Hot Pursuit (38 page)

She didn’t look convinced, so he kept going.

“I know,” he continued, “because I feel it, too. It’s more than just a woodie, although that’s a pretty standard accessory for me, to any life and death confrontation. And again, it’s biological. And I feel this shit racing through my bloodstream, the adrenaline and whatever and I look at you, and start getting these messages, like an intercom clicking on at the stem of my brain, saying,
Mine
. I’m possessive to start with. I know that about myself. Add some extra testosterone, and look out. I would’ve killed him, you know. If he’d as much as turned toward you, I would have dropped him, right there.”

“I’m glad you didn’t,” Jenn said.

“I’m glad I didn’t have to.”

“So you think,” she said, “that while I was in that moment, my body was releasing hormones and adrenaline—”

“I don’t just think it, I know it,” Dan told her. “Your hands are still shaking. That’s as classic a symptom of adrenaline overload as my, you know … packing wood.”

She smiled at that.

“You also didn’t have a lot of time to tell Frank exactly what you were feeling.
Hey, don’t shoot Dan, because I like him and we’ve been having a really good time together and if you killed him I’d be extremely upset, particularly since I’m feeling overwhelmed with appreciation at the way he came to my rescue …
Instead, you … said what you said. You went concise and used language you knew Frank would understand.”

“Ah,” she said. “I like that one, too. You’re incredibly talented when it comes to rationalizing.”

“The key,” Dan told her, “is to understand what’s going on, and
not misinterpret the little voice that says
Mine
, and rush off to Vegas to get married. Because the hormone levels and adrenaline eventually go back to normal, and then you’re, like, waking up next to some numbnut, thinking,
What the hell have I done
?”

“The numbnut being you,” Jenn pointed out, “since I’m completely nutless.”

He didn’t know what to say to that. She was clearly speaking symbolically, as in she had no balls, i.e., courage to challenge his theories, or to disagree.

“You think I’m wrong?” he finally said.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “It just seems so … cold. You probably don’t believe in love at first sight, either. Unless there’s a scientific explanation for that…”

“I don’t believe in it,” he admitted. “I believe in attraction at first sight. I also believe in … immediate connection at first conversation. I believe that there’s no such thing as an easy relationship and that every time you put two people together, there’s going to be sacrifice and compromise. That nobody gets exactly what they want, but if you learn to adapt and be flexible, you’ll win more often than you lose. Because your definition of winning will be broad and include more options.”

“Then why can’t it be a win for you, when I say … what I said.” She laughed and sat forward. “God, it’s not like it’s an evil spell that’ll destroy the world if it’s uttered aloud. Why isn’t it a win when I say that I love you?”

Her leaning toward him like that made one side of her robe fall open a bit, giving him a clear shot of the soft curve of one of her breasts.

She didn’t have particularly large breasts. They certainly weren’t as large as they should have been to make her shaped like an hourglass in proportion to her generous hips. No, she was a pear, smaller on top than on bottom, but big breasts weren’t everything,
and he sure as hell didn’t want her to change anything about her legs and thighs—she had gorgeous thighs, strong yet soft and so smooth when she wrapped them around him. …

He’d yet to get her completely naked, but give him time and he would, because he wanted her riding him, her eyes closed as she moaned her pleasure, her breasts slick with sweat as she strained to take him deep, deeper. …

Mine
.

She was sitting there, watching him with those big eyes, waiting for him to tell her that he didn’t want to hurt her. That he wasn’t sure if he could make himself walk away from her—which he knew he had to do if she really was falling for him.

Why the hell was she falling for him? For
him …
?

Dan found himself kissing her. He had no idea if she’d leaned even nearer to him, or if he’d been the one to reach for her and pull her close. But Jesus, he
was
kissing her, and she was kissing him back, her arms around him, her fingers in his hair.

She moved even closer, straddling him, reaching between them to unfasten his pants, to find him, as always, ready to go.

She laughed a little. “You weren’t kidding, were you?”

She’d let her robe fall open, and there it was, one perfect, dark pink nipple that he licked into his mouth. Her hands tightened around him as she gasped, “Condom …”

He bumped into her hand as he reached for one—she’d learned where he kept them. But as intriguing as the thought of her putting it on him was … He didn’t think he could wait that long. Except …

“Jenn, I don’t want to hurt you,” he whispered. “And unless that was magic cranberry juice …”

She laughed. “I’m fine,” she insisted, shrugging out of her robe, letting it fall on the floor, leaving her naked.

