Bending the Rules

by Susan Andersen

“Sure. And not just anything, pal. Chefs all over the greater Seattle area weep when my mother refuses them this recipe. It’s to die for.” Then she shot him a wry smile and admitted, “Not that I could always make that claim. You’ll just have to trust me when I say it’s come a long way since Mom’s tofu period.”

  His face registered the proper horror and a visible shudder rippled his strong shoulders.

  “Tell me about it,” she agreed. “And you never even had to eat it. I lived on that crap for two, maybe three, years. I can’t remember the exact number, but it felt like ten.”

  “That’s just plain cruel and unusual punishment.”

  “Amen to that, brother. There oughtta be a law. If I ever have a kid, I will never serve her tofu. You can take that to the bank.”

  He hesitated for two long heartbeats, then craned his head forward, his bony nose raised like a cartoon character following a beckoning finger of scent. “I think I smell it. You better come in and show me how to cook the thing. I’ve never had much homemade food, and I’d hate to screw it up.”

  “Not sure that you can.” He’d never had homemade—Catching herself, she fell into step beside him. “It’s merely a matter of heating it through, which you can do in the micro. But I can toss the salad while you do that.”

  He turned his head to stare at her over his shoulder. “You brought me salad, too?”

  “Uh-huh. And a baguette and a bottle of white.” She raised her eyebrows at him. “You’re not an alcoholic, are you?”

  The corner of his mouth ticked up, which Poppy interpreted as riotous amusement. His teeth were very white against his swarthy skin and five-o’clock shadow. “Nah.”

  “Glad to hear it. ’Cuz this baby’s got a cork and everything. I probably wouldn’t go so far as to give it a minute to breathe, but if you’re particular we can do that.”

  “I’m still stunned at the cork part. That’s a big step up from the last bottle I bought.” Arriving at his door, he swept up the Trader Joe’s bag, unlocked the door and stood back for her to precede him into his apartment. “Although I gotta admit that once I fished the glass out of the neck I’d opened against the counter it was a very fine three-buck-chuck.”

  Oh, God, oh, God. A sense of humor. She’d thought the hardly-even-a-hint she’d caught of it a while back had been a one-off thing, but that was a joke he’d just made. An honest-to-God joke!

  She wanted to have his baby.

  She’d settle, however, for checking out his apartment. Absorbing as many impressions as possible, she followed him down the short hallway, taking the opportunity to look around when he ducked into his bedroom to hang up his jacket.

  The place turned out to be another surprise. Not the fact that it was neat as a pin—that was hardly astonishing, considering. But she’d pegged him as the minimalist type and if she’d put any thought into it she would have predicted his style as Early Military Barracks, a sort of no-frills bare-essentials look.

  Instead, it put her in mind of his sharp suits: clean lines, understated and nothing bargain basement about it. She could see a few good pieces of furniture where the end of the hallway opened up into a living area. And a couple of interesting art reproductions that he’d probably spent more money on matting and framing than he had the prints.

  But what amazed her most was the personal stuff. She really had to quit trying to pigeonhole him, she realized. Because the truth was she’d half expected all the surfaces to be bare and clean. And while they were the latter, they were far from the former.

  Books were crammed into the gorgeous mission-style bookcase and atop it were a couple of candles, one of those Japanese-style trays with white sand, another candle and some interesting rocks. He even had a fairly healthy plant, for God’s sake. Plus a couple of framed snapshots.

  Her fingers nearly itched, so badly did she want to get her hands on those photos. But Jason came out of his bedroom, minus his jacket and gun, and crossed to the small kitchen as she was edging down the hall. With a sigh, she followed. She supposed it would be rude to just blow past him in order to paw through his stuff.

  First opportunity, though, she intended to check it out.

  Then Jason grinned as he began pulling the groceries out of her shopping bag and her intentions evaporated like so many tears in the desert. “Wow,” she said, her heart skipping as she made herself at home, opening cupboards until she located his quartet of wineglasses. She grabbed two. “You oughtta do that more often.”

