by Jenna Kernan
She didn’t.
Instead she faced him as she slipped off her boots. She reached behind her back. He heard the sound of her zipper descending. Then her hands moved beneath the hem of her dress and she drew the opaque black tights down, exposing a peek of lacy under things and her firm thighs. She stepped from one foot to the next and the tights came off. Selena straightened, her hand now moving to the shoulders of her dress. She lowered the garment to her waist and let it drop, stepping clear of the puddle of gray wool, revealing herself to him. He stopped breathing.
The black lace panties and matching bra accentuated her lovely breasts, exposed her trim middle and clung to her full hips. Selena wore no slip, just the enticing under things. Was it possible that she was even more beautiful than his memories of her?
His breath came fast now, and his fingers itched to take her.
Selena bent to retrieve her dress. The movement, the play of light on satiny skin and black lace, made him twitch. He had to remember this, how she looked and smelled and tasted.
He reached her in two steps. Her cool fingers glided over fevered skin as she unbuttoned his uniform, exposing his chest. She hung his shirt neatly on the rack and startled when he scooped her up in his arms. Selena clung and laughed, the sound sweeter than birdsong to his ears. He stretched her out on the couch and sat to unlace his boots. She used her foot to stroke his back and then scissored him between her long legs. He tugged her up and she slipped onto his lap. He read the hunger in her eyes and something else. Did she also fear it couldn’t last?
Was she also collecting memories for the cold nights ahead? His heart ached as he looked at her. Why couldn’t he have her? Not just tonight, but every night?
The answers crowded his mind until Selena pressed forward, rubbing up against him and stroking his back. All objections fell away. He slipped the narrow straps down her shoulders, savoring the feel of her warm skin beneath his fingers and the shiver of excitement she gave as his hands moved back up and over her chest.
Selena. His mind and body were ablaze with her earthy scent and sweet taste, and the arousing sounds she made as he kissed her breasts. Only his trousers and the thin scrap of lace separated them.
She pulled back. “You have protection?”
Of course he did. In his wallet, which was in his coat across the room. Why were they across the room when Selena was finally here in his arms?
He motioned with his head, unwilling to release her lovely round bottom. He considered carrying her across the room again, but she slipped off his lap, freeing him. He dashed over to his coat and rummaged. It gave him just a moment to think, but all he could think was to hurry back to her before she changed her mind. He turned to find her sitting on the couch, shadowy and mysterious. He went to her, wondering why he could never banish this woman from his heart, wishing she was not the daughter of Frasco Dosela and hoping that this evening would not come back to bite either of them in the ass.
“Stop,” she said.
He did, sure that she had come to her senses and would get up and leave him. She should. It would be better for them both. What would happen if they started this all up again? He knew enough to know that one night with Selena would not be enough. But what if it was just tonight?
The panic at that thought made him realize something. He didn’t just want to sleep with Selena. He had to sleep with her. She was why he could never find a wife. Somehow, some part of him, the part that was not careful or wise, had chosen...
“Selena?”
“Take off your pants,” she whispered.
He didn’t argue but moved slowly, watching her as she watched him. He lowered his trousers. Her eyes caressed his flesh as he removed every stitch.
He offered her the condoms and waited as she selected one, tearing the packet and stroking his ready flesh.
Gabe wanted to go slow, but that didn’t happen. If anything, Selena was more frenzied than he was. It seemed as if she also knew this time between them couldn’t last and that this moment was only a sweet pause in their troubled relationship.
Afterward, as he held her, their flesh still damp, their breathing labored, he wondered how he could make this work. How he could do his duty, keep his position and the respect of the community, and still have Selena.
He looked down at her, naked, on her side. She lay next to him on the leather sofa, one arm and one leg flung over him and her hair fanning across his chest like a black silk curtain. Her breathing slowed and her eyes remained closed, but her lips were parted. He felt himself stirring again. Wanting her already.
He should take her home before morning. Get back to his work. Instead, he pressed one hand over his forehead as his mind and body battled.
Already he was wondering what would happen if word reached Escalanti that Selena had spent the night in his office. Could he keep her safe with only his small police force?
He just wanted her safe. No, he realized. He wanted so much more. But her being here with him tonight—this was unwise. He stroked her stomach, watching the muscles tense. She shivered and her skin turned to gooseflesh.
They had been so good together. Still were. And they were even better now. So why had she called it off, cut him loose, shown him the door?
His grandmother said she had to give his ring back and that he didn’t have to take it. He’d regretted taking it. Still did. But at the time their troubles seemed insurmountable. They were worse now.
“Selena?”
She stirred, swiping the back of her hand over her forehead.
“Hmm?”
“Why did you give me back my ring?”
Selena opened her eyes, blinking at him. He felt her stiffen before she swept her leg off his thighs and she moved off and away from him.
“I have to go.” Selena brushed back the curtain of hair.
“Selena? Answer the question.”
