All Tied Up

Remarkable, he thought, and found himself wanting to smile again. “Later.” The mattress was starting to call him to slumber. “Come here.” He urged her to turn around, her back to his chest.

She snuggled against him without argument, a surprised sound sliding from her mouth as he settled his erection against her backside. “You’re hard again.” She said the statement as if she’d just noticed, which they both knew wasn’t the case.

“Hmm,” he murmured. “I seem to have an unlimited appetite for you, even when I’m exhausted. In fact, I was thinking of some delicious ways of using the rest of the honey that room service brought with my biscuits.”

“Were you now?” she purred seductively.

“Oh, yeah,” he whispered near her ear, as he nuzzled her neck. “It’ll taste much better on you. I’m sure of it.”

A soft, sensual laugh slid from her lips, and she snuggled against him, her hips doing a sexy little wiggle. Then she sighed and seemed to melt, as if she were giving herself to the bed, to the need to sleep. Maybe to him. Yes. To him. Another time he would analyze why that idea appealed to him so much.

A full minute passed in which he assumed she was falling asleep until her tentative voice filled the air. “What was his name?”

His gut clenched. He hated talking about his brother. “Antonio.”

“Younger or older?”

“Younger by five years. He was twenty-seven when he died two years ago.”

One second, two. “You felt protective like I do about my sister.”

“Yes,” he whispered. “Kind of ironic considering he was tough as nails and made his living protecting others.”

She maneuvered to her back and touched his cheek before settling on her side to face him. “The horrendous crimes we see give us a reality no one else has. We know how easily life can be stripped away, without reason. How can we not? I eat breakfast, lunch and dinner reading case files telling gruesome stories with graphic pictures. You see those things firsthand. I can’t imagine what that is like.”

“It’s part of our job,” he said, realizing he’d had this conversation once before. With his brother.

“The job doesn’t come without consequences. We have to deal with what we see, and it’s not always easy.”

But it was easy for him. He felt nothing. Hadn’t since about a month after his brother’s death. It was how he’d survived Alvarez. “Somewhere along the line I found a way to switch it off. I feel…nothing. Not really. Not often.”

She made a disbelieving sound. “Yes, you do. I’ve seen the intensity in your eyes when you talk about Alvarez and Carlos. You found a way to tuck your emotions into some corner of your mind, but the feelings are still there.”

“Is that how you deal with your past?”

“Yes,” she replied, a hint of pain lacing her tone. “I’ll be glad when I get as good at it as you, though. Being responsible, even indirectly, for a murder makes for a lot of sleepless nights. I keep thinking if I win enough cases, put enough criminals behind bars, I’ll forgive myself, but so far it hasn’t happened. Maybe it never will.”

Guilt stabbed at his gut yet again. “I shouldn’t have brought that up in the car. You were right. I acted like a jerk.”

A smile touched her lips. “Yes. You did.”

“Does it help to know I regret it?”

“Not much, but some.” Her fingers slid into his chest hair, her eyes dropping to her hand.

He pulled her close, hand on her firm backside. “You’re cutting me no slack, I see.”

“It was mean,” she said, her gaze lifting.

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“Are you? Or do you deep down despise me for what I was?”

Pulling her leg over his, he slid his now throbbing erection back between her legs. “Does that feel like I despise you?”

“Wanting to fuck me is no indicator.”

Her words, cold and bitter, caught him off guard. Before he could stop himself, he admitted what was better kept unspoken—since there could be no future for them. “There is more to what is going on with us than simply sex. And we both made assumptions about one another that weren’t exactly true.” His knuckles caressed her cheek, his voice tender. “You’re brave, sexy and, I am beginning to learn, way too hard on yourself.” He framed her face with his hand and gently met her lips with his. When he pulled back to look into her eyes, he saw that same vulnerability he’d seen while they were making love. If he didn’t get her to sleep soon, he was going to find his way back inside her again. “We should rest.”

She nodded. “Yes.”

He eased onto his back and took her with him, settling her head on his chest. She wrapped her leg around his, and the act warmed him inside out. Yes, this woman did things to him. He ran his hand down her back—this moment in time too perfect to explain. He stilled, savoring the feeling.