The Cavanaugh Code Read online

  But now they were away from prying eyes.

  Behind closed doors, in the privacy of her apartment, a different set of parameters came into play and he could feel his steely control slipping away from him. It bothered him that his control wasn’t relaxing any more because he could finally kiss her. Instead, it just disappeared of its own volition. As if he had no say in the matter.

  While there was still a slender thread of control left, Laredo drew his lips away from hers, ignored the frantic hammering of his heart and looked down at this woman who stirred his blood.

  “You’re sure?” he whispered.

  Because her brain was on a holiday, it took Taylor a second to make sense of the words. To focus her mind as well as her eyes.

  When she did, she was still confused. Why did he feel the need to question her? Couldn’t he sense her willingness?

  “I didn’t take you for someone so PC,” she finally said.

  “Not PC,” Laredo contradicted. “I just don’t believe in taking advantage.” The ultimate pleasure came in sharing the experience, not in selfishly focusing on his own needs.

  Taylor still would have never believed it if she hadn’t actually witnessed it. Even so, she found herself not wanting to be a witness. For once in her life, she didn’t want to have time to think, to examine the situation from every single angle. She wanted the sexy investigator to continue sweeping her off her feet.

  Most of all, she didn’t want to be conscious of making a decision. She just wanted the tidal wave of emotions, of feelings and desires, to carry her away. Right now, the level of passion within her was almost overwhelming.

  “More Boy Scout qualities,” she murmured, her mouth once more less than an inch from his.

  “Hard thing to turn off.” Even so, he was having one hell of a time resisting her lips. Especially since she kept grazing his with them. He could feel his pulse quickening each time she did so.

  “Try,” she breathed just before she kissed him with the full force of everything churning inside of her.

  The next moment, she felt herself being raised up off the floor. Taylor took the opportunity to seal her body to his, wrapping her legs around his torso, her arms more firmly around his neck.

  When he moved his mouth from hers and began kissing her eyelids, the hollow of her throat, the hint of cleavage that peered out above her blouse, Taylor felt her breathing become even more erratic. A moan filled with pleasure and anticipation escaped her lips.

  She would have very easily testified that she was on fire.

  On fire and incinerating fast.

  Sliding her body back down until her feet touched the floor again, Taylor brought her mouth back up to his. As she did, her fingers worked away the clothing that kept his body from hers.

  The feel of his hands on her body rendered her intoxicated with almost painful longing. She hardly recognized herself. But it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except this delicious sensation.

  A long, hot shiver shimmied up and down her spine, creating goose bumps on her arms as she surrendered first her blouse, then her slacks. Hurrying to keep up, she tugged the shirt she’d opened down Laredo’s arms and then worked his belt loose. All her fingers had turned into thumbs.

  Something scrambled within her, rushing toward a goal she couldn’t define or even put into words.

  This was just about making love, right? The idea that it was more than that terrified her. But she couldn’t call a stop to it, couldn’t back away.

  Her intake of breath was sharp as Laredo’s capable, rough hands gently cupped her breasts.

  When had he taken off her bra?

  Taylor fought to keep up.

  The feel of his chest rubbing against hers almost completely undid her, creating bolts of lightning streaking through her.

  Damn, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d gotten so carried away. Couldn’t remember the last time he had to struggle not to go under, losing his very thought process. It wasn’t that he laid out lovemaking like a military campaign, but there were definitely steps involved to please a woman, to heighten her pleasure until they finally came together as one.

  Right now, the steps, the plan, eluded him. This blue-eyed wonder kept doing things to him that made his brain all fuzzy. She was a living, breathing contradiction in terms, touching him with an urgency that was still almost hesitant. Almost shy.

  It was, he thought, as if he was making love with two different women. Taylor McIntyre was far more complicated than he’d initially expected.

  But he wasn’t complaining. Not by a long shot. He couldn’t remember the last time that the very act leading up to the final experience had been so exhilarating, so exciting. He was like an adolescent again, struggling to hold back in order to appreciate the full impact.

  With superhuman effort, Laredo drew his lips away from hers. “Where’s your bedroom?”

  Her knees sinking, Taylor realized that he was asking her a question. For the life of her, she couldn’t make any sense of it. His words buzzed in her head.

  “What?” she breathed.

  “Bedroom,” he repeated huskily. “Where is it?”

  He didn’t know just how much longer he could restrain himself. Although it had never bothered him before, somehow, it didn’t seem right to make love with her right here in the kitchen, or even on the living room floor.

  He wanted their first time to be in her bed.

  That he was thinking in terms of numbers didn’t register just then. If it had, he would have realized that he had good reason to be concerned. And afraid, because that was what the thought of commitment did to him.

  Rather than answer—she honestly didn’t think she could—Taylor pointed in the general direction of her bedroom. And then she took his face in her hands and kissed him long and hard.

  Shattering his concentration. Laredo almost lost it then. Despite his latest resolve, he almost took her right then and there on the kitchen table.

  Feeling weak-kneed—when had that ever happened before?—Laredo scooped this woman who unaccountably rocked his world into his arms and carried her in the direction she’d pointed.

