Unleashed (12 page)

Yeah, but that was before you broke me
. She wasn’t even going to touch that. “I’m not superhuman like you, Danny. You remember everything that was going on,” and was still going on. “Ricky had gone back to jail, Dad was out of work again, and Mom,” she shook her head. There were no words for her mother. That was one of the things she and Danny had bonded over, beyond mutual teenage lust. Like Anne Taggart, Lena Palomares was an unhappy woman, from the roots of her silver streaked black hair to the callused bottoms of her feet. Unlike Anne, Lena may have had cause. Caroline could see how a delinquent son and an alcoholic husband could grind a woman down.

Her mother found no joy in anything. Not even a daughter who snagged herself a scholarship to an exclusive private high school, then put off her plans for college indefinitely to keep her parents from losing their house. Lena’s unhappiness fueled her hypochondria. Every headache was a brain tumor, every bout of heartburn a heart attack or a gastric perforation. Her multiple trips to the urgent care clinic—sans health insurance, of course—nearly sank them, no matter how many tips Caroline pulled in working as a bartender at a chic San Francisco restaurant.

Danny knew all that. She didn’t need to go into detail. Just as she wasn’t about to lay out how he’d devastated her. How the long absences, how not knowing where he was or if he was coming back ground her down, even though she tried to put on a strong front, be the supportive girlfriend back home since he was out there saving the world after all.

Yeah, that had worked out well.

She’d limped along for nearly two years after they broke up, convincing herself it was for the best. Caroline wasn’t cut out to be a military wife, holding strong at home while Danny was out there dodging bullets. And she couldn’t spend the next fifty years needing a man who refused to be needed, much less ever let himself need her back.

“It was nice to lean on someone else for a change, instead of having to handle everything by myself. But it wasn’t just money,” she continued. She picked her plate up and took it to the sink, eager for an excuse to get away from him. “We had a lot of similar interests in books, literature and art. He loved to travel and took me all over the world.”

“So you talked and read and looked at pretty pictures?” His eyebrow cocked skeptically. “That, along with a big fat bank account was enough to make you happy?”

“Yes,” she said, avoiding his eyes so he wouldn’t see the lie in hers. She rinsed her dish and bent to put it in the dishwasher.

“Bullshit.”

She straightened and jumped back when she realized he was right next to her. How could a man his size make it across the room so fast and without her hearing him? “I was happy,” she said, backing away until her butt hit the edge of the kitchen island.

“James was about to divorce you,” he countered.

And she’d been happy about that too, but she wasn’t about to admit it. “We’d grown apart.”

“I can’t imagine why,” Danny leaned forward and braced his hands on the counter on either side of her hips. “You need more than friendship from a man, Caroline, and we both know it.”

“You never know anyone as well as you think you do. You said it yourself.”

“I know you well enough to know you need more than a polite tumble once or twice a year.”

He was so close she could see each individual whisker on his dark skin. His eyes were liquid silver, framed by heavy dark lashes. “James and I had a fine sex life,” she managed. Total lie. James had a fine sex life. Caroline put on a good show and gave a prayer of thanks when James’s doctor told him he couldn’t take Viagra anymore once he started his new heart medication. “Besides, sex isn’t everything.”

“Said like a woman who hasn’t gotten it like she needs it in a good twelve years or so.”

“You have no idea what I need.” Oh, but he did. And judging by the thick column of flesh tenting out the front of his pants, he was just the one to give it to her.

“You need passion, Caroline,” he said. One hand came off the counter to wrap around the base of her ponytail. He pulled, tilting her face up to his. “You’re lying to yourself if you think you don’t.”

She felt his breath across her face, his grip tightening almost painfully in her hair. But his kiss wasn’t the voracious, hungry assault she’d braced herself for. Danny was surprisingly gentle, his lips firm but soft, sucking, nipping as his tongue flicked out to tease the seam of her lips. She made a last ditch effort at retreat. “This will complicate things.”

“I like complicated,” he whispered.

She almost laughed. That was a load of crap and he knew it. Danny was the most black and white, you’re in or you’re out person she’d ever met. He didn’t even like to admit his eyes were gray.

But she couldn’t keep herself from responding to the stroking of his lips and tongue, the gentle nip of teeth. She knew exactly what he was doing. Holding back, asking to be let in, making her want it so much she would be the one to make it happen.

He still knew how to play her. Her lips parted, her tongue stole out to slide against his, and heat exploded between them like a nuclear bomb. Danny held her head still as he took her mouth.

