Identity--A Tale of Murder, Mystery and Romance Read online

  “Okay. Maybe a bit. I’m not used to having anyone else in the house at night.”

  Skye had pulled her hair from its ponytail and let the thick, chestnut strands flow past her shoulders in waves. A vision of those same strands across his pillow flashed in his mind. Desire tightened his groin. She hadn’t even been in the house for a night and he already wanted to climb on her.

  Yeah, he planned on seducing her, but not this soon. He’d wanted to give her a good day to adjust to his house with her son. He also didn’t want to look that desperate.

  “That’s a bit hard to believe.”

  “Why?” As he ran his gaze over her body with interest, he crossed the kitchen’s cool, marble tile. To hell with the brandy. With Skye, he needed his wits.

  She’d changed into a navy tank top and blue and white plaid boxers. Even with her feet in a pair of thick, white socks bunched at the ankles and her face void of makeup, she looked sexy as hell. It was beyond him how, when she wore something so masculine.

  She searched his face with cool, hazel eyes. “I would think women and you are pretty inseparable. I’m sure the groupie thing is pretty hard to pass up.”

  He shook his head, not really wanting to admit her assumption upset him. From one of the cabinets, he took out a glass and filled it with ice and water from the chrome refrigerator. “I’m not a player. Ah... I see your surprise. Believe it or not, the constant attention gets old. Far faster than you’d think.”

  Glass in hand, he stopped two feet in front of her, leaned a hip against the counter and offered her the water.

  Shadows clung below her eyes and the translucent quality of her skin hinted at exhaustion. She took the glass. The way she deliberately avoided his fingers bothered David, and because it bothered him, it annoyed him that much more.

  He sighed. Maybe he had been a little rough on her. “About the hotel situation... I’m sorry. Like I said, I never had any intention of getting you kicked out. I’m not that much of ass, but what the hell am I supposed to do with all your threats?”

  She searched his face, her gaze guarded above the glass as she took a swallow. “Yes, well, I might have come across a bit pushy.”

  This time he was the one who raised an eyebrow.

  “All right. A lot.”

  He noticed she hadn’t retracted her threat. The woman was damn prickly. Something or someone had made her that way. The question was—who or what? And did he really want to find out?

  She cleared her throat. “Thanks for taking us in.”

  That was something at least. “You didn’t give me much of a choice.”

  “That’s true.” She lifted the corner of her mouth into an ironic smile. “We might have ended up in the garage instead.”

  Poised, confident, she stood with her chin raised and thoroughly in control—even in a pair of pajamas.

  Jeeze. What would it take to crack that damn composure? Dynamite?

  David’s gaze narrowed. Maybe something far simpler.

  Shit. He’d wanted to kiss her from the moment he’d caught sight of her on the casino’s floor.

  He was tired of being the one always out of control—something that had never happened with any other woman until Skye blasted into his life. But not tonight. Tonight, she’d be the one losing control.

  Giving her a day to get situated was a stupid idea anyway. He needed her off balance—now. And at this point, he didn’t care if he looked desperate.

  Skye’s lips parted as he moved closer. The air conditioner on his damp skin didn’t cool his suddenly heated skin.

  She edged backward.

  He inched forward.

  “Okay, Bishop.” The ice-cubes rattled in her glass as she set it on the counter with a snap. “That’s close enough.”

  “Why? Am I getting to you?”

  “Of course not.”

  He stroked a knuckle along the tender skin below her ear. “Then why is your pulse fluttering like a terrified mouse?”

  “That must be your imagination.” Her throat flexed as she swallowed, but she didn’t step away. Her nipples pressed against the thin cotton of her shirt, tempting him to cup and caress both breasts until they tightened even more beneath his touch.

  “Really?”

  She raised her hand as if to pull his away, but he caught her wrist and brought her palm to his mouth. He licked the fleshy part below her index finger, inhaling her distinct lavender and feminine scent. At her indrawn breath, doubts about her lack of sexual interest in him scattered. David smiled against her hand with satisfaction.

