“And you think I haven’t thought of that?” she spat out. “That’s all I’ve thought of, Joe. Because if I could give you that damned information you want so bad, then I’d be free. Of you, of Fuentes, and of Grant. Trust me, no one wants you to have that information more than I do.”
“You want to leave me that bad, Maggie?” He moved behind her, leaning in close, careful not to touch. “I remember a time when you found excuses to stay in my bed, to remain at my place.”
“And I remember a time when you found excuses to escape,” she reminded him, stepping away again, but not before he saw the little tremor of response that washed over her. “You didn’t want what I had to offer before, Joe, and now, whatever you’re offering, I’m passing on.”
He watched her move across the bedroom and enter the bathroom. Unhurried, her slender body shifting beneath the loose clothes she had worn to sleep in. Her head was lifted, her shoulders straight, and the pride that reflected in her stance caused a grin to edge at his lips.
He wondered if she knew she moved against him in that big bed each night. More often than not, her head ended up on his shoulder, a shapely leg thrown over his, and her hand lying directly over his heart. Just as she had lain when she had shared his bed so long ago.
And each night his control withered further away as his cock became more demanding. She could argue until she was blue in the face, and sometimes she could, but he knew what he felt each night. Hard nipples pressing against his side through her T-shirt. Her hands touching him tentatively, as though he were a dream.
He was a fool to let her go the first time, and he could be playing a bigger fool now. Only time would tell. And that was why he’d brought her here, he reminded himself. If she were lying, he would find out. If she were telling the truth … then he would protect her with everything he had. If she were telling the truth, then he would never let her out of his life again. She would be his. One way or the other.
4
Men sucked. They were the root of every problem any woman could ever have. They were the reason for bras, the need for makeup, hair stylists, shaving legs, and high heels that made the arch feel like it had a steel rod slammed up it. They were picky, arrogant, argumentative, and so damned certain of themselves it made her grind her teeth in fury.
And Joe was the worst. He always had been. He didn’t argue, debate, or consider anything; it was his way, however he had to make certain it came about. And once again he was working her. She could feel it.
He watched her now in a way he hadn’t all week, eyelids lowered, his expression brooding, thoughtful, calculating. His dark eyes rarely left her, and she could feel the sexual hunger thickening in the air around him. He had a look when he was aroused to the point that the sex would be hard and brutally satisfying. And he was getting that look.
“Stay away from me,” she ordered, as he moved close to her that evening, brushing against her as she stacked the dishwasher with dinner dishes.
His male grunt did little to calm her nerves. Nothing he could do, though, could calm her nerves. He wasn’t the only one aroused after a week of enforced confinement, of nights spent in the same bed with him, feeling the heat of his body.
Dressed in jeans and T-shirt, and a bra, the layers of clothing did absolutely nothing to stem the needs that only grew. She remembered nights, hours on end that he would take her, throwing her into one orgasm after another, leaving her breathless, exhausted as the sun rose beyond the windows of his apartment. He was inexhaustible. And the memory of it was killing her.
“You’ve changed,” he remarked as he stood back from her, propping himself against the counter as he watched her. “You were never so confrontational before, Maggie.”
“I was never in danger for my life before,” she reminded him, flashing him a short glare. “It does change a girl’s perspective, Joe.”
“You’re going to be fine.” A quick frown edged at his dark blond brows as he watched her. “We’ll figure out where the information is and we’ll take Fuentes down.”
“One thing you never lacked was confidence.” Maggie closed the door to the dishwasher before setting the power and flipping it on. “There has to be someplace Grant hid things. What about his other journals?” he asked her. “We only found the current one, it began six months before. Where did he keep the others?”
“I have no idea.” She shook her head as she breathed out roughly. “I spent as little time around Grant as I had to. I didn’t question him, I just wanted him to leave me alone, so I left him alone.”
“Did he mention a safe deposit box?”
“Joe, these are all questions the detective asked me at the station,” she reminded him abruptly. “If he had one, I didn’t know. I never cared about his journals, his friends, or his comings and goings. If I had suspected for a moment what he was up to, I would have paid more attention. But I didn’t.”
“Men like Grant like to brag.”
“Grant bitched, accused, and went into paranoid delusions.” She shook her head at his perception that Grant would tell her anything. “Everyone was to blame for everything that had gone wrong in his life, except him. I assumed his journals were filled with the same crap, so I never gave them a thought.”
He was silent then, but she could feel his eyes on her as she wiped down the counter and the table before pulling out the Swiffer to go over the floor.
She could feel the little tremors of response building beneath her flesh as he watched her, she could almost feel his eyes raking over her snug jeans, the press of her breasts beneath the T-shirt.
Minutes later she propped the Swiffer back in its place before turning and heading for the living room. She was aware of Joe following her, stalking her like a damned animal. As though he could sense her arousal and was debating the best way to act on it.
Let me love you, he had whispered earlier. He had no idea how those words had ripped through her heart. She had dreamed of him loving her, had believed he was beginning to until she covered that damned party she had no idea he had been invited to. Because he hadn’t told her. Hadn’t invited her. Oh no, he’d had one of his society women on his arm, decked out in silk and diamonds and platinum blonde hair.
Had he slept with her?
She couldn’t let herself think of that. Even now, two and a half years later, the thought that he would take another woman so quickly after having shared a bed with her had the power to rip her defenses to shreds.