by Mallory Kane
“Well, think about it. Can you see Mom if we both ended up engaged?”
Reilly laughed. “Engaged? That’s you, old man. Not me.”
“Watch out. You’ll find yourself in over your head before you realize it.”
Reilly thanked his brother for the advice and hung up. He checked his watch, then headed back to the guest suite door. “Christy?” he called out, then rapped quietly. “Christy?”
She was probably soaking in the tub. He should just wait.
No, maybe he shouldn’t wait. She’d been lying to him ever since he’d known her. Damn her, she’d asked for his help. Now it seemed like she was doing her best to get away from him.
I thought you were your brother. Her words echoed in his head. It didn’t matter. She’d asked. And whether she wanted to admit it or not, she did need him.
That thought triggered another one. One he didn’t want to consider. Despite his irritation, even anger, at her lies, he couldn’t deny that he was getting used to having her around. Worse, he liked it.
You’ll find yourself in over your head before you realize it.
He had a feeling Ryker was right. He’d already figured out that Christy was different from anyone he’d ever dated. She was still more suspicious than impressed with his fancy apartment and its fancy address. Although she had gotten positively dewy-eyed when she’d seen the guest suite bathroom.
He shrugged a shoulder. What could he expect? Cara Lynn had told him no woman could resist it. Apparently not even the woman Ryker had dubbed the Ice Queen.
An erotic image of Christy in his guest bathroom, enveloped in steam and nothing else, rose in his vision. With a considerable effort, he banished it and forced his thoughts back to her secrecy and lies.
The way she carried that shoulder bag clutched against her as if she were protecting it with her life, he was sure that whatever she’d found in her sister’s secret hiding place, it was in that bag. And he needed to get his hands on it.
Chapter Eleven
Reilly put his hand on the doorknob and called out again. “Christy?”
No answer. It didn’t take him ten seconds to make his decision. He was going in. If she caught him, he’d tell her he had supper ready. If she was still in the bathroom, he was going to go through her purse. He was a law enforcement officer. If the bag was in plain view and he had reasonable cause—
He didn’t even try to make that argument, not even to himself. It was too flimsy. He was snooping, but it was for her own good, damn it. She was meddling in danger she didn’t understand, and if he didn’t do something, she was going to get herself killed.
He couldn’t sit by and let that happen.
He eased open the door and stepped into the suite. It was empty. The bathroom lights were on and the scent of gardenias wafted across his nostrils, rekindling the erotic images in his brain. The images were enhanced by Christy’s voice. She was humming. The sweet low melody reverberated in his ears.
He breathed deeply, letting the scent permeate his every pore and her voice penetrate his brain. Then he scowled.
Stop it. He didn’t have much time. He needed to see what was in her purse. What she was keeping from him. He spotted the slouchy shoulder bag sitting on a chair near the dresser, on the far side of the room. He glanced at the doorway into the bath. If she was still in the tub, and he was pretty sure she was, she had her back to the doorway. He just hoped she was planning to soak for at least another five minutes or so.
He tiptoed toward the chair—and ran straight into Christy. She’d come out just in time to slam into him.
She shrieked.
He yelped. He teetered, caught himself then grabbed her shoulders to keep her from falling.
“What are you—?”
“Hey, I—”
Both of them stopped. And again, they spoke at the same time.
“What are you—?”
“I didn’t mean—”
Christy’s damp hair was tickling Reilly’s nose, and the heady fragrance of gardenias enveloped him. Her breasts were pressed against his arm. When he looked down, he saw that she was dressed in nothing but a towel. A warm, damp towel that didn’t disguise the rounded firmness of her breasts at all. He took a step backwards and gaped at her.
She pressed a hand against the top of the towel in surprise and confusion. “What are you doing?” she asked.
“I—” he started, stammering. “Dinner’s ready.”
“Dinner?”
“I thought you’d be done by now.”
