Authors: Toni Anderson
“When you find out for sure I’ll consider it. Although you being over-emotional isn’t exactly proof.” Susie snickered. Despite her brains and street smarts, Leanne was a soft touch. “Anyway,
you
get to have sex whenever you want with a gorgeous man who loves you. No way I’m giving up alcohol as well as abstaining from sex.”
It took a moment but Leanne and Susie grinned at each other.
“And if I’m going to be nice to Nick Archer, I need something stronger than OJ.” Susie took another swallow of wine, absorbing the alcohol across her tongue, aware the nice convenient barrier to her attraction had been swept away like a stick over Niagara Falls.
Nick Archer was
not
the type of man Susie wanted to get involved with. She was done with bad boys. She was going to fall in love with a nice, easygoing man and have a comfortable, relaxed relationship and make babies. She was done with wild and destructive, no matter how good looking.
“If you drink lots of wine maybe you won’t have to abstain from sex.” Leanne jiggled her brows.
Knowing any reaction would be willfully misconstrued, Susie shrugged noncommittally, but Leanne wasn’t put off.
“Here—” Leanne grabbed the bottle, tipped it into Susie’s nearly full glass. “Let me top you up.”
Lily was building a Guinness, tilting the glass beneath the beer tap and taking her time despite the Saturday night melee. Noise was a physical wall bombarding her eardrums, the bar a battlefield of bodies. Outside, October ravaged the coast, the wind coming off the North Sea like an open blast-freezer. But in this cramped oasis of beer, darts and slot machines, it was as hot as Venus and sweat trickled between her breasts like blood from a nicked vein.
The manager, Niall, caught her eye and gave her a nod to take her break. She gave him a smile, watched the light in his eyes turn hungry.
He fancied her, but she was not going there. Getting it on with the boss was icky. On cue, Rafael Domenici strolled up to the bar, lounging across it with the assurance of the bold and the beautiful, waiting for her to serve him.
In your dreams, pal.
She ignored him, gave the regular his pint and change, and headed through the flap at the end of the bar. She pushed through the mass of sweaty bodies to the backroom, heavy Latino eyes on her back, tracking her progress.
No doubt about it, Rafael Domenici was a good-looking guy and she wasn’t immune to hotties, but she’d rather get it on with a goat than get involved with some skirt-lifting womanizer who couldn’t say no to a bit of pussy even if it had teeth.
Anyway, she had other worries.
She poured herself some coffee, checked her watch, wondering if her mom was in bed yet. Should she call and check, or would that just upset her? Lily chewed her lipstick before sipping the syrupy brew. You’d think after so many years the grief would get better, but her mother just couldn’t let go. She wanted someone to blame. She wanted someone to punish. And she could never accept that Chrissie might have been responsible for her own death.
The last twelve years had been hell, especially after her father died. Lily pushed her dyed-blond hair out of her eyes and stared into space. He’d been gone three years now, but she still missed him.
A warm blast of air ripped through the room as the door opened behind her. She didn’t bother turning. “I’ll be right out, Niall.”
“It is not Niall.” Rafael Domenici’s accent was deep and rich.
“Well, trust me, Niall will be pissed if he catches you in here so go away.” She tipped the dregs of coffee into the drain and rinsed the mug before drying it and putting it back on the shelf.
“Lily, I think we, how you say? Get off to a bad foot?”
Amused, she turned and quirked an eyebrow. “Ya think?”
Muscles bunched beneath a T-shirt as he scrubbed a big hand through his mop of hair. She tried not to notice.
“It is
jeitinho brasileiro
. The Brazilian way.” He shrugged one shoulder and took a hesitant step forward. “You and I, we work together for the next three years,
sim?
I made a mistake. I no treat you with respect.
Sinto muito
.” His pale blue eyes looked earnest against his gorgeous tanned face. “I am sorry.”
Lily couldn’t hide her surprise. “If this is another angle to try and get into my knickers, forget it.”
