Finding the Edge

by Debra Webb

  He shoved the last of the dinnerware into the dishwasher. When she’d announced that she was calling it a night early he’d almost hugged her in gratitude. Another few minutes and he would have undoubtedly said or done something he would regret. His self-control had long ago reached the breaking point.

  Ten years was a long time to measure every woman he met, every kiss, every touch by the one he let go. He had no one else to blame for his misery...but he just hadn’t been ready for the kind of commitment she deserved.

  Or maybe he had been afraid he didn’t deserve her.

  What had a guy like him possessed to offer such an amazing woman? His parents had abandoned him and his little brother. His mother had died from the drugs she couldn’t let go of and his father from a car accident—at least that was what he’d heard. He’d grown up in foster care. The last family who’d taken him in as a rebellious teenager had been good to him. He’d treated them the way he had all the others—with total indifference. Still, they hadn’t given up. If he’d learned anything from those caring folks it was that his future was his to make. They’d drilled the importance of an education and a career into his head. With their encouragement, he’d made it to college. Then he’d met Eva and fallen head over heels...but how could he trust himself to do right by her when all that he’d known growing up was instability and one letdown after the other?

  No matter that those last couple of years before college he’d found a good home, he could not trust himself to do the right thing. So he’d given every part of himself to her physically but he’d kept his emotional distance. Or so he’d thought at the time.

  He had spent the decade since he left Chicago proving and establishing his worth. Achieving financial security. Devoted to his country at first, then back to the city that was home. As much heartache as he’d endured growing up in the Windy City, he had every right to walk away and never look back. But the truth was, Eva was still here. Not once in all this time had he admitted that part to himself. Building the life he wanted to share with someone one day had been his ultimate goal. The sad part was he hadn’t found anyone else with whom he wanted to share that life. The past year he’d felt satisfied just sharing the city with Eva and waiting for her to marry some great guy who deserved her. Maybe then he could get on with his life.

  Except she hadn’t settled down with some other man.

  When her file had been passed around at the agency’s Monday morning briefing, Todd felt as if he’d been punched in the gut. He’d seen the news on Saturday about the incident at the Edge but her name hadn’t been mentioned. As shocked as he’d been to learn she was involved and in danger, none of it had carried the impact of seeing her up close.

  Yeah, he’d watched her a couple of times. Always from a safe distance. Educating himself on her life since he left her, keeping up with who she dated—none of it had adequately prepared him for standing in the same room with her. Watching her in the trauma room with that young woman who’d been shot had shifted something inside him. Her intense focus, capable hands and sincere care for the patient had made him fall for her all over again, only this time it was way beyond physical.

  He now also fully understood he was in trouble.

  He wanted to do far more than keep her safe. He wanted to touch her. He wanted to relearn every inch of her. He wanted to taste her...to hear her cry his name. He wanted her to belong to him.

  Truly crazy, Christian.

  An hour or so ago she had announced she needed a long hot bath and disappeared into her suite, and he had been trying to distract himself since. From time to time he checked the monitor. Looked without looking, so to speak. She was safe. In the bathroom there was no video, only audio. Just listening to her moans of satisfaction and the drip, drip, drip of the water had made him hard.

  With the kitchen cleaned up, the perimeter and all egresses checked, he might as well hit the gym. Maybe he could burn off some of this excess adrenaline. Either that or he was going to explode. He hesitated at the door to her bedroom. His fingers fisted. She wouldn’t want to hear about how badly he wanted her or how much he wished he could go back and have a do-over of the past.

  He went into his own room—just across the hall—and peeled off his clothes. He tossed the scrubs on the bed and dug up a pair of running shorts and a tee. Once his sneakers were on, he hustled down the stairs. The best way to hammer down this kind of frustration was to run long and fast on an extreme incline setting. By the time he finished his body would be too physically spent for anything else.

  He would defeat this need if it killed him.

  * * *

  EVA STARED AT her reflection as she set the hair dryer and brush aside. The ER had been hectic all afternoon. Nothing as serious as a gunshot but more than their fair share of automobile accidents, work-related injuries and falls. The last patient who’d come in, an elderly woman who’d broken an arm falling down the stairs in her building’s stairwell, had kept Eva an hour past the end of her shift. The lady had wanted Eva at her side every step of the way until she was released. Eva wouldn’t have left her for anything. She’d teared up more than once thinking about how she hadn’t been there for her sweet neighbor.

  Can’t change that painful reality.

  The best news of the day was that Alyssa Chavez was going to make it. The surgery had been a success. Her family had arrived to be with her. Between the newly increased security at the Edge and Chicago PD, no one other than staff and family were getting anywhere near her room.

  Detective Marsh and his new partner from Gang Intelligence, Sergeant Carter, were less than thrilled with the news that someone—probably Miguel Robles—had contacted Eva and claimed responsibility for the shooting. She suspected their plates were already more than full. Piling on another incident, particularly a shooting, was not helpful. For Eva it confirmed her most troubling conclusion: Robles had no intention of stopping until he’d gotten his revenge.