And Christ, he couldn’t say no to that, for so many reasons—the foremost being that she’d take it as a rejection, and he was not going
to do that to her. And yes, like the woman had said, he was a master at rationalizing. He could give himself a list of fifty reasons, but the real one was right here, in his hands, now covered and ready for her to climb upon, which she did as she breathed his name, “Oh, Dan …”

And it was all right there, in every touch, every kiss, every moan as she moved, so exquisitely slowly at first, then faster, as she lit him on fire.

His fear when Izzy had called, when he’d run back here and realized she was no longer in her apartment, when he’d waited nearly goddamn out of his mind for the elevator so he could ride up to a higher floor and cut them off before they reached the roof, when he’d realized Frank, who was holding a weapon, was high. …

His anger at Frank—that he would put Jenn at risk like that.

His relief when he saw her—that she was all right, that Frank hadn’t hurt her.

His joy that she could make him laugh, even then and there in the stairwell, regardless of all his anger and fear.

His confidence that he would, without question, keep her safe.

He wanted to keep her safe.

Her bare skin was so smooth beneath his fingers. Her body was so soft as she cried out his name again, this time as she came.

Head thrown back, body arched, breasts thrust forward, nipples taut, thighs tight around him as she pushed him even deeper inside of her… Jesus, she was beyond gorgeous, and he ran his hands up her body from her thighs to her breasts, filling the palms of his hands as she just kept coming and coming around him.

And he came, too, in an intense rush of pleasure that made his blood sing and his ears roar. And despite the additional noise from his pounding heart and his ragged breathing, he heard it, as clear as a crystal bell. His adrenaline and hormones and endorphins all coming together to chime in …

Mine
.

•   •   •

“Are we sure,” Alyssa said, “that Danny Gillman’s got it together enough to provide sufficient protection for Jennilyn?”

She and Sam, and Jules and Robin, were sitting in the living room of the hotel suite. Or rather she, Sam, and Jules were sitting.

Robin was lying on the floor. Ashton, who was now happily at his mother’s breast, had totally kicked his ass today. The tyke hadn’t yet mastered crawling, but he had his own form of propulsion—scooting across the floor on his butt, using his strong little legs to push himself along. In a matter of seconds—the briefest of head turns—the little boy was gone and into God knows what.

Robin had had to monitor him constantly. Gone were the days of putting him in his rocking seat or his swing as Robin quietly sat nearby, reading a good book.

But the real killer was the continuous requests—that upraised precious face and two tiny, reaching hands—for assistance in walking. All Ash wanted to do, for hours on end, was walk around holding onto Robin’s hands. Which had actually been fun, the first four thousand times.

Come on, Ash, let’s sit for a while and read a book.
Ning-a-nang!

Hey, Ash, let’s play with these nifty blocks. I’ll set ’em up and you can knock ’em down. It’ll be fun.
Ning-a-nang!

Ooh, Ashie, I bet you want Uncle Robin to put you in this ugly-ass rented high chair so you can eat some yummy Cheerios.

Ning-a-ning-a-freaking-nang
.

“We could put a guard over there, if you want,” Sam said, answering Alyssa’s question about Gillman, who’d apparently gotten something hot and heavy going with Maria’s assistant.

Robin had overheard Maria talking to Izzy about it today. She was secretly thrilled that Jenn would do something so impetuous. It was, allegedly, completely out of character.

Maria, who like Robin was one of those glass-half-full people, was convinced that Jenn had met her soul mate and would be married within the year. Izzy’d argued with her about that for a bit, but he’d finally given up. He was not, he’d agreed, the best person in the world to judge whether or not Dan Gillman would make a good soul mate for anyone.

“But Jenn’s place is ridiculously small,” Sam added now. “I say let Danny stay with her. For tonight, anyway. As for tomorrow … I think we should consider bringing in more members of the team. How’s Lindsey feeling? Have you heard from her?”

“She’s not out of bed yet,” Alyssa told him. “Maybe Deck and Nash are back from Indonesia.”

