The mere possibility turned him on, not physically but in some other, more profound way. He wanted her to tell him she adored Sean and Erin—and if she did, he wouldn’t be able to keep from making love to her again, deep, powerful, shoot-the-moon love.
“My work is my life because I’ve never trusted anything else,” she went on, apparently thinking out loud. “I trust my sister, of course, but...there was nothing else.”
“There’s something else,” he murmured.
At last she turned and looked at him. “I don’t know how to deal with this, Murphy. I liked the safety of living a life that began and ended with people like Leo Kopoluski. I’d represent them, I’d give them my all, and I’d go home feeling fulfilled. Now I’ve got Leo telling me he doesn’t want the settlement I won him, and I’ve got you...” She hesitated, as if unsure how to finish the sentence.
“Yes,” he said, deciding it had reached its proper conclusion. “You’ve got me.”
“People who work with me and know me think I’m too hard, too cold—”
“They don’t know you the way I do.” He brought his hand to her cheek and pulled her toward him. “I’d rather have a hard woman than an easy one, any day. Easy is boring, and believe me, Gail, you’re not boring.”
As he deepened the kiss she unfurled, loosening her hold on her legs and relaxing her body as if his kiss was softening the hard parts, melting the cold. He lay back, guiding her above him, and let her know, in the most basic way he could, that she had him, that he was all hers and that who she was was exactly who he wanted her to be. His hands roamed up her back, across her shoulders, down to her bottom. His tongue drank her in and his body grew painfully hard beneath her.
She kissed him back. He didn’t know whether she’d untangled her feelings, and after a minute he didn’t care. “Oh, Gail,” he whispered between deep, greedy kisses. “I want you.”
She twined her fingers into his hair and kissed him again. Her hips rocked against him and he felt his control slip a few notches. Somewhere on the bed he’d left extra condoms, somewhere on the blanket... He groped until he found one, blindly tore the packet open, and nearly lost his mind when her hips writhed against him once more.
“Shh, wait—” he wedged his hands between them to ready himself, then pulled her down onto him.
He heard her gasp, but it wasn’t the right kind of gasp. Instantly alert, he moved his hands up to her shoulders and lifted her away. “I’m okay,” she said, but she wasn’t. Her jaw was tense, her eyes wide with worry.
He was out of her in an instant, just holding her against him, listening to her uneven, rasping breaths. It occurred to him, as it should have ever since she’d admitted her dislike of children, that perhaps she wasn’t the right woman for him. Perhaps she was hard—not the way she’d meant it when she’d used the word, but too challenging, demanding more than he could give her.
Yet he wanted those demands. He was willing to meet them, if he could. In their own odd way, they excited him.
“You’re a little sore, aren’t you,” he murmured into her hair.
She seemed to be fighting his hold, but he refused to loosen his embrace. “I’m a disaster, that’s what I am.”
He chuckled, wishing to ease her mind. “No. A disaster is when the nanny walks out and leaves the children alone.”
“Then what’s this?”
“This—” he stroked his hand consolingly through her hair “—is a woman who’s sore because she’s just had sex for the first time in a while. Not counting those other hundred and twenty two guys you’ve been fooling around with, of course.”
“Maybe—maybe what happened a few minutes ago was a fluke.”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“I know.” He kissed her brow. “Let’s just rest a while.”
“But I want to please you,” she said. Her voice sounded different, not disappointed but curiously energized, and determined, and a little bit apprehensive. “I do, Dennis. I want to.”
“I can wait,” he assured her. The night was long and the kids were gone. He anticipated a lot of mutual pleasing between Gail and himself before a new day arrived.
“No.” She drew back slightly, skimmed his body with her gaze, and then reached down and rolled the condom off him. “Let me do this.”
He thought about stopping her, then thought twice and settled back into the pillows. How could he stop her when her hand was so warm and silky, so sweetly tentative as she slid it over him? He pulsed in the curve of her palm and she flashed him an nervous look. He hoped his answering gaze reassured her.
She closed her hand around him. He tried to remember to breathe. Her gaze remained on his face, and he nodded his encouragement before closing his eyes and letting the glorious sensation of her caress reach his soul. If she was doing this to heal herself, great. If she was doing it to make him insane with pleasure, great.
“Should I be tighter?” she asked.
Oh, God. Tighter. “Yes.”
She squeezed. He groaned. She glided the length of him and his hips nearly bucked off the mattress.
“Are you thinking of England?” she asked in a small voice.
He laughed, but she squeezed again and his laughter died in his throat. He opened his eyes and found her gaze still on him, as if his face were a gauge, measuring his responses. “Gail,” he whispered, “you know what will happen if you keep doing this.”
She nodded, then looked away, down to her hand. Abruptly, she pivoted on the bed, then bent over and touched her mouth to him.
“Gail, don’t,” he sighed without much conviction. Her lips were damp, her tongue wet. If she kissed him he would come, there was no way he wouldn’t, and it would traumatize her, and—
She opened her mouth over him and he gasped. “Gail, no...”
She lifted her face. “It’s all right, Murphy. It’s my choice. Mine.”
