Man with the Muscle (16 page)

His back was to her and she'd barely breathed, yet he knew she was there behind him. She took another step into the room. “Are you psychic?”

He glanced over his bare shoulder and grinned. “I smelled you. Jasmine or lilacs—some delicate perfume that clings to your hair.”

The compliment danced along her skin and fluttered inside her. “Sounds like my shampoo.”

The man was a poet in the most basic of ways. Her eyes were instantly drawn to the scar on the back of his shoulder. Whatever hard edges and insights into people he'd learned on the streets growing up, the Taylors had fine-tuned into something beautiful. Alex was the best of both worlds—smart and observant, tough, funny, caring and kind. And freaking hot when he moved around without a shirt like that.

Audrey cleared her throat, feeling the heat creeping up her neck as she tried not to notice every flex of muscle along his arms and back as he sat to untie his boots. “I think your grandmother may be a little psychic. Apple pie is my favorite dessert. Mom and I used to spend a lot of time in the kitchen—she went to culinary school and loved to cook. I've tried several times since she's been gone to make her pie, but I can't get the crust quite right. Martha said she'd share her recipe.”

Alex dropped the second boot and pulled off his
socks. “That's like opening up the vault at Fort Knox. She must like you.”

“I know. I'm practically a stranger. That's so generous of her. I think maybe she sensed that I was missing my mother—”

“You know, you're talking a whole hell of a lot for a woman I thought was coming in to say good-night.” Alex stood and crossed the room to stand right in front of her.

She closed her eyes and trembled, savoring his gentle touch as he traced the pattern of heat coloring her neck and jaw.

“So what's this blush really saying?”

Audrey blinked her eyes open to the whisper of Alex's warm breath caressing her sensitive skin. His eyes were so close, so deep, so beautiful—his jaw needed a shave—and his lips…she couldn't seem to look away from his strong, supple mouth.

“Talk to me, Red.”

She followed the movement of his lips and felt something warm and wicked clench and release deep inside her.

“I wanted to say…”
Don't overthink this, Audrey. Do it.
She touched her fingertips to his stubbled jaw and lifted her gaze to his. “Are you sleeping in here tonight?” She walked her fingers to the nape of his neck and slid them up against the silky midnight of his hair.

“I don't want you to.”

His hands settled at the nip of her waist, branding her through the thin layers of silk. His nostrils flared as he inhaled a deep breath. “I may not be the gentleman you think I am, Red.”

Just the words she needed to hear. Whatever was
troubling Alex, it wasn't that he regretted admitting he had feelings for her.

She wound her free arm up behind his neck and retreated a step, pulling him with her through her bedroom door. “Maybe I don't want you to come in here and be a gentleman.” His eyes never left hers as he dutifully followed. “Maybe I want you to tell me some more of those wonderful stories about your family.” She ran her palms along the column of his neck and out across his shoulders, then down the hard cords of his arms, setting her hands on fire with the friction created by every hill and hollow of warm, male skin she explored. She caught her breath on a stutter and reversed the path, pulling herself closer, breathing harder, wanting more, until she had her fingers lost in the silky curls on top of his head. “We could make some stories…of our own.” She angled his face down toward hers, caught her breath as the pebbled tips of her breasts brushed across his chest. “Last night, together, and the night before…that was really spec—”

“Shut up, Red.” Alex planted his mouth over hers, sliding his arms behind her waist and pulling her onto her toes, crushing her breasts against the wall of his chest as he plundered her mouth.

Audrey fisted her fingers in his hair and held on as her toes left the floor entirely and he walked her backward until her thighs hit the edge of the bed. His hands roamed at will over her back and buttocks, the silk offering little barrier to every calloused caress. Audrey was no longer aware of breathing as he buried his fingers in her hair to guide her mouth this way, and then another—plunging in, supping, seducing with each kiss. He groaned deep in his chest as Audrey mimicked
his demands, pulling him impossibly closer and thrusting her tongue between his lips to taste the moist fiery heat that threatened to consume her. She grazed her lips along his jaw, delighting in the sandpapery abrasion against her feverish bruised mouth.

Alex opened his hot, wet mouth over the throbbing pulse at the base of her neck and she gasped. The graphic heat she knew colored her skin responded to his every touch, sending matching ribbons of heat deep beneath the surface, making her small breasts feel molten and heavy, and intensifying the aching weight building between her legs.

Audrey gasped against his skin when he flicked his thumb over the painful nub of one breast. “I don't really want to tell stories.”

“I get the picture,” he rasped against her ear. “You're sure about this?”

