Deadly Chemistry (Entangled Ignite) (14 page)

She thought about the previous night, when Mike had shown up at her door looking for Dylan. “So…”

He shrugged. “Dylan will probably call this Angela person, they’ll do whatever it is that young lovers do to pass the time.” Eye roll. “And Michael will calm down and get to the bottom of the dilemma.”

An ugly feeling stole over Lauren. She took a long slug of wine cooler. “You act like this happens a lot. If Mike is so volatile, why does Dylan live with him?”

Evan leaned back against the counter, tipping his own bottle, staring off into the distance. “Michael is not volatile. He reacts to danger. He’s…a rescuer, a fixer.”

That was what she’d thought before they’d gotten here. It was the vibe she’d gotten from him, at least until fifteen minutes ago. She was glad she hadn’t been totally off base. But… “You warned me away from him earlier.”

He put his drink on the counter, rubbed his face, then said, “Mike isn’t someone I could see with an academician, such as yourself. I suppose I was trying to look out for you. But perhaps it’s best I stay out of your personal life. Although…I can see how
you
might be awfully good for
him
.”

“Oh,” she said, not sure what to say. “Um…”

He waved away her discomfort. “Let’s eat. Dylan’s safe with Michael. He’d take a bullet for anyone he cares about.” He grabbed the pork roast and put the meat on the table next to the cheesy potatoes.

“And you wouldn’t?”

Evan returned to the kitchen and reached into a drawer, pulling out a serving spoon. “I can’t say that I have ever had—or am likely to have—the opportunity. But Mike is the brother with physical courage, while I’m the rational one. When our grandmother died, she left me as executor of her estate and Mike as legal guardian of Dylan until he reached eighteen. She was a wise woman.”

Lauren took the spoon from Evan and followed him back into the formal dining room. She sat, then poked the spoon into the steaming casserole of potatoes while he carved the pork roast.

“Why do you think that?” Lauren wondered why she was so focused on this issue when her own life was falling apart. Maybe because it was easier than to think about the fact that the thread supporting her career had frayed beyond repair, and it was just waiting for the breeze that would send it plummeting into obscurity.

Evan sat down and served each of them a fragrant slice of meat. “When we were kids, Mike was the one who took the blows for both of us when Dylan’s father found fault. I was the one who hid in the closet. On the other hand, I was the one who came up with the explanations for the teachers and Grandmother about how Michael had fallen out of a tree or tripped over a skateboard.”

“Oh,” Lauren said, feeling like she should say something more profound but unable to find words. Evan simply waved his fork at the potatoes and said, “Eat your dinner.”

Her stomach growled. Might as well. After all, it wasn’t like she had anything better to do…like find her missing drugs and save her career.

Chapter Sixteen

After sharing what had to be the most delicious—albeit artery-blocking—cheesy potatoes and pork roast, and a rather awkward dinner conversation with Evan, Lauren stopped at the convenience store a few blocks from her house to pick up a bottle of white wine and some chocolate. She’d left her previous grocery purchases in Mike’s house. She felt like a cliché. Depressed and stressed, she’d go home and overeat and over-drink and worry about Mike, driving around somewhere on a mission to find his brother, bring down a drug cartel, get his job back, leap over a couple of tall buildings in a single bound…

Unfortunately, she was afraid that his quest for redemption was going to come with the price of his brother’s freedom. It was looking more and more like Dylan was involved in the destruction of Lauren’s lab and the theft of her drug. How could he not be? She’d been defending the kid, but the coincidences were starting to mount.

She tried calling Dylan a couple of times herself, on her way out of Evan’s neighborhood, hoping that—what? That she could ask him where his girlfriend’s gangster brother’s hideout was so she could show up, sneak in, steal back her algae pellets and the purified Devil’s Dust—er, step two—so no one else got hurt, and oh yeah, maybe she could still make enough of the step three drug in time for her meeting with the Pemberton Group? And Dylan would just go, “You’re right, Dr. Kane. Here, let me text you the address to Dino the Gangster Dude’s hideout.”

Her gut still pleaded for Dylan to be innocent, but her gut was also telling her to grab hold of Mike Gibson with both hands—and thighs—and keep him with her forever—and she
knew
that was a bad idea.

