“I’m not gonna lie, I’m glad to hear that.” He reached out to pull her into his arms. “I was thinkin’ about you all night, sweetheart.” He closed his eyes as he lowered his head. “It was makin’ me crazy, thinkin’ about you bein’ here with him.”
She dropped her head against his chest. He was making it so hard for her to remember why she had to keep shutting him down. Instead of responding, she reached for his hand. “Come on, you can watch Golden Girls reruns with me.”
He groaned. “Do I have to?”
“Yes.” Tori reached for the blanket and wrapped it around her shoulders before leading him back into the great room. She snuggled up in a corner of the deep leather sectional and patted the spot beside her. “Come join me.” She’d been on edge all day and she just wanted to relax in his strong arms and forget about her troubles for a while.
Before he could claim the spot beside her, the phone at her elbow rang. He glanced at the caller I.D. before looking at his watch. “Unknown caller at one in the mornin’? This could be him.”
Her heart had just resumed a normal rate when it started racing again. “What should I do?”
“I’ve got it covered. Just try and keep him on the phone as long as you can so we can trace the call, okay?”
Tori nodded before taking a deep breath and picking up the cordless to connect the call. “Hello?” She listened to the first several seconds of the song ‘I’ll Be Watching You’ before the line went dead. She shuddered as she let the phone fall from her hand. “Jesus,” she whispered. “He’s not gonna give up, is he?”
Mike grabbed the phone and hung it up before he sat down and pulled her back against his chest. He positioned the blanket over their bodies. “Tell me what he said.”
She closed her eyes and leaned her head against his shoulder. “Nothing. He just played that song ‘I’ll Be Watching You.’ Remember that one?”
“Sure, by the Police.”
She turned around at the same time they realized he was probably trying to send both of them a message. “You think he knows you’re staying here with me?”
“My guess would be yes.”
“What are we gonna do? How are we gonna stop him?”
“Don’t worry about that, just leave it to me.” He tucked her head under his chin as he rubbed her shoulders. “This guy may think he’s smarter than me, but trust me, he’s not. Eventually, he’s gonna slip up, and when he does, I’ll be all over him.”
“Will you be able to trace that call?”
“Probably not, but I didn’t expect him to make it that easy for me. He’s gonna make me work for it, no doubt about it.”
“I’m so glad you’re here.” Tori wrapped her arms around his back. For the first time in a long time, she felt like she needed someone, and she was so grateful she had him to shoulder some of this burden. “I’m sorry about tonight.” She’d been feeling guilty all evening, knowing if the situation had been reversed, it would have driven her to distraction thinking about him with another woman. Whether she wanted to admit it or not, her feelings for this man were getting stronger every day, and it went beyond physical attraction. He made her feel safe and protected, but more importantly, he made her feel cherished and… loved.
“You don’t owe me an apology. This is your house. If you wanna invite some guy back here, you have every right.”
She’d never been one to run away from the truth, and she knew it was time to own up to her feelings about him. “I didn’t want to bring him back here because… I knew you’d be here.”
He pulled her into his lap so she was straddling him, looking down into his eyes. “Tell me more.”
It wasn’t easy for her to let her guard down, especially when he’d already broken her heart, but she knew she’d regret it if she took the easy way out this time. “I was thinking about you all night.”
Mike framed her face with his hands. “Me too. Hell, I couldn’t stop thinkin’ about you.” His hands slipped inside the neckline of her short silk robe, but she knew he was waiting for her consent before he took it any further.
“I know we said we were gonna work at bein’ friends…” She tugged her bottom lip between her teeth. “I have a lot of friends, but…” She’d never been the shy, reserved type, but she’d never had to be the aggressor in a relationship before either. “I haven’t had a lover in quite a while.”
“Is that what you want… for me to be your lover?” He grabbed her chin between his thumb and forefinger when she tried to look away. “I need you to tell me how you’re feelin’, baby. Not knowin’ is killin’ me.”
“I don’t want another one-night stand with you, but I’m not ready for a relationship, either.” She sighed. She knew this was coming out all wrong, but she didn’t know how to convey everything she was feeling for him without scaring him off. “It’s not that I wanna see anyone else. It’s just that I need to focus on this tour for the next little while.”
“I get that.”
Tori looked up, surprised. “You do?”
“Of course I do. I know how hard you guys have been workin’ to put this together. The last thing you need is a relationship to mess with your focus, right?”
She nodded. He seemed to understand exactly what she was thinking, how she was feeling. “There’s only one problem.”
“What’s that, darlin’?”
“My focus is already shot to hell.” Her eyes landed on his full lips and she wondered how any woman could be expected to spit out a coherent thought with that kind of temptation staring her in the face.
“Why’s that?” he whispered, threading his hands through her hair.
“I’ve been thinkin’ about what it would be like if we had one more shot… you know, no interruptions, no distractions, just you and me and…”
“And your big, empty bed?”
He pulled her toward him, coaxing her mouth down to meet his as she scraped her silk panties against his jeans, creating a delicious friction that nearly sent her soaring.
