Текст книги "Sweet the Sin "

Автор книги: Claire Kent

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“Okay. I guess that’s good. It still seems a little—ruthless.”

“Anyone you talk to will agree that’s a fair assessment of me.”

She smiled, as she was supposed to, and swayed a little closer to him. “So you’re ruthless, are you?”

“That’s what they say.” A sexy little smile tilted up the corners of his mouth. “Does this change anything?”

She shook her head and slid her hands up to span her fingers around the back of his neck. “I don’t think so. It’s not like I’m the most moral person who ever walked the earth, you know. And, to tell you the truth…”

She trailed off, and dropped her eyes.

He tilted her head back up. “To tell the truth, what?”

She let her eyes grow warm and languid. “I don’t want it to go to your head or anything, but I might actually find it a little—hot.”

And that was clearly the right thing to say.

–

A few days later, Kelly needed to talk to Jack Martin, the private investigator who was helping her and her mother.

It should have been easy enough to make a phone call, but she was constantly on guard. Caleb’s security staff were ubiquitous, and she kept noticing security cameras in unexpected places. She didn’t want to risk a dangerous phone call while she was on Caleb’s property.

She mentioned to Breah that she felt like shopping for clothes, and the next thing Kelly knew, she was being driven to a high-end shopping center. She was trailed by a bodyguard, but she’d expected that—since Caleb was still playing the protector—and she took her time, browsing in a few boutiques and buying a few pieces of sexy lingerie and a pair of shoes she couldn’t resist.

Finally, she got to a shop where the dressing cubicles were in a completely separate room from the main store. She grabbed a couple of outfits and went to try them on, making sure the bodyguard waited at the door and didn’t come into the dressing area with her.

She went to the farthest cubicle and hung the clothes up before she pulled her phone out and sat down.

If Jack didn’t answer—right now, the one chance she had to talk to him—then she was going to be highly annoyed.

After the third ring, a male voice came on the line. “Martin.”

She sighed in relief, recognizing the gruff tones from when she’d talked to him before she came to Caleb’s. “It’s Kelly.” She spoke softly, even though she was alone in the dressing room and the bodyguard was a room and a closed door away.

There was a slight pause. “So I guess that means he doesn’t have you tied up in his dungeon.”

It was so close to the language Caleb himself had used in his teasing, seductive way that Kelly felt the same jolt of erotic interest at the visual of Caleb’s tying her up. To hide it, she made sure her voice was very light. “I’ve looked and looked and looked, but I can’t seem to find a dungeon.”

“Too bad. Is everything all right?” Jack sounded just a little concerned.

She knew he thought she was stupid for doing this. He’d told her in no uncertain terms the last time they’d spoken. But she already knew it was stupid. That was hardly the point. It was still what she needed to do.

“Yeah. I’m fine. I just needed to know if you’ve found out anything that will help me.”

“Not much. You’re not in his computer yet, are you?”

“No. I don’t know how I’m going to manage that. The man must suffer from paranoia, with all the security he has in place. Plus, he doesn’t trust me yet. I’ll need more time.”

Jack muttered something inaudible, and she didn’t ask him what he meant. Whatever he’d said, it was disapproving.

“Anyway, I need some direction—at least something to be looking for, other than the name of the project. Please tell me you’ve got something.”

“I’ve got some people who might have been involved. I’m going to read their names. You ready?”

She had nothing to write them down on, and she couldn’t risk that anyway, so she focused carefully on the five names he gave her until she’d committed them to memory.

“Has he introduced you to anyone? Do you hang out with his friends?”

“I honestly don’t think he has any friends. He doesn’t do anything but work and—”

“Spare me the dirty details. Please. What is your situation like? Can you get away if you need to?”

“It’s a little hard to manage, but it’s possible. He thinks our fictional mobster is after me, so he’s got a bodyguard tagging along after me, but I’m shopping now. I’m sure I could slip away if I needed to. Or, if necessary, I could tell him I was leaving. He’d let me go, but I’d have no chance of getting in with him again. Why?”

“I was just checking. I might have something to show you in a few days, but it would have to be in person, unless you want to risk me sending it to your phone.”

“No.” Her heart jumped at the thought. “I don’t trust him not to look at my phone. Don’t send anything by phone.”

“Okay, then. Well, if necessary, maybe you could arrange another shopping trip, and we could find a way to meet up quickly. I’ll let you know.”

