She should thank him for rescuing her last night but couldn’t find the words.
“I wanted to make sure you were okay, after last night.” His voice was deep and sent a dark thrill along her nerves. “And to apologize, properly, for the other day.”
He took a step closer.
“I’m a bastard.” The flush riding his cheekbones suggested that explaining wasn’t easy for him. He scrubbed a hand across his face. “I’m talking literal as well as metaphorical, okay?”
She blinked.
“I’m illegitimate.” He spelled it out.
“Oh.” Her eyes stretched wide as she finally got it. “The condom thing.”
“Yeah.” He raised his face to the sky as if trying to rein in his temper. “The condom thing.”
“That was stupid. Not using a condom.” She wasn’t a dumb person. Or careless. If anything, she worried about every little detail. “I’m sorry you worried, but I really am on the pill.”
She wasn’t looking for a marriage proposal or even promises of tomorrow, and she didn’t want to get pregnant, not yet anyway. She’d pushed thoughts of a husband and family to the back of her mind. Maybe one day, assuming she wasn’t incarcerated in some lunatic asylum. But she was hardly in a position to have a normal life. Not when she burned to death every night in her dreams and saw her deceased father on a daily basis.
The look in his eyes was shielded, though she caught a glimpse of vulnerability in his face, and it struck her that maybe he hadn’t been wanted. Maybe that’s what it was about him that attracted her. Because she could relate. Her mother had taken off when she was eight and hadn’t exactly welcomed her with open arms when her father died. The sense of rejection when a
parent abandoned you was all-consuming, and even the death of a parent felt like proof there really was something wrong with you.
Except her father had loved her and wanted her, right up until the day he’d died. She believed that. Then he’d forsaken her.
But maybe he hadn’t wanted to.
Maybe that was what he was trying to tell her from the grave.
“Do you ever see your dad?” she asked.
“Don’t even know his name.” Ben sank to his haunches, and the muscles in his thighs bunched. “Not sure my mom did either. We lived with her parents, but I didn’t get along with my grandparents.” He picked up a shell and stabbed it into the sand. “If it wasn’t for a neighborhood cop, I’d have probably ended up in juvie.”
“You turned out all right.” They shared a smile that shouldn’t have meant anything. But did. “Your apology is accepted.” She grinned, then stammered, “And I’m sorry too, for, ah, misreading the situation.” And jumping your bones.
God, how mortifying.
Ben snorted. “Yeah. Right. I think I gave you a little help with that and then treated you like crap. You should punch me on the nose for being an asshole.”
A spaniel yapped and a toddler splashed in the surf a hundred yards away, shrieking at her mother.
“Soo.” Blood still heated Sorcha’s cheeks, and the hot skin burned as she pressed her fingers to her face. They’d found a dead body together, shared a drink, secrets and sex. She’d saved him from drowning, he’d saved her from Duncan. They hadn’t even kissed.
Where could they possibly go from here?
***
Working undercover for the DEA, Ben was used to breaking rules, but just how far he could go without completely fucking up his career he didn’t know. He tucked a chisel under his arm and picked up a hammer. It had taken awhile, but he’d installed deadbolts, and window locks were next.
This case was giving him an ulcer. The details of Sorcha’s story checked out. The childhood attack, her father’s suspicious death, that she’d left town and only returned three months ago. He laid the chisel in the toolbox. But the phone call to Santayana’s mansion had been traced to this house when she was living here, Sorcha did have big money in a Swiss bank account, and her boat had been in the right place at the right time for several major drug transfers. Not to mention someone was trying to kill her. Innocent people didn’t usually need to worry about car bombs.
His cell phone rang. “Foley,” he murmured.
“I’ve got some information for you.” It was Ewan McKnight.
“Go on.” Ben kept his voice low. His feelings for Sorcha weren’t strictly professional, but he wasn’t going to jeopardize the investigation because his
cojones
fancied some action. Jacob deserved justice. Ben intended to deliver.
