Haunting Olivia (17 page)

“Special kind?”

“Well, I’ll have it sent through the lab,” the officer said. “But it looks like standard-issue rope you can buy at any hardware store. Oh, and we found the point of entry. There’s an unlocked window in the basement. The assailant probably just lifted it and entered. Outside the window is where we found the footprint. Anyway, I locked it for you.”

“I appreciate that,” Olivia said. “I’ll double-check all the windows.”

“I would do that if I were you,” the officer said, and then after a few more questions, the police left.

“You can’t stay here tonight,” Zach said. “Come stay at my house.”

“I’ll forfeit the cottage and the inheritance,”

Olivia said. “My mother is depending on me to clean up the mess she made of her finances.”

“The will says you have to spend every night here?” Zach asked.

Olivia tried to think. “Let me get the letter.” She rooted through her tote bag and found the envelope from her father’s lawyer. “You must live in Blueberry for at least one month etcetera.” She breathed a huge sigh of relief. “It only says I have to stay in Blueberry for thirty days—not necessarily HAUNTING OLIV IA

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this house. So I can stay at your place. As long as I’m back here to give Johanna my receipts at eight tomorrow morning.”

“You’ll be back. So will I. And then we’re going to see what your father’s supposed fiancée does with her time.”

“What about Marnie?” Olivia asked. “How did things go when you went after her this morning?”

“Terribly,” he said. “She was more than angry.”

“Angry enough to threaten to kill me?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t think so—I don’t want to think so, but I can’t say for sure. She said some stupid things, like that I’d be sorry. And she hurled a vase out the window at my truck. She was aiming for the windshield.”

Olivia shook her head. “Then perhaps we’ve got two women to pay very close attention to.”

He nodded. “I’m an architect, not a detective, but hopefully we’ll find something that’ll point us to the right person.”

“Thank you for being here, Zach,” she said.

He nodded. “I want to make sure every door and window is locked tight. And then we’re out of here.

I can’t stand the thought of you being here alone tomorrow morning—and opening the door to a psychopath.”

Because maybe, just maybe, there’s a chance you could
care about me again,
Olivia thought.

“I’ll be fine here,” Olivia said as Zach pulled the comforter over her in the guest room of his house.

He sat down on the edge of the bed. “I hate 158

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leaving you alone,” he said. “After what you’ve been through. I hate leaving you, period.”

He could have kicked himself. Why had he gone and said that?

She glanced up at him, clearly surprised too, and took his hand. “I feel the same way.”

He stood, gently pulling his hand away. “I’ll sleep on the sofa in the living room. If you get scared, I’ll be right there.”

“I’d rather have you right here,” she said. “At least until I fall asleep.”

More than anything he wanted to get out of his clothes and tear off hers. She still wore that incredibly sexy little ivory slip. She’d pulled on clothes over it for the police, then they’d driven back to his house, and now she lay in bed in that scrap of lace.

He could rip it off her with one hand.

But he wouldn’t.

“Olivia, I need to be honest. After what happened today with Marnie, I don’t want more omis-sions of the truth.”

“Be honest,” she said. “That’s what I want.”

He glanced away, then back at her. “I don’t know how I feel about any of this. You. You coming back to Blueberry. It’s more than clear that our old chemistry is still there. But thirteen years is a long time. I want you like crazy, Olivia. But beyond sex, I can’t say.”

“That was honest,” she said. “Zach, it’s okay. I don’t know how I feel about anything either. We were taken from each other thirteen years ago, and there’s so much water under the bridge. So I understand.”

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He nodded and turned to go, but she stopped him by reaching for his hand.

“Don’t leave, Zach.”

He’d been planning on sitting guard on the sofa right outside the guest room door. “Are you sure you want me to stay?”

She nodded and placed her hand on the empty side of the bed next to her.

He held her gaze. “You’re so vulnerable right now, Olivia. I won’t take advantage of that.”

“For God’s sake, Zach, I’m only asking you to keep me company. I’m a little afraid of the boogey-man right now. I wouldn’t mind someone bigger and stronger next to me while I’m sleeping. If I can sleep at all.”