  The second they were in her bedroom, he laid her down on the bed and then joined her, covering the soft contours of her body with the hardened ones of his. When she twisted beneath him in response, Laredo knew he had very little time left.

  With all but his last ounce of strength, he drew back, creating a whisper of a space between them. His body throbbing, he swiftly and thoroughly anointed her damp body with soft, warm, openmouthed kisses along her skin.

  Stifling a cry, Taylor began to twist and wiggle more urgently than before.

  Something happened to her that she’d never experienced before. For lack of a better description, explosions went off inside of her, originating in her very core. Delicious, mind-melting explosions that bathed her body in heat and ever-growing desires.

  Stunned as one explosion flowered into another, growing in intensity, Taylor cried out his name and then pressed her body urgently against his. More than anything, she wanted the sensation of sweet agony to go on forever, even though she knew that wasn’t possible.

  Her breathing close to erratic, she was only vaguely aware that Laredo had slipped his arms around her, drawing his body up to hers.

  And then he entered.

  And abruptly stopped.

  Stunned, Laredo looked down at the woman who had thrown him for such a loop. He wasn’t an expert in this department, but he knew physical resistance when he encountered it.

  Pivoting on his elbows, he drew his head back even further, still looking down at her.

  It wasn’t possible.

  Was it?

  After a second he found his voice and hoarsely asked, “Are you…?”

  Laredo never got a chance to finish the awkward question. Taylor knew she only had a second, maybe two before he pulled back completely. The man had already proven that he wasn’t the type to force himself on a woman no matter h
ow aroused he was. And more than anything, she didn’t want him to stop.

  The moment she had said “Go ahead,” Taylor knew she had made the conscious decision that Laredo was the one. The one she wanted to make love with for the first time. No other man had ever gotten her to come even close to this point.

  But Laredo had and there was no way she was about to allow him to retreat and abandon her. Not when they both wanted it so much.

  “Stop talking,” she breathed. Hardly a whisper, it was still a direct order.

  Taking his face in her hands again, she brought her mouth up to his even as she began to twist her body urgently against his.

  Needs and desires sprang up again, taking up the places they had just temporarily, with the greatest reluctance, abandoned.

  Laredo knew the difference between right and wrong. He judged that he probably had a better sense of it than most of the people he encountered in his line of work. But he couldn’t do the right thing here, the noble thing, and just walk away. Not when she’d just melted his bones, rubbing that near-perfect body of hers against his.

  Biting off a curse, he pushed himself into her, holding her so close his heartbeat became hers. He began to move his hips in time with the near-frantic movement of hers.

  Desires and passions grew to unmanageable proportions, absorbing him.

  Absorbing her.

  When the final moment arrived a handful of heartbeats later, the sensation sent Laredo spiraling off into another world where only pleasure existed. But that world began to fade even from the very moment it had materialized. The real world rose up to greet and claim him. Sadly, all but blotting out the other.

  Euphoria receded even though, now more than ever, he wanted it to linger.

  As it faded, it ushered in a sense of guilt in its place. A guilt that was so tangible, he could almost touch it.

  Falling back, he remained next to her. Searching for words that could somehow make this up to her. None occurred to him.

  “I’m sorry,” he finally said, his tone all but stilted.

  Taylor immediately propped herself up on her elbow and looked at him. So many emotions swirled through her, it almost made her dizzy. She struggled to brace herself for what she knew was coming, but even as she tried, she knew she was woefully unprepared for the way it would hurt.

  “You’re ‘sorry,’” she echoed. “Sorry for making love with me?” she asked.

  The last thing he’d wanted to do was to bring her pain—emotionally or physically. “Why didn’t you tell me?” When she didn’t answer, Laredo repeated the question. “Why didn’t you tell me that you were a virgin?”

  Right. As if that was the kind of thing you talked about. Why was he putting her through this? Why couldn’t he just pretend he’d enjoyed himself?

  “The opportunity never worked itself into the conversation,” she bit off.

  Oh, but it had, he thought. “Just now, in the kitchen, when I asked if I could kiss you, you couldn’t tell me then?”

  Okay, now she was angry. Anger had come to her rescue, springing out of embarrassment to shield her. “You mean why didn’t I say, ‘Yes you can kiss me if you want to but you might not want to because I’m a virgin and I’ll only disappoint you?’” she asked sarcastically. “Sorry, guess I just wasn’t thinking clearly at the moment.”

  Sitting up, Laredo stared at her as if she were suddenly speaking in some foreign language. “What the hell are you talking about?” he finally demanded. “You think I’m disappointed?”

  “Well, aren’t you?” she challenged.

  “Hell, no.”

  “Then why are you yelling at me?” she demanded, yelling back. Incensed, she couldn’t help herself.

  “Because you should have told me.” He shouldn’t have to explain it to her. As a woman, she should have understood that to begin with. “There’s a lot of responsibility, being a woman’s first lover.”

  Was that it? He wasn’t disappointed, he was afraid she was disappointed in him? She would have laughed if she hadn’t thought that it might have hurt his feelings. Instead, she fell back on being flippant.

