Criminal Promises (17 page)

He couldn’t give in to the temptation. This
was a war for her life.

He slid his hands up her legs and over her
hips. The tight shorts left little to the imagination, but the
absence of a panty line had him wondering again if she wore a thong
or nothing at all.

She continued to writhe and kick and when
none of that budged him, she wrapped her fantastic legs around his
waist and bucked her hips. Despite the razor of pleasure shooting
up his spine and filling his gut, he laughed against her ear.

“You can fight all night,
Mags. You’re not getting out of this arrangement.”

“Jerk.” She didn’t need to
yell for him to feel her vehemence.

“I know.” To prove his
point, he nipped at her ear.

“You can’t force me to
sleep with you.” That she turned his statement about sharing a room
into them sharing a bed was proof she wanted him. He wasn’t going
to argue the point.

Slipping his hands beneath
her, he cupped her backside and pulled her against him, making it
clear what else he’d like to do tonight. He traced the crown of her
ear with his tongue. “One way or the other.”

“I’m not having sex with
you.”

The soft, sensual Maggie had a spine of
steel, but there were limits to her resolve. He would take
advantage of them if need be. And hope he survived.

“You can’t resist me
forever.” Pressing his hips into hers, cursing the layers of
clothes separating them, he waited until she huffed out a breath
and stopped squirming. “But perhaps you’ll want option number
two.”

“Doubtful.”

He raised his head enough
to meet her gaze. Golden sparks of passion and anger flashed in her
brown depths.
Magnificent.

“I’ve already seen most of
the delights you have to offer.” Torn between rage and unmistaken
ardor, she turned his body into an inferno. Lifting a brow, he
reached for the hem of her tank top and inched the fabric up almost
daring her not to protest. “Want me to see the rest? ’Cause I’m
game.”

“Get off me.” She bucked
against him once more.

“Not yet.”

She screamed at the top of her lungs and hit
and kicked him with everything she had. He got close to her ear
again.

“Hit, kick, scream,” he
whispered. She heard him despite her screams. “You feel what you’re
doing to me. We both know you aren’t afraid.”

Her body went instantly limp.

“Mags.” BD watched a lone
tear trip down her cheek and felt like a slug, but it didn’t change
what he needed to do. “I’m not going to do anything you don’t ask
me to do. Sexually, anyway. Got it?”

She nodded and steadily met his gaze.

“You want to hear the
other option?”

She swallowed and nodded again.

“I thought you might.”
Watching for signs of violence, he sat up between her legs and
reached into his pocket.

She pushed up to her
elbows, her legs still stretched along either side of him. “What’s
that?”

“A full night’s sleep in a
pill.”
At least for one of us.

“You’re going to drug
me?”

He shook his head. As much
as he’d like to force her to take the pill, for his own peace of
mind, he had to let it be her choice. “It’s your prescription. I
found it in the kitchen. Very mild, but under the circumstances, I
think you could use a full eight hours.”

“I don’t like taking them.
They leave me feeling loopy in the morning. What’s my other
option?”

“You can have an extremely
restless night knowing I’m inches away from you.” He invaded her
space again to make sure she got the point. “Aroused…
Ready.”

She scrambled back and knelt on the edge of
the bed. He fully expected her to tell him where to shove the
sleeping pill and his plans for the night’s arrangements.

“I’ll take the pill.” She
held her hand out, palm up. “And I’m sleeping in my
bedroom.”

He placed the pill in her
palm, but grabbed her hand tight when she started to pull back. Her
eyes flared. “You
can
trust me, Mags.”

“You, yes. What you make
me want, no.”

BD watched Maggie sleep from the chair in the
corner. At least half an hour had passed with him telling himself
he was making sure she wasn’t going to wake. In reality, he wanted
to study her when she wasn’t cleaning or cooking or dealing with
the kids or working at her computer. The woman went constantly.

She’d pulled a pillow against her chest and
curled into it, snugging it against her supple curves so sweetly he
imagined himself as the pillow. Her mouth smiled gently and her
scent floated through the room. More than when he’d held her a year
earlier, more than when he’d held her before taking her to the
bath, she was completely vulnerable.

He craved the privilege to
curl beside her, to hold her, to make her his. But she was
taboo.

She stretched in an unconscious search for
more comfort. The pill had done its job and pulled her into a deep
sleep, yet her quiet breaths sending her luscious breasts up and
down gave him little hope for a mental disconnect.

She represented everything
he had wanted from life. He should have traded places with Craig.
Instead he’d kept his decision to himself, stayed and struggled to
remember his stance on relationships. Everything about this woman
screamed “commit”.

She was everything he thirsted and hungered
for. And everything he avoided.

Closing his laptop, he rose and walked to the
bed to pull the blanket over her. Her hand jerked on the pillow.
Wondering if the sleeping pill was wearing off, BD watched her
closely. Her eyes twitched rapidly beneath closed lids.

She stiffened and shook her
head. “No! He… I…”

Pain and sadness darkened her voice, tugged
at the corner of his heart he needed to guard. The shackles shook
and his desire to be a man not a cop surged forth—the way it always
did with her.

BD brushed a hand along her arm to offer
comfort as much as to satisfy his need to touch. She sighed. Her
body melted into the mattress.

“Mmm, you’re back.” Her
voice went from frantic to happy in seconds.

Back?
Seeing his hand against her skin, tasting the temptation to
bulldoze boundaries, he pulled away. As much as he wanted to know
the pleasure of her touch, he would not risk his focus and her
safety.

Keeping a close watch, he backed toward the
door. Maggie slept on peacefully, secure in her home which was
typically full of love and people who mattered. Momentarily weak in
the knees, he leaned against the doorframe and struggled to catch
his breath.

