HUNTER (The Corbin Brothers Book 1) (101 page)

That was it. I didn’t have a choice in the matter, it seemed.

“What’s the problem, Ms. Crosby?” Tyler asked, those blue eyes shimmering for all they were worth.

I looked at him, memorizing his strong jaw, the tiny lines at the corners of his eyes, the shadow of whiskers on his cheek and chin.

“I don’t know anything about you,” I said truthfully, “but you want me to come live with you for, oh I don’t know, indefinitely.”

“Until we eliminate this threat,” Tyler said.

“I don’t know you,” I repeated.

“What do you need to know?”

“Why did you leave the FBI?”

I was sure he wasn’t going to tell me with the way that his face stilled, the mask that I’d been getting to see under more and more firmly in place.

“If I tell you why, will you stay with me?” he asked. “I need to keep you safe.”

The way he said it made me feel like he needed it for reasons beyond solving the case, but I could’ve been trying to read too much into the simple statement.

I nodded.

“I left the FBI because I botched a case,” Tyler said. “There was a hostage situation, a gunman with a mother and her young child. I pushed the gunman too far, certain that he was going to break, and he did—just not in the way I wanted him to. He snapped and shot both subjects before shooting himself. My superiors reviewed the case, told me what I should do to make improvements, and sent me right back out in the field. It didn’t feel right. I wanted to be punished, I guess. I felt as guilty as hell. So I resigned. Retirement didn’t really suit me, though, so I became a private investigator.”

“So when you say not to bring bombs and machine guns to the fight we’re fighting …”

“I’m speaking from experience,” he finished.

“Can I ask you another question?”

“Not until you’re safely at my place,” Tyler said. “Let’s go.”

He drove us in his car to the apartment even though it was close enough to walk.

“In case we need to go somewhere fast,” he explained, pulling it into a loading zone and putting his emergency blinkers on.

              I packed a bag with some work clothes, pajamas, and comfortable clothes, then added all of the evidence collected thus far into a folder, being sure to slip in the latest note from the brick. I zipped up my bag and looked around at my apartment. It seemed vulnerable somehow, and I couldn’t envision myself spending another night alone in it.

“Ready?” Tyler asked. He’d been pacing the entire time, alternating between peeping through the door out into the hallway and peering out the windows that looked down onto where his car was parked.

“As I’ll ever be,” I sighed, letting him take my elbow to hustle me out of there.

Tyler drove erratically at first, going around the block several times before straightening out his path. Just when I thought we had to be getting close to his home, he switched tack, doubling back on the path we’d just traveled.

“Are you lost?” I asked.

“Nope. Just making sure we don’t have a tail,” he explained.

My blood chilled. If Ben could put a brick through my boutique window in the middle of the afternoon, I could only assume he’d go through other lengths to get to me, including having me followed.

“And do we?” I asked, looking at Tyler for any betrayal of what he was feeling.

He glanced at me and gave me a sure smile. “We’re fine,” he said. “We’re going to my place, now, I promise.”

His place was an amazing condo with an unbelievable view of the city. It was sleekly modern, spare, but clean for a bachelor pad.

“You should’ve told me about your place sooner,” I said, looking out the enormous windows on the twinkling lights of the city. “I wouldn’t have hesitated to move in.”

Tyler laughed. “This is only until we can neutralize the threat against you,” he said. “I’m afraid I’m not great at roommates.”

“Can I ask that other question now?” I reminded him.

“Ah. I thought you’d forgotten about that,” he said. “Go ahead, I suppose.”

“Why’d you decide to take on my case?” I asked.

“I told you,” he said, smiling easily. “Pretty women are my weakness.”

“Flattery,” I scoffed. “I’ll take the truth, please.”

“You’re a pretty good detective, yourself,” Tyler said. “How about you tell me.”

I hesitated, biting my lip. Did he want to know what I really thought or what I hoped for?

“You found me to be delightful and utterly irresistible and sexy,” I said lightly, planting a kiss on his lips.

“Guilty,” Tyler said, kissing me back.

I put my lips on his ears. “And you wanted another chance,” I whispered. “A second chance to make things right from when you left the FBI.”

“People deserve chances, don’t they?” he asked, looking at me.

“Everyone deserves a chance,” I said, conscious that I was echoing my mentor Carlotta’s words. “Everyone.”