Thanking the clerk, she pocketed her change and thought of Mike, in here last night, buying condoms. He’d been buying condoms to come back to her house and use them.

She doubted that would ever happen now. Was it wrong that she was thinking about how much she wanted to get naked with Mike instead of worrying about how useless she was when it came to saving her career? The neighbors were all inside when Lauren turned onto her quiet little street. Nothing moved but the headlights of a car—a black car—that was pulling out of her driveway. As it disappeared around the corner at the other end of the street, the bass sound of rap music faded into the twilight. Dread crept over her shoulder and wrapped around her heart with icy fingers.

When Lauren pulled into her driveway, she noticed a cat-colored mound on her porch. Was that Kevin? She got out of her car and locked it, tucking the bag of wine and chocolate under her arm.

“Kevin?” The mass of fur didn’t move. Surprising, since Kevin didn’t like loud cars. He normally hid under the bushes. He must be pissed at her. He ignored her sometimes, if she’d left him outside for too long without his dinner. But this was different. He wasn’t acknowledging her…he wasn’t even…” Oh my God.” He wasn’t breathing. Someone had—

She turned away and vomited over the porch railing.

After she’d emptied her stomach and her head stopped spinning, she backed off of the porch, careful not to look directly at Kevin’s lifeless body. She avoided stepping on him and pulled her phone from her pocket. She punched in 911.

“Someone murdered my cat on my front porch,” she told the operator after identifying herself and giving her address.

“Ma’am, I’m afraid that’s not an emergency. I can refer you to animal control, if you’d like.”

What? Her cat was dead! “But those guys in the loud car… They…”

“Did someone threaten you?”

“There was a car in my driveway. A loud car.” That sounded lame. But… “I’m scared,” she admitted. “I think they were looking for me. And poor Kevin—my cat—he’s dead.”

The operator said something to someone in the background. “Ma’am, there’s a patrol car in the neighborhood. We can ask him to stop by. Are you inside the house?”

“No, I just got home. I was going to have dinner with my boy—with some friends, and—” She was rambling. “I should go in through the back door.”

“No, ma’am. Please, just stay outside on the sidewalk until the officer gets there.”

“Okay,” Lauren said. That made sense. Don’t go inside. She knew that. Her knees were shaking, and she needed— “Can you ask them to bring me some gum?”

“Huh?”

“I threw up and my mouth is gross.”

Before she sat down on the grassy patch dividing the sidewalk from the street, Lauren unscrewed the cap of the bottle of wine. She swished a mouthful around and spit it into the grass, then took a big slug and swallowed before sitting down to wait for the officers. Maybe she could get a decent buzz on before she had to tell the police that the brother of the man she was falling in love with had something to do with her murdered cat and had maybe stolen a bunch of deadly drugs.

…

When Mike got the call from Crawford, he’d just pulled back into his own driveway. Heart racing, he backed out and turned toward Lauren’s side of town. Crawford had been in the station when Lauren had reported that her cat had apparently been killed by some thugs in a black car. Considering the drug thefts and the threatening message left on her lab wall, the police were treating this as slightly more than an act of animal cruelty.

The police were already at her house, he reminded himself when he was tempted to break traffic laws. She was safe. He had time.

No, he didn’t have time. He needed to be with her. He didn’t know what the hell was going on. His little brother, the brother he’d sworn to protect, was involved with a drug ring, and there didn’t seem to be anything Mike could do to stop Dylan from complete self-destruction. He’d run away from Mike after leaving Evan’s house, disappearing into the evening gloom between some houses. The only thing Mike could figure was that he’d had Angela come pick him up somewhere, and they were off commiserating about what an asshole Mike was.

One thing he was sure of, which gave him a reason to keep going, was that Lauren Kane was good, and honest, and for some crazy reason, she liked him. Or she had, before he’d made an ass of himself in front of her and left her at Evan’s house.

He squealed to the curb and barely got the keys out of the ignition before he jumped out and slammed the door. Lauren, Crawford, and a uniformed cop looked up at him as he pounded past the patrol car parked in front of her little bungalow.

