Kept (18 page)

“So, how do you know Raj Gupta?”

Her stride stuttered, and she shot him a surprised look. “How did you—”

“Once I knew where you were, it wasn’t that hard to track down the owner. So, tell me, how does someone like you hook up with one of the greatest technology innovators of the last decade?”

Her eyes narrowed slightly. “Haven’t you ever seen that show
Beauty and the Geek
? Every nerd in the world wants a piece of airhead arm candy like me.” She tried to surge ahead, but Derek was right beside her in a single stride.

“That’s not what I meant. And, anyway, Gupta’s gay, so I know it’s not about trying to nail you. But you have to admit it’s an unlikely friendship.”

Her ponytail swished across her shoulder as she gave a little shrug. “I met Raj in rehab, and we hit it off. He’s been there for me ever since. So now when I need a place to escape, he lets me use his place.”

The only sounds were feet hitting the dirt trail and waves crashing in the distance as Derek let that digest. “This place doesn’t seem your speed.”

She slowed her pace to a walk, stretching her arms above her head as she looked out to sea. “I can breathe up here,” she said, taking a deep inhale. “No one has any reason to think I’d be up here. No one recognizes me. No photographers waiting behind the bushes to catch me doing something stupid.” She started jogging back the way they came. “No one slipping me drugs and trying to make me look like I’m a mess.”

He could hear the tension in her voice, mixed with something else. Fear? “Alyssa,” he began but didn’t know what else to say, didn’t know which way was up. Something in him—instinct? Gut feel?—told him she wasn’t lying. She had a terrible poker face. He’d seen that already. If she were lying, he’d know it.

But he also knew what addicts were like. Remembered what his mother was like before she’d taken off. The secretiveness. The manipulation. Hiding liquor and pills all over the house, making it look like she was in complete control.

It hit him in the chest like a bullet. Was he following in his father’s footsteps? Falling for an emotional wreck of a woman? An addict who would wring him dry and leave him empty? Even now, nearly two decades after his mother’s disappearance, Derek’s father was still obsessed with her, desperately following any lead that might explain her abrupt and complete disappearance from their lives.

“I know you don’t believe me,” she said tightly. “You can search my stuff when you get home. I don’t care. I have nothing to hide.”

He didn’t tell her he already had. And, just like in her apartment, he’d found nothing stronger than a half bottle of red wine and the ibuprofen tablets scattered all over the bathroom floor.

Her shoulders stiffened and she picked up her pace as if running away from old demons. “I won’t lie. Several years ago, I went through a really bad time. I started dating a guy who used a lot. It just seemed a way to escape.”

“So you blame the boyfriend?” Derek asked.

“Not at all,” she said, staring straight ahead as she ran down the path, her stride steady and sure. “I did it because it made me feel good. When I was high, I felt invincible. I didn’t care what anyone thought about me, what anyone wrote about me, what anyone said about me. But then it got out of control, and it wasn’t so much fun anymore.” She sprinted the last few yards up the path to Raj’s house.

“And then you almost died,” he said, telling himself the tight feeling in his lungs was from that last sprint. Not because the thought of her hurt or dying left a giant sinkhole in his chest.

“Yeah,” she said, slightly breathless as her chest rose and fell. “I was lucky.” She regarded him, her gaze steady and grave. “I didn’t die. And my dad got me into one of the best rehab centers in the world. I spent three months dealing with my drug problem, and I’ve never relapsed.”

He listened to her words, stared hard into her eyes. He was trained in interrogation, was able to pick up a lie before it was uttered. Everything about Alyssa reeked of truth and conviction.

Was it possible she was telling the truth? Or was he so far gone he was seeing only what he wanted to see? He followed her up the stairs and into the house, wondering which fucking end was up.

“Aren’t you tempted?” He’d go with this, keep her talking, seize on the first sign of a lie.

She went to the kitchen and poured herself a glass of water. “Not really.”

“Never?”

