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Authors: Liz Everly

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BOOK: Like Honey
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“I'll just wait in the other room,” he said in a low voice, waved at Maeve, and kept going.
“Why didn't you tell me about him?” he heard her say. It almost made him laugh. Jennifer hadn't told her friend about him? And here he was imagining that she might have a thing for him. Women always told their friends. Maybe he was misreading her vulnerability and her attraction to him. But last night he was certain she wanted to kiss him. Could he have been misreading the subtle signals she gave? The flipping around of her hair. The blushing. The leaning into him. The heated eye contact. Was he losing his touch?
It was just a few weeks ago, he reminded himself, that he was about to help himself to a delicious little kitty-masked woman at the Mead Maker's Ball. No, he wasn't losing his touch. It was Jennifer. She was confounding, mesmerizing, sexy, gorgeous, smart, and, unfortunately, his boss. At least for now. He tried not to think about last night; the thought of her made him hard. Maybe she was right. Maybe he needed to get out more often.
“Hey,” Jennifer said as she walked into the room. “Sorry about that. Sometimes Maeve and I can go on a bit. C'mon in. I have everything ready.”
This was the Jennifer he needed to think about: she was cool, businesslike, and enthusiastic. He needed to erase the image of her lips wrapping around those spoons last night, sucking every drop of honey from them.
She looked good this morning. There were no traces of the bags that were under her eyes yesterday. Maybe speaking with her friend perked her up.
She spread out the books and had her computer prepared.
“Here are the records for the past several years. I'm trying to put them all in the computer. As I'm transcribing, I'm amazed at how little the family earned on honey,” she said.
“There must have been money coming from elsewhere,” he told her as he sat down at the chair she'd pulled up for him. “Creative accounting?” she said, and smiled at him. His heart raced. Just a little. Her smile would be the undoing of him.
“Are you okay?”
“Um, yeah, sure,” he replied.
Just thinking about your mouth on my cock, sick fucker that I am.
He cleared his throat.
I'm not sure I can do this. That I can work this closely with her.
The way she smells. That smile. That ass. And her boobs weren't bad, either. He needed to get laid soon—or he'd be all over her and he'd not just lose this job, but his real one as well.
Chapter 11
W
hy did Jennifer feel so comfortable, yet so sexy around Gray? It was almost as if she knew him from somewhere else. It was the oddest sensation. She wished he didn't work for her. That complicated her feelings—although she herself was unsure about what exactly those feelings were. Sure, a good-looking guy from home shows up, and if he's a decent guy, you get along and maybe become friends. Friends. She could use a friend—one that wasn't halfway around the world.
She thought about the honey he had shared with her—what an eye-opening experience. Who knew so many kinds of honey existed? Ren certainly didn't tell her about it. He knew all about their honey, the heather honey, but really wasn't that interested in honey itself.
She turned over on her side. Even though she slept alone on her king-size bed, she still slept on the right edge of the bed.
She closed her eyes and tossed to her other side again.
If she were to be honest with herself, she was thrilled when Gray said he found her attractive. Because, well, he was downright gorgeous. And because he has to be as great in the sack as she imagined.
Stop it right now. He works for you. Didn't you learn your lesson with Liam?
Yes, but you don't plan on running this place forever. Or, do you?
She turned over again.
What was that noise?
Probably the wind.
A creak in her floor.
Creaky old house
.
She reached for her lamp—flipped it on.
Suddenly, someone else was there, and a hand went across her mouth and flipped the light off.
Fear zoomed through her body.
Was she dreaming? What was going on?
This was real!
She struggled to breathe and to see his face as the man came up behind and pressed his whole body down on her. She was lying on her stomach. She twisted, trying to lift him off her with her hips. He was too heavy; she couldn't catch her breath. Waves of fear ripped through her as he shoved her head farther into the pillow.
“Please!” she tried to say. But it came out muffled, wrenched as she was into the pillow.
Was she going to suffocate in her own bed?
He held her down, hard, and she gasped, tried to scream, sobbed.
Was she crying? Was she dead?
He reached down under the blankets and under her nightgown. “No!” she tried to say.
He fumbled around in the blankets, trying to free her from there, finally getting them off. She twisted and turned and fought as he wrestled with the blankets. His other hand kept pressing on her neck, now wrapping around her throat.
Jennifer couldn't think, breathe, or see. She continued to struggle against him, flailing her arms and legs at him when she could, twisting her body this and that way.
