Exposed Page 15

  “I could stop,” he teased.

  “Frank!”

  With a low chuckle, he slid in to the hilt. “Oh, fuck,” he said, at the tight heat that enveloped his cock.

  “Uh, yes,” she moaned, letting her head fall back, and clenching him tight.

  Once he had his control back, he eased out to the head then slid in deep again, watching her face as he moved. Eyes wide, she stared at him, her arms stretched tight above her head, her mouth wide open. Her breasts rocked with each breath she took. He repeated the process—slow and deep.

  “Damn it, Castello. Faster.” Her legs tightened around his hips, her heels digging into his ass, encouraging him to continue.

  Obeying her command, he quickened the pace, striving to bring her to completion. He’d be damned if he’d leave her hanging just to find his own orgasm. Balancing her hips with one hand, he slid his other up to stroke her clit, keeping the rhythm going.

  “Oh, oh. Oh,” she moaned, her body going taut as ripples of spasms rolled over her. The sensation so hot and tight around him, he finally gave up control, slammed into her body a few more times and growled as he came.

  * * * * *

  “So you missed again?” the old man’s cold voice asked over the phone.

  “She’s traveling with a man.” Toying with the belt in his hand, he stared at the woman spread eagle on the bed, her back rising and falling as she slept. The crisscross pattern on her back was just starting to become more raised and visible. He’d done excellent work tonight. “You’re sure the email came from the woman’s address?”

  “Certain. The Congressman assured me the information was legitimate.”

  “Just wanted to be sure the information hadn’t gotten mixed up with another case. Perhaps one with involving witness protection?”

  A silence on the other end made him smile. For once, he was making the old man nervous.

  “What makes you think it might?”

  “Because she’s traveling with a Deputy U.S. Marshal.”

  Again silence.

  He flicked the buckle on his belt. Back and forth. Back and forth.

  “What’s his name?” the old man finally asked.

  He lifted the paper he’d written the name on. “Frank Castello.”

  “Sit tight. Do nothing more until you hear from me.”

  The line went dead in his ear.

  The old man had called on him for this assignment because it had required finesse, not guns going in blazing. But even he needed all the facts. Not to worry. Patience was one of his strongest suits.

  Slowly, he strolled over to the bed, trailing the leather belt up the naked woman’s body. Soft whimpers filled the room, the gag in her mouth muting it to anyone outside the hotel room door. Sitting on the side of the bed, he moved some of her dark hair off her face. Her eyes were wide and filled with tears.

  “Shh, sweetheart,” he whispered, lowering his lips to her bruised cheek. “Don’t cry. Turns out I don’t have to leave after all.”

  She clenched her eyes tight, squeezing the tears out to run down her cheeks to mingle with the blood around her nose and mouth.

  “That’s right. We’ve got all night to play.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The bed shifted, waking Sydney.

  In the soft light of dawn, she shifted and watched Frank wiggle into his boxer shorts then haul his T-shirt over his head. Unlike so many men she’d photographed over the years whose bodies had been defined and honed by working out for hours in a gym, Frank’s body reminded her of an old-time warrior. He definitely had well defined muscles, and she imagined he did keep fit for his job by working out, but she suspected part of his work-out routine was manual labor on this house.

  More telling were the scars. Two round, puckered scars near his lower left side, and some wicked long scars up the other side. He’d literally put his body in harm’s way to protect people.

  Last time he’d gotten up, he’d left the room naked, except for his knee brace and thigh bandage. The moonlit view of his backside had been quite…enjoyable. A few minutes later, he’d returned with another condom and made love to her again, slower and with great detail.

  She doubted he’d be back for a third go-round this time. After he left the room, she pulled his pillow in close, cuddling its warmth against her naked flesh and inhaling the soft spice of his aftershave.

  A few minutes later, her door opened. He stepped inside, carrying the clothes she’d littered the floor with—now all neatly folded. He stacked them on the dresser and laid her purse on the chair beside it, then left the room again.

  She smothered the giggle that threatened to escape.

  The man couldn’t help it. He was habitually tidy, probably psychotically prone to neatness. So different from the other men she’d had in her life.

  Dad had been organized when it came to his photography equipment and his darkroom, but about the rest of his life he’d been like an absent-minded professor. She remembered how much he couldn’t find anything without Mom’s help. Ian had been worse. He seemed to thrive on the chaos of his room. The messier it was, the more he liked it. His life took on the same pattern.

  St. Jacque, the photographer she’d mentored under in Paris and New York, had been a slob, too. Not just in his daily life, but in his business and personal relationships. He expected his intern to not only pick up the mess he made at photoshoots, but she’d had to put more than one hysterical model on the straight-and-narrow path out of his life.

  So why was Castello’s borderline obsession with neatness so fascinating to her? Hell, it wasn’t just his OCD tendency she found fascinating. The man was like one giant puzzle—a sexy, gruff, grumpy, neat puzzle. She’d always loved puzzles.

  Rolling onto her side, she stared out the window into the grey morning light. Rain splattered against the window. It was going to be a dreary, slow-rain, Central Ohio sort of day.

