The Specialist Read online

  PAYNE PLUNGED BACK INSIDE her greedy little body, felt her legs wrap around his waist, her heels dig into his ass, urging him on, and raced as hard and as fast as he could toward release.

  He could still taste her on his lips, could have fed between her thighs all night. She’d been warm and sweet and wet and delicious and he’d been damned lucky he hadn’t come when he’d tasted her.

  He’d wanted things to be different tonight, to show that he more than desired her—that he needed her—but somewhere past the first kiss, the first brush of her hands across his chest, he’d lost sight of that goal because his senses had been clouded by another. He’d wanted to be tender, to be gentle, to make love to her in that cool, methodical way that he’d painstakingly perfected, that he’d built his reputation on.

  Unfortunately, he couldn’t.

  One taste of her, one touch from her and he became an animal, unable to control even the most basic urges. Payne knew there was nothing gentle in the way he was taking her—he’d screwed her halfway across the bed already and if he didn’t back off, he’d undoubtedly screw her right off the mattress, but he couldn’t seem to help himself. Instead, he seemed to be determined to take her so hard and so completely that the idea of ever making love to another man would get jarred right out of her stubborn little head.

  Later, when the blood returned to his brain, he would realize that this probably wasn’t the best course of action—in fact, that it made absolutely no sense.

  But for the moment, while she was tightening around him, biting at his shoulder, clawing, screaming, grunting and groaning from his brutal bedding, it made perfect, logical sense.

  He could feel release spinning like a tornado in the back of his balls, preparing to sweep down the length of his aching dick and erupt into her and the idea that his seed was about to flood her womb—that he’d been so caught up in having her that he hadn’t taken precaution—was such a friggin’ turn-on, he dug his toes into the mattress, angled deeper and came hard. He should have been scared, terrified, and yet he wasn’t.

  A long, keening groan tore from his throat and his back spasmed from the force of the climax. When the last contractions pulsed through him, Payne carefully withdrew, then rolled onto the mattress next to her and pulled her to him.

  Breathing heavily, limp as a dishrag all over, he pressed a kiss at her temple. “I don’t want this to be over, Emma,” he said, laying it all on the line.

  She turned and looked up at him. “Who said it has to be?” She paused, ran a hand over his chest. “My tub’s big enough for two. Wanna share a bubble bath?”

  Utterly spent, Payne chuckled softly. “That’s all I could share at the moment.”

  Emma disentangled herself from him and started toward the bathroom. She shot him a droll look over her shoulder. “Don’t get up. I’ll do it.”

  “What?” he asked innocently. “Did you need my help?”

  He must have drifted off to sleep because when he next awoke—it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes; he could still hear the water running into the tub from the bathroom—Emma was standing next to the bed, her face a white mask of pain and anger. Payne blinked, pulling her into focus.

  And that’s when he saw it.

  The pocketwatch dangled from the chain around her fingers and spun slowly, much like the alarm suddenly swirling in his belly.

  “When did you find this?” she asked, her voice ominously controlled, completely out of character.

  “Tonight,” Payne answered truthfully. He sat up, glanced at his pants lying in the floor and a horrible suspicion took hold. “Did you go through my pockets?”

  Had she been doing that all along? Payne suddenly wondered. Had she been using him? Staying close to him so that if he did find the pocketwatch before her, she could take it from him? Granted in the beginning he’d used much the same strategy, but he would never have taken it from her.

  Watch your back, man, Guy had said. Sounds like this chick is capable of putting a knife in it.

  Oh, no, Payne thought, mentally shaking his head. This could not be happening. He could not have allowed himself to be hoodwinked by this slip of a woman. He could not have allowed himself to get knocked so far off his game—to be such a bad judge of character—that she had completely pulled the wool over his eyes and made a fool of him. He set his jaw so hard he feared it would crack and an image of his drunken, miserable father loomed large in his mind.

