Necessary Force (2 page)

She watched him click through the photos, the doubt on his face turning to surprise and then a faint smile. When he finally looked up, he raised both eyebrows. “You didn’t take a single shot of my face.”

“Not what I was interested in.”

“So I noticed.” His face caught fire with a grin so lewd she tightened her thighs in a purely female response. “What are you going to do with them?”

“Keepsake.” Dear lord. How lame did that sound coming from a grown woman?

“You do this often?”

“I never do this.”

He set her camera aside then stacked two pillows behind his head before reaching out a hand to her. “Then let’s make some more memories.”

She didn’t need to ask what kind. Stretched out before her was the definition of a male in his prime. Six-pack, check. Ripped and ridged torso and arms, check. Heavy corded thighs and firm swells of calves, yep. As for the eager-to-please erection,
oh my.
Someone needed to thank his mama for producing the sinfully delectable man in Georgie’s bed.

Lust rushed to her lower regions, feeding an ever-tightening ache at the apex of her thighs. Trouble. She was in a lot of trouble. She really liked this guy. He was cool, calm, totally in control without any of the macho swagger and antics that turned her off from the alpha males who strutted around Capitol Hill.

For the first time she realized that she was naked, too. Squatting down there by the side of the bed, she finally felt the chill of the morning.

“You’re shivering.” He wiggled the fingers of his outstretched hand. She noticed a tender, not predatory, smile on his face. “Come back to bed and let me warm you up.”

She didn’t doubt he could do that. Despite her shivering she was already quite warm in all her intimate places. “I don’t usually do this.”

“It’s okay. Keep the photos. But keep them private.”

“No, I mean I don’t do this.” She came up to her knees, letting the mattress hide her nakedness to just above her nipples. “I don’t sleep around.”

His smile could rearrange the stars. “We didn’t sleep much.”

Okay, she needed to be more specific. “I don’t screw strangers. I don’t pick up men. I don’t do”—she swung an arm out to include the entire bed—“this.”

His frown came back. “Is that why you took photos? Because I’m a stranger? I’m not part of your real world.” He let out a small sound of male disgust. “I’m just a nude man in the bed.”

“No. I have standards. Rules I live by. This isn’t how I live my life.”

“I broke your rules?” His smile returned. “I never broke a woman’s rules before. So what was the thing I did that made you decide to break a rule?”

She didn’t have a good explanation, or at least one she was willing to share with this outrageously sexy man. Even now, her traitorous gaze was wandering toward the tent pole under the sheet he’d pulled up to crotch level. Talk was so overrated. She really,
really
just wanted to reach out and touch.

“I’ll erase them.” She reached for her camera but he was faster than she would have thought possible. With a predator’s grace he launched himself from the pillows and grabbed the camera out of her hand.

He lifted the camera to his face and began taking pictures of her, hunkered down and nude beside the bed. After a dozen shots he lowered the camera and offered it back to her. “Keepsakes. So you can remember how you were, too.” He grinned. “Captured: a moment in time to remember.”

It took her a second to catch up. “Are you brushing me off?”

He leaned back and folded both arms behind his head. “Let’s just say we both got what we asked for. And it was … better than that.” He let his gaze slide over her, taking in every inch of bare skin not hidden by her crouch.

“I have to work this morning.”

“I have to leave this morning.”

They spoke at the same time.

“Listen, I’m sure there are sophisticated and clever ways to ease out of these situations. I don’t know them.” Georgie sighed. “Last night was great. Really great. But I’ve recently broken up with someone and I’m not looking.”

“Sounds like we agree. I can’t get any more involved either.”

Her face stiffened. “Married?”

“Only to my job. Still, before we go our separate ways …” He caught her left wrist in his right hand, thumb and forefinger creating a bracelet, and tugged. “Now come back here and let’s say good morning properly. Because you are definitely a do over, lady.”

She crawled in over him. He caught her by the waist and rolled, flipping her under him. As his body settled over hers, his legs slid between hers to force them apart. Immediately his erection sank into the space, nudging her nether curls.

