Madre de Dios, he would not do it.
He would not draw his weapon.
If only because the bastard's very presence, loathsome though it was, had prevented him from committing what would surely have been the most grievous mistake of his life. Even so, he could not find it within his heart to be grateful. Especially when that coarse gaze finally came to a halt—only to linger upon the floral fabric pooled within Teresa's lap...and the shadowy juncture of bare flesh above her knees.
No, he would not draw his weapon.
But he would speak. "The door was closed."
Hernández shifted his gaze from Teresa to him. The rutting heat flagrantly visible. "It was."
"It was also locked."
The chilling flicker was almost infinitesimal, but it was there, deep within the tech's eyes. A swift smile followed, no doubt meant to diffuse the situation. "Sometimes the latch doesn't quite catch." A thick shrug. "Sorry."
But Hernández was not.
Joe refused to allow his body to stiffen further as the lie grated across nerves already stretched to their breaking point. He knew full well what this man was thinking. The insolence in the technician's gaze confirmed it as the man looked to the bed—and the empty syringe lying upon it.
The flush of guilt in Teresa's cheeks. The guilt in himself.
All only served to strengthen their covers.
Her case.
Much as he might want to, he could not sabotage it. The agent in him refused. As well as the friend. Instead, he forced himself to hold fast as he watched that vile gaze return to the shadowy juncture of bare flesh. And, again, it lingered.
The interest unmistakable—as was the message.
"Well?"
The tech glanced at him—reluctantly. "Yeah?"
"You needed something, Hernández?"
Again, that over-wide smile. "I told you; it's Eddie."
He merely waited. He had no intention of becoming familiar with this man.
The technician's smile thinned, then disappeared altogether as the silence stretched out. He finally shrugged. "I came to let you know the refreshments are ready." He tipped his head toward the syringe. "Though it looks like you brought your own." Hernández looked to Teresa next, but she refused to acknowledge the man, keeping her seemingly unfocused gaze upon his torso instead.
She knew the game. They had played it before.
She would let him handle this much at least.
Joe moved close to the bed, leaning over to brush his lips against her temple as he retrieved the syringe and empty vial of sumatriptan before the technician caught sight of the tiny, harmless label. He tucked both into the hardened eyeglass case and snapped the lid shut before returning it to the leather bag at her feet.
That done, he leaned into Teresa once more. Close.
Familiar.
Thankfully, she did not flinch as he slid his right hand deep within the shadowy warmth, even as he skimmed the soft flesh of her inner thighs. The whisper of powder she wore stirred, swirling upward. By grace alone was he able to stop himself from inhaling—for how he had missed this scent. However, neither grace nor his own resolve could control the slight tremor to his hand as her deepening heat burned into the tips of his fingers. Even as he succeeded in ignoring the warmth long enough to hook the hem of her skirt and draw it slowly down her legs, he knew.
He would pay for this liberty later. In his dreams.
He did not, however, need to wait to know his intended audience was seething.
He could feel it.
Excellent.
For all his acting, the message was most real. This woman was his. Would always be his. At least as far as Eduardo Hernández was concerned.
He straightened, as if reluctantly, then turned and raised his brow as he pushed forth a cool, steady smile of his own. "If you would be so kind as to close the door on your way out?"
It was not a request. And for now, Hernández proved smart enough to obey.
The man left.
Teresa exhaled sharply along with him as he turned back to the bed. "That was close."
"Sí, too close."
She sighed. "Damn it, Joe, don't start. I just got rid of one headache; I don't need another."
The headache. His own head throbbed in renewed anger, as well as fear—for her. He narrowed his gaze upon the bag beside her feet. "Perhaps you would do well to consider what might have happened if you had been alone for the injection."
She stiffened.
A moment later, hurt crowded the relief from her eyes. Eyes that were not their familiar, mesmerizing blend of warm gold and soft green—but rather, a disconcerting shade of blue. For now, he ignored this. As well as the hurt.
He must.
¡Ay, Dios mío! Teresa knew better than he that the agony brought on by her migraines was even more excruciating in the moments that followed an injection. If he had not been present… If Hernández had been but a few moments earlier—
He closed his eyes.
"Don't." It was not pain that filled her eyes as he opened his, but fury. "I am not that stupid or that unprepared."
"Really?" He forced his voice to the barest of whispers, as well. "Then tell me, agent, why is there nothing inside your bag but your injection kit, keys, a brush and Teresa Santos' wallet?"
"That's what this is about? My weapon?"
This time, he simply raised his brow.
She said nothing. No doubt because there was naught she could say. No defense she could offer. For he had rifled through her bag while searching for the medication.
The Glock was not within the concealed compartment. Neither was her backup piece.
He allowed his gaze to settle upon her slender ankles in order to drive home his argument. Fine-boned and shapely though they might be, they did not support a holster. And this scrap of blue one might call a dress? Ha! These tiny white flowers may well be termed demure, but the fabric on which they sprouted was not.
This dress did not conceal. It clung. Everywhere.
Except where it dipped—and there, most dangerously so.
