She was almost there, almost completely boneless and devoid of thoughts of anything except how she wanted to spend the coming night—in Rowan’s arms—when she heard footsteps crunching in the sand and felt instant coolness on her face as a shadow fell over her.
She opened her eyes. Rowan stood above her, staring down at her, but not wearing that sexy, mischievous smile she’d already grown to adore.
Trying to moisten her suddenly dry mouth, she swallowed and licked her salty lips. She had hoped to see him today, but she’d thought it would be later. That she’d have a chance to wash her hair, to put on something sexy and prepare to seduce and be seduced. Instead, here, she was sweaty, sandy, windblown, and smelled of coconut.
“So what’s up?” she asked, pretending she wasn’t a complete mess.
“Hope you’re wearing sunscreen. It might be too cool to swim, but you can still burn.”
“SPF 50 and plenty of it,” she said with a grin.
He didn’t return it. Whatever was going on, it had definitely affected his mood.
“Um, what are you doing here?”
“I need to talk to you.”
He had that serious tone. The cop voice. Not the cold, aloof stranger one he used to try to put up barriers between them, but the professional, no-nonsense one he used when on the job.
The first tinge of genuine disquiet pinged in her brain.
Maybe this wasn’t a social call. Perhaps it was a professional one.
She shimmied up into a sitting position, scooting over on the blanket to make room. He took the seat she offered, stretching out his long, powerful, jean-clad legs beside hers.
“You don’t have your phone with you,” he murmured.
“No. I left it at home. I know I shouldn’t have, but frankly, I was desperate to disconnect this afternoon. Why?”
He was staring out at the water. “Your agent called me. She’s been trying to reach you.”
She could tell by his tone that he hadn’t sought her out to tell her Candace had sold her next book at auction for seven figures.
“What is it, Rowan?” she asked, reaching over and putting a hand on his leg.
“I have news.” He dropped his hand over hers, squeezing tightly, as if bracing her for what was about to come. “You’re not going to like it.”
She stilled, thoughts whirling, and then the truth slammed into her brain. “Angstrom?”
Rowan nodded, still looking out at the waves crashing against the beach. Nobody was in the water, only two or three sun worshippers lying anywhere in sight, but even in this vast, empty space, Evie felt the world crowding too close, rushing in, suffocating her. She hauled in a deep breath, fighting off a chill that had nothing to do with the November breeze.
“He’s getting a new trial?” she managed to whisper.
Rowan nodded.
She let out a little sound of dismay that might have been a half shriek, but she would call a gasp. Rowan, thoughtful as always, grabbed a bottle of water from the small cooler she’d brought down, opened it, and pressed it into her hands. She sipped greedily, wanting the claustrophobic sensation to disappear, especially since it made no sense at all. She was in a huge open space, in the bright sunlight, with the wind in her hair and salty spray on her bare skin.
So why did she feel like she was the one who’d just been tossed into a prison cell, the door slamming behind her with a deafening clang?
“I guess somebody in the DA’s office finally thought about you and contacted your agent to try to get ahold of you.”
“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,” she whispered as she handed back the bottle. “Blair’s parents…the other victims’ families. Let this be a bad dream. Let me wake up.”
“I’m so sorry, Evie,” Rowan said, putting an arm around her and pulling her against his side. She curled up close, burrowing into him, taking his warmth, his strength, and his goodness. When so saturated in ugly crimes and evil minds, she sometimes forgot that there were genuinely decent, caring, honorable men out there.
She was very glad to have found one, and she hoped that the attraction that had flared so suddenly between them was already turning into something else. It certainly was on her part.
She’d been incredibly appreciative of him the moment they’d met. She’d been incredibly attracted to him the moment she’d calmed down and really looked at him later that night.
She’d wanted him as soon as they’d kissed at his brother’s place.
