A Conflict of Interest (11 page)

“Maria?”

She opened her eyes. He bent his head. His mouth
brushed hers. “I’d give anything to make everyone see what I do when I look at you.”

Maria lifted her head. “What do you see? Who do you see?”

“A woman I want.” He smiled, his mouth sensual and generous, stirring the most basic need deep inside her. “Maybe I’m looking at the woman for me.”

“There speaks guilt.” She pretended her heart wasn’t battering at the walls of her chest.

“I don’t know what to say.” He took her mouth, quick and hard and hot. “We work best together when we stop talking.” He grasped both sides of her collar. “Can we lock this door?”

“No one will come in.”

“I want to be alone with you.”

“Alone?”

He slid both hands around her shoulders and covered her mouth again, gently this time, but when he deepened the kiss and she felt her control spiraling away, she flattened her palms against his chest. His hands released her, but his savage, yearning gaze held on.

Consequences. She’d never made a move without considering them.

“Think about this, Jake. Are you a man who can make love and walk away?”

“I have,” he said.

It hit her like a punch in the stomach. “I never expected you to say that.”

“You look scared.” Jake twisted his mouth. Simple discomfort? Defiance? The will to bludgeon her with the truth? “You’re analyzing me? Now?”

She blushed. He reached for her collar. His hands moved to the buttons on her blouse.

“I’m not like any woman you’ve walked away from.” She covered his fingers. “But I’m not right for you. Not even on a normal day, when you aren’t riddled with guilt.”

“Shut up, Maria.” He bent his head. His lips grazed her throat. He opened his lips against her skin, and she fell against his heat, his taunting, teasing, beautiful mouth.

Her top several buttons were open.

“You move fast.”

“I’m like magic.” He put his hand to the knot on his tie, and the silk soon dropped to the floor beside them. He brought her trembling hands to the buttons on his black shirt. “You work magic, too.”

“I’m afraid.”

“I know how tough you are.” Clearly, he meant she was not. “But I won’t hurt you.”

“We’re bound to hurt each other.”

“What do you mean?”

“You have to let this thing with Griff go. You’ll drag yourself into trouble when folks realize you feel more for the town harlot than you should.”

“I asked you to stop talking,” he said, but somehow the words meant,
Undo my shirt. Touch me.

He unfastened his own buttons. His shirt fell open, revealing the sparse, dark hair on his chest. She stared at his pulse, throbbing like crazy. Without thinking, she lifted her hands and pressed her fingertips to his skin.

A sound seeped from her mouth, need and relief all at once, as his muscles jumped beneath her palms.
“Jake.” She pressed her face to his breastbone, breathing him in, tasting him with her lips and the tip of her tongue.

“Don’t look away from me.” He tilted her head up, kissing her, holding her gaze as he explored her mouth, her desire, as she ripped the tail of his shirt out of his pants, shoved his jacket off his shoulders.

Her own shirt disappeared. She kicked off her shoes. All the while, Jake was kissing her, following the curve of her throat with his hands and his mouth, sighing as he cupped her breasts in the lacy, see-through bra, then closed his teeth lightly over her skin and the lace, driving her nearly out of her mind.

She’d never thrown caution to any wind. She’d clung to it like the last rope on a hot-air balloon trying to take off without her.

But when Jake reached for his belt, her hands were there before him. They both groaned as his trousers dropped. The backs of her fingers ran across his corded muscles, tensed with the same eagerness that made her shake in his arms.

Her jeans were harder to dispense with, but Jake pushed them down her thighs, and she finally kicked them away from her feet. Jake wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted her in his arms, kissing the hollow of her throat, the curve of her neck, roaming her body at will. He couldn’t reach all the places she needed him at once, but he drugged her with his effort. She felt the wall at her back suddenly, and the savage strength of wanting made her shy.

When she tried to look down, taking cover in the curtain of her hair, Jake whispered, “No,” and nudged her
with his chin. He reached down and lifted her legs around his waist, his hands wandering restlessly, whipping urgent need with every movement. She arched against him, and he slowly let her down, whispering her name. As her feet touched the cool floor, she had to have his mouth again.

While she kissed him, desperate to own some small piece of him, he lowered her to the thick rug. She curved her ankles around his calves, cozying his arousal into her center. She couldn’t wait much longer.

