Honeymoon To Die For (19 page)

Lady Anne stared holes through Bianca for a drawn-out moment. “You and your wife are invited to stay with us, Ryder.”

Bianca beamed her new bride smile and whipped out her Midwestern American broadcaster’s accent. Which was none at all. “Why, thank you, Lady Anne. We accept your hospitality. And, just so we’re clear, I don’t need a speech coach, and I’ll be happy to share some of my charm school tips with you any time you’d like.” She turned to Ryder, who was staring at her, too, but with something akin to admiration. “Ready?”

“Ready, Sweetheart.”

Her heart quivered at the way he said the endearment this time. As if it really were reserved for her only.

He got them out of there pronto. When they were alone, Ryder said, “That was an impressive maneuver. Impressive as hell.”

Bianca grinned. She was pretty thrilled with herself.

“But it raises a new concern.”

“What?”

“Lady Anne is not one to suffer embarrassment. I don’t want you going anywhere near her without me.”

“You think she’s dangerous.”

“I think she’s powerful enough to be dangerous, especially when threatened in her own domain.”

Well, crap. Another front she had to fight on.  

When they reached the top landing, he turned to his left.

She kept track as Ryder wove them through this hall and that one until she gave up. How did anyone get around in this place without a map?

Ryder stopped and pushed a door open. “This is our room.”

When Bianca stepped inside, she forgot about confusing floor plans, standoffish sisters and crazed kidnappers.

The room was huge. So was the king sized bed.

She was alone with a man who had been locked away from women for five months. “Who else stays in this end of the house?”

“No one but us.”   

CHAPTER 15

Ryder urged Bianca further into the suite so he could close the door. She didn’t say or do anything to indicate she was uncomfortable, but he could sense it in her silence as she took in her surroundings.

He hadn’t missed this room after leaving to join the Army.

Not until he was arrested.

Looking around now, he had a better appreciation for the large suite that covered more square footage than some apartments. Far more than the ten-by-six prison cell Ryder had shared with a man who’d been caught in the act and convicted of stabbing his wife twenty-three times.

Ryder’s gaze ran over every detail, searching out the familiar. Nothing had changed. His king-sized bed was still covered in the same simple brown-and-blue comforter he’d chosen to keep his room from looking like the rest of this designer showplace. His computer desk still had his magnifying glass on a stand that had allowed him to have both hands free when he’d painted model car parts sometimes no larger than his fingernail.

But with one glance at the doorway to his bathroom, his chest tightened.

Of all the things he hated most about prison, he’d never gotten used to the lack of basic privacy. There was something degrading about being on display while using the toilet.

This suite had been his sole respite during the seventeen years he’d spent doing time in the Van Dyke manor. He’d refused entry to all but the housekeeper, hoarding his privacy like a man rationing water to make it across a desert. Counselors at the private high school he’d attended had tossed about terms like “outsider” and “introspective” when they referred to him, as though they’d had a clue what his life was really like.

Looking back, they might have known him better than he realized since both traits played into choices he’d made in the military.

“Someone unpacked my clothes?” Bianca asked without turning around.

Ryder shoved his hands into the pockets of his slacks. “One of the staff.”

“Guess that’s expected ... in places like this.”

“Sometimes.”  In this instance, Ryder was sure security had gone through everything he and Bianca had brought, to check for weapons or electronic gear. But saying that out loud without knowing whether the room was bugged would be careless.

 “Interesting.”  She’d said that one word as if he belonged to a family of aliens.

Bianca had quieted. She hid her discomfort beneath a shield of confidence that didn’t fool Ryder for a minute. He grudgingly admitted that, for a rookie, she’d held up her end even when they’d been kidnapped.

He would curse his soul for eternity if anything happened to her after he’d put her in this position, even if she had volunteered.

With Sabrina and the team sticking their collective necks out for him, Ryder couldn’t pull back at this point either. Plus, he wanted freedom more than anything he’d ever wanted in his life. As long as he kept Bianca safe, the possibility to clear his name and have a life again was within his grasp.

