Shiver of Fear (31 page)

“I need you to give me something.”

A slow smile pulled as he rocked his hips against her, the length of his erection branding her. “Right here. In the shower?”
He kissed her forehead, already heading for her mouth, already caressing her waist and back possessively.

“Yes, here. Now. Please.” Her heart hammered, the mix of hope and lust making her tremble from the inside out.

He found her lips and they kissed under the spray, the water making their mouths slide against each other as he inched her
back against the wall. With the hot, wet marble against her back and the hot, wet man pressed against her front, she felt
a full-scale ache of need blossom between her legs.

“Devyn.” He kissed her, touching her everywhere, his
voice raspy with desire, his breathing already tight. “You sure you’re doing this for the right reason?”

There was no other reason. “Yes.”

She matched him move for move, caressing his body, adoring every inch of his physique, devouring every wet, hard, sexy piece
of him. Their tongues collided, their hands meshed, their legs curled around each other as the blistering hot water pounded
on his back and shoulders, exploding droplets on his tanned skin that she licked off.

He sunk deeper against her, kissing her harder, sucking her tongue into his mouth and guiding her hands around his shaft.
Stroking him, listening to him moan with pleasure, she spread her legs and let him slide her up the wall enough to get under
her.

With ease, he positioned his erection between her legs, and she rolled against the length of it, rubbing, riding, clinging
to him with her arms and legs.

“Inside,” she murmured, desperate. “Get inside.”

He pushed her up higher, bringing them face-to-face, jabbing his tip at her opening. His eyes narrowed and his lips curled
back. “Wait.”

“No,” she insisted, letting herself down so he went in farther.

“Wait.” He visibly dug for control, pulling out even though she tried to draw him in.

Didn’t he get it? Didn’t he know what she wanted? One powerful thrust, a few strokes, and she could have—

“I need to get something,” he said, slowly letting her return to shaky tiptoes.

“No, Marc, please don’t.”

He backed up, frowning at her. “A condom.”

“No.”

“No?”

“I’ve been to the doctor so many times,” she said. “You don’t have to worry about me.”

He just looked at her like she was crazy. “Sorry, it’s SOP.”

She shook her head, biting her lip, knowing the tears were right there and praying he’d think they were shower spray. Didn’t
he want her enough to ignore standard operating procedures just this once?

“Can’t you… please…” Was he going to make her beg? To ask for what she wanted? She would. Right now, she’d get down on both
knees and plead. “I need this, Marc. To be whole.” Her voice cracked and her throat closed. But she didn’t care. “Can’t you
give this to me?”

Very slowly, realization dawned. “You want to get pregnant.”

Shame rolled over her, but she squashed it. So what if she was desperate? What did her pride matter? This was all that mattered.
“Marc, I want a baby. That’s all I want.”

His eyes widened. “So I’m, what, a
donor
?”

“No, no. You’re… perfect.” She opened her legs more, let him in deeper, moved just enough to see the response he was fighting
darken his eyes. “You don’t have to have any responsibilities, nothing. I just… want a chance.”

For what seemed like an eternity, he just stared at her, no readable expression on his face, except the possibility of a raging
internal debate.

“This isn’t what you want,” he said.

“Yes, it is.” Tears rolled now and her whole body trembled. “A child of my own, a chance for that bond, with no one to wonder
and worry about what my half of the gene mix would bring.”

“Devyn, you’re wrong about that. The right man would—”

“You
are
the right man,” she insisted. “You are. Everything about you is so good and solid and right.” She moved again, barely aware
she was grasping his shoulders, clinging to the last shred of hope. “Please give this to me. Please.”

“I… can’t.” He stepped away and she almost cried out.

“Yes, you can. I’ll disappear. You’ll never have to know what happened. I’ll leave you alone—”

“That’s not what I want.”

“But, Marc, it’s all I want. In the whole world, it’s all I want.” Tears continued streaming, salt rolling into her mouth,
the sob choking her. “My mother… my father… my whole life is just empty. This is all I want.”

He stared at her for a long, long time, and she waited again for a verdict.

