Intimate Secrets (The Love and Danger Series)
Intimate Secrets
By Elizabeth Lennox
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Copyright 2014
ISBN13: 9781940134680
All rights reserved
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Any duplication of this material, either electronic or any other format, either currently in use or a future invention, is strictly prohibited unless you have the direct consent of the author.
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Table of Contents
Excerpt from
Intimate Whispers
, book four in the Love and Danger Series
Walker tossed the report
furiously across the room, his hand coming up to rub his scruffy stubble with frustration. He mumbled something under his breath, then realized what he was doing and tried to calm down. Bending over his desk, he took several deep breaths and the fury slowly subsided as he brought his emotions back under control.
Noticing the papers fly past his desk,
Sam looked up. “Not gruesome enough for you?” he suggested teasingly. Sam was Walker’s partner and one of his best friends. They’d been through a lot together and normally Walker was the epitome of stoic emotional reserve. He rarely showed any reaction beyond a twitch of his lips for mild amusement, or a glare indicating to the world that he might be slightly irritated.
That hadn’t always been the case, Sam remembered. Over a year ago, Walker had been one of the happiest men Sam had ever seen. He’d been walking on cloud nine with a
diamond ring in his pocket. Sam and Walker usually hung out with Colt and Brock, two other detectives and good friends, but for several months last year, Walker had been MIA for numerous events. They’d all been prepared for Walker to join the ranks of the married and bored, but something happened, something Walker hadn’t confided about to Sam but which had changed his whole personality. And whatever that “something” was, it had been eating at him ever since.
Walker glanced across the room and forced his temper back down,
trying to ignore the anger that was eating at him. “Report was fine.” He paced behind his desk, obviously trying to make a hard decision.
Walker looked at the incident report that was now
laying on the floor like a rejected butterfly. He could either ignore it or fix the problem. Everything in him was telling him to ignore it. He didn’t need that kind of pain in his life. Not again. Unfortunately, he wasn’t very good at ignoring things. It went against his whole personality.
Besides, he was very good at fixing
things – relentless at investigating problems and resolving the issue. He didn’t give up until he’d discovered not only the source of the problem, but also the best way to address the cause so it didn’t occur again.
B
ut fixing this problem meant contacting
her
again.
After their last meeting, Walker had sworn he would never speak to her again.
He paced back and forth several more times, trying to tell himself to ignore the situation. Unfortunately, the report indicated she was in trouble.
Damn! He shouldn’t care! She hadn’t cared! She’d callously betrayed him in the most elemental way!
He should just walk away. Pretend like he’d never seen the report.
He didn’t see Sam reach down and pick up the report. Didn’t notice when his best friend skimmed through the information. But when the paper flipped, Walker braced for the questions, praying that Sam hadn’t spotted the name on that list.
Unfortunately, the odds of Sam Jeffers not noticing, not picking up on the issue, were pretty slim. Nonexistent, actually.
“This is the latest incident report,” Sam mentioned, sitting back down in his chair
, both of them ignoring the obnoxious squeak as the metal hinges protested his large frame.
“I just get irritated sometimes,” Walker said, moving towards his partner, about to grab the report out of Sam’s hands. Unfortunately, Sam and Wa
lker were about the same size – both enormous, muscular men who topped most of their colleagues by about a head or more. Sam’s six foot three inch frame matched Walker’s just about exactly - which meant that Walker couldn’t grab the report out of Sam’s hands.
“Isn’t that…” Sam said, his startled eyes glancing up at his partner. “Didn’t you date a woman named Amy Rossi last year?”
Walker stepped away, picking up another file, pretending to read it. “Yeah. What of it?”
Sam looked down, reading the rest of the report. “Looks like she’s in trouble,” he said
, then glanced back up at his friend, wondering why Walker wasn’t rushing out the door to help the woman.
“We’re homicide,” Walker snapped
back, not bothering to look up from the report he was pretending to read. “Not our area.” Amy was Walker’s business and not up for discussion with anyone. Not even Sam.
Sam looked up at his friend, startled. Tossing the report down on his desk, Sam leaned back, his mind sifting through the small details Walker had revealed over the past year. “So you’re not going to even talk to her?” he asked.
Walker rubbed his hand over his face again. Help Amy? Hell, he didn’t know if he could even talk to her much less help her.
But she was scared.
Scared enough to have gone to the police.
His mind thought back to her soft,
grey eyes with that strange, yellow circle right around the iris. And her freckles. Damn, he’d loved those freckles, he thought. She’d hated them but he’d just teased her, kissing all of them and pushing her clothes out of the way with his nose so he could find more….
Sam smothered a laugh when Walker cursed again, still pacing.
The two of them had gone through a lot over the years, so Sam knew that this was huge. “She’s probably scared out of her mind. She’d probably feel better if you looked at the issue and offered some advice.”
Walker turned to glare at Sam, trying to restrain himself from flying out of their office and speeding across town to talk to Amy. She wouldn’t appreciate it anyway. She’d already told him that he didn’t need to bother with any of her problems. She’d point blank told him that she would take care of the problem a year ago. She could damn well figure out how to deal with this problem now.
But he probably shouldn’t have let her deal with the “problem” a year ago. He should have tried harder. He should have convinced her….
“Hell,” he grumbled and
grabbed his jacket.
Sam watched, wondering
what was going on in his friend’s mind. Obviously this was a pretty significant issue, but what the origin of that issue was, Sam couldn’t fathom.
Walker stormed out of the police station, his mind going a mile a minute as he tried to figure out what might be happening to Amy. As he drove to the school where she was a teacher, he gripped the steering wheel as if it were a lifeline.
