Face-Off

by Nancy Warren

  “I think he still loves you. You remember how Romeo and Juliet ends?”

  “In a bloodbath,” Jarrad said with a frown. “Or was that Hamlet?”

  Sierra ignored him. “Juliet’s taken this potion to make it seem as though she’s dead so she can supposedly be buried in the family vault, and then she’ll wake up and sneak out and live happily ever after with Romeo. But he never gets the message so when he hears she has died, he truly believes she’s gone. Romeo can’t live without her, and so he kills himself at her side.”

  “Right. I remember the play.”

  “But then Juliet wakes up and finds Romeo dead. And in despair she kills herself with his sword so they can be together always.”

  “Right. Tragic teenaged love.”

  Sierra gazed into the fire and the light pinkened her cheeks. “The play’s also about miscommunication. Sometimes speaking the truth is the most important thing you can do.”

  “But if his love is dead…”

  “Not his love. His pride. His ego. Greg threw himself on his sword, metaphorically, when he proposed to you and you turned him down. Right now, I’d say you’re at the part of the play where you’re waking up and discovering he’s made this huge sacrifice for you. Question is, what are you going to do about it?”

  “Are you suggesting I should—what was your expression—throw myself on my sword?”

  “It’s up to you what you do. But the rest of your life is a long time to go without the man you love.”

  She didn’t even protest that she still loved the guy. Not when Sierra was so smart. What was the point? “So I have to propose?”

  “Sacrifice your ego and pride on the altar of love and see what happens.”

  Sam felt a little sick. “But what if he says no?”

  “You won’t be any worse off than you are now. And at least you’ll know.”

  At least she’d know.

  “I don’t know. I have to think about this. Maybe it would be better if I told him not to come around anymore. Go back to the way things were.”

  No one answered her. After a beat of silence, Jarrad said, “I’m starved. Let’s eat.” And the emotional part of the evening ended with them all heading to the table, passing bread and sharing Sierra’s amazing food.

  “Mmm, this is fantastic,” Sam said as she dug into the meal Sierra had prepared. She might be broken-hearted, but she could still enjoy a hearty meal. She ripped apart a slice of bread and before she stuck a piece in her mouth, said to her brother, “You’d better not let this woman get away.”

  “I don’t intend to,” Jarrad said, giving Sierra a secret, intimate smile that made Sam’s heart ache. Not that she wanted to deny them their obvious bliss with each other, but because she wanted some of that herself.

  She twirled pasta around her fork then, before she filled her mouth, said, “Have you ever done something that if you could undo it, would change your whole life for the better?”

  “I wish I’d never gone out on the ice on that November away game,” Jarrad said immediately. She knew how hard that had been for him, suffering a career-ending hit before he was ready to retire.

  “Oh, boy,” she said, reaching out to pat his hand.

  “But,” he continued, “if I hadn’t lost my career I wouldn’t have come home right when I did and I wouldn’t have met Sierra.” He sent his girlfriend another of those intimate glances that made Sam crazy jealous wanting that for herself. “So, no. I’m glad things happened as they did.”

  “Oh, sweetheart,” Sierra said, leaning over to kiss his cheek.

  “What about you, Sierra?”

  “I would have wished that I never got involved with Michael, a man who didn’t deserve me. But then, if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have got my heart broken and the girls wouldn’t have talked me into playing hockey, and I wouldn’t have met Jarrad.”

  “Yeah, great. This is all really nice, but my wish is that I hadn’t turned Greg down when he asked me to marry him. How has that turned out to be a good thing?”

  There was a moment of silent. Jarrad looked at her with pity. “Nope. Sorry. Can’t help you. You screwed up royally with that one.”

  “Oh, don’t listen to him,” Sierra said, half laughing. “You obviously weren’t ready to make that kind of commitment when he first asked you.” She reached over and gave Sam’s wrist a reassuring squeeze. “Now, I think maybe you are.”

