by AJ Nuest
No doubt, he attempted to prove his worth through his job, while purposely thumbing his nose at the close relationship his dad and brother shared with his outward appearance. “You’re the smartest of your siblings, but this has only made things difficult for you within your family.”
His brow twitched, and he helped himself to another sip of wine.
She abandoned the dresser for the left side of the room and slid open his closet. Maybe this had been a bad idea. Normally, whatever slights people experienced she could handle through her job. She’d set the scales back in balance and then go about her business, confident she’d done the right thing, none the worse for wear.
But with Kelly things were different. Like a wad of sticky cellophane, her feelings had somehow gotten balled up into a confusing mess, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t find the edge to smooth out the emotional wrinkles. Instead of being able to keep her distance, learning about him only made her sympathetic. She wanted to stand up for him and wag a sharp finger in his father’s face.
His police uniform hung in a dry cleaning bag, shoved to the back behind his jeans and everyday wear. She fingered the plastic and then turned to face him. “While you love being a cop, every move you’ve made to advance your career has initiated more resentment from your father. He feels each of your achievements oversteps your big brother, and the similarities between them only make it worse.”
Kelly’s brows shot toward his hairline. The tension in his jaw went slack.
“In order to protect yourself and ease the tension in the family, you take on an attitude of indifference. For instance, letting your hair grow and the laid back clothing. But inside?” She slid the closet door shut behind her. “Inside, the unfairness ticks you off. So much, you refuse to let their opinions factor into your job. In fact, I’m guessing their view of you plays a big part in those awards you have hanging on your wall. You make damn sure your perfect record stays that way. Otherwise, their belief your success came too easy will hold a sliver of truth.”
She crossed her arms and waited for the fallout. Folks hated having their insecurities laid out like a laundry list and, generally speaking, the closer she’d gotten to reality, the angrier their response.
Nodding, Kelly stared down into his wine. In one deft move, he drained the glass and set it beside hers on the nightstand. “So, now that you know everything about me, who would you pick?”
She frowned. “For what?”
“If I was your mark.” He lifted his head and stared hard into her eyes. “Which of the women in your closet would you pick for the job?”
No. Goddamn it, she was not playing this game with him.
Any sympathy that might’ve leaked into her heart flew straight out the window, to be replaced with a bitter sadness she could almost taste, and the same frustration she fought whenever he got within ten feet of her. “Now who’s being unfair?”
“It’s a simple question, Eden.”
She huffed to hide the fact he was right. It was a simple question. One she’d answered countless times where other men were concerned. But for him? Jade hadn’t worked and neither would any of her other personas.
Marching across the room, she snatched her purse off the floor and strode to where he stood in the doorway. “Let me out.” She shoved his chest, but he didn’t budge. “I’m tired and I want to go to bed.”
“Answer my question first.”
Tears flooded her eyes, and she gritted her teeth. How could she? She shoved him again. None of them were right. None of them were smart enough…real enough for him.
“Stop it.” God, she wanted to hit him, haul back and slap him across the face. “Why are you doing this?”
“You know which one.” He straightened and crossed his arms, legs braced wide. “You know you do. Tell me her name and I’ll go away.”
“I don’t know.” But she did. Goddamn it, why? Why would he do this? An ache blossomed in her throat, and she smacked his shoulder. “You’re asking me something I can’t answer!”
“Yes, you can!” He stomped forward and grabbed her upper arms, slamming her back against the wall. “You can answer it, you just don’t want to.” His body held her in place, his face less than an inch from hers. “There’s only one woman in that closet I want to be around.”
Irritation glinted in his eyes and his fingers flexed, keeping her pinned between the heat of his body and the wall. “She’s beautiful and brilliant and the biggest pain in the ass I’ve ever met, but I wouldn’t have her any other way. Now, tell me…her name.”
A tear tumbled onto her cheek as she lowered her chin, shaking her head.
So that was it.