Christy’s lashes were wet and stuck together, forming black starbursts around her green eyes. The cut on her cheek was healing, and the bruise had turned that ugly greenish-yellow color.
Reilly did his best to keep his gaze on her beautiful eyes, but he wasn’t strong enough. He couldn’t resist looking down again, at the top of her breasts, barely covered by the towel. Her hand was still pressing there. His mouth went dry.
Then his gaze was caught by something strange on her arm. Dark marks, several of them. Five, to be exact. Four on the bicep and one on the inner curve of her tricep.
“What the hell?” he snapped, reaching out a hand.
She recoiled.
“Christy, what happened?”
Christy frowned at him then followed his gaze to her left upper arm. Her other hand with the pink cast wrapped tightly in plastic wrap, rose as if to cover the marks.
He held up his hand, fingers spread, and matched his fingertips to the marks without actually touching her skin. Some bastard had grabbed her—hurt her. His certainty came from too many domestic violence 911 calls.
“Who did this?” He heard his deadly quiet, commanding tone.
She met his gaze and her face drained of color.
Ah, hell. There was a reason Ryker called his furious expression “The Silencer.” Reilly had seen its effect on criminals and once or twice on his twin brother and cousins.
Regret washed over him, and he worked to compose his face. “I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said gently. He wasn’t mad at her. At least not very. He was furious with whoever had grabbed her. Although, once he found out where she’d been to be subjected to that kind of violence, he might be furious at her.
She didn’t say anything, but fat tears welled in her eyes. She blinked, and two of them slid over the lids and rolled down her cheeks.
Then her lips moved.
It took him a minute to decipher what she was trying to say. Her voice had failed her, so he had to read her lips. “I’m sorry.” And again, “I’m sorry.”
For one microsecond, he wished he could grab her and jerk some sense into her, as his grandmother had always threatened to do to Ryker and him.
But the only time his grandmother had ever actually laid a hand on him was when he was eight and he’d chased his cousin Cara Lynn with a stick. Grandmother had pinched his ear. I ought to jerk some sense into you, she’d said. You don’t hit girls. Not with sticks. Not with anything. You don’t even threaten to. You are a boy. You’re stronger than a girl. Your job is to protect them, not hurt them.
He’d taken her words to heart. He had never and would never touch a woman in anger. Certainly not Christy. Not that creamy, beautiful skin. He loved it, longed to soothe it, to kiss away the angry bruises.
As his thoughts swirled, something happened inside him. Something he’d been fighting against ever since he’d first laid eyes on Christy Moser. He’d been telling himself that his only purpose was to help her, to protect her. But now, as the scent of gardenias wafted across his nostrils and sent desire burning through his loins, he realized she wasn’t the only one who’d been lying.
He’d been lying too—to himself. He’d been ignoring the erotic dreams that haunted him every night and lingered long after he woke up. He’d been doing his best to deny the need that burned in him each time he was close to her. That burned in him now.
The curve of her bare shoulders, her breasts, pushed into luscious fullness by the tig
htly wrapped towel, her damp eyes and red nose all forced him to admit how much he wanted her.
And that face. The high cheekbones, the wide mouth, those lips—not too full, but sensual.
He felt himself stir, grow, rub painfully against his jeans. He wanted to kiss her. He needed to kiss her.
Now.
His fingers still hovered over the marred skin of her arm. He left his hand there and lifted his right hand. He held it close to her bare back, so close he could feel the heat from her skin on his palm. There was something wildly erotic about being so close to her and not touching her.
He leaned in and touched his mouth to hers. Just a light, feathery brushing of lips against lips. That soft whisper was the only place their bodies touched each other.
After what seemed to him like an eternity, Reilly dared to lean in a little more. He deepened the kiss, just barely. He liked this. They were welded together, not because he was holding her or she was clinging to him. They were joined by nothing more than an impossibly tender kiss.
He’d started it, yes. But she was responding. She was holding him in thrall as much as he was her.