He blew his hair out of his eyes in frustration. “I no want to get in knickers.” The word
knickers
sounded odd coming from his lips.
Lily cocked a leather-clad hip and challenged him with a look.
“Ah,
sim
, you very beautiful.” He backed up a full step, his forehead glistening with sweat. His laugh had an unflattering edge. “I am weak. I no say no.”
Lily snorted and whirled away. She was glad she made him sweat even if she wasn’t interested.
“But…” He reached out and touched her arm, the skin-on-skin contact making her jolt. “I am sorry I treat you bad. We can be friends,
sim?
”
She tilted her head to look into his eyes and realized he wasn’t pissing around. He was serious. Her neck ached from looking up because he was a big guy. She kept forgetting because her mouth and pride were both bigger.
But some days she got tired of fighting.
“Are you going to stop flirting with our supervisor?” The only thing that mattered to Lily, apart from her family, was getting her Ph.D. She didn’t know why it was so important to her, she only knew it was. “Dr. Cooper isn’t interested and you’re stirring up a really bad atmosphere at work.”
He let go of her arm and bowed slightly. “
Sim
. I promise I no
flirt
with you or Dr. Cooper.” He stood tall, puffed out his perfect chest. “But your jealousy will never come between me and Mabel.”
A laugh burst out of nowhere. Who’d have thought he’d have a sense of humor? “Okay, but if you act like a jerk again I’ll have to hurt you.” She grinned and realized she didn’t laugh much anymore. One day when she wasn’t looking, life had turned grim. She held out her hand. “Deal.”
He took her hand, his palm smooth and hot against hers. “
Valeu
, Lily.”
A stray flutter of attraction caught her by surprise and stopped her breath. Niall barged through the door and stared at their joined hands before Lily jerked free.
“Who the hell are you?” Niall asked.
“Niall, this is Rafael. I work with him in the Gatty.” She ignored the anger in her boss’s stance. Jealousy didn’t win any points with her.
“Nice to meet you, Rafael. Now bog off.” Niall held the door wide and pointed his thumb in the direction of the bar.
Rafael nodded formally, staring at her as if he had something else to say. His eyes flicked to Niall, whose irritation was starting to show in the set of his jaw and lowering of his brow.
“
Boa noite
, Lily. I see you Monday.” He nodded to Niall as he passed, but Niall ignored him and released the door to swing shut on Rafael’s heels.
“You’re not seeing that wanker, are you?” Niall asked.
“You have got to be kidding.” Lily rolled her eyes. “We share the same supervisor.” She glanced at the telephone, wondering if her mom had remembered to turn off the burners after her nightly cocoa. But Niall was watching her and she didn’t want anyone to suspect there were problems at home. “Okay, slave driver, I’ll get back to work.”
“You’ve still got five minutes.” Niall stepped closer, his voice softened to warm toffee.
Maybe one day she’d put him out of his misery, but right now she wasn’t in the mood. She patted his cheek on the way out. “Don’t worry about me, sweetheart. You just rest your old bones.”
She thought she heard his growl behind her back and grinned. Men were easy to control. It was women who gave her hives.
“Gimme Shelter” played on the stereo, stirring up memories of when Dougie, Gray and Nick had shared a damp, poky flat as undergrads. Of drunken parties and the unrelenting hope of having sex at a time when all that mattered was getting inside a girl without knocking her up or catching HIV. Then Nick met Chrissie and everything changed.
Dougie laughed at something Leanne said. Some story about how the first time she’d got on a horse she’d gone straight over the other side. Nick watched Dougie squeeze his wife’s hand, one of those intimate little gestures between couples that excluded everyone else.
Nick smiled grimly. Love was rare and precious. Needed to be nurtured and not taken for granted. No one deserved happiness more than Dougie. He’d give his left nut to protect the guy. Without Dougie, he would never have survived Chrissie’s death. Dougie had looked after him, dried him out and eventually kicked his ass into shape. Got him focused on doing something useful with his life, rather than pickling his internal organs. Even so, Nick didn’t know which of them was more surprised when he’d joined the police force.
