by Norah Wilson
He reached for her and she went gladly into his arms, her flesh wet and giving against the solidity of his chest. He turned them so the shower spray beat down on his back and covered her mouth with his. And there it was again. She wanted to be under him, on him. Christ, inside him.
She wrenched her mouth away from his. “Were you counting on getting much sleep tonight, Detective?”
His grin was lethal. “Not if I can help it.”
“Good. Because I want to have you every way I can think of. I want you in every room, in every position, until we’re both too sore to do it again.”
He sucked in a deep breath. “Jesus, Nita.”
“Does that mean you’re up for it?”
He drew her hand down to his stiffened cock. “What do you think?”
She smiled. “I think we can scratch the bathroom off the list.”
“The tub enclosure, at least.”
Six hours later, Craig lay watching Nita sleep in his arms.
She hadn’t planned to fall asleep, but he’d convinced her to lie down with him while he drank some ice water, ate a slice of cold pizza, which they’d ordered at midnight, and generally recuperated from their last bout of sex.
Part of him was still expecting her to spring something on him that would explain his good fortune — a request for a highly improper favor or for confidential information on an investigation — but she’d scrupulously avoided anything work-related.
Instead, they’d exhausted the easy stuff during the earlier “intermissions”. They both shared a love of jazz, though she leaned more to contemporary and he more toward traditional. They now knew which three books and three albums the other would choose if they were stranded alone on a desert island, and there was actually some crossover. Her favorite actor was some guy he’d never heard of because he rarely saw movies these days, and he’d fessed up that he was still stuck on Kirstie Alley, thin, fat or in between, because she was beautiful. She detested football, hockey and basketball, but somehow had developed a love for baseball.
When the small talk petered out, she’d asked him about his family. He’d been in the process of telling her about his older sister when he realized she was sleeping, a fact that registered only when she rolled toward him and nestled her head on his shoulder.
So here he was, clinging to wakefulness. His eyes burned from lack of sleep, and his body was beyond exhausted, but no way was he going to sleep. As glorious as this night had been, these minutes with the warm, trusting weight of her tucked against his body were too precious to miss. Because as many times as they’d made love tonight, she’d never really let him hold her. Every time he tried to show her tenderness, she subtly redirected him.
Okay, maybe not so subtly. The last time, she’d ordered him to dress and wait for her in her office. She’d come in dressed in a short skirt, low cut blouse and tall stilettos. Pen and notepad in hand, she’d offered to take dictation. Fast forward ten minutes and that red skirt was bunched up around her waist as she backed up onto his lap, taking his needy cock into her yet again. He’d swiveled the chair to face the mirror on the end wall so they could both watch him unbutton her shirt and liberate her breasts from the pushup bra. She’d moaned as he toyed with her, gently pinching her out-thrust nipples one moment, then palming her full breasts the next. Kneading, squeezing, lifting them like an offering…. Finally he had to abandon them to grip her hips as she picked up the tempo, but the image of her breasts bouncing more than made up for it.
So really, how could a guy complain? He’d have to be nuts. She’d given her body over to him completely, yielding up every ounce of passion she possessed, and she’d demanded the same from him. It was like she was worried tonight was all they had, and every sexual fantasy had to be fulfilled before some fairy godmother came along and waved a wand to take it all back.
Shit. Maybe that was it. Maybe she was afraid it would all be over come morning, that he’d go on his way now that he’d had what she figured he wanted from her.
Ah, but little did she know what he wanted.
Okay, sure, little had he known what he wanted until five hours ago. But now he knew. She was for him and he was for her. And soon he’d make her see it.
He gathered her closer, kissed the top of her head and promptly fell asleep.
Chapter 4
Nita woke to the sound of her telephone ringing, but when she rolled toward the phone, she smacked into the solid wall of a man. Holy shit, Craig Walker! Memories from last night came flooding back to her. Lord, she’d fallen asleep on him. She’d just closed her eyes for a minute….
The phone shrilled again. She glanced at clock. Yikes! Almost nine! It was probably Brad calling to find out where the devil she was. “The phone,” she said. “Could you reach it for me?”
He picked up the receiver and handed it to her.
She pressed the receiver to her ear. “Sorry, I slept in. I’ll be there in forty minutes.”
“I’m afraid I’ll be at the hospital doing rounds by then, but I’ll be glad to make some space for you this afternoon if you want to come in, after you’ve heard what I have to say.”
Doctor Woodbridge? “Sorry, doc. I thought you were my law partner.” The short telephone cord meant she had to lean across Craig, and he took the opportunity to settle a possessive hand on her hip. Despite her disoriented state, her pulse jumped at his touch.
“Are you feeling all right?” came the doctor’s voice. “Another headache?”
“No, I’m fine.” She put a hand on Craig’s wandering hand to arrest it so she could concentrate. “I just … didn’t sleep much.”
Craig grinned at her, drawing her attention to the sexy stubble on his face. A face that he must have shaved painstakingly last night before meeting her, judging by how smooth it had felt on her inner thighs….
She realized then that Dr. Woodbridge had said something she totally missed. “I’m sorry, I’m still a little groggy. What was that?”
