Secretive Stranger

Chapter 6

The minute Sophie roped her arms around him, she knew this was right.

Possibly, it was the scariest, stupidest, craziest thing she’d done in years-especially for a woman who hated risk.

But it was still right.

Cord was breaking. She suspected he saw himself as a tough, strong loner, because he was. But this crisis with his brother had started seeping through the cracks, threatening foundations. She’d had her own foundations threatened. She’d gotten lost in her own darned cracks.

That’s why she had to do it. Kiss him and kiss him and kiss him.

When their lips first met, she felt the taste and smoothness and yielding of his mouth. Then, as if she’d shocked him beyond belief, his hands suddenly clenched her shoulders. He yanked his head back with an “Um, Sophie…”

She got the message from his gentle tone. She could get out of this. He’d make a gentle joke, and she could joke back, and they’d both be able to forget she’d acted like a crazy fool.

Instead, she went back up on tiptoe and absconded with another kiss. This time she framed his head in her hands and pulled him down to her height-or close enough.

Years ago, when she was still half a baby, she remembered belting out the blues from her front porch in her mom’s high heels and a brush for a pretend microphone. That was before her world had broken. Before she’d broken.

All this time, that Sophie had been buried so deep that she’d never believed there was an inch of that wild girl left.

But it seemed there was…when she kissed Cord.

She still thought-knew-he wasn’t being totally straight with her. She had no illusions or thoughts about a future or a capital-R relationship, or any of that nonsense.

But…somehow they seemed to be sharing something vulnerable and raw because of Jon. Things were coming out of his woodwork. Out of hers.

It wasn’t a choice. It was what had been forced on them by life, by fate. But reaching out to him was still as necessary to her as breathing. She felt as if a primal life force were burgeoning up from some dark, dusty corner, seeking light, needing warmth. Cord had no reason to know that she never did this, that it was just too hard.

Yet with him…it was easy.

So, so, so easy.

He took over.

She should have known he would. Heaven knew, Cord wasn’t a passive kind of guy. He may have been startled by that first kiss, particularly coming from her…but he turned on faster than whiplash.

Suddenly he wasn’t just accepting her embrace, but doing the kissing, taking a whole lot of initiative. Long, sure hands stroked from her neck, down her spine, down to the swell of her fanny. He lifted her up, spun her, lips sealed, tongues finding each other like whispers in the night.

Her back thunked against a wall…not a hard thunk, but enough to make her exquisitely aware that Cord was losing control at rocket speeds. His keys definitely turned on her ignition. Her body instinctively arched against his. The heat of him enticed her heat; her breasts swelled for the rowdy desire now pulsing off him in waves.

“I don’t know what’s going on here,” he whispered thickly against her throat, “but I know where it’s going if you don’t say stop damned quick.”

“I don’t want to stop. I want you.”

Sophie knew she hadn’t said that. Another woman in the room did. A stranger, a completely immoral, amoral stranger.

The same stranger pushed at his sweater, took his mouth as avidly, as hungrily, as he took hers. Beneath the wool was hair-roughened skin, the ripple of muscle and sinew, nothing soft. He was going to kill her, she figured. He was too big, at least for a woman her size, a woman who hadn’t exactly done this…much less in recent history.

Almost in recordable history. And here she was, still yanking off the sweater, demanding bare flesh, needing to touch him. Everywhere. Anywhere. When he started chaining kisses down her throat, she nipped at his shoulder. Just little bites.

He tasted damn good.

“Jesus, where did all this come from?” he muttered. “I thought you were shy.”

“I was.” For years and years and years, she was. With other men, she was.

She reached around, felt his adorable, irresistible tight butt. Sheesh, how could he have those huge broad shoulders and no butt? She squeezed…which may have been a mistake, because one minute she was pressed up against the wall, and the next she was on the floor, her sweater being shoved over her head, his hands on his zipper before she could suggest…

Well…

“Condoms.”

“As if I’d risk you,” he said. “They’re in my back pocket.”

For a whole second she turned back into the real Sophie Campbell again and panicked. “Always prepared, huh? You have a lot of women suddenly spring themselves on you?”

