“Just get the wine and come upstairs.” Rica skimmed her fingers over Carter’s shoulder as she passed. “Thanks for the ice.”

Rica stood in front of the open French doors, listening to the sound of Carter’s steady footsteps approaching down the hall. She’d toweled off her hair and pulled on a robe. She hoped the wine would warm her, because she seemed to be frozen all the way through. Where she pushed her hands inside the sleeves of her robe, her body felt warm under her fingertips, but just beneath her skin where she couldn’t touch, she was cold.

Carter stopped inside the door, a wine bottle in one hand and a glass held by its stem between the fingers of her other. “I could only find red. Is that all right?”

“Yes,” Rica said, turning. She’d switched on a reading light in the far corner of the room and Carter’s face looked softer than usual in the lamplight. When Carter’s eyes swept down her body and then quickly back to her face, the look left a thin trail of heat in its wake. Surprised by the odd burning sensation, Rica moved toward her, out of the cold.

“I’ll just leave it here.” Carter backed up a step and set the wineglass and bottle carefully on a bureau next to the door. “You really should get some res…”

“Look at me,” Rica said, opening her robe.

“Rica,” Carter whispered, glancing down despite herself. Rica’s breasts were flushed, as if from the warmth of the shower, and her nipples tight pink buds of invitation. Carter’s stomach clutched.

“I don’t feel anything.” Rica swept her fingers over her chest and cupped her breast. She strummed her thumb across her nipple. The pink turned to red. “Nothing. Except where you look at me.”

“You need to rest,” Carter said gently. She knew it was some kind of shock, some reaction to the assault. She knew that. She knew, but her body was doing crazy things as Rica moved to within inches of her, her long, slender fingers continuing to play over her breasts and down her abdomen. Carter took another step back and hit the door.

“Enzo said you were dying to fuck me,” Rica whispered, her naked thighs brushing Carter’s pants.

“Enzo is an animal.” Carter brushed her thumb tenderly over the bruised cheek. “Listen to me. You need to lie down. You’re in pain, and frightened…”

“I know what I’m doing, Carter,” Rica said. “My face hurts like hell or I’d kiss you right now. I’m not trying to block out what happened.” She grasped Carter’s wrist and guided Carter’s hand to her breast. She smiled when Carter groaned. “I’m cold because I’ve had to be for so long…to fight Enzo and the rest of them…and now I can’t get warm. I can’t feel anything. Except where you touch me. Touch me.”

“No,” Carter whispered. Everything in her screamed wrong time, wrong place, wrong reasons, while her hands shook and her stomach knotted with the delirious scorching need to feel her.

“Please.” Rica covered Carter’s hand and squeezed Carter’s fingers down around her nipple. She tilted her head back and moaned.

“Oh, Jesus.” Somehow Carter’s other hand found its way into Rica’s hair, and she held her head gently while she raked her teeth down the center of Rica’s exposed throat. The sound of Rica whimpering vibrated against her lips, and she couldn’t think of anything except hearing, touching, tasting more of Rica’s pleasure. She cupped Rica’s breast with her whole hand, continuing the rhythmic pinch of thumb and fingers on the swollen peak. Harder and harder, twisting and tugging, until Rica slumped against her.

“Oh, so good.” Rica clutched Carter’s shoulder to steady herself and pressed her sex against Carter’s thigh. Heat flooded through her even as it flooded from her, drenching Carter’s pants. “So good, Carter.”

Carter took a nipple in her mouth.

Rica gasped. “I’ve dreamed of you making me come.”

Carter lifted her head and looked into the depths of Rica’s wide, dark eyes. Then she was swirling and tumbling and about to drown in the vortex of pure and simple desire. Rica’s lips trembled as she pumped her hips in long, hard strokes over Carter’s thigh.

“I’m afraid I will,” Rica whispered, her eyes glazing. “I’m so close to coming already. Oh Carter, don’t let me come before you touch me.”

Carter’s heart squeezed painfully. Rica was so beautiful, so open, so…trusting.

“Rica, I can’t,” Carter groaned, and released Rica’s breast. But she was too late.

Rica caught Carter’s hand and thrust it between her legs, her breath hitching on a thin cry. “I’m going to…” She plunged Carter’s fingers into her aching sex, took her deep inside, and drove down against her palm in short, hard thrusts. She came on Carter’s hand with a broken wail.

