“What happened when you came out of the bathroom?”
“Nothing,” she panted. “I just... wanted you.” She gasped as he sped his pace, pumping and thrusting, and twisting her nipple roughly.
She covered his hand with hers, dropped her head against him. “Oh God. It... you... I’m...” Her tight little sex grabbed a hold of him and squeezed.
He exploded inside her, groaning loudly with the force of it. Shaking until she had all he had to give, every last pump and drop of him.
When finally they were quiet, he didn’t let her go. He held her there. “Now, tell me.”
She buried her face in her hands. “There’s nothing to tell.”
He pulled out of her and grabbed his shirt, turning her to face him and giving it to her to dry off. He pressed his hands on the couch on either side of her, framing her body with his. “Talk to me, Lauren.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“I’ve told you before. The truth. Say what you feel.”
“Confused. I feel confused. You went from one night stand to my private bodyguard.”
“You were never a one night stand to me, Lauren. But maybe that’s the problem. This has gone way farther than you wanted it to.” He started to move away. Damn, this woman had a hold on him that he didn’t understand.
She grabbed his arm. “No. No. It’s not that. I... I just don’t understand what we’re doing.”
“I thought we were getting to know each other. Apparently, I’m helping you work another man out of your system by way of sex.”
“Oh God, no, Royce. No. There isn’t anything to work out of my system.”
“He hurt you and messed with your head.”
“He did. You’re right. That doesn’t mean I’m using you. It means,” she inhaled and let in out, “it means you scare me. If this is just sex then I need it to just be sex. Clearly. Cut and dry. I don’t want to mix it in with conversation and pretend fluff to feel better about that.”
There it was. The truth. What she really felt, and he was damn glad she’d told him, that she hadn’t played games. That she had honesty in her. And what was he doing? Hiding things from her, lying to her. Anything he said to her now, she’d question later and he knew it. But he was in too deep to turn back. If he confessed, she’d kick him out, push him away, and he’d struggle to protect her.
Royce kissed her and then pushed her away to stand up and grab his pants. He stepped into them, and she blinked at him, looking dazed and confused. He yanked the blanket off the floor and crossed back to her, wrapping it around her and squatting in front of her.
“I need you covered before I try to prove to you this isn’t just sex. I want you, Lauren. I tried to resist and I was weak and if you sit there naked I’ll be weak all over again. There’s something going on between us, and I know it’s happening fast, but I’m not sure there’s any other way two people as drawn to each other as we are can do things. This is new territory for me. I’m not the stay-the-weekend kind of guy, Lauren, but you have to kick me out if you want me to leave.”
“Because you’re trying to protect me. You’re law enforcement. It’s your nature.”
Those words punched him in the gut, because he knew they were a preview of what was to come, what she would think when he finally confessed his deal with her father.
“I have a staff,” he said. “I have resources. If I felt some obligation to protect you, I could put surveillance on you and you’d never know it.” He traced the delicate line of her jaw. “I’m here because I want to be. Because I thought you wanted me to be.”
“I do,” she whispered. “I do want you to be here.”
“Good,” he said. “And if keeping our clothes on will prove to you that there’s more to this than that, then we will step back and start over slower. I won’t lie and say it won’t kill me, but I’ll happily take the couch if that’s what I need to do.”
She dropped the sheet and wrapped her arms around him, her soft curves pressed to his chest. “Only if I’m on it with you.”
His resistance lasted all of a few seconds before his arm wrapped around her body, his mouth closing down on hers, tasting her, drinking her in like a man weeks without water. And as she moaned into his mouth, as possessiveness he’d never felt for another woman ripped through him, he didn’t question the need to make her his. He simply knew she was the one woman he had to have, the one he’d never found until now. The one who was going to hate him before this was over. The one who would rip his heart out. And worst of all he was going to be the bastard who deserved it.
Chapter Eleven
Monday morning, after a weekend of pure bliss with Royce, Lauren stood in the kitchen holding a steaming cup of coffee, dressed in a tan fitted skirt and cream silk blouse, ready to start her work week. As much as she’d loved her escape with Royce, she’d bypassed work for movies, conversation, and a lot of unforgettable moments that required no clothing, and now she was behind.
Royce appeared in the archway, his dark hair tied at his nape, his jeans and t-shirt molded to delicious muscles she now knew intimately. “I’m driving you to work,” he said.
She should have been irritated about the command, but a few of his bedroom orders flashed in her mind – harder, faster, lick me – and her mouth went dry. Lauren set her cup on the kitchen counter. “You don’t have to take me to work.”
“Yes, I do.” He leaned on the archway, his shoulders taking up the entire tiny space.
She studied him, reading what he wasn’t saying, and nerves knotted her stomach. “Stop. Stop acting like a watchdog. You’re making me uptight. You’re making me think about the phone calls and the calendar pages. I can’t do my job if I can’t think straight.”
“You have to think about this, Lauren, and you have to look over your shoulder. And I’ll be looking too.”
“You can’t watch me all day, Royce. And even if you think you can, for how long? We didn’t get another call, or another calendar sheet, this weekend. Maybe it’s over. Maybe this person got their laughs and moved on. Or maybe you being with me scared them off.”
