by Julie James
Seeing that she still had time while it was light outside, she took a seat in the grass. She tucked her knees and rested her chin on her forearms, soaking in both the view and these few brief moments when she was blissfully free of all wedding talk.
Eleven
DON’T EVEN THINK about following her.
Vaughn repeated this mantra in his head as he pounded away with the hammer. When he finished the row of shingles he’d been working on, he decided to call it quits for the evening. He and Simon had more work to do tomorrow, but they were making good progress—over half the roof was done.
He wiped his brow with his arm, then climbed down the ladder and cracked open the bottled water Sidney had left him.
She had a new look tonight, he’d noticed. Hair down, jeans that molded to her every curve, and some summery top that hugged tight to her chest and draped loose around her waist. He could practically feel his fingers tracing along her soft skin, trailing a slow path over the curve of her waist and up to the tantalizing swell of her breasts.
Christ.
Taking a frustrated swig of water, Vaughn swallowed and looked over at the path that led to the clearing. She’d been gone only a few minutes now, and he knew she couldn’t go far. Although . . . there was always the possibility that she could stumble into some poison ivy. Or an angry badger. Or she could slip in those strappy designer sandals and tumble headfirst down the hill and into an entire nest of angry badgers.
Probably, he should check on her. Just to be safe.
That decided, he followed the path through the short stretch of woods that he knew like the back of his hand, and spotted her sitting near the edge of the clearing. She looked over her shoulder, eying him warily as he approached.
He stopped beside her. “So. How many things are on this list of yours?”
She watched as he helped himself to a seat in the grass next to her. “Thirty-four.”
“Thirty-four? You can’t be serious.” Vaughn doubted any man could pass such a test.
Perhaps that was the point.
She sat up straighter, going on the defensive. “A few things are redundant, maybe, but overall it seems like a pretty solid list to me.”
Well, now he was curious. He beckoned with his hand. “All right, lay it on me. Let’s hear this list of so-called signs that say whether a man is ready for a commitment.”
She cocked her head, feigning confusion. “And remind me—why is it that I care what you think?”
He raised an eyebrow challengingly. “Afraid I’ll tell you the list is complete BS?”
She held his gaze defiantly, and then began ticking off her fingers. “He can’t be hung up on a prior relationship. Must be available on weekends. Settled in his career. On stable emotional footing with his parents. Have friends who are in committed relationships.” She paused, as if trying to remember the other things on her list.
Vaughn frowned. “I hope you’ve got more than that. Because you just described me.”
Her eyes widened, her expression akin to abject horror.
Then after a moment’s pause, she smiled. “Ah. But you fail the number one rule, the most important one of all: he tells you he’s not looking for a serious relationship.”
Vaughn exhaled. Thank god for the number one rule. Stupid test or not, he didn’t need to be giving off any signs of “commitment-readiness.” That was fine for other guys, but he enjoyed his life the way it was, thank you very much.
Sidney sighed in relief. “Whew. That freaked me out for a moment there.” She gestured at him. “I can’t be having any of your type sneaking in undetected.”
Now that remark got under his skin a little. “For the record, my type doesn’t try to ‘sneak in.’ I’m always upfront about the fact that I’m not looking for a long-term commitment.”
Her smile was sweet, her tone dry. “Aw, and that makes you such a good guy. Because you’re honest about being a womanizer.”
And . . . now she was getting under his skin a lot. “So you’d rather I lie?” He angled his body to face hers. “That I date a woman for a couple months, string her along, and then tell her that I don’t want anything serious? Would that make me a good guy?” He leaned in closer to her. “See, this is why I don’t date women in their thirties. You’re jaded. And ornery. And you have a checklist with thirty-four goddamn things on it!”
She turned toward him, her cheeks flushed pink as she, too, raised her voice. “Don’t put this on me. There’s a reason women like me need a thirty-four-item checklist—to protect ourselves from all the guys like you out there.”
