Authors: Ainslie Paton
Cait had fallen asleep on top of the covers in that black dress that showed more skin than she was comfortable with. Had she kept it on for him? Her self-consciousness, the way she unfurled like a blooming flower under his attention, it got to him. Something bad. It dug deep. Made him feel invincible. Made him feel vulnerable and edgy too. What if he got this wrong? It was far too good to screw up.
Once she’d admitted she was relocating to Perth there was no way Sean could even think about trying to convince her to turn the trip into a holiday. There was not a chance he was separating from her yet.
No wonder she was tired. It’d taken a good two hours to extract himself from the mess of the bar brawl because with no badge or ID, he’d had to rouse Stud to vouch for him. He owed the guy more than a few now.
He considered not waking her. Stripping off, sliding in beside her and dozing till she woke. He considered kissing her awake as a prelude to doing everything mad, bad and dangerous he’d wanted to do for days. The knuckles of his right hand were raw and bruised, and he probably smelled like a brewery, he should shower before he did anything. She saved him the agony of indecision by opening her eyes.
She blinked at him then sat upright, instantly alert. “You’re hurt.” Her hair was all tumbledown tousled, her cheeks red, her face otherwise pale. She was impossibly gorgeous.
“Not mine.” He peeled the bloody shirt over his head. “I’m fine.”
They stared at each other a moment, two, then she launched herself off the bed at him. “I was so scared.”
He held her close, her face in the crook of his neck. “It’s all good. But no more close dancing in public till we get to Perth.” But there’d be dancing in private. He knew that from the way she pressed hard against him, from her hand on his face, from her lips on his neck.
“I don’t need a dance floor. And no more dating.”
He stroked her hair, marvelled at the feel of her, the way she clung to him. “You’re over me already?”
She lifted her head, said plaintively in a voice that donkey kicked his guts. “I need you all over me.”
He met her lips in a soft kiss. “I’m all kinds of grubby, baby. Let me clean up.”
She drew back. “Undress me and I’ll come with you.”
Could he do that without combusting first? It was the invitation of the century. He could try. He circled his hands to her back and felt for the zipper. She gasped when he found it. He eased it down, taking his time, watching the tide of desire rise in her eyes, and the lift of her breasts as the dress fell away. She stepped out of it. She was still wearing her heels. Her underwear was plain, peach coloured, a second skin. He chased a finger over the swelling cup of her bra down to the ribbon rosette between her breasts and over the other side, touching fabric not flesh.
“You’re so beautiful, Caitlyn Mary Ann Murphy. You do me in.”
“If you go this slowly I’m going to die before anything really good happens.”
He laughed, leaned in to kiss her full lips. Slow was how he wanted it. Slow and deliberate with no room for anyone to think it didn’t matter in the morning. She pressed into him and he ran his hands over her shoulders pulling the straps of her bra away.
There was no place he didn’t want to touch her or have her touch him. No thought he didn’t want to share with her, no emotion he was too proud to show her.
She shuddered when he flicked the hooks on her bra open and let it fall down her arms to their feet. He followed its path, going to his knee, his hair grazing against her sternum, her belly; his hands stopping at her hips. Her fingers were in on his head, holding him, halting him. He’d hardly started. Her breath was coming in short, tight pants. She’d exhaust herself before the main game if she kept this up.
He hooked his fingers into the elastic trim of her pants and slid them down her legs. She smelled sultry of oranges and musky desire. The best kind of dirty. He wrapped his hand around her ankle and she stepped out of her shoes one by one. Then he licked and kissed a trail back up her body: shin, knee, thigh, the hollow where her leg met her body. If he touched where he want to he’d lose his ambition, give way to haste, court regret: stomach, ribs, puckered nipple, shoulder, neck, jaw, hot, hot, wet mouth.
He was overwhelmed; still half dressed and desperate for the electric feel of skin on skin. He pushed away from her abruptly, his own breath coming short and tight. He kicked off shoes and stripped off jeans, underwear and socks. He caught her to him with a groan, half animal, all depraved longing. They weren’t going to make it to the shower first.
She climbed his body, one knee coming to his hip. He caught her thigh and helped her wrap her leg around him.
