On Dangerous Ground

by Maggie Price

  He slipped into her with one long, slow thrust while his mouth skimmed her bare shoulder. He whispered soothingly to her, words of reassurance she couldn’t quite grasp, but the smooth timbre of his voice was more effective than any words. She felt him tremble as she did. His hands sought hers, fingers locking. Against her breasts, she could feel his heart thudding in his chest.

  Her nails dug into his hands as he increased the rhythm. Their bodies moved as one, their breath tangled, then caught as pleasure heightened, finally sweeping them together into the heart of the storm.

  Grant lay unmoving when Sky’s hands slid limply from his back to the tangled sheets. He didn’t speak—he couldn’t, not while their bodies were still linked so intimately and his heart hammered violently against his ribs.

  She was his. In every way she was his, and he was in love with her. He had not known the depth of his feelings until the moment when he’d felt her go pliant with pleasure beneath his touch. Until he’d tasted hot need on her mouth. Until he’d heard that soft, yielding sound she made deep in her throat as she lost herself in him.

  More than he’d ever wanted anything in his life, he wanted her.

  Gently he feathered a sweat-slicked curl away from her temple, placed a soft kiss there.

  “Grant…” Her voice hitched with emotion, her dark eyes were wide, still filled with a cloudy haze of desire. “I…”

  “Shh,” he murmured, dropping a kiss against her flushed cheek. “You don’t have to say anything right now, Sky.” He traced her swollen lips with a fingertip. “Just let me hold you.”

  “Yes, hold me.”

  Shifting onto his back, he wrapped his arms around her and drew her close. Rain drummed against the roof as she pressed her face into the hollow between his shoulder and neck and murmured his name. The fingers she rested against his chest drew soft swirls against his still-heated flesh.

  He loved her and she was his and he was going to make sure nothing bad ever happened to her again. The need to protect, to revenge the hurt she’d suffered welled inside him with a raging force. The cop in him recognized that his need was edging on obsession. A dangerous obsession.

  The man inside him didn’t care.

  He lay in silence, listening to the slashing rain, the tormenting wind as he traced a fingertip up and down the length of her spine. The storm outside wasn’t much different from the one brewing inside him, he decided. In time, the rain would let up, the clouds would drift away.

  Closing his eyes, he hoped to God that, with time, the fury inside him would calm, as well.

  Chapter 11

  Sky woke to the soft thrum of rain against the window. It wasn’t the small pane in her own bedroom that the first watery rays of dawn crept through. Her mouth curved in sleepy contentment at the realization. It was Grant’s window. In Grant’s bedroom.

  The man who immediately consumed her thoughts lay sprawled facedown beside her, one arm draped across her waist. His head was angled toward the window so that in the thready light she could make out the high slash of one cheekbone, the stubble that shadowed the firm line of his jaw, the hair that fell carelessly over his forehead.

  A deep sense of yearning had her reaching out. With a fingertip, she nudged back a wayward sandy strand. The small movement brought the awareness of an ache, dull and sweet, through her entire body to remind her of their long night of lovemaking. Lying beside him, with the sound of his steady breathing mixed with the patter of rain, she was filled with a swirling mix of emotion.

  On that one terrifying night in her past, it had taken only seconds to drastically change the course of her life. The same was true of the time she had spent in Grant’s arms. She’d left the darkness behind and now all she wanted to think about was the future.

  She had given all of herself to Grant, but he had given her much more than just himself. He had made her remember how it felt to be feminine, banished her fear of intimacy and shattered the emotional wall she’d built around herself so long ago.

  She yearned to tell him how she felt, to relay her emotions in simple, exquisite words. She couldn’t, she realized. Not while everything spiraled inside her, making it impossible to know where one emotion ended and another began. This newfound sense of elation had turned her thoughts to spun sugar, airy and light. And it wasn’t just emotion that made her feel as if she were floating. Physically her body had awakened. The knowledge that she wanted Grant more now than she had during the night seemed almost overwhelming after years of celibacy.

  Raising on one elbow, she shoved her tumbled hair out of her eyes. She needed time to process her thoughts. Time to analyze her feelings. She was used to the logic of her lab where she made decisions using the controlled, precise mechanisms of scientific tests. There, in her lab, emotion played no part in those decisions.

  Blowing out a slow breath, she concluded that since she was now fully awake, she could use some caffeine to help get her thoughts aligned.

  Slowly she slipped from beneath Grant’s arm. His response was to turn his head and bury his face in the pillow.

  The rain had put a chill in the air, sending goose bumps prickling over her skin. Her overnight bag that Grant had carried in from the Porsche still sat near the front door, so she plucked his shirt off the floor where he’d tossed it and slid it on. The tang of the expensive, spicy cologne that brought him so clearly to mind had her pulse throbbing hard and quick.

  Closing the bedroom door behind her, she padded down the dark hallway, making a quick stop at the bathroom before heading for the kitchen. She found coffee and filters in one of the oak cabinets over a stovetop that looked as if it could do duty in a gourmet restaurant. While she waited for her brew, she checked the school pictures of Oliver and Trent affixed by magnets to the refrigerator door. With a lift of one eyebrow, she suspected she looked depraved standing there, wearing only their uncle’s wrinkled shirt and a smile. She didn’t care, she thought as she poured steaming coffee into a mug. This newfound freedom felt so good. So right.