When she lifted her arms and, with a torturous slowness, laid her palms against his chest where his long-sleeved shirt hung open, his breath caught sharply. Her fingers were hot, the plastic wrap she’d covered her cast with was wet. It spilled a few drops of water down his chest. He shivered. His skin pebbled with goose bumps. His nipples tightened and Christy brushed them with her fingertips.
He grew instantly hard, burning with the need to strain, to rub himself against her. It would be agonizing through his clothes, but he didn’t care.
No. He needed to control himself. She’d been hurt. It wasn’t fair to her to take advantage of her vulnerability. He pulled back and squeezed his eyes closed for a moment.
“Christy,” he growled. “This isn’t—”
“Don’t,” she whispered. “Don’t talk. You’ll ruin everything.” She lifted an edge of the plastic wrap and unwrapped it from around her cast, loosing rivulets of water. She let it drop to the floor and turned back to him.
She ran her hands up, across his collarbone to his neck. The edge of her cast scratched the tender area underneath his jaw, sending more goose bumps skittering across his skin. He groaned.
Then she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him to her. As she did, the towel around her body loosened and fell to the floor. Reilly’s last vestige of self-control fell right alongside it. He’d been fighting this attraction for days. He couldn’t resist it, not now.
Finally, he touched her. The bare, marred skin of her arm, the firm curve of her back. He traced the hills and valleys of her exquisitely feminine body the way he’d longed to do ever since he’d first set eyes on her in the courthouse lobby.
He hadn’t admitted, even to himself, how much he’d longed to touch her, to hold her like this. He’d almost begun to believe that there was nothing between them.
Almost.
But now, as she tugged at his shirt, trying to push it down his arms, murmuring her frustration because she couldn’t grasp the thin material with her cast-wrapped hand, he gave in to the fierce attraction that burned in him like a bonfire.
He moved them closer to the bed as he brushed her fumbling hands away and shed the shirt. Then he made quick work of his jeans.
Gently, tamping down on his own need, he urged her down on the bed and lay beside her, drawing her into his arms. He kissed her deeply and pressed the full length of his body against hers.
She moaned his name and arched toward him as his erection pressed against the apex of her thighs. He rocked his hips, pushing against her again and again. At the same time, he bent his head and ran his tongue along the swell of her breasts, first one and then the other. Teasing, circling, but not touching, their distended tips.
Christy entangled her fingers in his hair and held him there at one full, swelling breast. Finally he took the tiny bud in his mouth, suckling and nipping at it until her breath hitched. Then he moved to the other breast, giving its peak the same attention. Her uneven, gasping breaths fueled his own desire to a fever pitch. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could hold on to his control. He needed her so badly.
As if he’d spoken aloud, she slid her hand down across his abs and lower.
“Ah,” he breathed and looked down. A faint red mark followed the line of her hand.
“Oh, no!” she exclaimed, withdrawing her hand. “I can’t—my cast is scratching you.”
He lifted her hand and kissed the fingers. “That’s okay. Put your arms around my neck.”
She did, and he wrapped his arms around her and hooked one leg around hers, then he flipped them over, putting her on his left. “Now,” he muttered, smiling at her.
Using her left hand, she followed the same path down his body, following her fingers with her lips, kissing the reddened skin. He gasped aloud and threw his head back. The feel of her lips feathering across his abs, his belly and his lower abdomen nearly undid him. His erection jumped as her fingers slid across his length and then wrapped around him.
He thrust against her palm. His breaths came short and hard. But he knew this wasn’t fair. He was taking pleasure, not giving it. He gritted his teeth and urged her to look at him. “You’ve got to slow down, Doc,” he muttered.
Then he trailed his fingers down her belly and dipped into her core. She was slick and flowing, ready for him. His breath caught.
He kissed her, using the kiss to urge her head back onto the pillow, using his hands to spread her legs apart. He lifted himself and let her guide him into her.
