The Survivor Page 7

  She. Wanted.

  And this need, this ache, this desperation, was so out of the realm of her understanding she didn’t even try to make sense of it. There was no point.

  There were half a dozen legitimate reasons this shouldn’t happen between them, why they shouldn’t act on this attraction. In the first place, they were supposed to be catching a criminal bent on harassing her customers. In the second place, he was Brian’s friend. In the third place, this was his first assignment. For all she knew he could lose his job over an affair with her.

  And, perhaps even more importantly…she didn’t do this kind of thing.

  She didn’t fall into bed with men she’d just met. In fact, she could count her sexual partners on one hand. On two fingers actually. She’d never been much of a dater. Before her grandfather had died she’d spent all of her time with him, and then later, after he’d passed away, she just hadn’t wanted to bother. She knew that sounded terrible, but Bess had her reasons. Or reason, rather.

  People were fleeting, she’d learned. People left. People died. People moved away. People lost interest. People weren’t dependable.

  But things were, which was why she’d devoted her life to finding them.

  She knew her reasoning wasn’t rational—Lord knows Elsie had told her often enough—but Bess was happy with the way things were. If she didn’t love someone, then she didn’t have to worry about them dying, or leaving, or not loving her back. And she was perfectly content on her own.

  Or she always had been.

  Her gaze slid to Lex and a sort of horrible, inevitable furious despair welled up in her chest, momentarily preventing her from breathing.

  Honey leaned in from the backseat and nudged her shoulder, startling her, and Bess breathed a sigh of relief and slipped a hand over her soft head.

  If she followed her wayward libido and wound up in bed with Lex, she had an awful feeling she was going to get tangled up in more than the sheets. She’d known from the instant she’d looked at him that he was going to be…something. Special? Maybe. Trouble? Definitely. She’d known him less than a day—a day—and already her heart gave a little melting leap of affection every time she looked at him.

  That couldn’t be normal.

  But she couldn’t deny it all the same. Honestly, it was almost as if a part of her had recognized him from the start, some hidden consciousness had labeled him familiar and known. As though her very soul had looked at him and said, “Hello, old friend, it’s been too long.”

  Ridiculous. But the sensation was very strong and equally real.

  Just like the longing currently chugging through her veins. It, too, was powerfully authentic and she wished she could do something to lessen its effect because she was literally ready to squirm in her seat. The core of her sex pulsed with every rapid beat of her heart and her breasts ached and pebbled behind her bra. She curled her toes in her shoes and tried to concentrate on something different. She silently sang “Yankee Doodle Dandy” and then moved on to the “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” When that didn’t work, she started conjugating Latin verbs. Am, ams, amat…

  She swallowed a moan. Naturally she chose love.

  Lex pulled to the end of the gravel drive and, instead of turning right, shifted abruptly into Park. He muttered a hot oath, then turned, slipped a hand along her jaw, into her hair and angled her mouth for his kiss.

  He didn’t ask permission, he didn’t hesitate and he didn’t hold back.

  Hallelujah.

  It was the most thrilling kiss she’d ever gotten in her life and it didn’t have anything to do with the fact that he was damned good at it, that his mouth was the sexiest thing she’d ever seen or that she’d been thinking about sliding her tongue across it since the first moment she’d seen him.

  It was because he wanted it as much as she did, because he’d been craving the same damned thing for as long as she had and because he simply couldn’t help himself.

  He had to kiss her.

  That’s what made it the best. His longing, his wanting, his desire.

  And what woman didn’t want that?

  He made a low groan in his throat and thrust his tongue more deeply into her mouth, sliding it against her own. His hands were huge and warm, his fingers softly kneading her scalp as he fed at her mouth, and if she’d thought her panties were moist before, they were positively drenched now.

