Lethal Attraction: Against the Rules\Fatal Affair Read online

  “No. I like having you here, and he doesn’t really care, despite the grief he might give you.”

  “I need to go home at some point to get some clothes and make sure the condo association took care of getting the windows fixed.”

  “We can arrange that.” She sat up and stretched. “I’m going to grab a shower. Care to join me?”

  “I’d love to, but I’m not going to push my luck. I’ll go after you.”

  “Wimp.”

  “Yep.”

  She laughed as she slipped into a robe, and the sound warmed him. He was surprised to realize she had made him feel better, even as the sickening images from the dream lingered. After Sam went into the bathroom, he sat up, gripping his pounding head. The concussion they’d called minor was making a major statement, and whatever they’d used to numb the cut over his eye had worn off, leaving a dull, throbbing ache.

  He felt kind of foolish about unloading on Sam, but she hadn’t seemed to mind. Having someone to share the ups and downs with was something he could get used to—as long as that someone was her.

  He stood up and groaned when his injured foot protested. Reaching for his jeans, he pulled them on and took a good look around the messy room. Sam had a way of exploding into a space, which was in direct conflict with his need for order. Beginning with the clothes piled on the floor, he went to work on the clutter. By the time she emerged from the bathroom fifteen minutes later, the place was almost livable.

  Her eyes all but popped out of her skull. “It’s like you can’t help yourself!”

  “Just straightening up. No biggie.”

  “I won’t be able to find anything!”

  “You couldn’t find anything before.”

  “I knew exactly where everything was.”

  “No way,” he scoffed. “You’re a slob, Samantha.” He bunched the towel she had wrapped around her into his fist and tugged her close enough to kiss. “A sexy, gorgeous slob, but a slob nonetheless.”

  Pouting, she tried to break free of him. “Just because I’m not an anal retentive freakazoid, doesn’t mean I’m a slob.”

  “Freakazoid? I’m hurt.” With another hard kiss he released her so she could get dressed. “This is going to be a problem when we live together.”

  “Live together?” she sputtered, choking on the words. “Where the hell did that come from?”

  “You don’t have to act like the idea is totally repulsive.”

  She shoved her long legs into jeans. “We haven’t even been together a week, Nick. I mean…come on.”

  Not wanting her to see that she’d hurt him by being so dismissive, he turned away from her to look out the window. He churned with things he’d like to say to her, arguments and persuasions she was clearly not ready to hear. As he stared out into the darkness, a shadow across the street caught his eye. Zeroing in for a closer look, he realized someone was watching the house. He ignored the screaming pain in his foot and the pounding in his head when he bolted for the door and flew down the stairs.

  Sam called out to him.

  Blasting through the front door and down the ramp, he was almost hit by a car as he ran into the street. The blare of the car’s horn startled him, taking his attention off the shadow for just an instant, but that was all it took.

  “Watch out, asshole!” the driver yelled out the car window.

  By the time Nick recovered his bearings the shadow was long gone.

  “Shit! Son of a bitch!”

  “What’re you doing?” Sam screamed from the porch.

  “Someone was there,” he said, his breath coming out in white puffs in the cold air. “I saw him. Watching the house.”

  “So you just run out half-cocked, not to mention half-dressed?”

  “What else was I supposed to do?”

  She had her hands on her hips in a gesture he recognized by now as her seriously pissed stance. “Um, I don’t know. Maybe tell the cop who was in the room with you?”

  He limped back to the ramp and started up to where she waited for him. “I didn’t think of it. All I thought about was getting him.”

  “And what were you going to do with him once you got him?”

  Squirming under the heat of her blue-eyed glare, he shrugged. “I would’ve figured something out.”

  “That’s exactly how civilians get themselves killed by the hundreds every year, thinking they can take the law into their own hands.”

  “I don’t need you to lecture me or to keep using the word civilian like it’s some kind of vermin.”

  “Vermin’s got to be smarter than you just were.”

  “I almost had him.”

  “You almost got flattened by a car!”

  Fuming, they stood there spitting nails at each other.

  “Um, ’scuse me, but ah, I’m back,” Freddie said from the sidewalk. “You said I should come here and, um…”

  “Come up,” Sam said, never taking her eyes off Nick. “Go in. I’ll be right there.”

  “Gotcha, boss,” Freddie said with a sympathetic smile for Nick as he went by them. “Good to see you again, Mr. Cappuano.”

  “Likewise,” Nick said, still focused on Sam. “And you can call me Nick.”

  “You should’ve told me what you saw,” Sam said after the door closed behind Freddie. “If you had, I could’ve called it in, and maybe we would’ve nabbed him. Instead, you go off on a Rambo mission that yielded squat.”

  Nick contemplated that. “You might have a point.”

  “I might? Really? Wow, thanks.”

  “I’m sorry, all right?” He ran a hand through his hair in frustration. “I just reacted. So shoot me for wanting to get whoever is stalking you.”

  “How do you know they’re not stalking you?”

  “Because I’m a whole lot more boring than you are.”

  “You’re not boring. Stupid occasionally, but never boring.”

  “Thank you. I think.”

  “Did you get a good look at him?”

  He shook his head. “Nothing but a shadow, but that shadow was definitely watching this house.”

  “If you see him again, tell me.” She pinched his chest hair and tugged just hard enough to raise him to his tiptoes and bring tears to his eyes. “Don’t you dare risk yourself like that again. You got me?”

  “I got it,” he said through gritted teeth. After she released him, he rubbed a hand over his chest. “I only let you get away with that shit because I was taught it’s bad manners to flatten a woman, even if she deserves it.”

  “Whatever,” she retorted on her way back into the house where Skip, Celia and Freddie waited for them.

  Skip’s sharp eyes skirted over Nick’s bare chest and feet.

  “Um, I’m going to go find a shirt,” Nick said, starting up the stairs.

  “Might not be a bad idea,” Skip said.

  “Leave him alone, Dad,” Sam said. “He’s already convinced you’re going to have him killed.”

  “Also not a bad idea. Why didn’t I think of it?”

  “Dad…”

  “Relax and let me have some fun with the boy, will you? I so rarely get to have any fun these days.”

  Freddie smirked.

  “What’re you smiling at, Cruz?”

  The smile faded. “Not a thing, ma’am. Not one thing.”

  “I assume you’re not just here to bum another meal. What’ve you got for me?”

  “Some of the others are heading over from HQ to help out,” he said. “Want me to wait and brief everyone at the same time?”

  “Give me the highlights.”

  By the time he had run through it, she had paced a path in the living room rug.

  “I was thinking on the plane ride home,” Freddie said, “that the other women he dated were like substitutes for the one he couldn’t have. All of them resemble her in basic features, and I’m no shrink, but maybe he turned on the kink with them because he was frustrated he couldn’t be with the one he wanted.”

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