A Deep and Dark December (31 page)

“Oh, God. Is that what you want?”

“It’s too late to ask me what I want. This is all about what you want.”

~*~

He wanted her to reject him, he expected it, Erin realized. He stood there defiant and noble, ready to accept his punishment. Whatever penance he’d dealt himself wasn’t enough. He’d judged himself harshly and had come up lacking. He watched her with eyes full of despair. And suddenly she saw what she’d been missing.

He’d been right. She had manipulated the future by confiding in Graham about her visions. And her visions of Graham’s life were nothing more than scenes taken out of context. What had happened before and between mattered more than what she’d seen. She needed the whole picture. They both did.

She sank back down on the bed and patted the spot next to her. “Come, sit.”

He eyed her as though it was some kind of trick.

“Please.”

He sat, but not next to her, choosing instead the end of the bed and the furthest he could get away from her and still comply. That was something, she guessed.

“How did you and Patricia meet?”

“God. Why do you want to know about this? What’s the point?”

“It’s time we laid everything out because the past isn’t all I’ve seen. I’ve also seen the future. This doesn’t go away for you, for us. I care about you, Graham. And I think you care about me.”

She took his no-answer as confirmation.

“You were on the L.A.P.D. together,” she began. “Is that how you met?”

“Why don’t we start with what you don’t already know?”

She’d have to pull it from him an inch at a time. Fine. “Were you partners?”

“No. Not at first.”

~*~

Graham could still remember the first time he’d seen Patricia. Her long, dark hair had been tied back and tucked under her dress uniform cap. She’d taken the loss of her partner stoically, her back rigid as his casket was lowered into the ground. He couldn’t help but stare at her. She’d caught him looking and when their gazes had connected he’d felt like he’d been punched in the gut. All of the air whooshed out of him. From that moment, he’d made a point of putting himself in her path.

“Were you dating before you became partners?” Erin asked, breaking into long suppressed memories best forgotten.

“No. After.”

“Isn’t there some kind of rule against partners dating?”

“That rule didn’t apply to Patricia and me.”

“Why not?”

“I was under orders.”

“You were ordered to have an affair with your partner?”

“Yes. Sort of. No, not really. It just sort of happened and they wanted to use it. I let them.”

She shook her head, trying to follow what he was saying. “Your superiors?”

“No. Internal Affairs.”

“They thought Patricia was a dirty cop?”

“What makes you think it was her and not me?”

“Because I know you.”

He snorted and looked away. “Yeah, well…” She didn’t know him as well as she thought.

“Was she dirty?”

“I didn’t believe it at first. I agreed to what they wanted, thinking I could get her cleared. They suspected she was involved in her partner’s death. It was all a mistake. It had to be. She wouldn’t do what they were accusing her of. By the time I realized that it was much worse than they’d thought, we were…”

“In love?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know what we were.” And that was the truth. What they might have been had been stunted from the start. He’d poisoned the ground so that nothing could grow between them.

“You cared about her. I can see it.”

“Maybe.” Yes. God, yes.

“Did she know you were working for Internal Affairs?”

He nodded.

“You told her, didn’t you?”

He’d never forget the look on Patricia’s face when he’d confronted her, when he had to tell her that they’d been a lie. That he’d been using her, fucking her, to get what he could for IAB. She’d slapped him. Screamed at him. He just stood there and took it all. His original motives didn’t matter anymore. He deserved everything she threw at him and more. While she’d been talking about a future together, marriage, he’d been collecting evidence against her. Every single day they were together.

“I tried to help her, tried to get her out of it. Tried to convince her we could have a life together. That deal in the apartment was supposed to have been the last of it. She promised. But I had a feeling she was up to something. It all went down too easily…at first.”

“She shot you.”

He self-consciously rubbed his side where the bullet had hit. That had been the biggest surprise of all. If he hadn’t had seen Franklin’s reaction to Patricia pulling her gun in that last split second before she fired, he might not be here right now, calmly discussing the whole fucking mess with Erin.

“Yeah.”

“The other guy shot her.”

“Franklin. I think he thought she was shooting at him.”

“And then you shot Franklin and made it look like Patricia and Franklin had shot each other.”

“He would’ve shot me if I hadn’t beaten him to it. It’s my fault she’s dead. I pushed her into that deal, pushed her to get out. She didn’t want to do it. But I promised her… Ah, shit.” He got up from the bed and moved to the window. He couldn’t look at Erin when he told this next part. He hooked a finger in the curtain and pulled it aside. The night was still and solemn. A cruel contrast to the blackness that roiled inside him.

“I told her I’d tank the IAB case,” he said, his breath fogging the window and obscuring the view. “I told her I thought we should get married.”

“Why?”

“Spouses can’t testify against spouses.”

~*~

Erin could hardly believe it. The blow of how much Patricia must have meant to Graham hit her hard. It was stupid to be jealous of a dead woman, but the burning ache had settled in her chest and no amount self-chastisement could loosen it. “You would’ve married her to save her? You loved her that much?”

Graham turned from the window. “I owed her that much.”

“So it was obligation, then?”

“Does it matter what it was?”

“I suppose it shouldn’t. Why did she have that recorder on her?”

“I found out later she’d gone behind my back and tried to make a deal. She’d offered me up, said I’d been in on it with her from the start, that I’d been playing IAB. It might’ve worked if she hadn’t died. If I hadn’t found that recorder and the other evidence she’d manufactured against me.”

“Is that why you left L.A.?”

“My dad’s heart attack gave me a good reason.”

