Intimate Caresses (The Love and Danger Series) (9 page)

Joan took a
nother deep breath, trying to calm down. 

“So you shot him to keep him to yourself,” Brock said softly. 

She started to say something, then stopped herself and took a deep breath.  “I think you should both leave now.”

Brock and Colt nodded and walked out of her apartment.  “Okay, so she’s the shooter? 
Or the drugger?”

Colt shook his head.  “My money is on her being the shooter.”

Brock’s hands fisted on the steering wheel.  “That asshole was trying to put the moves on Nina,” he said, understanding exactly what was going on in the office.

Colt nodded.  “I guess Nina got sick of being cornered in the kitchen and brought in her own coffee maker to avoid him.”

Brock looked up at the apartment building again.  “We need to get a search warrant for that woman’s apartment.”  He then chuckled and shook his head.  “I don’t think there’s any threat of her actually doing laundry and washing off any gunshot residue.  That place was pretty bad.”

Colt shrugged as he said,
“We’ve seen worse.”

“
Ain’t that the truth?”

They drove back to the police station and started working on building up their timeline with what they’d learned today.  It was late afte
rnoon when Sam and Walker stepped into the conference room.  “I just got a text,” Sam said, looking smug.

Brock glanced back at him, but then turned back to look at his board.  His mind hadn’t been focused enough today and he wanted to get this done so he could get out of here and go find Nina.  He was still too furious about what he’d found out about their victim and the way he treated women.  His Nina had probably had a hard time
at work.  He thought back to that first interview yesterday morning and how defensive she’d gotten.  It hadn’t had anything to do with the murder.  It was because she’d despised the victim. 

Brock did too and it was probably a good thing he was taken out of the gene pool, but he still needed to find the man’s killer. 

“Don’t you want to know what the text is about?” Sam asked.

Brock glanced back and noticed Sam showing the text to Walker who then looked up at Brock and shook his head with a chuckle.  “You’re in trouble buddy,” Walker stated firmly as he sat back in one of the conference room chairs.

“Why?  Don’t you get texts from Hannah all the time?”

“Yes.  But this is about Nina,” Sam stated,
then waited for his friend’s reaction.

Brock tossed the dry erase marker onto the metal tray and turned around to face Sam.  “Spill it.  Is she okay?  I was going to head over to her place after work just to check on her.”

Colt snorted, shaking his head. “Is that what they’re calling it these days?”

Brock ignored him and rubbed the back of his neck.  “What’s going on?”

Sam grinned deviously.  “Hannah convinced Nina to go to that bar over on 10
th
street, not far from her café.  They’re there now, drinking,” Sam looked down at his cell phone again and cringed, “white chocolate, peppermint martinis.”

All four men shuddered at
just the thought.  “Where?”

Sam stood up, tucking his cell phone into the holder on his belt.  “I’ll show you.”

Brock ignored the laughter of his friends and followed Sam out the door.  He wasn’t surprised when Colt jumped in beside him but he growled in frustration at the split second wait he had to endure while the man closed the door. 

Ten minutes later, they were pulling up outside a crowded bar filled with people who had just gotten off from work.  It was a Thursday night so it was prime happy hour in the downtown area.  This bar was only about two blocks from Nina’s apartment building but Brock didn’t like the idea of her being surrounded by all these obnoxious men. 

He followed Sam into the bar who was obviously getting texts from Hannah filled with instructions. 

When he saw her, Brock thought he lost about ten pounds
as the stress fell off his shoulders.  Seeing her laughing, sitting across the table from Hannah who was also laughing with a strange colored martini in front of both of them, he knew that he wasn’t going to let anything happen to this woman.  She was his, even though she hadn’t quite acknowledged it yet. 

She obviously had the same connection to him because he was surrounded by people, loud, noisy patrons who were all holding drinks aloft and talking.  But Nina stopped her conversation with Hannah and looked up, turning her head while her eyes zeroed in on him.  She didn’t even have to search.  She just knew exactly where he was.

As he approached the table, he noticed those pretty blue eyes becoming nervous, but underneath her anxiety was that intense sexual need that they felt the moment they were less than fifty feet from each other. 

“What are you doing here?” she demanded as soon as he stepped up to their table. 

Brock was vaguely aware of Sam taking the seat next to Hannah and kissing her with what was probably embarrassing enthusiasm, but he only had eyes for Nina.  It felt like it had been days since he’d seen her, but it had only been about thirteen hours since he’d left her bed this morning. 

“You look great,” he said and bent lower, kissing her briefly before she could stop him. But even that brief kiss told him so much.  And his body was instantly hard and aching to be inside of her again.  How she could have this much control over him, he had no clue but he liked it. 

The tension was broken a moment later when Walker and Colt arrived with four beers, handing one to Sam and another to Brock.  They stole chairs from another table and all four enormous men sat down and overwhelmed. 

“You aren’t supposed to be here,” Nina snapped, pulling back but Brock only shifted in his chair so that their thighs were
once again touching and his arm stretched out behind her. 

Sam put his beer down in front of him and said, “Hannah told me she was here with you and we decided to make sure you ladies could get home safely.”

Nina rolled her eyes.  “We specifically chose this bar because we could easily walk home from here.”

“Good plan,” Sam said, winking at her. 

Hannah rolled her eyes.  “I told you I was here so you wouldn’t worry about me.  Not so that you would come here and invade our space.”

“Ah
darlin’,” he said and kissed her neck, making her giggle. “I want to be anywhere you are.”

She pushed him away.  “You just want to spy on me.  Besides, we’re here to find a man for Nina.  So just go away.”  She looked at Brock. 
“You too.”

Brock shook his head as he took a long swallow of his beer. 
“Nina doesn’t need another man.  She has me.”

