All a Man Can Ask

by Virginia Kantra

  The thought brought him no satisfaction at all.

  Since the mood was ruined anyway, he figured he couldn’t make things worse. Might as well pass on to her the latest bad news from home.

  “I made a call before dinner,” he told her. “On that kid of yours.”

  Her eyes widened. “Jamal?”

  “Yeah. I’ve got a buddy who works juvie over in Area 2. I asked him to do some checking, run his name through the system.”

  “I told you I didn’t want your help.”

  Okay. Fine.

  “Suit yourself,” he said.

  Tight-lipped, he let the car out a little on the straightaway. He was almost in the mood to be pulled over by some self-important Smokey with too much time on his hands.

  “Did he—did you learn anything?” Faye asked over the roar of the engine.

  The hope and worry packed in that one tight question twisted something inside him. He eased up on the accelerator.

  “It’s not good,” he warned.

  “Tell me.”

  Right, he thought. She asked for it. And maybe telling her would remind her of the dangers of getting emotionally involved with anyone.

  “He’s definitely using. Two weeks ago, he was picked up and charged with possession of crank. That’s methamphetamine,” he explained.

  “I know what crank is.”

  Well, yeah, teaching at Lincoln, she would.

  “His court date’s been set for the twenty-third,” Aleksy continued. “A good lawyer could make the case that he was holding less than fifteen grams, he’s under eighteen and it’s a first offense. That’s the good news. He can’t be convicted to more than a year in prison and he could get off with a fine.”

  “That’s good news?”

  From Aleksy’s perspective, a cop’s perspective, the kid was getting off lightly. But he supposed that Faye, as a bleeding heart teacher, might see things differently.

  “You’re breaking your heart over nothing, you know.”

  She raised her pointy little chin. “Excuse me?”

  He merged easily with the cars heading north around the lake. Weekend traffic, trying to get a jump on a few more hours of summer fun before Monday morning’s rat race. “Kids like that—at-risk kids—slip through the cracks all the time. There isn’t anything you can do about it.”

  “Oh, and so I shouldn’t try?”

  The light of battle in her eyes baffled him. She was the one suffering from burnout, wasn’t she?

  “Sure, you can try. But at some point you’ve got to accept that, as a teacher, the odds are against you.”

  “The odds are against you as a law enforcement officer, too.” She lifted one eyebrow. “Or do you imagine that you can single-handedly wipe out crime in Chicago?”

  Damn, she was slippery. And smart.

  “All I’m saying is, you can’t do your job if you let yourself care too much,” he said stubbornly.

  “What if you don’t care enough? Can you do it then?”

  Aleksy set his jaw. “Okay, so you care. Some. But you set limits. You can’t make it personal.”

  “So, it’s never personal for you?”

  Hell. She was too damn close to busting him open. In another minute she’d remember what he’d told her about Karen and start grilling him about his reasons for being here.

  “Never,” he lied.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  He jerked one shoulder. “Believe what you want.”

  “I think you only asked your friend to investigate Jamal because you cared about me.”

  Huh?

  He slowed the car so he could look at her. The light of the setting sun slanted through the windshield. Faye’s eyes were soft and glowing. “I’m not saying I like what you found out but I appreciate that you were trying to help.” She leaned across the console and brushed warm lips against his cheek. “Thank you.”

  He was so screwed.

  Aleksy flung a rock over the wide, dark water. He heard it skip once, twice, three times before it sank like a—well, like a stone.

  God, it was quiet out here. And dark. He missed Chicago’s streetlights, the blare of traffic, the roar of the elevated train. But here he was, with the frogs and the fish and the lapping lake, trying to put some distance between himself and the quiet sounds of Faye preparing for bed.

  He looked out at the pulsing stars and whispering water, separated by a black band of trees and shore. He could see the occasional yellow gleam of a window and, across the lake, Freer’s security lights illuminating an empty triangle of grass.

