. I’m going under, Josh. I’m taking Claire with me. I’ll contact you when I can.”
He listened to something Josh said and nodded.
“Always, amigo.” He turned. Golden eyes met blue across the car. “I’ll watch her back, too.”
“What does all that mean?” she asked, once he’d disconnected the call and tucked the phone back inside his jacket. “Going under?”
“It’s you and me now, amor.” He reached across the console and laced his fingers through hers. Claire held on with both hands. “I’m your safe house.”
Chapter Eight
A.J.’s damn hand was shaking as he shoved his key into the lock and opened his apartment door.
He held Claire around the waist, shielding her between his body and the door. He knew Galvan hadn’t followed them. He’d driven too fast, taken too many shortcuts for even the best of trackers to pursue them. She still wore that damn Kevlar, and he was armed to the teeth with both his weapons and the service pistol she’d taken off Jordan Henley.
But he still felt the threat, hanging like a shroud around his shoulders. His mind had replayed a perpetual loop of images of that Chevy Malibu blowing sky-high, shattering the windows in every house for half a block. The gunshots had hit next. A high-powered sniper’s rifle used for only one purpose—to kill.
The fisherman in the dark gray house. Dominic Galvan. Able to pick off every moving object in the safe house from his vantage point on the second floor.
Claire had been one of those moving objects. Bullets were flying. He’d heard her scream over Henley’s phone and had floored it. He had to get to her. By the time he’d shot through the lock and busted his way inside, she was armored and armed—and hurt.
The danger of the gun pointed his way was almost an afterthought when he saw all that blood on her. Her hands, her feet, her neck. He thought she’d been hit. He knew she was dying. No! No way. No damn way!
He’d gotten her out. He’d gotten her to safety—for the time being. But he still couldn’t erase those images.
He could smell it on her now. The coppery tang of blood. Twelve years on the force, most of it on the streets in undercover work, he’d seen plenty of blood. Even his own. He’d turned off his emotions and dealt with it.
But his stomach twisted into a big, queasy knot at that smell on her.
The dead bolt finally turned. A.J. opened the door and pushed her inside.
“Wait here,” he instructed, refastening the bolt and the knob lock before slipping from room to room to pull every blind and double-check that every window was secure.
When he came back to the foyer, she was rooted to the same spot, huddled inside his leather jacket. Barefoot and small and shaking, as the shock wore off and the chills set in.
The first things he reached for were her hands. He pulled them from that perpetual clutch across her stomach and held them out between them, palm up, palm down, inspecting them for any cuts or bruises.
“Are you hurt?” He rubbed his thumb across the back of her knuckles, flaking away the blood that had dried there. Not her blood. He thanked the saints who had protected her.
Her eyes darkened like indigo pools against her pale skin as she watched him kneel at her feet. Splinters here. Scratches. All things he could fix.
But he couldn’t right now. His hands were still shaking. He’d almost lost her.
A.J. rose and tunneled his fingers into the tangled fall of hair at her temple. He snugged it behind her ear and swore at the blood staining her lobe and the transmitter nestled inside her ear. Where she was most vulnerable. The rage in his gut poured out through his veins. He barely held it in check behind his tightly clenched teeth. “Did he hurt you?”
“He didn’t shoot me,” she murmured, closing her hand around his wrist to pull him away from the sensitive spot.
It was barely a cut, just a nick on her scalp. But the blood on her snapped the last of his control. “Where else did he hurt you?”
His hands were on her neck now, on her shoulders. He pushed aside his jacket and dropped it to the floor.
“I’m fine. There’s nothing serious—”
But he couldn’t hear her words. There was blood on the Kevlar. He ripped open the Velcro at each side and pulled it off over her head and tossed it aside. His own pulse thundered in his ears. “Where are you hurt?”
His hands were on her waist, at her hips, up and down her arms and up to her neck again. He was rougher than he should have been, needier than he wanted to be.
“A.J.”
And then her hands were on him. Those strong, beautiful—bloodstained—hands were on his face. Framing his jaw and forcing him to look her straight in the eye the way she had beneath the trees that night of the party. “I’m okay, A.J. I’m fine.”
He heard the words, knew that she believed them. But he needed a different kind of proof.
With a gut-deep sigh that wrenched through his chest, he raked his fingers into her hair, tilted her head and kissed her.
At first it was just his lips on hers, learning their shape, seeking their taste. He took advantage when her lips parted on a soft breath. Thrusting his tongue inside, he discovered the textures of a mouth that could light up his soul with a smile, stir up his amusement with its sass—and set him on fire with its pliant demands beneath his own.
Dammit all, she was kissing him back! Like she meant it. It was no tentative exploration, no submissive acquiescence. Her welcome acceptance of his passionate need humbled him, hardened him. She chased away the fears and anger with her questing fingers and throaty whimpers.
Claire’s hands were on his face, in his hair, around his neck. She stretched up on tiptoe, asking for more, and A.J. obliged by palming her butt and lifting her. He leaned into the door, pinning her hips with his own, freeing his hands to skim along her sides and catch his thumbs beneath the swells of her breasts. They were small, but full, and hot to the touch even through the clothes she wore.
