by C. D. Hersh
As he started down the stairs, he heard the garage door raise. Bounding down the steps two at a time, he headed out the kitchen door just as the descending door blocked a view of Alexi backing out the car.
“Get back here!” He slapped his hand on the wall as the garage door hit the concrete floor. He spun and sprinted for the front entry.
He hopped into his truck and took off after Alexi. Where was she going? A terrible thought raced through his mind. Did she regret what happened?
She drove as if she didn’t know he tailed her, so he kept a discreet distance between them, following her to the Rosebriar Inn. Alexi parked the car, got out, and went into the Inn. He followed, ducking around corners. Alexi stopped at a door, glanced from side-to-side, knocked, and then entered.
Innocent people didn’t check out halls before entering a room. She was hiding something. But what? Something about Baron? Captain Williams promised to keep them both informed about breaks in the case. Maybe she found something in Baron’s case files? Why not include him? He slogged through those files with her. She had to know he wanted to help. Or maybe . . . maybe this was more personal. Was there someone else?
Jealousy ricocheted through him. She was his. They’d sealed the deal last night. No way would he let some other man get her. He moved toward the door, raised his fist, then stopped. This might be police business. If he busted in, he could damage a cover. Got to trust her. He lowered his arm and unclenched his fist. She’d trust you. At least he hoped so.
Reining in his rampaging emotions, he positioned himself in a window alcove within view of the room. An hour passed and a swarthy man about Alexi’s height, wearing a gray tee shirt and blue jeans, exited. His suspicions leapt like the ringer on a carnival bell. He committed the man’s face to memory. When he was out of sight, Rhys knocked on the room door.
“Alexi, it’s Rhys. Let me in.” When she didn’t answer, he pounded harder, raising his voice. “Open up, or I’ll kick in the door.”
The interior latch clicked and the door opened. Alexi stood in the doorway wearing a hot pink, low-necked tee shirt and jeans.
“Who was the guy?” he asked as he maneuvered his way past her.
“What guy?”
He scanned the room. The bed was rumpled. She cheated on me already. How could you? His gut twisted as tight as the tangled bedcovers. “Was it good for you?” he asked, barely holding back the snarl that rumbled inside his throat.
Alexi shut the door behind her. “What are you talking about?”
“Didn’t last night mean anything?”
“Last night?” she echoed stupidly.
The snarl escaped from his throat. Rhys removed his Stetson, shoved his fingers though his hair, and paced to the opposite side of the room. “Six months, Alexi. I’ve been waiting six months.”
She continued to stare at him with a clueless expression.
“You couldn’t even wait six hours before you . . .” The words stuck in his throat. “Screwed someone else?”
Alexi’s mouth formed a surprised circle. “You think I cheated on you?”
“Evidence says so.” He slapped his Stetson down on the desk.
“Evidence?” she echoed again.
He ticked the items off. “Slipping away from me. An illicit tryst. I watched him leave. Your shirt’s different.” He opened the closet door. “Good God, Lexi,” he said, brushing his hand over the rack of women’s blouses and men’s shirts hanging inside. “There’s a whole wardrobe here.”
She didn’t respond.
“How long?” The words ground out between clenched teeth. He yanked a handful of men’s shirts from the closet and threw them on the bed. “Do these belong to him?”
She shook her head.
“You lied. You said there was no one else.” He threw the closet door shut and strode toward the exit.
She stopped him as he passed. A surge of electricity shot through him at her touch, familiar yet different. He chalked the dissimilarity up to his anger and shook off her hand.
“I didn’t lie. I swear.”
“Then explain.” And it better be good.
“That man . . . he’s one of Baron’s informants. He called and asked me to meet him.”
He could buy that, for the moment. “Go on.”
“He had a lead on Baron’s killer.”
“And you came alone because . . .”
“He insisted. He’s on probation. He’d only give me the information if I kept his name out of it.”
Concern outstripped his anger. “Are you nuts, woman? It could have been a trap.”
“Why would he want to trap me?”
“He could be in on the murder or the break-in. Maybe his cronies wanted you out of the house to rob it again.”
She made a face at him. “Then you should have stayed home to guard it.”
“You should have shared your plans with me.” He pointed at her tee shirt. “And you put on different clothes because . . .”
She scanned the room.
He followed her gaze. What was she looking for? Another lie to explain her actions?
Her gaze stopped on the coffeepot. “I spilled coffee on my shirt.”
He didn’t buy that story for a second. “And what about this closet full of clothes?”
“They’re not mine. They belong to a friend.”
“Male?” Rhys asked, flicking his fingers over the shirts on the bed.
“And female,” Alexi said. “They’re staying here. They let me borrow the room for my meeting.”
“Then we’ll wait.” He sat down on the bed.
“They’ll be gone for a while.” Alexi sat beside him, tucking her thigh against his. “What can I do to convince you I’m not lying?”
He jumped off the bed as she reached for him. “Not that.” Not now. Not until his gut and his head knew she told the truth.
Alexi followed him, backing him into a corner. “I didn’t lie. You’re the one for me.” She laid her hand on his chest, splaying her fingers across his nipple.
