by Julie Miller
“Don’t be so arrogant.” Annie reached up to wind her fingers around Nick’s wrist. She found the warm beat of his pulse and pressed the pad of her thumb against it, wanting to soothe the guilt that tightened his features. “He was twice your size. Both of those men could have come back and outnumbered—”
“Nobody messes with me.” The terse statement left no room for reasonable argument. “Or the things I care about.”
Their hands froze in unison—his cupping the side of her face, hers clinging to the solid strength of his arm.
He cared about her? Annie couldn’t quite process that. In the months they’d worked together, she and Nick had never done anything but argue. He was all about instincts and street connections—she was all about factual proof. Oil and water were never going to mix. She was still getting used to the idea that she found Nick attractive. Caring couldn’t enter the picture yet.
Perhaps feeling the same sudden awkwardness she felt at this growing intimacy, Nick pulled away at the same time she did. But as she clung to the strap of her purse across her chest, Nick glanced over his shoulder toward the hallway behind him. Annie forced her brain to make proper sense of Nick’s words and actions. She wasn’t the one Nick cared about. Nick was worried about the investigation. And possibly his sister. “Is Nell in real danger?”
“He hasn’t hurt her yet, or gotten her involved in anything illegal. But that doesn’t mean he won’t.” Swagger returned to his posture and the contentious edge returned to his voice. “She says I’m overprotective. I don’t know anything else but being a cop, and the guy I saw with his hands all over her raises every red flag in my book.” He muttered a swearword before dialing his emotions back a notch. “Annie...I was on the phone with a friend of mine from the gang squad, checking up on this kid, when I heard you yelling for help. You and I are supposed to be on the same team, and I wasn’t even working the case with you. I let you down. I should have known something was hinky when Galbreath and Foster didn’t come back. I should have checked it out. On any other day I would have, but my head was somewhere else.”
“You were worried about your sister. If I were in your place, I’d have been distracted, too.”
“Don’t make excuses for me.”
“I don’t make excuses. I look for explanations. There are always reasons why things happen the way they do—if we look hard enough.” So his concern wasn’t personal. The touching was all about guilt. And she’d been an idiot thinking for even one moment that there was some kind of personal connection here. Suddenly, logical arguments were easy to find. “We didn’t know about the fake cops. We had no reason to suspect there was any danger. You didn’t let me down.” Nick was shaking his head, ready with more ammunition to make his point and accept the blame. “You chased the guy away before he could steal my camera or find the swabs in my pocket. You drove me to the hospital before I lost too much blood and got me the stitches I need so I won’t be nicknamed Scarface.”
“Scarface.” Nick laughed and the atmosphere between them changed again. “That’d be a shame.” He fought once more with the stubborn curl, brushing his finger across her skin. “It’s a pretty face. I’d hate to see anything happen to it.”
Pretty? Annie couldn’t keep up anymore. Was he teasing? Flirting? Was this man her friend? Her enemy? A coworker? Something more? She had to ask. “What’s going on between us here, Nick? I’m confused, and I don’t like it when I don’t have answers.”
“If I figure it out, I’ll let you know.” She wasn’t sure if it was reassuring or disconcerting to learn that Nick didn’t understand this weird chemistry that had developed over the past six hours, either.
And then, with a deep exhale that fluttered across her cheek like long-suffering resignation, Nick leaned in and pressed his lips against hers. For one startled moment, Annie froze. Her eyes opened wide, tilting up to seek his. But then his fingers tunneled ever so gently into her hair and he drifted closer, urging her head back, demanding a response.
Her eyes shuttered at the curious intent of his lips moving over hers, coaxing her to give in to the taste of his tongue sliding across the seam of her mouth. Daring her to ignore the electricity of the charged air that separated their bodies by mere inches. Inviting her to join him in this little bit of crazy.