“Please,” she said. “Jake…”

He strained to push the coffee table away from them. “Do you have—” He broke off. “I don’t want you to think—”

“That you assume I have condoms because of someone else?” She couldn’t remember anyone else. Ever. “They’re in the bathroom. We could go to my bed.”

He kissed her hard, his tongue thrusting slowly with seductive, restless strokes. “We will,” he finally said, dragging his thumb around her lower lip. “Sometime. Wait here.”

He pulled himself up, staggering like a man intoxicated. “Where the hell is your bathroom?”

“Down the hall. Hurry.”

She slid her hands beneath her back, lifting her hips in anticipation. The man had hardly touched her and she was halfway to…Well, to many good things.

“Do that again,” Jake said, and Maria twisted to see him.

“Your breasts are almost out of that scrap of lace. I want to taste you.” His voice was a whisper. Shocked, needful. “I want to own you.”

Own? That kind of possessiveness should have frightened her. Instead, she felt part of a secret world that only she and Jake could inhabit. They were reaching out in a way she’d never dared before.

They only had to trust each other to make it safe.

But trust—that was a big risk.

S
HE SHOULD RUN.
She should make him leave.

Making love wouldn’t turn her into a woman who needed justice over compassion, and it wouldn’t stop him from thinking he could rule the world from his dispassionate spot on the bench.

“What’s the matter?” he asked. Her doubts must have shown.

“Are we really ready for this?”

“You’re the one who takes chances.”

“Calculated ones.” She ran her hands down her thighs. She wanted him so terribly.

“You’re afraid?”

“You matter to me.”

“I won’t hurt you,” he said.

“Do you know what you’re saying?”

“Not really.” He stared at the door. “I can still go, but I don’t want to. I don’t want to hurt you. I want to keep you safe.”

Maria closed her eyes. She didn’t need forever. She needed intentions and desire that matched her own. If she could ask him to be the kind of man who’d changed because he had hurt her, couldn’t she take one leap of faith?

She opened her eyes. “You can’t touch me from over there.”

“The things you do to me.” He came to her, his arousal jutting in his boxers. He ripped the packet open with his teeth. His smile wrapped her in warmth and longing.

He dropped his boxers and sheathed himself, and she groaned, watching, jealous that he was touching himself instead of letting her do it.

He knelt between her legs and reached beneath her for the catch on her bra. As he leaned down to capture a nipple, lace and all, he sucked so strongly she damn near wept with pleasure.

She ran her palms over his shoulders, loving the texture and the heat of him, asserting her claim, reveling in the ripple of his skin and his ragged voice calling her name as he moved to her other breast.

His trembling hands went down her waist. She felt vulnerable, and more feminine than she ever had before because her curves pleased him. This was the feeling that drove her, this connection that went beyond soul to soul.

“I can’t get you close enough,” she said.

He tugged her panties down her legs, following their progress with his mouth. His lips tortured her, sleek and moist.

He lifted himself over her and stared into her eyes. Harsh desire changed his features. He was foreign and yet achingly familiar, rubbing her with himself, begging for entry, teasing her as he backed away.

He moved in, but then out again.

“Jake.” Her voice broke as she locked her hands on his hips.

“Hmm?” He thrust deeper, but not deep enough.

She breathed in, unable to control a sob.

“You can’t wait?”

She shook her head. She also couldn’t bear his dark gaze that saw too much of her, looked too deeply inside her. She raised herself and nuzzled his neck, tasting moisture, kissing her way to his earlobe.

It was his turn to groan. He tried to find her face, but she exacted her own revenge. She evaded his hands, opening her mouth against him, kissing another path to the flat tight nipple that contracted the second she touched him with her tongue.

Still, he held back. She lifted her hips, licking his salty skin. He surged into her, his hands going to the small of her back, holding her as he panted into her hair.

They hung together, half off the floor, straining against each other. Maria had never wanted so much. She’d never felt so bathed in joy.

He moved, and she moved with him, against him. They danced as one, and the floor might have been the softest bed. Jake pushed one hand beneath her head, chasing her mouth with his, taking her in all the ways a man could.

And she gave him all that she had left. Herself.

With a cry of startled delight, she tightened around him, laughing as he grunted and then raced to catch up with her. He pulsed inside her, and she felt powerful because she had kept him from lasting. She had pushed him, with the need he alone had awakened.

With the control that seemed to be his pride and her pleasurable frustration, he’d tried to grip the sanity he’d driven her to forsake, but his body had been unable to resist hers.

