A Flare Of Heat (H.E.A.T. Book 1)

by Claire, Nicola

  "What a way to go," he whispered back.

  "Hmm-mm," I mumbled, receiving a vibrating rumble through his body into mine. "Next time we do it in a soft bed, nice and slowly. No water, no hard bathtub."

  "Deal," he murmured, laughter in his voice. "Come on. Let's get you cleaned up and between the sheets of that soft bed."

  "For round two?" I asked, half interested, half appalled to be thinking of sex when I was so battered and bruised from this effort, and tired to boot.

  "Sweetheart," Damon teased. "I can't seem to keep my hands off you, but even I can see you're practically asleep."

  "Yeah, blame it on me. I bet you couldn't even function for exhaustion," I argued, not willing to lose this one.

  He chuckled, finished off washing us both and then helped me from the bath, towelling me dry, before he spoke.

  "We don't have to sleep," he suggested softly. "We could talk." I realised the delay in speaking hadn't been from the distraction of washing and drying my body, but from necessity. He'd been plucking up courage.

  "Talking is overrated," I tried as an argument. We'd been having fun, he was going to ruin it.

  Damon just looked at me steadily, but didn't say a word.

  We climbed between the sheets, leaving the bathroom a despicable mess and not really caring, and I gratefully accepted Damon's shoulder and chest to lie on. He pulled me close, kissed my forehead and said, "I meant it. I can't keep my hands off you. But I promise next time I'll try to get us to the bed first."

  I smiled against his skin, offered a soft kiss to his collarbone. It was nice being wanted. Knowing Damon was turned on whenever he was with me. It evened the playing field, because I'd never been able to say no to this attraction we shared. I'd never stopped wanting him, even when I walked away.

  "Sweet dreams, love," he murmured, just as I yawned.

  "You too," I replied, accepting this for what it was right now. Familiar comfort, unconditional support, and moments full of a hell of a lot of fun.

  But Damon wasn't ready to forgo a future. And to do that, he was prepared to bring up the past. Just as I began to drift off, he said, "So, are you willing to face it yet?"

  "Face what?" I mumbled, before I could stop myself and pretend I was asleep.

  "The truth about who I was with that day."

  Suddenly wide awake and desperately not wanting to be, I pulled from his warm embrace and rolled over onto my side, offering him my back. He was ruining everything by bringing this up now.

  "I guess not," Damon said, a note of anger in his voice now.

  For such a long while he said nothing, that I really started to think he'd given up. I should have known better. This was Damon Michaels. When he got an idea into his head he wouldn't stop. Sleep deprived, exhausted and angry woman lying next to him or not.

  "Her name is Carole," he started.

  "Don't," I snapped, moving to sit up on the side of the bed. I tugged the sheet around me. I was nowhere ready for this.

  "Carole, Lara," he pushed.

  "Damn you, Damon. I'm too fucking tired for this right now. Just go. Get out of my house. Leave me the fuck alone."

  "You must be tired if you're not hearing me," Damon argued, still not shifting from my bed. "And I am not bloody leaving ever again," he added for good measure.

  "Fine! You stay here, I'll go sleep on the couch." I got up, yanked frustratingly on the still half tucked in sheet, and started dragging it behind me towards the bedroom door.

  He was before me in an instant. Pretty damn light on his feet. He barred my escape, face hard and unforgiving.

  "For a police detective you certainly pick and choose what you want to see and hear," he growled.

  "I told you," I said, sounding more reasonable than I felt. "That I don't want to do this right now. You're fucking insane," I added, conversationally. Impressed with my level tone.

  "I must be, because I'm in love with you!"

  I snorted. That was rich! "Some way to show it, Sport." Then promptly sucked in a shocked breath of air, wrapped an arm around my waist and doubled over, hand to mouth to hold the distressed sound in.

  "Love," Damon whispered, sounding like he could actually feel my pain. He quickly and easily lifted me up in his arms and carried me back to the bed. "It's all right," he promised, as a sob escaped and I curled further into a ball. "We'll get you through this."

