Brenda Harlen - Dangerous Passions

He dragged his lips from hers to rain kisses along her jaw, down her throat. His teeth nipped, his tongue soothed, and all the while his hands continued their delicious torment. Then he pushed the shirt up and found one throbbing nipple with his mouth. He suckled, hotly, hungrily, until she nearly screamed out with pleasure in response to his ardent caress.

She wanted him inside her. She wanted to feel him pressing into her, filling her, fulfilling her. This was desire in its most primitive form—raw, powerful, inescapable. But she didn’t want to escape. She only wanted.

She was hot, burning with hunger for him, and grateful for the air-conditioning that offered respite from the sultry heat flowing into the room. The warm breeze wafted across her skin again and a chill skittered down her spine, raising goose bumps on her flesh and turning the heat that coursed through her blood to ice.

Sensing her abrupt withdrawal, Michael raised his head. “What’s the matter?”

Shannon pushed herself into sitting position, crossed her arms over her naked breasts, her gaze fixed on the patio door.

The open patio door.

“Someone’s been in my room.”

Those few words, spoken with quiet conviction and an edge of panic, effectively shattered the moment.

Mike slid off the bed, away from Shannon, and took a deep breath—as if distance and oxygen might somehow manage to control the hormones raging in his blood. Not likely, when just looking at her made him hot, when he’d been subconsciously dreaming of this night since he’d first set eyes on her. But he disregarded the unfulfilled needs of his body to focus on the implications of her statement. “Did you say that someone’s been in your room?”

She nodded, refastening her bra and tugging her shirt back into position before leaning over to switch on the bedside lamp.

He frowned as he glanced around at the tidy space that was almost a carbon-copy of his own. “How do you know?”

“The door’s open.” She raised a hand, gestured to the curtain that fluttered gently in the summer breeze.

“Housekeeping probably just forgot to close it when they made up your room.”

“No.” She slid farther back on the bed to lean against the headboard, crossing her arms over her chest. “Someone else was here.”

“How do you know?”

“My room was already made up when I came in to change before dinner. I pulled the curtains myself.”

“Maybe the maid brought fresh towels or something.”

“Maybe.” But she sounded doubtful.

“Why don’t you call the manager?” he suggested. “He might know if housekeeping or maintenance had any reason to be in here.”

“Oh. Okay.” She exhaled a shaky breath and reached for the phone.

As she dialed, he crossed the room to examine the door and its frame. He inspected both the inside and out, relieved to find no proof of tampering.

Outside on the balcony there was a plastic table flanked by two loungers. A beach towel was draped over one of the chairs, an empty Dr Pepper can on the ground beside it.

He glanced over the railing, down to the swimming pool eight floors below. He considered the distance, shook his head. It was unlikely—if not impossible—for someone to gain entry by climbing up to the balcony.

Remembering some of the tasks he’d been required to perform in Ranger training, he revised his opinion. But while scaling the building might be possible, it couldn’t be done without someone noticing. Even at this time of night, there were dozens of guests in and around the water.

He turned back to the open door and glanced up.

It would be much easier to access the eighth floor of a ten-story building by climbing down. But the absence of any evidence of forced entry convinced Mike that scenario was equally unlikely.

Shannon was ending her call when he stepped back inside. He closed the door tight and flipped the lock into place.

“He said he has no record of the hotel staff accessing my room during the time I was out,” she told him. “But he thinks that’s probably what happened.”

Mike could tell by her tone that she remained unconvinced.

She wandered through the room looking around, into the bathroom and back again.

“Something isn’t right,” she insisted.

He wasn’t prepared to ignore her instincts. Not when her safety was the reason he’d come down to Florida in the first place. But he needed facts to back up those instincts. “Is anything missing?”

“Not that I can tell. But…”

“But what?”

She looked away, her cheeks flushing with color. “My sister likes to joke about my organization,” she admitted. “I have a specific way of doing things, a structure to my life that I never deviate from.”

Her blush deepened, and he knew she was thinking about her behavior with him tonight—which was something he was trying not to think about.

“Almost never,” she amended. “And that’s how I know someone’s been here. Someone moved my book—it was on the other side of the table when I left. And I always align the cap of the toothpaste with the bristles of the toothbrush, but the toothpaste is upside down now.”

She shook her head. “You probably think I’m a nutcase.”

On the contrary, he was starting to believe she was right. Someone had been in her room, looking around, searching for something.

But what?

And why was the patio door left open?

Unless whoever was in her room wanted her to know he’d been there. That was a far more sinister possibility than a random burglary attempt.

“I thought I heard you ask the manager about moving to another room.”

“I did, but there aren’t any vacancies in the hotel.”

“You could stay with me.”

She eyed him warily.

He smiled, trying to put her at ease. “As much as I’d like to pick up where we left off, it’s not an offer with any strings attached. There are two beds in my room, too.”

But she shook her head, rejecting the offer. “I’m sorry for the way things ended. I didn’t mean to mislead you, but I really just want to be alone right now.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“I’ll be fine.”

She sounded as if she believed it, but she didn’t know the truth about who he was and why he was in Florida. She didn’t know that she might be in real danger.

Would she believe him if he told her now? Would she be willing to accept his help and his protection? Or would she feel betrayed by his deception?

Not that he’d intended to deceive her. He’d never intended to make contact with her at all. His instructions had been simply to watch out for her, but from a distance. Lieutenant Dylan Creighton—now Shannon’s sister’s fiancé—had instructed Mike to be discreet in his surveillance so as not to alarm Shannon unnecessarily.

Mike believed the break-in justified sounding the alarm. But as much as he wanted to share his suspicions with her, to make sure she understood how serious the situation could be, he had to talk to his client first.

“Please,” she said. “I’d like you to go.”

“Okay.” He relented to her request only because he had no intention of going any farther than the hall and he wanted to call Dylan without Shannon overhearing the conversation.

“Thank you,” she said stiffly.

He wanted to reach out to her, to offer her comfort and reassurance. But her spine was rigid, her arms crossed over her chest in a defensive and distinctively hands-off posture. He turned away. “Lock up behind me.”

He stood outside the door, waited to hear the lock click into place, then reached for his cell phone. He powered it up, only to have it beep once and shut down again.

Damn.

The battery was dead and the spare was in his room upstairs. He tucked the useless phone back into his pocket and leaned back against the wall. The door directly across the hall was clearly marked Stairs. He could run up to his room to retrieve the extra battery and be back within five minutes.