Chapter One

 

He'd expected the press to keep hounding him.

It was all they'd done, twenty-four/seven, for the past eighteen months.

But on a Saturday morning?

Didn't they ever give a person a chance to rest or catch his breath, for God's sake?

And he'd for certain never expected them to send a drop-dead gorgeous woman to tempt him into giving up what he had no intention of giving up…a woman with English roses in her cheeks, with long golden hair and tits that just wouldn't…

A reporter.

He'd better remember that. Better remember all the trouble the press had caused him in the not-so-distant past…all the prying questions, and snooping, and assumptions about his guilt, even after the best efforts of the District Attorney had failed to conclusively prove anything.

"I'm Mart Sorenson," he growled, answering her question. "What the hell do you want? Haven't you and your kind ruined my life enough already?"

For the briefest second, she looked puzzled. "Why do you assume I want to ruin your life?"

Hands on hips, he straightened to his full height, wishing it was something a little more intimidating than five-eleven. Six-five would be good. Better than good. Six-five might get rid of her, and all the rest of her kind once and for all.

"…John Firdy?" she was saying, looking at him like she expected him to know what the hell she was talking about. Like she expected him to know who the hell she was talking about.

"Look, lady…"

"Anabelle Bloxum, but Annie will be fine. I don't believe in being formal."

"Fine. Annie, I don't know what you want. I only know that I want you to leave me alone. I want you to tell your people…the people at whatever newspaper you said you represent--"

"I didn't say which paper. I…"

"--and every other newspaper you can think of, to stay away from me. I didn't do anything. I was acquitted. A jury said I didn't kill anybody, and I think you should respect their--"

"Kill?" Horror echoed in her voice. It showed in her eyes. And she backed away a step. Two steps. Three. Good!

Good riddance.

Though he'd have to admit, it would be a pity to send such a sexy little piece away. To not get to know her better, maybe to the point that he…she…they…

Hell. He didn't want sex.

He resisted the urge to tug at the crotch of his jeans, to ease the pressure that was just about to kill him, or cut him in half, the pressure of a cock gone half-mad in the two and a half minutes she'd stood there before him, tits outthrust, blue baby-doll eyes boring into him in a way that said she wasn't going to be put off.

Sex was the last thing he needed, after all the 'evidence' they'd used against him. After jail, and everything that…

Shuddering, probably visibly, Mart shoved that last thought right out of his mind.

Like so many other things that had once been a fact of his life, jail was over. That was behind him, buried, a part of his past. A part he'd like to stay buried.

If Annie Bloxum's kind would, please God, just allow it to stay buried.

"…my sister. I need to find her, and I know you can help me because you worked with him. You knew him, or at least knew something about him. I've looked everywhere, and I can't seem to find any record of him ever…"

She'd kept rambling on in that phony-innocent way she had, and he still had no clue what she wanted from him, or who she was talking about.

"Knew who, lady…Annie? What the hell are you talking about? What the holy, creeping Sam Hill does your sister have to do with anything, and why the hell do you think I can help you find her, or this man?"

"She's with him. With John Firdy, and I can't find either of them. And even for Rebeccah, that's not right."

"Why the hell do you think I'm going to help you trap some other poor bastard into…?"

"Look." She put the little notebook she'd carried behind her. Held it there, with both hands.

Good. It had looked like a prop, anyway. She'd never opened it, never produced a pen. She'd looked like she hadn't quite known what to do with it.

A goddamn novice. Was that what it had come to?

Once, they'd sent seasoned news-hounds to harass him. The kind who knew how to harass, but more importantly, knew when to back off. When to give up and cut their losses, because they weren't going to get anything out of him.

And now they were sending novices. The kind who didn't know enough to quit. The kind who'd stick like pit bulls, if he gave them half a chance. Mart had met up with a few of the novices, too, since his life had gone down the crapper. It was going to take more than denials, more than harsh looks or even downright rudeness, to get rid of this one.

"…Firdy."

Damn it to hell, she'd been saying something again. And again, he'd been thinking his own thoughts instead of paying attention. The only way he knew to get rid of her was to pay attention, so he could outsmart her.

