Hot air moved through her apartment sluggishly, propelled by the ceiling fans in the bedroom and living room. Wondering where he'd gone and why he'd left, Tessa pulled on a pair of shorts and a tank top before she went looking for a note. She needed the armor of clothes in case he came back.
She'd shown him too much last night and this morning. She'd read the truth in his eyes, just before she'd bolted for the bathroom. He was going to think this, whatever it was, meant more than it did.
Before she got a chance to blow-dry her hair, her buzzer echoed in the living room. Pressing the intercom button, she said, "Yes?"
"It's me. Quinn." As if she wouldn't recognize his voice.
She unlocked the door and listened for his footsteps on the stairs. Moments later, she saw him through the peephole and let him in. "Hey. Where'd you go?"
He held up a paper bag and a carrier holding two cups. "Needed more than yogurt this morning. Hope you like bagels." The scent of coffee swirled through her living room, and she had to shove her hands into her pockets to keep from reaching for one of the cups.
"Love them."
"Great. I got all the fixings for Chicago breakfast."
"'Chicago breakfast'? What's that?"
"It's what my parents used to fix whenever our cousins from Wisconsin came to visit. My uncle started calling it Chicago breakfast and it stuck."
"It's more than bagels and cream cheese?" She tried to take the bag to look inside, but he held it away from her.
"It's so much more than that. Smoked salmon, capers, avocados, tomatoes. A morning feast." He grinned at her. "We need to keep up our strength."
His gaze was light. Teasing. There was no sign of the intensity from earlier. No sign of the darkness from last night, either. She let out a breath and smiled back. "Yeah. I'm really hungry this morning."
His eyes darkened and he leaned over to kiss her. "Me, too. Let's eat breakfast. Then maybe we can work up an appetite again."
***
A few hours later, Tessa opened the door and stepped into the hall to kiss Quinn one more time. They both had to go to work, but he'd promised to try and pick her up this evening. He hadn't even asked. He'd just assumed she'd want to see him.
And she did. So much that it made her nervous. But as long as she kept telling herself that it was casual, that she could keep it that way, she would be safe. This attraction would burn itself out in a few days, or a few weeks. Really, something this intense couldn't last.
"See you tonight," he said, pulling her close and kissing her. She was falling into his spell, the kiss sending fire through her veins, when her neighbor's door opened.
"Tessa." Tessa eased away from Quinn, and her neighbor's gaze shifted to Quinn. She smiled. "Detective. It's good to see you again." Her smile faded. "I'm glad you're spending time with Tessa."
"So am I," Quinn said. He curled his arm around Tessa's shoulder and pulled her closer. She felt...safe. Protected.
Mrs. Kowalksi's gaze shifted between the two of them. "I'm glad you've hit it off," she said. "Especially now. He was back here today, you know."
"The guy you saw the other day?" Quinn's hand tightened on Tessa's shoulder. "We've been here all morning. Or most of it."
"I heard someone at Tessa's door earlier. Around ten. I opened the door to see who it was, and a man ran down the stairs. I couldn't be sure, because I didn't see his face either time, but he had the same build as the guy I saw the other day. I called the police, but when I said I'd scared him away, they said they'd come over when they had a chance." She looked from one of them to the other. "I take it they never called you or showed up?"
"No, they didn't." Quinn's hand tightened almost painfully on her shoulder. "But I can promise you I'll look into it." He looked down at Tessa and she saw the fury in his gaze. "I'm going in to work now. I'll keep you posted." He pressed a hard kiss to her mouth, then ran down the stairs.
Chapter 12
Tessa stared after him until she heard the door at the foot of the stairs open. A moment later, she heard the thump of the outside door.
"My goodness." Mrs. Kowalski grinned at Tessa. "He's very protective."
Tessa managed to shrug, although her heart was pounding. "He's a police officer. It's part of who he is."
"I mean he's protective of you, Tessa. Not because it's his job."
Tessa's face heated, but she said, "He's a great guy. What happened to my apartment was horrible, but it brought something good." She swallowed. "This man at my door. Did it look as if he had a key?"
