Authors: Tamara Larson
“Well, yes, actually. That sounds like an excellent plan. I’d make a great bodyguard,” he said defiantly. “
Hannibal
could be my partner. We could train him to attack greasy scumbags.”
“Please, the only thing
Hannibal
could be trained to attack would be a greasy pork chop, maybe a slice of bacon if he was feeling particularly bold.”
God, she was incredible.
Duncan
couldn’t believe that she was joking with him just a few hours after being attacked in her apartment. Did she realize just how strong she was? Most people would be quivering on the floor in reaction after an encounter like that. Her strength humbled him—made him feel unworthy. But also made him want to try to be a better man.
He attempted to make light of the situation. “Are you insulting my dog’s honor? I’ll have you know he graduated top of his puppy obedience class.”
She grinned at this, and shook her head doubtfully.
Duncan
gently removed his fingers from her grip and scraped both hands over his face. Burying them in the soft dark hair at his temples he looked her in the eyes for the first time tonight. In a more serious tone he said, “We’re getting off topic. Are you sure you’re okay? Can I take you somewhere? I’d take you to my place but my grandmother is staying with us and I’m pretty sure you’re not up to dealing with her. How about I take you to your sister’s or something? Or a hotel maybe? You can’t possibly want to stay here.” His eyes darted toward the bedroom and he shuddered just thinking about what it must have been like to find Diego sitting casually on her bed.
“Hold on, your grandmother is staying with you?” Jessie asked, nearly choking on the revelation, her dark eyes widened in surprise. “How did that happen? I thought she was going to take Theresa away on the next plane.”
“Well, apparently her and Theresa had a little talk before I got there.” He settled back against the couch cushions like he was getting ready to tell a long story and lowered his hands to his lap. “My sister absolutely refused to go back to
Toronto
with the old girl.” His mouth tilted up in an admiring half-smile. “Just wouldn’t do it. Eventually Evelyn got her to agree to visit during holidays if she would sign over temporary guardianship to me until she turns eighteen. It was weird, like Theresa had it all planned out or something. Part of the deal was temporary visitation rights whenever Evelyn wants.” He sighed and looked up at the ceiling. “I suppose I could have sent her to a hotel, but it seemed kind of churlish considering she didn’t press kidnapping charges against me like she said she would.” He paused and looked thoughtful for a second. “It’s weird, you know, for years I had no one and now I’ve got my sister and my grandmother staying with me. Never expected that a month ago.” He grinned and looked at Jessie expectantly.
Jessie blinked in wonder. “I can’t believe it. I thought you’d be going to jail for sure.”
He laughed and shook his head. “Me too. You’d have had to come and visit me behind bars and smuggle me some decent food. Not to mention some pepper spray. I’m way too pretty for jail.”
“No comment.”
He grinned at her for a moment and then turned serious again. “Jess, I want you to know that keeping Theresa’s whereabouts a secret was not my idea.” He looked down at his hands in his lap again. “I swear, she said she would run away if I told Evelyn where she was. I agreed to keep her safe, but then it just became too late to tell anyone without incriminating myself.” Looking a bit sheepish, he continued, “Plus, I kind of liked having her around. I hadn’t seen my family in so long; I couldn’t quite force myself to do the right thing.”
Jessie watched him stare out the window overlooking the street. The view of the Starbucks was less than spectacular, but he wouldn’t tear his gaze away. “
Duncan
,” she said, quietly. “I understand why you did it. I’m not saying that I think it was a great thing to do, but I do understand what it’s like to be lonely, and I probably would have done something similar if I were in the same situation.”
He laughed bitterly. “No you wouldn’t. You would have never gotten yourself into anything as complicated as all the shit I’ve been going through lately. I’ve been a complete mess since you met me.”
“Well, okay, maybe a little bit you have, but I can’t expect you to have lived this long without developing some complications in your life. Just because I’ve managed to survive without anything even remotely interesting happening to me doesn’t mean I can expect the same from you. That would be pretty unrealistic. Besides, I haven’t exactly been living my life to the fullest, you know.”
