Just Pretending Read online

  She arched into him and pushed against his touch.

  “Do that again. Please,” she said, and he popped the top three buttons of her blouse, freeing the lace and pale skin that lay beneath.

  “Touch me,” he whispered, his voice ragged as his lips came down on hers once more and his fingers found the clasp of her bra and released her.

  When his thumb grazed her nipple, she tore her lips from his, grasped the collar of his shirt and pulled on the cloth in one quick, jagged move, baring the golden muscles that lay beneath. Her palms came up against his chest and she lightly pushed, waltzing him backward across the carpeting toward the couch.

  “No,” he said, covering both her hands with one of his own to stop her. He only waited for her to pause before he scooped her into his arms.

  “No?” Gretchen looked into his eyes, her own vision dull and glazed.

  “Not the couch. We need room,” he whispered, whisking her into the bedroom, striding the width of the floor and falling with her onto the bed.

  “Room. Yes,” she agreed, rolling from beneath him as she climbed to her knees and slid his shirt off his shoulders. She pushed, and he lay back against the pillows. Her lips found the small male nipple she was seeking.

  A long, low breath slid from between David’s lips as he let her lead the way. Gretchen leaned over him, her blouse curtaining his torso as she rose up to study him. He was beautiful, golden and hers for the moment, and she intended to feast.

  Her tongue swirled against his skin. The flavor of him was a joy to the senses. She kissed her way over the tight muscles in his chest, dipping down to savor that wash board stomach. Finding his belt with her hand, she quickly flicked open the buckle and reached for the snap on his jeans. Her fingers slid beneath the waistband and she heard the slow hiss of his breath.

  “Better to wait on that, love,” he said on a gasp. “I want to make this last. At least a little bit longer.” And without knowing exactly how he did it, Gretchen found herself in David’s arms, sliding beneath him. With a few efficient movements, he tossed away her blouse, sent her bra sailing and removed her slacks, leaving only her ice-blue satin panties.

  His smile was wolfish as he reclaimed the dominant role. “You are the most delicious, beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” he whispered, his warm breath teasing her skin as he nuzzled her hair aside and began to lightly nibble his way beneath her ear, down the exquisitely sensitive column of her neck.

  “Soft,” he murmured, dropping the lightest of kisses on the rounded slope of her breast.

  “Firm,” he whispered, his lips just catching the tip of her breast, tugging, tightening, then taking her into his mouth when she cried out at the heavenly sensation.

  She thought she would go mad when he pulled away and gazed down at her. But he only paused to brush her lips lightly with his own before he turned his attention to her other breast, rolling the nipple between his lips, then suckling her gently.

  A burgeoning need heated her, as sensation spiraled in her breasts and between her legs. She pressed her thighs together as David stroked her body, leading her, lifting her to heights of want she had never known.

  “Gretchen, love.” The words were strained with tension and Gretchen opened her eyes to look up at the man who controlled her every reaction at this moment. His eyes were dark with need and wonder and reverence. The fingers he touched to her lips shook. She knew that he was holding back everything that was coiled tightly within him. A light sheen of perspiration covered his magnificent chest. He needed her touch, needed release and yet when she reached for him again, to free him from the constraints of his remaining clothing, he closed his eyes and shook his head.

  “David?”

  He took a deep breath, opened his eyes and smiled at her slightly as he kissed his fingers, dampening them and then lightly touching the tip of her breast again. His light touch against her distended nipple sent her whole body bowing upward.

  She called out his name again and he slid his hand down her body, parting her thighs as he reached beneath that scrap of silk and found the center of her, his fingers slipping in deep to stroke and tease.

  And she flew apart on a broken cry. She lost herself to immeasurable pleasure. She touched the sun, the edge of the rainbow, and the deepest depths of the ocean in the same moment.

  And David held her as she gave in to ecstasy.

  When the tremors had finally subsided just slightly, she opened her eyes and looked up into his. He cupped her jaw, caressed her cheek.

  “Well, I see I’m still here on earth, after all,” she said, her voice weakened but still filled with the glow of satisfaction.

  “Not for long,” he whispered with a smile. “We’re only halfway to heaven, angel.”

  “I was sure I was almost there.”

  “Soon,” he promised, sitting up to skim his jeans down his legs and stepping out of his briefs. His body was long and lean and fully aroused.

  Gretchen trembled as he moved back to the bed and gazed down at her, impatient desire written in every detail of his body.

  “Maybe I was only halfway to heaven,” she agreed brokenly, pushing up on her elbows, rising to her knees.

  “Gretchen,” he warned as she reached out for him, her small slender fingertips lightly tracking down his body from shoulder to waist to hips.

  “This time I lead, partner,” she whispered, kissing his beautiful chest, sliding her fingers over his warm male skin, lightly stroking all of him. He was hard and long and strong and she wanted him.

  “A trip to heaven for two,” she whispered. “Now.”

  And she pushed him back and slid onto the length of him.

  “Now, sweet heart,” he said with a low growl as she mated her body to his.

  Rising and falling, she pleasured them both, loving the feel of his skin beneath her fingers, of her own body closing around his over and over again.

