All a Man Can Do

by Virginia Kantra

  He moved one hand between then and cupped her breast, and her blood rose. She could feel him through his jeans, against her belly, feel him rising, too. She smiled with pure pleasure against his mouth, not thinking at all, and rubbed against him. He made an encouraging sound deep in his throat and kissed her some more, hot, wet, urgent kisses, while his palm grazed her nipple through the fine ribbed undershirt she wore.

  She wrapped one leg around him, desperate to get closer to his strength, to his heat, and he shifted somehow so that she straddled his muscled thigh. Good, she thought. More. He said something—she was pretty sure it was her name— and pushed down the neckline of her undershirt. Her breast popped out, all eager, and just for a moment she looked down, and the sight of Jarek's long, blunt-tipped fingers on her plump breast shocked her back to reality.

  She wanted this. Wanted him.

  And the realization scared her.

  "Stop," she said.

  His fingers flexed. "What?" He sounded distracted.

  "I think we should stop," she said, hating the idea.

  And he did.

  Just like that, she thought, both relieved and faintly insulted. He released her, and tugged her shirt gently up to cover her breast and shoved his hands into his pockets.

  "Why?" he asked.

  She struggled for distance. "Is this a cop thing? Asking questions? Do I have the right to remain silent?"

  "You have any rights you want. Including the right to say no. But I'd like to know why."

  Her hands were shaking, and she didn't have any pockets to hide them. "I'm not what you want," she blurted.

  "You're kidding, right?"

  She glared.

  He nodded. "Not kidding. Okay. You want a look at the evidence?"

  She glanced at the front of his jeans and then jerked her gaze away. Her face burned. "I didn't mean sexually. Maybe it's possible for you to compartmentalize what you're feeling. Maybe that's part of your job, I don't know. But I can't. I won't. I have to figure out what an involvement would mean."

  His eyebrow lifted. "Does it have to mean anything?"

  She hugged her arms tight, covering her breasts. "Are you offering me casual sex, Denko?"

  "If I do it right, there won't be anything casual about it."

  The images fired her brain. The air left her lungs. Tess opened her mouth to breathe and then realized she was gaping at him like a fish and closed it again.

  "Sex for sex's sake?" she said, trying to come across as cool and sophisticated and instead sounding confused. Or even, heaven help them both, intrigued.

  Those clear gray eyes caught hers. "It's a place to start," Jarek said.

  "But I don't know where we're going," Tess protested. "I don't even know if I want us to go anywhere. Look at this place. Look at me. You've got me picking up newspaper, for crying out loud."

  He frowned. "I didn't ask you to straighten the paper."

  "Well, no, not exactly. That was an example." She flapped her hand in frustration. "I just meant, you're the kind of guy who's responsible for things. You're committed to your job and your mortgage and your daughter, and I can't even commit to a house plant."

  "Have I asked you for a commitment?"

  "I—" Deep humiliation swept through her. "No."

  "Right." He took his hands out of his pockets. "Do us both a favor. Stop worrying about what you think I want. Decide what you want. And if you want this—" he gripped her shoulders and kissed her, firmly, briefly, on the mouth "—you know where to find me."

  She listened to the click of her door echo in her quiet apartment. Of course she wanted this. Wanted him. What red-blooded woman in her right mind wouldn't? And apparently she could have him, too, without guilt or expectations on either side.

  The thought left her flat.

  Tess sighed and went to mop her bathroom. It would be a cold day in hell before she admitted what she really yearned for to Jarek Denko.

  Or even acknowledged it to herself.

  Chapter 8

  "What are you drinking?" Jarek asked.

  Bud Sweet eyed the specials chalked over the bar at the Blue Moon. "Well, that depends. Is the department buying?"

  Jarek hid his irritation. "This one's on me."

  He listened impassively as his lieutenant ordered the most expensive import on the board, trying hard not to dislike the man.

  Tess's voice popped into his head. Maybe it's possible for you to compartmentalize what you're feeling. Maybe that's part of your job.

  You bet, honey.