Annie’s surrender was slow in coming, but surprisingly eager once the walls of logic and routine guarding her actions crumbled and an answering desire surged through her blood. Her fingers curled into the buttery-soft leather of Nick’s jacket, and her mouth softened to cling to the firm heat of his kiss.
Random observations flowed through her senses and imprinted on the brain cells inside her head—coffee and sweet cake flavored his tongue. His lips were supple, masculine, thorough. The stubble that rasped against her skin was prickly soft and scented like crisp winter air and earthy heat.
She hadn’t kissed a man since the debacle of Adam dumping her. And she’d never been kissed with the raw, driving need that powered Nick Fensom’s kiss. She wasn’t sure how to answer that kind of potent emotion other than to hold on with both hands and answer every exploration of his tongue, every press of his lips, every breath, every pulse beat. Her hips hit the table behind her. The floor swirled beneath her feet. His heat swallowed her up.
This was all too fast. Too much. Totally wrong.
His hand slid behind her waist, anchoring the swell of her bottom as his thighs butted into hers. A guttural noise hummed in her throat as Nick’s chest rubbed against hers, seeking contact through the layers of coats and clothing they wore. The tips of her breasts sprang to attention. Arrows of fire zinged through her body from his chest to his fingers to his lips and everywhere in between. She’d never felt this aware. This alive. This right.
His fingers tightened against her scalp, accidentally tugging her hair.
“Ow.”
“I’m sorry.” He shifted both hands to cup her face, taking another kiss between each apology. “Sorry. So sorry.”
But the sharp jab of pain beneath her bandage was the wake-up call Annie needed. Her murky thoughts cleared as though an overhang of snow had just plopped inside the collar of her coat.
Kissing Nick Fensom—kissing anyone like this—was completely out of character for her. And a huge mistake on so many levels.
She pushed with the fists bunched in the front of his jacket, opened her eyes—both literally and figuratively—and dropped her chin to pull her mouth from his. Stop. The plea stuck in her parched throat. Her reaction made no practical sense. She was grappling with Nick in a tiny hospital exam room the same way Roy and his girl friend du jour had been ringing in the New Year outside her apartment door. And they’d been drunk.
Annie knew better.
“Nick...” Oh, snap. Yes, that breathless gasp had come from her throat. Since when did she do breathless? What kind of sense did that make—to forgo reason and slip so far out of control? She made such an easy mark for future awkwardness, hurt and humiliation. Pride gave her a little bit of backbone. Remembered abandonment and disappointments gave her something more. Annie tilted her face to Nick. “What was that?”
His chest heaved in and out as he spread his arms out to either side, stepping back as if he’d been called on some kind of charging-into-personal-space foul. “A kiss?” His gaze zeroed in on her parted lips and silent pants, perhaps assessing her reaction. “What did you think it was?”
Some subconscious part of her brain must have broadcast encouragement because he shifted his stance and leaned in again. But that impulsive part of her brain didn’t get to be in charge. Not for long. And neither did Nick. With a resolute huff that denied him any further welcome, she palmed the center of his chest and pushed him firmly away. Annie needed cool air between them, room to think and prioritize.
“I’m asking why. For months now we’ve barely gotten along at work, and now you...”
“Seriously? You can turn it on and off just like that?” He raked his fingers through his hair,
turning away, then facing her again. “You ask too many questions.”
“You kissed me out of guilt. Or you needed consoling because you were worried about your sister.”
“Consoling?”
“Stress makes people do things they normally wouldn’t. It could have been leftover adrenaline or...” She swallowed her next hypothesis and concentrated on what was really important here. Whatever was behind that kiss didn’t matter. “I need to get to the lab. So if you want to help me—”
“The men you date must be gluttons for punishment.”
“I don’t date. I don’t make out like some kind of hormonally charged teenager with a man I can’t stand, either.”
“Can’t stand?” With a deliberate flick of his wrists, Nick smoothed out his jacket where she’d crushed it in her fists. “You seemed to like me well enough a second ago.”