  I shook my head, stopped struggling to get away, and to prove just how fucked up I was, clung to him when he wrapped me up in his arms instead. For a long time he soothed me with gently rocks and soft words and tender strokes of his hand down my back.

  And when I finally lost the will to stay awake and remember, memories turning to disconnected images and then eventually nothing at all, I realised what name he'd actually said.

  Carole. Damon had said her name is Carole.

  I tried to open my eyes, to say something to confirm what I now instinctively knew. But sleep claimed me, as Damon's sister's name floated through my exhausted and slightly fractured mind.

  Chapter 27

  "Being honest with yourself is harder than hearing the truth."

  God, I'd been a fucking idiot. A fucking self-righteous, cowardly, ignorant idiot. I'd run because it was easier. I'd covered my ears and sung la-la-la like a child because I didn't want to hear. I'd walked away from a good man because... I didn't want to believe I deserved him.

  Carl had always said, Being honest with yourself is harder than hearing the truth. It's a strange statement. But if you think about it, it's very true. It's actually pretty easy having someone point out the facts. But verbalising your own faults is downright hard.

  Now I had to face mine.

  Hennessey, the department shrink, said I had a self-destructive tendency in my personal life. Professionally, the doc had said, I was more inclined to sacrifice myself. He'd asked me which I thought was better. It was a trick question, I knew that now.

  There was no right or wrong answer. Both fucked up your life. And I'd fucked up mine. Then Carl had left.

  I've asked myself a million times whether his disappearance from my life prevented me from healing. From forgiving Damon. Now I know the real question should have been, had Carl's death caused me to miss the truth? Helped me to ignore the signs?

  She'd looked like him. I remember that now. He'd held her fragile hand, but not in a passionate way. It had been comforting. She'd been crying. Her eyes were red and puffy, snot had glistened beneath each nostril. And Damon had been wearing what I'd last seen him in. A crinkled HEAT t-shirt, faded jeans and scuffed up boots. He hadn't dressed up. Hadn't even made an effort.

  You try for a new date. You don't for your sister. Yet I had chosen to ignore all of that and concentrate on the lie.

  What brought him out that night when he'd been planning to stay home? A sister relapsing perhaps?

  If only I'd known. If only I'd asked. If only I'd let Damon say his piece.

  I didn't deserve a second chance. Hell, I'd thought I didn't deserve the first one. But I sure as hell owed Damon an apology.

  I always acknowledge my mistakes, but this one might just cripple me.

  I rolled over slowly, listening to Damon's even breaths at my side and blinked the sleep from my eyes. The sun hinted behind the curtains. I hadn't closed them, Damon must have. I don't remember much after making it to bed.

  Other than the fact that Damon had finally told me who he was with that day.

  I watched his chest rise and fall softly, his face in gentle repose. So relaxed, so beautiful. His lips curved downward slightly, while a dream had him furrowing his brow. Then with the next deep breath his face smoothed out again. He had shadows under his eyes, but not as bad as they had been when I first laid eyes on him again after nearly six months. He'd played the game well at that car boot fire. Pretended we didn't know each other intimately in a former life.

  That's what I'd wanted. That's the tone I'd set and Damon had dutifully followed. Carl knew we'd been closer t
han inter-service colleagues, but only because he knew me so well. Pierce had probably suspected, but every time HEAT was brought up I'd inevitably growl, so his natural assumption was a short liaison gone wrong.

  I let my eyes trace the stubble that had thickened overnight on Damon's cheeks. I reached up and wrapped a dark curl around my finger, then released it and watched it spring back into place. Damon had gorgeous hair. And lips. I watched them curl up in a smile, even if he was not yet awake his body had somehow registered my touch in his sleep.

  With a heavy sigh I wondered why he hadn't rushed to tell me the woman was his sister. He could have blurted it out. He could have shouted it through my closed front door. But he didn't. He kept saying it wasn't how it looked, but he wouldn't divulge what it actually was. So why now? Why finally break the code of silence now?

  Part of me was still angry, and that small unanswerable "why" fuelled the anger a little more. Sure, I wouldn't have wanted to listen, but if he'd just come out with it, I wouldn't have been able to ignore it either. We were both to blame. Me too stubborn and scared. Him... what? Protecting Carole?