“I’m not around it anymore, which helps a lot. And three
therapy sessions a week really helped. I had a therapist I loved in LA,” she rambled on almost as though to herself, “but I never found anyone after I moved. Have you ever been?”

“To LA?”

She laughed like it was his fault for not following her curving line of conversation. “No, to therapy. Like after your mom disappeared.” She stared at him expectantly.

“No,” he said.

“Seriously? I can’t believe your dad didn’t throw you and your brothers into counseling after something like that.”

“He had other things on his mind.” Derek turned his back on her to retrieve a water glass from a cabinet.

“You should go,” she said, not taking the hint. “I mean, I have trust issues with my mother and abandonment issues with my father, but I can’t imagine what it must be like for you.”

No wonder she got in trouble with the press. After everything, she was still so open, so willing to talk about her personal problems to anyone who would listen.

He avoided women like Alyssa like the plague. Women who wasted time analyzing their feelings inevitably wanted to analyze his. The mere thought made his skin crawl. “I don’t have any issues.” She could only choke out a scoffing sound before he cut her off, needing to nip this conversation in the bud. “Back to what’s important. Say you’re right. Someone is slipping you drugs. Why would someone want to do that?” He pulled back, tried to cast an impartial eye on the situation. She’d been publicly intoxicated twice in the past several weeks. In the week he’d spent with her, he hadn’t seen any evidence of drug use, other than the night of the benefit. There were no drugs here in the house. If she’d planned to be alone, would she have worried about hiding her stash?

Uneasiness clenched at his gut. As crazy as her story sounded, he had to entertain the possibility that she might not be lying.

“I have no idea.” That helpless look was back, the one that made him want to pull her into his arms and tell her everything was going to be okay. “But if I don’t find out soon, Uncle Harold’s going to cut my salary completely, and then I’ll really be screwed.”

“And so will all the shops on Union Square.”

“Don’t treat me like I’m a spoiled little brat,” she snapped and slammed her water glass on the counter. “I have bigger things to worry about than my shopping budget.”

“Right, the chemo,” Derek said, feeling like an asshole. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Who would be out to get you like this? Any ex-boyfriends? Ex-employees you’ve pissed off?”

She shook her head and tugged the fleece pullover off. Derek tried not to notice how the T-shirt underneath rode up and bared a creamy swath of skin. “Andy is my only employee other than the cleaning lady, and she’d never do anything like that. And I told you I haven’t dated anyone for over a year.”

“What about Abbassi?” He immediately wanted to call back the words and the naked jealousy that dripped from them.

Alyssa rolled her eyes. “I never dated Louis.”

“Press says differently.” Why was he pushing her? He shouldn’t give a flying crap who she slept with.

“I’ve met him a couple of times, and now that he’s involved in the business, we end up at a lot of the same events. The press likes to photograph us together and insinuate that we’re sleeping together. It’s not true.”

“He wants it to be.” His lips curled into an involuntary sneer, thinking of the way Abbassi’s dark, covetous eyes ran over Alyssa’s body.

Alyssa didn’t deny it as she shot Derek a knowing smile. “That’s his problem. Right now I’ve got my hands full.”

Her phone rang, preventing him from digging any deeper, and she turned away with a sassy twitch of her hips. Her smile faded as she stared at the display. Her shoulders tensed, and her fingers tightened around the small red phone, but she didn’t answer it.

“Who was that?”

“Can you trace anonymous phone calls?”

He walked over to her, hand held out. She handed it over without a word, and he thumbed through the call list. “Is someone threatening you?”

“No. I never answer anyway, and the person always hangs up. But I did get this weird text message.” She took the phone from him and clicked open a message.

If u want to no the truth ansr ur fon.

The message had come in the day before.

“Truth about what?”

She shrugged. “It’s probably just a prank, but I’d rather find out who it is and make them stop. I’ve had to change my number, like, four times in the past year.”

“I’ll take a look at your phone records and see what I can find.”

Another ring pierced the air, this time from his phone.

He let it ring a few times as he watched Alyssa walk through the sliding glass doors onto the redwood deck.

