Reckless (20 page)

Her fingers closed over the leather, brought
it to her face for a better look and caught the scent of it. It was
folded in half. She looked at Nick, and a crazy hope leapt up in
her breast as she opened the folder and lifted the light to it. The
shield glowed in the white light, right beside the photo ID. Nick's
face, unsmiling, beside his full name, Nicholas Anthony Manelli,
and the words Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Every muscle went limp and Toni swore her
bones melted. Her hands fell to her sides, and her eyes closed.
Nick took the folder from her unresisting fingers and then the
light. His hands came back to her, huge and strong, closing on her
shoulders, pulling her away from the solid tree. She gladly traded
its support for that of his equally solid chest as his arms closed
around her. Feeling as if she'd been standing alone in a hurricane,
she encircled his neck with her arms, pressed her head to his chest
so that it rose and fell with every breath he took. Her
goose-bump-covered legs were flush with his, separated only by a
thin barrier of wet cloth.

When his arms loosened from her waist, she
knew he would lead her back to the house. She didn't want to go.
She didn't feel strong enough to stand if he stopped holding her,
and clung shamelessly. His head tipped backward, as if he were
seeking help from above. A moment later his big hand cupped her
head, cradling it more securely to his chest. His other arm closed
once more around her waist, providing her with the support she'd
sought, holding her tight against him. His head came down, and she
felt his lips in her hair, at the very top of her head.

Toni looked up into his eyes, and found them
even darker than the stormy predawn sky. The emotion in them
reached her and found its mate within her. She felt her response
begin deep in the pit of her stomach before his lips claimed hers.
And when they did, it became a fire that tried to consume them
both.

Clutching at his shoulder with one hand, she
buried the other in his hair and pulled him closer. She kissed him
hungrily, unable to get enough of him. He groaned as his hands slid
down over her hips and beyond the edge of the shirt to her
rain-slick thighs. And when she arched against him and he shuddered
in response, she wondered at her ability to inspire such a reaction
in him—a man so beautiful it hurt to look at him.

She worked one of her hands between them and
flicked open the buttons of his shirt. When she gained access, she
ran her hand over his chest, dragging her nails lightly over his
skin and hearing his ragged breath. Impatient now that she was sure
of herself, she pushed his shirt down over his shoulders and seared
his chest with her kisses and her rapid, shallow breaths. She felt
the cool rain on her flushed skin, her upturned face, and the chill
breeze that played across her thighs. She felt everything.

Nick lowered her down with him, onto the cool
wet blanket of needles until they knelt there together. He peeled
her jersey off over her head, and spread it on the ground behind
her.

When his eyes met hers, she felt no shyness.
His hungry gaze moved over her, leaving no part of her untouched.
She felt feminine in every cell of her body because of that gaze.
She felt more attractive, more female, more powerful than she had
in her life. And when he lay down, pulling her on top of him,
wrapping himself around her, rocking her slowly, she felt as if
she’d come home. They made love there in the pouring rain, tenderly
and slowly, exploring and learning each other, whispering and
caressing. Their mouths barely parted, and the passion grew. He was
so careful with her, and until she didn’t want him to be. And then
he took her to the stars.

Toni lay there, relaxed on top of him,
cradled is his arms that were so big they protected her from the
rain. She heard his heard pounding, felt the heat of his skin, and
closed her eyes. It was perfection. It was bliss. And she would
never forget this time, or this man, no matter what might lie ahead
for them.

His mind kept telling him it was not
possible. His body disagreed. It made no sense. It couldn't have
been as explosive as it had seemed. Nothing could be. It had felt
like being caught in a hurricane and carried through its violence
to the paradise at its eye.

Now he had the craziest urge to rock her
small body against his—to kiss every inch of her until she either
fell asleep in his arms or asked for more—to brush some of that
wet, wavy hair away from her face and look into her eyes and tell
her—

“What am I, insane?”

He rolled away from her as the words burst
from him without permission. He sat up and held his head in his
hands.

She sat up beside him, her shoulder pressed
to his. “You think it was insane to make love to me?”

Make love.
God, he wished she wouldn't
call it that. It hadn't been that. He wasn't stupid enough to have
let it be that. He said the first thing that came to mind,
realizing she expected some kind of answer. “Out here, like this,
yeah. Insane. You'll probably have pneumonia.”

He turned toward her to see what she thought
of that answer. She was sitting with her knees slightly bent, toes
playing in the pine needles. Her breasts were already dotted with
raindrops again. Nick closed his eyes. “Put your shirt on, Toni,
you've got to be chilled through.”

Frowning a little, she stood, shook out the
shirt and pulled it on. When she reached for her panties, he turned
his back and busied himself replacing his own clothes. They were
wet, which made it difficult, but he wasn't about to march back to
the house stark naked. The way he felt every time he looked at her,
he'd never make it. When he turned again, she was watching him, a
puzzled expression on her face.

“Is something wrong?”

Good question, Nick thought. No, nothing's
wrong; everything's just the way it should be. Good ol' gullible
Nick has let himself care again, and sure as the sun will rise
tomorrow, he's going to get left high and dry again. Toni would
walk away from him. One way or another, she'd leave him. He had no
one to blame but himself, because he'd known it would happen. He'd
told himself not to feel anything for her. The problem was, his
self hadn't listened. The only thing left to do now was to prepare
for the blow. He had a feeling it was going to be a tough one to
take. Maybe too tough. Maybe this would be the one that brought him
down.

“Nick?”

