Criminal Promises (23 page)

Releasing her lip, she
raised her chin, uncrossed her arms and ankles, and spread her
legs. “I’m not going anywhere, Harte.”

“Good.” He tossed the
condom by her hip and moved to the end of the bed, kneeling between
her spread knees. “Do you remember what I told you?”

She nodded, remembering vividly the huskiness
in his voice as he promised to ease her into a quivering mass of
arousal until she cried out his name before begging for release.
Forgotten muscles deep in her womb clenched and quivered at the
idea. How far did he intend to take her?

As if she’d spoken aloud, he leaned forward
and gave her a long lingering kiss. The skin on skin contact she
ached for didn’t come. The teasing brush of his fingers remained
absent. Instead, with agonizing control, his tongue explored her
mouth in all the ways she imagined him touching the rest of
her.

She gripped his broad shoulders and traced
the contours of his biceps. However much time he spent working out
was well worth it. She’d never touched a sexier man. Gliding her
fingers up to explore his back, she felt a pucker of skin high on
his shoulder.

“What happened?” While she
traced what was surely a war wound he’d gotten on the job, he broke
off the kiss and met her gaze.

“A stray bullet during a
robbery.”

His matter-of-fact tone, as
if scars from flying bullets didn’t matter, reiterated the reason
she couldn’t have more than a passing affair with him. As long as
he was willing, they could have sex, but nothing more. She could
not,
would
not,
risk her heart again.

Not that he seemed to mind.

Beginning a sensual assault on her neck, he
didn’t give her the chance to ask any more questions. Her head
settled deeper into his pillows. Her muscles quivered, relaxed, and
quivered again each time he moved his mouth.

Avoiding the scar, she slid her hands over
his back, moving toward his hips. His arousal pressed against
her.

Putting distance between her hands and the
goal of his hips, he eased down her body covering her with nibbling
kisses. The occasional nip of his teeth followed by a soothing kiss
and warm breath took her desire a notch higher. How, when she’d
never been so hot, did he continue to raise her temperature and
awareness?

“Harte.”

His lips curled in a smile against her
stomach, but he shook his head and continued his assault on her
body and sizzling nerves. What more could he possibly want?

When his slow descent delivered him to the
juncture of her thighs, she arched her hips off the bed. Her
fingers pressed against the back of his head, begging him to kiss
her where Mike had never wanted to. Her pussy shook with
anticipation.

A chuckle rumbled from his chest as he lifted
his head, easily resisting her attempts.

He pulled her hands from
his head and pinned them to the mattress by her hips. His
desire-darkened cobalt eyes seared her with heat. “Tell me what you
want, Mags.”

“I want…I
need…”

“Yes?”

“Please…kiss
me…there.”

Grinning, he lowered his
head and pressed a kiss to the inside of her right knee, making her
leg quiver. “There?”

“No.”

He pressed a kiss to her
left knee and had that leg quivering. “There?”

“N-no.”

“I think I know.” He
lowered his head and pressed a kiss to her thigh, just where it met
her hip. “There?”

She shoved her head into the pillow, her
hands fisted beneath his. She bucked her hips again.

“Was that not where you
wanted it? Maybe you should be more specific.”

“No.” She moaned when he
blew a warm breath over the slick heat waiting for him.

He pressed a kiss to her other thigh.

“Harte.”

She was giving him what he
wanted. Her body more than quivered beneath his. She could hardly
communicate beyond a moan. Still, he only teased. “Please. Taste
me. Eat me. I want to feel your mouth on me.”

His warm breath rushed
across her. She actually
felt
herself swell and throb. Jeez, she was going to
erupt without his touch if he kept it up. Then his tongue flicked
across her.

She screamed.

“You like
that?”

Her hips bucked toward him.
“Yes. Please. More.”

He slid his tongue up the
length of her. Her muscles clenched in orgasm. “Burke,
please.”

In seconds, her hands were free of his grasp.
The condom wrapper was ripped open. His mouth teased her, drove her
higher, while he sheathed himself.

“Hurry,” she
urged.

He slid up her body,
pressing against her. Arousal to arousal. Chest to chest. “My name,
Mags. Say my name.”

She couldn’t have resisted
for anything. “Burke. Please, Burke. Now!”

He thrust. Filled her. Froze. Her muscles
convulsed. Tense.

Not moving, his cobalt eyes imprisoned hers
in a kaleidoscope of emotions. Asking him to kiss her and touch her
had seemed so basic. Only it wasn’t. She’d never been so free with
herself or her wishes. Sex for the sake of sex was gone, and it
scared the hell out of her.

Choking back tears and blocking the thoughts
of what she’d lost to him, her heart spasmed in time with her body.
She locked her ankles behind his waist and pulled herself
closer.

His erection throbbed and pulsed inside her.
The head of his dick rubbing the spot she’d always heard existed
but never felt had her muscles convulsing harder and faster.

Until him, she’d never had a real orgasm.

Then he started gliding in and out. The
friction of his sweat-slicked skin rubbing against hers, teasing
her nerves, and the sensation of him nudging her g-spot over and
over, took her higher than she’d already been.

Locking her gaze with his, she watched his
pupils flare and drown out the blue. Digging her fingers into his
arms, his banded biceps rippling beneath her fingers, she arched up
to be closer still, as if she could get inside his skin.

Burying his face in her
neck, his chest rubbing hers, the rumble rising up his chest echoed
through her. “Let go, Mags.”

He nipped her lobe and thrust into her. Her
body trembled with the force of her orgasm. He moaned and jerked
with his own release and deep inside she wept. With the surrender
of her orgasmic virginity, she’d paid an immeasurable price. One
she wasn’t sure she could afford.

“Not sure why I bother
with this.” Maggie muttered as she sorted Transformer from G.I.
Joes. “It won’t stay clean, and the mess won’t matter if I’m
dead.”

