Harlequin Intrigue April 2021--Box Set 2 of 2 Carol Ericson (short books to read TXT) 📖

of her team. For her, he was everything she wanted to be. Rational, passionate, self-controlled. “I’m the one who got you into this mess. If I’d known there’d been a victim out there who’d survived, who’d target you—”

“No.” Dylan shook his head, his hand moving to grip the back of her neck as he had in the kitchen but not in intimidation or dominance. In desperation. In need. “I watched you collapse into exhaustion at the end of every single day working the New Castle case. I saw how much you sacrificed to bring those victims home alive and stop Del Howe from killing again. You carried that entire investigation on your shoulders, and the men and women who worked beside you knew it. None of them would blame you if they were still alive, and neither do I. Not ever.”

“You can’t know that.” The fight drained from her muscles, the past twelve hours since he’d pulled her from that cave catching up. “I’m the one who lost my job when we couldn’t stop him. I was responsible.”

“And yet I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life.” His confidence melted into her, made her believe what he said was the truth. He loosened his grasp on her neck but didn’t move to release her completely. He was giving her a choice. Keep running from the past—from him—or face it like the woman he believed her to be.

Remi didn’t want to run anymore. Her breath caught in her throat as the answer she’d been hiding from all these years urged her to shove the comforter aside and slid her legs down his thighs. She wedged her knees into the back of the couch on either side of him, careful of their wounds. His fingers slid to her hips, holding her in place as she straddled him. Remi rested her hands on his shoulders and nearly pressed her mouth to his. “I hope you took one of your pain pills, Deputy Cove. I have a feeling this is going to hurt like hell.”

FOOTSTEPS ECHOED down the hall, pulling Dylan from unconsciousness, before her perfect outline filled the door frame. Remi leaned against the wall as he fought to get balance. They’d somehow made it to one of the bedrooms last night after stripping each other bare on the living room couch. But he couldn’t exactly remember how. A smile lit those iridescent blue eyes as morning sunlight streaked across the ceiling. “I was beginning to worry I’d knocked you out for good.”

“Am I dead?” A jagged tear slit through the collar of her T-shirt. He remembered that part. After years of being deprived of her skin pressed against his, of her addictive taste in his mouth, he hadn’t been able to wait. Her shirt had only gotten in the way.

Dylan dragged both hands across his face and pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes. Hell, he should’ve taken her up on her warning before she’d kissed him. He felt like he’d run a marathon with a bullet in his side. He pressed his hand into the corner of the gauze taped over his wound to get a better look at the damage. The gauze was dry, clean.

“Not quite.” Offering him a steaming cup of coffee, she slid down onto the mattress as he pressed his back against the nearest wall. Bruises marred the smooth skin along her legs and knees, results of her fight with her attacker in the caves. Remi took a sip from her mug and swallowed. “But I’m more than happy to try for a different result next time, if that’s what you’re aiming toward.”

“Next time? Hell, I’m not even sure I’ve survived the first time.” A laugh broke past the soreness in his chest as bone-deep satisfaction urged him to take her up on her challenge. He took the mug. Where were his clothes? “Did you...change my dressing while I was asleep?”

She hissed. “Yeah, sorry about that. After you fell asleep, I noticed you’d popped a couple stitches while we were...” Curling her fingers around her mug, she drew her gaze down the length of his chest and abdominals. “You were bleeding again, and I didn’t want your wound to get infected, so I cleaned it and applied new gauze and tape.”

“How?” he asked.

Her eyes suddenly diverted to an invisible speck of dust she swiped at with her free hand. “Let’s just say I learned early on I could do anything I want to you after you fall asleep after sex.”

Realization struck, and Dylan bolted upright. Coffee sloshed over his hand and stained the white sheets. He bit back the groan as pain exploded from his side and the coffee burned its way down the length of his forearm. A half dozen incidents rushed to the front of his mind. Kicking free from the sheets, he set the mug down and jumped to his feet. He pointed straight at her. “You. You’re the reason I can’t grow hair on this leg anymore, aren’t you? You were shaving me while I was asleep.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” She took another sip of her coffee, every inch the chief deputy he’d come to admire over these past six months. Calm, confident and absolutely powerful. She was everything he wasn’t and everything he hadn’t realized he’d needed to keep his head on straight. “Besides, everyone knows once you start shaving, the hair comes back thicker and darker. You gotta wax if you want to keep that growth down.”

“You were waxing me in Delaware?” Who the hell waxed another person while they slept? It took everything he had not to laugh while he stared at her. Two could play at this game. “You’re going to pay for that, and I can think of plenty of ways to make sure you don’t get away with it.”

Eyes wide and innocent, Remi set her coffee on the floor and faced him, but he wasn’t stupid enough to