“You’re bringing a cat?” Simon asked, frowning at the carrier like it might hold some kind of explosive device.
“Of course. You don’t think I’d leave her here, do you?”
“I can’t say I thought about it at all, as I didn’t know you had a cat. But is it a good idea to lock an animal in a cage for a couple hours? Won’t it protest?”
“
It’s
name is Dottie, and she’s a good traveler,” Maya said, walking over to lay her hand on the carrier. She rubbed the furry little face staring at her. Unconditional love purred back, soothing Maya’s worries for just a second. “She won’t be any problem.”
He looked around her living room in a way that made Maya feel like he was trying to memorize the space. “You have a roommate, don’t you?”
Maya gave him a sweet smile, tucked one long curl behind her ear and tilted her head to the side. Brow arched, she patted the carrier and said, “Dottie goes.”
Then she waited. Would he pull out a fake allergy, a bossy attitude or cave like a wimp?
“I guess it’d be quite ungentlemanly to separate a lady and her kitty cat,” he said with a shrug before pending over to peer into the carrier, then ribbing Dottie’s nose through the bars.
Her smile dimmed.
How was she going to deal with him when he didn’t follow any prescribed moves?
Simon straightened and gave her a wicked sort of grin. Before Maya could decipher it, he stepped forward and trapped her against the wall.
He smelled so good. Manly, with just a hint of soap. A smile played around his mouth but his eyes were intent and dark with desire.
“What are you doing?” she asked, horrified that her words sounded so breathless. But it was hard to help that, since she had no air in her poor, passion-shocked lungs.
“I figure we need a little practice,” he said, his hands curving tighter over her hips and pulling her close. Not quite close enough to feel the sexy planes of his hard body against her softer one. But enough to warm her with sparks of desire, heating their way through her system like a burgeoning wildfire.
“Practice?”
“You don’t want to look like we’ve never done this before, do you? If we’re going to pull off the boyfriend-girlfriend thing, we should look comfortable together.”
“Right,” she said, not caring what he’d just said. Her eyes were locked on his lips, craving to taste again the full curve of that lower lip, to delve into the delicious heat of his mouth. He could make up all the bullshit excuses he wanted. She just wanted him to hurry up and kiss her.
Like he’d read her mind, he lowered his mouth to hers. Lips, soft and gentle, sipped and danced. He tasted so good. Rich. Strong. Decadently tempting. Desire moved like wildfire, zinging through Maya’s body at a pace way too fast for the tempo of this kiss.
Maya wanted more. She wanted intensity, passion, the wild dance of a screaming orgasm. The dance she knew Simon could take her on.
Before she could dig her fingers into his hair and take them on the first step of that dance, Simon brushed her lips one more time, then slowly pulled back.
His eyes, almost black with desire, stared for a second. Then he blinked and shook his head.
“Grab the cat and let’s hit the road,” he said.
Maya allowed herself a second to lean against the wall until her knees didn’t feel like jelly, then sucked in a deep breath and grabbed her purse and two bags.
This was going to be a very interesting trip.
4
IT’D BEEN MORE THAN two hours since he’d tasted Maya, and Simon was still way too uncomfortably hard to be stuck in a damned car. Even one as comfortable as her Ridgeline. He glared at the icy road, wishing for a brief second he were out in the freezing rain for just a few seconds.
“Car sick?” Maya said, not taking her eyes off the winding road.
“No. Why do you ask?”
“You keep looking out the window like you’d rather run alongside than stay in your seat.”
“Maybe I’m not used to someone else in the driver’s seat,” he said, turning in his seat to watch her. She’d pulled her hair back into a tail that curled riotously down the shoulder of her denim jacket.
“Are you one of those guys who always has to be on top?” Maya teased.
Simon grinned, not only at the inference, but because as soon as the words were out, she winced like she wanted to grab them back. He figured flirting was probably second nature to her. From what he’d seen, though, it was something she tried, hard, to repress. He wondered why.
And he wondered how hard it would be to tap into that nature and keep her flirting. And to see where things could go from there.
“You do a great job behind the wheel,” he shot back, reaching out to trail one finger down the back of her hand. Because he was watching so closely, he saw her pulse jump in her throat. But her hands stayed steady on the wheel. “I’m betting you’re just as good on top. You ever want to prove it to me, just say the word.”
Her knuckles paled on the wheel and he heard her breath hiss, but she still didn’t take her eyes off the road. His brows rose and his grin widened. She was amazingly controlled.
And he wanted, so badly, to break that control. What would it take? Could he do it with his mouth alone? Before she was undressed? He’d bet he could.
He wasn’t sure she’d take that bet, though.
And he shouldn’t, either. Out of line, he warned himself. She was a part of his investigation. He’d spent the night thinking about Hunter’s call and the transfer. He had a shot at shaving five years off his climb up the ladder with that transfer. He’d be so much closer to Deputy Director. All he had to do was make the transfer permanent. And nailing the Black case would do that for him.
Which didn’t mean he should nail Black’s daughter in the process.
“So tell me about the town. Black Oak, right? Did you grow up here?”
Slowing to take a turn, she shot him a quick glance. In her molten-gold eyes he saw both curiosity and irritation. And there, just beneath those emotions, was the flickering heat of desire.
Crap.
