A Whisper Of Wanting

by Jamie Sobrato

  He was not the kind of guy who got the urge to cry twice in one day. Damn it. He was going off the deep end.

  She sighed, and the smile disappeared from her mouth and her eyes. “I just wanted to stick around until you woke up, to make sure you were okay.”

  “Oh, um, right,” Ethan murmured.

  Her expression tightened a bit more, and she stood up from her chair. “I think they’re going to keep you here for observation, but you can call me if you need a ride home, okay?”

  Okay. Right. Sure. She’d made the offer as if she’d be far from thrilled to put herself out for him now that her job was done.

  He flashed an easy smile. “Don’t worry. I’ll take a cab. I’m sure you’ll be happy to hear your work here is done,” he said, his voice light.

  Because that’s what Ethan did when things got heavy. He lightened them up. It was the one thing besides his work for which he could always be counted upon.

  He didn’t want her to walk away. He wanted her to stay at his side, laugh with him, pass the time with him.

  That was clearly not what she wanted though. Above all else, Nicole was a woman with a sense of purpose, and she had no lasting interest in him outside of keeping him safe. She’d made that abundantly clear.

  Okay, and maybe he was pouting a bit. He was allowed to do that while lying in a hospital bed with his head all bandaged up, wasn’t he?

  “Take care,” she said, then turned and walked out the door.

  When the cold sound of the metal door closing into its metal frame had finished resonating through his bones, Ethan sighed. His gut twisted, and the weight on his chest grew heavier.

  Why did he feel as though his world had just ended, if Nicole was just another brief adventure in his oh so interesting life?

  17

  NICOLE WAS NOT going to cry. Not for a second. She blinked away the stinging sensation in her eyes as she drove out of the hospital parking lot. Her car felt empty without Ethan in the passenger seat, but it was a feeling she’d have to get used to. She was thinking like an idiot, like the kind of lovesick fool women in her family were too prone to being. She had to snap out of it. Be tough. Forget Ethan.

  She navigated through traffic until she came to a red light, trying her best to focus on the lyrics of the pop song blaring from the radio. But the words to the song were stupid, made no sense, and she switched off the radio in frustration.

  All thoughts led back to Ethan. The guy she had to forget, because he could take nothing seriously.

  She was all seriousness and he was all play. To him, her emotions were just a game. To him, her feelings were a toy to be batted about, like a cat and its mouse. He’d won the game, and now he’d move on to the next one.

  She was a fool for thinking he could be any different.

  Nicole hadn’t realized she was driving on autopilot until she looked around and realized she’d passed up the freeway entrance and was headed toward her sister Gina’s neighborhood. Her first instinct upon realizing where she was going was to stop the car and go in the other direction, but she forced herself to continue on. She needed to talk to someone, maybe even someone who made her own problems seem miniscule. Gina could always do that for her, if nothing else.

  Five minutes later, she pulled up to the curb in front of her sister’s mobile home and turned off the car, then sat staring at the green plastic ride-on dinosaur that had been discarded by her niece in the front yard. Next to it on the ground lay a pink ball, a naked Barbie doll, and a big green pair of Incredible Hulk hands that her nephew liked to wear while punching everything within his reach.

  And somehow, amid the chaos of little kids and no-good men, Gina still managed to be happy. What did she know that Nicole didn’t?

  Her sister must have spotted her through the front window, because she came bounding out the door wearing a pair of green house slippers with ripped jeans and a white T-shirt. Concern furrowed her brow. Nicole opened the door to get out of the car, but she couldn’t find the energy to do it.

  “Are you okay?” Gina asked when she reached the driver’s side door. “Did they catch that guy?”

  Oh right. That guy. Not Ethan. But Jonas Pulaski. In all the uproar of seeing Ethan nearly die and then recover, Nicole had blocked out thoughts of Jonas and how close she’d come to her own doom at his hands.

