Deadly Fall (15 page)

A harsh sound filled her ears and Augusta squeezed her eyes shut. It took her a few moments to realize that the sound was her own loud, rapid breathing. But she couldn’t get enough air into her lungs. It was as if she was suffocating. Like when her attacker had clamped his hand over the bottom half of her face and tried to drag her back into the alley.

Oh, God.

She reached for the bottled water she always kept on her night stand, found only air and cursed softly. It must’ve been damaged during the break-in. For some reason, that made heat sizzle just under her skin. Good. If she was angry, she couldn’t be scared.

It was a few minutes before her breathing eased enough for her to take off her glasses, place them on the nightstand and lie down. She didn’t, however, get under the sheets. Instead, she curled up on her side on the bed, pulling her robe tight about her, head resting on clasped hands. Augusta reached back and pulled the stick pin from her bun, easing the tension on her scalp and letting her hair spread in a tangled array on her pillow.

Several minutes later, her eyes were still open and the lamp still on. Her anger didn’t last long. The logical part of her knew all she had to do was reach up, switch off the lamp, close her eyes and let sleep take over. She was safe in this room, in this bed. Nick was right across the hall.

But across the hall was so far away.

* * * * *

Nick came awake with a fully alert sensation, but he remained motionless. It was a trick he’d learned early in his career in law enforcement. It had come in handy more than once. Having discerned that he was alone in the room, he reached for the automatic under the pillow.

He opened his eyes. Through his open door, he could see Augusta’s door was ajar, her room dark. His heart lodged in his throat. Then he heard soft footsteps on the stairs.
Augusta
, he thought and could breathe again. An intruder would’ve gone after him first.

Unable to sleep, she’d left her room to find peace elsewhere. A quick peek in her empty room confirmed his suspicions.

Without bothering to consider whether or not she would want his company, Nick made his way downstairs. Following the faint light, he saw her through the French doors of a room just off of the living room.

“Did I wake you?”

He stepped into the room

Her soft question didn’t surprise him. He could feel her presence every time he was within ten feet of her. It seemed only fitting that the awareness be mutual.

“I’m a light sleeper.”

He stepped further into the room. From the large walnut desk, the leather chair behind it and the large number of books contained within the room, he assumed it served as her library and office. Unlike the rest of her house, this room felt lived in. While he had been setting her house to rights, Nick had spent the most time in this room. When he’d first seen it, it appeared as if the room had suffered the presence of a whirlwind—or a particularly destructive and frustrated housebreaker. He hadn’t been able to get to the haphazard piles of books lying before the gutted bookshelves. At the moment, Augusta was curled up on one corner of the sofa, gazing into the empty fireplace with her back to him. He flicked the safety back on and placed the Glock on a corner of the desk before going to her.

“I’m sorry,” Augusta said, “but I couldn’t sleep and just lying in my bed in that room wasn’t helping. “

“Scared?”

“Yes,” she admitted, finally looking up at him where he stood just behind her. Without her glasses to correct her astigmatism, he was slightly fuzzy around the edges. But what she could see made her stomach knot. The light from the low, shaded lamp on the end table cast intriguing shadows over the planes of his naked chest, the ridges on his equally naked abdomen. In spite of herself, Augusta felt the first stirrings of desire as she took in the muscular male body covered in nothing but a pair of navy boxer shorts.

“Scoot over.”

Without argument, she did as he asked, readily settling back against him when he sat down behind her and drew her against him with his long arm around her waist. She could feel the semi-aroused state his body was in and stilled, savoring the familiar, answering heat that ignited in the core of her. Dear God, why was she denying them both?

He misread her stillness. “Don’t worry,” he said, a bite in his undertone. “I’m not going to pounce on you. My self-control might be lacking when I’m with you, but it’s not nonexistent.”

“I wasn’t going to mention it.”

They sat in silence while Augusta layered her arm on his, oddly comforted by the contrast of his tanned skin against her paleness, his hairy roughness against her smoothness. The warm, heavy weight of his arm made her feel secure. Solid. He felt solid and she felt safe.

“Is it what happened in the alley?”

“Yes…and no. It’s everything.” She sighed and turned her head until her cheek was pressed up against the warm, lightly furred skin of his chest. “A week ago, I was living a sedate, quiet life. I had a job I enjoyed, a home I felt safe in and two people who are closer to me than family.” Her voice became slightly raw. “And now…now, that job is gone—or as good as—my home’s been broken into, and one of the people I loved was killed and I’m the best suspect.”

“No, you’re not.”

She lifted her head and looked at him, a sardonic smile firmly in place. “Don’t lie to me. I know the NYPD would pounce on me if you had something more than circumstantial evidence. Who knows? Maybe I staged my own mugging and break-in to throw you guys off my trail.”

“Stop it.” His voice could’ve sliced through stone. “You need to put this out of your mind before you lose it. Getting some sleep might be a good start.”

She snorted. “Easier said than done. It doesn’t matter how tired I am, I’m not going to be tired enough to shut down my mind. Every time I close my eyes now, I either picture Drew getting thrown from his terrace or some maniac wearing too much cologne running after me.” Her chest was heaving, but her voice never rose above a quiet whisper. “It doesn’t matter how tired my body is, my mind’s going at a hundred miles per hour and my imagination’s working overtime to show me what could’ve happened had I not escaped the alley.”

By the time she finished, tremors ran the length of her body and, despite the robe and the heat emanating from the body at her back, she was chilled.

