by Lisa Childs
“Hey, Rob—”
“Billy?”
“Yeah, I need you to cover tonight’s class.”
Glancing at Marla Halliday, who sat in the second row near Holden, Robbie lowered her voice and asked, “Is it because your mom’s in the class? Paddy thought you might skip out because of that.”
A chuckle emanated from the phone. “No, that’s not it. I can’t leave without blowing my cover.”
While Robbie had accepted her assignment to vice, she had insisted she couldn’t go so deep undercover that she couldn’t come home to Kayla.
“You’re better at doing the instruction thing anyway,” Billy said. “Probably because you’re a mom.”
“But I have no idea what to say.” How, with Holden staring at her, could she talk about what had caused him so much pain? Even after what had happened the past weekend at the mayor’s ball, she didn’t want to bring up all those bad memories.
“You’ll do great,” Billy assured her as he hung up.
“Billy!” Only the dial tone was there.
“He couldn’t make it?” Paddy asked.
She closed the phone and shook her head.
“So are you ready?” the watch commander asked.
“Ready?” She cleared her throat of the nerves tickling it. “I don’t have anything prepared.”
“It’s nothing you can’t handle,” he said with a grin. “Remember, I wouldn’t have asked you to be part of the program if you weren’t a damn fine officer.”
Touched by his praise, she summoned her pride and her guts and stood and approached the podium. She was a damn fine officer; she could handle anything to do with her job.
She stared out at the class, and her heart skipped a beat as she met Holden’s gaze. He was what she couldn’t handle: Holden and her feelings for him. No matter if he and Meredith were only friends, Robbie had to get over her feelings for the man. Because he would never accept her as she was, as a cop.
Holden leaned back in his chair so that he nearly touched the table behind him, the one at which Joelly Standish sat. He cocked his head and whispered, “Is everything all right with Kayla?”
Joelly snapped her cell phone shut and dropped it into her bag. Then she leaned forward and whispered back, as if they were in high school and she hoped the teacher wouldn’t catch them talking, “Yeah. I just called the sitter. She’s fine. That call was from someone else.”
Even though he knew she could have been talking to anyone, Holden couldn’t stop himself from imagining it had been a man. And maybe she’d been making plans for later….
Lieutenant O’Donnell stepped to the podium, drawing Holden’s and everyone else’s attention. “Hey, folks, welcome to tonight’s session about the vice unit. Once again Officer Roberta Meyers is pinch-hitting for the very busy sergeant of the vice division, Billy Halliday.” He urged her forward with a hand on her back.
A muscle worked in Holden’s jaw as he thought about the last time he’d touched her. How they’d slipped out of the ball to the beach below the mayor’s mansion, and how he’d kissed her as though he would die if he didn’t have a taste of her lips. And then he remembered the time before that, in his bed, as she lay almost naked in his arms. If only he hadn’t heard a noise in the hall…
He had been a damn fool to stop. His body, still tense and aching, had yet to forgive him.
“Please bear with me,” she beseeched with a smile as she adjusted the mike to her height. “I don’t have anything formal prepared, but I’ll try to tell you everything I know about the vice unit.”
She knew a lot, Holden realized, as he listened to her talk about her job. Not only did she know what she was doing, but she obviously loved what she did. Setting up buys, turning informants…getting drugs off the streets.
If only she’d been able to protect Lorielle.
But of course she hadn’t been a cop then. And now he worried that one day she wouldn’t be able to protect herself.
“All right, it’s time for show-and-tell,” Roberta announced as she opened a collection of metal boxes and extracted various plastic bags. “The first is marijuana,” she said as she handed a bag of what appeared to be dried herbs to the reporter at the first table. “Some of you might recognize this, and if so, see me after class.”
Uneasy chuckles emanated from the group.
“I see there’ll be quite a few of you,” she teased, eliciting outright laughter from the citizens and her fellow officers.