  I shook my head and Damon's eyes flickered open. He went from relaxed and expressionless, to tense and wary. Bloody hell, was I that much of a ticking time bomb?

  "Hey," I whispered and he let a long breath of air out.

  "Hey, yourself," he whispered back.

  We held each other's gaze, neither willing or able to say the next words.

  Come on, apologise. Open the dialogue up. Say something. Me or him, I don't know.

  "You didn't dream," he whispered, still not wanting to break the tenuous impasse.

  I shook my head.

  He nodded his.

  Silence and tension, both of them feeling like physical entities, settled between us.

  "What's next?" he asked, and somehow the familiar phrase he'd used throughout the investigation made it a little easier to breathe.

  I sucked in a large lungful of air.

  "Why didn't you tell me?" I asked. He knew immediately what I was talking about.

  "You weren't listening."

  "I wouldn't have had a choice if you'd have tried."

  "You were hurting," he added.

  "I was angry."

  "It's one and the same for you."

  "But Damon, you didn't try."

  His turn to suck in a deep breath. "No, Lara. I didn't." He rolled to his back and stared at the ceiling. "You want to know the truth?" he asked, directing the question to the roof it seemed and not me.

  "I think we've reached that point," I offered. He semi-smiled, it was more a grimace than a grin.

  "You're a hard woman to contain." Pardon? "Your work always comes first. If Carl phoned, you'd drop everything. Even sex."

  "What?"

  "You don't remember?" he said, turning just his head to look at me. "My place. It was a Friday. We'd had half a bottle of wine between us and made out on the couch in front of some God awful movie I can't even recall. We'd just gotten up, still tangled in each other, to head to the bedroom. And Carl phoned. You had a distinctive ringtone set for just him. We both knew who it was even though your cellphone was on the coffee table, several feet away from where we'd stumbled to."

  I remembered the night. I didn't want him to go on. I knew what happened next.

  "You broke away. I asked you not to answer it. You told me..."

  "Carl will always come first. No matter what," I finished his sentence for him.

  "Carl will always come first. No matter what," he repeated.

  What a bitch.

  "I knew then I'd always play second to your job," he went on. "I told myself that it was OK. I still had you. But when you saw me with Carole and leapt to the wrong conclusion I put up a wall. I'm not even sure why. By the time I realised I didn't want that wall there Carole had attracted some very dangerous interest that needed my absolute discretion. I couldn't give you a reason, so I just asked you to trust me."

  "What sort of dangerous interest?" I demanded.

  "See. You are always the cop first. You think you have a right to know, because you think only you could solve the problem."

  "I am the law, Damon. What the hell did you do? Beat the crap out of them until they passed out?"

  And that just proved how much of a bitch I could be.

  He sat up and ran a hand through his hair in frustration. "This is not going at all how I planned," he said.

  I covered my face and said through my fingers, "Ditto."

  He huffed, it could almost be considered amused.

  "Carole asked that I keep it all from you," he finally added. "Made me swear or she would cut me out of her life and go off with one of the main dangerous parties interested in her. I was desperate to get her out of that lifestyle. I'd not long ago had to rescue her from Zero. I knew she'd go straight back if I didn't comply. I did manage to make her agree to a stay in rehab as part of the negotiations, though."

  "So, your sister forced you to pick family over girlfriend."

  "My sister forced me to pick family over the Police," he countered. "You'd picked your side already when you told me Carl would always come first."

  Oh, what a fucking mess.

  Neither of us said anything for several long moments.

  "How is she now?" I eventually asked.

  "Better. No longer dependent. Living a quiet life out at Piha Beach."

  "Lot of druggies out there," I pointed out.

  "Lara," he said on a defeated sigh.

  "I can't turn it off," I admitted, sounding a little desperate myself.

  "I don't expect you to," he replied, moving closer and reaching out a hand to take one of mine. His was large and slightly calloused. The perks of being a fireman. "Otherwise I wouldn't have made a play for you again. I'm not a glutton for punishment," he joked, trying to lighten the moment. "But I also can't seem to get you out of my system. Believe me, I tried."

