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  Her voice was low, thick, as she said, "I need this far more."

  Brian gave up trying to resist, gave up trying to convince himself that he was strong enough to walk away this time, the way he had shut down his surging desire all those other times.

  "Not half as much as I do."

  She didn't know if it was the words or the sound of his raspy voice, or both, that brought her up to a level of excitement she hadn't thought possible.

  Afraid that this would end at any moment, unable to rein herself in any longer, Lila tugged on his clothes. She urgently pulled his sweater over his head, carelessly tossing it aside. With feverish hands she worked at his belt, unnotching it and then pulling it out of its loops in a sweeping movement that would have made a bull whip expert proud.

  And all the while, as she stripped him, she spread a flurry of quick, sensual kisses along his face, his neck, his shoulders, frantic to divest him of all the obstacles and to feel his flesh against hers.

  She shivered, not from the cold, but from anticipation. His hands were everywhere, mimicking her movements.

  "Not fair," she complained as Brian took off first her dark silk robe, then the nightgown that was lighter than air. "You have more clothes."

  "Not for long." Rising, his hands bracketed on her arms and taking her up with him, Brian kicked off the jeans she'd guided down his hips with fingers that weren't quite steady just moments ago.

  This time, he didn't ask about her bedroom. This time, there was little occasion for words or residual hesitation. He'd never been so sure of anything in his life, sure that this was right, that it was meant to happen and just as sure that if it stopped, he'd implode.

  Without her clothes Lila was even more beautiful, more sensual. Brian discovered that her clothing didn't hide a multitude of flaws, it merely hid her. Hid her perfection.

  As if to assure himself that he wasn't just imagining all this, Brian ran the palms of his hands all along her body, dipping into the curves, cupping the swells. Committing everything to memory through the sensation of touch. Touch and taste.

  She all but set him on fire.

  Brian pressed her against the sofa, his body looming over hers. But rather than take her the way he so sorely wanted to, he reined in his desire and slowly took his time. Began to familiarize himself with every inch of her as it lay exposed to his view.

  "How do you do it?" he marveled. "How do you look like this after all these years?"

  She was so relieved that he wasn't disappointed, she was almost giddy. "You don't have to sweet talk me, Brian," she told him, thrilling to his caress and to the promise of what was to come. "In case you haven't noticed—" she wiggled in beneath him, watching desire flare in his eyes "—you've already won me over."

  "No sweet talk," he told her, his breath, like hers, growing shorter. "Just the facts, ma'am. Just the facts." It was a line from a classic police drama they'd discovered, years ago, that they both liked as kids.

  He brought his mouth down on her belly, curving his tongue along her skin. When he felt her quiver beneath him, there were no words to describe the reaction that coursed through his veins, that urged him to continue. He couldn't get enough of her.

  It was perfect.

  More than perfect. Just as she had always thought, hoped, fantasized it would be. She felt herself trapped between ecstasy and the desire for fulfillment. Brian did things to her with such exquisite movements, she could barely breathe.

  Joy filled her even as she ached for more.

  All sorts of emotions, sensations, collided within her. It was like having lightning coursing through her veins. Lightning and explosions. Beautiful, colorful explosions.

  She had never felt this sort of sweet agony before. The swift movements of his mouth and tongue brought her to one climax after another. Something she'd never felt in all her years of marriage.

  Ben had tried to be a good lover, but it was by rote, as if he were doing it by the numbers, in a given way every single time. Nothing ever changed. He never had a desire to try anything new.

  But this was all new. Including her being breathless even before they came together for the final joining. There wasn't a part of her that Brian hadn't played, hadn't touched and primed. By the time he finally drew his body up along hers and then entered her, Lila felt almost rabid with passion.

  She raised her hips, meeting him partway and then, as they began to move in one all-encompassing rhythm, they rushed off together to the ultimate summit. Her mouth sealed to his, she cried out his name as she sailed over the top.