“No, Sophie. And if they did, I wouldn’t jump into a ‘yes.’ I’m saying yes to you. Just you.”

Well, hell… She lost the careful, cautious, predictable Sophie and became that other woman again. She asked him other questions, but they were carnal questions, laced with teasing, spiced with enticement. Secrets. About what she was afraid was going to happen. About what she feared wouldn’t.

He answered her with whisper, with touch. At the same time, he was peeling off the rest of her clothes, one garment at a time. Once the sweater was gone, he stroked his soft tongue down her throat, to the swell of her breasts, to the rim of a pink-and-black bra.

“Not what I expected,” he murmured. “But then nothing I’m finding is what I expected about you, Sophie Campbell.”

The black lace bra disappeared, replaced by his mouth, testing and tasting and exploring the territory revealed. Her nipples tightened until they hurt. The room…wasn’t dark enough. Not for this. Not for the exotic road of his tongue, down to her navel, down, as his hands chased her slacks off, as if the silky heat of his tongue could cover where she was being uncovered.

She started shivering then, but not from cold. The look in his eyes was intent, intense, cherishing. She had an old fantasy about a lover who stole into her room in the night, who weaved a spell, seduced her, forced her to do brazen, abandoned things. It was her favorite fantasy.

This was better.

He was better. Better than a dream. Better than any lover she’d ever conjured up. He inspired her to feel…need. Desire, like an avalanche. Her own power and sensuality, as if she were meeting up with her own Armageddon. Or his.

He peeled her off the wall, scooped her up. “Say no,” he whispered.

“Yes.”

A kiss, swift, sure. God knew where he was walking with her. He didn’t seem to know, either. The hall was dark. He never switched on a light, stumbled once-she thought they’d both crash and tumble. Instead, his knees connected with something, and then she bounced on the bed…and he bounced on her.

“Say no,” he advised her, urged her, one more time.

“Yes.” She twisted, until she was on top, bare. The mattress was hard, big as a room, the textures of down and chill-cool percale under her knees. But his body was warm, when she swooped down with hands and lips. His body, truth to tell, threatened to burn.

They roller-coastered together, playing tease, hide-and-seek, double dare. The room had no more light than charcoal dust-but his eyes picked up light, picked up her. Her laughter belled in the darkness, throaty, brazen… and his gruff chuckle turned into a roar when she accidentally tickled him.

She’d never heard him laugh before… not really laugh, not belly laugh. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d let loose with abandoned laughter before, either. At that moment, though, she just wasn’t Sophie. She was that wild girl that had been lost so long ago, never really gone, but just waiting for someone to turn the key on the rusty lock.

Cord had the key.

Cord was the key. Laughter died, the last time he knelt over her. She touched his face, invited with the shine of her eyes, and then arched her back helplessly when she felt his slow, deep intrusion. He filled her up, she wrapped her legs tight around him, and there it was, the gallop off into the sunset, on a ride as primal as heartbeats, as hope, as love.

“Yes,” he whispered, just as he felt her last climb, her last spin of a climax. He was only a blink behind.

She wasn’t aware of falling asleep, but the next time she opened her eyes, someone had transported her from Oz to reality. Defibrillators couldn’t compete with this kind of jolt. She seemed to be snoozing on the cushy carpet in Jon’s hall-how impossible was that? She also seemed to be naked as a jaybird-another shock. And most impossible of all, Cord was awake, lying just as naked as she was, balanced up on an elbow. Studying her.

The ambient light from some other room barely dented the dark hall. Still, there was enough for her to see Cord’s expression. The look in his eyes made Sophie want to glance behind her, certain there must be another woman in the room somewhere-the one he was studying with that tender, mystified, intense gaze.

“I fell asleep?”

“Just for the last few minutes. I don’t doubt you needed a nap to recover. Soph?”

“Hmm?” For just a moment, she forgot to be appalled and shocked at herself. He was so luscious naked. Not soft. Not pretty. But all those long, sinewy muscles and angles, all that rough hair, all that…whew. Her eyes shot back up to his. He’d caught where she was staring. His smile was full of male ego.