Might as well get this over with.
He flipped his phone open, and Danny’s voice ripped through the static. “What the fuck is going on with you?”

“Everything’s fine.”

“Your locater shows you in the same place for over twenty-four hours. Have you found her or what?” Ever since they’d started Gemini, Derek, Danny, and Ethan kept track of each other with tiny GPS locaters implanted in their watches. No
surprise, Danny had been keeping tabs on Derek while he searched for Alyssa.

“Yeah, she’s fine.” He didn’t tell Danny he’d spent the last twenty-four hours with her in a billionaire’s beach house, knowing he’d never hear the end of it.

“I just got off the phone with Harold Van Weldt, and he ripped me a new one about you not returning his calls. I assured him you have the situation well in hand. Tell me I wasn’t lying.”

“You weren’t.” Alyssa was squatting next to the sunken hot tub, sitting back on her heels as she struggled to remove the padded cover.

“Then why haven’t you updated Van Weldt yourself? Why isn’t her ass on its way to San Francisco as we speak?”

“She needed a couple days to chill out,” Derek said. “I told her I’d keep quiet for a little longer.” He knew how stupid he sounded even before the words left his mouth.

He was met with dead silence on the other end of the line. He could picture Danny holding the phone away from his ear, staring at it in puzzlement. “What the hell is going on between you two?”

“Nothing,” Derek replied, trying to keep the defensive note out of his voice. “She’s under a lot of stress and needed a little time away. No big deal.”

“Since when do you care so much about her mental state?”

“I don’t.” Steam billowed up from the uncovered hot tub, mingling with the salty ocean mist until Alyssa was rendered nearly invisible.

“Yeah, well, I shouldn’t have to remind you, Van Weldt is our client, not his mess of a niece.”

Derek bit back an angry response, knowing it would only ratchet up his brother’s suspicions another ten degrees. “We’ll be on our way first thing tomorrow,” he said evenly. “In the meantime, I need you to look at her cell records. She’s been
getting some anonymous messages.” Before he could stop himself he said, “And find out everything you can about Louis Abbassi.”

“Why do you give a shit about her boyfriends?”

“He’s not her boyfriend,” Derek snapped. “And something about him bugs me.”

“You know why I put you on this case, right? Because you were the only one I could count on not to get starstruck by a whiff of celebrity pussy and start thinking with your dick.”

Derek watched, his mouth going dry as Alyssa peeled off her long-sleeved shirt, followed by her jog bra. Yoga pants were next, landing in a puddle on the deck. “You have nothing to worry about.” The bitter taste of the lie flooded his mouth as his cock thickened, tenting out the front of his running shorts. As he watched, Alyssa pulled her hair out of her ponytail, sending it tumbling down between her slender shoulders as she stepped down into the sunken hot tub.

Naked skin. Hot and silky wet.

Danny’s voice faded into the background. Derek registered a fraction of it. “…too close…too personally…need to back off.”

It all faded into the ether because right now all he could think about was Alyssa, naked and wet and waiting for him in that damn hot tub.

“You may be right,” Derek admitted. But right now he really didn’t give a shit as he throbbed insistently with the need to get inside Alyssa, feel her envelop him in her molten heat. “I gotta go.” He cut Danny off midsentence and tossed his phone onto the coffee table, ignoring it when it immediately began to ring again.

He made a quick detour to the bathroom and the giant box of condoms, dumping a fistful on the table next to his phone, saving one to take with him.

She glanced back at him at the sound of the sliding glass door opening. Her pink mouth stretched in a knowing smile when she saw his cock straining the front of his shorts. She gazed at him from under her lashes, a siren inviting him to smash himself against the rocks of his own need.

D
ESPITE THE HEAT of the water, a shiver ran through Alyssa’s body as Derek toed off his shoes and stripped off his shorts, shirt, and pullover in quick, angry motions. His mouth was tight, his face set in harsh lines. She knew she was taking a tiger by the tail, messing with him while he was on the phone with his brother. But she hated how easy it was for him to turn on and off, to shut her out until trying to talk to him was like beating herself against a brick wall.