“You’ve got it,” he said, sitting down next to her.

He stretched out, his hands behind his head.

“Remember how we used to do this on the beach?” she asked. “Just stare up at the night sky, our hands behind our heads?”

“I remember.”

They both turned on their sides to face each other. “Do you ever wonder what would have happened if my father hadn’t inter vened?” Olivia asked. “If we had run away together?”

“I’m sure we’d be right here, right now. Except for the part about the rope earlier.”

“So you think we’d still be together?” she asked.

“I’m not much of a what-iffer,” he said. “But I know how I felt back then.”

“Me too,” she said.

He reached to touch her neck. “Does your neck or chest hurt?”

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She covered his hand with her own. “No.”

He held her gaze and then kissed her. She was so close, so right there, in her beautiful ivory nightgown, that he couldn’t resist. She kissed him back.

“Maybe we should stare up at the ceiling some more,” he said. “To keep things straight.”

“I’d rather stare up at you,” she whispered.

That was all he needed. He moved on top of her, one hand in her silky blond hair, the other moving down the soft length of her.

“Are you sure, Olivia?” he breathed against her ear. “If you’re not, I can try very hard to stop.”

“Make me forget what happened tonight,” she whispered.

He rolled off of her so that he could slip off her nightgown. God, she was beautiful. So, so beautiful.

He could barely take his eyes off the swells of her breasts, her nipples just visible through the thin material of her nightgown. He felt his erection strain against his jeans and he took them off, then his shirt. She watched him, her eyes following his hands, and her appreciation of his body made him want her all the more.

He lay next to her on the bed, and already she was breathing hard, her eyes asking him, begging him, to make love to her. But he waited. He lifted up her nightgown to see what she wore underneath. Tiny white cotton panties. He groaned at the sight of them and then yanked them down hard, explored inside her with his fingers, then his tongue. She moaned and writhed, her hands clawing at his back, grabbing at his hair.

He kissed his way up her stomach so that he was HAUNTING OLIV IA

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lying on top of her. He wasn’t willing to take off the nightie. It was too sexy on. He pushed aside the silky material from one breast and suckled her nipple, hard, gently biting, licking, while using his hand to ravage her other breast. And then Olivia moved on top of him, unwilling to wait.

Neither could he. He grabbed her hips and lifted her until he could thrust up inside her, then slid his hand up to her breasts and massaged their weight against his palms.

Olivia teased by sliding up off him and then down again, then stretching his arms over his head and lying down on top of him, all the while grinding against him, her breathy moans against his neck, his ear, his hair. He turned her over onto her back and thrust into her, his mouth on her breasts, her nipples, her mouth, her neck, back to her nipples.

“Oh, Zach,” she murmured, her eyes fluttering open and closed.

He thrust harder, harder, harder, and she opened her eyes. Too hard, he realized. Too rough. But he needed it this way. Hard. Unromantic. Sex.

He turned her over and lifted her hips until she was on her hands and knees, then thrust into her from behind, fisting her hair. He jammed into her, hard, harder, his own breath ragged.

“Zach, I don’t like—” she whispered, inching up a bit, trying to move away.

But he edged her down onto her stomach and slid his hands underneath her breasts and ravaged them with his fingers, while grinding into her so hard he thought the bed might collapse.

“Zach, stop,” she said.

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But he couldn’t stop. Couldn’t stop ramming into her. He snaked his hand around her thigh and teased her clitoris, thrusting, thrusting, thrusting.

She tried to move, but she was pinned beneath him.

“Zach, please stop,” she said, her voice breaking.

The pain in her voice got through. He stopped, and she scurried up on the bed, sat up, and wrapped her arms around her legs as if to conceal her nakedness. She was crying.

“Olivia, I—” But what?
Olivia, I wanted to hurt you?

