Bodyguard Daddy (24 page)

She moaned as tension began to build inside her. She needed him there—driving deep. But instead of his erection, his fingers moved between her legs. He touched intimately, pushing his thumb against the most sensitive part of her.

She whimpered as the tension wound tighter, threatening to snap her. Then he moved again—pulling her down onto his erection. He slid home—that was how it felt when he filled the emptiness inside her.

He was home. His arms. His body.

She had never loved anyone as she loved him, and she never would.

But she didn’t hold out hope that he would ever again ask her to marry him. Because even while he made love to her body, Milek held a part of himself back from her.

There was a distance between them that Amber wasn’t certain she could ever bridge. Even as she opened her body and her heart to him...

She skimmed her lips along his tense jaw, over his chiseled cheekbones—to his mouth. She kissed him as she clutched at his broad shoulders, holding on to him as tightly as she could.

He moved inside her, sliding in and out. And his fingers teased her nipples. He kissed her deeply, his tongue sliding in and out of her mouth as he did her body. And finally the tension inside her broke. She screamed as the orgasm overwhelmed her.

He tensed, and a low groan came from his throat, echoing off the slate walls. Despite his orgasm, the tension didn’t ease from his body. Maybe that was because there was still a threat out there—someone still intent on killing her and her son.

Or maybe it was because Milek would never be able to completely let himself go with her. He wouldn’t ever let her have all of him.

That knowledge hurt more than Evelyn’s slap had earlier. Milek could protect her life. But he couldn’t protect her heart—because he’d already broken it.

Chapter 22

N
ick stared out the windows of his office, studying the detectives and the officers who milled around the department. Had he wasted the past year of his life?

Apparently he hadn’t cleaned up as much of River City as he’d thought he had. After digging a little deeper into Evelyn Reynolds and her financial records, he had found bribes. Ones paid to her and ones she had paid.

She was dirty as hell. But was she a killer? He didn’t know—even after he’d questioned her. Now she was locked up in the holding cell where she’d had Amber Talsma held. He doubted anyone would come to her rescue as they had Amber’s. With her accounts frozen, she wouldn’t be able to make bail. He didn’t have to worry about her right now.

What about Brad Jipping? He picked up his cell and punched in the number for the best River City detective and asked, “Any leads on Jipping?”

“Since his kid died last year, the guy’s gone off the grid,” the detective replied.

Nick breathed a slight sigh of relief. Then Nikki wouldn’t be able to find the guy, either, and he was sure Milek had her looking. Nick didn’t want the Payne Protection Agency finding Jipping before he did. He didn’t entirely trust Milek Kozminski—especially not if Jipping proved to be the killer.

The guy might wind up dead before Nick could have the chance to arrest him. Then Nick might be arresting Milek instead. Not that he’d blame him for wanting to take out the guy who’d terrorized his son and the woman he loved.

If Nick ever had a kid and someone put out a hit on him...

But that wasn’t likely to ever happen. He pulled open his desk drawer and reached for a gooey cookie. The closest he had come to a relationship since moving to River City was with Penny Payne. But that was a strange bastard-son-of-her-dead-husband relationship that nobody understood.

Especially not him...

But he’d never been good at relationships. He suspected Annalise Huxton would heartily agree with that—since he’d crossed the line and ruined their friendship. Maybe it was good her brother had gone missing on his last deployment or he probably would have tracked Nick down to kick his ass before now.

No. He understood Milek Kozminski wanting to hurt the man who’d threatened his child and the woman he loved. He just couldn’t let him do it.

* * *

He had him. Jipping was here. Milek knew it. At his nod, Garek kicked open the motel room door, and Milek rushed inside—gun drawn.

Despite his bleeding shoulder the guy had moved quickly enough to grab his gun. He pointed the barrel at Milek.

“Put it down!” Garek yelled at him. “You’re not going to be able to hit us both.”

He probably wouldn’t be able to hit either one of them. If the way he’d shot at the SUV in the parking garage was any indication, he was no marksman. Maybe that was why he had hired Frank Campanelli to kill Gregory Schievink. The district attorney would probably still be alive if Jipping had tried to shoot him himself.