He was so big, so tough, impenetrable, but she needed to flex her power, meager as it was. Remind them both how easy it was for her to get under his skin.

Derek sank into the tub, seating himself on the bench next to her. Without a word he yanked her onto his lap, his mouth coming over hers with a passion and hunger that belied his carefully controlled exterior.

“You think you’re pretty fuckin’ cute, don’t you?” he growled against her throat, his teeth closing over her earlobe in a nip. The slight sting sent bolts of heat to her already bullet-hard nipples and between her legs.

She squirmed in his lap, shifting until the ridge of his cock rode between her legs, velvety soft skin over steel sliding back and forth against her slit. She moaned as his hands slid down her rib cage and closed around her waist. He
lifted her until her breasts cleared the water, lifting her to his mouth. The cold air washed over her skin, a delicious contrast to the heat of his lips and tongue sucking and nipping at her breasts.

“What the hell is it about you?” he murmured between firm pulls of his mouth. “This isn’t me.” His voice was harsh as she rocked against him. “I don’t get mixed up with women like you.”

She shoved aside a pang of hurt that threatened to invade, focusing instead on how his shaft glided against her clit, the hot water, and the sweet friction making the pulsing knot between her legs throb. “What’s wrong with wanting me?” Alyssa whispered. She tunneled her fingers in his hair, cradling his head to her breasts as a wave of tenderness penetrated the haze of lust. She bent her head and nuzzled his damp hair, kissed his cheeks, licked a salty bead of sweat from his skin. “Especially when it’s so good.”

He didn’t reply, groaning around her nipple as his lips sucked harder.

Call her crazy, call her naive, but she felt something with him, a connection that went beyond sex. Like his dark seriousness could balance out her light frivolity. Like they could compliment each other perfectly if only he’d let it happen.

She could feel something inside her cracking open, her heart peeking through the fissure, wondering if it was safe to come out.
Oh, God, it’s happening again.
No matter how hard she tried to protect herself, to guard her heart and be more cautious about letting strong feelings develop too soon, she was helpless to stop it.

Was she so starved for love, so pathetically needy, that she’d let herself believe a man like Derek would feel anything for her beyond lust? Why couldn’t she just take what she could get and be happy with it, instead of getting carried away like she always did?

But it wasn’t that simple. She arched her neck back, fog
misting her face, moaning at the feel of Derek’s fingers stroking between her legs. She could feel the edge of desperation in his touch, the barely contained hunger that made his hands shake and his breath come fast.

What he felt for her went past mere sex. Alyssa was sure of it. She could feel it in him, the deep emotion and old pain he kept hidden behind his cool mask. But whatever she made him feel, he didn’t like it, didn’t like the threat to his control.

She tilted his face up to her, covering his mouth with hers. She poured everything into that kiss, trying to tell him without words that he was safe with her, safe to let go, safe to let the truth come out.

He sucked her tongue into his mouth and fumbled along the deck until his hand closed over the foil packet of the condom. His hands disappeared beneath the frothing surface of the water for a moment, and then he lifted her over him. Their mouths stayed fused as she slid down his thick length. She spread her knees wide and rocked her hips forward to take all of him until he was so deep she could feel him at the base of her spine.

He thrust up against her as though he couldn’t get deep enough. Hot, bubbling water surged and splashed around them, closing around them, fusing them together until Alyssa couldn’t tell where her body ended and Derek’s body began.

Derek was suffocating, but he couldn’t make himself release her mouth. The heat of the water boiled around him, surrounding him in steam. His heart pounded in ferocious need and outright panic.

Something was happening to him, with her. He couldn’t get enough of her. Her taste, her smell, her hot, sweet pussy gripping his cock, kneading him from the inside out like a wet little fist. Fierce need exploded within him. He gripped her hips, holding her still so he could thrust up into her, hold
ing himself as deep as he could go. He couldn’t get close enough, couldn’t get deep enough.

With Alyssa, nothing was ever enough.

