Chapter Fourteen

───── ? ────

Marise sat in Slade's hot tub, submerged all the way to her chin, and she let the hot water go to work on her muscles. It was a lot to ask of the well-placed jets since it felt as if her body were one giant knot, but she thought the soaking was at least taking off the edge.

Slade had obviously sensed how tense she was because as soon as they'd made it back to his place, he'd given her a glass of her favorite wine and ordered her into the hot tub. She'd gone in because she had hoped it would help and also because there was the chance Slade would join her. Not full emersion because of his stitches, of course, but at least he might keep her company.

No luck on that so far.

He was all the way across the room in the sitting area of the spa-like hot tub space where he was having yet another phone conversation. There'd been many of them over the past half hour, but she thought he was now in the process of talking to Ruby.

She sipped more wine, listening to the soothing sound of Slade's voice, and tried to focus on the positive.

And there was certainly a lot of that.

They'd survived the fire, and the house, including Stephanie's office had been saved. That was huge. Another huge was that none of them—Jericho, Colonel Rosa, Jace, Angel, Slade, and her—had been seriously injured. Just some bruises and scrapes, and Slade's arm had had to be restitched, but overall they'd gotten very lucky.

Julian not so much.

He was dead, killed by the two gunshot wounds to the chest.

The shooting and the man's death had prompted Slade and her to being interviewed yet once again, but since Angel had recorded most of the incident, including Julian's gunfire, that had sped things along. Obviously, the investigation was still ongoing, and there were still a lot of questions, but at least Slade and she weren't in a burning house with a gunman hellbent on killing them.

Or rather killing Rosa.

The odds were the colonel was the primary target, but Julian had perhaps decided to take them all out. That would eliminate witnesses to the blood they'd seen in Stephanie's office. If Julian had indeed managed to murder all of them and burn the place down, it wouldn't have closed the investigation, but it would have seriously hampered it. It might have taken the cops a while to piece everything together, and while doing that, Julian could have been in the wind.

Perhaps permanently.

And maybe that'd been the plan all along. Cover up the evidence in the office and leave the country to save himself from ending up in jail.

Slade finished his call, and he made his way toward her. Despite the hellish night, she smiled because watching him was always a treat. There was always that dark and dangerous edge to him, all mixed together with those incredible looks.

Right now though, his looks were slightly hampered with that exhaustion on his face.

"I'm not going to ask you if you're okay," she said, offering him the rest of her wine, "But you should talk to someone about what happened with Julian."

He nodded, sat down on the edge of the hot tub and downed her wine. He refilled the glass with the bottle he'd left within her reach.

"You should talk to someone, too," he countered. "You've been attacked twice in two days."

She had indeed, and there weren't even guarantees that she wouldn't be attacked again. As long as Sonny was out there, Slade and she would be in danger. Probably Rosa, Jericho, Nash, and their partners as well.

"Ruby keeps a shrink on tap," Slade went on. "You can talk to her if you think it'll help."

"I'll do it if you will," she said.

"Deal." He handed her back the now full glass. She had the beginnings of a slight buzz going on, probably fueled by the fatigue from the adrenaline crash, so she only took a small sip. Best to have a clear head since it was obvious Slade had something to tell her.

"The cops haven't found Sonny," she threw out there to get him started.

"They have not," he verified. "But Angel did manage to record a statement of sorts from Julian before he died."

Marise recalled Angel kneeling by the dying man and speaking to him, but she hadn't pressed for what he'd said. "Did Julian confess to anything?"

"Not really. It was obvious he was the one who set the fire in the house and shot at us, but he died before admitting any part in murdering Hutton. However, Julian did say that Stephanie had no part in any of the attack."

She considered that for a moment. "You believe him?"

"No," Slade was quick to say, "but with him dead, the cops will have to prove her involvement. They might be able to do that with what they manage to recover in her office. And in Rosa's. Everything will be tested, including the bottle he drank from the night of the murder."

Good. Maybe they could find out if it had contained drugs that had ended up messing with Rosa's memory.

"I have to wonder why Stephanie or Julian didn't at least try to clean up the blood in her office," Marise commented.

Slade shrugged. "It's not easy to clean up something like that, and if Stephanie's watched any crime shows, she would have figured out that no amount of cleaning was going to get rid of it all. I think her plan all along has been to burn the place down. Ruby found camera footage of Stephanie moving boxes out of her car and into her downtown office."

"So, culling out the things she wanted to keep and letting the rest go up in flames," Marise concluded. Then, she paused. "But all of that brings me back to Hutton's murder. Obviously, it wasn't planned. At least, it wasn't planned to happen there in that office."

"You're thinking of that meeting between Julian and Sonny," he said, and she nodded. "We might never get the truth about that, but if Hutton was threatening to expose the affair, Julian could have hired Sonny to do the murder, but something went wrong. Maybe Hutton came to the house to confront Stephanie, and in the heat of the moment, either Julian or Stephanie killed him."

Yes, it could have played out that way. "Then, they took the body out into the country and buried it."

He made a sound of agreement. "It's possible they didn't believe Hutton's body would be discovered. Equally possible, too, that Stephanie's arrogant enough to believe she wouldn't be a suspect even if the body was found."