"He was fumbling with the door as if he did." Mrs. Kowalski tilted her head. "I think he knocked. That's what caught my attention. Were you and your detective out?"
Tessa and her detective had been in bed, making love. The building could have collapsed around them and she wasn't sure she would have noticed. "No." Her face flamed. "He brought breakfast over, and we were probably doing the dishes and didn't hear the knock."
"Too bad. You might have been able to get a look at him."
"Yeah. It's a shame." Tessa shoved her hands in her pockets. "Thanks for letting us know, Mrs. K. I'm glad you heard him knock."
"I hope they catch this guy soon," her neighbor said as she entered her own apartment.
Tessa did, too. She'd been so preoccupied with Quinn since the break-in that she hadn't given her intruder much thought. And Quinn had been with her every night, so she hadn't had to deal with being alone.
The first night he had stayed out of kindness, knowing she'd probably freak out if left alone. The last two nights? Kindness had nothing to do with it. It had been all about lust. Need. Raging desire.
A picture floated in her mind of Quinn from that morning, his gaze intense, his eyes full of emotions she didn't want to name. For him, maybe it had been more than lust and desire.
Which was why she'd freaked out.
She wasn't going to think about that. He'd agreed to keep it light. Keep it easy. And if he started to push for more, she could always break it off.
Her heart clenched, and she hurried into her bedroom to get ready for work. She wasn't ready to think about breaking it off with Quinn. Not even close.
***
Quinn took a quick shower and threw on clean clothes before slamming out of his apartment. He still had an hour or so before his shift began, but he was going in now to talk to Craig Fucking Schultz in Robbery. The guy hadn't even called Tessa to tell her about the guy at her door.
Or him. Fucking Schultz could have called and let him know. Since he was dating...
Yeah. Schultz didn't know he was dating Tessa. As far as the guy knew, Quinn had turned over the case and forgotten about it. And Quinn didn't want it getting around the department that he was seeing a victim whose case he'd handled. He would never hear the end of that. Plus Mia would find out, which meant his mother would find out about Tessa.
But he was going to have a word with Schultz. He'd keep it light. Easy. Just let the guy know he needed to take this case seriously. The bad guy had come back.
Tessa had been scared.
A half-hour later, he'd tracked down Schultz, who was lounging at his desk with a cup of coffee, shooting the shit with another detective. When the woman saw Quinn coming, she spun around in her chair and booted up her computer.
Schultz sat up straight. "Hey, Donovan. What can I do for you?"
"Heard from Tessa Porter that the guy came back to her apartment this morning."
Schultz set his coffee down. "How'd you hear that?"
The other detective didn't need to know he'd been at Tessa's apartment. "She has my number." He narrowed his eyes at Schultz. "She's a little freaked out that you didn't let her know. She found out from her neighbor."
"I was going to call. I've been busy."
Quinn glanced over his shoulder, where Detective Martin was carefully not looking at them. "Yeah, I can see that." When he felt his hands curling into fists, Quinn shoved them into his pockets. "Did you go talk to the neighbor?"
/> Schultz reddened. "Not necessary. She didn't see the guy's face. Thought it was probably the same one she saw the other day. There was no point."
"No point?" Quinn moved closer, until he was standing directly over the other detective. "The guy is escalating. He came back, Schultz. What would have happened if Tessa had opened the door and the guy had been standing there?"
Schultz frowned at him. "Tessa? What's going on, Donovan? You got the hots for her? Cause you got no right to mess with my case."
"I'm not messing with anything. Although that could be arranged." Blood pounded in Quinn's head and his fists clenched in his pockets. "If this is how you work, I'm surprised you've got such a high clearance rate. Or maybe that's on your partner."
Schultz shoved his chair back as he stood up. "Fuck you, Donovan. Don't tell me how to do my job."
"Maybe someone needs to."
A hand shoved at his chest and Quinn flew backward. His twin, Connor, was standing between him and Schultz. "What the hell?" Connor said.
