“What about us?” Charley wanted to know.
Alice moved her shoulders in a vague, incomplete shrug. “Well, the way he looks at you sometimes…”
“Nick Brannigan, doesn’t look at me any differently than the other members of the team do,” Charley said dismissively.
Alice surprised her by not backing down or agreeing. Instead, she laughed softly. “Oh, I don’t know. Do you like him?”
“Alice, you’re getting very personal here.”
Contrition was immediate as it flooded Alice’s eyes. Charley felt guilty for having brought it on. “Sorry. It’s just that I guess I don’t really have a life,” Alice confessed. “So I like peeking into other people’s lives occasionally.”
Wandering through the small living room, avoiding Charley’s eyes, Alice looked around at the decor. There was a cluster of framed photographs arranged neatly on a side table. She drifted over in that direction, picking up a framed photograph that was in the center. Holding the frame in both hands, she turned it so that Charley could see which one she’d picked. “Is this your family?”
Charley looked at it for a moment. Remembering. Alice was holding the photograph taken at her graduation. At their graduation, she corrected silently. Hers and Cris’s. David was home on leave. He and her father flanked the three of them, Cris, their mother, and her. She was standing beside her brother. Miraculously, all of them were smiling. It was a rare shot.
Six months later, Cris was dead.
“Yes.” The word felt tight in her throat, Charley thought. This was her family. Had been her family. They weren’t like that anymore.
“Your sister looks just like you.” Alice raised her eyes. There was a slight flush of embarrassment. “I mean looked.”
Charley raised her eyes sharply to the woman’s face, then realized that of course Alice would know that Cris was dead. After all, like she had said, as the A.D.’s secretary, she was privy to all the information in and about the task force. Including the fact that Cris had been the first victim.
“We were identical,” Charley told her.
Very gently, she took the framed photograph from Alice and looked at it for a moment before returning it to its place.
Alice turned toward her, a wistfulness in her eyes. “Must be nice, having a family.”
“Must be,” Charley couldn’t help echoing. As far as she was concerned, she now had fragments of a family. Fragments that she believed in her heart could only be pulled together by catching this killer.
“You’re not drinking your soup,” Alice chided softly. Picking up the container, she handed it back to Charley. “It’ll get cold.”
Because the secretary had gone out of her way, Charley took another sip. The soup’s temperature was dropping quickly. Under Alice’s watchful eye, she took a second, longer sip.
Behind her, from the bedroom, Charley could hear Dakota scratching on the door, impatient to get out. The dog rarely did that. But then, she remembered that she hadn’t taken Dakota out when she came home. Poor thing was probably wondering what was going on.
Alice’s eyes darted toward the bedroom. Her entreaty was silent. Charley knew the woman was asking her not to let the dog out. She didn’t like confining Dakota this way. It was bad enough that, except for the teenager she paid to take Dakota out around three o’clock, the dog had to stay in all day while she worked.
Jittery, as if filled with an energy that had no channel, no recourse, Alice moved about the living room touching knickknacks, straightening papers on the coffee table, moving the television guide turned sideways on top of the set.
“Can I do anything for you while I’m here?” she offered, glancing at Charley over her shoulder. “Get you anything?”
“No, I’m fine, really. You’ve already done more than enough. I just—” As she began to beg off, saying she was really tired, the doorbell rang.
Alice looked startled by the sound. “Are you expecting anyone?” she asked.
“No, but then, I wasn’t expecting you, either.”
Alice moved in front of her, blocking her access to the door. “You don’t have to answer,” Alice told her softly. “Whoever it is will go away.”
Very firmly, Charley sidestepped her. “You didn’t,” she pointed out. The woman meant well, Charley thought, but she really didn’t like the way Alice was trying to take over.
Her hand on the doorknob, Charley looked through the peephole. The person standing on the other side filled it completely.
Nick.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
A SECOND AGO, she’d been tired, a little achy and somewhat irritable. All that faded in the face of the excitement that came rushing out of nowhere. She told herself she was being adolescent and blamed it on her cold and her desire to have Alice leave.
The feeling didn’t fade.
Charley yanked open the door. “Hi. What are you doing here?” She purposely worded her greeting to echo the one she’d given Alice, so that the other woman wouldn’t feel slighted.
“I stopped by to see how you were doing.” Crossing the threshold, Nick saw Alice. Mild surprise passed over his face as he nodded toward her. “Alice.” And then he turned back to Charley. “Looks like I’m not the only one checking up on you.”
“Alice brought me chicken soup.” Charley raised the container she held in her hand.
“Oldest remedies are the best.”
From his tone, Charley couldn’t tell if he was being serious, or droll. He glanced toward Alice.
The woman offered a spasmodic smile that disappeared from her lips almost as it appeared. She looked awkward again, as if she wasn’t sure what to do with her hands, her arms, her torso.
Alice backed away toward the door. “Maybe I’d better be going,” she murmured.
This time, Nick’s voice was warm as he protested, “Don’t leave on my account.”
