His Partner's Wife (25 page)

She watched dazedly as he rolled a condom onto himself.
Insanely she would never have thought of it, hadn't known she could be so
heedless.

"Thank you," she whispered.

Lids heavy, eyes a glittering, deep blue, he said,
"Someday we'll make love without this." His hand splayed on her
belly, he looked his fill at her body, sprawled atop his bed.
"Someday," he murmured again.

The next instant, he rolled onto his back and lifted her
above him. "Ready or not," he said in that same rough, urgent voice.

Oh, yes. She was ready.

Natalie sank slowly onto him, her body adjusting to the
shock of the invasion, stretching, convulsively tightening even as she herself
was the one to pull back. She withdrew until he was no more than a nudge at her
core, then lowered herself again, back arched, head thrown back, a silent cry
coming from her throat. He played with her breasts, let her set the speed, but
she felt his gathering need in the way his hips lifted to bury himself more
deeply in her.

Finally, when she faltered, he growled and gripped her
buttocks, rolling her onto her back. She spread her legs wide and hung on as he
thrust hard, faster and faster, sweat making his back slick beneath her
fingers. Pleasure spiraled in her belly, tightening, tightening, until it
convulsed like a spring pressed down and released. John groaned and jerked deep
inside her, his last thrusts extending the wash of exquisite feeling that traveled
as far as her fingertips and toes.

John being the man he was, he didn't sprawl atop her, but
rolled again and tucked her into the crook of his arm. Feeling her breathing
calm, listening to his steady heartbeat, Natalie realized she was smiling even
as inexplicable tears stung her eyes.

This, too, she had missed. Stuart had become less and less
tender in bed. When they had sex, he often turned away immediately as if she no
longer existed. It had made her feel … used.

John smoothed hair back from her face, his hand lingering.
He said unexpectedly, "Hugh says I've wanted you since the day I woke up
and realized you weren't married anymore."

They'd been talking about her? Natalie wasn't sure how to
feel about that. "
Hugh
says?" Did she sound the tiniest bit tart?

Apologetically he said, "Sometimes they know me better
than I know myself."

She curled his chest hair around her finger, fascinated by
the silky, springy texture. "You didn't know you were even attracted to
me?"

"Not a clue." He gave a grunt of laughter.
"That's probably not the most tactful thing to say to a woman you've just
bedded. But, you know, I never would have admitted even to myself that I wanted
my partner's wife. I guess I turned some sort of internal check on, and it took
a shock to turn it off."

Natalie rubbed her cheek against his hand. "A
shock?"

"A threat to you. Fear of losing you." His
shoulder moved under her head. "Something out of the ordinary."

She nodded, knowing he'd feel the movement.

"What about you?" He reached down and pinched her
bottom, making her jump. "When did you start lusting after my manly
self?"

She giggled at his deepened voice. "Lusting?" she
said innocently.

"You did lust?"

"I guess I must have, or I wouldn't be in your bed,
naked, now would I?"

"And sure you wanted to be here," he reminded her.

"Did I say that?"

She earned herself another pinch. Her punch to his chest
started a good-humored wrestling match that ended in a slow, sweet kiss.

With Natalie settled back comfortably against him, John
said, "Come on. Fair's fair. I want to know whether I was an idiot not to
notice sometime this past year that you might have been receptive to a polite
request for a date."

"I think you would have scared me," she confessed.
"I was, um, aware of your manly form when you painted my house this
summer. You kept taking your shirt off, you know."

"Aha." The rumble under her ear sounded pleased.

"But, of course, my observation was entirely academic.
I even tried to think of a friend who I could introduce to you."

"But you didn't." He was definitely pleased.

"No." She hadn't been able to think of anyone good
enough for him. A confession she would
not
make.

"So?"

"It bothered me how much I wanted
you
to be
the one who came after I found the body. And then when I came home with you, I
started having—" how to put it? "—feelings that went a teeny bit
beyond friendly."

"Lust," he said contentedly.

She very much feared that lust didn't cover it.
Love
came a
whole lot closer.

"Maybe."

Suddenly John rolled onto his side so that he was looking
down into her face, his eyes serious. "You've been keeping me awake
nights."

Her pulse sped. "Have I?"

"Oh, yeah." He nuzzled her cheek. "And
appearing in my dreams when I did sleep."

"A nightmare?" she whispered, just before her
parted lips met his.

John kept the kiss light, teasing. "Only when I came on
to you and I could see how taken aback you were. Or repulsed. That was my worst
fear, you know."

She pulled back in astonishment. "That I'd be
repulsed?"

"That I'd shock you." His gaze was watchful again.
"We were buddies, you know. I was afraid, if I made a move…"

"You'd blow our friendship."

"Yeah."

Natalie smiled wryly. "I was afraid of the same thing,
you know."

And still was, another of the many things she couldn't say.

His face cleared. "Yeah? You were?"