  In an uncontrollable rush, emotion welled up in her throat and cut off her ability to speak. She nodded instead, blinking again at her stinging eyes.

  “Nicole, get out of the car and come inside. You’re freaking me out. What happened?”

  Nicole allowed her sister to lead her by the hand across the yard, into the trailer, where the sounds of kids playing in the back room created a constant din of giggly noise.

  Nicole sat on the couch and took a long, deep breath. Inside she was feeling anything but okay, as if the events of the past day were finally sinking in. She opened her mouth to speak and burst into tears instead.

  Nicole hadn’t cried in front of any of her sisters since probably middle school, when one of them had dumped purple nail polish all over her favorite jeans. Or something like that. And here she was wracked with sobs, her shoulders shaking, her face crumpled beneath her hands.

  “Oh, Nic,” Gina said, coming toward her now.

  Nicole felt her sister’s arms embrace her, smelled the sweet scent of drugstore perfume, and for once she didn’t want to pull away. She wanted someone to pat her on the back and tell her everything was going to be okay. For once, Nicole needed a shoulder to cry on.

  When the sobs waned to sniffles and she’d stopped shaking, Gina pulled back a bit and brushed the hair away from Nicole’s forehead, like the nurturing type she was. She’d had lots of experience with this kind of thing, being a mother of three.

  “It’s okay,” Nicole said, gaining a little more control of herself. She took another deep breath and felt the tension draining from her body. “Pulatski was caught. It’s just been kind of a harrowing day catching him is all.”

  “That asshole didn’t do anything to you, did he?”

  “I’m fine, really. No harm done. He just scared me is all. He hurt a friend of mine, but he’s going to be fine. And it’s all done. Nothing more to worry about.”

  “They’re not going to let that bastard out of jail again in two years, are they?”

  “This is his third strike, so according to the state of California, so long as he’s convicted, he’ll never be let out of prison again.”

  “Thank God,” Gina said as she patted Nicole’s arm and gazed at her with concerned eyes. “Why don’t you stay here for dinner? We can order pizza. You can sleep on the fold-out couch, okay? You shouldn’t be alone tonight.”

  And for once, Nicole didn’t want to be. She nodded, surprised to be accepting a night of toddlers crying and constant interruptions, even thankful for the offer. She didn’t want to be alone where she could think about how it felt to have Ethan suddenly absent from her life, suddenly absent from her bed.

  That’s what she got for falling head over heels in lust with someone. That’s what happened when she was stupid enough to confuse sex with love. Sex was the thing people walked away from.

  She didn’t want to think about what tomorrow would be like at all.

  WORK WAS HER RESPITE. Nicole could throw herself into her job like no one else she knew, and mostly, it helped her forget about the things she wanted to forget. It helped her forget about her problems, about Ethan, about everything but catching bad guys. When she focused on all the bad shit happening in the city, it made her own problems seem tiny and insignificant.

  For the past week since the beach boardwalk incident, she’d insisted on working the night shift, in spite of her supervisor’s encouragement to take a bit of time off. She’d countered with the argument that she needed something to keep herself busy and keep from moping around, especially at night when she was prone to feeling lonely. He didn’t need to know why.

  Stiff wind gusts were
sweeping in from the ocean now and then, and the early morning air was heavy with moisture from an approaching storm. Nicole inhaled the ocean scent, but beneath her clothes she felt sticky and tired. She wanted to undress, shower and slip into bed naked, except she couldn’t do that now without being reminded of things she’d be better off forgetting.

  As she walked up the sidewalk to her building, she could see something on the steps up ahead. A person, or a body, lying face-up on the sidewalk. She came closer, and thought she recognized the long, lean legs clad in denim, the brown suede jacket…. Another step, and her breath caught in her throat.

  Ethan. Lying back, his eyes closed, his jaw slack, he looked dead. After everything, all the danger, all the protecting him, and Jonas in jail again, how could it be?

