Serious Risks

by Rachel Lee

  She looked up at him with a sweet trust that both tore at him and warmed him. She lifted a hand, tentatively, shyly, and cradled his cheek. All the liking he’d begun to feel for her rose in a rush and added a new dimension to his desire.

  He did not think of himself as desirable, as attractive to women. He had attracted only one woman in his life that he knew of. If there had been others, he had certainly never noticed it. From the moment he met Lucy, other women had ceased to exist. Until now. Until Jessica.

  And Jessica was touching his cheek as if she longed to touch him in other ways but didn’t quite dare, looking at him as if she needed him, sighing as if she were being transported by the simple touch of his thumb to her lip.

  Bowing his head, he found her mouth with his. She welcomed him immediately, lips and teeth parting readily for his invasion. Sweet. She tasted so sweet, so warm, so alive! And she kissed him back, thrilling him with her response, her eagerness.

  Little sounds escaped her as he took her head in his hands, cradling it to protect it from the hard surface beneath as he deepened his kiss. He let her catch a quick breath, and then he dived again, needing the heat, the welcome, the shy enticements of her tongue.

  Somehow her hands found their way under his shirt, and she caressed the bare skin of his lower back. They both froze at the exquisite sensation, gray eyes boring deep into brown ones, two people caught between one breath and the next.

  How long had it been, Arlen wondered, since last a woman had touched him in need? How long had it been since he’d felt a woman’s hands on his skin? How long since he had taken the time to satisfy a need of his own? Years. It had been too many years.

  “Jessie.” He whispered her name raggedly. “I’m being selfish.”

  Swollen pink lips smiled at him. “Mmm. Me, too.” Daringly, she ran her hands up his back as high as the shirt would allow her. “You have such warm, smooth skin,” she murmured. She wished her palms could soak up the feeling and permanently imprint it on her brain. Why had she never imagined how exquisite it felt to touch another person’s skin?

  Arlen shuddered and shifted, drawing her head onto his forearm, inadvertently pulling her hands around to his front. “Jess, don’t,” he mumbled as she explored the hard, flat plane of his stomach.

  “Don’t you like it?” she asked shyly, her hand pausing.

  “I love it,” he growled, then cursed his own truthfulness as she took him at his word. “Honey…not here. Anybody could come along the road….”

  Jessica heard him, and some part of her even acknowledged the justice of his warning. She was, however, caught up in the awe-inspiring magic of her woman’s ability to arouse a man. She’d never dreamed that she, Jessica Kilmer, could make a man tremble, could cause a man to groan and shudder as if from an internal earthquake. Nor had she ever suspected how good it could make her feel to bring pleasure.

  “Jessie…”

  “We’ll hear if someone comes,” she murmured, shifting still closer to him. Her own hungers were steadily building, growing from tingles to throbs, from craving to an ache. Whatever good sense she might have was rapidly drowning in all those wildly new sensations.

  “Oh, damn,” he groaned and rolled onto his back, carrying her with him so that she lay sprawled across his chest, her tempting, tormenting hands caught between them. He couldn’t let this go any further because it could end up being the most awful experience of her life. She had no notion of how she would feel if someone did come upon them, but he could guess. And more, she deserved a better, safer setting, a calmer lover and plenty of time. He had to be strong for them both.

  “Jessie,” he muttered. “Jessie, honey. Later. Later. Okay?”

  “No.” Her voice was muffled against his shoulder, and he felt her stiffen against him. “No.”

  His sigh was nearly a groan as he battled for restraint, control and sense. “Why not?” he asked. “What’s wrong with later?” He sounded impatient, which wasn’t bad, considering.

  “You’ll change your mind,” she mumbled.

  A smile caught at the corners of his mouth and tugged them upward. Suddenly he didn’t feel anywhere near so impatient or frustrated. “We’ll see about that,” he said.

  After lunch Arlen felt drowsy, surely the fault of a nearly sleepless night spent wrestling with himself. When he caught Jessica smothering a yawn, he lay back on the rock and patted his shoulder.