That theory certainly meshed with Marise's opinion of the woman. And she hoped with Julian dead, that didn't mean Stephanie was going to get away with murdering her lover.

Or Sonny getting away with it.

No way could a soak in a hot tub take away that concern. Or the concern that Sonny would find a way to come after them again.

Marise tried to put that thought aside, and she motioned toward her phone that was next to the wine bottle. "I got my own update. The colonel has checked into a hotel down on the Riverwalk."

Slade frowned. "Ruby said she was going to have one of her operatives guard Colonel Rosa."

Marise was doing some frowning, too. "He declined. He said he was grateful for the offer but that he didn't want to tie up her manpower that way. Instead, SAPD will do frequent patrols around the hotel."

"That's not enough," Slade grumbled.

"It's not. You and I know that. So does Rosa." She sighed. "My guess is he wants Sonny to come after him. A showdown of sorts."

Slade cursed and took out his phone. "I'm texting Rosa to ask him to reconsider the protection. If he won't, then I'll see if he'll agree to have someone from Maverick Ops escort him to my townhouse. Or here. The security is far better at my places than at a hotel."

It was, but she saw Slade's frown deepen after he fired off the text and didn't get a response right away from the colonel.

Slade added a frustrated groan to the frown. Then, he stared down at her. She saw some of the frustration slowly slip away when he clearly got distracted by something. And she knew exactly what that something was.

"You're naked," he pointed out.

Marise smiled, fumbled beneath her butt and brought out the two-piece swimsuit she'd been sitting on. She had worn it into the hot tub but had taken it off during Slade's marathon of phone calls.

"I've never been naked in a hot tub before and wanted to see how it felt," she explained. "FYI, it feels fantastic."

"Looks fantastic, too," he muttered, putting his phone in his pocket so he could begin taking off his own shirt.

So, she might get the fantasy of having Slade join her after all. But Marise didn't want him in the hot tub, not with those stitches. She stood and several more fantastic sensations ran through her. First, of the water sliding down her naked body. Then, of the heat in Slade's eyes when he slid his gaze down the full length of her.

That got Slade moving, not just with the shirt but with peeling off his belt and jeans. He stopped, giving her a jolt of serious disappointment before she realized he was simply taking a condom out of his wallet.

Marise picked up the huge bath towel but didn't wrap it around her. She waited until he'd shoved off his boxers and went to him. Of course, he was already heading her way, and they met. Naked body to naked body. His mouth came to hers for a long, hungry kiss.

It was scalding hot and perfect.

The maneuvering for position was, too. Slade was pressing against her, urging her toward the hot tub. She was aiming for a different direction. The plush leather sofa in the sitting area. That would be far better for his injuries than the water or the tiled surface around it.

Marise won out in the end, but she played dirty. She slid her hand between their bodies, the water allowing her fingers to glide over his stomach. And lower.

She wrapped her hand around his hard-on.

Slade made a now familiar grunt of pleasure, and his kisses got a whole lot deeper and took on an urgent, rough edge. An edge that made Marise want to smile because she knew she was getting glimpses of Slade when he wasn't hampered by stitches and such.

One day, she hoped they got to repeat this when he was at a hundred percent. That said, what he was giving her now was plenty enough and then some. The man was certainly a handful in more ways than one.

She kept touching him, kept up the kissing as she backed him toward the sofa. No resistance whatsoever, but he did slow a little so he could take his clever mouth to her neck.

Then, to her breasts.

That had Marise making her own sounds of needy pleasure, and it skyrocketed the urgency for them to get some release from the pressure cooker heat.

Slade made a dirty play of his own. He moved his hand between them, cupping her center and letting this thumb flick over the most sensitive part of her.

Mercy, that amped things up even more.

And Marise had to fight not to climax right then, right there.

Instead, she fought back the pleasure and got him moving faster again. She even managed to toss the towel on the sofa before Slade landed on it in a sitting position. She followed on his lap and delivered some kisses of her own. She settled on his neck and was making her way to his chest when things took an interesting turn.

Slade flipped her onto her back before she could put that condom on him.

More dirty play when he kissed her mouth. Then, her neck.

To her breasts.

He lingered there a moment, tormenting her nipples in the best way possible with his tongue before moving on and doing the same to her stomach.

The dirty play reached a pinnacle when he gave her a kiss that had her gasping, moaning, and begging for more. His tongue wasn't just clever on her nipples but also that part of her he'd just been touching.

And once again, Marise felt herself soaring.

Soaring.

So close to being ready to surrender to the pleasure. But Slade pulled back just in the nick of time. With her breath gusting and her heart beating oh so fast, he looked down at her, smiling that devil smile, while he got on the condom. No more delays. No more intense foreplay.

Slade covered her with his body and pushed inside her. Here it was. That fierce warrior. That no holding back. He was giving her all of him, and all of him was exactly what she needed and wanted.

Marise didn't even try to fight the orgasm this time. She would have failed. Instead, she gave in, letting it slam through her. Letting it consume every inch of her. She was rising one very blissful high when she felt Slade give up his own fight.

He buried his face against her neck and let go.

───── ? ────