One Kiss More (29 page)

“Now I know that I was basically orphaned because some greedy corporate asshole and his immoral criminal of a partner wanted to keep on being greedy and immoral.” Emma cringed at her words. “Sorry. I’m sure not all corporate assholes are greedy. Or even assholes. Or immoral.”

Landon’s hawkish gaze settled on her as though he was trying to poke around in her brain. “Why apologize to me?”

“Um, well, you know.” Oh crap.
Crap
. Emma hadn’t exactly been forthright with Landon about some of the more questionable computer activities of her past. She doubted he’d be thrilled to know she’d basically cyber-stalked him all those years ago.

He gave her a lopsided grin. “No, actually. I don’t know.”

Heat rose to Emma’s cheeks and her stomach did one of those twisting backflips that knocked into her ribs and left a bruise. “I uh, well . . .”

Landon quirked a brow. “Yes?”

“I mean, I might have, sort of gone online and . . . oh my God, Landon. It was six years ago.” Jeez, could she stammer a little more? Maybe she should crawl under the bed and call it a day.

“I’m waiting, Emma.”

Blargh
. Fine. She could fess up. Spying on Landon wasn’t half as bad as stealing millions of dollars from arms dealers. Right? “Okay, so I had a little crush on you. And I was curious about you so I dug around the Web—and a government database or two—and found out some stuff about you. Like about your family and where you grew up.” Emma paused, swallowed. Took a deep breath. “And I found your home address and phone number and stuff. All right? That’s it. That’s what I did. So that’s how I know that your dad is Hugh McCabe and your family is über rich and fancy and you’re sort of the black sheep who parted from the corporate herd to become a U.S. marshal. There. I said it. And yes, I know that hacking a government database is a crime.” Dang, she’d gotten that all out in one breath! She was a little light-headed now, but at least the confession had been made.

“Wait,” Landon said. “You
had
a crush on me? Like, you don’t anymore?”

That’s
what he was going to take away from what she’d said? Emma grabbed the nearest pillow and launched it at Landon’s head. He caught it in one hand and tucked it behind him with a laugh. “I won’t give your ego the satisfaction of answering that question.” Emma twirled a pile of fettuccini noodles onto her fork and stuffed it in her mouth. If she was chewing, he couldn’t expect her to keep talking.

“Black sheep of the corporate herd,” Landon said with a snort. He took a huge bite of cheeseburger, maybe to keep from having to talk, too. He washed it down with a swig of soda. “That’s an understatement. What your investigation didn’t tell you was that I’m more or less disinherited. Aside from a monthly stipend that shows up in my bank account once a month, my family hasn’t had anything to do with me since I graduated the academy.”

He tried to come off as though it didn’t bother him, but Emma knew better. Landon’s words radiated sadness. Family was such a precious thing. Emma had never had much of it, no one but her mom and dad. The rest of her extended family lived in Mexico and didn’t really keep in touch. The thought that Landon’s had turned their backs on him broke her heart. “Why? I mean, what you do is so
important
, Landon. You’re making a difference, protecting people. Taking out bad guys. What is so shameful about what you do that your family would disinherit you?”

His lips turned up in a tight, sad smile as he looked down at his plate. Emma hated the sorrow she saw in his clear blue eyes. She wanted to cross the distance between them and hold him, but she knew that her pity would only upset him. “The thing is, my dad isn’t much better than Shanahan or his partners at Mendelson. I mean, I don’t think he’s ever laundered money, or blackmailed or framed anyone, but that simply could be because no one’s ever asked him to. I definitely wouldn’t put it past the son of a bitch. I didn’t want any part of that. I didn’t want my sole motivation for life to revolve around money and how much of it I could make. And in my family, a man is measured by the numbers in his bank account.”

Emma had grown up well off, but she’d never considered herself privileged. The media painted her in that light because of the company she kept, but in reality, her own checking account looked like a pauper’s in comparison to those of her friends. And likewise, Landon’s family’s money made even Emma’s wealthiest friends look poor in comparison. And he’d walked away from all of it because he aspired to something more.

“I don’t know if my opinion matters or not, but you’re one of the best men I’ve ever known.”