  She turned more fully, aligned herself as well as she could, given the high console between them, and pushed her hands into his hair. It was soft and sleek and felt cool beneath her fingers. She slipped her thumb along the muscle beneath his jaw, savoring the feel of it, and deepened the kiss, sucking his tongue into her mouth.

  He wrapped his arms more fully around her, his hands sliding along her back, around her rib cage. Up! she thought desperately as she felt his thumb skim beneath the underside of her breast. Her breath stuttered out of her lungs and into his mouth and he inhaled it greedily, couldn’t seem to get enough of her.

  And she knew exactly how he felt because she’d been thinking about this kiss—yearning for it—all day, and even though that wasn’t exactly a particularly long time, it had felt like forever. Every second preceding their kiss had been like a pregnant pause, a permanent prelude, a miserable eternity and now…

  Now it was happening and it was even better than she could have imagined. He didn’t just kiss, he made love with his mouth, and his lips—his lips were positively lethal. She sank farther into him, drooped so that his hand finally found her breast, and the sensation was so exquisite it ripped the breath from her lungs.

  She—

  A horn suddenly blared impatiently and they sprang apart, Honey barking at the car behind them, almost in admonition.

  Breathing deeply, Lex swore and seemed to be gathering patience from a higher source, an exercise she fully understood because she was pleading on her own behalf, as well.

  “There,” Lex said after a moment, as if they’d just taken care of something important. He dropped the gearshift back into Drive and took off. “Do you feel better?”

  Bess thought about it. “Only in the sense that I want to tear your clothes off and do bad things with you,” she answered honestly.

  Because at this point, what was the real benefit in lying? In playing coy? She’d practically thrust her breast into his hand. Had practically poured herself into his lap. He knew she wanted him. Hell, it wasn’t like it was a secret.

  He turned to look at her, his lush mouth slack, and the tires whined as he momentarily veered off the road. With a jerk, he corrected quickly and swore again.

  “You’re going to get me fired,” he said, as though it was a foregone conclusion.

  “Don’t worry,” she said, laughing softly. “I’m friends with your boss.”

  7

  SHE WANTED TO TEAR HIS clothes off and do bad things with him?

  Lex felt his blood pressure race toward stroke level. Did she have any idea what her very honest, unbelievably wicked answer was doing to him? How much he wanted her to explain “bad things” in detail to him. In that lovely voice with that especially sexy mouth?

  He couldn’t walk into a hotel looking like this, he thought with a futile glance at his crotch. He was indecent. He was practically coming out of the top of his jeans, was in very real danger of coming in them, as well. He hadn’t had a misfire like that since he was in junior high, and one comment from her—one loaded remark—and here he was, his launch sequence initiated, detonation imminent.

  He swore silently and tried to concentrate on something other than the feel of her breast in his hand, the taste of her mouth against his. Warm and soft, yielding and then laying siege. She was amazingly responsive, had come alive in his arms and been every bit as desperate and relieved that he’d kissed her as he had himself.

  Major turn-on.

  And he’d been “on” for hours already.

  He wished that he could regret kissing her, that he could even admit he’d made a
mistake…but he couldn’t because he didn’t regret it, mistake or not. He’d been thinking about her mouth—wondering what she’d taste like, how she’d feel, how she’d kiss—all damned day and, after dancing with her, touching her, well…he’d been done for. They’d left Chester’s and all he’d been able to think about once they got into the car was how her lips looked when she smiled, and then he’d snapped.

  He’d had to kiss her.

  Had felt like his organs were going to vibrate right out of his body if he didn’t, he was so strung out with desire. He’d been horny before, knew what lust was, and this was no garden variety. This went well beyond mere wanting. It was a craving, an obsession, a hunger he couldn’t satisfy, and he knew with the very small rational part of his brain that wasn’t consumed with diving dick-first into her that he was in way over his head. The lust he could explain away—she was beautiful and sexy and intriguing—but those other emotions, the softer ones, the ones he’d never felt before…they were going to get him into trouble.

  She was trouble.