Still, he seemed determined to say a few serious things. He touched her cheek. “Do you have a clue what this was all about?”

“Well, I think it’s called making love. It’s been a while since I read the book my adopted mother gave me in fifth grade, but really, I’m pretty sure-”

A kiss shut her up, but he lifted his head immediately. Or almost immediately. “If you knew we were going to end up making love…I sure as hell didn’t. I knew I was attracted. I knew the kick of hormones was damn hard to ignore. But I wouldn’t have pounced, Soph, because I figured the last couple weeks were seriously traumatic for you. I don’t like the idea of taking advantage of your vulnerability.”

“You’re not vulnerable?”

“Guys aren’t vulnerable, didn’t you know? Besides, for us, sex cures everything.”

“Who knew?” she teased. But then she stopped kidding around and gave him a straight answer. “I didn’t plan this. I didn’t know or dream it was going to happen. And if you don’t want it to happen again, it won’t.”

“Then it sure as hell will, because you won’t find me saying no to a repeat of this, any time, day or night. Sophie…”

She didn’t know what he intended to say, but her heart rate instinctively started slamming. If he didn’t want to be with her in a more serious way, that would be unsettling and hurtful. But if he did want to be with her, that had some unexpected and scary implications, too.

Trying not to look as if she were suddenly in a blister of a hurry, she stood up and forced a quick laugh. “I see Caviar from the top of the couch, looking at us.”

“A voyeur cat?”

The mild diversion broke the intensity. A little awkwardly, she started reaching for her clothes-although she seemed to have forgotten where a few key items had landed. Still, she found her pants, found her bra, managed to cover herself.

“Um, Soph, if you were thinking about going back to your apartment tonight…it’s not happening.”

“I have a really early-”

“Yeah, I know that excuse. I usually have a ‘really early’ thing, too. Sometimes it’s even true. But you’re not going next door tonight, not after that break-in. My brother, God love him, has the best mattress I’ve ever been near-so heaven knows why we ended up on the floor. But I guarantee that a nice warm bath in his shamelessly sybaritic bathroom will make you sleepy. Particularly if you drink a glass of wine while you’re soaking. And then we’ll fold you into that big, fabulous bed.”

“Are you trying to make me an offer I can’t refuse?” Her voice was petulant.

“Damn right.”

“And is part of that plan sleeping together in that alleged big, fabulous bed?”

“Yeah, it is. But we can adjust that part of the plan, if you’ve got a concern with it.”

“I don’t. I just wanted to be sure we were talking the same language,” she assured him. Heaven knew how that came out of her mouth. It wasn’t remotely true. She wasn’t talking Cord’s language in any conceivable way.

Serious shock was sinking in. Her pulse was thudding with it, her heartbeat as skittery as a doe in the rutting season. All these years, she’d been a quiet, studious, cautious, ace-the-course good girl.

The Sophie she used to be-the girl-child Sophie, the selfish, fearless and uninhibited little girl-Cord had brought her out. The Sophie she once was. The woman she thought she’d turn into once upon a time-the kind of a woman who reveled in her sensuality, in her power with a man, trusting him at her most vulnerable moments…because she could. And still be safe.

Only in real life, Sophie knew better than to run with scissors.

She wasn’t as safe as she’d been that morning, not because of the break-in, but because of Cord. Being with him had ripped off layers that she’d counted on being glued tight. So she knew now…he was dangerous.

Deliciously dangerous, but it wasn’t so delicious to discover that she was dangerously vulnerable with him.

After the bath-in a tall malachite tub with seductive lighting and built-in music-she trekked around until she found Jon’s bedroom. As she could have expected, Jon had gussied it up the same way he had the rest of the place. Platform bed. Mirrors. Black sheets. Corny and dumb, but man.

When she climbed into that bed, the mattress really was incredible.

Not as incredible as the naked man in it, but still breathtakingly incredible.

“I get the left side,” she told him.

“We could flip a coin for it.”

“Or you could give in.”

“Or I could give in,” he agreed, scooched over and pulled up the down comforter, offering her an invitation to slide in closer.

