She went after him instead.
Chapter Eight
Jack heard her footsteps on the stairs leading up to the observatory platform, and just shook his head.
Of course she hadn’t stayed inside. And of course she had come after him. No doubt she saw him as akin to one of her sick forests: in need of tending, lest a catastrophic collapse follow. Or maybe she saw him as something more than that, something—or, rather, someone—she cared about within her own comfort zone of caring. Which would only complicate things more.
He shouldn’t have let the conversation get so personal. Let it? he thought with an inner snort. Hell, he’d taken it there, pushing her to open up to him, no doubt with some deep-seated and arrogant belief that she was secretly tired of the traveling lifestyle and ready to settle down with the right man.
More, her comments about her brothers and father had struck a nerve because he’d been that guy. Hell, he was that guy. That was what had driven him out of the kitchen, and it was what had him now gripping the waist-high railing that edged the platform, and staring up into the night sky.
He’d killed the floodlights—only a mild security risk given that the other sensors were still online—and the moon was only a thin sliver behind him, leaving the night dark and gorgeous, and filled with far more stars than the city ever saw. The sky was gorgeous, endless. It made him feel small and insignificant, yet at the same time reminded him that he and Tori were far more similar than they were different.
But that was the thing, wasn’t it? Sure, they had some things in common—more, it turned out, than he would have thought at first—but a couple of the things they differed on were deal breakers for him.
She stopped at the edge of the platform and stood there for a moment, watching him. He knew he should tell her to leave, that she would go if he asked and they would probably both be better off. They could go back to their unstated truce with the memory of that one kiss between them. At least he thought they could. Maybe that, too, was wishful thinking.
Instead of sending her away, though, he looked up into the sky, and said, “When I was a kid I used to dream about growing wings and flying up toward the stars. I don’t remember the last time I thought about it—probably years. But I know for damn sure that tonight is the first time I’ve felt like flying in a long, long time.”
“To get away from me?” Her footsteps were quiet on the sturdy observation platform, leaving him to sense her approach in the fine tingle of electricity that raced across his skin, making him dig his fingers into the railing so he wouldn’t turn, touch, take.
“No, never,” he said. That was the difference between them, wasn’t it? She wanted to escape; he wanted to stay right where he was. “It wasn’t ever about escaping. I’ve never wanted to be anyplace else.” How could he? There, in the pitch blackness, he was aware of the backcountry spread out around them, falling away from the observatory. Even down in the city, where the starlight was dimmed, he knew the mountains were near, that his friends and family were there. The people he cared about, the ones he was sworn to protect.
“Not even now?”
He sighed. “Okay, maybe a little.” He turned to face her, finding her to be little more than a darker shape in the shadows, with a gleam of starlight coating her face and giving her depth and substance.
She linked her hands together in front of her body, the action more a whisper of sound than motion, and said, “I told myself to go upstairs and leave you alone.”
He felt his lips curve. “How did that work out for you?”
“Not so well. But I’m not staying. I just wanted to say…” She paused as if choosing her words carefully. “You don’t owe me anything, Jack. If anything, I owe you for helping me out the way you have over the past few days, despite the fact that you would have rather been working on the drug case. I know you’ll say you were just doing your job, but it’s been more than that to me. And…well, anyway, I just wanted you to know that I’m grateful for that, and I’m not asking for more, or expecting it, or anything. And I’m sorry if I went too far just now, and I hope you’ll keep in mind that the lifestyle that works for me doesn’t work for most other people, and vice versa. Just because I don’t want to put down roots and settle in, that doesn’t mean it’s the wrong answer for you.”
He hesitated, then admitted, “That’s pretty much what Kayla said, too.” Until he said the name, he hadn’t been certain he was going to go there. It felt like stepping over a line he hadn’t realized was there until a few minutes ago, when Tori had been talking about her brothers and it had started feeling like she was talking about him. He’d heard all the same arguments, after all, only in another woman’s voice. “You didn’t do or say anything wrong, Tori. You just hit a nerve, that’s all.”
“Kayla.” She repeated the name. “Ex-wife?”
“Ex-fiancée.” It seemed like too simple a word for what she had been to him, though, prompting him to say, “I knew her most of my life, though. We knew each other as kids, went steady in high school, did the long-distance thing when she went away to college and I stayed local…and then she moved back so we could be together when I went into the academy. I asked her to marry me right after graduation, when I started out as a uniform, and she said yes. We knew we were young, but we figured we would keep growing up in the same direction. At least I did.”
He paused, and then when she didn’t say anything, shrugged and continued, “Anyway, she wanted to be in TV news, but took a magazine job instead, so she could stay local and still move forward. But then, when we were planning the wedding, a big station in Chicago offered this dream internship. So we postponed things for six months while she did the internship. Then another year when she got offered a job…and, well, we eventually sort of slid into a vague promise of ‘we’ll plan it when things settle down.’ Only they didn’t. Or, rather, she didn’t. She just kept orbiting farther and farther away…until eventually she stopped coming back.”
He sighed. “She said I was stifling her, that Bear Claw was stifling her, that she needed to leave because she loved herself, not because she didn’t love me. And she said lots of the same things you were saying about your father and your brothers… So, yeah, it stung.”
