Dare to Love

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  Looking around her, as if to make sure she was completely alone, she dropped the wrap. Doug felt like the adolescent he’d portrayed on stage the day before as his body hardened, and still he kept watching her. Her legs were not particularly long, but they were firm and perfectly shaped. Her thighs were exposed in the French-cut one-piece suit she was wearing, and they too were smooth and sleekly muscled.

  Doug’s jaw clenched, and he forced himself to look away before he did something he’d be ashamed of. He wanted her. He’d even go so far as to say he intended to have her. But he wanted her to be a willing participant—a knowing participant—not an inadvertent sideshow for some insensitive pervert.

  He waited until she was completely concealed by the bubbling water of the Jacuzzi before he stepped forward. He saw her turn in his direction as he approached, but the shadows surrounding them were too dense for him to see her features clearly. She didn’t speak—not to say hello, but not to send him away, either.

  Doug remained silent as well, satisfied that what was waiting to be said between them would be said best without words. In fact, he’d prefer it that way.

  He unbuttoned the fly of his jeans, pulling the stiff material away from his swollen body as he slid the zipper down. The rasp of the taut metal could be heard even above the bubbling water. It was like a siren, a warning call.

  Doug kicked off his shoes, shrugged out of his pants and T-shirt, and then, dressed only in his bikini-cut briefs, stepped down into the Jacuzzi.

  The water covered him to midthigh, but he didn’t immediately sink down to conceal the rest of his body. He was watching a still-silent Andrea, close enough now for him to see her round blue eyes trained on the bulge between his legs. He allowed her to look for a minute, and then he slid down to the bench beneath the water, close enough to touch her if he chose to, but not too close. He wanted to make their eventual coming together as pleasurable for her as it would be for him. He didn’t want to rush her.

  The water was hot, stinging his skin, yet its very warmth enveloped them in a cocoonlike intimacy that made being there with her seem more private than a public pool should have allowed.

  He looked over at Andrea, content for the moment to share the intimacy with her. She smiled a confused, awkward little smile and then looked away. It was the first time Doug had ever seen her anything but completely controlled. The sight stunned him.

  It also made him feel kind of protective, which he didn’t like at all. He was only looking for mature, adult satisfaction here.

  Angry with himself for getting soft, he looked away.

  “You shouldn’t be here, Doug,” Andrea said. Her voice was as gentle as usual, but it was trembling, too.

  He studied her through narrowed eyes. “Not if you don’t want me here, I shouldn’t. I was under the impression you did.”

  Her gaze flew to his, alarmed and hesitant at the same time. “Where did you ever get that impression?”

  “It’s there every time we’re in a room together. It’s been there all week.”

  “But we don’t even like each other.”

  “I think we do. Even though you want me out of the program, I think you know I’m a good cop. And I respect the job you do, the way you handle yourself with the guys.”

  “I have a lot of respect for you, too, Doug. I do. A whole lot. You’ve got nerves of steel, and honor and courage. I’d trust you with my life in a dangerous situation. But that doesn’t mean you’re right for the classroom. And it certainly doesn’t mean I want...this.” She raised her hand out of the water, gesturing to encompass the hot tub, the night, him.

  He wanted to lick the beads of water from her forearm. “Don’t you?”

  “No.”

  Doug didn’t reply. He just watched her, holding her eyes with his own, forcing her to be honest.

  She met his gaze for a couple of seconds and then looked away, out over the deserted swimming pool beside them.

  “I don’t. I know I don’t.”

  “Who’re you trying to convince?” he asked, remaining where he was, keeping his hands to himself.

  “Okay. I like your after-shave. But that means less than nothing. I can’t lose my perspective here, Doug. Too much is at stake. I have to be able to evaluate you as you are, not as I want you to be.” Her tone of voice begged him to let her do the right thing, even as her eyes expressed her regret.

  “And afterward?”

  Her gaze flew to his. “Afterward, we go back to the real world, to our own lives.”

  His eyes narrowed. “You’re saying we don’t see each other again?”

  “We’ve never run into each other before.”

  “Oh, but that’s going to change. You can count on it,” he said.

  Before she had a chance to reply, he rose from the Jacuzzi, leapt the couple of steps to the pool and dove in cleanly, with barely a splash. He would give her the rest of the two weeks, but he wasn’t done with her yet, not by a long shot.

  * * *

  DOUG ENTERED the auditorium-cum-lecture room with tight lips the next morning. He wasn’t looking forward to the hour or so ahead—he already knew everything they were going to tell him, probably better than they did. But the session was mandatory.

  He looked for Andrea as soon as he entered the room. She was looking for him, too. He knew it as soon as her eyes met his. He also knew, no matter what she said, that they weren’t finished with each other yet. She had to know it, too. She was too smart a lady to ignore the obvious.

  Andrea pulled her gaze from Doug’s as soon as she took her place at the head of the room. She told herself she hadn’t been looking for him specifically, but she knew she was lying. She had been looking. And she’d been pleased with what she’d seen. He was wearing the inevitable tight jeans and a T-shirt that molded his muscular upper body to perfection. His features still showed years of rough living, but Andrea was used to them by now. Too used to them, she thought wryly, as her nipples tightened in response to his laconic grin.