Minutes afterward, his harsh breathing drew goose bumps on her neck and shoulders. He kissed her, gently, luxuriantly, as if they had forever. He cradled her chin against him, taking her mouth over and over, as if he, too, could never get enough.

“You mentioned a bed?”

She nodded.

“As soon as I’m able to walk,” he said, smiling, “we’ll try that out, too.”

She looped her arms around his neck, rocked their still-entwined bodies. “I’m content.”

His mouth felt different. He kissed her with the knowledge of a lover, stirring her body with his need. “You aren’t content yet,” he said.

As they lay together, a sudden knock at the door made them freeze.

“The windows,” she said. “The drapes are all open.”

Jake reached over her head and dragged his shirt to them. “Put this on.”

He sat up and grabbed his boxers. She yanked his shirt on and did up the buttons. Jake stood, but she took his hand.

“Whoever it was hasn’t knocked again.”

“I know. Who knocks once and goes away?”

“Someone who saw your car here and doesn’t like me? Someone who doesn’t want you to be with me?”

“You mean, Leila?”

“No,” she said, horrified.

But Jake pulled on his pants. He looked sexier than ever with his belt dangling, the dark hair on his flat belly arrowing toward his open zipper.

She stood, too, unsteady on her feet. She would never hurt Leila on purpose. Her heart broke for the girl who’d never understood her parents’ breakup.

“I have to see if it was her.” Jake zipped his pants and then went toward the door. She followed, but he eased her out of the way with his arm.

“Stay back,” he said.

“If you’re going, I am, too.”

“I’m not going. I just want to see.”

“What if it is someone who wants to hurt one of us? What if it’s Griff? His aunt and uncle live near here, too, and no one ever found the gun.”

“That little shit doesn’t scare me.” He opened the door and peered into the twilight.

Maria stood behind him, staring at the man who retained none of his indifference.

“It’s dark outside,” Jake said. “I don’t see anyone.”

For once, the sky was clear. Moonlight reflected off the snow, illuminating Maria’s yard all the way to the street, but she saw no one, either.

“Come back.” She tugged his arm, and he let her pull him away from the door. He turned to shove it shut.

Maria darted around him to lock it. Jake was already pulling the blinds.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said.

“What?”

“Someone might have heard I’ve picked up Griff’s case files.” He caught her close, and she didn’t know if she was trembling simply because she was in his arms, or if she was afraid of noises going bump in the night. “I hope that bed’s big enough for two.”

“If we stick together.”

M
UCH LATER,
long after most sober Honesty citizens had finished their evening meal and cleaned away its remains, sent the children to bed and sought their own rest, Maria was scrambling eggs.

“Cheese.” Jake turned from the fridge, brandishing it. “How broke are you, Maria?”

Ah, the harsh light of reality. “Not quite yet. Something about my cheese makes you ask?”

“Something about your empty refrigerator. I’d kill for a cup of coffee.”

“I’ll make some.” She kissed his cheek, but wrinkled her nose at the scratch of his beard. “You have no clean clothes to put on in the morning.”

“Let’s not talk about morning yet.” He grabbed a knife and cutting board from the drainer and began to shave slices of cheese.

“I can’t hide with you in my little haven forever,” she said, glancing toward the window over the sink. She’d drawn the curtains she rarely closed. She hardly ever remembered they were there, using that window only to look over her hard-to-tame back garden. “But I’m glad you’re here.”

He offered her a bite of cheddar, letting his thumb linger so that she licked it.

“You’re not tired, are you?” he asked with the hoarse note she already recognized.

“Yes,” she admitted, “but I don’t want to sleep.”

After they ate, they washed dishes and then turned off the lights and returned to her room.

“Ready for a shower?” he asked.

“With you?”

He laughed, and his hands persuaded her, sliding
over her body as he tugged her toward the bathroom. They made slow, wet love beneath the spray, and he carried her to bed afterward because her legs were too weak to support her. Or so she pretended.

I
N THE MORNING,
Jake rose first and went back to the shower. Maria debated joining him, but he had to show up in court. She slipped out of bed and stepped into his boxers, laughing softly as they slid low on her hips.

In the kitchen, she whipped up coffee and toast. She was heading down the hall to ask if he wanted something else when he came out of the bathroom in a towel.

He stopped, fresh desire darkening his eyes. “Nice outfit.”

“I like them.”

He tugged at the waistband. “I’m not getting them back?”

“Depends on how you ask. Do you want more eggs?”