“Okay.” The thought made her nervous, but she dismissed it as irrational. Caleb was neither omniscient nor omnipresent. She had to be careful about the bodyguard, since he would report back to Caleb, but there would be ways to work around that.

She was in control here. Not Caleb. No matter what he thought.

“Anything else to report?” she asked, deciding she better end the conversation soon before the bodyguard got nosy.

“Well, I just got a new receptionist,” Jack grumbled. “And she can’t even make decent coffee. I’ve been drinking this swill for a week now. It’s becoming a nuisance, but I’ll be damned before I pay three dollars for a cup at Starbucks.”

Kelly couldn’t hold back a laugh. Jack was obviously competent at his job, and he was also kind of funny. “I’ll be greatly disappointed in you if I find out you’ve caved and forsaken your principles for the lure of good coffee.”

“So far, I’m managing to stay strong. I’ll be in touch.”

She hung up, feeling strange and a little relieved, like there was a whole world outside Caleb’s sanctum.

She’d been starting to feel like there was nothing in the world but him.

–

On Friday of the following week, Kelly was still at Caleb’s house outside of the city.

He kept asking about her old lover, and she’d refused to tell him a lot of details—just a few breadcrumbs for him to follow that wouldn’t take him anywhere. Her reticence clearly frustrated and puzzled him. But his curiosity was good. It would hold his interest, even if he started to grow sated with the sex.

There was no sign of that happening yet.

He needed to trust her—at least enough to let his guard down around her. He wasn’t a fool, and he wasn’t going to give her access to incriminating information this early in their relationship. His office at home was always locked. She knew this because she’d checked it. Even if she could get in, it wouldn’t do her any good unless she could get onto his computer.

So he worked all day, and they would fuck in the evening. Nothing really had changed, except she was getting used to having sex with him, so it wasn’t quite so traumatic.

Given his history with women, it was a miracle he was still interested in her at all.

She needed to use that while she could, so she brainstormed all Friday morning until she came up with an idea for sex that evening.

She wanted something hot, exciting, different, and the only inspiration she could come up with was pulled from her own fantasy life.

Since she normally only had casual sex with strangers, she’d never had the chance to live out many of her sexual fantasies before. Caleb was here—a willing and able partner for anything she suggested. She might as well use him to give her body the kind of pleasure she’d only imagined until now.

It would be yet another tool she could use.

She planned things out purposefully, waiting on the window seat in her room until she saw his car approach. She grabbed her robe and hurried up to the master suite, where she started to draw a bath in the tub.

She figured she had enough time to fill the tub before he got into the house.

When it was full, she turned on the jets and got in, being careful not to submerge her hair in the water. She was wearing two pigtails. She’d braided them for strategic effect.

She thought she heard him enter the room a little while later, but he didn’t come into the bathroom. He had to know she was here.

She’d thought he might come in to see her, but it didn’t matter whether he did or not.

He might think it was some sort of surrender, like entering the bathroom would break a kind of stalemate and give her the advantage.

Their relationship—even on the surface, without any knowledge of her true purposes—was as much a duel as anything else.

She took her time in the bath, even though she was dying to finish up so she could find out what Caleb was doing. It made her feel vulnerable, not knowing.

So it was almost thirty minutes later when she came out of the bathroom at last, wearing a little pink satin robe and her braids.

He was sitting in a chair near the window, working on something on his tablet.

He glanced up casually at her presence.

She felt an immediate quickening of her heartbeat and breath at the sight of him, sexy and well dressed in a ridiculously expensive suit. He didn’t have that impotent prettiness of a lot of young men. He looked his age. Experienced. Jaded. Powerful, inside and out.

He’d earned that presence from years of taking anything he wanted, no matter what the cost to others.

She stopped short, as if surprised by his being in the room.

“Oops.”

His eyebrows arched, as she’d known they would. “Oops?”

“I didn’t realize you’d be back already.”

“Right.” He obviously didn’t believe her for a moment. She’d never be able to get away with the little manipulations that women often played with men. He’d been around the block too many times to pull them off.

But deeper manipulations—those that took everything from both parties. No one could be prepared for those.

“How was work?” she asked.

“It was work.”

He obviously wasn’t one of those men who spilled a lot of trivial details about their days to any conveniently open ears.