He fought the need her touch incited.
She cheated on you, his head said.
She explained that, his heart replied.
His head won. He lifted her hand from his chest and guided her away. If she’d confide in him, maybe he could believe her. “Tell me what the informant said.”
“Then will you believe me?”
He crossed his arms over his chest, blocking her touch. “Maybe.”
She dropped onto the edge of the bed. “He said he knew who robbed the house.”
She had his attention now. Rhys sat on the easy chair next to the bed. “Go on.”
“He gave me a description.”
“No name?”
Alexi shook her head. “He heard him bragging about it to someone at the Dew Drop Inn.”
“What was he after?”
“He doesn’t know, but he didn’t get it.”
“I knew you were in danger.” He popped up from the chair like a whack-a-mole.
“You were right.”
The admission took him by surprise. She never admitted to misjudging anything. “And . . .”
“I should have listened to you.”
He blinked. That was definitely not like Alexi. This new willingness to admit her sins was something he could get used to. The scales tipped toward forgiveness.
“And I should have told you everything. I won’t make that mistake again.” Alexi scooted forward and held his hand. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to put you through . . . all this. Forgive me?” When he didn’t answer, she lifted his hand to her mouth and kissed his palm. “You are all I want.” She tugged on his hand. “Let me prove it to you.”
Fire shot straight down to his groin. He wanted her to prove her love. Wanted to believe what she said. She answered his questions. Admitted her guilt in keeping secrets. Promised not to do it again.
Alexi rose from the bed and pressed her soft body against him. He could feel her pebbled nipples
against his chest. The intimate contact sent his head spinning. Her touch—the way it affected him—seemed different. Good, but different. Rhys puzzled over the way their bodies seemed to merge. Instinctively, his arms slipped around her waist.
Alexi purred and pushed him down on the bed, clawing at his shirt and pants. Something exploded inside his brain. He lost control, returning kiss-for-kiss, caress-for-caress, removing shirts and jeans with lightning speed. Unlike last night, today’s contact was not soft and tender. He shoved the bedcovers aside, the crisp cotton sheets sliding under him like silk.
Alexi’s sweat-slicked body burned his chest, his legs, everywhere their skin touched. It was wild. It was wonderful. And somehow it was . . . wrong. He hugged her tighter against him, despite the flash of misgiving, unable to get her close enough to his raging passion. He felt himself sliding through her, their naked arms and legs merging inch-by-inch, cell-by-cell, atom-by-atom.
Exquisite pain coursed though his veins, unlike anything he’d ever experienced. Red and green prism fireworks burst behind his eyelids. He rolled Alexi under him and arched above her. His eyes inched open and he saw himself hovering above. He blinked to clear his vision, then his eyes shot open. Chest muscles rippled above him, pumping rhythmically against . . . who? Himself. He went rigid, but the body over him—his body—kept banging away.
What am I doing on the bottom?
Rhys shook his head to clear it. He was supposed to be on top. He knew that. He willed his arm to move and Alexi’s arm moved instead. Why was Alexi responding to his thoughts?
Hell, I’m having sex with myself.
Rhys bucked, breaking the physical contact. For a second, he blacked out then he tumbled off Alexi onto the floor. Another woman lay where he had lain a second earlier.
Not Alexi.
Not anyone he recognized.
Startled, he fell against the wall. Hands fumbling on the floor, he found his pants, and shoved his legs into them. When he glanced back at the bed, Alexi lay on the sheets—eyes glazed, a perplexed expression on her face.
“What happened?” The words came out throaty and seductive, her voice husky with passion. She motioned for him to come back to bed.
“Not on your life,” he said, jamming his arms into his shirtsleeves.
“What’s wrong?”
He backed against the wall, his legs too rubbery to stand unsupported. “I’m not sure.”
Alexi raised herself on one elbow, her bare breasts bobbing with the movement.
“Cover up.” He tossed her tee shirt on the bed.
She tugged the shirt over her head. “That was some of the best sex I’ve ever had.” She gave him a seductive, and fully satisfied, smile.
“You’ve had a lot?” He arched a brow at her.
Alexi sat and put on her panties. “That’s not what I meant.” She patted the bed beside her.
He shook his head. “After what happened, I’ll stay here.”
“What do you mean?”
“I hallucinated.”
Alexi slid to the edge of the bed, eyes wide. “What did you see?” Her voice sounded excited.
“I saw me . . . doing me.”
“Me, too.”
“Doing me or yourself?”
“Myself.” Alexi slipped her legs into her jeans and sat down on the floor next to him. “What do you think it means . . . besides wild sex?”
She cuddled against him and a tingle ran over his skin where she touched him. He drew away. He didn’t know what it meant either, and he did not want a repeat performance.
“I think I know what it means.” Alexi laughed, the sound like wind chimes tinkling in the breeze. Rhys had never heard her laugh that way.
Could she tell him why he saw another woman lying on the bed, too?
“It means we’re soul mates.”
“Then why didn’t it happen last night, on our first time?”