He wasn’t just pissed she’d become someone else at Malcolm’s. He wanted to make her see. To show her how wrong it had been, deep down, so she would never forget. Hiding herself, even for the sake of protecting her emotions, wouldn’t work. Not with him. He’d been willing to expose every dark secret in his life to prove it.
“I got scared, okay?” Another tear fell, and she slumped. No matter what she did, he saw her. There was no denying it. Not anymore. He already knew her too well. “I freaked out at Malcolm’s and when you got there…” She bit her lip. “I was relieved, okay? I was so relieved to see you, I got scared all over again. I don’t know what to do with myself when I’m with you, Kelly. For God’s sake, I don’t know who you expect me to be.”
“Eden…” he sighed. Sliding a hand along her throat, he cupped the nape of her neck and she closed her eyes as he brought her forehead to his lips. “Baby, I don’t ever want you to be anyone but yourself.”
Propping his thumb under her chin, he leaned back and locked onto her with his gaze—clear and deep blue, inviting as a warm ocean tide. “When you called, I got scared too.” His sarcastic huff heated her cheek. “Fuck that, I was terrified. But, Goddamn it, you deserve to have someone fight for you. Even if that means I have to fight you to prove it. Jesus, woman, you’re so busy making sure everyone else gets a fair shot, you’ve forgotten about yourself. I’m not gonna do that, Eden. I swear to God, if it’s the last thing I do, I’m gonna make damn sure you come out of this thing safe and alive. You can take that to the bank.”
Never, not once in her entire life, had someone made her that promise. Not even Malcolm.
She fisted the sides of his shirt and—screw the tears. She let them fall. Nothing she did would stop them anyway. Not with Kelly Riordan standing before her, the first person she’d ever met to offer her a soft place to fall. “You realize that, if you let me down, I’ll make it my highest priority to change your life into something virtually unrecognizable?”
A chuckle rumbled in his chest, and he pulled her into his arms, cradling the back of her head in his hand. “I hate to break it to ya, but your warning comes way too late. For me, life changed the second I looked at your pretty face.”
Chapter 9
Somewhere past the fuzzy perimeter of sleep, Kelly’s cell phone chirped. He blinked into the darkness of his bedroom, glanced at the top of Eden’s head nestled on his chest and worked his cell from the pocket of his jeans.
Archer. Shit. If something had broken on the case, Kelly should take the call.
Thumbing the screen, he brought the phone to his ear. “Hold on.”
He carefully extracted his arm from around Eden’s shoulders and stood, tugged the edge of the comforter from under the mattress and folded it over her body like a cocoon. She mumbled and adjusted her cheek on the pillows as he backed into the hall and quietly closed the door.
She had to be exhausted. Once her tears had started, it was like the dam had officially sprung a leak. The roadblock she’d set up to keep her grief and anger bottled inside had washed away and, not knowing how else to comfort her, he’d carried her to his bed and held her wrapped in his arms while she’d softly cried herself to sleep.
Not that he cared or was even the smallest bit surprised by her reaction. Aft
er the nightmare she’d lived through the past couple of days, she’d earned a good cry. Besides, the fact she’d grown comfortable enough to share her tears with him worked out just fine in his book. Especially after she’d taken one look around his room and homed in on the Riordan family dynamic with the laser beam accuracy of a sniper.
His ego had definitely taken a hit. Hell, he hadn’t even shared such personal information with Archer. But offering Eden that insight inside his life had also given him a front row seat to the way she worked, and watching her dissect the particulars behind the awkward relationships he shared with his brother and dad had been hands down brilliant.
In retrospect, it was a risk that had paid off in the end. He’d never be able to figure out who was gunning for her unless she trusted him, and that went double for his promise to make sure she came out the other side of his investigation alive. To follow through and keep her safe, he’d do whatever was necessary to ensure their communication remained a two-way street, and if the lines of professionalism got a little blurred in the process, too fucking bad.
