Hard Evidence (22 page)

He'd called in a report to Irving, who'd started the process of obtaining a secret no-knock warrant. If Irena, Luisa, and the others could hold on, if they could just endure the nightmare a bit longer, he would get them out of there, even if he had to die to do it.

Julian scrubbed his skin, rinsed away the lather, searching for a feeling of clean that he couldn't find with soap. He turned off the water, wishing he could turn off his mind just as easily, then dried off and tied the towel around his waist.

He found her standing in the darkness outside the bathroom door, the quilt wrapped around her shoulders.

"Julian?" Tessa looked up at him, touched her palm to his cheek, her blue eyes warm with concern, as if she could see the tumult inside him.

She dropped the quilt to reveal the soft curves of her naked body. Then she pulled off his towel and knelt before him, taking him into the wet heat of her mouth, the tug of her lips making him fill until he was thick and hard and burning.

He closed his eyes, buried his fingers in the silk of her hair, and accepted her offering, her hand and lips working in tandem, her tongue stroking him just where he was most sensitive. She was a fast learner. She'd taken to sex like a mermaid to water.

"Christ, Tessa!" He was lost in her, lost in what she did to him as she built the rhythm, stroke upon stroke, a strange pressure in his chest, his balls already drawn tight. He reached for the bedpost to steady himself, let her control the pace, the first glimmer of an orgasm burning inside him.

She
was what he needed, what he wanted,

But not like this.

"Stop, honey! Stop!" He drew her to her feet, backed her up against the bed, following her down to the mattress in a tangle of limbs.

He kissed a path down her hot skin until she trembled, tasting her lips, sucking the tight velvet of her nipples, nipping her belly, hungry for her. She twisted and arched beneath him, her thighs parting as he nibbled and licked his way down her body. His fingers threaded a path through the dark blond curls of her muff, then he parted her lips and took her with his mouth.

Tessa clenched her fingers in Julian's hair as he made love to her with his mouth, his forearm pressed across her belly to control the bucking of her hips. His lips tugged at her. His mouth suckled her. And his tongue—God in heaven!

Nothing could possibly feel this good.

She heard him groan, heard a woman's panting cries, the sound of her own voice more animal than human. Then she felt his tongue thrust inside her—and she shattered.

"Julian!" She cried his name, her body coming apart in a liquid rush of bliss.

And then he was above her, inside her, the deep, rhythmic penetration of his cock driving her straight from one orgasm to the next, his kiss flooding her mouth with her own musky taste. She wrapped her legs around him, opened herself to him fully, took all she could from him, holding nothing back, as he spilled over the edge and, with a deep groan, poured himself into her.

Chapter 22

Tessa woke the next morning with Julian inside her, thrusting slowly into her from behind as she lay on her side, an orgasm already sliding through her as sweet as honey. Her gasp became a low, throaty moan.

He chuckled, pressed his lips to her hair. "You awake now?"

"Mm-hmm." She felt as lazy and contented as a kitten, her body replete.

But he wasn't through with her. He kept his pace slow, spreading kisses across her cheek, the whorl of her ear, her shoulder, his fingers twining with hers above her head. "What have you done to me, Tessa? I can't get enough of you! I can't get… enough!"

His breath broke on the last word as he shuddered and came.

They lay for a moment in silence, Tessa savoring the feeling of him inside her, of skin pressed against warm skin, his body hard and strong behind her. "Well," she said, at last. "I'm certainly going to expect more from an alarm clock from now on."

She took a shower and got dressed, while he headed first into his office and then downstairs for his daily workout. By the time he came upstairs, dressed in a pair of loose cotton pants that tied at the waist, his bare chest beaded with sweat, his hair hanging damp and loose around his shoulders, she had a pot of oatmeal waiting for them and had made a protein shake for him and a hot latte for herself.

"Breakfast of champions," she said, handing him the shake.

He took it from her, drank, a hint of confusion in his eyes, the same look she saw there anytime she did anything for him. Had no one ever done anything thoughtful for him before? She pressed a kiss to his breastbone, then sat and ate her breakfast.

He sat across from her, dug into his oatmeal. "So Irving tells me you withdrew your open-records request."

"For now." She stirred cinnamon and brown sugar into her oatmeal. "The FBI had nothing so say, so I'm resubmitting my request to them under federal statute."

He grinned. "The Federal Bureau of Obfuscation. We ask the questions, honey. We don't answer them."

Tessa didn't find that funny. "So you're not going to tell me?"

"Tell you what?"

"What happened three years ago?"

"Why is that important? Isn't it enough to know that whoever sent that anonymous letter is working for the bad guys?"

She swallowed the bite she'd just taken. "I feel like after everything we've been through, I have a right to know."

