Pride And Pregnancy

The landscape outside the car hadn’t changed since they’d hit the open plains, so she turned her attention to Tom. They were driving west and he still had his sunglasses on. She couldn’t read him. The only thing that gave her a clue to his mental state was how he kept tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. At least, she thought it was a clue. He might just be bored out of his mind.

It wasn’t fair. She hadn’t thought of the Verango case in, what—ten years? Twelve? But that was exactly the sort of thing a bad guy would be looking for, because she didn’t have anything kinky hiding in her closet. And a vibrator didn’t count. At least she hoped it didn’t.

She liked sex. She’d like to have more of it, preferably with someone like Tom—but only if it were the kind that couldn’t come back to bite her. No messy relationships, no birth control slipups, no strings attached.

Not that she wanted to have sex with him. But the man had inspired weeks of wet dreams, all because he had an intense look and an air of invulnerability about him. And that body. Who could forget that body?

She wished like hell she didn’t have this primal reaction to him. Even riding next to him was torture. She was aware of him in a way she couldn’t ignore, no matter how hard she tried. She felt it when he shifted in his seat, as if there were invisible threads binding them together. And that wasn’t even the worst of it. Although he had the AC blasting on high, she was the kind of hot that had nothing to do with the temperature outside. Her bra was too tight and she wanted out of this top.

She’d love to go for a swim. She needed to do something to cool down before she did something ridiculous, like parading around his home in nothing but her panties.

And the fact that her brain was even suggesting that as a viable way to kill a weekend was a freaking huge problem. Because getting naked anywhere near Tom Yellow Bird would be a mistake. Yes, it might very well be a mistake she enjoyed making—but that wouldn’t change the fact that it would still be a gross error in judgment, one that might compromise a case or—worse—get her blackmailed. A mistake like that could derail her entire career—and for what? For a man who wasn’t even talking to her? No. She couldn’t make another mistake like that.

Rationally, she knew her perfectionism wasn’t healthy. Her parents had never treated her like a mistake, and besides, they were dead. And she couldn’t take responsibility for the fact that Trent had been a whiny, entitled kid who’d grown into a bitter, hateful man. She didn’t have to do everything just right in a doomed effort to keep the peace in the family.

Yes, rationally, she knew all of that. But her objective knowledge didn’t do anything to put her at ease as Tom drove like the devil himself was gaining on them.

Finally, Caroline couldn’t take it anymore. She had expected a fifteen-minute car trip to a different side of town. Not this mad dash across the Great Plains. It was beginning to feel little bit like a kidnapping—one that she had been complicit in. “Where, exactly, do you live?”

“Not too much farther,” he said, answering the wrong question.

But he’d actually responded, and she couldn’t pass up this chance to get more out of him. “If you’re spiriting me away to the middle of nowhere just to do me in, it’s not going to go well for you.” She didn’t harbor any illusions that she could make an impact on him. He was armed and dangerous, and for all she knew, he was a black belt or something. She was good at jogging. She had taken a few self-defense classes. She wasn’t going to think about how long ago, though.

That got a laugh out of him, which only made her madder. “I have no intention of killing you. Or harming you,” he added as an afterthought.

“You’ll forgive me if I don’t find that terribly reassuring.”

“Then why did you get in the car with me?”

She shook her head, not caring if he could see it or not. “I just realized that when I said something felt off at my house, you trusted me. Anyone else would’ve told me I was imagining things. I’m returning the favor.” She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. “Don’t let it go to your head.”

“I doubt you’ll let that happen.”

The car slowed as he took an exit. But he was going so fast that she didn’t get her eyes open to see the name or number of the exit. They were literally in the middle of nowhere. She hadn’t seen so much as a cow for the last—what, ten or twenty miles? It was hard to tell at the speeds they’d been traveling.

“Dare I ask how you define ‘not too much farther’?”

“Are you hungry?”

She was starving, but that didn’t stop her from glancing at the clock in the dashboard. The sun was low over the horizon.

“Do you always do that?” He tilted his head in her direction without making eye contact. At least, she assumed. She was beginning to hate those sunglasses. “Answer a question with an unrelated statement?”

She saw his lips twitch. “Dinner will be waiting for us. I hope pizza is all right?”

See, that was the sort of statement that made her wonder about him. He’d clearly said he was taking her to his house. Was he the kind of guy who had a personal chef? That didn’t fit with the salary of an FBI agent.

But she couldn’t figure out how to phrase that particular question without it sounding like an accusation. Instead, she said, “So that’s a yes. And,” she added before he could start laughing, “pizza is fine. Better if it has sausage and peppers on it. Mushrooms are also acceptable. Do you have any ice cream? Wine?”

“I can take care of you.”

Perhaps it was supposed to be an innocent statement—a reflection of his preparedness for emergency guests. But that’s not how Caroline took it.

Maybe her defenses were lower because she was tired and worried. But the moment his words filled the small space between them, her body reacted—hard. Her nipples tightened almost to the point of pain as heat flooded her stomach and pooled lower. Her toes curled, and she had to grip the handle on the passenger door to keep from moaning with raw need.

Heavens, what was with her? It had been a long day. That was all. There was no other explanation as to why a simple phrase, spoken in a particularly deep tone of voice, would have such an impact on her.

She locked the whole system down. No moaning, no shivering, and absolutely no heated glances at Tom. Besides, how would she know if his glances were heated or not? He still had on those damn sunglasses.

Instead, in a perfectly level voice, she said, “That remains to be seen, doesn’t it?” She took it as a personal victory when he gripped the steering wheel with both hands.

Silence descended in the car again. If she’d had no idea where she was before, she had less now. They’d left the highway behind. The good news was that Tom was probably only doing sixty instead of breaking the sound barrier. With each turn, the roads bore less and less resemblance to an actual paved surface. But she didn’t start to panic until he turned where there didn’t seem to be any road at all, just a row of ragged shrubs. He opened the glove box and fished out a...remote?

“What are you doing?” she demanded.

He didn’t answer. Of course he didn’t. Instead, he aimed the remote at the shrubs and clicked the button.

The whole thing rolled smoothly to the side. She blinked and then blinked again. Really, her head was a mess. She was going to need a whole bottle of wine after this. “Be honest—are you Batman?”

He cracked a grin that did terrible, wonderful things to her body. Her mouth went dry and the heat that she had refused to feel before came rushing back, a hot summer wind that carried the promise of a storm. Because there was something electric in the air when he turned to face her. She wanted to lick his neck to taste the salt of his skin.

Maybe she would strip down. Her clothing was becoming unbearable. “Would you believe me if I said I was?”

She thought about that. Well, at least she tried to. Thinking was becoming hard. She was so hot. “Only if you’ve got an elderly British butler waiting for you.”

His grin deepened and, curse her body, it responded, leaning toward him of its own volition. “I don’t. Turns out elderly British butlers don’t like to work off the grid in the middle of nowhere.”

That got her attention. “I thought you said you had a home?” She looked around, feeling the weight of the phrase wide-open spaces for the first time. There was nothing around here except the highly mobile fake shrubbery. “I don’t see...”

Then she saw it—in the direction where the ruts disappeared down the drive, there were trees off in the distance. “This is a real house, right? If you live in a van down by the river, I’m going to be pissed. A real house with pizza,” she added. “And a real bed. I will walk back to Pierre before I crash in a sleeping bag.”

It wasn’t fair, that grin. His muscles weren’t fair, his jaw wasn’t fair and the way he had of looking at her—that, most of all, wasn’t fair. Especially right now, when it was pretty obvious to everyone—all two of them—that her filters were failing her.