“HELL NO.”
Sean didn’t know how else to respond to Donata’s suggestion the next day as they drove out to the Hamptons. He’d agreed to go with her when she said she was headed to Long Island since he’d assumed she wanted to interview Sara Chapman’s boyfriend or some other suspects in the case.
But then she’d spelled out an insane plan to gather evidence against the perp planting webcams by making herself a potential target.
“Don’t shoot it down until you hear how limited our options are at this point.” Donata never took her eyes off the road as she steered her no-frills Ford sedan over Interstate 495 toward glitzy South Hampton, far from the more residential Massapequa where Sara Chapman lived. Traffic was light on a weekday, the commuters already safely at work while Donata and Sean made their way east.
“Your options aren’t as limited as you think.” He didn’t know how to break the mix of good news/bad news to her since she probably wouldn’t appreciate his sleight of hand with her online photo.
“What do you mean?” She did turn to glance at him then, her eyebrows knit in worry.
Guilt rattled him for all of a second since he hated the idea of being another guy who let her down, but damn it, this was for the best.
“I gathered a good piece of information yesterday but I unearthed it in the course of taking down your picture from that Web site.” There. He’d admitted it. Even as he waited for her anger, he felt a weight off his shoulders. “I made a copy of the relevant pages with a time stamp so you can still submit them as evidence, but I had a tech guy reroute the link to a self-help site for pedophiles.”
Her short bark of laughter wasn’t exactly full of good humor. More like a shout of disbelief.
“You took down the picture you knew I was going to submit as evidence?” Accusation permeated the words.
“Yes, but I knew the way I gathered the evidence would protect it in court without making it continually available. I’ve had good luck with Internet crime cases at my firm, and I know what will hold up in front of a judge. There was no need for you to let that image stay live on the site if you were uncomfortable with it.”
Seeing that picture had made him want to throw a blanket around her naked self. It didn’t matter that he also wanted to unveil her in private. No guy should see this woman in the altogether without earning the right to her bed first.
“I’m not sure what I think about those tactics when I clearly asked you to let me handle it.” Her fingers gripped the steering wheel harder, her knuckles clenched. “What evidence did you find?”
“For starters, we found some file coding associated with the photo that matches part of the screen name for one of the people who sent me a webcam.”
“I don’t get it. What kind of file coding?”
“The name someone used to save the digital image. Part of the name contains the letters f-s-t-g-r-l-z and one of the donators to my online wish list was ‘fastgirlz.’ Seemed a close enough match to warrant further investigation.”
They turned off the interstate onto a smaller highway heading south toward the coast. The houses were a hell of a lot bigger here, with more green space. Some snow remained in patches on a few of the lawns, but the weather today was clear and cool.
“You said that was just for starters?”
“I checked my record log for sites I’ve visited in the past year, and Fast Girlz productions was a site I hit five months ago. It’s gone now, but my notes at the time were that the girls looked close enough to legal age that I wouldn’t bother checking into them. Obviously, I didn’t realize the videos they advertised were probably made without the subjects’ knowledge.”
“You didn’t make a copy of that Web page the way you did with the site my picture was posted on?”
“Just so happens, I did.” He waved the folder in his lap, damn proud of himself for keeping good notes. “Turns out there are benefits to obsessive vigilantism.”
“I never said you were obsessive.” She frowned and didn’t seem to realize he was kidding. But then, Donata seemed like a woman well-accustomed to being on guard all the time. Maybe her sense of humor had fallen to the wayside the past few years.
Her looks sure as hell hadn’t. Once again today her lips were outlined in a perfect red Cupid’s bow that made him want to kiss her and mess up that sleek veneer of hers.
“I know. But the vigilante accusation hit home. Maybe I’m just trying to assure myself the efforts have been worth it.” He’d been so determined not to miss any criminal business that the case had been open a hell of a long time after they’d caught the guy who molested his sister. Sean had turned the hunt for online predators into a four-year mission. He recognized the time had come to start tossing guys in jail.
“Thank you for opening your files to me.” She paused as she pulled up to a T intersection. “And although I wish you’d talked to me about taking down my picture first, I am glad it’s gone.”
She took a left on a road that ran along the coast, the view of the water occasionally obscured by tall trees and landscaping or privacy hedges, but he glimpsed the ocean waves now and then as they sped past one spectacular property after another.
“Sorry. It’s been a long time since I’ve had to worry about checking my methods with anyone else and I guess I got out of the habit.” It was one of the coolest perks in his private investigator work. No jumping through someone else’s hoops.
“That’s okay. I’m starting to see the wisdom of occasionally forging my own path at work, which is why I’m going through with using myself as bait.”
She slowed down near a sign for a bed-and-breakfast and put on her turn signal.
“That’s different.” He couldn’t let her do this when there had to be ten other ways to make arrests on the case.
“It’s not different.” She pulled into the small parking lot that held four other cars and turned off the engine. “I’ve got the best connections to bring down whoever’s behind this ring. If some of the people behind this are friends of Sergio’s they’ll be all the more likely to screw up in their haste to get even with me. It’s a perfect plan and nothing you say is going to make me change my mind.”