He started to protest that she didn’t have to prove anything—but maybe she did have to prove something. In any case, she bent over him again and he wouldn’t have been able to shape a coherent thought even if he tried. She took him and he dug his fingers into her hair, took him again and his body tensed, took him and he gave up, yielded to her, gave her the choice she’d made.
He heard her moan, felt her shiver against him. He struggled for breath, and so did she. She rested her head against his stomach and he moved his fingers gently through her hair.
He loved her. He’d experienced love before, so he recognized it when he felt it, the fierce, possessive strength of it, the vital truth of it, the living, breathing essence of it. It didn’t have to be easy. It didn’t have to have all the ducks in a row, all the pieces locked together, everything wrapped up and tied with a ribbon. Real love included struggles and disagreements and confusion, something his first wife hadn’t understood. She’d walked away from it, and he’d gotten over her leaving, but he knew what love was from his children. He knew that ferocious desire to be everything to them, to guard them against all the evils in the world, to be exasperated by them and outraged by them and yet to know with every breath he took that they were what made his life worth living.
That was how he felt about Gail. She might not realize it, she might not have any idea what was going on. She’d never been through it before.
But he had, and he knew. He could only hope that she would learn it for herself.
Chapter Fourteen
IT STRUCK GAIL as remarkable that she could have lived the first thirty-one years of her life without ever awakening in a man’s arms. Those few ghastly attempts at sex in her past had never inclined her to welcome a man into her bed for the night, or to accept his invitation to spend the night in his.
But waking up with Murphy was as lovely as sleeping with him. Or having sex with him. Or talking with him. Or arguing.
They’d argued throughout much of Sunday, she recalled with a grin as she bounced into her office Monday morning, chipper and invigorated. She a
nd Murphy had argued over breakfast—he’d served toaster-tarts, she’d lectured him on nutrition, and he’d called her a nag. They’d argued over the Sunday paper—they’d both wanted to read the Op-Ed section first, and then they’d wound up reading it together and disagreeing about the editorials. Then they’d argued over whether Gail should accompany him when he picked up the twins at their friends’ houses. Gail thought it would be inappropriate, and Murphy had insisted that the kids would be thrilled to see her.
She’d won that argument. She wasn’t ready for Sean and Erin to be thrilled to see her, and she didn’t want them to make assumptions about her and their father—more assumptions than they’d already made, what with their little cracks about how their dad thought she was a hot babe and all.
Before the twins complicated matters further, Gail had to figure a few things out. Like, why did she feel a dark clenching in her womb whenever she thought of Murphy? Why did her lips twist into a goofy smile whenever she whispered his name? And why did the sound of his voice over the phone Sunday night, as she lay beneath the covers in her own bed, make her feel so alone? She’d slept by herself in that bed ever since she’d graduated from law school and moved back to Arlington to start her job in the P.D.’s office. The bed had never seemed particularly empty before last Saturday night.
What was the man doing to her?
She’d been asking herself that question practically from the moment she’d met him. The only thing that had changed since then was, whatever he was doing, she no longer wanted him to stop.
He hadn’t stopped Sunday morning. She would have killed him if he had. She’d awakened to him kissing her, and kissing had led to other things, wondrous things. Things that made her blush when she thought about them a full twenty-four hours later.
She sank into her chair and measured the piles of folders on her desk. “I don’t know what you guys were up to this weekend,” she muttered to her files. “But if it was anything like what I was up to, I don’t blame you.”
She was going to have to clear her mind of Murphy and all the erotic memories he churned inside her. Mondays were always hectic, and today was no exception. She had to argue a motion-to-suppress on behalf of one of her clients, and she had to reinterview the Body-Odor Maniac, because some of Nola’s notes on his case made no sense. One whiff of him in the jail’s interview room would snap her out of her reverie, she acknowledged. He was like smelling salts, only more revolting.
She lifted the Josephson file from the top of one stack and flipped it open. As she scanned the top sheet of notes, her phone rang. Without lifting her gaze, she answered the phone. “Gail Saunders here,” she recited.
“Miss Gosbozha Saunders?”
Even without the distinctive greeting, she would have recognized Leo Kopoluski’s voice. “Leo?”
“Da, is me, Leo,” he shouted through a blizzard of hissing static on the line. “You have my money?”
“Where are you calling from?” she asked. The connection was so bad, she would have guessed he was in a moving car, or perhaps on another planet.
“Is not important. I leave Arlington, is necessary, no big deal. You have my one million American dollars?”
He’d left Arlington? The news shocked her more effectively than a snootful of Odell Josephson’s distinct aroma. Her sultry fantasies of the weekend she’d spent with Murphy evaporated like dew beneath a hot sun. “Where are you?” she hollered into the phone, as if by speaking louder she could hold him closer to Arlington.
“Not important. How you say, like, no perspiration.”
“You have to tell me where you are,” she said sternly. “I’m your lawyer. I’m representing you in a civil action, and I have to know your whereabouts.”
“I cannot tell. You call YMCA, they tell you I no longer use that stupid skinny bed that I bump into wall to roll over, and wind up on floor. You get my money, Miss Gosbozha Saunders, and then I tell you where you send these many American bucks.”
