by Lori Wilde
“Anything I tell you will be kept in confidence? I mean I can trust you, can’t I?”
They looked at each other, neither saying anything, the tension building. He was taking a gamble here, both professionally and emotionally. He had no idea what she was going to tell him. What she might confess and how it would affect their relationship.
“You can trust me,” he said. “Tell you what, I’ll go first.”
She waited.
“Remember when I told you that I was married once?”
“Uh-huh. You said she left you because you weren’t rich enough for her.”
“Well,” he said. “That was only part of it.”
“What didn’t you tell me?”
“I’d come home from work and find Keeley with new things. Jewelry, shoes, scarves. I’d yell at her for blowing our money on frivolous things when we were supposed to be saving to buy a house. She told me she’d bought the stuff at sales and discount stores. Because I wanted to make the marriage work I decided to believe her.”
Cass shifted beside him, her eyes on his face.
“Every day it was something new. A purse, a skirt, a diamond necklace. My sister Beth told me the items were not the sort of things you’d pick up at sales or discount stores. Finally, I confronted Keeley and learned she’d been getting credit cards behind my back and when she maxed them all out, she’d borrow from people, including an ex-boyfriend.”
Sam bit down on his bottom lip. He’d never learned exactly how Keeley had paid back her old boyfriend. He hadn’t been able to face that particular truth. She’d killed any love he’d once had for her and the fact that she’d turned to another man in order to feed her shopping habit had wounded his male ego.
“Sam.” Cass placed a hand on his arm. “I’m so sorry, that must have been awful for you.”
She made a soft, plaintive sound of sympathy that cut him to the quick. Now he couldn’t stop talking. He needed more of her trust, needed more of the understanding expression in her eyes. Odd yearning for a man who buried his feelings. Perhaps this urge to talk excessively was punishment for the mistakes he’d made. The decisions he regretted. Sam felt both relieved and condemned.
“The harder I worked the more Keeley bought. She swore she’d stopped but I’d find a new dress hidden among the clothes. Or unearth a new pair of sandals buried under the garbage bags in the broom closet. I realized she had a problem and couldn’t stop. She had an emptiness inside I didn’t fill. She started writing hot checks on a bank account she’d opened under a false name using a stolen ID.”
“What did you do?”
“I arrested her for fraud. I’m a cop. What else could I do?”
“That must have been so hard for you.”
“She started divorce proceedings the minute her lawyer got her out of jail.”
“That’s so sad.”
“It was for the best. So that’s my big secret. Go ahead, let loose, ask me anything and I’ll tell you the truth.” He held her gaze.
She thought for a moment, nibbling her bottom lip in a way that made him want to kiss her so badly that his own lips tingled. “How come you became a cop in the first place? Does it run in your family like most cops? Was your dad in law enforcement?”
“Good question. No one in my family is a cop.” He paused a moment, moistening his lips before continuing. Cass had gone straight to the hardest question she could have asked. “When I was ten and my kid sister Janie was seven my mom sent us to the corner store for milk. My mom told me to hold Janie’s hand, but some kids on our block saw us walking together and they started poking fun at me.”
Cass laid her palm over his chest and looked up into his eyes. “Your heart’s beating faster.”
“Yeah, well, telling this gets to me worse than the Keeley story.”
“You don’t have to go through with it, if it’s too painful.”
“No,” he said. “That’s our deal. If we’re going to trust each other we have to get our secrets out in the open.”
Initially, when he’d began this, his point had been to get her to spill her secrets but now he found he wanted her to know the events that shaped him.
“So I’m walking way ahead of Janie. She’s calling out to me, begging me to wait up, but I ignore her. I head into the crosswalk and I’m almost on the other side of the street when this car comes speeding around the corner.”
“Sam,” Cass whispered. “Your sister, no.”
He nodded, the old guilt rising up inside him. “Yeah.”
“Was she…?”
“Hit and run. The impact broke her back.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, struggling to hold back the emotions. Hell, he wasn’t going to cry in front of Cass. Not over something that happened twenty-three years ago.
“How horrible for your family.”
“It was bad for a long time. But Janie pulled through and had no lasting brain damage. She’ll always be in a wheelchair but she’s married a great guy and they adopted a baby.”
“That’s amazing about your sister. What happened to the driver?”
“The police were determined. They didn’t stop looking for the guy until they caught him. He was drunk, driving with a suspended license. My parents were so relieved once the police took him off the streets and I knew right then and there that I wanted to be a cop. That I wanted to bring hope into the lives of grieving families. To stop the criminals who hurt people.”
“What did your folks think about your career decision?”
“My parents had their reservations when I chose law enforcement, but it’s who I am and they accepted it. And it turns out I like being a cop. I like doing work that matters in people’s lives.”
She said nothing after he’d finished his story, just leaned over and gently pressed her lips against his.
He gathered her to his chest.
Their kiss was like that of old lovers meeting after a long separation, a tentative approach, a shock of recognition and then the happy realization they still belonged together.