“Because you still miss her or because you hadn’t really looked at it from her—or, rather my—perspective before?”
He exhaled a long, slow breath. “Wow.” He didn’t think he’d been looking for sympathy, or for Tori to apologize on Kayla’s behalf or anything like that, but the sudden burn of irritation said otherwise. Filling his lungs, he concentrated on smoothing out the suddenly raw edges even though he knew they colored his voice when he said, “Maybe we should call it a night after all.”
“You’re probably right.” She sounded equally annoyed, but then sighed out a long breath and said, voice softer, “I’m sorry.”
“For the delivery, but not the content?”
Her headshake showed in the wan starlight. “I shouldn’t have come up here. I guess I thought… I don’t know. That maybe I could help you somehow, pay you back for helping me these past few days. Instead, I just made it worse.”
“Maybe we needed to do this,” he said, wondering if the heat would die down now, as his subconscious—and his libido—had come to grips with the fact that she wasn’t even close to the right woman for him to be involved with. “Maybe we needed to get to this point, where it’s glaringly obvious that we might be attracted to each other but we’re coming at this from two totally different places. You don’t do serious and I’m not wired for casual…which doesn’t leave us with any middle ground.”
“Maybe. But at the risk of making things even worse, let me ask you something.” She took a couple of steps and closed the gap between them. “If you really loved Kayla, why wouldn’t you go out on the road with her? Shouldn’t being with the person you love be more important than just a place?”
He’d heard that one before, too, and could answer without heat: “Home and family are more than a pla
ce for me, Tori, and my career is more than a job. Any woman who’d expect me to give up any of those things doesn’t know me nearly well enough to ask.”
He expected an argument, was braced for it. He wasn’t prepared for her to take the two more small steps needed to bring her inside his space, though, and he wasn’t braced for her to grab his collar and use it to tug his face down to her level. But that was what she did.
They stood there for a breathless moment, nose-to-nose in the darkness. Then she leaned in, so her breath was warm against his lips as she whispered, “News flash, Detective. I’m not asking you to give up anything except your three-date, five-date, ten-date rules. And I’m offering fireworks in return.”
Heat flared through him, lit him up and hollowed him out. As his senses started to churn, he told himself to back off, back away, call it a night. Instead, as the scent and feel of her burned in his blood and branded itself deep in his psyche, he caught the back of her neck.
And he moved in.
They met halfway in a kiss that instantly heated, becoming far more than the simple press of lips and touch of tongues, turning instead to urgent desire. The clutch of her hands at the back of his neck said Come closer. The hum at the back of her throat said Yes, there. And the slide of her tongue said More.
So he went closer, touched there, gave more and, there in the concealing darkness, with them the only people around for miles and miles, he gave in to what his body wanted, what the heat demanded. He gathered her close and leaned back against the railing, and was suddenly very aware of the free fall that waited behind him, seeming to beckon for them both. But there was no reason to take the plunge when everything he wanted right then was in his arms, kissing him back with fervent abandon.
She was warm and womanly, and where in the daylight her personality made her seem larger than her physical self, in the darkness her unabashed sensuality seemed to exceed her physical form, making her seem to be everywhere at once, surrounding him with light touches and inciting caresses that made his blood burn and his heartbeat thunder in his ears. She tempted him with her mouth, seduced him with touches that trailed across his ribs and down his flanks to hidden spots that made him shudder against her and groan into their heated kiss.
Moaning, she swayed against him, fisting her hands in his shirt and hanging on as if she’d lost her balance. His equilibrium was long gone, swept away by the flames that raged within him, blazing hotter and faster than drought-spawned wildfires as he filled his hands with her hips and cupped the sweet curves of her bottom. Lifting, he drew her up against his body, let her feel him hard and wanting behind his zipper.
Her breasts pressed against his chest, inciting him with the hint of hard, budded nipples beneath her shirt and bra. He wanted to cup them, touch them, rub them until she moaned into his mouth. His pulse thudded as he lowered her to her feet, following her mouth so their lips never parted, so the kiss never ended, but instead continued on in a swirl of flavor, sensation and intimate heat while he tugged her shirt out of her waistband and slipped his hands beneath.
Her skin was so soft it felt like a dream—warm, fluid and yielding—and she purred against his mouth, wordlessly urging him onward. He slid his hands up from the slight flare of her hips to the lean dip of her waist, and then higher so he could skim the heels of his hands along the edges of her breasts. Lace brushed softly against his skin, achingly feminine. He traced the contours of her bra and then, when she arched into his touch, cupped her fully, cradling her erect nipples in the crooks of his thumbs so he could rub, gently at first and then with increasing pressure as she moaned her pleasure.
Lust stampeded through him and their kiss went wetter, turning carnal. He was dying to strip her naked, wanted to be naked himself, skin on skin, so he could kiss every inch of her, lick his way into her secret moistness, and—
Jack froze as the rules—and the mistakes that had helped him craft them—came crashing in on him. His eyes flew open and he stilled within the kiss, withdrawing his tongue but not breaking the connection of their lips.
