Under the Surface (21 page)

“Did it work?” she said absently.

He refilled the glass and walked out of the darkness of the kitchen to stand in the doorway to the living room, waiting until she looked up from the book. Her green eyes were somehow both languid and heated, her skin gleaming against the dark sofa. There weren't sparks flying between them. It was like an ambush, tracers arcing into the night sky, the shock and adrenaline of a firefight every time they were in the same room. “No.”

At that her gaze sharpened. “Sometimes you can't shove down what you want,” she said as she went back to the book.

He turned abruptly for the shower. Before he got the door closed she added, in a slightly louder tone, “Or ignore it.”

To cool down, he let the tepid water stream over the top of his head before he soaped up. And while he couldn't ignore her, he could ignore the heat thumping in his groin. He could, and he would. He would ignore the ache building in his cock and the woman stretched out on his sofa by turning on
Sunday Night Football
and watching the game like any normal guy who'd had sex six hours earlier. He wasn't fifteen, for fuck's sake.

When he emerged from his bedroom, back in jeans and polo, he found his unexpected and highly unpredictable houseguest watching a public television special on the mating habits of baboons.

Don't react.
The book lay on the couch beside her hip, her index finger functioning as a bookmark, the cover reflecting the light from the TV. After a contemplative pause, he said, “You watching this?”

“Yes. It's fascinating.” In the dark her face was a pale blur relieved only by the sooty smears of eyelashes and eyebrows and a pink lush mouth.

Hands back on his hips, Matt watched a male baboon clamber up the back of another. After some howling and a few jerks of his furry hips, he scampered away. The victim of the hit-and-run looked over her shoulder and screeched at his disappearing back.

“Guess he didn't get the message about slow,” Eve said brightly.

Do. Not. React.
“The Bears are playing. Preseason game in Tokyo. Where's the remote?”

“Under my butt,” she said.

Laughter surged in his chest, a startling sound he turned into a cough before bending his head for a couple of even breaths. Under control again, he looked up to find Eve watching him.

“You don't really want to watch football, Matt.”

Looming over her felt weird, so he hunkered down beside the sofa and folded his arms on his knees. He knew what he had to do here. Say a simple, two-letter word, and this was all over, the humor, the banter, the sex. But just watching life eddy across her face turned off most of his higher neural functions.

She turned her head and looked at him, genuinely curious. “I looked through your CDs. Who still has CDs?”

“They're on my computer. I never got around to tossing them out,” he said. A partial truth. His digital music library was maybe a tenth of what he had on CD. He'd stopped buying music. Didn't pirate it either. He just stopped listening to it. When she kept that clear, direct gaze focused on him, he added, “I came for prep at Eye Candy because it was a good way to get information, and because you liked the same kind of music I do.”

This concession didn't get the response he'd hoped for, a reprieve in the unrelenting longing eddying in the room. She sat up a little straighter and tucked the book to her chest. “Aside from beating the living hell out of the heavy bag, what do you do that's for you?”

“I find my job very rewarding, and I love my brother.”

“Admirable,” she said quietly. “Noble, even, but you didn't answer the question. What do you have in your life that's just for you?”

His whole life was structured around duty and honor. He didn't need anything else. “Give me the remote, Eve,” he said with a beckoning motion.

She turned back to the book. “Come and get it, Matt.”

A glance over his shoulder at the TV, where the announcer was detailing the signs of a female bonobo's readiness to mate.
Challenges the male … feigns disinterest … pretends to read legal thrillers …

He could end this easily enough. He just had to say no. One simple word. End of discussion.

“We just got premium cable on Thursday,” he said. “Two hundred channels. Any one of them could be ESPN HD. Finding the game's going to be easier if I use the menu button on the remote. If I can't … there will be consequences.”

She licked her finger and turned another page. “Not your best tactic, Detective. You have no idea how much that turns me on. A deliciously firm lecture, or something more forceful? I'd prefer firm, but if my refusal to relinquish the remote drives you to forceful, then that's the price I'll pay.”