  * * *

  Chapter 8

  « ^ »

  The euphoria that came in the wake of their lovemak-ing settled into a pleasant glow. Lila savored it for a few moments before she finally opened her eyes.

  She was tucked against Brian, with the sofa at her back. Duchess was off to the side, her eyes closed, in that semidozing state that dogs assume.

  Everything felt absolutely wonderful. Especially her. Contentment poured through her veins like warmed honey.

  "That," she said when her heart finally ceased tap-dancing in her throat, "was a long time in coming."

  Brian brushed a hair from her cheek, allowing his fingers to linger a little while against her skin. 'The best things in life are worth waiting for."

  God, this felt so right, being here with him like this. She expected to feel guilt, remorse, possibly disappointment. Instead she wanted to embrace the whole world in a giant bear hug.

  Or at the very least, to climb up on her roof and shout for joy.

  She settled for snuggling against Brian and feeling like a kid again. "I thought the best things in life were free."

  "That, too." She watched his smile grow. His breath caressed her skin when he spoke. "I don't plan on charging you for this."

  "Nice to know." She drew in a deep breath, and took in his scent, a combination of aftershave, soap and just the slightest hint of the sweat he had worked up. She could feel her pulse accelerate again, could feel a pull from deep within her abdomen.

  "I think—" she trailed her fingertip along his cheekbone the way she'd always longed to do when they were riding together,"—if you're planning on spending the night, you should sleep in my bed upstairs."

  He feigned surprise. "Why, Detective Mclntyre, are you propositioning me?"

  A laugh escaped her lips. "I think we're a little past that."

  "No," he told her quietly just before he cupped her cheek and kissed her again. "We're never past that."

  The gleam in his eyes was hard to ignore. "Are you trying to tell me you could do this again?" Even as she asked, she felt the answer to her question hardening against her.

  He read her thoughts and made no effort to bank down his. "Why is that so hard to believe?"

  There'd only been two men in her life, Ben and now Brian. She could only draw on what she knew. "Isn't this the part where you roll over on your side and go to sleep?"

  Brian kissed her shoulder, creating a labyrinth of sensations that went off like Fourth of July sparklers.

  "Clearly," he teased, "there are sections of your education that are badly in need of updating."

  "I guess you have your work cut out for you." She grinned, rising. "Well, I'm always willing to learn." Reaching for her robe, Lila began to slip it on.

  But Brian stopped her, sliding it off her shoulders again.

  "Don't bother putting it on," he told her, letting it fall back to the floor. He slipped his arm around her and pulled her to him. "I'm only going to take it off you again."

  When had she ever felt this giddy, this carefree? "Pulling rank again?"

  "If I have to." He paused for just a moment to kiss her again before urging her toward the stairs. "Among other things," he added.

  It was all she could do to keep from melting into him again. "All those years of riding around beside you, I never knew you were a love machine."

  "Life is a constant learning process," he told her as they began
to climb the stairs.

  Heaven knew she wasn't about to argue with that.

  * * * * *

  He stepped out of the shadows, still watching the house, as he had been for the duration of the evening. Briefly he considered going back into the yard. The gate was still open after he'd picked the lock. He was going to have to fix that before morning.

  But right now, his anger rose in his throat like hot bile. It colored everything he saw and would impede his actions. In this state, he was prone to making a mistake.

  Just as Lila had made hers.

  Jared popped his head into his father's office on the off chance of finding him in. This was his third try.

  It was always a fifty-fifty chance that the room would be empty. Everyone, especially the family, knew that Brian Cavanaugh believed in being a hands-on chief of d's. That meant making the rounds of the different departments he was responsible for, getting to know his detectives and their methods of operating. He'd stand back and silently listen to their interrogations, read through their reports and talk to them as equals. Most of the force hoped that he would never retire.

  Jared was gratified to find him in this morning. And surprised to see his father's chair turned away from his desk, facing the window. The former was piled high with the contents of the two boxes that Brian had brought to him from the basement.

