RENEGADE'S REDEMPTION Page 9

  “There, Elly? There?” His thigh lifted against her, rubbed slowly, over and over, pushing hard against the seam of her shorts.

  “That’s a very good idea.” She twisted, welcoming that pressure that built into quakes inside her with each push of his thigh. “Yes, there is very nice.” Her breath caught in her chest.

  “Nice?” His chest vibrated against her with his muted chuckle. “Interesting choice of words, sugar. You like nice, do you?” His hips stroked against hers, and as he anchored her against him, mouth to hungry mouth, his tongue echoed, repeated that seductive motion of his narrow hips. “I think, Elly Malloy, I like nice, too. It’s beginning to grow on me. Nice has a lot going for it.”

  She felt the shift of his feet, the rocking of his pelvis against her, heard the scratching slide of his hands down the wall to the sink, where they gripped hers, fingers flexing between fingers. On tiptoe, connected to him only by the tenuous link of their lips and tongues, she trembled from piggy toe to the top of her head, her body caught in the grip of a fever that shuddered through her.

  She didn’t know whether it was the long day, the stress or the simple need to be with another human being. She didn’t care. The moment was enough. After all the long days and weeks and months of standing alone, of burying her feelings and fears, she was stunned by this unexpected pleasure, dizzy with the feel and scent of Royal Gaines. Lost, and not caring.

  She whimpered.

  When she did, his body stilled its eager movement against hers, and her fingers convulsed against the sink in protest, in acceptance.

  Royal heard her small, wounded cry, its sound unbearably poignant in its need and longing, and he clamped down on the fierceness of his hunger. Primitive, that need thundered in his veins, pulsed in his groin. Struggling for control, he lowered his forehead to hers, breaking contact with her soft, tremulous mouth. Lungs and ribs hurting, he labored to breathe. Dropping his hands to the sink, he gripped her narrow ones.

  The tremor of her fingers sabotaged his better self, urged him to forget caution, reason, enticed him to forget everything except his body’s demand to plunge deep into the slight, warm body of Elly Malloy and find forgetfulness there. And behind his eyelids, battling with his will, the color of his need beat dark red and primal.

  He wouldn’t have bet a plugged nickel on his conscience. No one else would have, either. Dazed, he found himself stepping away from her, stepping back, and in that moment he felt a kinship with Lucifer of old, plunging bright into that darkness, falling, falling swift and fast into everlasting emptiness, cast out of heaven, its shining gates clanging shut, forever closed to him.

  Bemused, Royal looked down at his hand still clasping Elly’s. His, stained with grease. Hers, dwarfed by his, pale and shaking in his grip. A streak of axle grease showed dark against her neck. Reluctantly, he straightened his fingers, releasing her, releasing himself.

  In the mirror behind her, he saw his reflection. The man in the mirror, that lost, bleak soul, was not one he’d relish meeting in a dark alley. He could almost smell the hell-scent of sulphur and despair rising from that man. He rubbed his face, buying time, erasing the hopelessness in his face with a shaking hand. “Well, sugar, you’ve got the old kiss-and-make-it-better medicine down pat, I’ll give you that.”

  He couldn’t think straight, couldn’t decide what to do next. He couldn’t meet her eyes, not just yet.

  The back of her head quivered, a barely perceptible motion in the mirror, and he lifted his hand to brush her hair back from her face, to tell her that he was sorry for everything, that he was sorry he’d kissed her—

  It would have been a lie.

  Kissing Elly Malloy reminded him of everything he’d thrown away, willfully, deliberately.

  Her head lifted, and her voice was steady, husky. “I shouldn’t have kissed you.”

  Royal blinked. “What?”

  As she pushed her shoulders back, the material of her blouse shimmered in the mirror. “You shouldn’t have kissed me, either.”

  “No.” He already knew that. He couldn’t begin to calculate the cost of that mistake. “I shouldn’t have.” For the first time, he became aware of the stifling heat in the box of a room. Oppressive, still, the air lay heavy on his skin, weighing him down. “But I did.”

