Dangerous Waters (19 page)

She turned away and rested her hands on the edge of the stainless steel sink. He took another step closer and, drawn like a magnet, lifted the thick tresses of her hair over one shoulder.

“Nothing.” But her voice vibrated.

“I was just joking with you about the gadget thing.” Her hair smelled of rain. He tried not to inhale her.

“I know.” She shuddered.

Unable to resist, he reached out a finger and ran it down the line of her neck. Her skin was both hot and satin smooth. He took her shoulders gently in his hands and turned her around to face him. “I thought we’d reached some sort of working relationship?”

She nodded quickly. Too quickly, too quietly, too damn easily. Her eyes had lost their swollen puffiness. The skin was discolored, but at least she looked like Holly again. Something widened her eyes and her breath hitched. Definitely not fear.

Attraction.

Lust.

Want.

He didn’t think. He just kissed her; hand cradling the back of her head, fingers sinking deep into her hair. He angled his mouth and opened her lips, diving deep into wet, volcanic heat that made him groan. She kissed him back, tasting like coffee, dark and heady. Addictive. Still hanging on tight to the sink as if scared to let go.

Every hair on his body stood erect. His skin tingled, blood raced through his veins.

Working relationship? Right.

Need rocketed through his body, making his legs shake. When had a woman ever affected him like this? It wasn’t normal, wasn’t rational, wasn’t sane. He pressed forward, and her hands shot up and braced against his chest, fingers curling against his pecs, small noises coming from the back of her mouth that demanded deeper, harder, more. And if he could just keep doing this all night, his life would be fine. He brought her fully against him and she squeaked, just enough to let him know that he’d hurt her.

He jerked his head up and let go of her waist, still pinning her against the kitchen counter. “Sorry. Christ.”

She struggled away from him and he watched her go. She wiped the back of her hand over her mouth. “Finn…” Regret burned across her features. “That can’t happen again.”

Couldn’t happen again? The same way he didn’t need to draw in oxygen? He made himself laugh softly, didn’t want to scare her by dropping to his knees and begging. Rejection wasn’t new to him, but he didn’t remember the last time a woman had said no.
No
was fine.
No
was a personal choice. But this
no
hurt on a different level.

“It was just a kiss, Holly.” He was gratified to see her eyebrows rise.

“If that was just a kiss I can’t imagine what full-blown sex would be like.” She slapped a hand across her mouth and then laughed, dissipating the tension that had built to almost snapping point. “I didn’t say that.”

“Hey, no big deal. People kiss. People even have sex.” He looked out the window into the night. “But I’m not the kind to kiss and tell.” He immediately knew he’d said something wrong. The silence got strained. He pretended what had just happened was perfectly ordinary, instead of just perfect. “Give me two minutes and I’ll get dressed and take you down to the shed.”

“I don’t want a chaperone.” Her voice was subdued. Eyes hooded and watchful.

“My keys, my shed.” He held his hand out for his keys she’d picked up from the bench.

Holly hesitated. The kiss had been amazing. The fact he wanted to keep it secret as much as she did should have reassured her, but actually bothered her at a fundamental level—as if once again she wasn’t worthy of a real relationship, just some dirty messing around on the side. Which was crazy, because if he told anyone she’d have to shoot him and bury the body deep.

She realized she was still staring at him, drooling, even though he terrified her. His muscles well defined even in the shadows. Pecs and abs hard as a bronze statue, long legs solid with muscle, boxer shorts that didn’t disguise the impressive maleness that had pressed so wonderfully against her just moments ago. She dragged her eyes away and figured she should be grateful he was wearing anything at all, considering it was after midnight and he’d been in bed.

She dropped his keys into the palm of his hand and walked to the door. That kiss had stirred up the hormones in her blood and she wanted him. Really wanted him, like drop him to the floor, straddle, slide him home, and ride him until they both screamed.

Not happening.

She pulled at her collar, heat pouring off her skin in waves. She didn’t do this. Didn’t fall for guys she barely knew. Didn’t fantasize about having sex with them on the floor. Most of her friends said she was repressed, but right now she was about as repressed as a schizophrenic on a psychotic break.

