Chapter 14
Sienna woke to talking in the hallway. She froze, terror turning her blood cold until she identified Levi and Ice’s very distinctive voices. She had yet to recognize everybody by just hearing them speak.
“He’s still sleeping.”
“Was he responding when you spoke to him?” Ice asked, the concern in her voice evident.
It took Sienna a few minutes to figure out they were talking about Rhodes. She sat up slowly, slipped on her shoes and walked out to the hallway. “How is he?”
Ice spun around, walked over immediately, her hand capturing Sienna’s. “How are you feeling?”
Sienna smiled. “The sleep did me good. I feel much better. I’m worried about Rhodes. Should I have taken him to the hospital?” She clung to Ice’s hand. “He was pretty resistant to the idea of going anywhere but home. I suggested we call the police, but he didn’t like that either.”
“No, there was no point in this instance,” Ice said. “He’s got a concussion, so we just wanted to keep an eye on him.”
“Is somebody standing watch over him all the time?” Sienna frowned as she walked toward his door. She knew Rhodes slept solid. “I’d like to stay with him if that’s possible.” She turned to look at Ice.
“We’re all checking on him pretty closely. Nobody needs to be here full time.” As if seeing something in Sienna’s face, Ice rushed to say, “If you want to stay for a while, that’d be okay. You can let me know if his condition changes.”
Sienna nodded. “I’ll do that.” She looked around and said, “I’ll grab my laptop and a cup of coffee then sit with him for a while.”
“I’m heading to the kitchen, so I’ll bring you a cup. Get your laptop or whatever you need. I’ll meet you back here.” Ice turned and left with Levi.
Sienna returned to her suite, right next door, grabbed her sweater to ward off the chill she still felt and pulled out her laptop. She wasn’t useless here. Robert was supposed to send the names of the men who had been killed in the hostage situation. And right now she really wanted to know if those names matched up with any of the ones she’d found. She grabbed a power charger and headed over to Rhodes’s suite.
It took a lot of effort, but she moved the big chair closer to the bed so she could sit down and put her feet up, then she plugged in the laptop and turned it on. When Ice came in, Sienna was already researching the news articles to see what coverage there had been regarding the attack on the DA’s office.
She smiled up at Ice and said, “Thank you.” She nodded at her laptop. “Did Robert send you the names of the dead gunmen?”
“I believe he sent them to Levi.” Ice put the cup of coffee on the night table beside Rhodes’s bed. In a low voice she whispered, “Why?”
“I want to check their names against the spreadsheets.”
“Good idea. I’ll email them to you.” With one last glance at the two of them, she backed out of the bedroom, disappearing around the corner.
Sienna opened her email program, and within minutes she had an incoming one from Ice. Sienna clicked on it, bringing up the names. She glanced through them, but they meant nothing to her. She popped each name separately into Google to see what kind of history would come up. Then she copied them over to her notes on the case and searched the spreadsheets she’d created.
And came up with nothing.
Damn it. She’d been so sure something was here. Some way she could make sense of all this.
So far she drew a blank. But she wasn’t ready to give up.
An hour later she wasn’t getting anywhere. Except tired. She closed the laptop, slipped down in the chair and closed her eyes.
A gentle touch on her foot woke her up a few minutes later. She glanced over at the bed to see Rhodes there, a smile on his face, his hand around her foot. She gave him a lazy grin and asked, “Is this how you spend your days, just lazing about in bed?”
“Well, I would if you joined me,” he said lightly. “That sounds like fun.”
He stroked her calf. But she didn’t want to let him know how his words affected her. She gave him a light sneer and said, “You think too much of yourself if you believe you can keep it up for days.”
With a glint in his eyes he turned his gaze to hers. “Is that a challenge?”
She laughed. “It so isn’t.”
He propped himself up on his bed, his fingers lightly drawing a pattern on her foot, around her ankle and slowly up her calf. “Anytime you want, … sweetheart.”
“Yeah, what about Jarrod?” she reminded him. Her gaze was sharp as she studied his face, looking for any sign of change.
But there was none. Jarrod’s name didn’t appear to make any difference to Rhodes.
“If and when we have a relationship, your brother will accept it,” he said. “Trust me.”
She opened her eyes wide and stared at him again. “Okay, if you say so.” She dropped her feet to the floor and stood up. “I’ll let the others know you’re awake.” She grabbed her coffee cup.
As she went to step through the door, he called back. “Wait.”
She turned around to face him, one eyebrow raised. “What do you need?”
“You.”
His voice was so low and soft she almost didn’t hear it. Frowning, her eyes searching his, she walked back into the room and sat down beside him on the bed. “What did you say?”
“You heard me.”
She continued to study his face, but his gaze was clear, with a glint of humor, but also something else. Sincerity? Passion? She reached up to stroke his cheek, her thumb drifting down to gently follow the curve of his lips.
He grabbed her hand, held it to his lips and kissed it. Then he tugged her slowly toward him. When her head was just above his, his hand slipped up to the back of her neck and he pulled her all the way down and kissed her.
“Yes, I mean that.” When he finally released her, he whispered, “We’ve been dancing around this for weeks. I figured one of us had to make that move to cross the divide.”
