by Jayne Blue
“You’ve got time. It’s so late it’s early again. I need to be back at the cake shop by four. I need to get the cronuts in.”
Beckett propped himself up on one elbow, fixing one sleepy eye on me. He yawned wide like a lion. “What time is it?”
“Three,” I answered. “I’ve got just about enough time to get home, get a shower, and make myself look presentable.”
“Well, we can multitask. Take your shower here.”
“Hmm. Any chance you’ll leave me alone so I can get a real one?”
He sat up and wiped the sleep from his eyes. Drowsy like this, he had an irresistible boyish charm. In some ways, that’s what he was. A lost boy. His physical scars ran deep, but I was also learning he had others I couldn’t see. Twice, he’d cried out in the night as if someone were holding him down and he couldn’t breathe. When I asked him about it, he said he couldn’t remember. And he didn’t want to. So I’d held him close, wrapping my legs around him until his hammering pulse slowed and he fell back asleep.
I wondered if he’d ever fully tell me about the horrors he’d seen as a SEAL. I knew a little. He’d served in Afghanistan. He’d been part of a team sent in to rescue an American doctor being held hostage by the Taliban. When he told me the name, I went online and found an article. It was vague with details, but of the eight men on his team, only three had come home. The article said there had been an ambush and two men from his platoon had been captured, four others killed. There was no mention of what happened after that but I knew it’s what haunted Beckett’s eyes when he didn’t think I was looking.
He told me bits and pieces. But each time, his eyes grew dark and his body went stiff. He wasn’t ready to tell me all of it. Maybe he would never be. And I felt guilty. How could I ask him to tell me about the darkest, most secret parts of himself if I wasn’t willing to tell him mine?
“We got Brady and Henson out. But we lost our L.P.O. Connor died and maybe I should have.”
I’d kissed his shoulder and held him close, sensing how hard it was for him to say even that much. “It wasn’t your day to die,” I had said. “That’s all there is to it. It’s selfish maybe, but I’m so very glad you didn’t.”
Beckett took my words, but changed the subject quickly. It was enough. He would tell me the rest or not in his own time.
This morning, he followed me to the shower. He’d built a huge, walk-in one with a teakwood bench and four jets. I moaned with pleasure as Beckett came behind me and worked shampoo through my hair.
“If you ever want to ditch the sheriff gig, you could do that for a living.” I sighed. His fingers were magic as he massaged my scalp. He slid his hands from my hair around the front until he cupped my breasts. As I leaned back against him, I felt the rigid outline of his cock. Even after the night we shared, I was ready for him again.
We had to be careful. He’d brought no protection into the shower. For what Beckett had in mind, we wouldn’t need it. He sat on the bench and brought me to him, turning me to face him. I gasped as he slid a hand between my legs and parted me. Then he worked his tongue over me, coaxing my nether lips apart. The water sluiced over me and I flattened my palms against the tile to stay upright.
God. He was good. He worked me until he had me throbbing and swaying on my feet. “Beckett!” I gasped as he plunged his tongue into me then fastened his lips on my swollen clit. I wouldn’t last. I couldn’t. I’d lost count of how many times this man had made me come. Still, new shudders of pleasure went through me as he drew me out once more.
Beckett gripped my ass, holding me steady as he swirled his tongue in and out. I threw my head back and screamed his name. The water pounded against my back. When I crested down, I let my body sink. Beckett stayed on the bench and I went to my knees.
Sliding one hand gently beneath his balls, I guided his cock into my mouth. He was warm and wet and hard. I kept my eyes on him. His sultry smile did me in as I worked him up and down, swirling my tongue to drive him mad with pleasure as he had just done for me.
“Lila,” he whispered. “God. Lila.”
I loved the way he said my name. I loved the taste and feel of him. He could wrap me in his strong arms and make me feel safe. For those brief moments when it was just the two of us, I could almost shut out the rest of the world. There was just us. Just this. Just heaven.