  “Gretchen, come here,” he said as he rolled over and took control again. He took her hands lightly in his own, holding them gently over her head as he thrust into her slowly. So slowly, pulling himself out and then slipping in deep. Touching her in places she had never been touched.

  Her pleasure rose and rose. David slid into her depths again and again. The corded muscles on his arms stood out as he held back.

  “Heaven.” He choked the words out.

  “David. Oh, yes. Heaven.” The words flew from her as she reached the peak and he tumbled after her with a satisfied groan.

  The world went silent except for the sound of their breathing. Gretchen lay beneath the man who had stolen her will, sapped her strength and shared her soul for the last length of time. He shifted, taking the weight of his body away and she felt the loss.

  The very thought sent a tiny shaft of fear echoing through her. The need to pull him close again, to fold herself into the haven of his body was almost overwhelming. And not just for the pleasure he could provide her, she knew all too well. It was the man himself who pulled at her emotions so deeply. The yearning to reach out for him nearly cut her breath off. The thought that she could ever want that badly was like a straitjacket, binding her, cutting off her choices and the freedom she’d worked for all her life. Especially since this man wasn’t known for staying in one place with one woman for very long. How could she have allowed this to happen? She couldn’t, Gretchen told herself. With the greatest effort, she edged away from the sensation, pushing it into the deepest recesses of her mind.

  Groggily, she pushed up to her knees, brushing her hair from her eyes.

  Deep emerald eyes studied her. A mouth that could kill a woman with pleasure lifted into a smile. She reached out to touch, then pulled her hand back.

  “Hi, angel,” he said, rising to join her, his height bringing him up above her. He reached out, cupped her cheek and gently kissed her before she had time to think or to stop him. “Thank you for the sweetest hour I think I’ve ever spent.”

  For just a second her eyes softened, but David
didn’t miss the shades that slipped over those sea-green windows immediately after. She was already distancing herself from him, already pulling away. The thought made him angry, and he didn’t want to be angry with her anymore today. True, it was his anger that had made him reckless and blind and brought him here with her to the edge of bliss, but it wasn’t anger they’d shared here on this bed.

  And he knew now that he wanted to share something very special with Gretchen Neal. For however far it went, he wanted them to go together. He wanted her to trust him for more than a few minutes of ultimate ecstasy.

  “Don’t do that,” he whispered, holding her still when she started to pull away, to slip backward off the bed, out of his arms, and, he was sure, as far away from him emotionally and physically as she could go.

  “Don’t do what?” She tossed her chin up, halting her backward movement, halting her physical retreat but not coming closer in any emotional sense.

  “Damn it, Gretchen,” he said, his voice hoarse and a bit hard. “Don’t act as if you don’t want to be near me when we just shared something pretty spectacular. Don’t pretend it didn’t happen.”

  She took a deep breath, licked her lips nervously. And that slight vulnerable motion, the scared-puppy look in her eyes nearly did him in.

  “I’m not. I won’t. It was beyond pretty spectacular,” she said, her voice so low he could barely hear her. “It was totally spectacular. Wonderful, in fact.” Her lashes dipped low, hiding her lovely eyes from him.

  “It wasn’t just sex,” he insisted, curving his palm around her arm, stroking lightly with his thumb. “It went beyond the moment.”

  She didn’t answer, but he felt the tension in her body, as though she was holding in her breath, trying not to feel or react.

  “Gretchen? Don’t tell me you’re regretting this time with me.”

  She breathed in deeply. “No,” she said slowly, firmly, placing her hands lightly on his chest, looking him full in the eyes. “I don’t regret making love with you, David.”

  “You’re afraid I’ll ask for more.”

  “Do you have more to give?”

  He studied her for long seconds, wanting to say yes but having no basis for those words.

  “I don’t know how much I have to give,” he finally admitted, “but I know we can share more than a few hours of passion. I want more than that with you.”

  She opened her mouth as if to speak and leaned in close. Then she tamed her parted lips. She kissed him softly on the mouth.

  “I can’t think beyond the day, David. I don’t want to think of the future. Just today. Just now.”

  And though her words were as soft as her body, they sliced right through him, wounding him in ways he hadn’t realized he could be wounded. But her eyes…oh, her eyes were large and wide and completely vulnerable. Because he was pushing her when he had no right to push, asking for answers he’d learned in the past he couldn’t give himself.

  David pulled her close. He pressed her head to his chest, running his palm over the silk of her hair.

  “You’re right, Gretchen, sweet heart. Just today. Just now.”

  And she twined her arms around him.

  He entered her slowly. He savored the moment as the world fell away and the lady gave him her all, her body, her pleasure, her world. Her today.

  And he took.

  Because today was all that either of them could promise.

  The workday had barely begun when Gretchen looked up to see Storm Hunter talking to Rafe Rawlings two days later. It wasn’t the only time since that first fateful day that he’d come into the station. He seemed to have a need to check up on the progress of the investigation—or a desire to make a point. He wasn’t going to simply sit around with his thumbs in his belt loops while the law took its sweet time on this case.

  At that moment he turned to the side and caught sight of her. His dark eyes narrowed. He raised his proud chin and for a second Gretchen thought she knew what Raven must have looked like when Jeremiah had insulted him by insinuating that he wasn’t good enough for his sister.

