Criminal Promises (11 page)

“Right.” Stepping back,
she told herself to chill out. Then again, with his suspicious mind
amping up her nerves how could she?

He checked the back door
before moving toward the garage. “Where’s the breaker
box?”

“Far wall in the corner.”
She took a deep breath and stayed close as he dragged her behind
him. When he tripped over Jared’s scooter, she lurched forward and
slammed into his back almost taking them both to the floor. He
never released his grip as he regained his footing and kept her
upright.

At the box, necessity had him freeing her so
he could open the small door and flip the breakers. Light shone
into the garage from the kitchen. So it had been the storm. Relief
eased her fear, and made room for the irritation. Irritation caused
by Harte’s reaction to the brushing touches of their skin—or rather
his lack of reaction. Irritation that he’d kissed her passionately,
twice, and now acted with complete disinterest.

Not a word. No indication an inferno sizzled
through his veins like the one raging in hers. Aside from an
earlier shiver, he gave no indications she affected him, and it
pissed her off.

She was insane. She didn’t
want an involvement, but neither could she ignore the way her body
screamed for his. The passion when they kissed couldn’t have been
imagined. Could it?
Only one way to
know.

Biting her tongue, she reached out to run the
tip of her nail down the length of his spine. His muscles twitched.
Before she reached the waist of his pants, he spun and pinned her
beneath his body to the hood of his car. His hands gripped her
hips, his fingers digging lightly into her butt, he held her
close.

Not unaffected.

The evidence pressed against her hip. She
wrapped her hands around his neck and angled her head to meet his
eyes in the semi-darkness. His gaze smoldered.

“You’re begging for
trouble, Mags.”

Probably so, but in this
moment she wanted his kind of trouble. She arched, rubbed against
his erection. “How so?”

Harte invaded her physical space and
dominated her mind with his scent. His head swooped down and with
unerring aim, his mouth covered hers. Shockwaves of pleasure and
heat coursed through her body.

Her panties dampened. With a racing heart and
tingling skin burning beneath his touch, she’d never been more
ready. Her ears rang and the garage spun like a carnival ride. She
gasped. His tongue swept inside, exploring every inch of her mouth.
His tongue tangoed with her tongue. He devoured her. His touch
scorched her brain, short-circuited thought and left only
instinct.

He ran a hand up her side and palmed her
breast. His thumb circled her nipple, hardening it more. She moaned
into his mouth, wrapped a leg over his and slid it up to his hip.
With her hands buried in his thick hair, she pulled him closer,
molded her body to his, wished there were no clothes separating
them.

So hot. She wanted to get closer.

He grabbed her thigh and rocked against
her—long and hard. He tasted her mouth before he withdrew to bite
her lower lip. She traced her tongue over his upper lip, grabbed
his hair, pulled him back.

For once in her life she held passion in her
grasp. She didn’t want to let it go.

Thunder boomed.

Harte jerked his head up.

Pointing his gun toward the overhead door as
if he expected Adalia to appear, his body kept her in place. His
labored breath vibrated through her and he couldn’t blame it on the
sudden boom. Maggie pouted at the sudden loss of his thrilling
kisses and the invasion of reality.

If they hadn’t been jarred from the moment,
if he released his control for more than a brief moment here or
there, she would dissolve and give him anything he wanted. In
return, he’d give her the fire and passion she had long fantasized
about, but in the process she feared he would take over her body
and heart.

Not possible. She couldn’t risk her heart to
a man who would soon walk out the door.

Careful not to touch her and further incite
his arousal, BD escorted Maggie to her bedroom and then hustled
back to his. At the soft snick of the latch, he leaned against the
door and slid to the floor with his legs stretched straight toward
the bed. His shoulders dropped. His head fell between his
knees.

What had he been thinking?

He should’ve been focused on the house and
everyone’s safety. Instead, he let her bait him until her sultry
voice had images of her naked and writhing popping into his head,
driving away reason. Nothing about their situation made the
possibility realistic.