She heard Nick mutter something under his breath before he took the ice cubes that were her hands between his and began chafing them. It felt as if he was rubbing the delicate bones of her hands together, but she welcomed the warmth. She moved against him, relaxing. But he dropped her hands, gripped her pelvis and stopped her, and Augusta made a small, incoherent sound at the feel of his erection growing larger and harder. She closed her eyes and inhaled through her nostrils. She needed this. And there was no reason in the world for her to feel guilty. She wasn’t using him. No, she was, but it wasn’t as if she would be sleeping with him because he was one of the lead investigators in Drew’s murder case. Besides, Nick Markov had made it clear that he wanted her too.

The fingers curved around her hips flexed. A muscle within her clenched in response, bringing an end to her justification.

His name was barely more than a breath. “Nick…”

“Don’t.” His voice sounded strained.

“But…”

“Just give me a minute.” The words were barely more than a low growl.

Since he wouldn’t let her speak, she did the next best thing. Or perhaps it was the best thing. Actions spoke louder than words, after all. She twisted her hands until she was holding his and brought it up to cover her breast beneath the terry cloth robe. She was completely naked underneath.

She could feel his body become as rigid as steel. Her breath remained locked in her throat. Then his fingers moved, squeezed. Her head fell back against his shoulder and her deep sigh of relief was swallowed by the mouth that instantly covered hers.

Nick knew this wasn’t what he wanted. No. Correction: this was what he wanted, but not the way he wanted it. He wanted her to come to him because she wanted
him
, not the boneless exhaustion and mindlessness he could give her so she could rest and sleep—dreamlessly.

When it came to Augusta Langan, however, he was a desperate man. He would take her any way he could get her, even if it was for all the wrong reasons. And in the light of day, if she regretted what happened, he would remind her that she’d been the initiator. But for now…for now he would give her what she needed and take what she could give him and run with it.

Nick alternately rubbed and plumped her small breast with his palm, enjoying the softness of her flesh, the velvety smoothness, the pebble hardness of her budded nipple. He flicked his thumbnail over it. She whimpered into his mouth and dug her short nails into his wrist. His erection twitched and strained against his boxers.

Christ
, he thought. She was so damned responsive.

The tip of her eager tongue touched his lips and he couldn’t think any more. He opened his mouth and sucked her tongue inside. He curled his around hers, rubbed it, dueled with it. Then it simply wasn’t enough. He had to taste her. He had to find out if it was as good as he remembered, as hot as he fantasized.

Augusta knew the moment the control shifted. His kiss forced her head heavily back against the curve of his shoulder, which seemed to have been made just for her head. Her tongue retreated as his advanced. She forgot to breathe when his thrashed wildly inside her mouth, seeking to touch every square millimeter of her warm, wet mouth.

She released his wrist to tangle her fingers in his hair, pulling his head down more, wanting to deepen the kiss. But she had to break the mouth to mouth contact to gasp his name when a large male palm cupped her sex through her robe. Wet heat flooded the apex of her legs. She arched her body into his hands, not quite sure what was driving her more insane, the hand fondling her sensitive breasts or the one roughly massaging her sex.

She tipped her head back, arching her throat. Nick pressed warm, damp lips to the throbbing pulse in the pale column until her body fell back against his. He nipped his way down her throat, across to her round shoulder, back to that sensitive spot where her neck met her shoulder. Her fingers tightened painfully in his hair.

Her body felt fluid, and, yet, she was all hot and tight inside. And it wasn’t enough.

She abandoned his hair to fumble with the tie of her robe. But it took her a few seconds too long so he brushed her hands aside and made short work of the knot. He pushed the robe open.

The air that caressed her naked front didn’t cool Augusta one degree. How could it when fire trailed in the wake of the hands that swept from her shoulders to her upper thighs? When those same hands lightly skimmed her sex along the way? Those same hands gripped her thighs, fingers digging in hard enough that she knew she would find bruises there in the morning. He parted her lower limbs, exposing the swelled sex covered with dark, springy hair.

Augusta whimpered. But he still wouldn’t touch her where she needed him the most. Frustration swirled through her, making her pant. The sound was loud in the otherwise quiet room. And that sound ceased when Nick covered her open mouth with his. She readily responded, using her tongue to taste and explore him as he did her earlier.

However, it wasn’t nearly enough to distract her. She grabbed his wrists, intending to bring his hands to her hot center, where she ached for the stroke of his fingers. But with a twist of his wrists, he captured her hands in his, easily restraining her when she struggled against his hold.

She moaned his name against his mouth, eyes half-lidded, and nipped his bottom lip.

Nick nearly lost it at the feel of her teeth. His smile was feral. She was so damn hot. She made
him
so damn hot. He wanted her so badly, his balls were beginning to hurt, he was so hard. He wanted to shove her down, free himself and come inside her from behind, feel her slick tightness around him, hear her moan as he moved in and out. He wanted to stay inside her till she begged him never to leave her, then he would pump toward the release that would shatter them both.

He cupped her slim hips and thrust up against her buttocks. She moaned. He rubbed the hard length of his erection roughly against her. And she lost the air she needed to make any sounds. More than bringing them both to orgasm, he wanted to imprint himself on her body, her mind, her soul. After this night, he wanted Andrew Langan and all the other lovers in her past to be nothing more than distant memories. Hell, he didn’t want to give them even that much.

Nick dragged his open mouth across her jaw to her ear. He traced the delicate shell of her ear, nipping the fleshy lobe when she squirmed in his grasp.

“Nick…”

Christ, he could listen to her breath his name like that till he turned seventy. Even then he wouldn’t be tired of hearing it.

“Touch yourself,” he whispered in her ear and felt her body quiver. He watched intently as he placed her right hand over the trim mound of hair shielding her sex. The sight squeezed the air from his lungs, making his voice hoarse. “Do it for me.”