Susie shot him a glance from under her lashes. She’d been talking to Gray since he’d arrived, totally at ease with the other man and hiding from Nick.
That was okay. He let her think she was safe for now. He glanced at the clock on the wall. It was getting late and excitement buzzed along his spine, tingling just beneath the surface of his skin.
Tonight he was finally going after what he wanted.
“Where’s the Thruxton, Nick?” Gray had a tanked-up gleam in his eye.
“Nick’s got a kick-ass motorbike,” Leanne whispered to Susie.
“A Triumph. A total babe-magnet.” Gray grinned, oblivious to a chocolate smear on his chin. If it had been Susie wearing chocolate, Nick would have helped her out, but Gray was on his own.
“I want a ride on that bike,” Leanne murmured quietly in Susie’s direction.
Dougie scowled. “Over my dead body.”
“I want to borrow it.” Gray slid Nick a hopeful glance.
“Over my dead body,” said Nick and everyone laughed. Gray never drove a vehicle without putting a ding in it.
“Anyway—” Nick’s chair creaked as he stretched out his legs, “—I put it in storage this morning.”
Autumn in Scotland was not the place to be riding a motorcycle unless you wanted iced testicles. He’d taken Lily for a ride yesterday because she’d pestered him all summer and he hadn’t been able to put it off any longer. But one good thing about visiting Emily had been finding out all about the Heathcotes’ new neighbor, Susie Cooper.
This morning he’d run a background check on Susie Q and she’d come up cleaner than bleach. She was so perfect he should be getting a rash.
“How come you weren’t at the wedding?” Susie addressed him for the first time since she’d asked him about Lily in the kitchen. Credit to her for rooting out the facts and not wanting to get involved with a man she thought was screwing one of her students. Although the thought of shagging Lily made him gag.
“Something came up.” Testifying in court against an arms dealer who’d legged it to Paraguay a day before the Serious and Organized Crime Command could make its move. Extradition was a bitch.
And it still burned that he’d let down his best friend and missed the wedding.
“Nick could tell you, but then he’d have to kill you.” Gray smirked.
“Oh, that is
so
interesting,” piped up Patricia on his right.
Patricia was pretty with shoulder-length brown hair. Cute, if you liked short, curvy women. Any other night he might have seen where that flirtation led, but not tonight. Not with Dr. Susie Cooper sitting less than six feet away, looking as bright as a newly minted five-penny piece. The fact he got hard just watching her was a complication he had to deal with.
“Nick’s the only man I know who hates the sound of his own voice.” Leanne smiled.
“Hey!” Dougie protested.
“It’s a sexy voice.” Susie grinned at Leanne, but the others missed it.
She’d had too much to drink because Leanne kept topping up her glass when she wasn’t looking.
Patricia ran a fingertip down the stem of her glass. “So what deep, dark secrets are you hiding, Detective?”
Nick brushed the question off. Probably said something funny because everyone at the table laughed, everyone except Susie. She flinched and hid her face in her wine at the words “deep, dark secrets.” No one did that. Women were always fascinated by undercover work. God knew why. But Susie kept her head down, not moving, fading into the background with perfect camouflage—the way he had done a million times in the seedier side of London’s underworld.
What deep, dark secrets could the daughter of a United States senator harbor? And how could he use them?
Nick finished his coffee, mesmerized as Susie teased the last remaining bit of chocolate mousse out of the bottom of her bowl. He’d stopped drinking hours ago. Watching Susie lose her starched politeness after a few glasses of wine had opened his mind up to a whole host of other possibilities better conducted without being trashed.
Susie finally pushed her bowl away and Leanne stood to clear the dishes, but Nick climbed to his feet.