Still, one touch low on his back and she hit
his sweet spot. The spot that melted his knees like candle wax
beneath a flame. The spot that made his stomach clench in desire.
The spot no woman had discovered. His arousal had been instant. His
reaction instinctive. Pinning her to the car, though, nearly
forgetting everything for the sake of the promised pleasure had
been a monumental mistake.

Leaving the Adalia puzzle unsolved would only
put Maggie in more danger. Everyone would be better off if he
stayed focused on her safety and stopping a repeat of Adalia’s
previous run.

He had replayed the day of Mike's death
countless times since that day. Nothing could have been done
differently. Nothing could have saved Mike once Adalia had been
tipped off that they were on to her. Mike Sullivan had been her
retaliation.

BD pinched the bridge of his nose. Maybe the
crash hadn’t been an accident. Depending on the connection to
Sullivan, Adalia may have wanted to silence him. The same could be
said for Maggie.

They needed to set a trap for Adalia, but to
do that they needed to know what she sought. Maggie was the key. BD
would find the answer, Maggie would never know the details, and he
would keep his promises to a dying man. Then he’d get away from the
woman who made him want to put the man in him before the cop.

Moving to his desk, BD booted up his laptop.
A Google search for the few key words they had wouldn’t narrow the
field much. And they needed the prison records to figure out who
was helping Adalia. The warden’s email had only had a recap of the
records, which wasn’t enough.

BD typed in search words
dealing with keys and power. Curiosity had him adding linguist to
the search list.

Results one through ten of
five thousand, two hundred and fifty.
“This’ll be fun.”

He changed the search
parameter to include
magic key
and hit enter.

Results one through ten of three thousand
and seventy.

“Two thousand less,
assuming I’m on the right path,” he muttered. “Time wasted if I’m
wrong.”

He skimmed the screen while his mind drifted
back to Maggie.

For her, everyone else’s needs came first.
She’d shown her steel-coated spine by standing silently while he
pounded the punching bag and how she’d protected her sister and
kids from the encroaching ugliness. Physical and emotional strength
got her through pregnancy and single parenthood without a day of
support from her husband.

You could have stopped it. You should have
stopped it.

Her earlier words swam back. If he’d stopped
Adalia, she wouldn’t have been widowed. That truth was on him.
Yeah, he’d missed something the first time around. He wouldn’t make
the same mistake again.

Thinking about how things might have been was
as effective as a shower curtain on a cellar in a tornado. Only
focus and hard work would solve the case, and again the answers may
rest, possibly to his demise, with Maggie Sullivan. He opened a new
document, began listing what he knew, what he’d observed about
her.

Obsessive compulsive. She cleaned things
someone else had just done, the food in the pantry was sorted by
type and then size, and she stocked condoms in the guest bedroom,
now his room. She had an eye for details, though at times too
much.

She met chaos with a cool head. Mostly. How
far could she be pushed?

Adalia’s note had said the cops had gotten in
the middle. Meaning him and Craig and the day they’d caught her. It
seemed a logical leap that if Mike was the professor Adalia
referred to he’d been working on something before his death. As a
linguist, it could have been a translation. But what sort of
translation was worth killing over?

There had to be answers in the house. Where
could a man hide something from Maggie?

Hoping she would stay in her room, BD shut
down his computer and went to walk the house. Sitting still for too
long unnerved him, so he did what he’d seen Maggie do each night
he’d watched her house. He double-checked every door and window
lock and made sure the blinds were closed.

On a pass through the
living room he rearranged the pillows on the couch. Grinning, he
shifted the magazines on the coffee table from the left corner to
the right and fanned them out. He wanted to see how long it took
her to put things back to her way.
How OCD
is she?

Taking up post at the front window, watching
the street through barely slatted blinds, he tried to think of an
angle he was missing. Focus evaded him.