Lauren sat on the grass with a blanket draped around her shoulders. She turned a pale face and big eyes on him. He thought she relaxed a little as he walked toward her. He knew he felt better, seeing her there, safe and reasonably calm. She cradled a half-empty wine bottle to her chest and spoke around an enormous wad of gum. “Hi. What are you doing here?”

He looked at Crawford, who shrugged and said, “I just got here, too. I didn’t tell her I called you.”

“You called him?” Lauren bestowed a huge smile on Crawford. “That was really nice.”

“Are you drunk?” Mike asked.

“I think I might be, a little. I was kinda freaked out when I got home and found…” She trailed off, and the smile morphed into the forerunner of an apocalyptic meltdown. “My cat is—and I don’t know—”

“Lauren, it’s okay. I can help if you let me.” He squatted next to her.

“I’m not so sure about that.” She prepared to tip the bottle to her lips again.

Mike took it from her. “Let me hang on to that until we’re done with the police, okay?”

“Oh.” She looked at the uniformed cop. “Tony, you wouldn’t write me a ticket, would you? These are extenuating circumstances, right?”

“I think that, as long as you wait to finish that until later, we can let the open container charge slide this time.” The officer suppressed a smile before walking away.

Lauren wobbled to her feet. Mike rose, steadying her. She took a step forward, and then wrapped her arms around Mike’s waist, surprising him. She had to be loaded, because the last time he’d seen her, she’d looked ready to murder him. He tentatively put his arm around her shoulders and tucked her against him.

“I’m sorry,” she said into his shirt.

“What are you sorry for?”

“I have to tell you something bad.”

Chapter Seventeen

Lauren woke up with her face smushed against something hot and hard, something like a denim-covered tree trunk.

“Hey, there you are.”

She blinked at a big naked foot propped on a coffee table next to an empty white zinfandel bottle. There was a television a little farther out, with some sort of sepia-toned gangster movie playing softly. This was
not
her place, most definitely. In fact, that was Miss Posy, er…Possum, sitting on the floor next to the TV, alternately grooming herself and growling. Huh. Mike’s cat looked better. Her hair was already starting to fill in the bald patches she’d gnawed into her skin at the shelter.

Lauren realized she’d been sleeping on Mike’s thigh. Which meant the back of her head was right next to… “Oh, boy.” She sat up too quickly, her head spinning. She focused on the streetlight that she could see through his living room window, shining through the night and anchoring her.

“Are you gonna be sick?”

“Um. No?”

He snort-laughed. She was afraid to turn and look at him, to let him see the pillow marks—well, the leg marks—that no doubt creased her face. She wiped at the side of her mouth, sneaking a look down at his lap to make sure she hadn’t drooled on him.

One of his hands came up to the back of her neck, under her hair. He gave her a quick caress and then stood.

“You want something to drink?” Without waiting for an answer, he walked to the fridge in the little kitchen that she could see through a doorway. He pulled out a Diet Coke and a bottle of water, which he carried back to her. He even unscrewed the cap, which was thoughtful, because her hands weren’t ready to do anything so complicated yet.

She took a long drink, then finally looked at him.

He gazed back at her. “You okay?”

She tried to smile reassuringly. “I think so.” She tasted the inside of her mouth. Not too bad. They’d gone to the Quick Stop on the way from her house to his and bought her a toothbrush, which seemed to have warded off hangover breath. “I don’t usually drink very much,” she finally said.

“Yeah, I guessed that.”

She scooted over a little bit and he sat back down, put his arm around her, and pulled her against him. There was tension in his embrace.

“Do I smell icky?”

His nose brushed her hair away from her neck and he inhaled, sending a shiver along her spine and heat to the rest of her. “Nope.”

“Oh. My.” She vaguely remembered telling him that she thought Dylan was the bad guy. He’d taken it fairly calmly, but she figured that was because he already believed the worst.

She’d wanted to finish her wine on the way to Mike’s house, and she vaguely remembered telling him he was the sexiest control freak she knew after he’d taken it from her and screwed the top on, tucking it into the tool box in the bed of his truck for the ride home. When they’d gotten inside, she pushed him down onto the couch, and then climbed on top of him, straddling him, leaning for a kiss before remembering that she’d thrown up less than an hour earlier. At which point, she thought, but wasn’t sure, she’d burst into tears and run into the bathroom to use her new toothbrush.

