Grayson leaned in and put his mouth on hers. It was just a touch, barely qualifying as a kiss, but this was Grayson. He could make her melt with a simple brush of his mouth and she’d forget all the arguments she had going through her head about why she couldn’t do this. Kissing would only lead to more complications.
Still, Eve moved closer.
She hooked her arm around the back of his neck and eased him down to her. His mouth pressed harder, and that barely-a-kiss became a real one.
He snapped her to him, body to body, and took her mouth the way he always had. He was clever and thorough, and any thought of resisting him flew right out of her mind.
In fact, she did the opposite of resisting.
Eve got even closer, sliding her hands down his back and adjusting their positions so that the kiss turned to full body contact. Yes, there were clothes between them, but she knew his body so well that she had no trouble filling in the blanks of how it would feel to have him naked against her.
“You still can’t?” he mumbled against his mouth.
She couldn’t answer because the kiss turned French and scalding hot. If she’d had breath left to speak, she wouldn’t have used it to state the obvious because clearly she
could.
Couldn’t she?
This wouldn’t be lab sex for the purpose of getting her pregnant. This would be like old times. And then what?
Eve forced herself to consider
then what.
Grayson cursed, and for a moment she thought he had reached the same
then what?
roadblock that she had. It took her a moment to realize he was cursing because his phone was ringing. She hadn’t heard it over the roar in her head.
“It’s Nate,” Grayson let her know after he glanced down at the screen. He flipped the cell open and jabbed the speaker button. He also leaned against the kitchen counter and tried to level his breathing.
Eve did the same, though it would take more than some deep breaths to get back to normal.
“Please tell me you have good news,” he greeted Nate.
“Well, it’s news,” Nate explained. “I’ll let you decide if it’s good or not. Just got the preliminary DNA results, and Nina Manning was indeed Sophia Collier.”
So, there it was—the proof that at least some of the Colliers weren’t going to like because that proof was also motive.
“I did a statewide search of labs that had tested Sophia’s DNA,” Nate continued, “and I couldn’t find any record that Cicely had requested a test.”
Another lie, and Eve was betting that Cicely would just lie again when Grayson questioned her about it.
Eve huffed. Would they ever learn the truth so that Sophia’s killer could be brought to justice and so that she could finally get on with her life?
She looked at Grayson and felt his kiss still burning her mouth. Maybe getting on with her life wasn’t even possible. That kiss had proven that she would never get Grayson out of her blood and out of her system. Never.
“But someone else did request a test on Sophia’s DNA,” Nate added. That caught Eve’s attention. “That happened just three days before Sophia was murdered.”
“Who?” Grayson and Eve asked in unison.
“Sebastian,” Nate answered.
Eve saw the surprise in Grayson’s eyes. Sebastian had denied that Nina was his sister, but yet he obviously knew the truth because he’d had her DNA tested.
“You’re positive about this?” Grayson pressed.
“Positive, and I have proof. Sebastian tried to cover up the payment for the test by using cash, but the lab has 24/7 surveillance. We have footage of him going into the lab and then picking up the results.”
“What kind of a timeline are we looking at for this? Did Sebastian have the DNA results before Nina was murdered?” Grayson wanted to know.
“Oh, yeah,” Nate assured him. “He had them all right. Less than twenty-four hours after he got the results that confirmed Nina was his sister, someone killed her.”
Grayson shook his head, mumbled something. “Then as far as I’m concerned, that makes Sebastian Collier our number-one suspect.”
Eve agreed, and judging from the sound he made, apparently so did Nate.
“So, what do you want me to do?” Nate asked Grayson.
Grayson didn’t even hesitate. “Pick up Sebastian and put him in a holding cell. I’ll be at SAPD first thing in the morning to read him his rights and arrest him.”
Chapter Fifteen
Grayson downed the shot of whiskey. It was strong stuff, Mason’s private stash, and it burned his eyes and throat. What it didn’t do was clear his head.
But then, that was asking a lot from a shot of whiskey.
