by Tee O'Fallon
About a hundred yards ahead, he caught sight of her tan-and-black tail bounding in and out of the trees. Overhead, rain on the tree canopies got louder, and even beneath all that leaf cover, large droplets spattered onto his forehead.
Finally, Sheba lay down, panting, alerting him to something she’d found.
Slowing to a jog so he wouldn’t mash any evidence into the ground, he eased up next to Sheba, placing his hand gently on her wet back. Beneath his fingers, the dog’s muscles quivered with excitement. “Whatdya got there, girl?”
Between Sheba’s paws, and half obscured by leaves and pine needles, was a jagged piece of cloth stained with something dark. Possibly blood from Trista’s attacker.
Working quickly, Matt pulled a small plastic evidence bag from his thigh pocket and carefully scooped up the cloth without touching it. After sealing it, he stuffed the bag back in his pocket. Lightning lit the sky through the tree cover, followed by a crack of thunder.
“Let’s get outta here.”
Back at the truck, Sheba shook, sending droplets of water flying everywhere. Rain pounded on their heads, but Matt took the time to give his dog her reward for a job well done: an orange ball secured to the end of a rope. She clamped her jaws around the ball, and he held the rope taught for a few minutes while she tugged and pulled, twisting her head from side to side, growling in delight. By the time they were back in the truck, they were both soaked to the skin.
Matt wiped dripping water from his forehead and guided the Explorer out of the lot toward the police station.
Twenty minutes later, he was handing over the bagged evidence to Jake. “This was in the woods near where Trista Gold was attacked. Sheba found it, and I know she got a piece of that guy last night. Can you do me a favor and have your lab run it through CODIS?”
“Could be blood.” Jake held the bag up to the light, examining the cloth. “All right. I’ll send it in, but it could take a while. Weeks, maybe.”
Matt handed Jake the CIA chain of custody form he’d already filled out. “Could you do me another favor and put a rush on it?”
Jake barked out a laugh. “Dream on. The lab’s booked up solid. I’ve been waiting on a simple fingerprint ID for over a month now.”
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this guy. Maybe this was nothing more than a random attack, but if it wasn’t…Trista’s attacker is still out there. And the kind of guy who would do this probably isn’t exactly a stellar citizen.”
“Tell me about it.” Jake nodded. “I’ll do my best, but I can’t promise anything.”
“Thanks, buddy.” Matt stood to leave, turning. “Find anything on the video cams?”
“Negative.” Jake shook his head. “Still offline. And before you ask, our boys talked to everyone inside the restaurant after you left. There were no witnesses.”
Shit. He’d really hoped Jake would have turned up something else by now. “You’ve got my cell,” he said on the way out the door. “Call me as soon as you get the results. I owe you a beer.”
“That you do.” Jake nodded.
When Matt opened the door to the truck, Sheba stuck her head through the opening. Again, her body quivered at the prospect of getting out there and doing her thing. That was just one of many outstanding aspects of being paired with a K-9. Most of his human partners over the years hadn’t exhibited half that excitement about their jobs. Sheba, on the other hand, was eager to go on patrol every day, rain or shine. Unlike a human, the dog almost never had a bad day. Speaking of bad days, Trista’s past twenty-four hours definitely qualified as shitty.
Shaking his head in disbelief that he was doing it, Matt turned the Explorer in the direction of her house.
Chapter Seven
“You yelled at him?” Bonnie set the glass of Dalwhinnie on the kitchen table, her eyes wide. “You actually yelled at Sgt. Connors?”
Trista gave a reluctant nod, then took a sip from her own glass, savoring the spicy caramel and vanilla tones of her favorite Scotch. Her parents had given it to her as a gift after one of their walkabouts in Scotland, and she’d been hooked on it ever since. Not that she was much of a drinker, but it helped her to unwind after a stressful day. A light buzz was already working its way through her system, and she welcomed it.
Kevin abruptly stopped swirling the ice cubes in his glass. “What’d he do?”
Poofy readjusted himself in her lap and purred louder when Trista sifted her fingers through his thick scruff. “He told me he had a duty to report the incident, and that he’d done it for the safety of the agency, and for me.”
