“No, I didn’t, and neither did Brandon.” A muscle ticked in John’s jaw, the only sign of anger he’d shown since their conversation had started. “Maybe if one of us had, then Harold Taggart wouldn’t have gotten to her before I got to him.”
Fuck. The man had a good point. So much for Kalvin’s trump card. “Twelve hours, John. Give me and Blaze twelve hours with her. We’ll find out the truth.”
Chapter Five
Delilah’s heart stilled at the fierce expression on Kalvin’s handsome face when he finally walked out of the resort.
“He doesn’t look to happy,” David muttered beside her.
No, he didn’t. She watched as Kalvin stopped, shot a look right and then left before his attention locked on her. His booted feet hit heavy on the lawn as he started toward her, his posture stiff, and his lips set in a grim line. She saw Blaze start her way, too, coming at her from a distance diagonal to Kalvin. The look on his face made her heart start beating again, though far more rapidly than it should. The combination of the two men, one obviously holding a tight lid on his temper while the other was showering her with affection and concern, took her already confused system on a roller-coaster ride of colossal uncertainty.
Kalvin reached her first, one hand closing around her upper arm in a grip that felt far gentler than she’d expect given the anger she could see simmering in his eyes. He passed her the purse he’d tucked under his arm with his other hand.
“We need to go.”
The barely controlled rage pumping off of him turned his voice tight and gruffer than normal. She stared at him, not sure what to say or do as a newfound fear pumped wildly through her veins.
“What’s wrong?” Blaze asked the question Delilah figured she should have if she’d been able to find her voice.
“I bought us some time with John.” Kalvin didn’t look back at the resort as he used his hold on her arm to turn her as he started walking. “I want to get her away from here before he changes his mind.”
“Do you guys need some help?” David called after them.
Only then did Delilah realize they had left the poor man standing there.
“No,” Blaze shot over his shoulder as he fell into step at her side opposite Kalvin. “We’ve got this.” He bent his head forward, looking at Kalvin around her. “Don’t we?”
“Yes,” Kalvin answered tightly. “At least I hope we do.”
“What’s going on?” Her shorter legs, coupled with the four-inch heels on her feet, were having trouble keeping up with their much longer strides. She stumbled twice, nearly twisting her ankle in the process. “Kalvin, I’m scared enough already and the way you’re acting right now is making it worse.”
“Christ.” Kalvin stopped and raked his free hand down his face. His grip on her upper arm loosened as he glided the hand down and locked it around her waist. “I’m sorry.” He pulled her closer and turned her to face him. She could see the apology swimming with the anger he hadn’t let go of in his eyes. “John wants to question you. You’ve been through enough tonight. I promised him that Blaze and I would bring you to the sheriff’s department first thing in the morning. Right now, I just want to get you home, okay?”
She gulped, nodding as an all-too-familiar numbness took control of her limbs. Kalvin started walking again, this time shortening his strides so she could keep up. “The fire in my suite wasn’t an accident,” she whispered, though apparently not so low that Kalvin didn’t hear her.
His palm slid up her spine in a soft caress. “No, baby. It wasn’t an accident.”
Delilah stared straight ahead, not really seeing the street as they stepped onto a sidewalk and rounded a corner that brought them to the main drag. “He thinks I did it.” It was happening all over again. Despite all her wishes and prayers and the precautious she’d taken, everything that had happened in Chicago was repeating itself right here on the island.
“Bullshit.” Blaze’s fingers with laced with hers and he gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “John Cabelly is a former Navy SEAL and a helluva sheriff. He’s not stupid enough to think a thing like that, darlin’.”
Delilah looked at Kalvin and studied his side profile in the faint light of the streetlamps they passed beneath when he continued to stare straight ahead. Though his expression had softened a bit, she could see him grinding his teeth so hard it surprised her that little bits of enamel weren’t shooting out of his ass. “I’m right, aren’t I?”