  A good detective operated by asking the questions that would help him develop a plan of action. Aleksy had questions, all right. He just didn’t have a damn plan.

  How the hell was he supposed to scare Faye off when she persisted in seeing him as some kind of good guy?

  The screen door scraped open behind him. He tensed as he heard soft footsteps cross the deck. Swell. She was coming out. The last thing either of them needed right now was a romantic tryst by moonlight. He shoved his hands in his pockets.

  Although… Hey. Maybe that was the solution. Faye had already made it clear she wasn’t ready for a relationship. Maybe he should pull her down on the rough dock and demonstrate some of the reasons she ought to be afraid of him. It could work. He would get to touch her again and she could slap his face.

  He hunched his shoulders, staring out over the water. Yeah, and if she didn’t? If she cried or, worse, cooperated? What would he do if she opened her arms to him the way she had in his brother’s kitchen? If she opened those warm, soft lips? If she opened—

  He was sweating, though the air was cool enough now to warrant a jacket. If Faye didn’t stop him, did he really trust himself to call a halt to things?

  She didn’t make a sound crossing the muddy lawn but he knew when she stepped on the dock. With a cop’s sixth sense, with a lover’s awareness, he felt her come up behind him.

  “You should go in,” he said roughly.

  Yeah, that was good. He sounded like one tough son of a bitch.

  She didn’t buy it. “Why?”

  He took a deep, annoyed breath. “Are you trying to start something? Or do you truly not get it?”

  Something pale moved in the shadows at the corner of his eye. She didn’t touch him, but neither did she run. He saw the flutter of her skirt as she sat down at the edge of the dock.

  “What is it that I’m not getting?” she asked. A hint of mischief infected her tone and started a fever in his blood. “Besides sex, I mean?”

  “You can’t stay here,” he said desperately. She had taken off her sandals and was dangling her pretty, narrow, naked feet above the water. “It’s dangerous.”

  “No one’s going to attack me sitting at the end of my aunt’s dock at nine o’clock at night,” she said reasonably.

  “I might,” he muttered.

  She laughed, low and sleepy like the bird’s call.

  He swore. This was it. He was going to have to tell her—a civilian, a woman—the truth.

  Not the whole truth, he reassured himself. But enough to convince her to go running back to Chicago.

  “Faye, listen. Jarek told me tonight he found a connection between the boat you drew and the men I’m after.”

  “That’s what you expected, isn’t it? That’s what you wanted.”

  “Yeah. The thing is, now that we know—” he didn’t really know, not without the registration number, but that was one piece of evidence he was holding back “—you need to rethink seriously about staying here. These guys aren’t amateurs. You don’t want to mess with them.”

  No, she didn’t. But she said, “I am not going back to Chicago. Besides, if they thought I was a threat, they would have done more than simply break into my house to steal some photographs and a painting.”

  “You were lucky.”

  “You mean, because I scared them off? You think they would have taken more?”

  “Sweetheart, they
got everything they came for. You were lucky they didn’t kill you.”

  She shivered. “Oh.”

  “Yeah. ‘Oh.’ I don’t want anything to happen to you, damn it.” The words burst out of him. “I feel guilty enough already.”

  Faye stilled her feet in the cool, swirling water.

  Guilt, she understood. But it wasn’t a motivation she expected to have in common with Detective Don’t-Take-It-Personally Denko.

  “Guilty about what?” she asked softly.

  He was silent so long she thought he wasn’t going to answer her.

  “I already have to live with one woman’s death on my conscience,” he said finally, harshly. “I don’t want to live with yours.”

  Her skin prickled. If he was trying to frighten her, he was doing a good job. Yet the pain in his voice tugged at her. Silhouetted against the stars, his shoulders were rigid. His sharp profile was bleak and alone.

  Because it hurt her heart to look at him, she spoke briskly, as if she were talking to one of her students. “Don’t you think you’re taking this guilt trip a little too far? It’s not like you’re Blue Beard or something.”