“Kevin Cassidy, the flat-mate’s boyfriend. Unofficially, we got his sealed records unsealed. He was charged with possession twelve years ago.”
Sonofabitch
. Ben leaned against the back of the couch. “Details?”
“Kevin was a weekday boarder at an exclusive private school in Edinburgh.” Ewan’s voice rumbled through the receiver. “Went home every weekend, lifted a portion of Daddy’s stash and shared it with his mates on a Monday morning.”
So Kevin was supplying even back then. Ben stared out at the vast stretch of water. Had Kevin turned a personal habit into a profitable business?
“One of the other parents found out about it and went ballistic. Got Kevin kicked out faster than you can say
trust-fund baby.
”
“Great work.” It wasn’t easy getting sealed records opened. Ewan must have called in plenty of favors.
“I’d love to take credit, but it was Nick who used his connections.”
Ben made a mental note to send the guy a serious bottle of scotch when this was over. “Anything on Duncan Mackenzie?”
“Other than the fact he’s disappeared?”
“You’re kidding me?”
“Mackenzie had bail posted for him by his mother this morning and hasn’t been seen since.” Ewan sounded pissed, but not as pissed as Ben was feeling.
Ben glanced up the stairs as a muffled bump came from the attic. Sorcha might not be an innocent, but she was in danger and it worried him. He wasn’t in a position to be a full-time bodyguard. “Did you check his finances?”
Ewan paused. “Something funny about that.”
“What?” Ben held his breath, anticipation zinging through his nerves.
“He doesn’t have a bank account.”
Ben’s brain blanked for a moment. “He what?” What the hell did that mean? It was the twenty-first century. Who the hell didn’t have a bank account? And who the hell didn’t own a car for that matter? He ground his teeth. These people were weird.
He hung up, things no clearer now than before. In fact, the case was getting more complicated. His list of potential suspects kept growing. Duncan Mackenzie was a possibility. Peter Hughes, the bird warden, who lived on the island where he’d found the stash. Kevin too, with his juvenile record. But would the guy attack Carolyn when he was already sleeping with her?
Although any good law-enforcement officer knew rape had little to do with sex and everything to do with power.
Kevin had been a kid fifteen years ago, when that Swiss bank account was opened in Sorcha’s name. But Edinburgh was only a hop across the River Forth, so maybe the guy’s father was somehow connected to Iain Logan? Sorcha’s uncles Angus and Davy Logan had been around, as had Duncan Mackenzie’s father. Ben rubbed his forehead, forced his jaw to relax. There were too many possible suspects, including the woman upstairs.
Until he figured it out, he had to keep Sorcha safe and that meant staying right here next to her. And that spelled disaster.
***
Sorcha squatted in the narrow space, wiped dirty hands on her jeans and sneezed.
“Bloody hell.”
Shafts of sunlight filtered through the tiny skylight and slanted across boxes layered thick with dust. It didn’t look as though anybody had been up here since the Viking raids.
Ben was downstairs fitting the new locks she’d bought. She’d tried to make him leave, but he’d just given her a look and demanded her toolbox.
Despite that awful morning-after-the-night-before, he made her feel safe. He exuded a solidness that beckoned her and a strength she craved, though something indefinable about him seemed even more isolated than she was. She toed dust bunnies.
After their disastrous sexual encounter, followed so closely by Duncan’s attack, she thought she wouldn’t want any man touching her again.
She was wrong.
She wanted Ben. She wanted him with an intensity that burned low in her belly and wouldn’t let up. And that scared the crap out of her. Hence being in the attic looking for her father’s diaries while Ben was downstairs fitting new locks. She scanned the dim space and tried to decide where to start, wondering what she was going to do about the man downstairs. Being near him was like being near an electric fence. The temptation to touch him, just to see what it felt like, was overwhelming.
The first time had been shocking enough. What would happen once he found out she saw ghosts and heard imaginary voices? He’d leave. And break her heart. But then he’d leave anyway, so what did she really have to lose?
She huffed out a big sigh, sneezed as her breath disturbed more dust. “Achoo!”
