Her Last Chance

by Michele Albert

  She’d thought the sex had been great, but maybe he’d had better. Strangely self-conscious of her nudity, she turned away. “I need a shower. Worked up a hell of a sweat last night. If I didn’t mention it before, thanks for the good time. It was very nice.”

  As she pushed up off the mattress, a big, warm hand settled on her belly and pulled her back down.

  “Hey,” he said, softly, as he settled her against his chest. “You okay?”

  I am now that you’re holding me, the foolishly infatuated part of her whispered inside her head. “Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?” she asked, eyebrow raised as she glanced over her shoulder at him. “You worked hard to make sure of that.”

  Despite her affected nonchalance, she couldn’t help closing her eyes briefly when he rolled a nipple between his fingers. From self-doubt to lust in five seconds flat—not a good sign. This man was going to be no end of trouble. She’d always known that but had grossly underestimated the sum total.

  “Just checking.” He kissed her shoulder, a soft brush of lips. “I’m not sure what to do here. I’ve never slept with the enemy before.”

  “I’m not your enemy, Vincent.”

  “No,” he said, after a moment. “But I’m not sure you’re a hundred percent on my side, either.”

  “Goes both ways, homeboy.”

  Whatever ambivalence he felt toward her work, it didn’t extend to her body. He teased her nipple again, filling her instantly with a hot, liquid need. “If you want,” he said, his breath warm on her neck, “I can check into what we have on the church thefts down in Texas if that’s what it turns out to be.”

  Her surprise quickly turned to unease. “You can’t do that; you’ll get in trouble. I can handle my assignments without the FBI’s help. I’ve been doing so for years.” Realizing how cold that sounded, she added quickly, “But I appreciate the thought. I really do.”

  “I wasn’t offering you any actual files,” he said. “I know better than that. All I meant was that we might be able to help each other out from time to time, and if we’re careful, it won’t earn me another reprimand and you won’t piss off your psycho boss.”

  It was hard to think when he kept touching her like this.

  “Ben’s not psycho,” Claudia said automatically. Then, frowning, she turned. “What reprimand?”

  “I keep getting warned to stop harassing you.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. Which is ironic, considering you’re always the one coming after me.” His smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Last time, my supervisor told me to sleep with you if that’s what it took to get you out of my system.”

  “Did he now.” Claudia didn’t miss the watchful intensity of Vincent’s expression. “That’s very . . . interesting.”

  “I thought so.”

  “Except that while your boss might be encouraging a working liaison, mine would be more inclined to get your ass reassigned to a place where you’d never see me again.”

  Vincent went still. “He’d do that?”

  “Maybe, maybe not. But I guarantee he could disrupt your life in a lot of little ways that would add up to one major annoyance. I told you not to underestimate him; if you stand in his way, he’ll go through you rather than around you. I’ve seen him do it.”

  Vincent swore softly, clearly angry.

  “I can probably persuade him to back off. He’s not unreasonable,” Claudia said, feeling strangely defensive of Ben, even if he didn’t need it—or would want her defending him. “But he’s one very determined man, and people like that . . . you handle them carefully. It’s just the smart thing to do.”

  “The FBI would like to get some hold over him.”

  “I bet they would. I’m sure your boss hopes I’m a potential weak link, and that’s why he’s telling you to be a little nicer to me.”

  “I don’t think my boss considers you weak in any sense of the word, Claudia.”

  “When it comes to sex, all bets are off. There’s a long, sad history of sex bringing down the smartest women and the strongest men.”

  “So how come your boss isn’t encouraging you to sleep with me and use your sex-fu wiles to tease information out of me?”

  His tone was light but not entirely convincing. All those warm, lustful feelings of a moment ago had faded. It was hard for a girl to get into the moment if a little careless pillow talk could bring down the empire of the man who had saved her ass more than once.

  “Ben won’t care if I want a fling with you, but I can’t say he’d feel the same way about anything more serious.” Which was a stupid thing to say; when had either of them expected this would be anything but a brief, if intense, affair?

