Page 34

Chapter Thirty-Four

“How did you end up in a freight lift?” Jake asked as she crawled her way out of the elevator, her legs shaking as she stood.

“Cassidy,” she said grimly, reaching for an antique armoire for support. She pulled at the sticky clumps of spiderwebs draped over her arms and shoulders, shuddering as she tried to rub them off her hands onto a velvet upholstered stool beside the armoire. “She locked me in there. I’m not sure she realized it was an elevator. I can’t imagine that thing’s been used since Russell Hempstead’s time. She probably thought it was just another secret passage.”

“Why in the world would Cassidy lock you up?” Jake asked, bewildered.

Kate sighed. “Because she’s Kennedy’s sister.”

“Ahhhh,” Jake said, nodding, before pausing and shaking his head. “Nope, I’m going to need more than that.”

“Cassidy’s dad is not her dad,” Kate said, flicking away more webs. “Her dad couldn’t have kids, and her mom really wanted them, so they made some kind of deal with Gordon Hempstead, Kennedy’s father, to get Cassidy’s mom pregnant. Apparently, Cassidy didn’t know until recently. But it means if Rebecca and Kennedy are both dead, she becomes—”

“The next heir to the Hempstead fortune,” Jake said, realization dawning. “Which means she could use her access to the family funds to pay off all those debts she’s about to default on.”

“But she needed proof of paternity, and since Gordon Hempstead has been dead for almost two decades, Kennedy was the next closest thing. I caught Cassidy with a DNA test. If she can prove they’re a sibling match, she jumps the inheritance line, right to the top.”

“So, she’s our murderer?” Jake said.

Kate frowned at the mass of webs that only stretched and stuck the more she tried to extricate them from her hair. “She’s definitely a primary suspect, since she’s obviously willing to do whatever it takes to protect her secret.”

“Let me help,” Jake said, moving behind her and gently extracting the webs. “You know, this isn’t as bad as the time Charlie and I went spelunking in Chillagoe Caves in Australia. Spiders the size of your face. I found a sac of them in my bag when we got home. My mum nearly burned the house down.”

“Not helping,” Kate said miserably. “I think I ruined my dress in the elevator shaft, too, when I was holding on to the wall. It was so cute, too, and so expensive.”

She ran her hands over the frayed strings and broken sequins where the wall had scraped away the delicate design, looking down just in time to spot a large brown spider crawling down the front of her dress and disappearing into the shadows of her cleavage. She let out a sound somewhere between a screech and a dog whistle, tumbling back into Jake and wriggling in panic.

“Kate, what is it?” Jake asked. “What’s wrong?”

“Spider,” she wheezed. “Spider. Spider! Get it… get it off. Off!”

“What? Where?” Jake asked.

“Get it off!” Kate huffed, twisting her arms around to try to reach the flimsy little zipper along the back. She imagined she could feel the spider in there, rooting around, making a little web home, laying its little spider babies. She needed out of the dress, and possibly a cleansing fire, before she would ever feel safe again. But her fingers only caught at sequins. Why did they make fancy dress zippers so tiny and ineffectual? It was like they wanted you to have to get cut out of their expensive dresses and buy a new one every time.

“Jake, get it off!” she cried, her voice still reedy and panicked. “Get it off!”

“I can’t get it off if I can’t see it,” Jake said, trying to hold her still.

“Not the spider, the dress,” Kate snapped. “Get the dress off!”

“Hang on,” Jake muttered, tugging at the zipper. “This zipper is garbage.”

“I know,” Kate said. For all she knew, the baby spiders had already hatched and were running a little spider empire in her bra.

Jake worked some kind of magic and suddenly the dress dropped to the floor in a sequined heap. The spider crawled out from the folds, scurrying off indignantly.

But Kate could still feel it crawling on her skin, despite the fact that she could now see most of her skin with the dress gone. She wore a strapless bra and a pair of highly impractical lace panties, neither of which was substantial enough to hide a small spider army. But still she couldn’t stop the feeling of something tickling across her chest, and she wriggled back against Jake on instinct, as if the friction created between them might burn away the sensation. At least until he sucked in a breath through his teeth, his hands dropping to her hips in a tight grip.

