by Beverly Bird
“No...I...am...not!”
“Tess, it’s only fair to tell you that if you won’t go willingly, I’ll just pick you up and carry you.”
“You egotistical, macho, chauvinistic, arrogant, crazy...” She trailed off, running out of words.
“Done?” he asked.
“Just taking a breath.”
He caught her face in his hands. She flinched but didn’t pull away this time. Yeah, he thought again, this was all going to work out just fine.
He had to get her alone for a while. Whisking her out of town would serve the dual purpose of keeping her clear of Benami while he put his mind to convincing her that she was his, that there was nothing about him worth running from, hiding from, and a lot worth hanging around for. He hoped.
Admittedly he had his work cut out for him.
“Hear me out,” he said quietly.
She nodded stiffly. He hadn’t expected anything more. Inbred manners would make her listen, but she wouldn’t like it.
“I honest to God believe that now that you’ve been shot at once, you’ll be fine the next time.” He felt her go rigid beneath his hands. Her bottom lip trembled. It took every ounce of willpower he possessed not to cover it, to soften it, with his own.
Later. First things first, he thought again.
“And there will be a next time,” he assured her. “The longer you’re a cop, the more likely it is to happen again. But to tell you the truth, I’m much more confident of my ability to protect you right now than I am of your ability to protect yourself. Not—” He almost shouted the word as she tried to pull away. He held her tighter, his strong fingers digging in. “Not because I think you’re going to fall apart again,” he said more quietly, “but because you think you’re going to fall apart again.”
He saw tears brim in her eyes. He felt like hell for doing this to her. But it was something that had to be addressed if he was going to keep her safe.
“Hell, Tess, going for your gun has to be a split-second, rational decision. When a cop hesitates, the way Matt did, he’s down. No second chances.”
She blanched.
“I just don’t know how quickly you’re going to be able to make that instinctive move for your weapon right now. Not while all this is fresh in your mind.”
Tessa opened her mouth angrily.
“Give it time, Tess!”
“I gave it a year,” she argued weakly, sagging a little as the fight went out of her. “It didn’t make any difference tonight.”
“Because it had to happen again,” he said patiently. “In that year, the most violence you probably came up against was someone banging their fist on your desk.”
She tried to gather her pride back. “If what you’re saying is true, then I’ll be fine now. I’ll be fine if I get shot at tonight, or tomorrow, or next week.”
“Yeah, but tonight and tomorrow we know the most likely direction the bullet’s going to come from. Only a fool would deliberately stand in its way.”
“I’m a cop!” she cried. “It’s my job to stand there and face it!”
His hands dropped to her shoulders and tightened. “Our job is done, Tess. We did what the city hired us to do. We got the evidence. We’re done now. There’s nothing else for us to do until Benami’s in custody. Then, I swear to God, we’ll come back and go for his throat.”
He was right, she thought dismally. They had no more immediate leads to chase down. She just couldn’t bear the thought of hiding. Like a coward, she thought. Like a frightened woman who couldn’t fire her gun. She shook her head helplessly.
“Sleep on it, Princess,” he said quietly. He thought that by morning her common sense would probably prevail. At the moment, there was nothing else he could do where Christian Benami was concerned. But he still had a few unresolved personal issues of his own.
Her face was tilted to the side as she frowned at the window.
“Look at me, Tess.”
Her eyes snapped around.
“That’s better.”
“Better for what?” Her heart hitched. No, he wouldn’t, she thought. Of course he wouldn’t kiss her. Not after all the trouble New Year’s Eve had caused between them.
He would. His mouth lowered slowly to hers. But then he stopped and simply watched her. It was, she thought helplessly, almost as devastating as another kiss. He was so close, and the anticipation was almost as arousing as the actual contact.
“Tell me what scares you,” he murmured.
She knew he wasn’t talking about Benami now. She started to shake her head. But then his choice of words struck her. He hadn’t said, “What are you afraid of?” That would have sounded chiding. He hadn’t said, “You’re scared.” That would have come off as accusatory. He’d just said, “Tell me.”
And because of that, she could.
“I can’t be like you,” she whispered fervently.
“How am I?”
She waved a hand and only managed to skim it over his chest, over muscles made even harder by tension. She snatched it back.
“Casual,” she blurted. “It doesn’t mean anything to you!”
“What doesn’t?”
“Kissing!”
Oh, if only she knew.
He slid his hands down to her hips. He leaned back against the refrigerator, drawing her with him with a heavy sigh. And now she found herself tucked between his thighs, and her heart erupted into thunder. Air filled her chest and her limbs, a suspended sense of awareness, and she felt tingly, warm.
“Gunner, I don’t think—”
“Let’s get to the bottom of this,” he said, interrupting her, “once and for all.”
Yes, they should do that. If they established lines again, rules, if they understood each other, then they really made decent partners. Maybe there would be no reason to get reassigned after all, to put Kennery through all that trouble.
She took a breath. “It’s all tactile pleasure to you. It doesn’t have any emotional import.”
“And how do you know this?” he asked reasonably.
Everybody says so. She realized just in time how stupid that sounded. She bit her lip uncertainly.