Exquisite heat
. She brought her other leg up and he seated her against him. So wet. Too hard to hold on. Too soon. He turned and sat on the edge of the bed, brought her with him over his body as he lay back.
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Cait.” His voice was cut to shreds, crushed with awe.
“Amen,” she whispered, sitting, knees either side of his hips, easing along his length, making him bow off the bed and utter a curse that’d blow a church’s stained glass out.
She arched back, her breasts thrust out for his hands, for his tongue. She was making soft noises of protest and pleasure, lost in the sense of them, her eyes shut, her mouth open.
He pulled her down on his chest so he could slow her, taste her, hold her. Love her.
Fuck
.
That’s why this had to be right. He was frigging well falling in love with her. With her hesitancy and bravery, her cool and her fire, her hide and her seek.
He spoke on her lips, “Where do you want to be?”
“With you,” was said soft, “now!” was said sharp.
It was an answer that snapped his eyes open. With the last strings of his sanity he’d been thinking about the positioning of their bodies not the location of their hearts. They were safe and protected; her coil, his current clean test. They were primed for each other. Perfect. Fuck, he was a goner.
Slow was an ache, a pressure, a widening, a softening. Slow was enveloping heat and silky moisture. Slow was the expression on her face as she sat above him—a revelation, a mystery uncovered, and her hands spread across his chest, fingers hard in his pecs—exaltation, a trilled cry. Slow was the tremble in her thighs, the flutter of her eyelashes, the arch of her back and the thrust of her hips. Slow had a pace, hesitant, steady, increasing, then rapidly shot all to hell.
Sean chased the shock of release, down Cait’s spine, up her arms, with his hands on her hips, with his head thrown back and his toes curled to point. Closer, closer, an agony of swift rolling sensation; a hitch, a stall, a long held breath, and then the fall: spiralling, gasping, clutching, flashes of light and pinpricks of chill, open-mouthed kisses, and bodies shaking together, in peeled back tenderness and wonder.
Fuck. He wasn’t falling in love; he was already rock bottom with no way out.
He was floored.
Caitlyn woke smiling. This morning everything about being awake would be good. Almost certainly sinfully good. If Sean was awake too. If he wasn’t, how delicious to wake him. She rolled, hand searching beside her for warmth; there was only cool cotton. He was sitting in the chair opposite the bed, watching her. She stretched, blinking against the light from the window behind him. He should be in bed beside her. He’d showered. He had a towel around his waist.
And a gun in his hands.
She scrambled up and away, dragging the sheet with her. Her heartbeat exploding out of her ears. She’d been wrong, wrong, wrong. Her eyes widened to take in the bed, the room, the chair, the town, the world. Then narrowed to his face, set in an expression of what—not hostility—disappointment. Then she looked at his hands.
The gun he was holding was hers.
She sagged against the bed head, a full breath shuddering out of her panicked lungs. “You scared the hell out of me.”
He turned his hand and the gun sat across his palm like it was an ordinary household item like a plastic TV remote, a pair of tongs, not an agent of death. “Why do you have this?”
“How did you find it?”
“How about my questions first?” His tone was all business.
“Is this an interrogation?”
“Maybe.” He cocked his head. “Definitely.” There was absolutely no warmth in his eyes.
“I don’t have to answer your questions.”
“No you don’t. But I’m hoping you will because you’re smart, and carrying a loaded pistol in your toiletries bag isn’t.”
She stared at him across the rumpled bed. One he had no intention of joining her in. He looked like he’d rather handcuff her to it and not in way she’d enjoy. He shook his head at her.
“Why was it loaded?”
“I didn’t know it was.”
He put the gun on the side table. Those must be the bullets beside it. She’d rarely touched the evil thing. Just carted it around because it was too risky to leave it anywhere. He sat back in the chair, mouth drawn, brows angled down. “Have you got any idea how dangerous that is? Is it yours?”
“It’s mine.”
“Bullshit.” He spat the word out, his voice full of vitriol, his fists clenched on his thighs. “If it was yours you’d have known it was loaded. Where did you get it?”
She wrapped the sheet more firmly around her. She dropped her eyes. He was making it hard to think, to get her story straight. Once she’d agreed to one room, she should’ve thought to prepare for this.
