GROOM UNDER FIRE (12 page)

“I would lie to Rochelle,” she said. “But I couldn’t lie to a judge if my sister challenges us in court. For my job I’ve had to testify a lot, and if it was ever proven that I committed perjury...” All those other cases could be called into question. It wasn’t a risk she was willing to take.

“Then what do you intend to do?” he asked. “If I’m right about Stephen, you don’t need to inherit to pay his ransom.”

“There has been no demand...” Her groom had not been kidnapped. He could still be hurt, though. Or he could be out there shooting out windows and running down people with cars and tossing tear-gas canisters.

“So you don’t need the money,” he said.

But she did need the money. For all those people she wanted to help and for an even better reason now. “Then if you’re right, Rochelle and Stephen will get it all.”

“Not if we can prove what they’ve done.”

“Can we prove it?” she asked. “Are those emails enough to bring any charges against them?”

“No,” he admitted. “We would need more evidence.”

“Evidence that we might never find,” she said. “I work cases where I know there’s neglect or abuse, but so many times I haven’t been able to prove it.” Until it was too late...

She blinked against the sting of tears.

And Cooper squeezed her shoulder. “You really care about your job, about those people...”

Too much to let Rochelle collect money that could help them.

“I care,” she said. “Do you?”

“I want to protect you, Tanya.”

She drew in a deep breath to gather her courage. “Then make love to me. Consummate our marriage.”

Chapter Twelve

Make love to me.

He couldn’t have heard her correctly. He must have been daydreaming. And his heart was only pounding as wildly as it was because of the shots he’d heard being fired at his eldest brother. It wasn’t because he was hoping like hell that he had heard her
correctly.

Desire rushed up, choking him, so that he had to clear his throat before asking, “What did you say?”

Her face flushed a bright shade of pink. Clearly too embarrassed to speak, she just shook her head.

Nobody had ever accused him of being too sensitive. Maybe he would have to learn some sensitivity—now that he was a married man and all. But he wasn’t a really married man unless...

“You heard me,” she challenged him.

“I heard you,” he admitted. “But I don’t understand you.” If she was so in love with Stephen...

“I thought I’d made it clear,” she said.

He shook his head now—trying to clear the passion from it, so he could think clearly.

“If Rochelle challenges this marriage in court,” she said, “I won’t perjure myself.”

He wanted her. But he wanted her to want him, too, as more than a means to an end. “So you want to sleep with me to spite your sister?”

“To stop her from getting what she wants,” Tanya replied. “The money.”

“And what about Stephen?” What were Tanya’s feelings for her missing fiancé? She had been so loyal in her defense of him. Where was that loyalty now?

“If you’re right and they’re in on this together, she can have him!”

“
I
don’t know what’s right or wrong,” Cooper admitted. “I was just saying it was a possibility that they could be in on it together.”

“Because of the emails,” she said with a nod.

She was as hurt as he had worried she would be if he shared his suspicions. But he’d had to be honest with her then. And now.

“But maybe they’re not,” he said. “We didn’t find any reply to her email from Stephen. So maybe he has nothing to do with any of this.” He actually hoped that was the case or he had lost a friend, too. But if Stephen wasn’t in on it and had been seriously injured, Cooper may have already lost a friend. And then he’d married that friend’s bride.

That made him the biggest betrayer.

Tears glistened in her eyes. “I don’t know what I want to believe anymore. If he’s working with Rochelle, at least he’s alive. He’s a snake,” she cursed him, “but he’s alive. If he’s not working with her, where is he?”

“We’re still looking for him,” Cooper assured her. “Parker’s in touch with all his old contacts from when he worked Vice.” While Logan had quickly moved from patrol to detective, Parker had preferred working undercover. Or, if his reputation was to be believed, under
covers.

Cooper would like to get under covers with his bride. But for the right reasons...

Like mutual desire. Need. Love...

“Vice?” she asked. “What would that have to do with Stephen?”

“Parker’s informants are on the streets,” he said. “They hear things. They see things.” And hopefully one of their tips would lead them to Stephen. “And everyone on the Payne Protection payroll is working on finding him and whoever has been shooting at you.”

“At you and your brothers, too,” she reminded him. “I’m sorry—sorry for all the trouble I’ve been. I shouldn’t have asked you to...”

“Make love to you?”