Her expression changed as the urgency to flee ebbed and she settled to hold her ground. She lifted her chin, giving it a defiant tilt.
She pushed herself up, swinging her feet to the tile floor. She retrieved her bra and fastened the clasp under her breasts before expertly slipping back into the garment.
“This was a mistake,” she said. “Take me home.”
“No. Not until I get an answer.”
She stood and drew on her panties. He reached out to clasp her hand. She turned, facing him.
“Selena?”
Her breath hissed between her teeth. “I gave you your ring back for the same reason you brought me here tonight instead of the casino. You don’t want to be seen with the likes of me. Isn’t that right?”
He straightened as her words struck him like a slap. Indignation rose like a wave.
“I never said that.” He sat up, his bare feet joining hers on the cold floor.
“Didn’t you?”
He raked his hands through his hair and then glared at her.
“Just like last time,” she muttered.
What was that supposed to mean? And then he remembered. After she had broken it off and the trial had ended, he’d gone to her, determined to change her mind. But instead the encounter had led them both to the bed of his pickup and they’d spent one last evening tangled in each other’s arms. Why hadn’t he offered her the ring then, as he had intended?
“Hey. You’re the one who said that we should call it quits. I was just doing my job.”
She gave a humorless laugh. “Your job.”
He didn’t care for the way she spit the words, as if they were some foul taste in her mouth. His job was everything to him. It had to be. Otherwise he never would have let her go.
“I never blamed you for his arrest.”
“Of course you did,” he said, but he was suddenly uncertain and that cold place in his middle, the one that warne
d of threat, was icing up again.
“I was offering you a way out.”
Confusion filled him and he frowned.
She wouldn’t look at him now. “I thought if you loved me that...”
“What?”
She met his gaze, her eyes now glittering and as cold as the abandoned tea that sat on the side table.
“I thought you’d fight for me. That you would argue. Tell me I was wrong. That we could make it work.” She glared. “Do you remember what you did say?”
He shook his head as the cold place turned to a tight knot.
“You said, ‘Maybe you’re right.’ You were relieved.”
“No. That’s not true.” But his voice had lost its conviction.
“Because...if we were together, people would wonder about you. Question your choice in a wife and then, well, I just never wanted to hold you back. And look how well you’ve done. Promoted again and again. Solving big cases and now police chief. But it still hurt. That’s how I knew I was right.”
“Right? This whole thing is wrong. I never argued because you said that you couldn’t be my wife.”
“But not because of my dad or your part in his arrest. Because of you. A tribal officer can’t have a wife like me. You know it. I know it.”
“Selena, you’re wrong.”
“Am I? You didn’t come see me much during the trial.”
“I was busy.”
“And you only saw me at my home. You stopped taking me out in public.”
Had he? Yes. He had.
He’d even made an excuse not to take her to the Fourth of July rodeo. Made sure he was on duty the entire three days of the tribe’s big event. Gabe swallowed, seeing things differently. Was this really all his fault?
“How will you feel when everyone knows my father was working with the Feds? That Raggar picked him because he knew he could get him to move drugs again?”
“This is ridiculous.” Gabe grabbed his trousers and jerked them on.
“Answer the question,” she said.
He met her probing gaze and he knew that she had her answer.
“The story will make the newspapers and be on the Apache radio station. They’ll talk about it at the tribal council meetings. Everyone will know. They’ll know that the chief of police is seeing that woman again, the one whose father is an ex-con, a criminal. Such a shame.” Her eyes dared him to say differently.
It was true. There was talk when their engagement broke up, but mostly it was along the lines of, “It’s probably for the best.” And, “He’s too good for the likes of her.”
He’d been thankful that the firestorm of scorn and disapproval had not touched him. He’d been thankful because nearly everyone thought he’d done the right thing. And until this very minute he had never considered himself a coward. But now, suddenly, he thought that taking back the ring she offered him was the most cowardly thing he had ever done.
“I heard them,” she said. “The things they said. ‘Not a good match’ and ‘What could you expect from a girl from Wolf Canyon? Bunch of thieves and criminals up there,’ isn’t that right, Chief?”
“I don’t know what they said.”
She snorted. “I was glad when they took him. Did you know that?”
“Glad?” But that didn’t make any sense. She’d given him back his ring right after Gabe testified against her dad in federal court. That very same night. And she’d said...what? Not that she blamed him or that she couldn’t forgive him. She said that she could see “it wasn’t going to work.” And she’d left the rest unsaid. What she had meant was that their marriage was not going to work for him. Not for them or for her. Not even between then. She’d done it for him, to protect him, and he had taken the damned thing when she offered it.
Her gaze held a thinly veiled fury. He hadn’t fought for her. Hadn’t stood by her side when trouble came as he had for Clay and Kino. What had he done?
Nothing.
And his inaction proved her right.
“It wouldn’t have worked. You were right to take it back,” she said. “The job comes first for you.”