As soon as she switched off the light, she did.

In the suddenly fuzzy darkness, he said, “Am I sleeping with the librarian Sophie or the Lorelei seductress?”

“The librarian. It’s possible the seductress could again show up tonight. But not yet.” She punched the pillow, fussed and curled and uncurled until she had it all right, her cheek on the pillow facing him, her neck covered up. For some crazy reason, she reached out for his hand.

Found it.

And she talked to him like that. Holding hands. As if they were kids just falling in love.

“Cord,” she said, softly, seriously. “Your brother’s death wasn’t accidental. I don’t care what the police or coroner or anyone else told you. It wasn’t accidental. It just couldn’t be.”

It took a moment before he responded. “I know.”

“My place wasn’t broken into by chance, either. It was about Jon. It had to be about Jon.”

Again, he responded slowly. “I came to the same conclusion.”

“A lot of women could want those CDs. In fact, I’d think every single woman in each of those films would want her CD.”

“That’s exactly my take on the problem, too.”

She felt the warmth of his palm against the warmth of hers. His touch was tender, sure. She fought to stay on track. “I don’t know what you plan to do with those CDs. I guess you’ll feel you have to give them to the police. But your brother’s killer won’t necessarily know that they aren’t still in this apartment.”

He loosened a hand, lifted it to brush a strand of hair from her cheek in the darkness. This time, he didn’t waste breath verbally agreeing. They both knew it was true. So she just finished up what she needed to say.

“So…for me to be safe. For you to be safe. For us to get our lives back-we have to know who killed your brother. We have a why. The films and photos Jon took are a clear-cut why. But all of those women aren’t murderers. Only one. The rest of them are victims. Victims who are so scared of exposure, so desperate that they could keep trying to find ways into this building to find Jon’s blackmail stash.”

“You’re thinking the same way I’ve been,” Cord agreed.

“There has to be more than those CDs to find. Records, names, addresses. So let’s start exploring. Both of us. I’ll help you look, any way I can. I don’t understand why the police didn’t uncover more of this themselves, but the bottom line is that it doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is that the killer is found as soon as possible.”

And then, Sophie thought, I’ll be safe again. The threat of Jon’s murderer would disappear. The rest of the CDs and evidence could be destroyed. And Cord would leave. Whatever had sparked this tempestuous fire between them, she had no idea, but she couldn’t imagine his thinking of her as a long-term relationship. They barely knew each other. She had no excuse for fantasizing along those story lines, either.

So it wouldn’t be the same thing as abandonment. As having her heart ripped out of her chest. Not if she knew this wasn’t permanent, that it couldn’t possibly go on too long.

“Soph,” he murmured. “We can’t solve any more of this tonight.”

“I know,” she agreed.

“So let’s see if we can inspire that wild, uninhibited Sophie to come out of hiding for just a little longer…”

He leaned over her, his gaze caressing her in the darkness, and then dipped down.

He claimed later that she swept him under, but Sophie didn’t care who did the sweeping. She didn’t care about all the “no matter whats.” This moment, this man, was everything that could possibly matter. She couldn’t imagine regretting anything about being with him.

In the middle of the night, she felt a soft oomph at the foot of the bed. A moment later, Cord murmured groggily, “There damn well better not be a cat on this bed.”

Sophie opened an eye, saw the glitter of Caviar’s collar and heard the tom’s thunderous purr as the feline settled between them, protecting both in the night.

Cord woke up to the howl of an angry wind and the thwack of branches against the windows. Wet leaves would make the roads slick as grease. A far better morning to stay curled up with a slight blonde snuggled next to him…but Sophie was gone. With the damned cat.

He hopped in the shower, uneasily aware that he already missed her. She had to work, of course, and so did he, but that wasn’t the point. She was a woman he wasn’t supposed to trust.

Before he’d finished negotiating with his brother’s coffee machine, his cell phone buzzed. Like a slap of reality, the caller was the detective, Bassett. For a few hours, Cord had managed to forget the porn CDs, the murder, his brother’s unforgivable choices. “Yes, I left a message for you and Mr. Ferrell last night. And yes, I have some information for you, but I also have two classes this morning. The soonest I can shake free is around one.”

