Shattered Virtue (5 page)

CHAPTER 8

Madrigal

Considering how worried I am about Madison, the last place I want to be is this fleabag motel. But what was Steele supposed to do with a hurricane warning posted for the next fifty miles and the storm blowing in every direction. He’d barely kept the rattletrap he rented at the airport upright after a windblast thrust us to the side of the road. After that terrifying moment there was no question we needed to seek shelter before we ended up dead in a ditch. So he’d fought his way into the run-down motel’s parking lot and ran into the rental office where he snagged the last vacancy.

We grab our possessions—our briefcases, my purse—and do battle with the storm. As we climb the stairs toward our room, my foot slips. But before I tumble back down the steps, he grabs my arm and hauls me up, up, up to the second floor. The wind howls all around us like a banshee. A nearby tree groans in protest against the punishing wind. Branches strewn across the cement-floored outer corridor trip us up as we traverse the distance to the last room in the row.

When we finally arrive at our destination, Mr. Steele lets go of my hand to jiggle the key into the lock. It doesn’t give easily, but he wrangles it into submission until it finally, blessedly clicks. A gale blast bursts open the door. When it bounces against the wall, he catches it on the rebound before it can close again. Grateful for the shelter, I rush inside. The room is not much to look at—a double bed covered by a spread with suspicious-looking stains, a nightstand, and a floor lamp with a missing shade. A lumpy sofa upholstered in 1970s avocado. One round table and two rickety-looking chairs complete the Salvation Army decor.

He heaves a deep breath and scrubs his face. “Christ. You take the bed. I’ll take the couch.”

“Thank you.” The furniture might have been here for decades, but the room appears clean. Looks can be deceiving, though. I pray the mattress isn’t crawling with bedbugs.

The storm rattles the door behind us. I hold my breath, expecting it to pop open, but the wood holds.

“Don’t mind that. Give me your things.” He holds out his hand, and I let him have my briefcase. My purse I retain. Lipstick, makeup, a credit card, ID, and emergency toiletries. I’ve learned never to travel without them.

“Let’s eat.” He drops our briefcases on the chair and dumps our stash of food on the table. After our jail visit, we hadn’t found any fast-food restaurants or coffee shops open, so when we’d spotted vending machines in the motel lobby while checking in, we’d pooled our resources of dollar bills and change and bought as much as we could. By mutual agreement we drop into the chairs abutting the small round table that doubles as a desk. He splits our bounty of Mr. Goodbars and Planters Salted Peanuts—two each for him and me. After we tear open the wrappers, we fall on the candy like starving pilgrims. Food never tasted so good. But we’re soon done; not even crumbs remain.

Rising, he grabs the detritus and dumps it in the cracked avocado-green plastic trash can before he retrieves his cell from his jacket. Brows hunched, he stares at it.

“Still dead?” I ask.

He nods. “I can’t even get a bar.” And this motel is not exactly Wi-Fi friendly, which means we’re pretty much incommunicado with the outside world.

I’m worried to death about Madison. Last night she managed to get through dinner without breaking down, probably afraid of being drilled by Olivia. When she announced she was going to bed, Olivia gave her something that knocked her out, and this morning she was still asleep when I left at the ass crack of dawn, so I didn’t get a chance to check in with her. There’s nothing I can do but hope she’ll manage until I get home.

For the umpteenth time, I yank down on my skirt. I really should have listened to Olivia and chosen the blue pantsuit, but I’d opted for the one with a skirt. I have a nice pair of legs, and I wanted to show them off. Given our circumstances, not the best choice. The darn thing not only keeps riding up on me, but, wet from the storm, it clings to me with a vengeance.

Oblivious to my travails, Steele tangles a hand through his hair while his frustrated gaze searches out the nooks and crannies of the room. There isn’t much to see. Besides the table and the chairs, there’s only the couch, the sagging double bed, and a night table that is sure to contain a Gideon, deep as we are in Bible Belt territory. Well, at least we’re safe. For now.

“I need a shower,” he says.

“Me too.” The car we rented reeks of body odors, which have somehow attached themselves to my clothes. I can still smell them on me.

