by Julie Miller
She watched his face contort as the grief welled up and he fought it back inside him. The anger, the self-recriminations, rolled off him in waves. Josie knew that not one whit of it was directed at her. He needed to vent, and listening was another skill in her survivor’s repertoire. Instinctively, she drifted closer, slipping her hand beneath his jacket to rest it over his thumping heart. “I know you did everything you could to save him.”
He covered her hand with his, squeezing almost too tightly as he held it against the stuttering expansion and contraction of his chest. “I’m trained to take action, Josie. I’m not supposed to sit still and tell a child lies like he’s going to see his mama soon and everything will be all right.” He slid his warm hand along her jaw, tipping her face to trace the tears that spilled over her cheek with the pad of his thumb, as if touching the evidence of her compassion and sorrow was the only way to acknowledge the anguish he felt. “I couldn’t get to a proper med kit. I couldn’t get an ambulance to him.”
She turned to press a kiss into his palm. “Your captain said there was a lot of gunfire. You were pinned down.”
“Captain Cutler wasn’t in that alley with me. I was lucky to pull Calvin out of that backyard at all.” He stroked his thumb across her cheek again, wiping away another tear. “And damn it—” Rafe’s voice shook, “—he kept trying to thank me for protecting him. He was scared to death, yet he was foolish enough or brave enough to try to make me feel better.” He stroked his fingers across her temple, tucking a long strand of hair behind her ear and smoothing it back into the ponytail at her nape. “He died in an alley. In a stranger’s arms. Walking home from school. That’s not right for any child.”
Over the years she’d known Rafe, he’d occasionally hinted at the horrors of his own childhood. Something about today’s tragic events must be resonating deep inside him, waking feelings he normally barricaded behind an internal layer of armor. “No. It’s not.”
He stroked his thumb across her bottom lip and paused, as if he’d felt the same electric shock she had. “Somebody else should have gone after him. Somebody else could have saved him.”
“Rafe…” His need was waking something vital and primal and feminine deep inside her. “He couldn’t have been in better hands.”
“Damn protocol. Damn rules. I should have blasted my way out of that alley—”
“Others might have gotten hurt.”
“—and gotten him to the hospital.”
“Stop it, Rafe.” Josie let her backpack slide off her shoulder and plop at her feet. She moved a step closer, framing his face between her hands. “Just stop.”
He pulled his fingers through her long, dark ponytail, then flipped it behind her back. He smoothed his hands across her shoulders, touched his finger to the rip she’d mended in the sleeve of her jacket. She wondered at the tiny frissons of heat that followed his every touch. Josie no longer felt the nip of November dampness in the air. She no longer heard the whispers of traffic on the street at the front side of the bar, no longer knew the hour of night or the fatigue in her own body as Rafe leaned in and touched his forehead to hers. “When your dad taught me about being a cop, he didn’t teach me how to…how to lose a child. I feel so damn helpless.”
“You’re tough, Rafe, but nobody’s that tough.” She gave him a little shake, worried at the raw loss shading his eyes. “Dad would be proud of the man you’ve become. He’d be proud of the cop you are.”
His hands finally settled at her waist, his fingers biting into the flare of her hips as he pulled her close enough for their jeans to rustle together and new pressure points beneath her skin to awaken at the needy contact. “Your dad would have saved him.”
Josie wound her arms around Rafe’s neck, sliding her fingers beneath the soft collar of his leather jacket to find the smooth warmth of his skin to anchor herself to. “This isn’t Dad all over again. You were the best chance Calvin Chambers had. If anyone could have saved him, it was you. At least he had someone strong and caring with him at the end. He wasn’t alone.” Tears burned in her throat and reduced her voice to a whisper. “How wonderful that you made him smile.”
“If someone’s going to die, I’m the go-to guy to have around, huh?”
“No, damn it, Rafe.” Words weren’t working. He couldn’t hear her. He wouldn’t hear. Rafe Delgado needed to feel the truth. “I’m so sorry you’re hurting like this. Don’t keep it in. It’s okay to hurt.”