“That’s fine. Where?”

Cord thought, then picked one of the fast-eat places in the Smithsonian. It was neutral ground, easier for him to hike from the metro, and a fast route back to his brother’s place.

He got there early, copped a sandwich and a pastry, found a seat where he could watch the entrances-and then couldn’t eat. He didn’t want to be here, talking to the cops. Questions and issues were going to come up about Sophie-questions and issues he had no answers for.

Replays from last night had lingered in his mind all morning, fragile as silken cobwebs, magical as moonlight. A while back, Sophie had told him she couldn’t feel safe if she thought someone was going to disappear on her. The comment stemmed from her feelings about losing her parents. She’d felt abandoned, lost, alone. She’d learned young not to open the trust door. It was easier to keep the door shut than to risk being abandoned again.

Cord had nothing like that in his background-except for Zoe. And Zoe had taught him precisely the same lesson. He thought he’d gotten the right woman, a woman who’d stand by him-and then: zap. First taste of serious trouble, she’s gone. He hadn’t opened the trust door since.

Until Sophie.

A gaggle of women passed, all headed for the gem exhibit. Everyone coming in was shaking off rain, groaning about the ornery weather. Cord picked up his sandwich, then put it down.

His heart somehow started trusting Sophie, almost from the beginning. But everything about last night had been…startling. Beyond fantastic, but still startling. Who could possibly have guessed that beneath those god-awful clothes and oversize glasses was a sensual seductress who bared all and invited even more? When had he ever found a woman who seduced his head as much as his body, who made his blood run hot-and who confused the holy hell out of him?

Abruptly, he saw both Ferrell and Bassett, as noticeable in the sea of tourists as apples in a barrel of oranges. They wore similar rain gear, carried similar mugs of coffee, had that ill-fitting suit-coat thing going on. Both of them shook off their wet trench coats, didn’t waste time, took seats on both sides of him.

Cord filled them in immediately about the CDs he’d found, how his brother had them hidden, behind the back wall of a cabinet drawer.

“Thank God,” Bassett said. “That’s exactly the evidence we needed. How many were there? Did you bring them all?”

“No.” He added carefully, “I’m not certain that I’m willing to turn them over.”

“That isn’t a choice you get to make.” The jowly detective took a pull from his coffee. “That’s evidence, cut-and-dried. The concrete link we need to connect the killer to your brother.”

“I know.” Cord had thought it through all morning. “I don’t think there’s any question that the killer is connected to these home videos-either on the video, or a relative of one of the women. But it isn’t that simple to me.”

“It’s very simple.” Heat climbed Bassett’s neck, turned his complexion dark.

Cord said slowly, “The problem with turning over all of those CDs is that those CDs would then be public. I’d be happy if I knew which one was connected with my brother’s death. But I don’t. And my brother apparently did a fine job of threatening a lot of lives and reputations. There’s a lot of scandal in those films. Making them public could ruin a lot of people-without necessarily telling us who the killer was, or how relevant that evidence is to convicting the killer.”

Before Bassett could suffer an attack of apoplexy, Ferrell leaned forward, with his usual amiable, calm expression. “I’d feel exactly as you do. Unfortunately, you have to trust someone with this evidence. It doesn’t solve anything for you to keep those CDs to yourself.”

“Believe me, I have no interest in keeping them-”

Bassett interrupted, all but snapping and yapping. “That’s good, because you’re not. You just keep in mind that I could lock you behind bars in two seconds if I needed to. You’re not going to get away with impeding an ongoing investigation. I’ll charge you with obstruction so fast it’ll make your head swim.”

Thinking about Sophie, Cord hadn’t been able to eat. Dealing with a simple legal crisis, he reached for his sandwich again. “But you’re not going to do that,” he said calmly, “because you know perfectly well I’ve cooperated. And that I’ll continue to help. The only place I’m drawing the line is where innocent people could be hurt by this mess.”

“Come on, Pruitt. No one on those CDs is anywhere near a definition of innocent.”

