by Ryanne Corey
Her nylons disappeared, and Zack felt a hard shock when he realized she had been wearing absolutely nothing beneath her dress. He clenched his jaw, staring down at her lovely, flushed face. “You humble me,” he said hoarsely. “I want to give everything to you. I want to take you places you’ve never been…”
There was something in his expression that touched her heart, something vulnerable and sweet. Her shaky fingers framed his face, while an even shakier smile trembled on her kiss-swollen lips. “Then take me,” she whispered. “I want to be right there with you, everywhere you go. Anywhere.”
Zack was too emotional to be proficient. Experiences of the past were irrelevant. Tonight he had nothing to go on but his love for this woman, and that was an experience he’d never had before. It felt holy and pure to him, despite the intensity of his physical response to her. Their lips and hands made magic together. Damp, with lithe and limber motions, they explored well the full length of their bodies. Anna seemed to welcome everything—his driving kisses, his frantic hands, and his body that instinctively began to thrust with a primitive movement. And still she looked at him with restless smiles and a feverish expression that clearly said, It’s not enough.
Yet Zack paused, for a moment looking oddly young and vulnerable. “Say it,” he said softly. Never before had he wanted to hear the words, I love you. Never once. And on the few occasions he had heard those words, unbidden, he had soon departed, like all the hounds in hell were hot on his trail. Allowing a woman to need him had always been anathema to him. His mother had needed his father, and received nothing in return but silence and loneliness.
But that was then and this was now. This night was a moment out of time, a place of magic that had no connection to the real world.
Anna’s passion-filled eyes briefly questioned him, then understanding dawned. She took his hand, pressing it fiercely over her heart. “I love you.”
A flush of heat stained his nose and cheeks like a little boy’s sunburn. How could it be? And yet he knew she meant what she said, because Anna had never bothered to hide her feelings and never would. She was uncorrupted, clear-sighted and beautifully honest.
Zack’s eyes suddenly shimmered, blurring the beautiful vision below him. What was this? Not tears, he thought, because he knew himself fairly well and was toughened by years of risky situations and heartbreaking realities. With the exception of the night his mother left his father, he couldn’t think back to a single time in his life when he had cried. No, not tears. Something else was fogging his vision and tying his throat in a vicious, triple-looped lover’s knot.
Wonderingly Anna gently touched a sparkling teardrop at the corner of his eye.
“The light hurts my eyes,” he said hoarsely, referring to the thirty-five-watt bulb burning invisibly out in the entry hall. “It’s very bright.”
“As bright as the moon,” Anna said softly, thinking how beautiful he was, how brilliant and sweet his expression. “Except there’s no moon tonight.”
“Don’t be a smart aleck.” He swallowed painfully, dipping his forehead down to rest against hers. For a moment they stayed like that, frozen, communicating with their spirits while deliberately prolonging the union of their bodies. Then Zack moved with a sudden groan, drinking deeply from her mouth. Almost instantly they were hot, frantic and close to delirium. The clothes that impeded them disappeared like magic, hanging here and there on furniture and lamps. It was a nice touch, Zack thought. Added spice to the Victorian theme.
Then he thought no longer.
Slowly, ever so slowly he sank into her, and the overwhelming physical sensations intensified with every second. He tilted her hips with his strong hands, wanting to get even deeper. I want all of you. He wasn’t aware he had actually said the words aloud until she tucked one side of her mouth in a crooked smile and said breathlessly, “I think you’re about there. Ohhhhh, you feel so good to me…”
She climbed. The waves of pleasure began soft and gentle, then quickly grew strong. Anna felt greedy, wanting, wanting, wanting. Zack loved the passion in her face, the wild and complete abandonment she was able to achieve so effortlessly. She was made for love.
Zack took her by the heart and the mind and the body into a place that dazzled her with stars and sunshine and sugar-sweet release. He kept her suspended for a blinding space of time, prolonging the unearthly pleasure as long as he was humanly able. He had ways and means, and he used them all. He had never wanted to please a woman this much in his life. Every need she had, he wanted to fill. He wanted to be everything to her, her entire world.
