Intrusion (15 page)

“Anyway,” the woman continued, her voice growing even closer. “I decided to stop at home and change before heading to the office.”

Perspiration slicked Audra’s palms and she swiped them against her pants. They had nowhere to go. If they ran for the back door, they’d be spotted. They couldn’t make a break for the front entrance either.

Her gaze darted around the kitchen. Where could they hide? Industrial refrigerator, double wall oven, granite countertops, and a shiny square in the wall that looked liked…

“Dumbwaiter.” Cam huffed the word under his breath and hauled her over to the stainless steel square.

He slid the well-oiled hatch open and gestured her inside. Was he out of his mind? The thing had to be no bigger than three feet by three feet. She hesitated. And just how much weight would it realistically hold?

Her scientific side kicked in and struck her with the insane impulse to stop and calculate the load of the suspended steel box. Death by dumbwaiter had not been on her agenda this morning. Of course, neither had breaking and entering.

Footsteps ebbed closer—right around the corner—eating away at their freedom. No time to figure out an alternate plan.

Audra squeezed inside and before she had the chance to situate herself, Cam crammed in. His body filled the metal box as he slid the hatch closed and plunged them into darkness. His hot breath fanned across her cheek in a rhythmic and humid caress. Their limbs tangled around each other and she shifted only to find herself on Cam’s lap, his hand high on her thigh.

She squirmed against his touch, hoping to dislodge it, but his hand slipped against her crotch. She sucked in a thick, stuffy breath. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” The words rasped past her throat in a strained whisper. She tipped her head back against the steel wall and could’ve sworn she heard the pulleys creak. “How much do you weigh? Because I swear this thing can’t have the load capacity to handle both our weights.”

“I don’t weigh more than a feather.” His other hand found the curve of her hip and wrapped around it. “So if this thing snaps, and I somehow die in a freakin’ dumbwaiter with you wrapped around me, it’ll be on your head.”

“How can you still manage to be a smartass when we’re either going to die or get hauled off to prison—and can you please stop touching me there?”

He let out an edgy, almost inaudible laugh. “Where?”

His hand pressed deeper against her and his breath—warm, delicious, steady—fluttered against her. Her own breath choked from her throat in choppy bursts until Cam’s hand trailed up her body and lightly covered her lips.

And then she couldn’t breathe at all from the sensation of his fingertips against her mouth. Which turned out to be a good thing when footsteps paced in front of the dumbwaiter.

“I had hoped to catch you. You know how much I hate leaving messages on your cell. I’m running over to the office now and probably won’t be back until late tonight. The Torres account has to be ready for tomorrow’s meeting. Call me.”

Audra bit the inside of her lip as sounds of the woman’s rustling around in the kitchen snaked their way past the steel door of the dumbwaiter. She tried to modulate her breathing in order to match it with Cam’s. Her chest rose and fell; his thumb began to rub its way back and forth across her lower lip.

She shifted, not that she had any place to go, but her wrist was bent at an awkward angle between her hip and Cam’s, and she needed to pull it free. Her hand bumped his thigh, slipped across the lean muscle there and collided with—

Oh, crap.

She tried to snatch her hand back, but Cam squeezed her fingers and pressed her hand to the hardness there.

She swallowed, her pulse firing like a magnetically charged electron zinging through her body.

“Let. Go.” The words scraped past her throat with barely any sound.

She couldn’t see his face, but she could have sworn he grinned and shook his head. A challenge. When would she learn not to rise to the bait?

His hand moved to her jaw and she leaned forward, pressing her mouth to his. The contact shouldn’t have shocked her, but this kiss...this kiss was different than their first one.

Maybe because she’d initiated it and caught him off guard, but their meeting of mouths was neither inquisitive nor exploratory. It was urgent, hot. Wet. Soul-stirring, mind altering, and scary as hell because it managed to make her forget everything except the feel of his lips on hers and the hardness of his body that strained against her hand.