She gave him a slightly annoyed look. “Okay. Well, I’ll see you later.”

Let him think she was frustrated by his closing down polite conversation. Let him have a reason for following her.

He didn’t follow her, and she was starting to completely rethink her plan. Damn him. Why did he always make things harder for her than they needed to be?

She had an empty wineglass with her, from the drink she’d had in the tub, so she went to the kitchen to put it in the sink.

Breah was the only live-in staff, and she was good about being discreet when Caleb was home, so the large, fancy kitchen was completely empty. Kelly set the glass in the sink carefully and wondered where she should go from here.

“Did you enjoy the bath?”

Kelly whirled around, startled by the voice. Caleb had followed her after all.

“It was a bath,” she said, with exaggerated coolness.

Caleb laughed softly as he approached her. “It’s not like you to hold a petty grudge.”

He really believed that.

“I’m not holding a grudge. You’re obviously not in the mood for conversation, so why should I bore you with the details of my bath.”

He gave her a knowing smirk and walked forward until she was trapped between his body and the edge of the kitchen table. “Maybe the details of your bath wouldn’t be boring. Did you do anything interesting in there?”

She tried for a heated look and thought she was probably successful. Her treacherous body was already responding to his closeness. When she glanced down, she noticed that her nipples had visibly sprung to attention beneath the fabric of her flimsy robe.

“Maybe. You’ll have to use your imagination.”

“I think you want to tell me. You’re wearing those schoolgirl braids for a reason, which makes me think you might have been a little—naughty.”

She’d been right. He’d read her appearance exactly as she’d wanted him to. He was almost in the right mood for the sex she wanted to have tonight.

Last night, he’d come to her bedroom after dark and moved over her, kissing her, and spreading her legs. It had been completely unexpected, and she wasn’t mentally prepared. She hadn’t had her defenses up, so her emotions had spun into chaos. It had been really hard.

She couldn’t handle missionary position with him. Not again. Not after last night.

She needed sex to be wild, impersonal, maybe even kinky. It was easier that way. It didn’t feel like her.

Last night had started to feel real, so she’d had to fake an orgasm quickly, and then get him to turn her over on her hands and knees to take her from behind.

She’d faked the second orgasm last night too.

“Don’t get any crazy ideas,” she said, a teasing edge to her voice so he’d know she wasn’t serious. “I don’t do the naughty schoolgirl routine.”

Caleb gave her a predatory smile and wrapped his hands around both of her wrists, spreading her arms out on either side of her so she was stretched to his gaze. Her robe had parted widely, exposing most of both breasts. “Don’t lie to me. That’s exactly what you want.”

Kelly managed an exaggerated, outraged glare, and then gasped loudly when he bent down to give one of her tight nipples a little nip.

“Tell me you want it,” he demanded, raising his head so he could devour her face with his eyes. “Don’t you?”

“That’s your ego talking.”

He reached down to untie her robe completely and the fabric parted all the way, revealing her naked body. “Tell me you want it.”

“I don’t.” She couldn’t fight his grip, but she didn’t want to. Arousal was pulsing between her legs, but this was much better than last night. She was in control of this now.

Caleb’s eyes lingered on her breasts. “Your nipples say otherwise.”

“It’s cold in here.”

“No, it’s not. You know better than to tell me a lie.” His gaze had lowered to her pussy. “If I touch you, it will prove how much of a liar you are, won’t it?”

She felt exposed and strangely embarrassed—and even more aroused. But she ignored it since this was what she was going for. “I told you I don’t do the naughty schoolgirl thing.”

“And I know that too was a lie. So, what should I do with such a naughty liar, do you think?” His eyes, his face, his voice, his body, his presence—were all hot tension. Kelly felt herself respond to it involuntarily.

She was panting now, and wanted to squirm against the ache of desire at her core. “What are you going to do?” she asked, sounding hoarse, overwhelmed, desperate with desire.

He let go of one of her wrists so he could rub a small circle over the peak of her nipple.

She gasped in pleasure, her head falling back in response to his touch.

“You like that, don’t you?”

“Mm-hmm.” She arched her back helplessly into the delicate touch of his fingers.

He dropped his hand without warning. “Then that’s a reward. And naughty girls don’t get rewarded. They get punished.”

Kelly bit her lip, her eyes very wide.

Caleb smiled. “You like that too, don’t you?”

“No.”

