Christmas Male(26)

Together they moved out of the room. D.C. waited until the door swung shut behind them before he said, “I believe her.”

Fiona sighed. “Look at the evidence. She had the Rubinov in her pocket. Her great-uncle could have planned the job from behind bars and she could have been involved in carrying it out.”

“We don’t know she had any contact with him.”

“We’ll have that information soon. Faking amnesia buys her time. It buys her accomplices time, too.”

D.C. grinned at her as they stopped at the nurse’s station. “You believe her, too.”

“It doesn’t matter what I believe. She has to be involved somehow. She knows something.”

“Agreed.”

“As soon as we get out of this no-cell-phone area, I’m going to check in with Natalie.”

“Good move.” D.C. turned to smile at the nurse and fill her in on Amanda’s condition. Then he took Fiona’s arm and led her to the elevator. “Now we’ll see what my general has to say about Amanda Hemmings.”



FIONA WAS STILL ON THE PHONE with Natalie and scribbling busily in her notebook when D.C. spotted a popular coffee and donut chain. He swung his car into the drive-through line and rolled down his window.

The one piece of news she’d conveyed to him so far was that Amanda had indeed paid a visit to her great-uncle at the Cumberland Federal Prison sometime in mid-October. Chance would have more details later.

“Okay, thanks.” Fiona paused to tap her pencil on the notepad. “Good luck.”

He wasn’t picking up much information from her end of the conversation. When the voice came through the speaker asking him to place his order, D.C. said, “Six of your blueberry scones and a half dozen assorted donuts.”

He turned to Fiona just as she was filing her notebook and her cell into her purse. “What’s your pleasure?”

For a moment, her eyes met his and as their gazes held, the temperature in the car seemed to rise by several degrees.

“Sorry for the Freudian slip,” he said. “But I can’t seem to get the idea of touching you out of my mind.”

Even when he’d been questioning Amanda Hemmings, he’d been very aware of Fiona standing at the foot of the bed. He’d caught that fresh floral scent she wore even above the antiseptic smell of the hospital.

Fiona took a deep breath and then let it out. Her gaze never wavered. “Are you always this blunt?”

“Will there be anything else, sir?”

“Yes,” D.C. murmured. But he didn’t turn back to the speaker. Instead, he gripped Fiona’s chin and with his other hand, he skimmed fingers along her throat to where a pulse was fluttering wildly. It had been a long time since he’d had that second taste of her in the Blue Pepper. Too long.

He drew her mouth slowly to his. “Just a taste.” But his intentions faded the moment their lips met and then held. Her flavors went straight to his head…there were so many more than he remembered. The initial sweetness, the spicy heat and a surprising tartness that his system absorbed like a punch in the gut.

God, how had he been able to wait so long for this? How had he managed to get out of her apartment without having her? Changing the angle of the kiss, he plunged them both deeper. Heat flashed to fire in an instant and what he tasted now was a mix of need and ripe surrender. Was it hers? His? Or something they created together?

Fiona couldn’t think clearly. His mouth was so…demanding. So hot, so greedy. His teeth nipped, nibbled; his tongue tangled with hers. No one had ever kissed her like this—as if he had all the time in the world and intended to take it. She felt herself slipping into that place that only D.C. had ever taken her to—a place where only the two of them existed.

In some far off corner of her mind, she knew where they were. The air slipping in through the open window was sharp with the sting of winter and carried the scent of coffee and exhaust fumes. She should pull back. But she simply couldn’t stop kissing D.C. He touched. She wanted. It was that simple. That compelling.

Not even the skip of fear was enough to keep her from framing his face with her hands. She absorbed the sharp line of his cheekbone, the strength of his jaw. Then she ran her hands down the hard muscles of his chest. Someone moaned. Even as the sound died away, she tried to get closer. She had to get closer. Unsnapping her seat belt, she started to crawl across the console that separated them.

It was the sharp blast of a horn that finally penetrated her conscious mind. But it was D.C.’s hands on her shoulders that stopped her and settled her back in her seat. For just a moment, he rested his forehead on hers. The sound of his ragged breathing filled the car. “Sorry. We have to postpone this for a while.”