  She turned away from the mirror and the weary reflection there. She’d dried her hair and pulled on a pair of the provided PJs. These were comfortable lounge pants with a matching tank-style tee. The pale pink color was one of her favorites. She wished she had nail polish and a couple of emery boards and she’d give herself a manicure and pedicure. Not that she really needed one or even wanted one but it would buy some time. Still too early for bed. Mostly she was too keyed up to dare lie down now. Spending a couple of hours tossing and turning was her least favorite thing to do.

  Maybe she should have spent a little longer on the treadmill. No matter that her arms and legs felt like limp noodles, especially after the hot bath, the tension and frustrating anticipation hung on like a bad migraine.

  Surrendering, she decided to take her towel and the day’s clothes to the laundry room and then she intended to find a bottle of wine. Going for something stronger wouldn’t be smart. Wine would do the trick without making her potentially do something stupid—as long as she stayed in her room and clear of any possibility of running into him. Being locked away alone in a house with Todd was asking for serious trouble.

  It was silent downstairs. Images played across the television screen but the sound was muted. The main hall that cut through the center of the house was cool and quiet. No sign of Todd. The kitchen proved the same. Almost there. The laundry room was deserted, too.

  She sorted her laundry into the labeled hampers. A cleaning team came in each day and took care of laundry and whatever else was needed. She imagined a clearance and a thorough background search were required of the team. Just giving them access to the property meant they were above reproach. As much as she hated doing laundry, she wouldn’t want to live like this. The house and property were beautiful but far too grand for her taste. She liked simple and homey.

  The security part didn’t actually bother her. Dr. Pierce was equally careful with his staff at the Edge. No one worked there without a flawless background. She f
ound it near unbelievable that someone had managed to reach his office without being stopped. Then again, security had been focused on the events unfolding in the emergency department. There were cameras everywhere as well. Why hadn’t the intruder been captured on camera? Maybe that was the reason for all the questions about what he had been wearing.

  Eva had a feeling the man and his message were intensely personal to Dr. Pierce. Whatever it was, it went well beyond professional. Not that she was in the position to judge. Her life was wacked out on all levels. Her primary goal at this point was surviving—what she knew she had to do in order to stop Robles.

  Without incident, she found the wine cellar that wasn’t really a cellar but a climate-controlled room. Wherever Todd was he had so far stayed out of her path. She was grateful. There were hundreds of bottles on display in the wine room. Control pads showed the temperature and humidity level in the various glass-encased storage shelves. She moved through the rows of white and blush wines until she found something sweet and bubbly.

  Back in the kitchen she prowled through the drawers until she found a new-model corkscrew that made opening a bottle of wine easy. When the cork popped free, she grabbed the bottle by the neck and a glass by the stem and headed back to the stairs. She’d made it all the way to the bottom of the staircase when she sensed his presence. A shiver rushed over her skin.

  “Taking a friend to bed I see.”

  His voice held a teasing quality but there was something else she couldn’t quite discern. She glanced over her shoulder to say good-night but the sight of him stopped her. He wore nothing but running shorts. The loose kind that rode high on his muscled thighs and low on his lean belly. The tee he’d been wearing was wadded in his hand and serving as a mop for his glistening chest.

  The bottle in her hand felt suddenly too heavy. Her fingers tightened around it. She did the same with the glass. “Good night,” she somehow managed.

  Go. Now.

  The words were her mantra as she climbed the stairs. The need to look back at him burned in her brain but she refused. He watched her until she disappeared beyond his view. She didn’t have to look back to know he’d been watching her. She’d felt his gaze burning into her...smelled the devastatingly sexy scent of his clean sweat.

  The instant she was in her room with the door closed, she poured a hefty serving of wine into her glass and downed it. She did the same with a second glass and had just poured a third when she heard the door across the hall slam.

  She closed her eyes and sipped at the third glass. However hard she fought to banish the images, the events unfolding across the hall slowly unfurled in her brain. She imagined him stepping out of the shorts and peeling off his briefs—if he bothered with any these days. Then he would reach into the shower and turn on the water. Muscles would flex and contract under all that damp, smooth skin. She remembered every ridge and plane of his muscled body. The memory cut right through her, made her weak. She raised her glass and tried to drown the images.

  Didn’t work.

  Oh, yes. She definitely should have stayed on the treadmill longer and stayed away from the wine.

  “Bad decision, Eva,” she said aloud.

  She crossed the room, left the bottle and the glass on her bedside table and grabbed the television remote with both hands. After scanning the entire channel grid, she gave up and tossed the remote onto the bed. Flashes of her bodyguard smoothing a towel over his damp skin kept flickering in her mind. Memories from their past lovemaking whispered through her, making her tremble with need.

  “Enough.” She did an about-face before she could change her mind and stormed out of her room, straight across the hall and into his room without knocking or stopping or even breathing. The water still raining down in the bathroom didn’t halt her either. The door was open so she walked right on in.

  Her determined gaze landed on more than six feet of stunning male and then she stopped stone still.

  He was still in the shower.

