“I can’t help it,” Luke said. “It’s reflexive. Probably because I get into trouble a lot.” His eyes looked down at the two wet triangle shapes outlined on her dress. “Does it work?”
“Only on women who don’t know any better.” The elevator doors dinged open and she walked out.
“And you know better?” he said, catching up to her and pulling his room key out of the hidden pocket in his board shorts.
She really needed to stop looking at him and the way the thin, damp material rode so low on his hips. You’re a cop, Delgado. Toughen up. “It’s my job to know trouble when I see it.”
He slid his key in the electronic lock and she glanced next door, thinking it wasn’t too late to avoid this whole thing and go straight to her own room.
But, like she’d told herself earlier, she wasn’t a coward. Still, this was scarier than serving an arrest warrant at a gun show. She was trained in tactical procedures, but no amount of training could keep her heart from being blasted apart.
She followed him into his suite, only to be hit with an icy blast of air-conditioning. “Man, I told those boys not to mess with the A/C unit this morning,” Luke said as he walked over and fiddled with the small control panel on the wall. “They think anything with a display screen is as much fun as an arcade game. I guess I should’ve reset the timer when we came back to get changed for the pool.”
When he turned back to her, she could see that his bare torso was covered in gooseflesh, his dark pink nipples as tight as her own. And, apparently, despite the layers of wet fabric she was wearing, he could see the same thing.
Luke took a step toward her. Then another. She recognized the desire in his eyes because it probably mirrored her own. Carmen’s back was now pressed against the wall, literally and figuratively.
“I can’t have kids.” Carmen heard the words but had no idea why she’d blurted them out. It must’ve been the safest thing she could think to say.
“What?” Luke froze, then shook his head, as though he could shake off her poorly timed admission. She would almost have laughed at the expression on his face if the whole situation hadn’t been so sadly disappointing. He sure wasn’t dimpling her now.
She decided to take advantage of his confusion and gain the upper hand. “I said I can’t have kids.”
“I know what you said.” Even though his ears had apparently heard it, his eyes were asking why she’d said it in the first place.
“You know my scars?” she asked, trying to start over.
“What scars?”
“The ones I just showed you by the pool?” She waited for some sort of acknowledgment, but he just stood there, looking baffled.
Although, in his defense, she’d just blindsided him with an unexpected revelation. She’d been in the surgical recovery room when Mark had first found out, but she imagined her ex must have had the same reaction.
She yanked her damp dress off over her head, causing the knot of curls to come loose. She pushed several loose strands of hair out of her face and pointed to her bared midriff.
He glanced at her abdomen quickly before blatantly staring at every other part of her body. Was he too disgusted to look at that them?
“What about your scars?” he said, once his eyes had made their way back down. “We all have them. You aren’t self-conscious about them, are you?”
“No. I can’t have children because of them.” She heard the catch in her voice and realized it was the first time she’d ever said it out loud. Well, not counting the first two times just a minute ago when Luke obviously hadn’t understood her. Now, she needed to make him understand. “I was stabbed multiple times. My armored vest protected me from any fatal injuries, but the guy got me right here.” She held one hand under her belly button and the other right above the top of her swimsuit bottom. “The knife punctured my uterus. During my emergency surgery, they had to do a complete hysterectomy.”
But Luke must’ve heard, because his confused face relaxed into tenderness and he angled his head and walked toward her. “Aw, sweetheart, I’m sorry.”
His thumb skimmed against the biggest, ugliest ridge of flesh before he spread his hands along her waist and pulled her toward him. He kissed her temple and wrapped an arm around her.
She smelled the slight tang of chlorine on his shoulder as she buried her face in his neck. She felt his hand move from her waist up to stroke her back, and a sob she’d thought was nonexistent rose up through her chest and slipped out her throat before she could reel it back in.
Maria Carmen Delgado was not a crier. Especially not in front of good-looking macho men who might mistake her tears for a sign of weakness.
And she’d never felt more weak in her life. She stood in Luke’s arms, in his warm and safe embrace, and cried for every time she’d been told that she couldn’t do something because she was a woman, for every time that she’d had to sacrifice a small piece of herself—of her femininity—for a career that she loved. But, mostly, she cried for the unfulfilled dream of motherhood that she’d never get to experience.
If her body was shaking with sobs, she couldn’t feel them. Luke held her in a cocoon of strength, allowing her outside to be safely protected while the inside of her raged with frustration and sadness.
But as her eyes dried up and his tender reassuring strokes became more sensual, more arousing, she forced herself to push him away.
“Are you okay?” he asked, his face still way too close to hers.
She nodded. “Sorry about that. I don’t usually get so emotional.”
“It’s okay to have feelings, Carmen. You don’t have to be a cop all the time.”
