“Yeah,” he snapped from the other side of the door. Olivia heard a soft string of curses. “No.”
She slowly pushed the door open to find him standing in the center of the bathroom, shirtless. He’d managed to get the bandage off but his attempts to replace it had been thwarted. Adhesive tape lay tangled on the floor and gauze pads cast aside. Cotton balls saturated with alcohol made Olivia’s eyes sting.
“I need help,” he muttered. “I can’t reach around and get the tape on straight.”
Olivia stared at him for a long moment. In the harsh light of the bathroom, he looked even more magnificent than he had on the boat. She could see every muscle in his back and torso, bunching and shifting beneath his skin as he turned to tend to his wound. Olivia wanted to run, certain that touching him would transform her into a babbling fool. But common sense told her that she owed it to him to help.
The bathroom was so tiny, she was forced to close the door in order to have enough room to work. She grabbed the tape from his hand, then pulled two gauze pads from the paper package. “Put your arm up,” she murmured.
He did as he was told and Olivia got her first real look at his wound. She winced at the angry red slash in his side and the line of neat stitches that kept it closed. “It looks painful,” she said.
“Actually, I was thinking that it wasn’t so bad after all. I doused it with alcohol and smeared on some of that antibiotic salve the doctor gave me. It only hurts when I twist or reach.”
She pressed the gauze over the wound, then put his right hand on top of it. A length of tape secured it on top and Olivia tore off three more pieces and taped the bandage in place. “There,” she murmured, slowly straightening.
In the cramped quarters they couldn’t help but touch each other as they moved around. His body brushed against hers, her breasts pressed to his naked chest. And then, suddenly, his arms were around her waist and her fingers were splayed across his chest. Conor captured her mouth with his in a frantic kiss, his hands skimming along her hips, drawing her closer.
The kiss took her breath away, full of fierce longing and fully realized need. He’d kissed her for no reason at all, only that he’d wanted her at that very moment. All her worries about his motives dissolved and Olivia was certain of his desire. He wasn’t playing a role to keep her happy, he wanted her, now more than ever. He had been affected by the passion they’d shared.
But just as she allowed herself to revel in the taste of him, he pulled away, as if ending the kiss quickly would make it seem like it never happened at all. “We shouldn’t do that,” he said, his jaw tight.
Olivia wrapped her arms around his neck and smiled. He could make a feeble attempt to deny her, but in the end, he couldn’t resist. “Why not?”
Conor shook his head, then grabbed his shirt from the edge of the tub and struggled into it. “We just shouldn’t. It complicates things.”
“It doesn’t have to,” Olivia said. “What we share here is between us and no one else.”
She saw the battle in his eyes, between common sense and carnal pleasures. But she’d spoken the truth. If all they had was the next nine days, then she’d understand. The past three had been the most exciting days of her life and she couldn’t regret a single minute, not if it brought her closer to Conor Quinn.
Conor dragged his gaze from hers. “I have to go,” he said.
Olivia blinked in surprise. “Where?”
“I’ve got some things to do.”
“I’ll come with you,” she said.
“You’ll be safer here.”
“Aren’t you afraid I’m going to leave?” Olivia asked.
Conor thought about the suggestion for a moment, then shook his head. “You know the dangers out there, Olivia. If you really want to leave, I can’t stop you. But I’d be damn angry if I came home and found out that I took a bullet for a woman who cared less for her life than I do.”
With those words, he made it clear that to leave would be a betrayal he couldn’t forgive. Olivia took a deep breath, then nodded. “I’ll be here when you get back. You don’t have to worry.”
She stood in the bathroom and listened to his footsteps as they retreated down the hallway. For a few minutes there, she really believed she understood Conor Quinn. But then he threw up walls all around him, determined to keep her at a distance. Olivia couldn’t blame him. After what she’d learned about his childhood, it was no wonder he was wary of women.
Still, she’d seen a vulnerable side of him and it gave her hope that, one day, Conor might want to love her. With a long sigh, Olivia sat down on the edge of the tub. “I should find myself a nice, normal guy,” she murmured, her chin cupped in her hand.
But she didn’t want normal. She wanted dangerous. And if the past few days had proved anything at all, it was that Olivia was beginning to thrive on danger.
THE OFFICER on duty recognized Conor the moment he walked in. But Conor had counted on the code between cops, a code that called for silence until questions were asked. He walked up to the desk at the Suffolk County Jail and pulled out his badge. But he didn’t reach for the pen to sign in, bypassing the strict requirements called for when visiting a prisoner.
“Quinn,” the officer nodded.
“Mullaney,” Conor replied.
“Didn’t expect you to turn up here,” Mullaney murmured, leaning forward as he lowered his voice. He glanced over Quinn’s shoulder. “I hear the D.A. and the brass are ready to can your ass. You kidnapped a witness.”
“I’m just doing my job,” Conor murmured. “I’m supposed to keep her alive until the trial. And it looks like someone in the department wants her dead.”
Mullaney blinked in surprise, then nodded as if he sympathized with Conor’s predicament. “I suppose I should be forgetting that I saw you tonight.”
“And while you’re at it, you can forget that you called Kevin Ford up to an interview room by mistake. And that I just happened to be in that interview room when he arrived.”
“If they find out about this, your career will be over,” Mullaney said.
“I’m still a cop and he’s still one of the bad guys and, until he asks for his lawyer, we’re just a couple of buddies chatting about a mutual acquaintance.”
“If anyone asks, I never saw you. Just make sure no one else never saw you, too. Room seven.”
He picked up the phone to call the guard on duty, then buzzed Conor in. He’d been to Suffolk hundreds of times before to interview suspects. He knew how to walk through the place without being recognized, how to avoid contact with anyone who looked like a lawyer. He stepped into the interview room and, a few moments later, a uniformed officer opened the door and let Kevin Ford enter.
Ford was dressed like all the other prisoners in a baggy jumpsuit. Yet he still seemed completely out of place. His pale face and horn-rimmed glasses gave him the look of a Harvard professor rather than the career criminals that populated the county jail. He walked into the room, hands cuffed in front of him, then sat down across from Conor.
Conor had developed the ability to read suspects, to know exactly what kind of people they were and what buttons to push to get them to talk. Kevin Ford was easy. He was a coward at heart, willing to do whatever it took to save his butt. The problem was Red Keenan was willing to do whatever it took to kill Ford’s butt if he talked.
“I’m not saying anything without my lawyer. And I’m not going to testify against Keenan, so you might as well not waste my time.”
“Yeah,” Conor said. “I bet your social calendar is pretty full.” He chuckled softly. “Nothing you say is going to leave this room. I’m officially not here and we’re officially not talking.”
“What do you want? Did Keenan send you?”
Conor tried to keep the surprise from his expression. “Keenan?” he asked. “I guess he’s sent his cops around to talk to you already.” Better to act like he knew exactly what Ford was talking about. “So did he send the guys in uniform or did he send his detectives?”
Ford didn’t answer, but Conor could see it in his eyes. Someone from the department
