DevilishlyHot (23 page)

Authors: Unknown

BOOK: DevilishlyHot

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“I would agree to anything to be with you. I would sell my soul to the very devil.”

Annie stiffened under him, fear nearly blotting out her desire. Then he kissed her and began moving inside her and she managed to assure herself those were just words. A turn of phrase used hundreds of times.

He’d never know she’d done just that.

Chapter Twenty-two

O
ver the next couple of weeks, Annie was surprised how easily her plan worked out. In fact, it seemed to be working perfectly. Nick had pulled out of the investigation without much questioning from his captain, and in fact, no other detective was assigned.

Annie knew that didn’t exactly sit well with Nick, but he told her the whole investigation was going to be short-lived anyway, because there just wasn’t enough evidence.

Even Finola had seemed to have given up on Nick. Her whole focus now was Fashion Week. And though she wasn’t aware of Annie’s relationship with Nick, she wasn’t making Annie’s life any easier. Her demands were even more outrageous, the hours longer than ever, and every day was a struggle to make sure she didn’t find a single reason to accuse Annie of breaching their contract.

Now that was more important than ever, because now she would not only lose her soul, she would lose Nick.

And today she was surprised that she came out unscathed.

Annie let out a sigh of relief as she finally reached her apartment. She wearily dug through her purse for her keys, finding the task of inserting the key into the lock almost too much.

But after a few attempts, she managed to unlock the door and step inside. Immediately she was surrounded by the scent of something delicious cooking.

She closed her eyes, breathing in deep, suddenly her hideous day being so worth it.

“Hey,” Nick said, poking his head out from the kitchen. “I was just checking on the lasagna.”

“Lasagna.” Annie moaned. She dropped her purse and shrugged off her coat, not caring that both ended up on the floor of her entryway closet. Then she went right to the kitchen and to Nick.

He was bent over the oven, and Annie came up behind him, curling over him to hug him, resting her cheek wearily against his strong back. Heat from the oven and more wonderful scents of home cooking encompassed her. Or maybe it was the heat of Nick and his wonderful scent that made her feel boneless and happy.

He finished checking the pasta, then straightened and turned in her arms. He kissed her, and she decided definitely he was the thing that made her feel at home.

“Another late night,” he said, gazing down at her, his brows drawn together with concern. “You look dead on your feet.”

“Not today,” she said, then laughed at her private joke.

Nick’s frown deepened and she gave him a smile. “I’m tired, but fine. Glad to be home.”

“I’m glad you are, too.”

They kissed again, something she was never too tired for.

“Go change,” he said. “I’ll get a plate ready for you.”

Annie sighed as she wandered to the bedroom, amazed at how her life had changed. Nick was always there waiting for her when she was finally released for the night from work. He always had dinner waiting for her, whether he cooked or picked up takeout. And every night she slept in his arms.

She smiled as she changed into a pair of flannel pajama bottoms and tugged on one of Nick’s T-shirts. An NYPD baseball league shirt.

The past weeks had been heaven, and the time with Nick made up for the rest of her life that was still hell. But at least now she had something to keep her going.

“That smells so good,” she said, shuffling out of the bedroom to the kitchen table, where Nick already sat, waiting for her.

“Well, this time I can’t take credit,” he admitted. “My mom sent it over.”

“That was sweet.” She sat down beside him, breathing in deeply.

“She’s asking again when she’s going to meet the woman who has me absolutely smitten.”

“You’re smitten?” she said, grinning coyly at him before popping a piece of garlic bread in her mouth.

“Just a little.” His naughty smile out in full force.

She took a bite of the heavenly lasagna, moaning with appreciation.

“Once we get through Fashion Week, things should slow down,” Annie said. “Then I should be able to go for a visit.”

“They better slow down. You can’t keep up this seven-day workweek for much longer. You look exhausted.”

She knew she did. She was pale and there were purple circles under her eyes that expensive concealer was just barely covering.

“I know I look a wreck,” she said.