Schultz straightened his tie and sat back down. "Lover boy here has a bug up his ass about the woman on that 'break in and jerk off' case. He's getting all up in my grill about it."
"The guy showed up at Tessa's door again," Quinn said. A vein throbbed at his temple. "And Mr. Smooth here didn't think it was worth telling her about it."
Connor shoved Quinn backward. "He's going to, aren't you, Schultz?"
The other detective stared at Quinn for a long moment, then nodded curtly. "I'll let her know."
"Fine." Connor pushed Quinn farther away. "Thank you."
Instead of returning to his desk, Connor pulled his brother into the stairwell. "What the hell is wrong with you? Going after Schultz like that?" Connor scowled. "Everyone in the department is going to hear about this. Stop thinking with your dick, lover boy."
Quinn jerked his arm away. "The guy was at Tessa's door this morning. And Schultz didn't even call her."
Connor watched him with a level gaze. "Of course he didn't, numb nuts. It just happened, what, a couple of hours ago? The guy was gone. Schultz probably assumed Tessa was at work. He'd have given her a call later this afternoon." He punched Quinn’s shoulder, just hard enough to sting. "You know that. If it had been anyone else, you'd do the same thing."
Anger still bubbled in Quinn's veins as he held his twin's gaze. Finally, though, his head began to clear and he took a deep breath. "Maybe. Probably." He sighed. "Yeah. You're right. But Tessa was so freaked out. And I saw red."
"Were you there when the neighbor told Tessa?"
God, he should have gotten control of his temper before he got to the precinct. Then he wouldn't have gone after Schultz. Connor wouldn't have gotten involved. And Quinn wouldn't have made an ass of himself in front of an audience.
An audience that loved to gossip.
"Thanks for having my back, Con," he sighed. "For keeping me from making an even bigger fool of myself. I'm going to head back to my desk and pretend to be deeply involved in the telephone records from my case, okay?"
Connor watched for a moment, his mouth twitching. "Yeah," he finally said. "You do that, Q. That way you can pretend not to hear what everyone is saying about you."
"Thanks for that," Quinn said, shoving a hand through his hair.
"Get your head on straight," Connor said, one hand on the door as he looked over his shoulder. "That wasn't a smart thing to do."
"Yeah, I know."
The door banged shut behind his brother. Quinn closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and followed Connor back into the bullpen.
Any hope that no one else would hear about his stupidity ended an hour later when a uniformed cop plopped her rear end on the edge of his desk. "Spill, Q."
He looked up from his computer to see his sister Mia, blue eyes twinkling, grinning at him.
"Spill what?" he tried.
She rolled her eyes. "That was lame, even for you. I need deets. I heard about the big Homicide versus Robbery smackdown."
"There was no smackdown, Mia. God! Stuff gets twisted in a hurry around here."
"Yeah?" She raised one eyebrow. "You didn't have a fight with Schultz over a woman?"
That was basically what had happened. "Hell, no. We were discussing a case."
"A case involving a woman."
"Since women are about half the population, about fifty percent of them do." But he could feel the tell-tale heat creep up his neck.
"It's true," Mia crowed, pumping her fist. "Score!"
"Score what?" He tried to look bewildered.
"I bet Con that you're involved with the woman from that case. He said I was nuts. But you totally are." She pointed at him. "Admit it."
"Keep your voice down," he hissed. "Everyone's watching."
"You don't want them to know?" She leaned forward and lowered her voice to just above a whisper. "Bring her to our next Sunday dinner. Once she's part of the family, my lips are sealed."
"Hate to break it to you, kid, but coming to Sunday dinner doesn't automatically confer family status."
"You know what I mean. If you're dating her, then we don't gossip about her. To anyone. So are we good?" She raised that damn eyebrow again.
"No, we are not good. Yes, I answered a break-in call the other night because I was just pulling into my parking lot and it was from the building next door. Yes, it was a woman's apartment. But that's it."
Mia studied him, and that knowing blue gaze, so much like their mother's, burned into him. "You are so lying. You've got something going with her."
