04 A Killing Touch (13 page)

“Maybe a salad or bowl of fruit.”

“I’m not hungry, but if I were I’d rather a steak.” She locked her gaze with Aidan’s and in a synchronized blink they were back in her kitchen—alone—with the scent of steak broiling in the oven wafting around him. Without her parents standing between them. Alone.

“There’s a Denny’s across the street.” Naomi stared at him, silently ordering him to get off the couch and go on her errand with the director.

“That’s not a real steak,” Lana argued. Despite the sleep she’d gotten from the drugs, she was slipping into fatigue, though she fought it valiantly for the sake of her parents.

“Posh.” Her mother waved her off and ensured her wishes were going to be met by grabbing her husband’s elbow and turning him toward the door. With him headed where she wanted, she turned to Aidan.

Three strong, elegant strides had Mrs. Quinn standing before him and though Aidan had to look up to face her he had little trouble fighting the instinct to obey. His mama had taught him to be a good boy, to say
yes, ma’am
and do as he’d been told without question. His dad had taught him a different lesson. A more useful one given his career choice. Never back down.

He wasn’t leaving Lana until she asked him to. Hell, he may not even leave then. “I stay.”

“Agent, you were given a directive.” Director Quinn was as formidable in person as his reputation suggested. He was a hard man who expected to be obeyed without hesitation. If they were in the field Aidan would honor the expectation.

The hour since he’d caught Aidan with his hands on Lana had been overcharged with unspoken questions. The questions would remain unasked because answers wouldn’t alter the obvious. They were two men concerned for the same woman.

“With respect, I leave when Lana leaves.”

Naomi’s dipped head rose with awareness.

Lana’s nose crinkled, caused the skin between her eyes to dance, as she pled for his silence.

Director Quinn’s head snapped to him as quickly as Naomi’s had risen. His eyes marbleized.

“I brought her here,” Aidan continued as if none of their bodies had broadcast their feelings. “I’ll stay until I know she’s fully recovered.”

His easy response soothed the ruffled feathers in Lana and her father, but Naomi was sharper than either of them gave her credit for. They’d convinced themselves she didn’t know what was going on, but the gratitude in her eyes as she regarded him said differently. She knew. And she liked knowing he was watching over Lana.

Naomi shook her head and huffed an elegant pout. “Would you at least get a candy bar from a vending machine? I would like a moment alone with my daughter.”

“No.” The machines were on the other side of the floor and he wasn’t leaving Lana unprotected for a moment. “Though I will give you a few minutes alone with your daughter.”

He stopped at the end of Lana’s bed and rested his hand on her foot. It was a completely non-intimate touch, yet he couldn’t walk out the door without feeling her—even through the hospital covers. “Five minutes. Then you’re going back to sleep.”

“Did I miss you being assigned as my keeper?” Her gaze darted between him and her father, asking Aidan to keep her secrets. Her biting tone contrasted the softness of her gaze though the underlying bite wasn’t as strong as he’d grown to expect.

“The appointment came while you were sleeping.” A drug-induced sleep. He pinched her toes gently. “Five minutes.”

He passed Director Quinn, who pulled the door closed behind him. The confrontation was instant.

“I want an explanation. What’s Lana working on?”

Lana wouldn’t appreciate him telling her dad about her story, but Aidan couldn’t ignore the man’s superiority when it came to the case. He was surprised to find himself downplaying her role. “She came to us with a potential case. Said a series of deaths seemed to be more than coincidental. We’re looking into it.”

“That’s the story that landed her here?”

“I believe so, though until I have a chance to talk with her, to find out what she did or who she talked to yesterday I won’t know how she came to the killer’s attention.”

The fight Aidan had witnessed in Lana shot through the director. His whole body went rigid. “This was an attempt on her life?”

“I can’t rule it out.” Aidan quickly and quietly shared the facts as he knew them. “I assure you, sir, Lana is safe with me.”

“I’m familiar with your record, as well as how you perform when you’re personally involved.”

Aidan said nothing in response to the reference to the story that had landed the FBI in the news seven years earlier. The story that had gotten Aidan investigated and almost cost him his job and the promotion to the Specialized Crimes Unit. Losing his job would have been the lowest cost he paid on that earlier case. He wouldn’t pay the same price twice.

“I don’t think I have to say what your life will be like if she’s not.”

“Mildly stated, hell would be a heaven, I’m sure.” If anything happened to Lana, and the threat no doubt extended to her personal life, a transfer to Siberia without proper gear would be too soft a punishment. And then he’d have to worry about Director Quinn.

“How do you intend to keep her safe?”

He hadn’t formulated a plan, especially not one Lana would go along with. “You have a strong-willed daughter.”

“She’ll make it hard for you. That doesn’t change my expectations.”

“No. Though I hope your insight into her will earn me a little…wiggle room. She’s impossible to predict.”

“If you’re asking if I care what tactics you use, the answer is no.” The director hesitated while a nurse passed, shaking her head in a way that broadcast her clear dislike that the visitation hours were being blatantly ignored. “Her unpredictability will only make your job more challenging.”

That was one way of putting it. If she scented a bloody story Lana turned into the supposed heroines of horror movies. She’d blindly descend the basement steps if it meant finding a killer. That she’d take the same risks for her friends, and that Kieralyn has essentially taken a similar risk for her, spoke volumes he tried not to think about.

She evoked loyalty and she’d shown it for Kieralyn. He hoped her moral fibers reached wider, but he couldn’t afford to trust her too much. A story run too soon, or with the wrong slant… Too much was at risk.

The risks that kept him from trusting her were the same ones that drove him closer. Only by staying close could he hope to know what she was learning. Hope to keep her out of the way of his investigation. Hope to keep her out of danger. It was that risk that had him going back into her hospital room when her father led her mother away for the rest of the night.

