by Virna DePaul
Her eyes seemed to heat when he brought her hand to his mouth and kissed it. “It’s a whole body exercise. It’s about being still when you have to. Moving when you have to. It’s about overcoming your fears of the world.”
His kissed her hand again, this time using his tongue to swipe at the tender valley between her thumb and index finger. He felt her pulse skitter against his fingers, making his own heartbeat skip.
* * *
WHEN THEY’D FIRST SAT DOWN for dinner, Carrie had thought she’d simply have to endure Jase’s attempts to distract her from her troubles. Distraction had seemed impossible given everything she was dealing with. Death. Serial killers. A lawsuit. Her living room being torched.
Not to mention her attraction to Jase and his growing willingness to do something about it. Given everything else, however, she’d assumed their sexual chemistry would fade into the background.
It hadn’t. Which simply proved how dangerous Jase was to her.
Even with her world falling apart, he had the uncanny ability to make her forget all the bad stuff and yearn for the simple pleasure of his company. His touch.
As Jase kissed her hand, Carrie had the feeling they were no longer talking about sports. His words and touch had started a throbbing in her body. The words slipped out before she could stop them. “You’re so easygoing most of the time. You don’t seem afraid of anything.”
Jase’s brows rose in surprise. “Everyone’s afraid of something, Carrie. Especially me.”
He trailed his fingers up and down her arm, the strokes getting progressively longer until he was caressing her from shoulder to wrist. His legs tangled with hers under the table, and she felt him nudge her legs apart with his foot.
She gasped. “What…what are you afraid of?”
He hesitated, looking at her with serious eyes that flashed first with tenderness, then with heat. “Let’s just say I don’t like leaving things undone. Personally or professionally.”
Was he talking about her? Maybe. But she also knew that wasn’t all of it. He’d dropped the mask he’d donned at Kelly Sorenson’s murder scene a little, but not completely. It had been weighing on him all day. And for some reason, after drinking wine and talking with him tonight, she wasn’t so reticent to ask him about it.
“So, Kelly Sorenson,” she said softly as she smoothed her fingertips over his hand. “You and DeMarco talked to her. It would have been troubling for you to see her today. Is that what you mean about finishing things professionally? Things like that?”
He kept his gaze on her fingers as they trailed over his darker skin. “Yes. Justice is one of the most important ways to finish things, don’t you think? And the fact that I met her?” He looked up now and met her gaze with his troubled one. “Yeah, it’s weird. She was a stranger, but she had a pretty smile. A bold spirit. No matter what I think of the personal choices she made, she was living her life the way she wanted to, and as far as I can tell, she wasn’t hurting anyone. She had a right to that life.”
“Did it bother you? What Susan Ingram said? That if you’d left McGill’s with Kelly she’d still be alive?”
“I can’t blame myself for something like that. Just because a woman tried to pick me up in a bar doesn’t mean I had any duty to take her up on what she was offering.”
“No. You like a challenge too much for that, don’t you?” She didn’t mean the words to sound critical, but they did. Still, he took no offense.
He swept his hand up to her shoulder again and then cupped her nape. “I like you,” he said softly.
The simple words made her heart leap. They made her feel more powerful, more worthy, than she’d ever imagined. Given everything she’d accomplished in her life, it seemed silly that Jase “liking” her could matter so much. Didn’t it?
Even as she struggled with how to respond, he massaged her neck with a strong grip, making her eyes close in ecstasy.
“Anything else I can get for you?”
Carrie’s eyes popped open when the waitress stopped by their table. She looked amused and didn’t wait for Jase or Carrie to say anything before placing the bill on the table.
Jase released her neck and hand, breaking the spell he’d cast over her. “Do you want more wine?”
She looked at the empty glass in front of her and shook her head. He paid the bill, and they exited the restaurant. He put his hand on the small of her back as they walked to their cars.
The street was bustling. The night air should have been cool and comforting on her overheated skin. Instead, it acted as an unwanted jolt of reality. Jase had indeed succeeded in distracting her from her troubles, but now that dinner was over, she had things to do. She stopped and turned to him with a rueful smile. “I don’t have anyplace to go, remember?” She reached for her cell phone. “Let me call some hotels—”
Jase placed a hand on her arm and she froze. “Come on, Carrie. Why don’t you just stay with me?”
Why? There were so many reasons, and she struggled to remember every last one. “I already told you why.”
“I won’t push you into anything. I’m not going to touch you unless you damn well ask me to.”
She believed him. Jase would never force himself on her. But that wasn’t what she was afraid of. Despite her best intentions, she’d enjoyed the past hour. She wanted more. More distraction. More time with him. What she wanted would continue to grow if she let it.
And since she couldn’t let it, she forced herself to say, “That’s not going to happen.”
“Then what’s the problem?” he challenged her.
She cursed her pride. It was going to make things extremely uncomfortable for her. But she simply nodded. “Fine. I could stop by my place, but it’d be easier just to go to the store for a few things. A toothbrush. Toiletries. That kind of thing. Unless, of course, you have a supply at your house for your women?”
