INFORMANT (14 page)

I take his pain and try to turn it into something else. I receive his kiss and give it back, my mouth open and eager beneath his, kissing him until he tastes me, and not the bitter memory of Emma’s death.

I can tell the moment I break through. His body slumps against mine. His hands trace my spine, as though desperate to ensure that he hadn’t imagined me, that I am here, with him, now. He whispers my name. It falls against my hair, over and over, as soft as a prayer.

I tilt back my head and capture his mouth. The urgent sensual heat that I’ve come to expect whenever Beckett and I are together begins to build. His lips gentle and soften. His tongue races across the edge of my teeth, between my lips, tangles with mine. His kiss is delicious, divine, depraved. Fiery passion sparks and smolders.

I press myself closer, surrendering completely, willing Beckett to take me. Standing on tiptoe, I loop my arms around his neck and draw myself up. His hands close around my waist, supporting me. We sway together, almost dancing, our bodies locked in an embrace that has no beginning and no end. 

My fingers thread through his deep chestnut hair. Silky strands of it twist through my grasp. I brush the nape of his neck with the tip of my nails, nibble his ear lobe. Satisfaction courses through me when I feel his shuddering response to my touch.

Bending slightly, he wraps one strong arm beneath my knees and scoops me up. Holding me as though I weigh nothing at all, he carries me across the rooftop to the pair of lounge chairs I noticed earlier. He deposits me atop the lounge and stretches out beside me. The cushion sinks beneath his weight and gravity rolls me into his arms.

He tosses his leg over mine, and the weight of his thigh pins me down. He catches my wrists and holds them above my head. As gentle as the pressure is, I could no more escape him than I could break free of a set of steel handcuffs. I am his, totally and completely, for him to do with what he will. The feeling is both unnerving and exhilarating.

He buries his face in the curve of my shoulder. The trail his lips and tongue make across my skin sends a shiver coursing through me. Naked longing nearly overwhelms me. I arch my back, pressing my body against his, aching for his touch everywhere.

“Beckett,” I say. My voice is low, pleading.

He brushes the corner of my mouth with his. “Say it again.”

I don’t hesitate. My need is raw, burning. “Beckett. Beckett.”

A small, satisfied smile touches his lips. With his free hand, he reaches for the clip that holds my hair. He releases it, allowing the thick, dark masses to cascade past my shoulders and fall against the cushion. The citrus fragrance of my shampoo perfumes the air.

Raising himself on one elbow, his smoldering gaze rakes over me. His blue eyes are so intense they appear almost black. But he doesn’t say a word. Instead, his fingers brush my cheek, my temple. His look is reverent, adoring. His fingers skim past my throat, across my collarbone. He bends to kiss the hollow of my throat.

I writhe beneath him, desperate. But he’s firmly in control, moving slowly, keeping me in such a state of sexual suspense that I’m trembling with desire, teetering between pleasure and pain. Finally, he reaches for the buttons on my blouse and works them free. He brushes aside the straps of my bra and tugs it past my ribs. The sight of his mouth lowering over my breast is almost dizzying. When he takes my nipple between his teeth, my back arcs and I cry out. The scorching pleasure is as intense as a shock of electric current. 

I push my body against his, not to escape, but to feel Beckett, to feel every inch of his thrilling masculine body, against my hips and my breasts and my belly. And between my thighs. Especially between my thighs. Cat-like, I rub myself against him, almost purring in heady contentment. Pleasure spirals through me. My heart races and my breathing becomes shallow.

Beckett releases me from his grasp and begins to tug at my clothing. My blouse is stripped from my shoulders. My bra unhooked and pulled free. His fingers fumble at the waistband of my jeans. Leveraging myself to an upright position, I perform the same thrilling task for him. His t-shirt, jeans, boxers, socks, and shoes—all tossed to the rooftop or perhaps floating to the street below. I don’t care. All that matters is that we are naked together, that nothing, not even a strip of clothing, comes between us.