  And Jarek was not about to let his impatience with Sweet—or for that matter, his attraction to Tess—interfere with him doing his job.

  "Coffee," he told Tim Brown. He glanced toward the bar. "Mark DeLucca not in today?"

  "He had some training class at the hospital at four," the bar owner said. "He'll be on tonight. Can I get you anything else?"

  "We're good, thanks."

  "You think that's safe?" Sweet asked as Tim left their table. "Giving DeLucca another crack at the Logan girl?"

  Jarek sighed. He was here to caution Sweet, on neutral turf and out of hearing of the rest of the department. But the veteran officer seemed determined to spoil the cooperative mood Jarek was striving for. "Laura Baker's at the hospital. Besides, we don't have any proof that DeLucca's our man."

  Sweet snorted. "Right. And I'm not Santa Claus, but that doesn't stop my grandkids from expecting presents at Christmastime. I say lock him up before he hurts somebody else."

  "Teresa DeLucca seems to think he couldn't have done it."

  "Oh, yeah. The sister. There's a character witness for you."

  "I take it you two don't get along?" Jarek accepted his coffee from Tim Brown with a word of thanks.

  Sweet took a pull at his beer. "Is that what she told you?"

  "What should she tell me?"

  "Who knows? The DeLuccas were always troublemakers. The father was a brawler, the mother was a drunk and the boy was a punk."

  Holy St. Mike. Jarek absorbed this latest information like a blow, trying not to let the shock show. Tess's mother an alcoholic? But it made sense. Perfect sense when he considered Tess's protective attitude toward her brother, her lack of trust, her determination not to take on the responsibility of another family, even her habit of ordering club soda.

  But Jarek still didn't see how Tess's "good child" role, which frequently fell to the oldest in an alcoholic household, jibed with Bud Sweet's verdict on her family.

  "And Teresa DeLucca?" he asked quietly.

  "No better than she should be." Sweet set down his bottle and leaned forward confidingly. "I busted her once for shoplifting."

  "How long ago?"

  "I don't know. I was just a rookie."

  Sweet had been on the force almost twenty years, Jarek reckoned. Which meant Tess had to have been in her early teens.

  I had my first ride in a police cruiser when I was fourteen.

  Regret slid under his ribs like a knife. Ah, Tess. Oh, hell.

  "What did she take?"

  Sweet leaned back against the padded bench. "Some kid's toy. How should I remember?"

  "You don't seem to have any difficulty recalling her family's other problems," Jarek said levelly.

  Sweet scowled. "Look, don't bust my balls. Big city cops don't understand how it is in a small town. You stick around long enough and you'll see things different."

  "Not so differently that I'd judge someone before I've got all the facts."

  "You can't be taking their side in this."

  "There are no sides," Jarek said. Okay, "Us" versus "Them" was built into the job. But the same professionalism that made cops band together was supposed to eliminate personal prejudice from their dealings with the public. "Our department serves the citizens of Eden. All the citizens of Eden. Whatever our personal feelings may be."

  Sweet leaned over the table. "See, now, if I were you I'd want to keep personal feelings out of this discussion, Chief. Or are you going
to tell me that wasn't Tess DeLucca seen coming out of your house on Sunday night?"

  The protective rage that licked along Jarek's nerves took him by surprise. But he kept his gaze steady and his tone even. "I'm not telling you anything, Sweet. Except that as long as you're a member of this department, you'll behave with professional detachment on the job. And I expect to be kept in the loop on this case. Do I make myself clear?"

  "I do my job. I've done this job for twenty years. Nobody comes along and tells me to do it any different. Who the hell do you think you are?"

  "I'm your boss," Jarek said. "And on my watch, you do as I say."

  Sweet muttered something—See how long that lasts was Jarek's guess—and eased his bulk from the booth.

  "Thanks for the beer," he growled, making the courtesy sound like an insult. "Boss."

  He swaggered from the room.

  Tim Brown stepped over to collect the empty bottle from their table. "You don't want to take anything that Bud says too seriously."

