Sharp Edges (28 page)

"But how could a killer have made his death look like a heart attack?" Eugenia asked.

Cyrus shrugged. "Hastings took a lot of medications. Someone could have swapped one of his regular pills for something else, maybe one of Daventry's designer drugs. Lord knows what it would have done to him."

"That's a very strange thought, Cyrus."

"I know. I'm just kind of letting things flow, looking for a new angle."

Eugenia smiled to herself. "That's what any artist does. It's called the creative process."

"Just call me Michelangelo."

Eugenia studied his shadowed form, trying to make out his expression. It was impossible. "Do you realize what you're saying? If there is a killer, he or she may be one of the locals. Someone who lives right here on the island. Someone with a personal grudge against Daventry."

"Apparently there's no shortage of people around here who disliked Daventry."

She shivered. "Where does this new theory leave us?"

"It leaves me thinking that I want you off the island. You can go back to Seattle with Rick on the ferry tomorrow. I can have Stredley meet you. He'll keep an eye on you until I get this thing settled."

She was so startled that it took a few seconds for the outrage to hit her. "Oh, no, you don't. You're not getting rid of me that easily."

"I don't like the feel of this thing," Cyrus said. "I've got work to do, and I can't do it if I have to worry about you."

"Who says you have to worry about me? I've been taking care of myself for a long time."

"Maybe, but you haven't had to protect yourself from a killer."

"The killer, assuming there is one, isn't after me. He's after someone who might have seen something the night of Daventry's murder."

"Yeah. And maybe he'll decide to go after people who ask too many questions about Daventry's death, also. I want you out of the way."

"I appreciate your concern," she said stiffly. "But I'm not leaving this island."

"Eugenia," Cyrus said very softly, "I know its unchivalrous, crude, and tacky to point this out, but when push comes to shove around here, I'm a lot bigger than you are."

"You may be bigger, but I'll bet I'm a lot faster."

He moved so quickly she never even realized he had come up out of the chair until she found herself in his arms.

Eighteen

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"O
kay, so you can move pretty fast when you feel like it." Eugenia knew she sounded breathless. She could not do much about it. She
was
breathless. Her pulse was racing, and her palms were tingling, too.

"Motivation is the key," Cyrus said. "At the moment, I'm highly motivated."

His face was hewn from solid shadows. There was just enough light seeping in from under the door to make his eyes gleam. She could feel the heat and the strength in him. She also sensed the depths of his determination.

"This is no way to resolve an interpersonal conflict," she warned.

"You follow your theory of personnel management," he said against her mouth. "I'll follow mine."

"I thought I told you that you couldn't use sex to get me to do what you want."

"What if what I want you to do is have sex with me?"

"Oh. Well, I guess that would be an exception."

"Figured it might be." He kissed her, hard and deep.

There was no point talking to him, Eugenia thought. He was not in a mood to listen. She put her arms around his neck and kissed him back.

The now-familiar flash of excitement and wonder zipped through her, making her shiver with anticipation. She clenched her fingers in his hair.

Cyrus groaned, took one step to the side, and pulled her down onto a nearby padded lounger. She fell on top of him, her legs tangling with his. He was rock hard beneath her thigh.

He put one hand into the opening of her robe. The fabric parted easily. She sighed when she felt his warm fingers on her breast. When he drew his thumb across her nipple, she tried to say his name aloud. It came out as a muffled, half-swallowed exclamation. She sank her nails into his shoulders.

"Damn," he growled. He shifted his mouth to her throat. "Lady, you're dangerous."

Only with you
, she thought fleetingly.
Why is that?

The uneasy question popped into her head out of nowhere. It evaporated instantly as the heat built between them.

She fumbled with the buttons of his shirt until she could flatten her palms on his bare chest. She loved the feel of him, she realized. And the scent of him. And the strength in him.

Oh, lord. What if she just plain loved him?

Impossible. It had all happened too quickly. This could not be love. It was sex. Wonderful, exciting sex, to be sure, but still just sex.