In answer, Audrey leaned back against the cradle of his arms. Her fingers were shaky, she couldn't quite catch her breath, but she knew her own mind.

She unhooked the first button of her pajama top, and then the second, and then Alex grabbed it by the hem and pulled it off over her head.

Audrey reclaimed his mouth and held on as he laid her on the bed and followed her down. His sure hands that handled guns and grandmothers and bad guys with equal ease made quick work of their remaining clothes. She bucked beneath him as he closed his mouth over an aching breast and suckled her into a mindless puddle of want and need.

“Oh, baby, it goes all the way down. You're so beautiful.” Her telegraphic skin betrayed every bit of emotion and desire—he was tracing a line from her neck. “So
beautiful.” Over one breast. “So, so beautiful.” Down her stomach to—

“Al…ex—I…I…” She couldn't catch her breath, couldn't find the words. She clawed at his shoulders, snatched at his hair, tugged his face back to hers and silently pleaded.

He looked down into her eyes and grinned. “It's okay, Red. You don't have to talk.”

He entered her on one long stroke and Audrey flew apart in his arms. She buried her face against his shoulder and cried out in pleasure against his skin. Then she simply held on as he moved inside her, lifting her to another crest before they both tumbled over the precipice together.

Afterward, Alex pulled back the covers and wrapped his arms and body around her, sealing her in warmth and contentment, sheltering her with whispered praises and quiet strength.

Audrey drifted off to sleep in his arms. He was right. She didn't need words for this. She didn't need more time to know.

She loved Alex Taylor.

There was something about waking with a woman's warm, beautiful breast pillowed against his side that made Alex reluctant to tune in to what his other senses were trying to tell him.

It was especially hard when that woman was Audrey Kline, the icy, overanalytical, career-focused heiress who turned out to be a passionate, uninhibited, uniquely adorable lover who'd charmed his grandparents, welcomed him into her bed and opened up her mind to the possibility that the two of them could work. A gangbanger from the streets romancing Rupert Kline's only daughter wasn't a match that would make the society page of the
Journal,
but it was a match that he hoped Audrey would still want to pursue once the Smith trial was over.

She didn't make him feel as if he was just a bodyguard or a boy toy as that crass Harper Pierce had suggested. When she cuddled up in a ball beside him and snored softly against his chest, Alex felt as if she was his woman, as if they were equals. When she cried her eyes out or admitted she had a temper or rolled over in the middle of the night with a drowsy
Can we do that again?,
he felt as if they could truly communicate on a
level that most couples—no matter what class they came from—rarely achieved.

He'd certainly never had a woman get so deep inside his head and heart before that his grandfather's words had made him shudder as if he'd already been robbed of his soul.
Could you stand to lose her?

Alex dipped his head and pressed a kiss to the crown of Audrey's hair, fearing that if he hugged her as tightly as he wanted to at that moment, he'd frighten her awake.

Even with the thin strip of moonlight sneaking into her room between the drapes and blinds, he could admire the porcelain beauty of her body exposed above the covers that had caught at their waists. And he didn't need any light to still know the smell of her on his skin, the taste of her in his mouth, the sounds of her earthy cries of pleasure in his head.

She made him stop and think.

He made her stop and feel.

This was exactly where he was supposed to be. Right here beside Audrey.

The problem was convincing her that was still the case outside of this bedroom. He needed Audrey's skills in arguing to persuade her that not only was a future together with him an option, but that he believed it was the only option for the two of them to be happy and find the balance they needed.

There. He had heard something. Alex stilled his breathing and angled his ear toward the window.
Thup. Thup.
The muffled sounds jerked through his muscles, honing his senses, alerting him to the threat of danger in the distance. Metal on metal. Car doors closing.

He untangled his legs from Audrey's and slid out
of bed. He pulled on his shorts and black pants and grabbed his weapon off the bedside table. He crept to the window without disturbing the drapes and lined up his eyes with the thin beam of moonlight, scouting the trees out front for movement while he tossed aside his holster and cocked a round into the gun's firing chamber.

The click-clack of sound, or his absence from the bed, elicited a murmur from Audrey. She was stirring. Waking, but not yet aware.

He heard another car door slam and swung his eyes back outside. Damn those trees! He squinted, peering through the shadows. Was that movement down at the gate?

Son of a bitch. Alex snatched his phone off the bedside table and punched in a number. The battle had come to him. And there wasn't anything standing between the multiple attackers skulking through the darkness outside the gate and Audrey, snug in her bed, except for him, his gun and the survival instincts that had kept him alive on the streets and forged him into the cop—into the man—he'd become.