  He stood, utterly, gloriously naked beneath the spray of hot water...steam rose around him. He was as beautiful as she remembered. Sleek skin taut over all those perfect muscles. Damp hair clinging to his neck, blue eyes closed. The heat from the shower had him semi-aroused.

  As if he’d sensed her presence those pale blue eyes opened. Her heart nearly stopped as he reached to turn off the water, his gaze never leaving hers. He grabbed the towel from the hook next to the shower door and flung it around his hips. His attention focused intently on her, he stepped out of the glass cage and moved toward her like a lion tracking his prey...and she was that prey.

  “Are you all right?” His gaze swept over her from head to toe and back as if he’d expected to find a bullet wound or other trauma. The fingers of one hand raked the damp hair from his face. Water trickled down his skin, disappearing into the towel draped low on his lean hips.

  For a single second she couldn’t move or speak.

  “Eva.”

  The sound of her name on his lips shattered the trance she had slipped into. She closed the short distance between them and stared straight into his eyes. “We should just get this over with so we can move on. Ignoring it is wearing me out.”

  Those blue eyes narrowed slightly. “How much did you have to drink, Eva?”

  “Really?” Her hands went to her hips. “That’s all you’ve got?” She grabbed his face, went up on tiptoe and kissed the hell out of him.

  He held absolutely still the first few seconds, his powerful arms hanging at his sides. Her fingers forked into his wet hair and she leaned her body into his damp skin. He made a sound, not quite a growl. Still he didn’t give in. She drew her mouth from his, allowed her fingers to trace down his magnificent chest, over mounds of rock-hard muscle. Her gaze followed that incredible path. A smile tugged at her lips when her fingers reached his naval and the swirl of golden hair there.

  “Eva, we should talk about this.”

  “I don’t want to talk.” She stepped back, peeled off her now damp top and tossed it aside, allowing her breasts to fall free against her chest. Then she shucked the lounge pants, let them hit the floor in a puddle of silky fabric around her feet. Wearing nothing but lacy pink panties, she stepped out of that soft circle and toward him once more.

  His gaze roamed down her body, burning her as if he were touching her. The slight hitch in his breath had her heart pounding even harder.

  “Are you going to stand there,” she asked, “or are you going to man up and do this?”

  His jaw hardened and the purely female muscles between her thighs reacted, pulsing with need. Oh, he was angry now.

  “You don’t want to do this,” he growled. “It’s the wine.”

  She laughed. Even the sound of his voice made her nipples burn. “I’m not that naive little virgin you discovered in college. I know exactly what I want and right now it’s you. If you think you can handle it, that is.”

  She sensed the moment he broke. He charged toward her and she lost her breath all over again. He pulled her hard against his body and allowed her to feel just how ready he was beneath that terry cloth. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  “Talk, talk,” she accused. He held her so tight she could barely breathe the words.

  He yanked the towel from his hips, the friction of it pulling between their bodies making her gasp. He shoved the door shut and trapped her against it. Her legs went around his waist. She pressed down against him, cried out in need.

  “Not so fast,” he snarled.

  His right hand found that place between her thighs that ached so for him. He pushed aside the lace in his way and rubbed until she thought she would die of want and then he slid a finger inside, then another. She whimpered, her eyes closing with the intensity of the pleasure.

  “No,” he ordered. “Look at me.”

  She forced her eyes open, read the fury in his
. “No more foreplay. Give me what I want. Now,” she demanded.

  “If we’re going to do this we’ll do it my way.” The pad of his thumb nailed that sensitive spot once more while his fingers plied her body. “I want you looking at me when I make you scream for more.”

  She dug her heel between the cheeks of his muscled ass and rubbed. He gasped and his eyes drifted shut. “Now who’s not looking?” she accused.

  His fingers explored more deeply, stretching her, readying her for what was to come. Her breath caught as a ripple of pleasure shot through her. She clamped onto his fingers with those throbbing inner muscles and squeezed. “You keep playing and I’m going to remember I don’t really need you to do this,” she hissed.

  He snatched his fingers away, stared at her, unmoving, his jaw pulsing with more of that fury. Staring into his eyes with matching defiance, she drew one hand from his neck and reached between their bodies. She rubbed that place he refused to assuage and her body tightened with growing desire. Harder, faster, she massaged that sensitive nub until her eyes closed and she moaned with the mounting pleasure. The first waves of orgasm spiraled from the very center of her being. Her body undulated against her hand, wishing it was his wide palm and blunt-tipped fingers.

  Suddenly he yanked her hand away and plowed into her. She screamed with the exquisite pain of penetration. He groaned long and loud. For endless moments they didn’t move, their bodies joined so completely and yet burning and pulsing for more. He shifted ever so slightly and a full body reaction pulsed through her, taking her over the edge. He stilled, waited, letting her go without him.

  Just when she thought her mind and body couldn’t take anymore, he started to move. Slow, shallow thrusts, his powerful hips rocking into her. His mouth closed over hers, kissed her, savored her, tasting her lips with his teeth and his tongue and then exploring deeper. His hands tightened on her thighs, pulling her more firmly against him, forcing his thick sex farther inside her.