Skin (25 page)

“No more subzero water shots,” Reese said. His face was grim but there was a sparkle in his eye.

“You signed a contract. Anytime. Anywhere.”

He dipped her toward a rising wave. She wrapped her arms tighter around his neck.

“Okay, okay!”

He laughed and twirled around. “Don’t forget it.”

“I won’t, now put me down.”

He walked from the water onto the beach. “All in good time,” he said.

Despite his wet, sandy body, Reese’s body heat seeped into her damp skin. She’d be a fool to let go, she told herself; it was chilly now that the sun had all but set and the evening breeze was rolling in.

Reese walked with her cradled against his chest to the cypress tree, where the basket and the towels lay. When he set Frankie down, her long, soft curves slid down his hard, damp body. He immediately reacted.

Frankie leaned into him and felt his erection. She jerked back, her eyes wide. He pressed closer to her when she couldn’t help but look down. His swollen head winked at her. “Don’t you ever stop thinking of sex?” she asked, dragging her eyes regretfully from his very male part and up to his grinning face.

“You make it difficult to think of anything else.”

She smiled. She liked his answer. “There’s a shower just up the way, near the fire pit.” She grabbed a towel and wrapped it around his broad shoulders, noticing the goose bumps on his skin, then gathered up the other towels, her camera bag, and the blankets. “Follow me, and I’ll show you.”

They approached the open shower stall tucked into the craggy side of the cliff, the fire pit with a gas starter, and the table and chairs scattered around for intimate conversation. “Nice setup,” Reese said.

“I’ve been coming down here since I was a kid. Some of my best memories are from here. My mother insisted we have the bare essentials. There was nothing worse than spending the day on the beach then not being able to rinse before indulging in the fire-roasted marshmallows and ghost stories.”

She showed him where the light was for the shower. While he rinsed off, she threw a few pieces of the stacked driftwood next to the pit on the grate, turned on the gas starter, and within minutes had a roaring fire.

She opened the picnic basket and realized she was famished. She expertly uncorked the bottle of cabernet Reese had picked out and admired his choice. One of her favorites.

“Pour me a tall one,” Reese said, his deep voice close.

Frankie gasped and looked up to find him three feet from her and wearing only a towel. She swallowed hard, her eyes dropping to his waist and the rising fabric. “I think you should get dressed.”

“My jeans are still on the beach.”

Pouring the wine, Frankie looked toward the beach and in the muted light could discern a dark mound on the sand. Her gaze swept back to Reese slicing the salami and cheese. “Just don’t forget them.”

Reese winked. “Be sure to remind me.” He looked out over the ocean. “This place is incredible, Frankie.”

“It beats a tenth-floor walk-up.”

She handed his wine to him and set about slicing the fruit. She didn’t want to look at him, she knew he would look too good to resist, and her defenses were down. As much as she wanted to curl up in his lap and have him tell her everything would be all right, she couldn’t. Her survival depended on her not weakening, and that included investing even a scant bit of trust.

With the food prepared, she placed the basket between them and reclined on her side, facing the fire. A quiet silence filled the space between them. Reese sipped his wine. “This is nice,” he said, and she knew he meant the wine.

She nodded.

Suddenly she felt vulnerable, and shy. She’d been as physically intimate with him as she had ever been with a man, hell, more than with any man. Even Sean.

Absently she chewed on a slice of apple and brie. Sipping her wine, Frankie looked out over the glimmering Pacific. A half-moon hung suspended, as if it couldn’t make up its mind whether it wanted to come or go. The cast gave just enough light to see the beach and the soft waves lapping against the sand.

The fire crackled and embers shot into the air, the sound startling her.

“It’s just wet wood,” Reese said, his voice calming.

He sounded close and she looked at him. He had moved the basket aside and was only a few inches away. The fire played across his bare chest and the towel hung loosely around his waist. She had the uncontrollable urge to press him onto the thick blanket and kiss him senseless. And when she’d had enough of his lips, she wanted to crawl up his chest and in a slow, agonizing slide impale herself on his full cock. She moved back, away from his pull.

