by Sarah Grimm
“You didn’t.”
“I just let my imagination get the best of me.”
“Paige, you didn’t.”
His words finally penetrated. She didn’t what? Didn’t get him out of bed? Interrupt his evening? She stopped babbling. Her eyes, as well as her mind, focused on the man before her.
He wore black. Jeans and a snug knit shirt tucked into the waistband, topped with a blazer-style jacket of leather. He was dressed to go out, dressed to please the eye and stir the blood. He definitely stirred something in her. Heat crawled up her torso, warmed her from the inside-out. She raised her hand to the base of her throat where her pulse beat wildly.
“I don’t believe imagination got the best of you.”
“You’re the only one who doesn’t.”
His eyes were dark and unreadable as he studied her. “It’s okay to lean on someone, you know. We all need to at times.”
It wasn’t good to make it a habit, the way she had been doing lately. “I’ve never felt so out of control.”
“You look pretty together to me.”
Because he saw what she wanted him to see. On the inside, she was slowly falling apart. She needed to get a grip before she forgot herself and asked him to hold her. Or just closed the distance between them and rested her head against the warm solace of his broad shoulder. She ached for comfort, longed to be pulled against the hard planes of his chest. Wrapped in his strong embrace, while his calloused hands stroked her back.
Expelling a breath, she studied him through a veil of dark lashes. He was a cool one, the way he controlled that lean and muscled body. She would bet he never felt vulnerable, stripped and exposed as she did right now. Just his presence in the same room calmed her, restored a bit of her peace. Imagine the comfort of his embrace.
As her legs suddenly went weak, Paige forced away the thought. She couldn’t get involved with him. Couldn’t let herself care.
She dragged in a shaky breath. “I’m sorry I’ve wasted your time.”
“I never said you were wasting my time.”
She’d been so afraid, coming out of a nightmare then hearing someone move around downstairs. So sure of what she’d heard, certain of someone in her studio. Now…
Maybe it had been a dream, or the panicked imaginings of an exhausted mind. “I must be overreacting.”
“It would be understandable.”
She closed her eyes against the kindness in his voice. Snapped them open at the brush of his finger beneath her chin. He tipped her face to his. “Then there’s the broken bottle in the darkroom. Imagination doesn’t explain that.”
Relief filled her. She wasn’t losing her mind, after all. “Thank you.”
“For what, doing my job?”
“For answering my call, even though you were probably busy with something else. For believing in me. Again.”
“We aren’t going to start this again, are we? I wasn’t busy.” He lifted his hand and traced his fingertip along her jaw. “I had dinner with my mother earlier. On my way home, I stopped off for a drink. That’s where I was when you called.”
The caress of his fingers across her skin made her pulse trip. “I’m glad.” She wasn’t supposed to care where he went or who he spent his free time with, but had to admit to being thrilled he hadn’t been on a date. Just the thought of him touching another woman the way he touched her now made her stomach clench painfully. “I’m glad you weren’t busy.”
“It wouldn’t have mattered.” His fingers continued to dance down her neck before settling at her throat. “Busy or not, I would have answered your call.” His free hand slid around her waist, eased her closer until his warm breath brushed across her lips. “This is where I want to be.”
Longing swamped her. Her pulse thundered in her ears. She lifted her hand, placed it against the center of his chest. “Justin.”
His lips brushed against hers lightly, gently and her mind clicked off. Her body reacted immediately, instinctively. Her blood heated. Her bones melted. Sensation shot through her like lightning bolts.
His kiss was as hard and demanding as the body pressed against her. His hand moved from her neck, fisted in her hair and dragged her head back as his mouth continued to seduce. His taste seeped into her. Something between a moan and a sigh slid up the back of her throat. She knew she should pull away. She told herself to pull away. Instead, she parted her lips and surrendered.
Her mouth moved eagerly on his, exploring, discovering his taste. She couldn’t breathe. The heady, male scent of him surrounded her. Her head spun. Fire burned inside her belly. She felt the pull of desire, the heat simmering between them. Felt herself go wet. The ache of need was more than she could stand. She gave herself up to it.
Palm flat against his chest, her hand streaked up, slipped beneath his jacket and skimmed down his side. Her fingers curled into his shirt. From somewhere deep inside, sanity returned. Alarm bells chimed in her head like a gong. Her body tightened as a chill ran the length of her spine. She pulled her mouth from his, pressed trembling hands against his shoulders and staggered back, out of his arms.