“Sit yourself down, Mrs. MacDonald. You cooked, we’ll clear.” He kicked Gray’s boot, which jerked the man up and out of his seat in one quick motion. Dougie stood as well, though Nick knew he wanted to sneak a cigarette more than he wanted to help wash dishes.
When Nick collected Susie’s plate his fingers brushed the back of her hand. Her eyes flew to his, irises flashing, nostrils flaring with instant awareness.
“Hello.” He smiled. She looked away, her cheeks flushed and rosy. He should be ashamed of himself for playing with her, but he wasn’t. In the kitchen he dropped scraps into the bin while Gray started on the pans.
“You need a dog,” Nick shouted to Dougie who’d scuttled outside for a fag.
“I think Patricia fancies you,” he told Gray and the man’s head swiveled so fast Nick winced.
“Me?” Gray’s ruddy cheeks and unkempt hair hid a deceptively brilliant mind. After his M.Sc., Gray had started his own computer programming company designing military communication software. He could buy half the town, but still dressed like a student and was chronically allergic to opening his wallet.
“Aye. Why not? You’re a good-looking bloke.” Nick planted the seed and shut up. Hitting your mid-thirties as a single man made you rethink your options when it came to relationships. Most people got less picky.
Not Nick though. He hadn’t been tempted by a woman in years and then along came Susie Cooper. Just his luck.
“This isn’t like that time you set me up with the psycho-chick from the philosophy department, is it?” Gray asked.
“You went out with her for two months.” Nick loaded the dishwasher, kept his eyes averted because those memories might be funny, but they could still sting. “Maybe if you splashed around some of your cash, your girlfriends wouldn’t climb into other men’s beds.”
Nick’s bed to be precise.
Gray stopped scrubbing and they exchanged a cringe. “She was a bloody nutter.”
Nick laughed. “You were better off without her.”
Gray grunted but rinsed the pans in record time. His chirpy whistle told Nick he was off to build on tonight’s potential love conquest. Dougie came back inside just as Susie tripped through the kitchen doorway and picked up the telephone. Her feet pointed toward him even as she twisted around to speak to Dougie.
Yep. This was just his luck. Mutual attraction with the one woman he couldn’t have. Nick rubbed the back of his neck as blood diverted from his brain.
“I’m calling a cab,” she said with a frown. “I think I drank too much wine.”
There was a hint of vulnerability in her voice and from what he’d seen, Susie Cooper didn’t like to be out of control. That made tonight the perfect opportunity, maybe the only opportunity, to get what he wanted.
The familiar feeling of guilt settled into his gut.
“I’ll drive you home in your car if you like, and get a taxi back to town,” he offered.
“Good idea.” Dougie wrapped his arm around Susie’s shoulder with a salacious grin designed to make Nick jealous.
Susie shook her head and Mickey Mouse’s ears jiggled. “I don’t want to put you out.”
“You’re not putting me out. I live to serve, remember?” Nick willed her to look at him, to hold his gaze for more than a ricochet glance. He held his breath as her chin finally came up and her head tilted. Her eyes turned a darker blue. But in the depths, where her soul gathered, she was wary of him the way women were instinctively wary of dangerous men.
Smart girl.
“Susie, I’m getting a cab home anyway, at least this way you’ll have your car at home. It’s no trouble. I’ve got a Sunday league soccer game in the morning.” He glanced at Dougie, who was also playing in their team, and made a big show of checking his watch—as if he didn’t stay up ’til dawn on a regular basis. “And it’s late.”
Sex would be good.
That thought had been lurking in the shadows all evening. At least God had a sense of humor.
“Grab your stuff, Susie Q. I’ll give you a ride home.” And with a narrow-eyed look at his smirking friend, he went to give Leanne the biggest thank-you kiss in the history of dinner parties.
Stashing her purse at her feet, Susie sank into the black leather upholstery and regretted buying such a small car.
Her head was spinning from too much wine and something far more primitive. She recognized the signs. She was attracted to the looks, the body, the attitude—her last boyfriend had been the same and he’d completely screwed her over.
