“What kind of a timeline are we looking at for this? Did Sebastian have the DNA results before Nina was murdered?” Grayson wanted to know.
“Oh, yeah,” Nate assured him. “He had them all right. Less than twenty-four hours after he got the results that confirmed Nina was his sister, someone killed her.”
Grayson shook his head, mumbled something. “Then as far as I’m concerned, that makes Sebastian Collier our number-one suspect.”
Eve agreed, and judging from the sound he made, apparently so did Nate.
“So, what do you want me to do?” Nate asked Grayson.
Grayson didn’t even hesitate. “Pick up Sebastian and put him in a holding cell. I’ll be at SAPD first thing in the morning to read him his rights and arrest him.”
Chapter Fifteen
Grayson downed the shot of whiskey. It was strong stuff, Mason’s private stash, and it burned his eyes and throat. What it didn’t do was clear his head.
But then, that was asking a lot from a shot of whiskey.
The details of the case kept running through his head. Thoughts of Eve kept running through his body. Neither would give him much peace tonight, even though the house was whisper-quiet and would likely stay that way because it was going on midnight.
“Midnight,” he mumbled.
Since he had an early-morning trip to SAPD to question and arrest Sebastian, he should be sleeping. Heck, Eve probably was. She’d called it a night well over an hour ago.
Good thing, too, because before her good-night Grayson had been on the verge of resuming the make-out session that Nate’s call had interrupted.
He shouldn’t have touched her.
And he damn sure shouldn’t have kissed her.
He should have just walked away and let fate sort out the details of what was to come in the next week or so. But the sight of those tears in her eyes had shaken him. Grayson considered himself a strong man, but he wasn’t strong enough to keep her at arm’s length when she’d been crying.
He poured himself another shot and took it in one gulp. Still no relief. So he gave up on the whiskey and headed out of the den and to his bathroom for a shower. He stripped along the way, dropping his clothes on the bedroom floor, and he kept the water ice-cold.
That didn’t work, either.
There was a furnace of heat in his body, and there was only one cure for what he felt.
Eve.
Damn her. Damn him.
Grayson knew that pretty much any woman could satisfy his body, but there was only one woman who could satisfy him. And that was Eve.
For most of his life, she’d been what had fired him up and cooled him down—sometimes in the same minute. She’d been the one woman he couldn’t get out of his head. And no amount of whiskey or cold water was going to cure that. No. There was only one cure, and she was right across the hall.
Grayson cursed and put on his jeans. No sense trying to talk himself out of jumping off this Texas-size cliff. He was going to jump all right, and this could be a fall that would hurt for the rest of his life.
He didn’t knock on the guestroom door. Didn’t want anything to slow him down and stop him. Well, that was the plan anyway, but his mouth went dry when he spotted her. Not asleep as he’d thought she would be. No. Eve was wide-awake, lying in bed, the ice-white covers draped loosely over her breasts and the rest of her.
Grayson shut the door. And went to her.
“The right thing would be for me to go back to my room,” he told her.
Her mouth trembled slightly and turned into the hint of a smile. “Grayson, for once in your life, don’t do the right thing, okay?”
She caught on to his hand, pulled him closer. Grayson obliged and leaned down for a kiss. He’d kissed her a thousand times, maybe more, but each time always felt like the first. That punch hit him hard in the chest and then below the belt.
How could he want anyone this much?
And worse, why would he want her this much even after he’d had her?
Grayson kept the kiss simple, though his body was revved up way past the kissing stage. Still, he needed this. The feel of her mouth against his. The sweet silk of her lips. Her taste. He needed it all, and apparently Eve did, too, because she kept inching him closer.
The covers shifted, and the sheet slipped off her breasts. No bra. Just Eve’s bare breasts. He met her gaze and saw the little spark there.
Grayson used just the tip of his index finger to draw the covers down. He got an interesting show as he revealed every inch of her. Bare stomach. Bare hips. He heard himself choke back a groan.
No panties.
“I like to sleep naked,” she whispered.
“I like that you like to sleep naked.” He tried to chuckle. Failed at that, too.
“No.” Eve tightened the grip on his hand. “Don’t you dare have any doubts about this.”
Oh. He had doubts, but he wasn’t going to do anything about them. Grayson did what he did best. He took control of the situation. He raked back the rest of the covers, exposing every bit of Eve’s naked body.
Yeah, she was beautiful.
He hadn’t had to see her naked to remember that, but this trip down memory lane was a good one.
Grayson put his knee on the bed, the feather mattress giving way to his weight. He let himself ease into a fall and kissed her on the way down until his body was pressed hard against hers. The fit was right. Perfect. And it created pressure in all the right places.
“Jeans,” she mumbled and fumbled for his zipper.
Grayson let her deal with that so he could make some headway with what he’d started. And what he’d started was a full-body kiss.
He trailed the kisses down her throat to her breasts. Yeah. That taste hadn’t changed. He took her nipple into his mouth, and the zipper fumbling stopped, just as he figured it would. Eve moaned, arched her back and shoved her fingers into his hair to pull him closer.
“Yes.” She repeated it and wrapped her legs around him.