“I like you, Boots.” His grin rasped her cheeks with a day’s growth of beard as he leaned down and kissed the corner of her mouth. “You never explained that nickname.”

There was a very good reason for that. She’d made it up. Didn’t know why. Self-protection in the face of six feet of sexual danger?

“I—oh!” He’d flexed his hips against her, opening her just enough that she had to take a careful breath to keep from begging him to hurry up.

And then he kissed her and the world went away.

***

“You look like you had a bad night. Was it the chili dogs? I think it was the chili dogs. I ran out of antacids around three.”

Her assistant, Zoey, stood before Georgie wearing a tiny bikini top and cutoff sweats with the hems rolled up to “do me” territory.

Georgie shook her head as she prepared her equipment for the day’s shoot. “Put on a shirt. And unroll the hem of those shorts if you want to work with me today.”

“But it’s Special Ops day. Hear that?”

Both women looked up to see a military helicopter swooping in low on the horizon. Just to show off, the men unfurled ropes and began rappelling out of the chopper one after the other, each with a dog wrapped securely around his neck.

Georgie’s camera was up and she was shooting before she had time to register all the details. “Zoey. Shirt. Now.” She spat the words out even as she continued to record the impressive arrival.

Life for her was what she captured behind her lens. Sometimes it seemed that her photos were more real than anything else in her life. Capture and hold. The camera allowed her to do that. Real life had a way of slipping out of her grasp.

Like Philip.

When she finally lowered her camera Yardley was standing beside her. “Did I thank you for this weekend?”

Georgie gave her a sideways glance. “You owe me.”

Yardley laughed, throaty and sexy and carrying in a way that drew the attention of anyone who heard it. She had come out to greet the soldiers, something she had not been able to do for each and every law enforcement officer and firefighter the day before.

At that moment, a man driving a jeep sped past behind them and blew his horn. Yardley frowned. “What was that for?”

Georgie pretended to examine her camera so that Yardley wouldn’t see the blush warming her cheeks. “He was one of my subjects yesterday, remember? He was just saying hello. His name’s Philip Dexter.”

“That’s not Philip Dexter.”

Georgie looked up at her friend. “What do you mean?”

Yardley raised a hand to shield her eyes, watching as the jeep sped away. “The only Philip Dexter I know is piloting that chopper.”

Two months later. Washington, D.C.

She had been robbed.

Georgie stood perfectly still in the entry of her one-bedroom apartment on I Street in the heart of the Foggy Bottom district of the capital. Only her eyes moved, darting everywhere at once as alarms went off in her brain. Her apartment had been tossed. Books felled from shelves lay scattered like broken-winged birds on the floor. Every drawer she could see from where she stood had been pulled open and left hanging. Every surface had been cleared of the things that made her apartment home. The cold trickle of fear that began somewhere south of her eyes gathered energy as it splashed through her body.

Get out!

She didn’t second-guess her lizard-brain reaction. She dumped her luggage at her feet even as she reached for the front door and backed out onto the landing.

“I want to report a robbery.” Her hand holding her cell phone shook. “My apartment’s been robbed.”

“Is this a robbery or a burglary, ma’am?”

“What are you talking about? Someone came into my apartment while I was gone and tossed my place.”

“That would be burglary, ma’am.”

“Whatever. Get someone over here. Now!”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The police arrived after half an hour. By then Georgie had gathered the courage to walk through her apartment, photographing the wreckage of her life.

She had taken photos of disasters many times, especially in her early years on the job. From hurricane damage to burned-out buildings to floods, the tactile evidence of vibrant lives reduced to so much broken glass, wood, ceramics, and brick. This time the wreckage was personal, and it hurt like a thousand paper cuts, a new one opening wherever her eyes focused.

So unnecessary. Nothing was missing. Not her TV or DVD or CD player. Only her tools for work: her cameras and her desktop.

After a few minutes Georgie realized she was no longer able to focus for the dry sobs heaving her chest. She dropped her camera to dangle about her neck and went to lean against the front door to wait.

