The practicalities of taking Ian home meant she had to find Kelly first. She tracked down her friend leaving the women’s restroom, scrolling through texts from Grant. “Wyatt’s having a hard time going to bed without me,” she said, her brow furrowed with concern. “Do you mind if we bail early?”
“Not at all,” Riva said, relieved.
They found Ian leaning against the wall by the door, arms folded across his chest, one booted foot braced against the wall. Women leaving tended to look him up and down, seeing the tight T-shirt, sweet leather jacket, and an undeniable presence and confidence. He ignored the looks, the whispers, scanning the crowd until his gaze locked on Riva.
A hot thrill shot over her nerves, then pooled low in her belly. The truth was, getting comfortable with Ian’s touch didn’t ease the ache deep inside her. It only strengthened it, gave it the weight and heft of steam rising from a boiling pot.
Ian escorted them through the parking lot, one hand hovering at the small of Riva’s back. She climbed into the passenger seat, Kelly in the back. Ian started the truck, adjusted the seat and mirrors, then paused. “Wallet and phone check, ladies.”
Kelly held up her wristlet and cell. Riva pulled her phone from her front pocket. “My purse is in the console.”
Satisfied, Ian pulled out into traffic. Riva kept the conversation going with Kelly by asking a few questions about Wyatt’s latest developmental milestones. When they arrived at Kelly’s house, Ian started to open the door. “Stay put,” she said. “I’ve got this.”
She guided Kelly up the sidewalk and knocked on the front door. Grant opened it, a burp cloth over his shoulder, Wyatt sleepy and adorable in pj’s, sucking his thumb, red eyes and head on Grant’s shoulder. “He wouldn’t go to sleep without you,” Grant said, swaying side to side. “We’ve been walking the floor.”
“Oh, sweetheart,” Kelly said, whether to her husband or her son, Riva couldn’t tell. She held out her arms, careless of Wyatt’s runny nose and tear-stained cheeks rubbing against her silk top. Riva felt a little heartsick, watching the family reunion.
“I’ll call you later,” Riva said.
“Bye, hon,” Kelly replied.
One down, one to go. Riva trotted back to the truck and got in. Ian backed out of the driveway and turned for home. He already knew the route.
“Where do the good boys go to hide away?” she asked, the lyrics running through her brain.
Ian huffed, a smile curving his lips. “No idea.”
“Why are you so careful about drinking?” Riva asked idly. “Because you were worried about me? You could have had a few. I was okay to drive by the time we left.”
He turned and looked out the front window. “It was no big deal. I never have more than two.”
“That’s arbitrary. Why not?”
“I used to get so drunk, I’d black out.”
She turned to stare at him. Ian, blackout drunk? She couldn’t imagine it. “You did?” she said cautiously. “Like, in college?”
“Around that time, yeah.”
That was before she’d met him. “Any particular reason, or just because that’s what all the cool kids did? I can’t imagine you doing what the cool kids did.”
Silence. All the heat and passion they’d found at the club was cooling rapidly in the spring night.
“Oh, so you can know all my secrets but I can’t know yours? That’s why I do things like talk to my dad without telling you,” she snapped. “And yes, I know exactly how immature that sounds. But we’re in this together, and you don’t even trust me.”
He turned down her street, driving slowly through the pools of light and dark, light and dark as they approached the house. “I trust you. I can count on one hand the number of people I trust.” He held up his right hand, thumb out. “My dad. My mom. My brother. Sorenson.” He stared at his curled pinky. “You.”
One of those things was not like the others. “Come on,” she scoffed as he parked in front of her parents’ house and killed the engine. “You work with cops. How can you get more safe than a bunch of armed men and women trained as first responders?”
He slung around in the seat to look at her. “I trust Dorchester and McCormick, a few other guys in the department. But not like I trust my family, or you.”
But not enough to tell her everything. “Ian. That’s crazy.” She opened the door and slid out of the truck, intent on getting inside, getting some water into her system. The world tilted a little, but whether from the mojitos, the dancing, the spring night air, so sweet and cool and seductive, she couldn’t tell.