I tasted his tang as he twitched in my mouth. Lapping up each drop, Beckett’s eyes rolled in the back of his head. He coiled his fingers around my hair then brushed the water from my eyes.
“Baby. My God. Baby.”
As Beckett softened in my mouth, I finally pulled away. He hooked his hands beneath my elbows and helped me rise. There was just enough room on the shower bench for me to straddle his lap. Reaching up, he smoothed my hair back and smiled up at me.
“I don’t want to leave,” he said.
“I know what you mean.”
No sooner had he said it than the water started to run cold. We’d been in so long we’d blown through his hot water tank. Laughing, I shivered. Beckett reached up to turn off the jets.
“Mmm,” he said. “I think I like you this way.” He gently flicked my nipples. They’d grown about an inch long from the cold. He leaned down and swirled his tongue around each. Gooseflesh covered me.
Beckett finally stepped around me and grabbed a lush, cotton towel, wrapping it around me gently.
“You’re a bad influence,” I said, my teeth chattering.
“I think it’s the other way around.”
He went into the other room. It was early for him, but I knew neither of us could go back to sleep. I wrapped the towel around my hair and found my clothes. I had one item in just about every room. I found my jeans last and when I picked them up, my phone vibrated in the back pocket.
Beckett was in the kitchen, brewing a pot of coffee. He sang badly to a country song as he tapped on his music player. He wore only a towel slung low around his hips. Would I ever get tired of watching this man?
When I checked my caller ID, my heart sank. It was Tommy. The phone was still ringing and I had three other missed calls from him. With Beckett preoccupied, I answered. Pressing my ear to the phone, I waited for Tommy to say something.
“Enjoy your night?” he said.
Damn him. I walked to the back porch, opening the slider. Beckett hadn’t yet noticed me on the phone. He’d hit the chorus and swayed to the music.
“Make it quick,” I said.
“Careful, little sister. You’ve been naughty.”
I wanted to reach through the phone and strangle him. “What do you want, Tommy?”
“Sorry to interrupt your little date. I gotta hand it to you though, when you commit to something, you really commit. How many nights in a row is it now?”
My cheeks flamed. “It’s none of your business.” Though as soon as I said it, I knew I was walking right into it with him.
“As it happens, you know it is. You’re welcome, by the way. If you’d just do what you’re told more often, you might find it works out for you as well as this has. I mean ... you must be enjoying yourself. Who’d have figured a stiff like Beckett Finch could keep you coming back for more?”
“Shut your mouth, Tommy. If you have something to tell me, then say it. I’m not interested in your vulgar bullshit.”
“Oh, keep your panties on, Mata Hari. Er ... wait …” He laughed at his stupid joke, waiting to get a rise out of me.
“Oh,” he finally said. “I just wanted to remind you to expect a visit from Damon and the boys today. By all accounts, our little arrangement is working out nicely. He’ll have a little something extra for you. Call it a finder’s fee. Though maybe you already got your bonus.”
I hated him. It burned white hot through me. He was taking what I had with Beckett and turning it into something that suited him. And in one breath, I knew he could end it for me with one phone call. If Beckett ever found out who I was …
Tears stung my eyes. I pushed them back. Becke
tt’s singing had quieted. I looked over my shoulder. He was coming toward me, smiling. I held up a finger and gestured toward the phone.
“I can’t talk right now. Don’t call me again. I know what I promised.”
“Good.” Tommy’s voice dropped his syrupy, condescending tone and turned cold. “I’m going to hold you to it. It’s in my interest for you to keep Beckett Finch happy for now. So you keep doing what you’re doing and we won’t have any problems.”
“Leave Beckett out of it. He’s got nothing to do with you.”
“He’s got everything to do with you, Lila. For now, that makes him useful. But that could change depending on you. If you want to keep enjoying it with him, keep Damon happy. And if I hear rumors that you tried to skip town again, things are going to take a turn for the worse for your new boyfriend.”
My heart went cold. He knew. Of course he’d known. Tommy Kelly was nothing if not true to his word. I’d been stupid to think he didn’t have eyes on me every second. My skin flared hot with the idea that he had someone watching me right now.
