As they drove from the Bronx to Long Island, that's what Alex hoped.
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Zach's friend's house turned out to be little more than a cottage on the beach in a small fishing village toward the middle of the island. Living and dining rooms were one large space on the first floor with a loft bedroom overhanging part of the downstairs. It had an airy feel with light-colored paneling, beige furniture, and lots of windows.
Zach set the bags down beside her. “What do you think?”
Early afternoon sunlight filtered in through the windows lending the space a homey glow. “I like it.” Her stomach rumbled. “I'd like it a lot better if we'd thought about mundane things like food.”
“Not to worry. My friend called a neighbor to do a little shopping for us. What do you feel like eating?”
They eventually settled on a frozen pizza, put it in the oven, and sat on the sofa to wait. Zach slung an arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer. He kissed the top of her head. “How are you holding up?”
Alex shifted so she could see his face. It occurred to her that he'd asked her that question more times in the last two days since she'd made her revelation than he had the entire rest of the time they'd been together. Did he see her as some sort of fragile thing now that he'd seen her break down? She hoped not, but she suspected he did.
She hit him on the arm. “I'm fine and I will continue to be fine as long as you don't burn that pizza.”
That was a lie; they both knew it was. But he seemed willing to let it slide for the most part. “You just look beat, that's all.”
She did feel that way, beat up by life and recent events. “So maybe a nap is in order after lunch.”
“That sounds like a plan.” He brought one of her hands to his mouth, kissed her palm, and placed it on his chest. “I could use some shut-eye myself.”
For a long moment, they remained like that, neither of them speaking. She remembered the awkwardness of that long-ago car ride when neither of them could find anything to say to each other. This was different. This felt right, comfortable, an embrace of affection rather than a sexual one. She snuggled closer to him, laying her cheek against his chest. Then the timer on the oven went off.
Zach disentangled himself from her and went to get the pizza. He came back with it balanced in one hand and a couple of beers in the other. He'd tucked a couple of plastic plates under one arm. He seemed to pause for a moment as he walked toward her, and she worried about his apparent hesitancy.
“What did you forget?” she asked as he set the tray with the pizza on it on the coffee table in front of her.
“Napkins. The beer is all right?”
She made an exasperated sound in her throat. So that's why he'd hesitated. At that moment he'd remembered her freaking out on him the other night. How could she explain to him that it wasn't really him or the wine? She didn't regard him in any way as she did her father. If her migraine had left her a little more lucid, she never would have reacted the way she did. Her conscious mind had already decided to keep its mouth shut; her subconscious hadn't agreed.
“It's fine,” she said finally. She took the bottles from him and set them on the table, then did the same with the plates.
Once he retrieved a stack of napkins from the kitchen, Alex served each of them a slice. The pizza was good, flavorful and warm, but she barely tasted it after a couple of bites. Her attention centered on Zach. She didn't understand him. To her mind, he was one of the good guys, a dedicated, if slightly burned out, cop, a man who had always been kind to her. Even now, he'd let her cry when she wanted to and hadn't urged her to talk when she didn't want to. He'd held her so tenderly just a moment ago that it meant more to her than any other embrace they'd shared.
To the outside world he presented a confident, affable front, but underneath lurked a well of self-doubt, the depth of which she was only coming to understand. She also knew that some of that distrust she'd placed there herself. It hadn't occurred to her that he'd been as affected in his own way by what happened between them thirteen years ago. At the time she'd thought he'd already moved on.
But remembering the night of the family dinner and also the reception they'd received that morning from Zach's brother, she knew she wasn't the only guilty party. She'd wondered before why he allowed the family dynamic to remain intact, the one that cast him as the bad guy, which as far as she could tell was undeserved.
She set her plate on the table and tucked her feet underneath her. “Do you mind if I ask you something?”
“No,” he said, but she could see the wariness in his eyes.
“Why do you let your family think the worst of you?”
He shifted to face her more fully. “You mean because of what happened with my ex-wife?”