  Emma studied him for a long moment, then her lips formed a smirk and she shook her head. “Wondering if I’m that ruthless, Payne?” she asked, once again using that uncanny ability of peering into his head. “Wondering if you’ve misjudged me? Don’t,” she said. “It’s insulting.”

  She dropped the pocketwatch into his lap, then marched to her door and opened it. “Get out.”

  “Emma—”

  She glared at him with so much hatred he felt himself flinch, and in that instant he realized he’d made a terrible mistake. “Get out,” she repeated.

  And she meant more than out of this room—she was kicking him out of her life, as well. Panic made his throat tighten and his stomach sour.

  Rather than provoke her further, he silently gathered his things, then paused at the door. “Emma, let me explain. Look, I’m sor—”

  “Save it,” she said, her gaze trained on the hardwood floor beneath her bare feet. “Goodbye, Major Payne.”

  She gave him a none-too-gentle shove past the threshold, then quietly closed the door. Unfortunately it wasn’t thick enough to disguise the soft thud of her forehead hitting it, or the quiet sobs he could hear from the other side.

  Payne squeezed the pocketwatch so hard he felt it cut into his palm. His chest ached and the urge to go right back in there to her and apologize until she had to believe him was almost overpowering. Unfortunately, if he’d learned anything about Emma Langsford over the past few days, he’d learned that she did everything on her own time schedule. Listening to him, or better still, forgiving him, weren’t in the scope of her composure at the moment.

  Possibly not ever.

  Way to go, Specialist, he thought with a bitter grin as he glared at the pocketwatch in his bleeding hand. Mission accomplished.

  14

  “LEAVING SO SOON, DEAR?” Norah asked as Emma handed over her room key. “I thought you’d planned to stay through the weekend.”

  Emma swallowed. She couldn’t tell her hostess the truth, that there was no longer any point in staying. “Something’s come up,” she said vaguely.

  Norah printed out her receipt and indicated where Emma should sign. “Well, we’re sorry to hear that. If you’re ever back in the area, we do hope you’ll stay with us again.”

  It was unlikely that she’d ever be back in the area and she was years away from being able to afford to stay there again—unless someone else was picking up the tab, anyway—but that was hardly worth mentioning. Emma merely smiled and waited for her receipt.

  If she wouldn’t have had to wake Norah up last night, chances are she would have packed her bags and left right after Payne had walked out of her room. That’s what she’d wanted to do, because knowing that he was next door had been utterly excruciating.

  Whatever Emma might have expected of him, his cheating at his own rules hadn’t been it. In fact, she hadn’t been able to decide which had been the greater betrayal—that he’d found the watch and had failed to tell her, or that he’d automatically assumed the worst from her when she’d confronted him with his own duplicity.

  Did you go through my pockets?

  Mr. Impassive might have mastered hiding his thoughts from everyone else, but for reasons she couldn’t begin to explain—a twisted act of fate, she imagined—she’d never had any problem peering into that frighteningly pragmatic mind.

  She wasn’t about to tell him she’d accidentally kicked his pants when she’d walked back to the bedroom from the bathroom, and the pocketwatch he’d told her that he didn’t believe existed had come sai
ling out of his pocket.

  She’d been so stunned—so shocked and hurt—that it had taken every iota of willpower she possessed not to hurl right there on the spot. Brian Payne, a man she’d come to respect because his honor was such an integral part of his personality, had lied to her.

  Actually, it was the same sort of lie of omission that she’d employed when she first met him, but now that she was on the receiving end of one, she couldn’t say that she altogether appreciated the difference.

  Subtle, hell.

  A lie was a lie, no matter how one tried to spin it.

  He’d said that he’d found the watch last night, but she couldn’t imagine when. And, considering that he hadn’t told her about it, she had no way of knowing if that was the truth or not. He’d seemed sincere enough, but then she never imagined that he’d have found it and kept it from her to start with. This was precisely the sort of pointless circle her brain had been spinning in all night long, and between the headache it had given her and the heartache compliments of Major Payne, Emma was feeling pretty damned bruised at the moment.

