Explosive (The Black Opals) (3 page)

“I can’t go there, Brice,” she confessed.

“Why the hell not?” He released one foot to exchange it for the other.

Bliss slipped up her spine as Brice’s fingers kneaded her tight ankles.
As her body began to unwind, so did her mind. She leaned her head back against the cushions and closed her eyes. “It’s too intense. I can’t be alone with him—what if he asks questions I can’t answer? What if I freak out in the middle of…things?”

Several moments of silence passed as Brice worked over her left foot.
He squeezed and kneaded in that just-shy-of painful way she couldn’t get enough of, pushing the tension in her body out the tips of her toes. Then he smoothed one palm down the top of her arch and his hands stilled. “What if I were there with you?” he asked quietly.

Alyssa cracked one eye open, uncertain she’d interpreted his meaning correctly.
“You mean…the three of us?”

Brice nodded.
“To break the ice, maybe.”

Momentary shock drew her upright.
In a hundred years, she’d have never believe Brice would make such a proposition. Not with Jayce, at least. Disbelief filled her voice. “You’d do that?”

He let out a chuckle and resumed the casual devotion to her foot.
“Not like I haven’t before.”

“Yeah…but that was years ago.”
Back when she’d first started to realize she missed sex. Back when she’d wanted to try living again, but had been too afraid to attempt it solo. When she’d confided her fears to Brice, he’d introduced her to a friend. Having Brice with her had helped keep her fears at bay. Having someone else with them prevented her relationship with Brice from becoming too demanding. She’d learned she could function as a normal woman, that she could control and separate the fear. It had all been wickedly exciting and full of pleasure, but it ran its course and served its purpose of moving beyond the perception men were predators. Since then, she and Brice sought companionship in each other, leaving their options fully open.

She arched an eyebrow.
“I didn’t think that was your thing.”

Brice shrugged.
“I’d do it for you. If that’s what you want, sweetheart.”

A vision flashed through her mind of her on hands and knees, Brice laying beneath her, suckling at her breasts while Jayce arched around her backside, his hands fitted on her hips as he took her from behind.
A chill skittered down her spine. Could she? With Brice there to ground her, she might actually be able to indulge in what she most wanted. And the guilt wouldn’t come. She wouldn’t have to cut Brice out, carve him out of her involvements. He could still be close, part of everything. But would Jayce be willing?

“Do you want that, Alyssa?”

She didn’t know. On one hand, she thrilled at the idea. On the other, she wasn’t quite certain that even having Brice present would corral all the overwhelming emotion Jayce provoked. Nor was she convinced that accepting didn’t directly translate to having her cake and eating it too. She wasn’t selfish, and she didn’t want to abuse Brice’s kind heart. Instead of responding, she plucked the remote off the coffee table and flipped on the television.

In breaking news, James Parker, owner and CEO of Parker Development—

“Alyssa, good grief, you’re dodging. You—”

She cut him off with a shake of her hand that demanded silence.

—
tonight on allegations of tax evasion.

“Shit!” Alyssa tossed the remote onto the couch and collapsed into the cushions.
All thoughts of Brice’s suggestion fled her mind. Her most powerful client—she didn’t need this on top of everything else. Certainly not in the height of tax season with only another three weeks until the filing deadline. She didn’t have time for this added hassle.

Nonplussed, Brice picked up the controller and turned the television off.
“You suspected it was coming.”

“Yeah, I know, but that means I’m going to have the cops in my hair, detectives dogging me, and lawyers like you trying to double-talk me into something they can use.”
She nudged his thigh with her heel. “I don’t have time for this. The Andersons are already eating up a huge chunk of my schedule with their complicated divorce settlement.”

Thankfully, Brice let the subject of Jayce go.
With a smirk, he leaned forward and kissed her forehead. “At least we can both claim we’re employed by criminals.”

“Yeah, but yours is already behind bars.
Mine is going to expect me to keep him out of jail.”

His laugh helped ease her topsy-turvy state of mind.
“Which one, babe?”

“You know who I mean—Delfranco.
That guy who’s doing time for money laundering.”

Brice’s amused smile took a sharp downward dive into a tight frown.
“Yeah. Him. Pain in the ass.”

“Did he do something else today?
Call from jail to give you grief for losing the case again?”

A brief shake of his head and the slight frown that touched his brow alerted her to the fact Brice was keeping his own angst inside.
He rarely did, but when he chose to close her off, it related to case details he couldn’t discuss. She’d learned long ago not to press when he shut down.