He darts a thumb toward the bathroom. “Ladies first.”

I shake my head. “No. It’s okay. You go.” When I was a child, a spider once crawled out of the bathtub drain. Olivia killed it, but ever since, I’ve been leery around shower stalls, especially strange ones in fleabag motels. If he showers first, he can deal with whatever might be lurking in the corners of the bathroom.

Twenty minutes later, he strolls out wearing his long-sleeved shirt open, his slacks zipped halfway and barely hanging on his hips. My breath catches at the sight of him. He’s toweling his dark, wavy hair. Short on the sides, longer and spiked in front, with strands of silver running through it. But that’s not the focus of my attention. His eight-pack abs are—along with the winged tattoo over his right pec and the sprinkling of dark hair on his chest that almost, but not quite, obscures his nipple ring. Holy Mother of God, not only is he gorgeous, but he smells yummy. Like an expensive pine forest. Maybe it’s the shampoo. Or the soap. But underneath there’s another scent that I suspect has nothing to do with shampoo or conditioners, just him.

“Nice fluffy towels in there,” he says, gesturing toward the bathroom.

“Really?” I ask once I recover my powers of speech. Don’t see how that can be. The one he’s using appears pretty threadbare.

“No.” He huffs out derision, probably at my naïveté.

“Oh.” He tosses the towel over the back of the chair, and my gaze zeroes in on the opening of his slacks where his briefs peep through.

While I stare at him and delve into wicked thoughts, one of those large hands of his goes to the zipper. And pauses. “Should I zip it all the way, or do you want to look at it some more?”

Busted! “Excuse me.” Face flaming red, I grab my purse and race to the bathroom, where I slam shut the door and try to calm down. God. How could I have stared so blatantly at him? I’m not a teenager. I know what lies beneath a man’s briefs. And yet I couldn’t help but ogle, wondering about the size of him. I breathe in and out, shake my hands while I try to settle my nerves. Once I’ve done so, I remove the toiletries from my emergency kit—toothpaste and toothbrush, travel sizes of shampoo, body wash, and lotion. I search out the corners of the bathroom and am happy to find nothing lurking in the shadows. I don’t have to rinse the shower. Thankfully he took care of that much. As the tub fills with water, I grab my body wash and shampoo and arrange them like little soldiers on the edge.

I’m rushing through my bath routine when the window rattles from the madness outside. Jumping out of the tub, I grab the only towel in the room and wrap it around me. The window opening has grown wider, so I reach to close it. That’s when I realize someone’s standing outside, peeking in. Racing out screaming from the bathroom, I crash into Steele.

My knees buckle, but he grabs me by the shoulders and keeps me upright. “What’s wrong?”

Trembling like a leaf, I blurt out, “Someone—” I can barely get a word out I’m breathing so hard. “A Peeping Tom . . . bathroom window.”

Cursing, he darts around me.

The wind rattles the front door to the room, and I jump. I don’t dare close my eyes. What if the Peeping Tom breaks in? Oh, God. What will I do?

Steele rushes out of the bathroom, digs in his briefcase, pulls out a gun, and cocks it. He yanks open the door. It slams back, letting in the rain, the wind, the fury of the storm. A volley of thunder cracks across the heavens as dark, menacing clouds writhe and coil on the horizon.

Battling the insanity, he steps outside. After I entered the bathroom to shower, he must have ditched his slacks, because all he’s wearing are his briefs. My gaze takes in his tight ass, his muscled legs braced against the storm. He wields that gun like some avenging angel, ready to fight the devil himself if need be. A shard of lightning blazes across the sky, illuminating his perfect body and outlining that rock-hard erection of his.

Shedding rain, he steps back into the room. “He’s gone.”

“What?” I can’t stop staring at his body, at his—

He grabs the towel he tossed over one of the chairs and mops the wet from his hair. “Your Peeping Tom. He’s not out there. He must have run away when you screamed.” He slams the door shut, drags the chair over, props it against the knob. He rattles it, probably to make sure it holds. Satisfied, he stashes the gun back in his briefcase and walks toward me.