She flushed again. “I know it wouldn’t have been making love. I know we’re not really married.”

“The minister pronounced us man and wife,” he said. Had she been aware of that or had she already passed out?

“You made him do that before we left the church,” she said, her head tilted as if she searched for the memories. “Everybody thought the building was on fire, but you made him finish the ceremony...”

“I recognized the kind of smoke,” he said. “I didn’t think we were really in danger. But then you stopped breathing...” He shuddered at his own memories of their ceremony and of holding her lifeless body in his arms.

“You saved me,” she said. “Did I thank you for that?”

“I don’t want your gratitude,” he said.

He wanted
her.
Body, soul and heart. But no matter what the minister had pronounced them, she was not really his wife.

“I know you’re just doing your job,” she said. “But it’s
my
life you keep saving...”

It was more than his job. She was more than his job. And in saving her life, he was saving his own. Because without her...

“I can’t ask you for anything else,” she said, her face still flushed but downturned—as if she was unable to meet his gaze. “Forget what I said...”

It would be easier to forget his name than to forget what she’d suggested, what she’d asked him to do—with her.

Make love...

Tanya looked for a hole to crawl into, but despite her pacing, she hadn’t worn one into the floor. So she glanced toward the door that led to the bedroom. But her face got even hotter with the embarrassment coursing through her. “I—I should probably...”

Unpack? She had so few things in her bag. Rest? She’d already slept more in the hospital than she had the past few months as she’d wrestled with the idea of marrying Stephen only for her money.

What wouldn’t she do for that money?

She had asked Cooper to sleep with her. But had that been for the inheritance? Or was that just because she really, really wanted to sleep with her husband?

From the way her pulse raced and skin tingled, she suspected it was the latter, and she’d just used the money as an excuse.

“I—I just need to be alone for a little while,” she admitted. Like maybe the rest of her life...

But when she headed toward that open bedroom door, he caught her wrist and stopped her in her tracks. “You can’t leave yet.”

“I’m just going into the other room...” The bedroom.

“You can’t leave me yet,” he said.

She turned back and chanced a glance at his face—his very handsome, very serious face. “It’s not like I’m divorcing you,” she teased, or attempted to, “I’m just leaving this room.”

“You won’t have to divorce me,” he reminded her.

Because they hadn’t consummated their marriage.

“The minister pronounced us man and wife,” he continued, “but we never sealed it with a kiss.”

“You want to kiss me?” she asked. But even as she turned up her face to ask the question, he was lowering his head. His lips brushed across hers in a nothing kiss—a mere whisper of breath and warmth.

Was that it? Was it over?

She wanted more. So she reached up, closed her hands around the nape of his neck and pulled his head down again. And she kissed him back.

The passion she’d had for him over a decade ago had been a young girl’s passion. What she felt now was a woman’s passion—hot and deep and overwhelming in its intensity.

She kissed him with all the heat burning inside her. First he was tense against her, but then he groaned. And his arms closed around her, pulling her up against him. Her breasts pushed against his chest.

And his tongue pushed against her lips before sliding between them, sliding over her tongue. Did he taste her desire? Did he know how much she wanted him?

She moaned as need overwhelmed her. But this was just a kiss...

The kiss that they should have had on their wedding day. But she had nearly died.

She had nearly lost this opportunity to kiss Cooper again. But she wanted so much more than his kiss...

So she moved her fingers from his nape down to his broad shoulders. Then she moved her hands lower, to press her palms against his chest. He tensed again, as if he expected her to push him back. But instead, she slid her hands over the impressive, rippling muscles of his chest. But his sweater separated her hands from his skin. So she reached for the waist of it and tugged it up, her knuckles skimming across the washboard muscles of his abs. He finished the job for her, first taking off his holster and gun and setting them onto the table next to the couch. Then he dragged the sweater over his head and dropped it onto the floor.

Damn. The man was hot. Figuratively and literally...so damn hot.

She burned up just from touching him.

Then he was touching her, too. His hands slid down her back to her waist. But he locked his hands around it and lifted her, swinging her up in his arms. He carried her into that room she’d wanted to go into—to be alone.

But when he dropped her onto the bed, she clung to him, unwilling to let him go. “Stay with me,” she pleaded. She arched up and pressed a kiss to his lips, and another to his shoulder, and another to his chest, where his heart pounded furiously.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

In reply, she pulled off her sweater and shimmied out of her jeans. Maybe he’d already noticed when he’d gone through her apartment earlier that week that she had a thing for fancy underwear. She wore some now: a lacy red bra that barely contained her breasts and a matching thong.