She sat up, pulling away. “Oh, God. Well, at least I didn’t drunk-text you. I didn’t, did I?”

“Nope. Just drunk-groped me, but my virtue is still intact.”

She smiled at that, then the rest of it came rushing back to her. “My cat’s dead. Murdered.”

He nodded. “I’m really sorry about that.”

“Thanks.” She was quiet then, not sure what to say.

“Crawford texted me a little while ago. He said he’d have someone check around off and on all night to keep an eye on things around your house until morning. They went inside but couldn’t tell if anything was taken.”

“What about…Kevin?”

“He took care of him, too. Crawford will show you where he’s buried in the back yard later, if you want.”

“I wish I could figure out who’s doing this. If someone wants my drugs, I get that, but why hurt Kevin? He was innocent. This feels…personal. I know I said I think Dylan might actually be involved, but I can’t believe he’d do
that
.”

“He’s not alone in this. And the other people, other Devil’s Rangers? They’d do anything to get what they want.” He paused. “Do you have anything at your house? Anything from work?”

“Just some notebooks and my laptop. But that stuff isn’t going to make any sense to anyone without an organic chemistry or pharmacology background.”

“Someone who also knows a lot of biology.”

“What? Like who?”

Mike was staring at her. Did he think…?

“Surely you’re not thinking it could be Evan, are you? I mean, yeah, he’s got the background. Heck, even if he didn’t, he’s smart enough to figure it out. But it’s not
Evan
.”

Mike paced to the window and pulled down a slat on the shade, let it go, and walked back across the room. “I don’t really think so, either. Just throwing ideas out there. Besides, Evan’s always been the good brother.”

She remembered what Evan had revealed to her yesterday, about how Mike had taken so many licks for him. She imagined Mike as a teenager, angry, protective, scared but standing up for his siblings anyway. “Evan doesn’t think he’s the good one,” she said.

Ignoring that, he asked, “Does Dylan have enough science under his belt to take your algae stuff and make it into the drug?”

“Probably,” Lauren said, but something was tickling the back of her brain. She just couldn’t grasp it. She needed to get home and look at her laptop. “I should go.”

“Where are you going to go?” He took his hand away from his neck.

“I’ve imposed on you enough, and I— I have to go home and see if anything was taken. Maybe that will help me figure out who did it. You don’t have to take me, I can call the Night Walk van.” That was a program the women’s student association had so that no one had to walk around campus in the dark alone. They would make off campus trips, if it was within a few blocks of campus, too.

“The hell you are. You’re not going home alone.”

“It’s okay. I can go by myself.”

“And I can take you. If you’ve really got to go right this minute.”

Did he want that? Or was he just being nice again? She didn’t want him to hang around with her just because he felt obligated. She wasn’t going to be another responsibility that he had to take care of. Besides, she was on a roll. No big, strong, he-man was going to tell her what to do. “No, I’m fine, I’ll just call—”

“Why not?” He was mad now. Sparks practically shot from his eyes.

“Because…because… God, because I want you to go with me so much, and I can’t ask you to help me!”

And then his arms were around her, and he was kissing the mad, crazy confusion right out of her.

His lips, and teeth, and tongue met her lips, and teeth, and tongue and sent every thought of not needing him straight to hell. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, and his big, hot muscles flexed under her hands as he ran one hand up her back, under her hair, and the other down over her backside, gripping the back of her thigh.

He yanked her leg up around his waist, and she gave a little hop, then wrapped her other leg around him as he pressed her body into the door behind her, aligning everything, pushing his erection against her, hard heat nudging through layers of denim, trying to get where he was supposed to be.

And that was the thing, wasn’t it? Getting him inside her was all she needed. That would solve the mysteries of the universe, wouldn’t it?

Mike ended the kiss and pulled back, staring into Lauren’s eyes, chest heaving with a shakiness that moved something deep within Lauren, something that wasn’t a reproductive organ, something that felt curiously like her heart, cracking open to let in this man, this dark, complicated man full of secrets, this man who wanted her.
Her
. He wanted her. And God help her, she wanted him.

