Ms. Simon Says (22 page)

Her response was one of those skeptical little clucks of her tongue, so he tipped her chin up and looked directly into her face.

“I’m not kidding,” he said.

When she started to turn her head away, he gently used his thumb to direct her gaze back at him.

“I’m serious, Shelby. I mean it. I won’t let anything bad happen to you.”

Well, damn. He meant to make her feel better, but now her eyes were flooding with tears.

“That’s so sweet,” she said, finishing her sentence with a very big and very wet sniff.

“I’m not being sweet, for crissake. I’m...”

“I know.” She nodded, which loosened a tear from the corner of her right eye. Mick felt it plop onto his hand. “You’re just doing your job,” she said. “Such as it is.”

“No!” he nearly howled. Jesus. He hoped her parents didn’t hear him. Lowering his voice to a growl, he said, “That’s not what this is about.”

“It’s not about protecting me?” Another big, wet sniff. He was about to howl again that protecting her wasn’t just his job. It was personal now. God, was it personal! But then a tiny switch suddenly flicked in his brain and he decided, rather than tell her, he’d show her just how personal this was. He stepped forward, and closed the door behind him.

Her mouth was soft and wet and salty, and for the moment anyway, it was completely his.

He wanted her so much his knees almost buckled. And when Shelby’s actually did, he picked her up and carried her to bed.

The master bedroom was the only room in the house where their younger daughter had allowed herself to relax her “strictly Victorian” credo. Beth had knocked out part of the west wall and installed enormous windows that offered a magnificent view of the lake through the treetops. Now, at nearly midnight, the yard lights were firing up the leaves of the sugar maple to an incredible, sensuous crimson just beyond the windowsill, and Linda thought it would be a glorious color for a tunic. One with bell sleeves, perhaps, and maybe a narrow scalloped or picot edge. She was staring at the leaves when Harry came into the bedroom.

His step was just the slightest bit tentative, which Linda appreciated since this wasn’t his official bedroom at the moment. On the other hand, she wished with all her heart that it were. With that in mind, she had turned down the covers on his side of the king-size bed.

“Any news about the bomb?” she asked, levering up and adjusting the pillows behind her.

“You were right. It was a prank. Thank God.” “Amen to that.” She sighed. “Are you sleepy?”

“Not too,” he replied, lowering himself onto the mattress, stretching out his legs.

“Feel like talking?” she asked.

He rolled his head toward her, meeting her gaze. “What about?”

“Us.”

His reaction was immediate. His mouth flattened. His jaw tightened. There was something verging on panic in his eyes. She’d obviously frightened him, which she hadn’t meant to do.

“I want you to think about going to work for me, Harry,” she said, dispensing with the preamble she’d rehearsed again and again.

He laughed, a sharp little explosion of sound that seemed propelled as much by relief as indignation. “Work for you?”

Linda sat farther up in bed. “Yes. Why not? With the business as big as it is and growing all the time, I need competent, full-time legal assistance.”

“I do criminal law, Linda. For God’s sake. Not contracts.”

She’d anticipated an outright, knee-jerk, much aggrieved refusal. So far so good. And now she narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms over the bedcovers. “Well, you’re not too old to learn, are you?”

For a long while, he didn’t say anything, but simply stared past her, at the fiery leaves. “I’ll think about it,” he said at last.

Letting out the long, silent breath that she hadn’t even realized she’d been holding, Linda said, “Good! Well, I can’t ask any more than that, can I? I’m getting sleepy now, sweetheart. Let’s turn out the light.”

Quick. Before you change your mind.

Shelby was trying not to moan, but it wasn’t easy. If she’d had any qualms about making love to this man, they’d all but disappeared when he kissed her. Then any remaining doubts were totally obliterated when he picked her up and carried her to the bed. No one had ever done that before. It was such a damned romantic gesture. She felt quite literally swept off her feet.

“Ssh.”

Oh, dear Lord. She must’ve been moaning because Callahan’s fingers had just replaced his lips and he was shushing her.

“Sorry,” she moaned.

“Ssh.”

His lips returned to her mouth, tasting her, teasing, and tempting. He kissed her as if it wasn’t just the prelude to something else, but important in and of itself. His hand reclaimed her breast. If this was foreplay, Shelby decided the most she’d ever experienced before was one-play, two-play at the very most.

