The Innocent: FBI Psychics, Book 2 (20 page)

Though Chaili insists one night is all she wants, Marc isn’t walking away now. Not until he discovers what put the shadows in her eyes. And the scars on her soul.

Warning:
 
This book involves soulful songs, soulful sex, a soulful singer and lots of heartbreak. But no worries, there’s a happy ever after.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Beautiful Scars:

He could have kept on playing, just for her. Forever. He’d forgotten how amazing it was to do this. Playing for himself was always good. Playing for his fans…yeah, he loved that.

But there was something magic about sitting there in the dark and playing for her.

It was almost like he could talk to her through the music, and even though she said nothing back, he could hear her answer just in the way she moved, the way she smiled.

And it had always been like this, he realized.

Chaili seemed to find almost the same pleasure in the music that he did.

That same little smile bowed her pretty mouth up and she swayed, one hand curled around the wine glass, the other tapping out a rhythm on her thigh.

He had an image of catching the hem of her skirt. Pushing it up. Okay…
that
wasn’t anything that had happened before tonight. But he had a feeling he’d be thinking hot and dirty thoughts about her for a long, long time after this. Hell, he was wondering why he hadn’t done it before.

Closing his eyes, he tried to focus back on the music, but he couldn’t block
her
out.

It was all there, twining through his mind. The raw, powerful vibe of the music. The song. The image of his hands on her thighs. Pushing that pretty skirt up. Catching the silken hose she wore and dragging them down, her panties…leaving her naked under that skirt. Then he’d play a little while longer. Just a little while, as he thought about her being naked under that elegant little white dress.

Get a grip, Marc. Or you’re going to lose it before you even get started
…

Get started. Was he actually thinking of trying to do this…

Hell, yes.

He must have lost his mind somewhere in the time he’d seen her standing in the office of
Escortè
and when he’d started playing for her back at the party, but he had every intention of having a taste of her. Just once, he thought. They were friends, right? They could have a night of nice, friendly sex and then go back to being friends…

Yes, because that had worked so well before.

Stop it, man. This isn’t Lily. It won’t happen that way. And if you can’t get that through your head, you need to just take her home now,
he told himself.

No. She wasn’t Lily.

And he’d be damned if he took her home just yet. Unless that was what she wanted.

Clearing his throat, he took the glass of wine from her. “Ah…are you wanting to head home or you wanna hang around a while?”

She slid him a smile as she took the glass of wine back. “Hey, you played me one song. That does not a concert make.”

Hot damn.

“‘Walking in Memphis’?”

She just smiled.

He rolled into it, watching her a little closer this time. She was looking at his hands again. Her face was flushed, although he didn’t think it was the wine. He’d had as much as she and it was just the one bottle. Couldn’t just be the wine, right?

She all but groaned as he launched into the one part that got to her, every damn time, right near the end.

His voice dropped, lower, rougher.

A shudder went through her and she grabbed the glass of wine, drank it down. They’d emptied the bottle and she wished she could blame the heat burning inside her on the wine, but it wasn’t that. It was him. Always him—

“What is it about you and that song?”

As the music faded, she jerked her head up, saw him staring at her.

She tried to shrug. It wasn’t the song, it was him. Something about the way he sang it, hell, the way he sang anything… She licked her lips and stared off into the distance, trying to figure out the right way to say something that wasn’t a lie, but didn’t leave her stripped bare.

A harsh groan reached her ears.

Startled, she looked at him, realized he was staring at her mouth.

Two seconds later, he was reaching for her.

Stunned, she couldn’t think. As his lips covered hers, she just couldn’t think.

Marc was kissing her.

Damn it.

Marc
was kissing her—

Had she drank more wine than she’d thought?

“Open your mouth,” he snarled against her lips, a harsh, urgent command in his voice. “Give me your mouth.”

Dazed, she did just that, opened for him.

His arms came around her as his tongue stroked across the bottom of her lip, slowly, seductively…teasingly. Oh, hell. She was in trouble. Big, big trouble…

And she didn’t plan on doing anything to stop it, either. Not when he broke his mouth away to brush a line of stinging, hot kisses down her neck to her shoulder. Not when he stroked a hand up her thigh, the other cupping the back of her head.

Alarm, though, started to sound when he toyed with the fastening of her dress—alarm that would give way to terror if she let it.

Refusing to let that happen, she wiggled around until she was straddling his lap, her arms looped around his shoulders. Through the bodice of her dress, she felt the warmth of his breath, and when he pressed his mouth to her breastbone, she figured she needed to call a stop to this here and now. He didn’t know and she just couldn’t…

“Chaili…fuck, what have you got on under this skirt?”

When all eyes are on you, there’s nowhere to run…except the truth.

Behind Blue Eyes

© 2010 T.L. Schaefer

Crime-scene photographer Sara Covington hides behind her camera from the otherworldly ability that’s caused her nothing but grief her whole life. Yet denial doesn’t protect her when she runs across a serial killer with an aural signature she’s never encountered.

Suddenly she’s without a job and with nowhere to turn…except to an enigmatic, sexy-as-hell detective with a disquieting talent for seeing right through her defenses.

Brian Roney’s fascination with Sara compels him to bring her in on the case that ultimately gets her fired. Even though he senses her mutual attraction, something holds her back from stepping into his arms. He’s as determined to find out why she’s pushing him away as he is to keep her safe.

When the killer strikes again, Sara realizes the only way to stop the madman is come clean about her painful past—and embrace the gift she has so long denied. Before the grisly trail of bodies leads right to her doorstep.

