by Sharon Sala
Stone put his hand on Hal’s shoulder. “Are you all right?”
Hal shuddered, then pushed himself away from the wall. “She’s sure? I mean, Jessica… Is she sure she can’t help find the killer?”
“Sorry,” Stone said. “It seems she has no control over what she sees. What comes, comes, and then it’s gone.”
Hal’s shoulders slumped. “Well, then,” he mumbled, and glanced up at Stone with an apologetic look. “Sorry if I sounded abrupt. It’s been a bad day.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Stone said. “I understand…and for what it’s worth, you and your family have my deepest sympathies.”
Hal nodded. “I’ll pass your condolences along to my sister.”
With that, he walked away, leaving Stone with an empty feeling for having been unable to help someone in need.
And then he remembered where he’d been going before Hal Stuart had so rudely interrupted, and headed into the building. The day wasn’t over yet. He still had to talk to the chief.
* * *
Brenda handed the pizza delivery boy his money, along with a generous tip, and then shut and locked the door before carrying the aromatic box into the kitchen.
“Dinner is served,” she said, waving the box beneath Jessica’s nose.
“I’m not all that hungry,” Jessica said.
“That’s what you always say, and then wind up eating mine and yours, too.”
Jessica grinned. It felt good to be doing something normal, like arguing with her sister over slices of pizza.
“What do you want to drink?” she asked, holding two different cans of pop in the air.
Brenda pointed to the one on the left. “I’ll have that one on ice.”
Jessica reached in the cabinet for a glass just as Brenda started to add, “Oh, and Jessie, don’t—”
“I know. I know,” Jessica said. “Don’t float your ice when I pour in the pop.”
Brenda grinned.
“You’re so weird,” Jessica muttered.
“But you love me,” Brenda reminded her.
All the teasing disappeared between them, and a second later, they were in each other’s arms.
“It will be all right,” Brenda said, holding her sister tight.
Jessica soaked up the brief taste of comfort and then sat down at the table.
“Oh, I know that.” And then she amended, “At least I tell myself that it will. It’s what keeps me going.”
“Yeah, that and a big cop we both know,” Brenda said, and lifted out the first slice of pizza onto her plate.
A little embarrassed at first, Jessica didn’t answer. How does one admit to falling in love with a man your sister once dated?
“Want one or two?” Brenda asked, dangling a second slice of pizza over Jessica’s plate.
“Oh, one for now,” Jessie said, and handed Brenda a napkin.
“I need a fork,” Brenda said.
“Not with pizza! And not in my house!”
Brenda laughed. “Some things never change.”
For a time, quiet descended upon the pair as they sat in comfortable silence, eating and drinking and taking satisfaction in being together. Four pizza slices from finishing it off, both Brenda and Jessica shoved back their plates with a groan.
“I can’t eat another bite,” Jessica said.
Brenda gave the congealing pizza one last look and made herself get up.
“I’ve got to be going. I have an early appointment tomorrow.” Then she rolled her eyes. “Got a client who wants her boudoir redecorated in pink and black. And she wants to discuss this on a Sunday. Can’t you just see it?”
Jessica laughed. “No, thank goodness. That’s one sight from which I’ve been spared.”
Brenda’s grin slipped. “Oh, Jessie, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”
“Well, I did,” Jessica said. “I need to laugh about this or I will go mad.”
She followed her sister to the door and then waited while Brenda began gathering up her things.
“Hey, sis.”
Brenda turned.
“Thank you,” Jessica said.
“For what?” Brenda asked. “You paid for the pizza.”
“I don’t know. For being my sister, I guess.”
Brenda’s smile wavered. “It’s entirely my pleasure.”
“Yes, well, drive careful,” Jessica said.
Brenda started out the door, then stopped and looked back.
“Hey, Jessie, is there anything you should tell me about driving home?”
Jessica grinned. “Yes. Watch out for the stop sign at the end of your street.”
Brenda gasped. “Why?”
“Because you always run it. One of these days you’re going to get a ticket.”
Brenda grinned. “Oh, you! I thought you were going to tell me something I didn’t already know.”
Jessica followed her out. When Brenda was at her car, she stopped again, and this time, there was a more serious expression on her face when she turned.
“Jessie…about Stone.”
“What about him?” Jessica muttered.
“He’s a good man. If there’s something going on between you, then let it happen.”
Jessica stifled an impulse to shriek. Something going on? Why, no! Nothing but an imminent explosion of passion and lust.
“There’s nothing between us but his misguided sense of duty. Until I whacked my head, he’d written me off his list. When all this mess is over, he’ll disappear out of my life because that’s the way he wants it.”
“I don’t know,” Brenda said thoughtfully. “I wouldn’t be so sure.”
Jessica frowned. “Then you know something I don’t.”
Brenda winked. “Of course I do. I’m your big sister, aren’t I?”
Jessica stood on the porch and waved as Brenda drove away, wondering what that cryptic parting shot meant.
“Bee snot. I’m the one who’s supposed to be psychic, not her.”
Just as she started into the house, another car pulled up the driveway. She made herself stand when she wanted to hide.