He groaned again. “I hope to hell you’re sure...”

“Very sure.” And it wasn’t about the money. Or the spite...

She wanted Cooper Payne because she had always wanted Cooper Payne. She opened her mouth to tell him, but he kissed her.

He kissed her passionately, his tongue sliding in and out of her mouth. And he touched her, sliding his hands over her stomach.

She sucked in a breath at the heat of his touch. And her skin tingled everywhere. She waited for his hands to move, to slide up, and finally they moved toward her breasts, tracing the underwire of her bra before undoing the delicate gold clasp between the cups. Her breath escaped in a gasp when he touched her breasts.

And her heart pounded madly.

She grabbed his arms to tug him onto the bed with her. But he pulled back.

She tensed, worried that he’d changed his mind, that he was about to say that he didn’t want her. But he unsnapped his jeans and pushed them down and his underwear. And he proved he wanted her very much.

His erection jutted toward her. She reached for it. But he caught her hand and lifted it over her head. “Not yet,” he said, “or this’ll be over all too soon.”

It must have been a while for him since he’d been deployed.

But instead of rushing, he took his time. He lifted both arms over her head, which had her breasts arching up as if begging for his touch.

He touched. First with his hands, caressing her skin. Then with his fingers, he teased her nipples.

Pressure built inside her, unbearable in its intensity. She squirmed on the bed, pushing her hips against his. That thin strip of lace separated her from his flesh. But it was already dampening with her desire for him.

Then he touched with his lips, skimming them over her skin before closing them around a nipple while he plucked at the other. She arched off the bed and moaned.

It had been a long time for her, too. She’d blamed her lack of relationships on the threats. But now she knew...she’d been disappointed with every man she’d ever dated because he hadn’t been Cooper.

She wasn’t disappointed now.

He kissed her mouth while he moved his hand over her stomach. He pushed aside that scrap of lace and teased her with his fingers.

“Cooper...” She nearly sobbed his name as the pressure built to a new intensity. “Please...”

He kept kissing her, moving his mouth from her lips to her breasts. He teased her before moving his mouth even lower on her body. Finally he pulled off that thin strip of lace and tossed it onto the floor with the rest of their clothes.

She clutched at the sheets as he made love to her with his lips and tongue. And she screamed as sensations raced through her, releasing that intensity.

She was trembling. But she wasn’t the only one, his arms shook a little as he braced them on the bed and covered her body with his. She reached between them and closed her hands around his erection. It was so smooth but hard and pulsing as if it had a life of its own. She parted her legs and guided him inside her, arching up as he thrust.

He was big—so big—that he stretched and filled her. But somehow they fit. Perfectly. She locked her arms and legs around him and matched his rhythm. They moved as one. The pressure building inside her she could feel in the tension in his body, the tightness of his muscles.

Cords extended in his neck. A vein in his forehead. And that muscle twitched along his jaw, as if his teeth were gritted. Still, a groan slipped out.

He reached between them and pressed his thumb to the most sensitive part of her. An orgasm shuddered through her body with such force that she screamed. She screamed and sobbed his name.

He joined her, pulsing and pumping inside her. And another groan tore from his throat with such force it would probably leave his voice hoarse. He collapsed on top of her.

She welcomed his weight and heat. She’d felt so alone and cold for so long. But then he rolled off her, taking away his warmth. And his body filled with tension again.

Was he already regretting what they’d done?

She had no regrets—except that it was already over. She wanted to do it again. She reached out a hand and touched his shoulder. “Cooper—”

He turned and pressed a hand over her mouth. “Listen...”

And then she heard it, too. Footsteps in the hall outside the hotel room door. First they passed. Then they stopped and turned back. And stopped again. Through the open bedroom door, she could see that a shadow fell from beneath the door to the hotel hallway.

And the knob of that outside door rattled.

His hand had slid away so she could speak, but she only risked a whisper. “You said nobody knows where we are...”

“Nobody does.”

Obviously someone did. And they had come for them. For her...

The knob rattled again and they watched as the tumbler turned and the lock—unlocked.

Tanya wanted to scream again, but it was caught in her throat on the fear that was overwhelming her.