  “Use me for a pillow, Jessie. It looks like we could both use a short nap.”

  He was touched by the way she didn’t even hesitate but immediately curled up beside him, her head on his shoulder, her hand on his chest.

  God, he’d missed this! How could he have forgotten what a comfort it was just to be able to hold another human being? Maybe he’d forgotten because during that last year he had held Lucy to comfort her, and in return had felt only a deepening of his anguish and sorrow. And, finally, there had been the last time he’d held her. The night she died, he’d held her, talked comfortingly to her, making sure she didn’t die alone.

  Until Jessica Kilmer, Arlen Coulter hadn’t touched another soul except in the most casual ways—a handshake, a kiss to his daughter’s cheek, a pat to his son’s shoulder. He’d cut himself off completely and probably would have stayed that way, safe in a desert of isolation, if not for Jessie. Somehow, he acknowledged with a kind of rueful dread, she’d managed to make a place for herself right inside his walls.

  Well, she wouldn’t stay for long. He wasn’t sure why she was attracted to him, but he suspected it had more to do with his job and his experience than with anything about him personally. At some point she was bound to decide he was too old, too scarred and too much trouble. At some point she was bound to realize that she wanted all the normal things, things he couldn’t give her. Off she would go, and she would find a man nearer her own age. Which was just as it should be.

  Closing his eyes against the brilliance of the midday sun, Arlen dozed off, vaguely aware that he hadn’t felt so content in one hell of a long time.

  When they awoke, the afternoon was nearly gone and the northern horizon bore the blue imprint of an approaching cold front.

  “We’d better get back,” Jessica said as she studied it. A lifetime in Texas told her that a blue norther would hit in the next couple of hours, bringing with it a significant temperature drop. Her thin cotton blouse would offer scant protection.

  Arlen stood on the rock, hands on his hips, and studied the blue wall. “It’s amazing,” he said. “I swear this must be the only place on earth where you can see a cold front.”

  “Naw,” Jessica said with a gentle laugh. “They see northers in Oklahoma, too. Maybe the only reason you don’t see them back east is because you have so many trees.”

  “I have to admit,” Arlen said as he turned, “that’s one of the things I miss about the East. Lots of big trees. Especially in autumn.”

  “What else do you miss?”

  “Real Italian sausage.” He jumped down from the rock and reached up to help her. “Bagels fresh from a bakery at six in the morning. Those bagels they sell downtown almost make it, though. Almost.” He closed his hands around her waist and lifted her down. “Hot pretzels. Snow.”

  Still holding her by the waist, he bent and kissed her lightly on the lips. “Yeah,” he said huskily. “Snow. Mostly snow at Christmas. Snow falling like fairy dust in the dark, muffling the world in silence while you curl up in front of a fire and make love with your lady…”

  He had given up the fight, he admitted. Further argument with himself would be self-deluding. He wanted this woman, he wasn’t going to be able to resist her forever, and since she wanted him, too, there was no point in fighting it any longer.

  So he wrapped both his arms around her, drawing her full length snugly against him as he cupped her bottom. Bending, he brushed her lips with his and watched as her eyelids fluttered downward. “Think that norther will get cold enough for a fire?” His voice was a husky growl, and he felt he
r shiver in response.

  “Who cares?” she asked breathlessly, feeling as if she were already on fire. “I’ll turn on the air-conditioning to make it cold enough, if I have to.”

  Arlen chuckled and hugged her tight before releasing her. “Only a Texan would think of something like that,” he teased.

  After he helped her into her helmet—as if she were precious, Jessica thought—he insisted she wear his bomber jacket. “If that storm hits before we get back to town, you’ll need it, Jessie.”

  The jacket smelled of Arlen, of man and soap and leather. Sitting on the back of the bike, arms wrapped snugly around his waist, she felt as if she were surrounded by him. Sheltered by him. Protected by him.

