"What? No, 'Wow! The earth moved'?"
She managed a deep, annoyed breath. "Yeah, sure. OK. The earth moved," she said in a dry monotone. "And now I need to."
"Wait; wait just a second." He pushed her back down on the pillow when she tried to get up again. His dark brows were pinched low over his eyes as he searched her face.
And she told herself she didn't see a little hurt in his eyes.
"Far be it from me to assume, but I thought we had a pretty good time."
"Yeah, it was a real party. You're stud-worthy, McClain. Scale of one to ten, I give you a twelve."
His scowl deepened. "I'll add your glowing endorsement to my resume. Now what in the hell is wrong with you?"
"Nothing."
Everything.
"Yeah, I know what
that
means.
Nothing
in that tone means
something. Something
is very wrong. And you're not getting out of this bed until you tell me what it is."
She needed to get things back in perspective. For both of them. "Look, we both had an itch that needed scratching. We took care of it and a good time was had by all, OK? If I'd known you'd want to get all touchy-feely afterward I'd have made do with a shower massage."
That finally shocked him into letting her go. It also pissed him off, because he flopped to his back and crossed his arms behind his head. "Fine."
Fine. Just fine,
she thought, slipping out of bed and heading for the bathroom. She had to get away from him before she did something really stupid, like throw herself into his arms and beg him to make love to her again.
That would lead to snuggling. Snuggling would lead to talking. Talking would lead to sharing feelings. And right now, her feelings were just too raw to lay out there for examination.
She
was too raw. Why? She let out a weighty breath and turned on the shower. Because the earth
had
just moved. And she was scared to death that sex wasn't the only force that had knocked it out of its orbit.
Chapter 18
SO MUCH FOR TENDER MOMENTS AFTER,
MAC thought as he hunted up his boxers, dragged them on, then untangled the legs of his pants. Not that he was all that experienced with tender moments, but damn, would it have been too much to ask for a
little
snuggle time? He hadn't had near enough of his fill of touching that amazing body of hers.
He jammed his feet into his pants, assuring himself he was pissed, not hurt. Would he never get a read on this woman—or his reactions to her? One minute she was throwing shoulders cold enough to put a freeze on global warming; the next she was wrestling him into bed like a WWF contender. And the next... hell. He didn't know what that last encounter was all about. Sure as hell wasn't like any pillow talk he'd ever been a party to.
He
did
know they'd damn near set the sheets on fire. And he knew he'd like to give it another go. Would have, too, if she hadn't transformed before his eyes from ultimate sex goddess to ice maiden.
Shower massage.
Ceerist.
The woman had a mouth on her.
And he could do without thinking about that mouth at the moment, he realized as a laser-sharp knife of arousal shot through his groin. Yeah. She had a mouth on her all right. And she knew how to use it to reduce a man to begging.
He jerked his shirt over his head, then went sock hunting.
By the time she emerged from the bathroom, all buttoned up and proper in her sweater and jeans, he was dressed, too, and waiting by the door.
She cut him a glance that smacked of nervous anxiety. And that one look was more telling than anything she had or hadn't said since she'd trotted her gorgeous little tush out of bed.
Well I'll be damned
.
Little Miss Woman in Charge was feeling a tad bit out of control. In fact, if he didn't miss his guess, she was good and rattled and she didn't quite know how to get back on top of the situation.
He immediately simmered down.
Who'd have guessed that the spitfire who'd taken control in bed would feel so insecure and off balance out of it?
Interesting. There were a couple of ways he could go with this. He could conclude either one, that she really was sorry about their mattress dance and wished it had never happened, or two—which was his pick—that she'd liked it a little too much and wished they could do it again.
Of course, there was always a third possibility. She could be grappling with the same dilemma he was. That maybe what had happened between them wasn't just about phenomenal sex. Maybe there was something more going on—and that was something
he
didn't want to think about.
He'd been speared, filleted, cooked, and devoured by the last woman he'd felt this way about. No way in hell was he going to put himself in that position again.
He watched her quietly as she crossed to the bed, yanked up the spread, then hefted her suitcase back onto the mattress.
"It's a little after three," she said without preamble. "I'm guessing Reno isn't going to be making any moves until evening—if he makes any."
She didn't look at Mac as she sat and eased into a pair of short brown leather boots, very obviously intent on avoiding eye contact.
"Since you've got the means to monitor Tiffany's bank transactions," she went on as she rose and headed back toward the bathroom, "it would probably be best to do that as soon as possible, just in case there's something telling there.
"Maybe an ATM withdrawal at one of the airports," she added, popping back into the room, securing her hair at her nape with a wide gold clip. "And since we haven't heard from Kat, we can figure she hasn't heard from Tiffany, either."
She lifted a jar from the bedside table, opened it, then worked lotion into her hands. The room suddenly smelled like cucumber and melon.
"And I think you should give Edwards a call. Get a feel for his reaction to an update."
Finally, all put together, she stopped moving long enough to chance a look at him. She wore a contained expression, but he could tell she was maintaining her business face with sheer determination.