 Thanks to his team, he had new information about the Van Dyke Woden rifles being sold with no serial numbers. What was the possibility of a connection between the person inside VDE selling those weapons to buyers the United States had on a terrorist watch list and the contracted hit on Kearn?

Could be connected or totally unrelated.

“So this is the guest suite?” Bianca asked, still wandering around the room.

“No, this is actually my old room.”  

“Oh. I see.”  She didn’t have to say more.

He’d never had a woman in this room, but having Bianca here didn’t bother him as much as he’d expect.  

Why not?

What had happened to the burning hatred of all things FBI he’d lived and breathed every hour in prison?

Bianca had happened. She’d made him take a look at himself and he hadn’t liked what he found. He did have every reason to be ruthless and cruel, but staying this angry was tiring and unproductive.

He still had a hard-on against Murdock and the legal system, but Bianca was in her own category now. And if Ryder wanted to win his freedom, he had to gain her trust.  

She stopped in front of the window that overlooked the rear of the property filled with landscaped gardens and a resort-level pool he’d stared at during breaks between homework assignments. She squatted in front of a short, half-round, antique curio. Out of curiosity, to see what had caught her attention, he peered over her shoulder at the contents, and did a double take.

Bianca angled her head. “Are these yours?”

“Yes.”  Who had unpacked his model car collection and arranged them for display?

Sure as hell wouldn’t have been Lady Anne.

Bianca stood and swung around. “Is it a special collection?”

“Just a bunch of model cars I put together.”  The miniature automobiles had meant much more when Ryder had painted the details with a brush no thicker than a toothpick and adhered tiny decals with a pair of tweezers.

“Really?”  She turned back and bent low, studying them closer. “They’re beautiful. I can’t believe the paint jobs.”  

Her admiration for his childhood hobby spawned an unusual touch of pride. No one outside of the family had seen his models and no one in the family had ever given a damn about his passion for old muscle cars.

He’d thought.

Who in his family had arranged the models in the cabinet?

When she stood up, her gaze fanned over to his brass bed, then boomeranged back to him with a we-need-to-get-something-clear look. “About tonight—”  

“Sure. What do you want for dinner?”  Ryder put a finger to his lips and tapped his ear.

 “Something light. Whatever you’re having.”  Once she glanced from side-to-side and then up at the ceiling, he knew she’d figured out his warning that they might be heard. She raised her eyebrows at him, demanding to know what his plan was.

He held up a finger for her to be quiet and to wait, then made a quick sweep of his suite. He found nothing, but the ceilings were twelve feet high. He had no way to check the light fixtures or the ceiling fan.

He pointed to her left and spoke clearly, crooking his finger as he walked toward the bathroom. “I need a shower. Let’s figure it out while we freshen up.”  

Whiskey-colored eyes narrowed in suspicion. She didn’t move at first.

Was she afraid of being in here with him?

Even after what they’d been through with the kidnapping?

Drawing on a limited supply of patience, Ryder motioned again with his finger for her to follow. Once inside the bathroom, he spun the shower knobs to full force. Nine gold-plated showerheads pulsed a torrent of water at the center of the stall. He turned around to find her right behind him and could have just leaned down to speak in her ear, but a sudden desire to see her eyes light up again like they had during his faux rescue sent his hands to her waist.

Passion flashed in her hazel eyes, but she recovered to whisper, “What are you doing?”

Destroying what sanity he held onto by threads because his balls were ready to explode from wanting to bend her over the vanity and bury himself inside her.
Not fucking going to happen
.

 He already missed the feel of her body next to his, molded against him as she’d been on the way home in the cab.

He drew her into a snug embrace.

“Ryder.”  She’d muttered that with indecision that made his mouth twitch.

“Just a moment,” he whispered so close to her ear he could touch it with his tongue.

Shit. He wanted to touch a lot of her with his tongue, he realized, but Bianca Brady was the only person who could help him regain his life. He wouldn’t abuse the position she was in even though he knew he could unleash the passion she feared.

Someone had convinced her that she didn’t like sex.

