“No.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Bored.”
He chuckled, then gestured to his paperwork strewn about the table. “We could talk shop.”
She wrinkled her nose. “I’d rather not. Seems a travesty to waste an amazing room on work. Tomorrow will come soon enough,” she muttered, not looking forward to what was on the agenda. “Come talk with me.”
He lost his smile and seemed wary. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he said.
“Why?”
He sighed and shook his head. “It’s just not.”
Cassi cocked her head and watched him for a moment. A little furrow in his brow told her he was trying really hard to focus. He used to get that same look when he was studying algebra. He’d never really had a head for abstract concepts. But as Cassi had said then, and it certainly had played out true enough—who mixes letters and numbers in real life anyway?
“Do you have a girlfriend?” she asked suddenly.
Her question startled him and it took a minute for him to recover. When he did, he simply shook his head. “Why not?”
He shrugged. “Just haven’t found someone who wanted to put up with my schedule I guess.”
“You work long hours?”
“Long hours, weekends, holidays…”
“Oh. Do you have to work that kind of schedule or do you choose to? There’s a difference, you know.”
He met her gaze. “I choose to.”
“Maybe if you had someone you wanted to spend time with you’d want to spend less time at work.”
“It’s a theory,” he agreed mildly. “But since I haven’t found that person yet…it’s a moot point. Besides, I love my job.”
“Does the job love you back?”
He chuckled again, shaking his head. “She’s a tough mistress.”
She moved from the sofa and over to where he was sitting. He watched her approach with a smile that seemed to hide something else beneath it. She smiled and held out her hand to him. “I remember someone having magic hands. Come give me a back massage for old time’s sake.”
“I don’t know, Cassi,” he said, and she detected a subtle strain to his voice.
She ignored his mild protest and pulled him from the chair. “C’mon, there’s no harm in giving a girl a massage. Besides, it’s been a long time since I’ve had anyone with your skill and if all this goes south and I end up going to prison, at least I’ll have a few good memories.”
“Don’t talk like that,” he said, clearly uncomfortable with the idea of her going to prison. “We don’t know how this is going to play out, yet.”
“That’s the hope but let’s be realistic. Or on second thought, let’s not be realistic for the moment. Just rub,” she said, climbing on the bed and flopping on her stomach. She wiggled out of the robe and shimmied it down to her waist while still managing to keep her private parts covered modestly. She felt the bed give under his weight and she smothered a triumphant grin. She heard him exhale a shaky breath and she knew without a doubt she was going to enjoy every moment, no matter what it cost her.
Her skin felt like silk beneath his fingertips. Her spine was a delicate line of bone that spread to the gentle flare of her hips. He could see the plump sides of her breasts while she lay on her stomach. She was quite honestly the most perfect female specimen on the planet as far as he was concerned.
“Tommy…do you ever think of your dad?” she asked, her tone solemn.
“I try not to,” he answered truthfully.
“Do you ever visit your mom’s and brother’s graves?”
“No,” he admitted. He couldn’t bring himself to, even after all these years. Some nights he could still hear his mother’s screams and see his little brother’s terrified stare. “Going to their graves isn’t going to bring them back.”
“Yeah. I know. I didn’t visit my dad’s grave, either. I mean, I know it’s not the same. My dad wasn’t like yours but…I never wanted to go to that damn cemetery. My mom was always pushing it on me, though. Like I didn’t love him if I didn’t go and sit by a stone with his name on it.”
He remained silent, choosing to concentrate on her shoulders instead. But she’d awakened bad memories and now they were running through his head.
“I always wondered how you ended up in Mama Jo’s care,” she said wistfully. “I mean, I always thought it was odd that you, Christian and Owen—three white kids—ended up with a single black woman.”
He shrugged. “Mama Jo had a reputation within the social services of having a way with the problem kids. Given our backgrounds, they probably figured they’d skip a step and just stick us with Mama Jo first and see what happened.”
“She’s one helluva woman,” Cassi said.
“That she is,” he agreed.
“So what would she say if she knew what you were doing?”
“Rubbing your back?” he asked.