Her hand on his face sent a shaft of bleak
pain through him. He nearly winced at the strength of it. The most
he could hope for now, he realized, was a little damage control. He
could only avoid total devastation by keeping his feelings for her
from growing any stronger. He'd always been a man of action—never
content to let anything slip beyond his ability to control it. He
could do this, he told himself. He could keep this thing on a
purely physical level. He could force his feelings for her to die
quietly, before she had the chance to throw them back in his face.
She couldn't reject something she'd never been offered. Right?

He cleared his throat and pushed the damp
hair off his forehead. “We have to get back. It'll be light
soon.”

He didn't miss the slight sigh or the little
shake of her head. She opened her mouth to speak, but closed it
again without saying a word, before she turned and started to walk
away from him. When she put her foot down, he heard her suck air
through her teeth. She didn't stop, though. She kept going, despite
the limp.

He caught up to her. “Glass in your
foot?”

She nodded, and Nick scooped her into his
arms and strode toward the house.

“Put me down, Nick. Your leg—”

“Relax,” was his curt reply. He tried not to
smell the scent of her hair drifting up to him or feel the curve of
her hip against his groin. “Just relax.” His tone was gentler the
second time, and she complied, linking her arms around his neck and
resting her head on his shoulder. Nick gave up trying not to notice
her—the feel of her in his arms was too much not to notice. The
pain in his thigh as he walked back through the woods was minor
compared to the exquisite torture this woman was dishing up.

Toni slanted another sidelong glance at Nick.
He sat behind the wheel of the parked car beside her, as silent as
he'd been for most of the day. His chiseled jaw didn't move except
for the occasional twitch. He'd been all business from the moment
they'd returned to the hidden apartment. One hundred percent
efficient, effective Federal Agent Manelli had taken over. The Nick
she'd longed to know, the one she thought she'd finally uncovered,
was gone. On the upside, so was the phony thug persona.

With military precision he'd supervised the
packing of her things to erase any trace of her presence. He'd
gathered a sparse few of his own, including, she noted, the jeans
and the high-tops, the basketball and the photograph. He left every
one of those expensive suits behind.

Meticulously he'd orchestrated her sister's
safe departure from the country, just the way he wanted to
orchestrate her own. She'd come very close to losing that round.
But in the end, he’d caved. She was still with him.

He stiffened in anticipation when another set
of headlights broke through the darkness. The white beams moved
eerily, illuminating his face. They passed, and Toni heard his
aggravated sigh. For over an hour they'd been parked there in the
nearly empty lot. The only other vehicles there were an abandoned
Buick and a stripped-down framework that might once have been a
Corvette.

“He should have been here by now.” The worry
in his voice came through clearly, and Toni longed to comfort him.
He'd been so distant since this morning, she wasn't sure she knew
how.

She knew he was worried about Carl. That was
part of the reason for his icy demeanor. Carl should have been
there to meet with him at dusk. It was an arrangement they'd made
months ago. If it got to the point where they both had to pull out
in a hurry, they'd go their separate ways and meet in this
crumbling parking lot at sundown the following night. Nick had told
her that. He'd also told her about the drug shipment that had been
confiscated the night he'd been shot, and his feeling that Taranto
had expected the police raid. He thought Taranto suspected Carl. If
he was right, then Carl was in serious danger.

Toni thought of the man's gentle voice and
his obvious worry about Nick, and she bit her lip. If Taranto had
him—

Nick glanced again at his watch. He shook his
head and looked around the empty parking lot. Change the subject,
Toni thought. Get him talking. At least the endless minutes of
waiting would tick by a little faster.

“Joey should be safely in her hotel in
Orlando by now. It's such a relief knowing she's away from all
this.”

He looked at her, his eyes narrow, his temper
short. “If you had half a brain, you'd be with her.”

She shook her head. “I told you, Nick, I have
just as much invested here as you do. I'm not walking away until I
see it through. If you had put me on the flight out, I'd have
caught the next one right back here.”

“So you've pointed out—repeatedly. It's the
only reason you're here. I couldn't risk you wandering around on
your own. Lou would've had you in a matter of hours.”

She rolled her eyes. “How
did
I ever
manage without you? Must've been pure luck that I didn't bungle my
incompetent self into an early grave last year when I took on those
drug lords south of the equator.”

“I didn't mean....” He shook his head and
sighed loudly. “Okay. You're good at this, all right? You're just
too damn gutsy for your own good. You rush headlong into situations
that could be dangerous. That's all I meant. You’re reckless. Not
incompetent.”

She blinked and looked at him. “Gutsy, huh?”
She felt the frown come and go as she digested that. After a moment
she shook her head quickly. “Nah. Katrina's the gutsy one. I could
never do the things she does,” she said.

“Things like following mob hit men into dark
alleys in the middle of the night? Or maybe things like slugging a
six-two alleged killer who's carrying a gun because he says
something you don't like?” He looked away from her face. “You're
gutsy, lady. You wouldn't be doing what you've been doing
otherwise.”

“You have it all wrong.” She answered him
quickly, the words tumbling out before she had a chance to think
about them. “I do the things I do, to make up for what I didn't do
before.”

“Before?” His dark brows drew together as he
regarded her in the dim interior of the car. “You're talking about
your father's suicide, aren't you? Toni, you can't keep blaming
yourself for that.”

She couldn't hold his gaze. She hadn't
understood until recently, the connection between her guilt over
her father's suicide and her need to fix society's ills in any way
she could. She gazed through the window, seeing nothing. “I knew
what was happening. I should have done something.”