Iglesias came to the scene himself. Assigned an officer to Laurene, took the bullet in as evidence, expecting it to match the one they’d pulled out of the front of Charlize’s town home earlier in the week. And he told Riley to get Charlize home, to lock up tight and stay put. Until Ronny Simms was in custody, he was an unpredictable land mine.
And Laurene’s indication to Charlize had been that Ronny was blaming everything on Charlize.
Charlize said she was fine, but her lips were white with tension as they climbed back in the car. And when she reached for her seat belt, he noticed her hand shaking. Simms had taken a shot at him—a stranger—in complete daylight and with others around. The guy wasn’t thinking straight.
“Why were they in our neighborhood?” Charlize asked as he pulled into his driveway.
He’d been wondering the same thing. With only one logical conclusion. Because of her.
“He’s not going to give up,” she said.
“Maybe Laurene knows what he’s been doing. Maybe he was heading to your place and she was trying to stop him,” he offered.
Even her sigh trembled a bit. “I just need this done.”
He reached out a hand to smooth the hair away from her face and stopped himself. He couldn’t give in to the need to take her in his arms, either. Things were complicated enough as it was.
“Iglesias said he’d call as soon as Simms is in custody and with an APB out on him, it should be within the hour,” he told her and got her safely in the house.
As soon as Charlize was back upstairs—saying she had work to do, and that she was going to try once more to get through to Laurene—Riley filled in Ashanti and Bailey on what had happened. Telling them they could take off, work from home. If by chance Simms knew who he was and tracked them home, wild card that he was, he didn’t want anyone else around. Didn’t want anyone else getting hurt.
For the same reason he sent a text to his siblings, letting them know of the situation, and asking them to stay away until they knew Simms was in custody. He heard back from all five of them within the minute—telling him to watch his back.
And to let them know if he or Charlize needed anything.
He didn’t like being a sitting duck, which was how it felt to him as the afternoon wore on with no news. He didn’t know enough about Simms. Didn’t think he was tech savvy, but didn’t know for sure. And certainly wasn’t going to risk their lives on assuming he wasn’t. Didn’t know if he’d somehow followed on foot as Riley had driven home. He went out and parked his SUV in the garage so Simms couldn’t recognize it sitting there.
And hated that any getaway was locked away in a building separate from the house.
He didn’t know if Simms had any kind of training that could make him more dangerous. He’d told Charlize that the guy was a lousy shot, but the truth was, he wasn’t so sure. Simms had pulled a gun and had gotten a round off, barely missing Riley, while connecting his fist with Laurene’s face.
So maybe the shot the other day at Charlize’s house had meant to miss. Maybe that one had just been a warning, as well. Or maybe it hadn’t been Ronny.
If so, one thing was clear. Ronny had been pushed too far into a corner.
But they had a name now. An identity. Someone to pick up. That much was good. Not much of a relief, though, as they weren’t positive yet that Ronny was the original danger, or a new one. And they also now knew the guy was an immediate, potentially life threatening danger.
By five o’clock, Riley was ready to climb his own walls. Iglesias had called to say that they’d confirmed the bullet coming from the same barrel as the one in the brick at Charlize’s house. He’d spoken to Laurene again, who swore she had no idea where Ronny was. They had a car posted at her house. Every law-enforcement officer in the city knew the guy was wanted for attempted murder on an ex–FBI agent, as well as threatening the life of a social worker. And more minor charges, too.
But Ronny was more intelligent than anyone had given him credit for. At least when it came to street smarts. Simms seemed to have vanished into air.
Or was holed up someplace to escape capture—which wasn’t the worst thing.
As long as he stayed hidden away, he couldn’t get to Charlize.
In a state of supreme overcautiousness, he suggested to Charlize that they eat dinner upstairs. Her room, his, the bedroom neither of them were using, which actually had a “tea” table with two chairs, he let her choose. He just didn’t want her on the ground floor where a shooter could more easily take her out through a window even if she was a distance from it. Not with a maniac out there thinking that his troubles would be over if she was dead.
It was also possible that Simms, if he had rational moments, knew he was done. And was just avoiding capture because he didn’t want to go to jail.
Or Simms’s anger could be in control and he might be trying to take out anyone who pissed him off, Charlize being number one. Because, in a mind like his, he’d think she’d started it all. While Riley had never aspired to be a member of a behavioral analysis team, he’d worked with them enough to know some of the thought processes perps went through.
Riley didn’t much care what the man thought; he just wanted him caught. And until that happened, he was going to keep his gun loaded and ready and have Charlize and that baby she was carrying as close to him as he could.
In one sense, Charlize made his job easy—agreeing to his requests affably, making an event out of dinner in the “tea room,” as she called it, acting as though eating in an unused bedroom was normal. Not a cause for fear.
In another sense, her easy compliance made the job that much more excruciating. Every smile she gave him, every attempt at normalcy, common conversation, all seemed to have one result—increasing his desire for her. It grew the second he walked in the room with a tray laden with vegetable soup, grilled cheese sandwiches and fresh fruit, and saw her bending over the small table, lighting a candle.
