Bad Karma (21 page)

Downstairs, the Emergency Room was open for business, but she hadn’t heard an ambulance siren all night, so she presumed they were having a quiet night as well.

She’d made a med pass and was charting at the nurse’s station.

A call light came on down the hall. Sky pushed the intercom button. “May I help you?”

“
I dropped my glasses. Can someone get them for me?”

Sky sent the aide down to the end room and returned to her charting.

She was still upset over Cassie’s outburst, but she supposed she’d had it coming.
I was starting to sound a little bit like Mom.

She glanced at her wristwatch.
Almost one in the morning
. She wondered if Cassie was home from her date yet. She could call, but no...That was exactly what Cassie didn’t want her to do.

I have to respect her space. My baby sis is a grown-up now. I can’t keep treating her like a kid
. She glanced at her watch again.

But this guy she was out with...Zach said he was twenty-nine. Way too old for a twenty-year-old fresh from college. And what kind of man would be pursuing a girl that young? She was hardly more than jailbait.

Sky stood up and flexed her shoulders. She could take her lunch break in a while. She’d brought a sandwich from home and a bottle of water.

Zach had dropped her off at the hospital, concerned that she would be working all night. But, it had been a good night, so far.

Not as good as last night.

A warm feeling swirled in her gut when she recalled Zach’s tender kisses and the way he’d made love to her.

He’d been incredibly loving and passionate. She couldn’t think of a place on her body that he hadn’t kissed. His laid-back attitude had been kicked to the curb and a big, passionate male animal had taken over. She’d never been so thoroughly loved. And just to make sure she knew it, he’d given her an encore performance in the morning.

She realized she was grinning. Alone, at the nurse’s station, in the subdued lighting, she was grinning like an imbecile, and it was entirely Zach Bailey’s fault.

~*~

Javi checked all the doors and windows again. He was furious to learn that Cassie was in danger. He paced around the living room, returning time and again to peer out the drapes covering the sliding glass door.

Only the glowing white of the beach and the pitch-black of the water beyond.

It was a well-furnished house. But somehow it felt like a showroom. Cassie and her sister had only recently moved in, but it had an impersonal feeling, as though the tenants might be ready to cut and run again.

He couldn’t let that happen. He had to move their relationship to the next level. He had to ensure that Cassie was as much in love with him as he was with her.

He ran his hands over his cropped hair. In all of his twenty-nine years, he’d never met anyone who could move him the way Cassie did. From the start, she’d reached some part of him that he hadn’t known existed.

He stripped his western belt out of the loops of his Wranglers and pulled his shirt tail out. Then he sat on the sofa and removed his boots.

Cassie came into the living room and crossed to the other side. She had the little black dress on a hanger and carried the shoes in her other hand.

He felt giant vise crunch his insides. She was wearing a large tee-shirt with her legs long and bare underneath.

She turned around and smiled. “It’s my sister’s dress. If I’m lucky, she’ll never know I borrowed it.” She disappeared into the other bedroom.

Javi swallowed. As beautiful as she’d looked in the borrowed dress, the sight of her with her clean-scrubbed face and her hair down around her shoulders was doing even more for him.

When she emerged from her sister’s room she brought a pillow and a quilt. “Are you sure you want to sleep here? You can sleep on my bed and I’ll crash on Sky’s.”

Javi stood up and took the pillow and quilt from her. “Just get some sleep,” he said gruffly. “You’ll be safe now.” He tossed the bedding on the sofa.

The soft knit clung to her curves, emphasizing her nipples.

Javi’s jaw clenched. He leaned down, intending to give her a quick kiss, but when her soft, warm body melted into his, he pulled her hard against his chest and kissed her, tasting her toothpaste, smelling whatever lotion she’d rubbed onto her skin.

In a moment his hand was under the shirt and caressing her breast, teasing her nipple to a taut little peak. A sound somewhere between a whimper and a moan emerged from her throat, but he didn’t release her. He lifted her up and carried her to her bedroom, collapsing with her on her bed.

She looked dazed. Surely she’d known she couldn’t keep teasing him like that. That black dress. The tee-shirt. How could he not want to touch her? To make love to her?

He pushed the shirt up and kissed her breasts, caressing her nipples with his tongue. She squirmed and arched under him. He felt her pulse throbbing through her body. He pulled the shirt off over her head, kissing her shoulders and neck.

He made short work of ridding himself of his jeans and shirt.

Cassie looked frightened.

He grinned at her. “Baby, don’t look at me that way. I’m not going to hurt you.”

“
It’s just that...”

“
Do you have condoms? I didn’t bring any.” He grinned again. “I didn’t know I was staying the night.”