She was a natural speaker. She could be such an asset at the shelter. If only she’d quit the police department…
She lifted another plastic bag. “They look just like rocks, don’t they?” Through the plastic bag, she squeezed one of the crystal-shaped pieces. “This is crack. It’s smoked, instead of snorted like powder cocaine.” She dropped that bag onto another table. “And black-tar heroin—yup, it’s actually mixed with tar.”
Marla shuddered as she passed the plastic bag to Holden. His hand trembled as he passed the bag to the person beside him. He didn’t even glance at the contents; he had seen it before, in his sister’s apartment the night he’d found her overdosed. The night Holly, barely old enough to remember his number, had called him for help. Even though he’d gotten there before the ambulance arrived, before his sister died, he had been too late to save her.
He expelled a shaky breath and glanced up, catching Roberta’s gaze on him. There was a question in her blue eyes. He nodded. I’m okay…
“And these,” she continued, holding out another bag, “look like candy. They’re actually X—ecstasy tablets.”
“They do look like candy,” Bernie Gillespie exclaimed, “the kind my grandchildren are always eating.” She clutched her husband’s arm.
“The drug dealers package it like this to hook kids young,” Roberta explained. “Then they move them on to harder drugs. Crack is highly addictive because that first high is the highest, so they keep chasing the high. Heroin—” she focused on Holden again “—is also highly addictive.”
Even if she wouldn’t quit the Lakewood PD, Holden needed Robbie at the shelter; he needed her to talk to his kids about drugs. It was a struggle for him to do without being overwhelmed by pain and regret and guilt.
“Hey,” Ethan Brewer said to Holden as the CPA wrapped up for the evening. The sergeant had attended this class and brought along his dog, as he’d jokingly threatened, “to make sure no one tried to smuggle out the drugs Officer Meyers had brought for show-and-tell.”
Now he met Holden’s gaze and grinned. “You going to the Lighthouse?”
“Lighthouse?” Holden asked.
Bernie Gillespie answered for Ethan. “It’s a great bar and restaurant where the police officers hang out after their shifts. Well, most of the police officers, anyway.”
Holden could guess who didn’t. Roberta would go home to Kayla, not hang out with her colleagues. He had been so wrong about her—she put her daughter first.
“Brigitte’s grandfather owns the place,” Ethan added. “They have the best burger and fries on the lakeshore.”
“Thanks, we think so, too,” Brigitte Kowalczek said. The pretty bartender was also a member of the Citizens’ Police Academy. “So have we piqued your interest, Reverend Thomas?”
“It’s kind of late to eat,” he said, and after seeing all those drugs he had no appetite.
“I’ll work on him,” Ethan promised, waving off the others. He waited until they walked out of the conference room before adding, “Give Meredith a call. Have her join us. Some social workers can be a pain in the ass, but we all really like her. She’d fit in well.”
“Thanks,” Holden said. He truly appreciated the cop’s friendship. “But I’m going to have to make it another time. I have someplace else I need to be tonight.” He turned to leave and bumped into her. “Robbie…”
“Don’t let me keep you,” she said as she hurried out the door.
But Holden was worried that she would keep him, at least keep him inte
rested…that she was going to cause him to break his promise to Lorielle.
ROBBIE LAY in the bathtub, steam rising as the hot water eased some of her tension. Yet a bath couldn’t ease all of it. She suspected only Holden could do that.
She lifted a wineglass from the white-tiled floor. Her fingers grasping the stem, she swirled the red wine. After uttering a wistful sigh, she sipped from the rim. The wine was dry and tart and spread warmth through her chest. The warmth reminded her of Holden’s kisses. Despite the heat of the water, she shivered.
She couldn’t think about his kisses anymore. Or about him.
But that look on his face when he’d passed along the bag of heroin as if he hadn’t wanted to even touch it…It was a look that had drained all the color from his tanned face and dulled the usual spark in his bright, green-blue eyes, and the look haunted her. She’d wanted to make sure that he was all right, so she’d waited for him after class. But then she’d heard Brewer telling him to call Meredith. And her shame and guilt had rushed back.
