Never Say Never Again Read online

  Bronte cleared her throat. “My mother’s paraplegic. She’s wheelchair bound.”

  Connor stared at her. She might as well have just told him that she’d been born with two heads.

  She smiled at him. “Sorry. After that awkward moment, I felt I had to say something. And, well, you have to admit, something like that has a way of rerouting a conversation in a way nothing else can.”

  He considered her. “Do you have brothers and sisters?”

  “Two sisters. Both older.”

  “How’d it happen?”

  Her smile broadened. “For someone who doesn’t want to talk much about his own family, you’re sure asking a lot of questions about mine.”

  “If you don’t want to talk about it—”

  “No, that’s okay. It’s been a part of my life for so long that I don’t really even see the wheelchair anymore.” She chewed on some more bread, then groaned. “God, I couldn’t eat another bite if I tried.” She wiped her hands on her napkin. “Mom injured her back when I was nine. She wasn’t doing anything especially noteworthy at the time. Gardening or something, I think. That night she felt a tingling sensation in her legs. By the next week, she was completely immobile.” She shrugged. “She suffered through five surgeries before deciding to call a halt to them and accept life from a wheelchair. By then, both my sisters had already moved out, so taking care of the household duties pretty much fell into my lap.”

  “That must have been rough.”

  “I really didn’t see it that way until later. It was my reality, you know? Our reality.”

  “Who takes care of the house now?”

  “A woman comes by three times a week. Does most of the cooking and cleaning. Sees to the things Mom can’t do. My sisters help with the rest. Though Mom is pretty active and can do most things nowadays, she’s more busy with outside interests now.”

  She gave him a smile, nearly knocking his socks straight off with the jolt of electricity it sent through him.

  “So, is that enough, or would you like to know more?”

  Connor cleared his throat. “That’s enough, I guess.”

  “Are you sure? Because if it’s not, I can always tell you how I could never get away with anything in high school because my father was the resident math teacher. Not that I would have tried anything anyway, mind you, because, let’s face it, not many kids my own age wanted to have anything to do with a girl who towered at least a head over them.”

  “You’re exaggerating.”

  “You think so, huh? Hold on a minute.” She pushed from the table, then disappeared into the other room. Her soft footfalls on the stairs told him she’d probably be a while. Connor started cleaning the table.

  A couple minutes later she returned carrying an old, tattered photo album. “Here.”

  He clutched the leather bound album in his hands.

  “Go ahead. Open it. Any page.”

  Connor did as she asked. The first picture he saw was of Bronte as an infant. All red hair, freckles and two teeth. He grinned.

  “Just wait, it gets worse.”

  He cleared his throat and skipped about five pages. His gaze caught on a picture of a too tall, too skinny, very awkward teenager with a mouth full of braces. She was standing next to a couple of other girls, presumably of the same age, and they came to about shoulder level. Correction, she wasn’t standing next to them. Rather, she was in the picture with them. They couldn’t have stood farther away from her if they tried. Or her from them.

  Photo after photo, Connor saw the same thing. Until he reached one taken of her outside G.W.U. Finally, she began to resemble the woman he now knew.

  Bronte finished clearing the table. “So aren’t you going to say anything?”

  Connor slowly closed the album, unable to stop a grin. “Um, you weren’t exaggerating?”

  Her laughter hit him somewhere deep down in his stomach and he found himself laughing with her as they both dropped back down into their chairs.

  Connor leaned back, shaking his head as he pushed the album back toward her. “Those are some really bad pictures.”

  She shook her finger. “No, the pictures aren’t to blame. I was.” She flipped the album back open. “I don’t know. I suppose I wouldn’t have been so bad had I learned to tame that hair and used some makeup. And my fashion sense wasn’t the greatest back then.” She visibly shuddered, then closed the album again. “Still, I was more interested in stretching out across the floor in the bedroom my father had converted to a library and inhaling every book in there.”

  “Ah, an inherited interest.”

  “You could say that. My oldest sister’s name is Emily. My second sister Catherine. And I’m Bronte.” She smiled. “Mom had a thing for Wuthering Heights. Dad used to joke that he was glad they never had a son because she would have stuck him with the name Heathcliff.”

  Connor found himself laughing again. The kind of hold-nothing-back, happy type of laughter he hadn’t indulged in in a very long time—and that he probably shouldn’t be giving himself over to now. It was just that when he was around Bronte, she made everything seem…well, not so bad. More than that, she was good at reaching inside him, making him forget who he was and where he came from for just a little while. Making him forget that just outside the front door, his life as he knew it had come to a crashing halt.

  His laughter faded, making him realize she wasn’t laughing anymore either. The tension quotient in the room shot up by at least ten degrees. He watched where she absently worried the corner of the album, her upper lip caught firmly between her teeth.

  “Um…I have some photos of a kind of my own.” He reached for the leather jacket he had slung on the back of the chair and took out the manila envelope Oliver had passed onto him earlier at the diner. “It’s the security video taken the day of Robbins’s death.”

