by Nancy Warren
With his newfound awareness that he loved this woman, he wanted to take things slowly, to seduce her with every part of him until she realized she loved him, too. But his need was too great. He couldn’t hold back. And because she shared his urgency, he was lost. They tore at each other’s clothes, not even waiting to get naked. He yanked up her skirt, had her hose and panties off in one tug. He heard some soft fabric tear. Meanwhile, she attacked his belt buckle, dragged at his zipper. He helped her yank his slacks down past his knees and didn’t bother removing anything else.
He took her as a caveman would. Rough, hard, thrusting, thrusting as though he could reach the very heart of her. She met him with equal force, her hips grinding against him as though she could suck him in and up to the very heart of her.
His climax was a bone-shattering explosion. It was as though a part of him believed that if he could pump all his life force into her, he could somehow keep her safe.
She didn’t let him go but kept grinding her hips against him until he felt her inner muscles clench him like a vice. Her head fell back and she cried out. He held her tight through her explosive climax.
Their breathing was harsh in the quiet room and as it slowed, he took stock. The bedding was a tangle, their clothes twisted and pulled all over the place. “Wow,” she said in a deeply sated tone.
“I acted like an animal,” he said, ashamed of himself. “I didn’t even take your clothes off.”
She rose over him, kissed him deeply. “Guess you’re going to have to start all over again, then.”
So he did. Taking the time to undress her slowly, properly. Kissing and caressing her as he did so.
They stopped briefly to raid the fridge around eleven when hunger got in their way. Then they continued making love far into the night.
* * *
ADAM REMAINED vigilant, so keyed up he felt as though he were mainlining espresso. He wanted to be with her 24/7 but even if his job would have allowed it, Serena wouldn’t. One day bled into the next.
Nothing happened.
The perp didn’t make a move of any kind.
“Joey, we need to get a search warrant for Stanley Wozniak’s apartment, his place of business. He’s our guy. I’m sure of it,” he said as they finished up a morning briefing session at the station.
“Why?” Virge wore his long-suffering look.
Adam related the details. The fact that the perp had gone quiet during the exact times Stanley was out of the country. “Then, the second day he’s back, he goes crazy and kills a woman who looks like Serena.”
“And another week’s gone by with nothing.”
“It’s part of his plan to scare Serena and mess with us.”
“What evidence do you have?” Joey asked. “What evidence will convince a judge to let us enter Stanley Wozniak’s residence? And to prove what? That he broke into her apartment to leave a tasteless joke?”
“He murdered a woman and left her in Serena’s lobby. A woman who looks a lot like Serena.”
Joey sighed, the exhausted sigh of a man whose patience was nearing its limit. “We talked to him. He didn’t know that girl and his alibi is pretty solid. He came home from Poland and his house was flooded. He was at home with workmen and plumbers, up to his knees in water, when Patricia Hagan died.”
“He could have slipped away. No way anyone would have noticed if he was gone for an hour or so. That’s all it would have taken. He sneaks away from the crew cleaning up from the flood, kills the girl, dumps her body in the lobby to send Serena another message. Then he goes back to his flooded house.”
“And once again, I have to remind you that we don’t have any evidence that Miss Hagan was murdered. Death was probably accidental.”
“A blow to the head killed her. Otherwise she was a healthy twenty-nine-year-old.”
“She was also a mountain climber, a cyclist, an athlete. You heard the M.E. She could have cracked her head and not realized she had a concussion. Her brain’s bleeding and she doesn’t know it. She gets ready to go to work, has a headache, her vision’s kind of blurry. She figures it’ll pass. She takes the elevator downstairs because she lives in the building, gets to the lobby and poof, she’s dead.” Joey waved his hands around as though he were stage-directing a play.
“Or she was hit on the head from behind by someone who is so familiar with human anatomy they know the exact spot on the skull where one blow can kill a woman. Like, say, someone in the medical field.”
“You’re stretching.”
“Where was her stuff? Her keys? A bag? There was nothing at all on the body. I’ve been in that building. You need a key fob for just about everything. Yet hers was missing.”
Joey shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe she went to check her mail and realized she’d forgotten her key. Turns back to return to her apartment and—”
“Yeah, yeah. Poof, she’s dead.” He was so frustrated, so edgy he couldn’t see straight. “What about the scarf?”
“A popular fashion accessory,” Joey said with the infinite patience of a man who’s had the same argument too many times.
“It’s too much of a coincidence.”
“My friend, coincidences happen all the time.”
Adam banged his fist against his palm so hard he felt the blow all the way to his elbow. “You don’t believe Patty Hagan’s death is unrelated to Serena’s stalker any more than I do.”
“I believe in the due process of law and not going off like a grenade without any proof.”
Joey was right, of course. He wanted to kick something. “Come on. Stanley Wozniak’s smitten with Serena. Could have swiped her keys from her purse while she was working out, gone to her place. Got the spare set. He knows her routines, where she lives.”