"Fine. I took her out for a burger afterward. She was shaken up and I wanted to distract her."
"Since you crawled up Schultz's ass all the way to his tonsils, I'm guessing that you were successful with your distraction techniques."
Why did his sister have to be assigned to this precinct? It was bad enough that his twin was here. But Mia had prying down to an art. And she was scary good at it. "Look, Mia. It just happened a few days ago. Yeah, I've seen her since. But it's casual. There's nothing going on."
"Good. Then you won't mind bringing her to dinner in a couple of weeks."
"Hell, no. I don't want to scare her away," he said.
"The Donovans? Scare someone away?" She slid off his desk with a cheeky smile. "Not going to happen. We're known far and wide for our charm. I'm looking forward to meeting her."
Oh, God. He didn't think Mia would follow through with her threat and tell everyone in the precinct about his...relationship with a victim from a case. But the truth was, he wanted to bring Tessa to his family dinner. He wanted her to meet his brothers and sister and his mother. It was probably way too soon. They barely knew one another.
But it felt right. Maybe tonight he could convince Tessa to join him.
***
Quinn had been on edge all day, wondering if the perp had gone back to Tessa's apartment, worried that he wouldn't get away in time to pick her up and drive her home. He didn't want her walking into her apartment by herself, worried about who might be waiting for her.
He worked through dinner to finish his paperwork for the previous night's case, then sprinted for the door the moment the clock hit eleven PM. If he lingered and a case came in, he would be stuck here for hours.
By the time he reached the hospital, it was twenty past eleven. He pulled up where Tessa exited, scanning the area in case she'd already left. The parking lot was deserted, the streetlights casting narrow pools of yellow on the sidewalks below. The areas away from the streetlights were way too dark.
As he pulled his phone out of his pocket to call Tessa, she walked out the door. She stood on the sidewalk for a moment, scanning the parking lot, and his heart speeded up. She was looking for him.
Throwing his car into gear, he crept forward until he was beside her and rolled his window down. "Hey, gorgeous, you need a lift?"
Tessa turned her head and spotted him. Even in the dark, he could see the smile fill her face and crinkle the corners of her eyes. "Qu
inn." She yanked open the door and slid onto the seat. "Hey. I'm glad to see you."
"Not crazy about walking into your place alone?"
Her smile faltered. "I wasn't thinking about that. I was just glad to see you. Is that why you're here? Because you think I'm scared to go home?"
He was an idiot. "Of course not." He leaned over the seat and pulled her close for a kiss. When her mouth opened beneath his, he eased away. He wasn't going to start something in the parking lot of the place Tessa worked. "I'm here because I want to see you. But I was afraid I wouldn't make it on time and I hated knowing that if I didn't, you'd have to go home alone."
"I went home alone every night before I met you." She watched him steadily, but her eyes twinkled.
"Yeah, but tonight you're stuck with me." And a lot more nights after this one, he hoped.
She leaned over and kissed him quickly, then backed away. "I'm glad I am. Thanks for picking me up."
"My pleasure." He shifted into gear and drove onto the street. "You interested in getting a burger at Oscar's? I didn't get a chance to eat dinner."
"That sounds great. I liked that place." Her face flushed, and he remembered sitting in the booth across from her, his cock out of control, and wondering if she was feeling anything close to what he was. From the look on her face, he'd say the answer was yes.
"Yeah, it's a good place." He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. "They have music on Friday and Saturday nights. The Friday band is pretty good. Maybe we could go sometime."
She swallowed. Then she said, "I'd like that." Her voice was husky and her face was impossible to read. He wondered what she was thinking.
"How was your day?" she asked. She glanced at him. "Did you, ah, finish that case from yesterday?"
"Did the paperwork. Took most of the day, since we had to coordinate stuff with the suburban departments."
"No new cases?"
"No, thank God. Otherwise I would still be at the precinct."
The car rumbled over the street, the lights flashing on and off her face. After a few moments, she said, "Detective Schultz called me today. He told me that the guy had been at my apartment this morning."
Watch Me (The Donovan Family Book 2) Page 11