  Sipping the hot, heady brew, she wandered into the living room, thinking she might check the title on the paperback lying in the leather recliner. She changed direction when the file folder on top of the antique desk caught her eye. Grant had mentioned that the folder contained background information on Jason Whitebear. Sky eyed the folder over the rim of her mug as she dragged a hand through her tousled hair. Since she was the reason Grant hadn’t gone through the file last night, she could at least take a look to see if the latest check had revealed any interesting information on Jason, aka Spider.

  Setting the mug on a brass coaster shaped like a badge, Sky slid into the leather desk chair and flipped open the file’s cover. While rain drizzled steadily against the wide window at her back, she read what she guessed were Sam Rogers’s handwritten notes made two years ago after Mavis Benjamin’s death. Sam had found nothing to suggest that Spider had been in Oklahoma City the day the apartment manager was murdered.

  Laying the notes facedown, Sky opened two pieces of paper that had been folded together.

  A coldness more gray than the dawn seeped into her body, into her very bones, and she heard herself make an anguished little sound. Years dissolved in an instant as she stared into the face of the man who had raped her.

  Barely awake, Grant leaned in the doorway of his living room and studied Sky. She looked almost ghostlike, standing before the wide window behind his desk, staring out into the rain-soaked grayness. The stab of panic when he’d woken and found her gone made him wonder if he’d imagined last night. Though the scent of her lingered on his pillow, the feeling of unease had been strong enough for him to pull on a faded pair of cutoffs and go in search of her.

  A tightness settled in his chest when he realized how right it felt to find her in his living room in the early hours of the morning. His gaze took in the dark hair that cascaded in a gorgeous mess around her shoulders, then lowered to the hem of his shirt that skimmed her long bare legs mid-thigh. Like a bewitchin
g phantom, the memory of the soft, silky feel of those legs against his flesh started the blood swimming in his veins.

  Over the years he had dated often, seldom seeing any woman more than a few times. Until last night, he had not known, really known, the difference between sex and making love. Had no idea that the mere act could mean so much. That holding just one woman—the woman—could be both elating and frightening. With Sky, all the smooth moves he’d always taken for granted seemed rusty. No other woman had made him want so badly. No other woman had made him willing to beg for her touch. If he hadn’t been ready to admit the depth of his feelings before, he was more than ready now. She was the one, and she was his. Amazingly his.

  He intended to make sure she knew that.

  Sky had no idea how long it had been since her legs had stopped trembling enough so that she could rise from the chair behind the desk. No clear concept of when she’d moved to the window. It could have been minutes—maybe hours—since the cold numbness settled inside her.

  It wasn’t numbness she felt when Grant reached from behind her, swept back her hair and pressed his heated mouth to her throat.

  “No!”

  He grinned as she whirled around. “Didn’t mean to scare—”

  She knew by the way his grin instantly faded that her eyes mirrored the despair clawing inside her.

  “What’s wrong?” He took her by the shoulders. When she tried to draw away, his eyes narrowed. “Did I hurt you last night? Good God, Sky, I never meant to hurt you.”

  “You didn’t hurt me.” The jittering of her stomach echoed in her voice.

  His hands tightened their hold. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

  She closed her eyes for a brief instant. “I need to show you something,” she said, then stepped from his touch and walked the few steps to the desk. She saw his gaze flick to the open file folder, saw realization flash in his eyes.

  With an unsteady hand she picked up the two pieces of paper that had been folded inside the file, and held them toward him. “Why did you check on Kirk Adams?”

  Grant stood unmoving, the hazy light from the window slanting across his face while his gray eyes stayed locked on hers. “To find the bastard,” he said after a moment.

  “Why?”

  “To make him pay. I want him to pay for what he did to you.”

  She felt the blood drain from her face. She had known the reason—of course she’d known—when she found the copy of Kirk Adams’s yearbook photo and driver’s license information that showed he lived in Ventress, Oklahoma. It had been the exit sign for Ventress that had turned Grant’s eyes to steel when they’d driven past it yesterday. Yes, she’d known, yet hearing him confirm it put a knot in the pit of her stomach that went beyond dread into fear.

  She returned the papers to the desk. “Have you already done something to make him pay?”

  “Not yet.”

  She took a careful breath to counteract the twisting in her stomach. “Adams isn’t going to pay,” she managed in a calm voice. Turning, she faced him, her hands gripping the edge of the desk behind her. With the ground shifting beneath her feet, she needed something solid to hold on to. “I accepted that a long time ago, Grant. Kirk Adams will never pay for what he did to me.”

  “You deserve justice.” The same hardness that shone in his eyes sounded in his voice.

  “Justice, not revenge. That’s the first thing I worked through.” Her fingers clenched on the desk’s hard wood. “I didn’t see his face that night, so I couldn’t identify him. That was just another part of the rape I couldn’t control. But I could control how I dealt with it. I got my own justice.”

  “You changed your major,” Grant shot back, repeating what she’d told him the night in McAlester. “You get re venge in the lab, using evidence to nail other rapists and killers.”