A.J.’s blood thundered through his veins and pooled behind the zipper of his jeans. He squeezed his thumbs between their bodies and flicked her taut, pearled nipples. Claire moaned in her throat and he instantly moved his lips to the spot.
“I don’t want you to be hurt,” he whispered against her skin, forgetting she couldn’t hear. “I need you to be safe.” He touched her again, and when she hummed with husky pleasure, he laved the softness of her throat and absorbed the vibrations underneath.
“A.J.,” she breathed, twisting her hips to find some release and rubbing herself against his erection. “A.J.?” She froze for a moment, suspended in time with her thighs clutched around his. His arousal seemed to surprise her, please her, inspire her. Her cheeks blushed a healthy shade of pink, and she wasted little time digging her fingers into the short crop of his hair and directing his mouth back to hers. “A.J.”
Lightning arced between them. He claimed her open mouth with all the frustrated desire he’d denied himself for too many long days and nights. He pulled her away from the door and wrapped her up in his arms, still holding her just as close.
She was pure temptation—unhindered by her innocence and as greedy with need as he seemed to be. He kissed her hard and deep, extracting a promise from her that she was, indeed, in one piece.
But as the strength in his arms waned, and his fears for her ebbed to a manageable concern, sanity returned. He remembered about breathing, and discovered that Claire’s chest was moving in and out just as deeply and erratically as his own. A.J. lowered her feet to the f
loor, and in the ultimate demonstration of self-control, he tore his mouth from hers and ended the kiss.
He was the experienced one. He knew where an embrace like that was headed. Taking Claire Winthrop to his bed on their very first kiss sounded naughty and perfect, but it didn’t seem like the mature or professional thing to do. Though his body had been more than willing to teach her everything she wanted to learn about making love, the rest of him needed something else.
So he hugged his arms around her, letting one hand find a home on her hip, the other in her hair. Her arms settled around his waist, and with a deep sigh that eased the last of the turbulent emotions inside him, she lay her cheek against his shoulder and snuggled close. A.J. rested his chin in the crown of her silky hair and let the fact she was blessedly alive and virtually unharmed sink in.
They stood like that for several minutes, and A.J. had the foolish notion that he could go on holding her forever.
But that embrace had been a brief storm. Maybe another would come their way. In the meantime, life went on. And he’d made it his responsibility to see that her life went on for a very, very long time.
“I didn’t mean it to happen that way,” he apologized, tipping her chin up to read his lips. “But I’m not sorry I kissed you.”
“I’m not, either. Sorry, I mean.”
He brushed his fingertip across the swollen lips of her sweet, forgiving smile. “I didn’t exactly leave you much choice.”
“It’s okay, A.J.” She caught his fingers in hers and stilled his guilty caresses. “I was scared, too.” Her hand slipped up to cup the side of his face. Her eyes sparkled with a hopeful trust he wasn’t sure he deserved. “Now? Not so much.”
Then she was pulling away, unbuttoning the bloody collar of her blouse and tugging it away from her skin. “Where’s your bathroom? I need to get out of these clothes and clean up.”
“Around the corner on your left. I’ll set out a towel and something to wear.”
A.J. hooked his thumbs into the pockets of his jeans and watched her until she disappeared from his line of sight. He didn’t move until he heard the water running, and then he had to keep moving or he’d go nuts thinking about that finely tuned body all naked and soapy inside his shower.
I was scared, too. Too.
So she knew he wasn’t as big and bad and cool under the collar as the image of himself he’d learned to portray over the years.
That intuition about people she had was a force to be reckoned with. How else could a twenty-three-year-old virgin be wise enough to figure out the secrets of a thirty-five-year-old man?
THERE WASN’T ANYTHING too gentlemanly about a strip club where mostly naked women danced on the bar and beefy bouncers tossed out anyone who didn’t order regular drinks or give big tips to the waitstaff. But the Riverfront Gentleman’s Club, where A.J. and Claire had gotten temporary jobs under the fake names of Joe and Kiki, was loud and busy. And nobody asked a lot of questions.
“I saw the news.” Dwight Powers sounded just as pissed off as A.J. had been when he’d seen Claire’s face plastered across the television screen in the employees’ workroom. “I’ve already called all the stations and the papers. You won’t see it again.”
A.J. poured a couple of drafts of beer and set them on the waitress’s cork-lined tray at the end of the bar. With his cell wedged between his ear and shoulder, he managed to make change at the register, keep track of his conversation with Dwight and scan the patrons of the club to make sure one particular waitress was always in sight.
“You’d think Winthrop had a death wish for his daughter, posting a reward like that.” Once again, A.J. wondered just how close to home Dominic Galvan’s accomplice at Winthrop Enterprises was to Claire. “All of Kansas City’s going to be looking for her now.”