"Sounds good," he said quietly.
She considered him with suspicion, then gave him a curt nod. "Well. Then. Guess we'd better get going."
She snagged her purse and met him at the door.
When he just stood there, his hand on the knob, she finally sucked it up and looked at him.
It was sweet, the uncertainty he saw in her eyes, even as she tried to hold on to all that emotional detachment.
She had such an amazing face. Exotic and fresh. Intelligent and vulnerable. And so tense he figured she could benefit from another session between the sheets—or, if she had her druthers, an accommodating bathroom fixture.
Finally, she let out a long breath. Lifted a hand. Let it drop. "Look, for the record, the ah ... the sex business. It was totally unprofessional. I was way out of line. And I apologize. For... for giving you no choice," she added.
She couldn't quite meet his eyes and stared at a button on his shirt instead.
"Yeah, I was going to talk to you about that gun you held to my head."
She gave him a dry look.
"There's always a choice, cupcake," he said softly. "And we made the one that was right for us at the moment. Don't get all twisted up about it."
She managed a tight smile. "I'm not twisted up. I'm just... I'm disappointed. In myself. Tiffany—"
"Whoa. We did nothing to jeopardize our search for Tiffany. It's like you said. They're laying low. All we can do is wait for their next move. We could have spent the time sleeping. We went another route."
"Look," he added, gripping her upper arms and forcing her to meet his eyes when she didn't look convinced, "don't beat yourself up about something that was not only inevitable; it was necessary."
She actually grunted. "On Mars, maybe. Not on Venus."
"That BS about what's right for a man and not for a woman is bunk and you know it."
"The only thing I know is that falling into bed with you was a mistake. And if it's going to affect our working together, maybe we should think about going our separate ways."
Oh, no, he wasn't letting her out of his sight. "I thought we agreed that Tiffany had a better chance if we teamed up."
"She does.
If
we can still work together."
"You mean without making any more ...
mistakes.
"
he finally concluded, knowing exactly what she meant—and not liking it one bit.
"Right. No more mistakes."
She may have said the words, but he noted a severe lack of conviction. Enough of a lack that he wondered if maybe there wasn't a fourth explanation to consider. She was holding out on him. Something ... he didn't know. Something was off here. She wasn't telling him something. He'd figure it out. If there was something else going on that he needed to know about, he'd get it out of her sooner or later.
"Tell you what." He opened the door. "I think better on a full stomach. Breakfast was a long time ago." He placed a hand at the small of her back as they walked down the hall toward the elevator. "Let's go grab something to eat."
He could see that she was about to make some protest about not being hungry when her stomach growled. Caught, she expelled a long breath. "And then?"
"And then we get back to work finding Tiffany."
By the time they'd found a deli, ordered chips and sandwiches, and eased into a booth, she was no longer looking at him like she wanted to smear him on a slide and study him under a microscope.
And she was no longer making noises about mistakes. He even detected a slight relaxing in her shoulders. Which worked really well for him. He liked the other kind of noises she made. The ones that told him what they'd accomplished in her bed was damn near perfect. So perfect, in fact, he had every intention of hearing those particular noises again.
Eve's cell phone rang just as they were about to dig into their sandwiches.
It was Ethan.
"How's it going?" her brother asked.
"It's going." She filled him in on the incident at Oracle and her conclusion that Tiffany was absolutely in trouble and that Reno was the root of it. What Eve couldn't discuss was her growing conclusion that the attacks on her and Tiffany's disappearance were somehow tied together. Neither could she share the subway incident and the subsequent message on her home voice mail with him. She didn't want McClain knowing about that either.
She didn't want him going all protective and macho on her and muddling up his head with worry over her. He needed to concentrate on finding Tiffany. For everyone's sake.
"Did you turn up anything on Edwards?" she asked instead.
"No surprises. Dallas did a thorough search and nothing jumps front and center. Harvard School of Law grad. Top ten percent. Started in the corporate attorney pool for Clayborne right out of the blocks. Worked his way up—caught Clayborne's attention with a major real estate transaction and got bumped up to his personal team ten years ago. Eventually moved to the divine right-hand post and became Clayborne's exclusive public rep about three years ago."
"Any personal data?" she asked, her brows furrowed.
"Upper-middle-class background—small town, Connecticut. Thirty-eight. Never been married. Not linked to anyone—male or female—so if he's got something going on, he's very discreet about it. Seems he's strictly career track."
"To the exclusion of a life? Any hobbies? Golf? Scuba? Kiddie porn, maybe?"
"Married to the man," Ethan said. "If Edwards has ever taken so much as a day off, let alone a vacation, he's played it low-key. No country club membership, no cars in his name—drives a company Chrysler. No boat, plane, not even a skateboard. No outstanding loans that don't match up with his income. And no, no kinky stuff that we could find. So, that's Edwards in a nutshell. As to Jazelle, she's proving to be more interesting."
Eve thought of the cold and polished Jazelle. "How so?"
"What's interesting is that I found out she attended NYU School of Business and started working for the Clayborne machine a couple of years ago."