  "So, what do we do?" I asked, letting him entwine his fingers with mine.

  "Work together as much as possible?" he said on a grin.

  A smile finally reached my lips. "Ever thought of becoming a detective?"

  "Ever thought of becoming a fireman?" he shot back.

  "We could just stick with inter-service investigations."

  "Would you want to?" he asked, and the question was posed in all seriousness.

  I stared back into deep, dark and intense eyes. My heart wanted to say yes. My head wanted to say, back up the dumptruck and think about this.

  "My shrink said I idolised Carl," I admitted, instead of voicing the many myriad of other, better thoughts going through my head.

  "Hennessey?" Damon asked. I nodded, letting out a sigh. I never spoke about my sessions with the department's clinical psychologist. Never. This felt wrong.

  I was talking before I registered I'd already made my choice. Damon. The past few days had taught me something, or flicked a switch that had been set the incorrect way. I hadn't watched Damon from afar as he said he'd watched me. But I sure as hell read every HEAT memo that crossed my desk penned by him. My ears would prick whenever HEAT was mentioned at CIB. I always asked how the team was going when I met up with one of the HEAT guys; codeword for how was Damon?

  I haven't dated in six months.

  But as soon as I saw him at that car boot fire I knew. I refused to put it into words, as such. But my body, my heart, knew. I was still in love with him. It still hurt to look into those mesmerising eyes. My body still thrilled whenever he was near. Even in the pitch black of night I felt the heat of the sun as it flared.

  "It was an unhealthy idolisation," I whispered, admitting something the shrink had never said in words, but I had come to realise as truth. Psychologists, especially clinical ones, are there to help you recognise the triggers that set you off and give you the cognitive tools to combat them. They don't judge and they don't often diagnose with medical terms. So, Hennessey had never said my worship of my CIB partner was unhealthy, he
'd only led me to that conclusion; a discovery I needed to make myself.

  "Carl taught me so much, you see," I went on, and Damon just held my hand, offered his full attention, but didn't interrupt. "He showed me what I was capable of. He gave me confidence in myself. He..." I frowned, realised I was squeezing Damon's hand quite painfully and so immediately released my grasp.

  He reached back over and took my hand, lifting it palm up to his mouth.

  "I'm tougher than I look," he whispered, lips brushing my sensitive skin as he talked.

  I watched him kiss my palm, his eyes on mine, then let him settle our entwined hands in his lap.

  "I had a lot to live up to," I murmured, getting back to my story. "My grandfather was a well respected detective. My father is Chief Inspector of South Auckland Police." Damon would have known all of this. It wasn't a secret, anyone dealing with Auckland City Police would be aware of Ethan Keen. "He's a hard man to please," I ground out. "But that's a story for another day. I guess, what I'm trying to say is, I'm a little bit more aware of what I do and maybe why. A little bit more aware of how it can sometimes..." - I struggled for the right word - "...dominate my focus."

  My eyes lifted to his, from where they'd inadvertently dropped to the cover on the bed.

  "I've noticed," he said softly.

  "You have?"

  "Sure," he said easily. "You wouldn’t testify against me."

  "I was a bit slow to come to that conclusion," I mumbled.

  "Lara," he admonished. "It'll get easier. I promise."

  "What will get easier?" He was losing me. Did he mean breaking the law? I cocked my head and frowned at him. He just smiled back, his eyes darting all over my face, my sheet wrapped chest, my hair.

  "Loving me," he finally answered. "Letting me all the way in here." His fingers touched my head. "And in here." He covered my chest above my heart with the flat of his hand.

  A grin was the only warning I received.

  "And in here," he growled, leaping forward and trapping me under the sheet, his palm cupping between my thighs suggestively, over the top of the bedding. "This is the one I'm really focused on right now," he said, wiggling his eyebrows at me, hot breath washing my lips. "I think we should take a breather from the deep and meaningful stuff, we both know you love me and I love you and we're never going to let someone else come between us again." Do we now? "So, how about we get hot and heavy instead?"