“He knows you were with me and Blaze outside Starry Skies when the fire started,” Kalvin answered. “He just has some routine questions he wants to ask you since the fire started in your room.”
She didn’t believe him. If the questions the sheriff had for her were merely routine, somehow she doubted Kalvin would’ve seen the need to practically run away from the resort the way they were doing.
“Where are we going?” she asked a nanosecond before she remembered what he’d said when he’d stopped so abruptly moments ago.
Right now, I just want to get you home, okay?
She tried to stop walking, but the men’s hold on her and their continued strides ended up pulling her along. “Kalvin, I can’t stay at your place. I’m sure they will give me another room at the resort for the night. They know I’m a visitor on the island and—”
“And we can’t keep you safe when you’re halfway across it,” Kalvin cut her off, finally looking at her again. His tone of voice and the determined expression that had taken over his face left no room for argument.
She wanted to tell him she wasn’t safe anywhere as long as whoever was after her was on the loose, but she bit her tongue. Damn it, she needed to think! She’d just thought things were happening so fast before. Now, everything seemed to be moving faster than the speed of light and she didn’t stand a chance in hell at slowing it down.
She fell silent, barely acknowledging their surroundings, letting Kalvin and Blaze lead her wherever while she made a desperate attempt to get her mind straight. Kalvin had said they wanted to keep her safe. They couldn’t do that if she didn’t tell them what they were up against. The trouble was she didn’t even know and she’d found herself right back to wondering if telling them was the right thing she do. She’d reached a point where she was apparently damned if she did and damned if she didn’t and a huge chunk of her was getting tired of trying to fight what was obviously becoming the inevitable.
She didn’t know how long it had taken them to reach the cottage at the end of a windy road that followed the far side of the island, but her feet were grateful when Kalvin and Blaze steered her up a driveway to the front steps of a charming wraparound porch. Even in her exhausted state of turmoil, she couldn’t help but be slightly amused by the sight of the double-cab truck parked behind the sporty Chevrolet in the drive.
“You have two vehicles and we just walked miles to get here.”
“Most of the islanders own cars, even though we rarely use them,” Blaze explained as he took the lead and opened the front door. He reached inside, flipped a switch, and filled the front of the cottage with light before stepping aside and gesturing with the same hand for her to enter first. “Pretty much everyone on the island prefers to walk where they want to go.”
“No wonder most everyone on the island is in such good shape,” she muttered as she stepped inside. The instantaneous, homely, and definitely eerie feeling she got when she moved over the threshold had her stopping in her tracks.
Kalvin moved in at her back. “Is something wrong?”
Her mouth suddenly dry, she had to swallow before she could answer him. “No, it’s just…” How could something as simple as walking into a house feel so right when everything in her world was going so wrong?
She stepped away from him and slowly walked around the front room of the cottage. The furnishings were spare, simple, and neutral colored. Two brown leather recliners sat facing a big-screen television with a matching loveseat on the opposite wall. A coffee table and end tables held a few beer can
s, magazines, and three remote controls. A small round wooden eating table and three chairs served to separate the living room from the kitchen. From her vantage point in the center, she could tell the kitchen was decidedly the cleanest spot in the cottage, probably because it was rarely used.
“It’s just what, darlin’?” Blaze had stopped at the corner of the coffee table, but he closed the distance between them now, hooking an arm around her waist, and drawing her into a loose embrace.
The feel of his arms around her again did her in. She’d been forcing herself to be so strong for so very long, doing her best to hold everything together. She’d known it was only a matter of time before she broke.
Closing her eyes, she let her forehead fall to rest on his solid chest and let the truth escape. “I don’t know what to do anymore.”
* * * *
The grief in Faith’s whispered words broke Blaze’s heart. He rested his chin on the top of her head, tightened his arms around her, and exchanged a look with Kalvin as the man moved behind her. He wasn’t sure what had pissed off Kalvin so royally back at the resort, but he knew it had something to do with their woman. Mindy Slovak had described the scene inside the suite to him when he’d talked with her by the fire engine. He knew the fire had been purposely set. He knew it had appeared as though everything Faith had brought with her to the island had been placed on the bed and torched. He also knew the door to the suite had been securely locked.