The hot, tight feel of her made him utter a cry as he sank into her as deeply as he could. Her cry echoed his. He thrust then withdrew slowly, thrust and withdrew, until Christy’s breaths were as short and sharp as his.
He breathed harshly, clenching his jaw, trying to last as long as he possibly could—which, from the way he felt, wasn’t going to be very long at all.
“Reilly, please,” she begged. He lifted his head and met her gaze. Her eyelids were heavy, her mouth open as her chest rose and fell with her quick breaths.
“I’m trying to—make it last,” he said.
“Don’t,” she breathed against his mouth. “Not on my account.” Then she nipped his lower lip and kissed him deeply and long.
But he still tried, his jaw aching, his entire being filled with the exquisite pain of nearly impossible restraint.
Then, just as he thought he couldn’t hold out another second, he felt the change in her rhythm. No longer was she smooth and languid, twisting her sinuous body beneath his. She stiffened, then her breath caught and she moaned, a sweet, low sound of bliss.
His heart thrilled. She’d found her pleasure. Her breath caught, her body strained, then, as he held his breath and thrust one more time, she reached her pinnacle.
A low, guttural cry and a series of painfully sweet spasms triggered his own climax. He came hard and long, his release seeming to last and last. Finally exhausted, he lowered himself beside her, pulling her into the curve of his arm. Their ragged breathing pulsed in rhythm, their muscles quivered in unison.
Reilly inhaled Christy’s scent as he waited for the last minuscule aftershocks of orgasm to fade. He lay, eyes closed, basking in the delicious weariness of his body.
He felt drained. Totally satisfied and yet at the same time hungry for more. More of Christy’s unaffected passion. More of that delicious heat, that exquisite tightness that he didn’t think he would ever tire of exploring.
He opened his eyes and in the plane of his vision was her bruised arm. Slowly, as if crawling out of a murky creek, the memory of those bruises emerged.
As did his questions. His languorous afterglow faded, and he crashed back into the real world. The world where she was lying to him at every turn, concealing dangerous evidence and venturing out alone to confront people who had hurt her. The world where he was becoming convinced that the man who had killed
Christy’s sister and wanted to kill her was one of his own. A fellow police officer.
CHRISTY WOKE UP FEELING more relaxed than she had in a long, long time. She squinted at the clock on the bedside table. It was five in the morning. They hadn’t gone to sleep until after twelve, so she’d only slept about five hours. Not nearly enough.
She stretched. The coolness on her skin and the silence that surrounded her told her she was alone. She felt the pillow beside her. It was indented, but the cotton was cool. Reilly had been gone a long time.
She sat up, fluffing a pillow behind her back and pulling the sheet up with her to cover her nakedness. Reaching out, she turned on the bedside lamp. Was Reilly one of those people who couldn’t sleep with someone else in the bed? Or had he regretted what they’d done and gone back to his own room in order to avoid her?
She stopped that thought. She wasn’t going to think about why he wasn’t in the bed at five o’clock in the morning. It didn’t matter. Not yet.
Right now she was still relaxed and languid, basking in the afterglow of really great sex. A small pinprick of pain shot along the skin of her right upper arm. She rubbed it. It was sore to the touch.
Glancing down at the dark bruises, she remembered Reilly’s reaction. He’d been so angry. At first she’d thought he was furious at her, but then she’d realized his anger, while scary, wasn’t a threat to her. He was angry at the person who had hurt her.
She’d almost lost it when he’d asked her who had put the bruises there. She’d wanted so badly to confess everything to him and let him handle Jazzy and Glo. He was a policeman. He knew how to deal with people like that, how to make them tell the truth. And he knew how to make people like her feel safe.
No. She couldn’t think like that. The fact that Reilly made her feel safe scared her. From what she was learning, it appeared that one of Reilly’s fellow officers may have killed Autumn.
How would he react if she told him that? Everything she knew about the police, everything she’d seen when her mother was killed, told her that when threatened, cops closed ranks. They formed the famous blue line she’d heard about. They protected their own.