“Let’s set the record straight here, Princess. I have never—repeat, never—gone out with anyone who works with the city. Well, Angela. But we didn’t work for the city then.”
Her heart twisted with something perversely like jealousy. “You did date Angela?”
“For God’s sake, Tess, I was seventeen. It doesn’t seem to me like that ought to count. There ought to be a statute of limitations here somewhere.”
She wondered, in spite of herself, if he had been to bed with her. And she wondered why that hurt. “But—”
“As for everybody else, how the hell should I know why they say what they say about me?”
“They all claim to have been with you.”
“They wish,” he said tightly.
Tessa almost laughed. It turned out to be a strangled sound. “Gunner, you’ve really got to work on that low self-esteem.”
He finally dropped one hand from her hip to press his thumb between his eyes. Damn, he had a headache. But this was too important to put on hold. He had to clear this up before he could go on to anything else.
And, oh, did he have places to go.
“The department is a community unto itself,” he said slowly. “I’m single. I flirt periodically.”
“Periodically?” It came as naturally to him as breathing, she thought.
“Yeah. And somewhere along the line I guess it became a contest to see who could finally grab me, because nobody could. It’s human nature. Everyone wants what nobody can have, and I told you how I felt about relationships.” Felt, he thought. Past tense. Would she pick up on that?
She didn’t seem to. He blew out his breath and looked up at the overhead light fixture in exasperation.
And that was when it really hit her what he was saying.
“You haven’t been running around kissing everyone in city hall and
the Administration Building. Then why me?” The answer came to her almost as soon as the words came out of her mouth. Because I asked him to. Color flew into her face. A pity kiss. She tried to pull away, but he held her.
“Because you’re different,” he said quietly.
She closed her eyes, her heart thudding again. Even if what he said was true—even if this attraction between them was different for him—she wasn’t ready for it. Even if he had been the type to settle down into a relationship, she couldn’t let herself touch him, fall for him. If she got involved with him, then Matt would finally, irrevocably be gone.
Her breath snagged.
She remembered what Gale had said about loving someone new, and she knew suddenly that the woman had been right about that, too. Loving again would erase the last of the pain. Loving again would finally, completely heal her. She could so easily lose herself in John Gunner, and then everything she’d had with Matt would be forgotten, lost to her.
And she needed to remember him. She needed it. She could not let herself forget the sweetness, because it reminded her of the pain. As long as she remembered the horror of his death, she would not be tempted to love again. She knew instinctively that she could not endure loss like that twice in one lifetime. And death was a specter that hung over every cop’s life, a palpable shroud.
She thought of the magazines again. John Gunner was a cop as deep as his bones.
No. She shook her head frantically, not even realizing that she did it. She couldn’t. She couldn’t love John Gunner.
She couldn’t tell him that, of course. She couldn’t explain, because there was certainly no issue of love between them. They were talking sexual attraction here. That was all. He wanted her. That was exciting and flattering, but she could never, would never, do anything about it.
“No,” she whispered.
“You’ve got to let it go, sweetheart.” It was as though he read her mind. “You buried a part of yourself with Matt, and you’re too young to die.”
“So was he!” she protested, her voice strangled.
He went on as though he hadn’t heard her. “When it’s done, when that vicious mess is really over and behind you, you’ll be able to shoot again,” he murmured, realizing it. “It’s all tied together somehow.”
“It’s not!”
“You saw him tonight, saw it happen all over again, didn’t you?”
Her heart was roaring. “Gunner—”
“Sooner or later, you’re going to have to pick up the pieces and go on.” With me. “You haven’t yet, not really. You’re pretending. You’re even kidding yourself.”
But she was close, he realized. She was almost there. What had she said to him the other night? I can’t see his face anymore when I close my eyes. Yeah, she was ready, on the brink, so close...and terrified by it. Her heart was telling her she was ready to go on, but she wasn’t hearing it, wouldn’t listen.
Well, he would be there to catch her when she fell over the edge. And maybe, just maybe, he would give her a gentle nudge in that direction.
He dropped his hand from her hip. A little breath of surprise escaped her that he had finally let her go. But before she relaxed too much, he leaned forward, capturing her mouth with his.
She could have moved away. She could have simply taken a single step backward. He made no other move to touch her. His hands remained by his sides. But she froze as sensation plunged through her again, as he brushed his lips over hers, feather-light and easy, and then his tongue was back, teasing the corner of her mouth.
So good, she thought. So sweet. So dangerous.
She dug her fingers into the front of his T-shirt almost tentatively. It was the sign he’d been waiting for, a holding on rather than a pulling away. He straightened away from the refrigerator and caught one hand around the back of her neck, dragging her closer.
He wanted to touch her. He wanted more of her, all of her. It was a pounding, aching need. He had never needed like this, not with any of the women who had given of themselves eagerly, trying to hold him. They hadn’t made him feel necessary. One of this woman’s tremulous smiles could make him feel like a king.
He fisted his other, free hand to keep control over it, so it wouldn’t go to her breast of its own volition. She was kissing him back. That was enough—for now.
