Authors: Adrienne Giordano
“Of course.”
“Kendrick had mentioned he ran into you and Peter Jessup in your office.”
Oh, no
. Had Seth somehow seen Peter with her at the motel. “Yes?”
“I’m not sure if you know this, but his mother runs an organization that gives grants to worthy charities. She’s quite a fundraiser from what I hear. She has all the right corporate contacts with Jessup Industries.”
Isabelle swallowed. Peter’s
mother?
“And?”
“I’ve been thinking we should apply for a grant from her foundation and wondered if you might be able to put in a good word for us?”
The outside door to Izzy’s room slammed closed, and Peter threw the television remote on the end table, rolled off his bed and got to his feet.
“Peter?”
He pulled open the adjoining door without bothering to put on a shirt. “I’m here.”
She marched over to him and wrapped herself around him in a bone-crushing hug.
Ho-kay.
Not a bad greeting at all. The clean smell of her shampoo lingered on her hair despite the do-rag.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I need to talk to you. Where’s Billy?”
“He went in search of nose strips. His snoring is killing me.”
Izzy laughed and her breath tickled his neck in a way he hadn’t felt since his wife left him, but over the past couple of weeks had come to enjoy. “You two really are an old married couple.”
“There’s a thought.” He set her back to arm’s length, checked out the sagging luggage under her eyes. “You’re tired.”
She nodded. “This mental bedlam over whether I’m saying or doing the right thing is exhausting.”
He pulled her in again, kissed the top of her head and wished he could be the one in that compound. “Unfortunately, you get used to it. Did it go okay?”
“Yep. Two big things.”
“Two? Sampson will be delirious.”
She snuggled into his neck again and Monk Junior started to stir.
“I’m moving out of this dump and into the compound.”
Talk about an instant soft-on. Peter stepped back with an odd mixture of excitement and dread. “He invited you?”
“Yes. And I think I made some headway with Courtney. She’s the pregnant girl. The
first
one I met. Lots of pregnant people in that place.”
“You’re not going back there tonight are you?” Because there was no way he wanted her leaving so soon.
“Heck no. I can’t take any more tonight. There’s a weird tension there and I don’t know what it is.”
“You’ve got time, don’t be too aggressive. They’ll get suspicious.”
“I know.” She turned, dropped onto the bed, and stretched that amazing, toned body.
Yow.
Peter coughed once. “What was the other big thing?”
Besides, of course, that he wanted to have hot monkey sex with her for the next fifty years.
He cracked his neck side to side. Could he honestly be thinking long-term with her? The woman whose emotional capacity ranked in the negative numbers?
“It involves you,” Izzy said.
How appropriate. The burst of laughter came right from his toes. He couldn’t help it.
She lifted her head. “What’s so funny?”
“Nothing. My mind was wandering.”
“Well, pay attention.”
That was the problem. He paid
too
much attention. And it was slowly killing him. He moved to the bed, laid on his side and propped himself on one elbow.
“What involves me?” He dragged the do-rag off her head and played with her hair.
She inched closer. Snuggled against him and he could see this going all sorts of good places.
“Your mother actually,” Izzy said.
He laughed again. “You certainly have a gift for killing the mood, Iz.”
She slipped her leg over his.
And then getting the mood back.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to bring your mother into it, but Seth apparently wants to apply for a grant from her foundation. He wants me to clear the way. I had no choice but to tell him I’d ask.”
Peter rolled to his back, away from Izzy. He needed his brain for this. Being horny as hell never amounted to anything good in the thinking straight department, and he definitely wasn’t comfortable with Seth Donner anywhere near his mother.
Obviously deep in thought, Izzy ran her hand down his bare chest, and he stilled it because—holy hell—every skin cell caught fire.
He shook his head and focused on the foundation issue. His mother always toured all potential properties.
Maybe this could work.
Peter, still holding Izzy’s hand, rolled to his side. “Tell him you’ll do it, but the application requires an on-site visit.”
Her head lolled forward. “You’re going to send your mother in there?”
