Devil in Dress Blues (12 page)

“Christ. You’re so soft,” Rafe groaned, gently parting her folds. “I could touch you like this forever.”

“And I’d let you,” she replied with a husky laugh. “Oh, that feels so good.”

He supported her around her waist as she leaned back against the tiled wall, but didn’t stop the sensuous rhythm of his hand. “And to think,” he mused against her mouth, “that I almost let you shower alone.”

Sara gasped as he gently bit the side of her throat. “What made you change your mind?”

“The thought of you up here. Alone. Naked.”

She laughed softly. “But you’ve already had your wicked way with me, Sergeant. What more could you possibly want?”

He pulled back to search her face, watching as water streamed from her hair and over her shoulders. He followed one rivulet as it slid down her collarbone and along the slope of her breast before he bent and caught it with the tip of his tongue.

“Oh, there’s more,” he assured her, drawing her nipple into his mouth and savoring her small gasp. “Let me show you.”

M
UCH LATER, THEY LAY TOGETHER
in Rafe’s wide bed. Sara rested her head on his shoulder and trailed a finger up and down the shallow groove that bisected his torso and separated the grid of muscles across his stomach. Outside, it was dark, but the light from the bathroom was enough to illuminate the bedroom and reveal Rafe’s features. In the dim light, he looked slightly satanic. Dangerous.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked softly.

He turned his head on the pillow and a small smile lifted one corner of his mouth. “You.”

Sara smiled. “Oh yeah? And what are you thinking about me?”

Rolling toward her, he raised himself up on one elbow and stroked her hair back from her face. “I was just thinking that my leave is up in two weeks, but I have some more time coming to me. I could probably request another two weeks without any problem.”

“Is that what you want?” she asked carefully.

He blew out a hard breath. “What I want is to have more than just this week with you.”

Sara heard the frustration in his voice and warmth unfurled low in her abdomen. He wanted to spend more time with her! The knowledge thrilled her, and yet something inside her hesitated to read too much into his words. He was a Special Ops soldier, after all. What kind of relationship could they really have, beyond a week or two? He would soon be returning to duty, and she didn’t know if she was the kind of woman who could sit at home for six months or more, patiently waiting for her man to return. And what if he didn’t return? What if he was killed during one of his covert missions? Just the thought of losing him caused a physical reaction; her chest tightened and she couldn’t seem to draw a deep breath.

Rolling away from him, Sara swung her legs over the side of the bed and sat up, struggling to breathe. Behind her, Rafe shifted closer.

“Hey, did I say something wrong? Are you okay?”

She nodded, but didn’t look at him. “Yes. I’m just surprised. I mean, you’ve only known me for a couple of days.”

He stroked his knuckles along the side of her arm. “I know you’re probably thinking that we jumped into this a little too quickly,” he said quietly. “You may even think that I invited you to stay with me for a week just so I could get you into my bed.”

Sara gave him a quick smile over her shoulder. “Obviously, I didn’t need much persuasion.”

“Are you having regrets?”

She turned to face him. “I just can’t help but wonder where this is going. I love that you want to spend more time with me, but we both have demanding jobs. Well, okay, yours is a lot more demanding than mine, but even if you can get some additional time off, I don’t think my editor will be so accommodating.” She gave him a rueful smile. “I’m sure she probably considers this week with you just one big vacation for me. Either way, by the end of the week, I still need to give her a story about you.”

With a soft groan, Rafe rolled onto his back and flung an arm over his eyes. “That’s right. I almost forgot that you’re a journalist. The story comes first, right?”

His voice sounded bitter and Sara frowned.

“That was the deal, Rafe, remember? I agreed to stay with you for a week and in return, you agreed to give me a story.”

With a muttered oath, Rafe surged to his feet and strode across the room to stare moodily out the window into the darkness. “So this is nothing more than a business transaction to you, is that what you’re telling me?”

Sara drank in the sight of him as he stood gloriously nude, bathed in a muted amber glow from the streetlamps. Shadows played across his body, casting his muscles into sharp relief and outlining the powerful thrust of his shoulders and the definition of his arms. His body was tightly coiled, and Sara could sense the frustration that simmered in the air around him. She stood up, wrapping the sheet around her.

“I didn’t make the rules,” she reminded him softly. “You did. Those were your terms, not mine. But no…this isn’t
just
about the story, and you know it.”

When he turned around, his face was cast in shadow so that she couldn’t distinguish his features, never mind discern his expression. “What if I asked you to forget about the story and stay with me anyway?” he asked quietly. “Would you do it?”

