Sleepwalker

by Karen Robards

  Mick was too cold to reply to that bit of teasing with anything but a gritted “Hurry” accompanied by a deliberate chattering of teeth, followed by a reminder gasp of, “Gun slot.”

  “I’ll shut the gun slot in a minute. I still need the light.”

  “Quick is good.”

  The sleeping bag itself was comfortable, the mat beneath firm but not hard. In the corner, open slits in the face of the small stove glowed red in what looked like a toothy grin from hell, providing a minuscule amount of light while tantalizing her with the promise of heat, which so far was not forthcoming. Outside, sleet and snow continued to pelt the structure with a sound like rain hitting a tin roof. Inside, the so-far-worthless tiny little bit of fire popped and spat and emitted the faintest of charcoal-y smells. The air was frigid. Every bit of her, from her curled toes to her clenched fists to her frostbitten nose, which just poked over the edge of the sleeping bag because she had to breathe, felt chilled to the bone. With the sleeping bag pulled up practically to her eyeballs and her arms wrapped around her knees, Mick watched, impatient and shivering, as he opened the folding chair and hung her clothes on it. Then she watched with a little more interest as he stripped off himself.

  Jacket, hoodie, tee: he peeled them off in quick succession. Mick was distracted from her frozen state as she silently admired his broad shoulders and muscular torso. He wasn’t much more than a tall dark shape as he hung the items by various means that she couldn’t quite discern on the wall and elsewhere, but the shape itself was fine. When next he hopped from foot to foot, pulling off his boots, then shucked his pants with quick efficiency, she had a déjà vu moment: she’d seen this act before. And a very nice one it was, too.

  Okay, the guy was a certified hunk. It made no difference to anything. He was still a thief, she was still going to place him under arrest first chance she got and they were still stuck in this deadly game of hide-and-seek together for now.

  The enemy of my enemy is my friend. The maxim popped into her head as she watched him rearrange his coat, the one that earlier he’d given her to wear, so that it would be exposed to more of the heat, if and when any emerged from the so far under-producing stove. What a strange, twisted world it had become when her uncle and his crew, most of whom she’d been friendly with for years, had become the enemy, while the thief who had robbed them was her one ally in what was turning into a fight to survive.

  Unexpected and unbidden, an image of her apartment as she had last seen it two days ago sprang to her mind. She’d gone to Jenny’s for Christmas, so she hadn’t bothered to decorate, but still there had been holiday trappings: Christmas cards, a bag full of wrapping paper and ribbons that she’d last used on presents for her nieces, an annoying toy Santa, a gift from her younger niece, Kate, that yelled Ho! Ho! Ho! Merry Christmas! every time anyone passed the living room mantel, where it held pride of place. One bedroom, one bath, kitchen, combination living and dining area—the apartment was small but, since she lived alone, plenty big enough. It didn’t have a lot of furniture because, really, what did she need? But it was neat and clean because that’s the way she liked it. I want to go home, Mick thought, then felt a tightness in her chest as she faced the fact that the prospects of her ever being able to go home again were iffy at best.

  “All good?” he asked, turning to join her.

  Mick thrust the blues away, reminding herself fiercely that they were useless.

  “We n-need something t-to use for a p-pillow,” she told him, teeth chattering. This time he’d kept on his boxers, which she appreciated, both for the way he looked in them and for the fact that it meant she had been right: he wasn’t a creep. A creep would have taken them off under the pretext that they were wet.

  “Anything else? Make it quick.” He pivoted, hesitated, then bent, grabbed something, and was once again padding her way again fast with whatever it was in his hand. “Jesus, it feels like a refrigerator in here.”

  “N-no, nothing. I d-don’t think the st-stove’s working.”

  “Give it a minute. It’ll warm up.” His teeth were starting to chatter, too, she realized, and she would have smiled if she hadn’t been too busy shivering. A slight thunk and the fall of a denser degree of darkness accompanied his closing the one remaining open gun slot. Then he was opening the bag and thrusting his long legs down in beside her. Reluctantly uncurling from the ball she was locked in to give him sufficient space, she noticed he placed his gun on the floor on his side of the sleeping bag within his easy reach before scooting the rest of the way in.