  She’d spent the better part of the night telling herself that she was going to give her all to teach Doug to care—but not for her. And she wasn’t going to care for him, either—not in a personal way. She was just doing her job.

  She stepped up to the microphone, forcing her mind away from Doug and the minutes she’d spent with him in the Jacuzzi the night before. She had a job to do, a lesson to teach, the most crucial and personally painful lesson of all. She knew every fact like she knew her own name—but she hadn’t once, and she was going to spend the rest of her life atoning for it. She would teach people to see the signs, so that maybe the next time a child would have a chance before the damage was done. She wasn’t going to be sidetracked by an inappropriate attraction to a James Dean look-alike.

  “Pot smoking, glue sniffing, beer snitched from someone’s refrigerator—these are all factors in the early stages of chemical dependency. Children do not start out as druggies. They start out just wanting to experiment, to feel grown-up, to fill empty weekend hours or long summer days....”

  Andrea spoke to the room at large, but she was talking to Doug. She covered the four stages drug users usually pass through on the road to hell, sparing the people in front of her nothing. It was ugly, it was frightening and it was fact. She wanted Doug to be shocked enough to care.

  “The books will all tell you to start watching for these signs in late-elementary-aged children, or early junior high. They’re wrong. Can I have the lights off, please?”

  Doug’s mind wandered as he listened to Andrea. She didn’t know the half of it. But she didn’t need to, he supposed. She was giving them enough to get the job done.

  He glanced up when the auditorium was plunged into darkness and felt cold all over as the first slide flashed up onto the screen behind Andrea. One after another came pictures of kids—clean-cut, innocent-looking kids in different stages of drug abuse. There were guilty faces, deals being made, furtive glances, vacant looks, belligerence and gross contortions on
faces that should have been naive and sweet. All the slides were of children less than nine years old.

  Doug watched as long as he could without feeling anything, and when his gut was as hard as a rock, he slumped down further in his seat, rested his chin on his chest and waited for the session to end.

  “Lying, self-hatred, a different set of friends, dropped activities, especially sports, lower grades, asking for money—all of these are visible signs that a youngster may be on his way to chemical dependency. Please watch closely for them. They more than a knowledge of the four stages of chemical dependency could be the tools that save a child’s life....”

  Andrea finished her slide presentation, feeling relieved, as she always did, that it was over, that she’d made it through again, that there would now be almost two hundred more people in the world looking out for the children who might be led astray.

  She called for the lights to be turned back on, her eyes immediately seeking Doug’s. Had he joined her campaign? Did he understand? Was he ready to fight for the lives of Columbus’s children?

  She glanced his way and almost buckled, bracing herself against the podium in front of her. She should have known. She damn well should have known. She’d started to feel again. Last night, down by the pool, she’d actually considered making love with Doug Avery. And where she cared, she lost perspective. She knew that.

  She took one last look at Doug, forcing herself to face the facts as they were, not as she wanted them to be. Doug’s chin was resting on his chest—just as it had during her opening session. The bastard was asleep.

  * * *

  DOUG WAS JUST getting out of the shower when he heard the pounding on the door of his hotel room. Thinking it must be Steve coming to harass him into taking another trip to Harry’s Tavern, he wrapped a towel loosely around his waist and went to open the door.

  He didn’t know who was more shocked, he or Andrea, as he stood there dripping wet. His first thought—that she’d come around even sooner than he’d expected—was squelched after one look at her face. Even the short, spiky edges of her hair looked angry. What in hell was he supposed to have done now?

  “Uh, come in,” he said. She was still wearing the uniform she’d had on for her lecture that afternoon.

  “Put some clothes on first.”

  Doug shrugged, left the door ajar and went back into the bathroom to pull on the briefs and jeans he’d carried in there when he’d gone to take his shower. He flicked a brush through his hair and went out to face the music, whatever it might be.

  Andrea stood in the doorway, counting to a hundred while she waited for him. Her attempt to calm herself failed miserably as he came from the bathroom looking exactly like a man prepared for love. He was lazy masculinity and the promise of strength all rolled into one. Andrea felt her pulse pounding, her limbs weakening. And then she remembered why she was there. She thought of Scotty.

  Doug Avery was like poison spreading through her veins, robbing her of her competence. She wasn’t going to allow it to happen again.

  She stepped just far enough into the room to block his way. “I want you out,” she said, her voice soft but laced with steel. “Now.”

  Doug pushed past her, his naked chest scorching her arm as he headed toward the pair of chairs on the other side of the room. He dropped down into one.

  “You came to my room, lady. If someone has to leave, it should be you.”

  Andrea kept her eyes away from the dark hair spreading over his solid pectorals. It was just a chest. Men had them. She shut the door and followed him over to the chairs.

  “Don’t get smart with me, Avery. I’m in charge here and you’re out.”

  He smiled, but the expression didn’t reach his eyes. They were narrowed, and piercing her with something she didn’t understand.

  “Are you?” He dared to challenge her authority even now.