His jeans were still between them, but Eve got the position and the pressure just right for this to go to the next level.
“Make me crazy, Grayson,” she whispered and then laughed, low and husky.
He was too involved in the kissing to laugh, but he smiled when he slid his body through her leg lock and kissed her where she really wanted to be kissed. Right in the center of all that wet heat.
But Eve didn’t stay on just the receiving end. She ran her hands over his shoulder and into his hair. Her legs caressed his back…and lower.
She knew exactly how to drive him crazy, too. And how to pleasure him. After all, they’d spent their teen years making out in his truck. Kisses only, at first. Lots of kisses.
Then, the touches.
He’d given Eve her first climax with his hand in her panties. They’d lost their virginity on her seventeenth birthday. They’d both been clumsy and awkward. But they’d both learned a lot over the years.
“Too crazy,” she let him know when she was close to climaxing.
She caught on to him, pulling him back up so she could go after his zipper again. She wasn’t playing this time. She was hot and ready so Grayson helped her, and she used her feet and hands to work the jeans off his hips.
“Commando,” she said when she noticed he wasn’t wearing his usual boxers. She smiled when she looked down between their bodies and no doubt saw that he was hard as stone. “That’s my Grayson.”
She froze and got that deer-in-the-headlights look. As if she’d crossed some line and tried to take them back to a place they could never go again. And maybe she had with that my Grayson. But he didn’t care a flying fig about lines. He’d crossed the biggest line of all just by coming into her room.
He pinned her hands to the bed. Pinned her body, too. She would want his full weight on her so Grayson obliged, and he pushed himself inside her.
Mercy.
The pleasure was blinding.
It was like coming home for Chris
tmas.
Eve arched her back and pressed her head against the pillow. She rocked her hips into his, causing him to go deep and hard into her. He was probably too rough. That thought was just a flash, and soon he couldn’t think at all.
He moved inside her. Faster. Harder. Deeper. Until she was so close to climax. Until everything was a blur.
Everything except Eve.
Everything inside him pinpointed on her. Just her. The primal ache clawed away at him. This need as old as man. The need to take and claim.
But there were other needs, too.
And it was that need that sent Grayson in search of a kiss. He wanted the taste of her in his mouth when he lost all reason. When she slipped over the edge.
Eve came in a flash, when Grayson was deep inside her, when his mouth took hers.
Grayson said her name. It came from a place deeper than the primal need that had brought them to this point.
Somewhere in his brain, it registered that this was going to complicate the hell out of things. But that was only a split-second thought. Eve’s legs tightened around him. She pulled him closer, and her climax brought on his.
Grayson felt his body surrender. Felt that slam of pleasure that was beyond anything he ever deserved to feel. Something so perfect. So amazing.
So Eve.
Chapter Sixteen
“You did what?” Grayson snapped to the person on the other end of the phone.
Eve thought the caller might be Nate, but she wasn’t sure, and she couldn’t tell from the conversation what Grayson was snapping about now. But there was no doubt, he was snapping.
Eve stared out the car window, sipped her coffee and debated—again—what she should say to Grayson once he had finished this call. Or if she should say anything. After all, he certainly hadn’t volunteered much about coming to her bed for one of the most amazing nights of her life.
In fact, he had avoided the subject.
Of course, he’d been on the phone most of the morning and during the entire drive from the ranch to San Antonio. So that was his excuse, but she had to wonder, if it hadn’t been for the calls, would he have come up with another reason for them not to talk?
“You’re positive this isn’t some kind of ruse so Sebastian can escape?” Grayson demanded.
Mercy, that didn’t sound good, and she didn’t think it was a good sign when Grayson turned off the interstate two exits before the one for SAPD headquarters. Grayson had been on his way to arrest Sebastian, but there had obviously been a change of plans.
“No,” Grayson continued. Except that wasn’t a bark or a snarl. He mumbled it. “Eve’s with me. There wasn’t anyone at the ranch to stay with her. The ranch hands have already left for their Christmas break.”
Even though he practically mumbled that part, too, she heard the frustration. Grayson hadn’t wanted her to come along when he questioned Sebastian. He’d wanted her tucked safely away at the ranch, but both Dade and Mason were still in town working the details of Nina’s murder. Or rather Sophia Collier’s murder. And with Bessie and the ranch hands off the grounds, Grayson had reluctantly brought her along to arrest and interrogate Sebastian.
Not the ideal way to spend Christmas Eve.
Of course, the danger was almost certainly over for her now that the photos she’d taken were in the hands of the authorities. Sebastian had no reason to kill her. Well, unless he was hell-bent on getting some kind of revenge because she’d inadvertently incriminated him, and now that he was in police custody, even that wasn’t possible.
She hoped.
This could all be over soon, especially if Grayson managed to get a confession from Sebastian. Or if something hadn’t gone wrong with his arrest. Judging from Grayson’s sour expression and change of direction, that wasn’t just possible but likely.
Grayson slapped his phone shut and took the turn for San Antonio Memorial Hospital.
Her heart dropped.
“Is someone hurt?” she asked and then held her breath.