  Too late now to take the words back, though. Claudia sighed. “And, as much as I hate to admit it, he wouldn’t be above using the situation to his advantage if an opportunity presented itself. I admire Ben Sheridan, and I am two hundred percent loyal to the man, but I don’t always trust his intentions.”

  Vincent grunted. “You’re smarter than me. I trusted my boss to play it straight with me.”

  Saddened to see the tarnish of cynicism taking its toll, she leaned over and kissed him. “It’s not about smarts, Vincent. Your problem is that you believe your peers share your code of honor. You trust too easily, but that’s not anything to be ashamed of. You should be proud of it, and it’s too bad people like you are the exception rather than the norm.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence.” He paused. “And on what side do you fall in all this?”

  Another honest, sincere question that deserved an answer in kind. Carefully choosing her words, she said, “I’m as honest as I need to be at any given time. If you put your trust in me, I will do everything in my power not to betray that trust. I’d hurt myself before I hurt any innocents—I can promise you that. In my own way, I try to be good enough.”

  After a moment, he nodded. “That’s about all any of us can do—try to be good enough.” He glanced at her. “Which reminds me of something I’ve been meaning to ask you about.”

  The tone of voice was warning enough, and she knew what was coming. “The Dallas thing,” she said flatly.

  “Yeah. I would really like to know the truth.”

  “So would I, but sometimes the truth isn’t so clear.” She smiled faintly, grateful that he was trying to understand. “As it so happens, I don’t know if he had a gun or not. At the time, I was sure I’d seen one in his hand, even though a search afterward turned up nothing. But maybe I hated that man so bad I wanted to believe he was armed, just so I could erase his evil ass. Or maybe a few of my more bigoted fellow cops saw a perfect opportunity to get rid of a mouthy woman who refused to learn her place. Maybe the gun fell through a sewer grate or got lost behind a pile of trash, and someone walked away with it later. I know that’s not the answer you want to hear.

  “And ultimately, it doesn’t matter to me if McConnell had a gun or not. He deserved to die, and I’m not sorry I killed him. But that’s exactly why I don’t deserve to wear a badge, and also why I never fought back during what happened afterwards.”

  Vincent fell silent for a moment. “I can’t say I’m sorry you killed the bastard, either.”

  “Would you have shot him?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never been in that kind of situation. I try to hold to a code of ethics, but I’m capable of killing under the right set of circumstances.”

  “Well, you’re not alone in that. Not a lot of people were going to defend a man who’d raped and killed little girls and old women. There wasn’t much genuine outrage after the shooting. It was Texas, the guy was headed for death row anyway; I just speeded up the process. I know there are dirty cops who do a lot worse. I could’ve fought to keep my badge, but I knew I didn’t deserve to wear it anymore.”

  “Ever think maybe you were too hard on yourself?”

  Claudia shrugged. “You have your line in the sand, I have mine. I became a cop because I grew up in a rough neighborhoo
d and I saw what happened to people who weren’t strong enough or mean enough to take care of themselves. I wanted to look out for those people, and I figured it would be easier to do that with a badge and a gun.”

  “It is easier.”

  “Well, yeah, but see . . . I didn’t get into it for duty or honor, for ethics or the Great American Dream. I was just mad, and not gonna sit back and do nothing about it.” Claudia looked down. “When I was twelve, some neighborhood kid’s cat got stuck in a drain and this older lady cop showed up to help. You could tell life hadn’t been so good to her; she was just there for the paycheck. A few kids were being loud and disrespectful to her, but she didn’t speak much Spanish and ignored them. It took her almost an hour to pry that stupid cat out of the sewer drain, and when she was walking back to her squad, one of those smart-ass kids threw a rock at her.”

  “So what happened?” Vincent prodded. “I assume she didn’t shoot the brat.”