  She felt as if she were riding another motorcycle, too, an emotional one. Something had happened to Arlen’s resistance; something had caused a marked shift in his attitude toward a relationship between them. Where before he had made her feel like something he wanted but hated himself for wanting, now he just made her feel desirable. And that gave her the same headlong rush that riding this bike did, the same sense of excitement and adventure and happiness.

  It was also scary. Yesterday, just yesterday, she had gotten her first taste of the power of passion. She had discovered how it could override common sense and inhibitions and make a mockery of normal restraints. It was overriding her common sense even now, drawing her headlong toward an unknown destination. And there was no reason to believe that Arlen was being any more sensible than she was about this. That meant there might be regrets for both of them.

  And she really didn’t know how she would handle that. As they leaned into a curve, she felt her throat tighten as if in premonition. She wanted this, but she could very well wind up regretting it. She could wind up hurting, badly.

  Even knowing that, she knew she would still plunge ahead. She wanted this man with an ache so deep the only thing that could possibly hurt any worse was never having him at all.

  She was about to take the biggest risk she had ever taken in her entire life.

  Two hours later the Harley growled to a stop beside Jessica’s car in the MTI parking lot. The wind had begun to gust before the approaching storm, and the temperature felt as if it had begun to drop.

  Arlen helped Jessica off his bike and saw her safely buckled into her car.

  “I won’t follow you directly,” he said. He held her car door, preparatory to closing it for her. “There are a couple of things I need to do before I come over.”

  Her heart and her stomach both plunged, and her hands took the steering wheel in a death grip. “Okay,” she managed to say. He was having second thoughts. Next would come the apologetic phone call. He would say something had come up at work.

  Something of her feelings must have shown on her face, because he suddenly squatted beside her. Catching her chin in his hand, he turned her face toward him.

  “I may go to hell for this, Jessie,” he said, “but I’m not changing my mind. I really have to check in. I’ve already been out of touch too long. I’ll see you in a little while.” Leaning toward her, he placed a soft, warm kiss on her lips.

  She felt better, but only briefly. As she pulled out of the parking lot, she saw Arlen in her rearview mirror. He straddled his bike and watched her go, and there was something about that sight that made her feel achingly sad.

  The phone call came an hour later. He was sorry, he said, and sounded as if he really meant it. There had been some developments in a case that required his presence. He didn’t know when he would be free.

  “Jessie?” The question rumbled over the line, fleshed out by his tone though the words remained unspoken.

  “I understand, Arlen,” she said through stiff lips. Please, God, just let me get off the phone before my voice cracks. She couldn’t bear for him to know how much this mattered, how much it hurt. It was foolish, after such a short time, to care so much. A few days ago she hadn’t even known he existed, so how could his absence take on the proportions of a disaster? Pride kept her voice calm and her eyes dry, while a soul-deep disappointment pierced her.

  “Do you, Jessie? Do you really understand?”

  “Of course I do,” she said sharply. “You’re an FBI agent. Your work is important, and it isn’t confined to usual business hours.”

  “As long as that’s really what you understand, and you’re not imagining something else. I’ll call you when I’m done.”

  “Sure. Good night, Arlen.”

  That was when Jessica cried. She felt foolish for crying, but she couldn’t help it. A deep, hollow ache filled her, and it hurt too much to ignore. Curled up in a corner of the couch, she cried until exhaustion dried her eyes and carried her off to sleep.

  She’d had so little human warmth in her life, she thought as she drifted away. Was it wrong to want it so badly?

  Chapter 7

  Hours after Jessica fell tearfully asleep on her couch, Phil Harrigan stuck his head into Arlen’s office. “You ready to go, Arlen?”

  Arlen looked up from the notes he was making and shook his head. “I’ll be an hour or more yet, Phil,” he told the other agent. “Say, are you tied up Monday around noon?”

  “Not that I know of.” Phil leaned against the door frame. “Ed’s going to take the videotape we made tonight up to the U.S. Attorney’s office, but he doesn’t need me for that. You got something coming down?”

  “Looks that way.”

  “So count me in. I mean, catching a federal judge accepting a bribe from a local cop is a big deal and all, but it’ll wear off by Monday. You know me. I gotta have my adrenaline jolt.”