She followed her instincts, doing the most natural, right thing she could think of, and kissed him. How many times, since she was fifteen years old, had she wanted to press her lips against Rafe’s? How many lonely nights had she dreamed about turning their friendship into something more? But she’d always held back, settling for a peck on the cheek, treasuring a hug. But his emotions were too far off the chart tonight to settle for anything less than complete honesty between them.
“Shh.” She kissed him again, lightly brushing her lips across his, testing the will of this coiled panther of a man, cooing sounds of desire and comfort in her throat.
Josie’s lips parted as shock made him go still. His fingers aligned her hips with his. The heat of his body surrounded hers. Had she just broken some unspoken rule? Or did he understand she was giving him permission to kiss her back? Josie waited. Wanted. Dreamed.
Then, as if some understanding had snapped into place inside his head, Rafe inhaled a groaning breath and took over. He drove one thigh between hers and backed Josie against the truck. He slipped his tongue between her lips and deepened the kiss. She tasted the tang of beer on his tongue and the salty notes of tears from her own mouth.
With an impatient, throaty sigh, he unzipped her jacket and slipped his hand inside to squeeze her breast. The tender skin ignited beneath his touch and lit an ember deep in her core. Josie held on to his strong shoulders, her toes leaving the pavement as his knee wedged tighter, sparking flames that licked through her blood until they met up with his hands and mouth and consumed her in heat.
Rafe’s breathy gasps matched her own. She was vaguely aware of one hand reaching beside her to open the truck door, while she was blatantly, eagerly aware of the other hand tugging at the buttons of her blouse until it could find its way inside to torment the aching nub of her breast through the lace of her bra.
The loneliness of Josie’s solitary life—no mother, no father, a poor excuse for a brother, too much work and too much stress—evaporated beneath the greedy assault of Rafe’s hands and mouth on her skin. He needed her. He needed her. The connection between them was irrefutable and intense.
As her top veed open to the night air, and the chilly dampness bathed her in goose bumps, Rafe left her. “No. Don’t stop.”
But Rafe wasn’t leaving, he was looking for a little more privacy. He tossed her bag inside and before Josie could follow his lead, he lifted her onto the seat, shutting the door behind him and following her across to the passenger side. With little heed for long legs and cramped quarters and layers of clothing, Rafe maneuvered her onto his lap. He tugged off his belt and placed his gun safely in the glove compartment as Josie’s fingers tested the contrasts between his short, silky hair and the rougher texture of his stubbled jaw. And then she had his full attention again. Rafe slid his arms beneath her jacket and blouse and pulled her hard against him, his hands roaming at will against her skin, his mouth claiming hers. The urgency of every touch, every kiss, conveyed the depth of emotion that Rafe had been unable to speak.
Josie cracked open a little more of her battered heart and answered. This wasn’t about slow seduction. It wasn’t about finesse. It was about needing and caring, giving and taking.
“I don’t ever want to have a child look at me that way again,” Rafe rasped against her lips. “I don’t want to hurt like this. I don’t want to feel…”
“Shh. It’s okay. Let it go.”
With Josie’s knees splayed on either side of Rafe’s thighs, and the hard bulge of his zipper pulsing against the seam
of her jeans, he left no doubt about what he was asking of her. “We never… I shouldn’t…”
His face was buried against her neck, and he was shaking so hard with the effort to restrain himself that her body vibrated right along with his. But she could also feel the heat and moisture of the tears he blinked against her skin. She pulled away just far enough to hold his face and turn his golden-brown eyes to the dim moonlight. The tears she saw pooling there made the decision for her. Her heart couldn’t say no.
“You know I’ve wanted this. Wanted to be more than friends.” Josie reached down to unzip her jeans, to assure him of his welcome and her own desire.
He studied her face, looking as surprised as she by the unexpected passion and soul-deep empathy burning between them.
“It’s okay, Rafe.” She leaned in and kissed him. “We’re okay.”