She still couldn’t believe she’d given Matt a serious tongue-lashing. A side of her personality she hadn’t known existed—an outspoken, confrontational side—had taken that moment to make itself known. Equally shocking was that during her entire tirade she hadn’t stammered once. A first around Matt.
“Did he get angry?” The corners of Bonnie’s lips curved up at the corners, and she leaned on the table. “Did he whip out the handcuffs? Get all manly on you?”
“No.” Trista rolled her eyes. “He was in the fitness center working out.” Looking all sweaty, and muscular, and gorgeous.
“Did he yell back at you?” Kevin asked.
Trista shook her head. “Not exactly, although he was definitely mad at me. Matt is so big and intimidating, he doesn’t have to raise his voice to get his point across. All he had to do was stand over me, scowling with those cop eyes—he’s good at that, by the way—and I felt about yea big.” She held her thumb and forefinger a quarter inch apart. Compared to him, she was yea big.
“Whoa, stop.” Bonnie held up her hand, scrunching her brows. “You just called him Matt, not Sgt. Connors. When did you start calling him Matt?”
“I—” Don’t know. She stared back, knowing she had a deer-in-the-headlights look on her face. Even though he’d told her to call him by his first name, she’d never really intended to.
“Did something else happen that you’re not telling us about?” The beginnings of a sly grin began forming on Bonnie’s lips.
“No,” she said a bit too quickly, feeling her cheeks heat at the memory of having Matt’s arms around her, his lips on hers, his tongue deep in her mouth. Oh God.
Bonnie reached across the table to grip Trista’s arm. “Something did happen. I knew it. Give it up, GF.”
“Leave her alone,” Kevin said with a note of annoyance. “She’s been through enough.”
“No way, José.” Bonnie shook her head, then leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms. “This is serious girl stuff. If you don’t want to hear it, go to the bathroom or something. Stick your fingers in your ears. But I,” she said, pointing to her chest, “need to hear it.”
“Okay, okay.” She might as well get this over with. Bonnie would eventually pry it out of her anyway. “It wasn’t that big a deal. One minute I was yelling at him like a crazy person, then I realized he was probably right, and I started to cry. I think he took pity on me because the next thing I knew, his arms were around me, then he was kissing me. I started kissing him back, then he said it was a mistake, and I left because Wayne and Genevieve told me I had thirty minutes to leave the building, and—”
“Wait.” Bonnie smacked her hands on the table. “Dial that back. He was kissing you?”
Now her cheeks really started to grow hot. “Well, yeah. But he said it was a mistake, and he apologized.”
“Oh, no.” Kevin waggled his finger at her. “Men don’t kiss women by mistake. Trust me.”
“I agree.” Bonnie nodded. “Why did he say it was a mistake?”
“I don’t know.” Trista groaned. “Maybe it was a pity kiss, or an I’m-sorry-for-getting-your-high-level-security-clearance-revoked kiss.”
Either way, he’d made it painstakingly clear he regretted it, and the realization still twisted her insides. She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about his kiss since she’d stormed out of the fitness center.
It had felt good kissing him. Crazy good.
His body had been warm and damp with perspiration, his muscles hard as steel beneath her fingers, flexing and bunching. And his hot mouth had been demanding one minute, soft and gentle the next. God help her, when his tongue touched hers, her body sizzled to the ignition stage in record time. She’d melted in his arms, boneless, like a limp noodle. Never in her life had a man’s kiss scrambled her brains to such a degree. Then again, it’s not as if I’ve been kissed by many men. But Matt had been responsible for her security clearance being revoked, and no way could she forgive him. Not entirely, anyway.
“Again, no.” Kevin waved his finger. “Guys don’t give pity kisses. Guys kiss when they want to kiss because it feels good. Trust me.”
“I agree.” Bonnie nodded. “Something triggered this. A spark, a connection, a—”
The doorbell rang, and Poofy swiveled his head to the door with a loud, inquiring mew.