Broken hearts.
That’s what she and Dela had been recovering from when they’d taken off to the Fraser coast. She blinked as memories overwhelmed her.
Water teeming with fish in a sea so blue it dazzled like a billion sapphires. The hull of a scuttled ship coming into focus. Turning to smile at Dela, to share the wonder, only to see her friend kicking for the surface—too fast, too fast, too fast!
She wrenched her eyes open. Dela was dead and Susie had gotten the bends trying to save her.
Nick eased his length into the driver’s seat, the heat from his thighs radiating across the thin whisper of space. She cracked a window trying to hide the fact that her hands were shaking. Nick turned the ignition key and they got blasted by Sheryl Crow’s “If It Makes You Happy.”
He lowered the volume.
“I should just stay the night.” She looked longingly at Leanne’s front door and suddenly the breath was squeezed from her chest as her seatbelt cut into her sternum. The car jerked to a halt.
“Susie…” Nick turned and stared at her with those dark eyes, the engine running with a noisy purr. Her mouth went dry as her heart forced blood through suddenly fiery veins. “I’m a police officer. I promise to get you home in one piece and completely untouched unless you want it otherwise.” His voice was melted butter, rich and ultimately bad for her health.
“Promise?”
She had no intention of acting on the attraction pulsing neon-bright between them, but she knew she needed to get away from Nick Archer before the effects of alcohol outcompeted good old-fashioned common sense.
His fingers flexed around the tiny steering wheel. “If that’s what you want.”
“That is exactly what I want.”
One side of his mouth bent into a crooked smile that didn’t exactly look trustworthy, but he put the car in gear, headed along the narrow lane that led toward the main road. RAF Leuchars glittered in the distance, reflecting off the River Eden which glistened like tar in the moonless, starless night.
“So.” He shot her a quick look. “You like Sheryl Crow?”
Susie appreciated his effort at civilized conversation even if she didn’t think they were going to get very far. “And you like the Rolling Stones.”
“My dad played them when I was a little kid.” Nick shut up, as if he’d already said too much.
Mr. Loquacious.
“Where’s your dad now?” Susie gripped her seatbelt, a little nervous about the way they whizzed around a particularly curvaceous bend.
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
“I’m sorry.” She always seemed to say the wrong thing to him. He put her on edge and she went from sophisticated university professor to gauche single female in an instant.
Susie tried again. “For some reason I like angry, cynical female singer-songwriters.”
“All-men-are-bastards-who’ll-do-anything-for-a-quick-shag-and-then-dump-you-for-your-best-friend sort of stuff?” Nick’s expression was serious. “I can’t see a woman like you taking crap like that.”
“Ah, but you don’t know anything about a woman like me.” She kept the bitterness off her tongue. Nick wasn’t one of her failed past relationships and she intended to keep it that way.
He took a sharp left-hand bend and her thigh brushed his, setting off fireworks in all the wrong places. Striving to put out those flames, she hit on the one topic he really didn’t want to discuss. “I am sorry about your wife.”
Susie actually felt the mental door slam tight. Even the air turned icy and she boosted the heat just to have something to do with her hands.
He surprised her when he replied. “Everyone said we were crazy getting married so young. I guess they were right, weren’t they?” The cold words belied the look of guarded pain that flickered in his eyes.
She didn’t know what to say so she said nothing.
St. Andrews was a blur. They went through the Westport and along South Street, heading past the Gatty on the way out of town. Mist rolled off the waves like a cloak hugging the bay.
“How do you know where I live?” she asked suddenly. She hadn’t told him.
“Lily pointed it out yesterday.” He shot her a weird glance. “You actually thought me and Lily were seeing each other?”
Susie bit the inside of her cheek. “It seemed logical.” She shifted in her seat. “Lily told me she had a hot date, then ran outside and flung herself at you.” She glowered defiantly at her distorted reflection in the glass.