The ham on rye was going down pretty well. “There’s a lot of miles between murder and someone behaving immorally, or making a mistake.” Cord unfolded a strip of paper from his shirt pocket. “These are the initials or words that were on each CD. There were no full names and dates. But take a look.”

The two of them fell on the list faster than rabid dogs, enabling Cord to finish his lunch. Tourists ambled by in bunches, speaking every language on the planet, stopping for snacks between exhibits. Cord kept thinking that Sophie would really get off on this. The exhibits, the history. Everything about the Smithsonian. And for darn sure, all the people-watching potential.

All too soon, the men returned their attention to him. They had become subdued in those few minutes. Bassett was the first to speak. “No way to be positive of anything from this little amount. But I suspect who the MM is. The wife of a senator on the Appropriations Committee.”

Cord winced. “Not good.”

“Definitely not good to imagine that video loose in the media. Also damn easy to imagine someone motivated to do anything-maybe even murder-to get that CD.”

“That one, you can have.”

That was exactly what Cord had been hoping to hear. “This just has to be a quid-pro-quo deal. If you can just verify that you have knowledge or suspicions about anyone linked to those words, then I’ll immediately give you the applicable CDs.”

Bassett wasn’t through. “At least one other name springs out at me. Penny. That could well be a nickname for Penelope Martin. She’s a lobbyist for some kind of legal rights group. I believe she’s also a friend of your brother’s neighbor, Sophie Campbell.”

Cord felt a fast chill chase down his spine. “Sophie has nothing to do with this.”

Bassett rolled his eyes. “You know this how?”

“Because I’ve been around her now. I know her.”

“You don’t know her. You’ve been around her for a few days. Somehow, she’s miraculously been around a lot of people involved in this case. Penelope Martin is paid a damn good salary to swing senators’ votes. She’s slept her way to influence before this. Now we find out she was sleeping with your brother, too.”

“Since you’re already aware of that, I’ll be happy to turn over that CD to you. As well as the MM one.”

For the first time, Ferrell leaned forward, as if finally engaged in the conversation. “This is good evidence, Cord, but it’s not enough to convict or even arrest anyone. We still need you to watch Sophie. We still have every reason to believe she’s connected to this. Your so-innocent Sophie befriended at least one potential suspect in the case that we know of, and possibly more. Someone clearly believes she knows something important, or her place wouldn’t have been broken into. A lot of things point to her as having ink stains on her character.”

“It’s not her,” Cord repeated.

“We’re just asking you to stay alert. To keep looking, keep listening. We’re still in the middle of all this-there’s DNA coming back, prints, hopefully more evidence to uncover from the money you turned over, and we still don’t have the test results from the autopsy. She’s not the only person we’re looking at, but she’s still in the picture. Still part of the problem.”

“I’m not having this conversation again with you guys. I won’t spy.”

“We’ve been through this before,” Bassett said. “You don’t need to use that three-letter word if it puts your Jockeys in a twist. Just…be a team player. We all want the same thing. To find out who killed your brother.”

Minutes later, when Cord pushed open the door, in a hustle to get away from them and out of there, the stormy morning had intensified. Rain poured down in slashing, slapping sheets, kicking branches and leaves and debris everywhere. It was only a short hike to the metro, but long enough for him to get chilled to the bone.

Cord didn’t need a PhD to realize Bassett and Ferrell wanted something a lot bigger than his brother’s murderer. That was a given. Get near politicians and money and power in Washington, and ambition for more was always the story. He didn’t care what their problem was-and for damn sure, he didn’t care what their scandal was.

But the connection to Sophie gnawed on his nerves with sharp teeth. He’d told them flat out that he refused to spy on her. But the reality was that he did need to stay close to Sophie-for her sake. To protect her. Because for damn sure the cops wouldn’t, as long as they believed she was on the wrong side of this story.

Neither Ferrell nor Bassett, of course, would believe that any time Cord spent with Sophie was for her sake. They’d think he was playing ball.

He was playing ball.

Just not in their court.

Only every minute since his brother was killed-ever since he met Sophie-he felt more and more as if he were tiptoeing on a high wire. And his feet were a clumsy size twelve.