Searching the attic was going to be a much bigger job than she’d anticipated. She rolled her shoulders and stretched her neck and began moving boxes.
At least she’d made one person happy today. Robbie had phoned her earlier, his voice gruff over getting the deed to the boat. How thoughtless that she’d left it for so long. Ownership of the trawler had never crossed her mind. Her granny never mentioned the boat on her occasional visits to Cornwall, visits that always coincided with her mother’s vacations. And her mother hadn’t mentioned the boat either.
The desiccated corpse of a spider fell on her knee. She swatted it away violently. Biologist or not, she hated arachnids.
An old hatbox she vaguely recognized sat on the floor. She paused before wiping the dust from the lid. When she opened it, hundreds of bone-bright shells lay nestled together. The quiet was suddenly filled with her heartbeat, comforting in the warm silence. Happiness sifted through her mind. She picked up a razor shell longer than her hand. It felt brittle—a dried-out carcass of a long-dead creature. She cradled it gently in her palm and was bombarded by the sounds of laughter, the heat of the sun, and the image of her favorite red bucket.
Perfect memories.
“Oh, Daddy. What happened?”
No one answered and she half-expected him to, and wasn’t that scary?
There was no denying it any longer…she was going insane, pretending to be normal when dead people spoke to her.
Sleep was getting more difficult, every stolen nap a much-needed blessing. Butterflies danced in her stomach, reminding her she needed to eat. She’d lost weight. The stress and strain of recent months had corroded her health. She needed to look after herself because no one else was going to. Carefully, she placed the shells back inside their box, replaced the lid and moved on.
The next box contained papers. Bank letters, utility bills, hospital appointments, report cards from primary school. Her family obviously didn’t believe in throwing anything away. So where were the damn journals? Her skin rippled as if she’d walked through a cobweb.
“Over here…”
The voice sank inside her skull and she jerked around, falling on her backside as though she’d been kicked in the chest. The specter of the man she’d called Daddy stood near the gable end of the attic. The butterflies in her stomach morphed into dive-bombing gannets. Just when she’d figured he was never going to face her, here he was. The air felt cold and clammy. Her breath came short and fast. She put out a hand against the slanted roof to combat sudden dizziness, unable to take her eyes off him. His features weren’t sharp, but they were etched with years of misery and an eternity of hell.
“What do you want, Daddy?”
“You.”
The sound came from far away, but landed directly inside her mind.
“You…”
A sob built up in her throat, but she held it back. She edged closer, using the hard beams of the roof for support. She was scared of the phantom of the man she’d once adored, but she was more terrified of not finding the answers she needed.
“I love you, Dad,” she whispered. “I love you and I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you.”
Grief and desolation screamed through the layers that separated their worlds. His fingers struck out as if to grab her. She flinched, wanting to run and scream, but her legs couldn’t cooperate. He shifted to embrace her and she closed her eyes, raised her face to the ceiling, praying, as the ghost of her father slipped through her body.
He invaded her mind, like ice crystals forming and piercing the fragile tissue, trying to dig deeper inside her consciousness. She screamed. Fought and wrenched her mind free, crumpling in a heap among boxes and scattered junk.
Footsteps bounded up the ladder. Ben stuck his head through the hatch, gave the attic a sweep with his eyes, but her father was gone, leaving nothing behind except cold dirt and cobwebs.
“My father’s ghost. I saw my father’s ghost.” Her mouth felt parched and her lungs punched air rapidly in and out of her chest. She wrapped her arms over her head and cried. “I can’t do this anymore!” Strong arms held tight, as she tried to retain her sanity. A solid chest cradled her face as she keened.
Sorcha rested her back against the garden wall and stared down the rocky shore toward the sea. The stone retained some of the day’s heat and she huddled into it gratefully. The sun was low in the sky, blinding if you looked west. Only 4 p.m., but already evening was falling. Another long day on the road to Perdition.
Ben hadn’t laughed at her. She’d told him she’d seen her father’s ghost and he hadn’t openly derided her. It didn’t mean he believed her, but it helped.