  Okay, so they were alike in some ways.

  “Move over,” he said. The warm slide of his body alongside hers was so welcome that she arched her back, which was turned to him, against him like a cat. She was reminded again that for all his leanness he was a big guy, solid and muscular; stretched out, his body filled almost all the available space in the sleeping bag.

  “N-no r-room.”

  But even as she said it she made room, by turning toward him instinctively, like a flower turning toward the sun, and surging against him, snuggling up chest to chest, thigh to thigh. His arms came around her, gathering her close, his thigh resting partly atop hers, drawing her in, and before they were settled to their mutual satisfaction she was as close to him as peanut butter on (toasty) bread.

  “We should have blocked the trapdoor.” Having just thought of that, Mick said it with a groan. They lay on their sides facing each other, with his head on the rolled-up remaining dry clothes he’d brought to use as a pillow and her head tucked beneath his chin and resting on one of his hard-muscled upper arms. Her cheek lay against his chest. His smell was heady and comforting, familiar already, she discovered, and she classified it simply as man. His skin was smooth, his chest wide and firm with just enough silky hair to be interesting. His body heat was the most wonderful thing she had ever felt. It seemed to radiate through his skin, as if the man possessed his own internal furnace. Pressing close, still shivering although the tremors were easing some, she wasn’t about to peel herself away from it to wedge something atop the trapdoor, even if she knew it was a task that needed doing.

  “Our feet are over it. And I’m a light sleeper. Nobody’s getting up here without me hearing them.”

  “Anyway, they could just shoot through the floor.” That demoralizing thought had just occurred to Mick. The one good thing about it was that it meant that neither one of them had to disturb the slowly building cocoon of warmth enveloping them to block the trapdoor. Silver linings, as he’d said.

  He laughed. “A regular little ray of sunshine, aren’t you? I bet all your friends tease you about being such a cockeyed optimist.”

  “Optimists are the kind of people who open their doors to strange people who come knocking then are surprised to find out they’re serial killers.”

  “That would never be you.”

  “No.”

  “See, that’s the thing about cops: they’re always expecting the worst out of people.”

  “Speaking from personal experience, are you?”

  “Some,” he admitted.

  He shifted positions a little, and Mick became very aware of his thighs—hair-roughened and muscular—brushing hers, and the heaviness of his arm draped over her waist. His hand rested on her back: a big hand, broad-palmed, long-fingered. She could feel the heat of it through her tank. Her arm was around his waist, too, and her hand lay just above the waistband of his boxers. Beneath the warm sleekness of his skin, his muscles were rock-solid. Not a hint of softness anywhere.

  “How long’s your rap sheet?” she asked, just to keep what he was firmly in mind even as her breasts nuzzled up against his chest and her silky panties made the too-close acquaintance of his sturdier boxers. Way too close—for a moment there they were practically crotch to crotch. His package was solidly there, not an erection or anything, but a definite presence. Even as she identified it, her nether region experienced one of those electric tingles that made her scaldingly aware that s
uch a thing as sexual chemistry existed. Pure biology, of course: hunky half-naked male pressed close to noticing half-naked female equals tingle. Before things could get too cozy, though, she needed to take proactive steps. Which she did, by letting go of him and turning over. The action was made unexpectedly cumbersome by the close confines of the sleeping bag.

  “Surprisingly short. How long have you been a cop?”

  Not that turning over helped particularly. Her hands no longer touched him but were instead nestled between her breasts. His chest was no longer in her face, and her tingly area was out of harm’s way, but the trade-off was that her butt now curved against his crotch, while his arm still lay heavily across her waist. His hand now splayed over her abdomen, as un-ignorable as before. The problem was that whatever she did, there was no getting away from him: the sleeping bag was just too small. Even with her back turned he was big and warm and honed and right there, wrapped around her like a bun around a hot dog. Unmistakably male. Regrettably sexy. Impossible to escape. Even over the unrelenting sounds of the storm, she could hear the steady rhythm of his breathing.