She reached for the buttons on his shirt and he let her undo them one by one, her slowness deliberate but not teasing. Once his shirt was pushed open, baring his chest, her nimble fingers crawled along the surface of his skin, mapping out each muscle, feeling the texture, learning the language of his body.
Her tiny bedroom with its pale purple walls was their cocoon. They stripped off her chenille bedspread, pulling down the blankets and the top sheet. Kicked off their clothes, tossed them onto the muddled heap on the floor.
Sam held her close and kissed her, sweetly, leisurely. Breathed in the scent of her, drew her into his body, held her down deep in his lungs, coddled her gently and turned her scent loose again with his exhalation and realized that he was forever altered.
Life had taught him to be guarded. Janie’s accident, his bad first marriage, his job as a cop. All bricks in the mortar of his stony castle, and letting down the drawbridge of his defenses, spanning the moat of his self-protection, letting Cass inside the fortress of his soul, left him vulnerable and weak-kneed.
Sam extended his trembling hand.
She locked eyes with him and accepted his embrace. She melted against his chest, melted into his heart.
Their tongues met. Where they touched, they were no longer two but one. Skin against skin. Muscle against muscle. Breath against breath.
They fell into the mattress, in a knot of need and impassioned limbs. Sam claimed one of her nipples, suckling it gently until she writhed beneath him, begging for more.
She fondled him in places that drove him to the brink and he repaid her in kind until they were both hovering, both humming, both hungering for release.
When they could stand it no more, he thrust himself into her. She opened up the intimate workings of her body to him, adding his organ to hers as if it was meant to be there all along.
This was the ultimate risk.
And he was falling in love with her.
No. That wasn’t
right. He’d already fallen. Fallen so far and so hard that he knew he would never ever be the same again.
The understanding had been there for days, but he’d told himself it was only sex. He’d refused to examine the veracity of what had been happening, and now it was too late. But honestly, could he have stopped the plunge, even if he’d heeded the warning signs?
He felt as if he’d entered an exalted land after a long and arduous journey. She’d touched a primal nerve inside him. Her ability to fly with her body, to soar airborne in his arms.
Her indomitable life force drew him. A magnet of desire. Her tempestuous, headlong spirit embraced him like wind and weather, desert and danger.
There, somewhere in the mysterious swirl of their joining, he found paradise.
Afterward, as they lay sated in each other’s arms, he leisurely stroked his fingers over her breast.
“Tell me,” he whispered. “Tell me something special about yourself. Something no one else in the world knows.”
14
CASS HESITATED. Emotional intimacy took high-wire courage. Was she ready? What if she got swallowed up by him? Suffocated? Dismantled? What if she forgot who she was?
But he’d gone out on a limb for her. Telling her about his sister, her accident, how he’d felt responsible. How he had become a cop as a way to make amends for traveling too far ahead of Janie in the crosswalk.
About how he’d been unable to fulfill his ex-wife’s needs. About how he’d had to arrest her for fraud. That had to have been a difficult choice.
He’d talked and talked, and if she wanted to keep him, she knew she must talk, too.
Slowly, bit by bit, she told him the story of the school carnival and how winning the cake-walk had turned into a terrifying experience.
And when she was done he didn’t laugh, didn’t act as if her story was unimportant. By some miracle, he seemed to know how much she’d put on the line.
He kissed her and touched his forehead to hers and looked deep into her eyes, into the very center of her.
“Now,” he said, “tell me why it’s really so hard for you to make a choice and stick with it.”
Cass sucked in her breath. “I…I can’t.”
He leaned over her, his posture suddenly imposing. His lips pressed into a firm line, his eyes demanding. “I shared my secrets with you.”
She squirmed. “I told you about the cakes.”
“Not emotional enough.” He tapped her chin. “I want to know the real you. I want to know why your shoes and your scarf are so important to you.”
“They’re not important to me.” She shrugged.
“Did you know that your face turns blotchy when you lie?”
Cass reached up and touched her flaming hot cheeks. Damn. He’d caught her.
“If it’s no big deal, then why not tell me how you feel?” he asked.
“Because it’s private.”
“That’s what this is about, Cass, you and me sharing private stuff, getting to know each other as intimately as possible.”
“I’m not sure I can,” she confessed.
Sam looked disappointed and she felt as if she’d reneged on a serious vow.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I understand. I couldn’t talk about Janie’s accident for years afterward, but it wasn’t until I did start talking about it that I came to terms with the fact that she would never walk again. Once I accepted it, that’s when my life fully began. Before that I was just running away.”
“I’m not running away.”
He didn’t contradict her. He just watched in that somber, assessing way of his.
“Having nice things makes me feel good about myself and if I feel good, then everything will turn out all right. Having to make choices, having to pick one path over another makes me anxious that I’ll miss out on something glorious waiting just around the corner.”
Sam nodded, acting as if what she’d said made perfect sense. But how could he understand her when she didn’t understand her own impulses?
“I’m listening. There’s something more you’re not telling me.”
Cass swallowed. She and Sam did have tragedy in common but she wasn’t sure it was the kind of thing you should bond over.