The police were efficient and quick, one officer asking questions and taking down an initial inventory of what was missing. It was over quickly. This was D.C. There was no harm done, from their point of view. Just a huge mess to clean up. Almost anything else going on in the city this evening was bigger news and more threatening. Coming home to an invasion where the stolen items were insured just about guaranteed that she wouldn’t hear from the D.C. police again. She didn’t begrudge their attitude. But now she understood in a new and intimate way how stunned and frightened the subjects of her disaster photography must have felt.

Objectivity was required to be a good photojournalist. The camera had always given her that distance. Tonight she felt stripped and violated, and wondered how long it would be before she got back to feeling like that intact person she had been before she opened her door.

There seemed no good place to begin the cleanup. She’d been home an hour and she didn’t want to stay here a second longer. But before she left to check into a hotel, she decided to clear the entryway. She picked up the newly framed 16 by 20 inch photograph that had been knocked from the wall. The glass was smashed and lay in gemstone pieces at her feet. Miraculously, the black-and-white surface had not been nicked or scratched. It was the photo of a man sprawled facedown on a bed. Taken from the foot of the bed, the photo made a landscape terrain of long, well-muscled legs and thighs slipping in and out of shadow. In contrast, morning light had caught and given a twin rising-moon quality to the high, taut curves of his male buttocks before the triangular torso with wide shoulders sloped away into deep shadows that obscured his head.

She smiled when it was hung back in place. Doing that much made her feel better.

She began picking up her books, careful not to step on any and break their spines. Many of them were expensive oversize photography books, what most people called coffee-table books. They were art and inspiration to her.

The second knock on her door made her jump. The man in a suit on the other side of her peephole flashed a badge before she opened her door.

“The police already sent someone. I’m sorry but I don’t need a detective.”

“We aren’t the police, ma’am. We’re federal. I’m Special Agent Clinton. With me are Special Agents Hanson and Blackwell.” He indicated the man and woman with him, also dressed in suits. “Can we speak with you about your break-in, ma’am?”

Georgie glanced again at the badge that said FBI. Yet her nerves were shot and trust was long gone. “How did you know about my break-in?”

“May we come in, ma’am?”

Instinct said no. Her apartment had already been broken into and then she’d allowed the police to search through her apartment. This felt like one violation too many. Maybe she was being paranoid but she felt justified in hesitating.

She saw elderly Mrs. Walker emerging from the elevator and pushed past her uninvited guests into the apartment’s third-floor common hallway. “Good evening, Mrs. Walker. I’ve been burglarized. These law-enforcement agents have just told me tenants may want to take extra precautions.”

“Oh, my dear child.” Mrs. Walker came toward her. “Are you all right?”

Georgie took the woman’s hand in both of hers. “Yes. Just thought you should know. You see, I’ve got law enforcement with me now.” She half-turned so that the elderly woman could get a good look at her visitors. “But thanks. Good night.”

When Mrs. Walker had turned away Georgie shot the three persons standing on her threshold a triumphant glance. She had taken back a little control of the situation. “You may now come in.”

“Thank you. We’d like to ask you a few questions.”

Surprisingly, the FBI claimed to know nothing more about her break-in beyond the fact of it. If they’d spoken with D.C. police, they weren’t letting on. Nor would they answer her questions of why they were interested.

Special Agent Clinton made her go through the list of routine questions a second time. Finally, after taking twice the time it had taken the police to gather the same information, he said flatly, “Do you mind if my partners look around?”

Georgie shrugged from her perch on the arm of her sofa. The two other agents had been covertly eyeing her place for the past half hour.

“You say nothing of irreplaceable value was taken. Yet your apartment was ransacked with ruthless efficiency. That would suggest that someone wanted to find something specific. Or wanted to frighten you.”

“Consider it mission accomplished.” Georgie had had the same impression and yet the D.C. police had said she was lucky. No one had torched her place or left graffiti or randomly damaged her belongings. Some definition of lucky.

“Do you have many enemies?”

The question surprised Georgie. “I don’t have any enemies.”