Mine to Hold
“Tyler . . .” She looked so damn scared that it broke his heart.
“Shh, angel. We knew they were terrible bastards. We’re still here alive, still safe.”
“But for how long? He’s not going to stop coming after me, and I have no evidence to expose him. I can’t keep running forever.”
Thoughts buzzed through Tyler’s brain. He wanted this fucking bastard gutted. Carlson needed a hole in his skull, and Tyler wanted to spit in it before he fed the son of a bitch to the fish. It went against his every instinct to give up. But he’d been a cop. Del was a mom, a reporter. She had no experience with this relentless danger, and it was wearing her down.
“If you want to, we can. You, me, and Seth can go someplace totally new. Jack will help us change our identities. We can get married, start a totally new life. Carlson will be looking for a single mom, not a family. He’ll never think to look for us in BFE, Oklahoma, or wherever you want to go.”
She blinked, looking up at him through wet lashes. “You’d do that for me?”
“What?”
“Give up . . . everything. Your job, your friends, your past and future?”
His offer surprised her? He grabbed her arms and dragged her body against him. “Angel, I’d do anything for you. When are you going to get that?”
Her mouth opened like she wanted to say something, but the silence dragged on. Instead, she threw herself into his arms and clung.
Del needed an anchor, and Tyler was not only happy to oblige, he was thrilled. She was leaning on him, trusting him—coming to him and needing him.
More tears fell as she looked at him, and the love on her face made his heart go boom. Jack was right; he was so in love with this woman, he’d never recover. And he never wanted to.
Moments later, her hands were at his zipper, and his jeans were sliding down his hips. He hadn’t bothered with a shirt, figuring he’d just be going to bed.
He kicked his pants away and looked up in time to see Del peel the robe off her shoulders, leaving her to stand alabaster perfect by the room’s faint light. Her eyes looked feral, hungry, and so needy.
Craving torqued in Tyler’s chest, and his cock stood up, harder than it had been all night. Del didn’t gently layer her mouth over his, but attacked it, urgently forcing his lips apart and running inside. She moaned, not merely like she liked kissing him, but like he was vital—her shelter from the storm. He wanted to be that and more for her.
Del stunned him when she shoved him back into the desk chair and mounted him in a flash, legs straddling his hips. The head of his cock flared against her entrance, and he felt her soft flesh, already wet, grasping and clenching above him.
Fuck, he wanted her so badly, he couldn’t breathe. But he felt compelled to point something out. “Angel, no condom.”
She ignored him completely, sinking down on his shaft with a long moan that ripped into Tyler’s self-control. Still, he held off. In Del’s head, this wasn’t about forever or babies or anything other than needing to feel safe and alive. He had to relax and let her ease the terror bubbling inside of her. If that was sex . . . well, he wasn’t going to complain.
And if she sported that baby bump before the wedding, he’d just grin.
Tyler grabbed her hips. “What do you need?”
“Always, angel.”
“Hard and fast.”
She was really asking him to make her forget, even for a while, that everyone around her was dying. Tyler was happy to oblige. He pressed his cock deep into her. “Take me, angel. All of me.”
With a gasp, she nodded frantically as he filled her again. And again. And again.
Fuck, the friction was almost a burn. Deep, so tight. The pleasure seared, not just because her pussy gloved him so perfectly but because Del needed him. Because she wasn’t just opening her body to him. This was love. This was trust. He’d never gotten off on those things before, but with every pump of his cock into her body, he could feel her giving way, giving herself over to him. Giving him everything.
He was going to come.
“Angel?”
“Don’t stop.” Her muscles around him began to ripple, and she increased the pace of her thrusts. “Please . . .”
An invitation to totally let go and give her everything in return. No way was he turning that down.
Tyler gripped her hips even tighter and unleashed the blazing ache in his cock, now tingling at the base of his spine. He shoved all the emotion choking his throat and clogging his chest into the kiss he seized her lips with. He filled her in every way he could in that moment, and when she shouted into his mouth, he gave over the last of his control again and flooded her deep with his seed.
God, he couldn’t love her more.
He lifted his head and brushed her damp tendrils away from her face. “Angel—”
“Don’t say anything now. We have a lot to sort out, especially if I get pregnant again. I know what I said earlier, but I needed to feel you now.”
“I understand,” he said gently.
“And I need a goddamn plan. Two people have died simply for coming into contact with me. I won’t be the cause of any more murders. Let’s put a stop to this now.”
Chapter Seventeen
DEL awakened the following morning wrapped up in Tyler’s warm embrace, tangled in the soft blankets of the big bed they shared. And the damn ringing of her disposable cell phone.
She opened an eye and realized the sun had risen, but it was still fairly early. The clock confirmed that it was just minutes past eight a.m. Who would be calling her little throwaway phone? She’d given the number to no one. Nearly everyone she’d ever called with the number was dead. Unless Carlson himself was calling her. The possibility chilled her.
Scrambling out of bed and across the room, she grabbed the phone off the dresser, pressing the speakerphone button so Tyler could hear, too. Just in case. “Hello.”
Oh shit! She’d forgotten that she’d called her ex-husband on this phone. He might not be her favorite person in the world, but she wouldn’t wish the sort of death on him that Lisa or Lobato Loco had experienced. Despite all the sunshine and warmth in the room, she shivered.
“You shouldn’t talk to me on this number. It’s been compromised.”
“I’ll be quick, and if something happens, I can defend myself.”