Meredith’s talking to her on the beach had only added to Robbie’s guilt, instead of absolving her. It didn’t matter that Meredith had sworn she and Holden were only friends. It didn’t matter, because Robbie had had no business kissing him, not when he refused to accept her as she was. And even if he could, his father would never accept his son becoming involved with a “dirty stray.”
She blinked, her lashes fluttering. The steam—it had to be the steam—was bringing tears to her eyes. She did not cry.
She swallowed another mouthful of wine, nearly choking on it as a knock sounded on the apartment door. “Great,” she muttered, debating for a moment about just ignoring it.
But maybe Kayla had awakened in Brenda’s apartment and wanted to come down to her own bed. Robbie rose from the bubbles, quickly wrapped a towel around herself and tucked the end between her breasts.
When she pulled open the door a moment later, however, it wasn’t her daughter who waited in the hall. She blew out a shaky breath. She should have ignored the knock.
“Y-you were in the tub,” Holden stammered as he stared at her bare shoulders, his pupils widening until his eyes were completely dark with desire.
“I thought you had someplace else you needed to be,” she said.
“Yeah. Here.” He stepped forward, pushing against the door, until he was inside. Then he closed the door behind himself so the two of them were alone in her apartment. And she was barely covered by a towel. He held out his hand, her borrowed sandals dangling from his finger. “I brought back your glass slippers.”
“They don’t really fit,” she informed him. “They’re Joelly’s. She’s the princess and I’m the cop.”
Her blunt reminder wasn’t strong enough to dampen his desire for her.
“Where is Kayla?” he asked, needing to know that the child was nearby in order to hang on to his tenuous control. Again Roberta was someone else entirely, someone soft and beautiful and vulnerable as she stared at him, her eyes wide.
“Up…upstairs.”
He closed his eyes, trying to resist the temptation to touch her, to stroke his fingers over all that bare skin and follow the path of the beads of water that streaked over her breasts and disappeared beneath the towel. He shook his head, ejecting her sensual half-naked image from his mind as he tried to remember why he’d felt compelled to come here. “I—I wanted to talk to you…”
He needed to apologize, for kissing her on the beach and for the idiotic comments his father had made.
“I wanted to talk to you, too,” she said, her voice husky. “That’s why I waited tonight…for you.”
His body tensed, desire gripping him so that every muscle ached to hold her, to possess her. “You waited for me? Why?”
“I saw your face,” she said. “I knew what you must have been going through. I’m sorry.”
His gaze met hers. Her eyes were warm and full of concern. “I don’t want to talk now,” he said.
Her skin, already flushed from the bath, grew pinker. “What do you want?”
He reached out, hooking his fingers over the top of her towel between the curves of her breasts. “You.”
Her lips parted, her breath shuddering out. “Holden…”
“Stop me,” he almost pleaded. Every time he saw her, touched her, tasted her, it was harder for him to remember his promise to Lorielle—let alone keep it. “Please, stop me.”
She wrapped her fingers around his, pulling them away from her towel. Then she dropped his hand and stepped back.
He should have been relieved that she had the control he lacked. But the sharp bite of disappointment added to the ache of desire. “Yeah, you’re right. We can’t do this,” he said, his lungs straining for breath as he stared at her.
She was so damn beautiful, her blue eyes wide and heavily lashed in her delicate face. Her silky black hair curled wildly around her bare shoulders. And the damp towel clung to every curve of her body.
Then she lifted her hand to where she’d tucked the end of the towel between her breasts and tugged the end free. The towel slid down her body, leaving every sweet, sexy inch of her bare.
A groan ripped from his throat. “Roberta…”
Paralyzed with desire, he couldn’t move as she walked past him, close enough that she just brushed his tense, aching body. She turned back and crooked her finger.
Before he got any closer, close enough to touch, he had to ask, “Are you sure?”
Chapter Twelve
What the hell am I doing? Robbie shivered, not from the cold but from the way Holden looked at her—as if he could not look away. And she couldn’t walk away, not without him.