“So could any other person who works out at the gym and knows her even slightly. Somebody who’s been in her office could also have taken Serena’s keys. She’s a pretty high-profile person. A lot of people come in contact with her.” Joey put his coffee mug on the coaster he kept on his neat desktop. “Seems to me, Stanley Wozniak isn’t the only one smitten with Serena. Maybe your personal feelings are screwing with your judgment?”
“But what if I’m right?” He knew his partner had a valid point and that only pissed him off even more. “If Patricia Hagan was murdered, then we both know the murderer is coming for Serena.”
* * *
“I CAN’T LIVE like this,” Serena snapped as she replaced the free weights in the rack with a clack. She and Adam were working out in the gym in her apartment building, which was small, smelled of stale air and sweat, and didn’t have an elliptical. “I feel like a prisoner. I want to go to my own gym.”
“It’s too dangerous.”
“But nothing’s happened! You got me all worked up and I thought some poor woman was murdered, because of me, but the paper said she was an athlete who probably died from a brain injury suffered doing sports.”
“I think your stalker killed her.”
“And what if he didn’t? What if the sick prankster who sent me those messages has moved on? Then I’m under house arrest for nothing.”
“You’re not under house arrest. Don’t be dramatic.” Adam looked overtired. She knew he was barely sleeping. He was so certain that some guy was about to pounce that he had her scared of her own shadow. “You watch me constantly. You control every move I make. I feel stifled and confined.”
“Stifled? Confined?” He bellowed the words, disbelief in every line of his body. “Well, that’s a hell of a lot better than dead!”
She took a deep breath. “I know. You’re right. I am being unreasonable, but it’s awful living like this. When you watch me every second as though you’re terrified some deranged killer is going to pounce if you take your eyes off me for a second, what do you think that does to me? I can’t l
ive in fear. Not anymore. I did that long enough in my life. I won’t do it again.” She couldn’t stand her own feelings of vulnerability. She’d worked so hard to live with confidence and courage and now she was being dragged back to a fear that was all too reminiscent of her childhood.
“It’s not going to be forever,” he said. “Have patience.”
“I’m out of patience.”
Adam replaced his own free weights, much larger ones than Serena had used. His gray T-shirt had a sexy sweat stain down the front and clung to his impressive torso. She didn’t want to notice, didn’t want to be aroused by his nearness. “I admit I’m being overprotective. Believe me, Joey’s given me the same lecture. But I can’t protect you here. I can’t protect you and, at the same time, catch the guy who’s stalking you. I need for you to go away somewhere.”
“Go away?”
“Yes.”
“Where?” Her temper started to build. She had assumed her confinement couldn’t get any worse. She had a bodyguard at work, another at home. He’d stopped her going to the gym, the grocery store. He’d even nixed a manicure. Now Adam wanted to send her away?
“I don’t know. And I don’t care. Somewhere where you’ll be safe. Take a vacation. We’ll get a police officer to pose as you. Draw the perp out. Then when we’ve got him, you can come back.”
“How long do you think it will take?”
“I don’t know. Couple of weeks maybe?”
Her fingers tapped her arm in frustration. “And is your police officer going to give the keynote address to the accountants’ association that’s been booked for more than two months?”
“I know it’s not perfect—”
“And is the police officer going to take my place at all the other events on my calendar? Is she going to see my clients and run my business?”
“Lisa can take up the slack,” he said lamely.
“Lisa is learning the business. It’s still my business and I need to be here to run it. So thank you for the suggestion, but I’m not going anywhere.”
“Quit being so stubborn and unreasonable.” She felt his anger blaze into life and it ignited her own.
“Me?” She shrieked the word. “Me? Stubborn and unreasonable? Look in the mirror if you want to see stubborn and unreasonable. And while you’re looking, you’ll see controlling and dictatorial, too.”
“I’m trying to keep you safe.” He banged a weight up and back into the rack, and the sound echoed off the walls.
“You’re trying to scare me and kill my business. In fact, you’re doing the smiley-face guy’s work for him.”
He grabbed her shoulders, blazing eyes staring into her face. “I can’t lose you.”
She yanked herself out of his grasp. She felt smothered. She’d let herself fall for him. Become more vulnerable than she’d ever let herself be with a man. And look where it got her. He was sounding as deranged as her stalker. She couldn’t stand it. “You are losing me. Right now.”
He acted as though she hadn’t spoken. “Leave town. I mean it.”
“I’m not leaving.” She glared at him, knowing she was overreacting and not caring. “You are.”
“What?’ He seemed genuinely stunned.
“Right now. You’re leaving my home. I don’t want you here.”
“Don’t be irrational. You need me.”
“No. I don’t.” She leaned against the wall beside the water station that was, as usual, empty. “I wasn’t planning to tell you this but when I called you at the office yesterday, Joey answered your phone. He feels you’re losing perspective.”
Adam took a swift step back, as though he’d been kicked. “Joey said that?”