“I’m going to get your son for you.”

“I know you are.”

              We kissed, long and deep, leisurely and without the frenetic energy we’d had for each other up until this point.

We had time to enjoy each other now.

“Let me take you on the tour,” Tyler said, slipping my skirt off my hips. “The living room.”

“Gorgeous,” I said, unbuttoning his shirt.

Tyler dragged me into the next room, kissing me and slipping off my ruined panties.

“The kitchen,” he mumbled, fondling my bare ass.

“A vision,” I said, drawing circles on the skin of his bare chest.

“The office,” he said, relieving me of my shirt.

“I can see how you get lots of work done in here,” I said, yanking off his pants.

“And the bedroom,” he said, wrestling my bra off of me and falling into the bed as I got him tangled up in his boxers.

We laughed, wriggling together, intertwining our limbs and kissing. I looked into those blue eyes and lost myself. I didn’t want to be found again.

“Tyler …”

“Don’t,” he said softly. “Don’t.”

His gentle plea gave me pause. I’d wanted to tell him how much of a comfort he was, how thankful I was that he was here to give me a safe place to stay, that I didn’t know what I’d be doing without him by my side.

And that I loved him. There was that, too.

He pushed into me softly, driving any thoughts I had flitting around in my mind out with his cock. My pussy was getting downright used to him, molding around his dick and drawing him deeper. We laid side by side, Tyler spooning me, entering me from behind, the angle of his member inside of my wet pussy absolutely blowing my mind.

The position allowed him to explore my body at his leisure, rubbing his hands over my breasts, playing along the lines of my smooth stomach, leveraging my hips around his easy thrusting. It was less like sex and more like a union, both of us taking comfort and pleasure in each other, unhurried, nowhere to go, nowhere to be but here, in this moment.

We built the pace slowly, Tyler controlling it but me responding. A couple of times, I backed us up on purpose, slowing down to a previous pace to draw out the pleasure, the utter closeness of our coupling.

“Tease,” he breathed in my ear, making me shiver.

When we reached a blistering pace, one neither of us could slow even if we’d wanted to, we came at nearly the exact same time, within seconds of each other, crying out, unabashed, our climaxes rolling over us in irresistible waves.

“I love you,” I sobbed, not sure why I was crying. “I love you, I love you.”

Tyler’s touch was gentle but firm. Still in the treacle of afterglow, he pulled out and rolled me over, looking at me.

“Hush,” he said, wiping the tears from my face. “That’s enough. You need to rest now. You’ve had a long day.”

“I’m sorry if you don’t want to hear it,” I said, trying to dry my eyes. “But I do. I love you.”

“Baby, I’ve seen so much,” Tyler said. “I’ve seen the very depraved depths of the human soul. I can’t—I can’t love anyone. I’m too damaged. People are too damaged.”

“Do you think I’m damaged?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Depraved?”

“Absolutely not. Where are you—”

“Then what?” I asked. “What’s to keep you from accepting my love? From admitting that you care for me, too?”

He shook his head. “I just can’t,” he said. “There’s too much at stake. That professional distance we talked about the first night we met?”

“There never was any,” I said. “Not even from the beginning.”

“I just can’t help myself around you,” he said, fascinated with some point around my lips, unable to meet my eyes. “I want you more and more with each passing day. But you’re in danger, and I have to make sure you’re protected.”

“I always feel safe when I’m with you,” I said.

“Then let me protect you,” he said. “I can’t afford distractions. A distraction might mean your life or, God forbid, that we lose a way in to get your son.”

“I’m not trying to distract you,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

Tyler heaved a sigh and drew me into his warm embrace, surrounding me on every side with muscles. He kissed the top of my head.

“Don’t be sorry for how you feel,” he said. “This is my problem, not yours. You’ll stay here as long as we need to. I’d like to have you here. I was just joking about the roommate thing. Mostly. You should know that I have disgusting habits, such as leaving dishes in the sink.”

“I think that’s something I can cope with,” I said, sniffling and smiling.

Over the next few weeks, Tyler escorted me to and from work and accompanied me while I ate. To stave off any suspicion, he encouraged me to tell anyone who asked that he was my boyfriend. It was a fun game to play, even if it wasn’t truthful. I had no idea what Tyler was to me. I’d hired him, so he was my employee. I trusted him, so he was my confidant. We shared a bed, so he was my lover. He was all that, and somehow more, even if we couldn’t admit it to each other.