Still dazed from the touch of his lips and the heat coursing through her system, she asked in confusion, “Divide?”
“Your brother. You seem to think he’ll have a problem if we have a relationship.”
“I figured you thought that,” she corrected him, her breath catching in the back of her throat, but that look in his eyes, … she was drowning …
He flashed a wicked grin her way and said, “I might have, but I already spoke to him about us.”
She gasped. “You what? Why?”
“So we’d have this out of the way. Because he warned me off when I first met you. I had to let him know I couldn’t follow that dictate now. You matter too much. He knew it already—we just needed to clear the air.”
She studied him carefully. “So what does that mean now?” she teased. “Do we go for coffee dates? Or are you looking for something else?”
“I’m not looking for anything,” he said. “I’ve already found something special. I guess I want to see where we take it.”
He reached up and captured her cheek. With his thumb running across her lips, he tugged her down a little bit more as he rose up on his elbow and kissed her again. “Why don’t we try? Why not give us a chance? That same chance we’ve always wanted to be given.” In a voice dark with passion, he dropped kisses on her chin, cheeks, and eyebrows. “Say yes,” he whispered. “To this. … To us. … To right now.”
It was what she’d wanted. All she had wanted. She leaned closer and kissed him ever-so-gently and whispered, “Yes.”
He pulled her down to the bed with him. She let out a startled cry.
Rolling her over flat on the bed, his body covered hers, and his lips crushed hers. She had only nanoseconds to understand how quickly their positions had changed. The insistent prodding against her pelvis had her blood pulsing though her body; liquid pooled between her legs.
Dear God, she wanted him. She just hadn’t expected this right now. They’d spent two nights in a hotel already, and now they were home, and she was wrapped in his arms in his bed. Just where she wanted to be.
It wasn’t that it was bad timing but … She wrenched her mouth free and whispered, “The door.”
Rhodes stared down at her in confusion, already with passion clouding his vision. He glanced at the open door, back at her, and was up off the bed, walking toward it.
She laughed and watched as he stuck his head out in the hallway, then closed the door and locked it. As he turned to face her, she scrambled to her knees and waited for him to come to her.
Only he didn’t. He stopped in the middle of the room as if to give her a chance to change her mind.
He opened his mouth to say something and then closed it. And she understood. It wasn’t that he was uncertain, but he was unsure about her. She gave him a slow dawning smile of passion and heat. She grabbed the corners of her T-shirt and pulled it over her head, dropping it to the side. Then she stood on the bed and took off her jeans. Standing before him, long and lean, in just her panties and bra, she waited to see what he’d do.
He caught his breath, then galvanized into action. He stripped right down to his skin.
Slowly he walked toward her, his erection standing proud. She dropped to her knees, her legs suddenly too weak to hold her.
He swept her in his arms before she could lie down again and tugged her close. Hot flesh seared and stoked the fire within. Brushing his lips against hers, he whispered, “You’re still wearing too much.”
Her lips tilted into a smile as she kissed him back. “I think you can take care of that.” And she kissed him passionately, pouring out all the loss, loneliness, and desire she had kept reined in for the last couple months.
She had tossed and turned at night, deciding whether to stay, because of him, or if she wanted to be a part of this whole unit. That he was here was definitely a plus. If he wouldn’t be hers, then it would be hard. And if he had other women, it would be damn-near impossible. It wasn’t what she wanted for her life, for herself.
But this was absolutely what she wanted. Cool air swept between their heated bodies as he stepped back to drop her bra onto the floor. Instantly she was crushed against his chest, the cool skin of her breasts pressing hard against his muscled chest. She stroked and caressed, her fingers frantic as they explored.
“Slowly,” he whispered. “We have lots of time.”
She slid her hands up to grab his face and study the look in his eyes. “You don’t think they’ll come looking for you?”
“They’ll come. They’ll see the closed door. They’ll assume I’m in the shower, or we’re busy.”
She winced.
“Don’t worry about it. They already know.”
Her lips twitched. “And here I thought I’d kept the secret to myself.”
“Yeah. I’ve been teased about it already several times.” He slid his hand down to her butt and pressed himself tight against her, his erection hard against her belly.
And she wanted so much more. She rose on tiptoes, her hands around his neck, and hooked one leg around his hips. She slid her hands down to stroke his heavily muscled backside. He kissed her again and again, his hands exploring. He wasn’t heading toward the finish line. He was slow, methodical, and careful. Cherishing her body, needs, and emotions.
When he drew back from his heavy passionate kisses to now trace a line down her throat to her collarbone, his tongue tasting, exploring, and loving, she opened her arms and fell backward on his bed and laid there, her legs wide open and welcoming.
He leaned over her but paused, taking a moment to just stare. “Oh, my God, you’re so beautiful.”
She shook her head. “As long as you think so.”
He bent over, dropping a kiss onto her ribs, his finger stroking down the valleys and hollows of her body. He knelt between her legs, gently cupping her breasts, exploring her belly and long legs, slowly dragging his fingers up the inside of her thighs. He slipped one long finger underneath the edge of the elastic on her white cotton panties, gently stroking, teasing. With his other hand he slipped his fingers into the top, sliding them to the side. She gasped and twisted on the bed.