Sara’s breath caught. “I don’t know. I have responsibilities. Even if I wanted to, my editor is counting on this story and I can’t just say no to her. I need this job. I have to give her that story, Rafe.”

Rafe scrubbed a hand over his short hair and muttered a soft invective. “But why this particular story, Sara? And who is this really important to? You or your editor?”

Sara frowned. “Well, it’s important to both of us, but Lauren said the story about the rescue mission would be a major coup for the magazine.”

“And what would the story do for you?” His voice was deceptively soft.

Sara cleared her throat. “Well, it would be a coup for me, too. At least from a professional standpoint.”

His silence filled the room. “Try to understand, Rafe. Do you know how hard it is to get the inside scoop on a story like yours?”

“I’m trying,” he said grimly. “I know I said I’d give you the story if you stayed with me, but I’d rather you were here because you wanted to be with me, and not because I’m going to give you some inside scoop on a classified mission.”

Sara recoiled, feeling as if she’d been slapped. “That’s not fair,” she breathed. “You know I want to be with you. But why can’t I also want the story? Why can’t I have both?”

She heard him laugh softly. “Because then I’ll never be sure, will I?”

“Sure about what?” But she already knew. He would never be sure if she was with him because she wanted to be with him, or because she wanted the story that only he could give her. Sara started to get angry. He was implying she was only slightly better than Colette, selling herself for profit. “What’s going on, Rafe? Why does it bother you so much that I want that story? You know my background—I’m a journalist. This is what I do, but you’ve made it pretty clear that you don’t have much use for journalists.” She paused, but he didn’t speak. “Why?”

“I’ll tell you why,” he said on a soft snarl, crossing the room and coming so close that a deep breath would have brought her breasts into direct contact with his chest. “One of the aid workers that we rescued in Pakistan turned out to be a reporter.”

Sara stared at him, uncomprehending. “So?”

“So my men risked their lives to save her pretty little ass, but being rescued wasn’t her priority.”

Sara stared at him. “So what was she after?” she asked, but she already knew.

“She was trying to get pictures of the Taliban, but all she did was succeed in getting herself and the other aid workers captured. Even after we extracted her and the others, she tried to document the rescue mission with her camera. Because of her and her idiotic desire
to get the story,
my men were injured and very nearly killed. Worse, if we hadn’t confiscated everything she owned and convinced her editor that the article would blow our cover and jeopardize future missions, she would have published her story—complete with photos—on the front page of some national news magazine.”

He moved away from her and Sara sagged against the wall, clutching the sheet against her. She understood now why he had been so abrupt with her that first night, when she’d been introduced to him as a writer for
American Man
magazine. She also understood why he’d walked away from her at the Pavilion Café when she’d asked him to tell her about the rescue. Given his experience, he had no reason to trust her. In fact, she hadn’t really given him any reason to think she was much different than the other journalist.

“I’m not like her,” she finally managed, her voice sounding strained. “I already told you that I would keep your identity a secret, and that I wouldn’t publish your picture. I just wanted to hear about the rescue.”

“And now you have,” Rafe grated. He turned back toward her, his expression predatory. “Which leads me back to a question you never answered—how did you find out about my involvement with the rescue in the first place? That mission was so covert that only a handful of men at the Pentagon knew about it. Who is your ‘reliable source’? Some other poor bastard you slept with in order to get your story?”

“Rafe, please don’t do this.” She knew he didn’t really mean the things he was saying, but the words still had the power to hurt her.

He blew out a hard breath. “You’re right. You know what? I’m sorry. It’s late, and we could both use a good night’s sleep.” He considered her bleakly. “You’re welcome to stay in this room. I’ll sleep downstairs on the sofa. Don’t worry—this won’t happen again.”

Sara blinked. He couldn’t even stand to be in the same room as her and the knowledge caused her stomach to twist. She watched as he snatched a clean pair of boxers from his dresser and pulled them on. It wasn’t until he was reaching for an extra blanket at the foot of the bed that reality kicked in.

“No, don’t leave,” she said, putting out a hand to forestall him.

He paused and gave her a questioning look. “You want me to stay?”

Pulling the sheet tighter around herself, she indicated the bedroom door. “I only meant that I’ll sleep in the spare room. There’s no need for you to sleep on the couch.”

“Thanks,” he muttered, sounding anything but grateful.

Sara hesitated, wishing she could think of something to say, wanting just to go back to the way things had been fifteen minutes earlier. She even briefly considered telling him that she’d ditch her plans to write the story if he would just let her stay with him for the night, for two weeks. Forever.

