by Lori Ryan
“Not hungry,” he said, and she heard the drop in his voice, the way he infused it with a hunger for something else.
Ava turned and found John watching her, a predatory appetite in his gaze as he moved her way. The long, lean strides of a man who knew what he wanted. A man who promised nothing but pleasure, with the cocky assurance that he could deliver on that promise and then some.
“Oh,” she said, the sound escaping her mouth almost involuntarily as her whole being seemed to warm and melt for him.
“Your arm,” she said, when he reached her.
“Will be fine,” he said.
He wasn’t speaking in full sentences. She liked that she seemed to do that to him. Like his mind couldn’t focus on holding a conversation. Like all of him was focused on one thing right then.
His look telegraphed what that thing was, his eyes dropping from her face to roam her body. She almost felt that look, as though his hands were on her, trailing across her body to tease and arouse.
And then they were. He’d tossed off his sling at some point and was using both his good and bad arm to stroke her hips and pull her to him. Heat pooled and spread out, and she rose on tiptoes to kiss him, wrapping her arms around him.
The kiss he’d given her in her office had stayed with her, taunting her through the rest of her shift. Now his mouth was on her again, and it was hot and tasted like him. There were no words for how he tasted.
Right. That was it. He simply tasted right to her.
She ran her hands over the rigid muscles of his shoulders and down biceps that were impossibly large. Need and want coiled within her. She knew, on some level, she was getting too close to John, wanting too much with him, from him.
She didn’t want to stop it, though. She wasn’t honestly sure she could. It would hurt like hell if he ended this. Or if he figured out she was starting to have feelings for him that went well past what they’d agreed to and broke things off because of that. But knowing those things and being able to do something about them were two different things.
John cursed as he fumbled with the buttons of her blouse with his bad hand. One look from him told her what he was thinking of doing.
Ava glared and took over unbuttoning her top. “Don’t you dare tear it.”
“Faster,” was the one-word command she got in response.
Ava took a step back and slowed her pace, toying with the buttons as she teased him.
“Ava.” The word was a low growl. A warning. One laced with heat and arousal. God, she loved what this man did to her.
She spun and walked toward the bedroom. “Patience, John. It’s a —”
She didn’t get further than that. He wrapped his good arm around her from behind, lifting her a few inches off the floor and all but running to the bed.
She was laughing when he set her down, and she crawled across the bed, watching him strip his clothes off.
She put her hands to her waistband and slid her pants and panties off in one move. She had her red blouse on still, but the buttons were undone, exposing the navy lace bra she’d worn under it.
John stood naked, his eyes drinking her in. He was glorious. That was the only word she could think of, looking at him. Muscles and tan lines, scars that wrote the story of his service across his skin.
Her hands shook as she pulled her blouse off and tried to undo the clasp of her bra. But then he was there, his mouth on her nipple over the lace, murmuring words of sweetness and beauty. How was it that this man was both so hard and so soft at once? Hardened cop to the world, tender man in her bed?
She couldn’t stop the emotion that swamped her as he laid her down and made love to her. She couldn’t keep herself from wanting more from him. From dreaming of a lifetime with this man. She couldn’t protect her heart. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to.
Chapter Twenty-One
“Why was he hugging you for so long?” John ran his fingers over Ava’s soft skin. He loved the feel of her against him, naked and pliant from their lovemaking. She felt so damned right in his arms.
She lifted her head and looked at him. “Why was who hugging me for so long? What are you talking about?”
“The accountant guy? In the store?”
Her eyes went round and filled with a sorrow that shocked him.
“I can’t believe I forgot to tell you about that,” She said, laying back down and wrapping her arms tightly around him. “It’s horrible.”
John tensed. “What’s horrible, Ava?”
“His friend was killed. One of the boys that started the business with him. He was killed in a mugging gone wrong, they think.” She sat up again, looking at him. “Oh, it might be your department looking at it. I don’t know. I’m not sure where it happened, but I assume it happened in the city.”
John frowned. It could be anyone, but it sounded like it was possibly the case Zaragoza and Nate Ryder were working. They’d ID’d their victim, and John thought he remembered them saying it was an accountant.
“Could be,” was all he offered her. He didn’t know if his unit had caught the case, but even if he’d known anything about it, he couldn’t share it with her.
She squeezed him again as she spoke. “Anyway, it’s horrible. Corey said they thought they’d start their business and spend half their time skiing as the money rolled in. It might have, too, if they hadn’t picked such an expensive place for their office. I think they just got a little too ahead of themselves.”
John ran his hand up her arm and back down again. He could feel the sorrow in her voce for these young men. For all of them, not just the one who’d been killed.
It was something John wished he still felt. As a detective, he did his best to find justice for the victims of crimes like this and for their families. But doing his job meant he had to shut off his feelings sometimes. If he thought about the life each of the victims left behind, of what had been cut short for them, of the dreams they’d never realize—he’d lose his mind. So, he thought of all of that for each of them, but more on a generic level.