He hugged her, pressing his mouth to the top her head. “I’ll bring groceries tonight.”

“Are you coming back?”

He looked down at her. She’d never liked being short, but somehow, she felt all feminine when Jake eyed her from his height. She laughed.

“That means I can?” he asked.

“You’re giving me a choice?”

He kissed her cheek. “I can be trained. Come watch me dress.”

“Sounds like fun.” She was already calculating the time they still had before he was due at the courthouse when she remembered her own job. “Oh, no. My paper route.”

She ran past Jake and scrambled into her jeans, not caring that his boxers bunched like an extra pair of pants.

“Your what?” His voice broke with a laugh.

“It’s the only job I’ve been able to find.” She grabbed a sweatshirt and then yanked on socks. Jake was still mesmerized, waiting at the bedroom door in his towel.

“You have a paper route? You deliver papers?”

“I have to go,” she said. “I’ll be lucky if there are any papers left. I can’t afford to be fired.”

“Are you the reason I can’t ever find my paper? Are you the one who’s been throwing it in the neighbor’s topiary?”

“You are one funny guy. I’ll leave my spare key by the door.” She looked him over. It would be okay. They were going too fast, but love might work like that sometimes. “Will you lock up before you leave?”

“Call me when you come back,” he said. “I want to hear your voice.”

She froze. His acceptance of whatever had happened between them made her wary. She didn’t feel so sanguine. Satiated, but not sanguine. Forcing herself to move, she grabbed a brush and tugged it through her knotted hair. Her eyes teared—at the tangles. Only at the pain of brushing tangles out of her hair.

“Something’s bothering you,” Jake said.

“What’s happening?” she asked.

“Do we have to know?”

“I’d like to know,” she said. “Since we had sex in front of my open windows, the neighbors probably know.”

Jake was silent for several long seconds. “You’re just trying to seduce me again, aren’t you?”

She almost thanked him for letting her off the hook. But before she could say anything so ridiculous, she turned and caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Her jeans were lumpy. A fold of boxers stuck out beneath her sweatshirt. Her hair—Bryony would want a wig based on this do.

“Maria, don’t analyze. We’re fine. We’ll figure it out, but until we do, lock your doors, okay?”

“I do lock my doors.”

“I’m worried about that bang on the front one last night.”

“It was just kids or a bird.”

“In November? A turkey fleeing someone’s holiday dinner?” He nodded. “All this talk in town might have made someone angry with you.”

Maria set down her brush. “Don’t even think about sticking your neck out to protect me.”

“See you tonight,” Jake said, his tone so solemn and unwavering she barely found strength or reason to argue.

“Okay, but please, Jake—” she touched his hand “—don’t do anything else with those files. Don’t interrogate anyone. Don’t even talk to Griff. I don’t want more trouble. I don’t want you to get in trouble on my behalf, and neither of us needs any further gossip.”

With a quizzical smile, he kissed the tip of her nose. She tugged him closer and kissed him the way she already knew he liked best. When he pushed his hands beneath her sweatshirt, she wriggled out of his reach.

“This is the only way I can get your attention.”

“I am listening,” he said.

“Then hear me. I’m serious.” She ran down the hall,
grabbed the spare house key from a drawer in the kitchen and fumbled with the locks on her front door. She finally got it open only to find her sister on the front step.

“What?” Maria asked, managing nothing more intelligent.

“Mom said you might need help.” Bryony lifted her hands, theatrically taking hold of the icy morning. “And I can tell already. What this town needs is a clown.”

It was the slogan, on her business cards and her billing slips. It was written in hot pink on a magnetic strip that ran down the side of a black Jeep parked in Maria’s driveway.

“Oh, my.” Bryony stared over her shoulder, and Maria knew of only one sight in her house that could render a woman openmouthed in shock.

She turned, ready to ask Jake to put something over the towel. But he had. He just looked equally good in open-zipped pants and nothing else. He shrugged, his take-your-breath-away mouth tilting in a self-conscious grin as he zipped his pants.

“I guess you don’t have to lock up now,” Maria said to Jake. “Bryony, this is Jake Sloane. Jake, my sister, Bryony.”

“Hello.” Offering his hand, he came to the door. Bryony had the look of a Keaton woman ready to fall. Maria prayed she wouldn’t.

“I came to help my sister.”

“Oh,” Maria said, not at her most eloquent. Bryony had “helped” her before. They’d learned they could best stay sisters and friends with distance between them.