While I was safely at work with plenty of customers around and my two assistants, Tyler worked. He spent long hours in his home office, poring over documents or scrolling through pages and pages of scowling faces on his computer.

When he was done for the day, or at least grudgingly satisfied with whatever point he’d reached, we’d make love, or go out to eat, or order in. We fell into an easy schedule, almost as if we’d been doing this all our lives. Tyler and I were completely compatible, and we made each other happy. It was almost as if we were really dating—even though, I had to constantly remind myself, he wasn’t capable of feeling anything for me beyond physical attraction.

              Sad as it was to admit, I was used to that kind of contact. It was exactly what I felt toward my customers at Mama’s nightclub. Even with the regulars, I never let myself feel more than physical attraction toward them, even if one of them said cute things or the other always tipped me incredibly well.

It was sad, but effective. I tried to close off my feelings toward Tyler and accept the fact that he could never feel anything for me. It was hard, but it felt necessary, even if it was messy and ugly and didn’t seem to do a damn thing about how attracted I was to him.

Besides that, everything was just fine. Tyler said we were building a case, my boutique was thriving so well that opening a second location was becoming less of a dream and more of a necessity, and I was spending every waking moment with a gorgeous man whose every part belonged to me … except his heart.

Yes, everything was fine until three months later, when my apartment burned down.

“Hello?”

“Oh, Shimmy. Oh, thank God.”

“Jazz?”

“Where are you?”

“I’m staying with a—with a friend,” I said, sitting up in bed and feeling groggy. Tyler had disappeared to parts unknown; his condo was silent. “What’s going on?”

“It’s your apartment,” Jasmine said. “It burned sometime last night. The firefighters—they said that if there had been somebody in the apartment at the time of the blaze, they wouldn’t have survived.”

“Shit,” I said, rubbing my curls and suddenly, nastily awake.

“You’ve got to introduce me to your friend,” Jasmine said. “I’m going to give him a big kiss on the lips for saving your life.”

“Did they say what started the fire?” I asked, getting out of bed and setting out my clothes.

“No,” Jasmine said, “but it was a total loss. Did you have anything important in there?”

“Just a good portion of my wardrobe,” I said, eyeing my clothes critically. I’d just been downsized. “Nothing that can’t be replaced.” As long as I had my evidence, the heart necklace around my neck, and Tyler, I was going to be okay. I knew that we were getting closer every day to getting my son. And then life really would be perfect.

“Are you going to come down here to see the damage?” Jasmine asked. “There’s an insurance lady here asking about you.”

“Lord, I bet she’s sick of me,” I said.

“Sick of you?”

“Well, about a month ago, somebody put a brick through the display window of my boutique. And now this. I hope she doesn’t think I’m trying to pull something.”

Jasmine was quiet for so long I was afraid I’d dropped the call.

“Shimmy, are you okay?”

I didn’t want to worry my friend. She had a lot on her plate already.

“Everything’s going to be just fine,” I assured her. “Don’t you concern yourself about it.”

“I can’t help but worry about you,” she said. “I know you’re doing everything you can to get your son back. I just want you to be safe. Take care of yourself so that your son has his mommy, okay?”

“It’s only a matter of time until that day, Jazz,” I said, smiling to myself. “I’ll call you later, okay?”

I got dressed and ready with still no sign of Tyler. Where was he? I punched his number into my phone and waited as it rang and rang.

Nothing. His voicemail popped on and I ended the call.

I couldn’t be expected to stay here if my apartment was a smoldering ruin, could I? There was business I had to attend to.

I caught a cab down at street level and directed it to my old apartment. Without all the twists and turns that Tyler had taken that night, it was practically a ten minute commute between our homes.

I was thankful to see that the apartment building was still standing. I would’ve felt incredibly guilty if anyone had been harmed because of what I had going on in my life.

I spoke to my insurance agent about what paperwork we’d have to complete in order to start recouping my losses.

“I’ve gotta tell you, Ms. Crosby,” she said. “You’re the unluckiest person I’ve ever met. First your store, then this. Are you sure someone’s not out to get you?”

