Troubleshooters 05 Into The Night

by Suzanne Brockmann

  "Yeah," he said. "That's great. Because that's what apologies are all about, right? Making the person who's giving the apology feel better—feel less guilty?"

  "Ouch," she said.

  "Sony."

  "No, you're right. I'm wrong. Again. I've been wrong about an awful lot lately. I was wrong about you and me. Really wrong."

  Well, that caught Muldoon's full attention. He turned to look at her—a real, long look, not just a quick glance this time.

  "So I guess what I need to know," Joan said quietly— almost too quietly for Sam to hear, but not quite, "is whether or not you now think so poorly of me that there's nothing I can do or say to bring us back to where we were before. Well, not exactly where we were before, but..."

  "How could you even think I'd agree to going along with that crazy scheme—to actually announce my engagement to the President's daughter?"

  What the fuck.. . ? It took everything Sam had in him not to turn and look at Joan and Muldoon. But if he looked, then they'd know he was listening. He stared at Cosmo, who was making an intricate bank shot, sinking not one but two balls in opposite corner pockets. It was a beauty, but Sam's real attention was on Joan.

  "I don't know," she admitted. "I thought you might have slept with her and, I don't know. Become enthralled. I thought if that had happened, maybe you wouldn't mind spending the next two months with her. She's beautiful, and she's funny and brilliant—I mean, at least she is when she's sober."

  "Yeah, well, she's too old for me," Muldoon said.

  Joan laughed—a sharp burst of noise—but then got serious again, right away. "We had this meeting before we came into Brooke's room, and you can ask anyone who was there— I was opposed to the engagement announcement idea. And it wasn't because I was afraid of getting caught in a lie. I only said that because I was trying to present an alternate reason for them all to just leave you alone—a reason that Myra would understand. She's, um, pretty moral-free, I guess is one way of saying it." Her voice got soft. "Mike, I really hate the idea of you thinking poorly of me."

  "I'm not so keen on the idea of you thinking I would tell you what I told you—that I was crazy about you—and then kind of randomly go and have sex with someone else," Muldoon countered.

  "I thought you were angry with me," she said. "I thought you were going to try to make me jealous. Which worked."

  "Yeah?" he asked.

  She nodded. "Yeah."

  They just sat there then, looking at each other for a long time.

  "You were really jealous, huh?" Muldoon finally asked.

  "I wanted to punch Brooke in the nose. You, too," Joan added. "God, I thought maybe you got her drunk on purpose."

  "Yeah, right," he scoffed. "Nothing turns me on like a woman who's completely slobbering drunk."

  They were both silent then, and it was a silence that was loaded with some cryptic meaning. Muldoon wasn't looking at Joan anymore, and she cleared her throat.

  "Well, yeah," she said. "It's understandable that ... I mean... it probably happens to a lot of guys, all the time. It's a common enough problem, right?"

  Muldoon closed his eyes and laughed, then turned to face her. "Look, maybe I'm an old-fashioned guy, but pathetic, scotch-soaked, revenge-inspired groping doesn't do a thing to rev me up. There's no problem. I don't have any kind of a problem."

  "Okay," she said. "I hear you. Absolutely. I believe you."

  "Jesus, you're humoring me."

  "No, I'm not."

  "You don't think I know when I'm being humored? Do you really think I have some kind of a problem?"

  "It's not that big a deal to me," Joan said. "I mean, in this day and age, with a little Viagra..."

  Sam nearly choked on his beer. Oh, this was just too good.

  Muldoon stood up.

  "Where are you going?" Joan asked, but he wasn't going anywhere. He took her hand and pulled her out of her seat, too.

  And then, right there, at the bar in the Ladybug Lounge, Muldoon put his arms around Joan DaCosta and kissed the living shit out of her.

  It was like something out of a movie. Sweeping music with lots of violins should have swelled. Instead Travis Tritt wailed on the jukebox. Hello, T-R-O-U-B-L-E...

  On the other hand, maybe old Travis was the perfect sound track to this moment.