“Leo, you turned down the settlement offer the Gazette agreed to,” she reminded him. “You wanted to proceed with the suit. I don’t know if I can get the newspaper to recommit to the settlement we negotiated. If you want more money, you’ve got to get your butt to Arlington. I can’t file the suit when I don’t know where you are.”
“My butt?” Leo bellowed through the static. “Like, is cigarettes?”
“Where the hell are you?”
“I cannot tell. I cannot get cigarettes to Arlington. I call you again when is possible, you get me money. We got deal?”
“We don’t have anything,” she retorted. “As long as you refuse to tell me where you are or why—”
“Cannot tell. Is very big stupid mess. I call you soon, we get big bucks, okay? I go now.”
“Leo!” she howled. The crackle in the line made her feel as if she were screaming into a tornado. The lack of a human response on Leo’s end implied that the storm had blown him away.
She lowered the receiver and groaned. Leo was obviously in trouble—God only knew what kind. He wouldn’t have disappeared so abruptly unless something had gone terribly wrong. He especially wouldn’t have disappeared without his big American bucks.
She dug her fingertips into her aching temples. In front of her, Nola’s notes on Josephson blurred. At least she knew where he was—under lock and key, a reeking guest of the county. He wasn’t going anywhere. His case could wait.
Leo’s case couldn’t. The man was already gone, either causing trouble or in trouble. She had to figure out which one.
Her anger and frustration with him erased the last vestiges of warmth that had remained from her weekend with Murphy. She wanted to throttle Leo, not just because he’d rejected the excellent settlement she’d worked out for him last week but because he was jerking her around. He was up to something, and if it was something good he would have told her.
As his attorney, she was supposed to observe lawyer-client confidentiality. However, lawyer-client confidentiality didn’t extend to things the client refused to tell the lawyer. Leo wasn’t being truthful with her. He’d already breached the lawyer-client relationship. At this point, she could make inquiries without violating her professional ethics.
Drawing her telephone closer, she lifted the receiver and punched in a number. After a single ring, the phone was answered: “Arlington Police Headquarters. This call is being recorded.”
“Can I have Detective John Russo?” Gail didn’t trust policemen, but she distrusted her brother-in-law less than anyone else in the department.
“One minute, please.” Gail listened to silence as she was placed on hold.
A click, and then John’s voice came on the line. “Detective Russo.”
“John, it’s Gail,” she said, then took a deep breath. She and John had forged a peace over the past few months. It hadn’t been that hard, given that they had in common a deep, abiding love for Gail’s sister. “Can you spare a minute? I’ve got a situation.”
“I’ve got a minute,” he told her.
“I’ve been working with an old client of mine, Leo Kopoluski. He was mentioned in the Gazette in connection with a crime ring a couple of months ago, and he wanted to sue the newspaper for libel. We’ve been negotiating with the Gazette, making progress. They offered him money to leave them alone, and he accepted the offer. Then he changed his mind and decided he wanted to sue. Now he’s taken a powder. I don’t know where he is. I smell something fishy here.” It smelled at least as bad as the Body-Odor Maniac, she added silently.
John said nothing. That was his way, she’d learned. John Russo spoke little, but he was an excellent listener.
“Leo did time for theft a couple of years ago. He was working for a cousin of his who’d come to the U.S. ahead of him and was helping him settle in as a legal alien. Does any of this ring a bell?”
“It’s ringing gongs,” John told her.
“Help me out,” she pleaded. “I probably shouldn’t even be telling you any of this, but
I’m worried.”
“Worried that Kopoluski is in danger?”
“That, too.” She sighed. “Worried that he’s taking me for a ride.”
Again John fell silent for a few seconds. “A couple of women were arrested yesterday on burglary charges,” he said. “The name Kopoluski came up.”
“It did?” She sat straighter.
“These baby-sitters say they’ve stolen small appliances from the families they worked for. That’s Kopoluski’s old collar—small electronics theft. They claim he’s fencing for that crime ring in New York. They’re shipping the appliances back to Eastern Europe and making huge profits on the black market. Just like the story said in the Gazette.”
She shouldn’t have been surprised that John was aware of the news report that Leo had considered libelous. The police had been the reporter’s primary source on it. For all Gail knew, her own brother-in-law might have been working the case. He never would have mentioned it to her, though. As a Public Defender, she was on the wrong side, as far as he was concerned.
“Baby-sitters,” she repeated.
“Nannies. Whatever.”
“Do you have their names?” she asked.
“Who, the nannies?” He paused. “I’m not sure you need to know. You’re not representing them. They’re already lawyered up.”
“I’m asking for a friend,” she said, thinking of Murphy’s nanny, the one who’d vanished from his apartment under mysterious circumstances.
John didn’t respond.
“I’m giving you information about Leo Kopoluski.”
“What information? Do you know where he is? We want to bring him in.”
“I want to bring him in, too,” she groaned. “I wish I knew where he was. I can tell you he was living at the YMCA, and he had no money. He said he’s going to call me again. He wants me to get money from the Gazette in his absence.”
“He’s a nut.”
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