“Everything is a hot date to Lily.” He grinned, obviously at ease talking about Lily Heathcote as opposed to her dead sister. “She’s a good kid.” He gave a shudder. “And I’m old enough to be her father.”
Susie flinched.
“We went to visit her mother.” His sideways smile was full of self-mockery but sexy all the same.
Dammit. She had a hunch everything about Nick Archer looked sexy, with or without imbibing a bottle of Merlot.
“Emily told me all about you, Dr. Cooper.”
Lily’s mother had befriended her over the past month, but Emily’s smiles never quite reached her eyes. The skin of her face crinkled, her lips angled upward, but the light inside never seemed to brighten. Now Susie understood why—the loss of a child. She gripped the seat, the combination of wine and speed making her head spin.
“Are you all right?” Nick asked, turning down the bumpy lane toward her home. Susie nodded as she blew out a steadying breath.
They turned into her drive and a security light flooded the gravel yard, revealing the beautiful old stone cottage flanked by patches of heather and herbs.
Home.
Thank God.
Grabbing her purse, she shoved open the door before they’d stopped. Dormant wheat fields stretched behind the cottage, which bordered a golf course. Emily and Lily’s cottage topped a low rise three hundred yards away, tall hedges giving both houses seclusion and privacy.
Nick stood beside the car door, one foot on the sill, hands on the roof, looking delicious. His eyes darkened as they met hers. “Still want me to call a taxi?”
The air between them crackled with possibility, but Susie nodded. She wasn’t some easy lay for a stranger. She needed to believe she was worth more than that.
“Can I at least walk you to your door?”
Susie looked over to the French doors twenty yards away up three uneven stone slabs. Nick’s request was a baited trap, but he wasn’t that irresistible. She nodded.
Fog billowed along the lilac hedge that marked her property, enfolding them in a soft mystical silence. He fell into step beside her and handed her the key fob. She moved ahead up the steps, brushing an old lavender bush that released its fragrance through the night air. Fumbling, she dropped her keys and Nick bent to retrieve them before she had chance.
“Nice place,” he commented. “Secluded. Wouldn’t have to worry about upsetting the neighbors with loud music or screaming sex.”
Her skin sizzled and every sense felt electrified as if someone had plugged her in and flipped a switch. Her eyes widened, her chest tightened. This was dangerous. She was too aware of him, too interested in the idea of screaming sex, and too damn drunk to run as fast as she should.
And he knew it.
She pressed back against her door, her shoulder blades drawn up tight together. Nick slipped the key into the lock and took a step forward, bringing him close enough to touch if she so much as took a breath. So she didn’t. The lock clicked and he took a step back with a grave expression on his face.
“I’d kiss you goodnight if you didn’t look so scared,” he said softly.
“I’m not scared.”
“Good.” His eyes sparkled as he lowered his mouth to hers.
Mistake!
Her mind screamed but it was too late. The breath whooshed out of her as he pressed the gentlest kiss to her lips—as fine a sensation as the stroke of a feather across sensitive skin. And the world stopped. Then every sense climbed to high alert as he took a half step closer, the bulk of his shoulders blocking the wind, and heat coming off his body like rays from the sun. He smelled spicy and male, the leather of his jacket creaking as he shifted his stance. He took her by surprise as he slipped one hand beneath her coat, resting it possessively on her hipbone. Startled, she opened her eyes.
But he kissed her again, this time less gently. Sliding his hand to the base of her spine, the burning impression of each finger pressing through the cotton of her T-shirt, brushing bare skin. His lips were teasing and coaxing, not what she expected from a man who screamed danger. Her palms braced against the muscles in his chest, but they weren’t exactly beating him off. He eased her toward him, enticed a trembling response from her body, but all of a sudden he jerked away and stuck his hand in his pocket.
“Bloody hell.” He pulled out a cell phone, adjusting it to read the display in the poor light. Swearing, he looked at her with an apology in his eyes. And regret. Because she was a sure thing. “I’ve got to go.”