“The whole night just to explore…” He scraped his stubble against her sensitive nipples as he eased the delicate fabric over her shoulders. He pressed an open-mouthed kiss to her collarbone. “To taste…
“Mike… please…” She pulled his hair, not caring that it likely made his scalp tingle. He was making her whole body tingle, from the top of her head to the tips of her toes, and she didn’t know how much more she could take before she came completely unglued.
“You have to tell me what you want…” His bright blue eyes were only half-open, and he appeared to be as lost as she felt. “What you need from me…”
Tori brushed her peaked nipple against his parted lips, hoping he would see fit to show her a little mercy. She didn’t know how much longer she could survive in this aroused state of limbo.
He drew the tender flesh into his hot mouth, circling the peak with his tongue as she cried out and bucked against him.
“Just like that…” She threw her head back, her hands in his hair and the slow, controlled movements of his mouth the only anchors preventing her from dashing to the finish line.
Her hips were already gyrating involuntarily, but when he sensed she was too close to the brink, he’d hold her hips in place, forcing her to remain still until her body descended the summit just before it reached the peak. “Don’t do this to me. I need…”
“I need you, too,” he whispered before drawing the peaked point of her arousal between his teeth.
“Then take me.”
Mike smirked as he tipped his head back to look at her. “Anxious, aren’t we?”
She was almost embarrassed to admit it, but maybe if she told him the truth, he would understand why she couldn’t hold back any longer. “It’s been a while…” She felt the heat rising up her neck. “Months, actually.”
He grinned as his hand moved up to cup her breast. “How many months we talkin’, sweetheart?”
She closed her eyes, silently cursing his smugness. He proba
bly hadn’t gone a week without a woman warming his bed, but each of the three men she’d been with in the two years since she’d been with him left her feeling so disappointed and frustrated she couldn’t bring herself to take the risk again. “Six, okay?”
“Hey, look at me.” He brushed his thumbs across her cheeks. “I’m sorry I was so wrong about you.”
Tori was surprised he was willing to take her word at face value. “You mean you’re sorry for thinkin’ I took a different guy to bed every night?”
“I must’ve been the stupidest son of a bitch alive to let you walk out of my apartment that night.”
Her heart clenched at his admission. She’d been waiting so long to hear him say that. “I don’t want to think about that night anymore. I want to make the most of this night.” She licked her lips, praying he couldn’t feel how hard her heart was pounding under his hand. “Don’t you?”
“Hell, yeah,” he whispered, bringing her mouth down on his.
Chapter Eight
Mike had spent many sleepless nights imagining what it would be like to get a second chance to make love to Tori, to show her how much she meant to him, how wrong he’d been to make her feel like she was anything less than everything.
Now the moment was finally here, and his hands were trembling. He was the guy who put his colleagues to shame on the shooting range because his shot was so accurate, his hands so steady, his aim spot on, time after time. Yet here he was, in this woman’s arms, feeling more nervous than he had when he lost his virginity to the head cheerleader in the backseat of his old Camaro on the night of her junior prom.
“Let me take you to bed,” he whispered, kissing her neck. He wanted to take his time and love her the way she deserved to be loved tonight, the way he should have loved her the first time.
“Yes.”
Mike picked her up and carried her down the hall as she buried her head in his neck.
For the past two mornings, he’d paused in her bedroom doorway, watching her sleep, imagining what it would be like to feel her long, silky blond hair tickling his chest as his eyes opened slowly to admire the beauty in his arms. He swore if he ever got the chance to experience that, he wouldn’t waste a minute on recrimination or regret. This was about new beginnings, starting over. He may not have treated her the way she deserved to be treated the last time they were together, but now that he knew what he’d almost had and lost, he wouldn’t make the same mistake again.
She never took her eyes off him as he laid her down in the middle of her big four-poster bed and peeled his clothes off.
“Protection?”
Tori pointed to her nightstand and he leaned over to reach into the drawer. He broke the seal on the box and tossed a few of the small foil packets on the wood surface.
“Four? Should I be worried?”
He laughed. Only she could make him laugh when he was this aroused. “Baby, I don’t think I could ever get enough of you.” He rolled the condom on and loosened the tie on her robe. The only thing standing between him and the one thing he wanted more than his next breath was a silky pair of panties. “You are so gorgeous,” he whispered, peeling them down her smooth, lightly tanned legs.
She reached for him, but he grabbed her wrists, placing a kiss on each pulse point. “Just let me look at you. You don’t know what it does to me, seein’ my name on your…” He took a deep breath and found the courage to say the words that had been searing his lips every single time he saw her. “Tori, I’m fallin’ in love with you.”
“You don’t have to say—”
He silenced her with a deep, passionate kiss. “Yes, I do,” he said, when he finally pulled away. “I should’ve said it a long time ago. Hell, I knew it was true two years ago, and that’s what scared me. I knew you could destroy me.”
“I don’t want to hurt you,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him down for another kiss.
She hadn’t said she felt the same way, but he tried not to dwell on that as her body opened up to him, enfolding him in her heat.
“This…” she murmured, “this is what I needed, what I’ve been missin’.”