She was still in control of herself. She had not put her heart at risk.

Or had she?

Once more the disquieting thoughts vanished in the smoke created by the flames of mutual desire. Eugenia let them go. The last thing she wanted to do was analyze her confusing emotions for this man tonight.

Cyrus seized a fistful of her nightgown and hauled it slowly, deliberately up to her waist. She sat astride him and unbuckled his belt with shaking fingers. He sprang, fully erect, into her hands.

He cupped her gently. She could feel her own dampness on his palm. Her head fell back. She had to swallow a cry that would otherwise have been audible upstairs in the bedroom where Rick slept.

She cradled Cyrus's heavy erection and squeezed carefully, awed by the sheer size and weight of him. He tensed beneath her. When he eased two fingers into her, she melted the way glass did in a furnace. Suddenly she was white-hot. She bent her head to drop wet kisses onto his shoulder.

She was dimly aware of the beat of the rain on the transparent walls that surrounded them. The night formed a cocoon of darkness around the deeper shadows inside the sunroom.

When Cyrus finally thrust into her, taking his time about it, filling her completely, she almost screamed with the pleasure and intense satisfaction of it.

His hands clamped around her thighs. He held her so that she could no longer move. "I want to feel you come."

He pushed himself a little deeper into her.

"Now," he whispered. "Come now."

She gasped. Her body clenched as tightly as a fist as the climax swept through her. He pulled her face down to his and silenced her cries with his mouth.

Before the last of the deep, twisting shivers had finished uncurling inside her, he levered himself up and turned her onto her back. He pinned her to the cushions while the shudders generated by his own release pounded through both of them.

Cyrus looked into the darkness beyond the glass-domed ceiling of the sunroom. Things were going to be very different after this adventure with Eugenia was finished.

No, that was the problem. Things would not be any different at all.

Things would go back to being the same as they had always been before Eugenia crashed into his life.

No more discussions of art with an arrogant, high-browed snob who could not resist falling into full lecture mode at the drop of a museum catalog.

No more toe-to-toe arguments with a stubborn, self-opinionated woman who thought she knew more than he did about the security business.

No more losing his temper or his self-control.

No more hot sex with a lady cat burglar.

The list went on, he realized. And it got more depressing.

No more talking to someone who understood him as no one else ever had.

A chill of dread went through him, chasing away the warmth and satisfaction of the recent lovemaking. He did not believe in premonitions, he reminded himself. He dealt in facts. He knew how to face them squarely. Everything on the long list of things that would vanish when Eugenia walked out of his life was a simple fact.

He shoved the whole list aside. He did not have time to think about the future tonight. He had other, more immediate problems.

He tightened one arm around Eugenia. "Where were we?"

"Arguing, I think." She stretched languidly on the lounger. Her hand rested warmly on his stomach. "You were saying something about how much bigger and stronger you are."

"And you said something about being faster."

"Right. Faster." Satisfaction purred in her voice. "But we hadn't gotten to the brainy part yet. That's where I really shine, you know."

"Doesn't matter. The theory that brains are better than brawn is nothing but a myth put out by smart people with no muscles. In the real world, brawn beats brains every damn time."

"I'm not going to leave the island, Cyrus." She leaned over him. "Not until we find out what's going on here."

He looked at her, aware of the determination that radiated off her. She was accustomed to taking care of herself. Accustomed to giving orders, not taking them. Definitely not the kind of woman a man could order back into the wagon.

Maybe he should let her stay, he thought. After all, she had some rights in this, too. On the plus side, he would be able to keep an eye on her here.

Excuses, excuses.

Common sense told him she would be better off back in Seattle.

"This situation may turn dangerous," he said carefully. "I want to be sure you're safe."

"I'm safer with you than I would be alone in Seattle," she said smoothly. "You're an expert on security, remember?"

"Hell. You're not going to make this easy for me, are you?"

"Nope." She brushed her mouth against his jaw. "In fact, I'm going to make it impossible."

