A Heart Decision (11 page)

Silence reigned over the dark room for several
minutes. Being in bed with him this way made her yearn to be his
wife more than ever. But even if he was emotionally able to make a
commitment to her, his viewpoint on cops and marriage would hold
him back. She rubbed her cheek against his muscular bicep. “Luke?
Can I ask you a question?”

“Uh-huh.”

“When we were kids, you always said you wanted to
teach high school social studies and coach football. What made you
decide to major in law enforcement instead of teaching?” When he
didn’t answer, she shook him. “Well?”

“I said you could ask. I never said I’d answer.”

“You can be such a jerk sometimes.” Particularly
whenever she tried to get inside his head. “Did it have anything to
do with losing Nicco to drugs?”

During Luke’s sophomore year in college, his brother
had died from his second overdose in less than two years.

“Yeah,” he rasped. “It had a lot to do with it. As
well as finding out my dad—”

When he clammed up, she leaned over him. “What about
your father?”

“Nothing. Forget I mentioned it. It’s late.”

“No, I won’t forget it. What did you find out about
your father?”

Luke heaved a tortured sigh. “When my dad’s car ran
off the highway the night he died, it wasn’t an accident.”

“He didn’t fall asleep at the wheel?”

“No. He committed suicide.”

She gasped and covered her mouth. “Oh, God, no. How
can you be sure? Didn’t the police rule it accidental?”

“Yeah, but two days later, my brother got a letter
from my father, explaining why he’d done what he had. He’d made it
look like an accident so my mom would get the life insurance from
his job. After Nicco overdosed the first time, he showed me the
letter. Coping with that and keeping it a secret is what started
him getting high.”

“You were older than Nicco. Why’d your dad send the
letter to him?”

“Because, at the time, he figured I was too pissed
off at him to deal with it.”

“What were you mad about?”

“The night before, he caught me reading a Playboy
magazine instead of doing my homework. He went off like a bomb with
a short fuse and beat the crap out of me.”

“But you weren’t doing anything other teenage boys
don’t do.”

“I know. But my mother had just told him what I’d
done to your Barbie and Ken dolls, and that was what he’d come to
talk to me about.”

“Oh, my gosh.” Now she felt awful about bringing
that incident up at her party.

“He called me a pervert for doing something so
smutty to a little girl’s doll. It was like he thought I was trying
to corrupt you. And then, four years later, I learned he killed
himself the next night,” he whispered absently, as if he were
speaking to the walls.

“Oh, Luke.” She put her arm around him. “I’m so
sorry. I’m sure he didn’t kill himself because of anything you did.
You were just a horny thirteen-year-old.”

“Almost fourteen. Ben and Tyler don’t know about my
dad taking his own life, so keep it to yourself, okay?”

He hadn’t even told his best friends? It shouldn’t
surprise her. Luke was an intensely private person.

His father’s suicide must have devastated him. He’d
been extremely close to his dad. Sal Marino had spent hours playing
with his sons and had always included Tyler. Whereas, her father
had always been too busy hiding from bookmakers and loan sharks to
pay attention to them. Without Sal Marino in his life, her brother
never would’ve had the example he needed to become the good father
he was today.

She remembered how swollen and battered Luke’s face
had been and the sling he’d been wearing for a dislocated shoulder.
“At your father’s funeral, you told us you’d been roughhousing with
Nicco and fell off the top of your bunk beds.”

“What’d you want me to say—that my father had
flipped out and put me in the emergency room? He’d never laid a
hand on any of us before, and losing control like that scared
him.”

Apparently, the incident had driven his father into
an even deeper depression than he must have already been suffering.
She couldn’t imagine a perceptive woman like Teresa Marino not
seeing he had some sort of a problem.

“When his temper got so short, didn’t your mom
suggest seeing a doctor? Sudden personality changes like that can
be triggered by many different pathological causes, most of which
can be treated. He could’ve—”

“Brina, I’ve already told you way more than I
should’ve. Just go to sleep.”

“But Luke, I really—”

“Please. I don’t want to talk about it.”

