“Your shirt—Meg.”
Eyes widening in surprise, Megan looked down at that perfect half-exposed breast, then innocently up at him, her eyes so green he could get lost in them, like in a rainforest. His hands itched at his sides. His whole body itched under his suit. He wanted to tear off his tie and curl it around her rump and use it to pull her up against him.
He could imagine her … Wanna take her upstairs, in my old room, my old bed, where I thought of her so many times … No, dammit! He’d come here to think, but instead she was driving him crazy, and this was not the time to indulge in teen fantasies. He’d stopped being a teen at sixteen, when his parents had been murdered.
In this very house!
He gritted his teeth and pointed once again at her cotton top draped over that creamy shoulder almost all the way down to what he was sure would be the pinkest, perkiest little nipple he’d ever seen.
His eyes fastened to it, and suddenly he knew he would not be able to pull his gaze free if she didn’t pull that damned top in place.
But Megan did nothing to fix the problem, to remove the temptation.
Instead, she made a slight sound, like a sigh, leaned back, further back against the wall, and aroused the fucking daylights out of him when she closed her eyes and pushed her breasts out like she was taking the sun outside.
“I could really use some coffee later,” she murmured sleepily, her eyes still closed. “Mind if I wait here while you do your thinking?”
Like hell. Like he could think about anything with her here, almost naked.
He wanted to pounce on her. He wanted to warn her to run, but then that would only make him want to chase her. And what would he do when he caught her? Fuck I’m going to lick her calves like an ice cream cone … suckle her breasts till there’s no tomorrow … taste her honey and suck every last drop …
He wanted the killer, yes, his no-good sadistic brother, but right now all he really wanted was to take little Megan Banks in his arms and … God, his cock was about to explode.
She pushed from the wall with a soft smile and moved toward him, enough for his nostrils to flare in his need to inhale all of her. The air became oxygenless; heavy with need, charged with longing. The breeze outside moaned, as though the rasping against trees were erotic. Her incoming scent continued to draw him in, make him think of his childhood, and strangely, of his kids, how they would be if he ever had a couple. A daughter with her eyes, her hair.
Megan wrapping her legs around me … pulling me closer …
His breathing accelerated as he tried to maintain control, stay in place, but her eyes were shining with welcome, and holy God, were those hard little points her nipples against her top? She licked her lips. “So,” she said, a hint of nervousness in her voice.
He took a step. Bad idea, Cody, stop stop stop. He couldn’t help himself and reached up, stroked her lips with his thumb. His hand trembled; she shuddered at first touch.
Ecstasy swarmed him when she closed her eyes, a bubbling sensation in his veins as he allowed himself the luxury of stroking that mouth, driving himself way too hot just watching the way her breath changed. “So,” he rasped back.
She held her breath, but when she opened her eyes, there wasn’t desire there, but fear. “Someone’s watching us.”
Silence reigned. A knife of possessiveness sliced through him, and he pulled her close, hugging her while he assessed his surroundings, whispering in her ear, “Don’t move.”
Her body felt perfect against his, perfectly female, and just to give the monster a little of what he had for his entire existence begged for, he cupped her ass to distract whoever was watching them, keep them from noticing his other hand, reaching into his jacket. As he felt the grip at the tip of his fingers, he continued to savor the shape and pulled her tight against his aching groin.
“It’s him, isn’t it,” she whispered, pulling her top over her shoulder and smashing herself against him, her voice scared. “He’s here.”
The prickle at the back of his neck didn’t lie.
“Yeah.” Almost there; he curled his fist around his gun. “Give me one more second.”
Had they not felt a presence, he could’ve kissed her and urged her to tell him that she wanted it, his cock, against her, inside her, but when she squirmed restlessly closer against him, he knew she did, and he knew he couldn’t do shit about it, never would, and it drove him to the edge.
He groaned, keeping her pinned against his body as he turned, and called out, with his gun firmly in his grip. “Ivan, I need to talk to you.”
