by Maggie Price
Feeling more in control now that she’d put her foot on the first rung of the ladder, she filled a foam cup with coffee that had the consistency of river silt. A stream of steam rose from the cup as she moved into the adjoining room.
He was sitting on the edge of the bed, his cell phone clamped between his shoulder and cheek while he jotted a phone number on the small pad of paper on the nightstand.
“Got it,” he said. “Thanks. We’ll see you in a couple of hours.” After ending the call, he glanced up. “Nate gave me the number for the cops in the surveillance van across the street. He’ll call Sheila, then get back to me after he figures out the best way to get your equipment here.”
“Good.” She paused inches from the bed, the scent of coffee and warm, musky male drifting into her lungs.
He ripped the page off the pad. “Last night the clerk mentioned the restaurant at the truck stop next door makes deliveries to the rooms here.”
“Glad to know we won’t starve.”
“Yeah.” He rose. “I’ll call and order breakfast. You want the usual?”
“The usual is my favorite.” She offered him the cup. “I brought you coffee.”
He glanced down. “I thought you wanted some, too.”
“I changed my mind.” She stepped closer until only a whisper of space separated them. “I want something else.”
His eyes narrowed on her face. “Really?”
“Really.”
He curled his fingers around hers, but didn’t take the cup.
The feel of his hand on hers started an instantaneous chain reaction. Her nerve endings sizzled. Heat jumped along her veins, notching up her inner thermostat several degrees. Her body shuddered.
The heat, hunger and need in his eyes confirmed he’d felt her response. “You going to tell me exactly what that something else is you decided you want?”
She swept him a look under her lashes. “Do I really need to?”
“No.” He slid the cup from her fingers and placed it on the nightstand. “But I’d like to hear why you made that decision. Why now, Tory?”
She moistened her lips. “I’ve been thinking about what we both said last night. You want a second chance. I need time to work through certain issues.”
His eyes stayed steady on hers. “Go on.”
“It dawned on me a few minutes ago that some things need less thinking about than others.”
“For instance?”
“At the safe house you pointed out certain activities we enjoy doing together. Like shooting at the police pistol range. Practicing self-defense moves at the gym. We should start out doing those kind of things again. Sort of a test to see how we get along. Take things one step at a time.”
He settled his hands on her shoulders. “We can’t exactly take off right now for the pistol range or the gym.”
“Agreed.” She looked at the bed then back at him. “You mentioned one other activity.”
“And I’m all for engaging in it.” He slid his hands up to cup the sides of her throat. “We’ve made some progress in the past twenty-four hours. I don’t want to screw that up. Last night you told me you need time to think things through. Are you sure you’re ready for this?”
“I think….” She blew out a breath. “I’m tired of thinking. Tired of trying to figure out if it will be good or bad for us to wind up back in bed.” She raised her hands, curled her fingers around his wrists. “I don’t know the answer to that. Don’t have a clue if we’ll figure out how to live together again. That’ll take time. Dammit, all I know for sure is that I want you.”
“That’s putting it plain.”
“You want plain, McCall, here it is. If you don’t seriously put your hands on me right this minute, I’m going to implode.”
He let out a laugh that was low and rippling and flowed across her skin. “Well, I sure as hell can’t let that happen.”
“Glad to hear it.”
Her hands streaked up into his hair; the sound in her throat as his lips crushed to hers was one of triumph. The familiar taste of him shot to her head like hot, potent whiskey.
In a fever to mate they stripped off sweaters and jeans within the space of a minute. Driven by greed, her hands skimmed over his hard, solid chest. He fought off his briefs and socks, then tumbled her backward onto the mattress.
A wave of pleasure rippled through her when she heard him groan.
A part of her brain knew the image she made, sprawled across the bed, clad only in swatches of silk, her skin already flushed, her legs parted in surrender while the man she wanted loomed over her.
His eyes heated to blue fire as his fingertips skimmed the edge of the stringy thong that barely covered her. “These from my sisters?”
Nodding, she felt the soft, wet pulse between her legs began to pound. “The rhinestone-snowflakes-on-black-silk model,” she said in a hoarse whisper.
“Bless ’em.”
His hand slid upward; with a quick and expert flick of fingers, he opened the front hook on her black silk bra, tugged the straps down her arms and tossed it aside. He leaned down, his eyes filling her vision with a glittering steel-blue as he took the tip of her breast into his mouth.
And feasted.
The sharp nip of his teeth had her body arching. A whimper caught in her throat. His fingers skimmed down her ribs, her belly, plunged beneath the thong. When they entered her, that whimper became a moan.
Murmuring mindlessly, she dug her nails into the hard ridge of his shoulders and felt wild, reckless energy burst inside her. She wanted more. Wanted all. Wanted him.
His mouth moved to her other breast, suckling while his fingers reached deep inside her. She could no longer think, just feel. Fever kindled in her blood; she writhed beneath his touch and saw hundreds of lights dance behind her eyes. It seemed a lifetime had passed since she’d felt the tension and heat of his body.
Anticipation wound like a spring inside her, tighter and tighter, pounding for release.