  She expelled a strangled cry as she dropped her knees beside him, and that’s when she saw his chest moving up and down in a slow, steady rhythm. The sound of her cry sent his eyes fluttering open, and he startled, then sat up.

  “Oh, bloody hell, I fell asleep, didn’t I?”

  “Damn it, Ethan. I thought you were dead. What are you doing here?”

  He yawned and stretched. “I called in to the precinct and asked what time your shift would end, and they must have told me the wrong time.” He looked at his watch. “I guess I’ve been sitting here for an hour, waiting to talk to you.”

  “Couldn’t you just call me?”

  He was gazing at her so intently in the half light, she felt her breath getting caught in her throat again. Only this time it wasn’t out of fear, but anticipation. The foolish hope that something impossible would happen.

  “Do you mind if we go inside? It’s pretty cold out here lying on the concrete.”

  “Oh,” Nicole said dumbly. “Sure, come on in.”

  They stood and Nicole led him toward the apartment. As they passed the entryway, she caught the movement of the vertical blinds in the apartment below hers being pushed aside, and her neighbor Anita glared out.

  “I’m with her, really!” Ethan called out to the neighbor, and Nicole recalled the near-miss baseball bat attack that had occurred his first time visiting her apartment. “Not a stalker!”

  Nicole smiled and waved to Anita, who let the blinds fall back into place and disappeared.

  “Whew, close one. That woman scares the hell out of me.”

  “You’re lucky she didn’t bludgeon you on the sidewalk.”

  Nicole unlocked her door and led Ethan inside. He closed it behind him, and when she turned to face him, she was surprised to find him only inches away, his gaze focused intently on her mouth.

  “If you came here for a booty call, you can turn and walk right out the damn door.”

  “God, Nicole. I’m sorry. That’s the kind of guy you think I am, isn’t it?”

  Suddenly her throat tightened, and she couldn’t answer, so she nodded instead.

  “I deserve that. I’ve been acting like a bloody ass since the moment we met. I’ve been acting like one my whole goddamn life. And I’m sorry for that. I’m sorry I hurt you.”

  “You didn’t,” she choked out, trying her best to look unaffected by his speech.

  “I wish I could believe that, Nicole. But I felt something a hell of a lot stronger than sexual attraction when we were together, and I think you did too.”

  She shook her head no, her gaze darting to the floor, but she knew exactly what he meant. There was that force of nature between them, stronger than anything she’d felt before. Nearly impossible to resist. Or maybe completely impossible. Maybe that was why she wanted to melt into his arms right now, with only pride holding her back.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she lied.

  “I love you, Nicole. I know you’re the best woman I could ever hope to have, and I’m sorry I botched up my second chance with you. But I have to ask, can there be a third chance?”

  He took a step closer, and his body was almost pressed against her, and there was the force of nature, pulling her to him. Her brain said to step back, but her heart, her body and her soul said to collide with him, to never stop colliding. To never let him go.

  God, she was a fool. A fool with little hope of fighting it.

  “Why the hell should there be?” she forced herself to ask.

  “Because I love you more than anyone else I’ve ever been with. I’m sorry it took a near-death experience for me to come to my senses, but it did. I never should have let you walk out of my hospital room.”

  “But—”

  “Let me keep going. I’m on a roll. I’ve been a fool my whole damn life. I thought everything was about avoiding commitment, and that no one was worth getting serious about. I know how wrong I was now. It took falling for you to show me that. You’re more than worth getting serious about, Nicole. You’re worth risking everything for.”

  His I love you echoed in her head over and over again. He loved her. He really loved her. And he had just said it out loud. She blinked at the dampness forming in her eyes. Because she knew damn well she loved him too.

  She’d known from the moment she saw him in that hospital bed that what she felt for him was a hell of a lot more than sexual attraction gone wild. And she’d feared she wanted him far more than he wanted her. But here he was begging her for another chance, confessing his love.

  Was it all too good to be true?

  He must have sensed the softening of her willpower, because he wrapped his arms around her then and held her against his chest, kissed her forehead, breathed into her hair.