Alice’s tongue darted nervously along her lower lip, moistening it before she spoke. “No, really, I just wanted to drop that off.” She nodded at the container Charley was holding. “I hope you feel better,” she interjected before abruptly turning on her heel.
“Thanks, I—” But her words had no one to receive them. Alice had fled, pulling the door closed behind her. Charley turned toward Nick, an amused expression on her face. “You really frighten her, don’t you?” He’d told her about the telephone incident. “Just exactly how much did you yell at her?”
He had the good grace to seem slightly repentant. “It was just a couple of words. Unfortunately, they weren’t the kind of words you could find in a Victorian dictionary and our Miss Sullivan seems to be very, very prim and proper.” Moving toward the front door, Nick tried the lock to make sure it had taken. Satisfied, he scanned her apartment. “Where’s your furry friend?”
A smile teased her mouth, spreading to her eyes. “I thought I was looking at him.”
“The dog.” The sound of nails urgently scratching against wood underscored his question. Nick looked at her, his brow furrowed. “You locked her up?”
“Not by choice,” Charley explained. “She made Alice nervous.”
Nick reached the bedroom door first, opening it. Dakota burst out as if she was afraid that the door might be shut again. The animal immediately began to wag her tail and dashed back and forth several times, as if she couldn’t decide where to go and how to celebrate both her liberation and the appearance of her rescuer.
Laughing at the unabashed display of affection, Nick ruffled the dog’s fur.
“The Pope would make Alice nervous.” He glanced toward Charley to see if she agreed. Receiving no argument, he added, “Never saw a woman more skittish than the A.D.’s secretary. It’s like that old expression, she seems to be afraid of her own shadow. You’d think working at the Bureau would give her a feeling of security.” His mouth quirked into a grin as he said, “I mean, if big, powerful FBI special agents can’t protect you, who can?”
She liked having him here. Liked having him pet
her dog, fill up her air with his manly scent. Liked watching his mouth as it curved into a sexy smile.
God help her, she wasn’t supposed to think like this. Not about her partner. Not about a man who had made a point of saying that they could keep things very casual. What she was feeling right now was anything but casual. She wanted to stop talking and start making love.
Had to be the fever.
Except, she noted ruefully, she didn’t have one.
“Been reading our recruitment package again?” she finally managed to ask, hoping her playful tone masked her feelings.
“Memorized every word when I was a kid.” Dakota was brushing up against him as if she were a giant cat. Charley cringed when she thought of the amount of dog hair Nick was going to find on his pants once he really looked down. “This was all I ever wanted to be.”
Content that he was going to remain, Dakota trotted off to the sofa, hopped onto it and made herself comfortable in her favorite corner. Laying her head on her paws, she continued watching him until her eyes drooped shut.
“Really? Not me,” Charley confessed. She’d toyed with the idea of going into law enforcement, but on a smaller scale. “But then, everything changed after Cris was killed. I decided that being an FBI special agent was the only career choice I could make.”
He’d seen her dedication, knew how focused she was on bringing in the Sunday Killer. But that only took her to a finite point. “What happens after we catch the guy? If we catch the guy,” he qualified.
There was no if. She couldn’t allow herself to believe that, to even mildly entertain the possibility that, though more crimes went unsolved than solved, this particular series of crimes would join that group. She wouldn’t allow it.
“When we catch the guy,” Charley corrected. “I don’t know. I’ll probably continue being a special agent. Where else can you start out with the word “special” attached to your name?” she laughed. And then she grew serious. “I like making a difference and this is the best way I know how. Besides, I’ve gotten to like the people I work with.”
“Like the people?” Nick echoed. Very carefully, he took the half-empty container out of her hand and put it on the table. His eyes never left hers the whole time.
“Yes.” She smiled. She was flirting, she thought. She was actually flirting. Wow, this was a first. “Some of them.”
His body was only a fraction from hers. Somehow, he had managed to slip his hands to the swell of her waist. Positioning her closer. Charley could feel her blood heating.
“You know,” he told her slowly, his eyes still holding hers, “I’ve been having trouble sleeping since last Sunday.”
Me, too.
She measured her words out slowly, so that he wouldn’t hear how breathless she’d suddenly become. “They have pills for that.”
His eyes were smiling into hers. “Not for this.” His arms pulled her in closer than a sigh. The next moment, he lowered his mouth to hers.
Charley could have sworn she heard the strains of the “Hallelujah Chorus” echoing somewhere as she sank into the kiss. The moment that she did, a sense of urgency burst forward. Urgency and hunger. She wrapped her arms around him, raising herself up on her toes.
She’d only been in a holding pattern these past few days, pretending that she was unaffected by what had happened on Sunday. Pretending that it had been just one of those pleasurable things and not to make too much of it.
She’d never been much good at pretending. She knew that all the while she’d been holding her breath, waiting for this to happen again.
But it couldn’t. Not now.
With a huge pang of regret, Charley wedged her hands against his chest. When she pushed him back, he looked at her in confusion.
“Nick, you’ll catch my cold,” she protested.
His laugh was deep and rich, like the first cup of black coffee on a cold winter’s morning.
