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  She quickly got in on her side, shutting the door a little too firmly. "But they're worth billions. If you had a chance at that, would you walk away?" He raised his eyes to hers sharply. She hurried to clear the air. "I meant, if you were the kidnapper?"

  It hadn't been that long ago that his cousin Patrick had been under investigation by Internal Affairs. It had been guilt by association but there was no telling where it would have led if the woman carrying out the covert investigation hadn't quickly become convinced of Patrick's innocence. Suspicions were a sore spot they were all forced to live with.

  "No," he replied firmly. "But I'd have to be getting nervous about getting away with it. There are going to be a lot of eyes focused on that bag of money when it finally gets left for pick up," he pointed out.

  "Maybe the guy thinks he's more clever than the police. You know, maybe he fancies himself some kind of criminal mastermind. Pride Goeth Before a Fall, and all that sort of thing."

  She had a point. More than one criminal sitting in a state prison had been instrumental in tripping himself up because he underestimated the police and overestimated his own resourcefulness.

  "Maybe," he agreed.

  Angling his watch, he tried to make out the face. It was almost nine o'clock. There was no point in going back to the Tylers' tonight. The atmosphere there had to be nothing short of incredibly tense.

  "You hungry?"

  Other than the fries he'd grabbed at Hamburger Heaven this morning for breakfast, they'd stopped at a drive-through for sandwiches around noon. But right now, that felt like a hundred years ago.

  As if in response to his words, she thought she heard her stomach rumble. Brenda pressed her palm against the area. Now that she no longer began each day with a ten-minute purging session on her knees in the bathroom, she had rediscovered her appetite, which had always been a healthy one. Prior to her unexpected pregnancy, she'd always been blessed with a metabolism that emulsified food almost before it hit her stomach. She wondered if being pregnant was going to change that.

  "I could eat," she allowed.

  A horse, if that rumbling of her stomach was any indication, he thought with a grin. "So could I. How about a place where we don't have to lean over a metal counter to place our order?"

  "You mean a real restaurant?" She grinned when he nodded. "Sounds good to me."

  It did to him, too, Dax thought as he started up the engine in his car.

  * * *

  Chapter 10

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  "So, tell me about this screenplay you're writing," Brenda said in between bites of a chicken quesadilla that was so good, it was carrying on an open flirtation with her taste buds.

  Dax couldn't help thinking his uncle Andrew would really like this woman. She did enjoy her food. "I told you, I'm not writing it, I'm just putting notes together, that's all."

  She raised her eyes to his. He was being deliberately evasive. Had she found a weak spot? He seemed so confident otherwise. "But notes mean that you intend to write it."

  "Someday," he qualified, "when I'm old and gray and I'm on the sidelines because they won't let me play anymore."

  Brenda paused to take a sip of soda before asking, "Is that how you see it? Playing?"

  He was quick to correct the frivolous impression she'd obviously gotten of his approach to crime. "Being a player rather than someone on the outside. The game of life can be very serious."

  Her eyes narrowed as she absorbed his words. "So life is a game?"

  He shrugged. Things were serious, but you couldn't take them too seriously or they would paralyze you if something really went wrong. "It depends on how you look at things. In a way, everything's a game. There are always winners and losers."

  "How about just content people?"

  "Those are the winners."

  "I see." Brenda rolled his words over in her head as she savored her meal. And then she smiled. "You are a philosopher."

  He shook his head. Philosophers were people who went around and around about things, ending up nowhere. He was just telling her what worked for him. "Just somebody with a healthy attitude, that's all."

  She laughed. He was deeper than he looked. "I'd like to see those notes of yours someday."

  Dax took her at her word. He paused to think it over, then shrugged carelessly as he went on eating. "Sure, why not? After this is over."

  After this is over.

  Did that mean he wanted to see her once he had put this case behind him and there was no need for them to interact? Or was he just making polite conversation, giving her a throwaway line the way people did when they didn't know what to say?

  Looking at him, she couldn't tell. She felt too drained to try to come to some kind of reasonable conclusion tonight. But it did have a nice sound to it.

  She changed the topic, returning to what was on both their minds. "You know, this is pretty nerve-racking, not having him call after we got the picture." She ran her teeth along her lower lip, working at her words, her concern. "Do you think something happened?"

  Dax broke off another piece of bread and ate it without butter. "I'd be lying if I didn't say that was a possibility."

  Trying to gauge his tone got her nowhere. "But you don't think so?"

  "What I think is that the kidnapper is enjoying torturing Tyler."

  It was far the lesser of the two evils. But she needed reasons, something she could believe in beyond her own prayers. "What makes you so sure?"

  "Because otherwise, he would have already named the drop off point." He noticed she'd finished her soft drink. Raising a hand, he signaled to the waitress, then pointed at Brenda's glass. The woman nodded and hurried away. "Most kidnappers—if they're not snatching a kid for perverse reasons or because they want a kid of their own and don't have one for one reason or another—want the whole thing to be over as soon as possible. They want to get their hands on the money."

