But Cole had only one target today.
Megan swallowed hard as his dark gaze locked on her, focused, intent. His already grim expression darkened as he assessed her companion. His eyes narrowed to icy black slits when he saw Nate’s hand covering hers.
Her core temperature went up about ten degrees, and her stomach did that stupid flippy thing it always did when he was around. She jerked her hand from Nate’s, then cursed herself for caring that Cole caught her holding hands with another man.
“I need to talk to you,” Cole snapped without preamble, not even bothering to acknowledge Nate.
Nate, ever the gentleman, gave a guarded smile and said, “You know this guy, Megan?”
“Nate Brewster, meet Detective e Williams.”
Nate stood and offered his hand. The two men briefly shook, all the while eyeing each other like two fighters circling the ring.
If it came down to it, they would be evenly matched. Cole had Nate on height by a couple inches, but Nate matched him in sheer muscular bulk.
“How did you know I was here?”
“I stopped by your place. Mrs. Makowski said she’d seen you take off with your laptop case. I figured you might be here working.”
Megan swallowed hard and told herself it was of no significance that Cole remembered her favorite work-away-from-home spot. None whatsoever. She pasted a smile on her face and gestured toward Nate.
“Nate’s an old friend of Sean’s,” Megan said. “And, Nate, you might remember Cole as the man who arrested Sean.”
“Sorry to interrupt whatever it is you have going on here,” Cole said, not even trying to sound sincere, “but Megan, I need to talk to you. It’s important.”
Megan settled back against the firm wooden frame of her chair and folded her arms. “So talk.”
“Alone,” Cole added, not so much as offering an apologetic glance at Nate.
Megan fought the impulse to do exactly as he asked on the tiny scrap of hope that he might actually be willing to help her this time. She damn well knew better, after all this time. Still, she couldn’t completely squelch the burst of anticipation. “Is it official police business, Detective?”
His full lips flattened into an irritated line. “Not exactly.”
She sat back in her chair and crossed her arms over her chest. If he wouldn’t give, neither would she. “Well I’m busy with my friend, and I think you said everything you needed to say in your office the other day.”
Cole blew out an impatient breath and hooked a thumb in his waistband, a gesture that flipped his leather coat back just enough to provide a glimpse of his Glock tucked securely in a shoulder holster and the badge clipped to his waistband. Megan wasn’t sure if the gesture was deliberate, but it and the hard look at Nate had the desired effect.
Nate pushed his chair back. “It’s not a problem,” he said, his affable smile not quite reaching his eyes. “I really need to get back to work anyway.”
“Nate, you don’t have to go,” Megan said, reaching out to stop him as he stood.
Don’t leave me alone with him,
she wanted to plead. Instead she stood, too, and let Nate pull her into a hug tight enough to push the bounds of friendly. Though the hard press of Nate’s chest against hers didn’t exactly set off bells and whistles, she let the hug linger a few seconds longer than she might have otherwise.
And felt the tight curl of satisfaction in her gut at the flash of heat in Cole’s eyes. It was gone in a nanosecond, shoved behind the wall of his impassive cop’s gaze, but she knew what she saw.
“Think about what we discussed,” Nate said. He dropped his arms but trailed one hand down her forearm to loosely grasp her hand.
“I will,” Megan said.
“Seriously,” Nate said, giving her hand a shake for emphasis. “And if there’s anything I can do, day or night, you call me. I’m here for you, Megan.”
He left with a wave. Megan watched his tall form weave through the crowd, bracing herself as she turned to face Cole.
Any feelings of warmth or reassurance she might have enjoyed from Nate’s words fled when she looked at Cole. His face was perfectly neutral, but she didn’t miss the way his eyes tracked Nate across the crowded café. Quietly watchful, like a predator stalking his prey.
Unease prickled her skin as he turned that dark, assessing stare on her. “So what’s so important?” she snapped, and started to sit.
He stopped her with a sharp shake of his head. “Not here. Somewhere private.”
She rolled her eyes. “Fine. Let’s go back to my place.” She shut down her laptop and shoved it into her computer
case. Cole waited and gestured for her to walk in front of him. The crowd had peaked with the lunchtime rush, and she had a hard time weaving her way through. She stiffened when Cole’s hand rested lightly on the small of her back, fighting the urge to jump even as a tiny—okay, not so tiny—part of her relished the way he used his body like a human shield, using his size and authority to magically open a path through the throng.
He’d always been able to do that, make her feel safe and protected just by being in the same room with her.
Right. Safe and protected until he brought your whole world to a crashing halt.
She put as much distance between them as she could and rushed to the door. A light drizzle was falling, and the cold, moist air felt good on her overheated skin. “Do you mind telling me what all this is about?”
“You want information. I have it.”
She cocked her head to the side, unsure she’d heard him correctly. “You mean the information about the other victims?” Even if he hadn’t been so adamant, she knew Cole. No way would he break the rules. Not for her. Not for anybody.
No wonder, then, that his reply made her feel like she’d been hit with a Taser. He leaned in close and spoke so softly she strained to hear. “I pulled the autopsy and crime scene reports for you. Now, do you want to keep standing out here in the rain, or do you want to get this over with?”
M
egan popped open her umbrella, then handed it wordlessly to Cole to hold. He held it up, and she scooted under for the short walk back to her place where his car waparked. She stood as far away as she could and still remain under the meager shelter of the umbrella.
That left a good two inches between them. Close enough that Cole could catch the scent of her shampoo emanating from her rain-damp hair. Close enough to see the baby-fine curls springing from her tight braid, tempting him to coil one around his finger to see if it was still as silky soft as he remembered. Close enough to swear he could feel the warmth radiating from her skin, even through the layers of his jacket and her shell.