I’m trembling so hard the towel I wrapped around me ripples against my skin.

He cups my chin, raises it until our gazes meet. His touch is so warm, I want to sink into the heat of him.

“Are you all right?” His husky voice curls around my spine.

When my legs threaten to give way, I stiffen my knees. Don’t want to drop at his feet like some ninny.

Quivering, I nod. “Yes. I’m fine.”

His raised brow tells me he doesn’t believe me. “You’re safe. I latched the bathroom window.”

“He could break it,” I squeak. I hate the fear in my voice, but the sight of that man peeking in the window awakened my worst nightmare, the one where somebody breaks in while I’m asleep and beats and rapes me.

“Wouldn’t do him any good,” he says, rubbing my back through the towel. “No one can crawl in through that opening. It’s too small.”

My gaze cuts to the bathroom and returns to him. Not sure if it’s me seeking safety or him wanting to reassure me, but somehow I’m pressed against his body. His erection, long and hard, is branded against my skin.

The inappropriateness of the situation makes me jump. “I’m sorry.” Face burning, I turn away from him, trying to put distance between us. As I do so, the flimsy towel rides up my back.

A choked sound from behind alerts me to what I’ve just done. Oh, God, I just flashed him my bare ass. I swivel and face him, rearrange the sorry excuse of a towel around my body as best I can, but it only serves to push up my breasts.

I peek at him to find an appreciative grin curling around his mouth.

The fear dissipates as outrage takes its place. “Stop staring.”

The grin grows into a full-blown smile. Darn. Even his teeth are perfect. “Why? You’re a beautiful woman.”

“Because it’s not polite.”

He snorts. “Politeness flew out the window five minutes ago, don’t you think?”

When I ran out of the bathroom right into his arms. Fine. I get it. My bad. The lights flicker. “They’re not going to go out, are they?”

He shrugs his right shoulder. “More than likely.”

A burst of wind rattles the door. Hail and rain pummel the window over the lumpy sofa, which I now realize he’s made into his bed. He’d probably tucked down for the night when I ran screaming from the bathroom. No wonder he’s wearing only briefs. They’re a nod to my presence, because I can’t imagine he sleeps in anything but his birthday suit. Just as I feared, the lights wink out, leaving us standing in the dark a few feet from each other.

Petrified, I gulp in air.

He closes the distance between us but doesn’t touch me. “Hey, it’ll be fine. You’ll see.”

His calm voice should reassure me, except it doesn’t. “You don’t know that.” I can’t help the quaver in my voice. Between the dark, the storm, the Peeping Tom, I’m fresh out of courage.

His hand reaches out and tucks back a curl that’s fallen across my face. “The storm’s too far away to do much damage. The walls will hold.” When my only response is a whimper, he wraps his arms around me and pulls me to him.

“Ohhh.” I’m freezing cold, and he’s a furnace of heat. I burrow into him, hungry for his warmth. My hand curls against his chest, eager for the reassurance of solid flesh. I know I shouldn’t, yet I can’t help but seek his warmth, his touch, him. And the closer I burrow, the more his body reacts to mine. He grows harder, longer against my belly. I can feel every inch of him imprinted against my skin. Something passes between us, something I’ve never experienced before. The man in him calls out to the woman in me, like we’re two of a kind. How can that be? He’s the ultimate player. And I never felt sexually attracted to someone before. But now, with him?

It’s different.

I rest my head against his broad chest. His heartbeat jumps beneath my cheek for barely a second before he pushes me away.

CHAPTER 9

Trenton

After a strong sense of self-preservation makes me push her away, she apologizes and runs into the bathroom. She emerges several minutes later fully dressed, her buttoned-up blouse tucked into her skirt, and crawls into that sorry excuse of a bed. By that point, I’d exchanged the wet briefs for my slacks and climbed onto the couch.

Since then we haven’t exchanged a single word. I’m too busy ignoring the effect her squirming body had on my cock. Judging by her mad dash to the bathroom, I probably shocked the hell out of her.

“So what did you think about Willie?” Not exactly pillow talk, but I can’t sleep and, going by her constant twisting and turning on the bed, neither can she.