He lifted his mouth from hers and it took all of her willpower not to let out an audible moan. His hand trailed down her body to the hem of her shirt. His fingers played with the edge, then slipped beneath it, sliding across her bare skin. She sucked in a breath, tipped her head back. Why did his touch have to feel so good?

He tugged her shirt up and bent his head to plant a damp kiss against her breast, the heat of his mouth searing her through her lacy bra. She flinched from surprise, from the pleasure that tightened her nipples. But that was nothing compared to the way he teased the scrap of fabric aside and licked her.

“Audra.” The reverent whisper of her name undid her when his breath washed across her bare skin.

Moisture stung her eyes. How could she remain impartial to this man when just his touch made her heart absolutely ache and her body respond with reckless abandon?

He dropped her shirt back in place, moved his mouth up her throat and back to her lips. She caved, opening her mouth and letting his tongue slide inside to mingle with hers. He tunneled his fingers through her hair and she sought to put at least some distance between them by removing her hand from its intimate position between his thighs. She clutched at his shirt instead and angled her head, letting him nip at her bottom lip.

What was it he’d said? That he was the leak in her firewall. No, he was more like the virus, eating away at her defenses until she surrendered to him. Surrendered her body, her heart, everything she’d vowed to keep in chains to avoid the inevitable hurt that was sure to follow.

A deep burning ache speared across her heart and gripped her throat. What would she have left once he disappeared from her life? She’d be nothing more than a shell. Stripped bare, vulnerable. How long would it take to rebuild her walls?

Years.

The pain wasn’t worth the risk. She shoved Cam aside, her heartbeat frantic and her breath short. Unable to stand another second with her body pressed to his, she fumbled in the dark for the latch on the dumbwaiter’s roll up door.

Someone might still be out there. She hesitated, her hand on the release and listened for footsteps. Nothing. But that didn’t mean the woman was gone. If she opened the door, they’d get caught.

Cam stroked a finger down her cheek. “Audra.”

Oh, God. He was going to kiss her again. She felt it in the way the air grew thick between them and in the slight shift of his body.

If she let him—if she stayed in this tiny little tin box with him a moment longer, she’d do something incredibly stupid. Like turn off her heart’s security software and invite him inside.

Panic trickled into her chest. Her fingers wrapped around the handle and tugged.

Cam gripped her elbow. “Audra, wait.”

She shook him off. “Can’t.”

The door slid up and she scrambled out of the cab, her gaze sweeping the empty kitchen. All clear.

Her feet hit the floor, jarring relief into her limbs, but instead of the light plop she’d expected from her sneakers striking tile, a mechanical rumble rippled the air.

She spun back to the dumbwaiter in time to watch it start to move.
Up.

“Oh, no.”

Cam’s arm snaked into the air. She grabbed for his hand and wrenched him forward. He tumbled out of the dumbwaiter, tucking and rolling as he met the floor. In one fluid motion he gained his feet and shot her a glare that rooted her to the floor.

She turned away from him so she didn’t have to see the blood in his eyes. They made it to the back door undetected. Audra inched it open just enough for her and Cam to slip outside. A slate path meandered in front of her leading to God knew where. Somewhere away from the house, but she was no longer in the mood to investigate. She just wanted to find the quickest route back to the truck.

Cam took her hand and she followed him into a crouch as he led her around the side of the house and back to the street. He let go of her when they reached the pickup.

“Get in.” He popped open the door.

“Cam, I’m—”

He speared her with a look; his gray eyes dark and sparking like mercury fulminate. “Just get in. I want to get out of here before Coburn’s wife realizes we were getting it on in her dumbwaiter.”

She should’ve jumped in the car and left it at that, but no, her brain chose that moment to go on vacation. “We weren’t…getting it on.”

“No? What would you call it, then?”

“Another bad lapse of judgment.”

He hesitated. The muscles in his throat contracted and his eyes grazed down the length of her body before coming to rest on her mouth. “For someone who prides herself on her scientific logic, you sure have a lot of those.”

And as long as Cam was around, she was afraid she’d keep right on having them.

Chapter Eleven

“We’re here.”