Despite that he’d shut her out
again
, it gave
her a warm feeling to know he’d shared as much as he had with
her—especially when he hadn’t told anyone else. “Thank you for
trusting me.”

He rolled back toward her and wrapped her in a
desperate embrace that ignited a spark of hope. Maybe one day he’d
introduce her to some of his other demons.

There wasn’t a doubt he had more than a few. Luke’s
attitude had undergone a complete transformation in college.
Practically overnight, the cautious, responsible guy she’d grown up
with had transformed into a reckless daredevil who seemed to have
lost all reason for living.

At the time, everyone had seen his risk-taking as a
way of coping with his brother’s first overdose. But if that had
truly been the case, in the last fifteen years, Luke should’ve come
to terms with his loss and given up jumping out of airplanes or
throwing himself in front of drug dealers’ cars.

There had to be something more behind his propensity
for danger than simply unresolved grief. For some crazy reason, it
seemed Luke had a death wish.

Was it possible he’d died and gone to heaven? Or
maybe he was simply dreaming. Luke buried his face in Sabrina’s
silky hair and breathed in her powdery scent. If not, there must be
some doozy of an explanation for why she was in bed with him. He
would never let that happen outside of his fantasies.

Whatever the reason, he refused to ruin a perfectly
good dream dissecting the how and why of it. Only a fool would deny
himself the chance to enjoy the inexplicably real feel of her
curves pressed against his naked body and her incredible scent in
his nostrils.

He pressed his morning erection against her soft
bottom and froze when she whispered, “Are you awake?”

Okay, so it wasn’t a dream. All the reasons for
Sabrina’s presence flooded back as the pain in his ankle and wrist
reminded him of the previous day. Maybe if he pretended to be out
cold, he could slip back to sleep and enjoy holding her for a few
minutes without any guilt-pangs ruining the experience.

He slowed the rise and fall of his chest to deep,
steady breaths and basked in the pleasure of her cuddled in his
arms.

“I guess not,” she murmured as she gently extricated
herself from his clinch and flipped her half of the sheet over him.
A minute later, the radio he kept on the shelf over the toilet
turned on along with the water in the shower.

Luke rolled onto his back and imagined Sabrina
dragging his T-shirt over her head. The glass stall clicked shut
inside the bathroom, and, for some strange reason, the sound of the
water and the music grew louder.

He pried his eyelids up just in time to glimpse
Dusty’s tail squeezing into the bathroom. Sabrina must not have
closed the door completely. Once the dog’s body set it in motion,
gravity in the settled old house finished pulling it open.

Luke reached over his head in a long stretch and
stiffened.

Holy crap
. The large mirror above the dresser
sat at exactly the right angle to allow a clear view of the mirror
over the bathroom sink. Talk about perfect triangulation.

He couldn’t help staring at Sabrina’s reflection
dancing in the shower as she soaped her breasts and wiggled her
hips, singing along with an old Rod Stewart song.

As the dog scampered back out of the bathroom, Luke
scooted further up in the bed to improve his perspective and
murmured, “Dusty, you brilliant puppy, you’re gonna get an extra
dog biscuit for this.”

In fact, if the mutt promised to open the door every
morning, he might even let him sleep in the bed.

Sabrina’s sudsy hands slid up and down her
glistening body in time to the beat as she dipped into a deep knee
bend and gyrated her way back up, singing, “
Tonight’s the
niiiight
....” Shimmy, shimmy—bump—grind.

He shifted his hips and groaned. Sabrina’s slinky
figure wiggled more seductively than any silicon-boobed stripper
he’d ever seen dance. And in his line of work, he’d seen plenty.
She might not have the overly voluptuous body of an exotic dancer,
but she certainly had the moves down pat.

Maybe he’d fallen back to sleep and actually
was
dreaming.

Evidently, his father’s beating hadn’t been enough
of a lesson on what it meant to be a gentleman. Otherwise, he would
tell Sabrina about the front row seat he had for her sexy shower
dance.

Then again, with the way she’d been coming on to
him, she’d probably turn up the heat on her performance.

Of course, he could simply not watch.

Right
. He snorted. That was like telling
himself not to look down at the pavement while talking a jumper off
a ledge.