The frantic hunger clawing viciously in her belly had her straining against him, panting, shuddering. Bombarded by sensation after sensation, she slid a trembling hand down and closed her fingers around him. He was rock-hard, and she could have sworn she felt fire burst in his blood.
She heard his ragged groan the instant before his mouth came back to hers, fast and fevered, strong and seductive. Their kiss turned quickly desperate, quickly ravenous. Insatiable. Savage.
The scrap of black silk that shielded her ripped jaggedly against one jerk of his hand.
When he drove himself hard and deep inside her, she arched once more and felt her muscles clench around him. Her vision grayed. She matched him for speed, for fury, their bodies moving in familiar synch, fueled by the same urgent, relentless need.
He sent her soaring up like a rocket, taking her higher, faster, forcing her toward the border between reason and insanity. Her senses battered, she went wild, nails scraping against his damp skin, heat pumping.
A weak cry of stunned release ripped up her throat. Still, he gave her no respite. She clutched at the tangled sheet while he continued moving, pummeling her system. His taste, his scent flooded her senses. The world narrowed until nothing else existed but the confines of the bed and the man who gave as ruthlessly as he took.
She crested again, her moan of dark pleasure echoing through the still air seconds before his own.
They lay in silence, morning sun seeping through the curtain on the room’s lone window. The surveillance equipment on the table emitted no sound, silent verification that the man in the room next door had yet to stir. No roar of traffic drifted in from the nearby road. With his face buried in the curve of Tory’s throat, Bran heard only the beat of his own heart. Felt hers beat against his.
He had the taste of her in his mouth and the long, firm length of her beneath him. His mind slowly cleared, bringing with it the realization that his weight was probably interfering with her breathing.
Propping up on his elbows,
he gazed down at her. Her long hair was a wild mass of gold over the sheet, her eyes were closed, her cheeks flushed, her lips barely parted. “Can you breathe?”
Her eyes fluttered open. Her mouth curved. “Ask me later. My entire body’s numb.”
“Just in case….” He rolled onto his back, pulling her with him so that she lay sprawled across him. “Better?”
“Hmm. I have to say that everything’s better.”
“Are you including us in that statement?”
She lifted her head, her eyes pools of smoky jade. “We’re better than we have been in a long time.”
He smoothed her hair across the slope of one bare shoulder. “But not all the way better,” he said.
She glided her palm over his chest. “We made such a mess of our marriage. If we do ever get to the all-the-way-better level it’s going to take time.”
“Yeah.” He wrapped his fingers around her wrist. “I made a mistake walking away from you.”
“You said that last night.”
“I’m saying it again.” Shifting her hand from his chest, he pressed his mouth against her palm. “It was the biggest mistake of my life. One I won’t make again.”
A hundred emotions, all unreadable, crossed her face. “Our problems are still the same. We’re the same.” She shook her head. “We can’t stop being who we are.”
“You’re right. So, we need to make changes. Work out our problems so we can both live with who each other is.” He nipped her chin, then trailed his mouth down to nuzzle her throat. “I figure we got a start on working out things this morning.”
“It was a good first step to take.”
“Like you said, one at a time.”
“Hmm.”
Lying there, warm and sated with her sprawled over him, he decided to take the second step.
He curled his fingers in her hair, tugged her head back. “You told me yesterday you don’t know how you feel. About me. About us. I get that.” Even now, the prospect that he might not come out on the winning end of those feelings put knots in his gut. “But I do know how I feel. I love you, Tory. I always have.”
She cupped her palm against his cheek. “You love me, but you left.”
“I didn’t say I was a genius. Patience and I were married a long time, so maybe I thought I knew how all marriages were supposed to work. I was wrong.”
“I wish I knew the best thing to do, for both of us. But I just don’t have any answers right now. Only a lot of questions.” She shook her head. “Everything is still so mixed up inside me.”
He pressed a kiss to her temple. “I’ll be here, no matter how long it takes for you to figure things out.”
“Even if it takes awhile?”
“I’ve got all the time in the world. And while you’re doing all that thinking, I vote we just keep taking certain small steps.”
She lifted a brow. “Instead of the one we just took?”
“Hell, no. In addition to.”
She nipped his chin. “Repeating small steps can be a good thing.”
Because he could settle, at present, with having her back at least physically, he lightened the mood.
“So, Mrs. McCall, what do you want for breakfast?”
She tilted her head. “The usual still sounds good.”
His hands streaked down her back to give her bottom a friendly squeeze. “I’d like to have a little more time to regain my strength, but if you insist, I’ll give ‘the usual’ my best shot.”
Her mouth twitching, she slapped a palm against his chest and levered up. “The usual breakfast, McCall. Hot food, and lots of it. I get dibs on the shower while you call the restaurant.”
She rose off the bed, blond hair cascading past her shoulders, looking like a tall, golden goddess emerging out of the sea.
Just watching her, he felt himself stir. It was too damn bad one of them had to monitor the surveillance equipment to listen for sounds in Yale’s room. And stay near the window to watch to see if he got a visitor. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be showering solo.
“I seem to have a problem,” she said, sending a pointed look at the ripped thong lying on one corner of the bed. “I have a few toiletries in my tote bag, but no extra underwear.”