“What are you thinking, Frankie?” he asked, moving closer as he swept a fluttering lock of her hair from her face.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“From the look in your eyes, I’d say I was dessert.”

“Not quite.”

He cocked a dark brow, the gesture giving him a devilish appearance. “Tell me.”

“More like the main course.”

“I can fill you up so you’re not hungry anymore.” He slid his hand around her neck and pulled her toward his lips.

She wanted it, bad. “I can’t do this, Reese.”

“Do what?”

“Kiss you.”

“Then I’ll kiss you.” His lips brushed hers and shock waves rocked straight to her core. Just a kiss lit her up like a bonfire. Dangerous.

“Reese,” she murmured, her lips brushing up against his. His warm breath smelled sweet, like the grapes he’d just eaten and the soft oak of the cab. “Please, I —” She couldn’t say it. She couldn’t say if they kept at it like this, she might fall in love with him. She closed her eyes, wishing with all her heart they were two people in a different place and a different time. In so many ways they were on opposite sides. She was on one side of the camera, Reese on the other, her family was less than upstanding, and he was probably a cop out to put them all behind bars.

The realization had a sobering effect. “I can’t have sex with you.”

“You already have.”

“It was a mistake.”

He laughed, the sound soft and throaty. The percussion of it ran along her cheeks, making her hotter.

“I don’t think so. Sex like that is never a mistake.”

She pulled away. “I wouldn’t know.”

He moved back and sat up. He made himself a sandwich and she watched him. He was addictive, and if she wasn’t careful, she just might overdose on the man and die, or wish she had when he betrayed her.

Frankie grabbed her wineglass and took a hearty gulp.

Reese chewed slowly, a contemplative look on his face.

“I’ve never wanted to keep a woman to myself like I do you.”

Her heart flipped, then flopped at his confession. She knew for a man like Reese it was a huge confession. “I’m flattered.” Was he being honest or just stringing her along? She eyed him cryptically. She didn’t know for sure, but she liked to think that maybe there was some truth to his words regardless of his motives.

She finished the wine and set her glass in the open basket. “We should get going back to the house.”

When she moved to stand, Reese grabbed her hand and pulled her down to him. “Relax, and come here for a minute.”

Reese watched her eyes widen like a frightened doe. “I won’t hurt you, Frankie,” he whispered. She swallowed and he inwardly cringed. Lying had always come easy to him while undercover. Not so easy this time.

She nodded. “I want to believe you.”

“Try.”

She nodded again. “No sex.”

He grinned. “Let’s play it by ear.”

This time she grinned and pulled away and stood. “Sure.”

The climb up the trail was considerably more work than the climb down, especially in damp, sandy jeans. Reese couldn’t wait to get a real shower and into dry clothes.

“Let’s go into the main house,” Frankie said. “We can clean up and I have a few more ideas for shots.”

“Don’t I get a break?”

“Stop whining.”

As they crested the path to the back of the house, Reese slowed his step.

“Let’s be careful,” he said.

“No one knows where I am. I didn’t tell anyone.” Besides, Connie and Unk had already gone through the house, and those that needed to know, knew the compound was impregnable.

“Would anyone suspect?”

“No.” Except her mother, and she didn’t count. Lucia would never work against her only child.

Reese scanned the dark stone walls of the shadowy house. Despite sitting on the edge of the ocean, where sunlight bathed it daily, the house sat dark and brooding on a high bluff. In the darkness large windows along the east side absorbed the moonlight, their glass foreboding. High stone walls surrounded the property, and surveillance cameras watched from strategic placement among the tall Monterey pine. So why wasn’t he hearing an electric hum?

His suspicion rose. “When was the last time anyone from the family was here?”

He watched a shadow fall over Frankie’s face. “I’m not sure. I know Anthony and his mother have been here and my uncle. I don’t know when the Wilsons left.”

They made their way toward the back of the house, where Frankie pushed the top of a large rock near a sliding glass door. A lid slowly opened, exposing a coded box. She pressed in a code that slid back to reveal a panel. “That’s odd.”

Reese stepped closer to look at the panel of LED numbers and letters along with several colored buttons and program dials. Very sophisticated. “The alarm isn’t set,” she said. Which meant Connie, Unk, or the Wilsons forgot to set it.