  Soon. If not tonight, there’d be another time when he’d have her spilling her hidden agenda from between those delectable lips.

  He lifted his thumb from her inner wrist and brushed his mouth over her rapid pulse. He tasted salt and a possibility of something more. From above her hand, he watched for a reaction as he murmured against the warmth of her skin, “What is it about you that keeps me off balance and ties me in knots? You don’t know how much I want to pull off your clothes and take you here on the floor.”

  Skye’s chest rose and fell in quick succession as the color of delicate rose bloomed into her cheeks and melded with the dusting of her freckles. The desire that flared into her eyes hit him in the gut.

  David wanted her, wanted her more than he could remember wanting a woman.

  His grip on her wrist tightened. He wrapped his free arm around her waist and applied pressure to the small of her back until her body grazed his. The cool cotton of her shirt and shorts brushed against his bare stomach and legs.

  He released her wrist and caught her chin between a finger and thumb, urging her to look up and meet the hunger he knew burned in his eyes. “I think you like being this close.”

  He didn’t wait for an answer. Hell, he knew, she’d come up with an argument if he gave her more than a second. He lowered his head, and the touch of her lips dragged a rattling sigh from his own. The taste of her, warm, female and alluring urged him to take more than a fleeting kiss. He held off. Savoring the moment. The anticipation.

  Her sigh mingled with his. The touch of her hand against his bicep, tentative at first, grew bolder as her fingers glided up to his shoulder.

  “You have the most incredible skin. I’ve wanted to touch it from the minute I first saw you.” When he trailed his fingers along a two-inch scar by her temple that disappeared into her hair, he frowned. “What happened here? Did you do that Skydiving? Or something not so hair-raising? Maybe mountain climbing or horseback riding?

  “Nothing so dramatic,” she replied with a throaty, awkward sounding chuckle. “I actually don’t remember. I probably fell out of a tree or off a bike.”

  She dropped her hand from his shoulder and made to pull away but David didn’t release his grip from around her waist. He was far from done with her.

  “You should be more careful.” He slid his fingers from her temple to the curve of her cheek, and then swept a thumb along the line of her jaw. When he cupped her neck with one hand, her pulse thrummed against his palm.

  David shifted, feeling himself grow hard with need. Her breasts brushed against his chest. He found the cotton strangely erotic against his naked skin.

  “I need more.” His voice came out rough and raw with emotion as he searched her face. She wanted him too. He saw the awareness in her eyes, sensed the hunger in the air around her. Anticipation radiated from her body. “This isn’t enough.”

  “It is for me.”

  “I think you want more.”

  “I think you’ve got an inflated ego,” she whispered against his lips, but she didn’t draw away as he kissed the corner of her mouth and tugged on her lower lip with both teeth until her mouth widened.

  “In a minute, I’m hoping you won’t be able to think.”

  He captured her lips. This time though, he needed more than a simple caress, a simple taste. He longed to have her blind to anything but him, his touch, his hunger.

  He swept his lips across her mout
h again and again, testing their texture, their warmth. Her mouth opened wider against the pressure of his, and her tongue mated with his, inquisitive, daring, and bold.

  David cupped her slender shoulders with shaking hands and pressed closer. Her breasts flattened against his chest and her hips rubbed against his erection. His grip on her flesh tightened as desire surged through his veins, clouding everything but the need to slake his hunger on the woman in his arms.

  With Skye’s hands roaming roughly over his back, David turned and lifted her onto the kitchen island. She opened her legs and cradled his hips between her thighs. The feel of her heat against his cock ripped a groan from his mouth as he caught the back of her skull in one hand and kissed her. Thin fabric blocked him from plunging into her right that second and taking her until they both came.

  A snuffle and soft woof sounded from somewhere in the kitchen. One of the dogs brushed against his calf. David nudged the animal aside with a leg. There was no way in hell he’d let a dog get in the way of what he wanted.