“No. He’s not tired. He’s not scared. He’s trying to get you to let down your guard.”
“You don’t know that. We don’t know anything at all. And you’re going to make me crazy.”
He closed the distance between them and pulled her into his arms. ”Just humor me for a few days and play things safe until I get some answers. I’ll drop you off at work and pick you up. That way I have an excuse to take you to dinner,” his lips curved, “and have you for dessert.”
“Bribery isn’t going to make this better.”
He laughed. “Bribery, huh?”
She couldn’t laugh. She couldn’t do anything with the invisible vise tightening on her chest. “I’ve been working criminal cases for years. I’ve had threats. I did with those what I told you I do with everything else. Threats, bloody pictures, and random body parts in bags. They are the same to me. I put them in this imaginary place in my mind, a box that I seal and don’t open unless I have to. It’s how I keep going.”
“I know,” he said. “If anyone gets that, it’s me. If I had any other choice, I wouldn’t push you on this. There’s something about the way this has all gone down that I don’t like. I need you to be on alert, and I need you to be cautious, until I figure out why.”
“Damn you, Royce. That just made me more on edge. I know to be careful. I’m always careful.”
“Curse me if you want,” he said. “Yell at me. Just do what I say.”
She let out a sigh. “What is it about me and controlling men? I’m drawn to them.” She stepped out of his reach. “Drive me if you must.” She tried to walk around him and he caught her arm. “Please don’t. Not now. And I know I’m probably being unfair but I just feel like everything is spinning out of control. I need some space to figure out where my head is.”
His eyes, so blue, so piercing, held hers, his expression unreadable, bef
ore he let her go. And God, she was so confused and conflicted, because she hated he let her go, when she’d just told him to.
***
Two hours after arriving to work, Lauren sat behind her simple steel public servant’s desk, in her box of an office. She and Royce had barely spoken on the way to her office and that had her just as crazy as everything else. He’d made her put his number and both of his brothers’ numbers in her phone, and told her not to leave the building. No kiss goodbye. Just a quick ‘I’ll call you later and check in.’
The intercom on Lauren’s desk buzzed and she jumped, silently cursing her edginess. She punched the button on her phone. “There is a Jonathan Wilkins here to see you,” came the familiar gravelly voice of her sixty-something year old assistant, Alice Harper. She cleared her throat and lowered her voice, “He’s very determined.”
Of course he was. His sister was about to go on trial for murder. She could only hope this was heading towards a confession. “Send him in.” Lauren leaned back in her chair and waited for her visitor but she didn’t, and wouldn’t, get up. Not with this particular visitor, whom she’d read the file on. She’d learned a long time ago that sitting behind a desk was as good as towering over a man. It proclaimed ownership of the room, it said she wasn’t intimated into standing. It worked with the more dominant types.
Her door was open and it took all of sixty seconds for a strikingly large man, she knew to be thirty-six years old, to appear in the entryway. And true to his military duty, his hair was short, his jaw strong, his expression hard.
“Hello, Ms. Reynolds.”
There was something about the way he said her name, the way it came out almost like a threat, that set a warning bell ringing in her head. “Please, have a seat, Mr. Wilkins.”
For a moment, he stood there, so still, she almost thought he’d frozen in place, turned to stone, before he gave a surprisingly polite, “Thank you,” and claimed a visitor’s chair.
“I assume this is about your sister,” Lauren prodded, eager to get on with this. He was a time bomb she could almost hear ticking.
“I’ll cut to the chase,” he replied, bypassing a direct answer. “I know what Beverly did was wrong, but don’t you think you are being a bit harsh in your quest for the death penalty? I mean the woman was terrorized by her husband.”
Lauren leaned back in her chair, carefully schooling her features into an emotionless mask. “Have you talked to your sister’s attorney about this?”
He let out a bitter laugh. “Funny. That’s exactly what your father asked me.”
She cringed at the idea that her father had been dragged into this, but managed to clamp down on an obvious reaction. “My father is a State Senator. He can’t do anything to help your sister.”
His lips thinned. “So he says.” He shrugged. “I guess that means it’s all on you.”
“Unless you have new evidence to present, Mr. Wilkins, this case is in the jury’s hands.”
He leaned forward and pressed his hands onto the desk. “I’m Special Forces. I was away on a mission. I’m all she has since our father died last year. She married that bastard when I was in deep combat territory, and instead of taking care of her, he beat the crap out of her. Had I been here, things might have been different. Had I even known what was going on, things would have been different.”
“I can see how much this is upsetting you,” she said. “And I understand. But a man is dead and buried, Mr. Wilkins, and his family is in pain. They want his side of the story told.”
He pushed to his feet, his voice rising with him. “I let her down. She was desperate to survive. Don’t you understand her need to end the pure hell she was living? Do you have no heart, Ms. Reynolds?”
Her heart was what made her job both difficult and rewarding. The victim of this crime was dead, but his family painfully lived on. “Look, Mr. Wilkins. I want to help but I need new evidence. Something to clear your sister. Have your sister’s attorney call me. I’ll talk to him.”
