Passion's Price

Darlene did not have rest in mind. She quietly walked up the stairs, paused at the guest room, turned and looked toward the stairs to see if Mike had followed her. When she saw that he hadn’t, she opened and then closed the door to give the impression that she’d gone inside the room. Then she tiptoed down the hall and peeped in what she assumed was the master bedroom, a very masculine setting with a big mahogany sleigh bed, a Bokhara rug and wood blinds. She stepped in, looked in the bathroom and shook her head. No possibility there. She left the master and looked in the next room. The room next door didn’t offer an opportunity for escape, either. Even if she managed to get out, the window was at the front of the house, and she’d be caught.

She saw a door slightly ajar at the end of the hall, peeped in and saw a spa bath. Figuring that if she stepped into the Jacuzzi, she could stand on the edge of it to reach the window, which did not seem to be locked, she decided to risk it. She sat on the edge of the treadmill, pulled off her four-inch heels and stepped into the tub. After an exhausting struggle balancing precariously on the edge of the Jacuzzi, she managed to raise the window about eight inches. She grabbed the windowsill, pushed her body upward, closed her eyes and got as much as her shoulders out of the window.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing, woman? Are you trying to kill yourself? Not even a fool would deliberately plunge headfirst into a rock garden!”

She didn’t realize that her skirt hem had crawled nearly to her waist until she felt his strong fingers clasp her thighs. As scared as she was, the feeling of his hands, gentle but firm, sent shock waves through her body. With one hand just below her buttocks and the other under her armpits, he pulled her body inch by inch back into the room.

“This window won’t open any farther,” he said, “and I don’t want to hurt you. Try to move your head to the side so that I can get you in here without bruising you.”

“Nobody asked you to do this,” she said, fuming at having been caught. “Take your hands off me.”

“Now you listen to me, Darlene. If you’d been successful, you’d be dead by now. Jumping feetfirst would have rewarded you with a broken leg and maybe a severely injured spine, but headfirst…” He pulled her in a bit more. “I’ve tried to protect you, but you don’t believe you’re in jeopardy. If I open that front door and give you permission to leave, I guarantee that you wouldn’t reach the end of this block without being followed. If you were lucky enough to get to your hotel, you’d be a sitting duck there.”

“Nobody would bother me in that hotel.”

His left hand cradled the back of her head as he eased her feet to the bottom of the Jacuzzi.

“Don’t ever do anything like that again,” he said, still holding her in his arms.

Embarrassed, frustrated and flustered, intending to give him one of her razor-sharp barbs, she looked up at him and gasped. Every inch of her skin, every nerve in her body responded to the fiery turbulence in his eyes. She couldn’t move and didn’t want to.

“You…uh…you can put me down now.”

With his hand at the back of her head, he stared down into her eyes. “That isn’t what you want, and it is definitely not what I want.” His lips were an inch from hers.

“Open your mouth and take me in.”

“P-put m-me down. I…” His lips parted, and his masculine aura enveloped her until, nearly out of her mind with a strange, peculiar need for him, her hands went behind his head and brought his mouth to hers.

“Kiss me, baby.” The hoarseness of his voice communicated a sense of urgency. She pulled him into her mouth and tasted him as if she’d never had anything so good. His tongue began to dip and sample every crevice of her mouth, teasing and tantalizing her until the heat at her core made her thighs tremble. He didn’t spare her, and when his hand went to her breast, she clasped the back of it, pressing it to her flesh. He rubbed her nipple until she was ready to beg him to take it into his mouth. But when his other hand went to her buttocks, she came to herself and moved back. He released her at once.

But he brought her back to him in a gentle hug that heightened her desire. “You didn’t intend for it to go that far, and neither did I, but don’t tell me you’re sorry.”

“I’m not in the habit of lying, Detective—I mean Mike.”

“So you’re not sorry?”

She stepped out of his embrace and put on her shoes. “A lot of good being sorry would do. I just want to get back home.”

He began to readjust his clothing, revealing taut muscular abs. He was the epitome of the kind of man she’d dreamed of.

“Some people kiss and tell. It seems you kiss and run.”

Without thinking, she threw her left shoe at him. “You know exactly how to get on my last nerve.”

“I don’t get on your nerves, Darlene. I remind you that you’re a woman, and you don’t want to think about that.” He picked up the shoe and handed it to her.

Darlene jumped up. With her body inches from his, she wagged her finger in his face. “If you say something like that to me again, I’ll…I’ll…”

He grabbed the moving finger. “You’ll what? Come, let’s go downstairs. Boyd probably thinks I’ve killed you.”

“You’re probably right,” she said. “I suspect he’s not dealing with a full deck, but he’s such a sweet man. I like him.”

He took her hand and then dropped it. “Yeah. I like him, too. A lot, and as long as I have this job, nobody’s going to harm him.”

A frown creased her face. Did Mike think her capable of harming Boyd, or anyone else? She left his side and rushed down the stairs ahead of him, annoyed with herself for having what, until that moment, had been for her a tender, sweet and memorable kiss.

He bounded down the stairs behind Darlene and stepped in front of her. “What tripped your trigger this time?”

With a toss of her head, she walked around him. “You do that more easily than anybody I ever knew.”

“I don’t doubt it. Let me know when you figure out why.”

“Are you all right, Darlene?” Boyd asked her. “What happened? I don’t think you had time to get a little rest.”

“No, I didn’t. But Michael, I mean Mike, wanted to be certain that I stayed in line, so he came up to check on me. I think I’ll stay down here so that he can keep an eye on me.”

“She means I caught her trying to escape out of the window. Tonight, she sleeps down here on the couch.”

“Oh, my,” Boyd said. “I do wish the two of you would be friends.”

“Thanks, Boyd, but try being friends with an angry lion and see where you end up. I should be allowed to make a call.”

“Stop worrying. I called your brother Clark, and he said you’re getting precisely what you deserve, because you’re nosy and you’re always getting into things that aren’t your business.”

She glared at him. “You telephoned my brother? How’d you find him, and who told you I have a brother?”

Mike lifted his right shoulder in a quick and dismissive shrug. “It appears that the Cunninghams of Frederick, Maryland, are well-known. I’m a police detective. There isn’t much I can’t find out.”

“I could dislike you a lot.”

She wanted to wipe the smug expression off his face.

“But you won’t. You’re a smart lawyer, and that means you have a good memory. I’m betting you won’t be able to forget what happened upstairs for a long time.”

She opened her mouth to deny it, but she was a good lawyer, and she couldn’t lie. Without saying a word, she sat down and looked away from him.

Chapter 2

The doorbell rang. Mike started toward the front door, stopped and turned to Darlene. “Stay put and don’t say a word. It could be anybody, and you could be in danger.” He put his right hand under the left side of his jacket and went to the door.

“Hey, man, am I glad to see you,” he said after slipping the chain and opening the door. “I need to pick up a few things. There isn’t a bit of coffee in this house.”

Mike led another man into the room.

“You can bring some when you come tomorrow morning,” the other man said.

“I’m thinking of changing things here. You have a family, and I don’t. This is a four-bedroom house, so I can bunk here,” Mike said as he led the other man, presumably his replacement, into the living room. “Come on in, and I’ll introduce you to the latest addition to our problem. Detective Cody Johnson, this is attorney Darlene Cunningham.” Cody walked over to Darlene and looked at her, though he didn’t offer to shake hands.