  “No, she didn’t get mad, but I did. I yelled out this furious thank-you at her, in English. I remember how she looked at me, never smiling, and said ‘you’re welcome’ in Spanish, and I knew it was her way of respecting me.” Embarrassment rose, warming her face, because he was staring at her with a blank, unreadable expression. Like he thought she was crazy or something.

  “Anyway, it made a big impression, because I realized even stupid little things like that could make a difference. From that day on, I made it my business to look out for the ones no one else looked after. I was the one the other kids went to when they had trouble with bullies. I was tall for my age, and I had a big, mean mouth.”

  She expected him to say something, but the silence lengthened, and he was still staring. She cleared her throat. “I guess I still have a big, mean mouth and I talk too much.”

  Vincent startled her when he leaned over and gave her a quick, light kiss on her temple. “I joined the FBI because I wanted the government bennies—and because I happen to have the above-average deductive reasoning skills they were looking for.”

  Claudia smiled. “And because you want to help and make a difference. You don’t fool me.”

  “There is that,” he admitted, smiling back.

  Again, the awkward little silence—and, again, it was easier to fall back on light and casual. “So now you know all my deep, dark secrets,” she said.

  “I think I’ve barely scratched the surface.” His gaze roamed her body, lingering on her breasts, the juncture of her thighs. Then, with a sigh, he stood. “I had planned on joining you in the shower, but we both probably need some time apart to get all this straight in our heads.”

  Her heart sank. She’d gone too far, revealed too much. She’d heard the old we-need-some-time-apart excuse before. Stupid, stupid, to think he’d stick around if—

  “Sex is always the easy part. It’s the stuff that comes afterwards that can drive me crazy. I never know the right words to say, how to act,” Vincent said as he dressed, his tone tinged with frustration. “But don’t worry; we’ll figure out a way to make it work. Like I said—above-average skills in problem solving.”

  Startled, Claudia stared at him. He wasn’t skipping out on her? And what, exactly, did he mean by “all this”? Dammit; it was way too early in the morning for drama. “I’m not getting my hopes up.”

  It was admitting more than she liked, but the words were out before she thought better of it.

  “Maybe it’s about time you did.” Vincent buttoned his shirt as he looked over at her.

  For once, she let him get in the last word. After he’d left and she’d showered, she came back into the room, which didn’t feel as lonely as before.

  Was finding happiness as easy as this? A night of great sex with a man who was genuinely . . . nice?

  The odds were stacked like hell against them. There was no way they could make a relationship work beyond a few quickies here and there.

  Or was there a way? Her fighting instincts roused automatically at the tantalizing scent of a challenge.

  It wasn’t as if she’d be the first Avalon operative who had worked around a relationship obstacle. Case in point: Will Tiernay and Mia, his sweet little thing from Boston. If Tiernay could pull it off, why couldn’t she? He was no better or worse than she was, though he did have a better-than-average talent for bending rules.

  Huh . . . maybe it was time she tried a little more bending and a little less breaking.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Thursday evening, London

  “You have the most beautiful breasts. I could lie here all night and just look at them.”

  “If that’s all you did, we wouldn’t have nearly as much fun as we just did.” Mia Dolan, still catching her breath, peered at her fiancé, Will, as he sprawled, chest still heaving, with his face buried in her cleavage. His dark hair tickled.

  “True.” His voice was muffled. “Doesn’t change the fact that I like looking at ’em as much as I like playing with ’em.”

  “How very male of you.”

  Mia shifted so she could better appreciate how his long, muscular body stood out in contrast to her paler form. The bed was thoroughly wrecked, their clothing scattered on the floor. He’d arrived in London only a few hours ago; they hadn’t wasted any time getting from Kings Cross to the hotel.

  “For the record, you have a very fine bum and I very much enjoy looking at it, too.”

  He laughed, raising himself on his elbows to meet her gaze. “Listen to you. Back in London for a few days, and you’ve already reverted to native-speak.”