Oh, holy hell. What was he doing? This wasn’t date ten, wasn’t date three. It wasn’t even a date. It was… Damn it, he didn’t know what it was, except that this wasn’t him. It wasn’t the way he did things, wasn’t the way he wanted to live his life.
He didn’t know when or if she opened her eyes, didn’t know what she was thinking or feeling; he knew only that his hands were on her breasts, her taste in his mouth and things had gone way too far for his peace of mind.
Although she must have felt the tension in his body, her lips curved against his and lingered for a soft, chaste kiss before she drew away, and there was a husky, aroused rasp in her voice when she said, “See what I mean, Detective? Fireworks.”
Yeah. There was no question about that.
Clearing his throat, he dropped his hands from her breasts to her hips, where he smoothed down her shirt for a moment, knowing he had to let go, but not quite ready to stop touching her. Needing to, though, he pushed away from the railing, bringing their bodies once more flush before he took a big step back, away from her.
The night air was very cool on his body, chilling the places that were warm from her touch. “That was… Wow.”
She laughed. “I’ll take that and send it back in your direction because it was ‘wow’ for me, too.” She paused, and there was a new, more searching note in her voice as she said, “So, what do you say? Just a few days, no harm, no foul, all fun, completely off the books and only when we’re safely inside the perimeter here, so you don’t need to be watching either of our backs. Come on…what can it hurt?”
But that was the thing, wasn’t it? Because going into something knowing it was temporary didn’t necessarily stop it from hurting.
“I can’t.” He almost looked around to see who had said that, but he didn’t because he knew the words had come from him. And he knew they were the right ones, no matter how much it sucked to turn her down. “I’m sorry, but I just can’t do it, not like this. You’re amazing. But this…it isn’t me.”
There was a weighty pause before she said, “Is it because of the job? Because you’re protecting me?”
“No, I’m protecting me, and it doesn’t have anything to do with the job. I…I just don’t do casual, Tori. I’m not wired that way. The couple of times I’ve tried to keep it light, I’ve gotten in too deep anyway. And with those ladies, I didn’t start out feeling half of what I’m feeling right now.”
“We could…” She trailed off, though, and sighed. “Well, damn.”
“Exactly. We can make all the inner promises we want, but whatever’s between us, whatever that was just now, it’s not something we’re going to be able to negotiate with. I don’t know about you, but just now I wasn’t thinking about anything but what I wanted to do to you, what I wanted us to do together.” Even saying it like that brought new heat thudding in his veins.
In the starlight, he could barely make out the curve of lips gone moist and full with their kisses. “When you put it that way, it’s hard to be offended.”
“Don’t be. Please.”
“I’m not. Really, I’m not. Disappointed, yes. Turned on and looking at a long, restless night? Definitely. But I’ve got a relationship rule of my own, and it’s called ‘no harm, no foul.’ I’m a big girl. I can take a ‘no, thank you,’ especially when it’s delivered like this one was, and for solid reasons that the scientist in me can’t even begin to argue with.” She moved into his space again, got him by the collar and tugged him down.
He thought about resisting but didn’t have it in him. His body yielded to her and he lowered his face to hers as his heart thudded softly in his chest.
She kissed him on the cheek. “Good night, Jack.”
It was an effort of will not to turn his lips to hers, not to reach for her and hang on tight. Instead, he said, “Goodnight, Tori. And thanks for everything.”
“Everything?”
“Having dinner with me
. Pushing me to talk about Kayla a little…and the rest of it.”
She sighed softly, gave his collar one last tug and then let him go and stepped away. “Don’t stay out here forever brooding, okay? I want to get an early start tomorrow.”
“Yeah, okay.” Turning back to the railing, he braced his forearms and stared out into the night as he listened to her footsteps fade down the stairwell, then go muted on the packed dirt. Moments later, the door to the main house opened and closed, leaving him alone in the darkness.
He stayed there for a long, long time. Long enough, even, to convince himself that if he squinted, he could almost see the lights of Bear Claw City. Home.
For a change, the thought didn’t make him feel any better.
“I THOUGHT YOU SAID you’d get rid of the scientist and her cop.” The edge in the Investor’s voice sent an unpleasant jolt through Percy, one that said You’re in trouble.
Granted, he’d been in trouble almost since the beginning when the voters upgraded him from acting mayor to mayor and he’d celebrated with a far-too-expensive weekend in Vegas that he’d used city money to cover. Couple that with a get-rich-quick promise from an old friend that had turned out to be a Ponzi scheme and a couple of other dips into the till, and he’d been tap-dancing to hide the embezzlement behind Bear Claw’s financial woes for years now. He’d become an expert at making things disappear from one place and reappear in another, at least until the whole al-Jihad terrorism scare had put the city under some serious federal scrutiny. Then, he’d needed to repay the money, and do it fast.
Thus, the Investor.
Now, though, as Percy looked around his office at city hall—at the glossy wood and stacked library shelves, the acre of polished desk, the fleet of sleek computers and the wall of photos of him mugging with a select handful of celebs who came through Bear Claw each year—he wished he’d told the Investor to take a hike when he’d gotten that first phone call. He would have found another way. He always had before.
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