She’d spent years trying to forget. The taste of his mouth, dark and rich and spicy, the smell of his skin. The feel of him, his lips hot and sweet against hers, the thick silk of his hair tangling around her fingers, the leather and cedar scent of him.

It was so good, so awesomely familiar, tears stung the backs of her eyes. He was right. She needed this. But she’d spent so long convincing herself that part of her was dead she’d forgotten how much.

Danny groaned against her mouth and wrapped his hands around her waist to lift her up onto the counter. Both hands came up to cup her face, his thumbs stroking across her cheekbones, tracing their way along her hairline as his mouth devoured her. God, she’d always loved the way he kissed her, like he couldn’t get enough of her taste, like he could kiss her for the next hundred years and not care if it went any farther.

Desire tightened between her legs, so intense it was almost painful. She wrapped her arms around his back and pulled him closer, her breath quickening as his hips settled between her legs. His cock was a hard ridge against her throbbing sex, and even through their clothes, the heat of him was enough to burn her alive. She knew exactly how he’d feel inside her, hard and thick, stretching her almost to the point of pain as he worked himself inside.

This is such a bad idea
. But she couldn’t make herself push him away, especially when he was rocking his hips against her in a too familiar rhythm. And not when his big hand skated up her torso to cover her breast. And not when he pulled away from her mouth to fasten his lips on the exact spot on her neck guaranteed to send her into the stratosphere.

His fingers pinched her nipple through her sweater and she almost jumped out of her skin.

Danny Taggart was about to make her come in her kitchen and she wasn’t going to do a single thing to stop it.

B
ells
. That was a new one. Danny had never heard bells while kissing a woman before. Bombs, fireworks, a roaring in his head like a tsunami was coming in—he’d heard all of those in his head at one time or another. Especially with Caroline.

But never bells. Until now.

And why fucking not? She tasted even better than he remembered. Sweet, spicy, hot, her own unique taste custom made to drive him wild. He closed his mouth over a patch of skin on her neck, right under her ear, and groaned when she shuddered like she’d been hit with an electric current.

She still loved that
. He remembered the first time he’d discovered the spot on her neck that he now licked, nipped, sucked. Back before she’d let him get past third base. He’d had his hand in her panties, his fingers soaked with her juice as he stroked her. Using every last bit of control he had to resist the urge to strip off his own clothes and beg her to please, please, just let him get inside her. Frustrated, he’d nipped Caroline’s neck on that exact spot and she’d gone off like a rocket, jerking and moaning and shuddering against him.

Danny’s cock got even harder at the little groans she was making in the back of her throat. God, he’d always loved those sounds, the way she couldn’t hold back her pleasure. Now they were almost enough to make him unload in his pants. Her hands were all over him, rubbing up and down his back, over his ass, pulling him close until he could feel the heat of her pussy through her clothes and his. Her nipple was hard as a bullet beneath his fingers, driving him insane with the need to suck it into his mouth.

Bells
. He wondered what sound he would hear when he finally got inside her.

But her hands stopped stroking him, and instead of pulling him closer she was pushing him away. He settled more firmly against her. No way was she stopping, not when he was this far gone.

He tried to cover her mouth with his and let out a frustrated grunt when she pulled away and flattened her hands against his chest.

“Doorbell,” she said, half gasp, half moan. “Someone’s at the door.”

Danny shook his head, clearing away the red lust haze as her words registered.

Bells
. The bells in his head were nothing but the doorbell. And what he’d thought was the sound of his heart beating out of his chest was someone pounding on the front door.

He stepped back and tried to slow his breath as she jumped off the counter and started for the door. He grabbed her arm to stay her. “Let me,” he said. “After what happened today, I don’t want you answering the door by yourself.”

Danny walked to the entryway, forcing his mind back into some semblance of calm when all he wanted to do was grab Caroline, throw her to the floor, and finish what they’d started. She was only a step behind him, so close he could hear her agitated breathing, smell the combined scents of her perfume and arousal coming off her skin.

Yet another thing that hadn’t changed. For Danny, being around Caroline meant pretty much a perpetual hard-on.

“Caroline, are you okay?” A female voice sounded through the door. “I know you’re home—I saw your car in the garage. Please open the door. I’m worried about you.” The speaker’s accent thickened at the end.
Ahm wurried abay-out yew
.

“It’s my friend Melody,” Caroline said, trying to brush past him to open the door. He grabbed her hand before she could slide the deadbolt free and gave her a stern look.

“Let me make sure she’s alone.” He looked through the peephole and saw a blond woman whose big fake hair rivaled her big fake tits, but no one else. He nodded for Caroline to open the door.

“Oh my gawd, Caroline are you okay?” The woman hurled herself through the door on a wave of perfume and pulled Caroline into a fierce hug.