“Kate,” he choked out. “Stop that.”

“Why?” she asked, shivering. He groaned, his fingers digging into her hip bones, hard and unyielding. And it was only as that thought occurred to her that she noticed something else hard and unyielding, pressing against the lace outline of her panties. She’d forgotten she even packed them until she was getting dressed for the ceremony. But they made her ass look great, a fact she was rapidly becoming aware of as Jake’s erection pressed harder into her back.

“Kate,” Jake said, his tone impossible to read. His fingers still gripped her hips, either stopping or holding her there, she couldn’t tell. He didn’t move, just held her still, his body radiating heat into her skin.

She gathered all the courage it had taken to hang on in that elevator shaft and arched her back, purposefully grinding her hips against his. His reaction was immediate and swift, a groan rumbling through their connected skin as he held her hips down and still, his forehead dropping against the slope of her shoulder. His breath burned her skin where it touched her, hot and fast, like he was having his own version of a panic attack.

There was a murderer loose on the island, Kate had nearly been pancaked by a hidden elevator, and Kennedy was still in danger. But all her worry, all her puzzle-solving, dissipated under the heat of Jake’s caress. She could barely remember to breathe, much less think straight, with his body pressed against hers. Besides, Rebecca wasn’t getting any deader.

“Jake?” she ventured.

“What?” he panted, turning his face so his nose dragged across the curve of her shoulder, like the smell of her was a drug he needed in his system.

“I’m very, very sober,” she whispered.

He gave an unsteady laugh, his mouth against her throat, and she wasn’t shivering from the cold alone anymore. “Are you sure?”

She knew he didn’t only mean her state of inebriation, though she certainly felt drunk on the sensation of Jake’s fingers, Jake’s chest, Jake’s heat. Drunk on Jake. It was an addiction she’d quit cold turkey two years ago, had thought herself long over it, but now, with him pressed up against her, it seemed almost laughable that she would have ever gotten over this. She let her head drop back against him, sighing in anticipation.

“I’m absolutely sure,” she said, raising a hand to his head as he pressed his lips against her throat, using his hands on her hip bones to pull her in closer, both of them panting at the friction it created. “Jake?”

He paused, the tension in his body like a coiled serpent. “What?”

“You have too many clothes on.”

He grazed his teeth over her skin in answer. “Let me fix that.”

“Let me,” she said, already turning in his arms, tugging at buttons and fabric until she finally, blissfully, had his scorching skin against hers.

His lips found hers as her hands tangled in his hair, rising up on her tiptoes to press her entire body against his. It was astonishing how quickly she was getting used to kissing Jake Hawkins, even as it felt like something brand new and incredible every time. It was a feeling she was afraid to get used to, a craving she would carry the rest of her days that she already knew no one else could satisfy. His tongue flicked against hers, a rough slide that turned soft and playful as he traced along her upper lip, his teeth catching the curve of her lower lip and tugging on it.

“God, you taste delicious,” he said, fingers sliding into her hair and pulling her head toward him. “Like a dessert wine, or a plum cake. I want to eat you whole.”

Kate went liquid at the pure lust in his tone, the possessive way his other hand kept hold of her hip as he guided her back toward a bed in the far corner of the room that was blessedly free of stuffed creatures of any kind, her thighs bumping against the soft edge. It was easy to convince herself she was dreaming, that this was all a fantasy, or that she’d really lost her grip and plummeted to the bottom of the elevator shaft and this was heaven. But the feelings were too pointed, too sensory. The soft scratch of his golden chest hair rubbing against her breastbone; the faint trace of orange juice still on his tongue; the way her toes cracked from the cold as she curled them into the lush carpeting.

“You’re cold,” Jake said, his arms sweeping up the flat plane of her back.

“I’m not,” Kate whispered, digging her fingers into the waistband of his dress pants and tugging him closer.

He growled against her mouth as she kissed him again, Kate working the button and zipper on his pants as he flicked her strapless bra open in one deft maneuver. She knew it was probably from plenty of practice, but she didn’t even have the headspace to be jealous just then. Only to be grateful to all those other women for molding this version of Jake, who knew exactly where to touch her to fill up the rest of her headspace.