His hand pressed her neck down into the pillow. She gasped for air and there was none. It felt like her throat and lungs were collapsing as everything swirled in her mind to blackness.
“What the fuck?” she heard someone say, as if in a dream. “Get off of her!”
Crashing sounds. A soothing voice. Sirens in her ears.
“Jennifer!”
She heard a voice on the phone calling the ambulance, giving her address, and telling them that someone had attempted to strangle her. Was that possible?
Her eyes opened slightly, but the light was painful. Gray stood over her. His face was contorted, angry, then softened. He touched her face. “You're going to be okay, you hear me? Help is on the way.”
She nodded, tried to speak, but her throat ached, and she felt like she couldn't breathe.
“Shh. Don't try to talk. He tried to strangle you. Your throat and neck must be pretty sore,” he said.
“Who?” she whispered.
“Liam. He got away. The authorities are searching the area.”
“Sir, we have to ask you to step aside,” one of the ambulance crew told him. “We need to get her to hospital.”
She shook her head no, even as they lifted her gurney. “How?” she whispered.
“I saw your light flip on and off and wondered if you were okay,” his voice cracked. “I can't believe that asshole got away from me.”
“But you had to make a choice. It was see to Mrs. D'Amico or run after him. You made the right choice. We'll get him,” a police officer said to him.
Those words echoed in Jennifer. He chose her. And that scared the shit out of her.
 
Gray knew better than to call this one in. Kasey would never let him live it down.
He'd tell her eventually.
He suspected, and hoped, that Liam had been at the root of all of Jennifer's weird happenings. When there was so much money on the line, it was hard to imagine no other people being involved, though, and that they would let the matter rest with the demise of the D'Amicos.
He swept the floor. Some men drank, some men walked, but when Gray was nervous he cleaned. The cops had taken his statement and then told him to stay out of it. It would only be a matter of time before they made all the connections to his work in the States, his grandmother, and hell, maybe even his family ties to the D'Amicos. Though the local chief knew about him, none of the other local law enforcement did. So he needed to act quickly while he was still under the radar.
He swept at the floor even harder, then set his broom aside. He'd have to call his grandmother. It was the only way.
“Where've you been?” she said into the phone. Caller ID was a glorious thing.
“I told you that I can't quite tell you that. But I need your help,” he said, and then he explained what had happened. “I remember that you mentioned the Grady family with some disdain, and I wonder what you know about them. I don't mean to trouble you, but I need to know.”
“Ach,” she said. “That family is nothing but trouble. Bunch of lazy good-for-nothings.”
“And yet they work for the D'Amicos,” he said.
“The D'Amicos?” she said with a scoff in her voice. “Tsk. I'm sure it's all local rumor and legend, of course. But they say the D'Amicos and the Gradys, well, there's bad blood between them. Goes back a long way. The Gradys have something on them; that's why they've been working there for years.”
“Any idea what that might be?”
“Could be anything,” she said. “You know how clannish these Highlanders are. I used to know the cousin of Ren Senior, who married my second cousin. They didn't have the Gradys working for them then. But they are long gone. Now, I just know about this generation. After the Grady father died, the mother has been whoring around.” Did his grandmother just say “whoring”?
“Do you mean she was getting paid for sex?” Gray said. “Or just acting like a loose woman.”
“Now, Grayson McGhilly, you know what I mean. She's out sleeping with every man she can find. Married or not. And my Lord, who'd pay that woman for sex?”
Grayson had to laugh after she hung up the phone. Obviously, his grandmother had never known a prostitute. Most of them were not very pretty, but rather STD-ridden, drug-addicted women. Men paid them all the time. He never had to pay for it, but these days, he was getting pretty desperate. In fact, last night, he'd had a wet dream, an actual wet dream, which he hadn't experienced since he was in high school.
The dream was about the woman he had met at the Mead Maker's Ball. He hated functions like that—but he promised his mother and his grandmother he'd go and represent the family. He and the cat-masked woman had connected from across the floor—or at least that's what it felt like for him. So that's why he followed her with the drinks. She looked like a snow queen wrapped in her fur-trimmed dark blue cape. Her eyes—what color were they? He couldn't remember. But he did remember the intensity behind those eyes. And there was something else . . . a brewing, a longing. He'd been pretty instinctual about women his whole life. He knew she was ripe and needed him as much as he did her. Well, just for that night, of course. Nothing wrong with that. It could have been the exact right thing for both of them. If only he hadn't been interrupted, which scared her off and sent her running.