“What’s so terrible about a guy like me? Here’s the way I see it: if you’re looking for happily-ever-after, there are a lot better guys out there for the job. But if you want a good time, then I’m your man, baby.”
“I’ll say this, you’re nothing if not confident.”
Hell, yes, he was—and for good reason. He peered down into her eyes. “I would rock your world, Sinclair, and you know it.”
It was about right then that he noticed they were sitting just inches apart on the grass. But she didn’t move, and neither did he.
“Ah, yes. Your supposed ‘moves.’” She emphasized the word with a saucy tilt of her head. “That certain . . . something that puts the ‘special’ in Special Agent Vaughn Roberts.”
That mouth. Her sarcastic words pushed all his buttons, but he nevertheless couldn’t stop staring at her full, tempting lips. He lowered his head, his voice dipping lower. “Want to know what I think?”
She paused for a moment, as if taking in his proximity. He could hear the quickening of her breath.
“Not especially,” she said.
The words were quintessential snarky Sidney Sinclair, but the husky tone of her voice was something new. Something that drew him in even more. “I think you’re worried that if I kiss you right now, you might actually like it.”
Her eyes flashed—with anger, no doubt, but also with a heat that came from somewhere else.
And before Vaughn even thought about what he was doing, he kissed her.
He pressed her lips open as his mouth moved demandingly over hers, all his frustration, his irritation, and his aggravation pouring into this one kiss. His tongue swept roughly around hers—not bothering with either sweetness or sophistication—and he felt her hands press against his chest. He braced himself for the shove, for her to push him away, but instead she gripped his T-shirt and pulled him closer and oh sweet lord she was kissing him back.
All of his restraint just . . . broke.
He grabbed her and pulled her into his lap, her denim-clad legs straddling his thighs. He tangled his hand in her hair as their mouths furiously melded together. She bit his lower lip, then sucked on the spot and licked her tongue over it in a way that had his cock straining against the zipper of his jeans.
He growled low in his throat and pushed her to the ground.
She moaned when he settled between her legs, and the sound only incited him more. He took her mouth possessively, voraciously, one hand gripping the nape of her neck as she battled him kiss for kiss. Needing to taste more of her, he angled his head and trailed his lips along the smooth skin of her neck, tugging her hair back to expose more. She dug her nails into his back, through his T-shirt, so he nipped her with his teeth, right at the base of her neck. She gasped and arched her back, then bent one knee, settling him deeper between her legs, and slowly she began rocking her hips against his throbbing erection.
Fuck.
His breath was a ragged hiss, his mouth claiming hers once more. She pushed her breasts eagerly against his chest, and all he could think about was sucking one of them into his mouth as he shoved her jeans down, yanked open his fly, and took her hard against the ground, making her scream his name as he—
“Vaughn!”
The voice—Simon’s, coming from
the backyard—made them both jump and pull apart.
They stared at each other, panting and wide-eyed.
“Oh, no,” Sidney said. “You and I can’t . . . I mean, we so, so couldn’t . . . you know.” She gestured between them, her lips swollen from his kisses, her cheeks flushed, and her glorious auburn hair spilling wildly over her shoulders.
Vaughn touched his mouth, still trying to wrap his mind around whatever the hell had just happened.
Simon called his name again, sounding closer this time.
Instantly, he moved into undercover mode. “Just act natural,” he told Sidney. He reached over and picked a few wildflower petals out of her hair, speaking calmly. “We’re two people looking at a nice view. That’s all. You and I fell into a conversation about the wedding, and we started talking about the possibility of coordinating the dates for the bachelor and bachelorette parties. We thought that Isabelle and Simon might want to have them on the same night, given the time crunch.”
“Right. Bachelorette party. Got it.” Sidney exhaled, gathering herself.
Vaughn’s gaze fell to the curve of her neck. “You have a red mark.” He fixed her hair, moving it forward over her shoulders. “You might have to keep your hair down for the rest of the weekend.”