“I know, but it’s a safe role for me. Anyway, thanks for... Well, thanks for whatever that was.” She couldn’t bring herself to express gratitude for holding her up when she was completely breaking down. She’d already suffered the indignity of admitting her deepest injury, her biggest regret, and then crying about it while he patted her back and told her everything would be okay.
But it wasn’t okay. And it never would be. She’d officially hammered in the final nail to the “just friends” coffin. This is when most men would give her the brush-off. But because she’d put herself into the power position, she could walk away with at least some of her pride intact.
Not much. But some.
She wiped her cheek with the back of her hand, making sure any traces of her tearful breakdown were gone. She couldn’t help the small sniffle as she turned her head to the side, looking at the door.
“So I’m going to go pack up my things. Tell the boys that I had to get back to Sugar Falls, but I’m sure they’ll play great even if I’m not there.”
She didn’t bother picking up her cotton dress as she made her way toward the door. She was walking out of all of their lives and it was best not to look back.
Chapter Twelve
“Wait? You’re leaving?” Luke was incredulous. “In your bikini?”
“I’m just wearing it next door. I’ll get dressed before I go.”
“But why are you suddenly taking off?” Was he asking the wrong questions? He wanted to stamp his feet in frustration because he’d just held the woman and told her everything would be okay. So why wasn’t she listening to him?
She held the door open but turned back to look at him. “Luke, didn’t you just hear me? Were you not paying attention?”
“Oh, I was paying attention all right. How can a man not pay attention when you’re standing there in that—” he gestured at the two-piece bathing suit “—with your hair all...?” He used both hands to motion at the sexy, tousled mess of curls.
“Then what part aren’t you getting?”
“The part where you’re leaving.”
“I just told you why.” She folded her arms across her chest, a stance he’d seen
her take when she was reprimanding the twins or busy explaining to Scooter and Jonesy why they couldn’t ride their horses down Snowflake Boulevard and through the center of town.
“No, you didn’t. You showed me some scars and said some ass stabbed you.” Luke drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I said I was sorry. And then I held you while you cried. Did I do something wrong?”
“No, Luke. You did everything right,” she accused, looking like she was about to cry again. “That’s the problem.”
Dammit. Where was Drew’s analytical and rational thinking when Luke needed it the most? “Okay.” He finally latched on to an idea. “Remember when you talked Caden down off the cafeteria rafters? I’m going to need you to talk me down here, because I’m still not getting it.”
“I can’t have children. And you want more children. Which means that I can’t have you. I’m trying to do the honorable thing here and walk away.”
“When did I say that I wanted to have more children? Have you met the ones I already have? They’re a handful.”
“You said it that night at Patrelli’s, when you and the twins were picking up pizza for poker night. You told me the next children you had would have better manners.”
“Carmen, I also said that it was okay for my son to pretend his ACE bandage was a real cast. I was trying to be funny and lighten the mood. It was the first time I’d seen you out of uniform and I was too busy staring down your shirt to think about what I was saying.”
A bubble of laughter escaped her lips. “I knew you were staring down my shirt, but you flashed those damn dimples and I thought it was just wishful thinking on my part.”
He tried smiling at her again. “Sweetheart, I’ll stare down your shirt whenever you want if you’ll just come back inside.”
“Oh, my.” Luke heard a woman’s voice down the hall, followed by a chorus of giggles. He saw Elaine Marconi and Choogie Nguyen’s moms enjoying the drama unfolding in the hotel hallway.
“Come on,” he said as he pulled a bikini-clad Carmen into his room.
He allowed the door to slam closed before chancing a look at the pink blush staining her cheeks. He needed to understand this woman. He needed to have a rational and logical conversation with her without his hormones getting in the way.
“So, to clarify, you’re telling me you don’t want to date me because you can’t have children?”
“It’s not that I don’t want to, Luke. It’s that it’d be unfair to you.”
Did she just say unfair? He’d been beating himself up over whether he should tell this woman how he felt about her, but now that she’d initiated the conversation, he was going to use his SEAL logic and get comfortable being uncomfortable. To hell with rational thinking and common sense. He was going back to impulsive and reckless.
“You know what’s unfair?” he asked. “It’s unfair that you look at me with all that heat and passion and then put up emotional barricades every time I try to get close to you. It’s unfair that your bathroom full of soaps and lotions and beauty products has officially ruined me from ever enjoying a shower again because all I can think about is the smell of your hair and the softness of your skin. It’s unfair that you were right about taking your bigger car to Costco and how much potato salad to make for a birthday party, because you know how to do these things and I don’t. It’s unfair that you were the one who could talk Caden down from the cafeteria rafters and I just sat there eating a pudding cup because I never know what to say. It’s unfair for you to come into my children’s lives and love them as much as any mother could while I burn dinners and accidentally wave them on to home plate because I’m too busy staring at you in the stands to be a decent third-base coach.” He stared at her, hot, angry—desperate. “And it’s unfair for you to let me hold you while you’re wearing that incredibly sexy bathing suit and then walk away without at least a goodbye kiss.”