“You are cold,” he said, shaking his head as he tossed her bra on top of her discarded dress. “Your skin is covered in goose bumps.”

“That’s not why,” Kate said, her nipples tightening into sensitive peaks as they rubbed against his chest.

She finished fumbling with his zipper—with far less finesse—and stripped him down to his underwear, a black pair of boxer briefs that looked like they were painted on. Her mouth watered so hard it hurt. She brushed the back of her hand against him, soft and playful, and he groaned against her lips.

He reached behind her and pulled the fluffy bed coverings free. “In.”

“Fine, but only because I want to, not because you told me,” Kate said, turning around and climbing up on the bed. But Jake’s hands were on her hips, stopping her before she could crawl under the covers, spreading out to span the roundness of her ass. One finger slid under the edge of the lace, running the length of it.

“These are a sin,” he said, his voice hoarse as he leaned down and kissed the edge of the panties along her lower back. His thumbs swept up and pressed into her lower back on either side of her spine. “Why did you even bring these this weekend? What were you planning to do with them?”

“I don’t know,” Kate said honestly. “I thought they would make me feel sexy enough to be confident.”

“And do you?” Jake asked. “Do you feel sexy enough to be confident right now?”

“I…” Kate faltered. Did she feel sexy enough? It had never really been a consideration for Kate, certainly not around someone as effortlessly sexy as Jake. But how did she feel now, knowing he wanted her, knowing she wanted the same? Could she measure up to her own expectations, much less his?

“Should I tell you?” Jake whispered, leaning forward, his breath warming the length of her spine. He gently guided her up on the bed, laying her down on her belly and pulling the covers up over her legs. The rest of her he warmed with his own body, lowering himself to one side of her. “Should I tell you how badly I want to fuck you right now? Should I tell you how incredible your ass looks in these, and how I want to take them off you and keep them for myself so you never wear them for anyone else? How it made my heart stop when I opened that lift door and saw you hanging there, thinking what would have happened if I’d been just a minute later?”

Kate turned her head, his face so close she couldn’t ignore the earnest roughness in his expression. “I was figuring it out.”

He grunted his doubt against the curve of her neck. “This whole weekend you’ve been testing the limits of my patience, and I think it’s only fair that I test yours.”

And he did, running his tongue from the nape of her neck down her spine to the top of her panties, his hands gravitating toward the curves of her ass like they couldn’t help themselves. She sighed into the pillows as his hands moved everywhere, sliding up the sides of her hips and into the dip of her waist, tickling the sensitive skin under her arms before cupping her breasts and rolling her nipples.

“Your tits are amazing,” he breathed against her neck. “A perfect handful.”

“Jake, I want to touch you,” Kate whispered, squirming back against the weight of him pressed to one side of her.

“Who am I to deny a lady?” he said, smiling as he let her turn in his arms.

Her hands went to the waistband of his underwear, her fingers sweeping just below the elastic in the same teasing motion he’d used on her only moments ago. He sucked in a breath and let it out in a sigh, kissing her as either a reward or a distraction.

Kate let herself touch Jake everywhere she’d always imagined touching him, along the tight ridges of his abdomen, down the rock-hard length of his thighs, and gently over the scars from his accident. He explored her as she explored him, touching and tasting and teasing until Kate was moaning and begging, driven to the edge of her patience as he promised.

“If you want something, Kate, all you have to do is ask,” he teased against her mouth as he slid the lace of her panties lower, exposing more of her skin to his fingers.

“I want you,” Kate said, repaying the favor and sliding his boxer briefs down. “Oh, you’re so…”

“So what?” Jake asked, grinning as he kissed down her neck toward her breasts.

“So… thick,” Kate said, biting her lip as she wrapped her hand around him. “Ohhhh.”

“Keep doing that,” Jake said roughly, putting his hand over hers and moving her up and down. He was hot and smooth in her hand, growing longer and thicker as she worked him up and down.

“Do you have anything?” Kate whispered, afraid to break the spell.

“Ah,” Jake said, leaning over the edge of the bed and rustling around until he came up with a black foil wrapper. “For emergencies.”

