Intimate Danger (Empire Blue) (28 page)

His hands roamed as hers
sought. Pulling and tugging one another closer, needing more. She sobbed, a catch of her breath and pleaded for more. Trent matched her moans, and heat dug deep in his stomach, a tingling at the base of his spine. The pressure hovering, promising to be oh-so-fucking good. Surging forward again, he finally understood this female would forever ruin him for any other.

Charlie
had snagged her way into his chest, embedded herself, and set up house. Without his permission, and as good luck would have it, he gave her the key, never thought twice about handing over his heart.

Her movements grew frantic. She met his hips, tensing and seeking what he wanted to give. He increased his drive, pumped in and out of her body, then drew up to watch her face. Her hazel gaze stormed like a hurricane’s clouds, pleading to release the pressure. He wrapped his hands around the rounded globes of her ass and tilted her hips
, sinking deeper. She was around his cock like liquid hot silk. Tighter.

She tossed her head into the soft pillow and tensed. Perched, she stared with wonder into his eyes, motionless
for a few seconds before crying out his name. The walls of her sex milked him, tightened like a velvet fist, and his orgasm slammed into him, took his breath away. He held her gaze, refused to break the connection, and rode the wave of pleasure with her.

What seemed like an eternity later, he collapsed on top of her. Her fingers danced along his back. He should move, was too heavy, but could
n’t quite function yet. She pressed her lips to his temple, sweet. Calming. The touch was almost enough to send him falling inside a pit of affection. Holy hell, he had never experienced this kind of regard, wonder, and desire for a female. Ever.

“Thank you. I’ll never forget that.”

He chuckled and rolled over, bringing her with him into his arms. His vision faded as exhaustion called. Just before it claimed him, he wondered at her words, grew uneasy as they sounded very much like a goodbye.

Chapter Twenty

Charlie woke to a shrill noise piercing the air. She groaned and reached for the offending item before encountering
a wall of warm chest. The noise ceased, and Trent’s gruff voice replaced it. She burrowed against him. Deep rumbles vibrated through his torso as he talked on his phone.

Soft hairs on his chest tickled against her face, but she didn’t care. This, here, this moment was something she didn’t want to forget. His body was muscular, yet she felt comfortable laying
beside him. With her face against his skin, she drew in a breath, loving the feel of him. He smelled of man and sex, a heady concoction that had her wanting to nestle closer. So she did.

He sighed and let out a few more gruff answers before she heard the metallic clang of something hitting the wooden tabletop. She didn’t want this to end but understood
nothing lasted forever.

“Charlese.”

She groaned and tilted her head up to his face. His hair was askew, eyes a striking blue she’d never tire of. A light five o’clock shadow dusted his face, giving him this rugged, sexy man guise. A feminine sigh of appreciation caught in her lungs. One of his perfect brows arched as she stared. Something must have shown, giving her away.

“Have something you want to say, Charlese?”

“You have to call me by that name?”

The other brow went up, and his full lips split into a smile. “It is your name, isn’t it? Or was that the woman from
last night?” he teased, and rubbed his chin in mock thought. She laughed.

“Smart ass. No, it’s just
that no one calls me that. The last memory I have of anyone using that name was when I asked my parents to call me Charlie.”

He propped a pillow behind him and settled back, reaching to tug a few strands of her hair through his fingers.

“Do you not like it?”

She
tried to remember what she hadn’t liked about her name. Why she insisted people called her Charlie. It’d been so long that she really couldn’t pinpoint it. One could figure it was because she was brought up by her father, surrounded by cops, but for some reason that just didn’t stick with her.

“Well, I guess I’ve used Charlie for so long, it feels weird if someone calls me anything else.”

He grinned and drew her up until their faces rested inches apart. She couldn’t hold back the sigh this time as he resumed trailing fingers through her hair.

“Tell me why you don’t use it.”

She scrunched her brows, indecision over giving him this, the memories and details of her past. Letting him in that much might be more than she could handle. He studied her intently, his features showing he was fully enraptured in what she had to say.

“I stopped using it after a man I loved died. Everything in me, the woman I had been, crumbled.”

He continued to stare, silent, watchful.