“I work.” Ignoring the obvious, uncomfortable proof of her willing participation in that embrace, Annie tried to reestablish order in her world. “I focus on my work. I get results. I find answers. I need answers.”
He propped his hands on his hips, assuming the adversarial stance she was more familiar with. “All work and no play? Sounds lonely.”
He had no idea. But at least she wasn’t hurting the way she had a year earlier, or even ten years ago when her parents had died. “Nick, that can’t happen again. We have a job to do. You have to promise.”
With unblinking intensity, those blue eyes studied every nuance of her expression. Annie curled her fingers around her bag, fighting the urge to look away from the probing assessment.
“You are some piece of work, Annie Hermann. A lot more complicated than anything I’m used to.” And then, for some inexplicable reason, he grinned. “Keeps me on my toes, I guess.” The sudden lightness in his expression was so surprising that she didn’t immediately protest when he pried her fingers from her purse. Wrapping his hand around hers, he pulled her toward the hallway. “Let’s go run the gauntlet.”
“Your family?”
“I heard my mom and grandma mention something about chicken soup.”
“For me?” Annie stopped in her tracks, pulling her hand free. The Fensom family was Nick times ten. And he was more than enough for her solitary self to deal with right now.
Nick turned with a weary sigh. “Is friendly concern against your scientific principles, too? You know, sometimes people just do what feels right. They don’t stop to calculate how it’s going to affect the future. My family’s like that. They’re good people.”
“I wasn’t insulting them. But we just met. They don’t even know me.”
“Call it guilt by association. If I’m taking care of you, they’ll want to help, too.”
“Why?”
“Damn it, woman...” His hands sliced through the air, emphasizing the frustration in his tone. “There isn’t always a reason. It’s just what families do. They support each other.”
“I’m not family.”
The frank, unadorned statement halted the hand-speak and softened his expression. “If I promise not to let them all show up on your doorstep at the same time, will you stop arguing every little thing and just let me take you home?”
“To the lab,” she corrected him.
His shoulders deflated with a weary sigh. But those blue eyes were smiling. “Right. I’m driving you to the lab. Come on, slugger.”
This time, he didn’t try to take her hand. Instead, he shortened his stride to walk beside her into the hospital’s waiting room. And as the greeting and concern of Nick’s family swarmed around them again, Annie was painfully aware that while he offered her the support of a comrade-in-arms, he’d never made that promise not to kiss her again.
Chapter Five
“Are you sure you want to chauffeur me around for another twenty-four hours? Maybe you need to check in on your sister. You haven’t seen your family all day. Or eaten a meal.”
Seriously? She was going to try that cutesy schtick on him now? Nick shifted the Jeep into Park, ignoring Annie’s winsome smile. Ceaseless debate hadn’t gotten rid of him at the hospital or the crime lab, and feminine charm wasn’t going to dissuade him now.
“You asking me out to dinner?”
“No.”
“Do you have a car to get to work in the morning?”
“No, but that’s because you wouldn’t take me to mine.” She pointed to the brownstone apartments across the street. “You know, once I’m inside, I can still call a cab and go get my car after you leave.”
“No, you won’t.”
Annie muttered something distinctly unfeminine and sank back in her seat. “You are leaving, right?”
Nick leaned back in the heated seat, surveying the fenced-in parking lot with its empty guard booth and security gate where he’d swiped her resident card to raise the plastic guardrail that was more about privacy than protection. Frustration radiated off her in waves at his silence, and Nick grinned. If she hadn’t learned yet what a stubborn son of a gun he was, she’d understand soon enough.
The light at the far end of the lot flickered on and off with the gusting night wind, and the streetlamps outside the lot were spaced far enough apart that they left plenty of shadows where a perp could scale the fence without being seen to jack a car, do some vandalism or commit an even more personal crime. He’d be on some landlord’s case about standard safety expectations if any of his sisters lived here.