Ian came around the hood of the truck and stepped in front of her. “I know it’s crazy. I keep trying to make it not be true. But even when you were my CI, I trusted you.”
She made a sound that was part snort, part laugh, part desperate huff. “I can’t think why.”
“Because you were a good person who’d done a bad thing, not a bad person. That’s why.”
“You must know lots of good people, Ian,” she said. “That’s not a good reason to have trusted me.”
“I can’t explain it,” he said slowly. “I just did.”
He looked down at her, his own face hidden by the trick of the lighting; they were between two lamps, and the porch light was behind him. But she got the sense in the way he held his shoulders, in the flex of his pectorals, in the soft curl of his fingers as they rose to her face, that he didn’t need a reason. Not now, with chemistry swirling between them, a single touch away from catching fire.
His hand hovered for just a second along her jaw, then settled so gently it took a moment for her nerves to register the contact, even in their hyperaware state. Then his thumb brushed over her mouth, pressing gently at her tensed lips, retreating to stroke again, press-stroke-press-stroke until her mouth softened with a quiver.
“Better,” he said.
Then he stepped forward, bent his head, and kissed her. Both his forearms rested against the truck’s frame on either side of her head. Except for the contact between their lips, he wasn’t touching her anywhere, but she was effectively caged by his arms, his jacket, the awareness of his torso and hips and thighs as mental presence.
“What…” she murmured, not even sure what she was asking, only that feeling his lips move against hers was making her hot.
“Nothing. Stop thinking. Just feel.”
This time his lips urged hers to part. He drank her shuddering little sigh, gave her the tip of his tongue in response. It took her a few moments to realize the kiss had no purpose other than pleasure. It wasn’t a prelude to sex. He wasn’t shutting her up. He wasn’t even gentling her to his touch. He was just kissing her because he wanted to kiss her, because they’d been dancing, because the spring night was intoxicating, because they could. His mouth was firm, warm, seductive, blowing on the banked coals of desire until she was clutching at his waist, tugging his shirt free of his jeans to run her palm up his lean, muscled torso.
“Let’s go inside,” she whispered when he broke away to drop a line of kisses along her jaw.
She half expected him to say no, but he didn’t, just took her keys and unlocked the front door. In the part of her brain still capable of thought she noticed that the only thing swirling in the air was a desire so pure and potent it drowned out everything else. He seemed desperate to kiss her, touch her, cupping her jaw with his hands, dropping kiss after kiss after kiss on her lips as they twisted and turned as they moved through the entry and up the stairs. He kept them moving while she kept them from banging into surfaces, first one hand, then the other braced against the doorframe, the wall, the banister.
It was a fast, fierce battle to get naked, Ian stripping off her top and bra to smooth his hands over her waist and up to her breasts, his mouth claiming hers again and again before he fisted his hand in her hair and pulled her head back to trail hot, wet kisses down her throat. His mouth on her nipples sent a slow, heated throb through her sex and had her scrambling to take off his shirt and unhook his belt buckle.
This was supposed to be about burning off tension. Instead, it threatened to burn them both to the ground.
His cock sprang free when she pushed his jeans to his knees, which buckled when she gripped it. “Give me … Jesus, Riva, hold on a second!” The words were almost a plea, one she ignored in favor of stroking his length while he kicked out of boots, jeans, socks, and underwear. With one arm he hoisted her right off her feet and carried her to the bed, dumping her there unceremoniously to shove her skirt to her hips and tug down her panties. He dropped to his knees and set his mouth to her sex, his sure, slow tongue sending heat spiraling through her before the memory of the last time, when she’d been left satisfied and unsatisfied, flashed into her brain. Her knees drew up, toes curling as she reached down and gripped his wrist.
“No. Stop. Inside me,” she demanded. “I want to come with you inside me.”
The look in his eyes told her she’d blown all the logical circuits in his brain and left him with nothing but primitive responses. He crawled on top of her, using his hips and thighs to spread her wide, notching his elbows above her shoulders to hold her in place and his cock against her sex, kissing her while he rocked back and forth. The hard, hot length against her clit tormented her until Riva was lifting her hips, winding tight around him. The kind of accident she was too old to have happen was getting closer and closer, the kind of accident where he slid into her welcoming body.