“Yes, you do. So ask me nicely, and maybe I’ll give it to you.”

It was someone else—not her—who was so turned on by this monster of a man. It was someone else who was letting him touch her like this, talk to her like this, play this little game.

The scene might have come from one of her personal fantasies, but it still couldn’t be her.

It was someone else—never Kelly—who begged him, “Please,” on a taken breath.

“Please what?”

“Please, punish me.”

And that was someone else too.

“Turn around.” His voice was low, commanding, dominant.

Kelly did as he instructed, turning around in front of the empty kitchen table, her robe hanging from her shoulders.

“Bend over.”

This was what she’d had in mind when she’d braided her hair this way. She should be pleased that things were working exactly as she’d intended. No intimate, missionary sex for her tonight.

She just wished her pussy wasn’t so hot and wet, and she wished her hands weren’t trembling as she bent at the waist and planted her palms on the table.

She leaned over all the way, trying not to squirm in response to the slippery heat of her pussy.

“Now show me your ass.”

She raised the hem of the robe, exposing the naked flesh of her bottom.

Her cheek was pressed against the cool wood of the table, and she could see him from the corner of her eye as he moved behind her. She couldn’t stop panting, and her arousal tightened every time he moved.

Caleb cupped and squeezed her ass. “Ask me nicely for what you want.”

“Please,” she choked out, wondering if it was possible to come from nothing more than anticipation. “Please, spank me.”

She cried out in response when he gave her one quick spank.

“I thought that was what you might want.”

The sharp sting, the vulnerability, and the embarrassment combined to turn her on even more. It felt like moisture was leaking out from her pussy. “Again,” she gasped. “Please.”

He spanked her again, and her arousal surged even more.

“More,” she begged.

Each spank stung more than the last, the rhythmic slapping sound combining with the sensations to leave her gasping with pleasure, lifting her bottom to meet every smack.

After several, he caressed her warm flesh. “Enough?”

“No. I need—I need—”

She knew what she needed. Desperately. She just couldn’t seem to bring herself to say it out loud—even in an erotic act where she wasn’t even her.

She whimpered, clutching at the table and desperately trying to keep herself from begging.

“Spread your legs apart more,” he said. His voice was starting to get hoarse. He must be really aroused now too.

She obeyed him, gasping when she felt two of his fingers, first against her pussy, and then plunging all the way inside her.

“You’re so hot and wet,” he murmured. “I should have known you wanted a firm hand.”

She didn’t like the sound of those words, but she blocked them from her mind and focused instead on the physical sensations.

He spanked her again, his fingers still inside her, and she tightened instinctively around the penetration as the pleasure shot through her.

“Let’s see how firm you like it,” he said thickly. He spanked her again. And then again. And on the third spank she was coming hard all around his fingers.

“Good girl.” He was rubbing her ass as she came down from the intense orgasm. “That’s what I thought.”

She was still trying to catch her breath when he rolled on a condom, pulled her ass cheeks apart, and lined up his cock at her tight pussy.

He fucked her hard and rough, the way only he could, until she couldn’t keep quiet. She came again and again from his cock and wondered who this woman was, bent over a table, letting Caleb Marshall take her this way.

Chapter 6

This had been the strangest two weeks Caleb could remember.

He sat at the computer in his home office, deciding he could get through a couple more emails before bed. More would come in overnight, so the fewer he had left this evening, the better.

He was tired though, and he couldn’t stop thinking about Kelly.

Fucking her in the kitchen earlier had been hot. So hot he got a little tense just from the memory. But something had felt off about it, and he couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was.

Maybe he was just too old for too much of that kind of sex. It had been good—no question—but having sex with her last night under the covers had been more satisfying. It had felt different then, for some reason. More real. Like he’d really been able to take hold of her for a moment, when it so often felt like she was slipping through his fingers.

It was probably why she still held his interest after two weeks—which was longer than any relationship he’d had in a decade. She was as much a mystery as a pleasure, and he’d always had a puzzle-solving mind.

It was as much a part of him as his sex drive.

His investigator had turned up almost nothing on her past relationships, except she had a long habit of one-night stands. He was no closer to finding out who this dangerous ex was than he’d been a week ago.

Frustrating, to say the least.

When he found himself typing the same sentence twice, he closed out his email and gave up for the night. He was too tired and distracted to work right now. He might as well go to bed.