But in last night's dream, he fucked her in the snow; his ass was cold, he was cold, everywhere, except where he and she connected. The heat and moisture there were more exquisite because of the cold around them. It was so real that when he woke up ejaculating, he swore he could see his breath under the star-filled night sky, even though he was in his warm little cottage.
His cell phone buzzed. Damn. It was Kasey.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Word gets around too fast for you to be withholding information from me,” she said.
“I'm not withholding anything from you. I've been busy checking around about this Liam Grady and I've got to look in on the bees before I go to hospital to visit Jennifer.”
“Whoa, soldier boy,” Kasey said. “Hold your horses. I don't think a visit to the hospital is appropriate. She's your boss, not your friend. Clarify.”
His heart pounded hard against his chest. She needed to back off and let him do his job.
“I know you're a professional, Gray, but I also know how vulnerable you are to women. Especially women looking for a hero. I'm warning you. One more miss like this and I'm pulling you off the case. A trained agent let a local hoodlum escape? What is that all about, Gray?”
“There was very little time,” he said. “She was in trouble and I helped her.”
“You're not there to help her. You're there because she is possibly involved in some illegal business activities. What gives, Gray? Do you have a personal interest in the suspect?”
“Absolutely not,” he heard himself say. But did he? Jennifer's smile flashed into his mind. Maybe. But it was nothing more than lust. And he could find another woman somewhere to help him out with that.
But when he hung up the telephone, and was making his plans for the day, he decided to not check in on Jennifer. Maybe Kasey was right. Maybe he was too involved. He had too much riding on this to fuck it up.
Chapter 12
“I'
m coming over,” Maeve said over the computer. “Something's going on that you're not telling me about.”
“I'd love to see you, Maeve, but I'm fine,” she said in a gravelly voice. They said her voice would be back to normal in a few days.
“You don't sound fine,” she said. “Have they found the guy yet?”
“No,” Jennifer said. “He took off deep into the highlands or is hiding in a cave or something. Who knows? I don't think he'll be back, because the police have been patrolling regularly around the property. I'm sure he knows, given that his brothers still work for me.”
“Well then why don't you meet us in France? We could shop, relax on the beach,” Maeve said.
Oh, did that sound heavenly. But she just couldn't leave. Things were just too precarious. “I'd love to, Maeve, but our first harvest is about to come in and I really need to be here for that.”
“There's also a really cool beekeeping school in France. I think I read something about a conference,” Maeve said.
“I don't trust the situation here. I really can't just take off,” Jennifer said.
Maeve twisted up her face. “Okay,” she said. “But I want to see you. I miss you. And all of this weird and dangerous stuff keeps happening to you. I want you back in the States.”
Yeah, weird and dangerous all right. Strangled in her own home. She shuddered. Tonight, she would sleep with a night-light, and tomorrow, she was going to see about getting a dog, or two. In the meantime, she just needed to carry on with her life—as if there were no maniac of a Scotsman out there somewhere, maybe looking for her.
“I'm beginning to see your point,” she said. “Ren's dead. My being here won't bring him back. I miss home. I'm considering my options.” She had said too much already, didn't want to give Maeve any false hope. But she had pretty much decided on selling the place, once it had gotten out of debt.
She was vulnerable and alone. Sometimes, it hit her harder than others. Of course now she felt more alone than ever.
Alone enough that if Gray hadn't seen her light go off that night, she might have gotten raped or killed. Liam! How could she have been such a bad judge of his character? How could she ever have been attracted to him?
She gulped for air. How desperate had she become?
“Exactly,” Maeve said. “It has just got to be so lonely there for you. I hate that. But hey, what's with that guy you hired, Gray?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, hubba hubba,” she said.
“Yes,” Jennifer said, and sighed. “He's hot. But he works for me.”
“Sell the place and jump his bones.”
Jennifer had to laugh. If only it were that easy. She hadn't seen him since she left in an ambulance two days ago. She knew he was busy with the bees. She'd gotten his e-mail about the harvest coming in. It was decidedly professional and cool, which after all is what it should be. He did save her and she wanted to thank him in person, but he was just never around. He saved her life, and if she let it, that thought could swirl around her heart and give it a romantic tinge it probably shouldn't have.