Idiot
. She’d thought she could get dirty and dance close with an enemy and get away with it. She’d let him entice her and unless she could find a satisfactory way to answer him she was…
God
. She couldn’t think, she couldn’t think.
In the instant she stopped watching him he was in front of her. His hands on her face, his expression now collapsed into distress. “Caity, you scared the shit out of me.” He pulled her to him in a rough hug. “I’m not angry with you. I’m worried for you. I need to know why you’re carrying a gun that’s not yours.”
After last night, she had almost no resistance left. She let him hold her and stroke her hair and her hands crept up around his neck. He smelled of soap, and cheap, too fragrant hotel shampoo, and his skin was still damp.
He shifted on the bed and moved her nearer. “Ah, Cait. What are you running from? For Christ’s sake let me help you.”
Building tears made blinking bitter. She could tell him everything. She could finally confess and be rid of the burden of it, but she knew what would happen. He couldn’t let it ride. He was the wrong guy to do the wrong thing. By the way he was holding her now and had loved her last night; she was the right girl to break his heart. Nothing about last night had been casual, temporary like his tattoos. Everything he’d done was making a permanent score on her heart.
But it could all end here; in an untucked bed in an oyster town, where the locals liked to keep it clean. She’d have only half the memory, half the dream and she wasn’t ready to give him up.
She lifted her face from his shoulder and gulped back the threat of tears, steadying her frayed breathing. His expression was a collage of mixed emotion. Concern butted up against tenderness, slid alongside fear and eased in next to stubborn insistence. The whole mix was slapped down on the rationale of duty, but edged with something that looked a lot like affection. She couldn’t tell him all of it, but she could tell him this.
“I found the gun. I found it with a bunch of papers I didn’t understand. Part of what Justin kept secret, part of what he told me I didn’t need to know. There was no reason for him to have a gun. None that I knew. I took it and I ran.”
“Why, baby, tell me why?
She could. She could tell him that.
“Other than the death of my parents, the day I found the safe and all the money was the worst day of my life.” She looked away, over his shoulder. “We lived in a large apartment. I had a dreadful headache. I’d been working long hours. I could hardly see straight. I came home early. I never did that. I only wanted to lie down with a packet of frozen peas on my head. I thought I’d get rid of the headache and work from home. I thought I was alone. Justin was in the US talking to Silicon Valley investors. By that time he was hardly ever around. First thing I did was go to the fridge. The safe was open. It’d been hidden behind a false wall in the kitchen. It was full of money, so much money, Sean, just so much.”
She took a breath, she was back in their designer kitchen; the one Justin had supervised the construction of with meticulous attention, two years earlier. Sean squeezed her hands in encouragement.
“There were these ledgers I’d never seen before. Some of them were old, older than our business. Transactions of some sort, but written in a code. I couldn’t work them out. Some of them were about our business—that much I could tell. There was also software code. I’ve got no idea what it meant. If it was code for Bidwell why was it hidden? And there was the gun. It was just lying there. I heard a noise. I went to the bedroom and he was there with the blonde. I didn’t know what to do. But I knew he was a liar and I’d seen what he’d kept secret from me. They didn’t know I was there. I took the gun. I left everything I owned behind and I ran. I never went back. I…”
Behind her closed eyes was the sight of the blonde, sideways across the still made bed: tanned, beautiful, her long hair flicking the floor with the bounce of the bed, her eyes closed in ecstasy as Justin took her with a frenzy they’d never shared. His head thrown back, his eyes shut too. Their skin shone with sweat. The room smelled of their animal joining. It rang with the language of their lust. They were in a world of their own.
They’d just taken her world and broken it into jagged halves.
She bit her lip. That was the day that brought her to this. To lying to a man she thought she cared about deeply.
“Why didn’t you go to the cops, Cait?”
Why couldn’t Sean leave it at that? What answer could she possibly give that would get him to back off? How about the one where bad cops put her father in jail for a crime he didn’t commit, or the one where Justin was in bed with a detective? Would he like that? Would he understand then? She pulled out of his arms. The tears that threatened now were about frustration not fear. She was trapped and she’d brought it on herself.