That was only part of it, but she nodded.
“If you'd ever tried to unconvince either one of my brothers of something they're sure of, then you'd know what a waste of time that is.”
“That sounds like a cop-out answer to me.”
He took a swig from his bottle. “What else do you expect from a cop?”
Actually, she had expected resistance from him, but she answered, “I was hoping for a little honesty.”
“You want honesty? Okay, let's start with you. Why do you care so much? Whatever happened, happened a long time ago.”
There was no belligerence in his tone, only the implication that she was curious for idle reasons or out of a psychologist's need to analyze, nothing more. “Maybe your marriage ended a long time ago, but it seems to me your family is still making you pay for that, or maybe it's for some other reason. All I know is that when we walked into your brother's house this morning, he assumed it was for some frivolous reason, despite the case you're working on and the fact that you had me with you.”
“Adam's got a lot on his mind.”
“I don't doubt that he does. So I wonder why he bothered to call me, ostensibly looking for you, mind you, at a time when you were sure not to be at home, and try to pepper me with all sorts of questions about our relationship. If I'm not mistaken, I think he was trying to scare me off.”
A thunderous look crossed Zach's face. “What did he tell you?”
“Nothing I was interested in hearing. I hung up on him.”
Zach snorted. “He must have loved that.”
Frankly, Alex couldn't have cared less what Adam thought. As a family, the members' allegiance should have been to one another, not some stranger they barely knew. Or maybe in a strange way Adam's interference had been for Zach's sake in that he hoped to save Zach from the mistake of mistreating another “nice” girl, which she was sure was how Adam viewed her.
But she hoped Zach realized she'd been honest with him. “Your turn,” she said.
“You want to know what happened? Here it is in a nutshell. It was the first family dinner that I showed up without Sherry. No one said anything until the Brothers Grimm cornered me in Adam's study to ask what happened. I said we were getting a divorce. Of course they asked why. Not wanting to go into the whole deal I said, âInfidelity.' Of course, they assumed it was mine. I wasn't exactly the poster boy for commitment before I met Sherry, and neither of my brothers would have found it believable that she stepped out on me.”
So he'd let them believe whatever they wanted. “What really happened?”
He took a long pull from his beer, but already she sensed in him the resignation to tell her. “I walked in on them. Her and some guy who had just transferred into the squad I was working. She was still in bed while he was putting on his clothes. He seemed as surprised to see me as I was to see him. Apparently she hadn't told him that she was married or to whom she was married.”
Alex's breath hissed in through her teeth. She could imagine how Zach had felt walking in on that scene. “What did you do?”
“I walked out saying I didn't want to see either one of them there when I got back. I think if the guy had known about me, I might have blown his head off. But I knew Sherry had used both of us. I had a habit of calling her when I was on my way home. She knew I was coming and if she'd wanted to avoid a confrontation she would have rushed the guy out of there. She wanted me to find them together.”
And she must have counted on Zach's having being more circumspect than to shoot first and ask questions later. A big chance in Alex's opinion. Her behavior was as juvenile as that of Alex's niece, seeking to gain Zach's attention by flagrantly breaking the rules.
“Was she gone when you got back?”
“No. She was sitting on the sofa drinking a glass of wine. The first words she said to me were, âNow that I have your attention, can we talk?' At that point I didn't think there was much to say.”
He took one last pull from his beer and set it on the table. “The truth is, I wasn't paying attention. If she was unhappy I didn't really know about it until that day. I knew she resented me working so much, but how many cops' wives don't? In retrospect, she probably did send up signalsâher clinginess and growing dependency. But the truth is, we never should have gotten married in the first place.”
“Why did you?”
“Her family was pressuring her to get married. I was old enough that the idea of having someone to come home to appealed to me. But in reality we had little in common beside what went on in the bedroom. That's not enough of a basis on which to build something that's supposed to be permanent.”
She supposed not, though plenty of people had tried. “You didn't try to work things out?”