The details of the case kept running through his head. Thoughts of Eve kept running through his body. Neither would give him much peace tonight, even though the house was whisper-quiet and would likely stay that way because it was going on midnight.
“Midnight,” he mumbled.
Since he had an early-morning trip to SAPD to question and arrest Sebastian, he should be sleeping. Heck, Eve probably was. She’d called it a night well over an hour ago.
Good thing, too, because before her good-night Grayson had been on the verge of resuming the make-out session that Nate’s call had interrupted.
He shouldn’t have touched her.
And he damn sure shouldn’t have kissed her.
He should have just walked away and let fate sort out the details of what was to come in the next week or so. But the sight of those tears in her eyes had shaken him. Grayson considered himself a strong man, but he wasn’t strong enough to keep her at arm’s length when she’d been crying.
He poured himself another shot and took it in one gulp. Still no relief. So he gave up on the whiskey and headed out of the den and to his bathroom for a shower. He stripped along the way, dropping his clothes on the bedroom floor, and he kept the water ice-cold.
That didn’t work, either.
There was a furnace of heat in his body, and there was only one cure for what he felt.
Eve.
Damn her. Damn
him.
Grayson knew that pretty much any woman could satisfy his body, but there was only one woman who could satisfy
him.
And that was Eve.
For most of his life, she’d been what had fired him up and cooled him down—sometimes in the same minute. She’d been the one woman he couldn’t get out of his head. And no amount of whiskey or cold water was going to cure that. No. There was only one cure, and she was right across the hall.
Grayson cursed and put on his jeans. No sense trying to talk himself out of jumping off this Texas-size cliff. He was going to jump all right, and this could be a fall that would hurt for the rest of his life.
He didn’t knock on the guestroom door. Didn’t want anything to slow him down and stop him. Well, that was the plan anyway, but his mouth went dry when he spotted her. Not asleep as he’d thought she would be. No. Eve was wide-awake, lying in bed, the ice-white covers draped loosely over her breasts and the rest of her.
Grayson shut the door. And went to her.
“The right thing would be for me to go back to my room,” he told her.
Her mouth trembled slightly and turned into the hint of a smile. “Grayson, for once in your life, don’t do the right thing, okay?”
She caught on to his hand, pulled him closer. Grayson obliged and leaned down for a kiss. He’d kissed her a thousand times, maybe more, but each time always felt like the first. That punch hit him hard in the chest and then below the belt.
How could he want anyone this much?
And worse, why would he want her this much even after he’d had her?
Grayson kept the kiss simple, though his body was revved up way past the kissing stage. Still, he needed this. The feel of her mouth against his. The sweet silk of her lips. Her taste. He needed it all, and apparently Eve did, too, because she kept inching him closer.
The covers shifted, and the sheet slipped off her breasts. No bra. Just Eve’s bare breasts. He met her gaze and saw the little spark there.
Grayson used just the tip of his index finger to draw the covers down. He got an interesting show as he revealed every inch of her. Bare stomach. Bare hips. He heard himself choke back a groan.
No panties.
“I like to sleep naked,” she whispered.
“I like that you like to sleep naked.” He tried to chuckle. Failed at that, too.
“No.” Eve tightened the grip on his hand. “Don’t you dare have any doubts about this.”
Oh. He had doubts, but he wasn’t going to do anything about them. Grayson did what he did best. He took control of the situation. He raked back the rest of the covers, exposing every bit of Eve’s naked body.
Yeah, she was beautiful.
He hadn’t had to see her naked to remember that, but this trip down memory lane was a good one.
Grayson put his knee on the bed, the feather mattress giving way to his weight. He let himself ease into a fall and kissed her on the way down until his body was pressed hard against hers. The fit was right. Perfect. And it created pressure in all the right places.
“Jeans,” she mumbled and fumbled for his zipper.
Grayson let her deal with that so he could make some headway with what he’d started. And what he’d started was a full-body kiss.
