by Addison Fox
“I think I have a way to cut those deep thoughts off for a while.”
He smiled at her, the moment more precious than he ever could have imagined.
He loved this woman. With everything he was, he loved her. Her warmth. Her loyalty. Her spirit of dedication to her work. Those and so many other facets he’d seen over the past week fascinated and enticed, drawing him ever closer into her orbit.
So why the indecision in telling her his feelings?
He cared. More than he’d ever imagined he could.
And although his thoughts as he looked at her had immediately filled with images of them making love, they morphed, grew more expansive. The physical was one part of what they shared, yet he saw so much more when he looked at her.
Felt so much more when he was with her.
He knew it wasn’t a mirage.
Yet he couldn’t struggle past the scars of his youth to actually put his feelings to words.
So he pushed everything he felt into the physical and hoped it was enough. Hoped she understood that everything he was or would ever be was for her.
As if in unspoken agreement, she fisted his shirt in her hands, dragging it up and over his head with swift fingers. A warm smile danced between her lips and her eyes were tempting and so full of promise.
He tried to keep up but she’d already danced out of his reach, dragging the sun dress she wore up her body and over her head as fast as she’d removed his shirt. The dress floated to the floor at his feet but he barely noticed, his attention fully focused on the naked woman standing before him. “You’re... I mean...”
“Naked?”
One lone eyebrow quirked above the rich blue of her eyes before she lifted up on her tiptoes and nipped at his lip. “Cat got your tongue, Mr. Buchanan?”
He knew he was about three paces behind her—and reveled in the slightly befuddled haze that had drained nearly all thought from his mind—but he also wasn’t a man to waste an opportunity.
Quick as a flash, he slipped out of his shoes, then dropped his jeans and briefs in one fell swoop.
“Ah. I see we’re on the same page now.”
He laughed at her words before he dragged her against his body. The wild, uncontrolled, unrelenting need for her nearly had his knees buckling before he caught himself. He boosted her up so her legs wrapped around his waist and captured one pert nipple between his teeth, just because he could.
She pressed herself into his mouth and his pleasure downshifted into primal satisfaction when she moaned low in her throat.
Any thought of taking things slow vanished at that delicious moan and he pushed them both on, flipping their positions so her back was against the door. She splayed her hands over his shoulders and positioned herself over him, then tightened her legs around his waist for leverage.
And then she began to move.
Pure ecstasy swept through him at the joining of their bodies. Their mouths met again and again, full of a desperate desire to ride the moment for all it was worth.
The play of their tongues—a sensual give-and-take—mimicked the hard, driving needs of their bodies. Tucker kept his hands tight at her waist, guiding their motion while supporting them both.
And quickly felt the moment spin out of his control.
Raw need.
Elemental hunger.
And a desperate yearning for all she could give him and more.
It was one of the most powerful moments of his life.
Enraptured, Tucker breathed her in, her name a rough whisper dragged from his throat. “Cassidy.”
And when he heard her cries grow more urgent, signaling her release, there were no more words.
Only the glorious act of falling with her.
* * *
Tucker reached for Cassidy to pull her close and came up with nothing but a handful of bedsheet. Coming awake in an instant, he sat up and scanned the room. It was dark, but faint light drifted from her second bedroom along the hallway. Since he didn’t see Bailey where he’d slept beside the bed on a soft pillow Cassidy had given him, Tucker figured where he found one of them he’d find the other.
He followed the sliver of light in the hall and pushed open the door to the room.
And found Bailey asleep at her feet while she sewed a long length of material.
He took the moment to watch her, pleased to stand and look his fill. She’d pulled all her fiery hair up in some sort of messy twist that drew the eye. From there, he followed the long column of her neck, then over her slender shoulders, clad in a thin tank top.
Unbidden, a memory long buried rose up in the back of his mind. His grandmother kept a painting in her room of a young woman in her bath, glorying in the early-morning light. As a young boy he’d been fascinated by the picture, until the day his brother had found him and teased him, ruining the painting for him.
“Quit being a perv, Tuck. You can’t even see her fully naked.”
He whirled, surprised at the voice and the sneer he heard under Scott’s words. He didn’t even know what that word meant—perv?—but he didn’t like the way it sounded when Scott said it. “I am not.”
“Sure you are. What are you doing? Camping out in here to look at the naked woman? Come on. Dad wants us downstairs for the football matchup with Cousin Dell’s kids.”
Tucker hated football but he didn’t dare say it out loud.
Scott played football therefore he had to play football. And go sit in the bleachers on Friday nights and scream for Scott. And spend all Saturday morning after the game having breakfast in town so everyone could come up and congratulate Scott on how great he played while his old man glowed like a lightbulb.
He’d rather be anywhere else.
“Tucker?”
His vision cleared only to be filled with Cassidy, concern filling her eyes, turning them a warm blue. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Sure. I’m fine.”