  “I could have stopped you. I didn’t.” She sighed. Her mouth was swollen and pink, and he wanted to smooth away the imprint of his kiss. “I made a mistake. That kiss had nothing to do with you. It wasn’t personal. It didn’t mean anything.”

  “Golly gee. And here I was picking out china patterns,” he drawled, sinking languidly onto the toilet seat. He suppressed the grunt of pain. “I think I’ve just been shot down.”

  “I wasn’t trying to hurt you.”

  “Heaven help me if you ever really put your mind to humiliating me, then, sugar,” he muttered, stretching out his legs on either side of hers. Her words stung. “A guy kind of prides himself on believing that when he kisses a woman, it means something.”

  Elly, though—well, hell, cool as ice water—was dismissing those moments that had turned him inside out and left him hungrier than he’d ever been in his life. Aside from her still-puffy pink lips, she didn’t seem affected in the least.

  “I’m only trying to explain—”

  “Sugar, do us both a favor?”

  Her hair floated around her cat face as she turned toward him. Her expression remote, she lifted her chin. “Yes?”

  “Quit explaining.”

  “Oh.”

  He eyed her testily, trying to convince himself that what he was feeling was frustrated desire. He knew better. Even when he’d been fifteen, he’d cheerfully accepted that a girl might not be ready to dance when he was. He’d never taken rejection personally. Or seriously. Rejection had never meant all that much. So he couldn’t figure out what was making him feel now as though he was ready to butt heads with a bull in the pasture.

  All in all, ribs, ego and aching growin’ place, he felt downright cranky. “Let’s just drop the subject, okay?”

  “I don’t want you to misunderstand, okay?” Holding his gaze, she frowned. “That’s all. I don’t want you to think—”

  Irritation flared inside him. “Sugar,” he said, drawing the words out slowly, “I didn’t misunderstand one damned thing. But, darlin’, I’d sure like to be around when you decide to dole out a kiss that does mean something. Give me a call if that notion ever strikes you in the middle of the night or day. Any time. I’d be dee-lighted to oblige.” He shot her a blinding smile, a smile designed to befuddle her brain and leave her senseless. A smile he hoped would leave her as disturbed and aroused as he was.

  It didn’t.

  She remained in full possession of all her faculties.

  He didn’t like that, either.

  The overhead light cast a halo around the feathery lightness of her hair. He hadn’t wound his fingers in those feathery strands, hadn’t breathed in their scent. But he’d wanted to. He took a deep breath and looked away from that cloudy mass of her hair because it wasn’t likely in this life that he was going to have another chance to gather it in his hands and stroke its softness. The regret was an actual pain kinking inside his gut.

  She frowned again. “You’re angry.”

  “Hell, sugar, I’m not angry, annoyed or, bless your sweet, luscious self, all that disappointed,” he lied, confusion and melancholy stirring in a perverse mix that left him bristly and defensive. “Like you said, it wasn’t a big deal.”

  “Your ribs are hurting, aren’t they?” She reached out toward him, her hand hovering near his face, not touching him. With a puzzled look, as if she hadn’t realized what she was doing, she let her hand fall to her side. “I haven’t wrapped them. I— Your ribs hurt,” she repeated, gesturing vaguely in the direction of his abdomen.

  He surrendered. “Yeah, I reckon they do. In spite of your special brand of medicine.”

  “Can we forget this happened?” A
gain, with the same vagueness, she gestured, her hand floating past his eyes as if disconnected from her arm.

  “I can. Can you?” Narrowing his eyes, he smiled gently at her. Maybe she wasn’t as composed as she seemed. That would be … nice.

  “Of course.” Her smile was all lady-of-the-manor prissiness. “Why shouldn’t I? It’s not the first time I’ve ever kissed anybody. And you could make me believe the earth was flat sooner than you could convince me it was your first kiss. We’re both consenting adults. Good heavens, it was only a kiss.” Her laugh was amused, sophisticated, inviting him to see the silliness of it all.

  But he didn’t want to. He wanted to see her flustered, dazed, vulnerable, the way she’d been—the way he’d thought she was—when they were kissing. He wanted her to admit that she’d been lost and gone in the moment, too.

