Fatal Hearts (23 page)

“Fair enough.”

Something about his voice made her look at him closely. His color seemed off. Maybe some food and a caffeine injection would fix him up.

“Hey, why don’t we eat here? They have a great panini, and I love their green tea.”

“Tea at Tim Hortons?”

“It’s good. Come on.”

When they climbed back in the car half an hour later, Boyd looked better. Hayden felt a lot better too. She’d actually found her appetite.

“Okay, so what do we do now?” she asked.

He checked his watch. Hayden had just checked her own, so she knew it was just after one.

“Actually, maybe I should go back to Sylvia’s.”

Her eyes sharpened on him. His color looked better than it had before, but he still looked off. “Are you okay?”

“Just tired. I think it’s the yo-yoing.”

“Yo-yoing?”

“One minute, we’re on our way to talk to Dr. Gunn to get all the answers; the next minute he’s dead, possibly murdered, and the critical information I need is out of reach again. But then it turns out that the file’s there, a little blood-soaked but legible, which probably means he committed suicide. But then Morgan lets us see a name. Awesome! I finally have the necessary information to locate my birth mother. But whoops, she’s actually been dead almost as long as I’ve been alive. So, yeah, yo-yoing. I feel like I could sleep for a week.”

Hayden smiled. This was good. Not that he was exhausted, but that he’d confess to it. Or more specifically, to owning all those emotions.

“Want to come back to my place?” As soon as the invitation was out, she wanted to call it back. He probably wanted to be alone. He’d already said he wanted to go home.

“God, that would be heaven. You wouldn’t mind?”

“I’d love it. I need to unplug too. I see blood most days, but that scene . . . I don’t know how you cope with that kind of thing.”

“Sleep will help.” He reached over and clasped her hand.

Touch helped too, which he clearly knew. When he put the car in gear and reversed out of the parking space, he did it one-handed. In fact, he held her hand in his all the way up Regent Street to her apartment building.

Inside, Hayden dropped her purse. This time, she took his hand, leading him to the bedroom.

He knew where Hayden was leading him but he needed to make a quick stop by the bathroom. After he washed his hands and was about to leave the room, he caught a glimpse of his face in the mirror over the dainty vanity. He looked like shit. No wonder Hayden had asked if he was all right. He was just feeling worn-out, literally, from the emotional roller coaster he’d been riding since Dr. Gunn’s call. A month ago, he wouldn’t have admitted that under pain of torture.

So why was he opening up to Hayden?

Because he wanted her to know him. Wanted her to really see him.

He held that terrifying truth, turned it around and around in his mind as he looked into his own eyes in the mirror. Examined it from every angle. What in the hell was that about? He hadn’t felt anything remotely like this since Laurie. He’d left himself wide-open to her, and then she’d excised him from her life and sewed the wound up as neatly as she’d sutured the lacerations on that dog he’d brought her. After that, he’d pretty much let people see what they wanted to see. Never again would he be tempted to expose so much of himself. That kind of openness was for the young in the first blush of love. And in his experience, people didn’t seem to notice the difference. They took what they saw and heard, extrapolated a little, and voila. They’d built their own version of Boyd McBride, one that suited their ends.

Which suited him.

So why was he feeling like that with Hayden?

Then another thought occurred to him, one that eased his mind. Clearly, it was the no-strings deal. Hayden expected exactly nothing from him. No,
better
than nothing. Her only stipulation had been that he go back to his own life when the investigation was over and leave her to hers. What did it matter if she saw behind the curtain? He would likely never see her again once he left here.

Man, he must be tired, because that thought made him feel both better and worse. And what was with all this navel-gazing? That was more self-examination than he’d done in the past decade.

Well, prior to Josh’s death. A person didn’t weather something like that without some soul-searching.

He glared at himself in the mirror. Screw this noise. He needed to sleep. Shit had a way of sorting itself out and falling into place when you left the brain alone to process it. That’s what he’d do.

Hayden met him in the hallway. She was dressed in yoga pants and some kind of spandex-infused workout top—a comfortable layer that screamed “sleep” not “sex.” As she squeezed by him in the hallway, he wondered if she had any idea how appealing she looked. Or how great she smelled. But she was right. They needed sleep. And in this strange mood he was in, avoiding sex right now might be a really good idea.

“Mind if I grab a nap?”

“Go ahead.”

He had almost dozed off in the moments it took her to brush her teeth or whatever she was doing. He opened his eyes when he heard her enter the room.

“Hey, you’re on my side. Push over.”

“Sorry.” He scooted over. “I had the other side figured as yours.”

She grinned. “Because of the clock?”

“Yep.”