She’d pulled the table to the far, inside wall. Had found a cloth to cover it. And while he’d still been suffering from that glance at her so-sweet backside, she came to remove the napkins and silverware from his tray, setting the table.
“You could have had a beer,” she said, halfway through the meal, as he raised yet another bottle of apple juice to his lips. She’d opted for ice water from her thermos.
He shook his head. “Not tonight.” Not any night when he was on watch over her, or any, life.
His text chime went off, and, grateful for the distraction, he checked his phone immediately. All five of his siblings had checked in a second time.
“It’s Iglesias,” he told Charlize. “He says still no sign of Simms. He’s helping another detective tonight on a case and will be doing some drive-bys,” he finished reading. Leaving out the part where Iglesias warned him once again to stay locked up tight.
Since searching every home and privately owned crevice in the city was illegal without a warrant, there was only so much any of them could do.
His discomfort due to his arousal aside, they made it through dinner fairly unscathed. There’d been a glance or two when their gazes had locked, but one or the other of them had managed to break the spell fairly quickly.
Spell...even his thoughts were feeling the tension, coming up with a ridiculous word like spell...
“I thought you’d been shot.”
She’d finished her soup. Was sitting opposite him, arms crossed, those deep, dark eyes focused fully on him. He could feel the trance of her. The way she drew him.
It had been that way the night they’d met. Once he’d seen her, every other person in the room had ceased to exist for him. They’d been...boring...white noise...every single one of them. Except her.
He almost had been shot. He couldn’t lie to her.
“I’m scared, Riley. I know better than to let fear get control of me. I know. But... I’m scared.”
He’d been scared during the encounter with Simms, too. Not because a bullet aimed at him had nearly met its mark. But because if that bullet had hit him, the next one would have landed in her.
She licked her lips, almost as though she knew what the action did to him. How it made it nearly impossible for him to look away. To think of anything but kissing those lips that he knew to be sweet and sassy. Strong and soft. The things those lips could do...
He knew every single one of them. His body knew them.
And wanted to know them again.
“Make love to me,” she whispered. He tried to believe he’d only imagined the words, but he’d watched her lips move with them. Enticing him to be led somewhere he knew he really shouldn’t be.
“I know it’s only for the moment,” she told him. “But I’m not asking for any more than that right now.”
She hadn’t moved. Was still seated at the dinner table they’d shared, her arms crossed, more like she was warding him off than calling him in. He heard the call, anyway. Felt it.
“It’s not right,” he told her, meaning to be strong. In charge. But he was hardly able to hear himself, his voice was so soft.
“As long as we’re consenting adults, it is,” she said. Shaking her head, she still held his gaze. “The world isn’t a pretty little wonderland, Riley. It’s hard and unpredictable and there are no guarantees...”
She understood. She really understood. That turned him on as much as her lips were doing.
“I just want one night that’s real,” she said then. “One night where I’m fully aware, not living in some kind of fantasyland. One night...being made love to by the authentic you...”
“I was authentic...” He started to assure her and she shook her head.
“I wasn’t,” she told him. “I grew up in fantasyland, Riley. My grandparents knew the minute they saw each other that they were going to be married—each knew separately. And their love lasted their entire lives. Both of my aunts...and then there was my mother. The youngest daughter. She wanted what everyone else had—wanted it so badly, she tried to see it in every single man she met. And when one after another didn’t work out, she turned to drugs and alcohol because they helped her keep the fantasy alive...”
Her eyes glistened. She was so beautiful, sitting there in the candle’s glow. Beyond anything he’d ever imagined he’d see.
“I believed in the fantasy,” she told him, and he wanted her to stop talking before she got to the part where she’d stopped believing. And why. He knew where the story was going.
Didn’t need to hear the end.
“You want a night without the fantasy,” he said.
She nodded. “You were authentic, but I didn’t see you authentically.”
Knowing that he’d blown her fantasy, that he wasn’t the man she’d waited her entire life to find, that he’d been a disappointment, should have been a huge turnoff.
But he was still hard and aching with wanting her.
“There’s a crazy man out there who wants me dead,” she said. “I can’t just sit here living in fear. I want to feel good. Alive. I don’t want to walk out of this house after they catch him, not knowing what a night in your bed feels like.”
There was no way he could deny her. “I’m still the guy who makes love once, in this case, twice, and it’s over.” He whispered the words because they had to be said. He’d screwed up the last time he’d been with her. The only time he’d been with a woman without first giving her the score.
“I know.”
He stood, his erection painful inside his jeans, held out a hand to her, and, blowing out the candle, led her down the hall.
Charlize memorized every inch of Riley Colton’s body. She asked him to undress, to let her watch, and lay up against the pillows on his king-size bed, fully dressed, cataloging every second. Her romanticized notions didn’t exist but she was getting just one night of the real thing and she had a feeling it was going to become the fantasy of a lifetime. Something that would be with her for the rest of her life as they raised their child from different homes and within different families.