  She couldn’t believe she was attracted to such an insolent boor. She gritted her teeth to keep from yelling at him.

  “That’s your whole problem, you know that? You’re so busy being Mr. Tough Guy that you can’t do things any way but your own. Well, I’m here to tell you once and for all that your ways don’t work here, Avery.” She couldn’t believe any officer worth his salt could sleep through two sessions of a critical training exercise and not even feel remorse.

  “Is that why you’re here?”

  His smile was still lazy, still more of a challenge than an expression of humor, but there was something else there, too. He was teasing her. Damn him.

  “Why else would I be here?”

  His gaze ran lazily up and down her body, and then moved to the king-size bed beside her. He shrugged his scarred naked shoulders. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe you’ve decided not to wait for the session to be over. Maybe you’re as impatient as I am to explore the possibilities.”

  Andrea was still reeling from the shock of seeing that scar. It looked like his left shoulder had been sliced with a big knife. After her fatal glance at his crotch in the Jacuzzi the other night, she’d kept her eyes trained on his face. She hadn’t noticed the scar. But she couldn’t look away from it now.

  The man was cocky, he was insolent and crude, he was far too sure of himself. But he risked his life on a daily basis for people he didn’t even know, people he had sworn to protect. And the scar was proof of the fact that he didn’t always win.

  “P-possibilities?” she heard herself ask, suddenly more scared than angry. She was losing her perspective. Doug Avery was an honored police officer. He wasn’t the scum of the earth. Why couldn’t she get a hold on him, on this job? Why did this one man matter so much?

  “Come on, Andi. Why does the fact that we’re attracted to each other upset you so much?” His voice was warmer than she’d ever heard it before. Suddenly she wanted him to hold her, to make all the confusion go away.

  She had to get a grip. “It doesn’t upset me, because it doesn’t matter. It’s a non-issue and I don’t want to talk about it again. What’s important here are the children whose lives are depending on the success of this program.”

  His chin jutted out, his lips tightened into a thin line and then he nodded. “Okay, I can give you that, for now. But rest assured that when this training is over, you and I will talk again.”

  “You and I need to talk right now. It’s been almost a week, Doug, and after today, I think it’s more than obvious that you don’t belong in the DARE program. I have to insist on your resignation.”

  The mask that slid down over his features was almost frightening. The scar on his temple stood out starkly. He was once again the cold, hard stranger she’d met five days before.

  “You’re overstepping your bounds, Officer. As I understand it, you don’t have the authority to insist that I do anything. You are here to guide and to instruct, not to discipline. I suggest you keep that in mind.”

  Andrea studied her shoes, concentrating on the calming exercises she’s learned at the academy. In through the nose, out through the mouth, each breath a conscious effort. If she didn’t keep her control, she’d be lost.

  She needed to sit down, but was afraid to show him any weakness.

  “You’re right, of course, and I’m sorry.” She saw the surprise flicker across his features. “But, please, can’t you see that you’re not right for this particular assignment? It’s nothing against you, as a man or as a police officer. There’s no shame in the fact that not everyone is cut out to work with little kids.”

  He stood up from his chair, coming over to stand within inches of her. Andrea could smell the hotel soap he’d used, the shampoo scent in his hair. His heat was burning her up.

  He wrapped his hand around her neck, forcing her to look up at him. His touch was insistent without causing her any real pain. “Let’s get one thing straight right now. I am not leaving DARE. I will graduate next week, and by fall I will be working in the classroom.”

  Andrea knocked his hand away. She’d never come up against such stub
bornness in her life.

  “Why?” she asked, looking up at him as if she could somehow read in his eyes what his mouth wouldn’t tell her. What was it that was driving him, that was making him so insistent on remaining in a program where he clearly didn’t belong? Did he have a reason, or was he just playing the macho hero, unable to admit that there was something he couldn’t do?

  His eyelids lowered, shuttering himself off even more from her probing gaze. “Why not?”

  “Because you seem to think that class time is bedtime. And I somehow don’t think that you use bedtime to study.”

  “You’re still harping on that? So I made a mistake. Are you so all-fired perfect?”

  “A mistake? How many times can you repeat the same mistake and still have it be just one?”

  Doug turned away from her, shoving his hands into the back pockets of his jeans as he walked toward the window. His wristband strained against his arm.

  Andrea’s glance rested on the taut flesh his fingers outlined, and then on the implacable back above it, as she waited for an answer. She wasn’t going to let him walk away from this.

  Doug turned back to her, his expression laced with disappointment. “I figured you were better than this, Andrea. I figured you were above the usual games, the dishonesties, the making of things what they aren’t. Obviously, you’re so against an attraction between us that you’ve resorted to making mountains out of molehills. I fell asleep on Monday, and it was wrong. But I will not leave the DARE program because of that. Nor will I be continuously persecuted because of it. Now, if that’s all you wanted, please leave.”

  “What about today?” Andrea shot back, doing her best to ignore his tone. “Was falling asleep today just a continuation of the same mistake? Or wasn’t it a mistake at all?”

  “Today?”

  “Yes, today. I looked over as I finished my lecture. You were sleeping.”