“I’ve been handed the means to arrest you.” Durvan paused. “I just can’t shake the suspicion that someone is leading me down the garden path.”
Noah let out the breath he’d been holding. Durvan still had doubts. “Stay suspicious. The man who set me up can’t have executed the perfect crime. He screwed up somewhere. He just didn’t expect me to live to tell you the truth. He’s got to be sweating bullets over the fact you might uncover something.”
“You know something, Glover? Anything that points in another direction?”
“No. But I got some questions I need to put to a few people.”
“The hell you will. Stay away from anyone you were with that night. Tampering with witnesses will definitely land your ass in jail. I have one piece of news, for what it’s worth. There was GHB in your blood. Doesn’t change my focus. So, until I finish my investigation, don’t set a toe outside the city limits or I’ll have you arrested for attempted flight from prosecution.”
Noah didn’t need to hang up. Duran was gone.
Tampering with witnesses.
Noah wiped a hand over his mouth. He’d done a lot more than tamper with Carly last night. He’d probably compromised the key witness. Which was why he’d left her bed in a rush.
Not his finest hour.
It had taken him all of a minute of afterglow, the second time, to realize just how big a mistake he’d made in going with her to her apartment.
She, who had been gently caressing his chest, had caught up with his thinking about ten seconds later.
She’d raised her head up off his shoulder and her hands stilled, forefingers no longer circling his nipples. Then with a graceful swing of her leg she dismounted from him. He’d never felt more naked.
Not bothering to cover herself, she’d folded her arms and stood before him. “If that’s regret creeping up on you, forget it. I got what I asked for. I won’t be trying to jack up your life. I have enough problems. Nothing’s flawless, right?”
For a moment he’d kept his mouth shut. What he could see of her in the light reflected from the city looked damned perfect.
But she was right. He couldn’t afford to get distracted any more than he’d already been tonight. But that was the damnable thing. Carly didn’t feel like a distraction. She was a whole other superhighway of possibility into territory he couldn’t begin to explore until his life looked some kind of sane again.
He’d raked a hand through his hair, groping for the right words. “I’m not sure how to say this. You saved my life. The least I could have done to repay you was to stay out of your life, certainly out of…”
“Me?”
He’d felt the back of his neck burn. “Okay. Yeah.”
She’d watched him, her eyes shining in the dim light. “I invited you here. I didn’t force you.”
“No. I came damn willing. I just should have listened to my better instincts.”
“Why didn’t you?” Yep, talking with Carly was like drinking whiskey straight from the bottle.
What could he say? All my honorable intentions went up in flame when you kissed me? That sounded like a loser line.
He’d cracked a smile. “I wanted you. Have since the moment we met. Hell. Every time I look at you I get a hard-on. I know that sounds lame. But that kind of thing doesn’t happen to me.”
“No. I get it.” She brushed a handful of springy curls back from her brow and then reached for her sweater. “I’ve felt the same way since Friday night.” She pulled it over her head on one fluid motion. “Damned if I know why.”
He could have told her. They’d shared a traumatic experience together and survived. Nothing like a near-death experience to make a person want to reassert the most fundamental life-affirming survival instincts. That would include sex.
But it didn’t explain what he was feeling now, hours later, standing in a dog park with the sun in his eyes. Being with and in Carly had set off a five-alarm fire in his belly that lay banked there even after climax. He hadn’t only succumbed to the moment, he’d let down his guard with her. That was something he hadn’t done with any woman since his divorce.
Noah shoved that thought away. Then and now. He knew the difference. He needed to be practical. Think practical. To do that, he needed to keep out of range of Carly’s emotional gravitational field.
She hadn’t tried to stop him leaving. She hadn’t said a word that made him feel worse than he already did. She’d simply watched him as though his every move was important.
He’d finished dressing before he turned to her that final time. “You will probably be called as a witness against me, if the case goes to trial. If the authorities learn about us, this, it could jeopardize your testimony.”
Her lips twisted. “You’re good, but I wasn’t going to take out an ad.”
Ouch. Guess that put him in his place. “All I’m saying is, tonight was just about us. It doesn’t change things. Tell the truth as you see it.”
“I always do. I don’t think you started that fire.”