  That was no "I'm kissing you because it seems like a nice way to pass the time" kind of kiss. Instead it was a "If I don't kiss you right fucking now, I just might die" kind of kiss.

  And Jesus, if that wasn't trouble ... Sam could remember kissing Alyssa like that, and look where it got him.

  He scanned the room for any senior officers, watching Muldoon's six. An officer in dress uniform wasn't supposed to suck face like this in public, and Jesus Lord, Mikey still had the woman in a lip lock.

  And as for Joan, well, she was very definitely kissing him back.

  Unless Sam was very much mistaken, someone in this room was going to get some tonight.

  Finally Muldoon lifted his head. But the way he was looking down at the woman in his arms, he might as well still have been kissing her. It was a look that sizzled, a look that was more palpable and possibly even more intimate than a touch.

  Joan was definitely hypnotized, staring back up at him.

  Muldoon tugged her even closer, his hands on her backside, her hips tight against his, and she laughed breathlessly.

  "Okay," she said. "Point taken. I think we're both in agreement that you don't have any kind of a problem."

  "Damn right I don't."

  "I knew you didn't," she said. "I was really just jerking your chain. It was too good an opportunity to pass up."

  "The big irony is that I've been walking around like this all week," he told her. "I think you're sexy as hell, Joan. I don't need Viagra. I just need to think about you."

  This time, she kissed him.

  And oh, yeah. Muldoon was definitely on his way to GetltOnVille.

  Kiss number two lasted even longer than kiss number one.

  And when they finally came up for air, Joan managed to ask, "Do you—"

  "Yes," Muldoon said.

  He threw a twenty on the bar, took her by the hand and they were gone.

  Sam, on the other hand, didn't have such a good reason to leave.

  He watched Cosmo line up another perfect shot, hoping to hell that Muldoon and Joan had better luck with their birth control than he and Mary Lou had had.

  "Okay," Joan said to Muldoon via their cell phones, as she peered out from her hotel room doorway. "There's no one in the hall. Get your butt down here, fast."

  And then there he was, coming out of the stairwell and moving swiftly down the corridor. She opened the door a little bit farther, and he was inside without anyone seeing him.

  "That fast enough for you?" he said, still talking to her on his phone.

  "Good-bye," she said into her phone, loving the way he was looking at her, remembering those incredible kisses back in the bar. "I can't talk right now."

  Muldoon hung up his phone, too, his eyes never leaving hers.

  But he didn't move. He just stood there, watching her. What was he waiting for?

  "Kiss me," she finally had to say.

  But he shook his head. "Nah," he said.

  She laughed. What?

  "I'm going to," he said. "But I want to look at you first and... think about you some more. I do want to talk. Do you mind?" he added.

  "No," Joan said. "Of course I don't." He'd told her how he'd always watched for cues when he was with a woman, how he'd learned to pick up subtle hints as to what that woman wanted him to do to fulfill her fantasies.

  But tonight was different, she realized with something of a jolt. She was his fantasy.

  It was a rather large turn-on knowing that. But, God, the pressure was suddenly a bit intense.

  "Come on in," she said, leading the way into the hotel room. "Can I get you something to drink? Are you hungry? We could order room service if you want. This hotel ha
s a really terrific fish chowder that I for one would love to lick off your body."

  Muldoon laughed as he sat down on the sofa.

  "I'm not entirely kidding," she told him.

  "Yeah, I know," he countered, smiling at her. "That's what makes it so nice to hear."

  "I'm not sure what you want," she admitted. "I want to do this right, but you're going to have to give me a little direction."

  "Just talk to me," he said. "I just... I love to talk to you, Joan, and I just want to do it knowing that in a little while I'm going to get a chance to kiss you again."

  Oh, honey, that's not all you're going to do...

  He was adorable. He honestly didn't realize that saying / love to talk to you made her heart pound even harder.

  "It sounds kind of dumb, doesn't it?" he added sheepishly.

  "No," she said quite firmly. "It doesn't."

