“We’re sleeping in the same bed …”
“That’s not my choice,” she argued, as he glanced over his shoulder, casting her a wicked look. “You wouldn’t let me sleep on the couch.”
“Sure you can.” He shrugged his tanned shoulders negligently. “But it’s going to be an awful tight fit with both of us there.”
That was pretty much his stand on it seven days ago. She followed him slowly into the kitchen, admiring the tight contours of his rear beneath the snug jeans he had only zipped, not buttoned. Yeah, she had caught that little detail out on the porch.
“How much longer are we staying here?” She finally asked the question that had been hovering on her lips for days. “When are you going to give up, Joe?”
“When the Fuentes family is dead.” He padded to the coffeepot, lifted the carafe, and poured the liquid into waiting cups.
His answer shocked her. Before, his answer would have been once a culprit was behind bars, not dead.
“I just want to know how they managed bail,” she sighed, moving to the kitchen table as he turned back, the coffee cups firmly in hand.
“One of Fuentes’s lieutenants paid off the judge. We have the money and evidence in hand. Judge Gilmore was none too pleased with the offer. He could take the money and let them out, or his grandchildren could suffer the consequences. We opted to go with the bribe, taped it, and now have the money impounded in a safe location until it’s needed. All with Jose’s and Santiago’s fingerprints.”
She couldn’t have been more surprised if he had said he was Santa Claus.
“And that’s not enough to lock them up for a while?” she asked, amazed.
“We need it all, Maggie. We want them locked away forever, if they’re smart enough to live until the trial. I don’t want them out on a technicality. And I don’t want families murdered to get them there.”
Maggie stared back at him suspiciously. She had been questioning him for a week now, and he was finally giving her the answers she wanted: Why?
“If I’m suspected of being part of this, then didn’t you just put several people in danger by telling me?”
His gaze was hooded as he glanced back at her before shrugging. “I don’t believe you’re part of this.”
Oh yeah, she really believed that one at this late date.
“So I’m here why?” she questioned him as he sat the coffee in front of her. “And they are still out on bail for what reason?”
“We need that proof Grant hid and the Fuentes family still believes you have that.” Joe took his seat across from her, watching her steadily. “You don’t know where it’s at; that means your life is still in danger. And the Navy needs that mole. There’s too much at stake here to risk a trial on what little evidence we have of the two aiding and abetting Diego. If we want to shut down this cartel and that drug, then we have to do it here.”
Ahh, so the truth was emerging, perhaps.
“You’re using me …”
“Hell no!” Anger flashed across his expression. “You are not bait, Maggie. No matter what you think. I told you I’d protect you, and I meant it.”
And she didn’t trust him, not even for a second. Fear raced down her spine as she stared back at him, suddenly wondering to what lengths he would go in capturing the Fuentes men. But she knew the lengths he would go to, she reminded herself. He blamed the Fuentes family for what happened to Grant, rather than blaming Grant himself.
“And this information the federal prosecutor thinks I’m hiding?” she asked, not bothering to hide the mockery in her voice. “Have you just given up on it, Joe?”
He tilted his head as he regarded her for several seconds. “You don’t know where it’s at. That’s a dead end.”
“Oh, you are so good.” She would have cried if it didn’t hurt so damned bad. The truth was there in his eyes, the suspicion, the calculation. Others might not have recognized it, but Maggie saw it and knew it for what it was. “Do you really expect me to swallow that line of crap, Joe? Do you think I’m that stupid?”
“On the contrary, you’re not stupid at all. Suspicious,” he chided her with a quirk of amusement. “But not stupid.”
Maggie ignored the coffee sitting before her, the smell of it suddenly as unappetizing as the lies passing his lips. Standing slowly to her feet, she stared back at him impassively, fighting to hide the pain exploding inside her.
“You’ve changed, Joe,” she whispered. “I never pegged you for a liar. An asshole and a prick maybe, but not an out-and-out liar. Congratulations, you did the impossible. You made my opinion of you sink lower than it was two and a half years ago.”
Turning on her heels, she moved to stalk from the kitchen, to put distance between herself and his games, his lies. She hated lies. She hated herself. Because she wanted to believe him, she wanted to trust in the arousal and the warmth that had heated his eyes, just as she wanted to believe that he could trust in her, just once. She was a fool.
“No, you don’t.” She came to an abrupt stop as he jumped from his chair, his hand reaching out to catch her upper arm as she moved to pass him.
The shock of his flesh touching hers, the heat and strength in it nearly drove the breath from her body.
“Let me go.” She jerked against his hold, feeling the anger growing inside her, the hurt burning through her heart.
“I won’t let you go, Maggie.” He suddenly snarled, jerking her around, as his free hand buried in her hair, his fingers locking into the strands. He jerked her head back and stared into her eyes fiercely. “I won’t let you go and I won’t let you die. Lie to me all you need to. Fuck it. I’ll get Fuentes in the end, if I have to kill him to do it. But I won’t let you go.”
“You don’t have a choice.” She pushed against his chest, desperate to escape him, to break free of the hard temptation of his body. “I don’t belong to you, Joe, not anymore …”
“By God, you always belonged to me. Always.”
Before she could stop him his head lowered, his lips covered hers, and time came to a stop. There was only Joe’s kiss. His lips moving against hers, his tongue licking, piercing her lips, moving between them in a fierce, dominant kiss.
Her fingers curled against his chest, then spread out, nerve endings soaking in the feel of him, remembering, relishing the rasp of the short, crisp hairs on her palms, the fiery warmth beneath his flesh.