“No. My
mother
is going to send
me
in there. I just won’t tell her about it.”
Izzy sat up. “How are you going to keep it from her? Won’t she get the application?”
“Not if you get it from Seth and give it to me. He’ll never know the difference. Just tell him to fill it out, email it to you and you’ll send it to me. My mother will never know.”
“Not a good idea. Too dangerous.”
Too dangerous?
Please
. He held off rolling his eyes.
“This is a good idea, Iz.”
She waggled her head. “But I’m nowhere close to figuring out if they’re doing anything illegal. What happens if I fail and leave the compound? Seth will think the application is still pending.”
Peter sat up and brushed the back of his hand against her cheek. “If the place is legitimate, I’ll forward the application to my mother and tell her to approve it. Seth will get his money and we’re out of there.”
“I don’t like it.”
“I do. It’ll get me inside the compound. Billy and I went out there this afternoon and found access from the rear of the property, but it’s so big we couldn’t get close to the house. I need those land surveys. I could probably get them by going to the town hall, but I don’t want to call any attention to myself.”
“I’ll ask Sampson. We’ve been playing phone tag.”
“Don’t push it. It’ll piss him off.”
“I’m not a dope.”
“I know that. Didn’t mean it that way. If you can get me inside the house with this grant idea, I can poke around while you keep Seth occupied. I’ll stay a couple of days and, maybe by then, we’ll have something Sampson can work with.”
“Sampson will freak if he knows you were there.”
Peter shrugged. “Don’t tell him.”
“What were you searching for at the compound?”
He huffed out a breath. “I could be wrong, but I don’t think Nicole is alive. Everything I pulled up on the internet indicates she’s a responsible girl. Something happened to her or she’d be in contact with family or friends.”
Isabelle pressed her lips together. “And what? You think the body is on the property somewhere? Kendrick was a disgusting pig, but he wasn’t a murderer.”
“Maybe Kendrick didn’t kill her. Aren’t there a bunch of people living there?”
She thought about that a minute. “At least six people live in the main house. I’ve met them over the last two days. There might be more that I don’t know about.”
“What about the cabins?” Peter asked.
“Today I met ten—” she stopped, counted on her fingers. “No. Eleven people from the cabins. There are more because those eleven were only from two families. That leaves eight cabins where I didn’t meet anyone.” She twisted her lips. “There could be fifty or sixty people living there.”
“And if you get me in there, I’ll have a reason to talk to every one of them.”
The outer door to the adjoining room slammed shut.
“Honey! Did you miss me?” Billy yelled.
Peter boosted himself off the bed. “Our pain in the ass is back.”
He strode into the other room, spotted Billy rummaging in a small paper bag. “Did you get the strips?”
Billy looked over at him and tucked his hair behind his ears “No.”
“Dammit.”
“Peter?” Izzy poked her head in. “I’m going for a soda, but all I have is a twenty. Do you have anything smaller?”
He swiveled to her. “In my wallet. And your phone rang a few times while you were gone.”
“Thanks,” she said. “I’ve been neglecting my voice mail. I’ll check it.”
Peter went back to Billy. “What happened with the strips? Did you even try?”
“What the fuck? Of course I tried. I went to four places. Two were closed. I guess the stores here don’t stay open past six. The one place didn’t carry them, and the other place was fresh out.”
Peter shoved his hands into his hair and contemplated another sleepless night. “After tomorrow it won’t matter because Izzy is moving into the compound. We’ll have her check out and I’ll take that room.”
Izzy.
His wallet.
The fantasy list.
Shit.
All movement around him halted, his ears whooshing as he angled toward her to find the nightmare materializing before his eyes. She stood with the wallet in her right hand and the slip of white paper in the left.
His hands immediately went in the air. “Don’t freak.”
Billy laughed. “Uh, oh.”
“Shut up,” he shot back.
Izzy took the singles and the list, but dropped the wallet before spinning around and hauling ass to her room.
Peter grunted. Another fucking landmine.
Goddammit.
“Izzy, hang on.” He followed her into the room, closed the door behind him and caught up with her.
