by Maggie Price
She rested her spine against his bare chest, then propped her head against his shoulder. “Nice cushion,” she murmured.
“Nice body,” he commented, wrapping his arms around her waist. Spooning, he thought, had never felt so good.
One of her hands rested on his. “Want to tell me about the dream?”
“No.”
“That was my answer earlier when you asked if I wanted to talk about my childhood. I wound up telling you because you said you’d like to know.”
He felt the soft tickle of her hair against his cheek, smelled its dark, sensual scent. “Are you trying to make this a quid pro quo deal?”
“You said you’ve had the dream before. That means something’s bothering you.” Just as he’d done earlier when he coaxed her to talk to him, she entwined her fingers with his. “I’d like to know what it is. To understand.” Her thumb glided over his knuckles. “To help, if I can.”
It was amazing, he thought, that the child raised by cold, distant parents had become a woman who put her time and her money into helping crime victims. Her down-to-earth basic kindness drew him with the same force as her compelling smile and sexy curves. Was it any wonder that with every layer he uncovered he felt even more intrigued? More intent on getting to the heart of who she was.
More determined to keep her in his life, which by his own design, had been solitary and emotionally sterile.
That he now found himself longing for something more hit him harder than any punch he’d ever taken. He was not going to be able to stay out of the quicksand with Allie Fielding.
That he had no clue how the hell to handle that was just one more thing to think about.
He curled his fingers around hers. “In the dream I’m back in prison, locked in my cell,” he began, intent on giving her a watered-down version. “The air is so thick and heavy I can barely breathe. I hear the clang of the door sliding shut, trapping me. I’m locked up again. With no way out.”
“That must be awful.”
“Not pleasant.” The wrenching sadness in her voice tightened his chest. “I figure someday it’ll stop. Until then, I spend a lot of time outside at night.”
“Have you thought about seeing a therapist? Someone who can try to figure out how to make the dream stop?”
“I’d rather do some more figuring out about you.”
She shifted her head to look up at him. “Didn’t my telling you about my childhood do that?”
“Not entirely.” It was his turn to slick his thumb across her knuckles. “You left off where your being a model daughter didn’t get your father’s attention. It’s my guess that by the time you got to college, you decided to change tactics. If sterling behavior couldn’t catch his eye, making waves might. And that wave-making young woman is who I crossed paths with.”
With her bottom nuzzled against his loins and her back plastered against his hard-as-granite chest, Allie’s system was already jittery. The steady glide of his thumb across her knuckles ramped up her nerves even more so that she had to struggle to focus on his words.
Oh, boy, she thought. Oh, boy. The ground was a lot shakier than she’d anticipated. Granted, the hot blood and frenzied passion of their first time together had rocked her world. But that dimmed in comparison with the tenderness he had shown her after that. The memory of the passion she’d felt in his touch, the soft words he’d whispered against her heated flesh had her body going weak all over again.
Surely everything inside her felt so intensified because of the emotional whirlwind that came from telling him about her past, not to mention sleeping with him.
Feeling vulnerable to this avalanche of unfamiliar feelings, she decided what she was dealing with was lust. Lust deluxe. Lust was something she could handle. Lust was manageable.
Lust did not rip out one’s heart.
“You’re right,” she said, forcing herself to focus on his last comment. “I stopped studying. Hung with a wild crowd and never missed a party. Chose totally inappropriate boyfriends. Spent lavishly on clothes, cars and jewelry.”
“Did any of that do the job?”
“Not in the way I wanted,” she said, feeling a distant, dull ache of regret. “When I got picked up for unpaid parking tickets, my father sent his attorney to deal with things. If I maxed out my credit cards, his accountant showed up. It didn’t matter what I did or how I acted, my father chose to deal with me from a distance.”
“And all you really wanted was him.”
“Yes.” She raised a shoulder. “Through it all, he continued having affairs, getting married, divorced. He didn’t even send word to me about his last marriage. I found out about it when I saw the announcement in the paper. Same thing goes for when he divorced that wife.”
“What about your mother? Did you ever hear anything about her?”
“Just that she died two years before my father.”
Rafe pressed a kiss against her hair. “I’m sorry.”
“So am I.” Pushing away the age-old regrets, she snuggled deeper into his arms. Against her bottom, she felt him harden. Her mouth curved. “So, Diaz, you’ve heard all about my past. Happy now?”
“Getting there.” The husky timbre of his voice reminded her of how it felt to lie in his arms, he inside her. The memory sent heat swarming into her blood.
“Better get there fast,” she murmured.
“I’ve got one more question.” His fingertips brushed against her throat when he nudged her hair back. “What happened to make the ultimate party-girl do an about-face? Must have taken something big for you to establish a foundation, start designing lingerie and open a shop.”
The question instantly cooled the fire in her blood. She scooted sideways so she could see his face. “You may not want to hear the answer.”
His forehead furrowed. “Why? Does it involve some guy?”
“It has to do with Nina. And what happened to you.”
She saw the shutter come down, leaving his expression unreadable. “I’m listening.”