  Jarek looked up at the bar owner: forty-plus, neat, with regular features and close-cropped brown hair. A "nice guy," Tess had called him.

  Jarek shrugged. "After twenty years on the force, the man's entitled to his opinions."

  Tim topped his cup with hot coffee. "I meant about the DeLuccas. Mark's all right. And Tess—"

  Jarek narrowed his eyes. "Just how much did you hear?"

  Tim laughed. "Bartenders hear everything. We're like priests that way. Or hairdressers. Anyway, the parents weren't worth much, but Tess is a good girl."

  Jarek wondered how Tess would react to hearing herself described that way. "You know her well?"

  "Not as well as the previous owner. From what I heard when I bought the place, Tess was always in here, bringing Dizzy—that's Isadora DeLucca, the mama—home. Girl knows what she owes her family."

  He sounded approving. Jarek just felt sad, thinking about a half-grown Tess taking on the responsibility of a drunken mother and a troubled younger brother. I raised one family already. I'm not interested in taking on another.

  Hell, he knew that. That's why he'd suggested simple sex.

  He smiled wryly to himself. Yeah, and hadn't she jumped at that offer.

  Maybe it would be better for everyone involved if he concentrated on his daughter. Focused on the investigation. Keep personal feelings out of it, he'd told Sweet, and it was good advice.

  Only then he got this image of Tess, the laughter in her eyes and the softness of her mouth and her body, hot and tempting in that skinny ribbed undershirt she'd had on the other night, and he thought, I want this.

  All he had to do was keep his relationship with her neatly separate from everything else, the way he'd always divided his family life from his work, and his sex life from his family, and he could have it all. Do it all. Have her.

  He took an unwary sip of coffee and burned his mouth.

  She was not waiting for the phone to ring, Tess assured herself as she stood on a chair to reach the top of her crowded bookshelves. She was doing some overdue cleaning, that was all. A thirty-year-old woman, a professional, a reporter, had the right to a clean apartment.

  Jarek's deep voice reverberated in her memory. You can have any rights you want.

  Her arm jerked, and she sneezed on a cloud of dust.

  She hopped off the chair to attack the next shelf. Ayn Rand was cheek to cheek with C. S. Lewis, mystery competed for shelf space with the latest chick lit from Britain. There was her Lakeland Award "For Excellence In Local Journalism" the bronze-and-black plaque read next to a rare picture of Mark at seven, scowling distrustfully at some other mother's camera. She touched the dusty glass with her finger.

  There were no pictures of the two of them together, no hovering parent to capture birthday shots and vacation snaps. Of course, there had been no birthday parties or vacations in the DeLucca family, either.

  Tess set the frame down with a crack. She really needed to get more pictures for her apartment.

  The phone still didn't ring.

  She finished dusting and ran her wheezing vacuum, emptied wastebaskets and stacked the last armload of newspapers by the kitchen door for recycling.

  I didn't ask you to straighten the paper, Jarek observed.

  Go away, she told him crossly in her head.

  Her heart cried, Call me.

  She struggled with the dead bolt on the back door, grabbed her garbage and stomped down the half enclosed steps to the Dumpster in the alley. Up and in with one bag. Up and in with two.

  The sudden noise and movement spooked a black shadow under the Dumpster that scuttled toward her feet.

  Her heart stopped. Rats?

  But it was only a black cat, young and bandy-legged.

  Tess's heart resumed beating. "You scared me."

  The cat gave her a look out of pale green eyes—Hey, you scared me first—sat by her feet and proceeded to wash. It was very dirty, or maybe not particularly well fed, because its coat was harsh and almost gray in places.

  She bent cautiously to pet it.

  It crouched away from her hand.

  "My mistake," she said, straightening. Rejected by a stray, for crying out loud. "It won't happen again."

  She went back for the recycling. When she reached the landing, she glanced over her shoulder. The cat was watching from the bottom of the stairs.

  Tess opened a can of tuna fish and balanced it on top of her stack of newspapers. Well, she didn't want some stray eating out of the Dumpster, did she?