Standing, he stretched.
“I’m going to bed. Want to join me?”

“Mm.”
Briefly, she debated. The encounter with Jayce had left her body primed and ready for satisfaction, but when she looked beyond the stir of arousal to the root of what she desired, Brice couldn’t provide the fulfillment her heart and body yearned for. “No,” she answered quietly. “I think I’ll stay up a while longer.”

“Suit yourself.”
With a shrug of his shoulders, his teasing grin reappeared, and he tossed her a wink. “It’s your call if you want to go to bed miserable.” He crossed the room, then paused in the doorway. Looking over his shoulder, he gave her a meaningful look. “The other thing is your call too. Just let me know what you decide.”

“Good
night
, Brice.”

“Goodnight, babe.”

She watched him meander down the hall his bedroom before she curled into the couch and pulled the multi-colored afghan over her legs. Closing her eyes, she fought Jayce’s overwhelming presence. But the battle was too much, and as the ache in her womb began again, she allowed his handsome face to slide into memory. Standing in his embrace, reliving the incredible pull of desire…She missed him in ways she hadn’t even recognized.

Could she entertain Brice’s suggestion?
It was so damned tempting…a night with Jayce. Just one more. With Brice present, surely she could hold on to her senses and emotion wouldn’t override pleasure. Maybe, just maybe…

A hollow scraping sound coming from the kitchen snapped Alyssa’s eyes open.
Fear shot down her spine, and she clutched at the afghan, holding her breath, afraid to draw in air. Silence filled the house. Thick and stifling.

Her pulse tapped out a staccato rhythm.
She stared at the open archway to the kitchen, waiting for footsteps. Waiting for a shadow to slither across the pale yellow wall.

The fridge kicked on with a
click
. Low humming filled the uncomfortable quiet. Expelling a rush of air, Alyssa relaxed her death-grip on the blanket. “Get a hold of yourself. It’s just the damn fridge.”

Flopping onto her side, she twisted and turned until the cushions molded around her body and yielded to comfort.
If her fierce sexual awareness of Jayce hadn’t trumpeted all the reasons she didn’t dare get mixed up in him again, that moment of ridiculousness just had. She was hearing things again. Just as she had the night her life had been ripped from her control. The same old fears were stirring, the same helplessness descending on her once more.

F o u r

A
lyssa hit the brakes and squealed to a stop, the nose of her car a good two feet over the white line. Her heart beat hard as the white minivan she’d nearly hit cleared the intersection. She cursed Jayce for good measure. If she’d managed to wake up thinking about something other than him, she wouldn’t have almost missed a glaring red light. Even a hot shower hadn’t helped. Brice’s proposal had her tied in knots.

The business with her client’s recent arrest had what remained of her sanity in tangles too.
James Parker was a formidable man. He’d hired her fresh out of school, when she was driven to succeed and hungry for a steady, good-paying job. Back then, she hadn’t noticed that the wealth he outwardly displayed didn’t match the accounts she reconciled quarterly. When rumor reached her two years ago that he freelanced as a bookie, she’d begun to look more closely. Things didn’t add up. Parker Development, which ran continually a half-step out of the red, couldn’t finance a private jet or the numerous trips Parker made overseas.

Six months ago, when he’d phoned out of the blue, subtly suggesting that she
happen
to lose her briefcase with his two years previous statements inside, she’d confirmed the rumor. But by then, she’d seen the darker side of him. Witnessed the cruel gleam in his eye one too many times, and she didn’t trust that if she resigned, she wouldn’t pay some sort of long-term price.

Now, he was facing charges of racketeering and tax evasion.
Turned in less than a month ago by the CFO of Parker Development, who coincidentally had provided written statements to the FBI and then vanished. The media claimed he was in protective custody. Alyssa wasn’t so sure.

The light turned green, and she eased onto the gas, trying to push the worry about Parker and her own wellbeing aside.
Each time she tried, thoughts of Jayce slunk in. Thoughts she had no business entertaining. She didn’t intend to get entwined with him again, and with a little luck, he’d be gone from Boulder in a few days.

Ugh—she’d go insane if she couldn’t think.
She needed her mind together today, not scattered on the wind. Three fat file folders of the Anderson’s interest and dividend forms along with brokerage trades awaited her complete focus. Parker’s veritable shoebox of receipts was still waiting on her attention as well.