Bullshit. What idiot had been that screwed up?

But he would not take advantage of the vulnerability she’d shown him.

Ryder whispered next to Bianca’s ear, “We can’t take any chances. Someone could be listening.”  

He inhaled her sweet scent, closing his eyes to let it flow over him. He’d missed simple things like holding a woman in his arms. Breathing in Bianca pushed out the scent of misery that had permeated Ryder’s lungs for five long months. They’d felt like decades.

She eased against him.

Man, she was so hot. Not in a runway model way, but in a wholesome, spend-a-night-making-out way that he hadn’t been around in a long time.

Maybe ever.

“You think someone in your family would bug our room?” she asked, sounding curious and amused at the same time. “Are you accusing Hubrecht of being a voyeur?” Her soft breath warmed his neck. The confining area in this bathroom was quickly becoming too hot, the steamy shower not entirely at fault for the sweat beading on Ryder’s forehead.

“No, but we can’t take the chance that someone might have a transmitter in this space. Since we couldn’t get any electronic gadgets past the VDE security and I’m sure our luggage was gone through with a fine-toothed comb, we should act and speak as if we’re in front of an audience at all times unless there’s music playing or water running.”  

“Agreed.”  She had her hands on his chest. One finger moved in a circle as if she was lost in a thought, but that slight touch was driving him crazy.

Should he warn her that she was tempting a desperate man?

She said, “Take your shirt off.”

“What?”  He was already perilously close to making a huge mistake. He had a handful of soft female he wanted to drag under that raging waterfall.

A vision of Bianca naked with water cascading over her shimmering skin sucked the breath from his lungs.

This might not have been one of his more intelligent ideas.

“Earth to Ryder.”

“Hmm?”

“Take off your shirt and sit down so I can clean you up.”

“Oh.”  He released her and stepped back. “I’m fine.”

“No, you aren’t.”  She crossed her arms. “Would you please change the water to cold so this doesn’t turn into a sauna?”

He did as she asked and unbuttoned his shirt far enough that he could pull it over his head. He tossed it to the floor, watching her as he did.

She was busy all of a sudden, her eyes going anywhere but to his body.

Liked what she saw, did she?

He wanted to smile over the way she fumbled around and he was only allowing her to deal with his injuries for one reason. His cuts and bruises would be fine, but having Bianca in nurture mode meant she had to finally be seeing him as more than a cold-blooded killer. This was a step forward.

She dug around in the vanity. “Don’t you have any antibacterial ointment?”

“Second drawer on the left if nothing has changed.”

“Got it.”

After wetting a washcloth, she turned to him. “Sit on the edge of that swimming pool you probably think is a tub.”  

When he was seated with his hands at each side, she came over and knelt, setting the tube of ointment aside. Using the damp cloth carefully as she washed his face, she murmured, “That might be a black eye tomorrow.”

Ryder dismissed it with, “I’ve had worse.”  Shouldn’t have picked at Josh about not getting Trish to marry him yet. Ryder would make sure Josh paid for that down the road.

If he wasn’t in the Hole.

She paused, staring into Ryder’s eyes with something he wanted to call remorse. Could it be that she was rethinking her position on the evidence against him?

Whatever had caused that look disappeared.

When she had his face cleaned up to her satisfaction, she moved down to clean dried blood from the cut on his chest. That wouldn’t have happened if he’d been a little faster when he and Dingo had pulled down an old metal cabinet to make it sound as though Ryder was fighting his way to Bianca.

Good thing his tetanus shot was up to date.

Bianca put ointment on her fingers, then rubbed the antibiotic gel gently over the cut that looked bad, but wasn’t all that deep.

He hadn’t been prepared for the shock of feeling her hands on his chest, and sucked in air along with his stomach muscles.

Snatching her hand back, she raised worried eyes to his. “Did I hurt you?”

“No.”  He hadn’t meant to sound angry, but he couldn’t say more without it coming out like a croak. A gaping wound in his chest wouldn’t lose a drop of blood right now because it was all pooled in his groin.