"Let's start over." Planting the blade of his shovel in the freshly-turned earth, he leaned on it. Thank God old Mrs. Randall was out to one of her damned teas, or garden parties, or wherever the hell she took herself off to every afternoon. If the old harpy saw him loafing on the job like this, she'd have his head for lunch, or more likely, his balls.

It wasn't much of a job, being handyman to the rich and cranky. But it was the only one he'd been able to get since the jury'd let him go. And Tilly Randall did let him sleep in her pool house, in addition to paying him just about enough to keep him one step away from starvation.

"I'm fine with that," Annie agreed. "If you'd just answer my questions…"

"Shoot."

Now that he'd decided to face her head-on, he wasn't so sure he wanted to get rid of her.

She was a looker, this novice reporter. A flush of roses in cheeks that belonged on the face of a model. No, make that a super-model. An innocent flush. A sexy one. Blue eyes that could no doubt charm a man into doing all kinds of things he'd never had any intention of doing. Voice like honey. Or velvet. Voice like velvet soaked in honey.

And that body… He ran an appreciative eye over her. Curves. Everywhere. She had a luscious little body, sticking out in all the right places and swooping in in all the right places, too. Tits not too big, but definitely not too small. Hips a man could place his hands on, and…

"Are you listening to me?" It was her turn to sound harsh and unforgiving.

"Of course I am." Reluctantly, he dragged his gaze away from the spot where her legs met, beneath a white mini-skirt that was just a hair too tight and a smidge too short for modesty.

Apparently, she'd thought she could use sex to entice the poor, deprived ex-con into revealing what he'd never revealed to any other reporter.

"Suppose you tell me about him, then," she snapped. "If you do, I promise I'll go away, and you'll never have to see me again."

Now, that would be a shame. A real, damned shame, when his cock had tightened up, and got itself ready. When he'd hoped to see more of her. A lot more. "Who?" he inquired.

"John Firdy." She was losing patience. He could hear it in her voice, and see it in the trace of a scowl that darkened her expression. "You used to work with him. I know you did. A couple of years ago. I traced the two of you to the same company. A big Contracting firm, called--"

The notebook reappeared. She riffled through it, still looking like she wasn't really used to this. Like the notebook was something she'd brought along only because she'd been expected to bring it along.

"--Taft Contracting," she finished on a note of victory, and looked up at him.

His back tensed, his stomach jerked, and he felt the way he had the afternoon the cops had snapped on the handcuffs and hauled him away.

Taft Contracting.

Mart hadn't allowed himself to think about that place in months. He hadn't talked to anybody about it. And he sure as hell wasn't going to talk about it now. Not with Annie Bloxum, novice reporter. Not with anybody. Taft Contracting was the biggest part of the past he'd put behind him, and no fresh-out-of-journalism-school reporter, no matter how good her tits were, was going to make him dredge it up now.

"I don't know any John Firdy," he growled, retrieving his shovel and starting to turn away.

"You used to work together!" Damned if she didn't follow him, and damned if a note of real desperation didn't creep into her voice.

"Look." Mart swung around to face her, resisting an urge to raise the shovel and menace her with it, planting it in the ground instead. "Lady, why don't you go find a nice dog show, and write a little story about that? Or some old lady with a cat, who'd like to be interviewed about her charity work?" He snapped his fingers when the thought occurred to him. "Why don't you come back when my employer's here? She's always got her nose stuck in somebody else's--some poor slob's--business. Trying to 'better' his condition. Why don't you call her up, ask for an interview about her charity work, and make all of us happy?"

"Happy?" Annie looked offended. Insulted, even. "Why the devil would a story about some old lady with a cat make me happy?"

"You get your story," he explained in the too-patient tone of someone talking to the mentally deranged. "You get your byline. You're happy, and your editor's happy. Tilly Randall gets her name in the society page, and she's happy, because she has a new article to paste in her scrapbook."

That was a stretch. How the hell did he know Tilly Randall had a scrapbook? She'd never let him set a foot in her house.

Intuition. Tilly's kind always had scrapbooks.