  For a second Jared debated slipping away again. His father obviously had a lot on his mind. But the internal debate was terminated the next moment as his father turned toward him.

  "Jared, what are you doing here?" Even as he greeted his son, things began to click into place in his mind. This was serendipity, Brian thought.

  His hand in his coat pocket, Jared fingered the tickets he had come about. The expression on his father's face distracted him for a second. He seemed different somehow. The conversation he'd had this morning at breakfast with Uncle Andrew came back to him.

  Crossing the threshold, Jared smiled. "Hi, you got a minute?"

  "For you, always." They weren't just empty words. Jared knew his father, possibly the busiest man in Aurora, sincerely meant them. "What's on your mind?"

  "I've got baseball tickets to a game tomorrow. The A's are playing. First game of a three-game series," he added. The Oakland A's were his father's favorite team. Going to baseball games had been a family ritual when they were kids. "I thought that maybe you'd like to come with me."

  Brian had been poring over the files on his desk all morning and there was a headache building behind his eyes. Someday soon he was going to have to break down and finally get reading glasses.

  Leaning back in his chair now, he laced his fingers behind his head.

  "Why isn't Maren going with you?"

  Jared produced the tickets, placing them on top of a closed folder on the desk.

  "I didn't ask her." He didn't mention that right now his wife was too busy fighting overwhelming nausea to go anywhere. "She can't see the point of grown men getting paid a fortune for hitting a ball with a little stick." He shrugged off the sentiment. "Besides, I thought it'd been a while since you and I did anything together and I know how much you like the A's. It's not that far away and I'll drive," he offered in case his father saw that as a problem.

  "Thanks, I appreciate it, but I'm going to have to pass." Because he enjoyed the company of all his kids, he hated saying no. "I'm going to be busy."

  "Burning the midnight oil here?" Jared guessed, nodding at the boxes.

  "No." He'd been spending a good deal of his off hours with Lila for the past couple of weeks. He'd been to her place and had her over to his. It amazed him how much warmth and light she brought into his house. It no longer felt cold or empty the way it had ever since Janelle had gotten married.

  His father was turning down spending time with a family member and it wasn't because of the demands of his work. Curious, Jared studied his father's face for a moment. There was something in his father's eyes, a gleam that he hadn't seen in quite some time.

  A grin split Jared's face as it suddenly lit up. "Uncle Andrew was right, there is a spring to your step."

  Brian eyed him. "In case you haven't noticed, I happen to be sitting down. Don't make me doubt your powers of observation, Detective."

  "You know what I mean."

  Brian assumed the face of complete innocence. "Haven't the slightest."

  Jared cocked his head, his eyes narrowing. Only one thing he knew of that made a man look like that. "You seeing somebody?"

  "I see lots of people every day. It's part of my job."

  Jared slipped the tickets into his pocket. "I think you have this backward. Kids are supposed to be evasive with their parents, not the other way around."

  '"Kids,"' Brian pointed out, "aren't supposed to give their parents the third degree."

  Jared crossed his arms before him and leaned against the wall, still studying his father. "This isn't even a first degree, it's a casual question. You've just turned down free tickets to a baseball game. You're going to be busy, but not with police work—"

  The excuse he'd given himself for seeing her as much as he was, was that he was looking into Lila's mysterious caller. "That's not entirely true."

  That brought Jared up short. "Then it does involve police work?"

  Brian spread his hands, unwilling to explain any further. "In a way."

  A little of the impatience they shared surfaced within Jared. "Are you going to tell me or do I have to guess?"

  Brian glanced toward the folder he'd been looking at earlier. The silent debate in his head took a new turn. "I'm the chief of detectives, you don't get to guess. But you do get to do something for me."

  Jared stopped leaning and moved forward. "I'm listening."

  "I'm looking into an old homicide."

