Nancy Bush's Nowhere Bundle: Nowhere to Run, Nowhere to Hide & Nowhere Safe. Nancy Bush

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СКАЧАТЬ daughter whose real parents were probably crazy, too. Hathaway wasn’t quite good enough for blood.” Liv looked into his face, so close still; he hadn’t backed away from her. “To Grandview Hospital.”

      He stared at her. “Are you saying your brother was at Grandview when Dr. Navarone was there?”

      “That’s what I’m thinking.” Liv moved slightly away from him. Being so close was becoming unnerving.

      “So . . . does Hague know something about Navarone?”

      “I don’t know. Hague’s hard to read.”

      “What did he say to you?”

      They keep their hands in their pockets and wear rigor smiles.... He’ll drill holes in your head and he’ll put receivers inside the folds of your brain.... We both know him . . . from when we were kids...

      She shivered, remembering.

      “What?” Auggie’s gaze sharpened on her.

      She shook her head. “He doesn’t know much more than I do. Less, probably. He’s not really in touch with reality.”

      “You showed him the package.”

      “He barely leaves his apartment.”

      “But maybe he’s involved somehow, at some level. Could he have any—”

      “No!” Liv cut him off. “He doesn’t have anything to do with this. My brother’s sick, but not like that. He wouldn’t hurt anybody. He was a baby when my mother died! And the only place he goes is to the ground-floor cantina in his own building.”

      “But it sounds like he crossed paths with Navarone at Grandview. Maybe something got kick-started then that involves Hague. Maybe—”

      She pushed him. In the chest. In sudden fury. He staggered back a couple of steps.

      “Hey,” he said, affronted. He’d been so wrapped up in his train of thought that she felt he’d forgotten she was there.

      “Leave Hague out of this,” Liv ordered. “It’s not about him.”

      “Well, it kinda is,” he argued. “He didn’t kill your mother, sure, but there’s a connection there.”

      She wanted to clap her hands over her ears. No! Not Hague. Not her little brother.

      “If this Dr. Navarone is the man in the picture with your mother, and she sent you these photos, photos you showed to your brother who was a patient at Grandview Mental Hospital about the same time Navarone was there . . .”

      Liv didn’t respond. She was wrestling with anxiety and a sudden fear that she might not want to know the truth after all.

      “When you showed your brother, and his girlfriend, caretaker, whatever, and your father and stepmother, the photos in the package, they saw this guy. The stalking man in the photo. And you told them you were going to look into your mother’s death, and so maybe . . . somehow . . . word got back to him?”

      “I don’t know for sure they’re one and the same,” Liv said, backpedaling.

      “We need to find this Navarone.” Auggie was certain.

      “We,” she repeated.

      “We’ll go to Grandview. So it’s an elder-care facility now. Someone there might remember, or at least direct us to Navarone.”

      “Why are you doing this? What do you care?” she demanded, her voice rising.

      He stared at her for a long moment, then slowly leaned forward, grabbing her by the forearms and pulling her gently toward him. She resisted, holding back, until her feet actually stumbled a bit as he drew her closer.

      “What are you doing? Let go of me,” she said in a voice that sounded high and alarmed to her own ears.

      “Stop fighting. Let me help you,” he stated with repressed urgency.

      “Do I have a choice?”

      His face was way too close to hers. “Maybe not. You dragged me into this, and now I’m committed. I have to know how it ends.”

      “How it ends?” She half-laughed. Definitely hysteria creeping in this time.

      “I’m going to kiss you,” he said.

      She reared back on that one, eyes wide. “No . . . I . . .”

      But her protests were lost beneath his lips on hers. Liv stood stock still, completely shocked. She told herself to move but her brain and body felt disconnected. All she could really feel were his lips molding to hers, his thighs pressed to hers, his hands sliding around the small of her back.

      She didn’t want him. She didn’t. She didn’t want any man. But her traitorous fingers were clenched on his arms, feeling taut, sinewy muscle beneath. Her mind fractured. Too many sensations bombarded her at once: his lips, his hands, his shallow breaths. No, those were her breaths, rapidly growing in tandem with her heartbeats.

      His mouth was hard and soft and warm and his tongue teased at the crease of her lips.

      She wasn’t sure how this had happened. She didn’t want it to stop.

      She opened her mouth to protest and his tongue moved in, taking it as an invitation. The feel of his tongue was warm and slick and the way it filled her mouth did something to her knees. They quivered wildly and she would have sunk down, but his arm was a bar around her back, keeping her lower body hot against his.

      She could feel his arousal. It was all she could think about. She’d put on her jeans and a clean T-shirt but it felt as if there were nothing between them. Her bones had turned to liquid. Her skin felt sensitized. Somewhere in her mind she knew she should resist, but she couldn’t. This was nothing like anything she’d experienced before and she suddenly wanted it. Wanted it. If she died tomorrow, she was going to have this. Now.

      He sensed her capitulation and half-walked her, half-dragged her to the couch. They didn’t say a word to each other. One moment they were kissing and bending toward each other as if they wanted to fuse bodies, the next they were both naked and she was feeling the cushions of the couch meet her bare buttocks and shoulders.

      And then he hesitated. As if second thoughts had finally penetrated the blinding passion that consumed them. “I—don’t—” he began.

      “Shhh . . .” She dragged his mouth down to hers.

      It was all she needed to say. His body pressed against hers, his hands sliding along her sides, one of them caressing her left breast convulsively. Her hips rose of their own accord and his other hand slid between her legs, stroking her in a way that sent her pulse skyrocketing and made her desire flame along her nerves.

      Hurry, she thought. Hurry. If something happened—anything—to interrupt them, she didn’t think she could bear it.

      And then he was poised at the brink of fully taking her and she wanted to yank him forward. Somewhere distantly in her brain she sensed that if things didn’t СКАЧАТЬ