"Tilly's happy," he continued, refusing to let self-doubt have any part in this. "And I'm happy. Because I can get back to mixing shit in with good, clean dirt so I can plant two dozen goddamned Peace roses and have the mess cleaned up before Mrs. Randall comes back from wherever the hell she's gone, and throws a fit about me defacing her lawn and shaming her in front of the Garden Society. I can crawl back into the pool house and read the day-old newspaper I fished out of Mighty Tilly's trash this morning. I can stay discreetly out of sight until the next call goes up for slave labor. Which, I'm sure, will be before I get halfway through the sports section."

"Mr. Sorenson." Annie had changed tactics again. This time, she sounded like she meant business.

At least, she tried to sound like she meant business. Mart could tell, though, her courage was failing.

Good. Another couple of minutes, and she'd be out of his hair for good.

"If you'd just answer my questions…"

"I already did. I told you, I don't know this person you're looking for. And I sure as hell don't know your sister."

She didn't say a word, but she'd taken on the strangest expression. Kind of a combination of the rabidly-determined pit bull and a classic damsel in distress. Mart sighed, groaned, and ran a dirty hand through dirty hair, then wiped it on his even dirtier tee-shirt.

"To be honest with you, Miss Bloxum, I don't remember all that much about the time I spent at Taft Contracting. I worked there for three weeks, and they were not the best three weeks of my life."

Hell, why was he doing this? He'd said this a hundred, make that a thousand, times before. To the police. His attorney. The judge. The jury. She could look it all up in the public record. He went ahead with it, anyway.

"I was a Contracting foreman in charge of five teams of laborers. I thought I was doing a good job. Then I was accused of diverting funds from the project into my own account. I was accused of murdering my boss. I didn't do it. Any of it. I was innocent. But I was arrested, tried, found not guilty due to lack of anything but circumstantial evidence, and…"

At least she didn't back away from him the way she had before. "I'm truly sorry you were wrongly accused, Mr. Sorenson."

"I'll bet you are."

"Well, I am!" Defensive again. "But that has nothing to do with John Firdy. I just want to…"

"And I don't know John Firdy."

"You were his boss. He was on one of your crews."

Mart thought. Felt himself frown. "Was he? It seems like so long ago, and I wasn't at Taft long enough to have known all the names."

"It's important." She batted her eyelashes at him.

Using the lure of sex to get what she wanted.

His cock jumped at the idea.

Traitor.

This little girl was going to get what he wanted to give her, and maybe a whole hell of a lot she wasn't expecting, if she didn't watch her step.

"I'm sorry I can't help you." Sorry, hell.

In another second, he was going to take this luscious woman…the first decent, attractive woman who'd willingly stood next to him since Mary Rose O'Grady had turned up dead, clubbed over the head with a cinder block in her office at the Taft Contracting headquarters. In another second, he was going to have her down on the ground, in the good, clean earth mixed with shit.

He was going to take her, in Tilly Randall's front yard, in the midst of a small forest of unplanted Peace roses, with all Tilly's neighbors and the whole Garden Society looking on.

He'd screwed Mary Rose O'Grady in her office the last night of her life. He'd screwed her for three weeks, unwisely, because he hadn't known how to get out of it once he'd started. He'd screwed her because she'd spotted him in a bar and picked him up, and she'd ended up giving him a job because he'd been good in the sack. He'd screwed her right up until the night she'd died and he'd been arrested when the coroner found his cum inside her.

Of course he had. Gallons of it, probably. Caution had never been Mart's strong suit in the past, and he guessed it wasn't so strong now, either.

He was ready to screw Annie Bloxum, novice reporter, on the spot because Annie had nice tits and the pertest, roundest little ass he'd ever seen underneath that mini-skirt. He was ready to screw because his cock was so hard it ached. Worse, even, than it had after his first night in jail, when he'd been beaten half senseless, kicked in the nuts, and dragged into the shower room, where…

If anything should take away his desire to screw, the memory of what had happened in that shower room should do it. But it didn't.

In some strange, twisted way, events in the shower room only made the desire for her that much stronger, because they made him want to prove himself again, made him want to prove he still had it for the ladies…still wanted it, and could still make them want him.

He took a step toward her, smiling his most charming smile…the one that had captured Mary Rose O'Grady's attention, and a dozen others, in the days when he'd been considered something of a hunk.