  Her cell suddenly rang and, seemingly grateful for the distraction herself, she quickly withdrew it from her purse and answered. “Evening, Elsie,” she said. “Is everything okay?”

  From the corner of his eye he saw her frown. “Elsie, what did I tell you? Didn’t I tell you to only call me if it was important?” She paused and her nostrils flared with irritation. “Elsie, I am not in danger. I’m with Lex and we’re—” She flushed. “Elsie, you’re being ridiculous. I’m perfectly safe. Yes, yes, your sight.” She sounded exasperated. “I wish your sight would have told us that John Smith was going to avoid Valdosta. It would have saved us a trip.” Another pause then, “No, we’re going to head toward Alabama. We think he’s going to go that way next.” She darted him a look. “Not that it’s any of your business, but yes, I’ll have my own room.” Her expression blackened. “Elsie. I’ve got to go. Call me if anything important comes up.” She disconnected and muttered a curse. “Honestly,” she said. “Her and that damned sight.”

  Lex grinned. “What’s she predicting this time?”

  “She’s not really predicting anything, but she keeps telling me that she’s getting a premonition that I’m in danger. She keeps seeing a gun.”

  The back of his neck prickled with unease and a sick sensation settled in his stomach. Remembered pain shot through his shoulder and his mouth parched. “A gun?”

  “Yes. And to her it means I’m in danger.”

  “From what?” he asked.

  She flushed again and pushed her hair out of her face. “Well, before it was just a vague sense of impending doom, but now she’s decided that it’s coming from…you,” she finished on a little exhale.

  He felt his eyes widen. “Me?” he repeated. “Why am I supposed to be dangerous?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, though he got the impression that she wasn’t being completely truthful. “But it’s just ridiculous. If I had a dollar for every time she’s predicted my bogus fortune I could give John Smith the hundred grand and we’d save ourselves a helluva lot of trouble.”

  “True,” he said. “But we’d be missing all this fun.”

  The comment had the desired effect. It startled a laugh out of her and he felt her relax, watched the tension ease out of her shoulders. “Thanks,” she said. “I needed that.”

  It was ridiculous how much that little smile he’d coaxed from her meant to him. “No problem,” he told her. He paused as a thought struck. “I’m going to check in with Payne,” he said, shooting her a look.

  “Sure,” she said. “I imagine he likes being kept in the loop.”

  Payne answered on the second ring and Lex quickly brought him up to speed, leaving out the bit where he’d kissed Bess. That really wasn’t relevant to the case, he told himself, more than fully aware that he was splitting hairs and putting off the inevitable. If this went where he thought it was going—directly into bed—then there was no way in hell he’d be able to keep that from his boss. It was dishonest, and he’d own it and take his lumps before he’d be mistaken for a liar.

  “Listen, do you have any contacts within the DMV?”

  “I don’t need them,” Payne said. “What do you want?”

  “Our guy is in his mid-to-late forties, is partially bald and has one brown eye and one blue eye. If you could search the records—”

  “On it,” Payne said. “I’ll email you every guy who might fit the description.”

  “Thanks,” Lex told him. “Oh, and one more thing. He has dirty fingernails. I’m thinking he might be a mechanic, someone who can never quite get the oil off his hands.”

  He heard Bess gasp beside him and she smiled and nodded her approval. He might as well have achieved world peace for all the pride that swelled in his chest. He was losing his freaking mind. Definitely, definitely losing his mind.

  Sheesh.

  “Noted,” Payne told him. He paused. “So what did you think of Bess? Was she everything that you expected?”

  “Oh, I think you knew exactly what I was expecting,” Lex told him.

  Payne chuckled. “Sorry,” he said. “I know I should have corrected you, but I just couldn’t resist the joke. McCann is rubbing off on me.”

  “I mistook Elsie for her,” Lex said, shooting Bess a look from the corner of his eye. He saw her smile and that gentle quirk of her lips hooked a spot right in his chest and tugged.