  “But I have to humiliate myself somehow.”

  “Seems like it.”

  She shoved the pasta in her mouth. Talked around it. “That sucks.”

  7

  BY THE TIME SHE LEFT Sierra and Jarrad’s place Sam had accepted the inevitable.

  She loved Greg. Had always loved him and would never love anyone else.

  So where did that leave her?

  Seemed to her she had two choices. She could continue as things were, knowing that Greg and she would continue sleeping together because she didn’t think either of them could stop.

  Or she could risk everything and try to win him back—not just in her bed—but all the way.

  Husband, babies, home in the suburbs all the way.

  According to Sierra, she had to humiliate herself in order to convince the man she loved that she was serious. She wasn’t sure about that. Maybe she could tell him her feelings. Surely that would be enough?

  But it hadn’t been enough for her. Ten years ago Greg had given her exactly that. A proposal of love and marriage and she hadn’t believed him.

  Now, ten years later, he was older and more cynical. Why would he believe that she loved him simply because she told him so?

  He wouldn’t.

  Instinctively, she knew, he wouldn’t.

  What could she do to show him?

  A slow smile began to form. She had exactly the perfect scenario in mind.

  GREG WAS HAVING A BAD day. His fingers banged the keyboard in his own hunt-and-peck style. Not for the first time, he wished he’d taken typing at school. Somehow he’d never imagined that so much of police work would involve clerical duties. As he sat at his regulation desk in the precinct typing another regulation report into his computer, he fumed. Their evidence hadn’t held up in court and so a notorious drug dealer and gangbanger had gone free.

  He had far too much paperwork to get through in his entire lifetime and his favorite lunch-time eatery had been out of his favorite sandwich.

  It even seemed noisier than usual. More cops seemed to be desk-bound, either typing, on the phone or talking amongst themselves. Somebody was organizing a fantasy league, which seemed to involve a lot of joking around, but he had no interest in betting on hockey. He’d rather play it.

  So he wasn’t in the best of moods when, around four in the afternoon, a pair of black heels strode into his line of vision.

  The stilettos were attached to a nice pair of legs and so his eyes naturally followed the line up to the hem of a blue trench coat snugged around a great figure. One he knew well.

  Sam’s.

  She grinned at him when they made eye contact.

  “How did you get in here?” he asked.

  She wasn’t fooled by his gruff manner, he could tell. Her smile only turned saucier.

  “I showed the desk sergeant my business card and explained that I needed to see you on an urgent business matter. He let me come up. Professional courtesy.”

  “Lawyers.” He shook his head, automatically saving his work. “What do you want?”

  He knew there was interest from everybody in the department since the noise level had immediately dropped to tomblike. Who was this woman and why was she here?

  He was wondering that himself. This was his work-place, not her apartment in the dark where no one had to know what was going on.

  He didn’t feel like explaining to anyone—least of all himself—what exactly was going on. Mostly because he didn’t have a clue.

  She leaned closer. “I wanted you to know that under this trench coat I am wearing nothing
but a light dusting of talcum powder, and that I will be having a drink at that cop bar down the street where you all hang out. If you care to join me.”

  “Which bar?” He wanted to hear her say the words with that red-lipsticked mouth.

  A tiny smile tilted that glorious red. “In The Sin Bin.”

  The Sin Bin was the slang name for the penalty box in hockey. Also, he supposed a fitting reference to jail. Maybe that’s why the cops liked to hang out there, though he figured it was mostly about the proximity to the cop shop and the cold beer and excellent burgers.

  Then she turned, and putting extra oomph in her hips, strutted out without giving him a chance to say a word. Which was just as well since his tongue was glued to the roof of his mouth and he couldn’t have spoken if he’d been able to think of a thing to say.

  He gave her a ten-minute head start. He cleaned up his desk and made his to-do list for the morning so his coworkers wouldn’t guess that he was running after a girl in a trench coat, so desperate for her he could barely draw breath. And then he followed her.