He gave a snort. "You think because we fuck a few times that I owe you my life story?"

His harsh words felt like a blow, the sting taking Tessa by surprise. She fought to hide her reaction. "No, I was thinking professionally—outside the bedroom. I'm holding off on the story at your request and Chief Irving's. I deserve the truth."

He rose, carried his bowl to the sink, then stood for a moment, leaning against the counter. "Okay, but this is off the record—absolutely one hundred percent. Agreed?"

"Agreed."

She watched him as he walked into the living room, sat on the sofa, angry tension rolling off him in waves. He rubbed his hands over his face, then rested his elbows on his knees.

"Three years ago, I was working under deep cover in Mexico, where I'd infiltrated an organization run by three crime bosses, one a Mexican official, the other two here in the U.S. I worked together with Mexican agents, at the same time supervising teams in two U.S. cities. It had taken five years to reach the point where I felt we were ready to take them—five years of watching these men brutalize women in every possible way, five years of pretending to be their friend, five years of pretending to like what they liked."

Tessa sensed the rage bottled inside him, saw regret in the hard lines of his face, and felt sick for him. "I can't imagine—"

"No, Goldilocks, you sure as hell can't." He gave a snort and glanced over at her, his eyes hard. Then he stood and walked over to the window, his back facing her, his bruises now purple. "We had synchronized our operations, planned to move at the exact same moment so that none of the suspects would have time to warn the others. We wanted to make a clean sweep, to bring them all down at once, shut down their entire operation."

She'd spent her career listening to people tell their secrets, listening as they laid bare their pain and shame, and she knew that whatever he was about to tell her wasn't a story he was used to sharing. She resisted the urge to comfort him, sure he would only push her away again.

Julian looked out the window, his gaze fixed on nothing in particular, black ice grinding in his gut. "Do you ever watch nature programs?"

She cleared her throat. "Nature programs?"

"I once saw a program where a lioness frightened a mother cheetah away from her cubs and then killed them. The filmmakers could have saved those cubs by firing a shot overhead to scare the lioness away, but they didn't. They sat and watched and filmed as the lioness killed the cheetah babies one by one. They did their job."

"Oh, Julian!"

He knew she'd understood the metaphor, knew there were tears in her eyes, but he kept going. She'd wanted to know the truth, after all. She was getting the truth.

"As we were getting in position, some of my suspect's men returned with three teenage girls they'd taken from a country village. I knew what was going to happen to them, and I wanted to stop it. It didn't seem right that anyone else should suffer, not when we had the hacienda surrounded and were armed like the fucking Marines. And so I notified our teams to move early."

He remembered the satisfaction of landing a slug in the chest of Garcia's right-hand man, of smelling gunpowder instead of Garcia's nauseating cologne, of seeing Garcia in full restraints, gibbering in the back of a police van.

"Our operation went off without a hitch. The bad guy and his goons went to prison. The girls were rescued and sent home, terrified but untouched."

"You saved them." She stood behind him now.

He spun about to face her, shouted at her. "I did nothing! Our second team got their guy, too, but the third team wasn't so lucky. Somehow, someone got off word to L.A., giving him enough time to get away. His thugs shot three agents, one of whom was the woman I was… seeing at the time. Margaux survived to hate my guts. The other two didn't. I resigned the next day. It was my call, and I blew it. If I'd waited, if I hadn't lost control of my emotions—"

"Those girls would have suffered horribly." She touched a hand to his face, tears spilling down her cheeks, offering him an absolution he didn't deserve.

He was too selfish to push her away. Still, he had to drive his point home. "If I had waited, Maria Ruiz and so many like her might still be safe and alive. You wouldn't be going through this. Because of me, he got away, Tessa. It's that simple."

"It's not simple at all, Julian." Her fingers slid into his sweat-damp hair, pulled his face down to hers, her lips brushing softly over his.

For a moment, he let her kiss him, his chest tight, everything inside him straining toward the purification of her touch, toward the sweet forgetfulness he always found with her. But Burien was still out there, still hurting women, still killing.

And it was Julian's fault.

"Stop, Tessa." He set her away from him. "I have to go."

Then he walked off toward the shower, leaving her to her tears.

"So he says whoever sent that 'news tip' is working for the bad guys?" Sophie asked.

"That's what he says, and I believe him. I just wish he'd tell me exactly who the bad guy is so I could splash his picture on page one." She hated the bastard—whoever he was—not only for the harm he'd done to women but also for the torment he'd laid upon Julian's shoulders.