He couldn’t breathe, the heat of the hot tub suffocating him, pounding in his head until he was afraid he would pass out. He turned and lifted Alyssa so she was out of the tub, her butt resting on the padded bench that surrounded it. He knelt on the underwater bench, breathing a little easier now that his body wasn’t submerged in one-hundred-twenty-degree water.

Derek didn’t break his rhythm as he pushed Alyssa gently back onto the deck. She tried to pull him down with her, but he stayed braced above her, needing to put even that small bit of distance between them.

It was all too close, too much. The twisty feeling in his chest was back, pulling at his gut. He looked down at her, moaning and writhing under him, her hips pumping against his as she eagerly met every thrust. Steam rose from her body in the cool air until she looked like some mythic seductress who had emerged from the sea to drive him insane. Her gorgeous tits with their candy-pink nipples bounced with every thrust, and his cock gleamed with her juice as he slid in and out.

Her gaze locked on his, the green depths hiding nothing. Everything was there for him to read, the heat, the need. The tenderness. The trust.

Then her lids fluttered closed, and her hands tightened on his hips as she urged him faster, harder, harsh cries echoing up to the gray sky as her tight sheath clenched and shuddered around him.

Derek closed his eyes. Watching her come was like staring at the sun. Too intense for him to look at. But the image was there, burned into his brain, bringing his own orgasm down on him with the force of a collapsing building.

She pulled him down on top of her, her warm palms chasing away the chill of the air.

“Derek,” she sighed his name, “you make me feel so good.” She found his mouth with hers, kissing him so sweetly he wanted to melt into her and never come back up for air.

But the contentment lasted for maybe a breath, chased away by the alarm bells clanging and banging their way into his consciousness. Reminding him that he didn’t get involved for a reason. He’d seen what happened when a man let a woman crawl too deep inside him, let himself be stupid enough to let his cock and his heart overrule his head.

He’d already made enough mistakes when it came to Alyssa. Danny was right. He was letting her get to him, letting her hot body and poor-little-rich-girl routine cloud his judgment, and taking this all way too personally. Alyssa and the strong pull she had on him were nothing but a test of his resolve, of his professionalism, of the vow he’d made a long time ago to never let anything as stupid as emotion influence his decisions.

She was a test he wasn’t about to fail.

Derek pulled away and got out of the tub without a word, ignoring her soft protest. He grabbed a towel from a plastic bin next to the tub and tucked it around his waist.

“Why do you always do this?” Alyssa’s voice chased him into the living room. She’d draped a towel over herself like a blanket. Her hair was wild, her eyelids heavy, her cheeks pink in a postorgasmic flush.

“Do what?” he asked, deliberately turning his back on her. He was afraid if he kept staring at her he’d forget all his self-recriminations.

“Pull away after sex.” Her bare feet thudded on the floor as she marched over to him.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he lied.

“Bullshit.” She poked a slender finger into his chest. “Last night you rolled off me and bolted like the feds were after you.”
Thump.
Her fingertip met his pec. “And now you can’t
even give me so much as a ‘Thanks, that was nice’ before you scatter like a roach.”
Thump.

He grabbed her wrist. “You said you wanted to fuck. You didn’t give me any rules about what came next.”

She studied him for a moment, and then something like understanding flowed into her eyes.

Which made him nervous as hell.

But not as nervous as the sympathy that immediately followed.

“I understand it’s hard for you to let people in, Derek.” Her smile was soft and way too inviting. “I can only imagine how much your mom leaving messed you up.”

Hell, no, she wasn’t going to go there.

She flattened her palm against his chest, stroking, soothing him. “It’s not the end of the world to let yourself care about someone, Derek.” Her voice, her hand stroking him were so hypnotic he almost wanted to believe her. “And it’s not the end of the world to let someone care about you.”

He could see the warmth, the emotion in her eyes as she reached out to him, offering comfort he didn’t want and didn’t need, asking him to give it right back to her. She was crossing the line, building this up into something more than sex. Setting herself up to get hurt when she realized he could never open up his heart to her the way she was trying to open up to him.