“What would have been the point? We didn't belong together. Besides, I knew she hadn't just been trying to get my attention. That I might have been able to forgive. Her picking someone I had to see every day was designed to hurt and humiliate me, since word of her infidelity was sure to make it around the station. The only saving grace was the other guy was so embarrassed that he never said a word to anyone and eventually transferred out.”
She touched her hand to his shoulder. “I'm sorry.” Both for the past and for making him relive it in the present.
“Don't be. I wasn't exactly blameless, myself. My response to all this was to lose myself in a half dozen women's beds, partly to convince Sherry I wasn't coming back, but mostly for selfish reasons. You know, a whole male ego thing.”
He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed her palm. “Do you feel better knowing that about me?”
She bit her lip, surveying his face. He expected some kind of judgment from her, but she had none to give. So he had things in his life he regretted. What grown-up didn't? But she realized then why he let his brothers behave as they did. He saw it as fitting punishment, not for the sins they thought he committed but the ones for which he blamed himself.
Damn. Why was life so freaking complicated? She supposed she wouldn't have a job if human existence was something easily survived. But she was tired of talking. If he wanted to know what feelings his confession sparked in her, she'd show him. She leaned up, cradled his face in her palms, and brought her mouth down to his.
Twenty-six
Zach's arms closed around her, pulling her down to his lap as the kiss deepened. It was the first time they'd kissed like that since they'd been together in the hotel room, and he was ravenous for her and not just in a physical way. Her listening to his past without judgment touched something inside him that had nothing to do with sex, but managed to fuel his desire for her anyway.
Her tongue rubbed against his, tasting spicy from the pizza and cool from the beer. He captured it and sucked on it, causing her to moan into his mouth. God, he wanted her, but there was something they needed to settle first. Reluctantly, he pulled away from her. “Baby, there's something I need to say to you first.”
She blinked and looked at him. Her hair was tousled and her eyes had already darkened with passion. “Can't it wait?”
He chuckled, glad to know she was as eager for him as he was for her. “No, it can't.” While he was playing True Confessions, he wanted everything out, everything in the open so that nothing stood between them. “I want to apologize for acting like a horse's ass the other night when you told me about Sammy.”
She shook her head. “I don't blame you for being angry with me.”
That surprised him. He'd been enraged that night, but never had he suspected she believed it was aimed at her. “Baby, I wasn't angry with you. I was angry with myself and your father. No matter what you think, I know Sammy was no saint. I knew he was a great cop and a good partner, but he was a lousy father. The one thing I thought I knew in this world was that I had protected you from him as best I could. That was a lie.”
“I did my best to hide that from you. I didn't want you to think less of me.”
“How could I have done that? Sweetheart, you work with these people. You know it's never the kid's fault. The adult is always to blame.” He supposed it was easy to know that intellectually, but when it happened to you it wasn't always easy to be so circumspect.
She rested her head against his shoulder. “Then why haven't you touched me since that night? I needed you.”
It pleased him to hear her admit that. “Because, at first, I didn't want to touch you in anger, to take out on you what I could no longer take out on your father.” He didn't elaborate on the previous night. He hadn't been sure what she'd wanted so he'd left her alone. If she'd given him any hint that she needed him in that way, he wouldn't have denied her. But then she'd thought he was angry with her for keeping things from him.
For a long moment, neither of them said anything. It wasn't a comfortable silence in that she started to stir against him and his hands, of their own accord, started to explore. Alex lifted her head and looked up at him. “Zach?” she whispered.
“What is it, baby?”
“Touch me now.”
He didn't hesitate. They came together in a tangle of arms and legs, mouths and tongues, touching, caressing, wild. He couldn't get enough of her taste, her scent. And when she rolled a condom on him and guided him into her body, his whole body shivered. It was like being consumed by a fever. His body perspired more and his breathing became more shallow the deeper as she took him into her body.