Callahan’s body was even better without clothes, with its warm flesh giving way to the hard, hot muscle beneath it. His shoulders were divine. His chest was smooth and perfectly sculpted. His abs were worthy of their very own infomercial. And when Shelby’s hands roamed farther down, they encountered an erection that was damned near a miracle.

She moaned again.

It was dark in the room, but she could see the heat in his eyes when he levered up on his elbows above her and asked between kisses, “Are you sure you want this?”

Not
this
. Shelby wanted
him
.

“Speak now,” he whispered, “or forever...”

“Hold your piece?” She lifted her head to kiss him as she reached for him again, and then it was Callahan’s turn to moan.

He left her just long enough to lean down to grab his pants from where he’d tossed them on the floor, then Shelby heard the distinct sound of a little package being ripped open. Jeez. It sounded like he was using his teeth. For one scaredy-cat, what-am-I-doing, omigod second, she wondered if it was too late to change her mind.

But then his hard, wonderful body covered hers again and the only thing in the world that Shelby wanted was Michael Rainbow Callahan—on her, in her, especially in her, completely.

Then he was, and it was heaven. Such heaven that Shelby gave a little cry of lusty happiness. Unfortunately her partner took it as a cry of pain.

“Did I hurt you, baby?” he asked, pulling out and away.

“No!” She pulled him back and wrapped her legs around his waist. “Oh, God, no. Now, Callahan. I want you.”

They might have missed a couple signals in the beginning, but their awkwardness melted away as they quickly discovered each other’s innate rhythms and private pleasure zones. Shelby, in fact, was shocked that she had so many. She never knew! Callahan finally took her over the edge with a hot, harsh word in her ear, and he came tumbling after a mere second later.

Afterward, they lay side by side, their hands clasped, breathing deeply, letting their heartbeats settle back, at least one of them smiling up at the ceiling, hoping it was half as good for him as it had been for her.

Something fell on his chest, and Mick jackknifed up in bed only to discover that he wasn’t sleeping alone and it was his bedmate’s hand that had startled him awake. He fell back onto the mattress with a soft curse.

He’d fallen asleep on her last night. Way to go, bozo. You had the most incredible sex in your entire life, then rolled over and went to sleep. Christ. He probably snored like a ripsaw, too. Julie used to wear earplugs.

And here she was again—his late, great wife—right in bed with him. Mick closed his eyes and sighed in frustration. Maybe it made sense that he’d think about her now. After all, it was the first time he’d slept beside a woman since he’d last slept beside Julie in their bed. Other than that, though, the two women had almost nothing in common.

He turned his head to study Shelby’s face, not that he hadn’t already memorized it. A strand of her long brown hair curved over her cheek and fell across her mouth. Mick reached to gently brush it back, half expecting her eyes to open and then react to his presence in her bed. Would she be happy? Would her bourbon-colored eyes sparkle with joy and the remnants of their lovemaking? Or would the color of her eyes be closer to sour mash and her expression full of misgivings and regrets, a bit like a bad hangover?

He would’ve been crazy about her even if the sex hadn’t been great. Or maybe it only seemed great because he was so accustomed to Julie’s get-it-over-with-I’vegot-early-rounds-tomorrow attitude and her bone-deep fear of getting pregnant. Hell, with their killer schedules—his when he went undercover, hers when she began an ER residency—they hadn’t even slept together in what turned out to be the final three months of their marriage. Funny thing was, he hadn’t missed it. Instead, it was a relief not to have to beg.

“Uh-oh.” Shelby’s voice was husky with sleep. “You look like a man suffering from recriminations.”

He’d been so lost in his thoughts that he hadn’t seen her eyes open. They were searching his now, all warm and worried.

“Actually,” he said, “you just caught me wondering whether or not I had any little soldiers, other than the Trojan I used last night.”

“Do you?”

He shook his head.

“Too bad for you, Callahan,” she said. Her eyes took on a topaz sparkle as she nestled against him. “I guess you’ll just have to talk to me now.”

