скачать книгу бесплатно
His words contradicted his naughty expression.
He openly looked her over, his gaze lingering in places that made her blush everywhere but on her cheeks. Well, at least those on her face.
She glanced down. She held the throw between her breasts, leaving them both bare. When she’d faced him, the fabric had twisted around her legs, her pubis clearly visible.
She gasped and turned around to adjust the material, then realized she was giving him a full back view. She couldn’t move fast enough to cover herself even as she ducked into the connecting bathroom.
Oh, no…oh, no…oh, no…
Regina leaned against the doorjamb, her eyes closed, her lungs refusing air.
This wasn’t happening… It wasn’t even remotely possible she…
What was going on?
Her mind reeled, racing from one thought to the next. Had all three of them spent the night together? In the apartment? In her bed?
She remembered kissing Linc. She ran her tongue over her lower lip. Boy, did she ever remember kissing Linc. And she even recalled some clothing removal. And soft moans. And…
Oh, God…
INCREDIBLE. She was even more beautiful in the morning. Short hair mussed and framing her face. Smudged mascara darkening her eyes, her mouth swollen.
Linc put down the coffee cups on the nightstand, noticing the way Vivienne lay back in the bed staring at him invitingly.
An invitation he wasn’t interested in acknowledging much less accepting.
“Well,” she said with a suggestive purr. “Since Reggie couldn’t tell me what happened last night, perhaps you can.”
He smiled rather than grimaced. “I’m heading out. Pass on my goodbyes.”
“Leaving so soon?” she asked. “Don’t hurry out on account of me.”
She was exactly the reason he was leaving.
“Nice meeting you, um…both,” he said.
Within moments, he was closing the front door of the ground-level apartment behind him. It would be nice if he could leave the image of Regina’s nakedness behind as easily.
Oh, nothing had happened. At least nothing near what the two women might believe. Not because the opportunity hadn’t existed. But in the end, no matter how attracted he’d been to Regina, he hadn’t been able to take advantage of her when she’d been so obviously intoxicated.
The memory of the taste of her mouth made him groan even as he allowed himself the freedom to recall exactly what had gone down last night. And what hadn’t…
They’d returned to the small apartment complex on the edge of town, a place like many that was short on quality but high on location, the view of the Rocky Mountains to the west enough to make a hole-ridden tent look appealing. He’d viewed it from the outside on several occasions over the past few days, but it was the first time he’d gotten a glimpse inside. He’d been surprised to find it so stark, barren of all sign of the woman who lived there. Well, except for the stacks of books, some that bore the plastic covers indicating they came from the library.
It reminded him of his place.
As he climbed into his company SUV, he ousted the reflection and replaced it with the memory of kissing Regina.
Or had she been kissing him?
Definitely a mutual kiss.
They’d been dancing in her living room, her face alluring in the flicker of the candlelight. Her friend Vivienne had essentially passed out on the sofa, an empty bottle of Merlot tucked in her arm, leaving him alone for all intents and purposes with Regina. Which is what he’d been angling for all evening.
She’d seemed to read his thoughts and swayed into him, her mouth millimeters from his.
Oh, he’d kissed her all right.
And kissed her and kissed her and kissed her.
He couldn’t recall a time when he’d enjoyed feeling a woman’s mouth against his so much.
Then she’d pressed her hips against his in an instinctively female way that set his every male instinct ablaze and he’d suddenly wanted much, much more.
In that one moment, he hadn’t cared if she stumbled a bit when he walked her toward her bedroom. He’d only known an intense desire to be buried deep inside her. To watch her mouth open in a soft moan. To hear her throaty sounds as they had sex.
They were no sooner in the bedroom than she was pulling open his jeans while simultaneously trying to strip him of his T-shirt. He’d chuckled, helping her even as she tugged at her own clothes.
Within seconds they were both naked…and she was dropping to her knees to take his pulsing length into her sweet mouth.
Linc swallowed hard, his jeans tightening at the mere memory. It had felt so good having her attention focused so intensely on pleasing him. More, it appeared she drew pleasure from the sexual act. He knew plenty of women who did it as part of a show, looking up at him perhaps in approval, or to check to make sure they were getting the reaction they were after. Not Regina. Her attention was solely on what she was doing.
And oh, she had done it so very, very well…
He hadn’t planned to come, but he couldn’t help himself. She’d easily adjusted, smoothing his semen over his still-hard length then licking him clean.
Hell, he’d nearly come again just watching her.
Then she’d stood up and nearly fell over.
And he knew he couldn’t take it any further.
He groaned now as he had then. He’d had every expectation that sex with her would be even better than the blow job, but he’d known it wasn’t a good idea to go any further than they had. Especially since he was afraid he’d allowed things to go too far already. He didn’t want her regretting anything that passed between the two of them. Ever.
As he drove toward his own apartment across town, he reminded himself there was another, primary reason why he needed to keep her friendly: she was the key to his catching her ex.
He grimaced. How had a woman like Regina ever become involved with the likes of Billy Johnson? It was a thought he wouldn’t have entertained for more than two moments before. Who cared, so long as he met his objective? But now that he’d spent a little time with her, he couldn’t help wondering what she’d found attractive in the no-good criminal.
As far as he could tell, she led a clean life. Even under her own name, she held no record.