She sounded snotty and she knew it. She also knew why—it was a last ditch effort to protect herself. By reminding herself of Jase’s history with women, maybe she’d be able to prevent anything from happening between them. If nothing else, it would annoy him, right?
But instead of calling her on her obvious tactics, Jase simply said, “We’ll stop by the store.”
* * *
JASE’S HOUSE LOOKED exactly as she imagined it would.
Stylish. Orderly. Sleek modern lines. Superb taste yet utterly masculine. Comfortable.
When he tried to guide her toward the bedroom, she balked. “If you can just give me some sheets, I’ll set up on the sofa,” she said.
“I’m more of a gentleman than that. You’ll take my bed.”
She almost physically recoiled. She imagined all the women who’d been in this house before her. All the time they’d spent in Jase’s arms. “I don’t think so.”
He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the door frame of his bedroom. “Is there a problem?”
“No problem,” she lied. Then, egged on by the knowing look in his eyes, she said, “I’m not going to sleep in the same bed you’ve had sex in with countless women, Jase.”
“No, you aren’t,” he readily agreed. “I’ve never had sex with a woman in this bed.”
“Right.” She drew out the word in patent disbelief.
“I’m serious. I moved into this place four months after I started at SIG. The job’s been a priority for me, and as far as sleepovers go, I don’t do them. Not here. I’ve always gone to the woman’s place. Makes it easier if I get a call and need to leave. And by the way, since we’re on the subject, I may be a serial dater, as you called me, but it doesn’t mean I screw every woman I date. I’m a lot more discriminating than you seem to think.”
It wasn’t that she didn’t think he was discriminating, but there were so many women who’d be attracted to him. Women who wouldn’t be shy about making their interest known. What man would be able to resist that kind of attention? Especially a man who worked as hard as Jase did. He deserved his playtime wi
thout having to be judged for it. Even so, despite his reassurances, she knew sleeping in his bed, against the same sheets his body intimately touched night after night, would be dangerous to her peace of mind. “Still…I’m taking the sofa or I’m not staying.”
Straightening, he shook his head. “Fine.” He disappeared, then returned less than a minute later with folded sheets and a blanket, which he handed her. “You know, it wouldn’t make you any less of a cop to acknowledge you’re a woman sometimes.”
“Meaning you only offered me your bed because I am one, right?” She covered the sofa with the linens.
“No. I offered because you’re you, Carrie. And having you in my bed has been a fantasy for a long time. I figured even if you were in it alone, it would be better than nothing.”
She threw her hands up in exasperation before sitting down on her makeshift bed. “Jase, you have to stop. Please. I have so much to deal with right now. This case. My house being burned down. The lawsuit. I can’t deal with you, too.”
Quietly, he sat beside her. “The woman outside McGill’s that night. She’s the one who filed an unlawful death case against the department.”
“Yes. But what does that—”
“You were upset that night. I mean, that’s understandable, but why the panic attack? Can you tell me that?”
“Why? So you can report to Stevens again?”
“I won’t repeat what you tell me.”
“I’m just trying to deal with everything that’s happened. It was bad enough before, but now, to have lost my house, my things…”
“You lost your photo albums,” he acknowledged.
The photo albums he’d looked through. The ones that had informed him of her ridiculous middle name. They’d been important to her, but not as important as the knowledge that he’d been curious enough about her to look through them. Still, there had been other things she’d lost. Cards her mother and father had written to her. Small things. Personal things that proved she had a life outside her work.
“It’s just stuff,” Jase continued. “You’re okay. That’s all that matters. God, when I think about what could have happened if you were at home…”
She wasn’t surprised by his relief. If nothing else, they were friends. She knew that. It was only when she imagined herself meaning more to him that she doubted her own appeal. “Hey, it wouldn’t have been all bad,” she joked, instinctively pushing away the notion that they could be more than friends. She tried a smile. “You’d have gotten the lead on this case, after all.”
“Don’t! Don’t even joke about something like that, Carrie. I was a big enough wreck when you’d been shot in the leg, even after I found out you were going to be okay. If anything worse happened to you…”
“Given our jobs, there’s always the chance something worse is going to happen to me. To both of us.”
“I know. And that’s why I wish I didn’t care so damn much about you, Carrie.”
He kept saying that. Kept wanting to pull her closer to him. Why? What did he think it would accomplish? They didn’t have a future together. His future was with the feminine, gorgeous women he dated, not a woman who wanted so badly to fit into a man’s world. “You can’t care about me, Jase. You don’t really know me.”
“I know enough. You fascinate me more than any woman I’ve ever known.”
“That’s because I’m different. I don’t dress like your women. I don’t talk like them. I probably don’t even have sex like them. I’m a cop, Jase, that’s what I am.” Someday, that’s how he’d see her again, and then he’d realize he wanted more.
He grabbed her arms. “Is that what you really think? That you’re just a cop? Because you’re so much more than that, Carrie. You look better than other women. You talk better than them. And I know damn well that if we ever got around to having sex, you’d—” Closing his eyes, he cursed softly. With what was obviously extreme effort, he released her and stepped back. “Look, you’ve had a hard day. I don’t want to make it any harder for you. I need to let you go to sleep. Unless you need anything?”