“Let me go in and check out the house first.”

“No, let me set the sensors. It’ll let me know from here if there are any bodies in the house.”

“Bodies?”

“Not dead, the sensors pick up body heat.”

She fiddled with a few dials, entered a code. “Nothing, not even a squirrel.”

“Could it be the sensors aren’t working?”

“Anything is possible. Let’s go in. Do you have your gun?”

Reese raised a brow. “I don’t normally —”

“Knock it off. Do you have it?”

He nodded and pulled it from the picnic basket.

“Good, let’s get going.”

Although it had been closed for almost two weeks, the dark house smelled musty, old. Frankie shivered. Like death. Although as a child the house scared her, since she’d outgrown her childhood fears, she had always felt safe. Now she felt like an outsider. She knew her father loved the place — she had too — but now she found it sad and depressing and would always think of her father’s harsh words spoken in his library.
“You are dead to me.”

Reese touched her shoulder, jolting her out of her daydream. “What happened here?”

She smiled sadly and turned on the light to the large mudroom. “My father loved this house. He preferred to run business from here than in the San Francisco offices.” She led the way into the cavernous kitchen. Copper pans hung from black wrought-iron hangers, stainless steel appliances gleamed under the soft dusk light. A large chopping block table with a wide stainless steel sink dominated the middle of the room. The faint scent of garlic and fresh herbs permeated the room. “Father loved to eat.”

“I love to eat.”

His words sent shivers stampeding across her skin as she remembered his mouth on her that morning. Had it been just this morning when she woke to find him so aroused in her bedroom? Had it been just this morning when he sent her off into space after he put his mouth between her thighs and made a meal out of her? Her body flushed hot. Mentally she shook herself, pushing all thoughts of Reese and his seduction away. She needed to concentrate; her life depended on it.

Frankie showed Reese the alarm setup, and in the process reset all of the preliminary alarms and activated the cameras.

After an extensive search of the house, it was obvious there were no unwelcome guests. No Winstons. Not even a squirrel. Where the caretakers were, she had no clue. She couldn’t blame Mrs. Winston if she quit after the horrible shouting match she overheard between Frankie and her father. But still, it wasn’t like them to abandon the grounds.

“Let’s get our clothes from the truck and clean up,” Frankie said.

Reese grinned his wolfish grin. “Show me the way.”

F
rankie showed Reese to a room next to her old room. They agreed to meet in the hallway in twenty minutes. They would pack everything except their new toothbrushes and put them into the SUV, then they would get to work.

She took the quickest shower of her life, wanting to get on with business. She slipped on a pair of black hip-hugger terry cloth jogging pants and a white-button down terry midriff. Camera in hand, she paced the hallway outside Reese’s door.

She stared when his door opened and he stepped out of the room, showered, shaved, and clad in a white-button down chambray shirt tucked into very tight acid-washed 501s. Damn, he looked good enough to eat.

Frankie hiked her camera bag over her shoulder and said, “First we’re going to do some recon.”

He cocked a brow.

“Don’t play coy. You know that word.”

He opened his mouth to protest, but she turned and told him not to waste his breath.

Reese followed her down the wide staircase and then down to the north wing to her father’s office. She quietly opened the heavy oak office door, then leaned back against the paneled plane. Rich aromatic cigar smoke lingered in the room. Her father loved a good cigar, and the ones he smoked didn’t bother her, not like some of the cheap ones she’d smelled. The light scent of fine brandy mingled with the cigar aroma made her eyes fill with tears. She loved her father. And she missed him. He wasn’t the poster child for Dads “R” Us, but he was her father and in his way she knew he loved her.

Swiping a tear from her cheek, Frankie took a big breath and resolved to find the document. She glanced at Reese, who stood silent in the doorway. She was grateful for his silence.

Setting her camera bag down on the desk, she moved to stand behind her father’s massive mahogany and brass desk. Sliding a hand along the smooth edge, she blinked back another onslaught of tears. She looked up to find Reese had not moved, but his eyes were soft in understanding. “I need your help,” she said.