* * *
THEY DROVE ALL THE WAY back to Manhattan that night after Donata checked into the bed-and-breakfast—alone. She wanted the word to spread in the small Southampton community that she was back and staying in the small B&B in the hopes that whoever wanted to make trouble for her would jump at the chance to plant cameras around her hotel room, using the prominent laptop on the desk as a source to hook up illegal webcams.
What the perp wouldn’t know was that she and Sean had hidden a smaller, wireless laptop in the closet and connected two webcams to that device so they could see who came into the hotel room when she wasn’t there. That last part was Sean’s idea and Donata had to admit, it made the ruse safer. She just hoped they’d covered their butts every way possible to avoid any chance of their guy pleading entrapment.
But after going over and over their plans on the ride home, she still had nearly an hour of sitting quietly next to Sean in the intimate confines of the smaller car she’d bought for its gas mileage rather than roominess. By the time she pulled onto the West Side Highway, she was antsy to break out of the car so the cool air could blow over her overheated body.
“You’re going back to my place?” He sprawled in the seat beside her, his knee protruding far enough into her personal space to make her aware of him and how long it had been since he’d touched her.
Not that she was keeping track of those forty-two hours.
“I thought I’d drop you off. Save you cab fare from the Upper East Side.” She assumed he’d want to go home at this hour—well after dinner. “Would you rather I stop off somewhere else?”
“No. My place has good karma for us.”
His voice carried as much meaning as his words, the tone low and laced with the same longing she’d been feeling all day.
And while she couldn’t deny a rush of relief that he wanted her as much as she wanted him, she didn’t know how much more time she could risk with him without getting her heart stomped on.
“You’re awfully quiet on that subject,” he observed lightly when she didn’t respond.
“I’ve never been one to jump into relationships lightly—contrary to my decision to move in with a gangster when I was a teenager.” Would she ever be okay with that part of her life? Mick had told her she needed to stop feeling guilty about it, and she wanted to. But how did you go about ignoring your emotions?
“I guessed as much since you told me you haven’t been with anyone else since they locked up Alteri.” He reached through the darkness inside the vehicle to slide his hand under her hair and massage the back of her neck.
He didn’t say any more about the matter, leaving it up to her to try and express a knotted bunch of worries that she didn’t completely understand herself. Why couldn’t she be one of those women who just enjoyed sex for sex’s sake without all the accompanying tenderness?
“I pride myself on being hard-nosed in a lot of areas of my life, Sean, but sex isn’t one of them. I…enjoyed the other night. But I can’t make love in a recreational way because that’s just not me. I mean, one night to take the edge off after it had been so many years—that I can forgive myself for. But I’m not the kind of person who can separate my feelings from sex.”
“And you don’t have feelings for me.” The warmth in his voice had vanished and it took Donata a minute to understand how he had interpreted her words.
“Uh—no. That’s not quite what I meant.” She hadn’t intended to hurt him and it caught her off guard to think maybe she had. Could he have feelings for her so soon? “I just didn’t get the impression that you were looking for anything more from me than what we shared last time, and frankly, I’m not interested in messing around just for the sake of great orgasms.”
“Damn, woman, you sure can cut to the chase.”
“I’m just trying to be honest.” Something that became more and more difficult the deeper she got involved with Sean since owning up to her emotions didn’t come easily. Better to erect a few boundaries now. She slid into a parking space on his street about half a block away from his building. “I really value that from people in my life these days, and I hold myself accountable for dealing as squarely with others as I’d want them to be with me.”
He leaned over the console to shut off the ignition, dropping one hand onto her knee while he fingered the back of her neck with the other.
“But you haven’t given me a chance to be honest with you since you left in a hurry the other night and all our time since then has been dedicated to the investigation. You can’t possibly know what I’m thinking about us when you don’t give me any time with you outside of work.”
Nervous tension threaded through her at the suggestion of a heart-to-heart and she didn’t think she was ready to handle wading through the aftermath of what they’d done. Could she afford to be that honest when she wasn’t even sure what she wanted these days?
“I’m not at my best tonight after the long drive.” She knew it was a weak excuse, but they had worked their tails off to set up the room at the bed-and-breakfast and to make appearances around town to help spread the word Donata Casale was back in Sergio’s old stomping ground.
Who would take the bait? One of his friends whose pockets were empty now that Sergio was in jail? One of his mistresses who coveted Donata’s position as his live-in?
“Fine. So we don’t attempt some drawn-out discussion tonight. But you can’t shut me out without giving me a chance to talk to you.” His hand slid up her thigh with pulse-hammering effect and she found herself wishing she drove a car with a bench seat.
She nodded jerkily, her body unwilling to move anywhere that Sean wasn’t steering her. His hand paused at her hip and then slid under her jacket and the blouse beneath it to graze the bare skin at her waist. He curved his other arm around her shoulders, drawing her closer to his side of the car and the temptation of his mouth.
“And until you give me that chance to talk, I’m going to provide you with a few things to think about.”