Hugging her knees, she wrapped the blanket tighter around her shoulders. It was time to face facts. She needed professional help. Wouldn’t that look great on her C.V.? Six months psychoanalysis to stop seeing ghosts. Or exorcism? Somehow she didn’t think the Church of Scotland went in for that sort of thing.
Swallowing hard, she forced herself to relax, concentrated on the sea and its serenity. It calmed her. It had always calmed her.
There was nobody on the rocks, not even school kids, though plenty of boats cut the blue skin of the water. Brightly colored sailing craft caught the wind and tacked at breakneck speed. Cruisers chugged back to the harbor before dark. A couple of fishing boats pulled lobster creels near the shore.
The garden gate creaked and she glanced over her shoulder, squinting against the brightness of the sun. Ben stood there, shockingly handsome in a pale-blue checked fleece and worn-out jeans.
“I finished the locks.” He offered his mug but when she took it, she realized it contained whiskey, not tea. She took a sip anyway and he sat down beside her and stretched out his legs.
“Thanks.” Her dream man always brought her breakfast in bed on a Saturday morning—naked. But Ben Foley was not her dream man, although he made a really nice fantasy. And if she kept her mind on him, she wouldn’t have to remember how it felt to feel her father’s spirit touch her soul.
Their shoulders brushed, a frisson of heat sparking between them. She shifted away. Didn’t want this awareness but was powerless to stop the attraction. How did you turn off a magnet? How did you switch off the sun?
The biologist in her knew sexual chemistry made the world go around, but the woman in her recognized the peril and wanted to pretend it didn’t exist.
Easier to stop and ride the moon.
He had a two-handed grip on his mug. The liquid rippled as his hands shook. She glanced at his face. He wasn’t thinking about her. He was staring at the waves with fever-bright eyes and chalk-white lips.
Poor guy had an overwhelming fear of water and didn’t even know she existed. So much for unstoppable sexual attraction.
“It can’t hurt you, you know.” Her voice was gentle, more comfortable with his distress than her own. “Not from over there.”
With what looked like colossal effort, he tore his gaze from the water to meet hers. His Adam’s apple dipped, and she wanted to follow its path with the stroke of her finger.
Why shouldn’t she?
Because he’ll hurt you.
“Tell it to my pounding heart.” His voice was rough.
Sorcha unwrapped the blanket from her shoulders and draped the coarse wool over his broad frame.
Why shouldn’t she live a little? Was it so
wrong?
Ben hadn’t laughed at her. He hadn’t gone off and shagged the nearest available female because that was easier than having an actual conversation or saying they were through.
Instead he’d comforted her, changed the locks on her doors and made her feel protected.
“I can help, you know.” She blocked his view of the waves by straddling his legs. Noted the exact moment color returned to his skin and his attention shifted from the water to her.
“Yeah?” His eyes glowed, one side of his mouth curled.
“Replace those fears with other thoughts.”
“A little counter-conditioning therapy?” His lips kicked into a relaxed smile that Sorcha hadn’t seen before.
“I was a psych major before I got hooked on behavioral ecology.” She shifted a little closer.
He swept his hands up her jean-clad thighs, splayed warm fingers across the bare skin of her hips. She caught her breath and wondered if flesh could ignite.
“So, Dr. Logan.” Bright onyx eyes held hers. “What’s a suitable reward for me sweating blood every time I look at that stuff?”
She rested her hands on his shoulders, discovered they were tense and knotted.
“A massage?” She kneaded the rigid muscles. Sucked in a breath as his hands drifted higher, caressing her waist and stroking the edge of her ribcage. His gaze was focused on her face. Unflinching. Unreadable.
She stopped breathing as his hands skimmed the swell of her breasts, his thumbs brushing her nipples through her bra. Twin sensations coursed through her body, erotic and seductive.
Unable not to, she edged closer until she pressed up against him. His gaze never wavered. She stared at his lips, licked her own and felt a flicker of anticipation when his gaze dipped to her mouth.