“Roberta, are you sure?” he asked again.
She should have realized it wasn’t Kayla at the door—Brenda had confessed that the little girl had stayed awake past her bedtime. She would be out cold for the rest of the night. But Robbie didn’t intend to be alone while her daughter slept upstairs.
“I’m sure,” she said.
Holden released a ragged breath and closed the distance between them. “That makes one of us.”
She entwined her fingers with his and tugged him into her bedroom. Then she closed and locked the door behind them. “I think we need to do this,” she said, “so we can put it—and each other—behind us.”
“I’m not going to use you like that,” he protested, ever the gentleman. His conflict was apparent in the twitch of muscles along his jaw.
“No,” she agreed, “I’m going to use you.” She would use his kisses and his touch to release the frustration he had built inside her. Once it was gone, maybe she could stop thinking and dreaming about him.
A wicked chuckle rumbled out of his chest. “I have no problem with you using me.”
“So you don’t mind being used,” she said. Some of the teens that came through his shelter took advantage of him, of his generosity and his desire to save them. Tonight she wanted that desire only for her.
“I don’t mind you using me,” he clarified, squeezing her fingers. Then he lifted his free hand and traced the curve of her cheek. “You are so beautiful…and so tough.”
His tribute to her toughness was the compliment that had her blinking back tears. Seeing that he knew how much her strength mattered to her convinced Robbie she was doing the right thing. Even if they had no future together, even if she wasn’t the kind of woman he could marry, she wanted to make love with Holden. She wanted this night to remember.
“Holden…” She swallowed hard, desire thick in her throat. “Undress for me.”
His mouth quirked into a grin. “For a minute I thought you said arrest—that you were arresting me again.”
“I might get out the cuffs,” she threatened playfully, “if you don’t do what I want.”
He stepped back, then shrugged off his jacket. Next he reached for the hem of his charcoal-gray sweater and pulled it over his head, muscles rippling on his washboard abs as he dropped it on the floor.
<
br /> Robbie’s fingers itched to touch him as desire overwhelmed her. He was male perfection. So damned good-looking she suspected most of those teenage girls stayed at his shelter just to stare at him. Her mouth hung open in awe of his masculine beauty.
He unclasped his belt and pulled it free of his jeans, then unsnapped and unzipped the denim. The open fly revealed his boxers, which had a cartoon cat on them. When he noticed that she was smiling he said with a laugh, “Holly picked them out for me.”
“She has great taste,” Robbie replied, and reached out, pushing the denim down his lean hips. He stepped out of his shoes and kicked off his jeans, leaving on only those boxers.
“I like your taste,” he said, but he didn’t even glance around at her lavender-and-slate-gray bedroom. Instead, he tangled his fingers in her hair and held her head steady as he covered his mouth with hers. His tongue parted her lips, then slid in and out as he tasted her.
She kissed him back with all the fire burning inside her. Their bodies just touched, her breasts rubbing his chest. She shivered at the erotic sensation of the soft, golden brown hair against her skin.
He scooped her up and carried her to the bed. She wanted his lips again. She arched into him and wrapped her arms around his waist, pulling his weight down onto her. His erection strained against his boxers, long and hard, and pressed into her stomach.
Easing his mouth from hers, his breath hot against her throat, he slid his lips down her neck. She flung her head back, then glided her hands up his back, tunneling her fingers into his hair and pulling him closer. He kissed her shoulder before his lips traced the curve of her breast. Finally he touched the aching point with the tip of his tongue.
She gasped. “Holden…”
He continued to tease her, using just his tongue while his fingers skimmed along her sides to the curve of her hips. Finally he tugged her nipple fully into his mouth, scraping the sensitive tip with his teeth. While one hand cupped her other breast, the fingers of his free hand skimmed over her stomach to tangle in the curls between her legs. He stroked through them to slide first one finger inside her, then another, while his thumb teased the most sensitive part of her. The tension built inside her, making her muscles contract until finally she shuddered and came.