  Skye. The woman twisted his inside, made him forget everything but the need to take her, to mark her as his.

  Another bark broke over their labored breathing. This one sounded louder and more impatient.

  David broke off their kiss and glared down at Dozer sitting on his haunches and sweeping the floor with his tail. Those big brown eyes didn’t fool him. The dog always liked to be the center of attention, and now was no different.

  Skye’s fingers dug into his arms and she pushed him away. “Okay, Bishop. This is crazy.”

  Reluctantly, he eased back from her body. He took in a shuddering breath, stunned at the depth of his reaction.

  David noted her flushed cheeks, swollen lips and the unmasked need glittering in her eyes before she lowered her lids. “Crazy? Maybe... But one more minute and crazy would be the last thing on our minds.”

  Skye opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again. “This can’t happen again.”

  She didn’t look so in control now. Somehow David didn’t find anything satisfying about cracking her composure like he’d thought. Yeah, he’d gotten to her, but it didn’t compare to how much she’d pushed him over the edge. Forget control. He’d lost anything resembling it the moment she’d kissed him back. While his plan to get secrets from those lips... Hell, they’d hit the dust along with that control.

  With his gaze locked on hers, David wrapped both hands on her knees and caressed the delicate skin of her inner thighs with his thumbs. Skye grabbed his hands with trembling ones of her own but didn’t pry them off. Encouraged, David inched his fingers slowly up her thighs, savoring the texture, the warmth and the tremor beneath his touch.

  Longing swept across her face, and she bit down on the corner of her lip. Their breathing carried across the room while the sexual tension between them thickened and escalated. Her reaction, unmasked, unmistakable, and so damn responsive stoked the hunger burning through his body.

  Then her face tightened, wiping out her brief look of hunger. She shoved at his chest.

  He dropped his hands and stepped backward, fighting the disappointment and frustration from entering his voice. “Why? You want it. I want it.”

  Skye slipped off the counter and moved across the kitchen. Only when she stood on the opposite side of the island did she face him. Gone was the passion, the longing in her eyes. She stared back with impenetrable, hazel eyes. “I can’t have any distractions. I’m here to find out what happened to a missing part of my past. You’re a key.” She warded off his response with a raised hand and shook her head. “No. Don’t even try to convince me otherwise. It won’t work. I know what I’m talking about.”

  “Enough to stake your life on it?”

  “I already have,” her words, barely audible still carried across the distance between them. She winced and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Forget I said that. I’m tired and talking about things that don’t make sense.”

  “Forget? Why?” He stepped around the dog and grabbed his bottle of brandy. To hell with his wits. They’d deserted him the second he pulled Skye into his arms. He grabbed a glass from a cabinet and lifted both in her direction.

  “I don’t drink.”

  David lifted a brow but didn’t say anything. Somehow that didn’t surprise him. Hell. Alcohol might jeopardize her prized self-control.

  He brought glass and bottle over to the kitchen island, poured himself a good inch and downed it in one swallow. The liquor, though smooth, burned down his throat and hit him in the gut. He blinked and fought back the cough itching the back of his throat.

  “Why would you stake your life?” Carefully, he set his glass down on the counter. “That’s a pretty loaded statement. Seems to me that’s exactly what you meant. Why is your life in danger? Because of someone after you? You’re obviously hiding from someone.” Those lips, still reddened from his kisses, thinned into a stubborn line. Her lack of a response burned his gut even more than the brandy. “Damn it! You’re staying at my house. You’ve blackmailed me, made me question my life. I think I have a hell of a good reason to want to know why.”

  “I need a drink.”

  He didn’t comment but got another glass out from the cabinet and poured her a shot. The glass scraped against the granite counter as he slid the drink her way. She grabbed it and downed the brandy in one smooth swallow. No wincing, no flicker of emotion in those large, hazel eyes. If not for that brief moment in his arms, David would think the woman was ice personified.

  Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she raised her chin, her body rigid and oddly regal in her tank top and boxer shorts. “They want my son.”

  “Who?”

  “If I knew that, do you think I’d be standing here?” She shook her head, weariness dipping her shoulders. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to bite your head off. The whole subject’s hard to take.”

  “What happened?” He kept his voice neutral, but the muscles of his back and shoulders bunched with shock and unease.

  “Two years ago Tyler was kidnapped. We’d been in a department store. I’d turned my back for a second and...” She rubbed the bridge of her nose again, then seemed to mentally shake herself. “God, fate, a miracle, what have you, protected him. The man who grabbed him was killed in a car crash several miles from the scene. Buckled in the back seat of the car, Tyler came away from the accident unscathed. I have no answers as to why Tyler was snatched. The perpetrator did have a record, but nothing like kidnapping.”

  “And?” He shook his head and forced himself to remain on this side of the island, mindful of the sudden animosity in Skye’s voice. If he offered any type of comfort, she’d just lash out. “How is that related to now?”

  “I thought everything was over when the kidnapper was killed, but they tried again when Tyler was walking home from school. At first, I believed we were dealing with a pedophile. That completely changed with this second attempt. It made me realize more than one person was involved and that they were organized.”

  “What about the police?”

  “The police?” She grunted, disgust flashing in her eyes and curling the corner of her lip. “They think I’m paranoid—thanks to my ex. During the divorce, Jay fought me every step, even made it out that I was making everything up about people being after Tyler. In order to get custody I had to be seen by a psychiatrist.”

  He shook his hand and circled his glass with his hand and felt like shit. His life seemed so damn superficial and uncomplicated. No wonder the boy had appeared far older than his years.

  “I’m sorry, Skye. I really am. It sounds like you’ve been in hell, but I still don’t understand why you’re dragging me into your mess.”

  She laughed. Her words hoarsened with rancor. “Believe me, I wouldn’t have, but I’m desperate. I know it all ties to my past—these memories I started uncovering during my sessions with the psychiatric.”

  “And I’m in those memories.”

  “Yes.” She walked around the island
to his side, her face growing earnest. “I know what I’m recalling is connected with our powers. I’m sure of it. I also think you were adopted like me. Am I wrong?”

  “No. I was adopted, but thousands are kids are adopted each year. That’s hardly a connection.”

  “When you add telekinesis,” she insisted, “I think it’s a huge connection.”

  David stopped himself from softening. Yeah, she’d been hit hard by life, but she’d deliberately set out to involve him. He didn’t want to be embroiled in someone else’s chaotic life. He liked how his life was. It might be superficial and uncomplicated, but it was his. Irritation thickened his voice. “But you have no proof of our association? And now you’ve got these people focused on me.”

  “No. It’s all about Tyler and his powers.”

  “If you believe it’s all about Tyler, then why chase me down? Why turn my life into your mess? Especially when everyone thinks these people don’t exist.”

  “Don’t look at me that way. I’m not paranoid! I know you’ve got something hidden in your past. Something locked inside your brain.” She stared at him with fierce eyes and grabbed his upper arm as if to punctuate her point. “Have you talked to your father as to who your parents were? Maybe we’re from the same foster home?”

  “Foster home? I don’t think so.”

  Straightening, she pulled her hand from his arm. “Why not ask your father?” She stepped backward and tossed her hair over one shoulder with a finger. The intensity of her expression didn’t ease. “I know he’s hiding something. Did he ever tell you where you got your powers from? Can you tell me that? Or what about adoption papers? I bet you anything he won’t have them.”

  With her last comment hanging in the air, she pivoted and disappeared from the kitchen.

  Chapter 11

  Hunkered down in the middle of the green room, David ripped out the plant from its nursery pot with too much force. Damp dirt splattered into his face and across the floor. He hit his glass of iced tea resting on the wrought-iron coffee table with the back of his hand. The contents went flying, while the plastic glass clattered onto the floor and cracked.