“I don’t want you,” she replied, glaring up at him but she was uncomfortably aware of him and all the things they’d done together last night.  Her breath caught in her throat as she remembered and even her face betrayed her. 

He didn’t say anything, but simply raised one black eyebrow in response as if to silently let her know that he too was thinking about their night together. 

She blushed and turned away, shifting again to try and put some space between their bodies.  “I don’t even want to date.  I’m not on the market.”

Brock wasn’t bothered by her bluster.  She was nervous about what they felt for each other and he could work with that.  He didn’t understand, but he would figure out how to overcome her fears.  “You’re not dating.  And you just came off of the market.”

Hannah shook her head.  “You thought she was a murderer,” she said to Brock.  “So you don’t count any longer.”

He winked at Hannah.  “She’s not a suspect any longer.”

Hannah was impervious to Brock’s charm. 
Sam’s?  Okay, she was a marshmallow for Sam’s charm. But Brock she could ignore out of respect for Nina’s feelings.  “She should never have been on your suspect list to begin with.”

“We were just doing our jobs.”

Hannah huffed.  “Well, as her new friend, I’m doing my job to find her a man that won’t think she’s a murderer.  And there are plenty around here if you guys would just head out of here and stop scaring away the possibilities.”

“She doesn’t need any other possibilities.  She has me,” Brock confirmed.

“I don’t have you,” Nina countered.

“You did
,” he countered immediately.

Nina
felt her heart rate increase, wasn’t aware of her mouth falling open slightly as she stared at Brock.  “I won’t.”

His smile was slow but hot.  “Are you challenging me?” he asked so softly only Nina could hear his words. 

She took a deep breath and tore her eyes away from him.  “Don’t do this,” she said.

“Don’t do what?” he asked, his hand slipping up to her hair.  With quick fingers,
his hands took out all the pins in her dark hair, causing it to spill around her shoulders.

Nina gasped, trying t
o stop him but he was too adept.  “Why did you do that?” she demanded, trying to stop her hair from coming down but without the pins, which he slid into his jeans pocket, it was a lost cause.  “Now I look like a mess!”

He laughed softly and shook his head.  “You look like you did the last time I saw you earlier today.”

That caused Nina to blush painfully and she looked away, too embarrassed to continue watching him. 

“That guy looks pretty cute,” Hannah said and pointed to a handsome man in a royal blue shirt, his jacket already discarded and his tie loosened around his neck.

Nina glanced in the direction Hannah had pointed, but she didn’t really see the other man.  How could anyone look at another guy when Brock was close by?  “Yeah.  He definitely has possibilities,” she replied, taking a sip of her martini.  Suddenly, Nina felt Brock’s warm hand on her neck, his fingers stroking her sensitive skin and making her squirm. 

She tried to shake off his hand but he was stronger, and not afraid to cause a scene
, which she wasn’t.  So in retribution, she turned her head and smiled at another guy.  “He’s pretty cute.  And I bet he wouldn’t ever embarrass his girlfriend in public,” she said, hoping Brock would get the point and leave her alone.

He didn’t.

Instead of him taking his hands off of her neck, he slid his finger down her spine as far as her blouse would allow and she gasped, sitting up straighter in her chair. Hannah saw Nina’s reaction and glared at Brock.  But Sam bent lower, whispering something in Hannah’s ear and Nina cringed when Hannah’s smile brightened, her eyes moving from Brock’s rugged features to Nina’s nervous ones. 

Nina tried to shake her head, afraid her new friend would get the wrong impression but Hannah simply looked around, reviewing the other men in the bar.  When Nina realized that, whatever Sam had said hadn’t deterred Hannah from helping her find a way to get away from Brock, she was relieved. 

“What about that man?” Hannah suggested.

Nina looked around, her head moving slowly because Brock’s hand was driving her crazy.  Moving her head in any way moved his finger and caused shivers to spiral throughout her whole body.  “He’s nice,” she said but had absolutely no idea who Hannah was pointing to. 

“He’s a dweeb,” Colt piped in, just coming back from the bar with Walker. “He looks like he gets a manicure every week.  No woman should be with a man who gets a manicure.”

“I agree,” Walker
stated firmly.  “But I love it when a woman has a manicure.” And with that, he walked off, talking up a beautiful blond who had long, red fingernails and three buttons freed from her satin blouse. 

Colt snorted his agreement
and moved off as well, moving towards a cute brunette who had been looking in his direction since they’d all walked in.  But Brock wasn’t looking at the other women in the bar.  He ignored all of them and simply moved his hand outside of her blouse.  She relaxed for all of one second until she felt his hand on her waist.  “I think you should look for a more muscular man.  Someone who works out more often.  I know you like muscles in a guy.”

Nina couldn’t believe he’d just said that and turned her head to look back at him.  Mistake!  Her movement caused his hand to slide upwards and she gasped when his hand rested just below her breasts.  She thought she might be going cross-eyed at the barely-there caress, but she wasn’t really sure what happened, or where they were or who was with them.  Her whole mind was
focused only on his hand, his fingers and her desperate need for those fingers to slide just one little tiny fraction of an inch higher.

Her head was spinning but she wasn’t sure if it was from the martini or his touch. And at this point, she didn’t care.  She was becoming desperate and if she didn’t quickly figure out how to get away from Brock, she wasn’t sure what would happen.

Or maybe she was absolutely sure and wanted to avoid it happening!

“You have to stop touching me!” she snapped at him.  “I’m here with Hannah and we’re getting to know each other.  You’re getting in the way.”

“You’re here to make me angry because I left your bed this morning,” he countered.  “But it isn’t working.”  He moved his hand lower and she almost groaned with regret.  “Want to know why?” he asked, leaning forward so that he was almost whispering in her ear.