She gave him a sidelong glance. “Was our first time this passionate?”
She had a point. Last night had been good, even great. But today’s osmosis feeling, that cellular merging, had been missing. “It was different last night,” he said, not wanting to make her think their first time had been lacking.
Alexi twirled the bloodstone ring on her finger. “Be honest. Last night lacked the power of today, didn’t it?”
He nodded. If she’d experienced what he had, lying to her made no sense. But soul mates? He’d love being soul mates with Alexi, he just didn’t believe in that kind of thing. “So, osmosis-mind-shifting means we’re soul mates. Will it happen again?”
Alexi shrugged. “Maybe. Would you like it to?”
“No way.” It was a bit like having sex with himself and that freaked the heck out of him. “No way,” he repeated. “Especially if I’m going to see another woman.” Even though several inches separated them, he felt Alexi stiffen.
“Did you see an ex-girlfriend?”
He shook his head. “I’ve never seen this woman.”
She faced him, her expression grim. “So I just told you I had the best sex in my life, and all you can mention is another woman on the bed. There’s something weird about that.”
He agreed. The whole thing screamed weird.
Alexi crossed her arms on her chest, eyes narrowing to crescents as she stared at him. “Maybe I’m not the one cheating.”
She’s accusing me? How had she managed to reverse the tables so neatly? “I don’t know who the woman was,” he protested. “I know what it sounds like. You’ll have to believe me, like I believed you.”
A smile curled her lips ever so slightly. “So I’m forgiven?”
He chuckled. “No, I made love to you because I’m mad at you.” He rose to his feet and took her hand, ignoring the tingle that ran through him. “Get your keys. I’ll follow you home.”
“You don’t need to do that.”
“Yes, I do. The robber didn’t get what he wanted. Until he’s caught, I will remain your bodyguard.”
“I guess you would be.” Determination settled over Alexi’s face. “We’ll have to do something about that. Where did you park?”
“Next to you.”
“Figures,” Alexi muttered under her breath.
Alexi squealed out of the parking lot and sped through the red light, leaving him behind. He backed up, cut through the lot going onto the side street, and raced after her. He should have known she’d charge away from him. Her protest said as much. “You’re making me break the law, woman,” he shouted as he ran a red light.
Car horns blared as he cut through the intersection in pursuit of Alexi’s car. She turned a corner heading for a stretch of highway he knew she always avoided. Why is she going this way? It makes no sense. But then nothing had made sense today. The man he’d seen coming out of the room. The crazy sex. The woman he thought he’d seen in the bed. This day was not turning out like he had thought it would.
Suddenly, Alexi’s car dove between two cars and made a sharp right turn. Damn, woman. How am I supposed to follow you when you drive like that? Traffic forced him past the street where Alexi turned. For a minute he considered just going straight to her house but something didn’t feel right about the way she was acting. He made a sharp U-turn, barely missing an oncoming semi.
If I get in an accident, Alexi, it’ll be your fault.
Chapter 14
Alexi strode out of the hotel toward Sylvia’s car. A lot of time had gone by since she’d become Garrett Jordan, her male alter ego.
She noticed her reflection in the driver’s door window as she unlocked the car. Seeing the swarthy, handsome man with short, curly black hair staring back at her always amazed her.
When one of Sylvia’s informants reported the spotting of Baron’s imposter in a nearby shopping center, only minutes before Alexi left Sylvia, Sylvia insisted on Alexi shifting. If you’re both shifted, you can sense his presence better, she said.
The choices came down to shifting or letting Sylvia suspect she had othe
r ways of tracking, namely her ability to read auras. She didn’t want to give Sylvia that information. So, she shifted into Garrett and slipped away in Sylvia’s rented car, her one contribution toward Garrett’s anonymity.
Finding the imposter had been easy. Alexi followed the line of police cars on silent alarm into the strip mall to the front of Armand Jewelers. Before exiting the car, she morphed back to her natural form.
“What’s homicide got to do with this?” the police officer asked when she flashed her badge at him. “We didn’t receive any report of a murder.”
“The description of the man matches a murder investigation I’ve been working. Mind if I check it out?”
The cop waved her past him. “Hope you find him.”
She approached the store clerk giving his account to an officer she knew. She hung back, listening.
“A man. About six foot. Salt-and-pepper beard. Kind of muscled.”
So far the description matched Baron. Alexi stepped in closer.
“Eye color?” the officer asked.
The clerk squeezed his eyes shut in an effort to draw the answer from his mind. “Blue. Bright blue, almost a fake color . . . like he wore colored contacts.”
The first piece of real identification on the imposter. A different eye color was one of the most difficult things to achieve. That had taken her months to master.
“What did he take?”
“One of our most expensive wedding band sets. Fourteen karat gold, with a four—carat, pear-shaped diamond engagement ring and wedding band encircled with one carat in diamonds, and about thirteen thousand in cash.”
The officer whistled. “That’s a lot of money.”
“We don’t normally have that much on hand,” the clerk explained. “The Brinks truck got delayed. He might have stolen more, but a customer came into the store. He pocketed his take and ran off.”