“Did you go to her funeral?”

“Yeah.”

Erin could see now how much what he’d gone through had stripped from him. He stood by the window, swallowed in grief, obligation and blame. So much blame. As though he were solely responsible for the choices Patricia had made. Her death hung from him, a weighty sacrifice in the war he waged with his conscience. She couldn’t relieve him of it, but maybe she could help him forget, at least for a little while.

And maybe she had some things to forget too.

She rose from the bed and went to him, her damp nightgown sticking to her. He watched her, his body stiff and unmoving.

She slid her hand in his and gave it a little tug. “Come back to bed. It’s late.”

Cocking his head to the side, he frowned as though he didn’t quite understand what she was saying.

She pulled on his hand again. “Come on.”

He allowed her to tow him back to the bed and climbed in next to her. She peeled off her wet nightgown and threw it on the floor. He continued to watch her, his gaze hot and wary. She placed a hand on his chest and leaned in to kiss him.

He pulled away. “What are you doing?”

“I thought that was fairly obvious.”

“Why?”

“I want something outside my head, something real and tangible and immediate. I just want to
feel
.”

He reached out to brush the backs of his fingers over her cheek. She caught his hand and held it in both of hers against her bare chest.

“Can you understand that?” she asked. “Can you do that for me?”

He stared at her for a moment, his expression giving away the rapid play of his emotions. And then he reached out and gripped the back of her head and brought her down for a kiss. Light and restrained, he tasted, testing. She let him go slow, let him feel his way to her.

Her skin felt feverish and prickly against his. Her senses spiraled into overdrive, the sensations piling up, one on top of the other and still he kissed her as though he had all the time in the world or was committing this moment to memory.
Oh, my God that was it.
She pushed back, breaking the kiss to look down at him. He was ending things. She could feel his withdrawal as though it was a string he pulled, unraveling everything between them.

Reaching down, she grabbed the sheet and drew it around her. She couldn’t speak, could only watch and wait while he settled their fate. He leaned up on his elbows. The late hour and all she’d been though tonight must have messed her up more than she thought. That couldn’t be a smile. He wasn’t the kind of guy to grin while he busted her heart into unrecognizable pieces. Crooked as it was, it was a smile. The self-deprecating, it’s-not-you-it’s-me kind of smile that locked her lungs.

“Just say it,” she dared.

“We’re going to do it my way this time.”

“What?”

“Slow.” He rose up and stalked toward her on hands and knees. “Torturously slow.”

She backed away on instinct. “Wha…what will you do?”

He had her against the headboard now. “You wanted mindless.” He hooked a finger in the sheet and drew it slowly down. “You wanted to
feel
.”

Her lips parted at the look in his eyes. “Yes,” she breathed.

“You’re going to feel me on you…in you. And just when you think I’m done, that you can’t take any more, I’ll do it all over again.”

“Do it.”

~*~

A dare. Graham liked it. He liked her and everything about her. She didn’t come with a set of rules he was supposed to follow, a predetermined mold he was supposed to shape himself into. He could just be and she accepted. With her, he was both vulnerable and invincible. There was no agenda between them, no competition in which he had to constantly look over his shoulder, wondering when she’d plunge the knife into his back. He’d told her the worst, expecting judgment. Instead he’d been given acceptance.

And now after all she knew of him, she wanted to take him into her body, to be his at least for tonight. Instead of satisfaction, he found the idea intolerable to the point of pain. One night wouldn’t be enough. He’d have to find a way to make her want him again and again until they were both finally sated and he could leave her to find a man worthy of her.

Backing up his boast, he took her mouth, kissing her as he’d love her—long, slow, and so thoroughly, she’d cry out his name in pleasure long after they were over. She met him kiss for kiss, thrusting her hands in his hair and drawing him down on top of her. The feel of her under him, wrapping herself around him, struck something base and primal within him. She was his and not just for the night.

He bit her breast, sucking gently as she gasped and clutched him tighter. He pulled back to see what he’d done. His mark, his brand on her skin.
His.
She squirmed, drawing his attention to where he was seated between her thighs. She shifted again and he had to put a hand on her hip to still her movements.

“Slow,” he whispered, bending his head to take her nipple into his mouth.

She arched back, presenting her full breasts to him, as he reached down between her legs. Wet. So wet. For him. He wanted to pull his head back and howl like the beast he was for the things he was about to do to her. He left her breast to work her panties down her legs, weaving a trail of kisses across her abdomen and down one thigh.

Murmuring a protest, she tried to bring him back up her body, but he liked where he was. From the foot of the bed he saw her as he’d never seen her before. She was a feast laid out just for him. He took her feet in his hands, caressing her arches. She sighed and settled back, watching him with eyes that pierced straight through all of his bullshit.

He wanted to pull her to him right then, open her legs, and drive deep. But he’d promised her slow. Sliding his hands up the back of her calves, he drew light circles with his fingertips on the underside of her knees. She closed her eyes and tilted her head back. He pressed her legs open, breathing in the scent of her, basic and tempting. But he wasn’t after the now. He wanted her to remember him, remember this night, and compare all others to it.

Her skin was so soft, so pliant. He raised her knees, exposing her deep center. She’d wanted mindless, to feel nothing but sensation, wantonness, abandon. He’d give her that and more. His mouth was a tool he used to drive her, licking up her thighs, nipping, kissing, until she thrashed about, her pelvis tilting. And still he didn’t relent. He kissed her everywhere and yet not where she craved it the most.