Back In The Bedroom (The Wrong Bed #29)(16)

The police hauled the four perps out of the house and into the backs of two different squad cars.

Tessa was being questioned, too, by a woman cop, and was nodding vigorously. Then she pointed at Reilly, and followed it with a look that changed considerably when she saw him looking right back at her. She went from cool and calm to flustered and blushing.

She could have been thinking any number of things, but he figured there were two things in particular that might put that look on her face.

Two kisses.

He’d lost it with her, and if he was being honest, which he nearly always was, it had been more than just the lip-locking. Somewhere in the dark of the night he’d shown her a little something of himself, something he liked to keep hidden.

One thing his work had always shown him, first in the military and then in the CIA, was how important it was to keep the real Reilly deep within where no one could touch him; not a commanding officer, not the enemy, no one.

Tessa, whether she knew it or not, had seen glimpses of the man he hadn’t shown anyone in years. If ever. Sure, he’d hugged and kissed and touched more than his share of women, but none as innocently as he just had with her. And none had left him in the morning with this vague uneasy knowledge that he’d like more.

Wrong place, wrong time, wrong woman.

Well, maybe wrong place, wrong time, but he couldn’t help feeling she was right. Which is why he needed the hell out.

She was looking at him again and still talking. What the hell did the woman have to say that it could possibly take so long? Her eyes were shuttered a bit as she spoke now, watching him watch her. Shuttered and a bit wary.

Maybe she was no more thrilled than he was to have this face-to-face in-the-light-of-day thing. In fact, she looked downright embarrassed.

Because of what they’d done? Because of what, for one night, they’d been to each other? They could just go their own separate ways, and forget all about this last long night from hell. He’d go to his office, and she’d go to…wherever she belonged.

And that was a good thing, a very good thing.



WHEN REILLY FINALLY got home, to the house on the top of the bluff in South Pasadena where he could see for miles and miles and no one could see him, he stripped—all the way to the skin this time. He took a long, hot shower, ate, and then headed for bed, hitting play on his message machine as he did.

“Reilly.”

Naked, Reilly stopped in the middle of his bedroom and looked at the machine.

“Just had a call from the cops.”

His father, of course. How like him not to bother to identify himself.

“Christ, did they really wreck the place? I hope you managed to save my Beemer, and that they didn’t take her out for any joyrides,” Eddie said, laughing softly.

That was Eddie. Everything was all one big joke, including life.

“Anyway…I hear you took care of Tessa. She’s special, isn’t she? Such a sweet kid.”

Reilly would give her the sweet part. Sweet and…hot. He was still scorching from their last connection.

But kid? He had no idea how he’d ever thought it.

“I’m glad you were there for her.”

Would Eddie still be so glad if he’d seen how Reilly had nearly devoured her in the servant’s bed? Or how about in the kitchen, pressed there against the wall with his hand up her shirt? Just the thought of that little scene revved his exhausted engines all over again. If the police hadn’t come when they had—

“She’s the best temp I have,” Eddie continued. “Anyway, I’m coming home early, tomorrow morning.”

Well, wonders never cease, Eddie was actually going to take this seriously enough to cut short something fun. Amazing.

“Anyway, son, I just wanted to thank you.”

Reilly didn’t want to be thanked. He wanted to be left alone.

“Means a lot, that you took care of me like that,” Eddie said into the room.

Yeah, like you always took care of me? Reilly lay on his bed and studied his open-beamed ceiling, wishing he’d turned the volume off on the machine. “I didn’t do it for you,” he said to the phone, as if Eddie could hear him.

“I’m just glad you were there. She’s one of my favorite employees.”

If that wasn’t a load of crap. They both knew damn well that as long as the employees were female, they were all Eddie’s favorites.

“Call me. You know my cell.”

Reilly closed his eyes. He meant to drift off, he’d long ago taught himself to clear his mind and sleep at will.

Only today his mind wouldn’t clear and sleep evaded him.

Instead, he pictured mossy wet eyes and lips that tasted like heaven—when they were kissing him, that is, and not talking.





6




TESSA WENT HOME to her little apartment, trying not to think. She didn’t want to remember facing those burglars and she didn’t want to remember meeting Reilly. And she really didn’t want to remember what she’d done with him, because to have lusted like that so quickly, so…fiery, was just damn uncomfortable in the light of day.

Being just outside downtown Los Angeles, she had a lovely view of the city line, complete with smog to the south and the Angeles Crest Mountains to the north.

She parked beneath the carport and felt smug about getting a covered spot—normally she was forced to park in the blazing hot sun. But normally she wasn’t coming home at ten in the morning on a Saturday either.