  "I've never been very good at talking to women, and ... you make it so easy." His earnestness wasn't an act. It was amazing. Somehow she'd found the last truly earnest and sincere man on earth. "You make me feel comfortable, and... I don't know. Eloquent almost. In control. And out of control at the same time." He laughed at himself, rolling his eyes. "Jeez, I'm not making any sense, am I?"

  He was making significantly more sense than all of the other men whom Joan had ever invited back to her room with the intention of beginning a hot romantic fling.

  Not that there had been that many of them.

  "You are making sense." Her voice sounded breathless. "That's what worries me."

  He laughed, and oh, God, he was good-looking, sitting there on the sofa in his gleaming white uniform. He'd changed his pants sometime between Brooke's suite and the Ladybug Lounge. He'd once told her that he carried a spare pair in his truck.

  "What do you want to talk about?" she asked. This was one of the few times in her life that she wasn't sure what to say.

  "Whatever you want. Whatever you're thinking."

  Joan sat down on the other end of the sofa. "Well. I'm thinking pretty much nonstop about making love to you."

  He nodded.

  "You want that drink?" she asked.

  "No."

  "Yeah, me neither," she said.

  "Will you say that again?"

  "You want that drink?"

  He just looked at her.

  "I'm thinking about you, inside of me," she whispered. "I'm thinking that simply kissing you was better than the best sex I've ever had. I want you, Michael. If you want, I'll talk the entire time, but please, please, please kiss me now."

  He moved toward her before the last words had left her lips, taking her mouth in a hungry kiss.

  It was enough to knock her over, but she went willingly, pulling him back with her onto the couch, her fingers in the softness of his hair.

  Joan had thought those kisses back in the bar were powerful, but this was unbelievable. He didn't hold back this time, because, hey, this time there was no one watching them.

  He was a man who knew what women liked, and that was more than evident—he kissed like a pro. He kissed her with the same self-confidence that had impressed her so completely when he took command of a team of men. Long, slow, sexy, soul-deep kisses designed to light her on fire—as if she weren't already in flames.

  She'd always known Muldoon was a big man, but it never quite occurred to her just how big he was—until he was on top of her like this. He almost made her feel tiny.

  He stopped kissing her, pulling back to look down at her, amusement in his pretty blue eyes. "You're not talking."

  "Yes, I am. I'm having a long internal dialogue chastising myself about how utterly stupid I was not to jump your bones that first day we met."

  Muldoon laughed.

  "Kiss me again," Joan demanded. "That's enough talking for the rest of this decade."

  He kissed her, and then—God, she didn't know how he did it—somehow he got to his feet and scooped her off the sofa.

  He actually picked her up in his arms and carried her to the bed. It was incredibly romantic—particularly since he didn't gasp or wheeze or stagger or even break a sweat.

  If she hadn't already decided that she was going to sleep with him, his macho act would have clinched the deal.

  And if it hadn't, the way he pulled back to look at her with such heat in his eyes after he gently placed her on the bed would have done the trick. Particularly when he said, "You don't know how many times I've dreamed about this."

  She had managed to unbutton more than half of the buttons on his jacket during those nuclear kisses on the sofa, desperate to feel his skin beneath her palms. She sat up now, eager to finish the job.

  He helped—so to speak—by unzipping the back of her dress and peeling her top down from her shoulders and lazily—worshipfully—kissing her neck, her throat, her collarbone.

  She had his tailored jacket almost off one of his muscular arms—no easy trick—when he pulled her dress down even farther, exposing her breasts clad only in the barely there lace of her bra.

  "Oh, yeah," he said. "Oh, yeah," and nothing he did was lazy anymore.

  He managed to shake his jacket off his arms even as he unfastened the back clasp of her bra and pulled her on top of him, so that he was on his back and her unrestrained breasts were right in his face.

  She was straddling him, her dress pushed down to her waist, and she heard herself moan aloud as he touched and kissed and licked her. Or maybe that moan was because she finally pushed his shirt up and got her hands onto his smooth, bare, beautiful skin.