“I keep it over there to maximize the chance that I’ll actually get up rather than hitting the ‘Snooze’ button.”

He arched an eyebrow. “Not a morning person?”

“I’m a great morning person. After I actually get up. And after I’ve had coffee. And a shower. And food.” She climbed into bed, then climbed right out again. “Hop up. I’ll pull the bedspread back so we can get under it.”

He waggled his eyebrows. “I could keep you warm.”

“Sleep,” she said sternly. “We need to give our minds and bodies a chance to rest and reset.”

She was right. He rolled off the bed and climbed back in under the coverlet. “I hope there’s no prohibition against snuggling, because I could really use it.”

“You are such a liar,” she said, moving into his arms. “I know you’re doing all of this to comfort me. That whole thing back there with Dr. Gunn—”

“Hush.” He absolutely was doing it for her, but the moment she laid her head on his shoulders and nestled into his side, he felt his own burdens lighten. “Sweetheart, any time I can get you in my arms, I’m going to do it, and I’m not being selfless. Believe me.”

She sighed and laid her hand on his chest. She was silent for a moment. Just when he’d begun to wonder if she’d fallen asleep already, she shifted her position. A few more fidgety moves and he felt her relax fully against him in a way a body could only do in sleep.

Feeling incredibly full of some nameless tender emotion, he closed his own eyes and reached for sleep.

CHAPTER 23

His first conscious thought was that he was right where he wanted to be. Hayden had rolled away from him in sleep, and apparently he’d rolled after her. They both lay on their sides, with his body curled protectively around hers. Her delectable ass was pressed into his groin. No, not just pressed there. She was wriggling against him.

He locked a hand on her hip and held her still. Peering around her shoulder to see her face, he called her name softly. “Hayden?”

Her eyes came open and she looked up at him. “You’re real.”

Yeah, real hard.
And getting harder when she used that sleep-husky voice. “Yep. As real as it gets.”

“I thought I was dreaming. Or I
was
dreaming. I don’t know. Was I . . . ?”

“Grinding that sweet ass against me?”

She lifted her hands to cover her face.

He grinned. “Don’t be embarrassed. It’s the very nicest kind of dream, but I don’t have a condom on me.” He slipped a hand around her to cup one of her breasts and closed his mouth on the point of her shoulder. “We rushed out this morning and I left them in my shaving kit.”

“Don’t look at me. I don’t bring men home to spend the night with me, remember?” She gasped and arched, a reaction to his fingers tweaking her puckering nipple. Or maybe to the nip of his teeth against her skin.

He grinned against the shoulder he’d been nibbling. “I don’t know about you, but I can think of some things we can do that don’t require a condom.”

“Oh, yes,” she breathed. “And it’s my turn.”

The fingers that had been plucking her stiffened nipple stopped. “Your turn?”

She twisted away from him, tossed the coverlet off, and sat up. “Yes, my turn. To torture you. To make you crazy.” She moved up onto her knees beside him and looked down at the tent he’d pitched in the thin material of his track pants. “I can see you like the idea.”

“I’m all yours, darlin’.” He reached to cup her head, intending to pull her down for a kiss.

“Uh-uh-uh. No touching.” She pushed his hands away. “How quickly we forget the rules.”

He groaned. “Baby, I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep my hands off you. They seem to have developed a mind of their own when it comes to you.”

Her smile was absolute wickedness. “I’ll make you the same offer you made me. I can tie them up. I’m not really a dress person, but think I have some pantyhose lying around here somewhere.”

His cock jerked, a fact that didn’t escape her attention.

“Much as I appreciate your willingness to sacrifice your pantyhose, that won’t be necessary,” he croaked. “I’ll be strong. No hands. Well, until you ask me to use them.”

Her eyes sparkled. “That sounded like a challenge, Detective.”

“It was, Doctor.”

Her smile broadened, growing absolutely carnal. “Hands behind your head,” she said. “Isn’t that what you tell the people you’re about to slap the cuffs on?”

“In bed, you mean?” He pushed the pillow off the bed, then laced his hands together behind his head, making a cradle of them.

“No!” She laughed. “I meant in the field.” Then she sat back on her heels. “But now that you mention it, ever handcuff anyone during sex?”

“No.”

“Too cliché, cop breaking out the cuffs?”

He should say yes and let it go, but he was finding it harder and harder to lie to her, even by omission. “No, nothing like that.” He lifted his shoulders in a tight shrug, considering his hands were behind his head. “It’s more that I didn’t want to send any messages, subliminal or otherwise.”

Something flickered in her eyes, and he wondered if he’d been a little too honest. But she just nodded.

“That makes sense, not mixing capture-and-keep messages with hook-and-release practices. Lots of guys wouldn’t spare a thought for that kind of thing. I guess that’s Frank McBride’s influence too?”