She turned onto the long, asphalt drive that led to the secluded cottage she and Brice called an office.
Not for the first time recently, she kicked herself for being so dense the first time she entered this drive. What legitimate company hid an office in the middle of the suburbs on the back entrance to their forty acre estate?

What legitimate company shared that office with the notorious head of the Delfranco crime organization?

Damn Brice too for that matter. He
knew
he was working for the mob. He could have at least warned her long before she couldn’t get out. But to be fair, she had to admit, his logic had sound reasoning. Delfranco was already in jail when she moved into the adjoining office. He needed to pay his debts, and renting out office space was one legitimate way he could accomplish it. It had, in fact, been Brice’s suggestion.

Sighing, Alyssa eased to a stop beside Brice’s bright yellow Hummer and opened her door.
She set a high heel on the pavement, exited, and righted the crooked fall of her suit skirt. She checked the buttons on the front of her blouse just for good measure—it wouldn’t have surprised her to find them crooked as well. Satisfied she was put together outwardly, no matter how discombobulated she was on the inside, she started for the door.

The sight that greeted her as she reached the entry, however, sent a chill sneaking down her spine.
Down the left side of the doorjamb splintered wood poked out, ready to jab an unwary hand. The knob hung loose in the door, useless.

She pushed the door open and found Brice seated at his desk, the phone tucked to his ear.
With a frown, she pointed to the splintered wood and mouthed,
What happened?

He shook his head, held up his index finger.

Fine. She’d wait. In addition to all the other work waiting for her, she needed to sift through her file cabinet and organize everything in the event she found herself facing a subpoena later today. It would come, it was just a matter of when.

She entered her office, tossed her purse on the desk, and pulled open a long metal drawer.
No sooner than it had stopped squeaking, Brice’s footsteps crossed the Berber carpeting. “Morning, sweetness.”

She flashed him a warm smile.
“Morning to you. What happened to the door?”

“Ah, yeah…about that.”
He leaned a shoulder against the doorframe. “Somebody tried to break in last night. Something scared them off.”

Break in?
Her brain locked on the phrase, and her gaze slid uneasily to the thick files that filled the drawer. Parker maybe? Trying to collect the files he subtly suggested she lose? “Good thing we put an alarm on last year.”

“Well…”
Brice pushed off the frame and stuffed his hands inside his pockets. He kicked the toe of his shoe into the carpet. “That’s the thing. It didn’t go off.”

Alyssa blinked.
“How could it not go off? I set it last night. I’m certain it was armed.”

Brice shook his head.
“No idea.”

“Someone had to have turned it off.”

“How? You and I are the only ones who know the code.”

“No…” she said thoughtfully as she reached into the drawer and plucked out a file.
“I’m pretty sure you gave it to Parker last fall when he’d forgotten what his first quarter claims were.”

Brice chuckled.
“We changed it after that, sweetness. Remember? We set it off twice trying to get it done?”

“Oh.
Yeah.” Then who would have been messing with the alarm? And better yet—what scared them off? From the damaged frame, if they’d worked a little longer, they’d have knocked the deadbolt loose as well as the knob. Unease filtered through her veins. “We need a steel door, Brice. I don’t like it. Not with the way Parker has been acting lately.”

“Neither do I.” He turned and crossed to the coffee pot, where he poured two mugs.
As he added cream and sugar to his, he continued, “Jayce said he was in security. I asked him to come by and take a look at things.”

“
Jayce
?” She nearly screeched his name. One hand frozen over a file folder tab, she stared at Brice’s broad shoulders, incredulous. “Why would you call him? He’ll be leaving soon. There are plenty of good security firms in Denver.”

A mocking grin lifted the corner of Brice’s mouth.
“But he’s free.”

“Please tell me he didn’t agree.”
This so wasn’t happening. Jayce couldn’t be coming here, when she had a nightmare on her hands.

When Brice merely stared into his coffee cup, silent, her pulse jumped several intervals.

“Brice. Tell me Jayce isn’t coming here.”

He shrugged and headed back toward his office. “Okay.
He’s not coming here.”

She followed on his heels.
“Brice! I don’t want him here!”

Sliding around to his chair, he gave into a slow grin.
“Why not? It might help you make your mind up about what I suggested.”

No.
Jayce couldn’t be here in her office. This was her space, her one place where the world didn’t exist, where she was absolutely certain of who and what she was. Worse, she couldn’t think when Jayce was around. Because he teased her with memories of a past she’d tried to put behind her. Because she lost control every time he was ten feet away.

Damn it.
This reeked of a set-up, like Brice was pushing her in Jayce’s direction.