  He turned his head to look at her. “Who?”

  “Blue Beard. You know, the man who murdered all his wives and locked their bodies in a tower?”

  Aleksy continued to stare. “You mean, like Gacy? With the boys under the floorboards?”

  Faye felt her face warm in the dark. “Well, sort of. Blue Beard is a character. In a fairy tale.”

  “This isn’t some fairy tale. I’m not Prince Charming, and there is no happily ever after. This is the real world, sweetheart, and in the real world, sometimes the wrong people die.”

  She heard his temper and it started her own, a quick, hot lick of it along her nerves. But she heard his pain, too. “Don’t condescend to me, Aleksy. I know all about the real world. I taught for four years in a real high school.”

  “Right,” he said tightly. “Sorry. Then—”

  She swung her feet out of the water and dried them on her skirt. “And your version of reality is as big a fantasy as any bedtime story I ever heard.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Her heart hammered so hard she thought she might be sick. She took a deep breath to steady her nerves and her stomach. “You weren’t even there when your partner—former partner—was killed. How can you be guilty of her death?”

  He yanked her to her feet. His hands gripped her shoulders. His breath was ragged against her face. “Because I wasn’t there, damn it. Because if I hadn’t screwed things up, Karen wouldn’t have put in for a transfer. She would never have been assigned to that case. I’m responsible.”

  “She put in for the transfer,” Faye repeated, willing him to hear her. “She accepted the case. What happened was awful, yes, it was wrong, maybe it could have been prevented, I don’t know. But it wasn’t your fault. Her choices were her responsibility.”

  “And you believe that?” Aleksy challenged her.

  Faye raised her chin, which still left it at the level of his chest. “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “I’m just trying to figure how you get to be responsible for your students, but I’m not responsible for my partner.”

  She stared at him, stunned from the quick, dirty blow. He was a cop, she reminded herself. He was trained in street-fighting and self-defense.

  “Well, the situations are different, aren’t they?”

  “Are they?”

  “Yes. You said it yourself. Jamal is still a student. A child. Karen was an adult woman. A police officer.” Faye’s voice gained in confidence. “She knew the risks. She chose to take them.”

  “So, according to your theory, as long as she went into things with her eyes open, I’m off the hook.”

  It was hard to think with his hands bruising her shoulders, with his gaze boring into hers. It was hard to breathe. The starlight gave a primitive cast to his face. Heat, tension, anger poured off of him in waves.

  She wet her lips with her tongue. Whispered, “Yes.”

  His grip shifted. His eyes blazed. “Then open your eyes, cream puff. Because I’m about to make my move.”

  Chapter 9

  She expected him to jerk. She was braced for him to grab. But Aleksy did exactly as he had warned, giving her time to change her mind, giving her a chance to pull away. One hand slid to circle her throat. The other traced her ribs, skimmed her back, lightly.

  Her pulse went wild under the rough pad of his fingers. Keeping his eyes on hers, he lowered his head, blotting out the lake and the night behind him. She felt the slow rise of heat, from him, in her. His sharp features blurred.

  And he stopped, a breath from her lips.

  He was leaving her the choice, Faye realized. He was handing her the responsibility.

  The idea should have terrified her. Did terrify her. She laid a hand on his chest. His heart slammed against her palm.

  An adult woman knew the risks. It was up to her whether she chose to take them.

  Faye’s fingers flexed. Her mouth curved. “Kiss me or die, Detective.”

  A sound exploded from him, part laugh, part groan, and the hand on her back tightened as the hand on her throat slipped up into her hair. He brought her closer—not close enough—and finally he kissed her, his mouth hot and moving on hers. She fisted her hand in his shirt to hold him to her, to hold herself up.