In the days since, she’d gotten to know the real man, and everything she’d already been feeling exploded exponentially. Yes, he’d driven her crazy with that wall of never-gonna-trust-you that he’d erected early on. But even with that wall, she’d gotten to know the real Rowan. The kindhearted one who was so gentle when shaking a sick man’s pained hands. The smart one who had believed what she told him and agreed to help her on this very tricky case. The loyal one who so obviously loved his family, living and dead. The good-natured one who was able to laugh at himself and make her laugh with him. The one who was scared of spiders but not of snakes, who hummed off-key to the car radio.
The sexy one who kissed like she was the most perfect thing in the world and he wanted only to be lost in her mouth forever.
“Oh, Rowan,” she whispered, shaking her head slowly.
“I’ve got you, honey,” he whispered as he stroked her hair. “I’ve got you, and I’ll do anything you need me to do to help you get through this.”
She pulled away enough to look up in his handsome face. He pushed his sunglasses up so he could meet her stare, and the warmth she saw there, the compassion, the concern, the emotion, was enough to calm her completely. Her heart stopped thudding, her stomach stopped churning, and her thoughts stopped skittering.
She drew in a few calming breaths, sucked up warmth from the man beside her, and focused on the bright and sunny now, not the dark and bloody then.
She was not the same woman she had been. Not by a long shot.
As a frightened twenty-two-year-old, she’d faced Angstrom in his shop even after she’d begun to suspect he had slaughtered her best friend.
She’d faced him again in a courtroom, when she’d been only a little older than that, still terrified, with nightmares and anxiety that held her in a relentless grip and nightmares that woke her with screams filling her mouth every night.
Now, though, she was no longer a new college grad who’d barely started living in the real world. She was a thirty-year-old professional with several books under her belt, a New York Times bestseller in front of her name, and the confidence to know she could make a difference.
Plus determination. A whole lot of it that far outweighed any residual fear of the monster who’d shaded most of her adult life with his vicious presence.
He’d been the monster in the closet, the terror of her dreams, the creak in the night, the evil grin in the crowd, the hand emerging from the darkness.
But no more. No longer.
She wasn’t afraid of him. She couldn’t be, not when faced with the possibility that he might actually get out of prison. She would find whatever strength it took to keep Blair’s killer right where he was. Forever.
“What can I do, Evie?”
She slowly rose to her knees, and he came up with her. The breeze blew her hair into her eyes and her thin dress hard against her legs. The salty ocean spray landed on her lips and her eyelashes, and she wished it was warm enough to go swimming. “Go for a walk with me?”
He smiled gently. “I’d like that.”
They left the blanket and the cooler. Nobody was around; she didn’t think anybody would be interested. She slipped her sandals off and carried them, walking barefoot with him a few feet from the lapping edge of the surf with its white foam breaking on the sand.
They held hands. It wasn’t something they discussed; he simply reached out and took hers between one stride and the next. She twined her fingers between his, and they walked in silence, heading away from the few
people on the beach, toward a rocky curve in the coastline where the surf pounded wildly and where even no surfers would dare to try catching a wave.
It suited her mood. The wildness of it. The coolness of the wind, the crash of the waves, the whistle of the breeze through the rocks. There were no swimmers, no joggers, and no sunbathers. No boats in the water or planes in the sky or mansions up on the cliff. It was a self-contained little world, as darkly dramatic as it had been for hundreds of years, she imagined.
Here there was no anxiety. No serial killer to think about, no book to write, no confusion about how she could go on living when the past kept trying to reach out and grab her.
There was just wild beauty, and the man walking beside her. They went around the base of the cliff, onto a small stretch of beach surrounded by high cliffs, where the wind whistled and blew more wildly, and the surf roared.
She moved closer to him, and he slid an arm around her waist. “Are you okay, Evie?”
“I’m fine.”
“Not too cold?”
“No. Actually, I love this weather.” She stopped, turned toward the water, closed her eyes, and lifted her face toward it. Breathing deeply, she inhaled all that clean air, liking the sensation of cold droplets landing on her skin, making her feel…alive.