He knew exactly what she wanted, as well as he knew he wasn’t the man to give it to her.

The sooner she realized that, the better off she’d be.

Alyssa jumped as Derek’s hand locked over her wrist, halting the progress of her hand over his chest. His mouth, which had started to soften, pulled into a thin, tight line as his eyes went dark and cold as chips of black ice.

“Don’t try to climb into my head, Alyssa. It’s not a place I want to share with you or any other woman.”

His words sent a chill through her as he yanked her hard against him and covered her mouth with his. She moaned, struggling as the pressure ground her lips against her teeth, threatening to bruise her. “Stop,” she gasped, trying to yank out of his hold. “What’s wrong with you?”

His hand stayed locked around her wrist. “Nothing. This is what you wanted, right? Me treating you like any other woman?”

“Do you turn Neanderthal with all the women you sleep with, or just the ones who want to talk to you?”

“That’s the thing,” he said, reaching out his hand and yanking off her towel before she could stop him. “I don’t talk. I don’t cuddle.” He flicked off his own towel. He was already hard again, his cock thick and red and angry looking as it thrust out at her. “I don’t share my feelings.” He grabbed her hips and ground himself crudely against her naked stomach.

And as the smooth, hot tip of him glided over her skin, God help her, but she felt a bolt of desire between her thighs so fierce it bordered on pain.

“I fuck,” he said. “And you like the way I do it. Don’t kid yourself into thinking it’s anything more than that.”

He bent his head to hers. When she tried to turn away, he fisted his hand in her hair, holding her in place for his kiss. His tongue swept into her mouth, sending heat searing through her. She’d crossed a line, and now he was trying to put her in her place. But even that realization couldn’t stop her body’s response. Arousal flooded between her legs, embarrassing in its intensity. Angry at her own loss of control, she closed her teeth over his bottom lip, hard enough to draw blood.

Derek yanked his head back, his eyes narrowed into dark slits as he glared down at her.

“You’re acting like a jerk,” she choked out.

His hand slid between her thighs, cupping her sex. His
thumb insinuated itself between her pussy lips, grazing against her clit.

She wanted to die of humiliation when she felt a surge of wetness coat his hand.

“But you still want me,” he said.

“You’re an asshole,” she said, feeling her throat tighten and tears pierce the backs of her eyes as her hips rocked against his probing fingers. What was wrong with him? What was wrong with her?

Her only answer was a moan as first one thick finger and then two slid up inside her. She should have been exhausted, wrung out from before, but she was already primed. As wet as he was rock hard against her.

She moaned again, this time in protest as he pulled his hand from between her thighs and pushed her backward onto the couch. He hooked her knees over his shoulders and buried his mouth between her legs, licking and sucking, taunting her with deep thrusts and slight flicks of his tongue.

She could feel her orgasm building, shaming her even as she strove for it, arching against his face, begging him wordlessly for firmer pressure. Just like he had last night, he kept it just out of reach, teasing her, exerting his control.

Last night she had loved it, loved the way he seemed to revel in her response and get off every little twitch of her skin.

Now in the cold light of day she felt manipulated and easy and ashamed at her lack of control over her body’s response.

But no less needy as his mouth hovered over her, the hot kiss of his breath coasting over her sensitive flesh.

“Tell me how much you want me,” he whispered.

She clamped her lips together, felt a tear leak from the corner of her eyelid.

His tongue dipped into her, penetrating her, but not nearly
hard and deep enough. Her whole body jumped and shuddered.

“Come on, Alyssa. You wanted to fuck. Tell me to fuck you.”

She squeezed her eyes shut. “Fuck me.” The words slipped past her lips, and she hated herself.

She heard the rip and crumple of the foil packet and kept her eyes closed as he caught her by the hips, urging her to kneel on the floor in front of the couch. Big hands gripped her hips as he fitted himself against her. Alyssa gasped, her back arching as the thick head penetrated her. He was on her, over her, feeling even bigger inside her as he fucked her from behind.