It was his twin, it had to be. The only damned bastard that had ever crept so easily past Cody’s radar. Megan shouldn’t be here, dammit.
A noise came from up above, and when a book landed splat! three inches to her right, Megan jumped in alarm.
Cody curled an arm around her waist, bending over so that only she could make out his whisper. “You’re all right, you’re with me.”
She nodded fast enough to get dizzy. “What does he want?” she squeaked.
“I don’t know, but I sure as hell would like to find out. Let’s talk to him for a bit, hmm?” He raised his head to scan the room, sure that Ivan was somewhere up in the rafters. “Ivan, if it’s you, come out here and talk to us.”
A voice broke through the space as if spoken through a microphone. “Last time you talked to me you tossed my ass in jail, brother.”
Cody almost stumbled back when his brother’s baritone struck him. Holy fuck, genetics were amazing. Cody could’ve been doing the talking, their voices were identical. And then it barreled into him: and he knew exactly how this bastard would have managed to escape prison.
Get his hands on a badge and a suit and—whoa, a crimson tie—and he’d look just like Cody.
Heart pounding at the possibility of Ivan being smarter than he remembered, Cody searched for him up in the wood beams and the second level library, but failed to find him. He’d be climbing up there by now, he’d already have the bastard by the throat, if not for the scared little kitten currently holding on to his arm.
“I’m on vacation this week,” he told his brother, as easily as though he were speaking to Zach in an attempt to inspire his confidence. “So what do you say we lunch together and talk? Noon? Meet me at Marcel’s Bistro in the Western Plaza.” He needed answers, and more than that, he needed that bastard back where he belonged. Serving a life term.
The silence gave him hope, so he yanked out his business card, set it over the tome on the floor—Moby-Dick—and guided Megan out of there, calling behind his shoulder, “I’ll see you there.”
Ivan wouldn’t follow.
Not yet.
The bastard wanted something, and Cody was pretty sure that she was currently walking in his arms.
* * *
Megan turned out to be quite the stubborn little package.
She didn’t want to sleep at her house, and she refused to stay at the Rivers place if Cody wasn’t, and after Ivan had picked his locks, Cody couldn’t very well take her to his home, either. Plus, considering the fact that he only had one bed and the thought of Megan Banks’s juicy derriere sleeping in it drove Cody’s libido out of whack, his place was definitely out of the picture.
So he ended up setting them up for the night at the Candelabra, a small, boutique hotel that was close enough to the Western Plaza shopping center to make his meeting with Ivan on time tomorrow.
Since keeping things businesslike was the way to go, he got two connecting rooms with king-size beds, shared an early dinner downstairs with her, and once they went upstairs, threw himself into his research.
At least, that was his plan.
Megan seemed to have another idea.
While Cody surveyed all the paperwork he’d brought, she padded out from her room and curled up next to him on the couch, cuddling against his chest.
Within minutes she fell asleep, the soft sounds of her breathing audible in the silence, while Cody did his damnede
st to concentrate and review everything he’d written about his brother on his first capture. Where he’d caught him last. Where he’d been seen before.
“No!” Megan suddenly murmured in her sleep.
She tossed her head to the side, her hair falling in a waterfall of golden tresses across her cheek. Damn, it had been a mistake to go back to his parents’ place. Abandoned, falling apart, and the stench of death still lingering. But it was a place that would always be a part of him, a reminder of his origins, his failure. Every time he visited, he felt angry, determined, and many times, enlightened.
But what in the hell had Ivan been doing there?
Could he be hiding there now? No, he must have left.
Another moan filtered through his thoughts, soft and deep. It struck him that she sounded like a woman being made love to. His dick jumped at the thought.
Stiff as a flagpole almost instantly, Cody tried pushing her off his lap, but Meg whimpered again, and he felt a pang of sympathy.
Okay, he could do this. Comfort her. She’d wanted a hug before, maybe she just wanted that now.