"Annie. Miss Bloxum."

She backed off a step.

"Why the sudden change of heart, when I might just be willing to give you what you've been wanting at last?"






Annie knew Mart Sorenson had been lying. His attitude and the look in his eyes had seemed perfectly sincere, but even so, she knew it beyond a shadow of a doubt.

She had a copy of a time sheet, made out to John Firdy and signed by his supervisor. Martin M. Sorenson.

There couldn't be that many Martin M. Sorensons in the world. Not working in the Contracting trade. Not who'd been supervisors at the now-defunct Taft Contracting.

True, the time sheet had been signed more than a year ago…more than a year and a half. And true, maybe Mart didn't remember every man who'd worked for him during what had obviously been a very short stint as a project supervisor. But John Firdy was hard to forget.

Annie had seen him herself only once, almost at the same time Mart had been signing that time sheet. And she'd still be able to pick him out of a crowd. Out of a crowd of crowds. John Firdy stood six feet four. He had to weigh about three hundred and fifty pounds, though not a bit of it had seemed to be fat. The man was all muscle…as big as a sumo wrestler, with a thatch of curly copper-colored hair and a deceptively sweet con man's ingratiating smile and coaxing manner.

Mart Sorenson had lied, all right. Without batting one lush superbly-curled dark eyelash. Annie didn't know why he'd lied, and she didn't much care. She just wanted to find John Firdy.

She wanted to find her sister, who'd up and married the piece of scum, then taken off for parts unknown, leaving behind nothing but a soiled and torn copy of a time sheet from Taft Contracting stuck to the bottom of a battered garbage can.

Carefully, carefully, Annie parted the thick branches of the low-slung palmetto that gave her cover and peered at the back yard…if it could be called a yard…of the Hargood R. Randall residence.

Thirty yards away, a kidney-shaped swimming pool gleamed soft aqua in the black-velvet night, dotted with orange-gold reflections of light from the rear windows of the main house and from the smaller, much more utilitarian pool house where her research had told her Mart Sorenson lived.

Annie breathed a soft whistle. Too bad some people had to live like this. But it kind of made her glad she'd come to spy on the Sorenson residence, even if she had no idea what she hoped to accomplish by staking him out. For sure, she didn't expect John Firdy to just stroll up to the pool house door and knock, her sister Rebeccah clomping along at his side in the sullen way she'd had ever since she'd hooked up with the clown. But she'd had to do something. And after finding Rebeccah's house locked up and deserted, empty of furniture as far as she'd been able to see by peering through windows where the curtains weren't quite closed, after being told by the police that Rebeccah couldn't really be considered a missing person because she was a grown adult who'd simply married someone and decided to change residences, this was about the only thing Annie could do. The only lead she could track down.

Besides, if she had to watch someone…

Angry with herself, she tried to chase the thought out of her mind. But it was no use. Thoughts of Mart had plagued her ever since this afternoon. Since he'd stared at her as if she was a piece of steak and he was the gourmet, about to rip in and enjoy every last bite of her, she'd been able to think of little else. For once, even the vision of her sister locked in the sweaty, groping clutches of John Firdy had receded.

Why, she'd asked herself at least a hundred times, did that bastard Mart Sorenson have to be so damned good-looking? And why did he have to project such an air of the bad boy? Why had he had to hint at all sorts of dark secrets and terrible deeds…secrets that had apparently landed him in more than a little trouble with the law in the recent past?

It was as if Mart had understood, instinctively perhaps, that one of the many things Annie Bloxum shared with her sister was terrible taste in men. Where Rebeccah always seemed to fall for the slick, ingratiating kind who promised everything and gave nothing but bruises and mounting debt, Annie always seemed to fall for the felons.

One hint that a man had been in jail for something more serious than drunk and disorderly or unpaid traffic tickets, and boom! There was Annie, ready to drop herself down in front of him and spread her legs wide, just inviting him to plunder and pillage. For Christ's sake, she wore the shortest skirts the law allowed, but didn't bother to put on underpants beneath them!

Like some kind of weird and warped Girl Scout, she always wanted to make sure she was ready for quick action just in case some horny and handsome convicted felon should appear and order her to drop her drawers.