Her nails pierced his back as he kissed her neck. He thought all he had to do was eradicate her fear, stroke by stroke, and she would open up and let him into her heart.
“Baby, please…” He hadn’t realized the plea slipped past his lips until she kissed him again. She probably thought he was pleading with her to surrender to her inevitable release, but this went so far beyond their physical connection. He’d never been the first to say those three little words to a woman, never waited for a lover to say it back to him, but he suddenly realized how cold and lonely it felt on the other side of that declaration, wishing, hoping, praying the person you loved would love you back.
“Oh God, Mike…” The rest of her words were lost to the wave of her breathless climax, but he knew they weren’t going to be the words he wanted to hear. Not even cocooned in the safety of an intimate moment was she willing to let her guard down long enough to admit she loved him.
She bracketed his face with her hands. “Hon, what’s wrong?”
He closed his eyes, trying to take pleasure in the sweet heat she promised, but he couldn’t be satisfied with her body. Not if she wasn’t willing to give him her heart. For him, it was all or nothing. “Not a damn thing.” He still had his pride. He’d told her how he felt, and if she wasn’t able to reciprocate, he would never try to force it.
Tori raised her hips, threaded her hands through his, and looked him in the eye. “Make love to me.”
They weren’t making love, they were having sex again, and that insight hurt beyond anything he’d ever felt before. He loved this woman, he wanted her to love him back, but she couldn’t… or wouldn’t. “That’s not what you want, is it?”
“What’re you talkin’ about?”
“This,” he said, pounding into her ruthlessly, punishing her and himself for the feelings he should never have acknowledged. “This what you want? You wanna forget about life for a while…” He hated the look of her ecstasy he saw on her beautiful face, hated her for making him fall deeper in love with every second that passed. “You want me to give you what you need… a quick release… no strings attached.” His body and his heart were completely out of sync as the harsh accusations fell from his lips. “You don’t want me…” He thrust into her relentlessly, knowing she was claiming her pleasure despite his pain. “You just want this…” He gave into his own release on a guttural cry of frustration. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Having sex with her wasn’t supposed to end in a mind-blowing climax. Only making love with her, really connecting with her, was supposed to make him feel that way.
Before she could stop him, he eased off her body, picked up his clothes, and walked down the hall to the guest room. If he’d questioned it before, he didn’t now. His time in her life was meant to be brief. Once this case was over, he’d go back to his home, his life, and try once again to forget this night ever happened.
Tori listened to the sound of the shower down the hall. She kept hoping he’d come back, but when minutes slipped into hours, she knew he wasn’t. She could lie there and pretend she didn’t know what had set him off, but it was painfully obvious. He wanted her to acknowledge her feelings for him, but she couldn’t… not yet. Not until she knew she could trust him with her heart.
She had known him almost four years, and during that time, she’d seen him with dozens of women, each more beautiful than the last. Tall, exotic beauties or sexy redheads whose eyes shone with love that was so clearly one-sided. She didn’t want to be another one of those women who gave her heart to him, only to have him quash it when he tired of her. He’d done it once, but she’d be damned if she let him do it again.
Only one thing would prove to her that he was sincere: time. If he still claimed to love her weeks, months, years from now, maybe she could reveal the truth… that she’d fallen in love with him the first time he st
epped out of his father’s pool and smiled at her like he’d been waiting for that day as long as she had.
Since Mike couldn’t sleep, he decided to get up and make breakfast. Living alone meant he had to starve or learn to cook, so he’d eventually opted for the latter. Once the coffee was brewing, he started on the eggs and bacon.
Tori tiptoed into the room, looking sheepish. “I guess I overslept.”
Mike glanced at the clock on the stove. “It’s only seven thirty, not too late.” He didn’t want to engage in idle chitchat, but since they were living under the same roof for the next couple of days, he would have to work at being civil to her. Once they were out on the road, staying in separate hotel rooms, it would be easier for him to maintain his distance… and his sanity.
“Good thing we’re gettin’ a late start this mornin’.” She reached into the overhead cabinet and poured him a coffee. “A peace offerin’?”
“You don’t need to worry about makin’ peace with me. I understand the way it is.” It was killing him, but he understood perfectly. She didn’t share his feelings. For her, this was all about the sex. Any connection he’d felt had obviously been in his mind.
“I wanted to talk to you about tonight. My family’s comin’ over for dinner.”
“You don’t have to worry about me. I won’t be here.”
“Where will you be?”
“I have a date.” It was the truth, he’d made the date before he took the case, and he’d never gotten around to canceling it. Now he had no reason to. This thing between them obviously wasn’t making it out of the bedroom and he was tired of trying to convince himself it was.
He glanced up and felt the weight of his words hanging heavy in the air between.
“You have a date?” She glared at him. “You asshole. You take me to bed last night, tell me you love me, and you’re goin’ out with another woman tonight?”
“Like you give a damn who I go out with.” He was past the point of caring whether he hurt her feelings. After last night, turnabout was fair play. “You didn’t want me here anyways. I’m good enough to have sex with, but I’m not good enough to meet your family.”
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