Worcester Nights - The Boxed Set (12 page)

I nodded. I’d heard the same from my own father numerous times. He used to laugh about how criminals would trip themselves up over complex lies.

“So how did you get involved in this operation?”

“The group here is primarily Irish, and the people planning the operation thought someone with a similar background would be more easily accepted. Also, I’m from the Bronx; the chances of me running into someone here who would recognize me would be slim.”

“So your plan was …”

He made a waving motion with his hand. “To hang around the bar for a few weeks, to build a friendship with the staff, and –”

The blood drained from my face. I’d been used. I’d just been a stepping stone for him, a way for him to get to Jimmy. Everything had been fake. The way he’d kissed me, the way he’d touched me –

I was on my feet before I knew what was happening, and he rose with me, his face tense with emotion. “Kay, I didn’t mean –”

“You bastard,” I snarled. Rage, loss, and despair roiled within me. “You used me, just like Jimmy uses those girls!”

He shook his head, his eyes locked on mine. “My feelings for you are real,” he vowed, talking quickly, holding himself back with visible effort. “God, Kay, I will swear it on anything you wish me to. I shouldn’t have gotten that close to you. I knew it. But when I saw you across the bar, I –” He ran his hand through his hair, at a loss for a moment, gazing into my eyes as if I held the most precious item in the world within me. “I don’t know what it was, Kay. I was completely taken in. From that moment I knew I had to have you.”

I remembered that look. I remembered the power that had sizzled between us, how I had been unable to speak, to think.

He took a hesitant step toward me. “The next day, I thought I’d talk with you for a while. I was sure that just a few minutes with you would help snap me out of it – would show me that you were shallow, or married, or
something
.” He shook his head, his eyes glowing. “And instead, what I found was that you were just right. You were a woman I had dreamt about for years and had given up hope of ever finding. No girlfriend had ever come close to what you offered.”

My throat closed up in panic as fresh thoughts crowded their way in at me. He was undercover. Perhaps he was not even single!

My voice was nearly a screech. “Girlfriend?”

He brought his hand to his chest. “I swear to you, Kay, I am unattached. There is nobody waiting for me back home. That is part of why they sent me.”

His breath came in long draws as he held my gaze. Moonbeams drifted across his face, deepening the shadows in his eyes. I could suddenly see clearly just how much he was affected by this conversation.

I thought back over our days together, how quickly we had combusted into our relationship. We had launched at each other like fireworks heading for the finale, without thought, without reason. I had felt that powerful drive, had been caught up in its grasp. He had tried to warn me off, now that I thought about it. He had tried to put on the brakes, several times, and I had overrun his defenses with passionate fervor.

Could I really have expected him to reveal his secret mission, risk the lives of himself and others, after only knowing me for such a short period of time?

How much must he have trusted me, to do so?

I took a step toward him, then two, and then we were clinging to each other as if a tornado might tear through the woods and rip us apart. His hand twined thoroughly into my hair, the other around my waist, and his lips pressed against my forehead. I could hear him murmuring prayers of thankfulness.

His lips kissed their way down my cheek, over to my mouth, and they were gentle, tender, as if I were a fragile statue of immense value.

The kisses spun fiery energy in my body, in my breasts, in my sex. I brought my hands up into his hair and pressed my lips more fully against his, opening my mouth to him, needing far more than he was giving.

He groaned, wrapped me in his arms, then gently lowered me to the grass. He lay alongside me, the length of his body pressing into mine. His kisses became deeper, stronger, and my body melted beneath his, every part of me craving him.

He stripped off my jacket, then my shirt. The boots and jeans came next, and in a moment I was laying under the moonlight, clad only in my bra and panties. The glimmering light reflected off the silver stitchery along the black fabric.

Sean knelt at my side, gazing down at me, his breath coming in long, full draws.

“My God, Kay, you are stunning.”

I blushed, but I resisted the urge to cover myself up. Instead I basked in the strength of his perusal, in the heat in his eyes.

He reached his hand forward, slowly sliding one of my bra straps off my shoulder, then the second. My breasts swelled against the fabric, craving his touch.

He smiled at that, then slid his hand under my back and deftly rolled me over onto my stomach. A lift of his arm and I was up on all fours, facing out over the lake.

He knelt behind me, running his fingers along my back, sending shivers down my spine. He traced circles around the bra clasp, and I moaned, wanting him to just release it, to set me free. Instead he slid both hands to the front, cupping my breasts through the fabric, kneading and pinching at the nipples until I could barely breathe. He pressed his hips in against my rear, and I arched back against him, craving him.

His voice murmured hoarsely in my ear. “Look out at your world. Look out at the beauty.”

I raised my head, and the shimmering light took my breath away. It was as if a giant had spread a fistful of diamonds across the lake, sending them into a glittering waltz. And then both his hands eased in under the bra, sliding to hold my breasts, and he undid the strap with his mouth. The tension came free, my breasts filled his hands, and I groaned again. His fingers rolled the nipples, pulling them, and I could feel my panties soak through.

“God, please,” I moaned.

He slid his hands down the length of my side, to my hips, and then hooked the panties there and drew them down to my knees. There was the sound of a zipper behind me, then a foil pouch, and at last I felt the pressure of his shaft just at my opening. It nudged temptingly against me, tormenting me, and when I arched back toward him he withdrew, tantalizing my soul.

My voice became pleading. “I need you …”

He ran his fingers lightly along the curve of my ass, and I could feel my juices flow down my leg. My voice became a wordless moan of desire

His voice was hoarse. “You want me?”

