Material Witness (22 page)

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Chapter Eleven

They’d driven little over an hour
east and across the Massachusetts border until Jake found a little
blink-of-an-eye town that had a motel on Main Street with a brightly lit neon
sign that half spelled out the words “vacancies with kitchenette.” It was set
back from the road and had a parking lot in the back of the building. Satisfied
that the Jeep wouldn’t be seen from the road, he pulled into the parking lot
and parked far enough away from the windows so the desk clerk couldn’t see
Cassie in the Jeep.

“I’ll only be a minute,” he said as
he threw open the door. “If you see any cars at all, coming or going, I want
you to hunch down.”

Cassie nodded.

Jake hurried the registration along
while trying not to clang any warning bells. He emptied his wallet of nearly
all of its cash to pay for the room under an assumed name, being occupied only
by him, and listed the license plate for his own car, not the Jeep’s.

Cassie was staring straight ahead and
didn’t move as he climbed into the Jeep and fired up the engine to park it in
the back.

They still had three bags of
groceries they’d picked up earlier. He pulled them out of the back seat,
looking around while Cassie unlocked the motel room door and switched on the
light.

The low wattage bulb only slightly
illuminated the room in a warm yellow glow. As advertised, a small kitchenette
with compact refrigerator stood directly in front of them, next to the bathroom
door. An ancient television on a flimsy stand stood next to the sharp-lined,
ugly, muted green sofa that dominated the other wall. He looked beyond the room
to a door that was slightly ajar.

“The bedroom must be back there. The
clerk said the room had a separate bedroom.” Jake dropped the grocery bags on
the coffee table.

Cassie stood in the middle of the
room, looking at all its drabness, hugging herself.

He moved past her to the bedroom
door, flicked on the light, which seemed incredibly harsh compared to the
barely glowing bulb in the first room, and stepped aside for her to see.

“Only one twin bed,” she muttered,
glancing in. “Did he mention that?”

Jake nodded. “I’ll take the sofa.”

Her head rose and her eyes flared.

“If you want to play fair, I’ll flip
you for it later.”

Cassie seemed satisfied and reached
for one of the grocery bags, pulling items out and setting them on top of the
coffee table. When all three bags were empty, she frowned, picking up a package
of hamburger buns.

“I think the frozen hamburger patties
were in the bag I brought into the cabin.”

“Given the circumstances, I think I
can live without them.” Jake wondered when Cassie’s dam would finally break. He
could feel the cracks widening in himself and couldn’t fathom how Cassie was
keeping herself together.

He reached for the ointment and gauze
they’d bought for the scrape on Cassie’s neck from the night before, during the
explosion. Her white cotton shirt was now stained with crimson streaks and
blotches. Jake tore the package of gauze open and laid it down on the coffee
table.

“Here, sit down while I get a wet
towel to clean these cuts.”

Cassie did as she was told. Jake held
his hand under the faucet, waiting for the cold tap water to turn warm, then
doused a white terrycloth hand towel he’d pulled from the towel rack.

He knelt on the floor in front of her
and pushed her long, dark hair back to expose her wounds. His mind raced to the
lock of hair dangling from that dirtbag’s hand when he walked into the cabin,
and he grimaced.

“It’s that bad?” Cassie’s face
flashed with alarm.

“No. Just a surface cut. Looks like
the scab was torn off the scrape you got the other night too.”

He opened the bottle of hydrogen
peroxide and poured some on a gauze square. “This might sting.”

She smiled weakly.

As he dabbed the soaking gauze pad
against her neck and watched the bubbles flare, Jake found it hard to get the
terrifying image of Cassie’s attacker out of his brain. If he closed his eyes,
it was if he were there again, seeing Cassie’s head bent back with the force of
the gun pressed tight against her temple.

“Where did you learn how to do those
moves back there?” he asked.

“Maureen and I took a self-defense
class a few years ago. It was all about empowerment and showing that no matter
your size or your strength, a woman could defend herself from an attack. I
always wondered if I’d remember what to do if it ever happened to me.”

Jake forced a smile. “Now you know.”

“Yes,” Cassie said with a sigh.

Jake finished cleaning out her old
wound and then dressed the area with gauze in silence as Cassie stared back at
him. Her sable eyes bore into him in a way he couldn’t ignore.

“You’re all set,” he said, getting to
his feet.

“Are you hungry?”

His stomach was grumbling, mostly
from the bag of potato chips they’d dug into in the Jeep. He glanced at the
groceries, still strewn about on the coffee table.

“You sit back and relax,” he said. “I
can fix us something edible, I’m sure.”

“You take good care of me, Jake.” She
leaned her body closer to him as she sat on the edge of the sofa. She planted
her hands on her knees and pushed herself up until she stood right in front of
him.

He held his breath, wanting just to bend
his head and get a fraction closer to her. He couldn't kiss her. He knew he
shouldn't. That didn't mean he didn't want to with every ounce of his being.

“I make a mean chicken soup,” he said
softly, picking up one of the cans on the table.

“You don't have to cook for me to
take care of me.”

“No?”

She shook her head and licked her
lips.

Good Lord, how Jake wanted to kiss
her. What he wouldn't do to just forget all the reasons he couldn't and
celebrate all the reasons he should cover her mouth with his. Forget his damned
code of ethics. Forget Angel Fagnelio and all the scumbags of the world who
inflicted pain for pleasure. All he wanted to do—no, needed to do—was kiss
Cassie and feel her small body next to his. He needed it as much as he needed
his next breath.

