by Susan Sey
“Patrick,” she said, drawing his name out into a verbal eye roll. “You know what I mean. This place is gorgeous, but it’s generic. You could sell it tomorrow. This isn’t a home, it’s an investment.”
Patrick dropped ice cubes into a crystal glass, and splashed an inch of aged, single-malt whiskey over them. Her footsteps rang hollowly as she wandered farther into the room, and as he crossed to her with the glass, he took a moment to memorize the sight of her in his house. Had he imagined her here? He hadn’t meant to.
“Darling, naïve little Liz,” he said, patting her arm. “A house is always an investment. Didn’t your trust fund manager teach you anything?”
She ignored him with admirable aplomb. “All this house,” she mused as she sipped her whiskey, “and still no home for Patrick. It’s sad. It really is.”
He didn’t say anything, just watched her and waited. She’d get where she was going eventually, and he didn’t intend to indulge her apparent desire to detour into his psyche.
“Can I ask you a question?” she said finally, turning those sharp, lavishly blue eyes on him again.
“Can I stop you?” Patrick asked. He looked carefully away from the smooth expanse of calf and ankle displayed under the hem of her trench coat, away from those gloriously sexy shoes of hers. He’d give an indecent sum of money to see what she was wearing to go with them.
She smiled. “No.”
“Then by all means, ask away.”
“Do you love me, Patrick?”
“No.” He didn’t even hesitate over the lie. He just ripped it out like a weed from a garden. It left a bleeding hole behind, but how could he regret it? “You flew all the way to California and broke into my house just to ask me that?”
“Oh, no. I already knew what you’d say.” She wandered into the room, touching edges and curves with one fingertip. “Flying here and breaking in, that was just my little love letter to you. I thought you’d like watching me blow through your security.” She threw him a little smile over her shoulder. “Come on, Patrick, admit it. You watched every second of my little performance out there, I know you did. You could have stopped me whenever you wanted to, but you just watched. It kind of turned you on, didn’t it?”
He sighed, as if despairing for her lost decorum. He’d die before admitting how very right she was. Even now, his palms itched to touch, to plunder, to gorge themselves on greedy handfuls of her before she disappeared again.
“Liz, please. If you don’t mind, it’s been a long day and I don’t care to play games. This has been a lovely little trip down memory lane, truly, but unless there’s something else . . . ?”
She turned to him, leaned back against the arm of the sofa, and rolled the rim of her tumbler against her chest. “Since you asked so nicely, there is.” He sighed again, and she sent him a winning smile in return. “You see, I don’t believe you.”
He put his shoulder blades to the wall, lounged there as if his entire system hadn’t just gone into panicked damage-control mode. “Beg your pardon?”
“I don’t believe you,” she said again. “You’re lying to me.”
“No, I really am tired.” He gave her a polite smile. “Is this going to take much longer?”
She stepped up into his face, left mere inches between their bodies, inches that heated and vibrated with want. “Don’t,” she said softly. She reached up and put one of those small, strong hands against his cheek. “Don’t do this. Don’t disappear behind all that bored sophistication. Stay with me. I need you.”
He couldn’t move for a full three heartbeats, just stood there like a rooted tree and absorbed the incredible warmth of her palm against his skin, the sheer rightness of being inside the circle of her affection and approval.
“Liz,” he said. It was all he could manage, and he’d meant for it to be a reproach but it came out more like a prayer. “Liz, please. Why are you doing this?”
“Don’t you want to know why I’m here?” she asked softly, and when he opened his eyes, there was nothing but her face. Nothing but her. He nodded helplessly.
“I’m here for you. I’m not satisfied with how we left things last month. Or, should I say, how you left things.”
That warm hand dropped away from his cheek, and he felt the loss intensely. Her eyes narrowed on his, and she tipped her head to the side to look him over. “Because I didn’t actually get a chance to participate in the decision, did I? You just left. Abandoned me, like what I wanted or thought or felt didn’t matter. You bestowed me on the FBI like a gift and walked away, all smug and righteous and pure. I was always worried that I’d fall for a man like my father, and it looks like I had good cause to worry.”