He parked in the parking lot, irritated that he hadn’t gotten there earlier. The school buses had already left, which meant the kids in her class wouldn’t be there as a distraction. Which meant more time to chit chat. Amy loved to talk. And there had been a time when he’d loved to listen to her. He groaned, thinking about her melodic voice with her sweet, Texas accent. There had been a point when he would sit back, with her soft, full breasts pressing against his naked chest, just listening to her talk while he closed his eyes, enjoying the sweet moments after he’d made love to her while his hands were free to touch her soft, silky skin and her breath would tickle his own. He’d loved those moments with Amy. Hell, he’d loved all of his moments with the woman! Until that one time….
Taking a deep breath, he forced his
physical reactions back under his own control. That had been something that had initially bothered him about Amy. From the moment they’d first looked at each other in a coffee shop, they had been drawn to each other and she’d always had complete control over his body. With just one of her “looks”, he would be hard and aching, his mind went completely blank while his body reacted to Amy’s soft, lush figure. One touch from her and he’d be crazy to be inside of her. Nothing else had mattered but Amy. Nothing had gotten through his consciousness when she’d been around.
Of course, he’d been
just as much in control of her body. He smiled as he remembered how she would beg him for release, crawling up his body, her soft, wet mouth…
Dammit!
With a growl of fury, he slammed the door to his pickup truck, walking up to the elementary school until he was standing at the doorway. Showing his badge, he gained admittance and quickly explained his mission to the receptionist.
W
hen she gladly offered to show him the way towards Amy’s classroom, he responded, “I know how to get there,” with forced politeness.
He walked down the long hallway, aware of a
n unusual hush that was never there when the rooms were filled with students. He saw a few other teachers walking the hallways, finishing up their days. But everything was mostly quiet, silent.
Reaching the
front of her doorway, Walker stopped. He was frozen in place while his eyes took in her soft, brown curls, cut short now. They used to glide down her back, but they now ended just under her chin. He used to love touching her hair, running his fingers through the soft tresses. But he had to grudgingly admit that the shorter style looked good, made her neck look long and elegant. Then again, just about everything on Amy looked elegant. She was one of those classy women that just exuded an aura of genteel politeness. As a tough and tumble guy who had been awkward with his height and muscles as a teen, her soft, kind mannerisms had drawn him in just as much as her all-seeing eyes and her lush figure.
He now realized that her whole demeanor was a fraud. She might look sweet and
polite, but underneath all that was a heart of stone. A cold, calculating woman who thought only of herself.
So why the hell was he here? Why didn’t he just walk away, find something to occupy his mind while some other
detective dealt with the investigation of her stalker?
He didn’t have an answer. Just as had happened in the past, Amy was the one woman he’d never been able to ignore. Her sweet,
grey eyes could get just about anything from him, even if she’d just been trying to get a smile.
Not this time, he told himself. She’d lost his respect when she’d….No more. He was in control. He’d just figure out who was stalking her
and get her out of his life again. They were no longer dating, she wasn’t in control of his body or his mind. No way was he going to go down that same path again. Not with her. Not with any woman. Never again would he ever trust another woman. She’d cured him of that weakness a year ago.
She must have sensed his presence because her whole body froze. Even her bouncy curls stopped moving and her pencil froze above the papers she’d been grading. As if in slow motion, she turned and looked at him as he stood just outside her classroom doorway.
Amy knew something was wrong. For the past five minutes, she’d felt that crazy feeling that had only occurred when Walker was near. But he couldn’t possibly be here. He’d dumped her when things got messy. Left her and simply walked away.
I
n the process of putting a smiley face on one of her student’s papers, her fingers stopped moving and she turned her head, her eyes lifting. And then his presence hit her. Or more to the point, kicked her in the stomach. She could barely breathe, couldn’t think. Wanted to run screaming from the building and find safety somewhere.
Impossible as it seemed, Walker was standing there, staring at her just as he’d done so many times in the past.
Her desperate heart wanted to burst out in tears, to rail at him and pound his chest with all the anger and the fury, the fear of being left without him and his strength all those months ago. She wanted to scream at him and claw his eyes, wishing she had the power and courage to hurt him as much as his abandonment had hurt her.
But that wasn’t polite. And it might give him too much information about how much he’d
wounded her. She’d never let him know how much he’d gotten to her, how desperately she’d needed him. So instead of reacting instinctively, she took a deep breath to calm her racing heart. She suppressed every emotion, and forced herself to look at him calmly, hiding all her pain and anger.
Objectively,
she had to admit that he looked…fabulous. There was no other word to describe him. He was so tall, so amazingly strong and even that rough growth of his beard didn’t detract from the raw maleness of his presence.
No man, before she
’d met him or after, ever had the same impact on her senses. She’d seen him in that coffee shop and hadn’t been able to move. It had been a Thursday morning, and by Saturday night she was in his bed, finding both the most exhilarating freedom and thorough capture with his touch. She’d been shocked by him, fascinated and overwhelmed. And for three and a half months, she’d basked in his attention, thrilled at his voice and shivered when he touched her.
She took a deep breath, pushing all those memories aside.
Never again. He’d shown his true colors. When things got tough, when the world didn’t go exactly the way Walker wanted it to, he simply left. Strolled casually away and ignored the problem. Wouldn’t even discuss it.
No, she’d never put herself in that position again.
But she could still be a lady about the situation. She had no idea why he was….oh no! Had that other officer said something? There was camaraderie among police officers, but she’d specifically asked him not to say anything!
“What are you doing here?” she demanded.