No matter how hard he tried to drag his gaze away
from the mirror, it insisted on darting right back to it. Even
Dusty chewing on the corner of the sheet wasn’t enough to distract
him for more than a second.

Maybe he should’ve let Sabrina talk him into buying
a shower stall with frosted glass, after all. At least it would’ve
distorted some of the details.

Once she finished shampooing her hair, she spun the
faucet to off and stepped out of the shower, revealing the tan
lines framing her golden curls and alabaster breasts. As she arched
her back to towel her hair dry, her nipples stood erect, making his
mouth water.

The puppy tugged on the sheet, dragging it over
Luke’s erection, cranking up the intensity of his arousal. “Dusty,
no!”

Sabrina’s gaze snapped to the open door and locked
with Luke’s in the mirror. They stared at each other’s reflection
for several pounding heartbeats while she wound the towel around
herself and secured it.

“Please tell me you’ve acquired psychokinetic
powers, and you haven’t been hopping around the bedroom.”

“The dog pushed the door open,” Luke rasped in a
thick whisper.

She strode to the bed and leaned in front of him to
check the mirror from his perspective. Straightening, she locked
her gaze on the steep peak in the scrap of sheet still draped over
his hips. “How long has the door been—”

“A long time.” The pressure in his groin and the
weight of the fabric made him feel as if he’d swelled to tent pole
proportions and could support the big top at the circus.

“So then you saw—”

“Do you want me to tell you I didn’t notice? Or do
you want to hear how luscious you looked covered in bubbles?”

“I want you to tell me the truth.”

“The truth, huh? You mean you want to hear that I
like watching you dance around naked? And that watching you lather
yourself gave me a woody like—” He gasped as the puppy yanked the
sheet again, this time pulling it completely off his aroused body,
leaving him stark naked except for his cast and Ace bandage.

Now he knew why dogs were a delicacy in some
cultures.

She gaped at Luke’s erection as if he were a
sideshow freak—and licked her lips. The sight of her pink tongue
made him groan. His already rigid flesh swelled another millimeter
and petrified.

“I-uhhh....” He cleared his throat. “I guess this
makes us even, huh?”

“No way.
Even
would be if you danced around
the room and wiggled your tushy for me.”

“See?” He grinned. “I knew there was a good reason I
broke my ankle.”

She continued to gawk at his lower half. “I guess
that whole big feet thing is true.”

“No.” He laughed. “There are lots of guys with huge
feet and a puny Johnson.” He was hung a little better than the
average fellow, but no one would ever mistake him for a porn star.
“And just for the record, I’m not that well-endowed, Sabrina.”

She swallowed with an audible gulp. “Compared to the
guys I’ve seen, you are.”

So he hadn’t been wrong when he’d surmised from her
and Ben’s teasing at the party that they hadn’t been intimate.
“Then it’s clear you’ve never seen your fiancé naked.”

“No. We’re waiting until Ben’s sure he won’t have to
compete with you for the rest of his life.”

His penis twitched from the hungry look on her face.
“So, uh, how many buck-naked men have you seen?” he smirked. “Not
counting the shriveled up old men.”

Her face flushed to a rosy hue as she tightened the
fluffy terrycloth around her. “Uhhh—three?”

Three? “I assume they were all lovers.”

“One was a forty-year-old patient while I was in
nursing school.” She looked down at her bare feet. “I guess you
might call the other two lovers. I only slept with each of them
once.”

Jeez, she was practically a damn virgin. If she
hadn’t gone back for seconds, both experiences must have been less
than satisfactory. That revelation simply increased the throbbing
in his groin.

“They weren’t one-night stands if that’s what you’re
thinking.”

“No.” He smiled. “I know you better than that. Adam
Chase was one of them, right?”

She nodded.

He’d figured as much from the regret on the
oncologist’s face whenever he looked at her.

“Adam realized it would never work out between
us.”

“So? Are you gonna wrestle that sheet back from
Dusty for me, or are you planning to leave me lying here in my
birthday suit all day? Heat spread throughout his body as her gaze
swept him from the top of his head to the toes sticking out of his
cast.