Finally, he put his hands on her shoulders, and she braced for him to say no, but he added pressure, pushing harder, taking
her down to the shower floor. All the way he held her gaze, his eyes sharp, his mouth drawn.

“This is what you want?”

She nodded.

Without warning, he was on top of her. Automatically, she wrapped her legs around his hips and lifted her mouth for a kiss,
but he refused, holding his head up, bracing his arms on the slick tile, kneeing her thighs farther apart.

He thrust inside her, a hard, vicious jam of flesh into flesh, bowing his back and lifting his head high enough to deny her
the ability to see his face. Her eyes widened in shock as he went deeper, his breath growing ragged, his moans unstoppable
as he pumped into her.

Each stroke wound her tighter, made her want more, brought her to the breaking point. He was engorged, slamming into her with
fury and purpose and sweaty need that matched hers. She reached up to his shoulders, but he remained impassive, a huge space
between their chests, connected only at the hips, only by their sex.

She bit her lip hard enough to draw blood. She rode with him, doing everything she knew to pull an orgasm from him, feeling
him stiffen, his balls as hard as stones against her.

He was almost there. Almost.

He swore softly, his face reddening, his mouth pulled as he got lost at the brink of an orgasm.

“Marc, please, honey,
please
.”

At her words, he looked down at her, and for one flash of a second, their gazes clashed. He closed his eyes and thrust again
and again, all the way in, over and over and over right to the very edge.

He gritted his teeth and tendons pulled in his neck, his control nearly obliterated. This was it. He was…

He yanked himself out with a guttural cry. “I can’t,” he moaned, crushing his erection against her. With a low, long growl
of release, he spurted his seed all over her stomach.

All she could hear was the hiss of the shower and the pain of his breathing. She felt the pounding of his heart as a sob lodged
in her chest.

“Devyn.” He forced her to look at him. “I can’t make a baby like… this.”

Like
this
… with
her
. Of course. The crush was so hard on her heart that she couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t move.

But he did. Barely recovered, he kneeled over her
and turned his face up to the water and let the spray pour over him. She touched her stomach, the few drops of his semen sticky,
then washed away by the shower water. He remained facing the water, his hands hung at his sides, his chest heaving.

After a moment, he stood and reached out his hand to help her up. She shook her head.

“Leave me alone,” she whispered, her voice cracking with shame so deep she could taste it. “Just, please. Leave me alone.”

And he did, closing the glass door with a final click. She lay in the shower spray until it turned ice cold, matching the
temperature of her heart.

When Zach Angelino got mad, it wasn’t a pretty thing.

“What the fuck are you trying to do, Vivi, put us out of business? Not to mention this information is critical to Marc’s case.
Finn MacCauley recruited Sharon Greenberg to work for this Baird guy?”

The facts were there, in the fugitive’s handwriting.

“I’m not trying to put us out of business, Zach,” she said. “I’m trying to do just the opposite. Look, there’s a phone number
right next to his name. A 617 area code, here in Boston.”

“Have you called it?” Zach demanded.

“No,” she said. “It could be tapped or traced and then get disconnected. That’s why I don’t know what to do. I’ve tried to
call Marc about ten times, but he’s not answering. I thought you and I could brainstorm another direction.”

Zach considered the letter again, then looked up at Vivi. “The only direction is downtown to One Center Plaza.”

The FBI’s Boston office. “I knew you’d say that.”

“Then why didn’t you do it?” Zach asked harshly. “Quit trying to be a bounty hunter. That’s not what we do.”

“I’m not,” she denied. “I’m investigating this letter. If it leads to one of America’s most wanted, can you imagine what that’ll
do for the Guardian Angelinos?”

He clearly didn’t agree. “This could be crucial evidence, and by holding it, we are putting our company in jeopardy.” He stood,
sliding the letter back to her. “Get your ass over to Lang’s office and give it to him. That’ll get us more business, and
frankly, I want paying clients, not glory.”

“I want high-profile clients because they pay more,” she countered. “How else can we grow?”

“One case at a time,” he said. “But, Vivi, I’m not going to argue with you. Do what’s right.”

“That’s just the problem—I don’t know what’s right.” Before he could argue, she leaned forward, pinning him with a look. “For
some reason, I don’t trust Colton Lang. He makes me feel funny.”