  The waitress returned with a fresh glass, exchanging it for the almost empty one in front of Brenda then retreated. Brenda waited until she was gone before continuing.

  "Since you think he wants to hurt Simon, do you think…" The words refused to come in an orderly fashion, jumbling on her tongue. She tried again. "Do you think that he'll return Annie to her family?"

  He heard the emotion in her voice, saw the tears suddenly shining in her eyes. His gut told him that the answer to her question was no and that she knew it as well as he did. The ultimate revenge on Tyler would be to make him twist in the wind, then collect his money and still do away with the little girl.

  But Brenda wasn't asking for him to confirm her fears. She was silently asking him for something to cling to.

  "Most people don't want to kill," he told her, leaving the borders deliberately vague. "Especially not a defenseless little girl."

  Brenda stared at her glass, watching the drops of moisture chase one another down the side, forming small rivulets.

  Most people.

  He'd gone from the specific to the general. She knew it was the best she could hope for. That, and maybe a miracle. She nodded slowly, accepting his terms. "Most people," she echoed.

  As she drained her glass of soda, Dax looked at her plate. There was nothing left on it, not even the sprig of parsley. She'd certainly been hungrier than he'd thought. "Want anything else?"

  She shook her head. This marked the first full meal she'd actually had since her morning sickness had stopped. It felt good to feel full without the threat of nausea taking it all away again.

  But there was a tightness in her stomach that had nothing to do with morning sickness and everything to do with the situation that existed. The entire situation. Annie, the man sitting opposite her, the baby she hadn't told anyone about. Everything.

  Her nerves felt as if they were on the verge of snapping apart like so many pop-beads.

  She forced herself to focus only on his question. "No, this was fine. Thank you." She took a breath. She felt more staffed than she'd thought. All too soon, s
he thought ruefully, she was going to look pretty stuffed as well. "I think I'd better get home."

  Dax nodded. He looked around for their waitress again, holding his hand up for the check.

  But when they arrived at her door, Brenda found that she didn't want to be alone. She wasn't tired anymore. The sensation of moving through molasses she'd been struggling with earlier had completely disappeared and she knew she wasn't going to be able to sleep. Most likely, she was going to spend a very restless night, thinking about Annie, about the possibilities they hadn't put into words.

  Taking out her key, she looked at him. "Would you like to come in?"

  There was a street lamp not fifteen feet away from her front door. The illumination pooled just before them, leaving her half in light, half in shadow. And completely enticing.

  Everything within him told him that saying "yes" wasn't a good idea. That once he crossed the threshold into her ground floor apartment, he'd be crossing another threshold as well. There was no question in his mind, no doubt. It was just a given.

  He could feel it in his bones, see it in her eyes.

  Dax stood outside, knowing he should say something polite about the hour and about their both needing their sleep.

  As if reading his mind, she said, "I don't think I can sleep."

  "And you want me to bore you to death with a verbal recitation of those notes I've written for that screenplay in my distant future?" he teased.

  He made her smile. More than that, for some reason she couldn't put into words, he made her feel safe. Just having him close by seemed to keep away the bad thoughts that threatened to haunt her.

  "No." She looked up into his eyes. "I don't want to be alone tonight."

  The honest admission undid him. Dax followed her inside.

  The moment the door was closed and she turned to him, the tempo was set.

  Dax framed her face with his hands and kissed her. Slowly at first, savoring the contact while still leaving her an opening. Letting her back away at the last minute if she came to her senses. Because, it was apparent to him, he wasn't going to come to his. Not with this feeling she'd generated within him. This need to have her.

  But instead of resisting, instead of taking a step back, Brenda leaned into his kiss. Twining her arms around his neck, she silently surrendered herself to him.

  It was all he needed.

  The rest happened as if it had been orchestrated by an unseen hand that belonged to a force which was far greater than him.

  The kiss deepened, taking them both somewhere outside the realm of mere human beings who sought one another for comfort within an uncomfortable world. Dax felt his body instantly ignite. He pressed her closer to him, savoring her softness, the way her body melted into his.

  It was as if all this had been waiting for him, whether to tease him by saying that this was possible, or by giving him a single glimpse before irreversibly shutting the doors, he didn't know, but somewhere in his soul, ever since he'd kissed her last night, he'd known that this moment was here.

  It was as close to perfect as he'd ever encountered.

  His arms tightened around her as needs and urges rushed over him, demanding instant gratification. He held them off, struggling for the upper hand, struggling to go slowly because this, something whispered in his brain, this was different. This wasn't like all the other pleasurable couplings he'd enjoyed.

  He couldn't explain why or how, but he just knew. This was different. And he meant to enjoy it for as long as he was allowed.

  Was she crazy?

  The question hammered in Brenda's head to the same beat her heart had assumed. She had no answer for that. The immediate one would have been "yes." Yes, she was crazy. Crazy for a multitude of reasons. She was pregnant, she hardly knew this man, she wasn't the type to do this kind of thing. Besides Wade, there'd never been any one else. No other lovers. It just wasn't her way.