Robin lifted his head. “Wait a minute. I thought this was over. That the bad guy is Maria’s brother. The way she was talking about him …”

Maria had been convinced that her brother had killed Maggie Thorndyke. That plus the fact that they’d moved her back into her own apartment so she could sleep in her own bed tonight had made Robin assume …

Jules spoke up. “It seems unlikely that Frank Bonavita had the ability to do everything that our killer did. Grab Maggie, take her somewhere private to kill her and do his … handiwork on her—”

Robin sat up. “But I thought that you found where he took her. To that basement where the homeless man was living. Did I miss something?”

“Sweetie, whoever killed her,” Jules told him, “he didn’t do it there. There would have been way more blood. Plus she had marks on her wrists and ankles that indicate she’d been bound, prior to her death. But there were no ropes and nothing to tie her to in that basement. The full autopsy report’s not in yet, but the entire forensics team agrees. Maggie’s body was moved there after she was dead. And whoever put her there knew that Winston—the homeless
guy—lived there. Our killer set it up to look like Winston slit his own wrists, but I’m betting we find a major amount of a narcotic in his system.”

“Okay, I can see how the theory’s implausible,” Robin said. “Frank killed Maggie—somewhere presumably
not
in the center of Times Square, then put her heart in his sister’s office, sent a postcard, made a phone call, and framed Winston—all while under the influence of a radically mind-altering drug.”

“Forget about the implausibility. It doesn’t even begin to explain how or why Winston had Alyssa’s picture back in September,” Sam chimed in. “That’s what
I
still want to find out.”

The former SEAL usually sat sprawled in his seat, long legs stretched out, his posture and body language enormously masculine and relaxed. But tonight he was sitting up straight, his movements limited and extremely careful. No doubt about it, the man was in some serious pain.

“Do you need some ice?” Robin asked him silently, so Alyssa didn’t start in again on Sam taking a shower and getting his butt into bed. Although, truth be told, if Jules had ordered Robin into bed that way, he’d have gone willingly. Of course, they didn’t have a baby to feed. “Should I get you some?”

Sam shook his head, just the tiniest little bit. “Won’t help,” he silently said.

And, of course, Robin didn’t have a broken rib, which could make going to bed a lot less fun.

“Whoever killed Maggie and Winston knew that we were looking at Winston as a suspect.” Alyssa’s voice rang with certainty.

“I agree,” Jules said.

“And you’re certain that couldn’t have been Frank?” Robin asked. “Hey, here’s a thought. Do you know for a fact that he’s using—that he’s not just a really good actor, pretending to be on meth?”

That question got everyone looking at each other, so he asked, “Is he in detox or in jail? Because if he’s in detox, they’ll have done complete blood work. But if it’s jail … Not so much.”

“I think they were taking him to a psychiatric hospital,” Jules said, reaching for his phone.

“This is why I didn’t want to go to bed,” Sam told Alyssa. “I wanted to stay up so I could watch the Boy Wonder here solve our case for us.”

“But what’s his motive? Frank’s.” Alyssa asked, putting Ash onto her shoulder and rubbing his back, looking for a burp. The kid could belch like a longshoreman and he not only complied but he stayed asleep through it. Alyssa had the magic touch. “If he’s looking to ruin his sister’s political career, he doesn’t have to kill Maggie to do that.”

That was true. Frank just needed to run amok.

“Maria mentioned something about a letter,” Robin said. “That Frank was sent something through the mail? Snail mail, I mean.”

“His parents remembered getting it,” Jules reported, his cell phone to his ear. “They said they thought it was something he’d sent away for. You know, that he’d sent someone a self-addressed envelope, because his name and address looked like it was in his own handwriting.”

“What?” Sam said, leaning forward but then wincing.

Jules held up one finger as his call went through. “Hey, Carol. Can we make sure that Frank Bonavita was given a complete drug test?” He paused, listening, then said, “Okay, that’s good. Make sure I get a copy. I want to know what he was on, and if possible, for how long he was on it. Thank you.” He listened some more, then said “Uh-huh” a handful of times mixed with “Really,” and then, “Yeah, definitely scan it in and e-mail it to me. Yeah. Thanks.” He hung up and sighed—he was tired, too—and said, “We’ll have the drug-test info in the morning. And in the land of too-little-too-late, we’ve verified
that Winston was seen—on the webcam footage—outside Nicco’s restaurant, shortly after 11
A.M.
, which was when the killer used Maggie’s phone to call Maria.”