If anyone found out they’d been fooling around, her career would be irreparably damaged.

She was nothing without her badge. Nothing without the long line of family tradition holding her up by the bootstraps. She needed that. Needed that sense of belonging. Needed the acceptance. No matter how mouthwateringly gorgeous he was, she didn’t want to fall for Finn Carver, and right now she was desperately close.

And she didn’t want to think about what it would do to her heart or pride when he finished, rolled over, and walked away.

He went back into his room and came out dragging a shirt over his head that said AIR SUX, NITROX ROX.

She rolled her eyes and gave him a grin, forcing herself to relax. To hide her disquiet.

They’d kissed. It hadn’t gone further, and she didn’t intend to let it. She needed to make like it was no big deal so they could move on. “Let’s go.”

He grinned back, and Holly wished to hell her vision was still blurry because the guy was the most stunning male specimen she’d ever encountered, and considering her line of work, she encountered a lot.

The two guys from downstairs were gone when she and Finn went down the steps. They crunched along the gravel road to the dive shed, her breath steaming the chilly air. He didn’t seem to notice the cold. They passed a couple of students. There was obviously a party going on somewhere.

“What did you do last Monday?” she asked.

He shot her a look. “We were jammed. Two different schools arrived for field courses and one of the staff went down with appendicitis. The whole week was a train wreck. Why?”

Holly held her tongue even though she wanted to answer him.

“That’s when you think Milbank was killed, isn’t it?”

The guy was so sharp. So smart. Maybe that’s why she’d fallen for him, not the hero good looks. She pressed her lips tighter together, glad for the relative darkness. “I can’t discuss the case with you.” She sounded miserable and wanted to kick herself. He wasn’t her boyfriend. She didn’t need to apologize to him for doing her job.

“I get it, Holly. There’s a lot of stuff I can’t talk about either.”

Special Forces
. Of course he got it. It made her feel even more wretched.

“Talk to Thom’s secretary, Gladys. She had to rework the schedule at the last minute. Get our timetables and then get someone else to verify we were doing what we were supposed to be doing. Hell, I don’t think I was alone even taking a…bathroom break.” He coughed.

Did that include at night? Jealousy ate at her like some sixteen-year-old with a high school crush. Thankfully he was oblivious.

“You can cross us off the list once and for all.”

“I know how to do my job.” Holly bit her lip, annoyed she sounded so defensive. Why was she giving him grief? Because he’d made the same mistake she had? He might have kissed her first, but she hadn’t exactly been throwing out the stop signals.

Lights reflected in the water of the inlet but the night was silent. Neither spoke again. She’d killed the earlier intimacy and she was glad. They were back on a professional footing.

They reached the dive shed and Finn moved ahead of her. Opened the door and turned on the light. The fluorescents flickered for a couple of seconds before they reluctantly sparked up. Finn went to the desk and pulled off a clipboard and handed it to her. Avoiding his watchful gaze, she peeled back the pages until she got to March 28,
the day
he and Edgefield claimed to have first found the wreck. Above it were notes about the sea otter sighting.

“Do you have a photocopier?” She twisted around and found him next to her, way too close for comfort. Holly’s mouth went dry and her heart tripped over her racing pulse. His eyes flared and he took a step back. Then he schooled his features to reveal nothing.

“In the marine station’s library. Come on, I’ve got a key to that too. Let’s get this finished.” That sounded as final as any death knell.

Outside, the air temperature seemed to have cooled ten degrees and had nothing to do with the weather. They started back up the steep slope, the silence thick between them. Then she stumbled, and every hurt from the car crash shot along a million neurons simultaneously. Her sharp gasp of breath had Finn reaching for her. She’d almost forgotten about her injuries—those kiss endorphins were
that
good.

“You OK?” The heat from his hands burned through her shirt.

She nodded, breathing rapidly. “Just caught myself awkwardly.”