  “Four years,” she replied.

  His hand left her stomach to smooth her hair. She presumed the strands were tickling his face.

  “Traffic cop?”

  “Investigator. Major Crimes.” She was proud of her promotion, but she managed to keep her voice matter-of-fact.

  “Uh-oh. I’m screwed.”

  He could joke, but she was serious. “Yeah. You majorly are.”

  “Thanks for the warning, Officer.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  His hand returned to slide over her stomach before coming to rest just below her navel. It didn’t move, didn’t attempt to caress her in any way, and the thin layer of cotton knit that was her tank kept them from being skin to skin, but she was still acutely aware of it. Just as she was acutely aware of the long, powerful thighs resting against hers, the broad shoulders curved above her own, and the solidity of the wide male chest cradling her back.

  “You aren’t married, by any chance, are you?” he asked after a moment in which neither of them moved. She could feel his breath stirring her hair.

  “No.”

  “I just thought that would explain the dateless New Year’s Eve. Married, husband had to work, you know the kind of thing: the honeymoon’s over, the thrill is gone.”

  Christ, he even thought about marriage the same way she did. Probably his parents had split when he was young. Or maybe he’d been married, and divorced. Or maybe …

  “Are you married?” she asked.

  He made a sound that was a cross between a snort and a laugh. “Two point five kids and a house in the suburbs is not the way I see my life going.”

  “I take it that’s a no.”

  His hand slid an inch or so lower as he shifted position again. It now rested partly on the lowest part of her tank and partly on the inches-wide strip of bare abdomen above her panties where her tank had ridden up. Again, his hand was heavy and warm, unmoving, no inappropriate advances at all. But the skin-to-skin contact, slight though it was, was where her attention suddenly focused.

  “Yeah, it’s a no,” he said.

  They were this intimately entwined from necessity and for no other reason, Mick reminded herself. There was nothing else going on here. Besides, until a little over twenty-four hours ago, she’d thought she was in love with Nate. But still, she could not help but realize that this guy was really starting to register on her as a man, and a very attractive man at that.

  “I’m glad.”

  “Oh?”

  “I’d hate to think you were a family man. In case you wind up spending the next decade or so of your life behind bars.”

  “Don’t you worry your pretty little head about me. What about you? There’s got to be somebody. Or have you taken a vow of celibacy or something?”

  “I had a boyfriend. We broke up. Recently.”

  “Still in the crying-in-your-pillow stage, hmm?”

  “Screw you.”

  “That’s a yes if ever I heard one.”

  “You know, I’m really starting to look forward to hauling you off to jail.”

  “Hey, it’s not me you’re mad at. I didn’t do a thing.”

  Somehow her tank had ridden up enough so that his hand was now meeting nothing but bare skin. It nestled between her navel and the waistband of her panties as if it belonged there. The pads of his fingers were slightly rough, and his palm was broad and firm and his skin was just so warm. The annoying part was that she kind of liked the way his hand felt there. And if she pushed it away or made a move to dislodge it, he might figure out precisely why.

  “You mean besides totally ruin my life?”

  “We’ve been over this. Unless you want to keep fighting about it, I think we’re just going to have to agree to disagree.”

  “I don’t agree to any such thing. You broke the law. I didn’t.”

  “That’s certainly one way to look at it.”

  Mick made a disgusted sound by way of a reply, both because arguing about this was a waste of good breath and because she was really getting distracted by what was going on below her waist. The tingle was back, only stronger and more insistent than before. The thing was, she was starting to have brief, unwelcome fantasy flashes about having his hand slide on down inside her panties. All it had to do was move a fraction of an inch lower, and his fingers could slip beneath the elastic waistband. His hand, big and hot, could slide ever lower inside the silky fabric until it covered her, then delve between her legs. …

  Mick felt heat start to curl somewhere deep inside her.

  My God, was she easy, or what?

  Reaching down toward that tantalizing hand, Mick gripped his wrist.