  If she were in her own home, she’d put on her sneakers and raincoat and head out with her camera to take some black and white images of the city. She doubted Castello would let her out of his sight, much less free to roam around. Not as convinced as he was that someone was trying to kill her.

  The caged-in feeling ate at her. She was edgy, needed to pace. Usually she’d calm her nerves with her camera. The feel of it in her hands always steadied her heart rate, dulled the tension coursing through her.

  If he wouldn’t let her roam around outside, she’d just find a subject to photograph inside. The intricate wood carvings at the corners of the window frames caught her attention. Looking back at the chair and dresser, she realized Frank hadn’t brought her camera bag or laptop up to the room.

  Slipping out of the bed, she grabbed some clean clothes from her open suitcase and headed into the bathroom.

  A few minutes later, dressed in her favorite jeans and a lightweight sweater, she stepped into the kitchen, expecting to find the marshal near the coffee maker, the smell of it having filled the room, only, no Castello.

  She peeked out the window. The Cadillac was still parked in back. So, unless he had another vehicle stashed someplace, he was somewhere in the house.

  Going to the fridge, she snagged her morning diet pop. She opened it, took a long, slow drink and went to the island where her camera bag and laptop tote remained exactly where she’d set them last night. From the camera bag she took out her old manual Nikon. It was still filled with black-and-white film from Abby’s wedding. Lifting it, she let her artist’s eye take in the kitchen through the viewfinder until she zeroed in on the top of the window frame. Just like the one upstairs, the corners of each frame had a square piece resembling a carved bullseye. She snapped a picture, then adjusted her lens to get a closer view and snapped another picture. Then she moved to the side so she could get the window in the shot completely, with the rain drops hitting the glass and slowly rolling down.

  “What are you doing?”

  She jumped, nearly dropping her camera.

  How
did such a big man with two wounded legs walk so silently?

  “Jeez, you could warn a person before sneaking up on them.”

  “Defeats the purpose.” He walked past her to the coffee pot, filling the mug in his hand. “And you didn’t answer my question.”

  “Just taking some still shots,” she said, moving lower to take in the junction of the subway tile backsplash and the lower cabinet. “Didn’t think you’d let me walk the neighborhood, and I have this need to be doing something.”

  He didn’t comment, just nodded as he slid a cast iron skillet onto the stove top, started the flame beneath, then went to the fridge. A few moments later, the smell and sizzle of bacon cooking filled the kitchen. While he cooked them breakfast, she moved about the room, taking shots of the architecture from different angles. Seeing the features of the woodwork and tiles through her camera gave her a new appreciation for not only the original craftsmanship, but the effort it must’ve taken to restore the house in such minute detail.

  “Who did you hire to do the restoration?” she asked, focused in on the textured glass inserted in the floor-to-ceiling pantry door.

  “No one,” he answered.

  She peered over her shoulder at him, watching him move about the kitchen. Today he was in jeans, work boots, and another Ohio sports team T-shirt. The only thing that said I’m a Marshal was the shoulder harness and gun strapped to his body.

  “You did all the work to this place yourself, didn’t you?”

  “Mostly.”

  Walking to the counter, she pulled out a stool and wiggled up onto it. She focused her camera on him. “Let me guess, you didn’t do the plumbing.”

  He shook his head, scrambled eggs onto each plate. She snapped a few pictures of his hands and lower arms as he worked. She’d always thought there was something very sexy about a man’s hands and arms. Castello’s were no exception.

  “The drywall?”

  “Nope.”

  “The carpentry and tile work is very precise and would be just up your alley, so I know you did that. Probably laid the hard wood floors or refinished them.”

  He nodded. “You’d be right.” Carrying both plates, he brought hers over then retrieved a stack of buttered toast and silverware. “Give up?” he asked as he took the seat beside her.

  “Only thing left is the electrical.”

  “That’s the one.”

  “That makes sense. Turn-of-the-previous-century house probably had all the original electrical. What is it they call it? Knob and tube?”

  He nodded.

  “Hazardous thing to tackle if you don’t know what you’re doing.” She ate some toast then washed it down with her pop. “Even for someone who has a dangerous profession like you.”

  “I chose to contract the electrical because everything was so old. Time to do it right wasn’t something I had at the time, not just because it is critical it be done correctly. There’s dangers you can see and those you can’t in any profession. Even in photography,” he said, then tucked into his food.

  Knowing no more conversation was happening until he was finished, she enjoyed her breakfast, too. She had to give him credit. Everything, even the toast, tasted delicious.

  When was the last time a man had cooked her anything, let alone breakfast two mornings in a row? Hell, she couldn’t even remember the last time she’d woken up in a man’s house two consecutive days for him to share breakfast with her.

  Should she mention last night?

  Would he want to rehash it? Dissect it? Analyze what had passed between them?

  She almost laughed at the idea. No, it was sex between two consenting adults. That was all. Nothing else. And if she asked him, he’d probably say the same thing, only not with words, just an arch of that left brow like he did when he considered something was so obvious as not to need comment.

  “I can hear the wheels in your head turning,” he said, finished eating and pulling a paper napkin from the holder on the counter.

  Now was the time to ask him about the sex.