  And yet, here she was, initiating this, inviting this man into her home. Into her body. And she wasn't doing anything to stop it.

  She couldn't.

  She wanted this too much. Electricity hummed through her, lighting her up from the outside in. Chasing away the shadows. Filling her.

  She'd felt so hollow. Long before Annie's abduction, she'd felt something was missing from her life. Perhaps had never been there in the first place. She'd hoped, prayed that being Wade's wife would fill that void. Would succeed in making her world whole.

  But it hadn't. It had been a disappointment.

  She was no longer physically or mentally abused, but she was still adrift. Still alone, despite the man who slept beside her whenever duty didn't take him away. This was different.

  For the first time in her life, she felt she was with someone. She didn't feel alone. She knew it had to be her vulnerability talking, or maybe she was just out of her head. Maybe everything had conspired together to push her over the brink and she couldn't reason properly any more, but she didn't want to know the reasons, didn't want the explanations. What she wanted were the sensations that raced up and down her body, setting her on fire, making her yearn.

  There was nothing and no one except this man with the magic mouth, with the enchanted hands that seemed to know just where to touch her, where to caress her. Her body hummed like an instrument long left unattended in the corner, relegated to the shadows, but was now rendering a wondrous melody.

  One by one, gently and with tenderness, he'd taken her clothes from her body, in the end setting more than her flesh free. He'd somehow found the key to unlock her soul as well and for however long this lasted, she was going to glory in it.

  She moaned as he pressed kiss after kiss to her face, to her throat. To the breasts that throbbed each time his lips left their mark.

  Quickly, Brenda started to take off his clothes as well. In her urgency to divest him, she was aware of a button plinking down on the coffee table as it resisted her movements, falling off instead of finding its way out of the buttonhole.

  "Sorry," she murmured, her mouth against his skin as she pushed the shirt off his shoulders.

  Dax drew her head up, took possession of her mouth. "I have a sister who sews," he assured her, his words echoing against her mouth.

  She heard the eagerness in his voice, felt the gentleness in his hands. Her body vibrated with anticipation even as her mind, what there was of it, cautioned her that there was only disappointment in the wings.

  She knew that from experience, even as her body urged her on. Even as her core moistened to receive him.

  Lovemaking with Wade had never been this exciting, but it had had its spark. Still, he was always finished with the journey just as she was beginning to climb up the summit. She'd never once gotten to that pinnacle she'd so often heard described.

  She tried to brace herself for the letdown, even as part of her prayed that she was wrong.

  They were on the floor now, where Dax had laid her down, their limbs tangled. He'd completely ignited her, his fingers deftly playing her body, finding secret places and making them his.

  Her breath caught in her throat. Strumming lightly along her thighs, his lips assaulting hers, his fingers delved into the most intimate part of her. Brenda felt herself tightening like a bow. Softly, he stroked her, his movement evoking responses throughout her whole body.

  She gripped his shoulders to anchor herself. And suddenly, there were stars zooming through her head, nestling in her bloodstream. Arching madly against his hand, her body taking on a mind of its own as it sought the center of the pleasure he'd created, she cried out as a climax took hold of her.

  Desperately, she tried to hold onto the moment, afraid of letting it go. Afraid of never feeling its wondrous effects again.

  Her eyes flew open as she felt his warm breath along her stomach. The next moment, his fingers had given way to his tongue. Indescribable sensations appeared. A cry echoed silently in her throat, trapped there.

  Waiting.

  And then it came, taking her prison
er, throwing her upward. Her fingers dug into his flesh until she was spent. Stunned, shaken, wrapped up in a rosy hue she'd never felt before, she tried to focus. To savor.

  When she looked, he'd slid his body up over hers until his face was level with hers. There was an enigmatic smile on his lips. And a look in his eyes that she couldn't fathom either.

  The next moment, he was parting her legs and driving himself into her. And then there was no more room for thoughts, no more room for anything except the delicious sensations battering her body.

  She pushed her hips up, sealing herself to him, to the tempo that he had set for them. She kept up as best she could and then she was scrambling toward something again, a sensation that beckoned to her as the urgency of his body directed her toward it.

  It burst over her, cocooning her in its richness. In that moment she realized that she had finally gained the summit.

  That they had reached it together.

  His body lost its tension and relaxed against hers. She welcomed the weight, welcomed the feeling of being one with him in ways she couldn't begin to describe. The peace was overwhelming, in sharp contrast to her heart which she was certain was going to burst out of her chest at any moment.

  And then she felt his mouth curving against her neck. He was smiling, she realized, and the sensation was wonderful.

  After a beat, Dax raised his head and looked at her. He combed his fingers through her hair, moving it from her face. They were both damp with each other's perspiration. For some reason, he found that incredibly sexy.

  Just as he found her.

  The smile on his lips rose into his eyes. "Did I tell you I like your apartment?"

  Laughter bubbled up inside of her, giddy laughter that had no rhyme or reason but felt wonderful as it filled her. "No, you didn't mention that."

  The smile softened, growing into something more. "I like your apartment."