“I’d rather not risk—”
“I have your flash drive,” he said grimly. “I want to talk to you about what’s on it.”
Del froze for a long moment, then her heart began to pound. Eric had her evidence. If she could recover it, she’d have a jumping-off point for saving herself and Seth. This nightmare might actually come to an end. Then she frowned. “How did you get it?”
“I’ll explain everything when you get here.”
Suddenly, she felt Tyler’s heat at her back, heard his breathing in her ear. Del turned at his grip on her elbow.
“You are not going there again,” he whispered.
“Why don’t we meet for breakfast somewhere?” Del suggested. “Is that little omelet place around the corner from the house still open?”
“You and I both know that what’s on this flash drive shouldn’t be discussed in public. It needs to stay as hidden and safe as possible.”
Eric made a valid point, but Del wasn’t about to give in. “Remember what happened the last time I came to the house? I’m not in a hurry to repeat the experience.”
“I was an ass, and I’m sorry,” he said through gritted teeth. “I won’t touch you. I give you my word. But if you want this back, I want to talk to you first, make sure you know what the fuck you’re getting yourself into. Ten o’clock, sharp.”
Del opened her mouth to argue with him when she realized Eric had hung up. She punched the END button on her phone with a curse. “Bastard!”
“I don’t want you going over there.” Tyler had no compunction about voicing his opinion. “No fucking way.”
“If I want the flash drive back, I have to go.”
“He didn’t say that you had to go alone.”
Del pondered that statement. She’d feel personally safer taking Tyler, but Eric seemed to have a lot more animosity toward his ex-friend than his ex-wife. If Tyler hadn’t been there last time, Eric would have yelled and made his point, but she doubted he’d have touched her against her will. That whole show had been for Tyler’s benefit. Was bringing Tyler this time like bringing a powder keg to a roomful of sparks?
“Whatever you’re thinking, no.” Tyler shook his head and crossed his beefy arms over his chest. “I’m going. That’s final.”
“Fuck,” Tyler muttered, then raked a hand through his hair. “I don’t trust him. If you go without me, that leaves you vulnerable. He’s got a plan. There’s some reason he’s giving you the flash drive now. He’s got a price in mind, and I’m pretty sure I know what it is. No.”
Del caught onto his insinuation. “You think he’s going to want me to have sex with him?”
“If touching you would hurt you, I think he’d be fine with that. If it will hurt me, even better. And he knows it would eat me up inside.”
Wincing, Del had to admit there might be a kernel of truth there. “But if I bring you—”
“Then I’ll go in, guns ready. I won’t go ape shit sitting in this house or some car down the street, wondering if you’re safe.” Tyler paced the room. “But something about this whole situation isn’t adding up. Where has the flash drive been since we asked for it? Why did he read it? He says he wants to turn it over, but what’s in it for him?”
She’d wondered some of the same things. Eric was generally the sort of person who didn’t do anything without some personal benefit, and hanging on to the flash drive for a few days so he could read it, just to give it back, didn’t make a lot of sense.
“If he’s read it and thought about it, he’s had it for a while.” Her gut instinct was telling her that.
“Agreed. Maybe he had it all along. Was that break-in even real?”
“Or a cover story? I don’t know.”
“Why would he try to cover up the fact that he had the flash drive?” Tyler mused. “To get more time with it? See what you’re into?”
That was the logical explanation, but why? Del wondered if there was more to it. She tried to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. How would he have found out that she’d kept the flash drive there? If he’d had it for weeks, he wouldn’t have needed to hang on to it. So he’d just recently found it. What had made him go looking for it? When they’d spoken on the phone before going over there, she hadn’t told him what she was looking for. The only people she’d told were Tyler and Lisa. Tyler would never tell anyone. Lisa . . . had probably blabbed to Carlson for thirty thousand dollars. Which meant . . .
“Eric is in bed with Carlson,” Tyler proclaimed into her silence.
“I was just coming to the same conclusion.” Her voice shook. “Oh God.”
If her ex-husband would really sell her out to someone so ruthless, was she walking into a trap? Would he even blink when they killed her? Eric was a cop, damn it. Wouldn’t he protect her? Maybe not. He’d done nothing when Lisa and Lobato Loco had been viciously murdered. What did it matter to him if his ex-wife, who was in love with his former best friend, got the ax, too? And Eric hadn’t told Tyler not to come. In fact, he had to know that Tyler would accompany her. What was that rat bastard hoping for, a twofer in the murder department today?
Something inside her crumbled. She’d once loved that man. Hadn’t the frequent cheating been enough for him? Or did he think that she and Tyler deserved to die because the sex they’d shared two years ago had resulted in a beautiful little boy? Because it had meant something to them and they’d fallen in love?
“I think he intends for both of us to die,” Del said solemnly. “How did you figure it out?”
“He’s the first person you talked to with your disposable cell, yet the only one who isn’t dead. He suddenly found the flash drive . . . None of this shit adds up. We’ve said that Carlson has to have dirty cops to make this work. I guess that means dirty Vice detectives, too.”
Tyler would probably be furious for asking, but she had to know. “And you knew nothing about this?”
“Fuck, no!” he exploded. “Toward the end of our partnership, Eric acted oddly at times, and I clearly should have asked more questions. But I didn’t know anything. I may have bed hopped a lot back then, but I would never have allowed that corrupt shit. And I sure as hell wouldn’t line my own pockets to let criminals get away with drug dealing and murder. You know me better than that.”