He thinks I did it.
Faith’s words reverberated in his mind as he buried his nose in her hair and tortured himself with the soft scent of lavender and berries. Fire victims rarely came to that conclusion without a reason, especially when they hadn’t even been questioned by anyone.
“What you’re gonna do is eat, change, and go to bed,” Blaze told her softly, meeting Kalvin’s gaze over the top of her head.
Kalvin gave him an infinitesimal nod. “We missed dinner. I’m going to find you something to eat while Blaze finds you something to put on and then you can try to get some rest. You can sleep in my bed tonight.”
Like hell.
The words were on the tip of his tongue, but Blaze bit them back. She needed to be in his bed tonight. Though the cottage was a two-bedroom, he’d taken the larger one with the gigantic queen when they’d moved in. Kalvin’s bed was only a twin.
He narrowed his eyes at Kalvin and didn’t miss the warning look the man shot him as he eased back and turned to walk into the kitchen. Faith stayed where she was with her head resting on his chest for so long he thought she’d already fallen asleep. He started to scoop her into his arms and carry her to bed when she finally lifted her head.
Her eyes fluttered open and she stared at him for a long moment before she swallowed visibly and she spoke. “Why aren’t the two of you plowing me with questions?”
Blaze blinked at her, not sure how to answer even though he was starting to suspect why Kalvin wasn’t saying anything. The man was afraid he wouldn’t want to hear the answers she gave. “There’ll be plenty of time for questions tomorrow. The best thing you can do is try not to think about it tonight.”
She let out a humorless half-laugh. “That’s one of those easier-said-than-done things.” She wrinkled her face as though she were considering that statement. “You know, it’s funny how sometimes you can’t get your head straight enough to think, but all you can seem to do is think?” She shook her beautiful head. “It doesn’t make any damn sense.”
“Sometimes what you really need is a distraction,” Kalvin suggested as he returned from the kitchen with three cans of beer in his hands. He popped the top on one and held it out for Faith. “Something that really takes your mind off what is going on so that, when you get back to it, you’re thinking with a clearer head.”
Faith made a face as she glanced at the beer Kalvin tried to hand her. “And horse piss is going to not only take my mind off what is going on, but it’s going to help me think more clearly in the morning?”
Blaze snorted.
The corner of Kalvin’s lips twitched. “I take it you don’t like beer.”
She huffed out an audible breath and eased out of Blaze’s arms as she took the can. “It’s not my first choice, but I guess it will do.”
“We’ve got a bottle of everyone favorite uncle in there if you’d rather have that,” Blaze told her as he took a beer from Kalvin for himself.
“Jack Daniels?” She chewed her bottom lip in that way she had that always made Blaze’s cock stiffer than fucking stone. “As appealing as that sounds, I’ll stick with this.” She toasted them in turn with the beer and then took a long swig.
Blaze cracked up at the face she made as she swallowed. “Second thoughts, sweet thing?”
She held up a finger and took another swig. “Give me a second. I’m waiting to get used to the taste.”
Kalvin chuckled. “While you working on getting used to it, we don’t have much in the way of edible food in the kitchen. There’s a couple of slices of pizza from three days ago, the makings for a ham sandwich, and a few frozen waffles.”
She rolled her eyes and the first glimmer of a smile Blaze had seen on her lips since they’d been standing outside Starry Skies toyed with the edges of her mouth. “I bet if I looked up the word bachelor in the dictionary, I would find a picture of both of you.” She gestured to the front rooms of the cottage with a flourish of her arm. “Brown leather furniture, even browner tables, no pictures or vases or knickknacks anywhere and a kitchen stocked with pizza, sandwiches, waffles, and beer.”
Blaze shot a look at Kalvin. “She makes it sound like there’s somethin’ wrong with the way we live.”