She tore her mouth free from his. “Wait,” she gasped. “We need to have a conversation.”
“Now you want to talk?” he said, his shoulders and chest sheened with sweat.
“I’m on the pill. I had my annual exam last month. I’m clean.” His gaze burned into her soul. “Are you?”
Ian stared down at her. “I’m due for some bloodwork, but haven’t had it done recently,” he said. “I’m always safe, but I won’t take that risk.”
“Okay,” she said. “Condoms?”
He sat up, allowing a rush of cooler spring air into the duvet cocoon they’d made. In the moonlight she saw the sex flush high on his cheekbones and spreading down his throat. His cock was dark red, erect. In between those two flags was his scarred chest. “Don’t go anywhere.”
“Not going anywhere,” she said.
He strode through their shared bathroom and into his room, where she heard rummaging sounds. In a few moments he returned, pulling back the covers to kneel between her thighs.
“Took me a second to find them.” He tore one package free from the strip and tossed the rest on the nightstand.
Riva glanced at the condoms fetched up against a stack of coffee table books meant for decoration. “Optimistic.”
“Contingency plan,” he countered, and rolled the condom down his shaft, then braced himself on his hands by her shoulders and kissed her.
He gripped his shaft and aligned their bodies. Despite her leg hooked around his hip and her unintentional whimpers, he restrained himself to short, purposeful thrusts that breached her defenses an inch at a time, holding back the power of his hips. Only when he was buried inside her did he stop.
She was trembling. Sweat bloomed on her temples, between her breasts, and her hair stuck to her heated cheeks.
He lowered himself to his elbows. “Okay?” he whispered.
“Um … maybe.”
He chuckled, pulled out, and slid in again. “Now?”
“Again.”
He obliged. She opened her eyes. “Can we be done being careful?”
There was nothing like it, the sensation of thick cock stretching her as he set a rhythm. At first she could look into his eyes, but after a few strokes her gaze slid between focused and unfocused until the sensations won and her eyes slid shut.
She quickly lost herself in the powerful build, the peak growing closer and closer as he drove into her. He shut his eyes, slowing his rhythm.
Her fingers dug into his biceps and lower back. “God, Ian, stop holding back!”
“Want this to last,” he murmured into her ear.
“I want to come,” she said. “I want to come with you inside me. Ian, please. Please.”
“Fuck.” He bent his head and surrendered. His next thrust held enough power to make her throw her head back and cry out, so he did it again, and she was lost. Her fingers tightened on his shoulder and biceps, her hips lifted into each stroke, and then she was lost in a release that felt like annihilation.
* * *
Sunlight pierced Ian’s eyelids, setting off a dull throb of a headache before he’d even opened his eyes. He patted blindly for the pillow next to him, bringing it up to cover his face as he tried to figure out how he felt about putting his body, his emotions before his career.
All he’d meant to do was show her that he trusted her, that she meant more to him than what a big arrest could bring his career.
He hadn’t meant to go quite so far, reveal quite so much.
He let his memories of last night bloom in high def behind his eyelids. Riva, in a cobbled-together outfit, her hair witchy and tousled, signaling trouble. Nursing a beer while he watched Riva dance, alone and unafraid. Then Riva got in his face, and he got in hers, and then they were dancing.
Dancing. More like foreplay on the dance floor. He’d thought it would be a good way to get her over the fear of him touching her, because good dancing was all about glancing little bumps and sidesteps, grinds that melted into shimmies and shivers. It seemed so simple. Dance with her, so she’d get used to his hands on her body. Dance with her, because he could.
Dance with her, because he wanted her body against his more than he wanted to breathe. Whether she noticed or not, he’d kept eyes on Riva the whole night. Eve Webber had been kidnapped out from under Dorchester’s nose. Ian wasn’t letting the same thing happen to Riva. But last night was a big warning sign, because the more time he spent with Riva, doing normal things like a road trip, cooking, dancing, the more he thought about the future. After the diagnosis, he’d stopped thinking about the future, or one that he wanted, anyway. Anything analytical, like plotting his promotional path, was fair game.