When he tugged on her arm, she whirled on him and all the softness in her face disappeared. “No.”
The growl in her voice smacked at him, but he didn’t let go of her arm until she shoved him back a full step.
Whoa, strong woman.
She turned toward the door, but he jumped against it before she got it open. “Let me talk to you.”
Squaring her shoulders, Izzy stepped back from the door. “Get away from this door before I hurt you.”
“No.”
She held her closed fist in front of his face, the crumpled paper sticking out the bottom like a death sentence. “What is this?”
Oh, hell.
From her perspective it would look bad. A woman with trust issues regarding sex finds a kinky list in his wallet. He was a dumbass for carrying it around. At the very least, he should have committed it to memory.
“Did you have a specific person in mind with this list or would any random woman do?”
The quaking strain in her voice warned of her emotional state, but her eyes were glued to the floor.
Please don’t let her be crying.
He stuck his finger under her chin and pushed up. The glistening green of her eyes knifed into him.
I’m an idiot
.
“It’s nothing sick.”
He tried to draw her in for a hug, but she pushed back. “Don’t touch me.”
“Remember I told you about the nightmares? The nightmares that kept me from sleeping and started this whole mess with Billy?”
She jerked her head, but continued staring at the floor.
“The day I met you, the nightmares started to go away. They weren’t nearly as bad and then I started dreaming about you. And, well, in the dreams we had sex. Crazy good sex.”
The list suddenly hit him in the face. She’d thrown it at him.
Nice
.
“Among
other
things,” she said, red faced and mad enough to carve him to pieces.
He heaved a breath and blew it out. “Yes, among other things.”
“Damn you!”
“I didn’t talk to anyone about it, I swear to you. It made me happy to think about it and, at the time, I didn’t have a lot to be happy about. I was grasping at any little piece of sanity I could hang on to and you became that sanity.”
“That’s bullshit, Peter. You’re trying to charm your way out of this.”
“No. It’s the truth. I couldn’t wait to go to sleep because I knew I would dream about you. The problem was the dreams were coming fast, and I was losing track of the good stuff.”
“I don’t want to hear this.”
“Yeah, you do. The list is my version of Creepy Izzy. You use her to cope. I cope by having dreams about you. It’s so much better than Roy getting his head blown off.” He waved his hand in the air. “Anyway, I started losing track, so I wrote it down. I thought if things went my way, maybe we’d get to a point where we trusted each other enough to talk about the list and maybe we’d do some of the things on it. That’s all. Just me wanting to remember what made us both feel good in my dreams.”
Her gaze darted around his face, but he stood still while his heart nearly beat out of his damned chest.
“Are you lying to me?”
“No. We’ve come too far for that. We may or may not manage a relationship, but it won’t be because I lied.”
He cupped her face in his hands, but after a second, she backed out of his grasp. “You should have told me about the list. It would have avoided this.”
Chalk that up to a lesson learned
.
The list sat on the floor between them and she bent to pick it up. She smoothed it in her hand and read it while Peter stood like a second grader in the principal’s office.
She ran her fingers over her forehead before looking up at him. “I’m sorry I jumped to conclusions. I’ll try not to do that anymore.” She handed him the list. “I’m not good at this. I’ve been alone a long time. I don’t trust people. Men in particular.”
“For good reason.”
The heat in her eyes evaporated. “I can’t imagine you wanting to share your life with me. I’m a lot of work.”
He smiled at her. “We’re in this together.”
She bit her lip and closed her eyes for a second.
Thinking.
Come on, Iz
.
Take a risk
.
She opened her eyes, wobbled her head a bit and said, “Will you put the list somewhere safe until we’re ready to discuss it?”
“You bet I will.”
The airplane landing in the motel room turned out to be Billy’s snoring.
Crap.
Peter glanced at the digital clock’s bloodred neon numbers. Three-oh-six. Another sleepless night. He couldn’t take any more. He needed some serious shut-eye or he’d go ballistic.
Again.
On Billy.
Irony at its best.