And then Rafe began to move with the urgent efficiency with which he defused bombs and took down bad guys. It was all fast and furious—a physical expression of every powerful emotion surging between them. Zippers crunched. His billfold came out. Clothes were pushed aside.
“I need you, Jose. I need you. I need…” Molding hands and desperate kisses made her blood drum through her veins. The heat rising inside her was almost unbearable. She could only hold on to his sturdy shoulders as he slid inside her, moving and rocking until they were both mindless with this physical, sensual outpouring of emotion.
“I love you, Rafe,” she whispered as he crushed her in his arms and plunged inside her one last time, groaning with the release that she freely and willingly gave him.
HE SHOULD BE feeling better than this.
Rafe drew his fingers through the condensation forming on the side window of his truck and brushed the cool moisture across his feverish cheek. Oh, his body was well and truly satisfied—too spent and content to want one more thing. And those hated emotions that had raged through his system had dissipated under Josie’s patient insistence and undeserved generosity.
She was snuggled up against his side in the truck now, her rumpled clothes refastened, her breathing slow and even. When he felt her stirring, he leaned over and pressed a kiss to the crown of her dark sable hair. When she tilted her chin and smiled at him, he knew what he was feeling.
Guilt.
He’d taken slaps across the face and a belt across his backside that didn’t hurt as bad as this. He’d betrayed a friend tonight. Two of them. On the day Aaron had died, he’d made him a promise. Visiting his son in jail and boinking his daughter weren’t exactly how he’d intended to honor Aaron’s memory.
Some damn fine protector he turned out to be.
Josie’s soft smile turned into a quizzical frown. “What are you thinking about?”
“Your dad.” He shifted a little space between them, so that his thigh was no longer touching the tempting warmth of hers. “This wasn’t my finest moment. I took advantage of that big heart of yours. I needed…” His deep sigh of remorse echoed in the truck. “I just needed.”
“You needed to connect with someone who cared. Someone who would listen and let you feel what you needed to.” She zipped her jacket and folded her arms across her middle. Was she cold? Rafe slid over to the steering wheel and pulled out his keys to start the truck and turn on the heater.
“Yeah, well, I should have stopped at talking.”
“Not your strong suit,” she teased. “You’ve always been a more physical being.”
“I told Aaron I would always take care of you. Tonight, I just used you.”
“That’s insulting.”
“Josie.”
“Hey, I’m not a naive girl anymore. You’re not my first, Rafe, so I knew what I was doing. It’s not like you forced me.”
“Damn close.”
He found her crystal-blue eyes across the cab, saw them blanch wide and then darken. She turned in her seat, twisting the argument back on him. “You would have stopped if I’d asked. But I didn’t want you to stop. Sometimes a relationship works that way. One partner needs more than the other at a given time. It’s a mutual give and take.”
“We don’t have a relationship like that.”
“Would that be such a bad thing?”
Oh, yeah. He was not relationship material. Definitely not with his former partner’s daughter. After tonight, he might not even be friend material. “My emotions were out of control. That was a mistake.”
She sat up ramrod straight, her Irish temper coloring her cheeks. “Making love was a mistake? Or feeling something was a mistake?”
Making love? She thought that wham-bam, thank-you, ma’am, was how it was supposed to be between a man and a woman? Just what kind of jerks had she been dating, who hadn’t shown her how good it could be if a man took his time and… Ah, hell. Put on the brakes. Don’t go there.
He squeezed his hands around the steering wheel. “I’m sorry, Jose. I made a promise to your dad to take care of you. I’m sorry.”
“Stop apologizing. I always figured it would be intense with you. That’s kind of exciting. And you know I…care about you.”
And he cared about her. But he couldn’t keep trouble away or screen those jerks or even make sure she got safely to her car when she worked too late if his senses were blurred by his emotions and his focus was distracted by long legs and lush lips and that gorgeous fall of dark hair. He could hardly do right by her if he was the trouble. “Look, I already failed Patrick. I couldn’t keep him off drugs and out of jail. I don’t want to mess up what we have.”