“Indirectly, maybe, in that he always told us to be straight with people as much as possible. He didn’t have any specific advice for navigating the dating waters, other than no always means no and show women respect.”

Hayden blinked rapidly again. “I think I love your father.”

“Hey, that’s enough of that!” How had they gotten onto this subject anyway? “I thought you were going to fool around with my body, not my brain.”

She grinned. “Oh I intend to get to the body, but I’m fascinated by what goes on in that mind too.” She leaned over him and put a finger to his forehead. “You know the most powerful sex organ is in here, right?”

“Uh . . . I’m pretty sure that’s just women.”

She laughed. “Maybe so.” She slid down and laid a hand on his leg. Even through the material of the pants, it felt amazing when she skimmed that hand up his inner thigh. He hissed and arched, trying to make her hand brush against his arousal.

“Would you like out of these pants?”

“You have no idea how much,” he groaned.

She hooked her fingers into the waistband. “Lift,” she commanded. He obliged, lifting his butt off the bed. She slid the thin material down, dragging it maddeningly against his erection.

He gasped, unable to keep the sound in. She pulled the pants down his legs, but slowly. She bent to press her open mouth to his hip bone, his thigh, his knees. Jesus, she was killing him. Finally, she dragged them off.

He flexed his feet. “Hayden, don’t—”

“Touch the feet. I know. I got the scoop from Josh. To tickle the foot of a McBride man or menace him with a snake is to risk bodily injury.” She glanced at his face. “I always wondered how Josh could stand in the muck of that lake and have the grasses tickle his legs.”

“Hello? Totally different. Although if a snake or an eel swam by, he’d have dumped you and swum for shore.”

“He would not!”

“Okay, he probably wouldn’t. But he’d have wanted to.”

She started kissing her way back up. Just as he’d done to her yesterday, she skipped over the part that most yearned for her touch.

“Let’s get this shirt off.”

“Am I allowed to help?”

She sat back on her heels. “Go ahead.”

He hauled the shirt off and tossed it, then put his hands back behind his head.

“How are your arms holding out up there? Shoulders okay?”

He chuckled.

“What’s so funny?”

“You’re kinda sorta topping, Hayden. I don’t think you’re supposed to worry if my arms are getting stiff.”

“I can’t help it. I look at that position and think about your rotator cuffs. I guess I’m not very good at this.”

“I don’t know. I’ve got a hard-on that says different.”

She glanced down at it. “You do, don’t you?”

“I was wondering if it had escaped your attention.”

Her laugh this time was sharp and spontaneous. “That’d be pretty hard to miss.”

“Yes, very hard.”

“You know what I also notice?”

“What?”

“I’m talking way too much for a woman with so many other options in front of her.”

“Other things you could be doing with your mouth?”

“Exactly.” She bent over him and kissed him.

With his hands out of the game, he had no choice but to let her lead the dance of tongues. In truth, he had no desire to wrest that control from her. She was so clearly enjoying it.

Out of nowhere, it struck him again how lucky he was to be the object of all her pent-up desire. And how much she’d sacrificed for her career. Celibacy was one thing. A big damned thing. But for her, probably the emotional intimacy, the need to touch and be touched, even in a nonsexual way, was the bigger part of it. It was criminal she felt she had to do that, and all to keep some guy from latching on to her and staking his claim. Like the asshole who let her sacrifice those two years of medical school so she’d have enough time for him. After that experience, he totally got why she felt she had to avoid relationships altogether. Lots of guys talked the talk, pretending to be all pro-woman, but when push came to shove, how many of them would have turned out to be just another meathead who didn’t want his “woman” going off to a third world country now and again? Never mind that it was humanitarian work.

He wanted to make up for everything she’d missed out on. Starting with lying here and passively accepting the torturous, leisurely tour she was presently taking of his body.

Her mouth was on his neck, trailing fire to his ear, where she paused long enough to whisper something very dirty. The promise sent a surge of lust through him, swift and brutal as an electric shock. His head actually spun.

Her hands traversed his chest now, their touch both soft and sure. He’d never been touched quite that way before. Damned if he could figure out the difference. Then she moved lower over his abs and he forgot to analyze anything. His muscles contracted under her featherlight stroke.

“God, I love your body. Lean, toned muscle, but not too bulky. And none of this pumping up some muscle groups at the expense of function. You must avoid the usual contraptions at the gym.”

He was impressed. Everyone thought the way to a great body, including most of his colleagues on the force, was through pumping iron and doing a million reps on the machines. “Yeah, I thought I’d pass on the freakishly overdeveloped upper body and the legs of a rooster.”