  He tasted wonderful, dark and intense. She caught her breath with pleasure and the risk she was taking. Again, they kissed, slow, exploring kisses, wet, deep kisses, like a couple of high school students plastered against the lockers between classes, completely absorbed in and needing only each other. Except none of her students had a body like his, heavy with muscle, honed with experience. She rubbed against him, trying to absorb more sensation, and his arousal ground against her.

  Faye shivered, relieved and nervous at the same time. You like me, she thought with an inner giggle. You really like me.

  He wrapped her closer. “Cold?”

  She blinked at him. Was she cold? She did a quick inventory. Her arms were okay. Her long skirt protected her legs.

  “Just my feet.” They were bare, and still damp.

  “Well, we can’t have you getting cold feet at this point.” His voice was husky and amused.

  He scooped her up—she clutched him in surprise—and sat down on the dock, with her sideways in his lap.

  “What are you doing?”

  He reached for her legs, drawing them up beside his thigh. “Warming your feet.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope.”

  She started to straighten her legs. “It will tickle.”

  He held her fast, one arm behind her back, the other wrapping her knees. “Not if I do it right.”

  Ignoring her wiggling, he began to massage her feet with one strong, lean hand. It felt strange. Good. A restless yearning uncurled in her stomach and traveled along her limbs as he pressed and kneaded her arch, rotated her ankles, pushed his finger between her toes. She moaned and he laughed.

  “You’re very good,” she accused.

  “Practice,” he explained.

  She didn’t doubt it.

  She didn’t want to think about it. Not when what he was doing felt so good.

  He worked his way past her ankles and up her calves, stroking and rubbing. She felt her thighs loosen, her knees part. He took advantage of the opening, his warm, rough hand sliding along her inner thigh, massaging the muscles there.

  Her head lolled back against his shoulder. She closed her eyes, seduced by the magic of his touch and the musky smell of his skin. Her nipples tightened. His breath rasped as he worked her, under her skirt, gliding up, pressing down.

  Just a little farther, she urged him in her mind. She squirmed in his lap. Up. There.

  His touch was firm and hot. He moved slower. Higher. She trembled. When he finally touched her there, she was wet and ready for him.

  He grun
ted in satisfaction. His hand, blunt and seeking, slid up over her belly and down into her underwear. She arched against his fingers, squirmed in his lap.

  He pulled his hand away.

  No, no, no.

  She grabbed at his shoulders, nipped at his lower lip.

  “Easy,” he said. “I just want to—”

  She fused her mouth to his.

  Heat erupted from him. Poured into her. This time, his kiss was hard and hungry and a little mean. A thrill chased through her as he shifted and rolled her until she was flat on her back on the dock. He tugged at her hem so that she lay on the back of her skirt and positioned himself between her legs.

  “I’ll probably get splinters in my knees,” he grumbled.

  She laughed up at him, feeling reckless and unafraid. “I don’t care.”

  His grin flashed in the dark. “Hell, neither do I.”

  He yanked down her panties and spread her thighs. Her heart hammered.

  “Wait,” she said.

  He froze above her. “You’re joking.”

  An adult woman knew the risks and took responsibility.

  “Condoms,” she said. “Do you have any?”

  “Oh. Yeah. In my wallet.”

  Well, that was good. Wasn’t it? He was prepared.

  Her mind flashed back to the afternoon, to Tess’s cheerful inquiry. So, how do you like living with the Boy Scout?

  She stared up at the night sky while Aleksy stripped off his pants and fumbled in the pocket. Good idea? Bad idea? Did she really know what she was doing? Did she really know him well enough to—

  He pinned her against the dock, taking most of his weight on his elbows. His body was hard and lean. His arousal was blunt and hot. Her mind shied, but her hips lifted.

  He kissed her and then drew back. “You’re getting cold feet again,” he observed.

  She was embarrassed. How could he tell? “Maybe. A little.”

  He shifted on top of her. Rocked against her. “Guess I’ll have to warm you up, then.”

  Warm. Yes. She felt the roughness of his thighs, the smoothness of his sex, and her own muscles softened and loosened in response.