Having no underwear to impede the proceedings only made sense in a situation like that. And never mind that she'd read somewhere that Marilyn Monroe had liked to strut around without any underwear, either. She was sure as shit no Marilyn Monroe.

Muttering a soft but very explicit curse under her breath, Annie let the palmetto leaf drop back into place.

Nothing was happening here. Watching the Randalls' pool house had been one of her least brilliant ideas in a long and varied string of idiocies. She was going to get nothing out of this.

Wearily, she tugged down the white vinyl miniskirt that had crept about halfway up over her butt, and turned to slink away through the dark shadows that had kept her perfectly hidden in the half-hour she'd crouched here with her bare ass catching a fresh breeze off the ocean.

Time to hit the nearest cocktail lounge. Get herself a beer, and maybe work up the nerve to do something she'd always wanted to do…to sit with her legs spread wide apart on one of those nice, high fake-leather stools, her back to the bar, trolling. Seeing what the sight of her bare bottom could rustle up.

She'd always imagined it would be a good way to get a few kicks. Especially if she made sure there was a nice, friendly bartender there to rescue her or call for backup if things got out of hand.

She'd never quite dared to pull it off, but who knew? Tonight might be the night. And she might just turn up something recognizably human, and even interesting.

A good-looking bad-boy?

She cast one last longing look over her shoulder at the pool house.

Too bad. Mart Sorenson had seemed like such an exceptional bad-boy.

Tugging at her skirt again, still not satisfied with its coverage, she kind of wished she'd run into him again tonight. So she could show him what she was made of. See what he was made of, and if he had the…

Preparing to move along in the shadow of the line of palmettos that bordered the Randall spread, she crashed right into a brick wall that stood across her path. A brick wall that hadn't been there a little while ago. A brick wall that had arms. Saints preserve us, a brick wall that smelled of sweat, and male musk, and had muscles that just wouldn't…

"--the fuck are you doing here? What the fuck do you think--"

The hands were rough on her arms.

They might leave bruises.

And the voice…

Shit on a shingle. Annie barely heard a word he was saying through the odd, feedback distortion that had started up inside her head.

Mart Sorenson, felon. Sweaty, hard-muscled, well-sinewed, male felon. She about peed her pants.

Well, okay. She wasn't wearing any.

But when Mart didn't let her go, she came, turned hot, and wet, and loose, and tingly, just like that.

Lord, the smell of him was…

"--asked you a question, damn it!"

And she wanted to give him an answer. Right here. Right now. Instead, she could only stammer nervously. "I…I…I…" Shit. Girls who didn't wear underpants shouldn't be required to think clearly, or speak that way, either, in times of stress.

"I was watching your place."

"Why?" His hands moved up her arms. Still holding onto them. Still squeezing in a way that hurt a little bit, but excited a whole hell of a lot more.

"Were you expecting to find your John Firdy here?"

"He's not my--"

"Is that what you were hoping to do?"

At this point, Annie had no real idea, no memory of exactly what she'd thought or hoped.

Mart's hands were caressing her upper arms. Up and down, up and down. In a minute, he was going to start a fire there with the friction of rough and calloused palms against the skin she softened so meticulously with her weekly Devil's Dew herbal wraps at her favorite neighborhood all-coed day spa.

Sure as hell, he'd got a good blaze going somewhere else. The juice was practically running down her legs, steaming into a puddle on the ground around her, her body all but begging him to…

"What makes you think I'd want anything to do with a cretin like John Firdy?" she purred. It sounded more like she'd said, "Screw me, sailor, just lay me down on this nice, cool grass, and stick your wick so far up inside me you'll never see it again."

Shit. She might be no Marilyn Monroe, but she was no East L.A. street slut, either. She had some kind of pride, even if it wasn't enough to get her into a pair of underpants on any kind of regular basis.

"John is not my type," she declared, now sounding as stuffy as an aging first-grade schoolteacher who hadn't even figured out what men were for, much less taken advantage of the knowledge.

"Oh?" Mart's voice turned soft. "And what, exactly, is your type, little Miss Bloxum?"