  “Huh?” He looked up from the container of Stroganoff that he’d opened and brought up to inhale deeply. And…good God. He looked like a guy who’d just got his. All he lacked was the cigarette.

  Oh. Not a smart comparison. She was way too aware of him as it was and certainly didn’t need that kind of image scorching through her thoughts. Forcing lightness into her voice, she said, “Smile. You should smile more often. You have a very nice one, but you hardly ever use it. I guess it’s true what they say, though. The way to a man’s heart really is through his stomach.”

  His smile grew wider, making her notice the long creases bracketing his mouth. “You have no idea how true,” he agreed. “Except for grilling the odd chunk of meat, I’m not much in the cooking department. Restaurants and takeout is more my speed, but it gets old. And, man, even cold this stuff smells good.”

  “Go ahead and put it in the micro and set it for—” eyeing his clunky counter model, she saw it was pretty ancient “—maybe two minutes to start, then give it a half turn and zap it for another two. After you start that, grab me a salad-size bowl and you can cut the baguette.”

  “Bossy little thing, aren’t you?”

  “I don’t know about little, but bossy? You betcha. You can save yourself a heap of aggravation by simply letting me have my way from the get-go.”

  “Right.” He snorted. “You keep clinging to that raft, sister.”

  She sighed and poured the greens she’d cut up earlier from her Ziploc bag into the bowl he handed her. “Fine, do it the hard way. You’ll learn. They all do.” She reached for the bottle of Asian Caesar dressing and unscrewed its top.

  “All who? Men?”

  She looked at him, saw the sudden intense glitter in his eyes and the walls seemed to take a giant step inward. The air suddenly grew warmer, thicker, moister. At the same time her mouth went dry. She cleared her throat. Attempted a careless shrug. “Men. Women. Children, dogs. The world in general, pal.”

  “O-kay. Nothing wrong with your ego.” He handed her a glass of wine.

  “What can I say? I was born to rule the universe. Just ask my folks. Dad claims he knew commune living wasn’t going to work for me practically the minute I emerged from the womb.” She took a sip of the crisp pinot grigio, resisting the urge to knock back half the goblet in one gulp.

  “Good wine,” he said.

  “Yes, and you should take a moment to feel the pride of using a corkscrew to open it rather than breaking the top off against the nearest hard surface.”

  The corner of his mouth tugged up, that long crease forming once again in his stubble-darkened cheek. He turned back to slicing the bread.

  When he finished, he removed two plates from a cupboard and handed them to her. “Want to set the table? Just toss the stuff on—I don’t have any place mats or those napkin ring things. Or napkins, come to that.”

  “How will I get by?” Then she laughed and gave him a friendly hip bump. Another ill-conceived move as it turned out, given her instant awareness of the warmth and hardness of his body, but she forged ahead as if she hadn’t registered that in her bones. “You don’t think I eat like this every day, do you? Like you, I rely on a lot of takeout or slap together a sandwich or a salad. Occasionally I cook, but when I do, I make it count and cook up enough to last me the week. Either that or invite my friends or family over. I’ve got a container of Stroganoff in my fridge that matches the one I brought you.”

  “Hell, I’m not sharing mine then. Go home.”

&nb
sp; “Wanna make me? I don’t have any of that pinot grigio back at the homestead, so I’m ready to rumble.”

  He took a long-legged step forward, his dark eyes locked on hers, and the air surrounding her threatened to catch fire. Her heart was trying to pound its way out of her chest when he suddenly went still. Looked down at the glass in his hand.

  And tossed back the remainder of the wine in it. “Okay, fine,” he said, running a knuckle over a drop clinging to his lower lip, his eyes still on her. “But I’m only sharing a little. So don’t go eating like a trucker.”

  She couldn’t unglue her tongue from the roof of her mouth to save her soul, but gave him what she really, really hoped was a careless look that said, You don’t affect me, big boy.

  She feared, however, what it probably looked like was closer to, So, Sheik. Looking for a sex slave?