It let him maintain the kind of distance he needed to do the job. To stay on the job.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and he meant it. He hated she was hurting. He hated for her to have anything happening in her world that made her sad.
She was quiet for a long time.
“Life’s too short, you know?” she said. “Those boys deserved some happiness. Everyone does.”
“Lucia said something like that to me yesterday.”
“You don’t sound like you believe it,” Ava said, sitting up to look at him with anger flashing in her eyes.
John shrugged. “I don’t. Not the kind she was talking about, anyway.”
She poked him hard in the shoulder. “Explain.”
“Ow,” he laughed, rubbing the spot with his bandaged arm before holding it up. “I’m injured. You’re supposed to be good to me.”
She threatened him with her poking finger. “Then talk. What does that mean, you don’t deserve to be happy?”
He sighed and pulled her back down against him. Talking wasn’t easy for him, but it would be easier if she wasn’t looking at him.
“Not in the way she means, honey. She means I deserve to find someone and be happy with them the way she is with Carlos.”
“The man she’s marrying?”
“Yeah.” He let his hand start its pattern up and down her arm again. “They’re having a baby.”
His voice cracked on the words, and he almost didn’t get them out.
Ava stilled. “That must be hard for you.”
John’s laugh was bitter and filled with the ache of what he had to tell her. “We tried to have a baby for so long. We tried everything. Three rounds of in vitro almost killed us financially, but when one didn’t get her pregnant and the other two resulted in miscarriages, I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t watch her go through the treatments, the heartache. I asked her to stop.”
“Oh, John.” There was so much
pain in her words for him. This was why he didn’t like talking to people about things. He didn’t want to share this sadness. There was no reason for her to carry this with her, too. “But why does that make you think you don’t deserve happiness? Any man would have a hard time watching their wife go through that.”
He lay without answering for a long time. She didn’t rush him, and he loved that about her. She would push him to talk, but she’d wait for him to be ready to get it out.
“I couldn’t give her a baby. She says her doctor doesn’t think there was anything wrong with either of us. That maybe we can have children with other people, just not together. But, I’ve always felt like I should have been able to give her a baby. And then I gave up on it. On us. When she wanted to keep trying, I just couldn’t. I moved out of our room and slept on the couch. I refused to make love with her. What kind of a husband does that?”
Ava let out a weighted sigh. “A husband who’s hurting. One who experienced the losses of those babies the same way his wife did, but who was dealing with it differently. And yes, maybe you could have dealt with that differently. Maybe she needed you to do something different, but who’s to say you were the bad guy there? Maybe she could have given you more time to process things?”
“She gave me months. I just couldn’t watch her go through that again.”
“John,” Ava said, with the patience of someone who clearly thought she was speaking to a Neanderthal, “when were you talking to Lucia?”
“She came to the precinct yesterday. She wanted me to know about the baby before the wedding.”
“And she told you she wants you to be happy? That she wants you to find what she has?”
“Yes.”
“And she told you her doctor said you might be able to have a family with another woman even though you and Lucia weren’t able to?”
Ava sat up and looked at him again, the exasperation in her gaze as evident as it was in her tone. “Does that sound like a woman who blames you for anything? Who thinks you alone were at fault for your divorce or for the fact you guys weren’t able to have a family?”
John felt a little like he did when he was on the stand and a defense attorney was using him as a punching bag. Only, with them, he had his defenses up and was able to fight back. With Ava, he felt stripped bare.
“No?” he said, but damn if it didn’t come out as a question.
She took his face in her hands. “You’re a good man, John Sevier. Just because you and Lucia weren’t able to make your marriage work doesn’t mean you aren’t. And it doesn’t mean you won’t be able to have a happy marriage with someone else down the road, whether that includes children or not.”
John couldn’t stop the flash of an image of he and Ava married and happy together. Still, just because she was saying that didn’t make it all true. And it didn’t mean she’d changed her mind about what she wanted from this relationship.
What it did mean was that he was confused as hell about what he wanted and what he was feeling. But part of him wanted to believe what she was saying. Part of him wanted to believe that he could be as good a husband as she believed he could. That he could have the life and love he had given up on. Because giving up on dreaming for it had never meant he’d given up on wanting it.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Yeah,” John said into the phone as he pulled his car into the lot behind the jewelry store. He had spent the afternoon putting in better lighting and locks on Ava’s place. He planned to spend the evening at the store with her and Janna again and be around for closing time. “I’ll be back by Friday. Grade one sprain. Doctor said it was no big deal.”
Eric snorted. They all knew Captain Scanlon was a stickler for them being at full capacity before they could go back in the field. John would need to have clearance from the doctor. He’d already scheduled an appointment for Thursday afternoon so he could get his forms signed and get back out there.
“Anything new on the case?” John asked, choosing to ignore Eric.