  “I was wondering…”

  “Yes?” He lifted that brow.

  Damn. Now she’d feel stupid and unsophisticated asking him about last night, or more importantly if it was going to happen again.

  She cleared her throat. “I was wondering what kind of glass that is you have in your pantry door.”

  “It’s a clear hammered pattern,” he said, with a slight lifting of the corner of his mouth. She was starting to think of it as his version of a smirk.

  Gathering up both their plates, he carried them to the sink, rinsed them off and put them in the dishwasher. A quick clean of the cast iron skillet and it went into the exact spot in the cupboard he’d taken it from. Finally, he refilled his coffee mug and grabbed another pop from the fridge. She liked watching him work in his home. Smooth. Efficient. Confident.

  He set the can of pop in front of her, leaning in close. “I enjoyed last night,” he whispered into her ear.

  She stared into those dark eyes of his a moment before he captured her mouth in another of those soft, soul-shattering kisses. Her eyes had just drifted closed when he pulled back and broke the kiss.

  “Now I have a question for you.”

  Yes. I’ll happily strip naked and let you have your way with me again.

  “Yes?” she said, her voice shaking slightly.

  “Is that the camera you used yesterday?”

  She blinked at the question. The sudden shift in mood and topic stumbling her mind a moment. He wanted to know about the pictures she’d taken yesterday at the fire scene? The fire scene where someone blew up her house and probably meant to kill her?

  “No. I used the digital. Why?” she asked, already reaching for the bag to pull out her other camera.

  “Have you downloaded them or looked at them?” he asked, taking his seat again.

  “Not yet. We can look on the little monitor screen in back.” She turned on the camera’s small computer screen to show him what she was talking about.

  He leaned in close, squinting at the screen. “Any chance we can make the images larger?”

  “Downloading them to the laptop should let us enlarge them.” Pulling out the cable, she inserted it in the port for the camera and the other end into her laptop. “What are you looking for?”

  “Don’t know.”

  With a few clicks, she had the images in a file and opened to the first one, an image of the firemen using their axes to pull the charred debris out of the piles of rubble. An ache settled in her chest. She swallowed hard and blinked back the tears before speaking. “You’re thinking whoever set the bomb in my house might’ve been outside yesterday, watching us?”

  He shrugged. “Criminals, especially arsonists, like to return to the scene of the crime. It’s not just a cliché. They like to stay and mill with the onlookers, thinking they’ve outsmarted law enforcement. It would’ve been good if we could’ve filmed the crowd the night of the fire, but you were too distraught.”

  “No shit. Someone had set my home on fire. Excuse me if I was a little too upset to pull out my camera and start taking candid shots of the whole thing.”

  He laid his hand on hers, his eyes staring into hers. “I’m not blaming you. You had every right to be angry about the fire, the explosion. Hell, the whole mess. It’s just if we’d had someone with us to film the fire and explosion, we could compare it to the pictures you have here.”

  “Why do you think there would be someone in any of these photos? I thought you said it was the policeman’s car that hit us last night?”

  “It was definitely Abrams’ car that hit us.”

  She watched his eyes as he enlarged the image of the street her former house sat on. He moved it around on her laptop to view the pedestrians and cars.

  “But?” she prodded.

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Not sure if it was him driving the car?”

  “Couldn’t really see him in the dark, especially with the ti
nted windows on the sedan. And besides, I didn’t get any vibes from him in the townhouse.”

  “Vibes?”

  “A sense that he was hiding something, or had a secret agenda. When he was interviewing us yesterday. It felt on the up and up.”

  “So you’re hoping to see someone in one of these photos that is…what? Looking suspicious? Curious? Pleased?”

  “Yes.”

  “Which?”

  “All or any of those. Or someone trying not to be too conspicuous.”

  He pulled up the second picture. The burnt half frame of what had been her home, like some giant monster waiting to suck her into the depths of its dark soul. A wave of nausea hit her, threatening to bring up her breakfast.

  She bolted off the stool.

  “What’s wrong?” Frank asked, standing too, his brows drawn down in worry as he reached for her.

  She stepped back, shaking her head. “Nothing, really. I just…” She swallowed and slowed her breathing down. “I just can’t look at it right now.”

  Her whole world was off-kilter, out of balance. It was a dizzying effect. She’d never liked Tilt-A-Whirls or rollercoasters at amusement parks. That’s how she’d felt ever since arriving back in Columbus two days ago, and she didn’t like it.

  Snatching up her manual camera, she headed to the front of the house, once again focusing her attention and the camera lens on the house’s architecture.

  Using a camera to look at the world around her felt right, calming. This, she could control. This was normal.

  She moved around the living room, which had probably been called a front parlor when the house was built, snapping images of the decorative molding, the thick baseboards, the cornices, and even the large mantle over the tiled fireplace. Of course the wood and kindling were already in place, should Frank decide he wanted a fire. Was there any area of his life where he wasn’t organized and prepared?

  Her camera made the out of film noise.

  Dang. She had two choices. Go back into the kitchen for more film and face Frank with the humiliating fact that she’d of run out of the room earlier. Or sit out here doing nothing—bored and worried, but dignified.