"Of course I was." She framed his jaw in her
hands, loving the rasp of a nighttime beard against her palms. "Having you
call just to talk, because
you
needed to talk, not because you were being nice to a lonely
widow, was something I really looked forward to." How tepid, how
euphemistic. Why not say,
I
lived
for your calls?

Because he hadn't said any such thing.

He was silent for a moment. "Me, too," he said at
last, and kissed her again.

This time his mouth was not only tender but hungry.
Reassured, she felt the same leap of desire, so quickly fanned into life
because it had been banked for so long. If she also felt an ache at the things
he hadn't said and a fear for what this vulnerability could do to her, it only
intensified her response. Oh, yes. This was a risk she'd had to take.

Telephones rang
; a
fight broke out in the hall where a uniform was wrestling a suspect into the
booking room. Swearing, a plainclothes officer jumped out of the way and spilled
coffee down his shirt.

Ignoring the familiar chaos, John sat at his desk in the
Major Crimes unit and brooded.

Now what?

A simple question, but one with many layers for him.
Starting with, what did he do this minute? Once he decided on some strategy, he'd
join Baxter at Natalie's house to finish digging through Stuart's crap in the
garage. Hell, they should have volunteered to price everything for a Saturday
sale while they were at it.

In the longer term, did he come clean to the department?
This one made him uncomfortable, because he was an honest man but the answer
was still no. He wanted to know more first. He wanted to protect Natalie Reed.

There were those who'd say he wanted to protect himself.

If he didn't go to Internal Affairs, the question
now what?
became
especially relevant. Reed had been dead a year. How to figure out what he'd
been thinking those last months? How to discover his partner? Where he'd
stashed the goods or the bucks?

Where was he going as far as Natalie was concerned? He was
risking his career to shield her. He'd taken her into his bed last night, and
he wished like hell he could have her there every night.
Until death do us part.

He frowned at his computer screen, although he couldn't have
said what information it displayed.

A month ago he'd still been struggling with the reluctant
belief that he should have Debbie move home, hire nurses, for her sake and the
kids'.

Until death do us part.

He hadn't even known he was attracted to Natalie, never mind
seeing her as the person he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

Was it too quick? Was he reacting to the stress of the
circumstances? Or was he head over heels in love with a woman who in one short
year had become his best friend outside his brothers?

Did Natalie feel the same? He wanted to assume she did,
because last night she'd come so willingly and joyfully into his arms and his
bed. But—oh, hell—times had changed. Maybe she'd seen sex as an uncomplicated
pleasure with a friend.

What would she say if he went on his knees to her tonight
and said, "Stay forever. Marry me?"

And what about Debbie?

John groaned and tugged at his hair.

A hand clapped him on the shoulder. "That brain giving
you trouble?" asked Ryan Fairman, a good-natured detective. "I always
knew it would, sooner or later. Just lookin', a man can tell."

John mock-lunged at his fellow officer, who feinted and,
laughing, continued on his way.

The interruption helped. John focused on his computer
screen, where he'd brought up a list of Det. Stuart Reed's arrests in the month
before his death.

About all the information did was confirm what John had
already remembered: while he was on a leave of absence, Stuart had paired with
Geoff Baxter, whose previous partner had retired. Thus their own convenient
pairing, after the funeral.

The two had had a good month, last September. At the top of
the list was a rare triumph. They'd cleared a "cold" murder—a teenage
girl who'd been abducted on her way home from high school ten years before.
She'd been raped and her body dumped the same night. A tip had come in, but
unlike most tips this one had panned out. The
Sentinel,
John
recalled, had spread this one over the front pages, congratulating officers who
never gave up on such a heinous crime. Stuart had modestly declared that this
arrest was thanks to the murderer's current girlfriend, who had seen a
"souvenir" and not been satisfied by his explanation. Nonetheless, it
had involved solid police work.

"Damn it, he was a good cop," John muttered.
"What happened?"

Still paging down, he mulled over the one case, however,
because when he thought about it, it represented Stuart Reed perfectly. He was
smart, dogged, but also a publicity hound. On some level, John had always known
that Reed didn't serve selflessly, that he dove into the water to save a kid's
life thinking already about the headlines that would proclaim him a hero.

So, okay, he had an ego. Whose motives were unmixed? Wanting
to come out looking good was a far cry from committing a brutal murder to steal
and sell a drug that destroyed lives, all for money.

Maybe Lindmark's story was BS. But John's gut said no.
Stuart had changed. John had felt it. His partner had become more closed, even
irritated, and a couple of times he'd said something like, "Screw the
department," then given a secret smile that had unsettled John.

Oh, yeah. He'd done it. The question that mattered most
wasn't where he'd stashed the money but rather who felt entitled to half of it.
And how Ronald Floyd entered into the picture. A dead man couldn't broker a
drug deal.

John hated even suspecting Geoff Baxter. Damn it, he'd known
Geoff for years. They weren't close friends, but they ended up at the same
backyard barbecues, knew each other's wives, trusted each other on the job.