She tried to smile, didn’t quite make it.

Javi lifted her chin, rained little kisses on her face. “What’s wrong, Cassie. Don’t you know that I’m in love with you?”

She bit her lip and hiccupped something that sounded affirmative.

“
Don’t you love me a little too?”

“
Y-yes.” With her admission, a torrent of tears started.

Alarmed, Javi patted her shoulder and stroked her hair. “That’s great. I love you and you love me. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.”

“
Oh, Javi. I’ve never...I’ve never...”

“
Never what?” As he said the words, he suddenly grasped what she’d never done. “Cassie, are you trying to tell me that you’ve never been with a man?”

She nodded her head up and down against his shoulder.

Javi was incapable of saying anything. Every thought in his head was gone, save one.
She’s a virgin. My baby girl is a virgin
.

He held her tight against him, stroking her hair. She’d stopped crying.

“
Cassie, do you want me to be your first?”

She raised her tear-stained face and nodded.

He captured her face between both his palms and kissed her. “Do you know what I want?”

A half-smile twirked her lips. “Me?”

“
You’re right, I want you, but I want to be the first, last and only man you give your body to.”

She tried to speak, but he silenced her with a kiss, enticing her tongue with his. He stroked his hand down her body, over her hipbones and flat stomach, sliding into the black lace panties, kneading her wetness with his fingers. Her body jerked, but he didn’t release her.

“
That’s it. That’s just a hint of how good it’s going to feel when I make love to you.”

She said his name, breathless against his lips.

His pulses throbbed with desire. It would be so easy. So easy.

He rolled her onto her back and slipped off the panties, positioning himself over her as he fondled her.

Her warm flesh was like a drug to him, hypnotizing him.

She was close. He drew each of her nipples into his mouth, suckling them, relishing her soft gasps of pleasure as they formed hard little buds against his tongue. He kissed her stomach and circled her naval with his tongue before trailing it lower, before using his tongue to bring her all the way.

She was loud. He liked that. What would she do when he was inside her? When their bodies were joined?

For now, he held her, relished their intimacy while he envisioned their future together.

~*~

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Revelation

The next morning, Cassie was in the hospital parking lot before seven. When Skyler emerged, Cassie waved at the man in the big red truck that sat idling across the way. He waved back at her and roared off.

Cassie felt unreasonably joyful. Like a kid before Christmas. Javi had told her that he was in love with her, and he hadn’t ridiculed her for being the last twenty-year old virgin who didn’t live in a convent.

He’d awakened her senses, enflamed her libido and then satisfied her desire in a way that still left her awed.

He’d left a hicky high on the inside of her thigh. He told her he was marking his territory.

Like anyone else will see it.

Sky got in the car and pushed the seat back. She heaved a big sigh and pulled the scrunchy out of her hair.

“
How was it?” they said in unison, then stopped, staring at each other in shock.

“
The date,” Sky said.

Cassie laughed. “I was asking about working graveyards.”

“
One word--boring!” Sky fastened her seat belt. “But I liked it that way. Now you. How was your date?”

Cassie turned on the ignition. “My date with Javier Rios, older man, local hero, all that stuff...was the best date of my life. He’s just amazing.”

“
Don’t go overboard,” Sky cautioned. “You’ve just met this guy. He’s had a lot more experience than you have.”

Cassie cast a warning glare at Sky.

“
Okay! Okay!” Sky held up both hands in surrender. “This is me, shutting up.” She pantomimed locking her mouth and throwing away the key.

Cassie kept her eyes locked on her hands, clasped on the steering wheel. She spoke in a low, controlled voice. “You need to understand that I’m pretty sure I’m in love with Javi. I can’t imagine spending a day without him.”

Sky stared at her, wide-eyed. “Wow! What has this guy done to you?”

Cassie snorted.
I’ll never tell
. “He treats me like a woman.” She drove out of the parking lot and traversed the causeway, turning north on the main street that ran parallel to the water. When she parked in front of their house, she told Sky about returning to find the door unlocked. She couldn’t bear to use the words, ‘break in’, but the thought hung over both of them like a pall. “Javi says we need to go talk to the sheriff. He seems to think this Rafael Solis can help.”

“
That’s what Zach told me, as well.” Sky shivered in spite of the warmth of the day. “Though I don’t know how he can catch someone I’ve never seen. He’s like a vapor. He just appears to attack me. I can feel his eyes on me all the time.”

“
You can’t live like that, Sky. We have to make him stop.”

Sky took a shower and went to bed while Cassie got ready for work. Before she left, she knocked on Zach’s door.