They’d never kissed.
She
wanted
to kiss him.
“Are you awake this time, Mr. Foley?”
That gained her a narrow-eyed smile.
Moving so slowly it took every measure of control she possessed, she placed her lips against his. Felt a shudder move through his body as she stroked his bottom lip with the tip of her tongue. She slid her hands into his hair, fascinated by the taste of the man, the strength, the mystery.
Their noses rubbed, a soft nuzzle, and their breath mingled, his hot against her lips. Her pulse quickened and she could feel the arousal of her body—blood speeding through her veins, breath hitching, skin on fire.
“If I did this—” she rocked against him, smiled as his fingers dug deeper into her hips, “—could I persuade you to come inside?”
That earned a low growl. His skin was taut over his features, his body rigid beneath her.
Did he want to kiss her or push her away?
She leaned forward, savored the way his eyes fixed intently on her mouth. She turned her head at the last moment to slow kiss along his jaw to his ear. Took the lobe between her teeth and bit gently.
She’d missed sex. She wanted to experience the thrill of passion and extinguish the horror that lurked in the corners of her mind. But she wasn’t leading with her heart this time. Not that Ben was looking for love. Even no-strings sex was a hard sell.
She’d never seduced anyone before. Never had the nerve. Maybe she was doing it wrong?
Eyes closed, he rested his head back against the old stone wall. Lifted his face to the sun as she tasted him, quivered as she ran her fingers through short silky hair. His hands gripped her hips hard, holding her against him.
No—there was indisputable evidence she was doing it right. But he was resisting temptation.
After the chill of the attic, she was now so hot her blood fizzed.
“Come inside,” she whispered into his ear and rubbed against him.
Suddenly he moved against her. Ground hard flesh against soft and tipped her over the edge, every synapse in her body exploding in pleasure. Stunned, she whimpered against his shoulder, trying not to make a sound. But he knew.
On a ragged growl he stilled, pushed her hair back to see her face.
Embarrassed, she tried to pull away. “Wow.” She bit her lip, flustered.
He studied her with expressionless eyes and a stern mouth. He looked pissed. Again.
“Are we done?” she asked uncertainly. He was so still he didn’t seem to be breathing.
“No.” His eyes flickered and he seemed to come to some tacit decision. He stood, lifting her in his arms at the same time. “No. We’re not done.”
Sorcha wrapped her legs around his waist, grabbed the blanket before it drifted from his shoulders. This was just sex. Fun and games to take her mind off her problems. Hearts wouldn’t get mangled. Not this time.
The water shimmered and the waves pounded the shore, but right now it didn’t matter.
***
Ben’s arms tightened around Sorcha. He was making a huge mistake, getting it on with the chief suspect in a drug-smuggling investigation, a woman who claimed to see ghosts. But nothing else felt right—not the town, not the case, just this. And he couldn’t stop.
He was lying to her. Screwing up every principle he believed in, violating the code he lived by. Right now he wanted her so badly, he’d do anything to crawl inside and fill up the loneliness that engulfed his whole life. Even lie.
Hell, he lied for a living.
He shifted her higher in his arms, shuddered as her breasts rubbed against his chest. He was a basket case of sexual arousal, worse than being sixteen and horny as hell, because he knew exactly what it felt like to be inside her.
Goddamn.
He strode up the stairs, kicked open the door and laid her on the bed. He closed the curtains, not sure how much detail surveillance on the opposite shore could pick up if they happened to be pointed in this direction. But he wasn’t risking a peep show. Risking his career was bad enough.
Pausing, he admitted the truth to himself. Having sex with Sorcha wouldn’t kill his career; some operators routinely got down and dirty with their suspects, male or female, if it got
them the intel they wanted. But this was different. Sorcha was different. This wasn’t about getting information. It would be easier if it were.
He released a breath, turned around and his heart stopped.
She’d pulled off her sweatshirt and leaned back on her elbows, looking as sexy as all get out. Her lips were red and slick, hair tumbling in messy waves across her shoulders, the
V
of her pink shirt dipping to reveal milky-white skin that contrasted with the freckles on her neck. He wanted to spend time figuring out the constellations etched across her skin, but time was one of the many things they didn’t have.