Dead silence from her end before she pipes up with, “You don’t really expect me to answer that question, do you?”

I choke back a laugh. “I meant our client, Willie Vaughn.”

“Oh.” Picturing her blush, I’m tempted to crawl into that bed, undress her, and see how far the flush spreads. Probably down to her glorious breasts. Not that I can see anything. The damn lights are still out. But that doesn’t stop me from remembering how her breasts drilled into my chest when she pressed against me. I want to see them, taste them, lick them, and then I want to pound my body into hers. But that’s not happening. Not if I want to remain a partner at her grandfather’s law firm.

Flashes of lightning burst through the venetian blinds, temporarily illuminating her. Pansy-blue eyes, pouty lips. Beautiful enough to make a saint weep. She smacks her pillow and drops back her head before answering me. “I think you have grounds for a new trial. At the very least the police violated the Fifth Amendment, not to mention the Fourth. Did they have a warrant to search his van?”

“No.”

“Well, there you go. He was living in that van. So they needed a warrant, and he should have been read his Miranda rights.”

“I agree. Odd that the cops screwed up so badly. They weren’t rookies. Between them, they had twenty years’ experience on the force.”

“Certainly not the first time that’s occurred. Common law is filled with cases where the cops failed to follow the law.”

A ghost of a smile curls my lips. “Yes, I know. I’ve argued denial of Fifth Amendment rights to have charges dismissed for several of my clients.”

She snorts. Even in the dark I can tell she doesn’t think much of my methods.

“That bothers you.”

“How can you defend such dirtbags?”

Not this again. “Under the Constitution, everyone’s entitled to a defense. And my clients pay very well for me to represent them.”

She sits up and glares at me. “So that’s what it’s about? Money?”

Not the first time that accusation has been leveled at me. Usually I ignore it, but coming from her, it rankles. “That
money
, Ms. Berkeley, allows us to represent pro bono clients who’ve been wrongfully convicted, such as Willie.”

She doesn’t have a comeback and flops back down. For a few moments, silence fills the gloom.

“I’m freezing.”

No wonder. The room temperature’s dropped. And it won’t do any good to fiddle with the heating unit. The power failure has knocked that out as well. “Here.” As I rise to give her my threadbare blanket, the window above me crashes open. Rain, wind, fucking hail pour in. “Son of a bitch.” I jump off the couch to batten down the hatch. Finally, after interminable minutes, I manage to do so. In the semigloom, I search the room, trying to divine some way to secure the latch. Inspiration hits where least expected. “Is there a Bible in that night table?”

She opens the drawer. “Yes. What are you planning to do? Pray for salvation?”

I grunt. “Can the smart ass. Just bring it over here.”

When she does, I cram the Bible against the window latch, hoping it will hold. God knows it’s big enough. I let go, and the wind rattles, but the window stays fastened. At least for now.

Hands on my hips, I glare at the couch. Even in the gloom, it gleams wet. Fuck.

“The sofa’s drenched. You can’t sleep there.”

I point toward the only other reasonable choice in the room. “I’ll take the stuffed chair.”

She hesitates barely a second before offering, “We can share the bed.”

My gaze darts to her as a flash of lightning illuminates her face. She’s serious. “Bad idea. Really bad idea.”

“Mr. Steele. We’re caught in a very unfortunate situation. Circumstances being what they are, we’ll need to make allowances.”

“Congratulations, Ms. Berkeley. Spoken just like a future lawyer.” Trying to make a point, I lean in her direction. “Unfortunately, you’re not seeing the
reality
of the circumstances.”

“Which are?”

Does she really need me to spell things out for her? “We’re two reasonably good-looking people who are attracted to each other. Given the close proximity of our bodies in that bed, things might . . . get out of hand.”

She huffs. “No, they won’t. Surely we can control ourselves.”

“Sure of that, are you?”

“Yes, I am.”

“I’m not.”

“Are you telling me that you can’t restrict your . . . urges?” The outrage in her voice is all too apparent.

“Oh, I’m reasonably sure about mine. It’s yours I’m concerned about. I saw the way you ogled me. Felt the way you pressed against me.”