The smile was back when she tried to reason him out of his protective penance again. “You said you live over near Raytown. No way is this a convenient drive from there.”
He scrubbed his hand over his jaw and watched the flakes of snow gather on his windshield where they melted and ran down to pool against the wipers. He was bone tired, in sore need of a shave and in no mood to go another verbal round with Annie. But the woman wouldn’t quit.
“I can take Blue Ridge Cutoff by the stadium and get home in no time. It’s not like there’ll be any baseball games there this time of year to back up traffic.” He thought she’d been mulling over the crime scene pictures she’d copied at the lab once Mac Taylor had cleared her camera and pulled the memory card for her. But maybe she’d spent the last twenty minutes of the drive across town cooking up ways to get him out of her personal space. Like that was going to happen. “Besides, you’re downtown, practically at the back door of precinct headquarters here. Once I pick you up in the morning, the drive to work will take us no time.”
Did she just roll those amber eyes? His sister Nell had an irritating penchant for doing that. But Nick couldn’t recall ever being this aware of his sister’s eyes. Annie’s were darker now, like a fine whiskey. Did she even know how their color changed, from light golden hazel to nearly brown, according to her mood? And why did he know that? He was beginning to think the sparks that had been flying between them for months now—since being assigned to the same task force—had more to do with some sort of dormant attraction that was waking, despite his best efforts, than it did with any differences in their personalities or investigative styles.
Annie’s scent filled up the closed space of the car—a mix of antiseptic from the lab and something more subtle, like lavender and vanilla, that stirred the air with every bounce of those dark, velvety curls. He was a damn fool for noticing all those little feminine details about the eccentric scientist. This crazy pull to the woman stewing in the seat across from him could become as dangerous a distraction as his worry over Jordan Garza dating his sister.
And while Nick had made the mistake of letting personal feelings get in the way of doing his job once already today, he wasn’t about to make that mistake a second time. No matter how the complex, combative brunette got under his skin and messed with his head, he was determined to watch over her.
With that much of a New Year’s resolution firmly in place, Nick turned off the engine and opened the door to let a blast of frigid air swirl in to cleanse Annie’s fragrance from his car and his senses.
Tightening the scarf his mother had knitted him for Christmas around his neck, Nick hunched his shoulders against the cold and circled the car. Before he could reach her side, Annie was already out, opening the back door to retrieve the new evidence kit she’d brought home from the crime lab. Next thing he knew, she was striding toward the exit gate.
Nick locked up the Jeep and hurried to catch up. “Where are you going so fast?”
“Um, home?” She trudged through the ankle-deep snow gathering on the sidewalk. “Thanks for dropping me off. See you in the morning. Good night.”
He plucked the boxy black case from her hand and wrapped his fingers around her upper arm. “I’ll walk you in.”
“Give me that.” Although she tugged against his grip, Nick’s hand didn’t budge. “The doctor didn’t say anything about my not being able to walk.”
“I want to get a look at your place, see what kind of security you’ve got.” He paused to look both ways along the vehicle-lined street before plunging into the snow that drifted against the curb. It was an old habit of his from his tenure working gang enforcement to count cars and make a quick scan of models and colors. That’s when he noticed the two men sitting in the black SUV half a block away. “Hell of a cold night to spend it waiting in a car.”
“Then go home where it’s warm. May I have my kit, please?”
He tipped his head toward the SUV. “I’m talking about those guys. Do you know them?”
She leaned forward to peek around him. “I don’t think so. But it’s too dark to get a good look at their faces.”
“That’s why you need more lights around here,” he muttered. “What about the car?”
“It doesn’t look familiar. But then, I don’t know everyone in the neighborhood.” Suddenly, her fingers had glommed onto the sleeve of his jacket. “You don’t think it’s him, do you? The man from the alley? Did he and his partner follow us?”
Nick eased the death grip on his sleeve and pulled her into step beside him to cross the street. “No.”