Love at First Flight (33 page)

He held her as tightly as he dared, his
face buried in her fragrant hair.

“Michael?”

“What, hon?”

“I'm worried about work. I won't be able
to go in tomorrow, not with my face all banged up... I was already out last
week and now this. I'm going to get fired—”

“Shh.” He kissed her. “Don't worry. I
called the salon. I told them you'd been in a car accident, and they said to
take as much time as you need.”

She released a sigh of relief. “Thank
you for thinking of that,” she said, reaching for him.

Thrilled that she felt well enough to
even care about work, he fell into the kiss. She was everything, and she was
still right here with him. For now, for this moment, she was his and she loved
him.

“Is there a lock on that door?”

“I don't know.”

She kissed him again. “Why don't you check?”

“You need to get some sleep.”

“I've had some sleep.” She nibbled on
his ear, her hand moving to his chest. “Now I want you.”

He groaned as she pushed open his shirt.
“Juliana...”

She pressed her lips to his chest. “What?”

“Sweetheart,”
he hissed. “Come
on. You're killing me.”

She laughed. “Then stop resisting.”

When she reached for his fly, he grabbed
her hand. “All right. That's enough. Time to sleep.”

“Michael?”

He took a deep breath to slow the
frantic beating of his heart. “What, hon?”

“I need...”

Turning on his side to face her, he
said, “What do you need? I'll get you anything you want.”

“I need to feel like I'm still alive. Is
that weird?”

“No,” he said, kissing her with a burst
of passion that took them both by surprise. “It's not weird. It's normal after
what you went through.”

“Make me feel like I'm still alive, will
you? Will you, please?”

“Right now?” he asked, startled. “Here?”

She bit her lip. “Yes. Right here, right
now.”

“What about the nurses?”

“They were just in a little while ago.”

“I slept through that?”

“Uh huh.” Giggling, she added, “They
said you were awfully cute all curled up to me in the bed.”

He studied her for a long moment before
he got up to discover there was no lock on the door. “I don't know about this,
Juliana...”

“I'm willing to take my chances,”
Juliana said with a saucy grin. “What'11 they do? Kick me out?”

His heart pounding and imagining the
headlines should they be caught, Michael shrugged off his shirt and dropped the
suit pants he had put on almost twenty-four hours earlier. “I had no idea you
were such a risk taker.”

“I'm just full of surprises,” she said,
pulling the covers over them.

“This is definitely a first,” he
whispered.

She replied with a hot kiss that robbed
him of all rational thought. Her arms went around him, urging him over her.

“Does your neck hurt?” he asked, pushing
up her hospital gown to find her naked underneath. She caressed his back. “No.”

Concerned about hurting her, he trembled
from the effort to contain overwhelming urges. “Love me, Michael.”

With only the slightest of movements he
slid into her. Not wanting to cause her pain, he kept up a slow, easy pace that
somehow affected him more than any other time with her ever had. All the
anxiety and emotion and love from that long day—not to mention the fear of
getting caught—had him on the verge of losing control in a matter of moments. “I'm
not going to last long, baby,” he whispered through gritted teeth, reaching
under her to hold her tight against him.

“You won't have to,” she said in a
breathy voice that told him she too was teetering on the edge.

He tightened his hold on her to keep her
still so her climax wouldn't hurt her.

With a gasp, she clutched him from
within, dragging him over the edge with her.

“Did it work?” he asked when he had
caught his breath. He could very safely say that making love with her in a
hospital bed, after nearly losing her, had been the most erotic experience of
his life.

She laughed. “
Oh, yeah.
I'm definitely alive.”

He kissed her forehead and then her
lips. “Yes, you are. But we're both going to be dead if we get caught like
this.” He disentangled himself from her and found his clothes. After he got
dressed, he said, “There. Now I can breathe again.”

Juliana smiled when he lay down next to
her again. “Thank you.”

“Believe me, it was my pleasure.”
Kissing her softly, he added in a teasing tone, “I want to be the guy who's
there for you in your time of need.”

She linked her fingers with his. “You
are.”

His smile faded. “Except that you're in
this bed tonight because of me.”

“Don't do that, Michael. You didn't cut
me.”

“In the morning the cops are going to
want your state-ment.” He brought their joined hands to his lips. “Do you think
you'll feel up to it?”

“What do I have to tell them?”

“Everything that happened from the time
you first heard something on the roof until he was shot.”

She looked away from him.

“What?”

“I don't want them to know he said that
other stuff about, you know...”

“I think you could leave that part out
since he didn't actually do anything.”

“He might have if the cops didn't show
up when they did. I think that's why he didn't kill me right away. He wanted
something else first.”

Michael stopped breathing. “Did
something else happen, Juliana?”

Her cheeks flushed with color. “He
was...”

“Tell me,” Michael urged.

“Turned on,” she whispered.

“How could you tell?”

“He pushed it against me when he put the
knife—”

“Stop.” His heart racing with anxiety,
Michael hugged her close to him. “That's enough. You don't have to tell the
police about that.”

“He said he had to come back because
he'd left a loose end behind and that he couldn't let me live because his
clients wouldn't want anyone left who could link him to the trial.”

His blood gone cold, Michael sat up. “He
said that? In those exact words?”

“Just about.”