Warning: A sexy alpha cop, a heroine with a past (and super spidey sense) and a maniac on the loose…what’s not to love?

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Behind Blue Eyes:

With a weary sigh, Brian finally stood. “The uniform will stay right where he’s at until we know Burke has moved on to another city. It’s probably a waste of manpower, but we’ve got to be sure.”

I walked him to the door, admitting to myself he wasn’t going to make it over the threshold. My quotient for being scared was up, and I wanted Brian Roney…bad. Did I feel guilty about using him for my own satisfaction? Yeah, a bit, but I could guarantee he’d leave here smiling. So I took the step I’d been anticipating—and denying—since the day I met him.

He leaned in for a brief kiss, and I latched on with everything inside me. He let out a surprised grunt, then returned my passion, his tongue teasing mine as his hands grasped my hips and pulled me close.

I wound my arms around his neck and kissed him for all I was worth, running my fingers through the hair at his nape.

“Don’t send me home, Sara,” he breathed against my lips, moved down, caressed my cheek, then the underside of my jaw with tender, hot kisses.

“I’m not.” My breath hitched. My nipples pebbled against his strong, broad chest.

He drew back and searched my eyes. “Are you sure?”

“Damned straight.” I met his gaze as I moved a hand down, tracing the vee his shirt made.

And still he hesitated. Could I be so lucky? “Stop thinking so hard about it.” I brushed my lips across his before pulling back. “You’ve got condoms, right?”

He chuckled, back in his own happy space. “Let’s put it this way… I’ve had them in my pocket since the first time I laid eyes on you.”

My breath caught. A girl didn’t need much more than that, now did she?

I grinned and returned for a kiss…a repeat of the tease we’d shared far too often. He met me stroke for stroke, his tongue tangling with mine. The sensation lit a trail of fire that streaked across my body, bringing my nipples to an almost painful point, and low, sensual heat coiling in my core. This was going to be so very good.

I stood on my tiptoes so I could meet him mouth-to-mouth, unrestrained, and it was everything I’d remembered and fantasized about on the plane, in the hotel room. And yes, before that. He took my mouth wholly, as if kissing me could sustain him for the rest of his life. It was heady, and the moment I thought I had him pegged, he broke away and turned me so I couldn’t see him. He pulled me tight against him, and banded his arms around me from behind, his erection a long, hard promise of strength and pleasure against my back. His hands cupped my breasts, learning their weight and fullness. I melted against him, heart thumping in my chest, my breath coming in sharp little pants, and I lifted my arms, looping them around his neck, allowing him free access.

His thumbs brushed across my nipples, and I gasped as pleasure streaked through me, then his hands were moving, sliding beneath my blouse. He spanned my waist, fingers ducking beneath my waistband for a scant, teasing second before they drifted up to my breasts again.

I stopped breathing as his palms covered me and his mouth dropped to my nape, delivering tiny little nips that made me quiver, head to toe.

“The things I want to do to you aren’t legal in most states,” he breathed in my ear, his voice low, guttural. Completely, over-the-top sexy.

My body stiffened in reaction. In anticipation. No aura to overwhelm me, no reading what my partner was feeling in his gaze. This was going to be so good.

I spun in his arms and met his eyes, which had gone turbulent. “Yeah? I could say the same.” I grasped his hand, leading him to my bedroom.

It was the one room in my house he hadn’t seen, and I was proud of it, even if my brain was clouded by a desire so strong I was amazed I could see at all. It reflected the hidden me, decorated in scarlet and sage, eye-popping royal blue and creamy taupe. Since I’d come to Dallas, no other man had seen it; every other sexual liaison had been in neutral territory.

Would he even notice? Why the hell did I care?

But notice he did, standing stock-still in the doorway, his hands settling on my waist, pulling me back against him once again. “This is the real you, isn’t it?” He leaned in to lave my ear, sending thrills through my entire body. “It’s beautiful, just like you are. I imagine what you see when you look at the world. But know how I see you. You’re vibrant, a nexus of the colors that defies anything I could describe.” His hand rested possessively on my belly and his voice had gone gravelly. “And when you come, I imagine the expression on your face because I know you’ll be coming for me.”

He spun me around to face him, and the look on his face was anything but easy. It was predatory and utterly male. “Now strip. I want to see you naked.”

My breath clogged in my lungs at his audacity and how much it turned me on. How could he possibly know, I marveled, even as my body overruled rational thought. I’m a take-charge kind of girl when it comes to everything else, but in the bedroom, I want a man to lead, and somehow, some way, he’d intuited that. It’d taken me years to figure it out myself, yet he knew exactly how to play me in seconds. That knowledge made me impossibly hotter, wetter.

I locked gazes with him. Everything he made me feel was ours alone. No bombarding emotions, no aura to cloud my response, to anticipate his. My fingers shook as I pulled my blouse over my head, then loosened the clip at my nape.

He stood mere inches from me, eyes blazing as he watched each and every move I made.

My heart banged against my ribs. I stood in my bra and slacks, hair brushing against my shoulders, while he remained fully clothed, inspecting me.

“You’re even better than I imagined,” he breathed.

What he’d pictured, I couldn’t possibly conceive of until he began seducing me with his words. Not that he needed to.

“You’re lusher than I thought. You hide behind baggy T-shirts too often.” His hands settled on my hips. “You’re meant for tasting, for savoring all night long.” He dipped his head to my breasts. “But you don’t know that, do you, Sara?”

Any reply I might have made was completely annihilated by the sensation of his tongue on my lace-covered nipples. Instead I moaned. Not in surrender, but agreement.