"I…I…I…"

There she went again. Desperately, she struggled for control. Saints in heaven, she wished he would stop that infernal rubbing. She wished her body would stop inviting him to 'Come on down…the price is right, and it's time for the Lightning Round!' She wished he'd stroke her someplace else. Stoke that fire. Pile some real fuel on it, and let it burn.

Burn, baby, burn.

Annie wasn't sure whose lips touched whose first. Maybe hers locked onto his, or maybe it was the other way around. She didn't really care.

She only knew that suddenly, without any real effort, without either of them seeming to even try to hold back, his mouth was against hers, her mouth was against his, and their tongues had started to do the happy dance in perfect, shockingly synchronized and delicious, unison.

"Lord have mercy," Mart whispered when he finally had to come up for air.

She didn't let him stay up long enough to say anything else. Locking her arms around him, she pulled him close up against her, wiggling her body a little as she fit herself into the long, hard, faintly-sweaty planes of his felon's body that just wouldn't quit.

That she didn't want to quit.

She started to come again, big time, as Mart's mouth explored hers. One minute he went about it slowly, as if he had all the time in the world to savor, and test, and probe. And then in the next, his exploration intensified into something that wasn't like anything she'd felt before…especially given the fact that her experience with men of any kind wasn't quite as exhaustive or as encyclopedic as her bare-assed style of dress and behavior might seem to indicate.

But that was okay. That was just fine, because Mart seemed to have experience enough to carry them both through this distinctly exhaustive moment right into the incredible and unimaginable possibilities of the next.

Nearly crushed in the circle of his hard but strangely gentle arms, nearly inundated by the tides of warmth that swept from his body into hers, and then back out of hers into his again, Annie felt a little dizzy. Bruised by his kiss, her lips felt swollen. Bee-stung. And that thrill she felt, down where thrills really mattered…if that wasn't a genuine thrill of desire, she didn't know what it was. She wanted him. Rude, impossible, lying, apparent-felon that he was, she wanted him now, here, and she responded to the pressure of his mouth on hers, letting him know she wanted him, how she wanted him, how much she wanted him.

It was her turn to hold him tight. To twine her fingers deep, deep, deep in the midnight silk of the hair at the base of his neck, and to plunge with her tongue, to do her best to make him as unsteady and breathless as he'd made her. To make the wavery gold reflection of lights shining on aqua water blur and fade to nothing right before his dazzled and confused eyes, just the way he'd done to her.

His breath came fast. Hard. It tore out of his throat with the jagged little sounds of a man about to die in the most exquisite, most pleasurable way. Annie was aware that she'd started to match him, tongue-stroke for tongue-stroke, choked breath for choked breath. They were in rhythm, now, in perfect harmony.

They were about to devour each other. About to reach spectacular heights through a kiss…nothing but a goddamned kiss!

When Mart tried to push her away with a strange and garbled mutter that didn't sound entirely like a protest, Annie clung tight. She feared she wouldn't be able to stand without his support. And while she'd recently fantasized about dropping onto the ground in front of him and spreading her legs for him…while she'd actually half-planned to do it the first time she had the chance…now that didn't seem good enough.

It didn't seem quite right.

Something inside her…the good, Catholic-school graduate who wasn't a delinquent or any other kind of bad girl, no matter how it might seem at times; the one who wished she could be as exquisite, as angel-perfect and drop-dead beautiful as Marilyn Monroe as long as she didn't have to carry Marilyn's terrible burdens…wanted more.

She wanted sex, hell, yes, she did. More than ever, she wanted Mart Sorenson to take charge, and do whatever he wanted to do. But she wanted a little romance, too. She'd like soft sheets, shimmering candles, if that wasn't too much to ask. Candles that smelled like roses, or maybe gardenias, and a long, slow build-up. The kind of romantic episode she suspected only happened in the movies…the kind that went on and on, building up her desire, and his, until it had to explode or kill them both.

She'd like it to be perfect. The way she'd always believed sex should be perfect. Not some wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am tussle on the sidewalk, in one minute, and out the next.

And just as she wondered how in God's name she was ever going to think of a way to get Mart Sorenson between the sheets, where she wanted him, his hand slid up underneath her skirt.

 

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