“Well, I asked for his honest opinion of the level of risk. He doesn’t think I’m in as much danger as you do.”
“One man’s opinion.”
“What about my opinion? Doesn’t that count for anything? I need my life. I need my freedom. I’ve changed my locks. I drive my car to the office and home. I can’t stand being watched all day and all night. It’s making me crazy.”
“Fine.” He threw up his hands. “Fine. So you want me to leave? Is that what you want?”
Did she? Her feelings were a mess. When she’d said she was going crazy, she hadn’t entirely exaggerated. She was falling for Adam and falling hard. Their sex was so searingly intimate it scared her. Her own feelings confused her. If only she could have some time to herself to think. To sort out her own messed-up psyche.
“I think I do need a short holiday,” she said. “I’ll be extra careful, but please, could you give me a couple of days to myself?”
He stood for a moment in silence. Then he said, “This is against every instinct I have as a cop. But if you tell me to leave, I will.”
“Thank you.”
He stomped out of the gym. She let him go.
She waited a couple of minutes, then took the elevator up to her apartment. When she got into her suite, she was in time to see Adam head out, his bag so swiftly packed a sock hung out of it.
She could see how much he hated to leave her. She didn’t like the feeling inside that wanted her to tell him she’d changed her mind, to beg him to stay.
“You see or hear anything, anything at all, you call me.”
“I will.”
His gaze searched her face, then he kissed her, swift and hard, and she tasted his anger and frustration.
As the door slammed behind him, she slumped down in the nearest chair. She’d just kicked the man she was frighteningly sure she loved out of her apartment.
What had she done?
* * *
“LISA? CAN I talk to you?”
“Of course.”
Serena had barely slept the night before, after she’d asked Adam to leave, and she knew she needed someone to talk to. Someone she could trust.
“I mean professionally. As a psychologist.”
“I’m not licensed, but sure.” The nice thing about having Mark around was that he could take over the reception desk when Lisa met with Serena or when she left the office, as she was starting to do again. Serena realized how many things she’d put on hold because of the craziness, but that was over. She was certain that whoever had sent her those crazed messages had lost interest in her. The tragic death of the young woman was an unfortunate accident.
And Serena needed to get her own life back on track. Starting by hiring a new admin assistant next week.
Once Mark was at the front desk and Lisa was sitting with her in her office, she said, “I need to talk some things through. Maybe you can help me. If we’re going to be partners, I don’t want to have secrets. I’ve got some baggage and I’m beginning to see that it’s getting in my way.”
Lisa nodded. “Well, you know, most of us do.”
“Mine is the kind where I toss the man I love, who also happens to be a cop, who also happens to be trying to protect me, out of my apartment. I feel stifled and messed up and...and scared.”
She touched Serena on the shoulder. “You’re both under a lot of stress. Why don’t you tell me what happened?”
It felt so good to unburden herself. To talk to a woman who not only was a colleague but was becoming a friend.
When she’d finished, Lisa said, “Stress makes people do foolish things. Like lash out at the man you love.”
“But he was acting so controlling.”
“I know. Sounds to me like he’s in love with you, too. It was pretty obvious when he came storming in here after they found that woman. He thought at first she was you. I think that’s what made him crazy. He’s terrified he’ll lose you. Afraid he won’t be able to protect you.”
She hadn’t really looked at the situation from Adam’s point of view. And it had never occurred to her that he could be in lo
ve with her, too.
“It’s an impossible situation. If we were a normal couple, we’d date and see each other a couple of times a week. Go to movies and, I don’t know, out for dinner. Hang out with each other’s friends. Instead we hide out most of the time. Half the time I don’t feel like I have his full attention. He’s too busy looking over his shoulder, checking doors and windows. Freaking me out.”
“I know it’s tough. For both of you.”
She let out a breath. “I overreacted. And I miss him. What do I do?”
“Take a little time. Calm down. Then I suggest you go and talk to Adam. Let him know some of what you’ve told me. Why you react so strongly to being controlled. He’s a cop. A protector. It’s what he does. How he sees himself. He’s feeling vulnerable, too. And scared. Maybe you can help each other deal with some stuff from your pasts.”
She thought about that. And about the best part of what Lisa had said. “You really think he loves me?”
“Yeah. I do. Hasn’t he ever told you?”
She shook her head. “No.” She let her breath out in a huff. “Typical male. Won’t communicate about his feelings.”
“Serena? Have you told Adam how you feel?”
Ouch. Busted. “Not in so many words.”
“Maybe it’s time.”
“Time to tell a man who has control issues that I love him?”
“I don’t want to be rude, and remember, I’m speaking here as your pseudopsychologist, not your employee, but you actually have some control issues, too.”
It felt good to laugh, even if she was laughing at herself. When was the last time she’d really laughed? “I know.”
“Give it a day or two so you can both calm down and get some perspective. Then call Adam. Talk to him.”
She narrowed her gaze. “How did you do in psychology, anyway?”