The more she was with Riley, the more she believed that she’d fallen in love the night they’d met, just as she’d thought. And maybe he had, too, a little bit. But life didn’t always work out perfectly.
Sometimes you had to be thankful for what you had.
She was the only woman in the world having Riley’s baby. And because of that child, the man would be in her life forever. She wasn’t her grandmother or either of her aunts. She wasn’t her mother, either. She was her own woman. A strong and independent woman.
Feeling her power, she stared at his chest as he pulled his shirt over his head.
“I want to kiss every inch of that chest,” she told him, not the least bit shy. Or ashamed, either. “I’ve been thinking about it. A lot.”
His gaze darkened. There was no smile showing through his beard. Riley Colton was as serious about making love as he was about everything else he did.
When his hands moved down to the button on his jeans, she let her gaze linger on the flatness of his belly. The small line of dark hair that ran downward from his chest, past his belly button, down to the goods he was about to deliver up to her.
There was nothing she could see that was forty-three about the man, other than the slight bit of gray at his temples. A graying that distinguished him from boys who didn’t yet have his wealth of experience.
Experience was good.
Very good.
He’d unzipped his jeans and his penis almost sprang out, only half covered by the black boxer briefs he had on under them. He was solid, bigger than she’d remembered, and there’d been nothing small in her memory. She watched his thighs as they appeared, too, noting the delineated muscles as he stepped up and out of the denim. Not even the dark hair covering them hid that structure from her. And when he was naked, taking a step toward her, she had one more request.
“Turn around.”
Cocking his head, he gave her a playful frown. Almost as if to say, “really”?
“I want to see all of you. This is real night, remember? I don’t just want glimpses, or partial sight.”
With a look that told her she was going to get everything she’d bargained for and then some, he slowly turned, showing her the tightest ass she’d ever seen. Memory of that butt alone would turn her on for the rest of her life.
As it was, Charlize was about ready to come just looking at him. Because it was Riley. One touch to a hot spot and she’d be gone. She could feel it. Her body was wet, ready, and when he came forward again, she opened her arms to him. Needing to get her clothes off so that he could do what he clearly needed to do—sink himself inside her so they could both find release.
She’d never been one to be ready quickly. For her, sex generally meant a need for a lot of foreplay, but not with him.
Reaching for her pants as he lowered himself beside her, she yanked them down, lifting her hips to get them gone as soon as possible.
“Whoa, there,” he said, a hand on hers, halting her progress, not by force, but because she didn’t know what was wrong.
“You want the real me, then you need to let me do some of this my way,” he told her. “I want to enjoy unwrapping you. Lord knows I’ve been doing it in my head for days...”
He’d been mentally undressing her? Charlize smiled up at him. Not a grin, a full-blown smile. And raised up to plant her lips against his in a kiss that gave him everything.
Her body. Her mind. And her heart.
As much as Riley needed to be inside Charlize, he didn’t want to slide into home. He didn’t want the lovemaking to end before it absolutely had to. So he held himself back like never before. Distracting from his own need by paying attention to hers. From her toes to her ears, he tasted her. Noticing when she squirmed, when she moaned, when she giggled. And revisited anything that elicited moans. Again and again.
He’d never held anyone as magnificent as she was. Yet, it wasn’t about the looks, although she was about as fine as they came. Or the long, dark hair that draped over her protectively when she sat on top. It wasn’t the responsiveness, or even the look in her dark eyes—though it was all of those things.
He didn’t know what it was; he just knew that he was experiencing what would forever be the best night of his life.
There was no tension. No misconceptions. No concern about false expectations. There was nothing but the two of them coming together because their need to do so was stronger than any reason either of them could come up with not to.
He lingered over her still flat belly. Kissing softly. Touching gently. He didn’t speak of the baby growing inside her. But knowing it was his gave him a sense of male satisfaction that should have embarrassed him and didn’t.
When he couldn’t hold back any longer, he poised between her legs, lined up and ready to go, and still held back. “I think I’m going to do this more than once tonight,” he said.
“You can do it as many times as you like, Riley, just do it now! Please!” With that last word, she raised up her hips and took him, all of him. Drew him in, holding him tightly, caressing him with her body and inner muscles until he couldn’t think. Didn’t know.
He moved. Pulled out and went in again.
And when, after only the second thrust, she cried out, pulsing around him, he let go, spilling himself inside her.
It was the first time he’d ever had condom-less sex and it was glorious.
Because of the lack of condom, his bleary mind told him.
But he knew better.
The sex was phenomenal because he was having it with Charlize. And was going to do it again.
As soon as he had a second or two to rest.
Pulling her close, he liked how she fit the crook of his arm, her naked body half lying on his, skin to skin. The weight of her head just above his heart was...nice.
The silkiness of her long hair clothed him.
And life was good.