But his heart? Wanting something for his heart and soul? No more.
It was a blunt-object strategy. When he’d thought about what he’d lost—his commission in the navy and a shot at a SEAL team—he got blindingly furious, then got blindingly drunk. Substituting anything else for that future just reminded him of what he’d lost, with the same result, regaining consciousness with hours gone.
Problem defined. Solution?
Stop wanting. Stop desiring. Stop longing, yearning, hoping, dreaming. Just stop.
The police department was a home he could return to, a place he could do some good, with people who understood but wouldn’t cut him any slack. His strategy had worked until the night seven years ago when Riva Henneman had looked up from her laptop, then looked him up and down.
He’d seen an easy arrest, an inexperienced girl in over her head he could turn to his advantage. He’d gotten a dangerous quicksand of forbidden desire, one that should have gone away when she dropped off his radar.
That was the problem with dangerous things. They never really went away. They went dormant, but inevitably the clock started ticking again, counting down to the inevitable. Like Riva.
Where was she? He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and sat up and headed for the bathroom, where he saw a damp shower and towel and caught a whiff of her soap and a fainter scent of her skin. She was up and gone. He showered quickly, then dressed in jeans, T-shirt, and a thin fleece. The smell of bacon frying drifted up the stairs and along the hallway.
Someone was making breakfast. A good breakfast.
He trotted down the stairs in his stocking feet, following the call of bacon and Rory’s voice.
Riva and her dad both looked up when he walked through the door. “Morning,” he said.
Riva stood at the stove, bacon and hash browns frying in the same grease. Potato peels lay piled in the sink; she’d scraped and shredded the potatoes by hand. She wore a light brown cotton dress gathered at the sleeve and neckline with elastic and at her waist by a belt. Embroidered flowers tendriled along the neckline and down to the skirt. “Good morning,” she said, the line of her mouth tense.
“Morning,” Rory said, smiling wide. “Have fun last night?”
“Yeah,” Ian said. “You know what it’s like when office drones let loose. Sorry to hold everyone up.”
“I’m happy to wait for this kind of breakfast,” Rory said.
“Where’s your mom?” Ian asked.
“Still in bed. She’s not feeling well.”
That explained the tension in Riva’s shoulders. She dropped two slices of bread into the toaster. “Fried eggs okay?”
“My favorite,” her father said.
Riva smiled and handed him a piece of bacon. She handed out plates as the toast popped up, serving herself last. “You’re taking Ian out on a route today?”
“If he still wants to go,” Rory said, making short work of the delicious meal.
“Absolutely,” Ian said, following Rory’s lead and eating far too quickly for his taste. The eggs were perfect, sprinkled with avocado, tomatoes, and feta cheese. “If you don’t need me today.”
“I’m going to tinker with the recipes a little, keep an eye on Mom, maybe take her to lunch,” Riva said. “Go ahead. I know you’re interested in this.”
It was a huge act of trust on Riva’s part. He nodded. “Thanks.”
“Not worried about losing him to his own business?”
“The goal is to lose him to his own business,” Riva said with a smile. “We need more small farmers, but if he decides to do something else, that’s his choice.”
“Ready when you are,” Rory said.
Rory apparently thought nothing of leaving Riva with a messy kitchen and a mound of dishes, so Ian shot her an apologetic look and followed Rory out the back door. He pulled his phone from his back pocket and texted Riva.
Tell me if you go out.
Three dots appeared immediately. Will do.
“So,” Ian said easily as he climbed into Rory’s Mercedes. One quick glance told him the laptop was on the back seat. “Tell me all about Rory Henneman. Did you always want to own your own business?”
Rory slung his arm over the back of Ian’s seat and swiveled around to reverse down the driveway. “Not much to tell. I’ve lived in Chicago all my life. My mom raised me in Fuller Park. She worked two jobs, sometimes three, to feed me and my brothers and sister. I saw pretty early that the best opportunities were for people who took risks, not working for someone else.”
