Jinxed!

8

IAN RAN OUTSIDE THE police station into the now clear night. The wind had chased away the clouds.

And, apparently, Chloe.

He raced through the lot, turning in a circle in the middle, stopping short at the sight of her at the far end, his gut clenching hard.

Her skirt soggy and clinging, his own sweatshirt covering her from fingertips to mid-thighs, her hair damp and hanging in her face, she looked like a wreck, an adorable, sexy wreck.

He’d never seen anyone so beautiful in his life.

“Great exit,” she was saying to herself. “But your car’s at Ian’s, you idiot. Of course, it’s at Ian’s, because this is Valentine’s Day.” Sighing, she tipped her head heavenward. “Karma? You listening? You suck.”

“Does karma ever talk back?” he asked, stepping close.

She didn’t jump, didn’t scream, just closed her eyes. “Perfect.” Then she opened her eyes and looked at him. “Do you believe in karma, Ian?”

“That’s not the question I expected you to ask.”

She let out a low, mirthless laugh. “Tonight, at the party? I had my palm read. The lady told me some pretty crazy stuff.”

She’d been crying, and his heart tipped. “Like…?” he asked very softly.

“Like…” She squirmed just a little, which he didn’t understand. He’d expected to be on the hot seat, not her. “She said true love was going to walk into my life. Tonight.”

“What did you say to that?”

“I laughed. And then she gave me a warning. She said my karma was going to take a vacation to the Bahamas.”

“Harsh.”

“Maybe she was mad that I didn’t believe her.”

“You don’t believe in love at first sight?”

She looked at him. “Do you?”

“Yes.” He was shocked to hear himself say it, but it was true, he realized.

“How about karma?” she asked. “Do you believe in karma?”

“I believe in making your own karma, by being a good person, doing your best, finding ways to be happy so that life is good.”

“What if you’re too busy securing your future to stop and smell the roses, and then one day you’re thirty and all you have to look forward to on Valentine’s Days is a day like this?”

She sounded uncertain and alone, very alone, which he hated. With a sigh, he pulled her close, wet clothes and all. “Was the night all bad?”

She went quiet a moment. “No, not all bad.”

He found his mouth close to her face, and kissed her temple, her jaw. “Destiny is your own for the taking, Chloe. You know that, right?” He kept his mouth on her, loving the feel of her skin beneath his lips. “And I’m sorry, but I can’t imagine you doing anything bad enough to warrant worrying about your karma going south.”

Arching her neck to give his mouth better access, her hands came up to his shoulders as if she couldn’t help herself. “Why not?” she whispered.

“Because I know you.”

“But your case-Steve and Al-”

“If you had anything to do with this, it was without your knowing it.”

Her huge eyes never left his, though some of the tension in her body did. “You really feel that way?”

“Really.” He let out a long breath. “Jesus, Chloe, do you really think I could kiss you like I did, and believe you to be a thief?”

“I kissed you.”

“Well, I can fix that.” Hauling her up against him, he covered her mouth with his. Like before, it was a sucker punch of need and arousal to his gut.

And something more.

Chloe kissed him back, murmuring her pleasure with a sexy low hum in her throat. “Tonight?” she whispered. “When you found me in that office?”

He stroked his thumb over her lower lip. “Yeah?”

“I’d gone in there because I’d heard a noise.”

“Me.”

“Yes.” She shivered, and he ran his hands up and down her arms to warm her. “I found something,” she said. “A set of files. Files I didn’t know about that show far more income than has been reported.”

“Good. That’s really good, Chloe, but right now I want to get us out of here and into dry clothes. Can I do that? Take you home?”

She looked at him for a long moment, and he hoped to God she saw a man she could trust. When she finally nodded, he felt like he’d won the lotto. He steered her toward his car, which Danny had left in his spot.

Inside, he directed the heater vents her way and drove her home. He parked in her driveway and walked her to the front door, but when she moved to let herself in, he stopped her, his hands on her chilled arms as he looked into her eyes. “You asked me about karma,” he said carefully, watching her eyes flicker with her own unsettled feelings on the matter. “And I said we make our own. I mean that, Chloe. So much so that I’m about to make mine.”

“What-”

He put a finger over her lips, then, looking deeply into her eyes, he murmured, “Let me be with you tonight.” Then still holding her gaze he replaced his finger with his mouth and let his eyes drift shut, because having his mouth on hers again was so exactly what he needed he could hardly stand it.

Chloe held herself still at first, not because the kiss wasn’t stop-her-heart yummy, but because his words had been so unexpected.

No. Not unexpected, but wanted, wanted more than anything, and she hadn’t been able to see that they’d ever be here again, wrapped tightly in each other’s arms, mouths fused, soft, sexy little sounds escaping their throats…“Inside.”

“You read my mind.”

They fumbled to open the door, both their hands trying to work the key at the same time. She pushed his hands away, which left them free to touch her, a situation he took full advantage of, gliding his hands up her rib cage, to beneath her ribs, the tips of his fingers just brushing the undersides of her breasts…

Knees wobbly, she finally got the key in. “There-”

Which was all she got out before he lifted her over the threshold, kicked the door shut and turned to press her back against it, taking her mouth again.

And again.

Mmm…

“I’ve got to tell you,” he managed. “Ever since I saw you tonight, I-”

He broke off when she pressed her mouth to his throat and just breathed him in, inhaled him. “You what?”

“Wanted you.” His fingers tightened on her. “Jesus, I wanted you.”

“You never even let on-”

“I was trying not to be me, remember?”

“Your eyes gave you away.”

“Yeah?” Sliding his fingers into her hair, he gently tugged her head back and stared into her face. “What did my eyes tell you?”

