Crash Into Me (33 page)

James
examined them carefully. “Not that I know of.”

“Did
you see any of them at Stephen’s house?”

He
shook his head. “No.”

“What
about Carly’s mom? Did your dad ever meet her?”

“No.
Our families didn’t exactly travel in the same social circles.”

“Are
you sure you haven’t seen the others?” DeGrassi persisted. “Would you remember
them if you had?”

“Yeah.
Why wouldn’t I?”

DeGrassi
leveled with him. “We know what goes on at your brother’s house. You said you
meet girls there. Lisette was known to party. Do you like to party, too?”

He
handed back the photos. “Are you asking if I do drugs? If I drink?”

She
nodded.

“I’ve
tried some stuff,” he said, looking away again, out into space. No one in the
room was surprised by that admission. A lot of troubled teenagers experimented
with drugs and alcohol. Children of abusers were twice as likely to become
addicts themselves. “But I found out something pretty quick.”

“What’s
that?”

His
gaze met hers, and in that moment, Sonny was convinced that he was speaking as
a man, not a boy. “I duck blows a lot easier when I’m sober.”

Sonny trudged up the steps to her
apartment, in dire need of a long, hot shower. James’ words had made an
indelible impression on her, and the ugly crime scene had left her feeling as
though an invisible film of smut coated her entire body.

Like
most little girls without daddies, Sonora Vasquez had grown up believing her
father was a grand champion, a golden hero, or a fairy tale prince.

Practicality
came with age, but as a child, she’d often used fantasy as an escape. Later she
would realize that her father was probably like the rest of Anita’s loser
boyfriends, a drug addict, an alcoholic, or a criminal. Even so, she’d imagined
dozens of more palatable scenarios. Sometimes she dreamed he was a handsome
Naval officer who’d never been aware of his daughter’s existence. Other times,
she would pretend he was a firefighter, an international businessman, or a jet
pilot.

To
be confronted with the monster who’d been her biological father was difficult.
To be forced to explain his deviancies to strangers, to have participated in
them—that was horrific. Sonny’s heart ached for James, for the years he’d
suffered under Arlen’s rule.

There
was probably no hope of salvaging any kind of relationship with either of her
half-brothers or with Ben. She’d met them under false pretenses, had lied to,
manipulated, and used them to suit her purposes.

Sonny
felt as though she’d been robbed of the brothers she’d never known, the father
she’d rather not have known, and the man she’d never known she wanted, all in
one fell swoop.

Not
only that, her career, the stronghold of her world, was on the rocks. She’d
wanted to work for the FBI her entire life. In her favorite fantasy, her father
had been a secret agent. Leland Grant had filled that missing piece of her
heart quite nicely.

It
would be a shame if she had to turn in her resignation when this assignment
wrapped.

She
put the key in the lock and opened the door, discarding items of clothing in
her usual haphazard fashion as she made her way to the bedroom, removing her
gun holster once she was there and placing it in her underwear drawer.

She
stayed in the shower too long, plagued by recollections of the day and memories
from the past. She felt Ben’s strong hands on her body and Grant’s disappointed
gaze on her face, Mitchell’s knuckles grazing her cheek and her stepfather’s
sweaty palm covering her mouth.

No
amount of water could wash away her shame.

After
she dried off, she dragged on her oldest pair of sweats and curled up in the
dark atop the bed, exhausted, knowing sleep was beyond her reach. When the
doorbell rang, she sat up and stared into the hallway, listening to the sound
of traffic on the busy street below her living room window and watching shadows
move across the wall.

She
got up and walked to the door without thinking, without blinking, without
turning on any interior lights.

Of
course it was Ben. Grant would have called first.

“Come
in,” she murmured, making a shaky gesture with one hand.

He
stepped inside and she closed the door behind him. They stood there in the
stifling near-dark, neither of them saying a word.

“Wait
here,” she said, leaving him standing there. In the bedroom, she flipped on the
light switch and threw open her underwear drawer. There among bits of cotton
and lace, the leather of her shoulder holster, and a deadly glint of steel, she
found the only piece of jewelry ever given to her by a man. Clutching it to her
chest, she returned to the living room, back to Ben.

Taking
him by the hand, she placed the necklace in the middle of his upturned palm.

“I
didn’t come for this,” he said, jerking his hand away as soon as he realized
what she was doing. In the muted light coming in from the doorway, he looked
much the same as the first time she’d seen him: disturbingly handsome and
irresistibly troubled, the wounded soul every woman longed to heal.

“Keep
it,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest.

After
a moment’s hesitation, he shoved the necklace into the front pocket of his
jeans. “I guess I’m lucky it hasn’t turned up at a crime scene with my
fingerprints on it.”

Considering
the events of the past day, the accusation rocked her back on her heels. “Are
you implying that I’ve planted evidence?”

“Of
course not,” he said, his eyes hard. “You’d never do anything unethical.”

The
sarcasm was impossible to miss. She’d anticipated his anger, but she hadn’t
expected his words to hurt so much. “I didn’t put Lisette’s hair in your bed,
Ben.”

“No,”
he agreed. “You did a lot of other things in my bed.”

So
that’s how it was going to be. Fine. She clamped her mouth shut, determined to
let him have his say. Sonny knew he hadn’t come here to profess his undying
love, and she could take whatever insults he dished out.

“You
were watching me from the beginning, weren’t you? You’d been following me. And
Carly.”

She
stared down at her bare feet, refusing to look at him.

“You
stood by while my daughter threw herself into the ocean. She could have
drowned.”

Her
head shot up. “I didn’t know what she was doing until it was too late to stop
her. I risked my life—”

“You
needed an in,” he fired back. “You used her to get to me.”