“Rafe, what about what I want?”
He opened his door and stepped out into the night. The bracing air filled his lungs and cleared his head of her lingering scent. “You’ve got class in the morning and you need to get home. I need to get back to the precinct garage and get the SWAT van cleaned up and refitted for our next call.”
She grabbed her backpack and climbed out her side of the truck. “You have to do that tonight?”
Oh, yeah. He needed to get his hands busy doing something besides itching to reach for Josie again. He needed to busy his mind with a task where he didn’t have to second-guess his every move. “I’m a jerk, okay?”
“Please stop. It hurts me to hear you talk like this.”
“I never wanted to hurt you. I don’t want things to change between us. I want you to be able to trust me. I need you to trust me. Nothing like that will ever happen again. I promise.” After she unlocked her car, he opened the door for her and waited while she slid behind the wheel. Man, he wished she’d let him pick out something more reliable than this rattletrap for her. At least she let him change the oil and keep the motor tuned up and running as well as a beater car like this one could. “Go on, I’ll wait to make sure your car starts. I’ll see you next time you work at the Shamrock.”
She turned the key. Once the engine growled to life, he started to leave. But Josie put out her arm to keep him from shutting the door. “Just for the record? You weren’t a jerk for making love to me. Now you’re being a jerk.”
Of that he had no doubt.
He jumped back as she slammed the door, knowing he deserved worse. Once inside his truck, he followed her out of the parking lot but turned in the opposite direction toward his condo. He’d better be keeping a lot more than a few miles of physical distance between them. What the hell was he thinking? That was the problem—he hadn’t been thinking.
Josie’s skin was cool and pale in the frosty moonlight. Her touch was so gentle, so certain. He’d gotten more drunk on her lips than the beer she’d served him earlier that night. And her body—her tall, lithe, sweet body with those long legs snugged around him…
“Damn.” He was breaking out in a sweat that had nothing to do with the heater in his truck.
Josephine Erin Nichols was his friend. His unofficial ward. His penance for letting his friend and mentor die ten years ago.
She was pretty and kind and sexy and funny, and strictly off-limits. And yet, for several mindless minutes tonight,
she’d been everything he needed. Exactly what he needed.
He’d been a rutting bull who’d taken advantage of her friendship and compassionate nature. Hell, he’d barely gotten a condom on and hadn’t even asked if she was on the pill. In his saner days before this one, he hadn’t wanted to know if his sweet, hardworking buddy was sleeping with anyone. She was either working one of several part-time jobs, studying or going to school, so he knew she didn’t have much time to date. He hadn’t even had the presence of mind to make sure that she’d found the completion he had.
He was a jerk. A lonesome, selfish, let-friends-and-children-die-on-his-watch jerk. He’d been on his own since high school for a reason. And it wasn’t just because he’d severed all ties with his worthless parents. He’d become obsessed with his job and the sweetheart he’d been engaged to had left him. He was alone because he couldn’t make a relationship with a woman work.
But he could find solace in her beautiful, willing body.
Rafe picked up speed and merged into the late-night traffic that was mostly big rigs at this time of night on Interstate 435, and waited for the lightning bolt of her late father’s spirit, or his own troubled conscience, to strike him dead.
Chapter Two
The Present
“You didn’t bring me any cigarettes?”
Josie Nichols let the accusation in her half brother Patrick’s tone sink in and curdle with the nausea already rolling in her stomach. “By the end of this summer, I’ll be a registered nurse, and I’m not going to support such an unhealthy, expensive habit. Anyway, you promised me you were quitting.”
“That was last month.” Patrick leaned back from the plastic table in the KCPD detention center where she’d come to visit him between classes at UMKC and her nightly shift at the Shamrock Bar. His blue eyes narrowed as he brushed his dark hair off his forehead. Their black-Irish looks were about the only thing she had in common with what was left of her so-called family. “I’ve got pressures in here that keep me on edge, and a couple of smokes could go a long way toward making me feel better. Besides, they’re like cash in here.”