It wasn’t exactly like pulling teeth, Shelby thought, although it was pretty damn close. Mick Callahan didn’t like to talk about himself at all, at least not at any length. But his reticence struck her less as a guy thing than a secret thing. She had the sense that there were some really dark and painful events in his past that he didn’t want to bring out into the light.

She was, however, undaunted.

Even as he’d told her all the places his mother had moved to and from when he was a kid, he still managed to tell her very little about the woman herself.

“She must’ve been beautiful,” she said, “to have had so many men just want to take her along with them.”

“Beautiful? Yeah, I guess. I was just a kid. What did I know from beautiful?”

“Well, I always thought
my
mother was beautiful, even when I was in kindergarten.” Shelby chuckled. “Actually, she looks pretty much the same as she did then.”

“She is beautiful.” He ran his palm along Shelby’s naked flank. “So’s her daughter.”

It wasn’t as if Shelby had never heard that before, but she never knew how to respond because—even though she was relatively comfortable with her appearance—she never felt beautiful. Attractive, maybe. Certainly not a bowser. But with a mother who looked like Linda and a blue-eyed, honey-blond sister like Beth, Shelby had always felt that she came in a distant third in the looks department. It had never really mattered to her, but suddenly she wondered just how important a woman’s appearance was to this incredibly good-looking man.

“I’m okay,” she said with a little lift of her shoulders. “So, tell me about your wife. Was she absolutely gorgeous?”

Uh-oh. Judging from the instantaneous scowl on his face, it was obvious that she’d hit a nerve.

“Sorry,” she said. “I was just curious.” Sensing that their little interlude had come to an abrupt end, Shelby started to move away, but Callahan’s arm tightened around her.

“No, I’m sorry. I...uh... I’m just not all that comfortable talking about Julie.” He sighed. “It’s a long story.”

“I guess it would be after being married so many years,” she said.

“Yeah.” He reached for her hand, brought it to his lips for a warm and lingering kiss. “I’m not being evasive here, Shelby. Trust me. It’s just...”

She put her fingertips to his mouth, stilling whatever explanation he was struggling with. “I do,” she said. “Trust you. You’ll tell me when you’re ready.”

A little storm cloud seemed to have moved directly over the bed. In an effort to banish it, she grinned and said, “Speaking of ready... Maybe we should drive into town for...um... latex.”

The light in his eyes rekindled. It was like warm hazel sunshine. “That’s some pretty good advice, Ms. Simon.”

“I thought so.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

A
few hours later, after finishing Linda Simon’s world’s-best omelet brunch and Harry’s world’s-best-and-stiffest Bloody Marys, both Mick and Shelby were ready for a Sunday afternoon nap. But first there was the little matter of protection.

Because it was a Sunday, the little burg of Shelbyville was locked up tight, including the closet-sized pharmacy, so they drove another eight miles to Mecklin, the bustling county seat, where the parking lot of DrugWorld was packed. Mick didn’t say so, but he was grateful for the relative anonymity offered by the larger drugstore.

They roamed the aisles for a while. It had been years since Mick had done any recreational shopping. His shopping strategy lately had been simple. Get in and get it and get out. But now he found himself smiling as he trailed after Shelby in the cosmetics aisle.

She picked up a cologne bottle, studied it, sniffed it, then sprayed it lavishly on her neck. “What do you think?” she asked him, tilting her head to expose her pale throat.

“I think I vant to suck your blood,” he replied in his best vampire accent, which Mick thought was pretty funny for a guy who was known more for his bad moods than his sense of humor.

She laughed, thank God.

The cologne was light and lemony, beckoning him, and it was all Mick could do not to wrap his arms around Shelby right then and there, and to start licking her lovely, long, lemony neck.

But apparently they were done in the cosmetics aisle. He followed her next to the large rack of paperback books, where she pulled one from its pocket, squinted at the blurb on the back, then opened her handbag. For one bleak second, Mick thought she was going to boost the book, and that he’d have to turn a blind eye to the crime, maybe even protect her from some overaggressive house dick. Yeah. Okay. He could flash his badge and tell the store detective he’d been following Shelby all the way from Chicago and now he’d caught her red-handed.

But, then, instead of dropping the book discreetly into her bag, she wedged the paperback under her arm while she fished in the leather depths of her purse and came up with a pair of glasses.