When Michael Cutler's clipped voice answered, Alex didn't apologize for waking him. “Captain. It's going down. Kline estate. I need backup. Now.”

He didn't need to clarify or wait for a response before hanging up. The clock was ticking. On silent bare feet he went back to the bed and covered Audrey's mouth. Her eyes instantly popped open, wild and afraid. “Shh. It's me, Red.”

She nodded her recognition and he released her. Her gaze darted down to the gun in his other hand. “What is it? What's wrong?”

She sat up and scooted off the edge of the bed as he
returned to the window. “I need you to get dressed. As fast as you can. Shoes you can run in.”

“Alex?” She darted to her closet and grabbed the first pair of jeans and T-shirt she could find.

“We've got company.”

She shoved her bare feet into a pair of sneakers.

“Should I call 9-1-1?”

“We'll need all the help we can get.” He plucked his cell from his pocket and tossed it to her across the room. She caught it and flipped it open with one hand, punching in the numbers while she zipped up her jeans. A woman with no undies who could catch like a center fielder would have been mind-numbingly hot if he wasn't so caught up in trying to figure out… “What the hell?”

He counted one, two, three—four unknown perps running
away
from the front gates. They crossed through the light from a streetlamp and disappeared into the trees several yards beyond the great stone fence. Gallagher Security better be picking up all that movement and sending over a fleet of squad cars—

Alex jerked his head away and cursed at the flash of light that blinded him a split second before a concussive blast rent the air and rattled the windows. They were too far from the gate to sustain any damage up here, but that wasn't the point.

“What was that?” Audrey asked, crouching near the bed.

The explosion at the gate had triggered the alarms. He had to give Gallagher credit for putting on a show big enough to deter most intruders. Floodlights outside turned the shadowed trees into a daylit forest. Emergency lights flashed on and off in Audrey's bedroom
and under the hallway door. A siren pulsed, shrieking its warning and forcing him to shout.

“Come with me!” He grabbed Audrey's wrist and ran into the sitting room while engines revved and tires squealed through the night outside. He pulled the Kevlar off the chair and slipped it over her head. “Strap this on.”

She tried to pull the vest back up. “We're under attack! You can't face them without any protection. You don't even have any shoes on!”

He tugged it back down and fastened the first Velcro strap beneath her arm. “I'm not asking you, sweetheart. Put it on.”

Thankfully, she batted his hand away and took over. Alex didn't waste any time. The one good thing about a gang fight was that he could always hear the enemy coming—even over the blare of the alarm. He could hear the two cars speeding across the bricks with their music blasting and their souped-up mufflers roaring like doomsday.

“Where are we going?”

Alex squinted against the flashing lights and ran as fast as Audrey could keep up. “Your father's study.” Leading with his gun, he took the stairs two at a time and circled around at the bottom. “It's the one room in this house that has no windows. And only one door. I want you to go inside and lock it—”

“Aren't you coming?”

“—and get underneath the heaviest piece of furniture you can find.”

“Alex!”

“Smith's Bad Boys are here.” He couldn't wait for the cavalry. He needed to get out to his truck and try to
reach his Benelli shotgun and spare cache of ammunition. “That means guns and lots of bullets flying.”

She clung to his free hand with both of hers. “What about you?”

“This is my job, sweetheart.” He pushed her inside.
No, Grandpa, I couldn't stand to lose her.
“I love you. Lock it.”

He pulled the door shut, said a prayer and ran outside to meet the enemy.

 

T
HE BULLET RIPPED THROUGH
Alex's shoulder like a red hot poker as the first car spun out on the driveway's frozen slush and careened into an unbending oak. He had no time to do more than grunt at the searing pain as he flattened his back against the side of his truck and dropped the semiautomatic shotgun at his feet. The weapon would be useless to him now that the muscles on his left side were shocky with the wound and he'd be unable to steady his aim or control the recoil with one good arm.

But his second shot had taken out the driver and bought him a few seconds to expel the spent magazine from his Glock and reload the gun with the spare mag from his glove compartment. He sucked in a lungful of cold air, letting the winter dampness cool his body and clear his head. Fifteen bullets. Another car coming. One target down, two scrambling out of the wrecked car—he must have wounded another of Smith's Broadway Bad Boys when he'd returned fire on the approaching vehicle because he'd counted three passengers when he'd first spotted the back window going down and the semiautomatic coming out. And who knew how many more
with how many weapons were zooming up the drive with one intent?

To take him out.