  Payne laughed harder this time. “Elsie is something else.”

  “That’s one way of putting it,” Lex said.

  “Did she make any predictions?” he asked. “She has the sight, you know.” There was a smile in his voice.

  No, but she’d rattled his cage. When she’d made that you’ve-come-close comment, he knew she’d been talking about his near-death experience and it had unnerved the hell out of him. He didn’t talk to anyone about that—wouldn’t even discuss it with the shrink they’d made him see in the military, and she’d held his hand and…

  “I know you think she’s off her rocker, but she gets it right every once in a while,” Payne said. “She told me that Emma was pregnant the first time before Emma even knew it herself.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  “She could have simply made a good guess.”

  “She could have,” Payne agreed, but it was obvious that he didn’t believe that. It was hard to imagine the cool, levelheaded Specialist believing in a half-baked psychic like Elsie, but if he did, then there had to be some merit to her gifts.

  Was Bess really in danger then? Lex wondered. Was their guy carrying a gun? Or was that simply more of Elsie’s melodrama? A nudge of dread prodded his belly and some epiphany dangled right out of his grasp, fleeing before it was fully formed.

  Promising Payne he’d look for that email and that he’d check in tomorrow, Lex ended the call.

  “He’s not going to fire you over me, you know,” Bess told him, looking somewhat smug.

  “Oh?” He didn’t think so, either. He and Bess were both consenting adults, and as long as their relationship didn’t interfere with the job he needed to do, he really didn’t see it being a problem. But he wondered what made her so sure.

  “Have you ever met Emma?” she asked.

  “Just once. She seems like a great girl.”

  “She is,” Bess confirmed. “Do you know how he met her?”

  “No.”

  “On a job, much like this one.”

  He swiveled to look at her, mildly stunned. “Really?”

  “And Huck? He was actually supposed to be guarding Sapphira.” Her lips curled into a knowing smile. “And surely you’ve heard the story about Jamie and Audrey?”

  He knew that Jamie had married Colonel Garrett’s granddaughter, but wasn’t aware of the circumstances that had brought the marriage about. He hummed under his breath. “I haven’t heard the official story,” he said.

  She grinned. “Well, suffice it to say that Audrey’s grandfath
er knew that Jamie had a bit of a reputation as a player and sent Jamie up there to flirt with her enough to keep her from becoming engaged to a man her grandfather didn’t like.”

  He whistled low. “You’re kidding me.”

  She shook her head. “No, I’m not. He was supposed to instill doubt, that was all, but things obviously went a little further than her grandfather anticipated,” she concluded with a significant nod.

  That was for sure, Lex thought, still trying to absorb everything that she’d told him. Impressed, he turned to look at her. “How do you know all of this?”

  She shrugged. “I told you already. Brian’s a friend.”

  He pulled into the parking lot of a popular hotel chain he knew would have room service, turned to look at her and grinned. “And you don’t think he’ll fire me, huh?” he asked, his voice low.

  She shook her head. “No, I don’t.”

  He bent forward and kissed her again, sighed against her mouth as heat licked through his veins once more. His heart swelled right along with another organ. “In that case…I’m going to let you tear off all my clothes and do bad things with me.”

  BESS WAS A QUIVERING PILE of goo by the time they made their way to the room, Honey trotting ahead of them down the hall. Thankfully this was a pet-friendly hotel and the clerk had even offered the dog a treat when she’d handed over the key.

  Lex inserted the card into the lock, then opened the door and held it for her as she moved past. The room was bigger than she’d imagined with a king-size bed, a low dresser and flat-panel television. A small dining table was positioned in front of the heavily curtained windows and a desk with a rolling executive chair completed the furnishings, which were dressed in warm golds and jewel tones. A peek into the bathroom revealed a very large tub and a nice vanity area.

  Lex made a moue of approval. “This is better than I expected.”