Kelly had gone to sleep an hour ago.

He went to his room to shower, but he hesitated before getting in his own bed. Despite his fatigue, there was a kind of shuddering energy inside him that compelled him to leave his room and head down to Kelly’s.

He tapped on the door and opened it, the same way he’d done the night before.

She rolled over sleepily as he made his way to her bed in the dark, climbing in beside her.

“Hey,” she mumbled. “This is a bad habit you’ve fallen into of waking me up.”

He pulled her into his arms. She felt warm and soft and strangely shaky. Like she was experiencing the same kind of shuddering energy he was. “That’s your mistake,” he murmured. “You’re going to sleep too early.”

She softened against him and he kissed her, unwinding some of his tension as his lips moved gently against hers, as her lush body rubbed against his. He was too tired to jump into arousal quickly—particularly after the sex they’d had not so long ago in the kitchen—but he felt his groin just beginning to tighten at the feel of her, the scent of her.

For a moment, it felt like she was trembling, even as she responded to his embrace.

“Wasn’t our session earlier enough for you?” she murmured, stroking his bare back with a slow caress.

He wasn’t in the habit of answering questions like that, since they gave too much away. “Are you saying it was enough for you?”

“It kind of was.” It sounded like she was smiling in the dark, but there wasn’t enough light in the room for him to see her expression. “I thought men were supposed to slow down when they passed forty.”

Momentarily, he felt a sliver of concern. He was a lot older than she was. Maybe she would prefer a man her own age. Maybe there were things she was missing, since he was no longer in his twenties.

He dismissed the thought as soon as it crossed his mind, though.

She’d made it perfectly clear in the last two weeks that he was more than capable of completely satisfying her. He had never felt anything less than confident before when it came to sex.

“I’ve always been exceptional,” he drawled.

She giggled, as he’d known she would, and the rippling sound prompted him to kiss her again.

Their embrace hadn’t deepened very far when she pulled away. “But, seriously, Caleb, I’m really tired tonight, and I’m not sure I’m in the mood.”

That was a first. He realized she meant it.

She’d never said no to any of his advances before. Honestly, he couldn’t remember the last time any woman had said no to his advances.

He didn’t particularly like it.

Fortunately, he wasn’t aroused enough yet for it to be a problem, although he was still experiencing that shuddering energy that just wouldn’t settle. He drew back slightly, lying on his side under the covers, facing her. “Okay.”

It felt like she was trying to peer at him, although the darkness made it impossible. “Are you sure?”

“Why wouldn’t I be sure?”

“I don’t know. You wanted to have sex.”

“I assure you I’m perfectly capable of dealing with rejection.”

“No, you’re not.”

He stiffened, since it sounded like there was a new resonance underlying the teasing words. “What does that mean?”

“Sorry. It was just a joke.” She scooted over and found his chest in the dark, stroking it with a soft hand. “It’s just that I don’t imagine you deal with rejection very often.”

It was true, but something about her tone just now still bothered him.

“I’m just not really in the mood right now,” she added, sounding like she was worried about his reaction. “I’m sorry.”

“No need to apologize.” Pushing aside his distraction, he followed the line of her body until he could slip his hand under her waistband, cupping her soft, round ass. “I imagine you’re still a little sore.”

“Don’t flatter yourself.” She was teasing again, evidently relieved at the shift in mood. “Your spankings aren’t that hard.”

He chuckled, pulling his hand out of her pajamas before his body started getting the wrong idea, and settled her against him, trying to get more comfortable. “We’ll have to address that next time, I guess.”

“They say that practice makes perfect.”

He smiled at the wry note in her tone, enjoying how she felt pressed against his side, tucked under his arm. “That’s only true if one practices in the right way.”

After a stretch of silence, he started to wonder if she’d gone to sleep. Once she had, he would go back to his own room. He’d come down here for sex, after all. Not to fall asleep with her in his arms.

“Why have you never gotten married?” she asked.

He tensed automatically before he made himself relax, since he wasn’t in the habit of giving such revealing responses to questions. As close as she was, she would definitely have felt his initial reaction. “What kind of question is that?”

“I don’t know. Just wondering.” Her tone was very light as she added, “No need to worry. I’m not offering myself for the position or anything.”

“I didn’t think you were.” It was the truth. Kelly might be partly a mystery, but she wasn’t a mystery in this. He never once suspected her of having domestic designs on him. If anything, she kept holding part of herself back from any true intimacy.