“I’m fine, Melody, really.” Caroline gave her friend a brief squeeze and pulled out of her embrace.

Danny recognized the name from both the news coverage of the murder and the handful of e-mails she and Caroline had exchanged. Melody Easterbrook, the wife of Patrick Easterbrook, who had been portrayed in the press as James Medford’s oldest, closest friend.

Danny had found it intriguing that while everyone seemed eager to buy into the idea of Caroline as a murderer, those closest to James had rallied around her.

“I saw what happened on the news. That’s just terrible about Rachael and you were right there! You must have been so terrified,” Melody’s face pulled into a mask of sympathy. “I’ve been trying to call you all afternoon, and when you didn’t answer I got so worried I decided to come over.” Melody’s heavily lined blue eyes locked on his. “But I see you’re not alone.”

“Melody, this is Danny Taggart. He’s uh, an old friend of mine who’s a private investigator. I hired him to help me look into James’s case.”

“An old friend, huh?” Melody quirked a perfectly arched brow and held out her hand. It was soft, smooth skinned, and tipped with lethal looking pinkish-orange nails.

He could see why Melody was skeptical. He’d totally wrecked Caroline’s neat ponytail, and her hair lay in a messy tangle around her shoulders. Her cheeks were still flushed, her lips red and puffy from kissing. And he was pretty sure that was a scrape of whisker burn along her jaw. “Nice to meet you, Melody.”

“Likewise, Danny Taggart.” She shook his hand slowly, deliberately, before she released it.

He forced himself to stand still, impervious as she looked him over. He fought the urge to cup his hands in front of his crotch. Caroline wasn’t the only one bearing signs of their little tussle in the kitchen.

“You’re a private investigator, you said?” Melody asked, looking between him and Caroline like she didn’t believe it for a second.

He pulled a card out of his wallet and held it out to her. “We specialize in private investigations as well as personal and corporate security,” he said as she studied the card.

“Danny was with me today when…” Caroline stopped short and swallowed heavily. “He saved my life.”

“Well thank God and the Baby Jesus he was there,” Melody said.

“Can I offer you a drink or something, Melody?” Caroline asked, her hostess instinct making Danny want to grit his teeth. If it had been left up to him, he would have kicked Melody out on her pampered ass and gotten back down to business.

“That’s sweet, honey, but I need to get back home before Patrick calls. He had to go out of town on business or he’d be here too. I was thinking I’d take you home with me since I don’t want you to be alone tonight after what happened.” Her gaze flicked back to Danny. “But it looks like you’re in good hands.”

Danny nodded. “I’ll stay with her tonight.”

“If you do it will be in the guest room.” Caroline interjected.

Melody patted her on the arm and gave her a knowing grin. “Whatever you say, sugar. I know it’s awful, what happened to Rachael and all, but don’t you worry. She wasn’t the only high-powered attorney Patrick knows. We’ll get you all squared away in no time, this time with someone who hasn’t made so many enemies.” Melody gave Caroline another quick squeeze and a kiss on the cheek and floated out the door on a perfumed cloud.

Caroline slid the deadbolt home and started back to the kitchen.

“Alarm?” he said. If her life was in danger, and he was pretty damn sure it was, she needed to be a lot more careful. Not that her alarm was even close to foolproof, as he’d discovered himself. He watched her key in the code. “How many people have the code?”

“Me, Kate, the cleaning lady, I think.”

He shook his head impatiently. “Change it. From now on, the only one who knows it is you. Better yet, I’m going to call the office tomorrow and have someone replace your antiquated system.”

“I just had this installed six months ago,” she protested. “The guy assured me it was top of the line.”

“And I’m telling you it’s too easily compromised. You need to install infared motion detectors that will give you enough warning if someone breaks in. Right now all anyone has to do is cut the wires on the doors or windows and you’re screwed.” He struggled to keep himself calm as he was assaulted by images of Caroline lying vulnerable, alone in her bed, ignorant of the fact that someone was in her house and on his way to hurt her.

He knew it was crazy, getting close to her again, but in that moment he knew he wasn’t letting her out of his sight until he knew she was safe.

“Right,” she said. He could see her visibly choke back her fear, force herself to remain calm as she no doubt entertained visions that were as scary—or scarier than his. “Whatever you say.”

Now that was an interesting proposition, he thought as he followed her back into the kitchen. As quickly as his brain jumped to terrifying visions of Caroline alone, vulnerable, and under attack, it jumped right back to where they’d been about ten minutes ago, before Melody’s unwelcome interruption.