He ran an awkward hand down her hair, attempting to soothe her. Not to touch her hair or any of that stuff; he’d always tried to touch her as little as possible. But tonight she was whimpering and he wasn’t deaf—he heard her moans. He ran his hand down her hair again—silky delicious hair, not that he was really noticing. “Shh. Relax. Go to sleep.”
She whimpered again, and Cody shut his eyes tight, trying to block out the sound. Damn it was hard. He pitched himself to the darkest day of his life, the only thing that could bring him out of any sensual haze.
It had been awful, that day. He’d been sharing looks with her for weeks. Heated looks. And he’d been standing closer only to find out that she didn’t move away. Cody was certain, certain, that she liked him.
“She wants me,” Ivan had taunted that evening. “It’s me she wants, not you.”
“Shut up,” Cody had said. “You’re just jealous she’s walking with me tomorrow and not you.”
“I’m not jealous. You can’t even get her to kiss you.”
“Of course I can, you dimwit,” Cody assured him, but really, he wasn’t so sure. She was different than the other girls; special. He didn’t want to screw it up.
“I could make her have sex with me,” Ivan offered.
“I can make her have sex with me, too,” Cody countered, angry, “and when she has sex with me she’ll be mine, all mine, no one else can ever touch her, especially you.”
“Ten dollars you can’t get her to do it tonight.”
Cody had been pissed, but he’d been challenged and he’d shaken that asshole’s hand.
For ten fucking dollars.
Now he could never bring himself to imagine being with her; he felt like that moment would be tainted, forever, because he’d shaken his brother’s dirty hand and had boasted that he’d lose his virginity and take Megan’s for ten dollars.
He remembered leading her into the woods and how they began arguing about something. He didn’t remember what, it was so inconsequential. Something about him being too quiet and acting weird, according to her. Apparently he wasn’t good at appeasing perceptive females either, because she said, “You know what, Cody? I don’t feel like walking with you today after all.”
They walked back through the woods back to the house, and that’s when they saw them.
In the living room that adjoined the kitchen.
His parents, in a pool of their own blood. The family cat.
Every living breathing thing in that house had been killed.
And at the ages of sixteen and fourteen, they witnessed their first murder.
One week later, he was taken in by his mother’s Texan relatives, and Cody left town. He thought that he’d died the day he’d seen his parents’ murdered bodies.
But he’d been wrong.
Some part, some small part of him, had been clinging to life. That last part had died the day Megan watched him drive away through that window.
He stopped dreaming. He stopped wanting to live. He stopped thinking. He became an animal. Was labeled aggressive in school. Antisocial. Rebellious, even though he was still naively innocent—every act of vandalism he committed, he later came to clean, every property he damaged in his raging fits would be mended the next day. It was a need to make things right that kept him coming back, and a need to hurt something that made him do something wrong. And it was that need that made him come back to Phoenix, Arizona, to the dry weather, the cacti, the Southwestern flair homes, every year on the anniversary of his parents’ death, and then later, to make a home here. And make things right.
He hadn’t intended to look for Megan, at least, not at first.
He supposed she’d put the past behind her and didn’t need to see his big ugly coyote face every day as reminder. But then he saw her, that day at the cemetery, and when she spotted him across the graves of his parents, he knew she had not forgotten him.
She had not forgotten him, or that night long ago, the one they would never forget.
“No,” she gasped now, and when she squirmed, her ear grazed his groin—more exactly, the muscle awakening there—and Cody bit back a growl as pleasure shot up his spine.
She snuggled with her nose, caressing that aching part of him without knowledge, and it was so unexpected that his grip loosened on the papers he’d been holding. They cascaded to the floor, all at once, in a whisper.
He murmured in a breathless prayer, “God don’t do this to me,” and gave up, dropping his head back and taking a deep breath. He wanted to push her away. No. He wanted to pull her closer. Wrap her legs around him. And make her forget every man but him. Make her forget every pain with the pleasure he could give her.