“Paige…” His voice hoarse, and tinged with confusion, he reached for her.
“I can’t do this. I’m sorry.” Struggling to reign in her reeling emotions, she turned away.
The intensity of what they’d just shared rocked her foundation. Never before had she felt anything so powerful, experienced anything so right. When he touched her, when he pulled her to him he made her forget everything but him. Gone was her fear, her anxiety. In its place raged need stronger than she’d ever known. Longing so powerful she’d been helpless to resist. Until the placement of her hands upon his smooth washboard of muscle registered. Reality slammed back into place.
How could she have forgotten so quickly? The one thing she feared most was there, right there beneath her right hand, beneath the cool polymer of his Glock. The memory of him holding that same side of his body as pain stole the warmth from his eyes settled in. Followed quickly by the remembered pain of loss.
“This is wrong,” she said softly.
“I want to take you home tonight,” he replied as if he hadn’t heard her protest.
“You ask too much of me.”
“It’s too much to want to protect you? Too much to believe you should be safe?”
Her body still vibrated from his touch. When her eyes darted to the bed near her and his followed, a flood of heat arrowed from her breasts to between her legs.
“It doesn’t have to be that way. As much as I would love to carry you to that big bed over there, it doesn’t have to be like that. Let me keep you safe.”
Safe. She would feel safe with Justin. No longer alone, no longer afraid. But who would keep her safe from him? Being with him felt so right, so natural, and powerful. That was dangerous. She’d been that route before, had stood on that precipice of pain and loss and she was in no rush to return. This time, she didn’t think she would survive.
“No.”
“Paige—”
“I can’t, Justin,” she argued, hating the waver in her voice but unable to control it.
He slipped his left hand into his pocket and sighed. “I don’t think you should stay here. You’re alone, vulnerable. The businesses around yours are all closed for the night.”
A chill worked through her at the reminder. “Do you think whoever was in my house will come back?”
“Probably not. Still, I think you should reconsider.”
“No.”
Frustrated, he scrubbed a hand over his face. “Are you always this hardheaded, or is it just me?”
“I’m sorry, Justin. It’s just…” She ran her tongue over her dry lips, then immediately regretted it when she discovered she could still taste him. “I can’t get involved with you.”
“You called me. Not the other way around.”
“That was a mistake. I shouldn’t have called you. I should have let the responding officers do their job and left it at that.�
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“A mistake?”
“I can’t get involved with you…without letting you matter. I don’t want you to matter to me.”
An emotion she couldn’t identify came and went in his gaze. “I see. If you won’t reconsider, then you need some form of self-protection.”
The muscles in her spine went taut. Justin continued talking, unaware of her growing tension.
“I can’t believe I’m even suggesting this, do you know how to use a handgun? My back-up weapon is in my trunk. I could show you how to use it safely.”
“I hate guns.”
“You need to be able to protect yourself.”
“No.”
“Damn it,” he growled, right hand fisting against his thigh. “I can’t help you if you won’t help yourself.”
Her body began to tremble. She took a small step backward. “You don’t understand.”
Eyes narrowing, he studied her face. His hand unclenched as the temper faded from his dark, brown eyes. “Paige,” he assured her softly, “knowledge reduces fear.”
The pain in her stomach increased even though his words were meant to soothe. He didn’t understand. She would have to make him.
On legs suddenly weak and unsteady she crossed the room to her roll-top desk. In the center drawer, just beneath a scattering of unopened junk mail, she found it. In the exact spot she had placed it years before when forgetting was paramount.
The knots in her stomach tightening with every passing moment, Paige removed the black plastic case and set it atop the desk. The lid slid open easily and there it sat—more firepower than a woman like her needed. Rick’s voice played back in her mind as with practiced skill, she checked the chamber, the safeties, then locked the fully loaded magazine into the handle.
Guns don’t kill, P.C., people kill. Even so, you’ve got to respect the weapon, respect the power.
Respect the power. She respected it all right. She knew guns, how to break them down, clean them and put them back together. She knew how to shoot. She also knew firsthand the deadly force they were capable of.
Sometimes, Paige thought, knowledge only feeds fear.