“You know what I mean,” she returned softly, and he supposed he did but it was a loaded question. Mama Jo was very proud that he’d gone into law enforcement, and she’d been disappointed to hear how things had ended between him and Cassi but he doubted she’d embrace this craziness he was participating in right now. Likely, if he told her, she’d just scold him for being reckless and then stuff him full of corn bread. He stilled, and Cassi turned to face him, clutching the robe to her chest. She met his gaze and a tiny smile lifted the corner of his mouth as his body temperature rose in time with the pulsing heat from his groin. “She always liked you,” he answered, moving toward her. “Said you were made of tougher stuff than anyone realized, including yourself, and someday you’d figure that out.”
A look of surprise crossed her features. “Wow. She said that about me?”
“Yeah…” he murmured, his eyes feasting on the creamy flesh that was exposed. He ought to get off the bed and put his mind back on work but he couldn’t. It would’ve taken a Herculean effort, and frankly, at the moment, he felt weak as a newborn colt, shaking out his legs for the first time. “Cassi,” he whispered. The effort it took not to kiss her was taking everything he had and he didn’t know how much longer he could hold out.
“What is it, Tommy?” she asked, sounding a bit breathless herself.
“If you don’t get off this bed right now…I’m going to kiss you and I probably won’t want to stop there,” he said with blunt honesty. “If that’s not what you want then you better say something right now.”
She swallowed, her gaze going wide and then she said in a husky whisper, “I’m not saying a word…”
Sweet heaven, if he was going to lose everything, this might very well make it worth it.
She grabbed a fistful of his hair and held him at her breast, urging him to devour her. He sucked, laved and teased her nipples until she couldn’t stand another minute of the sensual torture. It was good and it’d been so long since she’d been touched by anyone. But it wasn’t just that and she knew it. It was Tommy. Her heart sang as loudly as her body as his fingers and tongue plundered her most secret spots, causing her to twist handfuls of the soft duvet between her fists, drawing a cry from her lips even as her body quivered from pent-up need and frustrated desire. So many years of being close to him yet not being able to touch because she hadn’t wanted to ruin the precious and fragile nature of their relationship. His friendship had grounded her, kept her from spinning off and losing herself in the shallow pools of her most conceited and self-absorbed circles. He’d been her touchstone, and oh, God, how she’d missed him!
She shuddered beneath him, the taste of her still on his tongue, and when she was limp and trying to catch her breath, he flipped her to her stomach. While he could’ve taken forever to admire the smooth, sweet curve of her ass, he needed to feel her close around him with an urgency that stunned him.
She lifted her hips in invitation and he gladly took it, sliding into the promised land with a guttural moan. She gasped as he seated himself, heavy and thick, into her sheath and it was all he could do not to shout his pleasure as his eyes rolled into the back of his head. He started slow, rubbing against the elusive spot with the tip of his erection and delighted in the way she twisted and arched against him. But soon, it was all he could take and his hips pushed forward, urging him to go faster and harder. She gasped but met him thrust for thrust, greedy for every inch he could give, and when she let out a strangled cry he let go and gave in to the bone-rattling orgasm that clenched every muscle so hard he thought he might cramp. He collapsed against her, the scent of her hair deep in his nostrils and when he could string together a coherent thought he was sunk by the realization that he’d do anything for this woman…even if it meant breaking the law.
And that scared the hell out of him.
“Nothing,” he answered, but his eyes told a different story.
“Oh, my God…was this like a…booty call?” she asked, horrified at the very thought, given how she’d entered into it with a totally different mind-set. As in, “Holy shit I think I love this man” when he was acting as if he was thinking, “Can’t wait to tap that and then skip out before she wakes up.”
His brow wrinkled in obvious distaste at the term
booty call
and she lost some of her tension but none of her confusion. He smoothed the hair from her face with such tenderness that she could only stare. “You’re giving me some really mixed signals, Tommy. Your hands say that you want me but your eyes are saying keep your distance. What’s going on?”