The adjoining door to Izzy’s room was unlocked. He’d told her to shut it, but leave the bolt off in case they needed to get into either room in a hurry.
Maybe he’d crash on the floor in her room. She wouldn’t mind. Unless she was still steamed about the sex list. Billy let out another honk and Peter rolled his eyes. He should have killed the son of a bitch when he had the chance.
He stomped to the adjoining door and pushed it open enough to get his head through the gap. “Izzy?”
“Hmm?”
A soft night light behind one of the butt ugly chairs threw shadows across the room. Apparently she didn’t like to sleep in the dark.
“Iz, I’m coming in,” he said being careful not to get too close or he’d startle her. He’d learned that lesson years ago when one of his navy buddies almost shot his head off because he tried to wake him up while standing too close to the bunk. Once you’ve been at the wrong end of a .45 you don’t make that mistake again.
She sat up, shoved her hair from her face and smiled a sleepy smile that forced him to breathe deep because she was major league shaggable.
“Finally,” she said pulling off her tank top.
“Ho!” he said, a little louder than he wanted to. He reached back and shut the door so Paul Bunyan didn’t wake up. “What are you doing?”
Could she still be asleep? Sleep stripping? He snorted a quiet laugh.
The covers went flying and she wiggled out of her shorts. The night light offered enough of a glow for him to know her body, with its gently sculpted muscles, would be the death of him.
Help me.
She tossed her shorts at him. “It’s about time, Peter. I can’t believe it took you this long to give in.”
“Huh?” Malfunctioning brain. Had to be.
She walked over to him, completely freaking naked, and started pulling his T-shirt up. Monk Junior stood at attention howling the war cry.
Peter had to stop this before it went too far. He grabbed her hands. “Are you awake?”
“Completely.”
“Then hold up here. A few hours ago you were lambasting me for my sex list and now you’re all over me.”
Yes, this woman might possibly be certifiable.
But he most likely loved her.
Did that make him certifiable as well? Maybe Vic was right about him being a nutcase.
She squeezed his hands and leaned back to see his eyes despite the shadows in the room. “I apologized for that. My mind was working overtime. I thought we settled it.”
“Yeah, but I got the impression you wanted to wait. I’m confused.”
“I warned you about this, Peter.”
Why did he feel like he was floating in the path of a rogue wave about to break on him? “You did?”
She nodded. “My body wants things my brain doesn’t. It’s physical. The list is about feelings and intimacy. This isn’t.”
The wave broke and nearly drowned him. Sex was a function to her. He might as well be screwing a tree.
“I get it,” he said, heavy on the sarcasm. “Creepy Izzy needs to get laid and I’m available.”
“Peter—”
“No.” He tore his shirt over his head. “This’ll be
great
. Just because you don’t want to be objectified doesn’t mean I don’t. I love a good fuck and something tells me
you
are going to rock my world.” He ripped his shorts off, tossed them aside and pointed to his hard-on. “As you can see, I’m ready.”
“That’s not what I meant.” She kept her voice low, but the vibration there could have shook the building.
Now they were both pissed.
Goddammit.
Why couldn’t they ever be on the same page when it came to sex? There was always a fight brewing. He put his hands on his bare hips, wandered to the window and peeked out the blinds. Un-fucking-believable. The two of them standing here, naked as a couple of jays, and they couldn’t manage a guilt-free lay.
Maybe he’d go for a run. Work some of this pissing mad out of him. Not to mention the woody.
He turned back to her. “Billy’s snoring again. That’s why I came in here. I wanted to sleep on your floor.”
“Oh, no.”
A sliver of light crossed her bare skin and the hunger crawling inside him swarmed. All rational thought evaporated. He wanted her. She was willing.
What’s the problem, dickhead?
“How humiliating,” she said.
He rolled his shoulders, mentally forced his pulse to a slower pace and got his thoughts in order. “For both of us.”
In two tentative steps she was in front of him, but didn’t touch him. Probably a good thing, because if she put her hands on him he’d go up in flames.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I know I’m driving you crazy.”