I need so much, she thought. I need you. But I can’t have you.
I can’t. “No,” she whispered. “I’m good. Thanks for letting me crash here.”
“Anytime. Remember that. And remember this conversation is far from over. Good night, Carrie.” He went back into his bedroom and lightly shut the door.
Carrie sighed and got ready for bed. Finally, she settled into the sofa. She thought about what he’d said about their conversation not being over. And she wondered why that statement made her feel just as happy as it did afraid. Within minutes, she dozed off.
Eventually, the nightmare came.
* * *
IN HER DREAM, CARRIE, dressed in dark clothes and camouflage, crept silently up to a house with the rest of her team. At her signal, DeMarco fired four tear-gas shells through the window, and Simon kicked in the door. Carrie and Jase followed close behind him, the light on their rifles penetrating the darkness, revealing plumes of smoke and shadows.
Her eyes strained to identify movement. Suddenly, she saw them. The Embalmer’s first three victims covered in garish makeup. Then another stepped out of the shadows. Kelly Sorenson. Her body whole but weeping blood.
As Sorenson approached her, the shadows behind her moved. It was Sorenson’s killer. The Embalmer. Or someone different? She didn’t know, but she could see the whites of his eyes, his irises colorless in the dark. She tried to aim. Couldn’t move. Why couldn’t she fire? She watched the killer lift his gun. Saw the flash of his white teeth as he grinned. Tried to call out but couldn’t.
She didn’t hear the pop of the gun, but she saw the sudden flash from the muzzle as the killer shot each of the victims in the head. One by one, they dropped to the floor in front of her. She registered another flash in the dark and heard Jase scream behind her.
Before the shock could register, she felt heat explode in her chest, flinging her back and down so that she lay on her stomach, her face turned to the side.
Blood drained out of her, and she was paralyzed. Unable to look away from the carnage in front of her. Jase’s body was in the distance, and she struggled to get to it. Kelly Sorenson was closer, her face tilted toward her.
Carrie could see her eyes. Lifeless, yet staring back at her.
She tried to scream, but her mouth was frozen in a wide yawning hole of silent despair. She heard the pounding of her heart slow. Slow. Slower still. Until there was no sound. No sight. Nothing.
Nothing but darkness.
And the inescapable knowledge that she’d failed.
Again.
* * *
CARRIE BOLTED UP, shaking and sweaty. Her breath came in such rapid pants that for a moment she felt close to hyperventilating. The scene, the emotions, had been so clear, so vivid in her mind, it took her a moment to realize where she was and that she’d been dreaming. The unfamiliar surroundings made her panic spiral out of control.
She scrambled for her gun, which she’d placed next to the sofa, and disengaged the safety. She swept it in an arc in front of her, scanning the room for movement. Nothing.
But then Jase barreled into the room, bare-chested and pajama bottoms hanging low on his hips, his own gun in his hands.
They stared at one another.
She forced herself to loosen her shaking grip on her gun and to take slow calming breaths. After a while, her breathing returned to normal and she engaged the safety on the gun before laying it back down. “Sorry. Bad dream.” She covered her face in her hands, trying not to cry.
The nightmare had been different, but worse. It had magnified her failure to shoot Kevin Porter, but this time, instead of resulting in her own death, Jase and others had died. Was it prophetic? No. No way was she going to let anything happen to anyone else. Especially Jase.
“Carrie.”
“I really need to be alone, Jase.”
“I think that’s the last thing you need right now.” He sat
beside her and lifted her chin. “Talk to me. Tell me what your dream was about.”
“Death,” she said tiredly. “My dreams are almost always about death.”
“Whose death? Yours?”
She shook her head. “That’s the worst part. It’s never about me dying. It’s about all the people I fail to save. Even—even the ones I’ve killed.”
“You mean Kevin Porter, don’t you? Damn it, Carrie, you know it was him or you. He didn’t give you any choice.”
“Logically, I know that. Logically, I know that I’m not responsible for Kelly Sorenson’s death, either. But my dreams aren’t about logic. They’re about what I feel. I’ll always feel like I should have done something different. Something more.” She looked at him now. “Don’t you ever feel that way?”
“Sometimes. Sometimes it’s hard not to think that. But no one can beat death. All we can do is delay it, and we can’t do it alone, not when others are working against us. So when logic eludes me and I start to feel hopeless or helpless, I focus on other things.”
“Like what? Your women? Pleasure?” Far from sounding critical, she merely sounded skeptical. As much as it hurt her to think of him with other women, she couldn’t begrudge him whatever solace and pleasure he could manage to attain in life. But neither could she quite understand how it actually worked for him.
“Sometimes grabbing pleasure when we can is the only way to survive the other stuff. What we do, it’s so dark. You tease me about my women, but, yes, they’re my way of trying to balance things out. To remember that there is beauty and pleasure in life, too.”
“I don’t believe there’s as much beauty and pleasure in the world as you do, Jase.”
“That can’t be true. I’ve seen your house. You like to surround yourself with pretty things. You just need to accept that one of the beautiful things in the world is you.”