He sighed and sat up, a bleak expression haunting his eyes. He scrubbed his hands over his face as if trying to wipe away whatever was bothering him and when he looked at her again, it seemed as if he’d succeeded, which she found suspicious. When he answered, it was with no indication of his previous thoughts. “I do want you. But I need to focus,” he said sternly. “There’s a lot at stake here, Cassi. Not just for you. But for me, too. I don’t want to lose my job and I don’t want you to go to prison. As much as I’d like to stay in this bed and make love to you all day, that’s not going to solve the problem. We need to talk with Barbara and Winifred and see what we can uncover about their mystery benefactor. Hopefully, they’ll give us something to go from. If not, we’ll move to your friend Isaac.”
At the mention of Isaac she winced. “Do we have to?”
“Unfortunately, yes. Trust me, I’d rather skip that one, too.”
She cast a sidewise glance. “I know why I don’t want to see him… Why don’t you want to see him?”
He leaned forward and surprised her with a firm, possessive kiss on her lips before saying, “Because for years I watched other guys kiss these lips and I hated them for it. To know this guy actually proposed…makes me want to put my fist through his face.”
Her cheeks flushed and her heartbeat fluttered like a schoolgirl’s at the sight of her first crush. She managed a small coy smile as she said, “Well…I can’t help that someone else beat you to it.”
At that he stilled, and she realized she’d said something wrong though for the life of her she didn’t know what it could be. She faltered. “I didn’t mean anything by that,” she said, frowning in embarrassment. “I was just kidding. Of course, I never expected you to propose to me or anything….”
He looked away, and she sensed his disquiet had less to do with her and more to do with himself but it hurt just the same. She withdrew and he caught her hand. “Cassi,” he said quietly. “All things being perfect, if there were ever a woman I’d even contemplate marrying…you’d be it. But the fact is, I lied when I said no one was willing to put up with my schedule and that’s why I was unattached.”
A cold knot had begun to form and she didn’t want to hear the rest. “Forget it, Tommy. Whatever it is, I don’t need to know.”
“No, I need to tell you this because you’re probably the only person who’d ever understand.” That piqued her interest and she peered at him with open concern. He continued, and that bleak expression returned. “I never want to marry anyone.”
“Why, Tommy?”
“Do you even have to ask? Because marriage messes with people’s heads and makes them do crazy things. It’s that whole death-do-us-part thing that’s just wrong. I mean, what if people change and then your partner doesn’t like the person you’ve become? And then they do terrible things to each other in the name of love? No…I’m not willing to take that on. I’m just not.”
Realization hit her and she actually felt tears welling in her eyes. She wanted to reach out to him but didn’t touch him. She didn’t trust herself not to wrap him in a huge hug and she sensed that he needed a little distance. “You know all marriages aren’t like your parents’,” she said softly. “Not all husbands do what your father did.”
She knew that logically Tommy understood this but there was something deep inside, locked away in a private place, that kept an irrational fear alive and rabid.
“You know, he didn’t start out bad. He loved my mother so much it drove him crazy, twisted him up inside until he didn’t know what was right or wrong anymore. That’s the danger of that kind of love.”
She shook her head. “No, that’s not love. That’s…a perversion of love. Love doesn’t try to subvert another’s will or possess. True love is giving and kind.”
“How do you know?” he asked, his mouth twisting. “Your parents didn’t have a model marriage, either. Your father had his share of extracurricular activities and your mother was perpetually unhappy.”
She drew back, mildly hurt by his mocking tone and the fact that he was using information from her past as ammunition against her. “There’s no such thing as a model marriage. You’re smart enough to know that. If you’re going to push me away, have the guts to admit the true reasons you’re doing it. Push me away because I’m on the run from the law and you don’t want the complication, or push me away because all you truly wanted was a booty call. But don’t let fear of something that isn’t true keep you from being happy.” She leaned forward and tenderly cupped his face with both hands as she made her final point. “You are not your father. And you never could be, Thomas Eric Bristol. I know this in my heart and nothing you say will ever change that. Got it? Marry, don’t marry…I don’t care but don’t let your father take even more from you than he already did.” She pressed a kiss to his mouth before he could say anything else. And then she scrambled from the bed, announcing, “I’m going to shower. You’re welcome to join me if you like.”
Without waiting for his answer, she strode, naked as a jaybird, to the bathroom.