  Chuckling, Arlen leaned back in his deep leather chair. Like Harrigan, he wore jeans and a black windbreaker with the initials FBI plastered on the front, back and sleeves in bright yellow letters. Arlen was very much in favor of those windbreakers. It sometimes amused him to recall that he’d been shot at only once in his entire career, by a drunken hunter. He had been placing a surveillance camera in the Maryland woods to videotape an expected drop of classified documents by a suspected mole. Along had come a pickup full of hunters who, for some reason, had taken exception to Arlen’s activities.

  Knowing there were two possible sets of headlines that could come out of the encounter, Arlen had decided the director would definitely prefer FBI Agent Shot By Local Hunter to FBI Shoots Local Hunter. Consequently, he’d dived behind a log and waited for the hunters to tire of their game. A few years later, when the windbreakers made their appearance, he was foursquare in favor of them, because sometimes a simple thing could avert tragedy. To this day he felt those hunters would never have shot if they had known he was with law enforcement.

  Besides, in the heat of a crisis, when bullets were flying in every direction, blazing identification was essential. Not that he’d ever been in that situation. Not that he ever wanted to be. But he’d been in plenty of situations with that kind of potential.

  “On Monday,” he told Phil, “I want you to go to the Corner Pub on North Lamar, say about eleven-thirty. At noon a lady named Jessica Kilmer will arrive to meet a student named Greg Leong.” Reaching into his desk, he pulled out two photos, one of Jessica and one of Greg Leong. They’d been taken by surveillance cameras, so neither was really crisp, but they were good enough to make an identification from.

  “The lady,” Arlen continued, “has agreed to work with us as a double agent. I believe that Leong has been pressured to introduce a KGB agent to Ms. Kilmer. I expect the introduction will take place Monday at the Pub. I want you to get a good make on the person Leong introduces to her. Get a photo, if you can.”

  “Will she be wired?” Phil asked.

  Arlen shook his head. “I don’t see the point in it. Whatever introduction is made will be casual, and nothing of any real importance will be said.”

  Phil nodded. “What about a tail? You want me to tail the guy?”

  “Not this time. Later, if we need to, but I don’t want to risk rocking this boat in any way righ
t now, Phil. Something fishy is going on over at MTI, and I suspect this may be part of it. If it is, there’s more at stake than whether we can pick up one guy for asking Jessie Kilmer to pass classified.” Glancing at his watch, Arlen almost groaned aloud. It was nearly midnight, and by now Jessie was sure to think he’d turned tail. He returned his attention to Phil. “We’ll talk more about this Monday morning. Do you have any objection to partnering with Lisa on this one?”

  “No. Should I?”

  Arlen shook his head. “No, you shouldn’t, but you might, and this is one case where I don’t want any chafing personalities. It’s apt to go on for a long, long time.”

  Phil turned as if to leave, then asked, “This Kilmer woman. Does she live around here?”

  “She lives over on West Chestnut.” Arlen frowned faintly. “Why the interest, Phil? Is something bugging you?”

  Phil shook his head. “Nope. Just thought the name rang a bell. I suppose you’ll be wanting me to keep an eye on her?”

  “We’ll see.”

  Alone again, Arlen considered calling Jessie, then decided it was too late. Forty-five minutes later, he couldn’t stand it. He picked up the phone and dialed her number. It might be late, but waking her was better than letting her believe for another minute that he’d deliberately stood her up. Instead of ringing, however, he got a busy signal.

  Well, he thought, it was Saturday night, and for a Saturday night it wasn’t that late. He replaced the receiver and returned to his notes.

  Forty-five minutes later, uneasiness had destroyed all possibility of finishing up his notes on the night’s operation. Jessica’s line was still busy, and his uneasiness wouldn’t let him dismiss it. She could be talking to a friend. She could have taken the phone off the hook for some reason—like maybe she was really ticked off at him. He sure couldn’t blame her for that. She didn’t seem like the vindictive type, but then, how well did he really know her?