  Dumb, DeLucca, she thought as she picked her way down the steps. That cat is probably halfway to Wisconsin by now.

  But it wasn't. It was sitting right where she left it, in a patch of sun that showed up its scrubby fur and those white whiskers, startling against its little black face.

  When it smelled the fish, it made a rusty sound, more squawk than meow, that surprised them both. Tess set the can on the ground by the bottom of the stairs. The cat picked delicately and then started bolting the food.

  Great. She hoped it wasn't going to throw up.

  She watched for a moment before turning to sort her recyclables into the fiberglass igloos provided by the town of Eden.

  This time when she went back upstairs, the cat followed her. Tess stopped on the landing. "Sorry, kitty. You've got the wrong apartment."

  The wrong idea.

  The wrong girl.

  From half a flight up, through her open apartment door, she heard her telephone ring. Just for a second, she felt the way she had in high school, when Danny Lipinski called and for one crazy moment she'd actually believed that the president of the student newspaper might ask wild Tess DeLucca to the prom.

  She sprinted up the stairs, lunged for the door, and snatched the ringing phone off the wall. "Hello?"

  "Tess, it's Jarek."

  She leaned against the kitchen counter, trying to disguise her heavy breathing. The last thing she wanted was for him to think she was some kind of phone pervert. "Well, good morning. What can I do for you?"

  "Come to the station," he said. "I have a story for you."

  Tess clutched the receiver. A story was good. A story was better than a date. Wasn't it? She wanted to keep things professional, and Jarek was treating her as a professional.

  But as she stood in her kitchen, feet cold against the linoleum, she had the same drop in her stomach she'd felt when she finally realized that Danny Lipinski only wanted her help with his English paper. She'd given him the help, Tess remembered, and charged him twenty bucks for it. Her first earnings as a writer.

  She cleared her throat. Swallowed her hurt. "What kind of story?"

  "A follow-up article."

  Confusion joined the mess of emotions churning inside her. "To your profile? But that won't run until—"

  "To that motorist safety tips thing you wrote."

  "Another public service piece?" she asked doubtfully. Her editor wasn't likely to go for that. "I don't think—"

  "I'm no
t going into this over the phone," Jarek said, his voice tight. "Get down here."

  Tess sucked in her breath. He sounded serious. "I'm on my way."

  She hung up the phone. But when she turned to shut the door, the black cat was there, crouched low, one paw over the threshold.

  In or out?

  Stay or go?

  Tess fidgeted. She didn't have time to wait for some alley cat to make up its mind about whether or not she could provide a suitable home life.

  The cat slunk in, keeping close to her cabinets.

  "Don't look so worried," Tess told it. "It's not like you can stay. I don't think the building even allows pets."

  The cat sent her a deeply suspicious look and hunkered down by the refrigerator. Its shoulder bones stuck up sharply from its back.

  Okay, fine. Just because it was in her apartment didn't mean she had to keep it. But there was no way Kitty was going to let her pick it up, and she didn't have the time or the heart to chase it.

  She closed the back door, shutting the cat into her kitchen, and grabbed her purse and went out the other way.

  "So, what's the story?" Tess demanded, planting her round, firm rear end in the ugly chrome frame chair that the town of Eden accorded to its public servants.

  Jarek's mouth twitched. What did he expect, a "hello"? Did he really think she would ask how he was doing or why he hadn't called after practically jumping her bones two nights ago?

  Hell, she probably didn't want him to call. Phone calls suggested a relationship, an involvement, and Tess had made it plain she didn't want to be tied to a man already bound by a demanding public job, a twenty-year mortgage and a preteen daughter.

  Or was it that she didn't expect him to call? Didn't think enough of herself, or him, or that mind-blowing, blood-heating kiss to think that it warranted a how-are-you the morning after?

  Maybe she hadn't even noticed. She was a beautiful, vibrant, young woman. Maybe enough men had groped her in her living room that—

  Tess frowned in apparent concern. "Are you okay?"

  No. He was out of his mind.