“That is not what I said. I said you look exhausted. You always look beautiful. Especially in my T-shirt,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows lecherously.

She laughed.

But Nick grew serious. “Finola cannot expect you to keep up this pace. It’s ridiculous. It’s superhuman.”

He had no idea how accurate he was, but instead she turned the topic to his work. She didn’t feel like talking about Finola and her unrealistic, inhuman demands.

“How’s your work going?”

Nick shrugged, taking a large bite of lasagna before he answered. “A murder investigation today. It shouldn’t be too complicated. It looks like a straightforward case of a husband with a jealous mistress who decided to get rid of the wife once and for all.”

Despite herself, Annie shivered at his words. That sounded a little too close to home for her. Annie wasn’t the wife, and Finola wasn’t the mistress, but she had no doubt the outcome would be the same if her relationship with Nick came to light.

Nick frowned, noticing her shudder. “Cold?”

She nodded, even though it wasn’t true. “I think being so tired is making me feel chilled.”

“Well, go in to bed. I’ll clean up.”

She smiled, feeling sad that she didn’t have more energy. “It doesn’t seem fair that you are always taking care of me.”

“I like it.”

Annie didn’t doubt that. Nick was a natural-born caregiver. She pressed a kiss to his cheek, thanking him again for dinner, then she did head to bed, groaning with relief as she crawled under the warm covers. Her tired muscles relaxed and she drifted into a place somewhere between awake and asleep.

In the kitchen, she could hear Nick cleaning up. He really was the sweetest, most thoughtful guy she’d ever known.

He’d make an amazing father, and she smiled at the places her sleepy brain was going. She wondered what it would be like to be pregnant with his baby. She wondered what they would name him ... or her.

She wondered if he’d wait seven years to do that with her.

Her eyes opened, all her warm, pleasant thoughts gone. In seven years she’d be thirty-five. Nick would be thirty-eight. Would he want to wait that long? Was it fair to ask him to?

She closed her eyes again and despite her restless, uncertain thoughts, exhaustion won out and she fell into dark, empty sleep.

Only later, although she had no perception of how long, dreams returned. Wonderful dreams. Arousing dreams.

Very deliciously real dreams. Dreams of Nick’s wicked hands and mouth moving over her body.

Annie moaned, blinking her eyes open to discover she wasn’t dreaming. Nick leaned over her, his T-shirt nudged her skin and his lips found her breast. He sucked lightly on one, then switched to the other.

Her hand came up to run through his tousled hair, pressing those naughty lips of his harder against her.

He obeyed, teasing her tight, sensitive nipple until she wiggled under him, her body begging for more.

He lifted his head then, his eyes dark and solemn. “I’m sorry to wake you. But I just needed to touch you.”

Annie frowned, surprised by her seriousness. Not that they never made love seriously, but something felt different tonight.

But before she could question him, he ducked his head again, his tongue and lips teasing her nipples. Then when she was again writhing against him, he slid down her body pressing open-mouthed kisses across her stomach.

He eased down her pajama bottoms, baring her totally. Then he kissed the slight curve of her belly, her hips, the soft mound of her sex. Then he moved to situate himself between her thighs, her labia open to him. He touched her there, stroking one of his strong fingers lightly between them, her arousal slicking his fingertip.

Then he lowered his mouth to her, licking the dampness there, tasting her. He remained there, his tongue whirling and dipping, tasting every inch of her sex. His lips and teeth toyed with her, bringing her to the brink of release only to return to tender teasing.

Only when she was clutching him, digging her fingers into his broad shoulders, lifting her hips wantonly and demandingly against him, did he slide back up her body and penetrate her with his thick erection. But still he didn’t let her have the release she desperately needed.

Instead he played with her, first taking her hard and fast and deep. But when the walls of her vagina began to clench him, quivering with her impending climax, he slowed down, sometimes barely moving at all.

Repeatedly being brought to the edge of the precipice, then pulled back was driving her mad, making her beg him for release, her words tumbling out, incoherent, desperate.