“You looked so far away.”
And he had been. He might have been standing with her but in his mind he was that eight-year-old boy, still angry and frustrated by everything he couldn’t have.
And everything he wasn’t allowed to be.
“Something jogged a thought.”
“You want to talk about it?”
“No.” He dropped into a small love seat opposite her. “It was just silly. I saw you sitting there and it made me think of some dumb memory at my grandmother’s.”
If she was upset he didn’t share anything further, it wasn’t apparent. Instead, her smile was warm and her question sweet. “Did she sew?”
“I don’t know. I don’t—”
Maybe it was the lack of pushing or the subtle acceptance that he didn’t have to share every thought in his head, but before he could stop them, the words tumbled out.
The painting he’d loved. Scott’s cruel taunts, from an older brother to a young, impressionable one. And another afternoon of endless torture playing a sport he hated.
She sat next to him and took his hand in hers. The warmth of her fingers touched something inside him, chasing away the cold that had settled in his stomach at the retelling of a dopey old memory.
“Seems like we’ve churned up a few old ghosts over the past week.”
What were the odds? Most people his age hadn’t lost a sibling, yet both of them had, and they’d connected over that aspect of their lives. “It’s strange. I lost my brother and you lost your sister. And neither of us have very good memories of them.”
“Or anything to chase away the guilt over that fact.”
Did he feel guilty?
Although he wouldn’t have classified the emotion that way, now that it was out there, he realized there was some truth to the thought.
Scott had lost his life and in
the process—albeit a slow one—Tucker had gained his.
“I loved him. But I never had a bond with him.”
“That was me and Leah. Of course I loved her. She was my sister. But we never had a bond. And then once I met Vi and Lilah, I felt bad about that because I did have that relationship with them. And then she died and all those feelings sort of jumbled up into one big mess.”
“Max is my brother. I knew it from the first—he had my back and I had his. And then we went through enough situations where we had to have each other’s back and it was as natural as breathing.”
She rested her head against his shoulder and linked their fingers. “Maybe it’s time we stopped feeling guilty about something we’re immeasurably lucky to have.”
“Maybe so.”
* * *
Detective Graystone buried his head in his hands, a low moan of disgust punctuating the gesture. He had commandeered the front display area of Elegance and Lace, and his stiff pose was in stark contrast to the large, purple velvet chair he’d chosen. “Run this past me one more time?”
Max avoided a sigh—though Cassidy figured it was a close call—and launched into his story once more. “I took some of the jewels out of the case before I stowed it in the van.”
Max had told the detective the same story about five times and no matter how many different ways Graystone challenged him, the order of the telling never changed.
“And despite getting video cameras installed, no one saw anything on the video feeds to corroborate your story?”
Although Cassidy knew it was his job, it amazed her that the detective missed no detail. Left absolutely nothing uncovered.
Before she could say anything, Violet interjected. “Lilah and I watched the feeds back at Dragon Designs. We saw Max open the back door of the van and open the box. You can see him rummage through the box, shove something in his back pocket and then put the lid back on. What we can’t see, no matter how many times we run through the footage, is who came up to the van. We know he got in and out of the van but that’s all we can see.”
“Because he’s wearing a ski mask and sweatshirt in Dallas in August? And presumably shoved the box under the sweatshirt.”
“Yes.” Lilah nodded. “And when you watch it you can see he’d clearly staked out our cameras because he had to have put the mask on out of frame.”
The detective sighed, his mouth set in a grim line. “Whoever this guy is, he wasn’t stupid about it. He must have worn different clothes until he found a parking spot near here.”
“No cameras on any of the buildings nearby?” Violet asked.
“My officers are trying to track them but security is limited here. Nothing to reasonably follow someone traveling up or down the street. And you have a lot of buildings where the cameras are up for show, without actually capturing any footage.”
Cassidy knew they’d been the same with their building so she could hardly fault her neighbors. She knew some of the higher-end design firms had top-notch security, but the rest of the businesses were small firms with little to steal beyond a few laptops. Heck, if it hadn’t been for the break-in and Tucker’s insistence on better security they still wouldn’t have cameras at Elegance and Lace.
Of course, they hadn’t felt at risk up until now.
“Your landlord said her home was broken into by a masked man.” Graystone flipped through his notes, nodding when he found the one that corroborated the thought.
Cassidy appreciated the thorough attention to detail but her unease about Robert hadn’t diminished and she decided to go for broke. “There is one more lead you may want to look into.”
She recounted her experience with her former fiancé and his sudden interest in contacting her, then Violet. The detective scribbled several pages of notes before glancing back up, his gray gaze sharp. “I don’t suppose either of you have any intention of calling him back.”
“He is looking for our services,” Violet pointed out.
