No, strike that. Bobby knew damn well it would lead to him kissing her. And that could and would lead to a full meltdown, a complete and utter dissolving of his defenses and resolve.
It made him feel like a total skeeve. What kind of friend could he be to Colleen if he couldn't even offer her the most basic form of comfort as a hand on her shoulder? Was he really so weak that he couldn't control himself around her?
Yes.
The answer was a resounding, unchallenged yes.
No doubt about it—he was scum.
After leaving the escrow office, they'd taken the T into Harvard Square. Colleen had kept up a fairly steady stream of conversation. About law school. About her roommate— a woman named Ashley who'd gone back to Scarsdale for the summer to work in her father's law office, but who still sent monthly checks for her share of the rent, who didn't have the nerve to tell her father that, like Colleen, she'd far rather be a public defender and a pro bono civil litigant than a highly paid corporate tax attorney.
Bobby had checked into his hotel and given his bag and a tip to the bellhop. He didn't dare take it up to his room himself—not with Colleen trailing behind, no way. That transaction only took a few minutes, and then they were back out in the warm summer night.
The restaurant was only a short walk into Harvard Square. As he sat down across from Colleen, as he gazed at her pretty face in the dim candlelight, he'd ordered a cola. He was dying for a beer, but there was no way he'd
trust himself to have even one. If he was going to survive this, he needed all of his wits about him.
They talked about the menu, about food—a nice safe topic—for a while. And then their order came, and Bobby ate while Colleen pushed the food around on her plate.
She was quiet by then, too. It was unusual to be around a Skelly who wasn't constantly talking.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
She looked up at him, and he realized that there were tears in her eyes. She shook her head. But then she forced a smile. "I'm just being stupid," she said before the smile wavered and disappeared. "I'm sorry."
She pushed herself out of the booth and would have rushed past him, toward the rest rooms at the back of the restaurant, if he hadn't reached out and grabbed her hand. He slid out of the bench seat, too, still holding on to her. It took him only a second to pull more than enough dollars to cover the bill out of his pocket and toss it onto the table.
This place had a rear exit. He'd automatically noted it when they'd first came in—years of practice in preparing an escape route—and he led her to it now, pushing open the door.
They had to go up a few steps, but then they were outside, on a side street. It was just a stone's throw to Brattle Street, but they were still far enough from the circus-like atmosphere of Harvard Square on a summer night to have a sense of distance and seclusion from the crowds.
"I'm sorry," Colleen said again, trying to wipe away her tears before they even fell. "I'm stupid—it's just a stupid car."
Bobby had something very close to an out-of-body experience. He saw himself standing there, in the shadows, next to her. Helplessly, with a sense of total doom, he watched himself reach for her, pull her close and enfold her in his arms.
Oh, dear Lord, she was so soft. And she held him tightly, her arms around his waist, her face buried in his shoulder as she quietly tried not to cry.
Don't do this. Get away from her. You're asking for trouble.
He must've made some kind of awful strangled sound because Colleen lifted her head and looked up at him. "Oh, no, am I hurting you?''
"No," he said. No, she was killing him. And count on Colleen to worry about someone else during a moment when most people wouldn't have been thinking of anyone but themselves.
Tears glistened on her cheeks and sparkled in her eyelashes, and the tip of her nose was red. Bozo the Clown, he and Wes had teased her whenever she'd cried back when she was thirteen.
She wasn't thirteen anymore.
Don't kiss her. Don't do it.
Bobby clenched his teeth and thought about Wes. He pictured the look on his best friend's face as he tried to explain. See, she was right there, man, in my arms, and her mouth looked so soft and beautiful, and her body was so warm and lush and...
She put her head back against his shoulder with a sigh, and Bobby realized he was running his fingers through the silk of her hair. She had hair like a baby's, soft and fine.
He knew he should make himself stop, but he couldn't. He'd wanted to touch her hair for more than four years now.
Besides, she really seemed to like it.
"You must think I'm a loser," she murmured.
"No."
She laughed softly. "Yeah, well, I am. Crying over a car. How dumb can I be?" She sighed. "It's just... When I was seventeen, I'd imagined I'd have that car forever—
you know, hand it down to my grandchildren? I say it now, and it sounds stupid, but it didn't feel stupid back then."
The deal she'd just made gave her twenty-four hours to change her mind.
"It's not too late," he reminded her. He reminded himself, too. He could gently release her, take one step back, then two. He could—without touching her again—lead her back to the lights and crowd in Harvard Square. And then he'd never even have to mention anything to Wes. Because nothing would have happened.
But he didn't move. He told himself he would be okay, that he could handle this—as long as he didn't look into her eyes.
"No, I'm selling it," she told him, pulling back slightly to look up at him, wiping her nose on a tissue she'd taken from her shoulder pack. "I've made up my mind. I need this money. I loved that car, but I love going to law school, too. I love the work I do, I love being able to make a difference."
She was looking at him so earnestly he forgot about not looking into her eyes until it was too late. Until the earnest look morphed into something else, something loaded with longing and spiked with desire.