Closing the bedroom door behind him, locking
away his emotions, BD forced his mind into work mode and mentally
shifted through the hints Adalia had left. Somewhere in Maggie’s
life and Adalia’s notes were answers. Now, with Maggie asleep, he
would search everything in the house until he found it.

Walking past the pictures of her family
covering the hallway walls, which made it obvious how comfortable
and happy they’d been, he admitted to himself how solidly she and
her kids had wrapped him around their fingers in a matter of days.
Emma with her blue eyes and innocence. Jared with his wounded
spirit and eager mind. The kids belonged to the man in a photo
sitting close to Maggie on a wooden bench beneath a huge tree, but
BD missed them. Cared for them. Hell, he loved them.

He was living in Maggie’s home, but would
never be hers. They’d captivated him without his awareness. If she
knew what he suspected, she would kick him to the curb harder than
she kicked her punching bag. Searching her home was a betrayal of
her trust, and she’d made it clear how she felt on that subject,
but he had no choice. He needed to know her husband’s level of
involvement.

Stopping in the kitchen, he set a pot of
coffee to brew in hopes it would burn away a few cobwebs. He’d
searched the cupboards and undersides of the drawers while she’d
taken the kids to her parents.

If Mike had hidden the papers in the house,
he’d have picked an easily accessible, secure and unexpected spot.
Coffee cup in hand, BD checked the picture frames on the hallway
walls before he searched the hutch and underside of the dining room
table and checked inside planters to make sure they held nothing
but plants. In the living room, he flipped the couch and chairs
over and felt along the undersides and the back of the
entertainment center. He unzipped cushion covers and checked inside
the sofa lining.

The search would go faster if he didn’t take
the time to put things back precisely as he’d found them. Well,
most everything. He left her knick-knacks and throw pillows
slightly askew.

Coming up empty handed in yet another room,
he headed for the office. He and Craig had been looking for
something left behind by Adalia when they searched it. Now, he
searched the files more thoroughly and looked between the pages of
every book on the shelves for hidden papers. Or anything Mike might
have left behind.

Finding nothing, he moved to the computer.
The rising sun was beginning to peek through the closed blinds.
Time was running out before Maggie would wake.

Settled at her desk, BD turned on the
computer and fished through the desk drawers again.

Looking at a picture of Jared and his dad on
the same bench as several other pictures, he wondered if it had
been taken at the farm. It was obviously a favorite spot for
them.

Turning his attention to the quietly humming
computer, he browsed through her documents and folders. The woman
had file folders within file folders within file folders. Under
Ancestry, there were two folders. Sullivan and Malone. Double
clicking on Sullivan he found a folder for Phil, Betty and
Mike.

He double clicked Mike and found more
folders. Anything he could want to know about Mike seemed to be
there: Birth, Dreams, Health, Friends, Goals, Growth, Hobbies,
Jobs, School, Sports, Studies.

He double clicked jobs. The
twenty-two inch screen filled with more folders. “Good
grief.”

Scrolling through them, he found one Word
document not in a file: Simon Says. Simon Hodges had been one of
Adalia’s victims. Raising his eyebrows, BD double clicked the icon
to open the document.

Simon claims that while he is unsure of
their origin, the scrolls are three-thousand years old. I am unsure
of how they came to him, but am intrigued and excited to delve into
the Hyperborean language as it’s one I’ve seen only once
before.

Update: I have only begun translating the
Hyperborean scrolls onto paper. I don’t know what these people
discovered, but what I’ve garnered so far is worrisome. I tried to
consult with Simon. His curiosity seems to have been replaced by
hesitancy and fear.

Update: Simon has been killed. I cannot help
but wonder if it was because of the scrolls. I also wonder if I am
now in danger. I have been contacted by a woman claiming to be a
student interested in ancient languages, specifically Hyperboreans.
I will meet with her, but am suspicious about the timing of her
contact. It is too coincidental.

Before our meeting, I will put the scrolls
where security is as commonplace as peace. Should Simon’s death be
related to the papers, should I meet a similar end, I will see that
Maggie and Jared are safe.

BD checked the document’s history to get a
timeline for the updates and tried to place where he’d heard of the
Hyperboreans. The memory eluded him, so he focused on facts.

Simon’s murder was one week after he’d given
Mike the scrolls, not papers apparently. Mike’s mention of the
pending appointment had been another week later—the day before his
death. Whatever he’d learned at that meeting, whatever he had found
that had motivated him to report Adalia, would remain a mystery.
The notes did absolve him of any shady connections to Adalia.

“What are you
doing?”

BD jumped, smacked his knee
on the corner of the desk. Swallowing an insane lump of guilt, and
struggling to think past his slamming heart, he closed the file and
turned to face Maggie.
Damn.
The word drawled long and dramatic in his
head.

Like the night before, she stood in the
doorway with her arms crossed over her chest. Her breasts swelled
up over the top of her tank. Her hair was mussed from sleep, but
her eyes were sharp and snapping with anger. So much for the drugs
making her fuzzy the next morning.

He needed an excuse. Fast.

“Using the
computer.”
Unoriginal, but absolutely
true.

“Something wrong with
yours?” She looked sexy as hell all mussed up from sleep. A line
creased her cheek where her face had pressed into the
sheets.

“Battery needs
charged.”

She shook her head. “Plug
it in.”

“Forgot the power cord at
the station.”

“Get an extra
one.”

He had an extra, but she
didn’t need to know that. “Will do.”

“Right. Listen…” Her
suspicion seemed to ease off though it didn’t go away entirely.
“Thanks for last night. I’m going to get dressed. I have things to
do.”

She tacked on the last bit as if saying
thanks made her uncomfortable. Unless her discomfort came from
other memories.