"If you think you can use sex to control me…" he said.

"Yes?"

He groaned. "You may be right."

Her bare foot slid up the length of his leg. He could have sworn he felt himself stir.
Impossible. Christ, I'm too old for this kind of fast turnaround
.

The phone on the nearby glass table rang, shattering the whispery darkness. Eugenia's foot stopped moving. Cyrus propped himself up on his elbow and grabbed the receiver.

"Colfax here."

"It's me, Jacob Houston. I gotta talk to you."

The tension in Jacob's voice brought Cyrus to full alert as little else could have done at that moment. He shook off the lingering effects of Eugenia's touch and sat up on the side of the lounger.

"What's wrong, Houston?"

"I just got back from Rhonda's place. Something's happened."

"What were you doing at her house at this time of night?"

"I'm trying to tell you. I called her after you left. Told her she ought to get in touch with you. I wanted her to take you up on your offer to help her. We talked a long time."

"What did she say?"

"She finally agreed. Said she'd call you in the morning. Then she asked me to go over to her place and pack up some stuff she left behind. So I did."

"In the middle of the night?"

"I'm a night person," Jacob said. "I was up."

"Go on." Cyrus eased himself away from Eugenia. He got to his feet, adjusted his briefs, and zipped his chinos. "What happened?"

"That's what I'm trying to tell you. Her place is a mess." Jacob's voice rose with thin urgency. "All the drawers pulled out of the dresser. Everything in the kitchen yanked out of the cupboards and thrown on the floor. It looks like someone vandalized it."

"Local kids?"

"Maybe, but after what happened to Rhonda at the marina, I'm not so sure. This is crazy, but it almost looks like someone went through her place looking for something."

"Any idea what that something could be?"

"No. I keep telling you, Rhonda doesn't even know why someone tried to kill her, so she sure won't know why anyone would break into her cottage. Hell, maybe it was vandals. Think you could tell the difference?"

"Probably." Cyrus considered the possibilities, including the one that he was being set up. "I'll swing by your place and pick you up. We'll go back to Rhonda's together and take a look."

"Okay." Jacob sounded greatly relieved. "Thanks. I'll be waiting for you here in my cabin."

Cyrus slowly replaced the receiver.

Eugenia knelt on the lounger, adjusting her robe. "What's going on?"

He considered his words carefully. "Jacob says someone vandalized Rhonda's cottage."

"Why didn't he call Deputy Peaceful?"

"I don't know." Until he'd had a chance to check out the situation, he did not want to alarm her. "Probably because he's so anxious about Rhonda he's not thinking clearly."

He switched on a lamp and turned to look at her. Dark hair was tousled into a frothy cloud around her face. Her eyes were still hot with the aftereffects of the lovemaking. She had gathered the robe around, her but one bare foot peeked out from beneath the hem.

Possessiveness coiled deep within him, a fierce, primitive thing that shocked him with its strength. He felt the air leave his lungs in a rush.

"What are you supposed to do about vandalism?" Eugenia asked.

With an act of raw willpower, Cyrus forced himself back to the problem at hand. "I don't know. But I think I'd better take a look. Houston sounded nervous. For better or worse, he's sort of a client now. It's company policy to keep clients calm."

"I'll come with you." Eugenia slid off the lounger. "Give me a minute to get into some clothes."

"No." He shoved his fingers through his hair to straighten it. "You stay here. If I take you, I've got to wake Rick and tell him what's going on, too. Then he'll want to come with me. There's no sense in all of us running around the island at this time of night."

She hesitated, clearly dubious. "Well…"

"I'll be back in an hour," he said easily. He kissed her on the mouth as he went past her through the door. "Got to grab my jacket. It's upstairs in my room."

He went quickly up the glass staircase and along the balcony to his bedroom. His .38 was right where he had stashed it the day he had arrived, in the bottom of his duffel bag. He removed it, grabbed a full clip, and then tossed his black leather jacket over his arm to cover the gun.