  Chapter

  13

  “Problem?” Jason asked, really interested in what she was going to come up with by way of an excuse for repositioning herself. Having registered the slight quickening of her breathing, her sudden stillness, and the tightening of her belly as his hand rested on it, he had a fairly good idea of what the truth was: their proximity was turning her on. He knew, because it was doing the same thing to him.

  Having had his fair share of women over the years, Jason knew the signs. When she grabbed his wrist, he thought for a moment that she was going to go all aggressive on him and take him right on down to the Promised Land, which he had to admit he wouldn’t have fought too hard to resist. But she didn’t. Instead, she lifted his hand and settled it firmly around her waist on top of her shirt, securing it there with her arm resting on top of his, holding it in place. At the same time she moved, changing position slightly, easing away from him everywhere she could, which in the end didn’t amount to much because the quarters were too tight. The sweet smell of her hair as she moved her head and the brush of her silky skin against his legs as she stretched served as a potent reminder of just how very feminine this tough cop was. Not that he really needed to be reminded: the small, tight roundness of her ass, the marked indentation of her waist, the graceful curve of her back all made it clear that it was a woman he was holding in his arms.

  A desirable woman to whom he was fiercely attracted, although he hated to admit it. See, that was the sad and sorry truth: he was hot for her, too.

  Luckily, he had heaping helpings of self-control.

  “My leg was going to sleep.”

  Good one. But he didn’t say that. Instead he said, “Speaking of sleep, we should probably try to get some.”

  “Mmm,” was her reply, which he took as agreement. She didn’t say anything more, but from her continuing relative rigidity he knew that for all she had to be exhausted, sleep wasn’t happening for her just yet. Just like it wasn’t happening for him, either. The lithe sexiness of the half-naked body in his arms was having a predictable effect. He was getting a bad case of sex on the brain, which at the moment he absolutely did not need. Those itsy-bitsy bikini panties of hers practically begged him to peel the
m off her, and that tank she was wearing revealed almost more than it hid. Just from looking, he knew her breasts were small enough that he could hold each one in a cupped palm. He knew they were firm enough not to jiggle all over the place even when she was running. He knew that they were nicely rounded, with perky little nipples of the type to amply reward some careful attention. Couple that with a supple dancer’s physique, a pretty face and the kind of badass attitude that he was discovering turned him on in spades, and he was attracted, no doubt about it. Chemistry and proximity joined forces to equal severe temptation, which he was doing his best to resist. He had little doubt that if he made a serious move, she would be his for the asking. But while that might bring immediate gratification, it came with a whole dump truck full of problems. She might be hot and he might be getting teeth-clenchingly horny, but like anything else, giving in to his instincts would bear consequences. Besides the obvious, which, of course, would include what he was fairly sure would be some pretty amazing sex. But tomorrow inevitably had to be faced, and in the aftermath of really good sex women tended to fall into one of two categories, in his experience: pissy or clingy. For better or worse, he and she had to make their way out of this disaster of a situation together. The last thing he needed was a pissed-off cop out to bring him down because she was having an I-hate-myself-in-the-morning moment, or an infatuated cop wanting to keep him close when the time came for them to part ways. Because parting ways was going to happen, and fast, too. She might have been planning to arrest him as soon as she could—hell, she had all but explicitly told him that that was what she meant to do—but he had something else in mind entirely. As soon as they were safely back in some semblance of civilization, he was going to ditch her and head for Ypsilanti, where a Beechcraft Bonanza was waiting for him at Willow Run Airport, about seven miles west of Detroit Metro. He and the cash were headed for Grand Cayman. There he would hook up with Jelly and Tina, who would already have flown out in what was their agreed-upon plan in case the shit should hit the fan, as it had. The three of them would lay low for a while, living the good life for the next few months while the smoke cleared. Then they would resume making their very lucrative living in the best way they knew how. Not that a one-night stand with Miss Tits would change any of that, really. Only besides being attracted to her he had come to like her, and doing her, then dumping her, seemed like a poor way to end what he was going to classify as a special, if brief, friendship.