She laughed again, trailing her hand farther down his belly. “I can see you put your focus on your core.”

He sucked said core farther in. “It’s
killing me
not to be able to lay my hands on you. Your body is so damned beautiful.”

“It gets me around.”

That it did, but he suspected she had no idea how graceful and eye-catching she was.

“I’ll never have buns of steel, I’m afraid.” She gave her booty a shake as evidence.

He groaned with the need to touch that delectable part of her anatomy. “Baby, I don’t know any men who are looking for buns of steel. I think that must be another one of those things women want to show off to other women. Men generally like things that jiggle a little.”

Then she put her mouth so close to his stomach. There was a time and a place for talking, and a time and a place for kissing, licking and—
oh, Christ
—biting! Her even white teeth had nipped the right side of the taut V of muscle leading to his groin. He hissed, but not in pain.

She soothed the spot with her open mouth. “I always thought they needed a better anatomical name for this.” She ran a delicate finger along it. “Iliac furrow doesn’t do it justice, but the street names are so corny. Adonis belt. Apollo’s belt.”

He didn’t care what she called it, as long as she traced it with her mouth, all the way down to the base of his erection.

“Hayden?”

“Yes?”

“I’m dying here. Please touch me.”

She laughed, her breath an agony of delight on his skin.

He groaned his relief when she did just that, taking his cock in hand. The same deft touch she’d used on the rest of him made his already hard member harder still.
Jesus!
As she studied him, he uncupped his hands from behind his head and lowered his arms so he could at least grip the sheets.

She moved between his legs, urging his thighs farther apart to accommodate her. He obliged. And, oh, God, the picture she made kneeling over him, fully dressed, pulling that glorious riot of hair to one side to keep it out of the way. Then her mouth was on him, taking the head of his cock inside her warmth.

He closed his eyes, removing that sensory input, but all that did was intensify the incredible sensation of her mouth, her tongue, her firm, sure grip sliding over him. He dug his fingers into the bed so hard he was sure he’d leave imprints in the mattress. He wanted the pleasure to never end, but she drove him relentlessly upward. Only when he felt the first signals that he was going to come did he use his hands to touch her glorious hair.

“Hayden, you have to stop. Now.”

She lifted her head but kept working him with her hand. His orgasm slammed into him. On his back like this, maybe because he wasn’t in control, the release was intense, rolling through him, going on and on.

“Am I still alive?”

She grinned, handing him the box of tissues. “I take it you enjoyed that?”

“I think there needs to be a new word for what that felt like.” He cleaned himself up, then lifted his gaze to her, eyeing the yoga gear. “Okay, you being fully dressed a minute ago was hot, I have to admit, but right now all I see is a lot of clothes between you and your orgasm.”

That drew a laugh.

“Where’s your vibrator?”

Her smile disappeared so fast, Boyd had to grin. “Excuse me?”

“Your vibrator. And, honey, don’t tell me you don’t have one. I’m guessing it must be in that lingerie drawer that you wouldn’t let me search.”

She blushed, but she grabbed it and handed it to him.

Within moments, he had her writhing in ecstasy on the bed. She was so responsive, so amazing, so freaking ripe and ready, he had to pin her bucking hips to the mattress before she exploded with her own orgasm.

While she lay there in what looked like pretty profound postcoital bliss, he held her loosely. She absolutely could not afford to bond to him. And he absolutely should kiss her and roll away, tell her that’s the only way he could sleep. But the soft yet solid weight of her body against his was too sweet, too perfect. Besides, it wasn’t all about him. After the harrowing day they’d had, who was he to deny her that human touch, that fundamental comfort?

In silence, they both drifted off to sleep.

By the time they woke the second time, Boyd felt if not completely restored, pretty damned close. Hayden made them a late supper of gluten-free pasta in a faux cheese sauce made from nutritional yeast. It wouldn’t have been his first choice, or even his
fiftieth
choice. Of course, Hayden had given him the speech about why she chose to limit her gluten. He’d also heard why everyone should eat nutritional yeast—high protein, high fiber, lots of folic acid, a day’s supply of B12, et cetera, et cetera. And actually, it was surprisingly good. Any shortfall was made up by the dessert of baked custard, the kind made with lots of eggs and milk like Ella McBride made.

They’d talked about Dr. Gunn’s death. He couldn’t keep his thoughts from going there, but he hadn’t planned to raise the subject. He figured he’d already torpedoed her day off. But when she’d raised it, they were off and running. Not that they did—or could—reach any conclusions, but it helped to bat ideas around. He couldn’t wait to learn more from Morgan, whom he hoped would share what he could. The problem was, in the current information vacuum, suicide and homicide were equally plausible.