He caught Sidney’s glare as they resumed their positions. “Save the look, Sinclair. You bit me first.”
She blushed as Simon stepped into the clearing.
Vaughn grinned. “Hey, bro. We were just talking about you.”
• • •
FOR THE REST of the weekend, Sidney made sure she was never, ever alone again with Vaughn.
It wasn’t as difficult a task as she’d feared: between Isabelle, Simon, and Mr. and Mrs. Roberts, there were lots of people around, and with a little bit of finessing, Sidney made sure one of them was always around her. She and Isabelle went back to the hotel shortly after Simon found her and Vaughn in the clearing, and they didn’t return the next day until late morning, after the worst of Isabelle’s morning sickness had passed.
By the time they arrived at the house on Sunday, Vaughn was already up on the shed roof, hammering away. Simon joined his brother on the roof, the menfolk finished their project, and then they cleaned up.
During lunch, Sidney and Vaughn exchanged all of about two words—although she did catch him looking at her at one point when she brushed her hair off her shoulders. Luckily, the red mark on her neck had already disappeared—and with it, all traces of her strange, hot tryst with Vaughn in the woods.
A tryst, she vowed, that was never to be repeated.
After lunch, it was time to say good-bye and hit the road.
“I’m so glad you joined us this weekend,” Kathleen said, pulling Sidney in for a hug as they said their farewells on the driveway. Then she joined her husband on the front porch, and the two of them waved good-bye as Vaughn and Sidney’s cars pulled out of the driveway.
“And . . . scene,” Isabelle said, as the pretty white ranch grew smaller in Sidney’s rearview mirror. She exhaled in relief. “I think we pulled it off. Not to get all Sally Fields here, but I think they liked me.” She looked over gratefully at Sidney. “I hope the weekend wasn’t too boring for you.”
For a split second, Sidney was tempted to tell her sister everything. So here’s a funny thing: I kissed Vaughn. But then Isabelle would want to know whether the kiss had meant anything—and since it absolutely, one-hundred percent had not, Sidney figured it was best not to mention it at all.
“Not at all. It was fun,” she assured Isabelle.
Isabelle reclined her seat and closed her eyes, mumbling something about taking a nap. With the radio on low, Sidney followed Vaughn’s car through the now semi-familiar maze of woods, hills, and valleys that eventually led to the highway.
After they’d driven for about fifteen minutes, Isabelle sat up. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
Sidney looked over. “Do you need me to pull over?”
“Yes—hurry.”
Sidney came to a stop at the side of the road, and Isabelle scrambled out of the car and ran for some trees. Ahead of them, Vaughn’s car slowed down, did a U-Turn, and came to a stop parallel to Sidney’s, on the other side of the road.
Simon got out, with a sheepish smile. “She sometimes gets a little carsick,” he said to Vaughn.
“Mmm-hmm,” Vaughn said through the open driver’s side window.
Simon trotted off toward the trees to tend to Isabelle, who was bent over and doing her thing.
Sitting in their cars on opposite sides of the road, Sidney and Vaughn looked at each other, neither of them making any move to get out.
Then they both turned away, the gray concrete highway a comforting gap between them.
Twelve
TWO WEEKS LATER, Vaughn made his debut appearance as “Mark Sullivan,” a gun buyer who was eager to make the acquaintance of Officer Pritchett and his gang of corrupt cops.
Per his instructions, Batista had set up the meeting for that Friday afternoon at a diner in West Town. As Mark Sullivan, a man who made a pretty penny doing shady things, Vaughn looked like a guy who spent his free time hanging out at upscale strip clubs. He sported dark scruff along his jaw, a designer suit and Italian loafers, and a flashy Rolex on his wrist.
Pritchett showed up right on time, with two beefy twentysomething guys in tow. Unbeknownst to the three police officers, Vaughn also had brought guests to this party—a whole slew of them.
