To be confronted with the monster who’d been her biological father was difficult. To be forced to explain his deviancies to strangers, to have participated in them-that was horrific. Sonny’s heart ached for James, for the years he’d suffered under Arlen’s rule.
There was probably no hope of salvaging any kind of relationship with either of her half-brothers or with Ben. She’d met them under false pretenses, had lied to, manipulated, and used them to suit her purposes.
Sonny felt as though she’d been robbed of the brothers she’d never known, the father she’d rather not have known, and the man she’d never known she wanted, all in one fell swoop.
Not only that, her career, the stronghold of her world, was on the rocks. She’d wanted to work for the FBI her entire life. In her favorite fantasy, her father had been a secret agent. Leland Grant had filled that missing piece of her heart quite nicely.
It would be a shame if she had to turn in her resignation when this assignment wrapped.
She put the key in the lock and opened the door, discarding items of clothing in her usual haphazard fashion as she made her way to the bedroom, removing her gun holster once she was there and placing it in her underwear drawer.
She stayed in the shower too long, plagued by recollections of the day and memories from the past. She felt Ben’s strong hands on her body and Grant’s disappointed gaze on her face, Mitchell’s knuckles grazing her cheek and her stepfather’s sweaty palm covering her mouth.
No amount of water could wash away her shame.
After she dried off, she dragged on her oldest pair of sweats and curled up in the dark atop the bed, exhausted, knowing sleep was beyond her reach. When the doorbell rang, she sat up and stared into the hallway, listening to the sound of traffic on the busy street below her living room window and watching shadows move across the wall.
She got up and walked to the door without thinking, without blinking, without turning on any interior lights.
Of course it was Ben. Grant would have called first.
“Come in,” she murmured, making a shaky gesture with one hand.
He stepped inside and she closed the door behind him. They stood there in the stifling near-dark, neither of them saying a word.
“Wait here,” she said, leaving him standing there. In the bedroom, she flipped on the light switch and threw open her underwear drawer. There among bits of cotton and lace, the leather of her shoulder holster, and a deadly glint of steel, she found the only piece of jewelry ever given to her by a man. Clutching it to her chest, she returned to the living room, back to Ben.
Taking him by the hand, she placed the necklace in the middle of his upturned palm.
“I didn’t come for this,” he said, jerking his hand away as soon as he realized what she was doing. In the muted light coming in from the doorway, he looked much the same as the first time she’d seen him: disturbingly handsome and irresistibly troubled, the wounded soul every woman longed to heal.
“Keep it,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest.
After a moment’s hesitation, he shoved the necklace into the front pocket of his jeans. “I guess I’m lucky it hasn’t turned up at a crime scene with my fingerprints on it.”
Considering the events of the past day, the accusation rocked her back on her heels. “Are you implying that I’ve planted evidence?”
“Of course not,” he said, his eyes hard. “You’d never do anything unethical.”
The sarcasm was impossible to miss. She’d anticipated his anger, but she hadn’t expected his words to hurt so much. “I didn’t put Lisette’s hair in your bed, Ben.”
“No,” he agreed. “You did a lot of other things in my bed.”
So that’s how it was going to be. Fine. She clamped her mouth shut, determined to let him have his say. Sonny knew he hadn’t come here to profess his undying love, and she could take whatever insults he dished out.
“You were watching me from the beginning, weren’t you? You’d been following me. And Carly.”
She stared down at her bare feet, refusing to look at him.
“You stood by while my daughter threw herself into the ocean. She could have drowned.”
Her head shot up. “I didn’t know what she was doing until it was too late to stop her. I risked my life-”
“You needed an in,” he fired back. “You used her to get to me.”
“No,” she said. “That’s not why I went in after her.”
“Every move you made was calculated,” he countered. “You knew I’d be more interested if you played hard to get. After so many years of surf groupies throwing themselves at me, you knew I wouldn’t be able to resist your ‘don’t touch me there’ act. Somehow you knew I’d love it if you pretended you were afraid to fuck.”
“Ben-”
“Why were you watching me?” he interrupted, refusing to listen to any excuses. “How could I have been a suspect before Lisette went missing?”
After a moment’s hesitation, she said, “Darrius O’Shea left a suicide note recanting his confession. The details weren’t made available to the press.”
Shock and pain flashed in his eyes as he processed that information. Being a suspect in Lisette’s murder was bad, but being accused of killing his own wife was the ultimate insult. “I should have known what you were up to when you asked about Olivia,” he said in a low growl. “You weren’t jealous, or curious, or concerned. You weren’t mad about what happened with Lisette. You were just investigating.”
She couldn’t argue with that.
“Was everything you said a lie?”
It wasn’t easy, but she looked him straight in the eye and said, “Yes.”
His face darkened with fury. “I guess that figures. For a woman who’s terrified of cock, you couldn’t seem to get enough of mine.”
Resentment burned through her, heating her cheeks. “Don’t flatter yourself, Ben. Getting close to you was part of my job.”
He dropped his gaze to her lips. “Yeah, and you’re so good at what you do. Did Grant get off on hearing about your undercover activities? I’ll bet you gave him a blow by blow.”
She drew back her arm and slapped him across the face. It was an instinctual act, pure fury, no fear, worlds apart from the times she’d lashed out at him before.
It still packed enough heat to snap his head to the side.
He touched his hand to his cheek then looked at his fingertips, almost as if he expected to see blood there. “What’s the matter, Summer? I thought you liked being a federal whore.”
“Sonny,” she whispered, her palm stinging from the impact.
He looked around the dark room in confusion.
“My real name isn’t Summer,” she explained. “It’s Sonny.”
For some reason, that admission drove him over the edge. In an unconscious imitation of the first time he tried to kiss her, he came forward, framing her chin with his hand and trapping her body against the wall. “I don’t give a damn what your real name is. Do you think I’d believe anything that comes out of your lying mouth?”
The instant he said “mouth,” she became aware of his hot gaze focused there, his large hand cupping her chin, his thumb pressing into her cheek. His body was hard and unyielding against hers, his chest rising and falling with every furious breath.
This time, it was he who closed the distance between them, lowering his mouth to hers. His kiss was rough and angry, meant to punish, not to please, but she welcomed it. She relished it. Slipping her arms around his neck and her tongue into his mouth, she moaned, digging her fingernails into his shoulders and begging for more.
Groaning, he moved his hands down to her bottom and lifted her up, fitting his erection into the notch of her thighs and pressing her back to the wall. She gasped, wrapping her legs around his waist as he plundered her mouth, kissing her hotly, hungrily, endlessly, possessing her so thoroughly she wanted to weep with pleasure.
It was too much and not enough. She tilted her hips forward, stroking herself along the ridge of his erection. Between her legs, she was already hot and swollen, pulsing with sensation. He shoved his hands into her sweatpants, making a low growl of satisfaction when he found her naked bottom.
They were both wearing too many clothes. He stripped off her sweats, baring her from the waist down, and she tugged at his T-shirt, seeking heat against heat, skin against skin.