“Who the hell are you?” Jipping demanded to know, his voice a drunken shout.

Milek pointed at the guy’s shoulder. Blood oozed through the gauze he’d pressed to it. More blood-soaked bandages littered the bed on which Jipping sat. “I’m the one who shot you.”

“You’re her bodyguard.”

He was much more than her bodyguard. He was the father of her child. Her former fiancé. Her lover...

Why couldn’t he control his desire for her? Every time they had made love it was harder for Milek to hide his feelings for her—to hide the fact that he still loved her.

Maybe Jipping would do them both a favor if he shot him. It would probably hurt less than letting her go again.

But Jipping wasn’t in a hurry to pull the trigger—probably because he knew Garek was right. He couldn’t hit them both and whichever one he didn’t shoot would kill him. “How’d you find me?” he asked, and his bloodshot eyes darted nervously around them.

Maybe he was expecting the police, too. But they hadn’t called them yet.

Agent Rus would be pissed they hadn’t called him and they had found Jipping first. But he didn’t have the resources they had.

They had connections in the darkest parts of the city. And that was where they had found Jipping—just off skid row. A guy Milek had been in juvie with had recognized the picture Milek passed around and told him where they could find the drunk. For a price.

Their old connections didn’t give away information for free. Nor would they have talked to police. That was why Rus hadn’t been able to find Jipping yet. He hadn’t known where to look. But knowing Rus, he would figure it out—eventually.

Along with the bloodied bandages, empty beer cans and liquor bottles littered the filthy motel room. Maybe that was why the guy was a lousy shot. He was too drunk to shoot straight.

“Finding you wasn’t that hard,” Milek said. Which probably meant the police would find him soon, too. Rus was smart enough to barter for information. He’d struck a helluva bargain with Viktor Chekov.

But it wasn’t Agent Rus who burst through the door behind them—it wasn’t Nick at whom Jipping swung his gun. It was Amber. How the hell had
she
found them?

“I’m sorry,” Candace said as she rushed in behind Amber. “She insisted on coming here...”

“Get out of here,” Milek told her.

“No!” Jipping shouted. “That bitch isn’t going anywhere.”

Milek stepped in front of her. He would gladly take the bullet meant for her—gladly give his life for hers. Their son didn’t even really know him. His mother was the parent he needed. The parent who had always been there for him.

Amber’s small hand touched his back, pulling on his shirt. “Don’t,” she told him.

Did she think Milek was going to kill the guy? Was that why she had insisted on Candace bringing her here? To talk Milek out of murder?

Her doubts stung his heart. But Milek had had doubts himself. He hadn’t known what he would do when he confronted the man who’d terrorized his family. But if Milek was the killer everyone thought he was, wouldn’t he have already pulled the trigger?

For that matter, wouldn’t Jipping have? But then Amber was the one Jipping wanted dead—and Milek stood between her and his bullet. He braced himself—waiting for the shot.

* * *

Amber knotted her fingers in Milek’s shirt and tried pulling him away. She didn’t want him giving up his life for hers. “No,” she said. “Don’t...”

“I won’t kill him,” Milek said.

She wasn’t worried about Jipping. She was worried about him.

“If he puts down the gun,” Milek continued. “Put the gun down,” he told Jipping.

“You all need to put down the guns,” a deep voice said as Agent Rus stepped into the motel room with them.

She glanced back at the agent, whose jaw was clenched so tightly a muscle twitched in his cheek. He was furious—angrier even than Milek was at her for showing up.

But she hadn’t wanted him risking his life when she was the one Jipping wanted. Not that she intended to give up her life, either. She didn’t want anyone getting killed.

Brad Jipping had already lost enough when his son had died. He didn’t need to lose any more—no matter the hell he had put her and Michael through.

“Jeremy wouldn’t want this,” she told Jipping.

“Don’t say his name!” he shouted. “Don’t you dare say his name!”

Amber drew in a sharp breath and tugged harder on Milek’s shirt. He was certain to get shot if he kept standing in front of her. And maybe she needed to see Brad Jipping to get through to him.