  “I get justice in the lab.”

  “That’s all well and good, Sky, but it sure as hell doesn’t take care of your own unfinished business.”

  “You and I did that last night.”

  He narrowed his eyes and took a step toward her. “You’re telling me last night wiped away all the memories? You’re telling me you didn’t think about the rape this morning? That for even a second you didn’t think about it? That you won’t think about how he walked away from what he did to you, every morning for the rest of your life?”

  “I won’t ever forget,” she said carefully. “But now I can put it in the past. This morning, for the first time, I felt free. Finally the rape no longer has control over everything I do. Every move I make.” She flicked a look back at the papers on the desk. The thought of what Grant might do made the coldness inside her turn to ice. “Maybe I was wrong.”

  Saying nothing, he turned his head, stared out the window. The angry tic of muscle in his jaw tightened her throat. She thought about Dr. Mirren’s comment that he needed time to accept what had happened to her. That he had to work through it, just as she had. She was achingly aware that she had taken nine years to deal with the anger, the desperate fear. The banked fury in Grant’s eyes told her no amount of time would ease his anger. That knowledge sent a bright flash of panic up her spine.

  “I lived through hell and I survived. I survived—” Her voice broke off as though it had been cut by something sharp. “It’s over. I’ve turned away from my past. That’s what you have to do.”

  “I’m not sure I can,” he said softly, keeping his gaze locked on the window.

  The honesty in his quiet words heightened the panic clawing through her. “I can’t—won’t—be a part of your life unless you do.”

  He jerked his head around, his mouth set in a tight line, his eyes shooting gray fire. “If you think I’m going to settle for just one night with you, Milano, think again.”

  She raised her chin. “It’s my life, Pierce. You’ll settle for what I decide is right for me.”

  “I didn’t mean…” Regret slid into his eyes as he dragged a hand through his hair. “I’m in love with you, Sky. That’s a first for me. I don’t want to lose you. I want to spend every night with you.”

  She turned toward the desk before he could see the tears welling in her eyes. She had dreamed of this. Even when she thought she could never have the kind of relationship most people took for granted, she had dreamed of having a man love her. For so long, a dream was all it had been. And now, though she had healed and wanted desperately to accept Grant’s love, the rape stood between them.

  “I always made it a point to avoid strings in a relationship.” His cool, lethal voice, coming just inches behind her, had her jolting. “Despite that, I sometimes imagined I might eventually tell a woman I loved her. What I never imagined was she would turn her back on me when I did.”

  Dragging in a ragged breath, Sky stared down at the picture of Kirk Adams through a haze of tears. “I’m not turning my back on you,” she said after a moment.

  “You might come off more convincing if you face me when you say that.”

  Fighting to gain composure, she turned. She longed to reach out, step into his arms and tell him everything would be all right. Problem was, she had little faith in those words right now.

  Her lips trembled before she pressed them together. “What I’m turning my back on is my past,” she said finally, her voice thin and desperate. “I’ve lived through it, Grant. I can’t do it again. I won’t. If you can’t put this aside, I can’t be with you.”

  “Adams drugged you. Kidnapped you. Raped you. I’m a cop—do you imagine I can turn a blind eye to that?” he asked furiously. “Do you expect me to let that bastard walk around free and clear when I know what he did to you?”

  “You don’t solve every homicide you work.” Frustration had her balling her hands against her thighs. “Sometimes you know who did it and you just can’t prove it. You walk away easy enough—”

  “This is personal.”

  “For me, Grant. It happened to me. Not you.”

  “Do you know what it did to me the
night you told me about the rape?” His hands gripped her upper arms. “Seeing the panic in your eyes, hearing the fear in your voice? You were afraid for your life. Terrified. I felt that terror, Sky.”

  Her throat was so dry, she wasn’t sure she could speak. He was right—she had relived every horrifying moment of the rape that night. Felt Adams’s hands groping her flesh, had cried out when the sharp tip of the blade sliced against her throat. Because the nightmare had been so real, she’d had no defenses left when Grant dragged her out of its torturous grip. She realized now she’d been wrong to tell him so much when she’d had no control over her emotions.

  She raised a hand and cupped his cheek. Beneath her palm, she felt the morning stubble that covered his jaw. “When I told you what happened to me, it wasn’t a cop I was talking to.” She stared up into his eyes, wanting desperately to erase the hardness she saw there. “It was the man who would become my lover. Even then, I knew if I could ever get close to a man, it would be you. Only you, Grant.”

  “I can’t forget what he did to you,” he said through his teeth, his fingers digging into her arms.

  “You have to—”

  “Don’t you think I’ve tried?” he countered. “If I could take a knife and cut it out of me, I would. I wear a badge, for God’s sake. I’m not supposed to have these thoughts. But I do.”

  “The thoughts are fine.” She pulled away, grabbed the two pieces of paper off the desk. “It’s when you do something about them that you cross the line.”

  His gaze flicked to her hand, then resettled on her face. “You want me to play fair and honest, separate things into black and white. Good and bad, right and wrong. From where I’m standing, there are too many gray areas to do that.”