But she knew she couldn’t do that. If she didn’t have a story for Lauren by the end of the week, she could lose her job. And if she got fired then she’d have no choice but to go back home to Pennsylvania. Journalists were a dime a dozen in Washington, and without any references or high-profile stories in her portfolio, she’d have a tough time finding another job.

Blowing out a hard breath, she turned away. “I’ll see you in the morning,” she murmured, and without waiting for a response, she fled to the spare room, closing the door behind her and climbing naked between the cold sheets.

She lay curled on her side, imagining Rafe across the hallway, and wishing she weren’t such a coward. Wishing she had told him that the story didn’t matter, that being with him was more important. But she hadn’t. Instead, she’d chosen her job over Rafe. With a groan, she turned her face into her pillow. She didn’t even really like her job. But she needed the money and the connections. Bunching the pillow beneath her head, she silently acknowledged that in that respect, she wasn’t so very different from Colette, after all.

12

S
ARA SPENT A RESTLESS NIGHT
, unable to sleep. After several hours spent replaying the scene with Rafe over and over again in her head, and berating herself for handling it so poorly, she gave up altogether. Instead, she pulled her laptop out to check emails, and then remembered the memory stick hidden in her pocketbook.

But, after inserting the stick into the laptop and opening the file, she wasn’t any closer to knowing what information resided on the data card. The file was encrypted, and Sara had no clue how to decipher it. Opening her purse, she replaced the memory stick in the zippered side pocket and returned to her mail.

In the morning, Sara repacked her belongings into her overnight bag, and tried to convince herself that she was making the right decision in returning to her own apartment. This whole thing had been a huge mistake. Their lives were too divergent ever to make a relationship work. Rafe despised journalists, and she wasn’t sure she could handle those long periods when he would be gone on a mission. Not to mention, he had no right to make her choose between himself and her career. After all, she wasn’t thrilled that his job put him in harm’s way, but she wasn’t about to ask him to leave the military for her.

Then there was the whole issue with the story. It was clear Rafe wouldn’t provide her with any information and she had promised to keep his identity a secret, so what did that leave her with? She’d been fooling herself in thinking this story would make a difference to her career. There was no story, and she needed to go back and tell Lauren so, even if it meant she might lose her job.

Drawing a deep breath, she made her way downstairs, where she could hear Rafe moving around. She was apprehensive about facing him after the previous night. What if she apologized and told him what she intended to do, and it made no difference? She wasn’t sure she could handle his rejection. No, it was better if she just left and chalked the entire thing up as a mistake.

Rafe was pouring two mugs of coffee as she entered the kitchen. His black gaze slid to her overnight bag and laptop case as she set them down on the floor. He didn’t say anything, but Sara didn’t miss how his jaw tightened. He hadn’t shaved, and dark stubble shadowed his chin. As he handed her a mug of coffee, she couldn’t help but notice the lines of strain etched around his mouth. He looked as terrible as she felt.

“Thanks,” she murmured, accepting the mug and curling her hands around its warmth. She couldn’t bring herself to meet his eyes, too afraid of what she might see in his expression. The tension in the small kitchen was palpable.

He set his own mug down on the island. “Sara, about last night—”

Her cell phone rang, startling her so that she sloshed hot coffee over her fingers. “Oh!”

Rafe took the mug from her and she swiped her hand across the seat of her jeans as she bent to retrieve the phone from her handbag. She didn’t recognize the number on the display.

“Hello?”

“Sara Sinclair?”

“Yes?”

“This is Detective Paul Anderson with the Metropolitan Police Department. Your neighbor, Mrs. Parker, gave me your cell phone number.”

Sara felt her heart lurch. “Is she okay?”

“She’s fine. She called us because somebody burglarized your apartment overnight. We’ll need you to come home to verify if anything is missing and to file a report.”

“My apartment was broken into?” she repeated blankly.

“Yes, ma’am. Your neighbor said you’re away on vacation. When do you expect to return?”

Sara put a hand to her forehead, only distantly aware of Rafe coming to stand close to her. “I’ll leave right now. I mean, I’m staying with a—a friend. I’ll be there in forty minutes.”

Ending the call, she looked up at Rafe, feeling a little dazed. “Someone broke into my apartment. I have to go.”

“I’ll drive you.”

“No—I mean, I can drive myself. There’s no need for you to come with me.”

“That wasn’t a suggestion, Sara. I’m driving you, and that’s the end of it. Leave your things here,” he said, as she bent to retrieve her overnight bag. “If someone burglarized your place, there’s no way you’re staying there.”