“Did you go to college?”
“Yup. Started my first business while I was in school.”
“What was that?”
“Selling textbooks. This was back in the day when kids used textbooks, not e-books. I’d buy them for more than the school paid and sell them at the beginning of the next term for less. The next I branched out into setting up swaps, again, pre-Craigslist. I found storage space for people who didn’t want to haul their stuff home every year. I ran a taxi service, and sold candy out of my bag. That and the truck became the foundation of Henneman Candy and Vending.”
He drove easily, Ian noticed, one hand on the wheel, the other on his thigh, confident of his knowledge of the streets, the neighborhood, his place in it.
“How did you meet Stephanie?”
“One fall break I drove her to the airport to catch a flight to see her boyfriend out east. That was on a Wednesday. I knew the minute I met her I was going to marry her. I picked her up on Sunday and took her to dinner. Monday she called the boyfriend and broke it off. We’ve been together ever since.” He gave Ian an easy, charming smile. “I know what I want and I go after it.”
“Pretty romantic,” Ian said.
“Her parents hated the idea. She’s from an old family in Chicago, lived in Gold Coast, private schools and all that. They threatened to cut her off. She didn’t tell me that until after the wedding. That’s how infatuated she was, determined to stand up to her family.”
If Rory had planned on an influx of old money to fund his dreams, only to find that his heiress came penniless, that might explain the tension between him and Stephanie. Then again, guys like Rory didn’t need an excuse to torment someone. “Did they?” Ian asked.
“Yeah, but they came around when Riva was born. We were okay. Lean years make for good memories when you finally make your name.”
“Riva’s your only?”
“Eleven miscarriages before the doctors told us to stop trying. She couldn’t carry a baby to term.”
“Riva’s pretty amazing,” Ian said. “What she’s doing, the kind of life she lives, it’s hard work. But she never complains.”
“I’d hoped she’d do what I did.”
“Open her own business? She did that.”
“Marry up. The kind of man who could support her. Not one of those trust fund kids who’ve never worked a day in his life, but an entrepreneur. The kind of guy who makes stuff, creates jobs.”
“Maybe she will,” Ian said. Lancaster wasn’t a big city like Chicago, but it had an old money crowd. One introduction at a fundraiser for the ESCC or Oasis, one guy smitten with Riva’s work ethic and determination, and she could find herself married to more money than Rory could imagine. In fact, he couldn’t believe it hadn’t happened already.
Why wasn’t Riva dating anyone? Aside from that offhand joke about guys not seeing the shotgun because they were in the bed, not under it, she’d never mentioned a boyfriend. Because he hadn’t asked? Or because there was no one to mention?
He made a mental note to ask the next time they were alone.
“I asked around about you,” Rory said.
Ian laughed. “Asked who?”
“I know some guys in Lancaster. I looked into business opportunities when Riva went to school there. Made some contacts.”
Ian’s heart hurled itself slow and hard against his rib cage. THUD. THUD. THUD. Would he know if Rory had taken his picture? Ian had never seen him aim a cell phone at him, but that didn’t mean anything these days. All it would take to blow this sky high was Rory taking his picture and sending it to Kenny.
What if Rory had separated him from Riva in order to kidnap her? “So you’ve discovered my secret.”
Rory didn’t blink. “Maybe. What’s your secret?”
“I don’t work for the city. Lancaster outsources their IT work. I work for one of the subcontractors on the accounting side.”
“That would explain why none of my contacts had ever heard of Ian Fallon.”
“It’s just easier to say I work for the city,” Ian said. He pulled out his phone and sent Jo a text. Hey, how’s your mom doing? It was a lame code, dating back to their high school days, before either of them got cool enough to invent something sophisticated. They’d started it when they were hiding late nights out from their attentive, hard-to-fool parents, and never got out of the habit.