Given the three, he’d take the curiosity. He never liked irritating a lovely lady, and he didn’t think he could resist her desire. But he’d spent his life faking out people’s curiosity.
“Black Oak?” he prompted. “Home sweet home?”
“It’s a quaint little town at the foot of the Santa Cruz Mountains,” she said slowly, obviously trying to figure out which of his mixed signals to respond to. “They get a fair amount of tourism, which downtown plays to nine months out of the year. We’re visiting during the off-season.”
“Does the town depend on tourism?” He could write for the local chamber of commerce, he knew so much about Black Oak. But he didn’t know it from Maya’s perspective.
“Somewhat. There are a lot of hikers and backpackers, tour groups and weddings that keep things interesting. About half the town focuses on that, the other half commutes to outside jobs.”
Which jibed with his own information.
“And your family? Have they lived there long or are you a California transplant?”
“I was born in Black Oak,” she said with a jerky shrug of one shoulder. “Grew up there until I left for college.”
“And you still have family there, right? Am I about to meet a big family or small?” He kept his words light, friendly and conversational. Like he wasn’t really curious but just making small talk.
She took a breath. For the first time since he’d kissed her, she looked a little shaky. Her fingers flexed on the wheel and she gave a tiny shrug.
“My father’s family goes back to the founding fathers. They’ve always been pretty solid in Black Oak. Banking and law, for the most part. On the Parker side—that’s my mom’s family—my aunt is Her Honor, the Mayor.”
“Friends in high places, huh?”
“More like overprotective babysitters,” Maya said, her smile flashing. “There’s no such thing as tolerating teenage high jinks in the Parker family.”
“Did you generate a lot of teenage high jinks needing toleration?” He could imagine her as a teen. Same long black hair. Same huge gold eyes. Fewer curves, less overt sex appeal, but he’d bet she knew how to wrap those high school football players around her tiny finger. “Cheerleading escapades? Pep rallies run amuck? A half hour past curfew a few times too many?”
Her smirk was fast and wicked. And told Simon that while any and all of those scenarios might have played out from time to time, they were just the decorative sprinkles on top of a fluffy, frosted cupcake. The kind with a rich, decadent filling that you only found after you bit into it. Yeah, he’d bet that was Maya, even ten years ago.
“As I’m sure you’ll hear during our visit, I was a model child. Angelic, even.”
“Angelic?” Simon couldn’t keep the doubt from his tone. Not even decorative sprinkles were angelic.
“Hey, I was adorable. Everyone loved me,” she protested with a laugh. “My aunt always swore that my brothers sent her screaming for Lady Clairol. But I was her pride and joy. Well-behaved, smart and only sassy enough to keep me from being a pain in the ass.”
“And was your aunt right?”
Slowing to turn into a long driveway flanked on either side by a white picket fence, she gave him an arch look. “What do you think?”
“I think your aunt had a soft spot for you and you never tried to ruin her opinion.”
“And I think you’re a smart man,” she responded with a smile. “My aunt never wanted to see me as I really was. But it made her happy to think I was such a good girl. It also pissed off a lot of gossipy girls because they never found any real dirt on me, and it made my brothers, the brats, look even worse than they really were. All primary goals in my teenage heart.”
“And your parents?” he asked, deeming it a natural question at this point in the discussion.
Her smile dropped away. Simon grimaced. Natural, but unwelcome.
“My mom died,” she said quietly. She pressed her lips tight, sighed then shot him a look from the corner of her eye. “We lost her to cancer when I was one.”
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. And he was.
As they wound through the twisty two-lane highway, Simon stared out at the passing scenery. Tall trees, green hills, bucolic splendor. But he barely saw it.
His own mother had gladly shoved him out of the nest at seventeen. To make sure he didn’t try to fly back, she’d moved without a forwarding address. Even after he’d had the resources, he hadn’t bothered looking her up. He was happier going through life unencumbered. But he could hear the pain in Maya’s voice. It must have hurt her terribly to grow up motherless.
He knew the facts from Tobias’s file. He’d lost his wife to leukemia. He’d spent the next year in a fog of drunken despair. The aunt had tried to get custody of the kids, which had pulled him out of his fog. He’d rallied, gathered his kids close and for all appearances, become Mr. Mom for the next eighteen years.
Of course, the entire time he’d been running major cons. Some agents speculated that he’d run them both with and without his children over the years. But Maya was the only one who’d ever been caught.
Ready to steer the conversation in her father’s direction, he leaned forward just a bit, to get a better view of her face.
“Here we are,” she said before he could volley his first shot.
“What?” Startled, Simon looked around. “This isn’t a town.”
“No. This is the Black Oak Manor, just outside of town. I’ve reserved rooms here.”
“Rooms?”
She flicked off the engine and turned in her seat, laying her arm across the steering wheel. The look on her face was pure feminine power, with just a hint of smoky interest. The kind that hinted at heat. Then she blinked and the look was gone, with only confused worry left in her intriguing eyes.
“You didn’t think we were sharing a room, did you? I thought we’d covered that.” She sounded hesitant, like she was worried he’d push the subject.
Answer that without looking like an ass, Barton.
Despite those hot kisses, he really hadn’t thought twice about their sleeping arrangements. She was his ticket to Tobias, not his ticket to a sex-fest.
“I guess I thought we’d be staying at your parents’…” He made a show of grimacing. “I mean, at your dad’s. Or your brother’s place or something.”