“He’s a father, A.J. As far as he knows, the safe house was compromised and an attempt was made on Claire’s life. According to the news, she’s on the run and lost or lying dead somewhere. He just wants her back in his arms.” The heavy breath on the other end of the line warned A.J. that this topic might be hitting a little close to home for Powers. But either the man was made of stone, or he was the consummate professional because the A.D.A. glossed right over the awkward pause. “You’ve tied my hands by not letting him know she’s with you.”
A.J. shook his head. He was absolutely firm on this. “I don’t trust anyone but you and Josh right now with that information. Someone had to leak the location of the safe house. Galvan’s either got someone inside at KCPD, which I doubt, or his accomplice has enough influence to tap into our most private information lines.”
Marcus Tucker came to mind. He had enough covert training and shady security associates to uncover that kind of information. Hell. Maybe it was Winthrop’s snooty wife. He’d be willing to bet she’d do just about anything to get what she wanted. And she certainly hadn’t been a friend to Claire at that party. Then, of course, there was Daddy. Maybe the grief-stricken father was just an act, and his public pleas to find his daughter were a heartless ploy to track down the one person who could destroy him.
“I put through your request to Tenebrosa. Their governmental army is going to send whatever they have in Galvan’s medical file. I’m not expecting much. But I had another idea.”
“Yeah?”
“We can run the semen sample from Valerie Justice’s apartment against DNA from members of the Winthrop Board of Directors.”
A.J. stopped, with a whiskey bottle poised above an old-fashioned glass. “Brilliant idea, but they’ll never agree to that.”
Powers laughed, but it was more of a gloat than real humor. “Leave that to me. You have your talents, Detective, and I have mine.”
A.J. finished mixing the drink. He was beginning to think there might be something to like about the Assistant District Attorney. There was certainly something there he could respect. “You’re not someone I want to play poker with, are you, Powers?”
“I’ve heard the same thing about you, Rodriguez.”
After A.J. hung up, he wiped down the bar and started unloading the clean glasses from the back. His internal radar knew the instant Claire had changed directions out on the floor and was heading toward the bar. He went down to the tarnished brass bumpers that separated the waitress station from the rest of the bar and watched her approach.
She looked nothing like the champagne-haired heiress with the silk suit and cultured pearls he’d seen on the news. A bottle of brown wash had dulled the color of her hair, and his black-framed glasses obscured her face in an eccentric, coyly intellectual kind of way.
But the blue eyes were the same, and those articulate hands still made his pulse rate do crazy things. Even when one finger was pointed squarely at him, and the wag on the end of it indicated her patience was frazzling. He did his best not to smile.
“You do know I’ve never waited tables before?” She plopped the tray down on the counter. “That’s the third set of drinks I’ve gotten wrong tonight.”
A.J. practically had to read Claire’s lips to hear her over the raucous catcalls and loud music that swelled to the big finish of Debbie Demure’s pole dancing number.
“I don’t think experience matters here.”
In fact, one look at Claire in that sexy street-punk outfit of hers and the manager had hired them on the spot. A.J. couldn’t resist making his point. He circled the end of the bar and cozied up to her. It didn’t hurt their cover to let everyone in the place know that she was off-limits. Sliding his hand around her waist, he palmed a delicious expanse of soft, supple skin, revealed between the loose, low rise of his jeans on her hips and the tied-up hem of his old Led Zeppelin T-shirt.
“Trust me. Just smile and don’t spill whatever you do serve them.”
“Very funny.” She swatted at his shoulder, then massaged her hand across the spot as if she thought she’d done some damage to him. “But I can’t hear anybody. And it’s too dark in here. Between that and the flashing lights, it’s h
ard to read what they’re saying. I feel like an idiot.”
“Hey.” A.J. drifted half a step closer and let his hand slide against her warm, silky back. He brushed her hair away from her temple, exposing her naked ear. The delicate pink shell almost looked as if it belonged on someone else without the transmitter and speech processor attached. But since her hearing aids were probably Claire Winthrop’s most identifiable feature, he’d asked her to remove them. “I thought you were going to look at this as some kind of adventure.”
“Yes, but I’d like it to be a successful adventure. You said you only had enough cash to pay for the room we rented this week.”
“We’re not hurting for money.” But, maybe to an heiress who was used to mansions and champagne, living in a studio over a tattoo parlor was hurting pretty bad.
“I’d like to at least buy a change of underwear and some food to eat.”
“I can spring for those,” he assured her. He’d quickly nixed her offer to pawn her jewelry or call her bank that afternoon. Both transactions were easy to trace. Any amateur sleuth, much less a man of Galvan’s experience, could find her by placing one phone call.
“But I want to help. I’m part of this investigation, too.” She curled her fingers into the front of his shirt, but it was more reprimand than caress. “You and your friends are putting your lives on the line for me. Some of them are dying for me. If all I can do to help is put some money on the table so we can eat, then that’s what I’m going to do.”
“Okay, amor. Okay.” She’d made him sound a little like her father just then, and he wasn’t too sure he liked the comparison. “You’re in charge of food. As long as you blend in and don’t draw attention to yourself—and you run for cover the instant I tell you to—you’re welcome to help in any way you want on this investigation.”