“Her father worked for years as the gardener on our estate. That’s how Nina and I met and became best friends. The only times we weren’t together were the weekends she spent with her mother and stepfather. Nina and I told each other everything. At least I thought we did.”
Allie gathered Rafe’s hand in hers. “She never told me her stepfather molested her. If only she had, maybe she wouldn’t have repressed the memories. Never woken up that night, knowing she’d been raped, but naming you instead of her stepfather.”
Rafe’s gaze shifted to the dark, distant river. “I learned a long time ago that ‘if only’s’ are a waste of time.”
“They are,” Allie agreed quietly. “About six months after your trial, Nina started having nightmares. Over time, she drew into herself. Her grades took a nosedive.” Allie shook her head. “She was attending college on a full scholarship, and she just stopped going to class.
“One night, she paced the living room of our apartment for hours while she cried. She was literally falling apart before my eyes and I was terrified she would try to kill herself.”
Rafe’s gaze whipped back to meet hers. “Did she?”
“I didn’t give her the chance. I called my father and got the unlisted number of his golf buddy who was a big-time therapist. The doctor had a year-long waiting list for new patients, but I begged him to see Nina. I had to drag her to his office at first.
“After a while, he got her to join group sessions with other female crime victims. Nina asked me to go with her for support, so I did. The therapist saw how shaky she was, so he allowed me to sit in on the sessions, too. I sat and listened. Just listened. Some of the women struggled to just get through each day. For me, that was the final dose of reality. I started thinking about the direction my own life was headed. After a while, I accepted that no matter what I did, my father would never love me. That I was wasting time, energy and money trying to make the impossible happen.”
Allie eased out a breath.
Even now, she felt the relief that had come with that acceptance. “There were people who did need something I could give them and that was help. I was old enough to access the trust fund my grandmother set up for me. I used part of it to establish the Friends Foundation.”
She studied Rafe’s face, the hard geometry of his jaw. “So now you know everything about me.”
“What I know is, I owe my freedom to you.”
“I got Nina to the doctor. He helped her remember she’d been molested by her stepfather, not raped by you.”
“If she’d ended it all, she never would have made it to the doctor,” Rafe countered, his voice thick with the emotion she saw in his eyes. “And I’d still be in that cell.”
When she pressed her hand against his cheek, she felt the muscles in his jaw clench tight. “I’m so very glad you’re not.”
Rafe gathered her hand in his. Nothing she could have told him could have jolted him more. He had no clue how to deal with the emotions flooding through him, which made him feel unsteadier. So he did the only thing he could—pushed them aside. For now.
“I expect we’re both talked out.” He lifted their joined hands and pressed a kiss on the inside of her wrist. Against his mouth, he felt her pulse kick into high speed. “How about we don’t talk?”
“You have something else in mind?”
“Yeah.” He curled his free hand around the nape of her neck and tugged her closer while need for her crept into his bloodstream to stagger his heart. Lowering his head, he met her lips with his, let the kiss spin out until he was rock-hard and aching.
Her body shifted fluidly, her hands sliding up his bare chest to link at the nape of his neck. A purr sounded in her throat. “Want to take this into the bedroom?”
“Dammit,” he muttered as the practical side of him pinged a warning in his brain. “Dammit,” he repeated, and rested his forehead against hers.
“Is this your way of telling me you don’t want to go inside?”
He eased his head back. Her hair was mussed, her lips ripe and desire glimmered in her eyes. There was only one thing stopping him.
“I’m out of condoms.” It took a concerted effort to keep a groan out of his voice. “Do you by chance have some stored in your nightstand?”
“No.” She closed her eyes, eased out a frustrated breath. “Does it help to know I have this weird cycle so I’m on the pill?”
He was tempted, so very tempted to sweep her up and carry her into the bedroom. But the rules he’d established for himself, the control he’d honed over the last five years didn’t allow for slipups. Not to a man desperate to call the shots when it came to the direction his life took.
He stroked his palm down her hair. “We have two choices. One, I can hop in the car and go to that upscale convenience store at the entrance to your neighborhood.”
She twisted her mouth. “That will take ten minutes. Fifteen, maybe.”
“Option two.” He slid a hand beneath the white shirt and felt her shudder when his palm cupped her breast. “There’s more than one way to derive pleasure.” He dipped his head, nuzzled her throat. “Your choice.”
“Let’s see what’s behind door number two,” she said, then clamped her mouth on his.
For a man who had once believed he was dead inside, Rafe suddenly found himself dealing with a complex tangle of emotions. Trying to deal with them, he amended while using the back of his hand to swipe sweat and construction dust off his forehead. Problem was, excesses of emotion were not his forte, so he had no clue where to begin the untangling.
All he knew for sure was that Allie had disturbed the efficient peace he’d established in his life and he didn’t know what the hell to do about it. Didn’t know what he wanted to do.
Frowning, he positioned the tip of a drill bit in the center of the X he’d marked on the wall. He was a man who kept his promises and he’d decided today was as good as any to put in his volunteer labor at the small fixer-upper house owned by the Friends Foundation.
He’d held out a simple and steady hope that by immersing himself in sawdust-filled air and the whine of power tools he could get a handle on what was going on inside of him.