  Her gaze riveted to his face. “How’d you get it?” She held up her hand. “Never mind. I don’t think I want to know.” She accepted the video and placed it on top of the album. “From what I know, the U.S. attorney’s office doesn’t even have a copy of this yet.”

  “They do now.”

  She traced the lines of the tape through the manila envelope, bringing it into stark relief. “You do know that an official warrant has been issued for your arrest.”

  He nodded, his throat growing suddenly tight. “I’d better be going,” he said, pushing from the table.

  “Wait.” Bronte quickly stood up with him, color rising high in her cheeks. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you. Something that’s been bothering me.”

  Connor considered her serious expression. This was it. She was going to ask him whether or not he had anything to do with Robbins’s murder.

  “You see, the case was taken from me. But my assistant managed to filch the file for a few moments so I could check on the progress. See if I could help you out….”

  Her voice trailed off, and her gaze was plastered to the photo album her hand still rested against.

  “And did you find anything?”

  She finally looked at him. “Yes, I did. Only I don’t see where this information can help you.” She slipped her hand from the table and crossed her arms under her breasts. “Were you involved with Melissa Robbins, Connor? I mean, intimately?”

  7

  STRANGELY, BRONTE FELT AS if she couldn’t breathe. She merely stood staring at Connor as if his answer held all the importance in the world. Why, she didn’t want to explore. If he had been intimately involved with Melissa, that didn’t mean he had killed her.

  Though even she had to admit that things weren’t looking very good for him.

  Connor’s eyes turned from warm, dark blue to stormy, metallic green. “What do you think?”

  Bronte finally drew a breath. “Well, obviously I don’t know what I think at this point or else I wouldn’t have asked.” She held her ground. “What I do know is that Melissa swore out a complaint against you the day of her, um, untimely
passing.”

  He took a step closer to her. So close, she could see the specks of black in his eyes. “No, Bronte,” he murmured. “I mean, what do you think? Not with your mind. With your—”

  “Heart?”

  Something flickered in those same eyes. “I was going to say gut.” His gaze dropped to her mouth and she felt the incredible urge to lick her lips.

  “I learned a long time ago that gut instincts can be very unreliable.”

  “I’m not asking you if you think they’re reliable. I’m asking you to tell me what they are telling you.”

  Suddenly, Bronte was unable to breathe again. This time for entirely different reasons. Before, she had needed an answer to her question. Now, she needed to kiss him more than she’d ever needed to kiss anyone before.

  “My gut’s telling me that if I don’t touch you right now, I’m going to die.” Her laugh was more of a raspy whisper. “Just goes to show you how accurate—”

  She was helpless to do more than watch as he lifted his hands to either side of her face, his gaze flicking to her mouth then her eyes and back again.

  When his lips made contact with hers, the sensation was butterfly soft and overwhelmingly sweet. The feeling in her stomach was of something melting—her reserve, most likely, a small, quiet voice in her head said. But it felt so good, she didn’t stop her eyes when they fluttered closed. And she was loathe to call a halt to her hands when they flattened against the solid, tantalizing wall of his chest.

  He pulled away slightly. Bronte gave in to the urge to lick her lips, tasting him there. Tasting the tang of beer. The bite of garlic. The heat of passion.

  “Tell me, Bronte.”

  She eyed his mouth. “Connor McCoy, I think you could charm a nun out of her habit in ten seconds flat.”

  His surprise caught her off guard. She might have expected a laugh, or a grimace, but never surprise.

  She looked at him a little more closely, finding his shock genuine. Could it be true that he didn’t have any idea how he affected the opposite sex? How much she burned for him after just a brief, closed-mouth kiss?

  “Do you really think that?” he asked quietly.

  She nodded. “Oh, yes. If you put your mind to it, Hillary Clinton would be putty in your hands.” She swallowed hard, afraid of what she was revealing about herself. Afraid of what she was seeing about herself.

  Even after all she had gone through with Thomas, she realized that somewhere down the line she had opened herself up to Connor McCoy. And that by doing that, she had given him the power to hurt her.

  But, right now, she could concentrate on little more than the way he grazed his thumbs over her cheekbones. The feel of his heartbeat beneath her hands. The palpable heat that drew them together as surely as a magnet. And her need for much, much more.

  Drawing her palms along his solid pecs, then down his rock-hard abs, she slid them around his waist and moved closer until mere millimeters separated them. Her breathing grew noticeably more ragged as she blinked up at him. “Oh, just stop looking at me like that and kiss me again, McCoy.”

  And he did. He kissed her as if she were air and he was suffocating. He restlessly slanted his mouth first one way, then the other, attacking her from both sides—sliding his tongue against hers, then retreating, only to return again, making her want to whimper with need.

  His hands first pushed up the back of her shirt, probing the flesh there, then dove downward, grasping her bottom then pressing her fully against his arousal.

  Bronte felt as if someone had drenched her in gasoline, then flicked a match. Everywhere Connor touched, burned. Everywhere he didn’t touch, ached. She tugged her mouth away from his briefly, trying to catch her breath. “Oh, God,” she murmured, laying her cheek against his. “This is crazy.”