Caroline grabbed his mother’s datebook off the breakfast bar and took a seat in one of the armchairs. “Like I said before, I’ve been through this a bunch of times and nothing popped up.”

With her rounded shoulders and tightly crossed legs, Caroline’s body language practically screamed, “Go away.”

No problem. If she wanted to go back to the starting line and pretend he hadn’t been about to lay her back on her breakfast bar and fuck her into oblivion, he’d let her. For now.

He ignored his cock, throbbing like a caged beast behind his zipper.
Patience grasshopper
. If he made good on his plan not to let Caroline out of his sight, he’d have plenty of opportunity to wear down her defenses.

He sat across from her and took the book from her hands, immediately sobering when he flipped the book open to June, 1991. A month before his mother disappeared. He flipped over another page.

“There was one entry with an address—” Caroline started.

“Where?” he cut her off and flipped through a couple of pages.

“Sometime in May, I think.” She got up from her chair and looked over his shoulder. A lock of her hair fell forward and teased his hand. He fought the urge to bring it to his nose for a deep, satisfying inhale. “There,” she tapped her fingertip against the entry.

HH. 1223 Harper Ave. San Mateo
.

His brain started going a thousand miles an hour and he got that weird prickly feeling in between his shoulders like he did whenever he was on to something.

“I looked it up,” Caroline said, “but it’s just a dentist’s office. They’ve only been there for a little over five years.”

“But what was it before?”

“No idea,” she replied with a frown. Then understanding dawned on her face, followed by a look of self-recrimination. “Right. We need to find out what was there before, that would have interested your mom. Duh.”

“Not quite as quick on the uptake as you once were,” he chided, but his tone was teasing.

“Never had days like this before,” she said with a tired smile, immediately followed by a jawcracking yawn. “Speaking of which, I think I need to go to bed.” Her gaze flicked from his. “You’re planning to stay tonight, right?”

He nodded, holding her stare with his, willing her to invite him to stay in that great big bed with her. Right now, he didn’t give a shit that she’d shared it with another man. Besides, after Danny was done with her, any other man would be obliterated from her memory. Her pupils dilated slightly and her sweet little tongue flicked her plump bottom lip.

She shot up from the chair so quickly she staggered a little. “Good then. There are three empty bedrooms, pick whichever one you want. You probably don’t want Kate’s room because she still has the pink canopy bed she got when she was nine,” she said in a nervous rush. “There are clean towels in the guest bathroom…” she trailed off.

“I’ll be fine,” he said. “Go get some sleep.”

Fine
. Yeah, he was pretty fucking fine all right, he thought forty-five minutes later. Still hard as a rock, trying to keep his mind off the woman upstairs by poring over the notes and scribblings that represented the last days of his mother’s life.

His body was tired but his brain was doing its usual pinging around. He knew he wouldn’t sleep, not with his brain on overdrive and Caroline upstairs tempting him like s siren. He went out to his car to retrieve his laptop, and settled in at the breakfast bar to start his search.

Bleary eyed after a restless night, Caroline was jolted to full awareness when she ran into a massive, damp, muscular chest in her upstairs hallway. Danny reached out to steady her as she bounced off him. The touch, combined with the awesome display of male near nudity was enough to make every nerve ending in her body sit up and say hello.

Why? Why did he have to look even better than he had at twenty-three? And why did he have to parade around almost naked, showing off his perfection and blowing apart her already shaky resolve? She’d barely been able to restrain herself the night before, and knew that if Melody hadn’t shown up when she did, Caroline would have found herself naked and spread under Danny.

Even as she warned herself to steer clear, she couldn’t tear her eyes away. Through clothes, she could see that Danny had packed on at least twenty pounds since they’d been together. Naked, it was clear it was all pure, powerful muscle. Bunching and rippling under acres of tanned skin. Skin that was covered in goosebumps.

“Is the hot water working?” She dragged her gaze up to his face, not that that was much better. His hair stood up in damp clumps, making her fingers itch to smooth it down. His jaw was scraped clean of stubble. She wanted to rub her cheek against it to see if it was as smooth as it looked. His wet eyelashes stuck together in pointy clumps, and the look in his gray eyes told her he’d noticed her lustful stare.

“It’s working fine. Why?”

“You’re covered in goosebumps, like you’re cold.” She, on the other hand was going to have a core meltdown if she didn’t get away from him soon. She wanted to trace her tongue down the deep groove of muscle bisecting his abs, pull away the towel, take him in her mouth. Rediscover the hot, musky taste of him. The towel twitched before her eyes, tenting out in front as a skyscraper of an erection threatened to pull the towel from his waist.