  His belt buckle was digging into her, and he pushed her back a few inches. And then his erection was pressing up against the silk crotch of her panties instead.

  She had to laugh. Yeah, this man needed Viagra about as much as he needed someone to hold his hand when he crossed the street.

  "What?" He stopped his onslaught of her breasts long enough to ask, pushing her back so that he could look at her sitting up above him. "God, you're amazingly beautiful."

  It was then that Joan realized all the lights in the room were blazing. It was just slightly less well lit in there than noon on the surface of the sun.

  Thank the Lord that her dress covered her hips. Her hips may have been amazing, but they very definitely were not beautiful.

  However, her breasts—although unfashionably large— weren't too hideous. In fact, from the way Muldoon was looking at her, she didn't feel hideous at all. Except, "My right breast is bigger than my left," she felt compelled to point out.

  "That's incredibly sexy," he said. "You're the sexiest woman I've ever been with. Ever."

  "Well, that's nice," she said, "but I really kind of doubt—

  "Don't," he said. "Don't doubt it. I want you naked, right now. I want to see your tattoo."

  He pulled her back down to kiss her, his hands busy again with the zipper at the back of her dress, checking to see if he could push it even farther down.

  As far as naked went, her panties could go, along with his clothes. But Joan wanted to keep her dress right where it was, covering her thighs—and the tiny rose she'd had tattooed on her left hip in a moment of drunken madness. Of course he'd remembered that from her so-called file. Didn't it figure?

  As she kissed him, she slipped her fingers inside the waistband of his pants in an attempt to distract him.

  It worked, particularly when she slid her hand all the way down, inside his boxers, and wrapped her fingers around him.

  He made a noise, deep in his throat, and he stopped fooling with her zipper long enough to hastily unfasten his pants. She helped, and his penis sprang free. It burst onto the scene in such a happy, joyful way that she had to laugh.

  And then, because even with her somewhat limited experience she knew that laughing at the very first sight of a lover's equipment was not necessarily the most romantic thing to do, she took him into her mouth.

  From the sounds he made, all was forgiven.

  But damn, that belt buckle was still jabbing
her. His pants had to go.

  "I'll be back," she said in her best Ahnold imitation as she smiled up at him, giving him one last lick for good measure. He looked pretty damn happy and joyful about that himself.

  She pulled both his pants and his boxers down his legs as he kicked off his shoes and yanked his shirt over his head.

  And then, except for his socks, he was a naked, naked, naked man.

  And why a man like this ever wore clothes was a mystery.

  He sat up, still trying to pull off her dress, but she moved her backside out of range of his hands, taking off his socks to make the picture perfect.

  And perfect, he was.

  Suntanned skin, with springy golden hair on his arms and legs and chest. Muscles, muscles, and more muscles. Tousled wavy hair, hot blue eyes, square jaw, movie star worthy cheekbones, and that little smile that played about his perfect lips and lit his face with genuine and unabashed amusement and pleasure. And then, to top it all off, an Empire State Building of an erection that confirmed the desire that burned in his eyes.

  Even his toes were lovely.

  "Come here," he said.

  "I was going to get a condom," she said. And on the way back in from the bathroom, she was going to turn off the bedroom light.

  "I put some in my jacket pocket," he said, holding one of the little wrapped squares out on his palm. "Hope springs eternal and all that."

  He reached for her, grabbing her wrist and pulling her back onto the bed with him, kissing her mouth, long and sweet and hard. Her bare breasts were against his naked chest.

  "This is what I want," he whispered. "I want to be skin to skin with you."

  "I do, too, but I want to turn off the light first," she admitted. "I'm not as perfect as you. My ass is big. And my hips—"

  He laughed. "Your ass is sexy and I love every inch of your hips, baby. I've been dying to get my hands on you for days now."

  "Careful," she warned. "If you call me baby, I just might have to call you Junior." She looked down between them. "Or maybe not."

  He laughed, tickling her, and she shrieked, pulling away from him, leaping off the bed.

  He followed, and she backed away.