  She’d watched him lump her into the same category as those money-grubbing stepmothers he’d had—a little tidbit he’d shared over the course of the past few days—and she’d been so devastated by the unfair comparison that it had been all she could do not to cry. Thankfully, anger had saved her long enough to keep the flood back, but the instant she’d gotten him out of her room, Emma had dropped her head against the door and the let the gates of her despair open.

  Dropping that pocketwatch—her future—back into his lap had been the proudest and most disappointing moment in her life, one she imagined would ultimately define her. She wouldn’t have taken the damned thing—despite rumors to the contrary, she was not ruthless and had fully believed that Payne had known that, too.

  Clearly she’d been wrong.

  But letting it go—knowing what it was costing her—had been pretty damned hard, also. Emma inhaled a bracing breath and accepted her receipt from Norah.

  Regardless, Payne had won fair and square—he’d put his hand on it first and he was rightly entitled to it. She didn’t know what he owed Garrett, but she hoped like hell it was worth it. He’d betrayed her trust and broken her heart in the process.

  Emma murmured a distracted thanks to Norah, then turned to go.

  “Oh, wait!” Norah said. “I’ve got something for you.”

  For her? Emma thought. What? More cookies? She brightened marginally, thinking she could use a little sugar therapy.

  “Brian Payne checked out early this morning, as well, but left this for you.” She grabbed an envelope from beneath the desk and handed it to her. “He told me to make sure that you got it and I’m such a ninny, I almost let you walk out of here without it.” Embarrassed, she shook her head.

  Emma’s heart jolted into an irregular rhythm. Payne had left her something? She accepted the envelope with slightly shaking hands and knew from the uneven weight that it held Robert E. Lee’s pocketwatch. Her mouth parched and little spots danced before her gritty eyes, forcing her to sit down in the nearest wing chair near the door.

  She carefully opened the envelope, confirmed that the watch was in there, then pulled out a note that he’d left for her. His crisp masculine scrawl filled a little piece of paper she recognized from the pad in her room.

  Emma,

  Sorry’s inadequate, but I hope that you’ll believe me when I say that I’d intended for you to find the watch all along. I knew you’d never let me pay you for it without actually finding it first—your word was worth more than my money, right?—but that had been my plan, such as it was.

  You needed to prove that you could find it first and you needed the money. I don’t begrudge you that or think any less of you for wanting it, despite the way it might have appeared last night.

  I merely needed the watch, but it’s not worth what it’s cost me.

  Take it and start vet school, and always know that I never intended to hurt you.

  Yours,

  Payne

  P.S. Matilda was wearing the damned thing last night. That’s how I found it. Evidently Judith had been at the estate sale, but her name hadn’t been on our list. I thought you might have been wondering….

  Matilda had been wearing it? Emma thought, astounded. The pig? She thought back, remembered seeing the top hat and tuxedo and…and a pocketwatch. That’s what he’d hung around for. He hadn’t wanted to talk to Matthew—he’d wanted to talk to Judith and get a look at that watch. And he’d wanted her to find it first, then he’d planned to buy it from her? Emma paused, considering.

  If she had found it first, had proven herself, then she imagined she would have allowed him to buy it from her. She would have won the bet for Hastings, would have had the money from Payne to reimburse Hastings for initial payment, as well as the amount she needed to get started in school. Payne would have had the pocketwatch to present to Garrett and everyone would have been happy.

  Even Payne, who would have plunked down thousands of dollars simply to be able to hand the watch over to Garrett.

  Though she’d tried to worm it out of him, Payne had never told her what he owed Garrett. But it had to be something substantial to go to all of this trouble. Trouble he could have avoided by simply finding the watch himself and moving on. What on earth would prompt him to—

  “You look startled, dear,” Norah said, concern lining her brow. “Is something wrong?”

  Distracted, Emma looked up and shook her head.