Cam stared at the neglected cabin through the dust-coated windshield. He hadn’t set foot in it in nearly four years. Had, in fact, never planned to return. Some places were better left in the past where their memories could remain untainted.

“Where’s here?” Audra stretched against the car seat, the movement causing her breasts to strain against the fabric of her t-shirt.

“Lake Pleasant.”

He’d made one stop at his storage unit on the outskirts of Phoenix where he’d loaded as many of his supplies into the bed of his truck as he could before heading to their destination. He had a plan to get them out of this mess and wanted to make sure he was prepared for anything.

Audra had turned away from him as soon as they’d left Coburn’s mansion, no doubt silently rebuilding the defenses he’d succeeded in knocking down with that kiss in the dumbwaiter. Damn, he still couldn’t get the taste of her off his tongue. If he thought he could get away with it, he’d lean over and indulge in another nibble, but she’d probably deck him.

It would still be worth it.

Cam yanked the car door open and stepped out, rocks crunching under his boots. He strode to the cabin door, leaving Audra to scramble out of the car to catch up. His sweet mother had probably just rolled over in her grave at his lack of gentlemanly manners, but hell, this place shook unrest through him like the great quake of San Francisco. He ran a hand along the faded brown paint trying to calm his tremors.

Stop stalling. Get in there already.

Even though he could’ve broken the flimsy lock, he slipped his lock pick out of his pocket and bent to work on the knob.

Audra hovered next to him. “What are you doing? What if the owners’ show up?”

He wiggled the knob and the lock popped. “They won’t.”

“But how do you know?”

The door’s rusty hinges creaked in protest as he pushed it open. His gut clenched at the sight of the dust swirling around the deserted interior.

“Because it belongs—,” he swallowed hard, “—to a friend of mine. There’s a generator out back. And the water runs off its own private well.”

“Food?”

“There should be canned goods in the cupboards. Nothing fancy, but we’ll get by.”

He let Audra precede him into the cabin, anything to give himself another moment to prepare. But nothing could have equipped him for the grief that knocked the wind out of him when he stepped inside.

The rough-hewn table still sat in the center of the room, with the outdated kitchenette along the wall to the right. The striped couch off to the left drew his attention. He curled his fingers around the coarse tweed, memories of good conversation and cold beer invading his senses.

The door closed and a heavy hush fell over a room that had never lacked noise and laughter. Silence—the high price of failure—final and irrevocable. He could not let Audra become another one of his casualties.

He tightened his jaw and looked at her. She avoided him, her gaze rooted to the floor as if it contained some magic eight ball that held the answers to all their problems. Need zapped through him, his veins surging with the desperate desire to protect, to hold, to know her inside and out. He wanted to connect with her in a raw elemental way. Wanted to force her to acknowledge that there was something between them.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he blurted, the statement dropping into the room with more force than intended.

Her head shot up and her eyes widened on him. “I’m sorry?”

“Yeah, you’re going to be when you realize I mean it.” He grinned, his heavy heart buoyed by watching her get flustered.

She blinked. “If this has to do with the—the thing in the—well, forget about it. I already have.”

Forget about it? Not a chance in hell, baby.

He closed the short distance between them, reached over and stroked a finger down her soft mouth. “Don’t you dare deny this.”

She pushed his hand aside. “All right, so I’m...attracted to you. It’s just that it’s been awhile since I’ve...” Her voice trailed off and a blush spread across her cheeks.

“Ah, so I’m—what—an itch that needs scratching?” A slow burn came to life in his gut. “If that’s the case, why don’t we go right now and get the deed done. There’s a bed down that short hallway. I can be out of your hair by suppertime.”

Her chin jerked and flames caught in her whiskey eyes. “That’s not what I—”

“I know.” He blew out a strained breath that twisted into a chuckle. “I just enjoy yanking your chain.”

“I can’t imagine why.”

“Can’t you?”

***

Audra shoved a hand into her pocket and frowned, ignoring the way her heart thrummed over the husky timbre of Cam’s voice. Her fingers curled around the strips of paper she’d nabbed from Coburn’s office and she pulled them out, dumping them on the table.