He slanted his lips over hers in a heated melding of mouths, his tongue slick and hot as he dipped inside for a thorough taste. The intimate act his kiss mimicked was suddenly imprinted on her brain, reminding her of all the experiences they hadn’t gotten to share in their short time together when she’d been wound so tightly she couldn’t last through the most decadent of sexual acts.
And how did he know that this blatant kiss would remind her so keenly?
A sharp pang of want shot through her as he lifted her over the console to settle her in his lap. They weren’t exactly in a position of privacy here since anyone on the street would be able to see them through the windshield. But it was dark out and she’d parked on the opposite end of the street from the coffee shop so there wasn’t much foot traffic.
She wound her arms around him as he shifted sideways in his seat to give her more leg room. A taller woman might not have enough head clearance on his lap, but she couldn’t have been any more delectably positioned on his muscular thigh with his mouth still planted on hers.
The temperature in the car climbed a few degrees as she stroked his hair in silent encouragement. She didn’t want this kiss to end, no matter what logical protests her rational brain concocted. The fire inside could take charge for a few minutes and kissing eliminated the need for thinking.
And it seemed like she waved goodbye to practical worries just in time since his hand on her waist skimmed higher beneath her blouse to brush the underside of one silk-covered breast. Her yelp of pleasure filled the car interior. His thumb stroked upward over the fabric to tease the peak quickly tightening at his touch.
His tortured groan was followed by a soft curse as he broke away.
“That’s probably enough to think about for one night.” He allowed himself one last soft pinch to her aching nipple before he slid his hand out from under her shirt. Donata felt the teasing last stroke all the way to her womb.
Her heart tripped in its rapid beat as she contemplated a night alone stretching in front of her when Sean so clearly wanted her to come upstairs. With her thighs settled so snugly across his lap, she knew exactly how much he wanted her with him tonight.
“It’s too much to think about,” she protested, the nerve endings in her lips buzzing pleasantly from his kiss. She gathered fists full of his T-shirt, and rocked closer to him, wondering how a man could start something so delicious if he had no intention of finishing it.
Of finishing her.
He wrapped his hands around her hips to still her.
“I only meant to remind you how hot it would be.”
“Looks like you reminded me a little too well.” She took a deep breath to steady herself and only succeeded in pressing her breasts more firmly against his chest. And, Lord have mercy, that felt good. “Do you care to tell me how I’m supposed to sleep tonight?”
He kissed her again, his tongue sliding over hers and melting all resistance until he pulled away again.
“Damned if I know. I sure as hell won’t be sleeping.” His breath came fast and his heart pounded manically beneath hers.
Or was that her heart drumming incessantly?
“Maybe one more time wouldn’t hurt.” In the back of her mind, she probably knew better, but what choice did she have when her only other option was to spontaneously combust? “Isn’t sex a scientific need? Right after food and shelter, it’s sex, right?”
He levered open the car door then and spun her around so she could put her feet on the pavement.
“It is for us, apparently.” He grabbed her keys before locking the car door behind him. He took her hand and tugged her up the street toward his building. “Who would have thought two such practical people would turn into raving sex fiends when faced with the prospect of a little necking?”
She hastened her step to keep up with him, not sure if she was making good decisions anymore but unable to walk away from him. From this.
She noticed his hands fumbled on the keys before he got the locks turned, the grim set to his jaw indicating how seriously he took this. Did he feel compelled to be with her the same way she felt compelled to be with him?
God, she hoped so. Her desire for Sean was driven purely by choice. She could have been with any number of men over the past few years, her life filled with honorable guys ever since the day she’d entered the police academy. But she hadn’t wanted anyone until Sean.
And, if she was honest with herself, maybe that had made life easier for her since avoiding men had freed her from the need to trust her romantic judgment again.
“Come on in.” He drew her into the building and shut the door behind them, but he spun her around before she got to the stairs. “I can’t go any farther without another taste of you.”
And then he was kissing her again, backing her into the banister in the middle of the foyer. She welcomed the hard press of the polished handrail into her back, the only thing keeping her on her feet when he applied such devastating skill to ravishing her mouth. Her senses. His fingers walked up the outside of her thighs, making her wish her slacks would fall away so he could touch her bare skin. Or better yet, she wished his jeans would fall away so she could touch his bare skin.
“Upstairs,” she murmured, reaching for the handrail to steady herself for the climb to his apartment. “I can’t do this without unraveling.”
He pulled away, his hazel gaze sizzling her insides with a look of pure fire. She would have given him everything right here if he’d kissed her again, so she started up the steps on quivering legs, knowing they needed to get behind closed doors soon. His frustrated growl made her smile as he followed her, and the trip up two flights was punctuated with occasional caresses on the backs of her calves, her thighs, her butt, from hands he couldn’t keep to himself.
By the time they reached his apartment door, she gladly took a small measure of sensual revenge while he unbolted the locks. She licked his cheek and unbuckled his belt with slow deliberation while he worked the keys, her hand hovering over his zipper.
When he opened the door to his apartment, she knew there was no turning back. And even though her hunger for him had her stepping over the threshold toward an enticing possible future, in the back of her mind she couldn’t help but wonder if the ugly truth of her past followed hot on her heels.