Her soft fragrance of vanilla and roses
floated up and tickled his nose. His blood surged faster. His body
remembered the feel of her beneath him. He’d been so close to
losing himself in her. So close to taking everything she
offered.

Refusing to think about why her scent
lingered in his mind, BD stared out at the darkened street. Adalia
knew he was there, waiting, which would make setting a trap more
challenging. It was worth it though to keep a closer eye on things.
On Maggie.

The vanilla scent grew stronger. He gripped
the bridge of his nose, but too late to avoid the aromatic induced
awakening. The drawback to being inside rested in his attraction to
her—in her ability to distract him by simply existing.

Kissing her in the garage had been bad.
Pinning her underneath him… His system fired up again at the memory
of her soft curves pressing into him, her leg hooked on his hip,
her hands clutching at him. He wouldn’t repeat the lapse, but
neither would he forget the pleasure he’d felt with her in his
arms.

“Anything exciting
happening?” The huskily whispered words had his heart double
timing.

“F—!” He spun around to
face Maggie. No wonder he’d smelled her. “Where’d you come
from?”

“
My bed.” She leaned
against the wall on the other side of the window. Her hair hung
loose over her shoulders in thick waves that almost reached her
waist.

“What are you doing out
here?” He fisted his hands to keep from reaching for her. To keep
from discovering how her hair felt in his hands. Didn’t she know
how distracting she was? Or was that why she’d come back
out?

“I don’t sleep much. I
heard you moving around.”

“A warning would’ve been
nice.” He tapped his fingers against his leg to keep from reaching
out for her. Somewhere in the world was a man who would one day be
able to kiss her whenever he wanted. He’d know nothing bad would
happen if he got lost in her. BD wasn’t that man.

“I could say the
same.”

“Sorry?”

“Earlier. I knew you would
be keeping an eye on things, but it would’ve been nice to know you
intended to prowl the house every night with a loaded
weapon.”

Her hushed voice in the
darkened house filled his mind with images of her wrapped around
him. He gave himself a mental slap. “Useless if it isn’t
loaded.”

“Are you going to slink
around in the middle of the night every night until she’s
caught?”

“If that’s what it
takes.”

And no matter how much he admired Maggie,
from the tip of her head to the bottom of her killer legs capable
of landing lethal spinning kicks, BD wouldn’t admit to anything
else. Why he was really here, or how he wanted everything and
everyone to disappear so he could have her to himself, would remain
his secrets.

“I’m good at puzzles. I
might be able to help you figure out what she wants.”

“No.” His suspicions
couldn’t touch her.

“Fine. Go back to watching
the empty street.” Dismissal or maybe disappointment dripped from
her tone but she didn’t turn away.

“Mags, I promised to keep
you safe.” He brushed her hair off her shoulder. Sparks of arousal
shot through him. “I’m trying to keep it.”

“You can’t protect me from
the mental torments Adalia keeps springing on me. The iPod was one
of the worst.”

“I can imagine and I’m
sorry about that.” He cocked his head to the side. A new thought
occurring to him. “You saw Adalia’s silhouette?”

“Yes.”

“And the person driving
Mike’s car that day?”

“Was a man.” Maggie’s chin
jutted out slightly. Her back stiffened. “She has a
partner?”

“Seems so.”
Whoever was helping her didn’t stop at getting
her out of prison.
He’d also gotten his
hands on a car that was supposed to be destroyed and fixed it up
enough to torment her.

Adalia had known Mike’s car
would screw with Maggie, but not as much as a personal gift or the
knowledge there were two people possibly after her. He could think
of no way to ease her mind. “Listen, why don’t you try to get some
sleep?”

“Can’t. Every sound makes
me jump. If I close my eyes now…” She walked to the couch and sat,
clutching a pillow to her stomach. She’d already fixed the pillows
and magazines. “Sleep isn’t going to happen for me.”