Aidan wouldn’t put it past Lana to remove her own IV and check herself out of the hospital against doctor recommendations the moment he turned his back. If she got that chance, she wouldn’t waste it.

Her eyes were closed when he stepped back into her room. Grateful she’d fallen back to sleep so quickly, Aidan headed to the couch and stretched out as much as possible. Stakeouts in cars had taught him to sleep in snatches and not think about comfort. Things like the gun holstered at his back rarely registered.

Lana’s light breathing lulled him. Just as he gave in to the exhaustion suddenly clinging to him, just as he allowed his eyes to drift, her breathing changed. Air puffed in and out of her in pants. She twisted on the small bed as if a bad dream gripped her.

With the idea of her pain choking him, Aidan rose and moved to her side. “Lana.” He stroked a hand along her side, hoping to calm her quickly. “You’re safe. It’s okay.”

Her twisting stopped, but her breathing didn’t settle. A moan slipped through her lips. Her undamaged hand grabbed his and halted his soothing stroke. Her nails dug into the flesh of his palm as another whimpering moan escaped.

The sounds were similar to the ones she made during orgasm. The power of her grip was similar too. The arousing memory dimmed in the sight of her suffering.

Aidan slipped onto the bed and settled at her back. She curled into him, her beautifully rounded buttocks rubbing his dick. She pulled his arm over her waist and settled their tangled hands between her breasts. Grinding his teeth against the drive to claim her, he rolled his eyes back and dropped his lids.

She frustrated him and scared him. She called to him, evoking loyalty and a need to protect just as she did from others. She made him care for her, which was dangerous.

If he could care enough to worry over her comfort, if he could respect her, he ran the risk of liking her. If he could actually like Lana and that mingled with the passion she aroused in him then he was in jeopardy of feeling more. Feeling emotions that would twist his life with Lana’s more than it already was wasn’t safe.

They would fight. They would split. Her father would come after him. Aidan couldn’t take that chance with his job. His life.

No. He’d keep Lana close enough to protect her until they’d solved this case. Then they had to go separate ways.

Lana woke with Aidan’s hand in hers and tucked securely between their chests. The sky was lightening with pre-dawn and though it didn’t offer much relief from the darkness it gave her enough light to see that the pustules on her arm were almost gone. Better, she had enough light to see the face of the man curled before her.

The shadows that had bruised his eyes during her parents’ visit had been smoothed away with sleep. The harshness that creased his mouth and eyes when he addressed her had relaxed. Careful not to wake him, she eased up on one arm, the arm he held and that didn’t have an IV stuck in it, and reached for the water pitcher on the bedside table. After washing the cotton out of her mouth—and hopefully minimizing what had to be awesome morning breath—she settled back into the pillow and took advantage of the rare chance to study Aidan when his guards were down.

Whatever issues he had with journalists, and by extension her, he’d set them aside when she was attacked. She didn’t have to be aware of every moment that had passed, but she recognized the facts. He’d battled back the urge to pursue her attacker, the killer, and had instead stayed to take care of her. He’d stood strong when her dad caught them making out and he hadn’t left her alone for a moment.

He was confusing and damn if she didn’t find it to be part of the attraction.

She brushed a chunk of hair off his forehead, allowing her thumb to linger long enough to feel his skin against hers. Her fingers flirted with his ear and the side of his neck. He arched into her touch, making her smile.

He could claim to be unaffected, had claimed it for months, but his body spoke the truth as loudly as hers did when he touched her. He would likely want to avoid her more than ever now that he’d met her father. No doubt partially from a chat with her dad warning Aidan against anything causing her pain. Every man who’d met her dad, the few who’d made it that far or happened to be around during a visit, heard the same speech.

“You surprise me,” she whispered, half wanting him to know how she felt and half not. Her thumb worked small circles along the edge of his face as she moved her hand down to the edge of his T-shirt.

“Do you like surprises?” he asked without having given indication he was awake.

“I used to say no.”

“And now?” He still didn’t open his eyes or move.

Her smile widened. “I’m beginning to think some surprises are okay.”

Whatever response she’d expected, it hadn’t been the silence that greeted her. And the silence stretched on. The steady rise and fall of his breaths indicated he’d gone back to sleep. She chuckled. Not such a good surprise, but maybe an understandable one given how long he’d probably been awake to play bodyguard.

Lana was flipped to her back with Aidan sprawled on top of her. The suddenness and stealth of the move stole her breath as much as the feel of his body on hers. Careful of her IV, he shifted so her arm wasn’t pinned. Then he arrested her mouth with a kiss that tasted a bit like desperation. Or regret.

His lips crushed hers while his tongue sought entry. Denial and resistance were futile, and she wasn’t interested in wasting energy on either one. She opened for him and shifted her legs until he moved to lie between her thighs rather than straddling her.

Hunger ballooned, lifting her toward an ecstasy she knew would come. Returning the fever of his kiss, Lana reached for the T-shirt that had come untucked during sleep. Dragging at the hem, she pulled it up. With a rumble in his chest he levered off her long enough to jerk the shirt over his head and toss it aside.

Built and broad without being overly muscular, he kept himself in great shape. A shape she loved to feel. Loved to see naked. She flattened her hands on his shoulders, reveling in him. “We shouldn’t be doing this.”

“Why not?” He asked for her opinion, but he didn’t hesitate in returning to his explorations of her.

“Someone could come in.”

“They were in to check on you fifteen minutes ago.” Nibbling at the cord of her neck while his fingers danced along her side, Aidan notched her arousal higher. “We have almost an hour before they come back around.”

“In that case…” Lana reached for the waist of his jeans and pulled his belt loose.