  Somehow, however, she survived the meal, finding her voice and dredging up innocuous subjects until the image of him clearing the table with one sweep of his arm and slamming her down for some set-the-world-afire sex finally loosened its grip on her imagination. She almost felt back to normal by the time they set their forks across their plates.

  “Damn, that was good,” he sighed, wadding up his paper towel and tossing it atop his cutlery. “I could eat that for the rest of my life.”

  Tickled, she flashed him a genuine smile. “I’m pretty sure it would wear thin if that was your sole diet.”

  “I suppose. But not for a long time.” He pushed back from the table and climbed to his feet. “You want some coffee?”

  “No, thanks. Much to the disgust of my Norwegian grandpa I have to cut myself off by five or I toss and turn all night.” Rising as well, she gathered their dishes and followed him into the small kitchen. Taking them to the sink, she turned on the hot water.

  He looked up from the gold filter he’d balanced atop a coffee mug. “Hey, you don’t have to do that. You cooked. I can do the dishes.”

  “I’ll wash. You dry.” She found the plug and squirted soap under the stream of hot water.

  “Is this one of those ‘just let you have your way from the get-go’ moments you were blathering about?”

  “I don’t blather, bud. But feel free to categorize it as a control thing if you want. Me, I’d be more practical.”

  He actually laughed. “You’ve got a point, considering you’re offering free labor. So, okay.” He hitched a shoulder. “I can live with that.” After hefting the stainless teakettle from the back burner as if to test for sufficient water, he replaced it and turned on the burner.

  He rolled up his shirtsleeves and dried as she washed, then, when the kettle whistled, flipped the towel over his shoulder to make himself a single cup of coffee. Sipping it, he tackled the few dishes left in the drainer. Poppy turned away to wipe down the counters, resolutely ignoring his strong forearms with their feathering of black hair. Trying not to notice how long, how strong-looking his brown-skinned, white-nailed fingers were.

  She wanted those hands on her.

  Involuntarily she squeezed the sponge in her own hand and water dripped onto the stove top. She wanted his hands on her. Had wanted them on her from the first instant she’d clapped eyes on him. And what was she doing about it?

  Nothing, that was what.

  Okay, so the man had shot her down once already when he’d offered that lowering apology following the one and only kiss they’d shared.

  Nevahtheless, declared a voice in her head that sounded suspiciously like Katharine Hepburn in The African Queen, and Poppy infused some steel into her backbone.

  Was she not the woman who’d just told the good detective he should always let her have her way? She had never been shy about going after what she wanted, but for some reason she acted unnaturally missish around de Sanges. Maybe because he had the ability to command such strong reactions from her—stronger than she’d known with anyone else. And she could admit it: that shook her a little.

  Okay, more than a little.

  Still, she had a reputation to uphold. So it stopped right here, right now.

  She wiped up the pool of water she’d created and set the sponge back in its dish. Drew a slow, calming breath to steady an unsteady heartbeat. And sauntered over to Jason, putting a little swivel action into her hips. She watched his dark eyes grow darker. And cop-wary.

  He was smart to be wary. She might not be a burglar, armed and dangerous. But she’d made up her mind, she was loaded for bear and that made her dangerous in her own way.

  Stopping in front of him, she stood just a touch closer than was polite but not so close that she risked having him back her up a step, since she didn’t doubt for a second that he was just mean enough to do precisely that. She reached out to lay her fingertips on his chest in the most meager of touches. “Thank you,” she said quietly.

  Brows furrowing over the prominent thrust of his nose, he stepped back, causing her hand to drop to her side. “For what?”

  “The way you went out of your way to help last night. I think you’re probably a very good cop, Jason. I know we’ve had our differences when it comes to my kids and my programs, but you’re better with them than you let on when we first got into this. You totally rocked with Darnell and Freddy. So this is for them. And for whatever it was you said to Danny G. and Henry the day Cory had her meltdown.” And rising onto her toes, she pressed a soft kiss on his lips.

  She almost jerked back, so electric was the sensation from what should have been a simple buss. And in execution it was simple: gentle, no tongue, no full-on press of bodies straining to get closer. But there was nothing simple about the way it made her feel.