“Everything okay?” Beckett came out and slipped an arm around my waist. I held my hand over the speaker and smiled up at him.
“All good. Just a supplier. I’ve got to get back to the shop though.”
“Nice recovery.” Tommy laughed on the other end of the phone. “You just make sure you keep him distracted. Sounds like you’ve been doing a bang-up job so far.”
I wanted to murder him through the phone. I kept the smile plastered on my face. “Thanks,” I said. “I’ll talk to you next month.” I clicked off the call and turned to Beckett.
Something flashed in his eyes as I let him take me fully into his arms. He wasn’t stupid. He knew there was something about that call that upset me. As much as I hated feeling controlled, I went up on my tiptoes and kissed him hard to chase his doubts away.
God help me, I was playing right into my brother’s hand.
Chapter Fourteen
Beckett
It should have scared me how easily I fell back into old patterns, old training. Like a chameleon, I could slip in and out without being seen. A casual word, a quick glance, to anyone else it would mean nothing. But I knew. I always knew.
Adrenaline coursed through me as I itched to take a position across from Lila’s shop. This crossed every boundary. A violation. She deserved her privacy. Except there was too much at stake now.
And she’d been lying to me.
I could read her lips across the room as she took the phone call yesterday morning. A dozen tiny little cues tipped me off. Things anyone else would miss. Tiny, nearly imperceptible beads of sweat on her brow. Her eyes had flicked back and forth, transmitting her fear. Whoever had been on the other end of that phone had wanted something from her she didn’t want to give. And she’d tried way too hard to play it off as nothing to me.
My guts twisted as I kept driving past her shop. I could see her from the window, freshening the coffee of patrons at the counter. There was a car parked three blocks away that drew my eye. Massachusetts plates again. I committed the numbers to memory and pulled my cruiser down a side street. I could still see straight through Lila’s front window. She had three men in suits sitting at the counter. The same three I’d seen there a couple of weeks ago. Out-of-towners.
About to crawl out of my damn skin, I called her. I don’t know what I hoped to accomplish, but I had to hear her voice. She answered her cell on the third ring, her voice bright as she talked through a smile.
“Hey, baby,” I said. “Just wondered if your day’s going as slow as mine.”
She cleared her throat. “It’s going. A few regulars trickled in this morning but that’s about it.”
She was talking to me, but distracted. That shouldn’t have bothered me. Again, she was lying. The shop had all but cleared out except for the three suits. Lila stood in front of them. She was too far away for me to make out her facial expression, but her posture was stiff and straight. They were watching her.
“They’re all cleared out now?” I asked. I reached over and pulled a pair of high-powered binoculars out of my glove box. Through them, I could see every detail of Lila’s face in high definition.
“Yep,” she answered, staring straight at the three men. Why the hell was she lying? From my vantage point, I could only see their backs. The biggest one wore a gray suit stretched tight through the shoulders. He was a muscle head. The steroid-enhanced kind. I knew the type. He probably worked as a bouncer somewhere, or a bodyguard. So what the hell was he doing in Lila’s shop, making her nervous? It took everything in me not to march in there and throw him across the counter.
“You sure you’re all right?” I asked. “You sound a little tense.”
“I’m fine. Just tired.” She smiled and a genuine blush crept onto her face. “Something kept me up all night.” She lowered her voice and turned her back to the three suits. Even now, my dick tightened. Visions of the things we’d done besides sleep flashed through my mind at the same time it did hers.
“Things are slow,” I said, testing her. “I was just on my way downtown. Got a fresh cup of coffee for me?”
Lila’s eyes widened. “You shouldn’t!” She said it quickly, blurting it.
“Something wrong?”
“Oh. No. It’s fine. I was just about to go in the back and get caught up on some things. I just ... it’s not a great time. I can’t give you my undivided attention.”