Before he could control himself, his palm cupped the soft, perfectly round swell of her right breast, just to discover that it fit so right in his … no!! What the hell was the matter with him? He yanked his hand away and, shocked, glanced down: saw that she still had her eyes closed.
The breath shuddered out of him as he eased away from her and set her back on the sofa.
“Banks, Megan … Meg,” he said, his voice laced with warning. “Stop … making noises.”
She did not stir, but parted her lips to let go a sigh. And those lips, holy God, they were so wet and pink.
He growled.
“You better wake up and tell me to get the hell away from you,” he said, his starving eyes fastened on her parted lips. He had wondered many times what they would feel like. Taste like. And then he’d cursed at himself for wanting to know. He’d caused her enough grief. He was cursed.
But now it didn’t matter, it was difficult to feel anything other than hot inside, and itchy in his skin, and hungry. Now he saw her lips and if he did not take them soon, if he did not taste her with his own, he would die all over again like the day he’d been taken away.
He bent over, feeling their breaths mingle, thinking this was so so goddamned wrong, even if Cody wanted her like nobody else in their lives would want her.
With an unsteady hand, he reached out and ran the pad of his thumb across her lower lip, and his heart started to pound as he tested the soft, silken puffiness of that lip.
If only she weren’t so pretty, her lips so soft, so pink …
He lowered his mouth to graze hers, softly, so that she would not wake, murmuring, “This never happened, Meg.”
But it had, it was happening.
Just a graze.
Though he wanted so much more he felt like yelling down the damned hotel until she gave all of herself up to him. Feeling a growl trapped in his throat, he brushed her lips one last time, softly, igniting the hunger inside him so badly it took an inhuman effort to pull back, get up without waking her, and step away. “Ahh, shit!”
Storming across the room, he escaped through the connecting door, breathing hard as he bolted the lock behind him.
He needed much more than a cold show
er.
But he couldn’t have what he wanted.
So the cold shower would have to do.
* * *
She woke up afraid.
A sense of being watched crept over her again. Her bones felt cold.
Afraid she was becoming paranoid, Megan hugged the couch pillow tight to her chest and groggily glanced around the hotel room. Her mind flashed to Cody, honing in on his smile. His blue eyes that made her think of Hawaii when they sparkled warmly like that. Where was he?
She set the pillow down and stood, spotting him by the door.
She smiled at him, feeling herself blush. “Hey,” she said sleepily. He had not moved an inch, was still and silent. “What time is it?” She glanced at the clock on the nightstand and saw it was 4:10 A.M. “So early. Don’t you sleep?”
She saw a smile form on his lips, and it filled her with pleasure, but she wanted more than smiles. Wanted the clean, cool forest scent of his hair filling her lungs.
Watching her strangely, he ran his fingers down his tie as though its weight was a burden on his chest. As she watched his hands, she could only think of how rough his fingertips were and how they would feel if they ever reached the tender parts of her skin.
He took a step forward, moving differently, not as stealthily as he normally did. But slowly. Very, eerily slowly. Megan held her breath, her head swimming with anticipation. The shadows pulsed, the breath of each somehow synchronized to begin when the other ended.
“I want you,” he said gruffly.
Her heart skipped, and for a moment she could only stare while holding her breath, unsure she’d heard right.
“I … want you,” she hastily returned, her heart hammering. This is it, a part of her screamed in excitement, while another could not believe it, couldn’t give credit to this happening.
Cody wants me, Cody wants me, he really wants me!
He reached out and pulled her close, and his scent was different. Her nose twitched as she attempted to place the strange scent, struggling to find the essence of Cody in it, but it was difficult to retain an idea when he started stroking her rump. Shock raced through her system, and then, slow as ice melting, she relaxed against him and moaned. “Please,” she murmured. “Please kiss me … please…” she heard herself say.