She was like him in that. She was like him in a lot of ways. More than anyone he’d ever met.

Which might have been why he answered her question, when he normally wouldn’t have done so. “I don’t know. It just never crossed my mind as a good option. If I had a wife, I—”

“You what?”

“I wouldn’t treat her right.” He wished he hadn’t said the words after they were spoken. They sounded bland, unconcerned, but they exposed too much.

Kelly was silent for a moment, shifting slightly against him, her soft hair brushing against his skin. “A lot of men don’t treat their wives well. It doesn’t stop them from marrying.”

“That’s true.”

It felt like she was going to pursue the question, but then she seemed to pull herself back. He wondered why she’d asked in the first place, since she seemed to avoid any sort of personal conversation.

He felt off-kilter and strangely vulnerable—having admitted more than he had to anyone for years—so he asked, “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Why haven’t you gotten married?”

“No one has ever asked me.”

“Don’t give me that. You’ve never given anyone the chance to ask you. Didn’t you tell me on the first day we met that you don’t do seconds?”

He remembered that day well and wondered why she’d felt more complete to him then than she did now. What about her now—even with his arm around her—felt like it was always slipping through his fingers?

“Yeah. I might have said that.”

“So why? Why just casual sex?”

She pulled away from him, rolling over on her side to face him. He could only see a vague outline of her face and body in the dark, but she felt defensive, prickly, even though her voice was still light as she said, “Coming from a man who has lived his life with nothing but casual sex, that’s a strange question.”

Maybe it was a strange question, but he knew why he resisted any serious relationship. Wes had been right a couple of weeks ago when he’d said he always ran when things got real. He didn’t know why Kelly resisted, though, and he wanted to know. “Coming from a woman who just asked me why I’ve never gotten married, that’s a strange response to a harmless question.”

He felt her relax with a long exhale. “I’ve just never wanted to do relationships. Is that so strange?”

“It’s rather unusual, yes.”

“Because I’m a woman?”

“Partly.”

“I don’t know.” She rolled over onto her back and now seemed to be staring at the ceiling. “I don’t like to depend on other people, and in a relationship I would have to. I’m not inclined to trust people, and you have to trust to make a relationship work. Sex I can control, so that’s what I do.”

A thick silence followed her words, a silence Caleb could feel in his chest. He somehow knew the words were true and that she hadn’t intended to say so much.

If he’d been a kind man or a sensitive one, he would have let the topic drop, since her tension now made it clear she wasn’t comfortable with this conversation. But, for the first time, he felt close to getting her, reaching her, understanding her, and he wasn’t going to lose the advantage.

“Why don’t you trust people?”

“Because they let you down.”

Her voice was small, tight, clearly trying for casual, and it evoked the most unexpected response in him. He reached out to pull her against him again, holding her snugly. She buried her face against the side of his chest, clinging to him with a strange sort of tension.

He didn’t understand it at all, but she felt uncharacteristically needy. After a minute, he asked, “Everyone in your life has let you down?”

“Not everyone. But if they don’t, they get taken away anyway.”

His throat suddenly tightened so intensely, so powerfully, that he couldn’t breathe for a moment. Because he knew—he knew—he knew how she felt.

It had happened to him too.

She might look beautiful and soft and untouched, and she might be secretive and sensual and damaged, but she wasn’t all that different from him.

He understood her. Knew her. The way he knew himself.

Maybe she sensed some of what he was feeling. Maybe she felt it herself. Because, after a minute, she raised her head and stared down at him in the dark. “What about you? Do you trust people?”

“No.” Just the one word, the one truth.

“I didn’t think so.”

It felt like she was drawing away from him, so he tightened his arm around her. She didn’t resist, settling against him again.

“What about your mafioso lover?” He’d been putting pieces together about her in his mind.

She jerked.

“What?”

“The guy who’s after you. If you just do casual sex, how did you get involved with him?”

After a brief hesitation, he felt her shrug. “I was just trying something out with him, and obviously it didn’t work. Plus, what makes you think he was Italian mob?”

“You said he was connected.” He stiffened as he processed this new idea, the puzzle distracting him from his intense, softer feelings before. Maybe—he sucked in his breath as a different thought crossed his mind. “If you’re going to tell me you got involved with someone in the Mafia or some—”