Sara straightened. “Right. Of course.”

Rafe was grimly silent on the ride to her apartment. When they arrived at her building, Sara was surprised to see there were no police cruisers in sight.

“I’m sure the detective said he would be here,” she said, getting out of the car. “Maybe they got another call.”

“Trust me, there’s a detective upstairs,” Rafe said, indicating she should precede him up the stairs.

Sara turned to look at him. “How do you know?”

“There’s an unmarked car parked on the curb. From the make and model, I’d say it belongs to your detective.”

As they reached the fourth floor, Sara realized he was right. Her apartment door stood open, and Sara could hear voices coming from inside. Entering her apartment, she stopped short and her hand flew to her mouth. Her apartment looked as if a cyclone had hit it, with furniture overturned, and books and photos strewn across the floor. Her small desk had been pillaged and the drawers upended. Even her tiny kitchen hadn’t been spared, with utensils and broken dishware littering the ground.

“Oh my God,” she breathed, lifting a picture from the floor. The frame was broken and the glass cracked, and Sara felt the hot sting of tears as she gently traced her finger over the photo of her father. Standing up, she looked helplessly at Rafe.

“Who would do this? Why would anyone do this?”

Mrs. Parker stood in the center of the mess, wearing a flowered bathrobe, flanked by two men, one of whom was taking notes in a small book. Sara clutched the broken picture to her chest and stared around her, shocked by the condition of her apartment. Rafe put an arm around her shoulders and she was grateful for his protective bulk.

“Miss Sinclair?” One man stepped toward her and flipped open a leather wallet to reveal an official-looking identification card and a badge. He looked vaguely familiar, but Sara couldn’t recall where she might have seen him before. “I’m Detective Anderson and this is my partner, Detective Michaels.”

“Oh, my poor dear,” exclaimed Mrs. Parker, picking her way over the debris to take one of Sara’s hands in her own. “I heard some noises just after midnight, but I thought it was the young people who live beneath me. You know how they like to party.”

Sara nodded mutely.

“Then when I went out to get my newspaper this morning, I saw your door was partially open, and thought you had returned. But when I pushed the door open, this is what I found.” She patted Sara’s hand reassuringly. “Thank goodness you weren’t home. I hate to think what might have happened.”

Sara squeezed the older woman’s fingers. “I’m just glad you didn’t decide to go investigate in the middle of the night. Thank you for calling the police.”

Mrs. Parker smiled. “That’s what neighbors are for. Well, you have your hands full, so I’ll leave you. Call me if you need anything.”

“Thank you,” Sara replied, watching the elderly woman as she left.

“Miss Sinclair,” interrupted the other detective, “we’ll need you to take an inventory of your belongings to determine if anything is missing.”

Sara nodded and placed the picture of her father carefully on the bookshelf. “Okay, but I won’t know for sure until I get everything cleaned up and put away. It might take a few days.”

“No problem.” The detective hesitated. “Can you think of any reason why someone would want to break in?”

“No.” Sara indicated her ruined apartment. “I don’t own anything of value. Even my jewelry is mostly costume jewelry.”

With a gasp, she remembered the Carolina Herrera gown she had worn to the Charity Works Dream Ball. She hadn’t yet had an opportunity to return it to her friend, and she only hoped the burglars hadn’t taken it. The gown was worth thousands, and she couldn’t afford to replace it if it had been stolen.

Shaking off Rafe’s arm, she pushed past the detectives to her bedroom, stunned to see that her dresser and closet had been thoroughly ransacked, as well. But she let out a sigh of relief when she found the beautiful cobalt gown on the floor, still in its protective garment bag. Sara lifted it carefully in her arms. The three men had followed her into the room, and she looked at them in confusion.

“This gown is easily worth five thousand dollars. If the robbers were looking for something they could sell for cash, why not take this?”

A ghost of a smile touched Rafe’s mouth. “Obviously, your burglar has no appreciation for high fashion.”

“They were likely looking for smaller items, like electronics, that they could easily remove from the premises,” said Detective Anderson. “Do you own anything of that nature, Miss Sinclair? A laptop, or an iPad, perhaps?”

Sara was about to say that her laptop was at Rafe’s house, when Rafe smoothly interrupted.

“I think Sara needs some time alone right now. Why don’t I bring her down to your station later, and then she can fill out a report and answer any other questions you might have?”

The two detectives glanced at each other, before Anderson turned to Rafe. “I’m sorry—I didn’t get your name.”

“That’s because I didn’t give it.”