“Holy shit. This is a nightmare that
refuses to end. You can link him to the Benedettis. They haven't found anything
else to tie him to them.”

“What does that mean?”

“You're still in danger.”

CHAPTER 28

EARLY THE NEXT MORNING, MICHAEL'S DETAIL
TOOK him home to shower and change. He returned in less than an hour with
clothes for Juliana to wear home from the hospital. For the moment, his
colleague George Samuels was handling the trial. Since they had no real
defense, the Benedettis' attorneys were calling a parade of character witnesses
to testify on their behalf. According to George, the previous afternoon
consisted of glowing praise for the brothers' care of their widowed mother,
their work at the YMCA with underprivileged kids, and other bullshit that
George didn't think the jury was buying. Michael's absence had been explained
as a personal emergency.

Juliana showered and got dressed. The
nurses changed the dressing on her cut and showed Michael how to do it at home.
The stitches would dissolve, and they hoped the scar would be undetectable.
However, the bruise on her face had exploded with color overnight, and she had
a black eye. She was weak from the blood loss and the cut hurt like crazy, but
otherwise she felt well enough to go home.

“God, I look like hell,” she complained
to Michael when she came out of the bathroom.

“Not to me.”

“You have to say that.”

“I don't care how you look as long as
you're alive and safe. It's going to be a long time before I care about
anything else.”

She put her arms around him and rested
her head on his chest. “I'm sorry you were so scared.”

“Scared doesn't begin to describe it.”

“Let's go home.”

The detectives were coming by the house
in an hour to take her statement. Michael had asked Tom Houlihan to be there,
too.

“We need to talk about our living
situation,” he reminded her as he helped her into the wheelchair the nurses
left for them.

“Not now, okay?”

“Not now, but later. Definitely later.”

***

After Juliana gave the detectives her
statement— skipping over Escalada's rape threats—Tom showed them out. Juliana
rested on the sofa against the mountain of pillows Michael insisted on.

“I think we can work this so the
Benedettis won't know that Escalada gave them up,” Tom said.

“Until they're tried for the attempted
murder-for-hire of the cops and Rachelle,” Michael reminded him.

“That'll be a year or more from now. If
we can keep a lid on it until discovery, Juliana will be safe from them.”

“What happens after discovery?” Juliana
asked.

Tom and Michael exchanged glances.

“Protective custody,” Tom said. “Followed
most likely by witness protection.”

Juliana twisted her fingers as she
absorbed the news. She'd thought that threat died along with Escalada.
Unfortunately, he had told her just enough to keep her ensnared in the case.

Tom sat down next to Juliana. “I know
what you're thinking: we failed to keep Rachelle safe, so what's to say the
same thing won't happen to you.” He took her hand. “I'm not going to feed you a
big line of bull because you've seen how bad it can get. I'm just going to
promise you that we'll do everything we can to ensure your safety.”

“That's all you can do. Thank you, Tom,
and thank you for the flowers, too. They're gorgeous.”

“Feel better soon.” Tom stood up to
shake hands with Michael. “Take as much time as you need. George has things
covered in court.”

Michael thanked him and walked him to
the door. When he came back, he sat down next to Juliana. “Can I get you
anything?”

“No, I'm good, but you need to get back
to work.”

“I will, tomorrow probably. We need to
talk about what's going to happen now. I think you should go home—to your
place. You'd be safer there.”

“I'd be alone there.”

“You're going to be alone here when I go
to work tomorrow.”

“But I won't be alone at night. I can
ask Mrs. R to come over during the day. She'd love to hang out with me.”

Michael sighed with exasperation. “You're
working me. I know that look. You think if you look at me that way you can get
whatever you want.”

She reached for his hand. “What look?”

“That one! You're doing it again! It's
not going to work. I want you to go home. I don't want you here anymore.”

“Now you're just lying to my bruised and
battered face,” she said, kissing the palm of his hand.

He rested it against her bruised cheek. “I
never knew you were such an operator. Maybe you're more like Paige than I
thought.”

“Oh!” She punched his chest. “Take that
back!”

He chuckled and leaned in to kiss her. “I
don't want to.”

“I'm not kissing you until you take it
back.”

“You're going home,” he said, nudging at
her lips with his tongue.

“Make me.” She tormented him by sliding
her lips over his without giving him the access he craved.

With a groan of frustration, he gave in.
“Fine! Stay. Get yourself killed. See if I care. Now kiss me.”

“You forgot something,” she said with a
victorious smile.

“What?”

“Take back the Paige crack.”

He rolled his eyes. “I take it back, I
take it back! Now will you kiss me?”

She held him at arm's length. “One more
thing.”

“What?”

“The part where you said you don't want
me here and the 'see if I care' comment... I didn't like that, either.”

“No?”

“Not so much.”

“I'm seeing a whole new side to you that
I'm not sure
I
like.” In truth he was
so relieved by the sassy spark in her gorgeous brown eyes that he would take
anything she cared to dish out.

She folded her arms. “Now you've got to
take that back.”

He laughed. “I take it back. I take it
all back,” he said, moving her arms and nuzzling the uninjured side of her
neck.

“Say something nice so I'll forget all
that mean stuff.” He pretended to struggle to think of something. She pushed
him away. “Forget it!”