Finally he gave her what she pleaded for, driving into her over and over, his body filling hers completely until she screamed with the impact of her orgasm. He shouted too, joining her in the final almost brutal release.

Annie wasn’t sure how long it was before she became aware of her surroundings again and able to form any sort of coherent thought.

“Holy cow,” she finally murmured, rolling onto her side to curl against him.

Nick smiled over at her, looking as dazed as she felt. But again she got the feeling something still wasn’t right. Something in his eyes looked different.

She lifted her head from the pillow, studying him for a moment. “What’s wrong?”

He shook his head. “Nothing.”

She wasn’t convinced and he knew it. He rolled over onto his side to face her.

“Nothing is wrong,” he said, his eyes roaming her face. “It’s just that—I love you.”

Annie stared at him, not sure that she’d heard his low, husky words correctly.

“You ...” Her words stopped. She was almost afraid to say them in case she was wrong.

But he simply said them for her. “I love you, Annie.”

Annie remained still for a moment longer and then she threw her arms around his neck, her body half on top of his.

“Oh, I love you too.”

Nick watched Annie. A little smile curved her lips even in her sleep. He’d meant what he said and he was humbled and honored that she felt the same way, but this moment didn’t have the blissful feeling it should. And that was because of him.

He carefully slipped out of bed and grabbed his boxers off the floor. He tugged them on, then walked to the living room. He sat down in the dark, the only light from the streetlights outside. But enough light to see his cell phone on the coffee table. He stared at it for a moment, then he reached for it.

The screen flashed to life, almost blinding in the dark. He hesitated again, then dialed his voicemail. He held the phone to his ear and listened to the message again, to the lilting, melodic voice on the other end.

Finola. She’d called after Annie had gone to bed. He’d recognized the number, but hadn’t answered. He had listened to the voicemail, however. She wanted to see him. Wanted him to be her date for a party to kick off Fashion Week.

And he was going to betray his pact with Annie and do it. He didn’t resent what Annie had asked him to do, give up the case at
HOT!
He understood she was truly concerned about him, but he just couldn’t stop thinking about all those missing people. About Jenna and Jessica Moran.

And he couldn’t stop worrying that the same thing would happen to Annie if he didn’t discover what was going on there.

Chapter Twenty-three

T
he next evening, Annie got home even later than the night before, and Nick couldn’t stand to see her as tired as she was.

He brought her a bowl of soup, which she accepted with her usual sweet smile.

“Thank you.” She took one bite, then set it on the table, apparently too tired to even eat.

“Annie, you can’t keep going this way.”

She smiled again, telling him the same thing she had since they started seeing each other. “Things will get better after Fashion Week.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to tell her they definitely would because he was going to start his investigation again. But he stopped.

He hadn’t even called Finola back today. He’d pulled up her number several times, but couldn’t bring himself to dial the number.

He didn’t want to betray Annie. But looking at her now, he knew he had to do something. It was like that woman had some sort of power over Annie. Like she was a vampire, controlling her, then sucking away her life force.

“Annie, you have to quit this job,” he said, but he’d already tried that many times. And his pleading had fallen on deaf ears, just as it did tonight.

“I’m fine,” she assured him. “Nothing a good night’s sleep won’t fix.”

“And I woke you last night when you so desperately needed to rest.” He’d felt guilty all day about that too.

She roused then, moving closer to him. “Don’t you dare apologize about that. That was the most amazing moment of my life.”

He smiled at her. “I’m glad you feel that way.”

She wouldn’t when he finally told her what he intended to do. But he was doing it for her as well as the missing people. She wouldn’t see it that way, but he was.

“You know, you’ve never told me about your tattoo,” she said clearly nudging the conversation in a different direction.

She pulled up the sleeve of his short sleeve and inspected it closer. “It must signify something to you. Isn’t that why people get tattoos?”

Nick glanced at it and decided he should tell her. After all, Annie loved him. If anyone could hear about his darkest moment and love him anyway, it was she.