  “Do you want to stop?” he asked, already taking his hands from her.

  “No!” she said a little too vehemently. She entangled her fingers in his hair and tugged him back toward her mouth. “That would be even crazier.”

  She gasped when he lifted her up, then hoisted her on top of the counter behind her. She immediately put her hands back to balance herself. He took advantage of her open position and thrust his fingers up the front hem of her shirt, seeking and finding her breasts. Bronte’s elbows threatened to buckle as he tugged up the material even further, then fastened his hot, wet mouth around her left nipple. She cried out, desire, fast and sure and all-consuming, pooling in her lower abdomen and making her thighs quiver.

  Before she knew it, he was fumbling to unfasten her belt and the button to her slacks and she was helping him. Within moments, she was settled back on top of the cool ceramic tile of the counter in nothing but her panties.

  He leaned back, his hands bracing her hips, and looked at her. Saliva gathered in the back of Bronte’s throat, and her heart beat an erratic rhythm against her rib cage. Slowly, he moved until a finger traced the elastic edge of her panties, following it down to her crotch, then back up again. She caught her bottom lip between her teeth and bit down to quell her moan as he tunneled his index finger under the thin material then dipped it into her dripping wetness.

  He leaned forward, reclaiming her mouth with his.

  “Tell me, Bronte…what are your gut instincts telling you now?”

  She braced herself against the counter and strained against where his hand lay between her legs.

  “Tell me.” He thrust first one finger deep inside her, then withdrew and followed with two.

  “Please,” she whimpered, grasping desperately for the front of his jeans.

  He caught her hands and moved them instead to lay against the hard evidence of his arousal through thick denim. “Tell me.”

  Bronte shuddered, testing the width and length of him with hungry curiosity and spiraling need. “They’re telling me that I want you. Badly. More than I’ve wanted anyone in a long, long time.”

  He removed his fingers from her panties, making her groan in protest, then caught and held her head as he kissed her deeply. “I want you, too, Bronte. More than you can ever know.” He moved between her thighs, forcing her to remove her hands so he could rub against her. She cried out.

  He dragged his mouth away from hers, his breathing sounding ragged in her ears. “But I can’t…have sex with you. Not with you thinking I could have touched another woman the same way I’m touching you now. Not with that woman having been murdered four days ago. Not with you not knowing if you can trust me any farther than you can throw me.”

  Bronte’s breath caught in her lungs. “What?”

  He drew back from her, gazing at her intently. “If you think I could have been involved with Melissa Robbins, then it’s possible that you think I could have killed her, as well. And that’s exactly the reason why I think we should both think long and hard before we let whatever is happening between us go any farther than it already has.”

  He removed his hands from her face then slowly stepped backward. “Wait! Where will you go? Back to your apartment?”

  He shook his head.

  Bronte could do little more than stare at him as he picked up his leather jacket from the back of his chair, then shrugged into it. She opened her mouth to object, to demand that he continue what he had so skillfully started. But she was helpless to say anything as he apologized, then walked silently out the back door.

  Bronte sat stock still for long, quiet moments, then finally slid from the counter. She shook all over. Her heart beat so loudly, she wanted to put her hands to her ears to block out the sound. With trembling fingers, she pulled her sweater back down over her bared breasts. She made it to the chair and collapsed into it, drawing her knees to her chest then resting her cheek against them. A culmination of unsatisfied need, heightened frustration, and raw fear that she had gotten herself in deeper than she ever should have allowed were what made the first of many sobs squeeze from her tight throat.

  DAWN’S DIM FINGERS seemed to reach through Bronte’s bedroom curtains, c
atching her unaware where she sat on the floor at the foot of her bed, rewinding the videotape Connor had left behind, then fast-forwarding through the day in question.

  By now the actions were automatic. She’d scanned through the tape dozens of times. But the images never changed. Exhaustion combined with repetitive motion made her blind to what she was seeing and numb to the emotions that only hours before had rocked her to her knees.

  Connor was right. She had no business pursuing a sexual relationship with him when she hadn’t faced down the question she should have demanded an answer to from the beginning.

  Had he killed Melissa Robbins?

  She’d skirted, avoided, and all but ignored the question…until now.

  Now…well, she still didn’t know what to think.

  Had she grown so thick-skinned, so detached during her four years with the U.S. attorney’s office that she was able to so neatly divide her professional life from her personal? Even so, what woman in her right mind would allow a man who was wanted for murder into her bed without first knowing if he was responsible for the crime?

  Bronte rubbed her tired eyes. No, she didn’t believe Connor McCoy had murdered Melissa Robbins. There. She’d admitted it.

  The only problem was, the U.S. attorney’s side had five points to her nil as far as proof went.

  She squinted at the screen again, hitting the Play button when the figure of a man, purportedly Connor, appeared in the far corner, walking toward the door to Melissa’s safe house.

  Five minutes later, the same figure came out, head down, movements anxious.

  She took note of the time and wrote it down for the third time on a small notepad she had placed near her feet.