  Nothing simple at all.

  But maybe that was merely her. Reluctantly—so much so that it hurt in places she hadn’t even known she possessed—she withdrew her lips from his in glacially slow increments, lowering her heels back onto the floor. And looked up at him with a level gaze, her eyebrows raised in question.

  He stared back at her. Then muttered, “Damn.” And quicker than a striking snake, he whipped out those long-fingered hands to wrap warmth around her nape and haul her back onto her toes. He rocked his mouth over hers.

  This was not gentle. This was all fierce lips and teeth and tongue, with a heat that turned her mind to smoke. But one thing remained constant. He kissed her and she lost all reason.

  Plunging her fingers into his hair, she plastered herself against him. He waltzed her backward until her back hit the fridge and something atop it made an off-center spinning sound. Pressing her against the appliance, he bracketed her in with his inflexible torso, long, strong arms and longer, stronger legs. The contrast of cool metal against her back and the heat that pumped through Jason’s clothing to steam-press her front elicited a tiny moan from some atavistic stranger living inside her. Sucking at his tongue, she yanked his shirttails from the waistband of his slacks.

  Making a feral sound, he ripped his mouth free, fisted the material of her delicate aqua sweater in his hands, growled, “Raise your arms,” and pulled it off over her head when she complied. He leaned back from the waist and gave her a comprehensive inspection from her mussed hair to her well-kissed lips to her bare collarbone to her unlined, ivory lace bra. When his gaze reached that it stopped dead.

  “Jesus.” He traced the patterns of the lace and his forefinger contrasted darkly against the bra’s ivory and her own ivory flesh glowing through it. He circled her nipples, which Poppy could feel poking eagerly against the lace, in ever closer, tighter figure eights. Then he swept his thumb in to trap one and gave it a tug.

  Sensation streaked south from the point of compression and Poppy sucked in a sharp breath. Her head fell back. “Gaaaawd,” she moaned at the ceiling as she thrust her breasts in the direction of his fingers as they retreated, her breath hitching as they went back to circling both nipples. “The opposable thumb’s a marvelous thing, isn’t it?”

  He caught the one he’d neglected before and gave it another hit-and-run pinch. Ris
ing onto her toes, she hooked a leg around his hip and yanked, slapping their pelvises together.

  He swore and abandoned finessing her breast in favor of sliding both hands up the backs of her thighs beneath her skirt until they reached the bare cheeks exposed by her new Rio thong panties. Filling his hands, he hiked her up and Poppy wrapped her other leg around him as well. His erection sparked a new uproar inside her as it slid against the soft furrow between her legs.

  Breath gusting out, he shifted his grip and his fingertips brushed the small triangle that dwindled into a narrow band riding the division of her buttocks.

  “You are wearing something under here,” he said, tightening his fingers around her bottom, and Poppy almost aspirated her tongue as she felt her cheeks separate and his fingertips curl into the crease. Lowering his head, he kissed her again as his thumbs slid under the twin strings that connected the back triangle to its slightly larger counterpart in front.

  Poppy wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back hungrily.

  She nearly jumped a foot when someone suddenly pounded on the door and a man’s voice called, “Jase! You home, boy? Saw your car out in the lot.”

  Jason dropped her back on her feet and stepped away so fast she staggered and had to slap her hands against the refrigerator at her back to keep from wheeling into the counter. He stared at her with dawning horror and, plowing a hand through his hair, opened his mouth.

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “If you apologize again after kissing me like a starving man at the all-you-can-eat buffet, I will personally see to it you never father children.”

  “No, okay.” Holding his hair off his forehead, he stared at her. “I’m not sorry,” he said. “But I still shouldn’t have started this.”

  “Which—hello—you didn’t. I did.”

  “But I fell right in with the program, didn’t I? And mixing it up with someone in one of my cases is against both my and the SPD’s professional code of ethics.”

  Pushing away from the fridge, she glared up at him, her back erect and chin raised. “I’m not in a case of yours, pal.”