He trailed the kisses down her throat to her breasts. Yeah. That taste hadn’t changed. He took her nipple into his mouth, and the zipper fumbling stopped, just as he figured it would. Eve moaned, arched her back and shoved her fingers into his hair to pull him closer.
“Yes.” She repeated it and wrapped her legs around him.
His jeans were still between them, but Eve got the position and the pressure just right for this to go to the next level.
“Make me crazy, Grayson,” she whispered and then laughed, low and husky.
He was too involved in the kissing to laugh, but he smiled when he slid his body through her leg lock and kissed her where she really wanted to be kissed. Right in the center of all that wet heat.
But Eve didn’t stay on just the receiving end. She ran her hands over his shoulder and into his hair. Her legs caressed his back…and lower.
She knew exactly how to drive him crazy, too. And how to pleasure him. After all, they’d spent their teen years making out in his truck. Kisses only, at first. Lots of kisses.
Then, the touches.
He’d given Eve her first climax with his hand in her panties. They’d lost their virginity on her seventeenth birthday. They’d both been clumsy and awkward. But they’d both learned a lot over the years.
“Too crazy,” she let him know when she was close to climaxing.
She caught on to him, pulling him back up so she could go after his zipper again. She wasn’t playing this time. She was hot and ready so Grayson helped her, and she used her feet and hands to work the jeans off his hips.
“Commando,” she said when she noticed he wasn’t wearing his usual boxers. She smiled when she looked down between their bodies and no doubt saw that he was hard as stone. “That’s my Grayson.”
She froze and got that deer-in-the-headlights look. As if she’d crossed some line and tried to take them back to a place they could never go again. And maybe she had with that
my Grayson.
But he didn’t care a flying fig about lines. He’d crossed the biggest line of all just by coming into her room.
He pinned her hands to the bed. Pinned her body, too. She would want his full weight on her so Grayson obliged, and he pushed himself inside her.
Mercy.
The pleasure was blinding.
It was like coming home for Christmas.
Eve arched her back and pressed her head against the pillow. She rocked her hips into his, causing him to go deep and hard into her. He was probably too rough. That thought was just a flash, and soon he couldn’t think at all.
He moved inside her. Faster. Harder. Deeper. Until she was so close to climax. Until everything was a blur.
Everything except Eve.
Everything inside him pinpointed on her. Just her. The primal ache clawed away at him. This need as old as man. The need to take and claim.
But there were other needs, too.
And it was that need that sent Grayson in search of a kiss. He wanted the taste of her in his mouth when he lost all reason. When she slipped over the edge.
Eve came in a flash, when Grayson was deep inside her, when his mouth took hers.
Grayson said her name. It came from a place deeper than the primal need that had brought them to this point.
Somewhere in his brain, it registered that this was going to complicate the hell out of things. But that was only a split-second thought. Eve’s legs tightened around him. She pulled him closer, and her climax brought on his.
Grayson felt his body surrender. Felt that slam of pleasure that was beyond anything he ever deserved to feel. Something so perfect. So amazing.
So Eve.
Chapter Sixteen
“You did what?” Grayson snapped to the person on the other end of the phone.
Eve thought the caller might be Nate, but she wasn’t sure, and she couldn’t tell from the conversation what Grayson was snapping about now. But there was no doubt, he was snapping.
Eve stared out the car window, sipped her coffee and debated—again—what she should say to Grayson once he had finished this call. Or if she should say anything. After all, he certainly hadn’t volunteered much about coming to her bed for one of the most amazing nights of her life.
In fact, he had avoided the subject.
Of course, he’d been on the phone most of the morning and during the entire drive from the ranch to San Antonio. So that was his excuse, but she had to wonder, if it hadn’t been for the calls, would he have come up with another reason for them not to talk?
“You’re positive this isn’t some kind of ruse so Sebastian can escape?” Grayson demanded.
Mercy, that didn’t sound good, and she didn’t think it was a good sign when Grayson turned off the interstate two exits before the one for SAPD headquarters. Grayson had been on his way to arrest Sebastian, but there had obviously been a change of plans.