  That would explain the boxes and the folders everywhere. Jared nodded toward the one closest to him. "A cold case?"

  Brian had never cared for the generic label. "Lukewarm." When Jared looked amused, he added, "It's only three and a half years old."

  "What's so special about it?" It would have to be special in order to get his father to personally dig into it when there were fresh cases on the books for him to oversee.

  The word "special" didn't seem to fit, at least not as far as he was concerned. Heinous was more like it, since it involved a cop killing. "Ben Mclntyre and his partner, Dean Walker, were found murdered on the beach within two days of one another. Everyone just assumed that someone from the drug cartel did it, but they never found anyone actually guilty."

  It was hard having something like that on the record. Despite his own workload, Jared was willing to pitch in. "What do you want me to do?"

  "I'd like you to nose around a bit—off the record." He felt that was important. If Ben had been a dirty cop, he might have had other "partners" than the one who'd been killed with him. There was no sense in alerting anyone at this stage. "See if anyone's heard someone bragging about 'getting away with' a double cop killing." In his experience, bragging rights were all part of the game. "You know, a friend of a friend who has a friend who heard so-and-so say he killed a couple of cops on the take, that kind of thing."

  Jared narrowed his eyes. "You're looking for hearsay?"

  That wasn't his first choice but you took what you could. "You have to start somewhere," Brian told him with a shrug. "At this point, I'm looking for anything that'll give me a clue. See if you can get Troy and Callie to help you," he suggested, naming both his son and his oldest niece.

  "Mclntyre," Jared repeated, looking at his father. And then it dawned on him. "Wasn't that the name of your old partner? Lila?" One thought led to another. "Ben Mclntyre, the vice cop, that was her husband, right?" Brian nodded. "Why are you looking into this now—or is that one of the questions I'm not supposed to be asking?"

  Brian began moving the stacks of paper around, searching for the file he wanted to give Jared so he could familiarize himself with the case. He'd just seen it a few minutes ago.


  "For future reference, you're never supposed to question the chief of d's." He glance up at Jared. "But you can ask," he told him magnanimously. "I'm looking into it because Lila Mclntyre called me a couple of weeks ago." He debated leaving it at that, then decided that Jared needed a little more information. "She's been getting strange phone calls in the middle of the night. Could be nothing, could be something. Could be tied to Ben's murder. I don't know but I thought I'd have some of my best people poke around, see what they come up with. Sometimes fresh eyes can see things the way weather-beaten detectives can't..." Brian's voiced trail off.

  His interest was piqued already. "You don't have to use flattery."

  "I'm not," Brian said simply. "If you weren't good, I'd let you know."

  Jared nodded, knowing that his father would find a way to temper any criticism. He wasn't the type just to tear someone apart "for their own good." More than most, Brian Cavanaugh was a people person. "So is Lila the reason you're standing me up?"

  Brian spared his oldest a warning glance. "I'd use my investigative powers elsewhere if I were you, Detective Cavanaugh."

  Jared grinned. "Sorry, it doesn't always work that way. Just so you know, I think Lila Mclntyre's a neat lady. She used to give me gummy bears when you two were partners."

  "Gummy bears," Brian echoed, shaking his head. Lila always had a supply of them with her. He'd just assumed she'd picked them up for her own kids whenever she got the chance. "Is that how you measure people's worth?"

  The humor in Jared's eyes was hard to miss. "Among other things."

  "I should pass that on to Maren. Here, I want you to go through this. Highlights of the case," Brian added as he unearthed the folder he needed and passed it to his son.

  "Maren already knows. She's part of the 'among other things' package," Jared told him. He tapped the folder he'd just been handed. "I'll get back to you on this."

  "Good." Jared began to leave. Brian called after him. "And, Jared—"

  Jared pivoted on his heel, turning to face his father again. "Yes?"

  "This is just between us." He saw a hint of a skeptical look pass over Jared's face. "Lila doesn't want her kids knowing anything about this."