The last statement was intended as a joke, but it made me shudder. Being here made it real, seeing the scorch marks out of my window in the building. I realized that it wasn’t a good idea for me to be here.

“Right?” I said, laughing. “I’m going to have to get a bodyguard or something.”

If my bodyguard knew where I was, I would be in big trouble.

I turned back to peer up at my scorched apartment and he was there, standing in front of me as if it had simply taken me this long to see him.

“I tried to call you,” I said as he glowered at me, trying to head off his ire.

“And I tried to return your call,” he said, pointing at my purse. I retrieved my phone and saw that it had four missed calls, three voicemails, and a text message—all from Tyler.

“Sorry,” I said sheepishly. “I guess you’ve heard about my apartment.”

“I guess I have,” he said, no less furious.

“And I guess we’d better be going.”

“You guess correctly,” he said, hustling me to his car, his eyes darting around the crowd of people milling about the crime scene. He got me into the passenger seat and shut the door before jogging around to the driver’s side and hopping in. His eyes never left the crowd, looking at faces even as we started driving.

“Were you followed here?” he demanded, glancing at me as we got onto the street.

“No—I mean, I don’t think so,” I said, cringing. “I took a cab. Nobody knows I’m staying at your place. Oh, except Jasmine, but she doesn’t know who you are or where you live.”

“It was stupid to come here,” he said, splitting his attention between the street in front of him and his rearview mirror. We started with the loopy driving, cutting down an alleyway at one point, to ensure we weren’t being followed.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “But Jasmine thought I was dead and I had to talk to the insurance lady again.”

“Are either of those things worth your life?” Tyler asked. “Are they?”

“No, I guess not,” I said, feeling a little petulant. He didn’t have to be angry with me. I was the one who’d just lost her home.

“Where were you, anyway?” I asked.

“Doing my job, Shimmy!” he exploded. “Investigating! Trying to keep you safe while you go to the very place your enemies want you to go to!”

I wouldn’t stand being talked down to by Tyler. I couldn’t stand it.

“Pull the car over.”

“No.”

“Stop the fucking car!”

“No fucking way!”

We glared at each other.

“You just missed your building,” I said, watching it vanish in our rearview mirror.

“We’re not going back to the condo,” Tyler said. “I’m going to show you something. I probably waited a little too long, but hopefully now you’ll understand the danger you’re in.”

I didn’t have long to wonder what he was talking about as we approached the street where the Paxton’s lived.

“Tyler,” I hissed. “The restraining order. If anyone sees me …”

“No one’s going to see you,” he said. “Lean your seat back so you can just barely look out the window. The glass is tinted.”

I did as he said, and he slowed down a little bit.

“Who’s that thug on the porch?” I asked, staring at the beefy man posted at the front door.

“Security,” Tyler said. “There’s another guy at the back of the house. Every ten minutes, they rotate, walking around the edges of the house to make sure there aren’t any shenanigans. There are ten different security guys that I’ve been able to count. Plus the camera at the front door. Plus the van full of thugs we’re passing right now. These guys are always here. When they think nobody’s watching, they’ll unload boxes from the moving truck we’re passing right now.

“Other cars come and pick up other boxes. Yesterday, I saw an interesting thing. Guy walking in, seems pretty important, surrounded by heavies. I took a couple of photos, started doing a face recognition program once I got back home. Guess who the Paxton’s have paired up with?”

I swallowed. “Who?”

“Guess,” Tyler said pleasantly. “You’ve gotten so good at it lately.”

“Please don’t be mean to me,” I said, tears springing up to my eyes. “I said I was sorry. I lost my apartment and I wanted to go see it. That was all. I understand now that it was a silly thing to do.”

“Silly?” Tyler repeated. “No. It was a goddamned stupid thing to do. The Paxton’s are in bed with one of the most violent cartels in Mexico, smuggling drugs throughout the United States. They’d kill you without so much as blinking.”

“What do you care?” I demanded, losing my temper even as the first tear rolled down my cheek. “You don’t give a damn about me. You could never love anyone, you said. Why do you give a fuck about what I do? Are you worried about getting paid? Would it help if I gave you an advance?”

Tyler sucked in air and clamped his jaw shut even as he ground his teeth together. I could plainly see that he was trying not to come unhinged on me. He drove off, going back on his looping journey back through the city until we finally arrived at his condo.