She was the only child of a single mother. She’d grown up and had lived her entire life in the small town of Livermore Falls, Maine…until leaving after Johnson’s sentencing.
Could limited options have been the reason she’d hooked up with Johnson? A check of an online high school yearbook found Johnson had graduated two years before her. In a town where the entire senior class was only thirty students, he figured opportunities would have been greatly limited.
It was something with which he personally couldn’t identify having grown up in the Bronx, where he couldn’t have named ten percent of his graduating class much less every one of them.
At any rate, that was a long time ago.
His cell rang. He picked up on the second ring. “Yeah.”
“Some information came in on that fugitive.”
One of his contacts from Quantico.
“Shoot.”
“There’s a report out of August, Maine. It’s believed he was pulled over for speeding eighteen hours ago.”
“They’re holding him?”
“No, they let him go. They didn’t realize who they had until an hour afterward.”
Linc had heard far too many stories of a similar nature. Close calls, near misses. Of course, in this case, it was probably a good idea the officer hadn’t been following national news bulletins or he might have ended up dead.
He didn’t see Billy Johnson allowing himself to get nabbed during a routine traffic stop. Had the officer tried to arrest him, no doubt Johnson would have pulled out the gun he undoubtedly had. And he would have used it.
“So he’s hanging around home, then.”
“Looks that way.”
He thanked the contact and disconnected even as he pulled into the parking lot of his apartment complex. Ten minutes. That’s all it would take for him to grab a shower, dress and be back out in the car. He needed to check in at Lazarus, then map out Johnson’s possible whereabouts and try to figure out where he might be heading next.
And how long it would take him to make his way to Colorado Springs.
In the meantime, it was still a good idea to stick as close to Regina as possible.
His immediate jolt of desire at the prospect made him grimace…
4
“HEY! WATCH IT!”
Regina grabbed napkins from the table holder to mop up the water she’d just accidentally spilled on a guest. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know where my head is today.”
A lie, to be sure. She knew exactly where her head was. And where it had been all morning.
She was an hour into the lunch rush and this was the second time she’d spilled something. Unfortunately, the first time had been coffee. Fortunately, it hadn’t been on the customer.
Seeing as she worked mostly for tips, she figured she could rule out getting anything from the upset businessman who snatched the napkins from her and then waved her away.
Sigh.
She hadn’t been scheduled to work until later that afternoon, but the owner, Trudy Grant, had asked her to come in when one of the other waitresses called in sick. No matter how much she would have liked to decline, she could use the extra money. And anyway, she’d hoped keeping busy would take her mind off other, um, uncomfortable thoughts.
When she’d finally come out of the bathroom earlier that morning, she’d found Linc gone and Viv dressed. She and her friend sat down in the kitchen to drink the coffee he’d brought them (if that’s what you could call her choking down a small portion of it), but she’d quickly found out Viv wasn’t any more enlightened on the previous evening’s events than she was.
“God, I hope nothing happened,” Viv had said.
Regina had nodded in full agreement, relieved she shared her hope.
“Although not for the same reason as you, I suspect.” She’d sipped her coffee loudly. “If something like that goes down, I want to remember every last sweet moment of it.”
Regina had found an excuse to usher her friend and her outlandish ideas out of the apartment as quickly as possible. Then she’d spent the next two hours frenetically cleaning the place from top to bottom, although it hadn’t needed it. The physical activity had made her feel marginally better. But when she’d gone in to catch a shower, she’d discovered her mind going straight back to Linc and the night before.
She distinctly remembered him backing her into her bedroom…kissing…lots of kissing…and then she’d gotten down on her knees…and…
Oh, hell…
She spilled water from the pitcher again, this time on her way back to the kitchen. Brian, the busboy, shook his head and grabbed a mop to clean it up before someone slipped on the wet tile.
“Are you all right?” Trudy asked.
Regina finally put the water pitcher down and wiped her damp palms on the front of her white apron. “Late, um, night.”
“You? Well, then, you must tell me all about it.”
LINC SPOTTED REGINA the instant he walked into the diner.
It was just after seven and the dinner crowd was mostly gone. Regina sat at the end of the counter. One of her shoes was off and she slowly rubbed her bare foot against the shin of her other leg, engrossed in something she was reading in front of her. She was half turned away from the door, so he could see little more than her profile. But even in her plain gray uniform and white apron, her hair pulled up haphazardly, she was still the prettiest girl in the room, regardless of what room or how empty or full it was.
Damn. He’d hoped seeing her again would provide the evidence he needed to prove she was nothing special; allow him to forget how incredible it felt to have her full mouth on him. Instead, he couldn’t help noticing what made her unique, and the desire to sample that mouth seemed to have doubled.
Regina lifted her head as if hearing something. Then she turned and met his gaze as if knowing he was there looking at her.
He couldn’t help smiling.
And his groin tightened when she easily smiled back.
“Can I help you?” a girl who was probably no older than sixteen asked.
“I’ve got it, Tiffany,” Regina said, coming up behind her.
“I thought you clocked out?”
“Well, I just clocked back in.”
“Whatever.” The girl walked off.
Linc chuckled and Regina smiled.
“Need I ask if this is a coincidence?” she said, motioning for him to take a seat at one of the front booths. He slid in and she did the same opposite him.
“Is what a coincidence?”
“This. Your stopping by the same diner where I work.”
His grin widened. “You suggested I stop by. Remember?”