  “So I have.” Lazily, she ran her heels along his legs to that splendid bum, goosing him with a heel and laughing when he yelped. “Are you up for another round, or shall we take a break? I am a little hungry.”

  “You’re always hungry after sex, and I, not being twenty anymore, need to recuperate.”

  Regretfully, Mia noted twinges and aches that reminded her she wasn’t a pliable twenty-something anymore, either. The first two times had been rather . . . enthusiastic.

  Will rolled off her, stretched—much to her delight—then folded his hands behind his head. “I’m hungry, too. All I’ve had time to eat today was a scone and some lukewarm tea. You must’ve hit a pub or two with your old coworkers from the museum, right?”

  “Oh, there was good food and good ale and good cheer aplenty,” Mia said. “It was nice, but a little awkward, too.”

  “Ah. The subject of Vanessa must’ve come up.”

  Vanessa Sharpton had been her coworker and friend over the past five years. Now she was dead because Mia had foolishly chosen the wrong man to love.

  “How’d you know?”

  “Unavoidable, since they were her friends, too. Besides, I can always tell when you’re thinking about her. You look like you’re going to cry.”

  “Oh.”

  “You okay?” Will nudged her, gently. “I shouldn’t have brought up her name. Sorry.”

  Mia gave him a quick, reassuring smile. “No, don’t be sorry. It’s okay. It was harder to deal with today, that’s all, because I couldn’t help but remember all the great times we had when we were living in London.” She paused. “Then I couldn’t stop remembering. I can still feel the heat from the explosion, you know? And as much as I hated what she’d done, to die like that is so horrible, and I—”

  “You did nothing wrong. There’s nothing to feel guilty about.”

  “I know.” She inched closer against him. “I’m just hoping she didn’t suffer, that’s all.”

  Silence fell between them, Will’s hold tightening in a comforting reminder that the ordeal was over. She focused on how companionable and cozy it felt to lie together in a dark room while London went its merry, noisy way outside and the sunlight began to fade. After a while, the shifting shadows lulled her into a calmer, more peaceful frame of mind.

  Too bad this lovely contentment couldn’t last. As usual, they had only a day or two before he flew off to Rome to do . . . whatever. His frequent absences were
difficult, but they left her even more grateful for the moments when they were together again, no matter how brief.

  “When you called, you said we’d only have a couple days in London instead of a week. Is everything okay?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. It’s just work being work.”

  She hesitated. “Is it something you can talk about?”

  “I don’t know. I want to, Mia, but—”

  “It’s dangerous,” she finished, with a little sigh.

  “Danger’s always involved, but this time it’s mostly . . . delicate.” He ran a hand through his hair, leaving it spiky and disheveled.

  “The usual offer stands. If you want to bounce thoughts off me, I’m here to listen and help where I can.” Self-consciously, catching sight of herself in the mirror across the room, she smoothed back her own dark hair, feeling snarls among the curls. Messy might look sexy as hell on him, but it only looked scary on her. Eeek!

  He watched, smiling at her efforts, then lifted a strand of her hair and coiled it around his index finger.

  “Talking things out with you always helps.” The satiated growl of his voice nearly reduced her to liquid all over again, and when he held out an arm, she scooted tight against him, reveling in the warmth of his nearness and comforting strength.

  After a moment, he added, “What I miss most about not being a cop anymore is how I can’t toss out ideas at others and see what bounces back. The lone wolf routine has its moments, but cooperative problem solving isn’t one of them.”

  He absently caressed her hip. With a low sigh, he said, “The trouble is that I trusted Ben Sheridan to tell me the truth. I believed he’d been honest with me—until I was forced to start factoring in all the lies of omission.”

  “You’re not really surprised by this, are you? I mean, he is what he is, right?”

  “Yeah, but it still pisses me off.”

  Another little silence followed, then Mia pressed, carefully. “You also told me, when you called, that you’d taken an unplanned detour on the way back from Edinburgh. You went to West St. Aubry, didn’t you? Where the Whitlea family used to live.”