“I did not press against you!”

Before I have a chance to debate that point, the window jolts. I step out of the way before the damn thing bursts open to drench me again.

She pulls back the blanket. A clear invitation if I’ve ever seen one. “Come.”

I tangle my hand through my wet hair while I weigh my options. My watch tells me it’s after midnight, and I really must get some sleep if I’m to drive to DC tomorrow in that sorry excuse of a car. “Fine.”

I crawl into the bed to find she’s lodged one of her pillows in the center of the mattress, separating the two sides. Like that would keep me from her. My slacks are clammy against my skin. I pull them off, toss them to the side. “Good night.” Turning away, I pray for sleep.

A half hour later, we’re right back where we were before. Awake and cold. I turn to her. “Your teeth are chattering so hard I can’t fall asleep. Come here.”

“N-no. I’m o-okay.”

“Sure you are.” Carefully keeping the pillow against my naked groin, I pull her to me. “Relax. I’m not going to do anything.” Other than grit my teeth and pray for dawn.

“Th-thank you.” She rolls into me and moans. Her body, the noises she’s making, the scent of her have the inevitable effect. Somehow the pillow shifted when she rolled into me, and my body’s flushed against hers, providing ample proof of my virility.

“You’re—”

“Hard. Yes, Ms. Berkeley, I am. Don’t think anything of it,” I say in my most reasonable voice. “It’s only my body reacting to yours. What is that scent you’re wearing?”

“L’Amour.”

Did she have to fucking bathe in it? “Glad it came in handy today.”

“What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Your scent. You smell of fresh pine.”

“Motel soap.” That turns her on? I choke back a curse. I have to stop this torture. Not sure how much I can take. “You warm enough now?”

“No. My feet are frozen.”

Fuckin’ great. I run my hands down her legs to her feet. Sure enough, they’re two blocks of ice. “Bend your knees.” When she does, I tuck her feet between my thighs.

“That feels sooooo good. Thank you.”

She lets out this breathy moan that makes me harder. And I’ve just about reached the end of my rope. “Are you always this polite?”

For a second there’s silence, as if she’s thinking over her answer. “I’ve been raised to say please and thank you, Mr. Steele.”

Unlike my childhood education, which consisted of “Fuck off” and “Get lost, kid.” Suddenly I can’t stand the Miss Goody Two-Shoes I have in my arms. “Even when you fuck?”

She jerks back. “You shouldn’t say things like that.”

“What?
Fuck?
”

“Yes.”

“So what did you do with your boyfriends—make love, have sex, or maybe a more cultured phrase such as ‘engage in coitus’?” A sudden thought occurs to me. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe she’s a virgin. “Wait, you’ve had sex, haven’t you?”

“What kind of a question is that?”

“Are you a virgin, Madrigal?”

“Not that it’s any of your business, but no, I’m not.”

My nostrils flare as I breathe in her scent. L’Amour indeed. “Did you fuck some preppy boy preapproved by Gramps?”

“Stop it.”

“You probably went out on, oh, say, ten to twenty dates before you granted him second base. It probably took close to a year before you allowed him into your bed. I bet your grandfather has your fiancé all picked out for you. Some clean-cut boy, rich, of course, who’ll give you a nice shiny ring and screw you once a week, just often enough to give you those 2.4 kids you preppy types have. And, of course, you’ll retire from that assistant prosecutor’s job to take care of the children because that’s what your mother did.”

Claws out, she flies at me. “Don’t talk about my mother!” she screams.

I grab her wrists and wrestle her back. “Sore subject?”

“She was murdered, you bastard.”

What little humanity I still possess rears its head. Easing my hold, I let her go. “I’m sorry. I truly am. I shouldn’t have brought her into this.” I knew her mother had been murdered, and yet I used her against Madrigal. Because I’m a bastard and that’s what I do. I have no excuse. Absolutely none.

Her chest rises and falls in double time. She’s had enough. And, let’s face it, I’ve had enough myself. I throw back the cover, start to climb out.

“Where are you going?”

“To the stuffed chair. I’ll spend the rest of the night there.”