Violet might have nerves of steel but she was well matched by Detective Graystone. “Miss Richardson. While I appreciate you’ve lost several days of productivity at your business to this matter, do you honestly think Mr. Barrington’s call was a casual outreach?”
“It could be.”
“And you’d need to lose about a trillion brain cells to even remotely pull off that dumb look you’re aiming for.”
Violet’s wide-eyed stare narrowed, then considered him before she nodded, and Cassidy didn’t miss the grudging respect stamped there. “Fine. Robert Barrington could be the answer to drawing out whoever is behind this.”
Lilah reached for one of the cupcakes she’d laid out earlier on the oversize coffee table that sat in the middle of all of them. “I think the detective wants to take back what he said.”
“What’s that?” Violet asked.
“You really are that dumb.”
* * *
Cassidy stood at the security pad and hit Enter after punching in the code. She waved at Tucker and gave him a thumbs-up. As soon as he and Max were on their way back to their office—Tucker’s SUV getting smaller as it wove down Dragon—Cassidy whirled on her friends.
“What the hell is wrong with you two?”
“I had a good idea.”
“And we all discussed it and discarded it last night, Vi. We’re not drawing Robert out. Or whatever slimeballs he’s working with. We’re in over our heads and this isn’t some mystery novel or movie of the week. Someone’s after us and has tried to hurt us.”
“Which is why we need the detective’s help.”
Cassidy shook her head, refusing to believe Violet could be so stubborn about this. “It’s why we need to turn in the jewels and be done with this.”
“Don’t you get it?” Violet shot the words right back, her normally serene expression nowhere in evidence. “It’s too late. No one is going to believe us if we hand over the three jewels. There are always going to be rumors. Questions about whether we kept something. Those jewels are the only bargaining chip we have to draw out the person behind this.”
“And then do what? Kill him? Or them?” Cassidy never lifted her voice, but the words settled with the power of nuclear bombs. “Because that’s the currency these people deal in.”
No matter how she thought about it, that was the lone thing she came back to, over and over.
Her brother-in-law had made his choices and had been killed for them. They hadn’t fully figured out what he’d done, but he’d obviously had some information and had attempted to sell it to the same person Robert had.
“So what are we supposed to do? Leave ourselves open to further attack?” Violet reached for her cup of coffee, her eyes bleak. “I’m not suggesting drawing these people out because I have some death wish. Nor am I interested in keeping those jewels. But we have to protect ourselves and use whatever leverage we can. And as far as I’m concerned, the Dallas PD isn’t up to the task.”
“Reed’s been on our side. And he could have had a few kittens over the fact Max took those jewels at all,” Lilah pointed out.
Cassidy didn’t miss Lilah’s use of the detective’s first name, but her observation was quickly overridden by Violet’s dark tone. “Which I’m still mad at him for. Really mad.”
“So don’t let your hormones make your decision for you.”
Cassidy’s eyes widened in shock at Lilah’s bold statement, in lockstep with Violet’s.
“I’m... I mean...”
“Exactly.” Lilah nodded. “So what are we going to do? I agree with Cassidy that these people mean business and we’re foolish if we think we can best that. And I also agree with Vi. This can’t be over until it’s been dealt with. Greedy, nasty people assume everyone else operates from the same playing field.”
“Meaning what?” Violet’s chee
ks were still flush from the hormone comment, but her words were all business.
“We can say there are only three rubies but that doesn’t mean whoever’s after them will believe us,” Lilah said. “While someone obviously knows about the jewels buried in the floor, we don’t know if they know the full extent of what’s included.”
Cassidy reached out and took Lilah’s hand while Violet took the other. Their friend had lived with nasty and greedy and come out the other side.
So when she spoke once more, Cassidy and Violet listened.
“Here’s what we’re going to do.”
* * *
Robert’s stomach clenched hard over the sick, roiling waves that already danced there as the phone number appeared on the dashboard of his Mercedes. On a deep breath, he hit the controls on his steering wheel. “This is Barrington.”
“Robert.”
Cassidy’s voice drifted out of the speakers, enveloping him like the sweetest music. “It’s Cassidy Tate.”
The need to control—to dominate—leaped up and strangled every other emotion. “Took long enough.”
“I know.” She tsked lightly under her breath. “Violet and I were just talking about how much business we’ve been keeping up with. It does make for some busy days. How have you been?”
He suffered through the pleasantries—knew they were a requirement to make this come off as authentic— clawing his way through each and every word.
“So this is an exciting time for your family. Big Rob and Marjorie are celebrating their anniversary. What were you thinking of for the event?”
“Something small. Intimate.” Like he’d actually throw something for his parents. Two people who were as content to sit out in their garden at their postage stamp–size house as they were to go out to dinner.
“Then I know just the place. There’s a new event center—very boutique—down here in the Design District. We’ve begun recommending it for select events and have had some very pleased clients. What does your schedule look like early next week?”