Rory gave him an assessing glance. Ian tried his best to look malleable, easy to persuade, and a little desperate. This was the tricky part. Guys like Kenny, street smart and suspicious, didn’t trust gift horses. He’d manipulated McCormick into working for him, counting on Conn’s fear of being abandoned to keep him under his thumb. But Rory, who believed he was the center of the universe, that everything should fall into line to benefit him, might see Ian as no less than what he deserved, a sign that the universe rewarded his initiative.
They pulled into a bland office park. Buildings clustered around parking lots, the names of various companies over the entrances. A staffing agency, accounting, design, medical supplies and testing.
“Where are we going?” Ian asked as he climbed out of the truck.
“Prospective client in building four,” Rory said. He grabbed a leather satchel from behind the driver’s seat. For a moment Ian saw the dull gleam of the barrel of a shotgun before Rory tucked a blanket over it.
Riva had said he carried a gun while he ran the route, because he collected the proceeds from the vending machines. Today he was driving his truck. HENNEMAN CANDY AND VENDING was emblazoned on the side, so maybe he’d still be targeted? Ian watched him walk, searching for the sign of a gun at his waist or ankle. If he was carrying a concealed weapon, it was small, maybe even the Sig Ian himself favored and had tucked into his waistband.
Definitely armed. Definitely dangerous.
“Synergy Staffing,” Ian read as they walked down the hall. “Did you call them or did they call you?”
“They called me,” Rory said. He opened the glass door to the reception area. “After you.”
A young woman in a black pantsuit and a lavender blouse took Rory’s name, then murmured into a phone. “Mike will be right with you. Can I get you coffee or a soda?”
“No, thank you,” Rory said. Ian also declined. They seated themselves in the reception area, along with two other individuals Ian assumed were people looking for temporary work.
“Mr. Henneman?”
Ian barely stopped himself from doing a double take. Mike was Micah Sewell, Ian’s contact in Chicago. What the hell was going on?
Rory stood and offered his hand. “It’s Rory, please. This is Ian Fallon. He’s shadowing me for the day.”
“Right this way,” Mike/Micah said. He led them to a small conference room furnished with a round table, four chairs, and the kind of inspirational art Ian often saw in corporate settings. Ian sat down and took out his Moleskine.
A couple of minutes into the presentation, Ian had to admit that Rory knew his business. He ran through a decent patter highlighting the advantages of onsite vending: improved efficiency due to fewer breaks to get food or snacks, improved employee morale, selections tailored to align with insurance incentives to make healthy choices. The materials were slick, glossy, and customized for Synergy, down to the projected gross and the profit-sharing split between Synergy and Henneman Candy.
“What would it take to get you to sign on the dotted line today?” Rory finished. He knew his sales and marketing too.
“This looks really good, Rory,” Micah said. He was studying the cost/benefit sheet with an absorption Ian had to admire. “I can’t sign before the management team meets. I’m going to present this, along with two other proposals, to the team, and we’ll get back to you.”
Rory’s smile never wavered. “There’s some flexibility in those numbers,” he said easily. “I’ll work harder to get your business, and deliver a higher-quality product.”
“I can’t give you any inside information,” Micah said earnestly. “But I can tell you we surveyed our employees to find out what they wanted in the machines. Your proposal falls right in line with what they wanted, and your profit-sharing plan is very fair.”
Rory relaxed slightly. “Good. If you have any questions, call or email any time. We pride ourselves on our customer service, and that starts before we sign the contract.”
“Great,” Micah said. “Thanks so much for coming by.”
“You okay?” Rory said as they left the building.
“Yeah. Fine. I wasn’t expecting it to be so intense,” Ian said. Might as well go with the truth. “You’re really laying it all on the line, every time you go to a meeting. It’s like applying for a job, over and over and over.”
“Every interaction is like applying for a job, over and over,” Rory said. “No safety net, no nothing. Do the job, better than anyone else out there, or lose the contract. There’s nothing like knowing you eat what you kill. Still want to leave your cube?”
“More than ever,” Ian said. His phone rang. Jo. “Do you mind if I take this?”
“Not at all,” Rory said. “I’ve got some calls to make.”