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She moaned, opening her mouth, offering him access to the inside of her. His tongue touched her teeth and the ridges of the roof of her mouth before finding its mate and dancing in a sensual and moist intimacy that caused his erection to grow and ache.
He felt her shudder and he reached upward, scaling her ribs with his thumbs, reaching inside the shiny wrap with his fingers, unfastening the tiny buttons of her nightgown.
“Kane—oooh.” His fingers delved beneath the soft layers and found her breast, full and hot, the nipple erect and waiting. “Please—” With one hand he clutched her hair, with the other he stroked her breast and opened her robe, exposing more of her white skin to the night, watching in fascination as one glorious globe spilled out of the fabric and the slit opened farther, giving him a glimpse of the firm tight muscles of her abdomen, the erotic impression of her navel, and a glimpse of her reddish curls where her legs joined.
With a groan, he lowered himself until he could kiss her breast. She arched upward and he licked at the nipple, feeling her heat, knowing she was as eager as he.
Encircling his head with her arms, she held him close, writhing against him as he opened his mouth and sucked hungrily. She began to pant, to breathe in short sharp breaths, and she didn’t fight him, but moved closer, as if she, too, couldn’t resist. Her hips ground against his, and he slid one hand through the fabric of her robe, touching her abdomen and reaching farther downward until he grazed the juncture of her legs with his fingers. She cried out as his hand cupped her thigh before touching that warm soft haven deep within her. She shuddered and moved with him, tossing her head back, losing herself. “Kane,” she cried, as he delved deeper still and then, as if realizing she was at the point of no return, she grabbed his arm with her hands. “Oh, no,” she whispered, as if suddenly realizing where she was and with whom. “No, no, no!”
He froze, his fingers still deep in that sacred warm center of her.
“Oh, God. Oh, no.” She moved away from him and then moaned as if in agony. “Kane, please—we can’t just . . . Oh, God, I’m a mother . . . I’m too old to—”
“Shh.” He hushed her by gathering her close, wrapping both arms around her and fastening his lips over hers. His crotch was on fire, his manhood throbbing to join with her, but he forced himself to slow down, to quiet his breathing, to realize that she was right. They couldn’t finish this act. Not now. Not ever. “I’m sorry,” he said when at last he could speak.
She trembled in his arms. “Don’t be.”
“But—”
“Please.” She kissed him lightly on the lips and cradled his head between her hands. “I know what you’re feeling. God, do I, but . . . there’s too much between us. Too much time. Too many memories. Too many mistakes.” She blinked rapidly as if fighting tears and then, as he held her, she slipped out of his grasp. “I . . . I just can’t do this . . . not yet. I don’t even know you.”
“You know me,” he said. “You remember.”
“Yes.” Tears tracked down her cheeks. “I do.” She licked her lips nervously, as if there was something she wanted to tell him, some dark and painful secret, but she suddenly shook her head, and then she was on her feet, running away from him as fast as her bare feet would carry her.
Twenty-five
“I’m tellin’ ya, the man’s got no past,” Petrillo said as he plopped himself into the one chair pushed up against Miranda’s desk. After more than a week off, she was back on the job, determined to keep her equilibrium, refusing to let her father or one of his henchmen, particularly Styles, run her life. “It’s as if Denver Styles doesn’t exist. No police records, nothing through the computers or Social Security or the IRS or the DMV.” He reached into the pocket of his too-tight sport coat and found a pack of Juicy Fruit. “My guess is his name is a phony; he’s got an alias.”
Miranda, seated behind neat stacks of mail and files on current cases the department was prosecuting, shuddered. She touched the scar on her neck, and refused to let her mind wander toward the murky depths of that time in her life. Instead she wondered about her father’s latest employee.
“How did your old man get in touch with him?”
“He wouldn’t say.”
“Humph. Probably didn’t go through the Yellow Pages.” Petrillo unwrapped a stick of gum, then folded it neatly before plopping the wad into his mouth. His pager went off and he glanced at the readout, then scowled as he turned it off.
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Styles could be connected to the underworld.”
“I don’t think he’s a mobster, if that’s what you’re getting at,” Miranda said, conjuring up a picture of Denver Styles in her mind. Handsome, cold, arrogant, and something else, yes, persistent. She didn’t doubt that once Styles set his mind to do something, it was done. No pussyfooting around. She bit her lip nervously. He bothered her. He bothered her a lot.
“Well, if he ain’t connected with the Mafia, then he’s connected to somethin’ else, and I’ll bet ya dollars to doughnuts that it ain’t on the up and up, if ya know what I mean. Upstandin’ citizens have addresses, phone numbers, licenses for their cars and dogs, and are registered with the military and the government. This guy—Styles—it’s like he’s a ghost.” He snapped his gum and rubbed one jowl. “But I ain’t givin’ up,” Petrillo promised. “I’ll find out who he is and what he’s doin’ connected with your old man one way or another.”
“How do you propose to do that?”
“Tail him, if I have to.” His brown eyes twinkled at the prospect of a challenge. “I want to find out just what this guy’s story is.”
“So do I,” Miranda thought aloud. She picked up a pencil and tapped it lightly on the blotter covering the middle of her desk. Just who was Denver Styles? How had he linked up with her father? Was he a political ally or some kind of shady private investigator, kind of a soldier of fortune, a man who would do anything for the right amount of cash? Her pencil tapped out a rhythm as she glanced up at Frank and saw him staring at her. “I don’t mean to take up a lot of your time on this guy. You’ve got to have other work for the department.”
“I’ll squeeze Styles in,” Petrillo said, turning on his pager again. “It could be fun.”
And it could be dangerous, Miranda thought as she remembered Denver Styles’s intense gray eyes, determined set of chin, and general aura that when he set out to do something, it got done.
Well, not this time.
Claire’s hands shook as she poured herself a cup of coffee. What had she been thinking? Kissing Kane Moran. Touching him. Letting him touch her. Even now, in the kitchen, with the morning sunlight streaming through the windows, she tingled between her legs when she thought of his hands, mouth, and tongue and the wonderful ministrations that had turned her inside out. She’d nearly made love to him. As if all the years, all the lies, all the pain didn’t exist.