…

“So,” Mike said, breathing heavily against Lauren’s lips. He felt her heat through their jeans and groaned but managed to get out, “I’ve got a brand-new box of condoms.” He heard his own voice crack. He had to get inside her.

She shifted, pressing against him, rising up and then down a little, and moaned. “I don’t—” she gasped. “I think maybe—”

He headed down the hall, holding her legs around his waist, her arms around his neck. He stopped a couple of times to kiss her, tongues tangling, pressing against her, so desperate to be inside her that he was almost capable of doing it through layers of denim.

But they’d been there before. This time was going to be the real thing.

“Put me down,” she told him when they got as far as the hall bathroom door.

“I don’t want you that far away from me,” he told her.

“I want to be in your bed as soon as possible, and if you put me down, we have a better shot of making it before I spontaneously combust.”

He laughed as he let her slide down his body until her feet were on the floor. It felt good. God, he loved this woman.

His brain froze for an instant, then his heart pushed hot blood through. He couldn’t be in love. Could he? Whatever it was he felt, it was good, and he could worry about it later. “When you go up in flames, it’s not going to be spontaneous. It’s gonna be because I sent you there, one stroke at a time.”

They made it to his bedroom, and he started pulling at her clothes while she was pulling at his. Their hands tangled as they reached for one another’s waistbands at the same time.

It nearly killed him, but he stepped back from her. “I’ll do me, you do you.”

“Oh, God. The visual I just got of that…” she said.

Which made him have the same visual. Or at least, the counterpoint.
Jesus
. “Maybe next time. Right now…”

He pulled his jeans down. His aching cock sprang free as she revealed her tiny red panties, and then the dark triangle beneath. She stopped for a moment, looking at him, letting him look at her. “Wow,” she said, reaching out to run her hand down his chest.

And didn’t that make him feel ten feet tall.

“Shirt. Off. Now,” he said.

After the briefest hesitation, she complied, ripping her top over her head and unhooking her bra in record time. It was one of those front clasp things, and then her breasts were there for his viewing, his touching pleasure.

He stalked toward her, and she fell backward onto the mattress, then scooted back so that her head was almost at the other side of the bed. He landed on his knees, on the bed, and pulled her thighs apart. Holy hell. She was wet and swollen and he hadn’t even touched her yet.

He moved back, and then fell to his belly, erection pressed between his stomach and the bed. He inhaled her scent and then looked up at her face. She watched him, eyes wide, lips parted, breath fast and shallow. Holding her gaze, he lowered his mouth to taste her. The sound she made, part cry, part groan, nearly made him come apart.

As he licked and sucked and nuzzled, she writhed against him. She put her hands in his hair, holding him against her. He smiled. She liked this. Her thighs tensed. She was ready.
He
was ready.

He rose and advanced up her body, kissing her belly, her ribs, the undersides of her breasts. The hands in his hair were still pulling, but it was to get him to move higher, faster.

He sat back, out of her reach, but she sat up, following him. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him, her tongue diving into his mouth.

He unwrapped her arms and held both of her hands in one of his. “Hang on, babe.”

“I need you,” she said, but stilled, panting, her frustration clear.

He reached for one of the condoms he’d put on the nightstand and tore it open with his teeth. He had to let her go to roll the damned thing on, but then her hands were on him again.

Finished with the condom, he reached for her hands again, capturing them and pushing her back onto the bed. With one hand, he held her hands above her head, and with the other, he pulled her leg open so that he could position himself between her thighs.

Quiet, still now, she waited. He brushed against her slick folds. Even through the latex, he felt her heat, felt her quiver against him.

“You ready?” he asked. Please, God, let the answer be yes.

She nodded.

He entered her, just a fraction, and then forced himself to retreat.

“Please. Please, Mike, please. Just fuck me, for God sakes.”

And that was it. He pushed into her and began to move. Inches from her face, because he was still holding her hands above her head, he stared into her golden eyes, so full of…his own reflection.

“Oh, oh, oh oooh!” she cried, and her spasms rocked him.

He moved faster and faster, feeling his whole world narrow into throbbing heat at the base of his spine before sensation exploded through him, sending the top of his head somewhere into the next county.

His last thought before he lost consciousness was that he should die now, because he wouldn’t survive doing this again.