I moved to get out of the car, but he laid his hand on my thigh, stopping me.

“I do so give a damn about you,” he said. “More than I’d like to admit. But I can’t love you.”

“Why?” I said. “What can be so hard about loving me?”

Tyler stroked my cheek, traced my jaw line, and lost his fingers in my curls.

“Because if I lost you, it would kill me,” he said, his voice quiet.

It was then that I think both of us realized that he did love me. He did love me, and it terrified him.

“I have a plan for getting the final nail in the coffin,” Tyler said. “But I need another person.”

“I’ll do anything,” I said. “You know I will.”

“That’s what scares me,” he admitted.

“Tell me,” I said. “Everything I’ve done, everything I’ve been willing to do, is for my son. Fucking grizzly bear mama, remember?”

“I remember,” Tyler said, smiling grimly. “There’s a tiny window just at basement level of the house, on the right side if you’re looking at it from the street. It’s obscured by a rose bush, but I’m guessing the basement is where they keep the cocaine—or whatever they’re smuggling. Cocaine’s where the money is, but it could be pot, meth, anything.”

“You need me to get the window open and get inside,” I said. “You’re too big to get into the window.”

“Yes,” Tyler said. “Are you sure you don’t want to quit the fashion business? You’d make a hell of a detective.”

“I could be your partner,” I said, trying to lighten the mood.

“You don’t have to get in the window,” he said. “If you can get some photos or audio of whatever operation they’re staging down there just by sticking the camera in a little bit, do that. I’ll be serving as your lookout, ready to kick ass should one of the security detail spot you.”

“This is the nail in the coffin,” I said. “If we get something good enough, this’ll be it. The courts can’t ignore this kind of evidence. Their lawyer will be powerless. And I’ll get Trevor back.”

“It’s going to be dangerous,” Tyler said. “I won’t lie to you.”

“Danger I’ve done before,” I said. “Danger I can do again. This is my son, Tyler. Everything for him. Anything for him.”

Tyler swallowed and traced my cheek as if he were trying to commit it to memory.

“We’ll wait until dark,” he said. “You have to do exactly what I say.”

I leaned forward and kissed him deeply, hoping I could convey everything in the one gesture. I loved Tyler. I was thankful for him. I knew that he was scared, but we were together. We could do this. We could make it. We had to make it.

Soon, the kissing had morphed into something else. Tyler pushed the driver’s seat back and I straddled his lap, kissing and kissing and kissing. The way we held each other, the way that we clawed at each other’s skin was desperate, carnal, needy, frightened. We wanted to take comfort in each other. It was all we had to lean on right now. It was everything.

I unzipped Tyler’s pants and withdrew his hard cock before pushing my panties aside and sitting straight on it. I didn’t need any preparation. That’s how wet I was just from kissing him, from being near him, from smelling him, from touching him.

In the middle of that parking garage, cars zooming in and out, we asserted that we were there for each other, made each other silent promises, rode out on our hopes and fears and dreams and reined each other back in.

I came sobbing, kissing Tyler all over his face, my body convulsing on his, rocking and rocking to eke out every drop of pleasure. He buried his face in the crook of my neck and cried out, the muffled sound saying everything that he couldn’t. He wanted me, but he was scared. He loved me, even, if it took him a lifetime to say it aloud.

We were together, in this to the end. I saw that now, saw that Tyler was just as far in as I was. I saw it, and began to hope. We were doing all we could as human beings and coping with terrible things. We could come together, though, couldn’t we? We could save my son and make this happen. We could make me a mother again.

I thought I’d be more nervous than I was, but having a plan calmed me considerably. We parked a couple of blocks away and walked casually until we reached the Paxton’s’ street.

“Let’s review the plan,” Tyler suggested.

“You’re going to signal to me when it’s safe to go to the basement window,” I said. “I am going to run like hell—quietly—and dive under the rosebush. I am going to take this camera—” I held it up “—and document whatever operation’s going on in the basement.”

“And on my signal, you run again,” Tyler said. “Is there anything you don’t understand about the plan?”

“No.”

“Are there any questions about the plan?”

“If things should go wrong …”

Tyler shook his head mightily. “Nope. We’re not going there. Nothing’s going to go wrong. We’re going to be in and out, easy as pie.”