“But I’m boring too.”
“Thanks, but I doubt that,” Jessie said smiling a bit.
“No, what I mean is that my life is usually pretty peaceful. Outside work anyway. I just happened to meet you when everything was going to hell.” Jessie looked at him speculatively. “Seriously, for years, the most exciting thing to happen in my personal life was
Hannibal
being banned from the dog park for humping the other dogs.”
Jessie laughed. “Come on. You must have something more dramatic than that. I keep waiting for some new and horrendous secret to reveal itself—maybe an illegitimate child or a hidden gambling addiction. Or maybe Clay was right and you have some kind of fetish.”
“What? Clay thinks I have a fetish?” He looked at her incredulously.
Oops! “Well, no…him and Jamie were just speculating on why we weren’t together anymore, and that’s what he came up with.”
“Why didn’t you just tell them the truth?”
“Because if I told them the truth—that you were married—they’d either take out a contract on your life, or lock me in my apartment to keep me from seeing you again. Neither option looked very promising.”
Duncan
digested this news. Could she possibly have cared enough about him to want to save him from the wrath of her family?
Duncan
felt an odd little glimmer of hope gather in his chest. Could she love him? Not wanting to appear too eager he asked slowly, “So you wanted to see me again?”
“Well…yes. I tried to stay mad. I really did, but I just couldn’t. Something kept telling me that despite all the craziness; you were a decent man. I couldn’t quite give up on you, no matter what my head was telling me.”
“I am, you know. Decent. At least most of the time. I can give you references if you want.”
She laughed again. “I don’t think that will be necessary. All I really want from you is no more unpleasant surprises. That means: no more wives walking in on us, or pending criminal charges. So, if you’ve got any more skeletons in your closets, let’s just drag those bad boys out now and deal with them, okay?”
Duncan
looked a bit uncomfortable. “Okay, but you asked for it.”
Jessie raised an eyebrow at his serious tone and felt a trickle of unease go through her. What was he going to reveal? Was there an illegitimate child after all? Or a legitimate one, for that matter? Another wife perhaps? She took a deep breath and held it. “Go ahead. I’m ready for it. Nothing you say is going to throw me.”
“Well, in my bedroom. If you looked in the storage cabinet, you’d find about a hundred and seventy-five home video tapes.”
Jessie gulped. Clay was right: he was addicted to porn, or a voyeur, or something equally perverted.
“On those tapes…you’d find…my soap opera.” He said this like it was shameful.
“You mean you videotape something off TV right?” She asked suspiciously. “Soap opera isn’t some kind of code word for something sleazy, is it?”
“No, it’s just a regular soap opera. I used to watch it everyday after school with our housekeeper. I’ve been taping it for years, but I never quite get around to watching it. It’s a habit. I just didn’t want you to come across those tapes one day and think the worst.”
Jessie felt a bit chagrined. She had thought the worst. “Is that it? You’re next biggest secret next to an absentee wife and a hidden half-sister is a collection of taped soap operas? Maybe you are boring.”
“Hey, I still have a mother who’s in and out of rehab on a regular basis and a mystery father, so there’s still some potential for drama in my life. How about you? Anything you want to confess? Maybe some naughty experimentation with your college room-mate you’d like to share?” He wiggled his eyebrows at her suggestively. He couldn’t help it; whenever he was around her his thoughts automatically turned to sex. It certainly didn’t help matters that her wet hair had soaked through the shoulders of her T-shirt. He could easily see the peachy glow of her skin through the shirt and it was quite evident that she wasn’t wearing a bra. He tried to look at the floor but his eyes kept darting in the most indiscreet way toward her breasts.
Jessie gave him a chilly look. “Well, considering my college room-mate was my sister, that’s just gross.”
“C’mon, there must be something.”