He shook his head. “Claude’s doctor doesn’t think he’ll last much longer so he requested the family’s presence at Claude’s bedside. That includes Sebastian.”
Since Claude was critical, the doctor’s request was reasonable, or at least it would have been if Sebastian weren’t a murder suspect.
“An SAPD officer is escorting Sebastian,” Grayson let her know. “They should arrive at the hospital any minute now.”
And that explained why Grayson took the final turn toward San Antonio Memorial. It wasn’t a large hospital but was in one of the more affluent neighborhoods of the city. No surprise about that, considering Claude was a millionaire many times over.
“Did Nate say if Claude was talking?” Eve asked.
“He’s lucid.” Grayson paused. “And he wants to see me.”
Strange. Claude certainly hadn’t wanted to see Grayson when he’d been ordered to SAPD headquarters. “Do you think he’ll make a deathbed confession?”
Grayson’s scowl deepened. “Maybe. But if he does, it’ll probably be for one reason—not to tell the truth, but to save his son.”
Of course. With Claude dying, it wouldn’t matter if he confessed to a murder he didn’t commit. But then, it was possible that he had indeed killed Sophia since there was no tangible proof that Claude knew she was his biological daughter. And even if he had known, he could have killed her when he realized she wasn’t the darling little girl he wanted in his family.
There was no street parking, just a multilevel parking garage so Grayson drove in and looked for a spot. He took the first one available, at the back of the second level.
Grayson glanced around. So did Eve. And somewhere amid the glancing, their gazes collided. There.
Eve saw it in his eyes then—the conversation he’d been avoiding all morning.
“Do I need to apologize?” Grayson tossed out there like a gauntlet.
She thought about her answer. “No. Do I?” She tossed that proverbial gauntlet right back at him.
He cursed, looked away and scrubbed his hand over his face. “I’m the one who went to your bed.”
“And I could have said no,” Eve reminded him.
But that was a lie. She’d never been able to say no to Grayson, and she wouldn’t have started last night. Still, this had caused more tension between them, and that’s the last thing they needed when they were within minutes of facing the Colliers.
And facing a possible pregnancy.
Eve certainly hadn’t been thinking about getting pregnant when Grayson had climbed into bed with her. She’d been thinking about making love with him, but now that it was the morning after, she knew that last night had increased her chances of getting the baby she’d always wanted.
However, it hadn’t helped her relationship with Grayson.
She could feel his uneasiness, and she had to do something to diffuse it.
“What happened between us doesn’t have to mean anything,” she settled for saying, but those words hurt. Because it sure as heck had meant something to her. It meant that Grayson had still wanted her enough to risk plenty by coming to her like that.
He looked at her, as if he might dispute her not-mean-anything offer, but he only shook his head. “We’ll talk about this later.”
Eve caught on to his arm when he started to bolt. “No need.” That hurt, too, but she had to give Grayson an out. He’d done her a huge favor by having sex with her, and she didn’t want him to feel guilty or tormented.
She leaned over and brushed a chaste kiss on his cheek. “I already know how you feel about fatherhood, about a lot of things.” Eve had to take a deep breath before continuing. “And I know when this investigation is over, your life can get back to normal.”
Something flashed through his metal-gray eyes, and his face tightened. For a moment she thought they might have that blowup they’d been skirting around all morning. But he didn’t toss out any more gauntlets or launch into an argument. He eased her hand off his
arm and stepped from the car.
Eve could only sigh and do the same.
The garage wasn’t just dank, it was cold, and Eve pulled her coat tighter against her. She had no scarf or gloves. She’d forgotten to pick those up when they’d been at her condo the day before, and women’s clothing was in short supply at the Ryland ranch. Eve had made do with the gray pants and sweater that she’d packed, but she had been forced to wear the same red coat that had survived their trek through the woods.
Ahead of her, Grayson pulled the sides of his buckskin jacket together, as well. No festive red for him. He was wearing his usual jeans and dark shirt. Practically a uniform for him. He’d also worn his badge and shoulder holster, of course, which meant because he was armed, they would have to go through security inside.
She fell in step alongside Grayson as they walked to the elevator that would take them into the hospital, but they didn’t get far before Grayson stopped. He lifted his head and looked around, just as he’d done when he had first parked. She looked, too, but only saw the sea of cars in the dimly lit space.
“Is something wrong?” Eve asked.
Grayson didn’t answer. He glanced around again and caught on to her to get her moving to the elevator. It was clear he was hurrying now, but Eve didn’t know why.
“I got a bad feeling,” Grayson mumbled.
That put her on full alert because she knew from experience that Grayson’s instincts were usually right.
And they were.
The sound zinged through the garage. It wasn’t a blast. Eve wasn’t sure what it was until the window shattered on the car next to them. Then she knew.
Oh, God.
Someone had fired at them.
GRAYSON CURSED AND SHOVED Eve to the side between two parked cars. He followed, moving directly in front of her, and in the same motion, he drew his gun.
What the hell was happening now?
The danger to Eve should be over. Finished. She was no longer a threat to Sophia’s killer since her photos had gone public. Obviously, the shooter wasn’t aware of that.
Grayson Page 12