“Don’t go. Please.”

I blink, unable to figure her out.

“It’s warmer with you in the bed. Please.”

So it’s my body warmth she desires. Fair enough. Least I can do after the crack I made.

“Fine.” I drop back to the torture chamber, tuck her feet back between my thighs. My penance for lashing out at her. I turn my thoughts in another direction before I go stark raving mad. “Is that why you want to become a prosecutor? To avenge her death?”

Her breath stutters. “You’re very good, Mr. Steele, at figuring people out, even in the dark.” Her voice trembles with resentment. Caught between those two emotions is something else, something primal that calls out to me—her sweet passion.

“The dark’s when I do my best work. Tell me about your parents’ murders.” I’m not being a bastard. I sense her need to talk, to lance the pain. And I’m the perfect person for her to talk to. I understand what she’s going through more than she knows. Once, long ago, I lost someone close to me.

“Why?”

“Because neither of us can sleep, and there’s only one other thing I enjoy doing in bed.”

She gasps.

“And talking will keep my mind off it.” I pray she goes for it, because it won’t take much more to do what I’m burning to do.

For half a minute or so, she doesn’t say anything. Her halted breathing tells me she’s screwing up her courage to reveal something incredibly painful to her. Finally she takes a deep breath, eases it out as if she’s trying to prolong the moment when words will flow from her. “They were killed twelve years ago.” Her voice, so self-assured a minute before, now wavers with emotion. “A brutal home invasion. My father was shot dead, a single bullet to the stomach. He was the lucky one. My beautiful mother was beaten, her throat slit.” Her voice cracks; her pain is almost too hard to hear.

But, bastard that I am, I must know. Something about her strength, her innocence, her vulnerability draws me like a moth to a flame. And this tragedy forged her into the woman she’s become. “Were their murderers caught?” I know they were, but I need to get her take on it.

“Yes. But a public defense attorney got them off on a technicality. Their Miranda rights were not properly read. So the admissions they made couldn’t be used in court. Other than the illegally obtained confessions, there hadn’t been enough evidence to tie them to the crime.”

“But there must have been other evidence, fingerprints and such.”

“There was. But they’d been working as handymen in and around our house, so there was a perfectly logical explanation for them.”

“What admissions did they make?”

“Enough to qualify them for the electric chair. Or so my grandfather said.”

I mull over what she’s told me, and suddenly her choices become clear. “You want to go after them, don’t you? That’s why you studied law.”

“Yes.”

“But double jeopardy precludes them being tried again.”

“I know.”

“So what do you want?”

“I want to understand what happened that night. Why they murdered my parents.” The sheets rustle as she lowers her legs and leans into me. She’s dressed. I don’t have a stitch on. “You can’t tell my grandfather. Promise me you won’t tell him.”

“Why don’t you want him to know?”

She rests her cheek on mine and whispers into my ear, “Promise me, and I’ll tell you.” As she speaks, her breasts rise and fall against me.

Fascinated by this side of her, I whisper back, “I promise.”

Her tension eases, but she doesn’t move away. On the contrary, she presses even closer. “He would separate my sister, Madison, and me. Split us up.”

“How do you know?” It takes every ounce of willpower not to reach for her and haul her into me.

“He did it once. I had a nervous breakdown after my mother died. He kept me in a mental health care facility for over a year, way past the time I’d come to terms with my parents’ deaths. Madison’s sixteen. She won’t turn eighteen for a year and a half. Until then he has custody of her. If he knew I was looking into my parents’ murders, he might retaliate.”

“Why do you think so?”

“He’s forbidden me to ask about it. He thinks I might have another breakdown if I do. When I was in college, I tried to find out more, but he became so angry that he threatened to keep my sister and me apart if I followed through. And I’ve already spent enough time separated from her.”

Did Holden really keep the two sisters apart at a time when they most needed each other? Or is Madrigal’s perception of events flawed? A puzzle. I love puzzles, especially criminal ones. And I’m interested enough to help her figure things out. Who knew Madrigal Berkeley would pique my interest in more ways than one? “I can help you find out the truth about your parents’ murders. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”