If that cloth shifted but a fraction of an inch, he would be gazing upon more than the silken curves of her breasts. He would be staring at the very feature he had not known existed until last night when he had spied her in her bath. A feature that had consumed his idle—and not so idle—hours since.
Again, he closed his eyes.
To sear the image of that heady oval mark and the tantalizing flesh beneath from his mind, sí. But also to cleanse his palette of flowing hair that now bore highlights designed to appeal to another, of a gaze deliberately hued to attract the lowest of beasts.
And to know she carried no protection against that beast?
"Lift my skirt."
He snapped his eyes open. Surely he had misunderstood.
"Go ahead. It's not like you haven't just had your hand halfway up my dress."
He clenched that same hand against her words, as well as the memory, but it did not help. Obviously, he was mistaken about the weapon. But still, he dared not risk another viewing. Most especially, a private one.
"Teresa, I—"
"Fine, I'll do it."
Before he could argue, she dragged the hem of her dress up those shapely thighs. Indeed, he managed to avert his gaze with but a spilt second to spare.
Exasperation filled her sigh.
He did not care. He was not even looking upon her and yet his body was already reacting to what lay just outside his vision. And his breath? Even from here, the soft scent of her powder assailed him anew, invading far more than his lungs.
"Damn it, Joe, just look."
He would not. But as he opened his mouth to tell her so, his eyes succeeded in wresting control from his resolve. They betrayed him, and thoroughly. By the time his hungry gaze had skimmed those shapely calves, he knew he could not have severed it if Hernández himself had chosen that moment to return, entire guest list in tow. Higher and higher, he took in that sa
tin flesh, until—
He blinked. That was no Glock.
But it was a weapon.
And a most distinctive one at that. While he did not recognize the leather sheath strapped securely to her inner right thigh, he did recognize the polished mahogany handle of the switchblade sheathed within. The gift he had presented to her upon their graduation at Quantico had annoyed her fiancé—and horrified her mother.
Teresa, on the other hand, had laughed.
But she was not laughing now.
Nor was he. Neither did the erotic symbolism of finding the blade sheathed so escape him. He wished to Dios it had, for it only served to arouse him further. To know the gift he had labored so long over choosing had spent perhaps years pressed intimately to her flesh was more than he could bear. Somehow, he managed to strangle the groan that threatened to expose him.
"Satisfied?"
Not in the slightest.
But this was not to what she was referring. And he cared too much for this woman to misconstrue her statement. He held firmly to the knowledge, their friendship as well, drawing strength from both in order to sever his attention from those mesmerizing thighs and focus it upon her face. "Sí, I am…satisfied."
"Good." She nodded crisply before jerking the fabric down. "Then let's get the hell out of here. We've got a job to do."
She was hallucinating again.
Frankly, Tess wasn't surprised. Bone weary exhaustion tended to do that to a person. Especially her.
She caved into the urge to rub her burning eyes with her free hand as she dumped the oval makeup kit into the jumble of toiletries on the bathroom sink. A few more seconds of fumbling and a close-up view through her now watery gaze confirmed that, this time, she'd managed to latch onto her contact lens case. She removed the twin lids and squirted the sterile saline into the wells, wincing as her fingers shook hard enough to splash some over the side and onto the electric razor that she'd given Joe at Christmas the year before.
What the devil was wrong with her?
First her reaction to Joe's haircut, then that near kiss her mind had conjured up, and now this.
Maybe she was losing it? That erotic little fantasy of hers in Eddie's guest room certainly pointed to the possibility. How could she have thought that Joe saw her as a woman, let alone that he'd wanted to kiss her?
For crying out loud, the man had never even made a pass at her. Not once.
Not in six years.
Tess capped the contact case, frowning as she turned away from that all-too-knowing mirror to peel her sundress up off her body. She left it in a puddle on the bathroom floor as she headed for the bed and the nightshirt she'd laid out. She dragged it on before sinking down into the twist of covers at the foot of the mattress.
Okay, there was the night Joe had slept in her bed.
He usually crashed on the couch. But he'd shot his first suspect during a major heroin bust earlier that day. As a former paramedic, taking a life had hit Joe especially hard. So he'd shown up at her door shortly after midnight that night, and had crawled into bed with her and fallen asleep in her arms.
Big deal. Where was the gray area in that?
Except…there had been a gray area, hadn't there? At least for her. It wasn't that she'd woken up wrapped snuggly in his arms the next morning, either. After all, she'd cat-napped in them once or twice. No, it had been his morning erection.
At least, that's what she'd assumed it was. While she wasn't exactly used to them, as a nurse she was aware they existed. Morning erections were perfectly normal in a man. Certainly nothing to be embarrassed about.
Still, she had let Joe silently extricate himself from her and her bed, and had watched him slip out of the room without letting him know she'd woken.
He'd seemed to need the space.
What he obviously hadn't needed or wanted at the time was her. Not sexually. Unfortunately, she'd been left wanting him. And not as a friend, but as a man.
For a moment.
Okay, for a bit longer. But not much. And she hadn't thought about it since.
All right, so that wasn't entirely true, either.