“Yes, yes, yes.” The ache echoed throughout my body, stretching me taut like the bow of a violin. “I want you ... I need you … God, please …”

He settled both hands down on my hips, I braced, and then he groaned as his head slowly pressed within me. A tremor ran down his hands, and then whatever restraint had been holding him back slipped loose. His movements became hard, rhythmic, and I rocked back at each stroke to meet him, my cries echoing out across the landscape. The world opened up before me, the moon shone down high above, and each thrust and counter sent me soaring, soaring –

We exploded together, filled with silver and diamonds, wider than the ocean, higher than the scattered stars. And we soared.

At last, at long last, my breath came in longer draws, and I eased myself down onto the grass. He came with me, still within me, lying down at my side. One of his arms served as my pillow, while the other wrapped along my side, his hand resting possessively between my breasts.

I sighed in the deepest of contentment. “Oh, Sean.”

He stilled at that, and I turned my head in confusion. I looked up into his eyes and saw the same dark roil of emotion I’d seen the other nights, when –

It suddenly struck me with full force.

His name wasn’t Sean.

With his arms around me, and the glow of our lovemaking still resonating, I found that it didn’t matter. I knew who he really was. Our connection went beyond names and words. It was something far deeper.

The corner of my mouth turned up in a smile. “So what
is
your name, then?”

“Sean is my middle name,” he murmured, holding my eyes. “That way I could react to it fairly automatically. But my full name is Michael Sean Rowan.”

I looked into those moss green eyes, rolling the name around in my mind. “Michael …”

My hand moved to my chest, where the pendant had hung for so many years. The spot was now empty. It took me a moment to remember the scene back at the shed, when I had demanded the necklace and jammed it into my jeans pocket. It seemed like eons ago.

I reached over into the pocket and drew it out. I laid the pendant out in my palm for a long moment, gazing at the familiar oval.

His hands moved slowly into my vision. He gently took the clasp in one hand, the chain-end in the other, and he brushed my hair back from my shoulder. He leant forward to bring his hands to meet behind my neck, sealing the clasp. Then he sat back, settling the pendant between my breasts.

He looked at the pendant for a long moment, his eyes shining in the moonlight. Then he brought his gaze up to meet mine.

“Now we will both be looking out for you.”

I brought my hand to the pendant, feeling his warmth still on it. The thought that I was wearing his namesake boldly on my chest, proclaiming the name that no others in my world knew, filled me to my core.

He trusted me.

Michael Sean Rowan, deep undercover, trusted me. He was mine, he was watching over me, and nothing would tear us apart again.

Chapter 3

R
rrrrrrring!!

I buried my head deeper beneath the white covers. Late morning sunlight streamed across Sean’s loft, creating patchworks of gold against the deeper brown and red. Sean groaned, then pushed the blankets off of him and made his way wearily to the middle of the room where his jeans lay in a heap. He dug the phone out of his pocket and put it to his ear.

“Sean here.”

He listened for a minute, said “sure,” then hung up and tossed the phone down on top of his jeans. In a moment he was climbing back under the covers, sliding his hand along my hip. My body kindled in delight.

I turned to him, brushing my lips against his. “And who was that?”

His hand cupped my ass, slid down along my thigh, and lifted my leg so it moved up and over his. “Just Jimmy saying he wanted you to take today off. Something about you needing to heal up.”

My brow creased in concern. “But if that girl – I mean that woman – is going to be going back –”

He shook his head, trailing kisses down my neck. “She’s going to end up busy today,” he murmured in my ear. “To stretch this out, so he’s forced to just take her to the warehouse untested.”

He gave a teasing nibble to my neck and I moaned. “So we have the day to ourselves?”

He sucked harder at my neck, I gasped, and the world spun away.

It was mid-afternoon by the time we pulled up to the stately granite pillars which fronted the Worcester Art Museum. We brought our helmets in with us, checking them in the locker room, and then stepped out to the large atrium with its Roman-era mosaic.

He took my hand in his. “They said there could be rain later today, so riding around wasn’t much of an option – and I’m not entirely sure the studio is safe for talking in. I wouldn’t have put it past Jimmy and Seamus to have it bugged as a matter of course.”

I flushed at the thought of those two miscreants listening in on our lovemaking, but nodded. There were bigger issues at stake here.

Sean gave a wave with his hand, indicating the galleries around us. “Also, I wanted to have you see a few women who have been immortalized over the years, to view how beauty comes in a myriad of forms. That way when I photograph you tonight, you’ll feel more at ease.”

A hot blush rose to my cheeks, and I glanced around to see if anybody had heard. There seemed to be nobody within hearing distance. Still, I took a step closer to him and dropped my voice. “I don’t think I would make a good subject.”

His eyes shone, and he ran a hand along my cheek. “Ah, Kay, how can you not see yourself for how you truly are?”

The heat in his eyes coursed through me, and I dropped my gaze lest I be drawn into passionately kissing him right then and there.

He chuckled, then tugged gently on my hand and led me up the stairs.

He drew us to a stop before an oil painting of three young women in Victorian-style white dresses. They were sitting before a rural landscape of quiet trees and water. Each woman had her own way of holding herself, an individual gaze, and I marveled at the piece.

Sean motioned to the placard. “This is Frank Benson’s
Portrait of my Daughters
. See how the hair falls against the cheek of the woman on the left? And the line of the shoulders on the one on the right? Each one is beautiful, in her own way. Each one maintains her own uniqueness. And some of that appeal to the viewer comes from the angles, the shadows, the placement of curls against skin.”