He jerked his head. “I never know when you’re going to blow a fuse on me. I’m a patient man, but I have my limits. We’re either going to have sex or we’re not. You know my feelings about Creepy Izzy. If Fun Izzy isn’t ready, we’ll wait.”
Instinctively he knew she wasn’t ready, but he couldn’t deny the morsel of hope stirring in him.
“Fun Izzy isn’t ready,” she said, pounding the morsel into oblivion.
“Fine.” He kept his voice even and forced himself to stay rooted to his spot. She needed to know, despite his disappointment, he wasn’t angry with her. He wouldn’t guilt her into it. “Then let’s not put ourselves in a position where we’re tempted.”
She trickled her fingers down his chest, heating his body again. “I’m always tempted with you though.”
He stilled her hands by squeezing them. “See, this is what confuses me. The hot-cold thing.”
Her gaze zeroed in on him.
Shake it off. She’ll get you with the eyes.
“Peter, what you don’t understand is Creepy Izzy knows what she wants. My body has needs my brain doesn’t have. I’ve spent years solidifying my barriers. I think it’s unreasonable for you to think they’ll fall just because you came along.”
“I don’t think that.”
“So, it’s okay for you to call the shots when it comes to not sleeping with Creepy Izzy, but it’s not okay for me to self-protect?”
“What do you mean?”
“Just because you don’t want to have sex with Creepy Izzy doesn’t mean
I
don’t want to have sex with you. Why do you get to decide when it’s right?”
“That’s not what I’m doing.”
“Yes, you are.”
He fisted his hands. “No, I’m not. I’m more than capable of having casual sex. I’ve been doing it since I got divorced.”
“But?”
He laughed, but the sadness in it made him sick. How the hell had they gotten to this point? He’d been divorced ten years and hadn’t missed this empty, frustrated feeling that came from two people not understanding each other. And the pisser of the whole thing was, if he told her how he felt, she’d freak.
Well, too fucking bad. He wouldn’t spend the next century circling her fear of rejection.
“You’re different,” he said. “It won’t be casual with you. I’m going to want every piece of you. And I’ll expect you to give it me. I’ll expect you to be with only me. Maybe that’s not fair to you, but I have a right to my own self-protection.”
She stepped an inch closer, searched his eyes for something. Damned if he knew what.
“Stalemate then?” she asked.
Truth time. Put it all on the table. Screw the consequences. “I know I said I never lied to you, but that’s not true.”
Despite the dim light he saw her flinch. He put his hands on her hips—very naked hips—and held her there. “The other day, when I gave you my do-rag, I made that crack about it being love. I lied when I said it was a joke. That was me firing a warning shot. When you panicked, I backed off. But that’s where I’m headed. In love with you. And you’re not going to be able to handle it.”
Isabelle’s vision swam and the tension seized her into a tight ball.
Caught. That’s what she was. She could remain in her safe zone or she could throw open the door and let in the sun that came with him.
You can’t give him what he needs. He’ll take what little you have.
Stupid Creepy Izzy making this harder than it needed to be. Hadn’t he proved he could be trusted? Isabelle had put this man through hell and he always came back stronger.
She couldn’t give him what he needed. Not completely. But maybe, over time, she’d learn to give it all.
Maybe.
She cupped his cheeks, glided her thumb over the scar she found so fascinating. “I’m crazy about you. You have to know that. I lay in bed night after night and I think about having you there with me. When I’m with you, I’m at peace. I almost know where I fit in this world because I don’t have to pretend with you. You know I’m nuts and you still stay.”
He grunted. “Yeah, but I’m slowly dying from it.”
“I wish I could tell you Creepy Izzy will go away. I don’t know if she will, but I know, emotionally speaking, this is the furthest I’ve come with anyone. It might not seem like much, but I’ve shared my problems with you. I’ve never done that before. I let men think I’m distant. They never know about Kendrick or Creepy Izzy.”
“Then they aren’t paying attention and don’t deserve you.”