He rolled over, pulling her on top of him. With one hand at her hips he helped her set their rhythm. He stroked his other hand over her breasts to capture one nipple and roll it between his fingers. She moaned and her back arched. He pulled her down to him then, close enough that he could take one nipple into his mouth and then the other. She bucked against him, driving him further toward the brink.
He opened his eyes half-mast and looked up at her. She was as far gone as he. He grasped her hips and thrust into her, over and over, as she gasped his name. Her nails dug into his shoulders as she came, her back arched, her head thrown back. He pulled her down to him, unable to hold back any longer. He groaned his release against her neck.
For a long time they lay together, each of them recovering. After a while he got rid of the condom, pulled the afghan from the sofa over them, checked his weapon and left it in on the coffee table beside them, and closed his eyes.
He could feel her smile against his chest. “By the way,” she said. “When are you planning to give me back my gun?”
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When Alex awoke it was dark and she was alone. How Zach had managed to get up without waking her she didn't know, but she didn't have far to look for him. He was in the kitchen at the stove. She could see steam rising from a pot or two and wondered what he was cooking.
She lifted herself on one elbow to watch him. He'd put his jeans back on but he was shirtless. For a moment she got caught up in watching the interplay of his muscles as he worked.
“Hungry?” he asked.
Either the man had the hearing of a bat or he was attuned to her in some way that she wasn't to him. “Very. What time is it?”
“Almost ten.”
Alex rubbed her eyes, then shifted onto her back. She really must have been out of it to have slept so long. She stretched, feeling, for the moment, contented. Even though little was right with her world, she was here with Zach. They'd just cleared the proverbial air between them. She didn't know what the future held, but hopefully all the demons from the past were finally behind them or at least out in the open where they could be dealt with.
But for now their lives were on hold. Once Williams was captured they could figure out what came next. For the present, she'd try to relax and enjoy the time she had with the man she loved.
They ate dinner on the sofa, her tucked into one corner with the afghan still draped around her, him at the other. Alex sampled a bit of the grilled chicken, savoring its flavorfulness. “When did you learn how to cook?”
“One of the side benefits of living on your own. Either learn how to make something decent to eat or starve.” He winked at her. “You spoiled me for the eating-out-every-night routine. I'm a home-cooked-meal sort of guy.”
She poked him with her foot. “While you're being so industrious, why don't you see if you can get a fire started?” She pointed her foot in the direction of the stone fireplace set in the wall perpendicular to them.
“I'm a city boy. I don't know nothin' 'bout startin' no fires.”
“If I'm not mistaken, those are Starter logs next to the fireplace. All you have to do is pull off the plastic thingie, put them in the fireplace, and set a match to them.”
“I'll take your word for it.” He got up, followed her instructions to the point of lighting the match. He found a box of long-handled ones on the mantelpiece, and in a few seconds the log started to burn.
He came back to the sofa, but rather than picking up his plate, he took her foot into his lap. “Better?”
She didn't know if he referred to the warmth of the fire spreading through the room or the gentle massage he was giving her foot, but her answer was the same, a purr of approval.
He laughed, a sound, she realized, she hadn't heard from him in a long, long time, at least not one unqualified by anything. She knew their talk before had been freeing for her. Had it been the same for him?
With mock indignation, she said, “Are you laughing at me?”
“No, baby, never. Not me.” His hands moved upward to squeeze her calf in a way that made pleasure shiver through her. “I just enjoy making you happy.” He took her other foot into his lap and rubbed the ball of her foot.
She didn't doubt his words, but she also knew he was probably trying to distract her as well. If Williams performed according to expectation, he should make some kind of move against her tonight. Since they'd been honest with each other about everything else, she saw no need to dissemble now. “You think Williams will strike tonight, don't you?”
His hand stilled. “You know I do. I'm hoping anyway. Then all this mess will be over.”
What a succinct way to put it, but he was right. If they caught Williams tonight her life, the life of everyone involved could go back to normal. Everyone except Roberta.
She hadn't realized she'd looked away from him until he tilted her chin up.
“What's the matter, sweetheart?”