Anna clung to him after, gasping and crying and telling him over and over she loved him. It was music to Zack’s ears, every word she spoke filling the empty places in his soul.
I love you…
I love you…
Forever…
The first time they had made love, it had been so new and amazing she could barely take it all in. This time was different; this time they had pushed each other to the limits of their bodies and minds. Worlds of wonder had opened up to Anna. For the second time in her life she felt she had found a perfect home.
Time had ceased to be an accurate measure of the night. It might have been minutes later, it might have been hours later, when Anna opened her eyes, purred and stretched. The parlor was dark, a bit cool. She was covered only by Zack’s brand-new shirt which was missing a button. He was stretched out on his side on the carpet, arm curled beneath his head, staring at her.
“Did you sleep?” she asked him in a soft, husky voice.
He shook his head, his expression unusually somber. “There’s no time for sleep. I had important things to do.”
“Such as…?”
“Memorizing things. The way you look when you’re sleeping. The way your pulse throbs just beneath your ear. The beautiful frame your hair makes for your face, like a delicate cameo. It’s so beautiful, with more shine than satin. I’ve never seen anything like it before. The world will never see your like again, Anna.”
She studied him with fathomless blue eyes, a flush of love marking her cheeks and chin. “Have you ever thought what your children would look like? Have you thought about their eyes, their hair, if they would laugh like you or walk like you?”
In point of fact, he hadn’t. That was a subject that had always been taboo for him. “Not really.” Then, when he saw the curiosity in her expression, “Is that strange?”
“No, just…well, I always thought everyone else was like me, thinking about their babies and wondering what they would be like. It’s human nature to want to leave something of yourself in the world when your time is over.” She paused for an uncertain moment, wondering if she should say what was on her mind. Then she thought of the intimacies they had shared and decided their relationship was strong enough to allow her to be honest. Besides, it wasn’t in her nature to hide her emotions. “Every time I look at you, I wonder what a child of yours would be like. A son, with black hair and those restless, stormy eyes of yours.” She smiled faintly, reaching out her hand and touching his face. “I hope the world does see your like again, Mr. Romantic Policeman.”
Zack was struck mute. His eyes grew even darker and deeper, his skin quickly becoming chilled. He never thought about children, because he sincerely doubted he would ever have any. He wasn’t willing to walk out of the house every day, wave goodbye to his kids and his wife and wonder if it was the last time he would see them. His job wasn’t frightening to him in the least—as long as it affected only him. If others were involved, it became terrifying. He would not, could not, hurt anyone else with the same careless disregard he had seen from his father so many times. As a cop, the man was a hero. As a husband and father, he was something else altogether. Zack had never been willing to make someone else pay the price of his own inherent inadequacies.
“It’s late,” he said abruptly.
Anna’s brows drew together in a little frown. “Zack? I wasn’t…I didn’t mean…”
; “I know. It’s fine, really.” Now Zack knew firsthand why a love affair was called an idyll. An idyll was when you pushed every logical thought from your mind and reacted only with your heart. It was a suspended moment in time when you pretended nothing could go wrong. It was fleeting and precious and fragile. He couldn’t escape the sensation of his time with Anna running out, like sand in an hourglass.
Kyle and Carrie came over for breakfast, once again talking weddings. They were holding hands, seldom looking away from the other for too long. The sparkle was back in Carrie’s eyes, and there was a new confidence and assurance in Kyle’s demeanor. They walked into the house and brought with them a fresh breeze of newfound contentment.
Zack envied them that. He would never have figured he would covet the life of this rather ordinary and occasionally irritating veterinarian. He couldn’t remember feeling bored in his own life, but neither did he know what it was to be content. There was always a new goal on the horizon, a new challenge to be met and conquered. He never relaxed, not really. If he did, he had the feeling he was letting someone down, somewhere, somehow. Again, just like his father. He couldn’t do that.