He tightened his grip around the umbrella handle, trying to summon up some self-control. Inside he was a seething mass of messy emotions, ranging from lust to guilt and a lot of other stuff he didn’t even want to put a label on. Feelings for Megan he thought he’d buried. He shoved it all down, so far down he’d thought they had all but disappeared, except for a few wistful what-ifs every once in a while.
And, of course, his subconscious loved to torture him
on a regular basis with dreams ranging from the wickedly hot sex they had never had to visions of a future he’d been stupid enough to hope for, before the whole world came crashing down around them.
He told himself the dreams didn’t count. His brain, his heart, everything that mattered knew it was beyond over with Megan, that it had been the second he locked the cuffs around Sean’s wrists.
Had he been disappointed? Yes, bitterly so. But he was over it. At least that’s what he’d thought until his chance encounter with Megan three days ago.
One look was all it had taken for everything to come bursting back to the surface. Where it stayed. Simmering, seething, threatening his common sense and control.
And now, today, seeing her with that Ken-doll clone, he’d managed to add a healthy dose of jealousy to the emotional mix. An emotion so unfamiliar, he didn’t at first recognize it as the force that made him want to grab the hand covering Megan’s and snap it like a twig. Fortunately his common sense prevailed, but even with Mr. All-American out of the picture, Cole found himself struggling to keep from doing something stupid.
Pulling up confidential autopsy and crime scene reports didn’t qualify?
He was doing it to be altruistic, he told himself. For the sole purpose of putting Megan’s wild theories to bed once and for all so she could finally move on.
Sure, Ace. Keep telling yourself that it’s not just an excuse to get close to her again.
“So what’s with what’s-his-name—Nate?” He strove for casual and failed miserably, the question just this side of accusatory.
Megan slanted him a look from under her lashes. “Like I said, he was a friend of Sean’s. They met in basic and realized they’d grown up practically next door to each other.”
“You never mentioned him.”
“He was Sean’s friend, not mine. I met him only a couple times. But he saw all the recent news coverage and said he wanted to get back in touchned him.ont>
Wanted to get in your pants is more like it. “
Nice of him.”
“It is. And he even offered to help me get an investigator from Dennison Investigations to help with Sean’s case. There’s no way I could afford them, but Nate offered to help cover the cost.”
Hoping you’d pay him back how, exactly?
Cole kept that to himself but couldn’t suppress his skeptical grunt as they turned down Megan’s street.
“What?” she snapped as he clicked his key fob to unlock his unmarked Crown Vic, which was parked across the street from her place.
Don’t get into it,
he warned himself. “You realize he wants to fuck you, don’t you?” He could have kicked his own ass for saying it out loud. He was jealous. Bleeding black with it. Nothing he could do about that. But laying it out there for her to see? Now, that was just plain stupid.
Megan looked up at him, her dark eyebrows arched over her wide, challenging stare. “If he can help me prove Sean’s innocence, maybe I’ll let him.”
The muscles in Cole’s shoulders tensed as he reached in the passenger seat of his car for a large accordion folder. “If that’s the case, you have no idea how much I wish there was something in these files that could do just that.”
When he turned back, Megan was staring at the asphalt, but her cheeks were so pink they practically glowed. Her tongue flicked out to moisten her soft, pink lips. The gesture sent a spark of lust straight to his groin.
She risked a furtive glance, and in that split second, he saw an awareness so intense the air between them crackled with heat despite the cold, damp weather.
Before he could breathe, she’d lowered her thick lashes and was walking briskly across the street, her slender back so straight it looked like she had a metal rod running up her spine.
Cole paused, momentarily dumbstruck. It was the first time since Sean’s arrest that Megan had indicated she felt anything other than hatred for him. He’d been convinced anything good she might have felt for him had been lost in the tidal wave of anger and resentment.
That hot green gaze flashed in his mind again.
Apparently not.
What a fucking disaster.
It was bad enough that he’d pined after her like some pathetic fifteen-year-old the last three years. Knowing that anything she might have felt for him was dead kept him from dwelling on it too much. He could carry a torch for her to rival the Statue of Liberty’s, but it was never going to get him anywhere.
But now he knew different. Emotions that strong didn’t just disappear. Not for him anyway.
And evidently not for Megan either.
And it didn’t do him a goddamn bit of good. All it did was make his chest ache that much more, make the regret that mch keener over what they’d lost. What they should have had.
It was as hopeless as it had ever been, yet he couldn’t silence the voice in his head urging him to use what he’d discovered to get her to open up to him, just a little bit. Tempting him to see if he could get that flash of lust to come blazing back up to the forefront.
You can’t have everything. But maybe you don’t have to settle for nothing.
His cock thickened behind the zipper of his trousers. He was pretty sure he’d identified the source of that voice.
Never one to let his little head do his thinking, he shoved the thought aside and followed her across the street, up the flight of rickety wooden stairs that led to the apartment she rented on the second floor of the house, doing his damnedest to keep his libido in check.
That was easier said than done when he stepped into the warm darkness of her apartment. He immediately steeled himself against the memories as the familiar vibe of Megan’s place assailed him.
It was small and cozy, full of overstuffed furniture and colorful pillows that invited a person to flop down and relax with a warm cup of coffee or a couple fingers’ worth of good whiskey. It was the opposite of his town house, which was little more than a place to sleep and store his stuff.
And that smell… He’d always loved the way Megan’s apartment smelled. A combination of the spicy black tea she drank, the green smell of her many plants, the fresh scent of clean laundry. And under it all, the sweet, spicy smell of the woman herself.