  “Nothing happened. Only a kiss. Nothing more.” In control, serene, she continued to smile at him.

  “Yeah. Not like we went at each other hot and heavy on the sink, huh?” He’d thought about that, too. He wondered if she had. He squinted at her, trying to see Elly Malloy going at it with him, hot and heavy, and so careless of where she was that she wouldn’t even realize she was bumped up against a sink. Or a wall. Or—

  Deep red flowed up her neck into her cheeks, and she looked away. “No, not like that.”

  “We don’t have a problem, then, do we, sugar?” With every wisecrack, he felt like a bigger bastard, but he couldn’t stop badgering her. He wanted to shake her up, make her admit that she’d been swept away, too.

  Solitary sex had never been his choice.

  But cool, ice-water-in-her-veins Elly was making him feel that he’d been all alone there in that honeyed darkness of sighs and touches. For all her reaction now, he might as well have been alone in his own bedroom.

  She made him feel as if she didn’t give a damn.

  But he did. And he didn’t want to. It wasn’t in his plans. The sting of desire, of needing something from her, left him confused and irritable. “Everything’s peachy keen, no problems, right?” No, hell, not a problem. About a hundred and ten problems, that’s all.

  She shifted, her slim legs shining smooth in the light. Black against her skin, a streak of grease from his slacks ran down her inner thigh to her knee. “I don’t see a problem.”

  “Good. I didn’t think you would.” Smiling back at her, his expression as serene as hers had been, Royal leaned back against the tank and snapped his fingers. “There. Forgotten. In the past.”

  “Right. Forgotten.” Imitating him, she snapped her fingers. Her breasts lifted beneath her blouse, their shape as round and soft as her mouth had been under his.

  He’d wanted to kiss her breasts, too. He hadn’t, but he still wanted to, still wanted to see if the soft, pebbled tips were the same rose-plum color of her mouth. He swallowed, the strangled gulp audible in the silence.

  Her gaze met his.

  The red flush that had stained her neck and cheeks rushed upward again in splotches and hectic color. “Well. I’ll find the pressure wrap. The butterfly bandages. I might have to shave some of your hair where it’s matted down. I’ll soap it first, though, to make sure. I’m sure you don’t want to walk around like a medieval friar. I’m sure all that stuff’s here somewhere.” She turned away, bending down to a cabinet clumsily, awkwardly, her shoe heel slipping on the floor with the quickness of her motions, betraying her. She was as aware of him as he was of her.

  And then Royal finally got it. What was really pissing him off was the realization that the simple kiss hadn’t been simple at all. Not in the least. Not for him.

  He didn’t want that careless kiss to matter. It shouldn’t have meant anything to him.

  But it had.

  The kiss had disturbed Elly, too.

  He didn’t want to think about this woman, couldn’t afford to want her with this aching need that made him feel like a kid with his nose pressed up against the candy-store window.

  But he wanted her. Even now, even in spite of everything he’d said, in spite of everything he’d pretended, he wanted her.

  He didn’t like this tenderness growing inside him, this urge to protect her. Tenderness was a complication he didn’t want, not with Elly Malloy.

  Tenderness was dangerous.

  And danger was all around them. He couldn’t let himself forget that again, not for a second. Ignoring the twinges and stiffening muscles, he leaned forward, asking the question that had bothered him from the beginning. “Why did you open your front door, Elly?”

  Arms still crossed, breasts lifting with her quick inhalation, she shrugged. “You called my name.”

  “I could have been—” he started to say your husband, but he caught himself “—anybody. You took a risk.”

  “I thought I recognized your voice.”

  “You could have been wrong.”

  Tinged with sadness, her smile changed the contours of her face and showed him yet another Elly Malloy as she said, “I knew what could happen if I were wrong. I try not to take unnecessary chances. I don’t like surprises.”

  “You said the same thing earlier today.”

  “Did I?” She rubbed the thin line under the fluff of bangs. “I don’t remember.”