Eden was a special case. She didn’t navigate the world the same way as everyone else, but that didn’t change his responsibilities toward her one damn bit. His main concern always had been and always would be the security of his witnesses.
And as for the sharp pang in his chest whenever he looked into her beautiful green eyes? The persistent urge to kiss her or the way he couldn’t stop envisioning her naked and writhing under his hands?
He grunted. It’d probably be on the wiser side of stupid to set up his own hefty roadblock where those ideas were concerned. He’d already driven that route, and his career, his reputation… Shit, even his heart had been changed in the end.
“What’s up?” Cell phone back to his ear, he rounded the breakfast bar and entered the kitchen, opening the fridge for a bottle of water.
“DeFranco’s preliminary labs came in on Malcolm Smith.”
Kelly glanced at the digital clock on the stove and his brows rose. “Damn, that was fast.” It was only a few minutes after midnight.
“The captain’s made your case a priority. No one’s working anything else until we get this done.” Which could only mean Archer had been fielding the flack from D’Avella ever since he and Kelly had talked at the scene of Smith’s murder.
Once Eden had relayed the particulars behind the relationship she’d shared with her supposed “father,” the thought of hauling her into the precinct to field a battery of painful questions was enough to make a vein hammer in Kelly’s head. He’d disobeyed a direct order by bringing her to his home, but magnifying everything she’d been through with the stress of an interrogation would’ve only added insult to injury…any number of people watching their conversation through the window, every word recorded while he prodded and poked.
Smart as she was, in those tense moments, people sometimes blurted stuff that later came back to bite them in the ass. No way in hell was he risking the fallout from that world of hurt. Not after finally wedging his foot in the small crack of the doorway to her past.
Archer had agreed, even though the decision had left him the last line of defense when it came to intercepting D’Avella’s irritation. “I’m sorry, Buddy. Did she read you the riot act?”
“She left about half my ass intact. And not the good half.” Though his tone was dry, it was guaran-damn-teed Archer would have taken twice whatever D’Avella dished out if Kelly had asked. He and Archer had covered for one another enough times, Kelly had lost count. “She got it, though. Seemed to, at least, once I explained your motives. Not sure how much time it bought you but, for now, she’s willing to wait and see if you can get any specifics on your own.”
“Good.” Kelly hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d told Archer convincing Eden to maintain her verbal skills at the station would be harder than trying to pry open a tin can with his bare hands. And if whatever she told him went through Kelly’s ears first, he could filter out the pertinent information and leave off the rest.
His promise to protect her included her future, and he damn well meant to keep his word.
Twisting the cap off his water, he crossed to the living room, sparing a glance down the hall toward his closed bedroom door, and dropped to the couch. “What’d DeFranco get?”
“He’s estimating time of death sometime late Monday evening. Body was almost completely exsanguinated, which matches with the amount of blood left at the scene. Puncture wounds were identical in shape and size to Ruby’s, so he’s confident our murder weapon is the same. No cells or fibers were found on the vic, but CSI is still processing the house. If they find any DNA, he’ll run it against the cells he got from under Ruby’s nails.”
“Monday night.” Kelly propped one foot and then the other on the coffee table, ankles crossed. “Ruby was killed Friday and Eden was attacked on Thursday. That leaves a two-day gap between each event.” His stomach sank past the leather cushions under his ass. “You think we’ll have four more vics wash up before this is over?”
“Christ.” Archer exhaled heavily through the line. “Shit, man, I don’t know. I think what we need to ask ourselves is how a reformed drug addict-turned-informant is connected to a seventy-year-old retired English dude. Ruby never mentioned Smith or anyone like him in the time she worked for me but, based on the bruises around his wrists, he was tortured just like she was prior to his murder. He also sustained eleven stab wounds to the chest and torso, with the final killing blow jammed directly into his heart.”
His feet hit the floor as Kelly sat forward, propping his elbows on his knees. Finally, something they could build on. “Eleven. For some reason, that’s an important number to our perp. If we can figure out why, that may be the thread we need yank on in order to lead us in the right direction.”