She had always been able to reach the members of the jury when she’d taken the time to look each one in his or her face—to speak only to them. Gregory used to call her the jury whisperer.

“Jeremy was a good kid,” she said.

“Then why’d you send him to prison?” his father asked.

Technically the judge had sent him to prison. She had only gotten him convicted; the judge had sentenced him. Maybe that sentence had been stiff. But the judge was rumored to have lost someone he loved to a drunk driver.

“He killed two people,” she said.

Just as Jipping had killed two people. Schievink and the man he’d hired to pull the trigger for him.

“Jeremy didn’t mean to do it,” Jipping said. “It was an accident.”

One that wouldn’t have happened, had Jeremy not been drinking and then gotten behind the wheel. She’d used that in her closing argument. But if she repeated that here, with Jipping armed, it might prove a closing argument of another kind—one that got more people killed.

“I tried to get him sentenced to a rehab facility,” she reminded Jipping. But the judge had refused her recommendation. And Gregory had concurred with him. “I wanted to get him some help.”

Maybe she should have focused on getting his father help, too. Especially after Jeremy had killed himself in jail.

“He didn’t need help,” Jipping protested. “He just made one mistake—one night. He was a good kid. He deserved a second chance.”

And he would have had one—had he served out his sentence. But Jeremy had been too guilt-ridden to give himself that second chance. Because he’d taken those innocent lives, he had taken his own—that was what he’d said in the suicide note he’d left behind.

So why did his father blame her? Why had he blamed Gregory? And what about the judge? Why hadn’t his name been in Frank Campanelli’s little leather book?

Maybe he’d always intended to take out the judge himself. She hadn’t come here to plead his case, though. She was pleading her own.

“My son’s a good kid, too,” she said. “He’s just a little boy—just five years old.”

“I remember when Jeremy was five...”

The sadness in his voice struck a chord of sympathy within Amber.

“He was probably like my son,” she said. “Sweet and funny and full of promise.”

Tears cracked the older man’s voice. “He was...”

“So why would you hire someone to kill him?”

“Jeremy?”

“No, why would you hire someone to kill my son?” she asked. Her heart ached with the pain she’d felt when she’d thought he had been hurt in the car accident. “Why would you hire someone to kill me?”

“You sent him to prison!” Jipping shouted.

And she flinched. With Milek standing between her and the barrel of Jipping’s gun, she didn’t want to incite his temper any more than she already had.

“She didn’t send him to prison,” Milek defended her. “The judge sentenced him. Amber only did her job. She got justice for the innocent people your son killed.”

Amber tightened her grasp on Milek’s shirt, trying to pull him aside; he was going to incite Jipping now.

“Jeremy wouldn’t want anyone else to die,” Amber implored him. Surely he had to know how guilty his son had felt.

“Stop!” Jipping yelled. “Stop talking about him. You have no right to talk about him!”

“And you have no right to try to kill my son,” Amber said. “You have no right to hurt anyone else. Enough people have already been hurt.”

“No!” Jipping shouted.

She felt Milek tense. It was as if he suddenly got taller and broader—as he tried to shield her from what he was certain would happen. The others tensed, too. Garek and Candace tightened their grips on their weapons.

Agent Rus was behind her, so she couldn’t see him—couldn’t see what he was doing. But she was certain he was still furious—the way Milek was probably furious with her for interfering.

She’d thought she could talk to Brad Jipping. That she could get him to understand this wasn’t what his son would have wanted. Jeremy had been a good kid who’d made one mistake. He should have been given that second chance.

He should have given himself that second chance.

Suddenly an arm wrapped around Amber’s waist. But Milek hadn’t even moved. Then she realized what Rus had been doing. He hadn’t drawn his weapon, as everyone else had. Instead, he grabbed her, lifted her from her feet and pulled her from the motel room.

The flurry of movement must have startled Jipping. Or he had been so desperate to kill her that he couldn’t let her get away. Because a gun went off, the noise exploding inside the small room.

And if Jipping had fired that shot trying to hit her, then Milek would have taken the bullet meant for her.

“No!” The scream tore from her throat as she flailed in Rus’s arms, trying to get away from him—trying to get to the man she loved and might have lost again.