The bottom dropped out of his stomach and he stared. Shook his head slowly. “God, Liz. It wasn’t like that.”
She smiled at him, the anger falling away with disorienting suddenness. “I know. At least I do now. I thought it over, and while I may be a bit paranoid, I’m not stupid. You played God. My father thought he was God. There’s a difference. He wanted the power. You just wanted to spare me some pain by taking it all on yourself. Because you love me.” She shook her head fondly. “You’re a little bent, Patrick.”
He nodded. On this, at least, they agreed.
“Even so,” she said, “I love you right back and I’ve decided that I’m not ready to accept this ridiculous idea that you’re in charge of whether or not I get what I want.” She moved forward with exactly the kind of resolve and purpose he’d come to expect from her, as if she had right and justice unquestionably on her side, and kissed him. Her mouth was hot and sweet and open, and he felt it all the way through his bones.
And just like that, his self-control snapped. Desires he’d chained down with the ruthless efficiency of long habit broke free and surged to the surface. The drink he’d had dangling from languid fingers crashed to the floor and he seized her up like a drowning man snatching at a life preserver.
“Fuck it,” he said roughly, tumbling her back onto the ugly modern sofa his decorator had picked out. It was hard and uncomfortable, but Patrick didn’t care. He’d burn it in the morning. He’d burn the rest now. “I wanted to be better than this, Liz. God knows I tried. But I love you.” He rested his forehead against hers, felt her arms come around him, heard her soft noise of triumph. “I know the FBI and I can’t coexist and I know you loved them first. I know I’ll come second to that and I’m willing to be whatever you need me to be for this to work. But I love you and I’ll have you, as long as it lasts.”
He didn’t say forever, but the word trembled on his lips, in his heart. “I’m not afraid to lose you, Liz. But I’ve been so damn afraid that I’ll never have you.”
“I came to you,” she whispered, her mouth hot against his ear. She was running wet little kisses along the line of his throat. “I’m here. You have me. You’ve always had me. Now I want you to take me.”
HER HEART thudding in her ears, she watched those glacial eyes catch fire. He lowered his mouth to hers and she lifted herself to meet him. For the first time, she kissed him with everything in her—all her fear, her love, her soul, her desire. She didn’t hold anything back, just laid it all out where he could see it, where it was his to accept or reject.
He made a noise she couldn’t identify, but it had her heart leaping with joy, her body shimmering onto another level of awareness. Those clever hands were at her waist, tugging at the tie of her trench coat, then stripping it off her.
“Oh God, the green,” Patrick said, his eyes blazing down at the pool of emerald chiffon enveloping her. “I almost took this off you once.”
She smiled at him, lifted her arms. “I know. I wanted to give you another chance. I wanted another chance myself.”
He pulled her to her feet, stood up and moved behind her. She could see their reflection in that wall of glass, watched as he slowly lowered the zipper at her back. She heard the hiss as it released, and the air was cool against her bare skin as the fabric parted. Then his
mouth was there, burning a trail down her spine, even as his busy hands pushed the dress off her shoulders. It floated to the floor, leaving her there in nothing but stockings and high heels.
“God,” he said reverently, like it was a prayer. His hands streaked over her body, capturing her breasts. He brushed long fingers over her nipples and she arched into his touch with a cry of abandon. She let her eyes drift half shut, glorying in the wild whip of desire through her veins, the solid wall of his body framing hers. She leaned back into him, rubbed against him like a lazy kitten. He was hard against the curve of her bottom, and she pleased herself with a slow roll against the length of him.
He turned her in his arms, tunneled his fingers through her hair and captured her mouth with a certainty that sent shock waves pulsing over every inch of skin she possessed. Want pooled hot and moist between her legs, and she rose up on her toes to meet him, to tangle her tongue with his.