  But she wasn’t Jeremiah, Gretchen reminded herself, and there was no question that Storm was here to ask about her case. She rose and headed his way. She was just a few feet away from him when his lips turned up just slightly in a cold, knowing smile.

  She turned to see what he was looking at and gazed straight into David’s eyes as he came in the door.

  “Your boyfriend’s here, Detective,” Storm said softly. She wanted to squirm. She wanted to deny. She wanted to proudly proclaim that it was true. Instead she did none of those things. She simply raised one brow.

  “That’s old territory, and we’ve already covered it, Storm,” she said quietly.

  “You deny that the Neal-Kincaid ties are growing tighter? You’ve been seen together after hours. A great deal,” he said with a slow nod of his head.

  “What can I do for you, Storm?” she asked, her voice calm and devoid of the emotion that churned inside of her.

  He shook his head. “I don’t think you can do a thing for me, Detective. If you could, you already would have.”

  “We’ll do all we can to solve Raven’s case,” she said once again.

  “Or I’ll solve it myself,” he said quietly, stepping around her and moving down the aisle, headed toward the door.

  “What was that all about?” David asked as he reached her elbow. “You okay?” he asked.

  She nodded and turned to Rafe. “As to what it’s all about, I can’t completely say. What did he come for, Rafe?”

  The man shook his head. “Same thing he always does, Gretchen. Information. I’ve told him a thousand times that the case is yours.”

  “He doesn’t want to hear that,” she told Rafe and David. “He wants to hear that we have some answers. Unfortunately, we don’t have any yet. There’s just not enough hard evidence. I hope we find something soon.”

  “So do I,” David said. “I just talked to Phil. I have a case that looks like it may need my attention real soon, and it seems my time here is running out. I’m expected back in Atlanta in a week.”

  Gretchen knew that she should have felt glad to hear that news. When he’d first arrived she would have cheered at the prospect of getting rid of him. Now all she could think was that a week wasn’t nearly enough time. Not for this case, and not for herself. The fact that she felt that way was enough to prove to her that it was, in fact, a good thing that David was going back home. A very good thing.

  If she didn’t get in any deeper, she’d be just fine.

  Chapter Twelve

  It was the next evening and Gretchen was trying very hard to convince herself that the book on her lap interested her. It should have, but she was preoccupied, too conscious of the passing of time, too aware of the man sitting beside her on her old blue-and-white-plaid sofa. And that just wouldn’t do. She had to stay focused on what really mattered, on the things she could control. On her work.

  She intended to do that even though up until this moment she and David had simply been sharing each other’s company. They hadn’t engaged in work at all. How had that happened? Why had she invited him to dinner?

  Gretchen didn’t know—or maybe she just didn’t want to examine those motives too closely. Instead she cleared her throat and looked up at the man who raised his beautiful eyes from the newspaper he’d been studying.

  “What would you do if you were in love with a woman who also happened to be carrying your child and her brother tried to do everything in his power to get you to leave her?” she suddenly said.

  David sucked in a breath, and she wished that she hadn’t used the word “love.”

  “You’re trying to retrace Raven’s last day again?” he finally asked.

  She felt her muscles relaxing, glad that they were back to the clear-cut parameters of work. “What else is there to do? We’ve got nothing else to go on.”

  “I know. I’ve been doing the same thing, and I’ll tell you what I�
��d do. If I loved a woman, truly, desperately loved her, and someone was effectively trying to keep her from me, I might do anything.”

  The words were forced from David’s lips as though he struggled with the very concept of love. Gretchen knew how he felt. She definitely didn’t want to think about love—or to think about David loving one particular woman.

  “Maybe I’d just pace and snarl at everyone,” he continued. “I’ve talked to people who saw Raven in those last few days, and he apparently did a lot of that. I might get in a few arguments. He did that, too. And yes, most likely I’d confront the man who was hiding her from me. That’s the one thing we don’t know about. There’s no record of Jeremiah and Raven meeting after Jeremiah gave Raven the money.” He stared at her long and hard. “But that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Those two men were first-class enemies. Raven had good reason to hate Jeremiah and anything could have happened between them.”

  Gretchen let out a sigh. “And maybe nothing did. Maybe Raven, in his anger and grief, picked a fight with someone who decided to shoot him. Maybe there were other circumstances we don’t know anything about. We just don’t know enough.”

  “We know that Jeremiah had several guns that could have been the murder weapon, but then, we haven’t been able to conclusively link those weapons to that bullet.”

  “So we’re just going around in circles again, David,” she said, rising to her feet.

  “Not exactly,” he said with a soft murmur, standing and taking her hands in his own. “We’ve talked to a lot of people in the past few weeks. We’ve learned something of both of these men. We know that there was a lot of powerful emotion between these men, and those kinds of things get noted, get stored away in people’s memory banks along with other snippets of information that seemed to be lost over time. Maybe in time if we keep hammering away, those events will resurface in someone’s memory and we’ll know a little more about what happened between Jeremiah and Raven.”

  She tried out a smile. “Maybe in time?”