Zach puffed out a breath. “He has the hots for you is all.”

“Hah, very funny. He wouldn’t look twice at a woman like me, and honestly, I wish it were that simple.”

“How so?”

“I can’t explain it, Zach, but my gut’s on fire.”

“It’s on fire with ambition, Vivi, and while that’s an admirable thing, you can’t let your dreams of big business make stupid
decisions for you. Lang is one of the top guys in that office, probably in line for an SAC position. Plus, he’s a straight
shooter. What’s not to trust? The fact that he has a crew cut and wears golf shirts? That makes him ‘the man’ to you?”

She smiled. “I’m not indicting the guy because he’s
J.Crew on the putting green. I just get the sense that he’s not telling us everything.”

“He’s not,” Zach agreed. “He openly admitted he wasn’t.”

“And he’s told us finding Finn MacCauley isn’t a priority. Why should we hand this to him?” She shook her head. “He doesn’t
even know Marc’s been looking for Dr. Greenberg. We could get in trouble for not following his orders.”

“I respect your gut feelings, Vivi, and we’re equal partners in this, so I’ll go along with what you decide. But you asked
for my advice and I’m giving it: turn this over to the FBI and we’ll benefit more in the long run. Now, I gotta go. Sammi
found a house and we’re going to meet the Realtor there.”

“Good luck with that.”

“And good luck with that.” He pointed to the paper. “Do the right thing. That’s my motto.”

“I thought your motto was ‘go with your gut.’ Right now the two are at war.”

He nodded to someone in the hall. “Here’s Nino, eavesdropping like a spy. See what he says.”

Nino walked in, not even slightly ashamed to have been caught. “I think you should turn it over to the FBI.”

“So I’m outnumbered.” She fingered the paper and leaned back in her chair, tipping it onto the back legs, her gaze on the
damning words in front of her. “Look at what he wrote, Nino.”

“ ‘Sometimes a few have to die for the needs of the many,’ ” he quoted. “I’ve read the letter a few times.”

Finn MacCauley was a prick, and so was Sharon Greenberg. And the FBI agent? An unknown element right now.

Nino tapped his watch. “Maybe you can catch that
Lang before he leaves for the day. Then you could take me home to Sudbury. I’ll cook dinner for you.”

“God, you drive a hard bargain.” She let the front legs of her chair slap back to the floor. “Maybe I’m misjudging Lang. You
know, if I present this right, maybe he’ll let me work with him on the case. That way I could do the right thing and still
get a little of the credit.”

“He seems like a reasonable enough man,” Nino said, waiting as she carefully slid the reconstructed puzzle into a plastic
sleeve.

“I don’t know about reasonable.” Vivi imagined the FBI agent’s reaction to her news. “But I have to try. We don’t have the
resources to follow up on this, but I don’t want to be squeezed out completely.”

They locked up and headed to the back alley, to the ultimate in prized possessions, a Back Bay parking spot, where they kept
the company Expedition. She helped Nino climb into the front seat, tamping down the thought that her eightysomething great-uncle
was having a hard time climbing into SUVs. She couldn’t stand to think about him getting old.

But his mind was as sharp as hers, and all the way around the common and into the financial district, they talked about the
letter and about all the possible words that were missing.

And came up with nothing new. Maybe the FBI, with all their high-tech capabilities, could figure this out. She slowly cruised
Cambridge Street, looking for a spot when the brake lights on a blue Scion lit and she slowed to snag the spot.

Just as the car maneuvered out of its spot, which was tiny as hell and going to be a real fight for the big SUV,
a man jogged in front of them, headed right toward the blue car.

“Look who it is,” Nino said.

Vivi instantly recognized him. “Colton Lang.” She watched Lang approach the driver’s side of the car, his long, muscular body
moving gracefully. Must be all that time on the golf course.

“You gonna ogle him or get this letter into his hands?”

“I’m gonna…” Lang jogged around the front of the car to open the passenger door, climbing in. “Follow him.”

The Scion took off down Cambridge, weaving into the left lane to pick up speed.

“What are you going to do? Go to his house?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I can’t let this sit all night.”