Temptation Rising (34 page)

Chapter 24

“Tell me something,” he asked when they’d lain in silence for too long.

“Hmm,” she murmured, her cheek against his naked chest, her bare legs entangled with his.

“Is this a part of your investigation?”

She stiffened.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean the investigation the DEA has you conducting on me. Is sleeping with me going into the reports?”

She tried to get up, to move away in lieu of answering, but Rome held her tight. His arms had been wrapped around her. She’d cooed as he pulled her closer after their mutual release. Now she wanted to bolt. Well, that was just too damn bad.

“Was sleeping with me the next step since you couldn’t break into my computer?”

Kalina remained silent, her heartbeat thumping wildly against his chest. She was thinking of a response. It wouldn’t be a lie; he didn’t pick up that rancid stench. She would tell the truth, but he sensed she wasn’t going to enjoy doing so.

“This wasn’t how it was supposed to turn out,” she said, her voice almost too quiet for him to hear.

“What was your plan? Find the incriminating evidence on my computer then have me arrested? You’d receive accolades, maybe a promotion, be the biggest, baddest female cop on the force because you’d brought down the infamous Roman Reynolds.” He couldn’t help the edge his voice had taken on. Since learning of her betrayal, he’d been on a roller coaster of emotions trying to figure out what his reaction should and would be.

On the ride over to her place, he was unable to think of anything but the possible danger she might be in. Once he had her safely in his grasp, he couldn’t think past fucking her. Now, sated and secure in her safety, he was pissed the hell off.

She tried to break free of his hold again and this time he let her. Running wasn’t going to help, he could guarantee that.

Pulling some of the sheet with her, she wrapped her naked body and slid a few inches away from him. The fact that she didn’t get off the bed and head for the door instantly told him a lot about her. That spunk he’d seen in her that night in his office was full-blown confidence now. The way she lifted her head and squared her chin said she had no regrets and he’d probably not be hearing an apology fall from her still-kiss-swollen lips.

“The DEA planted me at your firm to find out who you’re sending money to in Brazil.”

“Who do they think I’m sending it to?”

“A drug cartel. They don’t know which one.”

“Did you find the evidence you needed?”

She sighed, smoothing a hand over the back of her hair. “No.”

“Really? I would have thought that sleeping with me and doing as good a job of it as you did, you’d have the keys to my safe and personal access to all my accounts by now. Tell me, did how many times I made you come make it into your report?”

“Don’t be crass. It’s so beneath you,” she said, turning to toss him a cold glare over her shoulder. “To answer your question, even though I don’t know why I should since I clearly was not the only one lying in this … whatever you call what we’re doing. Anyway, I did not plan this. Sleeping with you was not on my agenda.”

Rome didn’t even breathe a sigh of relief, because he’d known that all along. Kalina was not the type of woman who would do anything she didn’t absolutely want to. And judging by all the sex toys he’d spied in the bedroom at her apartment, she wasn’t missing any sexual fulfillment by not being with a man. No, Rome was positive she’d wanted him, right from the start. She hadn’t liked that idea, not one bit. Now he knew she had reason to be resistant. Still, the idea that the feds were attempting to investigate him for something as ridiculous as drug trafficking still grated on his nerves.

“Why didn’t you just tell me when I caught you trying to break into my computer?”

“Oh I don’t know, probably the same reason you didn’t rush to tell me you were a human shape shifter.”

“Not the same,” he replied, quickly folding his arms behind his head as he watched her. “So if you don’t close this case, you don’t get the big promotion?”

“How did you know about the promotion? How did you find out I’m a cop? Or used to be one. After this, who knows what I’ll end up doing. Maybe flipping burgers right beside the high school kids.”

“You graduated from high school and went right into the academy. From there you started out as a beat cop, tumbled onto a few dealers who turned state’s evidence and gave you their big boss. Moved up to narcotics about five years ago. You were working a case to bring down one of the Cortez Cartel’s biggest street hustlers when the sting went bad and you were attacked in that alley.”

Somewhere around his second sentence she’d turned and looked at him. “Thorough background check your firm does on its employees, huh.”

Rome shook his head. “I’m a Faction Leader for the shifters.”

“What does that mean?”

“I guess you could say I’m the leader of all the stateside shifters on the East Coast. That means I’m privy to a lot of classified information, especially when it threatens us.”

“I’m not a threat to you,” she said. “Not anymore. I mean—” Taking a deep breath, she let it out in a quick whoosh. “I don’t have any evidence to convict you. My report will say that. I’ll go back to the MPD and you can go back to whatever it is you really are doing in South America.”

“I help support my people in the rain forest. The money I send buys supplies and food and weapons so they can defend themselves and our secret.”

“Then why do they think you’re supporting a drug cartel instead?”

Rome figured it might have something to do with the meetings his father had with an associate of Raul Cortez. But even Rome didn’t know what had transpired at that meeting. He didn’t know what his father had told that man or what was supposed to come of the meeting. Bingham had only given him Cortez’s name, nothing more. The old man simply didn’t know any more, and Rome accepted that. If his father didn’t tell him, Baxter, or even his mother what he was doing, the odds that he’d tell his lawyer were slim. So it looked like whatever had transpired years ago was about to come to light and the shifters would be the ones dealing with the repercussions. Not if he could help it.

“I don’t know” was his reply, because until he had more to go on than a name and an appointment in a journal he wasn’t talking about this situation, especially not with a cop.

