He traced the steps to the bed, the exact same steps the man had taken. She didn’t know how he knew, but she was glad she didn’t have to explain the events that had transpired here, word for word.
“Was there a struggle?” he inquired, his brows furrowed. God, he was so handsome when he was all business.
Megan tried to remember what happened but only recalled the hands, the stench, the blackness that had enveloped her. She was still breathing loudly, and for the first time, she realized, so was Cody. The discovery brought a fresh pang of longing to her heart.
She’d imagined how they would sound, their breaths, as they made love.
Now she wanted to die when she realized she’d never find out.
This had been such a bad idea. She was such a needy, foolish little slut, she wanted to whack herself with a stick.
When she’d been tied on the bed, afraid, and had seen Cody, a little part of her had still gotten aroused. For a nanosecond, she hadn’t wanted him to set her free. She’d wanted him to take her. Like that. Caught and trapped, take her, all of her.
But he didn’t. He hadn’t.
He was so obsessed with protecting her, he never would, which was the saddest thing of all.
Cody sighed and came over. “Tell me what happened, Meg.”
His delicious scent teased her nostrils as he dropped down beside her and it made her want to erase that horrible name from her skin, made her want to forget the past hour entirely.
She furiously scraped the first I, but Cody caught her hands, stilling their movements. Her lashes rose, and their gazes held. He squeezed her fingers in reassurance, and the exquisite contact made her shiver with need. Solid. Warm. That was what his touch felt like. What I’ve always wanted.
She surveyed his expression, but there was no lust in his eyes, only anger. “Don’t scrape it off yet—” He urged her into his shirt and his face hardened, his jaw tightened as he explained, “Evidence.”
He gazed at her stomach with indecipherable eyes, but when he lifted his hand to trace her chin with the pad of his thumb, the touch was sensual. Lush. Sexual.
As the adrenaline left her body, something else arrived in its stead, something hot and wanting.
She caught her breath as he lowered his hand and, with that same callused thumb, grazed his brother’s name on her navel.
“Is it tender, does it hurt?” he asked in a low voice.
She didn’t know how to interpret the gruff emotion there, but his timbre wasn’t cold, and she knew that he was not unaffected. Was it her nearness that made him seem on edge? Unlike himself?
No. It was the fact that she had his brother’s name over her underwear.
“It’s sensitive,” she admitted, just a whisper at the blond top of his head. Sensitive because you’re touching it.
His finger trailed the last word, and then stopped, somehow, at the edge of her leopard panties. She felt so stupid all of a sudden, like this, with his shirt hanging at her sides, her red heels, her failed plan. She’d dressed for the perfect evening to seduce the man of her dreams, and instead, another man had seen her. Another man had tied her to Cody’s bed, and it had not been the man she wanted, nor quite in the way she’d dreamed.
She shuddered involuntarily, feeling vulnerable.
He sat back and stared at her beneath his eyebrows, his golden-tipped lashes so heavy his eyes appeared slits now.
His voice became so rough it scraped through her like sandpaper. “What the hell were you doing here dressed like this?” he murmured, pinnin
g her on the spot with a penetrating stare.
She wanted to tell him the truth, and at the same time, she was still chicken enough to want to lie and say that she had been dressed and all her misery tonight was that criminal’s fault! But Cody was a detective, and he’d know it was a lie. There were no womanly clothes scattered about, and at the moment, she feared that he was already realizing that her being in a panty and bra had been deliberate.
She could see, by the way he slowed down his breathing, the way he did not look up while he was composing himself, that it was just dawning on him why she had come here. Tonight. For him.
“I’m going to assume,” he said, and cleared his throat when his voice got too thick to speak, “that your state of undress was a one-time thing, not to happen again?”
He raised his eyes, and, was there disappointment there? Or, God, please don’t let it be pity.
Megan flicked her eyes down at his tie, unable to look at him, her dearest friend, the man she wanted.