Bile rose in my throat. She was handling me. Poorly. Whatever was going on, she damn well didn’t want me around while her three mystery men were there. She made some flimsy excuse and told me she had to go.
My guts churning, I squeezed the phone in my hand. I knew what I had to do. I pulled out of the shade of the magnolia trees and headed back to the station.
As I walked into the office, Ramona’s temp had her back to me, leafing through a policy manual on her desk. Her name was Kimmie. She was nice enough, just out of college with a criminal justice major. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that was about the most useless degree someone could get if they wanted to pursue law enforcement.
“Good afternoon, Chief,” Kimmie said, smiling.
I took my hat off. “I’m not chief of anything, Kimmie. Deputy Finch is fine. Beckett is even better.”
“R-right. Got it.” Kimmie’s face turned crimson and she stuck her nose back in the policy manual. I think Crane had given it to her to keep her from following him around like a puppy.
Crane. He’d been avoiding me for days. Ever since our conversation about Lila. My stomach churned thinking about it. I hadn’t been fair. If our roles were reversed and he’d been seeing her, I would have said the exact same things to him. Of course, even the fleeting idea of Lila with anyone else had me wanting to punch a damn hole in the wall. This was bad. Catastrophic, maybe. And it meant I was probably walking right into a trap where she was concerned. Not probably. It was a certainty.
Too many things didn’t add up. I could sit back and try to be objective. Sure, the first break-in in the history of Garnett’s Treasures happened just weeks after Lila opened her shop. She’d been cagey about her background, but so was I. If the last hour hadn’t happened, there were plenty of other things that should have set off warning bells. The phone calls she tried to keep from me, the black Mercedes with out-of-town plates. My throat ran dry. I knew in my heart I was doing the exact thing Garnett Morris accused me of. I was thinking too much with my cock where Lila Kelly was concerned.
Crane walked in. He had a ready smile and a boyish blush when he laid eyes on Kimmie. Damn. She was way too young for him. Kimmie stammered something in response to his question and I realized there was something going on between them right under my nose. How many more things could I miss?
Crane caught my eye, cleared his throat and made some awkward small talk with Kimmie. I waved him over and ordered him to shut my office door behind me. As he took a seat, I felt like I was going to be sick. There were a
nswers to all my questions right there in the ether. Only I knew I would hate every one of them.
“I need your help with something today,” I said. “And I need your word you’re going to keep it just between us.”
I didn’t really need Crane for what I had in mind. But I owed it to him. He was the closest friend I had in Crystal Falls and I didn’t let too many people in. More than anything, I knew I couldn’t be objective about what I needed. Crane would keep me honest.
“Lila,” I finally said. “I need to know everything there is to know about her.”
Crane’s face grew serious. He flicked his eyes away from mine and my heart sank. He already knew. Dammit.
“Boss,” he said. “I’m sorry. I figured you’d bite my head off if you knew I was already looking into her. I was working up to telling you. Trying to make sure everything checked out and all.”
I sat back hard in my chair and rubbed my chin. It felt like my heart had seized and stopped pumping blood. I was hollowed out, suspended in time. Part of me wanted to thank Crane. Another part wanted to strangle him.
“You’ve already got a file started, haven’t you?” I asked.
Crane picked at a piece of lint on his trousers. “Yeah. Yeah, boss.”
“Get it.”
His eyes snapped back to mine. Swallowing hard, he gave me a slow nod and got up from his chair. I buried my face in my hands as Crane walked out the door and went to his desk. He said something to Kimmie that made her grow serious and nod. No way Crane had clued her into any of this. He’d probably just told her to make sure we weren’t disturbed.
He came back in and locked the door behind him. Clutching an orange file folder to his chest, he sat back in the chair across from my desk. It almost looked like he thought that damn file was a shield, protecting him from whatever rage he expected from me. I felt no rage though, only numbness.
“You might as well just tell me the highlights,” I finally said.
Crane loosened his grip on the file then set it on my desk. “She’s not lying,” Crane said. “I mean ... she’s Lila Kelly. That’s her real name.”