Her nipples puckered against the thin material of her blouse. He moved closer, could feel his pulse hammer as if his heart were about to explode. Undoing his belt, he slipped it from the loops of his jeans. Dropped it to the floor where it landed with a thud.
Sorcha flinched and he hesitated.
This wasn’t just about sex. It was about her. Sorcha Logan, with her ice-blond hair and eyes that veered from sex kitten to vulnerable in the space of a heartbeat. A woman who’d been labeled a witch and claimed to have seen her father’s ghost just hours earlier. Certifiable, delusional or a damn good liar, she got to him in a way no one else ever had.
“I want to see you naked.” His voice came out as though he’d swallowed grit and he coughed to clear his throat. Usually stripping was easy for her, but this time she frowned.
Damn.
Bringing this inside was a mistake. Who cared if they were caught screwing on a public beach? What was an eight-year law-enforcement career compared to instant sexual gratification?
Please God, don’t turn out to be a fucking drug runner.
He rubbed the back of his neck as an insane laugh formed. Maybe he was the one going crazy?
She moved to the edge of the bed and climbed slowly to her feet. Took him by surprise when she swaggered toward him and stopped only inches away. She ran a finger from nipple to nipple. Lust ripped through his blood. He forced himself to remain still but he was already so hard it hurt.
“You first,” she whispered, her lips an inch from his. Then she kissed him and tasted of sunshine and sea. His brain shut down as he absorbed the sheer sensation of her tongue against his. Brain shutdown from a single kiss? He pulled back. Held her by the shoulders. Maybe she really was a witch, but right now he didn’t care.
Jacob. Forgive me.
Even the memory of his dead friend didn’t slam on the brakes. She was a possible felon and he wanted her more than he’d wanted anything in his whole life. Revenge, vindication, respect. None of it mattered except getting her naked and getting inside her.
Ben yanked his sweatshirt and T-shirt over his head and unbuttoned his jeans. She stared at him as if he were chocolate and she had a craving.
Christ.
He lifted the bottom of her shirt slowly over her head, trapping her arms in the sleeves behind her back, and walked her backward to the bed. Small, perfect, cotton-encased breasts pressed against his heart. He dipped his head, held her against his thigh as he kissed sweet flesh through the raspberry-colored covering. She rubbed against him, moaning and writhing, making sweat sizzle off his superheated skin.
He let her fall onto the sheets. Reached for the button on her pants and dragged them down her legs to reveal smooth pale skin, delicate limbs and hot-pink panties. His blood pounded, muscles tightened, the scent of warm wet female twisting desire into torture.
Impatiently she pulled her hands free of her shirtsleeves and reached for his zipper. He lasted about a second then backed up a step.
“I’m a man on the edge, babe.”
Her eyes danced with an interest that scared the hell out of him.
“Then strip. I want to see you naked.” She lay back on the bed to watch, her frilly pink lingerie an erotic splash of color.
Performance anxiety had never bothered him before, but sex never had this underlying pressure. As if he was crossing boundaries, and what he was doing right now might affect the rest of his life.
Grabbing a condom out of his pocket, he dropped his pants and stepped out of his boxers. Sorcha looked him over slowly and smiled that cheeky grin that made him sweat pure lust as he crawled onto the bed, between her legs, right where he wanted to be.
He smoothed his hands over her thighs, nuzzled beneath the outer edge of her panties and blew gently. She shot upright and he grinned. “Like that?”
“Oh, yes,” she laughed.
He liked it. Her scent made him want to consume her, possess her. Stripping her panties down her legs, he caressed her smooth skin, savored the softness of her feminine body. She pulled at his hair, trying to draw him upward, but he wasn’t going anywhere. He glanced up to find her watching him with her teeth hooked into her bottom lip, uncertainty in her eyes.
Christ, she was perfect.
Hot.
He corrected himself.