She grinned at him. “That’s what I mean. You
get
me. It’s like my own piece of heaven and I’m not sure what to do with it. I know I want to do
something
, I just don’t know what.”
Peter ducked his head. Kissed her. Hesitant at first and then, with a sweep of his tongue, more sure.
Yes.
He tried to back away, but she pulled him closer and the kiss deepened. Her mind wandered to the bed and getting him over there.
“I know what I want,” she said. “I can’t promise Creepy Izzy won’t take over, but, at this second, it’s Fun Izzy and I really want you to love me.”
He grunted, and backed her up until her legs hit the bed. “Convenient that we’re already naked.”
“How about that?”
They both laughed as she landed on the squeaking bed and he dropped beside her. “You want to be in charge?” he asked.
“I want
us
to be in charge.” She rolled over, straddled him, felt the heat of his erection against her inner thigh. “Wow. Peter. It’s a powerful thing to know I do this to you.”
He slid his hands up her torso, across her breasts, and she threw her head back, concentrating on the sensation of his hands on her.
Don’t give yourself over.
Stop thinking.
She leaned forward and kissed him. Kissing him always quieted her rioting brain.
“Don’t think,” he said, gliding his hands down her back. “Just let go. I’ll take care of you.”
“I know.” She trailed kisses down his neck, wanting only to feel him inside her. Maybe he’d be the one that could help her find that part of her that had been missing for so long.
Please let it be him
.
“Condoms,” he said.
Isabelle sat up and leaned over him to the bedside table while he put his tongue to work on her nipple. “That’s cheating.”
He pulled back. “You don’t seem to mind.”
She dangled a condom in front of him. “I was expecting you.”
“I love a woman who’s prepared.”
And he couldn’t wait to get started. He had to be brain-fried because he couldn’t come up with a single reason not to spend the next four hours banging the hell out of Isabelle DeRosa. The woman who was slowly killing him.
After slipping the condom on, he rolled on top of her, shoved her hair out of her face and held it while he got lost in those sea green eyes that, in a darkened room, shined bright.
He wanted her. And it wasn’t just the sex. He wanted the whole nutty package.
She hooked her hand around his neck, pulled him down and kissed him. Hot, needy. His weight sunk into her, the miserable bed squeaking again. He used his knee to spread her legs and settled himself there, pulling away from the kiss and nipping her jaw.
Her welcoming giggle left his mind swirling and she clamped her hands on his ass, slid them across his hips, up his back, all the while arching under him. Wanting him.
“Please, Peter.”
She shivered under him, but didn’t object when he pushed into her and let the hunger he’d kept at bay run loose.
After she bolted her legs around him, he dared to look at her, watching her eyes and the heat there as her hands moved all over, driving him to madness. Damn, he loved her.
Faster, he thought, and plunged again, surrendering to his baser needs, but wanting to give what her pumping hips so clearly wanted. Yes, he’d given in to Creepy Izzy. He’d let the emotions of that same rogue wave devour him as he thought about the two of them, together, in this bed, the scorching heat between them firing like a hot zone until he couldn’t hang on anymore. With one hand, he touched her face. She opened her eyes, blew him a kiss, and his body exploded from the force of it.
“Holy shit,” Peter said.
Isabelle caught her breath for a second before she remembered to let it out. She laughed and dragged her nails lightly against his back. “Uh-huh.”
“Just so you know,” he said, “I usually last longer than ten seconds.”
Like she cared. At this moment, her pleasure couldn’t be diminished. “I wasn’t counting.”
“Yeah, but I know you didn’t—”
“It’s all right.”
He pushed himself up, his wavy hair a curling mess around his face. “It’s not okay.”
Here we go again
. Another explanation. Would it ever stop?
She made a move to roll away, but his arms kept her in place. She sighed. More humiliation. “It doesn’t always happen for me.” Too much baggage occupying her mind. But she’d never say that to him. The one who asked for all of her.
“Unacceptable.”
She laughed.
“I’m serious,” he said, still hovering above her. “How is that fair to you? We’re in this together. Why is it okay for me to have an orgasm and not you?”