Kalina waited a beat and figured she’d just been lied to. But that was fair, she figured; she was now the enemy. Which made the feelings she now knew she had for him even more difficult to deal with. So without another word she slid off the bed, taking the sheet with her as she moved closer to her clothes.

“Look, I can get a uniform to sit outside my apartment and keep watch. I’ll report the pictures and Ferrell’s weirdo act this afternoon and all will be well. I don’t have to stay here.” Bending over, she began picking up her clothes that were strewn about the floor.

She gasped when a strong arm came around her waist, pulling her upright against the hardness of his body.

“You’re not going back there alone.”

“This is ridiculous,” she said even though her body was saying something totally different. This desire for him was getting worse, like a craving that just wouldn’t go away. And she wanted it to, oh how she wanted it to. Because despite what she was feeling physically, this thing between them would never work. “I have to get out of here.”

Her voice sounded desperate and almost frantic to her ears. She couldn’t stand it.

“I won’t hurt you.”

Oh, but he already had, she wanted to say. His accusations, although basically true and brought on by her own dishonesty, had hurt. The fact that he thought she could sleep with him as a part of her job hurt. The fact that she ended up sleeping with him as a result of her job was embarrassing and painful. And the mere thought that he wouldn’t want her anymore because of everything he’d learned about her was going to make her physically sick in just a few minutes.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said, trying to pull away from him.

“It does.” He loosened his grip on her only slightly, so that she could breathe but she still couldn’t break free. “I asked you to trust me before, I’m going to ask you to do it again.”

She was shaking her head. “I can’t. And you don’t trust me. So we’re even.”

“I trust you,” he said solemnly. Then as if to show the truth to his words, he let her go.

Kalina spun around and looked at him in all his naked splendor. She simply stared, wondering what was about to come out of his mouth, seeing in flashes the beast he’d turned into, remembering with startling clarity the compassionate lover he’d been. “Why?”

“Because I can scent a lie miles away. Because I knew from that moment I saw you in the alley there was something special about you. Because like it or not somebody is after you and I think that somebody is a shifter.”

“What? Why would a shifter be after me? It’s probably one of the dealers from that night. One who didn’t get busted.”

“Then what does he want with you now?”

“Revenge.”

Rome shook his head. “No. They wouldn’t wait two years to get back at you. He would have struck sooner. This is about something else. When did you get the first pictures?”

Thinking, Kalina tilted her head as she looked up at him. “The day I met you in your office.”

“Whatever they want from you is personal. Ticked anybody off lately?” he asked, his lips lifting into a small smile she suspected was meant to lighten the mood.

As far as after sex banter went—this was rating a low three at best.

With a heavy sigh, she admitted, “I don’t know anybody to tick off.”

“What does that mean? You have to have friends, family. Somebody who’d get angry with you at some point.”

It was Kalina’s turn to shake her head. “I thought you did your research,” she said, but it was spoken so low it lost any biting sarcasm she might have attempted. “I have no family and the only person I know is Mrs. Gilbert, my neighbor. I don’t socialize much.”

“Why?”

This had turned into a question-and-answer session, but she really hadn’t expected him to ask her that. “I don’t know. I just don’t do well with people or relationships or something like that.” Why couldn’t she just say she was afraid to give herself to anyone in any capacity, in case they left her just like her parents did?

For a few seconds Rome was utterly silent.

“I can relate to that.”

“No, you can’t. You’re
the
Roman Reynolds, playboy attorney, richer than most and on every woman’s to-do list. I’m sure you have no problem with relationships.”

“Relationships that count,” he said solemnly. “You’re quoting the tabloids and making assumptions. I have very few relationships that count, Kalina.”

“Why? You have everything. What reason could you possibly have for being as reserved as I am?”

“No amount of money or success can block out the pain. If something has hurt you, odds are you’re never really going to get over that hurt.” He shrugged. “I’ve resigned myself to that fact and I function accordingly.”

“And does ‘function accordingly’ mean sleeping with women then moving on?” Her lips snapped shut. That question had just sort of rolled out. She’d been thinking it and there it was. To his credit Rome didn’t look too affected by her words.

“That’s been my past experience.”

“And now? What’s this for you now, Rome?” Because she really needed to know. For her, it was getting too deep. What she’d been feeling as she’d lay in his arms, the thoughts growing steadily in her mind, were so much more than she’d ever anticipated in her life. Much more than she’d ever been willing to risk. The least she could do was get a direct answer before suffering the disappointment.

He looked as if he were contemplating his words. “It’s more than I ever thought would happen to me.”

She didn’t know what to say, how to respond. “Oh,” she finally managed. She wanted to kick herself, it sounded so lame.

“I didn’t intend for this to happen,” she told him honestly. “I was just trying to do my job.”

“And you love your job?”

“It’s all I have.” Damn, again with the slipping of the tongue. She was telling this man too much, giving him even more. It was a dangerous situation, she knew.

“Now you have me.”

His words were somber, serious, and she wanted to grab hold of them, wrap herself in them, and believe that maybe, just maybe, they were true.

“I’ve never had anyone. My parents didn’t want me and neither did most of the foster parents I lived with.”

He was moving closer and she knew she should retreat, protect herself from this bad situation growing worse. But she didn’t. Couldn’t. His gaze, his simple presence held her still.

“My parents died when I was young,” he said, coming to stand right in front of her, reaching down to take her hands in his.

“I know,” she said softly.

“I was so angry when they died and I felt so alone.”

Kalina shook her head. “But you weren’t alone. Your housekeeper took care of you.” When he looked a little stunned at her words, she shrugged. “I did a lot of research on you.”