During breakfast he barely took his eyes off Anna, drinking in the bright, vivid expressions on her beautiful face. When she laughed, she wrinkled her nose. There was a definite razor-burn on her cheeks. She glowed, just as Carrie glowed. If there was anything wrong in her world, you couldn’t see it by looking at her.
Zack began to feel a little sick. He’d always known what he needed to do to solve his problems, and he’d always been capable of doing it. His principles were his guidelines. But how on earth could he ever solve this? A man of principle wouldn’t be in this no-win situation in the first place.
His decisions no longer affected only him. He was facing the destruction of a lifetime’s assumptions about himself and his role in the world. Actions that had always seemed heroic were now rather blurred and confusing. He had discovered, too late, that he was just as human as anyone else.
Not long after Kyle and Carrie left, there was a phone call for Zack. “I didn’t realize anyone knew where you were,” Anna said curiously, handing him the phone.
Zack looked up at her from the newspaper he was pretending to read. At least he wasn’t holding it upside down. He was painfully preoccupied, intensely sensitive to the thick mood in the sunny kitchen. Anna’s cheerful banter had ceased abruptly as soon as Kyle and Carrie had left. Apparently she had noticed his uncharacteristic reserve. What had happened to his much-touted ability to disguise his true thoughts and feelings? In the space of a few short days, he had become frighteningly easy to read. Zing, I’m happy. Bam, I’m depressed. Hell, I’m confused.
“Thanks.” Smiling faintly at the wallpaper over her shoulder, he took the phone. He knew exactly who was calling. “Hello, Captain. Long time no talk.”
“Stuff the fun and nonsense,” Todd told him. “I haven’t had my eight cups of coffee yet this morning, and I’m still irritable.”
“And the sky is still blue. Some things never change,” Zack muttered, his eyes following Anna as she put the breakfast dishes in the sink. The atmosphere in the room was awfully heavy for two people who were supposed to be in the throes of a romantic idyll. “How did you find this number, anyway?”
“How long have you been a cop, Daniels? Tracing calls is one of the things we do, remember? I’m sure it will all come back to you as you get back here. Which,” he paused for emphasis, “will be, without argument, today.”
Zack took a good long time to answer. “No. Not today.” Strangely, his voice lacked conviction. He watched Anna’s shoulders stiffen as she worked at the sink with her back to him. “I’m still…I’m on vacation.”
“Daniels, either your vacation or your job ended about one minute ago—take your pick. We need to get a statement from you before we can lock Pappy’s shooter up and throw away the key. In person. First thing tomorrow morning—8:00 a.m.”
Zack’s eyes slowly closed. He felt hollow inside, scraped out by an age-old, rusted knife. A serrated rusted knife. “That’s too soon. Look, I won’t be much longer. It’s not like I’m planning on staying here forever. Just…a couple of days or so.”
A glass dropped in the sink, shattering. Still Anna kept her back to Zack, bracing her palms on either side of the sink. She was wearing a loose, white cotton sundress that foamed around her tanned, bare legs with a casual, flirtatious air at odds with the emotion crowding the kitchen. Her hair was tied with a narrow white ribbon at the base of her neck. It was still damp from showering that morning. All these details Zack memorized, filled with a frantic sense of impending doom. He realized he had just deliberately cut his own throat. I’m not planning on staying here forever. He knew it, and she knew it.
“I’m not kidding on this one,” Todd shouted, hurting Zack’s ears. “You want this guy to walk? What’s happened to you? You’re sure as hell not acting like a cop anymore. Are you still a cop?”
“Of course I’m still a cop,” Zack fired back, stung. “And Pappy is still my partner, and I do care what happens. You know me, Captain. I’m not about to let anyone down.” Famous last words…too little, too late.
“You’ll be here tomorrow.” It wasn’t a question. It was a flat demand, and Todd slammed down the receiver before Zack could argue.
Zack stood to hang up the phone, moving in slow motion. He pushed his hands into the pockets of his jeans, keeping his back to Anna until he felt the touch of her hand on his shoulder.
“So tell me,” she said tonelessly. “What was all that?”