She turned away with a harassed sigh.
“You should have consulted with me. This is my office too. I’d rather have someone local evaluate our security system. Someone who will be around when it breaks.”

“I didn’t think he was the one who disappeared, was he?”
Low and calculated Brice’s voice filled her head.

Dumbfounded that he would pull such a low blow, Alyssa spun on him, prepared to give him an earful he wouldn’t forget.
He knew why she’d never gone to Chicago. He’d been the one to help pull her out of a drunken abyss that would have certainly led to her own self-destruction. Brice had no right to throw her past in her face.

A sharp rap on the door, however, stilled the words that hovered on the tip of her tongue.
Before either of them could call out, the door swung open. Two uniformed members of Boulder’s finest stepped inside.

A short, pudgy officer pulled off his sunglasses and squinted at her.
“Alyssa Martin?”

Tamping back a groan, she nodded.

“We need to talk to you for a moment, ma’am.”

Great.
Just what she needed to start her day—Jayce and the cops at the same damned time. She should have slid through the light and hit the van. If nothing else, a traffic incident would have kept her from being here right now. With another harassed sigh, she waved them into her office, shut the door, and sat down behind her desk. “How can I help you, gentlemen?”

“We need to ask you a few questions about James Parker.”

“Why am I not surprised?”

* * *

Jayce nosed into the long driveway to McTavish’s office, acutely aware of the ostentatious setting. Too many years of sniffing bombs and sniffing out rats set his instincts on high alert. No one tucked a high-powered criminal attorney into a secluded cottage on several dozen acres of land.

Not unless he or she wanted to hide his lawyer.

What in the hell had McTavish gotten himself into this time?

Jayce shouldn’t be surprised—trouble followed Brice like flies followed cows.
But he wasn’t stupid, and he’d had some consent in this arrangement. Hells bells, Clarke would have fits if he knew Jayce was here, about to put his criminal knowledge to use for something that couldn’t possibly be good.

He shifted into second and rolled into the parking lot.
An unmarked police car sat closest to the door, evidenced by the numerical municipality plate. Fucking perfect. If he were smart, he’d turn around and come back later. Or not come back at all.

But he’d given his word, and he didn’t go back on promises.
Besides, he was reasonably certain he still owed McTavish for a few favors back in high school. McTavish and Jordan had been the only ones who knew about Jayce’s involvement with Alyssa, although Jordan had never met Alyssa. They attended different schools, Jordan having gone to the ballet school, while Alyssa attended the public school with Jayce. Jayce wouldn’t have risked his sister being involved anyway. McTavish, however, took the fall more than once to keep Alyssa’s parents in the dark. Claiming his car broke down when the Martin’s pulled into their driveway and begging them for a ride so Jayce could sneak out the back door took the cake. Not that they’d given McTavish anything but a handful of bills to catch a cab. They wouldn’t dream of taking their Mercedes to the
other
side of town. But the ruse had bought Jayce the necessary time to run out the back and hide in the thick trees that divided their property from the Fitzgerald’s behind them.

Jayce chuckled as he approached the door.
He’d frozen his balls off standing there in the dark, in forty degree weather, with nothing but his boxer-briefs on. But he’d have done it all over again just to have a few hours alone with Alyssa.

He scowled as repressed memories surfaced.
Damn, he’d been a fool back then.

At the doorway, the splintered wood caught his immediate attention.
He backed off the step to get a better angle, and his frown deepened. Crowbar. Stuffed between jamb and door and used to pry at the lock. Why hadn’t that tripped the alarm?

Aw hell, he’d hoped this would be simple.
He’d intended to glance around, shrug his shoulders, and excuse the failure to random oddities. Now he’d have to act like he really knew the nuances of security.

Grumbling to himself, Jayce pushed open the door and entered McTavish’s office.
McTavish sat at his desk, the phone tucked against his ear. He bid Jayce hello with a lifted hand.

“I understand, Nelson, but the last thing we want to do is put a hostile witness on the stand.”

Yeah that’d work out well—Jayce held in a chuckle. He turned to inspect the backside of the door and the wire that ran over the frame.

The muffled sound of an angry feminine voice floated from behind the closed door to his left.
An angry voice he knew all too well. Jayce froze, self-preservation alarms blaring. He slid his gaze to the door and the brass nameplate tacked to the exterior.
ALYSSA MARTIN, CPA

No.
Fucking. Way. He was not going to confront her today. Not when one encounter with her last night made sleep impossible.