Surprise rippled through Justin at the skilled way Paige handled the handgun. She’d gone so pale, seemed so shaken by his offer of a gun, he’d assumed her fear stemmed from naiveté. Yet her movements appeared second nature, as if demonstrated by one who handled such power daily. Her body might tremble with emotion, but her hands were steady, competent.
Questions ran through his mind. What was a woman with such unbending animosity toward violence doing with a nine millimeter Beretta stashed in an unlocked drawer? Or, perhaps more importantly, where had she gotten it? He knew, for he’d gathered all the information he could find on her just a few days before, that she had no license for such a weapon.
His whole body tensed. Just what other surprises did she have up her sleeve? “You do know that I could arrest you for possession of an unlicensed handgun.”
“You won’t.”
“What makes you so sure?” She wouldn’t come home with him and he knew better than to suggest he spend the night on her couch. What if he was wrong and her intruder returned to finish the job? If she spent the night in a holding cell awaiting arraignment, at least she’d be safe.
“You just offered me the use of your sidearm.”
He’d offered her his back-up weapon. Damn it, since when did he put his neck on the line like that? He’d always done things by the book. He respected the law he swore to uphold. He didn’t break rules or push boundaries. At least not before he met her.
“Where’d you get the Beretta, Paige?”
She sighed audibly, returned her attention to the gun in her hand. “It’s Rick’s old service pistol. It didn’t help him much, did it, Justin?”
He didn’t have an answer for her. She didn’t wait for one.
“I hate guns. I hate being afraid, but I hate guns more. I won’t use one. Ever.”
“Then why did you keep it?” he asked with a casualness he didn’t come close to feeling. “Why have it at all?”
Her responding laugh was humorless and filled with irony. “I don’t really know. So I never forget?” As she spoke, she removed the magazine, replaced the weapon and closed the lid of the box with a snap. “Like I could ever forget.”
She squeezed her eyes closed, opened them a heartbeat later. He had the sudden, uncomfortable feeling that as she stood before him, surrounded by darkened windows that looked out at a mild San Diego night, it was not him she saw, but another man and another city.
“The thing about knowledge is that it can sometimes work against you. I know all too well the damage that can be done even with the smallest caliber handgun.”
Her words, the pain in her voice and the far-away look in her eyes, twisted him up inside. He knew better than to go to her, but closed the distance between them anyway. “I’m sorry,” he said, brushing the tips of his fingers across her cheek.
Her hand reached out for him, settled lightly against his left side, just below his sidearm. “What about you, Justin? Do you know, too? Is that what happened to you?”
Her words splintered through him. He swore softly and stepped back, forcing her to drop her hand. “That doesn’t matter now.”
“I think it does. I think it matters a great deal.”
What could he say that wouldn’t add to the fear already churning through her? “Paige, please, we need to discuss getting you out of here.”
“I’m not leaving. I won’t be driven from my own home.”
“You shouldn’t be alone.”
She lifted her chin, determined to show him strength even while her hands shook. “I’ll be fine.”
Frustration wound deeper. He rolled his shoulder where his muscles knotted painfully. “Listen to me—”
“You aren’t going to tell me are you?”
He set his jaw.
“Why not?”
Because she mattered to him. Because the truth about what happened to him six months ago would hurt her, push her away and he didn’t want that. Not when he ached to draw her back into his arms, ached to have the sweet, potent taste of her swimming through his system again.
Too late he realized his silence had the same effect on her. Already, her eyes were going cold and distant as she pulled her emotions tightly under control. Only this time, it wasn’t fear she wanted to keep at bay, but him.
The knowledge stung. It didn’t matter that by distancing herself from him—emotionally and physically—she was probably doing him a favor. He’d already spent enough time thinking of her when he should have been concentrating on his job. Recalling the scent of her, the feeling of rightness that filled him when he held her in his arms. When he was supposed to be reestablishing his place in the department.
He needed to remember that any further involvement with her would be a colossal mistake. That he couldn’t afford the distraction Paige Conroy represented.
Still, the ache in his chest as she withdrew even further took him by surprise.
“Tempting as your offer is,” she said quietly, as she eased across the room. “I won’t go home with you. I can’t sleep with you, Justin. You say it doesn’t have to be that way, but you and I both know that’s the way it would be.” Her arms slid around her middle. Her gaze met his. “You’re a risk I can’t afford to take.”