Her gaze dropped to his mouth, and her lips parted slightly, and when she looked once again into his eyes, he knew. She wanted to kiss him nearly as much as he wanted to kiss her.
Don't do this. Don't...
He could feel his heart pounding, hear the roar of his blood surging through his body, drowning out the sounds of the city night, blocking out all reason and harsh reality.
He couldn't not kiss her. How could he keep from kissing her when he needed to kiss her as much as he needed to fill his lungs with air?
But she didn't give him a chance to lean down toward
her. She stood on her tiptoes and brushed her mouth across his in a kiss that was so achingly sweet that he thought for one paralyzingly weak-kneed moment he just might faint.
But she stepped back just a little to look at him again, to smile hesitantly into his eyes before reaching up, her hand cool against the too-hot back of his neck as she pulled his head down to kiss him again.
Her lips were so soft, so cool, so sweetly uncertain, such a contrast to the way his heart was hammering and to the tight, hot sensation in his rib cage—as if his entire chest were about to burst.
He was afraid to move. He was afraid to kiss her back, for fear he'd scare her to death with his hunger for her. He didn't even know how to kiss like this—with such delicate tenderness.
But he liked it. Lord, he liked it an awful lot. He'd had his share of women who'd given him deep, wet, soul kisses, sucking his tongue into their mouths in a decidedly unsub-tle imitation of what they wanted to do with him later, in private.
But those kisses hadn't been even a fraction as sexy as what Colleen was doing to him right now.
She kissed his mouth, his chin and then his mouth again, her own lips slightly parted. She barely touched him. In fact, she touched him more with her breath—soft, unsteady puffs of air that caressed him enticingly.
He tried to kiss her the same way, tried to touch her without really touching her, skimming his hands down her back, his palms tingling from the almost-contact. I
t made him dizzy with anticipation.
Incredible anticipation.
She touched his lips with her tongue—just the very tiniest tip of her tongue—and pleasure crashed through him. It was so intense that for one blindingly unsteady moment
he was afraid he might actually have embarrassed himself beyond recovery.
From just a kiss.
But he hadn't. Not yet, anyway. Still, he couldn't take it anymore, not another second longer, and he crushed her to him, filling his hands with the softness of her body, sweeping his tongue into her mouth.
She didn't seem to mind. In fact, her pack fell to the ground, and she kissed him back enthusiastically, welcoming the ferocity of his kisses, winding her arms around his neck, pressing herself even more tightly against him.
It was the heaven he'd dreamed of all these years.
Bobby kissed her, again and again—deep, explosively hungry kisses that she fired right back at him. She opened herself to him, wrapping one of her legs around his, moaning her pleasure as he filled his hand with her breast.
He caught himself glancing up, scanning a nearby narrow alleyway between two buildings, estimating whether it was dark enough for them to slip inside, dark enough for him to unzip his shorts and pull up her skirt, dark enough for him to take her, right there, beneath someone's kitchen window, with her legs around his waist and her back against the roughness of the brick wall.
He'd pulled her halfway into the alley before reality came screaming through.
Wes's sister. This was Wes's sister.
He had his tongue in Wes's sister's mouth. One hand was filled with the softness of Wes's sister's derriere as he pressed her hips hard against his arousal. His other hand was up Wes's sister's shirt.
Had he completely lost his mind?
Yes.
Bobby pulled back, breathing hard.
That was almost worse, because now he had to look at her. She was breathing hard, too, her breasts rising and
falling rapidly, her nipples taut and clearly outlined beneath her shirt, her face flushed, her lips swollen and moist from his kisses.
But it was her eyes that almost killed him. They were smoky with desire, brimming with fire and unresolved passion.
"Let's go to my apartment," she whispered, her voice even huskier than usual.
Oh, God.
"I can't." His voice cracked, making him sound even more pathetic.
"Oh," she said. "Oh, I'm—" she shook her head "—I'm sorry, I thought... You said you weren't seeing anyone."
"No." He shook his head, tried to catch his breath. "It's not that."
"Then why stop?"
He couldn't respond. What could he possibly say? But shaking his head again wasn't a good enough response for Colleen.
"You really don't want to come back to my place and—"
"I can't. I just can't." He cut her off, unable to bear finding out just which words she would use to describe what they'd do if he did go home with her tonight. Whether she called it making love or something more crudely to the point, however she couched it, it would be a total turn-on.
And he was already way too turned on.
She took a step toward him, and he took a step back.
"You're serious," she said. "You really don't want to?"
He couldn't let her think that. "I want to," he told her. "God, I want to. More than you could possibly know. I just... I can't."
"What, have you taken some kind of vow of abstinence?"
Somehow he managed to smile at her. "Sort of."
Just like that she understood. He saw the realization dawn in her eyes and flare rapidly into anger. "Wesley," she said. "This is about my brother, isn't it?"
Bobby knew enough not to lie to her. "He's my best friend."
She was furious. "What did he do? Warn you to stay away from me? Did he tell you not to touch me? Did he tell you not to—"
"No. He warned me not even to think about it." Wes had said it jokingly, one night on liberty when they'd each had five or six too many beers. Wes hadn't really believed it was a warning he'd needed to give his best friend.