“Excuse me,” she said to her friends, picking Poofy up and depositing him gently on the floor, where he made another protest, louder this time. A sure sign of discontentment at having been ousted from his regal perch on her lap.
At the door, Trista peered through the peephole. At first, all she saw was navy blue. Then she recognized the gold badge and name tag, and her heart rate zoomed into the stratosphere.
Matt stood on her front porch, looking all big and commanding and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.
Why is he here? If he’d come to apologize again for his mistake, she’d die of embarrassment.
Suddenly self-conscious, she tugged at the hem of her white lounging shorts, wishing she was wearing something that covered more of her backside and upper thighs. For that matter, her snug green knit tank top didn’t do much to conceal anything, either. She’d only worn them because she was stuck at home for who knew how long and hadn’t expected any visitors, not even Bonnie and Kevin. But they were close friends of hers, and Matt was not. And he was far too male for her narrow little comfort zone.
The doorbell peeled again, and she took a deep breath and opened the door. Their gazes met, then his lowered to her legs, then slowly slid back to her face, but not before lingering on her breasts.
To her horror, her nipples had begun to pucker and were now hardening beneath his gaze. She quickly crossed her arms. Talk about embarrassment.
In the ensuing and painfully awkward silence, he cleared his throat. “Can I come in?”
“Wh-why?” Shoot. Not again.
“Because I don’t want to have this conversation out here on your porch.” His gaze flickered again to her breasts, and his jaw went rigid.
“Fine.” Sighing, she stepped aside for him to enter, although she couldn’t stop the zinging in her belly as he brushed past her.
Through the kitchen doorway, Bonnie and Kevin craned their necks to see who was at the door. Bonnie elbowed Kevin, whispered something in his ear, and they both rose and joined them in the hallway.
“Sgt. Connors.” Bonnie offered Matt a megawatt smile. “How nice to see you. Are you checking up on Trista after last night’s, uh, incident?”
“I am.”
“Sgt. Connors.” Kevin held out his hand, which Matt shook.
“We were just leaving.” Bonnie threw Kevin a meaningful look, then hooked her hand around his elbow, practically dragging him out the door.
“Apparently so.” Kevin gave Trista a pointed look that spoke volumes. “Call if you need anything. I mean it. You can stay with either of us if you want to.”
Matt’s brows drew together as he narrowed his eyes on Kevin.
What’s that about?
“Thank you, but I’ll be fine here. Goodbye, you guys. And thanks for stopping by.”
Before she’d closed the door, Bonnie turned at the bottom porch step, putting her thumb to her ear and her pinkie to her mouth, mouthing the words “Call me later.”
When the door closed, Trista turned, and her mind went blank. Matt’s dark brows were still knitted, and a distinct air of disapproval swirled around him. He sure had that scowling cop thing down.
“Can we talk?” he asked, his deep voice sending another delicious shiver through her body.
“Sure.” She indicated the kitchen, and he stepped aside for her to pass. As he did, she breathed him in, catching an all-too-disconcerting whiff of his leathery, rummy aftershave, although now it was mingled with the clean scents of soap and shampoo.
He’d undoubtedly showered after his workout, and the image of Matt naked, water cascading down all those corded muscles, popped into her brain, sending goose bumps parading up her neck and making her nipples even harder.
Grabbing a sweater draped over the back of a chair, she quickly slipped it on and sat, automatically reaching for her glass of Dalwhinnie. He pulled out the chair next to hers and when he sat, she nearly laughed. He was so big, he seemed to take up half the kitchen. Or maybe it was his enormous, brooding presence that only made it seem as if the square footage of her kitchen had instantly decreased by a factor of ten.
“Can I get you a drink? Scotch?” She nodded to the bottle in the center of the table. Wow. Two entire sentences without a stammer. It didn’t matter that they were two very short sentences. It was a win nonetheless.
“No, thanks.”
“No d-drinking in uniform?” She groaned inwardly. So much for my winning streak.
He shrugged. “Something like that.”
Hmm. He’d declined with an air of casualness, but she detected something else, a hidden meaning behind his words.
“You don’t drink at all. D-do you?” she asked, suddenly curious about what made him tick.