Completely alive.
After a second, he asked, “How about emotionally. You all right there too?”
She looked up at him. “I am. I’ve been dreading that news for a while, but now that it’s come, I can stop worrying about it and start moving into the I-can-do-this phase.”
Cupping her cheek, he murmured, “Yes, you can. And I’ll help you in any way possible.”
“Why would you do that?” she asked, genuinely wanting to know. “You’ve known me for less than a week.”
“I know enough,” he told her with a simple shrug. “I know I’ll rip apart anyone who messes with you, and I’ll fight whoever I have to in order to keep you safe.” He leaned down and brushed his lips across hers. “I know you’re special. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
If there was any remaining anxiety flowing through her, it melted under the vow he’d just made. She hadn’t asked him to. She would never ask anyone to put her first, to think only of her safety, her needs. But the fact that he’d just made that promise made something inside her melt.
She was used to being on her own now, accustomed to taking the bull by the horns and doing what needed to be done, whether it was interviewing a murderer on death row or fighting for a better contract. But this…his gentle strength and support just offered because that was the kind of man he was made her want to give up everything about herself, to get lost in his strength, his tenderness, and his warmth.
Dropping her shoes, she snaked her arms around his shoulders, tunneling her fingers in his short, dark hair. She leaned into him, rose on her tiptoes, and whispered, “Thank you.” Then she touched her lips to his, sweetly, underscoring her thanks.
He dropped his hands to her hips. Circling her waist, he gently stroked the small of her back as he licked her lips apart, then slid his tongue between them. She sighed, tilting her head to deepen the kiss, savoring the slow strokes as he explored her mouth.
They’d walked by a few people on the beach. But right here, right now, in this special, wild little cove, where she felt sheltered from the storm swirling all around her, and inside her, nobody else even existed anymore.
For all the crazy feelings she’d had about the man since he’d literally rescued her from a violent attack, Evie hadn’t expected that it would be pure tenderness and emotion that would finally bring them together. But it was. Without saying a word, without even ending the kiss, they slowly reached for each other’s clothes.
He slid her loose, flowy dress off her shoulders and Evie let it fall to the sand with her shoes. Rowan looked down at her, his eyes growing darker as his gaze lingered on her breasts pushing up over the top of her bra, her bare waist, and her plain bikini underwear.
She wasn’t dressed like the Victoria’s Secret model she’d planned for tonight. But judging by the way his breaths sped up, his eyes turned into dark pools of hunger, and his hands actually shook as he touched her, she suspected it didn’t matter much.
“You are beautiful,” he muttered, stroking her from her shoulders, down her front, his fingertips riding lightly across her skin. Her skin was goose bumped with cold, but just the faint scrape of his fingers set her on fire. When he reached her cleavage, he continued that light, easy glide, not giving her the pressure she wanted, leaving her nipples aching for attention and making her want to rip off the last of her clothes.
She didn’t need to worry about it. Without a word of warning, he moved his fingers to the front clasp of her bra, flicked it, and the thing fell apart, freeing her breasts. A tiny shrug of each shoulder and the lacy thing landed on the sand with her dress.
“Christ,” he groaned as he pulled her back against him.
He caught her mouth again, and this time there was no hesitation. Their tongues met and mated, pushing and pulling, taking and giving. There were no more questions, only answers. No more hesitation, only sweet, sultry desire.
The feel of her bare breasts brushing against his shirt made her feel weak. Her nipples ached at the sweetly rough scrape that simply wasn’t enough. She wanted skin on skin, wanted to become part of him, to wrap herself around him and bring him into her body.
Evie tugged his shirt free of his jeans, pulling away from his kiss long enough to push it up and off. Reaching for his belt, she unfastened it and unbuttoned his jeans. But rather than going on the way she was dying to, rather than freeing that thick ridge she could feel pushing up toward her fingers, she just had to step back and look at him the way he had looked at her.