He stared down at her, his jaw tight, his breathing a little too fast. “This isn’t over,” he said in a low, threatening voice, before turning and storming out of her office.
Stunned, Lauren read the threat he intended. She watched him leave, fingertips pressed to the top of her desk. It wasn’t until she heard the front lobby door slam that she realized she was holding her breath and her hand was shaking. She exhaled, rattled when she normally wouldn’t be. And she knew why. The calls, the calendar sheets. Royce’s paranoia over them. All those things were messing with her head and that meant whoever sent them was getting their way, and she didn’t want to give them that satisfaction. She had to shake this off.
Her intercom buzzed again and Lauren punched the button. “You okay in there?” Alice asked, concern in her voice.
“Yeah,” Lauren said. “I assume he’s gone?”
“Oh, he’s gone,” she said in a disgusted tone. “And he did so quite loudly.”
“I heard but I wanted to be sure.”
“I called the building security and alerted them when I heard him raise his voice in your office. And you have a call. Mark Reeves.”
Beverly’s attorney, and the timing was just too perfect. “Put him through,” she ground out through her teeth.
Alice transferred the call through, and Lauren answered, and she didn’t hold back, nor did she bother with ‘hello’. “Sending your client’s relatives over here to harass me into giving you a plea deal is not only not cool, it doesn’t seem like your style.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I just got your message, and was returning your call.”
“I was returning your call from Friday,” she corrected. “And Jonathan Wilkins just paid me a delightful little visit. One that ended in a threat and a slammed door.”
“Ouch, Lauren. I’m sorry. I had nothing to do with that. I talked to him this morning and told him a deal wasn’t looking good for Beverly. He wasn’t happy.”
“No. No, he wasn’t. How about warning me when you have a loose cannon? We might not be on the same team, but we aren’t enemies.”
“He’s Special Ops. I thought he had more control than this. He’s just another reason to put this behind us. Let’s talk plea bargain and avoid the trial. Save us both a lot of time and headaches.”
“Not unless you’ve changed your last proposal.”
“The jury will be sympathetic to a battered woman,” he argued.
“You mean a cold blooded killer who meticulously planned her husband’s slow death. Poison has precedence in the courts. The death penalty is a strong possibility, and you know it.”
“Wouldn’t you rather get a sure conviction than risk her walking? I’m good, and you know it. I’m willing to listen to any reasonable deal. Make me an offer.”
“First, let me say this, I’m good and you know it.” He chuckled into the phone as she added, “That said, you already know my offer, and that’s no offer.”
“And you know that’s not reasonable,” he argued. “Second degree with an established time period for possible parole. I can guarantee my client will accept if the parole period is reasonable.”
“You’re joking, right?” she said sharply. “I would never let her see parole. Forget it.”
“She’s young, a mother of two. Have some heart.”
“Life without parole,” Lauren countered.
“You can’t win a first degree charge and a death penalty sentencing.”
She clenched her teeth. “Then what are you worried about? If I overcharge then I’ll be the one with regrets. Think Casey Anthony. I am and I know I have the backup they didn’t to support my charges. And let me remind you about State vs. Norman. The wife killed her husband in his sleep stating she thought he would kill her when he woke. The Supreme Court said, “If we allowed this behavior, homicidal self-help”
“Would then become a lawful solution and perhaps the easiest and most effective solution to this problem.” He paused. “
I am well aware of the ruling.”
“So you know I’ll win,” she stated with confidence.
“Juries are a fifty-fifty bet.” He sighed. “I can tell we are at a standstill.”
“I respect you, Mark. I know you believe in this woman, but you’re wrong on this one. I wish you weren’t, but you are.”
“Let me know if you change your mind,” he said. “Otherwise we’ll take our chances with the jury.”
“I guess we will.”
A few seconds later, they’d said their niceties and ended the call. Her buzzer went off immediately and that was how the next few hours went for her. When Lauren finally managed a breather, she intended to review a file, but instead found herself replaying the moment she’d dropped that sheet and pressed herself against Royce.
“What are you smiling about?”
Lauren’s gaze lifted to the doorway, to find Julie standing there, her simple black suit hugging her voluptuous curves, her long blonde hair resting on her shoulders. “I want details about this weekend.”
Lauren glanced at her watch to see if she had lost track of time. “I thought you were going to call me and make sure I could do lunch?”
She shrugged. “Yeah, well, that gave you a chance to say ‘no.’”
“It’s only eleven o’clock.”
“So?” Julie said, claiming the chair Beverly’s brother had been in earlier that morning. “It’s late enough to qualify as lunchtime.”
“I really need to work through lunch. Don’t you have any work to do?”
“No morning appointments. I delve into another divorce with the rich and famous again this afternoon. You know Gina Garrett?”
Lauren blinked. “The actress?”
“The one and only. My newest client among quite a few celebrities. Seems I’ve been named the attorney of choice when discretion is valued.”
Laughing, Lauren said, “Yeah, well, you’ve earned that. You are responsible for divorcing at least half a professional baseball team.”
“And quite discreetly, I might add.” They shared a laugh before Julie asked, “Can you at least go downstairs and have coffee with me?”