It was Stone. He’d come back as he’d promised, and it was that very promise that was making her nervous. If she remembered correctly, it was something about unfinished business and leaving things undone.
She held her ground as he got out and shut the door. But to her surprise, he stayed by the car. Jessica held her breath—waiting. She looked past his square jaw and broad shoulders to his eyes, trying to read what he was thinking. It was impossible. Another long moment passed, and Stone reached for the door handle.
“So, do you want me to go home?”
Muddy feet. He’s making me choose! Jessica lifted her chin. “I have pizza.”
A slow grin broke the solemnity of his expression. “Are you trying to bribe an officer of the law?”
“I don’t know,” she said, and when he started toward her, she took a defensive step back toward the door. “Can you be bribed?”
He came up the steps without slowing down. “Depends on how much pizza you’re offering,” he said softly.
Jessica was now inside the house, and he was still coming on.
“I have four slices.”
He kicked the door shut, and then picked her up before she could run, whispering against her cheek. “That’s just about enough.”
“To do what?” Jessica said as she slipped her arms around his neck and held on.
There was a hot glitter in his eyes as he looked down at her face. “To get us in trouble.”
Chapter Nine
Worry shadowed Jessica’s expression. In the same moment Stone saw it, he felt the walls coming back up between them again. He stopped in the darkened hallway with her still in his arms. The doorway to her bedroom beckoned, and as much as he wanted to make love to her, he had to make sure she understood the rules. He stood her on her feet and then turned her loose, making sure that she felt no coercion from him.
“Jessie,
I’m not going to lie to you. I want to make love to you, more than I’m even willing to admit. But it won’t happen unless you’re willing.”
His face was shadowed, but Jessica didn’t need bright lights to see past Stone’s hesitation. Even the fact that she knew why he was stalling didn’t help. They’d been down this road before, and she wondered why she was even contemplating a return trip when the first time had been such a disaster.
Her answer came to her out of the quiet, out of the darkness, and her honesty shamed him.
“But Stone, I was always willing. You’re the one who didn’t care enough to keep me.”
Stone was stunned. “That’s not true!” He reached toward her. “I’ve always cared about you.”
She pushed his hand away. “You’re a police officer. You’re supposed to care about people. I don’t want you to just care about me, Stone. I wanted your love…and your trust. From where I was standing, I got neither.”
Shocked that she’d revealed so much about herself, she tried to move away, but he wouldn’t let her. Finally she sighed, and her voice fell to a whisper.
“I loved you, Stone, and it still wasn’t enough.”
He closed his eyes and pulled her close. “Damn it, Jessie, you don’t pull your punches, do you?” She didn’t answer, and he tightened his hold. “Do you want me to leave?”
She tilted her chin and cupped her hands around the back of his neck, pulling until their lips met—his hard and beseeching, hers soft and compliant—then she shuddered.
He increased the pressure of his mouth but broke contact when she started to tremble. His whisper was soft against her eyelids—his hands gentle as they traced the contours of her face.
“Talk to me, honey. Tell me. I don’t know what else to say.”
She looked up, and there was truth in her clear blue gaze.
“I want you to love me forever…not just tonight.”
He groaned. “Damn it, Jessie, I can’t promise you something I don’t believe in.”
Tears shifted the view she had of his face, but she wouldn’t relent. “Then, if you don’t believe in me, I suppose I will have to believe enough for the both of us.”
Because she wanted it so badly, she ignored what was left of her fears. She went into his open arms without hesitation, and when they closed around her in an all-enveloping hug, she let herself believe he was telling the truth.
Her ear was pressed against his chest. His hands were in her hair and kneading the back of her neck in a gentle but sensuous stroke. She knew his shape and yet felt it changing as his desire for her became more and more obvious. She closed her eyes and gave herself up to the joy, knowing that within moments, she would know even more of this man who’d long ago stolen her heart.
“Stone…”
“What, sweetheart?”
“Don’t make me regret this.”
There was a pain in his heart as he swept her off her feet and into his arms. For Jessica, it was enough, and when Stone carried her into her room and laid her down on her bed, her heart swelled with longing.
He tossed his jacket on a chair.
Her gaze went straight to the gun and shoulder holster he was wearing, and when he slipped it off and hung it over the jacket, she didn’t flinch.
He unbuckled his belt and pulled it out of the loops in one long, continuous motion. When it came free of his jeans, she bit the edge of her lip.
Yanking on one side of his shirt and then the other, Stone pulled it free of his jeans, and then, from the bottom up, he began undoing the buttons, one at a time.
Jessica gritted her teeth as his hard, muscled belly was slowly revealed.
He tossed the shirt aside and sat down on a nearby chair, yanking off his boots without wasting a motion. When he stood and reached for the buttons on his jeans, Jessica’s fingers dug into the coverlet beneath her.
His eyes glittered wildly as he pulled. The button-fly opening gave way without complaint, revealing the front of his stark-white briefs.