We lay together, our bodies bathed by starlight. Beckett trails his lips between my breasts and then moves lower still, kissing my ribs, my belly, the curve of my hip. I dig my heels into the cushion and thrust upward, making myself more open to him. His fingers trace my skin, exploring and seeking, strumming me like a harp, a lyre, or some other heavenly instrument. My body is exquisitely sensitive to even his lightest touch. When his hand moves between my thighs a moan of pleasure escapes my lips.

Fiery heat builds between my legs and radiates through my belly. I feel myself pushing against his palm, aching for him. His gaze locks on mine as he slips one finger inside me, seeking and caressing. I gasp. I am damp and hot against his hand, so ready for him to fill me that my teeth ache with the effort of holding back.

I tell myself this is just sex, but I recognize the lie for what it is. This is beyond physical. I am so moved by our union that I’m trembling. Tears pool behind my eyes Afraid that my emotions will show, that he will read more in my gaze than we are ready to handle, I bite my lip and turn my face away.

Beckett won’t allow it. He tucks two fingers beneath my chin and turns me to face him. His gaze burns into mine.

“Kylie.”

I can’t speak. Emotion chokes me to the point where I can only stare.

“I would die for you,” he says.

His hips retreat, and then slide forward as he thrusts into me. His mouth slants over mine, taking me in a kiss of raw, brutal possession. His body is hard and hot and heavy. There is strength in the way he holds me, but even more in the way he holds himself still, allowing me time to explore him, to adjust to the feel of him claiming me.

I draw my hands over his broad shoulders, the corded muscles of his biceps, the flat ridges of his stomach. His chest is broad and muscular, his waist tapers to narrow hips. His legs are long and powerful and dusted with hair that is short and fine, and creates a wonderful friction against my palms. I trace my fingers up the back of his thighs, then caress the firm curve of his tight male ass.

A shudder vibrates through Beckett’s body, and he can no longer hold himself still. His thrusts are deep and strong, and bring an intense sense of completeness. We are intimately joined, and the sensation is beyond anything I’ve ever known. I throw back my head. Drag my nails down his back.

Beckett. My Beckett. 

The rhythm we establish is as ancient as the stars scattered above us. It’s primal and simple and life-altering. His breath falls hot against my skin. Sparks of pleasure zip through my nerves. Each thrust is hard and sure. Pressure builds. His rhythm changes and his strokes become more rapid and shallow. A bud of heat blooms in my belly and radiates in my chest. One moment I’m there with him, and the next second I’m far away, lost in a series of tiny explosions that skitter along my spine.

Beckett gives a final thrust, and with a low groan he collapses on top of me. We lie together in a tangled embrace, neither of us moving. It is a moment of pure contentment, but it doesn’t last. It was fine when we were moving, making love. But now the sweat on our bodies reacts to the chill night air and suddenly I’m freezing. Beckett feels me shiver. He leans over and reaches for a thick down comforter that’s stored in a wicker chest beside the chaise. He wraps it around both of us, then folds me in his arms.

“Better?” he asks.

I nod. “That’s convenient.”

“The comforter? Unless it’s raining, this is where I sleep every night.”

Now there’s an image: Beckett, lying here alone, watching the city by the bay go to sleep. I think of my own cramped room, my tiny bed. “I’m jealous.”

He gives me a light squeeze. “You can join me any time.”

I smile, imagining just that. He and I are two young lovers with the world at our feet, with nothing to tear us apart. But I’m too practical to indulge in that fantasy for long. We don’t move freely, Beckett and I. Our past is an anchor that’s drags behind us, a chain that rattles as a constant reminder of the choices we must make.

I would like to cleave Beckett’s past away from him, but I can’t. It is indelibly inked on his soul. Pain splintered him, sent him ricocheting off in a direction he never intended, made him who he is today. Beckett can’t go back to that club in Miami and save his sister. So he straps on a gun and a badge and chases drug dealers. He takes crazy risks. Throws himself in situations that terrify me. He does everything he can to avenge Emma’s death.

Just as I’ll do whatever he needs me to do in order to help him.

“I was with Ricco on Sunday,” I say.

I feel a frisson of tension course through him. “Oh?”

I shake my head. “Nothing happened. Juan and Miguel weren’t there. We just went down to the farmer’s market and got a bite to eat.”

