He knew the feeling.
“I felt sorry for Tracy, at first. Her grief was so real. The only person who was crying about Donovan’s disappearance.”
Now that had been one hell of a telling statement. “You didn’t cry?”
Her lashes flickered. She knew she’d just been caught. He waited for her to try and twist and manipulate and—
“Donovan Eldridge was a bastard.”
Was. Past tense. Another tell. As far as Alice was concerned, Donovan was dead. “Interesting.” He cleared his throat. “Because the reports I have on him all said quite the opposite,” Saint noted carefully. And not quite truthfully. He wanted her to talk more.
“I can guess what your reports said. Amazing football player in high school. Academic all-star. A Good Samaritan who donated both his time and his family’s money to an assortment of worthy causes. Amazing Donovan. When his parents died in that tragic car accident, he picked up the pieces of his broken life. He raised his sister. Inherited all that wealth but still remained such an amazing, down-to-earth individual.” Her delicate nostrils flared. “Who was driving the damn car?”
“Excuse me?” He was completely focused on her. Tell me everything, Alice.
“His father was driving. Not Donovan. Of course, not Donovan. He was in the back, right? Isn’t that what the police report said?”
Yes, it had been what the cops noted.
“And he tried to call out a warning to them,” Alice continued almost feverishly. “Tried to say that he saw something in the road, but it was raining and dark, and they didn’t heed his warning.” A pause. “Isn’t that what was claimed in all the papers? Not like there are ever lies printed. Or not like reporters just get the story wrong sometimes.”
His body had turned to stone. “You’re saying Donovan drove the car.”
“Is that what I’m saying?” Her eyes widened. “I have to be careful, you see. Don’t want to slander anyone. Even though the world loves to slander me.” A beat of rage pulsed in her voice. “But maybe that golden boy wasn’t so perfect. Maybe he didn’t like it when people told him no, and maybe his parents had just told him that they were cutting him off because they knew what he was really like. Maybe…” A shrug of one shoulder. “Or maybe not.”
“You called him a bastard.” Saint wanted to hear more. “Did he hurt you?” Now he was the one with rage pulsing through him.
“Yes.” A whisper. Pain swirled in her eyes.
He lifted his hands toward her.
She blinked. Seemed to catch herself. Alice cleared her throat. “He hurt me terribly when he vanished. I was so grief-stricken that I must have been in shock during those early days after his disappearance. The shock stopped me from being able to shed even a single tear for my dear, dear Donovan.”
Damn. “Nice save there, Alice. For a minute, I thought you might actually tell me the truth.”
“I did.” Flat. “Maybe one day, you’ll understand that.” She brushed back her hair. “Now, I’m dead tired. Even too tired for the amazing sex that I am sure we could have together. So we’ll just rain check that, shall we?”
His brows climbed. “Yes. We’ll rain check that.”
“Excellent.” She turned and headed for the front door. He followed slowly behind her, and when she opened the door, Alice waved him out. “Drive safely. Watch out for flying bricks, and be aware that spray paint can come at you when you least expect it.”
She was certainly handling this…In a way just designed to intrigue me more. “Maybe you were right.”
Her gaze was on the dark road. None of her neighbors had come out when the cops arrived, but then again, she had a yard that stretched at least two acres, and the house down the street had been dark when he arrived. Maybe she didn’t have any close neighbors who could be nosey.
“I’m usually right about lots of things.” Her head tilted as she searched first toward the left, then to the right. “You’ll have to be more specific,” Alice added.
“If you’re worried about staying alone, I can stay with you.”
Her head whipped toward him. “I thought…we’d taken a rain check.”
“I can sleep on the couch. This isn’t about sex.” Yeah, and he couldn’t believe he’d just said those words to her.
She inched closer. “Then what is it about?”
“I don’t want you scared.” Simple.
But she acted as if he’d just slapped her. Alice jerked back. Her move was so sudden that her feet slipped on the porch—her right heel twisted, that crazy, high heel on her shoe—and Alice would have slammed down onto her delectable ass, but he grabbed her. Saint locked his hands around her arms and steadied her.
Her breath heaved in and out.
“You okay?” he asked softly.
“You’re not good.”
He’d barely heard those rasped words.
“You hunt your prey. You bring them in to jail kicking and screaming. And you go after the worst of the worst.”
He didn’t let her go. He did shrug. After all, she was right. He did those things. He also enjoyed the hell out of his work. When you had a talent, it was always good to use it. Use it or lose it, wasn’t that the way the old saying went? Or, in his case, what he’d always feared…
I like the hunt too much. If I’m not careful, I might—
“Why the hell would you care about how I feel, Saint?”
His hand rose. He slid a thick lock of her hair—dry now—behind her ear. “Because like I said before, maybe you were right.”
“About what?” Breathless. “The amazing sex?”
He had no doubt it would be fantastic. “We’ll find out soon enough.”
“Promises, promises…”
He took her mouth while her lips were still parted. Kissed her right there, with her porch light shining on them and her boarded up window steps away. His tongue slid past her plump lips, and he kissed her deep. Slowly. Fully. Took his time about it because he wanted the job done right. He wanted her to know this wasn’t playing. This was owning. Taking.
Because he intended to take her.
Was she dangerous? Oh, hell, yes, he knew she was.
Did he care? Fuck, no.
Because she’d intrigued him. Pushed up his curiosity. Reached the dark, deep parts of him that he tried so hard to keep hidden from the rest of the world. The parts that sometimes made him worry about his sanity. That made him think he wasn’t wired just like everyone else. No matter how hard he pretended, he just didn’t feel things like everyone else did…
Until her.
Until now.
Because, no, he didn’t want Alice afraid. He just wanted her.
She trembled against him. Her body leaned into his. Her hands rose to touch his chest. Not to push him away. To slide over him. To stroke. And he kept kissing her. Tasting her. Feeling his desire surge even stronger because Saint knew one thing for certain—they were going to be different. For better or worse, being with Alice was going to change him.
It might just wreck them both.
Her tongue slid over his. A ragged groan tore from him, and he wanted to lift her into his arms. She was so much smaller than he was. It would be easy to lift her up. To let her wrap her legs around him. To carry her back inside.