  “I do. I pay attention to what you say. Even ex-cops have a tendency to focus on details. You said you didn’t like surprises. I listen to you. I remember trivial things. Specifics.”

  Her laugh was shaky. “That’s a scary thought. A man who listens when a woman says something. I don’t think I’ve ever met a man like that.”

  “Maybe you’ve been hanging around the wrong kind of man.”

  Royal caught the way her mouth tightened, the way she deliberately kept her face blank

  “Could be. But I don’t date.” She rummaged through a shoe box filled with bandages and tubes of ointment.

  “Difficult to date, I’d think. Being a single mom. Divorced. On your own. Must be hard. Raising Tommy Lee all by yourself. Without his father.”

  A tube slipped from her grasp into the sink bowl. “Sometimes. But I don’t miss dating.”

  “Don’t you?” Royal remembered the loneliness he’d tasted in her kiss, the hunger. “Now, that surprises me.”

  She whirled on him, the shoe box held like a shield in front of her. “Look, I don’t date, I didn’t open my door impulsively or naively. And I take care of my son and myself. I was prepared. For surprises. For unwelcome visitors.”

  “The ammonia.”

  “The ammonia,” she agreed, her hand bending the edge of the cardboard box.

  “In the eyes?”

  She looked down at the floor, back up at him, put the shoe box back on the sink. “If necessary.” Her hands shaking so slightly that Royal almost missed their flutters, she laid out a box of elastic wrap and another flat package containing butterfly bandages. “If I had to. Yes.”

  “You’re tougher than you look, aren’t you?”

  “I’ve learned to be.” She picked up the solvent container. Put it down. Picked it up again. “I can do what I have to.”

  His gaze moving over her line-boned frame, Royal regarded her. Under the smooth skin of her calves and thighs, supple muscles moved easily. He noted the muscle definition in her slim arms, remembered their strength as she’d maneuvered his weight into her house. “I believe you.”

  “Good.” Steely determination glinted in the brown eyes meeting his. “Now, Detective, unbutton your shirt—”

  “Gosh, I like a woman who knows her own mind—”

  “So I can tape your ribs.”

  “Damn. Just my luck.”

  “You never quit, do you?” Pulling the elastic tape out of the box, she flicked the metal tabs on the wrap, a tiny clicking sound.

  “Not while I can breathe.” He slipped the last button free and grinned, liking the way she gave him an exasperated glance.

  “Breathing may be a problem once you’re taped tighter than a
two-thousand-year-old mummy.” She stepped forward, hesitating as she looked at his shirt, his chest. Pink tipped her cheeks again. She brushed her hair back from her face with one hand and took his filthy shirt with the other.

  He heard the sound of dismay when she saw his ribs. He glanced down at the purpling welts and bruises, shrugged and then regretted his nonchalance at the pull of tendons and ligaments.

  “This is bad, Royal.” She touched his side, her fingers light and cool on his skin. Dangling from her hand, the end of the wrap brushed against him, its metal tabs cold as they swung across his belly. “Your stomach and side look as though someone used you for a floor mat.” She wrinkled her face in concern and looked at him, her eyes wide with distress. “I hope taping you isn’t a mistake.”

  “It isn’t.”

  But he’d made a big mistake. Because Elly Malloy wasn’t the woman Scanlon had sketched to him.

  Observing her quick, competent motions as she readied the sink with clean, soapy water and unrolled the tape, he went over the puzzle pieces again.

  In Scanlon’s version, Elly had faked her own death in order to kidnap Scanlon’s son. That woman would have been very devious. Or very, very desperate. Royal wondered which woman would turn out to be the real Elly, regardless of whatever name she was calling herself.

  If she’d faked her death out of desperation, she was going to need every bit of toughness she could find in her five feet three inches. Gritty and gutsy, she’d spun a web of lies to hide behind, but the daily pressure had to be enormous. She had to know that Scanlon wanted her back, but she’d constructed this life for herself and her son, this life that was nothing more than a flimsy house of cards. Even so, even knowing the risk she was taking, she’d opened her door at his call for help when he could have been Scanlon himself.