That you love me. Her breath caught on that. She’d have to be crazy to admit that out loud, that fantasy. No way would she make herself that vulnerable. “They told me that we have a connection.”

“Always have. No matter how I ran.” He stroked his finger over her cheekbone. “I know it’s too late for this, but I’m sorry about how I left you. You deserved better. I was afraid back then, afraid of what we had. I’ve lost that fear, Chloe.”

Oh, God. What was he saying? She didn’t want to have to beat back the knot of hope currently blocking her air passage. “Ian-”

“I know, too little too late, right? But if you can’t believe me, Chloe, and you don’t believe in karma, then maybe you can believe in letting people right their wrongs, fix their mistakes. I want to make this right.”

She pulled his head to hers for another mind-altering kiss, where there were no misunderstandings, no mistakes.

All that existed was now, how he made her feel. He had his hands flat on the door on either side of her head, his mouth hard on hers, and she lost track of everything but this…God, this…

“My room,” she said between kisses.

“Again, just what I was thinking.” Still holding her, he turned away from the door. “Which way?” he asked, nipping her lower lip with his teeth.

Oh, God. She sank her fingers into his hair and returned the little love bite, thrilling to his rough groan. “Down the hall.”

In the hallway, he stopped to press her back against the wall, then plundered and pillaged her mouth, her neck, tugging open his sweatshirt, yanking down the tank and her bra to latch on to her nipple.

She cried out, fisted her hands in his hair and panted for breath. “First door,” she gasped.

He headed toward it with such fierce intent, she would have laughed, if she could breathe. In her room, he turned to the bed, but she directed him to the bathroom because that’s where she kept a-

“Condom,” he said, reading her mind this time.

“Top drawer-”

He set her on the bathroom counter and pulled out the top drawer. After grabbing a foil packet, he opened it while she yanked open his shirt and brought her mouth to his chest.

Somehow his shirt melted away, and then hers. Her skirt followed, as did his pants. Then he stepped between her legs, and holding her thighs wide, he drove into her, the power of his stroke making her gasp with unspeakable pleasure so that she arched back. He promptly attached his mouth to her exposed throat, sucking on a patch of her skin there as he took her. It was just as she’d craved-Ian, six-plus feet of solid, warm, hard, ungiving muscle, wrapped around her, in her.

And there was nowhere on earth she’d rather be. Please let this be real…

By his third thrust, she was trembling, on the very edge. His hands tightened on her thighs, opening her further to him, and rearing his head, he captured her gaze in his. “This is real, Chloe.”

Oh, God, she’d spoken out loud?

“Whether the fortune-teller said it or not, this is real. You and me.”

And then he sank into her again, and then again, until she was hovering on a plateau, held there, suspended, lost in the way he looked at her, touched her, said her name in that low, raw voice. He filled her senses as he reached between them and stroked her with a knowing thumb, so that she came all over him, wildly, messily, gasping for breath. Then he started all over again, and this time, they both went over together.

“So real,” he said on a thread of breath, sinking to his knees, pulling her down with him.

They lay there on the floor, gasping for breath, their bodies damp and cooling, hearts thundering against each other for a long time. Chloe ran her hand up the muscles taut in his back, unable to hold back her smile as he finally lifted his head.

“What are you thinking?” he murmured.

“Thank God some things never change.”

He let out a low, rough laugh, a glorious sound, then slid down her body, dropping kisses as he went, on her breasts, her belly, and then…“Oh!”

“So you still like that,” he whispered against her. “Let’s see if you still like…” And he brought his fingers and tongue into the action. “Yeah?”

She couldn’t answer, she was far too busy being whipped back into a frothy frenzy. And afterward, when she was still trembling, he rolled, pulling her over the top of him so that she straddled his hips.

Bending over him, she set her hands along his jaw and kissed him deeply. “What now, cowboy?” she purred.

His hands went to her hips. “Well, you could ride me off into the sunset.”

Which she did.

THEY MADE LOVE UNTIL close to dawn, and then finally collapsed into her bed. Snuggled in his arms, Chloe lay there with one of those stupid I’ve-had-amazing-sex grins on her face. She absorbed the warmth of him next to her, and let her fingers drift over his skin, feeling the tough sinew beneath. “You kept in shape.”

“I still play ball. For an old guys’ league.”

“Old guys, huh?” Didn’t feel older, just built. Seriously built. She grazed her lips over his throat. “You still got the moves?”

He let out a soft chuckle against her temple and wrapped his arms around her. “You tell me.”

Oh, yeah, he had the moves, and he spent the next twenty minutes proving it yet again.

They fell asleep in each other’s arms, and for a woman who’d been so fiercely independent for so long, it felt incredibly good.

Ian’s pager went off at dawn, and he got out of bed. Hair tousled, an extremely male, satisfied smile curving his lips, he grabbed a two-minute shower and came out of the bathroom with a pair of knit boxers low on his hips.

She fought the urge to tug them back down.

“Be careful,” she whispered.

“Always.” He leaned over the bed, his hands on either side of her hips and kissed her until her toes curled.

“I wish I’d tossed your pager out the window.”

“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he promised.

“Take my spare key on the desk in the living room by my laptop-in case I’m at the office.”

He smiled his surprise. “You sure?”

So damn sure. “Yes.”

“’Kay.” And then he kissed her one more time before he left, a kiss that left her body humming.

She sighed dreamily, then tried to go back to sleep. She couldn’t. Instead she got up and headed to the shower, where she leaned back against the tiles as the hot water pummeled her deliciously sated body.

She was still grinning like a fool.

A fool in love.

Finding the energy, she reached for the soap, shoved her hair out of her eyes and-

Stared down the barrel of a gun.

She thought maybe she gasped in terror. She definitely staggered backward, coming up against the tile.

“Hello, Chloe,” Steve said from behind the gun.