  When he walked in he saw a couple of guys he knew. Nodded. His eyes scanned the place rapidly. A hockey game was on the big screen, but he couldn’t have said what teams were playing. All his focus was on finding that woman.

  He caught a flash of blue and followed it to a booth in a corner.

  She had a glass of white wine in front of her. A beer in a frosty mug already waiting on the other side of the table. His side.

  He sat. Picked up the mug. Drank deeply.

  Put down the glass and looked over at her. She wore extra makeup, he noticed, and she’d done her hair in loose curls. She looked like a spy girl.

  “What’s your plan?” he asked.

  Under the table she ran her high-heel-clad foot up the inside of his leg. He swallowed hard. “It’s National Seduce a Cop Day. I’m doing my civic duty,” she informed him in a low voice.

  She was crazy and gorgeous, and he wanted her so bad he could hardly stand it. But over the years he’d learned a little self-control.

  He picked up his drink and came around to her side of the booth. As he sat beside her he eyed the tiny gap at her trench coat’s hem. “Open your legs,” he said softly.

  A tiny moan came from deep in her throat. She eased open her thighs and as she did so the coat gapped, giving him the view he wanted, all the way to paradise. So, he’d hooked up with an old flame. He wasn’t the first. He still thought she was hot, they had fantastic chemistry and, until something better came along for either of them, this arrangement was perfect. Friends with benefits, wasn’t that what they called it?

  He sipped his beer and pretended to watch the big screen while he slipped his hand onto her knee and let it trail up her inner thigh. She was already trembling. “Where will this civic duty take place?” he asked.

  “Anywhere you like.”

  “Your place or mine. Somewhere where nobody will bother us when I make you come so hard you scream.”

  8

  “IT DIDN’T WORK!”

  Samantha was close to tears when she met Sierra for coffee the next morning.

  “What didn’t work?”

  “What you said. I totally put myself out there. I showed up at Greg’s work in a trench coat, high heels and nothing else. In front of all his colleagues. We went to the bar and he was half-crazy wanting me. Then I took him home and we had the best sex.” She shivered at the memory. She put her head in her hand. “But nothing’s changed.”

  Sierra looked at her the way she’d probably look at a second grader who got simple arithmetic all wrong. “Did you really think it would?”

  Sam jerked up in her chair. “Yes. I thought it would. You were the Romeo and Juliet expert. You told me all I had to do was put myself out there, be prepared to make a fool of myself in the name of love. I’m telling you it didn’t work.”

  Sierra was soft-spoken, a lady, the kind of woman who always let other people go first in lineups. But Sam was beginning to realize she had a streak of steel in her too. And it showed now.

  “You played a fun sex game and seduced a man. How is that putting everything on the line and telling him you love him and want to spend the rest of your life with him?”

  Sam felt like pouting. Probably she was. “I thought he’d read between the lines.”

  “If you really want this man, I think you’re going to have to try harder.” Sierra took a sip of her latte and settled back in her chair. “I don’t think you only hurt his pride when you turned down his proposal. I think you genuinely broke his heart.”

  “Why does everyone keep acting like this is all my fault? I was twenty-two. Headed for law school. I wasn’t ready to get married.”

  “Did you tell him that?”

  She squirmed a bit in her chair. Made a production of sweeping some stray specks of sugar off the tabletop. Finally she admitted, “No.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I was under a lot of stress. I was about to leave home and leave everyone I knew, including Greg. And then he threw a ring at me. I did what any woman in my position would do. I freaked.”

  “Well.”

  “But he knew me. Better than anyone. All he had to do was write or call. I’d have calmed down, things would have gone back to normal. It was totally his fault.”

  “Did you ever think about contacting him?”

  “Sure, I thought about it.”

  “And did you?”

  “No. I wasn’t the one who screwed everything up.”