She yanked at the buttons on his shirt until they either popped open or shot off, and then that lovely, smooth chest was hers. Her hands roved greedily over it, learning each curve, each edge until she knew it blind. And it was a good thing, too, because at that moment, he slid one hand down the plane of her belly and into the center of her body, penetrating all her heat and want with one long finger.
She didn’t think, didn’t even try to hold back, just let him shoot her directly over that towering edge with a ruthless speed. She cried out, her knees going to water even as he caught her.
“Again,” he said, his voice dark and rich. He scooped her into his arms, and she drifted on the echoing pulses of pleasure until he laid her onto the cool, smooth sheets of his bed. She opened her eyes, found him stripping himself and her with a determined purpose that had renewed heat lapping at the edges of her satisfaction. Then he laid himself beside her, the hard length of him hot and demanding against her hip.
She smiled at him, feline and silky, took him in her hand and said, “I want more.” She rolled up on her side until her nipples rubbed against the plane of his chest and the breath shuddered out of her involuntarily. She watched as he closed those wildly blue eyes to savor her touch, and it sent tiny tongues of fire licking over her.
“I’ll give it to you,” he said, his voice hoarse and thick with need. He reached for her, took the curve of her hips in those big, warm hands, fastened his hot mouth over one nipple. She moaned and tumbled herself into his arms, sprawled over his chest. Her hair was a curtain on either side of them, narrowing the world down to only what was between them, the heat of their breath, the sweet pull of their lips, the small noises of want and need.
“No,” she said, nipping at his lower lip. God, it was gorgeous. How had she lived without this? Without him? “I’m going to give it to you this time.”
With a swift tip and roll of her hips, she had him exactly where she wanted him, all that lean strength coiled under her, ready and aching for what she would give with her body, with her heart. She kissed him as she sank down and took him deep inside. The moan could have been hers, could have been his. She only knew that she’d never in her life felt anything like it, the peace, the completion, the rightness, all alongside a raging hunger to be closer. She lifted and plunged, and he cried out, seized at her hips.
“Show me,” she said. “Show me how to please you. I want to please you.”
“You’re doing fine,” he said, his fingers twitching on her skin.
She rose up like a flame, twisting and leaping, his hands on her guiding, supporting, exploring. She reveled in each touch, each stroke, each layer of intimacy, until there was nothing hidden from him. Everything she was, heart, body and soul, was laid bare to his hands, his eyes, his desires. She was his without reservation, and when he rose up under her, his body bowed and trembling, she arched into him with a cry of pure satisfaction.
She drove him over the edge and flung herself after him, leaving nothing behind but the empty shell of her fear.
IT COULD have been minutes or hours later when Liz propped her chin on his chest and said, “I want more.”
Patrick opened one eye and said, “Really?” A smile spread across his face and one hand curved around her hip.
Liz stretched languidly against his side and said, “Well, that, too, but that’s not what I meant.”
Patrick lifted an eyebrow and pushed a hand into all that tangled blond hair. It was warm and alive against his skin and he savored the feel of it between his fingers. “What did you mean?”
“You made me an offer earlier, a very nice one.” Those earnest eyes of hers were very serious. “But it didn’t go quite far enough. I want more. I want you. Forever.”
His hand froze in her hair, and he sat up slowly. She curled into a lazy C at his knees and he couldn’t resist the urge to slide a palm into the lovely curve of her waist even as alarm bells started to clang in his head. “You want what?”
“I want forever,” she said simply. “I want the whole deal. A ring, a dog, a fixer-upper house and a charge account at Home Depot. Maybe even a kid someday, if we’re ever really in the mood for a gamble. There are some oddball genes between the two of us.”
Tell me about it, he thought. The very idea of a child with his father’s black heart froze something deep inside him that had just started to thaw. “What the hell are you talking about? Didn’t anything I said to you earlier sink in?”