Landon’s throat felt as if it were closing up. He wanted to blame it on some freak allergic reaction to his burger, but he knew better. Emotion choked him. Stole the air from his lungs until he thought his chest might collapse on itself. She didn’t know if her opinion of him mattered? Fuck, her opinion was the
only
one that mattered.

He’d given Galen endless amounts of shit for his starry-eyed, lovesick routine with Harper. And now, here he was, camped out on the bed after what he could only describe as the best sexual encounter of his entire life, emotions backing up in his system like a clogged drain. The only way to clear the pipes would be to let it all out, tell Emma how she made him feel. But the words wouldn’t push past the clog. And Landon wasn’t equipped with the tools necessary to get it done. One more thing he could thank his tight-assed family for: his stunted emotional growth.

“Yeah, well, you might want to reserve judgment until all of this is over. There’s a pretty good possibility I won’t have a job when it’s all said and done.”

“What do you mean? Why would you lose your job over this?”

Emma’s bemused expression only served to further warm his heart. She was so naïve sometimes, her outlook so optimistic that there wasn’t room for a single dark thought. Time to come clean. She’d made a confession to him, after all. He might as well return the favor. “After Crawford hijacked us, he basically told me to pack my shit up and go. Instead, I called in a few favors and forced my way into the operation. My chief deputy isn’t exactly happy with me, and I think we both know how Crawford feels about my intrusion.”

Emma laughed and it was time for Landon to be bemused. “I told Crawford that I wouldn’t do a damned thing for him unless they brought you in,” she said. “It was my one and only deal breaker.”

Landon’s emotional pipes clogged up a little more, further proving that it didn’t take much for Emma to get to him. Already she was under his skin, embedded to the point that he was unsure he’d ever get her out of his system. Uncharted territory for sure. And scary as hell. “We’re quite a pair, aren’t we?”

“We totally are.”

Silence descended as they finished eating. It was a companionable quiet, but it left Landon too wrapped up in his own thoughts. His gut churned with the anxiety he felt. He didn’t like variables. Complications. And Emma was both. A giant question mark planted right in the center of his life. He should have been too goddamned exhausted for this kind of stress. The hours he and Emma had spent together were unlike anything he’d ever experienced with another woman. To say he was sated—and not a little dehydrated—would be an understatement.

Beyond the panes of glass that led out to the balcony, Landon watched as the sky began to lighten. A post-storm breeze had managed to blow the clouds away, and sunrise wasn’t too far off. Another day of variables. What-ifs. Another day of hoping to God he could protect Emma. That she’d be safe.

“I need to get out of here.” The words erupted from his lips, unbidden. A familiar need pooled in his muscles, a craving for the endorphin rush he got when he climbed, parachuted, whatever. The same rush he felt when he touched Emma’s naked flesh and swallowed her passionate cries as he kissed her. Jesus. He was a fucking wreck.

Emma’s face fell. “Oh. Yeah, okay. If you need some space, I’ll be fine here by myself for a while.”

Way to make her feel like she’s the one you need to get away from, dipshit
. He really should work on connecting his brain to his mouth. “No. I mean, I get a little antsy when I’m cooped up. I need to climb or jump off of something tall.” Emma’s brow knitted, which made Landon feel even more like a caveman.
Me need dive out of plane
.
Fall to ground fast
.

“You mean like rock climbing?”

“Yeah.” He cupped the back of his neck and shrugged. “Climbing, skydiving, BASE jumping. I do a lot of kayaking in the summer.”

“So . . . you’re an adrenaline junkie?”

More and more he was beginning to think he was becoming less of an adrenaline junkie and more of an Emma Ruiz junkie. “Pretty much. I like the rush.” Free-falling from a couple hundred feet was nothing in comparison to the rush he felt with her, though.

“Most people go for a jog when they’re feeling cooped up,” Emma laughed.

“I grew up in the world’s most boring family,” he remarked. “The most exciting thing my family ever did was swim in the ocean on a trip to the Maldives. And even then my mom complained about what the salt water was doing to her hair.”

“Salt water is a killer,” Emma teased. “So, what, the first chance you got, you jumped off a bridge just to prove that you weren’t a cookie-cutter version of your plain-as-white-bread family?”

