Page 44 of Marked For Revenge

“Trying to,” he said, returning the smile. A smile that didn’t make it to his eyes because of the worry she’d known would be there.

“Any word from Theo yet?” she asked while she drank some of the juice.

“Yeah. He texted a couple of minutes ago to let us know that he’d just received a report that Lionel Henderson, the explosives expert we’ve been looking for, has been reported missing.”

“For how long?” she asked.

“No one has seen him since yesterday morning. The Rangers pinged his phone, and it’s apparently on the side of the road less than a quarter of a mile from the area of the creek where the explosives went off.” He paused a heartbeat. “The other body in the woods was probably his.”

She knew it couldn’t be a coincidence that the explosives expert had ended up that close to the crime scene for their latest victim. A crime scene where there’d been multiple explosives. Ava had to guess that Lionel had assisted the killer, and then the killer had considered him too much of a liability to continue breathing.

“Five dead bodies,” she muttered. “Maybe more.”

“Yeah,” he agreed.

Ava set down her juice and looked at him. “Just let me say this. I’m sorry. Sorry for believing you’d cut a deal for my father. Sorry that I’ve put you in the middle of this. The killer wouldn’t have come after you had—”

She stopped, had to, because he went to her, pulled her into his arms and kissed her. Not a reassuring peck either. A full-blown kiss with his mouth pressing hard against hers. There was a lot of emotion.

A lot of heat as well.

But Ava figured this kiss wasn’t about heat. Harley had probably used it to shut down something he hadn’t wanted her to say. And it was working. Working, too, because of that heat it was churning out. Hard to keep thinking about killers and such when Harley’s mouth triggered a whole other set of emotions in her.

She felt some of the tension drain from her body and everything inside her went a little slack. An amazing feeling considering that, just moments earlier, every nerve in her body had been firing on all cylinders. The nerves were still firing but in a whole different way. One that reminded her that, despite everything, she was still hotly attracted to this man who’d once been her lover.

Harley finally pulled back and she instantly felt the loss of the heat. A small sound of protest left her mouth before she could stop it.

“I’m not going to apologize for that,” he drawled.

“Good.” Because she didn’t want an apology. Ava wanted another kiss, so that’s what she got.

She took hold of Harley’s arm. Tugging him back to her and pressing herself against him, she kissed him. Yes, it skyrocketed the heat, but she no longer felt on the verge of falling apart.

The kiss was way too hard and hungry for something meant to comfort, and every inch of her responded. She’d done this with Harley before, kissed him until her legs had gone weak, and her body seemed to know what was coming. And what was coming was more.

Well, if she didn’t stop it, that is.

Ava didn’t want to stop it. Not yet anyway. Maybe not ever. She just took and took, deepening the kiss until she got the full taste of him.

Her body recalled that taste, too, and the feel of Harley’s hand when he skimmed it down her back, urging her to move even closer to him. She did. Until her breasts were pressed against the hard muscles in his chest. That upped the heat even more, and she responded by taking hold of his jaw so she could do with his mouth exactly what she pleased.

A husky sound of arousal came from deep within his throat and he apparently was after some pleasing, too, because while he kissed her senseless, his skimming hand went lower and lower. He cupped her butt, pressing her so that she was right against his erection.

Ava upped the ante, too, and she lowered her mouth to his neck, trailing her tongue from the base of his ear to his throat. He groaned, cursed her and then stepped back.

His breath was gusting now. So was hers. And the heat was there in his eyes as he stared at her. She could sense his arousal in every part of her. But she could sense his hesitation, too, and, for one horrible moment, she thought he might say that this had to stop, that the timing was all wrong.

And it was.

But that didn’t mean they had to stop. It didn’t mean they had to try to work out what this might mean. Not right now anyway. Later, there’d be a price to pay for her seeking comfort in Harley’s arms, but “not right now” seemed an eternity away.

Ava kissed him again and had no plans to stop.

HARLEY HAD GOTTEN so caught up in the heat of Ava’s kiss that he’d forgotten one big important point.

That Ava was pregnant.

But he sure as heck remembered it when he felt things start to escalate. A big-time escalation since she was adding some touching to the kisses. Her hand was wandering down the front of his shirt and heading to his jeans.

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