“No,”
she said. “That’s not why I went in after her.”

“Every
move you made was calculated,” he countered. “You knew I’d be more interested
if you played hard to get. After so many years of surf groupies throwing
themselves at me, you knew I wouldn’t be able to resist your ‘don’t touch me
there’ act. Somehow you knew I’d love it if you pretended you were afraid to
fuck.”

“Ben—”

“Why
were you watching me?” he interrupted, refusing to listen to any excuses. “How
could I have been a suspect before Lisette went missing?”

After
a moment’s hesitation, she said, “Darrius O’Shea left a suicide note recanting
his confession. The details weren’t made available to the press.”

Shock
and pain flashed in his eyes as he processed that information. Being a suspect
in Lisette’s murder was bad, but being accused of killing his own wife was the
ultimate insult. “I should have known what you were up to when you asked about
Olivia,” he said in a low growl. “You weren’t jealous, or curious, or
concerned. You weren’t mad about what happened with Lisette. You were just
investigating.”

She couldn’t
argue with that.

“Was
everything you said a lie?”

It
wasn’t easy, but she looked him straight in the eye and said, “Yes.”

His
face darkened with fury. “I guess that figures. For a woman who’s terrified of
cock, you couldn’t seem to get enough of mine.”

Resentment
burned through her, heating her cheeks. “Don’t flatter yourself, Ben. Getting
close to you was part of my job.”

He
dropped his gaze to her lips. “Yeah, and you’re so good at what you do. Did
Grant get off on hearing about your undercover activities? I’ll bet you gave
him a blow by blow.”

She
drew back her arm and slapped him across the face. It was an instinctual act,
pure fury, no fear, worlds apart from the times she’d lashed out at him before.

It
still packed enough heat to snap his head to the side.

He
touched his hand to his cheek then looked at his fingertips, almost as if he
expected to see blood there. “What’s the matter, Summer? I thought you liked
being a federal whore.”

“Sonny,”
she whispered, her palm stinging from the impact.

He
looked around the dark room in confusion.

“My
real name isn’t Summer,” she explained. “It’s Sonny.”

For
some reason, that admission drove him over the edge. In an unconscious
imitation of the first time he tried to kiss her, he came forward, framing her chin
with his hand and trapping her body against the wall. “I don’t give a damn what
your real name is. Do you think I’d believe anything that comes out of your
lying mouth?”

The
instant he said “mouth,” she became aware of his hot gaze focused there, his large
hand cupping her chin, his thumb pressing into her cheek. His body was hard and
unyielding against hers, his chest rising and falling with every furious
breath.

This
time, it was he who closed the distance between them, lowering his mouth to
hers. His kiss was rough and angry, meant to punish, not to please, but she
welcomed it. She relished it. Slipping her arms around his neck and her tongue
into his mouth, she moaned, digging her fingernails into his shoulders and
begging for more.

Groaning,
he moved his hands down to her bottom and lifted her up, fitting his erection
into the notch of her thighs and pressing her back to the wall. She gasped,
wrapping her legs around his waist as he plundered her mouth, kissing her
hotly, hungrily, endlessly, possessing her so thoroughly she wanted to weep
with pleasure.

It
was too much and not enough. She tilted her hips forward, stroking herself
along the ridge of his erection. Between her legs, she was already hot and
swollen, pulsing with sensation. He shoved his hands into her sweatpants,
making a low growl of satisfaction when he found her naked bottom.

They
were both wearing too many clothes. He stripped off her sweats, baring her from
the waist down, and she tugged at his T-shirt, seeking heat against heat, skin
against skin.

He
tore his mouth from hers to yank his shirt over his head. “Tell me now if you
don’t want this.”

In
response, she removed her sweatshirt and tossed it aside.

His
gaze raked over her nude form, lingered on the points of her breasts and the
triangle of curls at the apex of her thighs. When he moistened his lips, she
had to stifle the urge to put her hand between her legs, not to cover herself
but to ease her ache.

Swallowing
visibly, he jerked the buttons from the holes at the fly of his jeans, freeing
his straining erection. While she watched, breathless with anticipation, he
took a condom from his pocket and sheathed himself quickly.

“Tell
me to stop,” he warned, positioning her against the wall again.

“No,”
she said, all but begging him to come into her.

Still
he waited, letting her feel the blunt tip of his erection at the cleft of her
sex. “What do you want?”

She
wrapped her legs around him. “You. In me.”

Stalling
no more, he plunged forward, slamming her back into the wall and impaling her
on his thick, hard length. She was so wet he penetrated her easily, burying
himself deep. With a strangled groan, he slid his hand over her bottom,
touching the place their bodies were joined, tracing her with his fingertips.

“You
feel so…” He sucked in a sharp breath and gritted his teeth, biting back the
words he wanted to say. Moving his hands to her hips, he held her in place for
his thrusts, withdrawing as far as he dared and driving back into her, rocking
her against the wall, filling her so completely she thought she’d never be
empty again.

Why
did he have to be so amazing? With Ben, even a fast bang against the wall was a
transcendent experience. It should have been hard and angry and impersonal. It
wasn’t. He was hard, all right, but sometime after they’d started kissing, he’d
stopped being so angry, and the way he touched her was far from impersonal.

He
paused, pinning her to the wall with the weight of his body and splaying his
hands over her rib cage, framing her breasts. His roughened breath fanned her
throat, sending shivers down her spine, and her nipples tingled with awareness.

The
light coming in from the doorway fell upon both of them dispassionately, but
the distorted glow from the street below her apartment painted streaks of color
across her naked torso. Red hot brake lights washed over her skin.