So she did. And her breath whooshed out of her lungs at the sight of him.
His body was beyond her wildest dreams of what a man could look like. Rowan was broad and strong, she knew that. But he was also just beautiful. A work of art in physical form, all rippling muscles, taut skin, and raw masculine power. Just enough dark hair swirled over his chest, and down a perfectly formed six-pack, trailing in a thin line down…down. She couldn’t help following the trail with her gaze, noting how lean-waisted and slim-hipped the man was. His unbuttoned jeans had slid down a little, revealing a glimpse of dark cotton underneath the bulged that strained for release.
“You looked enough?”
“I don’t think I could ever get tired of looking at you,” she swore, knowing it was true.
He stopped her heart, made her mouth water, and made her wet just by standing there.
“Come ’ere,” he said, reaching for her waist and pulling her back into his arms. Evie stroked his thick shoulders, then caressed her way down his hard chest, delighting in the textures of his body and the heat of his skin. He moved his mouth to her face and skimmed her jaw, her cheek, and her lips. He nipped, he tasted, he gave her crazy-sweet kisses that made her quiver.
While she tangled her fingers in the wiry hair on his chest, he delicately felt his way from the sides of her neck down each of her arms, the tips of his fingers barely touching her, providing just enough pressure to drive her mad with the need for more. Then he moved lower, kissing his way down her throat, to its hollow, where he stopped to take a deep breath, as if inhaling her very essence. Evie arched back, offering herself to him. When he lowered his mouth to the curves of her breasts and tasted them, she moaned. He was holding her around the waist, supporting her weight, and she leaned back, silently begging for more.
“So beautiful,” he mumbled as he caressed her soft breasts, arousing her more by the very spots he was avoiding.
“Please, more,” she whispered.
“No problem.” He finally stroked her nipple that was puckered with cold and with heat, but mostly with heat.
“Oh yes,” she groaned as he caressed her, squeezed her, lifting his other hand to her other breast to continue to play with he
r. When he bent to lick at the top curve of one breast, she moaned. And when that mouth moved to the very tip and sucked, she lost her strength and fell back.
He caught her, his powerful arms slowly lowering her to the damp sand. He came with her, kneeling between her bare legs, staring down at her with a hunger so obvious it was almost a physical, tangible thing that existed outside both of them. It was matched by her own need, and she knew they were creating something altogether new, this mating of want and hunger forming an invisible connection that she felt down to her toes.
“Are you all right?” he asked as he stroked her hips and her thighs. “It’s cold and not very comfortable. It might kill me, but we could get dressed and go back to your place.”
“If you do that, I might kill you.”
He smiled, then reached for his zipper. She watched him tug it down, having to swallow as her mouth flooded with actual hunger for him.
“I want this so much. I have since the night we met,” she admitted.
“Me too.”
Before pushing his jeans off his hips, Rowan reached into the pocket and pulled out a condom. The sight of it shocked her for a second. She’d never in her life forgotten protection, but she had today. It was a very good thing he had remembered.
Tossing the condom on the sand, he shoved the jeans and undershorts down, and Evie gasped, closed her eyes, and then opened him again.
She trembled. She twisted. She gaped.
She should have known. Of course she should have.
He was, after all, big and powerful everywhere else.
“I want you so much, Rowan Winchester,” she managed to say, still staring at that big, powerful erection jutting out from a thatch of dark hair.
“Same, Evelyn Fleming.”
But rather than put the condom on and take her, Rowan instead kissed his way down her body, gliding his tongue across each rib. He dipped in to taste her belly button, scraping his bearded jaw against the elastic of her underpants. His warm breaths were a shocking contrast to the cool air rolling in off the water, and she quivered and arched toward him, wanting what he obviously intended to give her with a desperation that bordered on frenzy.
Wanting You Page 20