“KCPD!” Alex shouted. The bright security lights and patchwork shadows among the trees were wreaking havoc with his 20/20 vision. He couldn't make a clean shot. “You're firing on a police officer! Drop your weapons!”

“You can't take all of us!” one of them shouted, peppering the opposite side of his truck with another spray of bullets. Alex crouched down, cocked his weapon.

“You're dead!” another shouted. More bullets. Speeding car. “And then the bitch is dead, too!”

Like hell. Nobody was getting to Audrey as long as he was alive.

With the revving engine roaring in his ears, Alex swung around, bracing his arm between the open door and hood of his truck, and returned fire. Fifteen. Fourteen. Thirteen. One kid went down, grabbing his leg and rolling.

On foot, Alex was evenly matched, but the car racing toward him gave his attackers an advantage he couldn't hope to defeat on his own. Two more shots forced the last kid to the ground. Twelve. Eleven. Windows going down. Guns coming out.

Don't react. Think. Do your job, Taylor.

Where the hell was backup?

Alex shifted behind the door and emptied six shots into the speeding Impala. Ten. Nine. The windshield cracked. Eight. Seven. A tire went out and the driver slammed on the brakes. Six. The windshield splintered. Five. The front-seat passenger dropped his gun to the bricks and jerked back inside the car.

Another shot pinged off the hood of the truck and he ducked back behind the door. “Come on!” he yelled to the fates, knowing the odds were shifting, and not necessarily in his favor.

He was up, aiming. Four. Three. Two. The kid on the ground wasn't getting up again.

A siren wailed in his ears, battling with the strident pulsation of the estate's security alarm. A car screeched its tires on the wet bricks, its engine bellowing like two massive storm systems charging closer and closer on a collision course. Two? Another vehicle was coming?

One bullet left. One freaking bullet.

He was outmanned. Outgunned. The kiss of death in any gang fight.

Alex glanced up at the mansion's front door. His heart was pouring out with every pulse beat of blood that throbbed from his shoulder. “Audrey…”

Bam! The thunderous crash jolted through Alex.

But he wasn't hurt. He hadn't been hit.

He pulled up behind the truck's door. “Hell, yeah!”

The cavalry had arrived.

Sergeant Delgado had rammed his big truck into the Impala's back fender and was shoving it across the bricks until the screeching friction of the Impala's tires ended with a crumpling smash against the porch's brick foundation. Even before the gang's car was wedged in tight, Trip Jones jumped out of the truck, his PSD rifle already aimed through the car's back window.

“Taylor!” Trip shouted. “Report!”

Until Trip and Rafe had the guns secured from the gangbangers inside the Impala, Alex stayed hunkered down behind the protection of his vehicle. “SWAT is in the building,” he muttered to himself, almost light-
headed with relief as he checked his weapon, verifying the last bullet. Inhaling a deep breath, he realized that the light-headedness might have something to do with all the blood dripping down his left arm.

“Taylor!”

Alex exhaled a cloudy breath into the chilled air and raised his voice. “I'm here. Ammo's about gone. I'm hit. But it's not bad. I'm not dying today, big guy.”

“Better not, shrimp.” Alex slowly straightened as he listened to Trip and Rafe shout orders to the perps inside the car. Two were already facedown in the slush with their hands cuffed behind their backs when Alex peeked through the windshield. Rafe had a third teen by the arm and was putting him down on the ground beside the others while Trip pulled the passenger Alex had wounded out of the front seat. It took a matter of seconds to trade a few curses, assess that the wound was superficial and put that one down on the ground, too.

Trip and Rafe exchanged nods before the sergeant called out. “Clear!” He pointed his gun over the four perps and motioned Trip over to Alex's position. “Check him out.”

“Got it.”

“How many targets do we need to account for?” Captain Cutler's voice buzzed over the radio inside Alex's truck. With the team on-site, providing backup, Alex finally ventured from his hiding place to see the captain marching one handcuffed perp out of the trees. He nodded toward Alex. “You're out of uniform, son.”

“Yes, sir.” They all were. Underneath their vests and gear, everyone was in off-duty clothes. But they'd all shown up. For him. For Audrey.

Alex was part of a team. He was part of
this
team.

“I made four perps in each car.” Alex gritted his teeth and grunted a curse as Trip probed his wound.

“And Miss Kline?”

“Inside.”

“It's through and through.” Trip pulled off a black glove and wrapped his hand around Alex's forearm, checking his clammy skin and halting him from mounting up the porch to get Audrey out of hiding. “What's your body temp, frosty?”