His gaze hardened. “No.”
She shouldn’t ask but couldn’t stop herself. Must be the alcohol lowering her inhibitions. “Are you an alcoholic?”
“No.” A hint of a smile tugged at his lips, softening the hard, rugged planes of his face.
“Then why d-don’t you drink?”
That got her a full-fledged smile, and her heart skipped a beat. “What’s with all the personal questions?” he asked.
Honestly, she didn’t know. Especially given her long-standing proclivity to social awkwardness.
“Tell you what,” he said, leaning back, stretching his long legs out under the table until one of his boots touched her bare foot. “I’ll answer your question if you answer one of mine. Deal?”
Uh-oh. What had she gotten herself into? But she still wanted the answer to her question. “Deal. You first, though.”
“Okay.” He nodded. “Not drinking is a personal preference.”
“Have you ever had a drink?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“When was the last time you had a drink?”
His eyes darkened, and she sensed a subtle shift in his demeanor. “Twenty years ago. When I was sixteen.” Then he grinned, and again her heart did some weird, skittering thing. “That was three questions, by the way. My turn. Why do you only stammer when you talk to me? You don’t do that with anyone else.”
“That’s not t-true,” she said with a huff.
He nodded. “It is, from what I’ve seen.”
Poofy stalked into the kitchen, meowed, then sat at Matt’s feet, staring up at him.
“Angora?” He held out his hand for Poofy to sniff. “Male?” She nodded. “He’s beautiful.” The cat stretched to reach his fingers. A second later, the hair on the back of Poofy’s spine stood up, and he backed away with his tail in the air. Matt laughed, revealing an even set of white teeth. “He smells Sheba.”
“Poofy’s never seen a d-dog.” She bent down to scoop the cat up. Still leaning over, her gaze met Matt’s, only he wasn’t looking at her face. His eyes were focused lower. Following his gaze, she caught sight of her tank top gaping open. Even though she was wearing a bra, from her vantage point and his, the wisp of fabric barely covered her breasts.
Tugging Poofy closer, she used the cat like an Angora pillow, covering her nakedness. She wanted to crawl into a hole an
d stay there until Groundhog Day.
Suddenly adjusting his position in the chair, the corners of Matt’s lips lifted infinitesimally, which only accentuated the sexy five-o’clock shadow she’d noticed earlier on his chiseled jaw.
“So,” she said, scratching Poofy’s ear vigorously to hide her embarrassment, “what did you want to t-talk about?”
“Two things. Mainly, about you.”
“Me?” She stilled her fingers on Poofy’s scruff. “Why?”
Canting his dark head, he stared at her, and it took every ounce of restraint not to squirm beneath the intensity of his chocolate-caramel-coffee-brown eyes. Light from the small chandelier over the table glinted off his hair, which was darker than she’d realized. It was nearly black.
Like midnight.
“I came here to make sure you’re okay.”
“I’m fine.” She thrust out her chin and touched her neck. “See? No Band-Aid. Our c-conversation is over, so now you can leave.”
He arched a brow. “That isn’t what I meant, and you know it.”
“Then you’ll have to be more specific.” Don’t you dare say anything about that kiss.
“I don’t suppose you can tell me what you’re working on.”
She gave him a duh look. “Not unless you’ve got TS/SCI, and you’ve been read into the program.” As a CIA cop, he had to know that unless he had top secret clearance, plus the Sensitive Compartmented Information ticket on top of that, she could never discuss her work with him.
“That’s what I figured.” He nodded. “Has anyone been following you lately?”
“No.” At least, not that she knew of.
“Any crank calls?”
“No.” She rarely gave her cell number out as it was.
“Have you noticed any strangers in your neighborhood?”
“No, no, and n-no.” It was impossible not to suppress the irritation in her tone.
Leaning forward, his eyes darkened further. “Why are you so pissed off at me?”
“You’re kidding, right?” Sensing her agitation, Poofy jumped off her lap. “Do I really need to explain it all over again?” She pointed to herself. “Security clearance? Revoked? Kicked out of Langley? Does any of that ring a bell with you?”