  “Are you sure?” The calm voice wasn’t accusing, simply asking.

  Sam scowled into her coffee and refused to answer.

  “Sam, you can’t have a relationship where you are always right. It’s statistically impossible. Sometimes, you are wrong. Even worse, sometimes you have to admit you were wrong.”

  A group of moms with toddlers in tow came in, obviously after some sort of mom-and-tot activity. One kid dragged a green sippy cup, one whined about wanting a cookie. Sam had never felt a single tick from her supposed biological clock. Had assumed she didn’t have one. But suddenly she knew she did want kids. And she wanted them with Greg. A man who would take her offer of seducing a cop, but didn’t seem interested in much else. “But—I don’t know how much more I’ve got in me.”

  “Depends how much you want him, I guess.”

  “Oh, I want him.”

  “Forever?”

  She didn’t even hesitate. “Forever.”

  “Then you’d better think of something.”

  GREG WAS SO BUSY preparing for the police and firefighter hockey tourney that she barely saw him. He dropped by a couple of times after work or practice, but it was only for a few hours of sex and then he was gone.

  She’d start to feel used except that she was enjoying sex as she hadn’t enjoyed it in years. Every time they came together she became more convinced that they needed to put their differences aside and commit.

  She wanted lots of things that she saw happening with Greg. She pictured a home, a real home like the kind she’d grown up in, him doing lawn-mowing and hand man projects, her slowing down her practice to spend time with her children.

  Damn it, she wanted to marry the man.

  And now that she was ready, he didn’t seem to want to marry her.

  He was leaving for the big tourney on Tuesday. It was Saturday night. He hadn’t mentioned her coming down to support the team, and she hadn’t brought it up. So far their affair was a dark secret. She hadn’t told anyone except Jarrad and Sierra and if Greg hadn’t told his best friend, then he probably hadn’t told anyone.

  He arrived at ten as they’d arranged and no sooner had she opened the door to him than he had her in his arms, pushing her inside and kissing her deeply. She could feel his passion and need and, as usual, they fueled her own. By the time he’d pressed her against the hallway wall, his arousal was fierce.

  “Oh, baby, I want you so much.”

  She’d planned to sit him
down and talk to him, but she was a woman with strong needs and this man always reminded her of how strong her needs were.

  “Bedroom,” she panted, “I put on fresh sheets.”

  He didn’t answer, simply bent down and hoisted her into his arms. She squealed and then laughed as he hauled her off to the bedroom holding her tight to his chest. In anticipation of his visit, she was wearing a sexy black nightgown. He put her on the bed and, eyes never leaving her, ripped off his clothes in record speed. She loved his haste, his obvious need for her. Desire filled the air between them.

  Greg gazed down at the woman waiting for him on the bed. There was no light in the room save a dim glow from the window, so she was more shadow than real, like a black-and-white photograph. She wore some kind of black lacy thing and under it he could see black panties. A rage of lust pulled at him and he stripped rapidly until he was naked. On the bed. He pulled her against him.

  He hadn’t realized how intense his need would be, would continue to be no matter how many times he tried to slake it with the woman he was in love with—the woman he’d loved for years.

  She kissed him, and it was like his first kiss ever. He leaned into it, into her, and she responded with her usual eagerness. He reached for her, tracing her firm breasts beneath the black silk.

  She ran her hands over his bare chest, his belly, then began to touch him as he reached to rub her through her silk panties.

  Her breath hissed as he caressed her, feeling the heat pulsing from her. Too eager for finesse, he plunged his hand into her panties, needing to feel her, soft and slick and ready.

  “I need…” he gasped. “I need you.”

  “Yes. Oh, yes.”

  He began kissing her and rolled her, wanting to be on top of her, but she had the same idea, bossy woman that she was and she kept going.

  They tumbled off the bed and onto the floor—her expensively carpeted floor.

  “I really, really need to see you,” he said.