Kate frowned at it. “Where did you get that?”

“My wallet,” Jake said, tearing open the top.

“Not next to the emergency toothpick, I hope,” Kate said.

Jake grinned. “No.”

And then she didn’t really care if it was next to the emergency toothpick or not, because Jake was laying her back and hooking his hand under one knee to make room for his body between her legs. And then he was easing into her in little rocking motions, his solid thickness stretching her with each motion, the movements making slick noises until he slid all the way in and they both groaned as their groins connected. He stopped there, giving them a moment to adjust, and all Kate could do was look up at him.

She’d never been this close to Jake, not in all their years of friendship and all her years of not-so-quiet pining. She’d thought she knew every aspect of him, but up close he was more flawed, which somehow made him more perfect. He had a small scar above his left eyebrow, and his ears stuck out more than she realized, the effect minimized by the length of his hair. It made her want to tug on one playfully.

There were so many things to discover, but this was still Jake. Jake, who had been her first and most enthusiastic fan when he’d encouraged her to finish the original Loretta novel; who’d made a game of trying new restaurants each time they met to discuss the Wandering Australian series; who always brought her takeout when they were on deadline; who had so gamely played the role of partner in crime-solving all weekend despite its many dangerous twists and turns; the true inspiration for Blake (though she’d die before she admitted it to him or Spencer at this point). The man who had introduced her to so many new places and people and experiences, who had truly opened up Seattle in a way she’d never managed to crack before meeting him. The man who had finally made a place she’d once thought of as just a city she lived in truly feel like home. The man she’d built so many fantasies on, and now he was inside her.

“Kate,” he said, brushing his lips against her temple. “Is this okay?”

He wasn’t experiencing the same rising tide of emotions that she was; he couldn’t be. Because it had robbed her of the power of speech, had taken up all the extra room in her throat until she felt she might choke on the emotion. This was her Jake, but he wasn’t her Jake. He never would be. She’d go back to her one-bedroom apartment and he’d pack another bag for some new exotic destination and it would be months, maybe years, before she saw him again. When she hadn’t been this close to him, she’d convinced herself she could handle it. But now, he was too close, her heart too unguarded, and even as she tried to steady her breathing and keep her chest from bursting open and offering her heart up on a platter to him, tears welled in the corners of her eyes and spilled down her temples, pooling into her ears.

“Kate,” Jake said, pulling back to look down at her. His expression so full of concern. “We can stop. It’s all right.”

“No,” Kate said, shaking her head. “I don’t want to stop. I just…”

How could she tell him? How could she express the feelings she’d buried so deep she’d been afraid to admit them to herself? She was too overwhelmed, too stripped bare physically and emotionally to lie to herself now. It was Jake. It had always been Jake. It always would be Jake, even when she knew it never could be Jake.

But she couldn’t say any of that out loud, not now, not ever. All she could do was reach up and cup his face with her hands to pull him down into a kiss, pouring all of the things she couldn’t say into the gesture. It was the closest she could ever get to telling Jake how she really felt about him, and she made it count, canting her hips up so that he sunk another inch deeper into her. He groaned against her mouth, drawing back and sliding in, setting an intense rhythm that quickly had both of them panting against each other.

“God, you’re so wet,” Jake said. “You feel… Kate, you feel so fucking amazing. You’re so fucking amazing. I’ve never… I can’t…”

His breathing turned ragged and harsh, his thrusts bordering on frenetic, his muscles slicked in sweat. Kate ran her hands up his back, so gentle over his scars, until she reached his shoulders. She dug her nails in hard, reaching up to whisper in his ear.

“Come for me,” she said, before biting into his earlobe.

He shuddered and groaned, thrusting in hard and making a sound Kate could only describe as helpless. He thrust a few more times, long and deep, burying his face in her neck as he came hard and fast, panting her name over and over as her own orgasm hit and she clenched around him, making him shudder again.

“God, Kate,” he said, collapsing against her, heavy and boneless. “God.”

She smiled up at the ceiling as she raked her nails softly down his back, her tears nearly dry. She swore to keep it that way. “I like it when you call me that.”