The other detective gave a soft laugh and scratched the bridge of his nose. “Well, we’d have more to go on if Miss Sinclair could just give us this information now.”

“I understand, but I don’t see any benefit in putting her through an interrogation right now. I’ll bring her down later this morning, I promise. That will give her time to put together a list of missing items.”

Rafe’s voice was polite, but there was no mistaking the steely edge to it. The two detectives must have realized that they wouldn’t get far by persisting, and the first one snapped his small book shut.

“Fine.” He turned to Sara, but his expression was one of irritation. Withdrawing a small case from his pocket, he withdrew a business card and handed it to her. “Here’s my card. Call me before you come down.”

Rafe showed them out, closing the apartment door firmly behind them. Laying the gown across the bed, Sara followed him into the living room, stepping carefully over the mess on the floor.

“Why was he so interested—” she began, but Rafe stopped her with a finger across his lips.

Drawing her close, he leaned down so that his mouth was at her ear. “Don’t say anything about the detectives,” he whispered. “Complain about the mess, but don’t mention anything that might have been stolen, or speculate on what the robbers were looking for. And talk loudly.”

Pulling back, he raised his gaze to the ceiling and pointed silently to the small overhead light mounted there.

“What I don’t get,” she said, obeying his instructions, “is why they had to make such a mess. I mean, who would keep anything of value in their kitchen drawers?”

As she talked, Rafe carefully unscrewed the globe from the light and examined the wiring, before he deftly removed what looked like a tiny black square. After he replaced the light, Sara watched as he moved around her apartment, locating two more of the small devices, one from the kitchen and another from her bedroom. She didn’t need a detective to tell her what they were, and the implications of why they were there terrified her. Still, she managed to keep up a meaningless diatribe on the evils of burglary as she watched Rafe open her freezer. But when he pushed the devices deep into a gallon container of Moose Tracks ice cream, she found herself speechless with surprise.

“Look,” he said easily, closing the freezer, “I can see you’re upset. It doesn’t look like they took anything of value. Why don’t we leave this mess for now? Let me buy you breakfast, and then we can find a decent hotel for you to stay at, at least until this place is habitable. You should probably pack a bag for a couple of nights.”

Sara wasn’t fooled, his easy going manner was only for the benefit of any other listening devices that he might have overlooked.

“Right. Good idea.” She left him in the kitchen and returned to her bedroom. Her small suitcase had been dragged from beneath her bed, and it took no more than a few minutes to throw several outfits into the case and zipper it closed. She hefted the suitcase in one hand and then, on impulse, draped the blue ball gown over her free arm.

Rafe arched an eyebrow when he saw the gown. “Planning on going to a ball?” he asked.

Sara gave him a tolerant look. “I’m not taking any chances. They didn’t take the gown this time, but they might change their minds if they come back.”

“They’re not coming back,” he said grimly. “Let’s go.” He took the suitcase from her hand and indicated she should precede him out of the apartment, before he closed and locked the door behind them.

“Fine. And by the way, that was a perfectly good container of ice cream that you ruined,” she said as they made their way down the staircase.

“That’s a matter of opinion,” he retorted. “Now if you’d had a gallon of butter pecan ice cream in that freezer, I might agree.”

R
AFE WAS GLAD TO SEE A SMILE
touch Sara’s mouth at his quip. Her face had lost all color when they’d entered her apartment, and even now she was too pale for his liking. They reached his car, and he scanned the street for any sign of the detectives. Their car was nowhere in sight, but every instinct told him they were being watched.

As he slid in behind the steering wheel, Sara leaned forward and buried her face in her hands. “Oh my God,” she said, dragging in a shaky breath. “What is happening to my life?”

“Hey.” Reaching across the center console, Rafe hauled her into his arms and pressed her face against his shoulder. He breathed in the honey-ginger scent of her hair and rubbed her back. “It’s going to be okay, I promise.”

Just two hours ago, he’d been certain that Sara was going to walk out of his life. He’d lain awake for the entire night after she’d left, fighting the urge to follow her into the spare bedroom and make love to her. He’d demanded too much of her too soon, and he couldn’t blame her for running scared. Maybe it was a direct result of his lifestyle. In his line of work, there wasn’t always a guarantee of tomorrow and he’d learned that if you wanted something, you needed to take hold of it with both hands. He’d said things the previous night that he regretted, things he couldn’t take back. But he intended to show Sara that what they had was more than just a one-night stand. He wanted her in his life. More importantly, he needed to be in hers. There was no way he was letting her out of his sight.