Landon drew up a leg and rested his arm on his knee. He didn’t miss the way Emma’s eyes tracked the movement, or the way her gaze warmed as it traveled the length of his body. Nor could he ignore the way his own body responded to it. “When I was fifteen, we took a trip to Hawaii. My parents gave me a wad of cash and told me to find something to do while they did their spa shit or whatever it is that rich, self-involved people do on vacation. Anyway, I took off to see the sights and I found some guys who were cliff-diving. I watched them forever. The free fall, the way they looked so at ease before they slipped into the water . . . it spoke to me, you know? So I waited until everyone left and I climbed to the top of the cliff and stared down into the churning water for a while. And then I jumped.”

“Oh my God, Landon. You do realize you could have been killed, right?” He enjoyed the concern in her voice. It stirred something inside of him that he’d never experienced—or repressed—before. She leaned forward, as though she couldn’t wait to hear the rest of the story. A large lump of emotion rose to his throat once again. He wasn’t used to another person—besides maybe Galen—caring about him beyond the superficial crap. “What happened after you jumped?”

He looked away. This was the most he’d ever shared with any woman. Shit, the only other person who knew this story was Galen, and he was more of a brother than a friend. “I felt alive. Free. All of the pressure and bullshit that my dad put on me went away. The drop only took seconds, but it felt like hours, and before I hit the water, I was addicted to the rush. I snuck away every day for the rest of our trip and jumped off that cliff again and again until I was exhausted. I haven’t stopped jumping since.”

“I think you’re the only person I know who uses life-threatening activities as a stress reliever.”

“It helps to remind me that sometimes it’s okay to let go.”

Emma scooted her plate aside and crawled over the sheets toward him. Her eyes were dark, limpid pools shrouded by hooded lids, and her tongue flicked out to lick her lips before she continued her trek up the length of his body. A delicious buzz settled on Landon’s brain right about the time Emma settled in his lap. And just like that they were all over each other: groping hands, searching mouths, and long, drawn-out moans.

Landon grabbed a fistful of Emma’s hair and urged her head back so he could taste the flesh at her throat. “You’re better than a free fall,” he said against her skin. “Better than that first jump when I was fifteen.”

“Landon. Shut up and kiss me.”

Gladly.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Well, they could add a couple of broken plates to the food-stained sheets and mess of clothes that littered the hotel room floor. At first glance, it appeared as though somebody had partied like a rock star last night, but as Emma snuck out of bed and headed for the shower, she didn’t really care.

Being dead had its perks.

In any other circumstance, Emma would have been terrified at the prospect that someone on the housekeeping staff might take a few pics of the trashed room to splash all over social media. But now, she was merely some unknown, faceless girl. Totally uninteresting and not even worthy of a hashtag affixed to her name.

After round four of oh-my-God-amazing sexual play with Landon, they’d fallen asleep around six in the morning. Who knew you could do so much, feel so good, without any actual penetration? Emma had to give him credit, Landon sure knew how to use his imagination. Even though she only had four hours of sleep under her belt, Emma found that she was too restless for slumber. She let Landon sleep though—God knew he needed it—and turned on the spray, waiting for the water to heat up. Her limbs were deliciously heavy, her muscles warm as though she’d completed an all-day workout. A hot shower would do wonders to revitalize her. The only drawback was the prospect of washing Landon’s scent from her skin. She wished she could hold on to it forever and breathe him in whenever she wanted. The past twelve hours had been the most intimate of Emma’s entire life.

For the first time in years, she didn’t feel so alone.

She reached out to test the water before stepping under the spray. An audible sigh accompanied each relaxed muscle as the heat soothed her, and Emma closed her eyes, braced her arms against the shower wall, letting the water sluice down her body. Was there anything in the world better than a hot shower?

Yeah, there was. For starters, how about having Landon McCabe’s skillful tongue on her—

“Emma ?”

She started at the sound of his voice calling from the other room, and heat rose to her cheeks as though she’d been caught looking at porn on the Internet or something. These dirty images were all in her mind, however. Burned into her memory—hell, her very skin. Whether he realized it, Landon had left a permanent mark, one that wasn’t ever going to go away. “I’m in the shower!”