“Remember you asked me about the Midtown Murderer?”

She nodded, her gaze on his face now rather than the tattoo.

“Well, that was a long, brutal case. His murders were violent, horrific. By far the worst killings I’ve ever seen. The women were just—” he shook his head at the memory. “They were mutilated.”

He breathed in, remembering how awful and strange and just utterly frightening that time was.

“Nick, if this is too hard—” Annie began, but he stopped her.

“I want to tell you.”

Her eyes moved over him, but she nodded for him to continue.

“The case was obviously very disturbing. And during it, I started to have—I don’t know. The shrink says they were hallucinations brought on by stress. But whenever I got close to one of the bodies of his victims, I’d start having this intense feeling along the back of my neck and down my spine. I don’t know how to describe it. I guess the best way is like hundreds of pins pricking me. Cold pins.”

Annie listened, no doubt on her face, her gray eyes only solemn, maybe a little pained for him.

“I also started having dreams about a creature that looked like this.” He tilted his head toward the tattoo.

“Finally we caught the murderer. The monster. He was cuffed in the interrogation room and I was supposed to go in and question him. Other detectives watched from another room, but I was the one who went in there alone with him.”

Annie’s hand, which had been resting on his arm, squeezed him. A gesture of comfort. Of support.

“I sat down across from him and began asking him questions,” Nick shook his head at the memory. “He was evil. Pure evil. But as I looked at him, he started to change. He changed into this creature.”

He touched his tattoo then.

“He sat right there, across from me, and let me see the monster deep inside him.”

Nick fell silent, remembering that moment.

“What happenened?” Annie asked softly.

“I flipped out,” he said with a humorless laugh. “I jumped up, screaming. The other cops had to come take me out of the room. While that monster just laughed. Laughed and laughed at my total breakdown.”

“Did anyone else see it?”

He snorted. “Of course not.”

“Was that why you had to take a leave of absence?”

He nodded, again chuckling although he felt no amusement. “A leave of absence, session after session with a shrink. You can’t have a lead detective seeing monsters now, can you?”

Annie studied him for a moment, but rather than giving him indulgent sympathy like others had, she frowned and asked, “But why tattoo it on your body?”

He glanced down at it. “It’s a reminder that I will never be frightened of a monster again.”

Nick sat at his desk, reading over some eyewitness reports of someone seen at the site of a break-in. As usual, all the reports described something different. A hat, no hat. Facial hair, no facial hair. A yellow car, a white car.

No sooner had he read the word “white,” than his phone rang. He glanced at the number and he paused.

Finola.

After the fourth ring, he pressed the answer button.

“Detective Nick Rossi.”

“My, my, aren’t you all official?”

“Finola,” he said as if he was surprised it was her. “I was just getting ready to call you back.”

“Well, you were taking too long,” she said, her tone flirty and petulant all at once.

“I’m sorry about that.”

She made a small noise like she doubted him, but then she said. “So, do I have a date for my party on Friday?”

“You do.”

He could practically see her self-satisfied smile over the phone. “Excellent. I will have a car sent for you. Just text me your address.”

“Sounds good.”

Nick hung up the phone, his stomach sinking at the realization of what he’d done and what it would do to Annie. But after last night’s conversation, he knew he couldn’t let Annie’s monsters frighten her any longer either.

“That’s right,” Annie told the caterer. “She wants the potato leek soup instead of the Manhattan clam. Great. Okay, good. Thank you.”

Annie hung up the phone, then stretched. Well, she had Finola’s dinner menu finally fixed. The woman even wanted all the food she served white. Really, that had to be the height of self-obsession, didn’t it? But, whatever, it was done and hopefully Finola would be pleased.

Well, pleased until she came up with her next demand.

As if on cue, Finola’s voice came over the intercom.

“Anna, I need you in my office. Right now.”

“Right away,” Annie answered, then stood, her muscles achy as she headed through the maze. Maybe she’d ask Nick to give her a massage tonight. He had amazing hands, large and strong.