Zack turned to face her. He had never seen her blue eyes look so dark or so deep. “That was Captain Todd, back in Los Angeles. He needs me to come home immediately. The guy who shot my partner has been arrested. I need to give a statement in court first thing tomorrow. It’s something I can’t get out of.”
“Is that all?” she asked with a stiff, unconvincing smile. “Here I thought something terrible had happened. I know you have a job to do, Zack. You had a life before you met me. Right?”
She met this like she did everything in her life, Zack thought. Straight on and right between the eyes. He could see more than he wanted to in the stiffness of her posture, the unnaturally high set of her head. He had taught her to love him and she did. The pain they were both feeling was a by-product of those lessons.
Still, he felt compelled to defend what was indefensible. “Anna, it’s not my choice. I have to go.”
In a hollow, toneless voice, “Of course you do. I heard. Besides, you never meant to stay here forever.”
And so it comes down to this, Zack thought with awful clarity. He felt like someone had pulled the world out from under his feet without warning. Even as he tried to identify his emotions, his icy-sharp intellect was analyzing the black-and-white facts. Without his being consciously aware of it, or emotionally prepared, a decision had been made. The only decision he felt qualified to make.
“I suppose we should be grateful for the timing,” he told her, his calm voice belying the bleak expression in his eyes. “Just as Kyle and Carrie walk out the door, my life in Los Angeles comes calling. If I’d been needed back any sooner, we couldn’t have pulled this off.”
Anna was very, very still. Life teemed about them in the small kitchen: the gauze curtains at the window billowing with the morning breeze, the dishwasher humming, the clock on the wall ticking away silent seconds. Three, two, one…zero.
“Pulled it off?” she echoed dully.
Still he couldn’t meet her eyes. “We made a good team…that way.”
“Made?” It seemed all she could do was parrot whatever he said. Her fingers were shaking; she hid them away in her skirts. She hadn’t felt pain like this since…since forever.
Zack felt as if he had demons in his skull, each and every one whacking away at him with a vicious little sledgehammer. For Anna’s sake, there could be no vacillation on his part. The pain he was causing her now was at least finite—th
ere would be an end to it when enough time had passed. The pain he would cause her if he tried to make her part of his life permanently was infinite. He knew her generosity and courage. If he tried to explain his fears to her now, she wouldn’t allow him to shut her out. She wouldn’t understand the risk she was taking, not as he did. Damnation, why hadn’t he been more careful at the beginning? He didn’t mind the hurt he had caused himself. He deserved it. But the wounds in her pale face were unbearable to see.
“I suppose nothing lasts forever,” Zack said. In this he lied. What he felt for her would last forever. He knew it as he knew the sun would rise in the east and set in the west. For a full minute, the communication between them took place in silence. It was the one thing he feared most in life—hurting those he cared about. “What happened between us…it wasn’t planned. If I’d known…if I’d known…”
“What, Zack?” Anna asked ever so softly. For the first time since he met her, her eyes looked flat and completely lifeless. “If you’d known what was going to happen, if you’d known I was going to fall in love with you, would you have acted differently? Would you have let me go that first night and forgotten about me? Is that what you’re trying to say? Are you feeling trapped now, like you don’t quite know how to slip out the door?”
“It’s not like that,” he snapped. “That’s not what happened with us, and you know it.”
“What did happen with us? Explain it to me. Were we just playing another game?” She was looking at him in the way she would have looked at a total stranger. Warily. “It didn’t feel like a game, but now I’m not so sure. Things get confusing at the end, don’t you think?”
Zack took her hands in his. They felt cold to the touch, stiff and unresponsive. “You know damn well it wasn’t a game. Anna, all my life I’ve tried to be honest. I’ve seen so much hurt stemming from people who refuse to face reality, who insist on ignoring their own flaws. I’ve known who I was and what my life would be like from the beginning. Do you know that the divorce rate among cops is higher than in any other profession? There are good reasons for that, believe me. I’m a good cop, a good friend and a very bad emotional risk. My father was a cop, and I’m his spitting image. The only way I can stop the chain of hurt that comes with my profession is not to involve anyone else.”