Carter wrapped an arm around Rica’s waist and caught her as her legs gave way, lifting her into her arms. “It’s okay, baby, it’s okay,” she murmured as Rica whimpered with the last ravages of her climax. “It’s okay.”

But just like so many times in her life when she’d held a woman in moments like this, she was lying. And this time, the lie was tearing her apart.

Chapter Nineteen

Rica awakened cold and naked. The room itself was warm, and she was covered by a light sheet, but Carter was gone and she’d taken the heat with her. Rica remembered sleeping in Carter’s arms. She remembered the faintly rough texture of Carter’s shirt beneath her cheek and the surprisingly erratic beat of Carter’s heart somewhere in her distant dreams. It had been months since she’d awakened with anyone in her bed, and longer than that since she’d allowed anyone to actually hold her while she slept. Dropping into an exhausted stupor next to the woman who had just made her come was a far cry from what had happened with Carter.

And what had happened with Carter? Oh, she knew what had happened, at least the easy part. Rica skimmed her hand down the center of her chest. She could remember Carter’s mouth and hands on her breasts. Her nipples were still swollen and pleasantly sore. Her skin was nothing but raw nerve endings. She tensed, remembering how desperate she’d been to be filled, so wild to come with Carter inside her that she couldn’t think at all. Her whole body was still loose and languid after climaxing harder than she could ever recall. She slid her fingers along the inside of her thigh and over her sex. She was still wet. She wanted Carter again. Her body, no, not just her body, all of her, was out of control.

With a sigh, Rica rose and found her robe where it lay pooled in the sunlight by the bedroom door. She remembered the rest of it too. Carter had tried to stop her, but she’d been too far gone to hear. Carter had tried to stop her, and now Carter was gone. It shouldn’t have mattered, but it did. She shouldn’t have slept with her, but she hadn’t been able to get her out of her head all the time they had been separated. Three weeks had felt like three years. She should have been glad Carter was gone, because she didn’t need the complication now. Enzo’s demands, business and personal, were becoming harder and harder to turn aside. And now Carter was in the middle, and that was a very dangerous place for her to be.

“It’s just as well she’s gone.”

When Rica walked into the kitchen and saw Carter outside on the deck, talking on her cell phone, her heart leapt. A twist of desire nearly made her stumble and she stopped just inside the door to look at Carter. Just look. Carter still wore the clothes she’d had on the previous evening and her face was drawn and tired, as if she hadn’t slept. Even though she was rumpled and windblown, she looked beautiful. A wash of desire flooded Rica’s thighs.

“Oh God,” she whispered. This was far more than she had wanted to feel, and she feared there was no turning back.

When Carter turned sideways to lean her hip against the railing, still speaking urgently, Rica saw the Glock tucked into the small of her back. Rica flashed on Carter opening the cargo area the night before and then moving stealthily up the path to her house, her steps certain and sure. As if she’d done it before. A small note of warning sounded in Rica’s mind.

Carter glanced into the house and, meeting Rica’s gaze, quickly ended her call. She stepped back into the kitchen and kissed Rica softly, just a gentle brush of lips. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I owe you an apology,” Rica said, folding her arms over her breasts.

“No,” Carter said softly, “you don’t.”

“I don’t unusually throw myself at women.”

“Rica, last night was…”

“No.” Rica held up a hand, knowing Carter thought that the sex had been an attempt to block out the attack. “Last night was not about Enzo. It was about wanting you so much that I…”

“Last night was great.” Carter caressed Rica’s neck. “Last night was amazing.”

“Yes.” Rica smiled fleetingly. “I notice you didn’t stick around for seconds, though.” At Carter’s look of surprise, Rica grimaced. “God, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m sorry.”

“Maybe it has something to do with fighting alone all your life. Don’t apologize.”

Rica shrugged. “A bit late now. I should call my father and let him know where I am. At least he won’t send anyone out looking for me.”

“Good idea.”

“If you’ve got friends in my father’s favor, now would be the time to call on them. Before Enzo twists this around and makes you out to be a threat to someone besides him.”

There it was. The opening Carter needed to press for details about the organization. Who are the important people? Who should I call? Who are Enzo’s enemies? His friends? Carter said nothing.

Rica laughed bitterly and then winced at the sharp twinge in her jaw. Her face pulsed with pain. “I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how to handle these things. You’ve probably already called.”