She worked through the mess in Jared’s room,
her thoughts volleying between BD’s plan, her kids and the promise
that brought her full circle to fear. Adalia’s promise to kill.

BD’s assurances did little to calm the
seismic quakes attacking her nerved. Any time now, Craig would come
for BD. They would leave. She would be alone. Bait for the
criminal.

They’d made a show in the bugged living room
of calling for an AC repairman and opening all the windows while
complaining about the heat. Making the house accessible was one
thing. Announcing to Adalia they were trapping her when she was
looking for ways to trap them was another. Why had she agreed to
risk herself?

Weakness.
The taunt whispered along her
conscience.

Weakness resulting from Burke’s every touch
and the constant hunger to be brave around him. There was no other
explanation for why she’d given in. Why she’d asked him to kiss
her. Why she’d asked him to make love to her when there was no shot
at more. It was a mistake she wouldn’t make again. Neither would
she regret the beautiful seduction.

She sank to the floor, sitting butt to heels
and staring into the not-far-from-past memory. Casual sex didn’t
exist inside the richness of what they’d shared. Touch and taste.
Sight and sound. She’d felt it all as thick as tears in her
throat.

She should have known better. She would have
if she’d actually thought. Instead, she’d grabbed the chance for a
mental escape, gone off less than half-cocked without regard to the
consequences, followed her gut and given her trust to a man she
hardly knew. All for a fleeting glimpse of euphoria.

He offered the illusion of safety, reeled her
in until she’d gotten lost in him and it had cost more of her
heart.

Mike had literally been the boy next door.
They’d gone from friends, to dates of convenience, to married. The
realities of sex she knew she learned from him, yet the gaps in her
knowledge had burst forth in bed with Burke. She’d never been so
free with her body, so quick to embrace abandon.

She’d even started calling
him BD…Burke.

“Mags.” His voice—one she
would hear often in dreams—deep with sexual suggestions drew her
gaze to the doorway.

H-O-L-Y H-E-L-L. Burke…BD…Harte. Harte—she
had to think of him that way for there to be any hope of coping
with the coming loss of bliss he’d stimulated—stood with water
droplets dripping down his broad, naked chest. He’d only put on
jeans and shoes.

There would be no blocking
the memory. Now that she
knew
what lurked beneath the surface of the often
solemn detective, his nakedness was harder to face.

“It’s almost time. What
are you doing?”

“Cleaning. I need to stay
busy.” Not that it was settling her mind.

As though nothing had happened, as though he
hadn’t shown her pleasures which made fantasies look tame, he
walked around like he owned the place. He’d snapped back into
himself—fully in cop mode with no hint that she’d been anything
more than a release of energy.

“Last chance. We can find
another way.”

“There is no other way.”
She stood and kicked a ball of dirty clothes toward Jared’s hamper.
“If Adalia has to be stalled until you get into position it’s going
to have to be done by someone who knows Mike, what he learned from
those scrolls and where they are.”

“You’re asking me for too
much.” BD closed the distance between them and took her loose hair
in his hand. “I can’t risk you getting hurt if I’m
delayed.”

His voice cracked on what she knew to be an
uncomfortable admission. Her heart cracked a little.

“I trust you.” Brushing
his cheek with her fingers she sought to reassure him. “This is
something I have to do.”

He turned to the dresser
and picked up a picture of Mike and Jared grinning like loons.
Unsteady breaths moved his back up and down. Up and down. “Did I
tell you I sat with Mike while he died?”

She sniffed, but wouldn’t
cry. “Yes.”

“I didn’t tell you… In
those moments he struck me as an upstanding guy whose only concern
was the wife and son he’d never see again.” BD traced the edge of
the frame, speaking reverently about her husband. Maybe a sliver of
regret mingled with reverence. “You consumed his last thoughts,
Mags. He loved you. He knew the treasure of what he had in this
home.”

Tears fell down her heated
face. “You don’t fight fair.”

“I need you to know how
much you have to fight for.” He still didn’t look at her. Didn’t
look away from the picture he continued rubbing. “I lost my family.
Don’t do something that’s going to cost you yours.”

“I’m not going to.” She
went to him and rested her cheek on his bare back. “I know what I
have to lose. I wonder if you do.”

“Maggie.” He rolled his
shoulders and stepped away with a distinct you’re dismissed
vibe.

“Nevermind. I get
it.”
Fine. If that’s how he wants it,
fine.
“You played your games. You got your
jollies. Time’s up.”

“You know damn well it
wasn’t like that. Not for one second.”

“Really? Prove it. Give me
one reason to believe anything we did meant something to you.” She
angled her chin. “Because your lackluster tone holds no conviction
and every time I let myself get close or reach out, you pull away.
Or shove me away.”

“You’re wrong.”

“Then why do you kiss
me?”

“I kiss you because… Damn
it.” His voice finally held passion. Fire. “I kiss you because I
like it.” His mouth devoured hers in a brief, punishing kiss before
he thrust her away. “I gave you orgasms because you asked for
them.”

“Burke.”

“No! You got what you
wanted from me and walked away. You’re the one who couldn’t get out
of my bed fast enough. If anyone was a meaningless lay it was me to
you.”

“That’s not true!” How
could he be the one hurt? How could he not know what he’d done to
her? How could he have been so aware of her every desire and not
know how much it had meant to her?

“You know what? It doesn’t
matter.” His attempt at another dismissal fizzled. It did matter if
the hurt in his tone was an indicator. “Think what you
want.”

“I happen to think you’re
an ass.”

“Damn it, Mags.” Shaking
his hands in front of her in an almost comical, claw-like fashion
he growled. “Why do you have to be so stubborn?”

“Why do you have to be so
overbearing?”