“I said it was understandable that you’d have trouble sleeping, but I think you’ll fare better tonight after you’ve heard what I have to say. Nita, there was a mix up at the hospital. The scans they sent me weren’t yours.”
She jackknifed up. “Not mine?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying. The MRI report I showed you belonged to another unfortunate woman.”
“So … I don’t really have brain cancer, then? Is that what you’re telling me? No tumor in my head?”
“I haven’t seen your scan myself, but I’m assured that it’s as clean as they come.”
She put a hand to her head, which had begun to whirl as though she had a hangover. “I’m not dying?”
“Nita, honey, we’re all dying, but in your case, not for a good long while.”
“I see.” Omigod, omigod, omigod, what had she done?
“I know this is a shock. And I’m sorry to have put you through this anxiety for no reason. I’d do anything not to have scared you like this, especially after your dad’s experience. On the other hand, I’m damned glad to be giving you good news now.”
“Of course.”
She wasn’t dying.
And she’d just done a Fredericton PD detective as fully, completely and inventively as a woman could do a man, and she was going to live to hear about it from every cop in the city. And probably every councilman and crown prosecutor and sheriff’s deputy, too. A groan escaped her lips.
“Would you like to come in this afternoon? I’ll have your MRI report by then and will be happy to go over it with you, if you like.”
“No,” she said sharply. “No, that’s fine. I’ve got to go, Doc.”
He was apologizing again for having upset her needlessly, but she passed the receiver to Craig and scuttled out of bed while he replaced it on the cradle.
“I’m late.” She rushed to the closet, grabbed a robe and pulled it on over her nakedness before turning back to the man in her bed. He lay there altogether too collected and still for her l
iking, his eyes narrowed so she could barely see their vivid blueness. Oh, shit. This was not going to be pleasant. She rushed to fill the silence. “I forgot to set the alarm, and now I have to shower and get to work. I’d offer you breakfast, but don’t really have time, and I need—”
“I can’t fucking believe this.”
Craig launched himself off her bed in an explosion of motion that sent her heart into her throat.
“You’re going to send me off without a word about that conversation you just had? You’re not even going to try to explain that?”
She fell back a step. She couldn’t do this right now. She just couldn’t. She needed to regroup, compose herself. “It’s just that I’m already late and I have clients—”
He took a step closer, naked, angry and oh God, incredibly intimidating.
“It’s okay, Ms. Reynolds. I think I can put the puzzle pieces together for myself. You called me because you thought you were dying. Am I right?”
“Yes, but—”
“Jesus Christ! What was I to you? Some kind of carnival ride you wanted to take? Something to cross off your to-do list before you went to meet the ultimate judge in the sky?” He raked a hand through his hair. “Christ, of course! That’s why we had to squeeze in every fantasy you could think of. You wanted to cross them off so you could move on to skydiving or smoking opium or swimming with goddamn dolphins.”
“That’s not fair! The doctor only told me yesterday. I thought I was … dammit, it was an impulse.”
He reached for his jeans and hauled them on. “I can’t fucking believe this.”
What was the matter with him? Why was he so angry? And what about her? What about her feelings? “You can’t believe it?” Her hands fisted at her side. “If the stupid hospital hadn’t made a hideous mistake, I never would have—”
“You never would have called me,” he finished for her. “You never would have fucked me. I get it. Believe me.” He glanced around, “Where the hell is my sweater?”
“In the foyer, I think.”
He turned on his heel and left the room.
Shit.
She followed him out. His movements were short and sharp as he jammed his arms into the sweater and hauled it over his head. Say something, Nita.
“I’m sorry.”
“I’ll bet.” Grabbing his jacket, he started for the door.
“Wait!”
He paused, hand on the doorknob. “What?”
“You won’t … I mean, you’re not going to…?”
He turned to face her, his expression cold and flat. “Not going to what?”
“You won’t tell anyone?”
His mouth tightened. “Don’t worry. When I’ve been a fool, I rarely broadcast the fact.”
A second later, he was gone and she was staring at her closed door.
Chapter 5
Craig sat at his desk, fingers on his keyboard, eyes on his monitor. But all he was seeing were pictures inside his own head. Nita Reynolds in her elevator. On her dining room table. In that hot skirt. In nothing at all.
And God help him, as she slept in his arms, warm and trusting and entirely defenseless.
How could he have fallen for her?
Because you’ve been half way in love with her from the first time she tried to skewer you on the witness stand.
“Uh-oh. I think I know that look.”
Ray Morgan’s voice startled the hell out of him, but Craig managed not to jump out of his skin. “Dammit, Razor, someone oughta hang a bell on you.”
Ray handed him a coffee. “No need. My knees are getting creakier by the year. You’ll soon be able to hear me coming.” Ray plunked himself down in Sean Casey’s vacant chair and opened his own coffee. “So, what’s the story? You’re looking like a man with a woman on his mind. And not in the good way.”
“Oh, Christ.” Craig glanced around the empty bullpen. “That obvious?”
“The last time I saw a face like that was in my own mirror when Grace and I had that trouble last year.”
That trouble was a Russian mob boss who’d put himself between Ray and his wife.