  Norah paused, seeming to be trying to make up her mind about something. Then she said, “I was surprised to see Mr. Payne this morning. He’d indicated last night after the ghost stories that he’d intended to lengthen his stay and that he had a favor to ask of me. It was odd,” she remarked, frowning. “You two seemed to be getting along so well.” She offered a kind smile. “I hope you didn’t have a falling out. Love’s too precious to squander on petty fights.”

  He’d planned to stay? And he’d wanted Norah’s help? He’d never told her that he wasn’t leaving this morning. Of course, he’d never really gotten the chance, she conceded, remembering why. Hot kisses, tangled sighs, naked flesh and bone-wringing orgasms… Her belly clenched with remembered heat and her nipples tingled behind her bra. Merely thinking about him almost set her off and he was halfway to Atlanta by now, Emma thought, going home empty handed when he could have had it all.

  She carefully refolded the letter and slipped it back into the envelope, then stood on legs that weren’t altogether steady. She couldn’t accept this, Emma decided. Did she appreciate it? Yes. Did she love Brian Payne? More than anything.

  But whatever this was costing him had to be more than she stood to lose.

  “Have a safe trip back to Marble Springs,” Norah said.

  “Thanks, I will,” Emma told her, smiling. Right after she detoured to Fort Benning and delivered the pocketwatch to Colonel Garrett.

  If Payne wouldn’t do it, then she would.

  Atlanta

  “WHERE’S PAYNE?” Jamie asked.

  Guy frowned, looked up from the surveillance report he’d been studying. “Same place he’s been ever since he came home yesterday afternoon. The Tower.”

  In a completely uncharacteristic move, Payne had come directly home from the airport, bypassed the office without so much as a status report and taken the elevator upstairs. Guy had called to check in on him, but Payne had gone into lockdown mode and hadn’t wanted to talk. He’d kindly told his friend to butt out and Guy had thought it prudent, given the ominous tone in his friend’s voice, to take that advice.

  Then again, when did he ever do the prudent thing? He stood, cocked his head toward the elevator. “Let’s go talk to him.”

  Jamie gave him a you’re-shittin’-me look. “Storm the Tower?”

  Guy nodded. “Something’s wrong. This isn’t like him.”

  “Didn’t he tell you to butt out?”

  Guy blinked innocently.
“He did. What’s your point?” He depressed the call button, waited on the elevator doors to slide open, then selected Payne’s floor.

  Jamie grimaced, but followed him anyway. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” he said, cocking his head at a skeptical angle.

  “I do, too,” Guy told him. “If he’s gotten into the whiskey, then we know we’re in trouble.”

  Payne wasn’t much of a recreational drinker, but he had been known to hit the liquor hard when he found something particularly disturbing. He’d gotten dog-ass drunk when his mother had married a guy half her age several years ago—a marriage which had promptly ended in a nasty divorce six months later—and had gotten even drunker still when Danny had died. Payne thrived on being in control, which is why Guy suspected his friend rarely drank. Occasionally, though, something would happen which would force him to let go and feel like a normal human being and when that happened, he typically turned to alcohol for help.

  If he was drinking, it could only mean one of two things—he’d either lost the bet and come home without the pocketwatch, or Emma Langsford had gotten under his skin.

  Guy grimaced.

  Worse still, it could be both.

  Jamie knocked on Payne’s door and he and Guy stood in the hall and waited for it to open. Half a minute later, Payne appeared at the door. Looking like death warmed over, he wore a silk robe, which had probably cost more than Guy’s entire NASCAR memorabilia collection, and held a bottle of Jim Beam loosely in one hand.

  Guy and Jamie shared a significant look.

  Oh, hell.

  15

  PAYNE STARED at Guy and Jamie for a moment, then turned on his heel and walked away, leaving the door open so that they could follow him inside if they so chose.

  Which naturally they did, because they were nosy bastards who couldn’t leave well enough alone.