“Considering you almost died yesterday and have been working nonstop since dawn, you might want to go a little easier on yourself.” His hold tightened, and she found herself staring at his lips again with all sorts of off-duty thoughts shooting through her mind. But until this case was done she wouldn’t be off-duty.

His Adam’s apple slid up and down his throat, and he let out a low groan. “If you don’t stop looking at me like that…”

She forced down her reaction and pushed out of his arms. No one ever said being a cop was easy, but she didn’t think this was what they’d been talking about. “Come on,” she said.

There were distant sounds of music and carefree laughter.

“One of the field courses finished up today,” Finn explained. “Party time.”

They went all the way around the front of the main building, and he unlocked a side door that led straight into the library stacks adjacent to the study area. He entered a code and the photocopier sprang to life. “Here,” he took the clipboard from her hand, “I’ll make two copies and the office can keep one too.” His lips pressed hard together and she was sure he was about to add “just in case.”

The attitude toward the cops around here was a little insulting, but maybe, considering what Professor Edgefield had been through, she understood. It made it even more imperative they catch Len Milbank’s killer.

The machine spat out two copies, and Finn handed her one, which felt warm in her hand, and then headed toward the office. He unlocked another two doors and left a copy on Edgefield’s secretary’s desk. They were heading back to the door when he stopped dead and she slammed into his steel back.
Whoomph
. He whirled and caught her before she fell over.

“Ouch.” She touched her smarting nose.

“Sorry.” But his attention was elsewhere. He sniffed. “Do you smell smoke?” Suddenly he was on his cell, calling 911. “We need the truck up at BMSC.”

Holly sniffed the air. The very faint tinge of smoke caught her nostrils. “We should wait outside.”

“
You
wait outside for the fire brigade. They’re volunteers, and sometimes it takes them awhile to get here. Tell them to head down to the basement.”

“No.”

He tried to push her out the door, but she broke his hold, caught his arm, and twisted it up behind his back. He froze, solid and immovable, but something about the way he held himself suggested he could break her hold if he wanted to. And suddenly, she instinctively knew all her police training would prove worthless if Finn ever decided to challenge her.

It should have scared the crap out of her. Didn’t.

“Fine, come with me, but it could be dangerous. And we need to move fast.”

She let go of his arm, and he turned and smashed the glass in the fire alarm. He wedged the front door open. “Follow me. Do
not
go off on your own. I just want to check no one’s in the building. No playing hero,” he warned her.

They headed downstairs at a run, Holly struggling to keep up, puffing like the Hogwarts Express.

In the lower levels, they encountered thicker smoke, and he ripped off his T-shirt and wrapped it around her face before she could protest. “I wasn’t the one in a car accident yesterday,” he told her. It was warm on her face, and his scent enveloped her. It was like being injected with pure male pheromones.

They carried on, opening every door along the way. All the labs and rooms were empty. At the end of the corridor was the exit door that led outside. The smell of smoke was strongest here. Finn touched the doorknob and jerked away. “Shit, it’s roasting. The fire is on the outside. Come on!” He dashed back to the stairs, and Holly ran after him, bracing herself for the torturous climb.

He threw her a sympathetic glance as he pulled out his cell. “I’d carry you if I thought it would help.”

She gritted her teeth and nodded, too distracted to speak when every breath felt like one of her ribs was stabbing into her lungs. They climbed quickly, and she heard him talking first to the firemen, then to Thomas Edgefield, telling them there was a fire on the south side of the building that was threatening the structure.

“Thank fuck it rained tonight.” He stuffed his cell in his jeans pocket and grabbed an extinguisher off the wall, and they ran outside just as a fire engine arrived, all sirens blaring.

They started rolling out hoses as she tried to follow Finn. But he leapt over a railing and scrambled through thick bushes down the slope. There was no way she could get through that tangle, not even at full strength. Instead, she ran down the gravel path, half slipping and sliding. Flames were erupting fifteen feet high out of a metal trash can that had been pressed up against the side of the building.

Why hadn’t they seen it on the way up the hill? Had it only just ignited?

Sparks flickered in the air. One landed in the thick scrub, and Holly saw embers starting to smolder in the darkness.