“You guys almost died, Razor. I don’t think this compares.”
“Yeah, but the almost dying part wasn’t the worst part.” He leaned back in the chair and kicked his feet up on Casey’s desk. “The worst part was thinking I’d lost her. And that’s the look you were wearing just now.”
Craig busied himself opening his coffee lid. “Again, hardly compares. You and Grace had been married for years. I’m talking one night. It’s nothing.”
Ray took a sip of his coffee, then put it down on the desk. “Bullshit.”
“Excuse me?”
“Okay, maybe you were with her just one night, but no way a woman you’ve only just met messes you up like this. It’s gotta be someone you’ve been stuck on a while. Which explains why you’d never let Grace set you up.”
“No, I never let Grace set me up because I’m not interested in a relationship.”
“Sorry if I’m starting to sound like a broken record, but I repeat, bullshit. You want a relationship, all right, but you want it with this woman, not someone Grace has in mind for you.”
“Gee, thanks, Dr. Phil.”
“Dr. Phil?” Razor swung his feet to the floor and sat up in the chair. “Dr. Fucking Phil? I could shoot you right now and be completely exonerated by the Police Commission.”
Craig snorted. “You’re probably right.”
“Goddamn right I am.” He pushed to his feet. “Enjoy your coffee.”
“Ray?”
The other man stopped and turned. “Yeah?”
Shit, why was this stuff so damned hard to talk about? “You’re right. I guess I do want a relationship. But she doesn’t. She just wanted … well, what she wanted, she got last night, shall we say.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Ahhhhh, yuh. Pretty sure. When I want to cuddle more than she does, the writing’s on the wall.”
“Huh.”
“Huh?” Craig scowled. “What’s that mean?”
“Not to generalize, but in my experience, women are all about relationships. With men, with their sisters, their parents, their friends, their co-workers. Hell, their doctors, their dog groomers and their paperboys. It just doesn’t sound right that she’d do you for the sake of doing you, then cut you loose. No insult to your do-ability intended,” he hastened to add.
Craig closed his eyes. “Okay, you can shoot me now.”
“Were there extenuating circumstances? Some reason why she might want to project a different front?”
Like thinking she was dying of a brain tumor when she wasn’t? Like being deathly afraid he would kiss and tell the whole precinct and half the judicial community, thereby undermining her ability to do her job? Like being able to drum up the courage to call him only when she figured it couldn’t hurt her clients. Christ, he was a moron.
He opened his eyes. “Yeah, you could say that. You could definitely say that.”
Ray smiled. “Well, there you go, then.”
Chapter 6
Nita managed to stave off facing Brad until mid-afternoon, since he’d been tied up in court all morning and she’d had a client in her office when he got back. Shortly after 3:00 pm, though, she heard the chair in his office squeak. Dragging closer the file she’d been working on so half-heartedly for the past half hour, she buried her nose in it. Busy Nita. Too busy for idle office chatter.
“She lives.”
Nita groaned inwardly. She hadn’t really expected her show of busy-ness to deter her partner, but it was worth a try. “She lives?” She sat back, tossing her pen on the table. “I guess I must be awfully routine-bound if you write me off as dead the first time I come in an hour late.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, sweetie.” He moved into her office and settled in her leather client chair. “You look tired. In a nice way, of course.”
“Of course.”
His eyes narrowed as he regarded her. “In fact, if I didn’t know better, I’d guess you were up all night having wild monkey sex.”
She rolled her eyes. “Right. Because that’s so me,” she said, but she felt the telltale heat of a flush rising in her cheeks. Don’t notice, don’t notice, don’t notice.
He noticed.
“Good God! You did have wild monkey sex! It’s written all over your face. And frankly, on the left side of your neck, now that I look at you.”
“It is not!” She lifted a horrified hand to her throat. “Is it?”
He laughed. “No, but now I know for sure what I only suspected before.” He leaned back smugly. “And may I add, about time.”
She covered her face with both hands and groaned. “God, I can’t believe I fell for that.”
“Me either. I mean, you taught me that little trick.”
“Don’t remind me.” She picked up the pen she’d tossed down in resignation a moment earlier. “Now that you’ve ferreted out the dirty truth, get the hell out of my office, Knopfler. I’ve got work to do.”
“Knock, knock.”
Nita glanced up to see Maryanne, the firm’s receptionist, framed in her doorway. Thank goodness. This would send Brad on his way. “What’s up, Maryanne?”
“There’s a Detective Craig Walker here to see you.”
“What?” She jumped up from her chair, sending it backwards on its casters. “Did you tell him I’m here?”
“Omigod!” Brad said.
Maryanne frowned, sending Brad one of her patented disapproving looks that she seemed to reserve for him. “Of course I told him you were here. Why wouldn’t I?” She turned back to Nita. “Are you on the lam or something? Dodging a summons?”
“It’s him!” Brad said, oblivious of Maryanne’s evil eye. “You had monkey sex with Detective Walker!”
Maryanne’s eyes widened. “Nita?”
Nita sank back onto her chair. “Someone shoot me, please.”
“Sorry,” Brad quipped. “No sidearm. But if you ask the detective nicely….”