  “It’s you, Nicole. You’re the only thing I want. And I know I don’t deserve you, so I don’t know how I even got the nerve to come here and beg for another chance. But here I am, begging,” he said, his words echoing her thoughts.

  “Why now?” she asked, not sure what else to say when all she wanted to do was drag him into her bedroom and make up for the week they’d been apart.

  “Because I’m a fool. Because it took me a week of moping around like the world’s biggest loser to work up the nerve to ask you for another chance. I was afraid you’d kick my ass right back out the door, and you’d be well within your rights to do that still, you know.”

  “You’re right, I should kick you out the door,” she said, the tension finally draining from her body. She smiled, almost laughed. “But I must be the bigger fool, because I don’t want to.”

  He pulled back a bit and searched her eyes with his. “You don’t?”

  “Don’t sound so shocked,” she said. “It takes two people to fall in love.”

  His mouth hung open a bit. It was the first time she’d ever seen Ethan shocked speechless. “You mean…” he finally said.

  “I love you, too.” She was surprised how easily the words rolled off her tongue, as if they’d been waiting there for a long time, longer than she knew.

  “You’re not intimidated by my noncommittal relationship track record?”

  She shrugged. “I’ve got a pretty similar record. It wouldn’t be fair of me to judge yours in that case, would it?”

  “And I don’t drive you insane all the time? I thought for sure I drove you insane.”

  “In a good way,” she said.

  Ethan smiled the smile that drove her the most insane of all, the one that reminded her how little control she had over her passion for him, and she melted into him. She’d never met her match before, not until Ethan. And she’d never again deny herself the pleasure of a man as perfect for her as him in her life.

  He kissed her then, long and deep. She opened up to him, tickled her tongue against his, drank him in as if he was the thing she’d been thirsting for. And he was.

  When he broke the kiss, she felt tears streaming down her cheeks, and she was amazed to see his own eyes damp with tears.

  “Thank you,” he said. “For another chance. This time I won’t screw it up, okay?”

  She laughed. “Just shut up and kiss me.”

  Epilogue

  Nine Months Later
…

  JULY IN LONDON WAS a refreshing change from July in San Diego. Ethan had been all too conscious of the awkward weight of the ring box in his pocket all afternoon, but no matter how he tried, the opportunity to propose never quite materialized. Nicole was like a soldier on a mission, touring London.

  She had them on a strict schedule. Buckingham Palace in the morning, Big Ben at noon, the Tate Museum after lunch until dinner. He was beginning to feel as if he’d seen more of London in the past three days than he had in his entire childhood growing up in the city.

  There was hardly a minute to pause for romantic interludes. As soon as he tried to slow her down, she sped up and dragged him along. He was beginning to think he’d have to propose to her on the Underground.

  “Do you want to stop at a pub and grab a drink?” he dared to ask as they walked toward the nearest underground stop.

  “Are you tired?” Nicole asked, eyeing him warily.

  “Maybe we could put off the museum until tomorrow.”

  “But we’re supposed to do the day trip to Stonehenge tomorrow.”

  Ethan waved a hand. “Just a bunch of dumb rocks arranged in a circle. Really, the photos are better than the real thing. There’s a damn fence blocking the view, so you can’t even get any good pictures of the bloody rocks.”

  “I traveled all this way and suffered jet lag from hell. I’m seeing Stonehenge.”

  Secretly, he loved her on-a-mission approach to travel, as it was her approach to everything in life. And he loved her. He especially loved that he was her latest mission.

  “Okay, okay. But I do need to rest. My feet feel like I’ve been walking over hot coals.”

  “That’s what you get for being a candy-ass reporter sitting at a desk all day. It makes you soft.”

  He slid his hand over her backside. “Thank heaven we can’t say the same about you. Maybe I should become a cop so I can get a firm ass like yours.”

  She laughed. “Your ass is fine. You know I’d never date a candy-ass.”