“Well, yeah,” Liz said. “But it was all predicated on the idea that the FBI was the first love of my life, and it isn’t.”
“No.” He shoved himself out of the bed. “I won’t let you do this. I saw you work, Liz. I know exactly what it meant to you to do that job. You were meant for it. You were designed for it, and believe me, the world can’t afford to lose somebody like you doing what they were meant to do.”
She rolled onto her back, stretched with every appearance of perfect ease. “I quit.”
He went still, shock waves radiating from the center of his body outward in electric ripples. “What?”
“I quit,” she said again, this time with a sunny smile. “You were right.”
“About what?” he snapped. He couldn’t have this conversation naked. He scrounged for his pants, found them in a crumpled heap at the foot of the bed and shook them out.
“You said that I hadn’t left my extremist upbringing behind, I’d just switched gods—my father for the FBI. And you were right. I hadn’t searched my soul at all for what I thought was right or good. I just adopted a new bible. I outsourced my moral code.” She rolled onto one side, propped herself on her elbow. Patrick practically dove to his knees to look for his shirt. He couldn’t look at all that gorgeous skin and think straight.
“I’ve spent this past month wondering how to fix that,” she continued. “How to let go of all the rules and regulations I’ve let define me and figure out who I’m supposed to be. Who I want to be, and how I can have everything I need, you included. I think I’ve come up with a pretty good solution.” She rolled off the bed and strolled to the living room, casually and spectacularly nude. He gaped after her. She returned a moment later, dress in hand. She eyed it critically. “A little wrinkled, but hell, it’s chiffon. Nobody’ll notice.”
Patrick scrubbed his hands over his face, utterly at sea, hope warring with despair in his gut. “Liz.” He dropped his hands and looked at her. “What are you talking about?”
She smiled at him. “I finally got in touch with the woman I want to be, and as it turns out, the FBI is a little stifling for her. Not enough room to explore those shades of gray that mean the difference between cutting a troubled kid a break and upholding the law. So I finally tapped in to that trust fund of mine. I started a foundation. Advocating for underage victims of criminal neglect and abuse. You’re looking at the CEO.”
Patrick felt his mouth drop open as this new piece of information tumbled around on the sea of conflicting emotions inside him. He waited for the regret, for the sense of wrongness or injustice, but it didn’t come. Her face was b
right and open, peaceful and optimistic. This was something he’d never considered. His avenging angel could work without a badge. Could possibly be happier that way.
“You quit the FBI.” He kept circling back to that. “When?”
“A week after you left,” she said, wriggling into her dress. He watched with some regret as all that beautiful skin disappeared into the chiffon. “When you left, I knew the badge had finally cost me too much. But I also knew you wouldn’t have me until I proved to you that I had something else, something that filled those empty spaces inside.”
She crossed to him, kissed him with a sweetness, a knowledge and affection that undid him. His heart all but shattered and fell around his feet. “You’re so damn honor-able, Patrick. So damn good. You’re subtle, and I missed it for a long time, but I’m on to you. You’re good all the way through, and I love you. More than anything. Please come with me.”
“Anywhere.” The word was out before he knew he was saying it, but it was true. Truer than anything he’d ever said. “I love you, Liz. I’ll go anywhere you want me.”
Love sparkled in her eyes, along with a few tears. “I was hoping you’d say that. You want to start with a fund-raiser? I’m kind of mixing business and pleasure here.”
He drew back and stared at her. Then he laughed. “There’s a fund-raiser for your new foundation?” he asked. “Here in Palm Springs?”
She gave him a sheepish smile. “Well, yeah. Have you ever known me to be without a backup plan? If you rejected me, I didn’t want to wallow. So I’m scheduled. Will you come with me?”
He pulled her into his arms, right off her feet and swooped her into a joyous circle. God, he loved this woman.
“Anywhere,” he said again. “Anywhere at all.”