She went on. “Tony and I were together for three years. I thought he’d be the man I would marry. He didn’t push me to be someone I’m not, but
instead he encouraged me to become better. It was what I needed. His affection was something I craved. And his guidance and support was what I had been missing from a male figure in my life, more aptly my father. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t looking to replace daddy, but I did crave the closeness I lost at such a young age.”

Trent frowned, confusion
evident. “What are you talking about? You lost your dad?”

Her eyes burned with emotion, the night
still so clear it was as if it had just happened. She swallowed the thick lump in her throat. “My father was shot in the line of duty when I was just a kid. Taken down by some drug user looking to get his fix. Woolsey and Pops had come across the dealer who had been taken out already and after a quick search, the guy found my dad before Dad saw him. But,” she said and took a huge breath. “That isn’t all. I had to encounter it twice. The loss of a family member through violence. Once with my father, the next with Tony, my fiancé, when he was gunned down during a routine traffic stop.”

“Oh, baby, I’m so sorry.”

She shrugged, blinked fast to discourage the tears threatening. “After that I hardened myself. I didn’t let anyone in for a long time and I started telling everyone to call me Charlie. Before, it wasn’t something formal. Now it’s all I’m known as. Hell,” she said with a humorous laugh, “sitting here now talking about it, I realize I think I did it in an effort to get distance from my past life.”

“If it’s all the same, Charlese, I think the name is beautiful. With your permission, I’d like to continue calling you by it.”

How could she resist when he asked like that?

She nodded, and breathed, “Yeah, I can deal with that. In public
, just call me Charlie, please. Last thing I need is for the boys to be reminded I’m a girl.”

Trent chuckled, the sound vibrating between their chests. “Trust me, they know you’re all female. And it’s something I can’t ignore when I have this very sleek, very sexy body pressed against my own.”

His free hand cupped the side of her face and he kissed her so thoroughly, she wanted to be closer, needed more, and scooted toward him. He broke the kiss off with a strained chuckle.

“Sweetheart, I need to go.”

She blinked, not just at the endearment, but also the abrupt words.

“I’ve got to transfer Echols to the city.”

Her mind spun with hundreds of questions.

She sat abruptly, the earlier warmth around her heart chilling as if she’d jumped into a freezer. Holding the sheet, she hugged it to her chest.
She didn’t want Echols here, had fought to keep him away, but one mention of his name and memories pinged one by one. Ugly, sick reminders of what Echols did.

Tr
ent went still, let out a heavy sigh, and gathered her into his arms. She protested at first until he tightened his grip, his strength like the jaws of an alligator—unrelenting. This man was so damn sweet, so caring.

“
He won’t get to you again. I’m going to make sure of that.”

“God, when is this going to go away? This feeling of him
in my mind?”

She tucked hair behind her ears and looked at him. Lines around his strong jaw
were set with determination. Her warrior, protector, Special Agent.

“You’re going to need time. It won’t happen overnight. Nevertheless, he will never, ever get to you again.
Do you understand that, or shall I say it again, because I will, until you hear me.”

She glanced between his eyes and shook her head. “No. It’s okay.” She turned, suddenly shy around this man who pushed her to bare all. He didn’t leave any inch of her skin undiscovered, or any spot without pleasure.
He demanded her submission with words, too, and it was almost too much. He was leaving. That dreadful clock ticked down, and the closer it got to the moment, the more she couldn’t seem to meet his eyes. She didn’t want him to see how much this affected her, didn’t want him to see how much she really didn’t want him to go.

And he needed to.
Staying wasn’t an option. He had a job to do, just as she did.

“Hey.” He chucked beneath her chin. “Talk to me. What’s going on in that head of yours?”

She hated this vulnerability, this neediness for a man. With the recent attack, feeling safe in Trent’s arms reminded her of the men in her life, of her father, the chief, and Tony, ones she could count on.
Where the hell is all this coming from?
She didn’t, couldn’t allow her heart to care for another one who would leave. They always did. At least with her, they did.

Instead of answering, she tossed out the first thing that came to mind. “You’re leaving
? Huh. Well that was fun, right?”
Damn it, again? Now?
Her voice sounded so damn small, so unlike herself.

He sighed again. “Yeah, I need to get
Echols processed federally. Charlie, look—” He urged her face toward him with a forefinger. “I want to ask you a question again. I need your answer. Honestly.”