Because, without her, what did he have? Had he really chosen his job over Selena? He hadn’t meant to do that—had he?
She pressed her lips thin and then exhaled a long breath.
“It’s an important job. It’s just...” She paused.
“What?”
“I let you do it to me again. Bring me here where no one would see us.”
Gabe felt as if she had kicked him in the stomach. Had he made Selena feel like a dirty little secret? He had never intended that. He just didn’t want them to be the cause of gossip or put her at further risk by being seen with her. He’d been protecting her, hadn’t he?
Or had he been protecting himself again?
She stood now, giving him her back, her lovely shoulders hunched in shame and he knew he had done that to her, too. Selena’s words were a strangled whisper.
“Take me home while it’s still dark.”
He didn’t know if he should chalk the evening up as the stupidest thing he’d ever done, or if taking back that ring was the stupidest. He was all tangled up inside like a ball of barbed wire.
Chapter Nineteen
Just one more night in Gabe Cosen’s arms.
Selena had thought that this was what she wanted. Now, standing in her bare feet in his office as she zipped up her dress, she knew she longed for so much more.
There had been pleasure. But not the joy she’d once felt. Not when she knew that she shamed him.
Now, alone with the chief of police, her ex-lover, Selena knew her night with Gabe had only left her more aware of how much she missed him and how much she lacked when it came to being the sort of woman he wanted.
All her work making a family trucking business legitimate—she hadn’t done it for her sisters or her family. She’d done it to win Gabe’s approval. To finally be good enough.
She marveled at her own stupidity.
And the worst part was she still admired him. Gabe never dithered about his duty or what was right. He shouldered his responsibilities and he did it at the expense of all else, his safety, his family and the company of the woman he had once professed to love. Was he right?
She turned toward him, his form illuminated only by his desk lamp. She allowed herself the joy and the sorrow of watching him dress, noticing how he seemed to fill up the room.
He dragged on his dress uniform shirt and swiftly tucked in the tails before fastening his trousers and buckling his belt. He adjusted the gold shield that was the symbol of everything he was. Then he checked the grip of his pistol, now nestled in the worn black leather holster. She admired those long muscular legs as he pushed his feet into the highly polished black shoes and knelt to tie the laces. Finally he slipped into his coat.
Gabe turned to face her. He had a predatory stillness about him and she felt the hairs on her neck lift as she met his gaze and found herself the object of his steady stare.
His short black hair glistened, and she resisted the urge to run her hand up his neck to the back of his head, drape her body across his as she once had. The aching in her chest grew more painful.
Why did he always look so damned appealing?
How she would miss this. But she would not come to him again. It hurt too much.
He turned to his coatrack and lifted her jacket from among all the rest. He held it out and she turned her back on him, lifting an arm to repeat the ritual he had performed for her so many times so long ago. She slipped one arm and then the other into the coat, but instead of dropping the garment onto her shoulders and stepping back, he moved in, drawing the coat across her chest, his hands meeting and crossing as he embraced her. Gabe leaned in, inhaling the air at her neck. Her e
yes fluttered closed as his lips brushed that sensitive place beneath her earlobe.
“I’m sorry, Selena.”
She squeezed her eyes tight. Was he sorry for hurting her or sorry for tonight? It didn’t matter. She could not let this go on.
It would be so easy to let him back into her life. But she couldn’t because he didn’t want her. At least, not in the daylight.
Selena stepped out the door and he followed her out into the cold, dark night. Had it really only been hours that she had come here with him? She did not speak to him in the car on the long drive to her home and kept her head turned toward the passenger’s side window to keep him from seeing the glint of tears on her cheeks. When he finally pulled into her drive on the road that cut off Wolf Canyon, he broke the silence.
“I’ll walk you in.”
She said one word—“No”—before getting out. She couldn’t bear to have him walk beside her and abandon her on her front step yet again as if they were still teenagers. Or, worse, try to kiss her in the darkness where none but the stars above would see them.
She had little left of her shredded dignity, but she would preserve what remained.
Tonight was a mistake. She needed to move on.
He was out of the SUV and stopping her before she cleared his front fender. So much for a painless escape. The ache only grew.
“Selena,” he said. “Wait.”
Her tone was sharp. “No, Gabe. I won’t wait.”
He gave her a quizzical look, and her heart sped up just to be near him. Only this time the attraction that usually made her miserable made her angry.
“I am done waiting for you. Done with waiting for you to think I’m good enough. I love you, Gabe Cosen. I have been in love with you since I was in seventh grade. And I probably will always love you. But I am done waiting. If you don’t want me, then I will find a man who does. One who is not ashamed to be with me. A man who does not see our relationship as a conflict of interest.”
Now his jaw dropped open.
“That’s not how I feel.”
“That’s the trouble.” She pressed a finger deep into the dress coat directly over his heart. “You don’t feel. You act on reason and judgment and duty and law.”