He grinned. “How is that a problem?”
“Apparently it isn’t for you.”
“Nope.” Snatching up the torn piece of silk, he let it dangle between his thumb and index finger. “Okay, so I owe you a new thong. You want the same rhinestone-snowflakes-on-black-silk model, or something different?”
“Surprise me. In the meantime, you might want to call Nate back. Ask him to get a change of clothes for both of us from the safe house.”
“Consider it done,” he said, watching her disappear into the bathroom.
When the door closed behind her, his grin faded.
Their relationship was on an entirely different plane now. One much improved over even last night. Still, he had no idea where that left them. No idea of the best direction to take for them to reach the “all the way better” level. The only thing he knew for sure was that he intended to keep her in his life—for the rest of his life.
In order to do that, he was going to have to figure out a way to regain his wife’s trust.
Chapter 14
“So, Yale hasn’t left his room since he checked in last night?” Nate McCall asked the question several hours later as he settled into one of the chairs at the round table.
“No, he did the same thing we did,” Bran said. “Ordered breakfast from the truck stop restaurant and had it delivered. Then he turned on the TV.”
Sitting cross-legged on the bed, Tory did a visual check of her primo snoop-ware Nate had picked up from Sheila. The black instrument on the table between the two men might have been mistaken for some high-tech radio. The audio of the war movie on Yale’s TV was a low hum on the air. A glowing green light confirmed that no other surveillance device was in operation nearby to monitor their conversation.
Nate glanced up and scowled at the painting of the clipper ship hanging on the bright pink wall. “This place isn’t exactly the Ritz. How’s the truck stop food?”
“Better than anything I can cook,” Tory answered, studying his grimy tan coveralls and scuffed workboots. He wore a red Oklahoma Sooners hat backward, the plastic strap across his forehead. A pair of geeky horn-rimmed glasses rode low on his nose. “Speaking of class acts, scruffy hotel maintenance man is a good look for you, Nate.”
“I think so, too.” Grinning, he rested a boot on the battered toolbox in which he’d carried in the surveillance equipment and a change of clothing for her and Bran. “All I need to do is strap on a tool belt and chicks will swarm around me.”
She exchanged an eye-rolling look with Bran. Women already swarmed around the middle McCall brother.
Bran leaned forward in his chair. “Not that your love life isn’t a mesmerizing topic, but I’d rather talk about the professor. He’s got that ten-year-old arrest when he and Heath were nabbed in the Houston bar brawl, but no criminal history before or after. So, all of a sudden he needs a fake identity and somehow scams a legitimate Oklahoma driver’s license. And it’s an almost certainty he’s helping his escaped killer pal. Yale could even have murdered one of the first two of the cops’ spouses. Why? What’s Heath got on him?”
“After we found out that Wynn Yale is his real name, we did some discreet checking,” Nate said, his expression now as serious as his voice. “He and Heath went to the same school here until their freshman year in high school. That’s when Yale’s family moved to Houston. One of our guys talked to the principal at the junior high Heath and Yale attended. During one summer break, Yale, his kid brother and Heath went swimming in a farm pond. Yale’s brother got the cramps, and went under. He would have drowned if it hadn’t been for Heath.”
Bran nodded. “So, Yale owed Heath for saving the kid.”
“Right. The principal said it wasn’t long after that they all showed up at school
with the crow tattoos. Fast forward to the present. Heath’s younger brother and cousin die during the credit-union robbery. Yale maybe figured his way of paying back Vic was to help him get revenge against cops.”
Outside, a car door slammed. Since Tory was closest to the window she slid off the mattress and inched the curtain back.
Her eyes narrowed when she saw the tall, slim woman with red hair on the brassy side. With one hip cocked, she leaned into the passenger window of a cab to hand the driver a folded bill. She wore a white turtleneck sweater beneath a fluffy cropped fake fur jacket and jeans that looked as if they’d been painted on. A purse and an oversized tote bag hung over one shoulder.
Tory thought back to the mug shot of Heath’s girlfriend that Nate had shown her the day she and Bran moved into the safe house. “Leah Quest just showed up,” she said quietly.
Bran and Nate both moved to the window, taking turns at a covert look outside.
“That’s her,” Bran concurred, then turned back to the window.
“Yeah.” Nate’s mouth settled in a grim line. “We’ve checked the airport surveillance tapes. If Quest murdered Drew Unsell in the women’s rest room, she was in a good enough disguise that we can’t spot her on tape.”
“She’s taking the stairs this way.” Bran’s voice was ice-cold. “It’ll be interesting to hear what she and the professor have to say.”
Bran sat on the bed while Tory took his chair at the table. She did a quick check of the equipment’s settings, then adjusted the volume control. When Quest knocked on the door to the adjoining room, the sound came clearly through the speaker.
As did the conversation between her and Wynn Yale.
“How you doing, handsome?”
“Now that you’ve made it here safe, great.”
“Guess you’ll be taking off now?”
“That’s the plan. I left the room key on the nightstand. Room’s paid up for three days.”
“I’m hoping I won’t be here that long.”
“Tell the man to stay safe.”
“Will do, handsome. Just as soon as I see him.”