“Erica’s confirmed the guy who murdered the two employees at the last robbery is the same height and build of the guy we’ve marked as the leader of the group before.”
“Anything taken at this last hit?” John asked. Last he’d heard, they were waiting for the inventory list from the store owner.
“He took what amounts to a few handfuls of jewelry from one of the cases. The others, he just shattered but barely touched the contents.”
John was silent. It was more evidence this guy was unraveling.
“Any DNA on the victims?” John had been hoping as the perpetrator upped his violence level, he’d leave a trace of DNA behind. Not that it would get them a lead right away. They’d be lucky to get DNA evidence back in weeks, if not months. They didn’t live in a TV show.
“Possibly. The ME found blood on one of the vics that might not be from any of his injuries. He’s asked the state lab to rush it.”
John grunted. They all knew what that meant. Still, if Dr. Grunholdt said he thought the blood might not be the victim’s, he had reason to think it. Sometimes he found blood on the clothing of the victim where there were no wounds, pointing to it possibly coming from another source. Other times, he saw something about the blood spatter that told him it had come from someone standing in front of or beside the victim instead of from the victim.
Either way, Grundholdt didn’t make those kinds of statements lightly. If he had reason to think the blood was from the suspect, they’d hope the lab could rush the test and maybe get them a match in one of the databases they used for DNA.
“All right,” he said to Eric, “I’ll see you Friday. Oh, and will you let Nate and Zaragoza know I’ll be at the funeral for their victim from the alley? I don’t want them to be surprised if they’re there and I show up.”
Eric was silent, so John explained.
“The victim is friends with a guy Ava knows.”
“Ava, the woman you said owns a jewelry store? I thought she was just an old friend from college.”
“Jesus, you’re gearing up to drill me like a high school girl about this, aren’t you?” John asked. He could hear it in Eric’s tone.
“Yeah. I totally am. Spill.”
“It’s nothing,” John said, but the words sounded all wrong as he said them. Whatever they were doing, it wasn’t nothing. “She knew the guy, and she wants to go to the funeral, so I’m going with her.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You’re a dick.”
“But I’m your dick.” Eric paused, and John knew he was trying to hold back a laugh. “Okay, that came out wrong.”
“Yes, it did.”
John shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose. There were times when partnering with Eric was like partnering with a fourth grader. “I’m going to go now.”
“Okay,” Eric said. “Say hi to Ava for me.”
John disconnected without answering and headed around the front of the store to get in. They were still keeping the back door locked. It was probably against fire code, but John didn’t care right now. He needed to know Ava wasn’t going to have anyone getting into her store without her security guard getting eyeballs on them first.
The female guard was in the store when John approached. He raised his hand in greeting, and she unlocked the door.
“Hi John. Ava’s in the back in the office. She said to send you back when you get here.”
“Thank you, Kirsten.”
John went past the sales clerks straight into the back of the store. When he hit the workroom, he found Janna and Ava huddled by Janna’s workbench. Janna was breathing hard, her cheeks flushed and her eyes round and moist, like she was fighting back tears. She and Ava were looking at something on Ava’s phone, and it looked like Ava was trying to get Janna to slow her breathing.
John walked to the two of them slowly, knowing Janna wouldn’t want him barging into whatever was happening.
Ava didn’t look up at him, but spoke to him in a low voi
ce. “Janna’s just having a little trouble today. She wants to be here with me since I need to be here, but the robberies have her frightened.”
John took a step closer, putting his hands on Janna’s workbench, but not touching her.
“I can stay back here with you, if you want today, Janna. If that would make you feel better.”
Ava looked up at him then, an apology on her face. “Thank you, John, but she gets anxious with people she doesn’t know.”
John nodded and made to leave, but Janna’s hand clamped onto his arm. She was still watching the face of Ava’s phone where a small image of a wave was moving on a loop. He could see she was matching her breathing to the movement of the image.
Ava raised her brows at him. “Okay, I guess she would like you to stay with her. If you don’t mind.”
“Not at all,” John said. He reached with the arm that Janna hadn’t pinned down, pulling a chair over to her workbench and settling on it. “Janna, maybe you can show me more of the stones you work with. I liked seeing the cuprites the other day.”
Now Ava really raised her brows at him. He grinned and winked, liking the surprise in her eyes at him knowing the name of her favorite gemstone.
Janna’s eyes moved from the phone over to the trays on her table. “I can show you Alexandrite today.”
She said this as though that was the only thing she was willing to show him as she pointed at some blue green gems.
“They’re beautiful.” He moved closer, but she put a hand out to stop him.
“You can’t knock the tray over. You’ll damage them.”
He sat back in his chair. “Oh, yeah, sorry.”
Ava was casually trying to cover a laugh.
John shot her a grin.
“Okay, well, I’ll just be out front,” Ava said, gesturing over her shoulder.
“Ava,” John said, waiting for her to look back. “Open the door to the office?”