She had thought about that morning, and about Joe—as more than a friend. But never for very long. And never seriously. First off, there was his hair. As dark and thick as it was, she'd never been into men with long hair. She simply preferred it short.
Like it was now.
Tess bunched the tan comforter into her fingers as she fought to exorcise the growing need to thread them through the shorter silk. Yeah, she was definitely losing it. Why else was she suddenly, seriously, attracted to Joe?
And why after all these years?
For goodness' sake, he was finally serious about a woman. And it definitely wasn't her.
Some friend she was. The ugly inescapable truth was that she was jealous of whomever Joe had met.
The ache in her heart eased as she finally admitted it, if only to herself.
Was that the answer to their current problems? If they got the subject of his girlfriend out in the open, she'd be forced to face reality—and deal with it. Maybe then she'd be able to quell the traitorous, transitory emotions she'd been experiencing and resurrect the solid friendship that had seen her through the past few years.
It was worth a shot.
Anything to get Joe back. To get them back.
And if she had to share the man? So be it. If she'd learned anything these past, lonely weeks, it was that having part of Joe Cortez in her life was infinitely better than none of him at all.
He had been granted a reprieve.
Joe sighed as he retrieved the tin containing the fresh coffee grounds from the upper kitchen cupboard beside the refrigerator. Though he could not believe he had been so fortunate, it must be true. They had been home for over an hour, and Teresa had yet to mention those traitorous moments at the edge of Eduardo Hernández' guest bed.
The bed where he had very nearly lost his head.
As well as his heart.
Joe crossed the apartment's tiny kitchen to dump coffee grounds into the waiting filter. Who was he attempting to fool? Surely not himself. He knew full well that he had long since lost his heart to that precious woman a mere ten feet and one flimsy door away. He sighed as he flipped on the switch to the coffeemaker and leaned against the counter to savor his relief.
Whatever her reason, it was clear Teresa had chosen to put that near kiss behind her as she had their other close encounters through the years.
He should be grateful.
Perhaps their deep friendship had given strength to the decision. Or perhaps the look he had seen in her eyes in that guest room had not really been desire at all. She had been wearing contacts. Perhaps the jarring color had distorted his view.
Perhaps.
At the moment, it did not matter which. All that mattered was that she had not discovered his true feelings. Perhaps he should press his luck with Miguel. There might yet be time for a low, swift call to his brother as he waited for Teresa to remove her contact lenses and change her dress.
And if she chose that moment to return and overheard?
No. It was not worth the risk
He turned to the refrigerator before his need to phone his brother in the middle of the day overrode his judgment, his gaze automatically avoiding that damnable calendar and its rapidly dwindling days as he reached inside for the bowl of grapes. He set the bowl upon the counter beside the cream, sugar and cocoa he had already retrieved. But as he turned back to the refrigerator and leaned down to slide open the meat bin and withdraw the package of ham, he tensed.
Teresa. She was behind him.
Watching, waiting.
At least this time there was no Glock to his head.
He took the ham from the bin, straightening as he closed the door.
His first mistake.
He turned from the calendar—only to commit his second error as he bumped squarely into Teresa. He reached out automatically, wrapping his free arm aro
und her. While he did succeed in righting her before she fell, he also succeeded in securing a truly mesmerizing view down the vee of her nightshirt.
That mark.
The whole of it was clearly visible. As was the areole of her breast. A breast that, along with its ripe twin, was now pressed intimately into his chest. ¡Ay, Dios mío! He swore he could feel those tempting tips hardening and pushing into his flesh despite the fabric barrier of both their shirts. His breathing ceased.
But his heart did not.
Indeed, it thundered within his chest, heating his pulsing blood that much more as he stood. Holding, staring. Unable to move. Much less release her.
"Th-thanks. I'm—uh—fine."
When he failed to release her, Teresa pulled herself free from his arms on her own, the flush to her cheeks barely registering amid the fog in his brain as he shifted his attention to the stove, the cupboard. Even that cursed calendar.
Anywhere but at her.
"Joe? Are you okay?"
He forced himself to refocus upon her as she entered into his view, only to find that mesmerizing mix of gold and green staring back, concerned and caring. The mist in his brain thickened. He shook his head, trying to clear it. When this too failed, he dropped his gaze to his hand, staring blankly at the contents.
Ham was not white.
"It's provolone."
"¿Como?"
"You know—cheese?" As he glanced up, her lips curved, obviously mistaking his lingering confusion. "That's what it looks like…without hair growing on it."
The warmth in her smile succeeded where her gaze had not.
Though his mind was thick with unseemly thoughts, he managed to respond. He returned the cheese to the refrigerator and turned to face her, determined to cover this latest of lapses. "I am not that bad a housekeeper or cook."
But he was, and this woman knew it.
Her smile blossomed. "Yeah, right. Care to remind me again why I had to bundle you up—doubled-over and suffering from stomach cramps, as well as alternating chills and sweats—and wedge you into the passenger seat of my car at two a.m. last Thursday and drive you to the emergency room?"
Just Beyond Reach Page 7