“I’ll chance it,” he told her. “Besides, that they do have pills for.” Nick kissed her again. Over and over, shattering her reluctance while firing up his own desire. “Unless of course you don’t feel up to it,” he added, after what seemed like a blissful eternity, his breath skimming her lips.
Any noble thoughts of walking away for his sake melted away in the heat of his mouth. If she stopped now, she knew she was in genuine danger of withering away and dying.
Nick felt her grin as it spread out on her lips, touching his.
“Hell of a way to die, Brannigan,” she told him, her eyes laughing. And then she sighed. “Can’t think of a better one.”
Damn but he wanted her. Desire pulsed through his veins, hardening his body and filling his head with improbable thoughts. And all the while, he felt like smiling. Hell of a mess he’d gotten himself into, he thought, enjoying every second of it.
“I’ll see what I can do about keeping you alive,” he promised.
Alive. That was how he made her feel, Charley suddenly realized. Alive. Completely and utterly alive. Alive the way she hadn’t been before. He brought sunshine into her world. Sunshine and hope and a host of emotions she couldn’t even begin to identify.
The moment his lips had come down on hers, all she could focus on was making love with him. Of racing to that final moment when all the fireworks went off simultaneously.
And yet she wanted to linger on the path as well. To savor the way he made every inch of her flower with awareness.
She loved the feel of his hands as they passed over her, touching, claiming. Arousing. She cautioned herself to slow down, but she couldn’t.
He made her feel insatiable.
“Your body’s hot.” His words were thick as he stripped away her clothing.
Twisting and turning against his hands, absorbing every pass, she found she had trouble concentrating as she tried to follow suit and remove his clothing as well.
“You might have something to do with that,” she told him.
He stopped and looked at her. There was a note of concern in his voice when he spoke. “Are you sure I’m not pushing you?”
“What I am sure of—” her voice was low, husky, as it struggled past the desire that seemed to fill every single pore “—is that if you don’t make love to me, Special Agent Brannigan, there’s going to be a dead body found here and it won’t be mine.”
He laughed then. She felt the sound echoing within her own chest. Tickling her. Stimulating her.
When he smiled, the man was the personification of sin. And sin had never taken on such a tempting, pleasing form or seemed so delicious.
“Your wish,” he told her, pressing a lingering kiss to the hollow of her throat, causing her pulse to jump even higher, “is my command.”
For the next few hours, Nick made her forget about everything. Forget about her cold, about the serial killer she was so determined to bring down. Forget her very name. He made her forget everything except for the haven he had so unexpectedly and expertly created for her.
A haven where she could pretend she belonged, at least for a little while.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
THE INTERIOR of the sedan she was sharing with Nick seemed smaller somehow. More confining than usual. Staring out the window, Charley drummed her fingers on the armrest. The restlessness pervaded her.
This wasn’t like her.
She was supposed to be concentrating on the reason why they were sitting parked across the street from a dilapidated apartment building, waiting for the appearance of a man someone had tipped them off about this morning. A man whose face matched the one in the sketch they’d been circulating.
But all her thoughts kept centering on the man beside her. No matter how hard or how many times she tried to refocus them, they would just return to Nick. To the way he’d been the other night when he lit up her sky, not to mention every inch of her body.
Sitting here these past few hours, she’d become aware of every breath Nick took, of the faint scent of his soap, of the shampoo he used. Aware of absol
utely everything about him.
It made her very uneasy.
She’d never been in this place before. Never been attracted to anyone so much that everything else, everything, took a back seat. Never spent any time before wondering whether or not the night would find them together in each other’s arms. Never wasted moments wondering what a man was thinking. Or agonized over whether she was just being a fool or if something good had finally come her way.
What was she, eighteen? But even at eighteen, this hadn’t been her. Why was it her now of all times?
It was too much to deal with, given everything else. She didn’t have time for this, to feel this unsteady, this ambivalent. The case was supposed to be of paramount importance right now, nothing else. Solving this case meant life or death for the next possible victim. She had to remember that, had to keep her mind on the goal and not on the way Nick’s hands felt as they moved along her body.
Her teeth sinking into her lower lip, Charley shifted in her seat. It was too damn hot in this car.
“You’re quiet,” she heard Nick comment. “You’re never quiet. Something wrong, Charley?”
Yes, you’ve upended my whole damn world and I don’t like it. She shrugged, still keeping her attention on the front of the building they were watching. “Just thinking.”
Nick touched her face, breaking any concentration she struggled to maintain. When he softly brushed his thumb along her cheek, she had no choice but to look at him. If she hoped to summon a poker face, that hope died a quick death.
“Don’t think too hard, Charley,” he teased quietly, his mouth curving ever so slightly. “You’ll wear your brain out.”
His eyes spoke volumes, but she wasn’t sure what they were saying. Right now, she was at a crossroads. She didn’t actually know what she wanted from him. Or from herself.
And then she saw Nick stiffen. He was looking over her head.
“What?” Was he going to tell her not to get hung up on him? That he was one of those guys who came and went out of a woman’s life, leaving an indelible impression but nothing more of himself? She was pretty sure she already knew that.
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