Olivia, I wanted to just screw you? Treat you like a whore
so that I don’t have to feel anything?
“Olivia, I’m sorry,”

he finally said. And he meant it. He closed his eyes for a moment and let out a breath. “I should have stopped when you first said you didn’t like it that way. I shouldn’t have done it in the first place. I am sorry, Olivia. If I have some aggressions to work out I should do it at the gym or basketball court. I shouldn’t have—”

“Lie down with me, Zach,” she said, getting under the blanket.

He did as she asked, their shoulders touching.

“You did what you wanted to me,” she said. “Now I want to do what I want to you.”

He glanced at her, surprised. “What do you want to do?”

She straddled him, her expression unreadable.

She wasn’t smiling. She didn’t seem angry or hurt anymore. She lifted her hips and slid onto him again, arching her back, then leaned over him, bracing her arms on either side of him. Her silky hair brushed his chest. She rocked against him, and for a moment he wanted to grab her hips and grind HAUNTING OLIV IA

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against her, flip her over and take her hard like he did before. But he lay back and closed his eyes, letting himself be drawn into her rhythm, the sweet, insistent rocking, the pliant wetness of her sliding all around him.

She kissed him, lightly, gently, her breasts brushing against his chest. He leaned his head down to tease her nipples with his tongue, and she moaned, rocking against him a little faster, a little harder. He lifted her off him and gently laid her down next to him, then moved down the length of her until he could slip his tongue against her clitoris. He licked and teased and gently bit. Olivia grabbed at his hair and arched her back and moaned and he slipped two fingers inside her, his palm rubbing against her, his tongue darting over her swollen clitoris until she grabbed a piece of the blanket and clenched it between her teeth to drown her screams.

And then her body relaxed, her chest rising up and down so fast as she caught her breath.

“You really are so, so beautiful,” he said, lying down beside her, propping on his side with his elbow. “And I am so sorry about before.”

She caressed his cheek, then flipped over onto her stomach, slightly spreading her legs.

“Is that an invitation?” he asked.

“Yes,” she whispered. “Do what you need to do, Zach. We have a lot to work out between us. We’re both going to cross lines. But I want it honest. You were way too rough before, and you ignored me when I told you to stop. That was wrong, but it was also honest. It’s how you felt.”

“I don’t want to hurt you, Liv. That’s not how I feel.”

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She turned over onto her back and reached for his rock-hard erection. The moment her hand made contact, he wanted, needed, to be inside her.

He lay over her and entered her, not too hard, not too gently, sweeping his lips against her neck. She wrapped her arms around his neck and met his thrusts, her breath in his ear, and he knew that he loved her all over again.

Chapter 13

Bright morning sunshine streamed through the windows. Olivia stretched like a cat in the queen-sized bed, her thoughts going only as far as the middle of the night, when her every question about how she should feel about a man had been answered. And not just sexually.

This, this incredible satisfaction, the wonder, the excitement so deep inside her, was how she’d always wanted to feel with the men she’d dated.

The depth of emotion between her and Zach, the beautiful and the ugly—and parts of last night had been very ugly—demanded their honesty, demanded they talk things through. How they felt.

What they wanted. Needed. But the only time she’d felt the way she did right then was thirteen years ago. Either there was something very special about Zachary Archer, or there was something very special between them. Perhaps both.

He was gone when she’d opened her eyes.
Un-derstandable. His daughter is sleeping upstairs,
she’d thought. Our
daughter,
she’d corrected herself 166

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and wondered if the
my,
the
our
would ever roll off her tongue.

Regardless, the last thing they needed was for Kayla to find them in a “compromising position”

and send a whole new set of questions loose in her head.

Olivia heard a shower running and pop music playing upstairs. She was dying to go up and see Kayla, but she’d wait until Zach explained her presence.

Yeah. Someone is tr ying to scare your mother out of
Blueberry. Trying very hard. But not succeeding.
Olivia bolted up in bed.

The shower stopped. Olivia quickly dressed and slipped into the bathroom that opened from the guest room. She washed up and made herself look as presentable as she could. Just in time, too. There was a knock on the guest room door.

Zach. Looking gorgeous. He wore jeans and a dark green sweater that brought out the green of his intense hazel eyes.