“Brock’s got a bumped head. Trina, Eve, and I have some bruises. Farmer’s alive.” Two uniformed officers came through the front door. “Backup just arrived.”
“Good. It’ll be a pleasure to see him rot in prison. I’ll let Olivia know.”
“What about Donner?”
“Still no sign of him,” Abbott said, but Noah’s attention was suddenly fixed on Farmer who had stopped screaming and was now laughing like a crazed hyena.
“Wait,” Noah said to Abbott, then crouched next to Farmer. “What’s so funny?”
“You,” Farmer said. “Looking for Donner. He almost got you good tonight.”
“What are you talking about?”
Farmer shrugged, a smirk on his face. “You’ll see. Or maybe you won’t, then pow. It’ll be night-night-Noah and your pretty Eve, too.”
Noah leaned in close. “Tell me what you know,” he said quietly.
Farmer’s smirk grew more mocking. “Or you’ll do what? Other than kill me, there’s nothing more you can do to me.” His smirk became a sneer. “So go fuck yourself.”
Noah rose and nodded to the uniforms. “Take him in. Mirandize him again. He screamed while I did it and I don’t want any sleazy lawyer saying he never was advised of his rights. Keep him restrained, and watch his damn feet,” he called after them.
“What did he mean?” Abbott asked. “Night-night-Noah.”
“I don’t know. But he’d heard Donner’s name before.” Then Noah remembered. “Of course. He was at Marshall yesterday. He met Jeremy Lyons, who works for Donner. He might have met Donner then. What did you find at Donner’s house?”
“Broken glass in a back door, nobody home. Looks like he and his wife went away.”
“Damn. Do we know where?” Noah demanded.
“I’ve got a request for his LUDs in process, Noah,” Abbott said. “And a BOLO. None of the neighbors know where they might have gone.”
Noah sighed. “I really believed Donner wasn’t our man. Now, he’s bolted and Crazy Boy Farmer says he’s out to get me. I should have had surveillance on him all along.”
“I put surveillance in front of the two women’s houses you sent me, Natalie Clooney and Kathy Kirk. For now, we have Eve’s frequent users covered, so his victim pool has been warned. You go home, get some rest. You’ve had a pretty busy day.”
Noah found himself too relieved to argue. “Haven’t we all. How’s Jack?”
“Still critical. They said they’d know by morning. I’ll call you with any news.”
Thursday, February 25, 12:25 a.m.
Noah turned off his engine and everything went silent as the two of them sat in his driveway. They had been inordinately lucky.
Or fate had smiled. Eve wasn’t sure which she believed anymore.
She only knew the silence had grown louder with every mile. When he hadn’t taken the turnoff to her apartment, she’d known this moment was coming. Her mind kept going back to the backseat of his old car and inside her whirled arousal… and fear. A lot of fear. In her mind she knew it was unfounded. Noah wouldn’t hurt her.
After staring straight ahead at his garage door for a full minute, she chanced a glance at Noah from the corner of her eye. He looked grim. “I don’t know what to do next,” he confessed and she saw compassion as an easy way out for them both.
“Noah, you’re tired. Take me home and get some rest, just like Abbott ordered.”
“Do you want that?” he asked, and her pounding heart pounded harder.
“If we go inside, what happens next?”
He didn’t blink. “We can sleep. Or not. Your call.”
Everything inside her clenched. “Can we just dip our toe in and see where it goes?”
“We can do anything you want, Eve,” he said, volleying the ball into her court again.
“It’s just…” She shrugged. “The last time I had sex with a guy he tried to kill me.”
Now he blinked. “You said there’d been another between then and now.”
“One other that didn’t go very well. Actually, it didn’t go at all.”
His dark brows went up, hidden beneath the brim of his hat. “Why not?”
“He couldn’t. He really tried, but he… couldn’t.”
“Did you love him?”
“No. It was more like a mutual favor between friends.” She pursed her lips. “Yeah.”
Noah pushed his hat back on his head and stared at her. “I don’t understand.”
“Well, remember that doctor? The one who’d had the accident?”
“You had sex with him?”
“Well… no. Which is the point. He and I got to talking one day and I wondered if I still could. You know, if everything still… worked. He said he’d be willing to try.”
“What a guy,” Noah said dryly.
“Yeah, well.” Eve chuckled awkwardly. “It’s kind of funny now, but it sure wasn’t funny then, for either of us. I think I was more upset for him than about myself.”
“Not surprising,” he murmured.
“About a year ago he called me. He’s met someone and he’s happy. And functional.” Her smile was half fond and half embarrassed. “He made sure I knew that.”
“What a guy,” Noah said again. He hooked his finger under her chin, tugging until she looked up at him again. Then his head dipped, his mouth covered hers, and he kissed her so thoroughly her toes curled in her boots. He pulled back just far enough to see her face. “You want to dip your toe in, Eve, or do you want to dive into a cold pool?”
In his eyes was heated challenge she couldn’t ignore if she wanted to. And, to her relief, she found she didn’t want to. “Cold pool,” she said and his eyes flashed, with triumph probably. But that was okay because she was feeling triumphant herself.
Noah paused long enough to throw the deadbolt on his front door and take her computer bag and coat. Then he took her hand and led her back to his bed.
He’d had a flash of insight at Brock and Trina’s. For all Eve’s outer calm, she was timid. Terrified even. The last six years of her life had been all about dipping her toe in.
But he’d watched her when she was put face to face with people. She interacted. She came alive. She just needed that nudge. So did I. He’d needed whatever had put them together. Call it fate or luck or whatever, he didn’t intend to spend another day watching her over his tonic water.
He stopped next to his bed, set his gun on his nightstand. Then he slid his hands into her short hair and took her mouth the way he’d wanted to from the first moment he’d laid eyes on her, letting her feel what he’d kept pent up for one very long year. With a low, satisfied hum she leaned up into him, grabbing his wrists for balance, then her hands slid down his arms, under his suit coat, flattening against his back. With kissing she was comfortable. He prayed she’d be comfortable with what came next.
“These are the rules of this game,” he said against her lips. “You say ‘stop’ or ‘wait’ at any time and I will. But if you say nothing, I keep going. Okay?”
“Okay,” she said breathlessly, her fingers digging into his back. “Just hurry.”
But he wouldn’t hurry. He’d given them the nudge they needed, but had no intention of flying so fast that they missed the trip. He spent time on her mouth, kissing her long and deep and lush until the hands that gripped his back slid up his chest and around his neck. He ran his mouth over the cheek she could feel and down the scar she couldn’t.
He ran his lips down her neck, over and past the leather choker he’d never seen her without, until he got to the collar of her sweater. She’d pushed his suit coat off his shoulders and to the floor and was tugging his shirt from his trousers and it was all he could do not to throw her on the bed and plunge deep.
But he didn’t hurry, didn’t rush. Didn’t push her. Didn’t need to. She was struggling with the buttons of his shirt and he pulled back to give her room.