“Remember the picture you saw that fell out of my yearbook?”
“Nikki and Cass, friends forever?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m guessing it wasn’t forever.”
She shook her head. “Nikki was my best friend in high school. We were like sisters. We were always over at each other’s houses. We never fought. Not even over guys.”
Sam propped his head on his hand, palm against his ear, his gray eyes intent as he listened.
“Then Nikki got sick during our senior year. Leukemia.”
Cass choked back the tears burning her throat and closed her eyes. This was much harder than she’d thought it would be and she’d thought it would be pretty damned hard. The old feelings of shame and regret came rushing back.
“It’s all right,” he said. “I get the picture. You don’t have to say anything more.”
“No,” she said. “You’re right. I just buried my feelings down deep inside and pretended it didn’t hurt as badly as it did. I’m just warning you, I’m probably going to cry.”
He opened his arms. “I’ve got big shoulders.”
She rolled into his embrace, pressing her face against his chest. He held her tightly. After a moment, she felt strong enough to continue.
“I tried to be a good friend to Nikki. I tried to stick by her. I went to her treatments with her and told jokes to make her laugh. When her hair fell out, I bought her a nice scarf to wear.”
She paused, staring into the past. “I tried, but it was too difficult. Gradually, I went to see her less and less. I just couldn’t stand watching her suffer.” She brought a hand to her mouth. “I couldn’t deal with it. I was a coward.”
“Cut yourself some slack. You were only a kid.”
“In the end I stopped going to visit her. Period. I went off to college and when I came home I didn’t even drop by her house. A couple of months later my parents called to tell me that she’d passed away. I didn’t even go to the funeral.”
“I bet Nikki understood.”
“I didn’t even understand my behavior. How could she? It was then I realized I wasn’t the kind of person who could handle the grim realities of life. I was better off flitting from friend to friend, from guy to guy than getting too involved. That way I’d never let anyone down again.”
“It’s time to stop beating yourself up over what happened. Be kind to you.” Tenderly he traced his fingertips over her heart.
At that endearing gesture, something inside Cass broke loose. Something she’d been holding on to for far too long. Guilt for being the healthy one, anger at herself for not being able to hang in there with Nikki’s illness, sorrow for what she’d lost.
She was swamped in emotions. She shuddered, sobbing against Sam’s shoulder.
“Shh, sweetheart. What about your parents, your sister, your coworkers, your other friends? You haven’t let them down.” He tucked her tighter into the crook of his arm. “Don’t you realize what a truly amazing person you are? You’re so vibrant and alive. So much fun to be around. Everyone lights up when you walk into a room.”
“Really?” She swiped at her face with the back of a hand.
“You didn’t know that?”
She shook her head.
“Well, they do. You inspire people. You inspire me. You’re an idealist, Cass. You see the very best in people and the world. That’s a rare gift and I treasure it in you. Your excitement makes me excited. I’m more of me when I’m with you.”
“Oh, Sam.” She breathed and in reverence lifted her eyes to his face and let him into her heart. They lost themselves in looking at each other. He was safety and adventure, risk and faith and she wanted him more than she’d ever wanted any man.
The sound of his voice, deep and se
nsual, filled up her ears, massaged her body with low-level vibrations. Foreign enough to keep her adrenaline flowing, yet familiar enough that it also produced a light, floaty feeling as if she were suspended in clouds.
In her brain, the synapses were firing like mad transmitting messages, the ultimate broadband, signaling her cell membranes, telling her to open up. Open up all the way. Not just with her body, not just with her mind, but with all her heart.
This one is different.
The night in the laundry room with him had been fun, sexy and gratifying, but this…this was different. This was exceptional, the purest sexual encounter she’d ever had.
Skydiving, blind, fervent, playing with fire, magnificent. They were ferocious, famished, fond, fraught, feasting, feeding, frantic.
“Take me,” she commanded, urgent and pleading. “Make me.”
Her plea excited them both.
The little jolts in her brain pushed tingles down her spine, then out through her limbs and along the surface of her skin.
She fell back against the pillow, her gaze tracking his body. He was lean and taut-skinned, with a ladder of muscle that rippled from his abdomen to his chest. She could not stop thinking what those flexing muscles felt like beneath the planes of her palms, the down of her cheek, the inside of her thigh.
Cass felt turned inside out, the soft pink tender underside of her showing, exposed and yes, yes, yes, he knew it. Knew what she needed.
He slipped his fingers into her scorching center. She rode his palm, thinking of the ocean, how it ebbed and flowed. Such strong shimmering movements.
His fingers dripped with her juices, slick and sweet. Sam was straddled above her, on his knees, his thick hard erection jutting proud and ready again.
He moaned.
She sat up, pushed him back against the mattress. Took him in her mouth, licking, sucking, thinking, I’ve never known any man like him. I could stay with this one. Forever and ever doesn’t scare me. Not with him.
“No,” he said and gently reached down to touch her mouth, breaking their contact. “Not this way. I want to come inside you. This is special. You’re special.”
And Cass knew it was true.