She shook her head. She didn't really want to go into it. If he was willing to distract her, she was willing to let him. “I was thinking it would be nicer closer to the fire.”
The look of skepticism he sent her way told her he didn't believe her. That was all right, since he seemed willing to indulge her anyway. He stood, took the plate from her lap, and set it on the table. He scooped her up from the sofa, spinning her around in a way that made her shriek and cling to him. His mouth found hers and when his tongue plunged into her mouth she sucked on it, making him groan into her mouth.
He set her down beside the fire, unwrapped the blanket from around her, and lay down beside her. “Come here, baby,” he whispered, pulling her on top him. His hands roved over her back and lower to grasp her buttocks in his palms. “Is this what you wanted?”
She tugged on one of the belt loops of his jeans. “Minus the pants, yes.”
He rolled her onto her back and stood. She lay back watching him as he stripped out of the rest of his clothes, her eyes wandering down his body over a broad chest, a flat belly to his erection, full and heavy. She brought her knees up, squeezing them together, and shut her eyes, anticipating him joining her. She wanted him inside her, no fuss, no muss, no foreplay, just that ultimate connection.
And then he was beside her, pushing her legs wider to stroke the damp sensitive core between her thighs. His mouth claimed hers for one wild, brief kiss before he pulled away. “Look at me, baby,” he said.
She did as he asked as best she could. Her eyes didn't want to open, much less focus. Already she was close to the edge and she wanted him inside her when she toppled. “Please,” she whispered.
She bit her lip as he covered her and thrust into her. Her back arched and her legs wrapped around his waist, drawing him deeper.
He buried his face beside her throat, trailing moist kisses across her skin. He withdrew from her and thrust into her with the same exquisite slowness. Again and again, making her ache, making her writhe beneath him, seeking satisfaction.
He lifted his head and stroked the hair from her face. “Easy, baby. We'll get there.”
She didn't doubt that, but she didn't know how much of this sweet torture she could stand. She was there on the brink, waiting, ready. All she needed was the slightest push from him. He gave it to her, thrusting deep and hard, and she lost it. She cried out his name and her fingertips dug into the flesh of his back. Her body trembled with the strength of her climax.
Still he was inside her, thrusting deeply until his own orgasm overtook him. He shuddered against her as he lowered himself onto his side pulling her flush with him. Leaning up on one elbow, he stroked her hair over her shoulder. “See, I told you we'd get there.”
His breathing sounded as ragged as hers felt. She looked up at him, finding the smile she loved so much. She hit him on the shoulder. “Egotist.”
He caught her hand and brought it to his mouth, kissing each of her fingers before he placed her hand on his chest. “Not at all. But I wouldn't be satisfied until I pleased you first.”
She shut her tired eyes and smiled. “And here I'd thought considerate lovers had gone the way of the dodo bird.”
“Not all of them.” He stroked his hand over her breast, her waist, her hip, and back again. “Can I ask you something?”
She opened her eyes and scanned his face. That question sounded far too somber to suit her, and the unreadable expression on his face didn't help. “What is it?”
He lifted one shoulder. “This is in no way a complaint, but aside from the very first time, you've always been very free with sharing your body with me. After finding out what Sammy did to you, it surprises me.”
She hadn't thought of that before, but it made sense. Most girls, after an experience like hers, went one of two routes, either shutting down sexually or becoming promiscuous. In her own way, she'd gone both: shutting down until that night with Zach and going wild afterward. Neither one had been satisfying.
“Believe it or not, that was the one thing my former husband was good for. He helped me see that I could either let the past control me or I could take control myself. It helped, too, that underneath his button-down suits Devon was a little bit of a freak himself, not the judgmental prude one would expect. That's why I could never completely condemn him. He'd helped me get back something invaluable in myself. I'll always be grateful for that.”
She leaned over and pressed a single soft kiss against his chest. She didn't want to talk about Devon anymore or about anything. She wanted to enjoy being in this man's arms and nothing else. She smiled as his arms closed more tightly around her, giving her her wish.