Crooked cops were considered dangerous targets. In addition to being armed, they had everything to lose if caught. For some criminals, going to prison was simply part of life on the streets, practically a rite of passage. But for government and law enforcement officials, being investigated by the FBI meant the end of the world—and if someone thought his world was ending, there was no end to the foolish or dangerous things he could do.
Because of that, Vaughn and Huxley had taken no chances with this meeting. Huxley and three of their squad mates stood by in cars parked close to the bar, and all agents would be listening to every word of Vaughn’s conversation via the pin-sized microphone he had attached to one of the buttons on his shirt. Also joining them was a special operations group, a team of eight agents armed with heavier weapons, who had followed Pritchett and his two cohorts—already identified as Officers James Mahoney and Ali Ortiz—to this meeting, and had confirmed that the three police officers were armed only with standard firearms and didn’t have any further backup waiting in the wings.
Pritchett spotted Vaughn at his table and walked over with officers Ortiz and Mahoney in tow. After a few minutes of posturing and feeling each other out, Vaughn and Pritchett got down to business.
He told Pritchett that he’d had a few problems transporting guns into the Chicago city limits, and that he’d been intrigued when Batista had told him about the smuggling business the cop was running on the side.
“It’s fucking genius,” Pritchett bragged to Vaughn. “I’ve got a good group here. Whatever you want, we can get it done. We rent vans or trucks, depending on the size of the job. If anybody ever stops us, we’ll just show them our badges and say we’re working off-duty to deliver items that somebody bought at an auction. Nobody’s gonna question that.”
“You get stopped a lot?” Vaughn asked, looking skeptical.
“Not once. I’m just telling you that we have a backup plan, if necessary,” Pritchett said, quick to reassure him. “This isn’t some amateur thing I’m running here. We’re cops. That’s the beauty of it. We know the way cops think.”
“Such as?” Vaughn asked.
“Like, we know to split up when driving a route because a large caravan of vans driving along Lake Shore Drive in the middle of the night might arouse suspicions. We know the neighborhoods and streets that cops patrol the most. We know all kinds of tricks like that.” Pritchett took a sip of c
offee. “But it’s not just the police you gotta worry about. Maybe somebody else gets word that you’re moving guns and decides he wants in on the action. Maybe he thinks it’d be easy to take out a smuggler or two and steal your merchandise for himself.” He nodded to the two beefy police officers on each side of him. “We’re ready for that kind of thing. We’re like the goddamn Boy Scouts. Right, Ortiz?”
“‘Always be prepared,’” the beefy cop on Pritchett’s right answered with a sly grin.
Vaughn betrayed no reaction to that, but in his head he was thinking that the jury, and the press, was going to love that little exchange. Corrupt cops comparing themselves to Boy Scouts—it was sound bites like these that got blasted all over the media once a case went public.
“We have tasers, guns, and bulletproof vests,” Pritchett boasted. “Whatever you need smuggled into the city, we got it covered. No one will mess with us.”
Vaughn leaned back in his chair and studied Pritchett, as if thinking all this through. “I have a job out of Indianapolis,” he finally said. “Maybe we could consider it a tryout.”
Pritchett’s eyes lit up greedily. “What’s the cargo?”
“Firearms—a mix of assault rifles and handguns,” Vaughn said.
Pritchett shrugged. “No problem.”
“Guns are heavy. How many guys are in your crew?”
“Four, plus me.”
“All of them come with those handy badges you talked about?”
Pritchett grinned at that. “Every one.”
So they were looking at a smuggling ring with five active cops. “How do you know you can trust them? They’re cops. What if they suddenly get a guilty conscience?” Vaughn pointed emphatically. “You fuck me on this, Pritchett, and it’ll be the last fuckup you ever make.”
Pritchett was quick to ease his concerns. “Don’t worry. I handpicked all these guys myself. It took me almost a year to put this group together. These guys are solid—they know a good business opportunity when they see one.”