Jake gazed down at her, saw the moon
and the stars shining in her warm brown eyes, felt the very earth beneath his
feet shift.

“We keep playing this game, you and
me, but we never take the next step.” Her voice was like silk running over his
skin, soft, feminine and enticing.

“Is that what you really want?”

She nodded without hesitation. With
her deep sigh, her chest rose and stretched taut the stained cotton shirt she
wore, defining the delicious swells of her breasts.

“It's your choice though,” she said.
“I've made my feelings perfectly clear.”

“You have.”

She nodded her head toward the open
bedroom door. “I'm going to go in there now, pull this bloody shirt off me and
leave you to think about what it is you really want.”

For a lingering moment, their gazes
locked. More was said in those few seconds than had been said the entire time
they'd been together. With great strength, he held himself back from touching
her. There was more than just lust flowing between them. Even he could see
that. What they had was total explosive
emotion
that was rare.

Jake stood still in the center of the
room, watching as Cassie walked to the bedroom. She didn’t pause at the door
this time, as she had last night. She just lifted her chin and gracefully moved
away from him, never looking back.

Filling his lungs deeply with the
stale air in the room, he ran his hand over his face, smelled the lingering
scent of the ointment still clinging to his fingertips. He rolled the pad of
his thumb and index finger together and closed his eyes, searching for an
answer. Anything that would bring some sense to the insanity they’d been living
these past few days.

He wanted Cassie. She'd made it more
than clear she wanted him, too. He genuinely cared for her. He'd gone to bed
with women for less than that before. But he wouldn't do that to Cassie.

She was special. More than special
even. There was a rarity about Cassie that reached out and grabbed something
deep inside, pulling him to her right from the start. She wasn't the kind of
woman he could just have a simple fling with, then walk away. The truth was,
he’d reached a point of no return where Cassie was concerned. He didn't know if
he could walk away from her.

He'd been right about one thing from
the start. Cassie Alvarez
was
lethal. But only to his heart. Her
innocence and sass wrapped around him, making it hard to think about anything
else but her. The very thought of waking up and not hearing her musical
laughter broke him in two.

No one had a crystal ball to look
into the future and see what tomorrow held, least of all him. He didn’t know
how this threat with Angel Fagnelio and the FBI would ultimately play out. And
if he didn't have the answers to that, how could he think about moving forward
toward any kind of future with Cassie beyond this case?

Except for one very real thing. Angel
Fagnelio wasn't here. And more importantly, no one knew
they
were here.
Of this much Jake could be certain. No one had followed them on the road
leaving the cabin. He hadn’t been distracted by conversation as they drove
because Cassie was virtually silent throughout the drive.

Fagnelio isn't here,
Jake thought as he moved his feet
toward the bedroom door. There was no threat that could destroy them. It was
only him and Cassie. And right now, he wanted her.

Jake's pulse thrummed as he pushed
off his boots. He was through debating about what he should and shouldn't do.
Cassie wanted to make love with him, and he'd be damned if he wasn't going to
give her exactly what they both admitted to wanting. What he now knew without a
doubt he needed.
To hell with his code of ethics or self-imposed celibacy.

The bedroom door was open. From the
shadows playing on the wall, Jake knew Cassie was standing beside the twin bed.
He paused at the threshold of the doorway, certain she hadn't heard him
approach in his stocking feet.

Her back was to him. The fading
daylight poked through the outdated brocade curtains and radiated around her in
the dimming room. Although he couldn't see, with her head bent and by her
movement Jake was sure she was unbuttoning her stained shirt.

“Do you want the door closed?” he
asked, his voice rough and low, echoing an unanswered need he’d held back far
too long.

Startled, she peered over her
shoulder. Hesitating, she said, “That depends on which side of the door you
want to be on.”

With one long stride into the
bedroom, he kicked the door shut, closing them both inside the tiny room. He
heard her soft sigh of defeat, saw the slight sag of her shoulders, before she
continued her task.

“Let me do that,” he whispered.

Cassie swung around quickly, the
flash of surprise in her eyes quickly changing to something different,
something potent. A seductive smile tipped the corners of her full lips,
hinting just a bit of her uncertainty.

“Okay.”

As she dropped her hands to her side,
her shirt fell open, revealing the soft, creamy flesh of her stomach and a hint
of her dark nipples beneath her white lace bra.

Their gazes meshed and held for a
quiet moment, saying so much more than words ever could.

He was standing in front of her
before he could even fathom how his feet got him from point A to point B. His
fingers grazed her silky soft skin, shooting a trail the likes of hot molten
lava through his veins. As he fumbled with the buttons of her shirt, he
trembled.
Good God, he was pathetic.
When was the last time he'd
trembled undressing a woman? Had it really been that long?

No, it was all Cassie. Being this
close to her, touching her velvety skin was enough to make him come undone.

He reached the last button and pushed
her shirt open fully, sliding the fabric off her shoulders and allowing his
fingers to linger on the smoothness of her skin.

She dipped her head, averting her
gaze, hiding from him everything he wanted.

“Look at me,” he rasped, tilting her
chin up with the tips of his fingers.

Those sultry dark eyes, fringed with
black lashes, had haunted him endlessly these past few nights. Now they were
brimming with the burning desire she had just for him. He brushed his fingers
across the silky smoothness of her cheeks and noticed they were the exotic
color of rose petals.

Jake chuckled softly. “We're about to
make love, and you're blushing?”

“Does that bother you?”

He shook his head. “I just don't want
you to be embarrassed by anything we do.”