He makes a noncommittal noise, but I sense he’s already beginning to slip away from me. His mind has shifted into a different gear. He’s tense and alert, thinking strategy, take-down, search and seizure. Even though I’m still cradled in his arms, everything’s changed. I’ve lost Beckett and I don’t know how to bring him back. All I can do is join him where he is.

“Do you know a professor at San Francisco State named Brad Morris?” I ask.

A line appears between his brows. He’s thinking. “Wait… yeah. An attorney, right?”

“Right. He’s my scientific ethics professor. What do you know about him?”

“If I’m thinking of the right guy, he was nearly disbarred a few years ago. Big shot prosecuting attorney who took a bribe to destroy evidence in a case. Nothing was ever proved, so he’s still got his license to practice. Why do you ask?”

“He pulled me aside after class and said he saw me with Ricco. Said he knew some things about Ricco Diaz that I might want to know.”

I slant a glance at Beckett, waiting as he mulls this over. 

“The guy might be a scumbag,” he says, “but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have good information.”

“So I should talk to him?”

I wait, foolishly hoping he’ll say no. That he’s done using me to get information, no matter how well I’m being paid to do it.

Instead he shrugs. “Yeah, probably. Find out what he knows.”

“Okay.”

My heart breaking, I rest my head against his shoulder. My gaze shifts to the sky. We are like the stars, I think. We might burn bright, yet we are infinitesimally tiny when compared to the breadth and depth of the universe. And like the stars, our course has been set. Beckett and I are spinning into oblivion, but we can’t stop, any more than a star can stop its blazing arc across the sky. There’s no going back. No stopping. The only direction we can move is forward.

Day Forty-Five

Late Afternoon

It’s Tuesday, and I’m sitting alone in the basement of the J. Paul Leonard library at SFSU, searching the online archives and databases. The research I’m doing has nothing to do with any of my classes, and everything to do with Beckett. I’ve been hunched over a computer screen for so long that my back is killing me, but I have no intention of stopping until I find what I’m looking for.

I’m combing through documents and newspaper clippings more then a decade old, looking for details of an event that occurred on the opposite side of the country. After three and a half hours of intense, painstaking research, I find the proof I’m looking for in a small Miami newspaper. It doesn’t surprise me—really, the article is just confirmation of something I instinctively knew—but seeing the raw facts so impersonally printed in a newspaper column makes my breath hitch. I stare at the computer screen, my heart racing.

I read it once, and then twice. With shaking fingers, I send Jane a text:
Does anybody else know?

Beckett answers immediately.
Know?

About Florida.

I chew my thumbnail as I wait for his response. Beckett knows I’m intelligent. That I have a curious streak I can’t contain. That I know how to put things together. He won’t be surprised that I’ve looked into the circumstances surrounding his sister’s death. What surprises me is that his bosses at the DEA haven’t made the same connection I have.

Then again, why would they? Beckett was a high school kid at the time, living in upstate New York. Why would anyone connect him to the tragic death of an innocent bystander in a Miami dance club over a decade ago, particularly as the surname he and the victim shared is Smith.

According to the newspaper, everything Beckett told me was true. I never doubted that. It just felt incomplete. As it turns out, my hunch was correct. He left out one small detail. The dealer allegedly responsible for the violence—though never arrested and charged with the crime—was a wealthy Cuban immigrant named Miguel Diaz.

Miguel Diaz is responsible for the murder of his sister.

There’s probably official protocol in the DEA to deal with situations like this.  I assume it’s expected that Beckett would remove himself from the case. Just the opposite is happening, of course. He’s digging in deeper. He
specifically asked
to be assigned to Diaz’s case. He recruited me to get close to Ricco. The hatred he feels for the man overrides everything else.

It tears me apart, but I understand it. If it had been Jess who was brutally shot down in that Miami nightclub, I would do everything I could to destroy the person responsible for her murder. He and I have that in common. Beckett will not stop until he’s avenged his sister’s death. Even if it costs him his job, his life… me.

So that’s where we are. Question: How do you shrug off the murder of someone you love? Answer: You can’t.

His next text confirms this.

Just you.