She smiled to herself, realizing she was getting as spoiled as her boss. Okay, no one was that bad. But still she should do something nice for Nick for a change. She’d just been so busy and he’d been so good to her. But he deserved something nice.

He was an amazing man.

Anne rapped lightly on Finola’s door and the woman looked up from her computer and waved Annie in.

Finola’s dog stood up as Annie entered, and let out one little yip, but then circled a couple of times and curled back up in a ball as if it were too much work to do anything else.

“Anna,” Finola said, “I need you to deliver something for me on your way home.” She pointed to a garment bag hanging on the back of a rolling rack in the corner.

“The address is attached,” Finola said absently, her attention never leaving what she was doing on her computer.

Probably solitaire, Anna thought wryly.

She crossed the room and unhooked the bag, draping it over her arm. Only then did she see the address.

She stared at it, the words and numbers written in Finola’s loopy cursive. She read it again.

“Is there a problem?”

Annie looked up, trying to gather herself.

“No,” she said. “I was just thinking that address seemed oddly familiar.”

Finola raised a doubtful eyebrow. “It’s Detective Rossi’s address, but I don’t know why you would know it.”

“I—I must remember it from the research I did for you,” Annie told her, surprised she could sound so calm.

Finola seemed to accept her explanation, with a dismissive wave. “Well, deliver that tonight. Nick is going to be my date for the party, and I’m sure he has nothing to wear. You may take it now. I’m finished with you for the day.”

Annie nodded and left without further comment. She hurried back to her desk, gathering up her stuff. She was actually getting to leave early, and now she was going to go home and confront Nick.

Nick was surprised to hear the apartment door jiggling as a key was being inserted. Annie was home already? Before ten at night? That was unheard of.

He started down the hallway just as Annie barged through the door. Her gray eyes flashed and her pretty mouth was twisted in a furious grimace.

“Here you go,” she said, shoving a white garment bag hard against his chest. His arms came up automatically to catch it. She then pushed past him into the living room.

She whirled on him, her expression still livid.

“How
could
you? How could you agree to go to Finola’s party as her date?”

Nick wanted to groan. He should have guessed Finola would say something to Annie. After all, Annie was little more than the woman’s slave, expected to arrange every last detail of her life.

“I was going to tell you.”

“Oh really?” she said, her voice more bitter and sarcastic than he’d ever heard it. It was unnerving, like discovering that Gandhi suffered from road rage.

“When were you going to tell? After this date? Or the next one? Or the next? Maybe I would just go into the office one day and happen upon you screwing her on my desk.”

Nick blinked. Okay, her anger was even more shocking than his earlier reference, more like finding out that Mother Teresa was actually a nasty drunk.

“Annie, you know this isn’t about an attraction to her. I love you,” he stated. “And it’s because I love you that I have to do this. I have to see what I can find out about those missing employees.”

Some of Annie’s anger seemed to diminish, and she looked somehow deflated, defeated. He actually could accept her anger better.

“But you promised you would let the investigation go.”

“I can’t, Annie.” He dropped the garment bag onto one of the stools at the island and walked over to her.

He stopped just short of her, wanting to touch her, but not sure she would allow it.

“If she’s involved, and I’m sure she is, she needs to be stopped. Not to mention you won’t quit, and I can’t risk you ending up like one of those past employees.”

Annie raised a shaky hand to push the escaped tendril of hair from her bun out of her face. Her gray eyes shimmered with barely contained tears.

“Don’t you understand?” she finally said. “If you keep prying, not only could I end up like one of them, but so could you.”

Nick looked at her pleadingly. “No, I don’t understand. Explain it to me. Tell me what you know. I promise I can help.”

A bark of a laugh escaped her. “There is no way you could help.”

“Of course I can. I have access to the best law enforcement in the city.”

She shook her head. “Law enforcement can’t stop them.”

“Why not?” Nick just couldn’t understand what she was telling him.