As much as Jessica wanted this to happen, she wasn’t brave enough to watch any longer. It had been so long since they’d been together, and yet all she could remember was the pain of leaving. She stifled a groan and closed her eyes. She didn’t see the condom he took out of his pocket, but if she had, she would have known that he was still protecting her, in the only way he knew how.
When the bed suddenly gave beneath her, her breath caught at the back of her throat. He slid up, and then on top of her, and she wondered how long it would take to die from delight. And then his hands moved beneath her shirt, pausing at her waist, and she knew, before it happened, that she was about to be undressed. His hesitation, coupled with an uncertainty she hadn’t expected, made her tense.
Stone felt her resistance and gentled her with a feathery kiss across the surface of her belly.
“Sssh…easy, easy, honey. Just stay with me on this.”
She opened her eyes and tried to relax as he eased her shorts down her legs, leaving a trail of kisses behind with every inch of skin that was revealed. His dark eyes were filled with promises, and before she could panic, he’d moved to her shirt, slipping the soft knit fabric over her head. Except for her pale pink panties and a pink lace bra, she was bare to his sight.
“Beautiful,” he whispered. “So beautiful.”
She could feel him. Feel the thrust of his body against her stomach and against the inside of her leg, and still he didn’t take her. A shudder of longing swept through her as the bra came away, spilling her breasts into his hands.
A flush stained her cheeks, as pale and as pink as the garment he’d just removed. Stone wanted so much, yet was afraid to take for fear of losing her before they had started. Her skin was satin to his touch. She felt fluid beneath him as she shifted to make way for him to come in. He cupped her hips, testing the shape of her as she filled his hands. With only one barrier between him and heaven, he removed her briefs and tossed them off the edge of the bed.
Her arms came up and then around his neck, and he laid his cheek against the pillows of her breasts, knowing that there was no place on earth to compare with where he was now. Her heartbeat hammered against his cheek with a constant rapidity, and he lifted his head and gazed down at her face.
“Jessie?”
She looked back at him with love, and he moved his hips in a gentle, thrusting way. When she shifted and then bit her lower lip, it was all he needed to see. Hard and aching and filled with such need, Stone took Jessie Leigh in the time-honored way.
In that first instant, when Stone filled her, Jessica had a sensation of coming home. This was what she’d been waiting for. This was the acceptance she’d been needing. She pulled him closer, holding him with every ounce of her being, wanting this feeling to last forever.
He leaned down, seeking further connection with the woman in his arms, and centered his mouth on her lips, drinking in her gasps and her sighs, as well as one small, unexpected sob.
“Jessie, look at me,” he whispered.
She looked up, fixing him with a wide, stunned gaze.
He started to move and her eyelids fluttered.
“Don’t close your eyes,” he ordered.
And she didn’t.
On a slow, deep thrust, her lips went slack.
Another slow, deep thrust and she dug her fingers into his hair.
Another slow, deep thrust and she broke out in a sweat.
A whimper came up her throat as the pattern changed. He timed his movements to the beat of her heart, following her lead. The more rapid her pulse, the faster he moved, until it became a race to the finish for both.
Stone lost track of himself—and lost track of her. There was nothing within him but what they had become. He reacted only to the feeling of her—and of him.
Movement triggered sensation. Sensation fed need. Need became greed. Impossible to stop. Impossible to ignore. And just when it felt like it would go on forever, they hit a brick wall, shattering the madness
within them in the blink of an eye.
When he could focus, he became aware of her arms around his neck, heard her whispering something soft, something sweet, that made his bones turn to jelly. His arms tightened and he rolled, taking her with him until she was lying on top, no longer pinned to the bed by his passion and weight.
All he could think was Ah, God. And it was, at once, a prayer and a plea. It was over, and the sensation of falling was still with him. Tumbling, tumbling, tumbling. Head over heels—over Jessie—in love.
* * *
She woke up with a scream, startling Stone to the point of reaching for his gun, when he remembered where he was and reached for her, instead.
“Jessie! What’s wrong?”
Wide-eyed and panicked, she stared at him, then her gaze shifted to his chest and she flattened her hand against his shoulder, as if in disbelief.
The terror in her eyes was impossible to misinterpret.
“Jessie, talk to me, honey. Were you having a dream?”
She looked down at her hand and groaned, then rolled out of bed and reached for a robe, yanking it on as she bolted out of the room.
Stone cursed and grabbed his jeans, pulling them on as he ran. He caught her at the back door and, at the same time, hit the light switch. Whatever was wrong, he needed to see.
Her gaze was blank, her body still shaking. She looked at him, then covered her face and moaned.
Suddenly, Stone shivered, as if someone had walked over his grave. This was almost too much, even for him.
“Honey…it’s me, Stone. You must have been dreaming, okay? See where you are? We’re in your house.” He slipped an arm around her shoulder and led her back to the table, pulling out a chair and then seating her gently.
“Oh, God. Oh, God.”
Stone froze. The words sounded strange coming from Jessie’s lips. Where were her funny epithets? Where were her cockeyed remarks about the state of her affairs? Not once in his entire life had he ever heard her call out God’s name.
He dropped to one knee and then lifted her chin, forcing her to face him.