“Has your witness been able to fill in any blanks?”
“Not yet.” He raked his hand through his hair, scratching at the back of his neck. “We crashed pretty much the second we got here.”
A long pause stretched through the phone. “Uh-huh and where is here?”
Dammit. The last thing Kelly wanted was to lie to Archer, but admitting he’d brought Eden to his place would only set Archer up for another round of hurt compliments of Captain D’Avella. If asked, Archer would have no choice but to give her any details Kelly might have let slip during their conversations.
Then again, maybe there was a way he could play both sides of the fence. What Archer didn’t know, he couldn’t tell her. A little plausible deniability should do the trick. “You don’t want me to answer that.”
“Understood.” A few more seconds of silence whispered across the airwaves, and Archer sighed. “I really hope to hell you know what you’re doing. This is only about taking your witness someplace she feels safe enough to spill her guts, right? For Christ’s sake, Kelly, remember what happened last time? This case has gained a lot of media attention. You cross that line again and there’s only so much spin D’Avella can feed the press. Nothing’s gonna wipe out their memories over that fist fuck you got involved in last year.”
Kelly grimaced, smacking his lips against the sour taste in his mouth. Archer was right. When it came to a repeat performance of Kelly’s inappropriate behavior during an investigation, especially one that had reached the national level, the press wouldn’t give two shits about any differences or similarities where Eden and Jaclyn were concerned. If he acted on his impulses and word got out, all anyone would see was a cop who enjoyed preying on his female witnesses when the chips were down.
The media would crucify him, the department, and Eden’s life would be splashed over the front page of every newspaper in every major city across the US. “I hear ya, Buddy. Message received.”
Now if keeping his hands to himself would only prove to be that easy, everything should be fine.
“Done. Anything else?”
Kelly grunted. “Other than the fact I’m completely screwed? No
.”
Archer chuckled. “Check your email. I’m sending DeFranco’s report and everything else we got over there.”
The line went dead, and Kelly started at the blank screen before tossing his phone to the coffee table. Christ, he was an idiot. He’d known from the start playing house with the only daughter of a state senator was a mistake that could potentially follow him the rest of his life, and he’d been right. Even more so when that same daughter was a spoiled, twenty-something who had no concept of how dirty the real world could actually get.
Standing from the couch, he braced his hands on the small of his back and stretched to work out the kinks in his spine. He’d let his ego get in the way. Plain and simple, he’d let himself be cast as the hero even when he’d deserved no more credit than any other cop who’d shown on the scene that day.
He grabbed his water and headed down the hall, gently opened the door and stepped into his bedroom. Eden still slept, her breathing slow and even, hands tucked in a tight ball under her chin.
A sigh exited his chest as he shook his head. He was one grimy son of a bitch for bringing her here. For asking her to trust him while keeping a secret that could destroy any impressions she might be fostering regarding his integrity.
Turning from the bed, he approached his dresser and dug a clean pair of sleeping pants from the top drawer. A glance over his shoulder to make sure he hadn’t disturbed her, and he entered the master bath.
For what had to be the millionth time, he wished he could go back and undo the year he’d spent with Jaclyn. Turning the knob in the shower, he tested the water temperature with his hand, then stripped out of his grubby clothes and stepped under the spray.
The water beat at his face, and he dropped his chin to his chest, hands braced on the tile to let the hot shower pummel his shoulders. But if he confessed, if he told Eden how badly he’d fucked up, she would be out the door quicker than he could come up with a reasonable explanation to make her stay. And who could blame her? Learning he’d not only dated but moved in with his key witness during an investigation would make her doubt his intentions. She’d start second guessing everything about him…the deep pull he fought whenever they were in the same room, the incessant need to touch and kiss her. Shit, the uncontrollable craving to explore every inch of her soft skin so he could get lost in the rush of that sweet second right before she would shudder an orgasm around him.