“She doesn’t sound very impressed, does she?” Kalvin agreed.
She giggled, but that sound didn’t last anywhere near long enough for Blaze’s pleasure. “Thanks, guys. I’m not hungry and I doubt I’ll be able to sleep at all tonight, but your efforts really mean a lot.”
“Come on. I’ll find you somethin’ to wear.” Blaze led her to his bedroom, silently giving himself props for remembering to pick up his dirty clothes before he’d gone for his swim that morning. He pulled open the bottom drawer of his dresser and snagged an old Billings Fire Department T-shirt from the stack that he’d somehow managed to shrink in the wash. “It’s gonna swallow you whole, but it’s the smallest thing I’ve got.”
He straightened and started to pass the shirt to her when he realized she’d placed a hand on the wall and was attempting to free the buckle on the strap that held her heels on her feet. Christ Almighty, the woman was one hell of test to his will-power. He fisted the shirt in his hand as his gaze moved over the shapely leg she’d bent at the knee in order to reach her ankle. His gaze shifted to her face and he saw that damnable bottom lip of hers had once again disappeared between her teeth. He made a mental note to tell her to stop doing that before she gave him a serious case of blue-balls.
“Do you need some help?” he heard himself ask, his voice husky even to his own ears.
She let out a soft laugh. “I might. I can’t get this…ha! Got it.” She kicked off the shoe and started to work on the other one.
His cock pulsing and his balls aching to the point that he was damn near on his knees anyway, Blaze tossed the shirt to the floor as he moved to her and kneeled at her feet. “Let me help.” He cupped her calf and eased her foot off the floor, resting the toe of her shoe on his knee. She froze when he touched her and inhaled a sharp breath.
Blaze slowly skimmed his hand down the back of her leg. The softness of her flesh seeped into his skin and wrapped around his cock like a satin ribbon. When he reached her ankle, he traced a fingertip along the strap and felt her quiver.
“Maybe I should sit down,” she suggested, her voice breathy.
“Naw,” Blaze drawled and dragged his gaze up her amazing body to her face. “I’ve got this.” He purposely took his time with it, though. Even after he freed the strap from the small buckle, he continued to explore, slowly skimm
ing his hands over her foot as he eased the shoe off. He smiled when he cupped the heel of her foot, grazed the pads of his fingers along the arch and heard her breathless giggle.
“Blaze?” The inflection in her tone turned his name to equal parts question and plea.
“Sorry, darlin’.” Reluctantly, he eased her foot to the floor and gazed up at her. “You have a beautiful foot.” He wasn’t a foot man by any means, but he meant it. The woman had a beautiful everything and damn if he could stop himself from attempting to touch more of her.
He flattened his hands on the sides of her legs and dragged them up as he slowly pushed himself to his feet in front of her. Her arms wound around his neck as he straightened, her head tipped back, and a thinly veiled look of hunger filled her eyes. He slid his hands around her and dipped them beneath her hair as he skimmed them up her back.
“What are you doing?” Her words were even breathier than before.
“Helpin’ you with the zipper.” He’d noted the zipper on the back of the dress earlier in the night although, in truth, he was really using it as an excuse to get his hands on her some more. He found the small clasp, gripped it between his fingers, and inched it down. The faint sound of metal scraping metal cut through the sexually charged atmosphere.
A hint of a smile toyed with the corner of her lips. “I was going to offer to turn around, but I guess it’s not necessary.”
With the zipper now freed to the small of her back, Blaze boldly slipped a hand into the opening he’d made and flattened his palm on her heated flesh. He gave her a small grin. “Guess it’s not.”
She stared at him, a world of emotions swirling in her electric-blue eyes. He felt that electricity move through him, short-circuiting his senses and stealing his sanity.
“I want to touch you, Faith,” he admitted, his voice gruff to his own ears. “I want to pleasure you. I want to make you forget, darlin’.”
* * * *
Safe and Burning with Ecstasy [The Heroes of Silver Island 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 10