“You’re still wearing too many clothes.”
He shifted, then drew her panties down and off. She watched as he stared at her. He swallowed hard. She worried something was wrong, but then he whispered, “And you’ve got red hair below.”
With unexpected movement he slid his fingers through the bright curls and moistness, sliding one finger right inside. Her hips rose up as she cried out in surprise. Immediately he added a second, gently coaxing.
“Jesus, Rhodes.”
And with his thumb he found the tiny nub hidden in her soft folds. She cried out again as he gently teased and tormented her.
She couldn’t take too much of that. She wanted him inside her. “Rhodes, come to me,” she demanded.
Sienna wrapped her legs tightly around his body, and with powerful thighs, drew him toward her. He slid his hands upward as he licked, leaving a moist pathway on her ribs, stopping to suckle one breast, then moving to latch onto the other nipple, giving it his full attention. By the time he rose up to capture her mouth, she was trembling.
He looked down at her, his hands holding her head in place, his voice as dark as midnight as he whispered, “You’re mine.”
And he entered her all the way.
Pinned beneath him, she was lost in a fury of sensations as he slowly seated himself deep, then moved inside her. With her long legs wrapped around him as hard and tight as she could, he took her to a place she’d never been—then tossed her off the edge into a kaleidoscope of exploding nerve endings.
Dimly she heard herself cry out, but it was distant, as was the sound of his own as he joined her floating in the cloud of sensation.
Tears tugged at her eyes. Emotions at her heart.
The sense of completeness, oneness, at her soul.
When he slipped to one side, cuddling her close, he whispered against her ear, “Are you okay?”
And she whispered, “Never better.”
*
Rhodes tightened his arm around her, a smile on his face. This was an unexpected pleasure. As much as he’d hoped to get here, he hadn’t thought to do so this fast. Then again, they’d been dancing around this for months. Such a joy to hold her in his arms. She shifted her position slightly, snuggling close.
He should get up and talk to Levi and the others about any further developments. But he didn’t want to move. He figured by now somebody would’ve been alerted to the fact that his door was now closed. He and Sienna would be given some time together, but there was no guarantee of how long. Of course no one would know for sure until he and Sienna showed up, and it was written on their faces.
“I guess we should get up?”
He hugged her gently. “Can’t say I want to.”
“No, can’t say I do either.” She puffed out a heavy sigh. “But we should find out if Levi has any news. I’d like to know who attacked you at the gas station.”
A laugh rumbled up from his chest. “I’m less concerned about that than I am making sure the Dallas police found the man responsible for the attempted hostage taking.”
“Any chance they were the same?”
“Only if it was yet another hired gun. And that’s possible.”
She raised herself up on her elbow and looked down at him. “What do you mean?”
“If there was one man who hired the attack on the DA’s office building, chances are he still had a different person go in and shoot the men in the garage. And that same man could’ve followed us out of town and attacked me at the gas station.”
“But we didn’t see anyone tailing us,” she said, staring down at him.
“No, but it was a long drive and a lot of traffic.”
She sagged back into his arms. “So easy to be a criminal in this world. We make it too easy on them.”
“Another reason we’re never out of work,” Rhodes said quietly. He sat up gently. “Stay here. I’m taking a quick shower.” He glanced at his clock and winced. “I’d coax you in there with me but for the time.”
She chuckled. “Next time.”
He lowered his head and grinned. “Glad to hear there’ll be one.”
He kissed her with enough passion that her arms snaked around his neck to tug him back into bed. He pulled free and escaped to the bathroom, regret in his heart. Later. He’d hold her in his arms all night. That was the only thought which kept him walking in the direction of the bathroom.
Standing under the water a few minutes later, his mind returned to his attacker. Chances were good, if he’d been followed to the gas station, they were all the way to the compound too. He figured Levi and the others would’ve considered that fact, but it was tearing him up inside and would until he brought it up to them. The last thing they needed was another attack there.
He also needed to contact Robert to see if there was any news on his end and to give him an update. Rhodes’s head still ached, but he carefully soaked it under the hot water. Using a bit of shampoo, he cleaned his hair. By the time he was done, dried off and stepped into his bedroom with a towel wrapped around his waist, he found his bed made and Sienna sitting in the chair where she’d been when he’d woken up, now with her laptop open, checking her emails.
And she was fully dressed.
Too bad.
“Find anything?” He leaned over and kissed her on the forehead. She smiled, snagged a hand around his neck and pulled him down for real one. When he finally straightened, his blood was boiling. “Hold that thought,” he said, his voice hoarse. Shaking the shreds of passion back to where they belonged, for now, he quickly pulled clothes from his dresser and got dressed. Finally he turned around and asked, “You ready?”
She took a deep breath and let it out very slowly. And she grinned. “Sure. What’s the worst they can do? Fire me?”
His eyebrows shot up. “We are both consenting adults, and every one of them saw this happening.”
She shrugged. “Maybe.”
He clasped her hands in his, tugging her forward. “It’ll be just fine.”