"Well," Sophie said, her voice hinting that she had a surprise up her sleeve, "remember Chris, that guy I went out with at the
Post
who did the four-part series on the Red Mafia? I managed to talk him out of his source in Moscow. Okay, so I promised to go out with him again, but, hey, what are friends for? He wasn't that bad of a kisser."

"Oh, my God, Sophie!" Tessa felt her spirits lift. 'That's incredible! Bless your heart!"

"I'm e-mailing you the number now. Just remember there's a ten-hour time difference between Denver and Moscow. Don't wake the poor guy up in the middle of the night."

"Ten-hour time difference. That means it's almost five a.m. there right now."

"Does this mean I'm forgiven?" Sophie asked. "We didn't mean to get you into hot water."

"I don't know. He wasn't happy about it. Secrecy is survival in his business."

"I hope he wasn't too angry with you."

Tessa remembered the groceries, the espresso machine, the azalea, and the hours of mind-blowing oral sex that had followed.

When you tell your friends about this, be sure to tell them about the swirly-sucky thing. If you're going to share details, you might as well be thorough.

She fought to keep the tone of her voice grave. Sophie deserved to feel some guilt, after all. "I got through it."

"Holly said she thought he would probably punish you with his tongue."

Tessa felt herself blush. "Actually, he didn't bring the four of you up until after he was finished using his tongue."

Sophie groaned. "God, Tess, if it weren't for the murder and mayhem, I'd say you were really lucky."

Tessa felt her spirits slip again. Was she lucky? Certainly, she was lucky to be alive. She was lucky to have a man like Julian protecting her. She was lucky to spend nights in his bed, to feel the shattering heat of his touch. But he didn't love her.

You think because we fuck a few times that I owe you my life story?

Some stubborn part of her wanted to believe he hadn't meant it the way it had seemed. He'd lashed out at her only because answering her question meant dragging his soul over barbed wire. Three years ago, he'd made a decision anyone with a heart would have made—he'd decided to save those girls. But he'd paid dearly for it, losing his girlfriend, two of his men, his job. He'd obviously spent every day since blaming himself, carrying the weight of the killer's crimes on his own shoulders.

Was that why he pretended not to have feelings? Was that why he was so determined not to get too involved with a woman? And who was this bitch Margaux who'd left Julian to deal with his anguish and regret alone?

Margaux couldn't have loved him, not the way Tessa loved him.

"Yeah, I am lucky," Tessa said at last.

Then Sophie recounted the entire spying-in-the-parking-lot incident, from the moment Julian had arrived in his truck to the moment they realized he'd trapped them to the smile on his face as he'd walked away. "He is the hottest guy I have
ever
seen. Holly said so, too, though I believe she used the word 'fuckable.'"

"That sounds like Horny Holly."

There was noise in the background—the harmonious sound of Tom's shouting.

"Oh, crud, I have to go. Tom just went ballistic over my headline."

"Sorry I'm not there. Good luck, and thanks so much, Sophie."

Tessa hung up, walked back to the table, set the cell phone aside, and downloaded her e-mail, wondering what time she should call this source in Moscow and what, exactly, she should ask him. Perhaps she could ask him about Lonnie Zor-yo, see if he knew whether Zoryo had ties to any known criminal—

Tessa stared at the screen of her laptop, felt her stomach knot. There in her in-box was Sophie's message—together with five from an address she didn't recognize. They looked like spam, but the subject line read, "TESSA WILL SUFFER."

Her hand moving almost of its own volition, she clicked on one of the messages—and felt the blood rush from her head.

Julian gunned his truck into the garage, the black mood he'd been in all day growing darker by the moment, his own words a knife to whatever was left of his conscience.

You think because we fuck a few times that I owe you my life story?

She'd reacted as if he'd hit her, her head snapping back, her eyes going wide. Then she'd sucked up her emotions and let it go, somehow finding it within her to shed tears for him, to touch him, to kiss him. As if he'd needed her to comfort him. As if he deserved her compassion. As if she could change what was inside him. And what had he done?

He'd pushed her away.

It only proves what you've known all along, asshole. No picketfence.

He parked, closed the garage, keyed in his code, telling himself it was stupid for him to have come home. He ought to be heading to Pasha's or looking at surveillance tape or casing out one of the empty warehouses Irving's men had identified. An apology wouldn't make a goddamned bit of difference in the long run, because he'd only hurt her again. Better to quit while he was behind.

Except that he needed to be near her.

He knew something was wrong the moment he opened the door. Tessa didn't meet him or call out a greeting. The house was dark and silent. The stove was cold. Her computer sat on the table in sleep mode, its screen dark, the ON button pulsing green.

Then he heard a choking sound.

'Tessa?" His gun was out in a heartbeat. He moved quickly down the hallway to find the door to the bathroom shut and locked. "Are you all right?"