So far he’d installed four doorknobs, three towel rods and was in the process of hanging a medicine cabinet. He had yet to get anything figured out emotion-wise. That did not bode well because he had planned to have things figured out before he dropped by Allie’s shop to give her a report on Dena, the abused woman who’d called the foundation’s hotline.
His jaw tightened with the knowledge that if it were any other client, he would deliver his report over the phone. But, dammit, he wanted to see Allie. Touch her. Smell her.
And if it weren’t so freaking hot inside the small bathroom, his brain might kick in and start unraveling his problems. But the heat and air contractor wasn’t scheduled to show up until the following day, so Rafe figured he was out of luck.
The drill sent a low-pitched grinding noise through the steamy air as the bit ate into the Sheetrock. He pulled his measuring tape out of his tool belt, rechecked the distance he’d marked from the hole to the second X he’d penciled on the wall. The tape rewound with a snap just as his cell phone rang.
He pulled it off his tool belt, checked the display. Seeing Hank Bishop’s name had Rafe’s shoulders going stiff. He had followed up all leads on Mercedes McKenzie’s murder and gotten nowhere. Junior’s claim that he’d been with a woman that night had checked out. Ellen Bishop was still a big question mark, though. As was Joseph Slater, the man who’d lured Allie to her warehouse and tried to turn him into roadkill. If something didn’t shake loose soon, Rafe was certain his client would do time for killing his mistress.
“Diaz,” he answered, and leaned a hip against the sink.
“When I saw you at the vacant building, you told me to try to think about anything Mercedes might have done that was out of the ordinary,” Hank Bishop said. “Something that didn’t jibe.”
“You’ve thought of something?”
“I don’t know if it’s important or not, but a couple of weeks before the murder, I was at the condo with Mercedes. I got a call on my cell from a man who said he was interested in investing in the property in the Automobile Alley district that my company was working up a deal to purchase, then turn into condos and retail.”
“What specific property is that?”
“That’s just it—Guy and I aren’t looking to buy any property in Automobile Alley. I told the caller he’d gotten bad information. I hung up, then went to take a shower. When I got out, I opened the bathroom door to let the steamy air out, and caught a glimpse of Mercedes. She was sitting on the bed, scrolling through information on my cell. When she sensed my watching her, she tossed the phone aside, said it had rung, but the call had gone to voice mail before she could answer. That was strange to begin with, because she’d never answered my phone before.”
“Who called?”
“No one,” Bishop answered. “When I checked the phone later, no call had come in after the one from the investor with the bad information about the Automobile Alley property. It may mean nothing, but there must be some reason Mercedes lied when I caught her looking at the info in my cell.”
“Has to be,” Rafe agreed. “Just like there’s a reason she had recording equipment installed throughout the condo without ever telling you. We just haven’t uncovered those reasons yet.”
“I’m nervous, Diaz. If you don’t find out who killed Mercedes, I’m going to wind up on trial for her murder.”
“I’m working on it,” Rafe said. “I’ve got the copies your secretary made of your cell-phone bills at my office. If you can give me the date and approximate time the call came in, I’ll track down the potential investor. See where that leads.”
“Hold on while I look at my calendar,” Bishop said.
Rafe used his forearm to make another swipe at his sweaty forehead. He hoped to hell this led to something. If not, he’d be giving Hank Bishop tips
on how to survive in prison.
Allie stopped dead in her tracks the instant she spotted Rafe through the bathroom’s open door. The fact he was talking on his cell phone wasn’t the reason she didn’t make her presence known.
The sight of him wearing only worn jeans and a tool belt riding gunslinger low on his narrow hips was a prime example of raw male power. Standing there, she felt herself melting like butter in the heat.
Oh, God.
She didn’t have to guess how that broad, gleaming-with-sweat chest would feel beneath her hand, her cheek or her mouth. She remembered. Vividly.
She didn’t need to speculate about how it would feel if he slid that tough, honed body over hers, either. She remembered that vividly, too.
She didn’t need to wonder about the taste and texture of his mouth. She knew. Lord, did she know. Just looking at him turned her blood to steam. She’d never had such a visceral reaction to a man before.
Never been this close to falling in love.
If the sight of him hadn’t already brought her up short, that last random thought would have done it.
Oh, no. No. No. No. She had no clue where that had come from, but it was crazy. She was not falling into anything, much less love. Love made you stupid, vulnerable and unhappy.
Just then, Rafe ended his call and glanced into the bedroom. His gaze slid down her black tank top, dropped to her denim shorts, then slicked down her bare legs to her tennis shoes. It was as if his eyes touched every part of her with a hot, feral look. Then his gaze rose slowly and locked with hers. The heat that settled in his eyes made her clothes feel too tight.
His mouth curved slightly at the sides. “I didn’t know you’d be here.”
“Same goes for you.”
“We had a deal.” He rested his hands at his hips. “I gave you my word I’d put in some time here if you got me into the silent auction. I always keep my word.”
Which was just one of the things about him that drew her. As did his quiet strength. His tenacity. Even his aloneness called to something deep inside her soul. She was fascinated by his intelligence and discipline.