“Nope, nothing. You know everything already.” She held up three fingers and counted them off. “Virginity…Birthmark…and one other. Can you remember what it is?”
Duncan
’s brows scrunched in concentration. “What do I get if I remember?” He asked—mostly to stall.
Jessie pressed one finger to her chin. “Well…maybe, just maybe you’ll get another peak at my birthmark someday.”
Duncan
snapped his fingers. “I got it. It’s your reading material: The infamous Victorian erotica collection. And you thought I was the one with a fetish.”
“It’s hardly a fetish. My interest in it is purely cultural.”
Duncan
snorted. “Right. And I suppose it doesn’t get your motor running at all.”
She couldn’t help it; she blushed furiously. “Well, maybe a little bit.”
“Thought so. Now, are you sure you don’t want me to take you somewhere else tonight? I’d be more than glad to get you a hotel room, with, say a nice hot tub, big enough for two. I’d even be willing to keep you company if you’re not feeling up to being alone.”
She smiled at his innocent look, but then grew solemn. “Seriously, I’m fine here. He’s not driving me out of my apartment,” Jessie said, with a determined, tight-lipped look. She reached up and gently touched the spot on his cheek where a band-aid covered the small wound Diego had left. “Does this hurt?” She asked, her fine auburn eyebrows drawing inward in an expression of concern.
He flinched slightly, but covered her hand to keep it there. “No, not really. I’m way more freaked about what I did to him than what he did to me.” She gave him a confused look, and he shifted his gaze down to the floor again. “I don’t know what came over me Jess,” he said, sounding stunned. “I just thought about him hurting you, or coming after Theresa, and I couldn’t stop hitting him. It was like I wasn’t even there anymore. I’ve never felt like that—not even when I first started out on the force.”
“
Duncan
,” Jessie said, lifting his chin with the palm of her hand and looking into his troubled eyes. “It’s okay. I know you didn’t mean to hurt him. You stopped, didn’t you? Okay, after cracking his ribs and giving two black eyes, but you did stop. I know you, and you wouldn’t really hurt anyone. Not ever.”
“I wish I could believe that, but it scares me. I think I may have actually enjoyed hitting him. What does that say about me?” He leaned forward and put his face in his hands. “Lately, I’ve been wondering if I’m turning into the type of person I’m supposed to be protecting people from. This just confirms it.” Completely dejected now, he stared down at his white socks. His blood-splattered boots had disappeared along with Jessie’s counterpane.
“
Duncan
,” Jessie said, leaning over to kiss his forehead. “You are the gentlest man I’ve ever met.” She softly pressed her lips to his band-aid, and then his lips. He sat perfectly still, allowing her to kiss him, and then returned her kiss as gentle as butterfly wings.
Unsatisfied, Jessie ran her hands down his chest and flickered her tongue against his lips, trying to provoke a more passionate response from him.
“Jess,” he said, pulling away and looking at her earnestly. “I seriously don’t think this is a good idea right now. I’ve missed you so much, I’m not sure if I can be gentle.”
“I don’t want you to be gentle,” she said, running her thumb over his lips. “I want to forget about everything that’s happened today and all the bad stuff between us. Just for a little while, okay?”
Instead of answering right away, he just looked at her and ran his hands over her hair. “You’re so beautiful, Jess. There’s nothing more I’d rather do than just lose myself in you, but I think we need to talk first. There are still a lot of unresolved things between us.” He touched his forehead to hers for a second and then whispered, “I said some really shitty things to you this afternoon, and you should be kicking my ass right about now, not trying to seduce me.”
Jessie gathered her courage, and looked him squarely in the eyes. She was done being a coward. “I love you,” she said softly.
Duncan
pulled back and stared at her for a moment. “You love me? How can you love me after everything that’s happened? Are you nuts?”
“I don’t know. I just do,” she said with a shrug. “You know this wasn’t really the response I’d been anticipating. I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to say you love me too.”