Colleen bristled. "Well, you know what? Wes can't tell me what to think, and I've been thinking about it. For a long time."
Bobby gazed at her. Suddenly it was hard to breathe again. A long time. "Really?"
She nodded, her anger subdued, as if she were suddenly shy. She looked everywhere but in his eyes. "Yeah. Wasn't that kind of obvious from the way I jumped you?"
"I thought I jumped you."
Colleen looked at him then, hope in her eyes. "Please come home with me. I really want you to—I want to make love to you, Bobby. You're only here for a week—let's not waste a minute."
Oh, God, she'd said it. Bobby couldn't bear to look at her, so he closed his eyes. "Colleen, I promised Wes I'd look out for you. That I'd take care of you."
"Perfect." She bent down to pick up her bag. "Take care of me. Please."
Oh, man. He laughed because, despite his agony, he found her funny as hell. "I'm positive he didn't mean it like that."
"You know, he doesn't need to find out."
Bobby braced himself and met her gaze. "I can't be that kind of friend to him."
She sighed. "Terrific. Now I feel like a total worm." She started toward Brattle Street. "I think, considering all things, we should skip the movie. I'm going home. If you change your mind..."
"I won't."
"...you know where to find me." Bobby followed her about a dozen more steps, and she turned around. “Are you coming with me after all?"
"It's getting late. I'll see you home."
"No," Colleen said. "Thank you, but no."
Bobby knew not to press it. That look in her eyes was one he'd seen far too many times on a completely different Skelly.
"I'm sorry," he said again.
"Me, too," she told him before she walked away.
The sidewalk wasn't as crowded as it had been just a few hours ago, so Bobby let her get a good head start before he started after her.
He followed her all the way home, making certain she was safe without letting her see him again.
And then he stood there, outside her apartment building, watching the lights go on in her apartment, angry and frustrated and dying to be up there with her, and wondering what on earth he was going to do now.
Chapter
Colleen had printed out the e-mail late last night, and she now held it tightly in her hand as she approached Bobby.
He was exactly where he'd said he would be when he'd called—sitting on the grassy slope along the Charles River, looking out at the water, sipping coffee through a hot cup with a plastic lid.
He saw her coming and got to his feet. "Thanks for meeting me," he called.
He was so serious—no easygoing smile on his face. Or maybe he was nervous. It was hard to be sure. Unlike Wes, who twitched and bounced off the walls at twice his normal frenetic speed when he was nervous, Bobby showed no outward sign.
He didn't fiddle with his coffee cup. He just held it serenely. He'd gotten them both large cups, but in his hand, large looked small.
Colleen was going to have to hold hers with both hands.
He didn't tap his foot. He didn't nervously clench his teeth. He didn't chew his lip.
He just stood there and breathed as he solemnly watched her approach.
He'd called at : this morning. She'd just barely fallen asleep after a night spent mostly tossing and turning—and analyzing everything she'd done and said last night, trying to figure out what she'd done wrong.
She'd come to the conclusion that she'd done everything wrong. Starting with crying over a motor vehicle and ending with darn near throwing herself at the man.
This morning Bobby had apologized for calling so early and had told her he hadn't been sure what time she was leaving for work today. He'd remembered that she was driving the truck, remembered their tentative plan to meet for breakfast.
Last night she'd w
anted him to stay for breakfast.
But he hadn't—because of some stupid idea that by having a relationship with her, he'd be betraying Wes.
Wes, whose life he'd most likely saved, probably countless times. Including, so it seemed, one definite time just a few short weeks ago.
"I can't believe you didn't tell me you'd been shot." Colleen didn't bother saying good morning. She just thrust the copy of Wes's e-mail at him.
He took it and read it quickly. It wasn't very long. Just a short, fast, grammatically creative hello from Wes, who didn't report where he was, who really just wanted to make sure Bobby had arrived in Boston. He mentioned almost in passing that Bobby had recently been shot while out in the real world—the SEALs' nickname for a real mission or operation.
They had been somewhere they weren't supposed to be, Wes reported vaguely, and due to circumstances out of their control, they'd been discovered. Men with assault weapons started shooting, and Bobby had stepped in front of Wes, taking some bullets and saving his scrawny hide.
"Be nice to him," Wes had written to Colleen. "He nearly died. He almost got his butt shot off, and his shoulder's still giving him pain. Treat him kindly. I'll call as soon as I'm back in the States."
"If he can say all that in an e-mail," Colleen told Bobby sternly, "you could have told me at least a little about what happened. You could have told me you were shot instead of letting me think you'd hurt yourself in some normal way—like pulling a muscle playing basketball."
He handed her the piece of paper. "I didn't think it was useful information," he admitted. "I mean, what good is telling you that a bunch of bad guys with guns tried to kill your brother a few weeks ago? Does knowing that really help you in any way?"
"Yes, because not knowing hurts. You don't need to protect me from the truth," Colleen told him fiercely. "I'm not a little girl anymore." She rolled her eyes. "I thought we cleared that up last night."
Suzanne Brockmann - Team Ten 10 - Taylor's Temptation Page 4