“What is it?”

“You going to answer it, no matter what?”

She shrugged, fought to find the strong woman inside. Not this needy little creature. “Maybe.”

He studied her face for something he apparently found because he asked, “What did you mean with all those questions? Just before I left for the city, you said you couldn’t say who I was out loud. Right before I left the last time, on my trip to the city when Echols called you.”

Every
muscle in her body locked. She swallowed. Back then everything made so much sense, yet now, she didn’t realize how far off the mark she’d been. “Can’t we move pass this now? You really want to know?”

He nodded
and pressed his lips together. “I do. I think I know what it was and I want to get this out there so we can talk about it. But I need you to say it first.”

She dropped her head. Looking back, she felt ten kinds of fool for what she thought, but at the time, it had seemed like it was the only
choice. The clues, the mark on his face, all of it had led her to believe she had identified the killer. Yet, even then, had she really believed he could do something like that? Or had she been trying to find ways to clear him? Her mind whirled with thought after thought, each step of the case, breaking down every detail.

Trent remained quiet, tolerantly waiting. The silence, his patience warmed
her and encouraged her to open up.

She met his eyes, her gut churning
with all the possible ways he’d react.

“I thought you were our guy.”

Trent’s lips thinned. “Be specific. Say the words.”

Her heartbeat increased, pounded in her chest. “The killer.”

He nodded, but didn’t say anything, continued to hold her stare. The silence was thunderous, agonizing.

Charlie
took a deep breath, let her chest cave by blowing the air out slow, like pressure released from a tire. “Looking back, I realize it was stupid. But at the time, all the signs pointed to you.” The words rushed out in a gush. Having this truth out there released the tension in her shoulders. Sure, she judged him before knowing all the facts. What she had done was wrong, and telling him might very well ruin their chances, but it needed to be said. “You’d disappear for hours or even nights at a time, showed up with marks on your face, seemed as if you were holding in secrets, and knew a lot about who we seemed to be tracing.”

H
e still didn’t say anything, only watched her with intense, probing eyes.

The
silence drove her insane.

She scrambled to her knees, clutched the sheet to her chest. “Then that
night, you showed at my house, you were poking around at my back door and everything sorta clicked into place.”

“Now wait just a minute,” he began, “I explained that.”

Charlie sucked in a sharp breath as his eyes hardened, clouded with emotion. God, it was human nature to want to defend yourself against accusations, especially ones she knew now were stupid, but he had to understand, she had to make him understand that back then, she had no choice.

Trent’s
entire body thrummed with barely contained energy—just waiting to release. The perfect storm.

“I know…now. At the time though, it wasn’t even close to what I was thinking.
”

His face shifted minutely.

“Don’t you judge me! I see it in your eyes. You’d do the same thing, think the same way, Agent. And after all those times you’d just disappear, what the hell was I supposed to think?”

Trent shook his head and slipped from the bed. He stood and reached for his pants, giving her a wonderful view of his tight backside. Sculpted muscles played with each of his body’s movements. She admired the sight even while her chest clenched with shame.

“Dammit, Trent, please. Explain yourself.”

He turned to face her, whirling so fast she flinched.

“Hold up, if you thought all of this. If you believed I was capable of so much violence, then why…” He broke off with a strangled sound, but continued to stare as if he could see right through the fraud she was. She knew what he asked and still felt the betrayal to her own ethics, to the oath she’d sworn to uphold. Promises she’d made seemed as recklessly broken as Echols had.

She slid off the bed as well, putting
the large piece of furniture between them. A place where hours before she’d given pleasure and taken it. A place where she’d handed over her heart. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, but you asked. I see now that I was wrong in thinking those things, in suspecting you, and even back then, I don’t think I really believed it. I just—” She slapped her hands in the air and back to her sides. “What am I supposed to say!” Her eyes burned. “How the hell am I am supposed to defend my actions? I can’t. But you left me no choice. Still, you stand here and you won’t give me an explanation.”

She stared at him, willed him to say something.
Don’t let it end like this!
She wanted to shout at him, urge him to understand. But she couldn’t even understand herself. The conversation had gone in a completely different direction than she thought it would. But really, hadn’t that been the case with her thoughts for weeks now?