  “Don’t worry, I won’t bill you. On the upside, I have nothing to compare this to.” For the first time, she grinned at him. “Which makes you the greatest lover I’ve ever had.”

  Now that the euphoria and frenzy had died back, she felt awkward. Nothing a little clothing couldn’t fix, she told herself. Turning away from him, Taylor began to get up.

  Laredo caught her wrist, holding her in place. His frustration over the fact that he should have gone slower, been more tender toward her, began to abate. “There is that, I suppose.”

  She looked down at his fingers locked around her wrist. “I can’t get dressed if you’re holding my wrist.” She raised her eyes to his expectantly.

  But he didn’t release her. “I know.”

  She took in a breath, then let it out slowly. Some of her embarrassment began to recede, nudged away by another round of anticipation. Was this how it was? Up and down until she felt dizzy?

  She looked down at his hand again. “So what is it that you have in mind?”

  Taylor heard the grin in his voice. “To give you something to compare your first time to.”

  “Are you going to yell at me at the end of that, too?” she deadpanned.

  “I wasn’t yelling at you,” he told her. “I was yelling at me.”

  Funny, it certainly felt like he was yelling at her. But now that she knew why, she wasn’t upset any longer. “And what, I just got in the way?”

  He lifted his shoulder in a dismissive, half shrug. “Something like that.”

  Removing his hand from her wrist, he reached up and gently feathered his fingers through her hair. Something stirred within him.

  He wanted her again.

  “A woman’s first time is supposed to be special,” he told Taylor. “At the very least, the earth is supposed to move for her.”

  Taylor pressed her lips together, debating whether or not she should be honest with him or just keep him guessing. But she had always been truthful and games were for people who were careless about other people’s feelings.

  “So far, so good,” she finally said softly.

  In response, he grinned. Laredo’s smile was so sexy, she could hardly stand it. Feelings began to rush forward again, faster than the first time.

  “I don’t want to be good,” he told her, his voice low. “Do you?”

  “Good is in the eyes of the beholder,” she managed.

  “That’s beauty,” Laredo corrected, drawing her closer to him as he laid down again. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”

  The phone could ring at any minute, calling her back to duty. Or he would suddenly realize that he had somewhere else to be. Taylor didn’t want to waste precious time discussing a poem she’d long since forgotten.

  “Shut up, Laredo,” she murmured raising her mouth up to his.

  “Yes ma’am,” Laredo replied obediently.

  And then the next moment, he began to devote himself to showing Taylor the right way to make love to a woman the first time around.

  Slowly.

  Chapter 13

  L aredo considered himself a light sleeper, rendered that way both by nature and out of necessity because of the demands of his vocation. He would have thought, then, that the slightest shift of weight on the surface of the mattress, especially if someone was slipping away, would have woken him up.

  But when he did open his eyes to greet the dawn, he found himself alone in the bed. Taylor was gone. From the bed and, apparently, from the room.

  Surprised and a little uncertain—just because he’d made love with the woman a record number of three times, as he recalled—didn’t mean that she was now an open book to him. With Taylor, he was still feeling his way around.

  Right now, he wouldn’t have put it past the crafty Detective McIntyre to try to get a jump ahead of him on this case by sneaking out and leaving him here, asleep
at the wheel.

  Laredo shook his head. He liked his women simpler, he thought as he hurried into the clothes that, unaccountably, were now sitting on a chair in the bedroom instead of scattered throughout the kitchen the way he remembered leaving them. He liked his women more predictable at least, he silently added.

  Oh, yeah? I didn’t see anyone holding a gun to your head to stay last night. Or urging you to go for a record-breaking performance test, either. That was all on you and you were free to leave anytime.

  Zipping up his pants, Laredo sighed. Okay, so there was something about the feisty homicide detective that attracted him more than he was comfortable with. But that would pass soon, he promised himself. And then maybe things could get back to normal again.

  There was no denying that he liked his life just the way it was, uncomplicated except when it came to his cases. He was committed to his work and his grandfather. That was where it ended.

  As he quickly walked toward the front of the apartment, it occurred to Laredo that he was protesting a bit too strongly.

  Never a good sign.

  He passed the other, smaller bedroom, came to a screeching halt and then retraced his last two steps. He looked in. His eyes hadn’t been playing tricks on him. Taylor was there, wearing something baggy and misshapen—an oversize police T-shirt?—sitting at a desk in front of a computer. All her attention appeared to be focused on the monitor as she scrolled down.

  He wondered what had captured her attention so exclusively—but he didn’t wonder that nearly half as much as he wondered if she’d bothered to put anything on underneath her T-shirt.

  Visions of their lovemaking played vividly across his mind. Whetting his appetite.

  Laredo entered the room and, coming up behind her, embraced Taylor lightly with one arm.

  Startled, Taylor gasped and swung around.

  Seeing that it was Laredo, she relaxed and said, “You shouldn’t sneak up behind me like that.”

  He smiled. “Next time, I’ll yell before I walk in.” He looked at the screen that had held her attention so intently. “Anything interesting?” he asked, noting a site devoted to the Middle Ages.