CHAPTER ONE
Nick
Faith Winter is the problem. She’s dangerous. Far more than her mother. She must be stopped.
Those are my dead father’s words, scribbled on a piece of paper I’d found in his things only minutes ago. Words now burned in my mind, as I stand in the doorway of my bedroom, staring at Faith as she sleeps, moonlight from a nearby window casting her in a soft glow. Her blonde hair draped over my pillow. Her amber and vanilla scent a sweet whisper in the air on my skin. While the wordsshe’s dangerousrepeat in my mind again and again, radiating through me like an electric charge, but not because I trusted my father’s opinion about anything. But rather, there is no denying the fact that I did seek Faith out with the opinion that he was murdered, perhaps by her.
And he didn’t say she’s trouble or a problem or difficult. He said that she’s dangerous.
And yet, as seconds tick by, I am riveted by the image of Faithin my bed,where I invited her to sleep, and holy fuck, I like her there. Iwanther there, when I never let anyone else in my house, let alone in my bed. I’m obsessed with this woman, and as Faith herself warned yesterday, obsession is dangerous. Some—most—would say fucking a woman you suspect killed her mother and your father is dangerous, but it doesn’t seem to matter. I want her. I am crazy about this woman, and maybe that just makes me crazy.
Needing space to clear my head, I walk across the room toward the bathroom, my tie and jacket that I’d worn to tonight’s event at the Merit gallery, gone, and I don’t even remember removing them. I remember Faith. Her smile as she’d been praised for her art. The way she trembled with the news of her success, when she is not a woman that trembles. Not unless it’s with pleasure. And these thoughts are exactly why I stop myself from turning back to her, because what I really want is to be in that bed with her. But, when I’m with her, touching her, kissing her, just fucking holding her, even looking at her in my bed, I am not objective. And yet, knowing this, I reach the doorway, about to escape into the quiet sanctuary of the next room, seconds from the space I need to rein in my thoughts, and fuck me, I find myself pausing in the doorway, facing the bed again.
She stirs suddenly, as if she senses me watching her, a soft, sexy sound slipping from her lips as she shifts from her side to her back, her hand settling on the pillow next to her. She instantly rolls over to where I should be, reaching for me, only to sit up, the sheet falling away, and even in the shadows, I am aware of her naked breasts, her naked body that I know feels so damn good against mine. “Nick?” she calls out, turning in my direction, sensing me here.
And the minute she says my name, her voice is like silk on the sandpaper of my nerves, and I know that if she’s dangerous, I’m fucking high on the danger. And if that is what she is, I want that danger on my tongue, in my hands, in my bed.
I rotate and press my hand to the doorframe over my head, shutting my eyes. What the hell am I doing? Either I have a killer in my bed, which I reject as an option, or I have a woman I’m falling in love with who has to hate me for lying to her.Love. Damn it to hell, where did that come from? I don’t do love. I don’t do commitment, and once again, I have to remind myself that you don’t prove guilt when you’re looking for innocence. And yet, I know this woman is not a killer.
Dangerous, though. That word just won’t let go of me. Why the fuck did my father use that word?
“I just finished up some work,” I say, lifting my face to the ceiling, lashes lowered. “I’m going to shower and I’ll be there in a few minutes.” I’ve no sooner said the words before Faith is not only slipping between me and the wall, my gaze riveted to her moon-kissed naked skin, resting against the doorframe under my hand. My body arches in such a way that she can’t easily touch me, and I don’t touch her, but I want to, and I don’t even remember in this moment, why I resisted doing so before now.
“What’s wrong?” she asks.
Aside from the fact that my dead father called you dangerous, I think, or that your stunning, naked breasts should not be in my hands, I need time to think. But since she doesn’t know about my father,can’tknow about my father, not yet, I offer her the expected answer of, “Nothing is wrong.”
“Liar,” she whispers.
“Work is on my mind,” I supply, and that’s not wholly untrue. I was working on the mystery of two murders when I found that note.
“Liar,” she repeats, her tone sharp, some unidentifiable jagged-edged emotions radiating off of her, or maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it’s my jagged-edged emotions that are crashing into her and then slamming right back into me.
“I’ve been watching you sleep,” I say, embracing every honest word I can speak to Faith when so much,toomuch, has been lies.
Her eyes open, and even in the shroud of shadows, I feel the punch of her gaze colliding with mine. “That’s not an answer,” she says. “That’s a deflection, and deflection doesn’t suit you any more than fear.” It’s a reference to the night that she’d pulled a knife on me and used it to remove my shirt buttons, and I understand the message: We feel like we did then, uncertain, incomplete in some way.
“I wonder,” she continues, pushing off the wall, her hands pressed to my chest, the slight but firm heft of her body weight knocking me backward, against the wall, “if I held a knife in my hand now, if you would trust me to cut the buttons off your shirt, or would you wonder if I would cut you instead?”
I’m not sure if she’s daring me to trust her or pushing me to do the opposite. Pushing me away. Pulling me closer. It’s all the same with her. With one always comes the other. “We aren’t where we were then,” I say, but I don’t touch her. Once I touch her, I won’t stop, though I’m really fucking trying to figure out why the fuck that feels important right now.
“And yet I feel the same now as then,” she says, “and so do you. And don’t lie again. You know I’m right.”
“It’s not the same.”
“It is. And we are. And that leaves only one of the possibilities you had us proclaim earlier tonight. Me making us both forget all the rest. Whatever the rest actually is, since you won’t tell me what’s wrong.”
Suddenly, she’s peeling away her panties, the only garment she’d worn when she’d gone to bed. The next moment, she’s kneeling, her hands on my knees, her head tilted down. I know exactly where this is going, and if I intend to keep my head clear, I should stop it now. Only the head on my shoulders isn’t the one doing the thinking. Not when Faith’s hand strokes the one between my legs that has been hard as a rock since her and all her naked curves slid in front of me. Hell, since practically the moment I met this woman. She tugs my shirt out of my pants and starts unbuttoning it, her gaze reaching mine as she says, “If I only had that knife.”
I don’t laugh. She doesn’t laugh. The edge between us is as jagged as those emotions beating through me and obviously into her. I reach up and undo several buttons on my shirt, just enough to then pull it over my head, tossing it into the bedroom. It’s not even hit the ground, and Faith has not only unbuckled my belt, she’s pulling it free of my pants.
It hits the floor, and she reaches for my zipper, wasting no time freeing my cock. She grips it, her hold firm and confident. Her eyes boldly finding mine as she licks the end of my erection and then draws it into her mouth, her message clear: Right now, she demands control, a response I strongly believe to be a reaction, to the questions I’ve allowed to stir between us. She needs to own me right now. And while, I don’t let anyone own me, even if they do have their mouth on my cock, I’m oddly at peace with this woman’s power. There’s a message in that regard, which I’ll analyze when I’m not hyper-focused on the silk of her tongue and the sweet suction of her mouth.
And damn, if she’s not licking every last inch of me.
And damn, if I’m not at her mercy.
Heat and adrenaline pulse through me, and my hand finds her head, fingers slipping into her hair, but I don’t even need to guide her. She’s exactly where I need her,howI need her. There is something about this woman’s mouth, her tongue, that is quite possibly heaven on earth. It’s a bliss that I welcome, and yet, suddenly I’m not in this heavenly moment. I’m flashing back to right before she fell asleep. To me helping her undress.