Perhaps she'd read too much into his being so helpful that night. And in him bringing the honey over to share. And in the way he sometimes looked at her. God knows, she didn't know much about relationships or men. She wondered—and not for the first time—if she should just give up on men and try to become a lesbian.
“Maybe I'm gay,” Jennifer said. “I think I could give up men.”
Maeve howled in laughter. “You might be a lot of things. But trust me on this, you are not gay. And female lovers are not any easier than male. Believe me. Okay, so you've had a number of failed relationships with men.”
“Big-time fails. There was the engagement with Sanj and the marriage with Ren. But those two events were like just the tip of the iceberg, really.” Her voice was fading.
Really just one bad relationship after the other.
“But wait,” Maeve said. “Your relationship with Ren was incredible. The fact that he died sucks, but that was not your fault.”
Something caught in Jennifer's throat. There it was. Had she been feeling guilty about his death? Maybe. Not as if she felt she had anything to do with it. But that she was here, the only person alive that cared about this place and this business. It was unfair.
But she was tired of feeling like this.
“You're right,” Jen said, her voice wavering. “That was fate. It had nothing to do with me. Yet, here I am alive. And he's not.”
“I know how you feel,” Maeve said. She'd lost both of her parents early in her life. “But believe me, making yourself miserable isn't going to help anybody.”
Maeve had been saying the same thing to her for months. But this was the first time Jennifer was really able to hear it. To feel it. She needed to take control of her situation. She had been numb and foggy minded—and that was really the only way she could get through it.
But enough was enough.
She closed her eyes and thought about Ren. His mouth. His hands. His arms. She remembered him in Saint Lucia, the way he reached out to her, the way it had been difficult to untangle her emotions.
Sanj had been there with his new woman, and she told herself she didn't care, but she wasn't so sure. Maeve had been kidnapped—and Jen was raw with worry. Yet when Ren visited her room to ask her a few questions, all she could think about was sex. She twisted a strand of hair around her finger as she thought about that first time with Ren.
“Are you off duty?” she had asked, breathless, leaning back on the couch in her condo.
“Um, no,” he said. A spark lit in his eyes. “But I will be in about two minutes.”
A sudden raw hunger came over her as she leaned into him—so unlike her—leading a man on, but she was so empty, so hurt, that the need in her took over.
When they kissed, a swirl of passion erupted in both of them. It was so tender and yet full of need and promise. When she pulled away from him after that first kissed and looked into his eyes, she was lost. She'd never slept with anyone she was not in a relationship with—but from that point on, she had no choice. She belonged to him.
After several minutes of kissing, Ren found his way to her breasts, tentative, until he knew it was okay with her. But she liked him there and let him know it with an encouraging sigh. His fingers twisted at her nipples, sending shocks through her.
At that point, it had been at least a year since she had slept with Sanj. She hadn't realized how much she missed a man's touch. Her breath hitched. He laughed a low and guttural laugh, then, “Are you certain?”
He looked at her with such vulnerability in his eyes—the cocky, tough Renaldo D'Amico—that it made her almost jump on his lap. She slid onto him and reached for his buckle.
“Take it off,” she said forcefully.
He smirked and obliged, and she slipped off her panties.
He lay back on the couch. She didn't bother taking off her sundress. One breast was out and in his hands as she rubbed her wetness on him, then took him inside of her. He sucked in air. “Jesus,” he said.
Yes, it felt good
. She felt herself unravel—not just sexually—with each thrust, but also emotionally and even spiritually.
They connected.
All thoughts of Sanj and his new woman, Sasha, vanished from her mind. She didn't care that her ex-fiancé was sleeping with another woman. Not at all.
Jen arched back as Ren held her lower back and gripped her with a strength and firmness that launched her into further oblivion. He pulled her into him and met each thrust with his own hips rising off the couch to meet her.
Am I really doing this?
The next moment had been devoid of all thought. She was a pool of pulsing emotions and sensations as Ren moved against her.
He was there with his wild curly black hair, blue eyes, filled with passion, cheeks twitching with emotion. His groaning filled the room as he felt her clenching, jerking as she orgasmed. He let go and filled her with heat. All she then thought was
more
.
Now, it was the hardest thing to do: this letting go of him. His love. His warmth. Those passionate moments. Such intimacy. But he was gone. She now simply yearned for peace.
BOOK: Like Honey
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