Before she could look down to confirm what she was wearing, he dipped his head to hers and kissed her with all the reckless disregard of a hopeless man hanging by a snapped cable out of a helicopter over the ocean. She was his harness, his lifeline, and he needed to hold on to her and scramble to save himself.
He paused for only a second, just long enough for her to push him away if she still wanted out of this. Instead, he felt her fingers course over his scalp and then to the back of his neck as she pulled his head in closer, his kiss in deeper.
Luke moaned and allowed his hands to roam freely across her skin, which was smoother and warmer than it’d been ten minutes ago. He reached the clasp at the back of her bathing suit top and unhooked it, sliding his thumbs under the elastic strap as it released its hold on her.
He followed the lines of the loosened fabric around to the front, where he was able to cup her breasts. Her perfect, round breasts that he’d been thinking about ever since that night at Patrelli’s. As she moved her tongue in and out of his mouth, taking advantage of everything he was offering, he used his thumbs and forefingers to massage her nipples into tighter peaks.
Carmen gasped and pressed against him more, causing him to take a step back. She didn’t release his mouth as she brought her arms down and gripped his hips. At first, Luke relished in the pleasure of her pushing against him, but soon he realized that Carmen was actually walking him backward.
Toward the bed.
They were both used to being in control, but Luke had been waiting for this for so long he didn’t want to give her the upper hand. He bent his head lower, kissing a trail down her neck and toward her chest. By the time he had his tongue on her nipple, he also had rotated their positions and maneuvered her against the down-filled comforter.
But she was quicker and hooked one of her legs around the back of his knee, then leveraged herself so that when she pushed against his shoulders, he turned to his left before collapsing on the bed.
“Nice takedown maneuver,” Luke said, before reaching for her waist and pulling her down on top of him.
“I prefer being in the power position,” Carmen said as she straddled her long legs on either side of him.
“So do I,” he replied before flipping her onto her back, then fitting himself perfectly between her open legs.
He kissed her again and she lifted her body to meet his demand.
“Tell me you want this,” he said, pressing the ridge of his erection against the thin fabric of her bikini bottoms.
“I want this,” she admitted, wrapping her legs around his hips.
“Do we need protection?” he asked. Then he realized his mistake as he felt her grow not just still, but cold in his arms.
* * *
His words felt as though he’d just dumped that stupid ice bucket on her. “I thought I made it pretty clear that I couldn’t get pregnant.”
“You did. And I’m not worried about that,” he said before pulling back and dropping to the bed beside her, his arm covering his eyes. “Man, there’s no good way to talk about this.”
The air-conditioning vent kicked back on, making Carmen aware that she was almost naked and lying in bed with a man she should’ve said goodbye to a month ago. She tried to tug at the sheets, but the six-foot-four man was planted firmly in the middle of the bed. She was tempted to at least grab a pillow and use it to shield herself. But that would only cover her nudity. Not her shame.
“We don’t need to talk about anything,” she said as she sat up and looked around for her bathing suit top.
“Where are you going?”
Carmen was surprised he’d had to ask. “Back to my room. Home.”
“But I thought you said you wanted this.”
“I do want this. But I know I can’t have it.”
“Are we back to that whole you-can’t-have-children thing? Because that’s not what I meant about using protection.”
“Then what did you m
ean?”
“Look, I know this is going to make me sound unmanly and way out of practice, but I haven’t been with a woman since Samantha died.”
Oh, no. He wasn’t over his wife. She hoped that the room was too dark for him to see the way her lungs trembled with her indrawn breath.
“I understand,” she said, before standing up.
“Wait. You’re trying to leave again?” His reflexes were quicker than she’d expected and he hauled her back toward the bed and had his arm wrapped around her waist before she’d even taken a step.
“Luke, even if you claim you’re fine not having any more kids, it’s pretty obvious you still love your wife. I could never compete against the mother of your children.” She felt ridiculous, admitting this while he was practically spooning her. Could she have allowed herself to be put in any weaker a position? Both physically and emotionally?
“There’s no competition,” he said. But even with the assertive tone of his voice, Carmen still had her doubts. She tried to wedge an elbow behind her as leverage for getting back up.
“Why do you do that?” he asked, pulling her in tighter.
“Do what?” She stiffened, even though she knew she should be relaxing her body in order to get away.
“Try to tell me what I’m saying and then make a break for it and run off before I can even correct you.”
“I’m not trying to run off.” She couldn’t see his face, but she was pretty sure his eyebrows were raised in doubt.
“Yes, you are. It’s like you retreat before the battle can be fought.”
“What battle?”
“This battle.” His arm pulled her in tighter. “The one between the two of us.” But instead of feeling locked in, she actually felt safe. Like she wasn’t fighting this alone.
The Matchmaking Twins Page 16