He liked this idea. Get the big guy, and all his FBI buddies, out of the picture so it was just him and the skinny bitch? It would be as easy as it had been to subdue her nephew.
"Okay, then. Tell me exactly what I gotta do."
Chapter 15
Jackie was the last to depart that night, staying until after ten, as if loath to leave Lily now that she'd found out she was alive. The others had gone about a half hour earlier, though none had appeared to want to, for the same reason.
Considering the situation was dire and they were surrounded by murder and betrayal, the evening had taken a strange turn. Dean, Alec, Kyle, Brandon, and Jackie had been so happy to have Lily back, the war-strategy session had become a big after-hours happy hour, sans booze, since they were working. But the mood had been almost celebratory. For a few moments, at least, they all managed to forget that Lily had to remain in hiding and that someone still wanted her dead and merely enjoy the fact that she was alive.
Though his team had become incredibly close at the office, blending together to form a great working relationship, this was the first time they had all socialized outside of work, much less at Wyatt's own house. To his surprise, Wyatt had found himself enjoying it. As for Lily, she hadn't looked so happy in months.
But even her pleasure at having been forgiven for her deception, and welcomed with open arms by her colleagues, hadn't been able to prevent pure exhaustion from washing over her eventually. Her huge yawns and sleep-heavy eyes had prompted all the others, and eventually Jackie, to say their good-nights. Just like everyone else, Jackie swore to return over the weekend to keep working on the case, knowing the sooner Lily was cleared, the sooner she could return to her own life. And her own home.
That should be a good thing. The right thing. Why, then, he wondered, did he feel a strange sort of emptiness at the very thought of it?
Funny, she'd been in his Virginia house for only twenty-four hours, and he already knew it would feel empty when she left. Well, emptier. Because it had always felt a little empty, since the day he'd inherited it from his grandparents. It was only since he'd walked into the kitchen and seen Lily at the stove, making a mess out of the simple task of scrambling an egg, or drinking a cup of coffee and twirling an unlit cigarette on the back porch, that he realized how much more he liked the place when he wasn't alone in it.
He couldn't say the same of the beach house. That place he would never like.
"Wyatt!"
He tensed, cocking his head, as he heard Lily call from upstairs. She'd gone up a few minutes ago to get ready for bed.
She called again. "Wyatt?"
Jesus. Was someone in the house?
Launching up from the couch, he ran to the stairs, taking them two at a time. The guest room door was closed, and he threw himself against it, bursting inside. He half expected to see her defending herself against a dark intruder. "The other half wondered if she had fallen asleep and landed in the middle of one of her dark, terrifying nightmares.
The actual situation proved to be much more simple, and a whole lot more complicated. Because instead of looking terrified, or threatened, Lily merely looked shocked at his intrusion. She stood in the middle of the floor, nearly naked, staring at him through the neck opening of the white T-shirt she'd just been about to pull on. Other than that, she wore nothing but a tiny pair of pink underwear, and an expression of surprise. "What are you doing?" she asked, tugging the shirt-one of his-down over her smooth, creamy stomach and curvy hips.
Not soon enough, though. God help him, not soon enough.
"You screamed."
"I didn't scream."
"I heard you call for me."
"Yes," she explained, sounding exasperated, "I called. That's not the same as screaming. I wanted to remind you to turn off the coffeepot."
Relief washed over him, but since his tension had already transitioned into discomfort at that glimpse of her stunning body, the slim waist, the curves of her full breasts, he didn't immediately laugh off the incident. Usually able to maintain his cool despite the circumstances, to his surprise, he let his frustration drive his reply. "Are you kidding? You yell my name at night, when we both know you're being stalked by a psychopath? What was I supposed to think?" he snapped. Immediately realizing he was reacting emotionally, rather than logically, he closed his eyes briefly, then turned to go. "I apologize."
"Don't even think about it."
He paused and glanced over his shoulder. "What?"
"I said don't even think you're going to turn into Mr. Calm, Cool, and Collected and walk back out of here. Not after you burst in like that. Not after you finally lost a little of that famed self-control."
She sounded happy about that.
"I'm so glad I amuse you."
"You don't amuse me, Wyatt. You thrill me and excite me and you drive me a little crazy, especially when you say dumb things like I'm not allowed to call out your name."
"There's a right time and place and a wrong one."
"The wrong time and place, huh?" she asked, lifting a brow in utter challenge, not at all intimidated by his annoyance. Her lips were quivering, as if she was trying not to laugh; she couldn't have been more different from the timid girl he'd once known if she'd been physically replaced by a kick-ass stunt double.
One word crossed his mind as he stared at her. The same one that so often occurred to him when he beheld the amazing, strong woman she had become. Magnificent.
Something in his stare must have revealed his thoughts, the sudden jolt of hunger he always felt for her at his most unguarded moments. She almost sauntered as she came closer.
"Meaning there is a right time and place, correct?"
Each step she took sent the tension up a notch. Her sweet, feminine fragrance filled his head, he could hear the warm, even rasp of her breathing, and every inch of her looked like warm, sultry female, earthy and elemental. Someone who knew what she wanted and planned to take it.
"I suppose," he said, still not heading for the door. He should; God knew he should.
There were a million things he needed to tell her, to make her understand, yet he knew one thing: Right now, at this point in her life, Lily didn't want to know anything except what it was like to feel physical pleasure again. Seeing her like this, sexy and strong and playful, he realized she was ready for that pleasure, almost demanding it.
She lifted one slim yet somehow strong hand and placed it on his chest, near his heart. The tips of her soft fingers brushed the bare skin revealed by the unbuttoned collar of his shirt, the coolness of her skin somehow burning and sparking with every slow, delicate stroke. Still silent, she leaned even closer, her dark hair soft against his cheek, her body pliant and yielding, held not more than a half inch from his own. Then her lips brushed his throat, and her whisper stabbed through his last bit of self-control.
"The right time, the best time, for me to call out your name is going to be when you're inside me."
God help me.
They had been building toward this all evening, all day. All week, all month. Their being together had been inevitable since that night when their eyes had met in her darkened bedroom up at the beach house. Though part of him knew he should resist, should wait until all the darkness surrounding them was gone, washed away, and replaced only by light and the possibility of tomorrow, deep in his very soul, he knew he couldn't.
He'd been waiting too long, waiting for her, waiting for them. Not just since that July night, not just since the night he'd saved her. Not since she'd come to work with him. No, Wyatt had been waiting for Lily for his entire adult life.
He hadn't realized it, but he had always been waiting for a woman who made him feel like this. Hungry. Hopeful. Crazy and at peace, all at the same time. She had worked her way inside his heart, mind, and soul, making him believe, for the first time ever, in something other than logic, reason, self-control, and dispassion.