He let his tongue slip into her mouth, and she met it with a little groan. They sparred for a moment, and something happened to his gut. A sweet tension, a rolling over, something almost painful that he’d never felt before.
He realized with some surprise that the next groan he heard was his own. He traced her teeth, teased her tongue, bit her lower lip gently where it trembled. He covered her mouth fully again with more restraint than he had known he was capable of. He was trembling with it.
Just a little more, Tessa thought. She’d pull away in a moment. And he’d let her go. She’d made it dear, hadn’t she, where she stood on this issue? But first she needed to run her fingers through his hair the way she had wanted to from the first time she saw him. Her hand reached, sliding over his temple, finding his dark locks soft and thick as the strands threaded between her fingers.
She cried out when his free hand shot up and caught hers, imprisoning it against the side of his head. Their fingers tangled together and his kiss deepened, the pressure of his mouth getting harder. It was hungry now, hot. His tongue began sweeping. Need sliced through her, cutting through her resolve. She made another wordless sound as something liquid and warm gathered at key points of her body, pooling, aching. Oh, how she wanted him to touch her. How she wanted his hands on her body. She needed with crazed intensity.
He’s right, I’m not dead, I didn’t die, too, I’m right here and I need him to love me. Unshed tears burned her eyes.
With a last groaning nip at her lip, Gunner pulled away. She looked at him dazedly, her eyes unfocused.
“You can have the bedroom,” he said. “I’ll take the sofa.”
He left the kitchen. Just like that. Tessa stared after him, shaken and amazed.
He heard her gasp and couldn’t look back. She’d never know what this had cost him.
Chapter 17
She was grateful that he hadn’t pressed his edge. Of course, she was. But Tessa still couldn’t seem to relax enough to sleep. It was the day, she told herself. It was everything that had happened. She was amazed to realize that it had been only this morning that she had asked Kennery for reassignment.
It was the haunting truth that she hadn’t been able to pull the trigger, any more than she’d been able to pull away when Gunner had kissed her again. It was Gunner’s bed, and Gunner’s body, right out there in the other room, as close as a breath and a million miles away, on the other side of her fear.
She rolled onto her side and trapped her hands between her knees, but that wasn’t good, either. With her cheek pressed into his pillow, his lingering scent filled her head. Something started throbbing deep inside her, something unfinished, frustrated, needy.
She flipped over onto her back and saw his grin in her mind’s eye, crooked and confident. She closed her eyes, but the image remained.
She wanted him.
If he hadn’t stopped kissing her so abruptly, she might have found the courage to slide her hands over his shoulders, to finally touch them, too, to explore the way they moved when he walked. Thank goodness he had stopped kissing her.
What was she going to do about tomorrow?
She knew that he fully intended to whisk her out of town. She realized she could go away with him without too much fear, and that was stunning in and of itself. No matter what his reputation implied, he was a gentleman. But she couldn’t walk away from Christian Benami. She owed it to Daphne to see this through.
Except Gunner was right. What, really, was there left to do?
Still, her last conscious thought wasn’t of the case at all. It was a realization that Gunner didn’t seem to snore.
She woke to the very strong smell of cof
fee. Tessa jolted upright, almost knocking into Gunner’s hand as he held the mug under her nose. He put a hand on her shoulder to steady her.
“Easy there, Princess.”
“What time is it?” she mumbled, scraping hair out of her eyes.
“Seven-thirty. And we’ve got places to go.”
So they were back to that again. Already. She grabbed the coffee and eyed him warily. This was absurd, she thought wildly. She couldn’t even seem to look at him. She couldn’t lay her eyes on him without her pulse taking off and something warm pooling in crucial places in her body. She stared down into the mug and felt his gaze anyway.
He’d given her a T-shirt to sleep in and it was several sizes too big, even with her height. She dragged the hem down over her knees, and heard his soft laughter.
Her eyes flew up to him again. “What?” she asked breathlessly.
“You remember that little conversation we had about wriggling and breathing, Princess? Don’t push me.”
She realized she was squirming and abruptly stilled.
“You’re still breathing,” he said softly.
Her eyes finally met his. And what she saw there told her as clearly as a shout that she’d been enjoying a false sense of security. He hadn’t pressed his advantage. Yet. He hadn’t pushed her. Yet. But he knew that she wanted him—she just wasn’t able to hide it. Sooner or later he would do something about it. Her heart knocked.
“Gunner, you’re doing a real good job of talking me out of going to Jersey,” she said.
“Oh, you’re going.” He finally got off the bed and went to the door. “I just want you to know what to expect.”
She put her coffee down, and leaped off the bed. “Gunner, get back here!”
He stepped into the doorway again so quickly she almost ran him over. She took a quick, guarded step backward.
“Didn’t you hear anything I said last night?” she demanded.
He braced a hand on either side of the door frame and looked down at her. “Princess, I hate to break it to you, but you didn’t say much of anything.”
She hadn’t, she realized helplessly. She’d decided she couldn’t tell him. She couldn’t tell him how horribly close she was to falling in love with him, because love wasn’t the issue here. Sexual attraction, she told herself again. That was all it was. Pure and simple. And sex without love had no place in her world.