He was not backing down from this. “Forceful? You want me to go get my cuffs?”

“You're really ripped, so the mirrors in the workout room interest me,” she said without looking up, “but we can work something out.”

On second thought, no banter.
No banter, no laughter, no chatter,
except her survival depended on looking like a couple so crazy for each other that she'd moved in with him. And while he'd forgotten exactly why, somehow watching football was critical to his sanity.

Just say no.

Desperation drove him to lean forward and press an open-mouthed kiss into her shoulder. A gentle touch of tongue, then he scraped his teeth over her skin, watched a tremor ripple across her nape as her breath halted.

No cuffs necessary. One kiss and she was immobilized. Interesting.

Air gently, almost inaudibly eased from her lungs as his mouth slowly followed the line of her exposed collarbone, tasting Eve and a hint of salt. Another nip, this time not as gentle, and she inhaled quickly. He used the distraction to slip his hand under her bottom and grip the remote.

Success.

Feeling triumphant and a little ridiculous, he lifted his head to look at her. She kissed him. With her head braced on the sofa arm she didn't even have to move much, just lean forward a little and brush her lips over his, a quick flick of her tongue, the caress just hot and slick enough to remind him how things could get so much hotter, so much slicker.

He froze, hand still wrapped around the remote under her ass. They remained absolutely immobile for a heated moment, then another before the mental cables restraining everything frayed and snapped. He yanked the remote from under her bottom, twisted to point it at the television, and pushed the power button. As the screen went black he clicked off the lamp above her head, plunging the living room into darkness broken only by what little streetlight filtered through the tall oaks and the blinds. The book dropped to the floor by the remote. The couch wasn't large, but after a few shifts he lay half beside her, half on top of her, much of his weight on one elbow while with the other hand he groped under her head to tug at the rubber band holding back her hair.

A few strands came free with the elastic. “Ow,” she protested mildly.

“Sorry,” he murmured, then he buried his face in her hair and breathed in the scent of mint and rosemary. The strands slipped through his fingers and snagged on the three-day stubble on his jaw. He had to restrain himself from gripping the silken mass in his fingers.

She angled toward him, her face tucked in the hollow of his throat, and put her hand on his hip, bared as his shirt rode up. “It's just sex, Matt. Responsible, protected, come-out-of-your-skin-with-pleasure sex between two consenting adults.”

The words were completely casual, as if she truly expected nothing beyond the parameters of the case, felt nothing more than an itch she wanted him to scratch. The ache inside him eased a little. This was Eve, the sexiest cocktail waitress in Lancaster, who'd been willing to go to bed with Tom to settle her nerves. He might have to protect her from Murphy, but he didn't have to protect her from this. He leaned forward, into her body, felt a purely female little shudder roll through her. “So good everyone will know I got some, right?” he asked as he eased the Sig and the holster from its spot at the small of his back and set it on the end table.

She froze, then laughed as he echoed her words after the lap dance in the Jeep. “I don't feel the slightest bit sorry for you,” she said.

“Cold, boss. Very cold.”

“I offered to help you get a job!”

Her retaliatory pinch to the skin of his waist made him grip her hand. Something extremely basic inside him made him pull that hand above her head and grasp it with his left. His right hand now free, he inched up the hem of her tank top, exposing flat, pale belly between the low-slung waistband of her jeans and her rib cage. Using four fingers he stroked, his touch too purposeful to tickle, back and forth just above the button of her jeans. She just looked at him, her body completely vulnerable yet radiating strength and life force and enough energy to light him up. He wanted to sink into her sheer Eve-ness and disappear.

With a little shimmy she brought his attention firmly back to the physical, then flicked a glance at the now-dark television. “Channel 1606. If you hurry we can be done by the second quarter.”

Pressing his body firmly against her, he nestled his thigh between hers and slid his hand just inside her waistband. Her breath caught as she softened, opened. Everything male in him growled with satisfaction.

“Don't bet on it, boss,” he said as he unfastened her jeans. “I don't really want to watch football.”

*   *   *

“You better hurry. It's almost five,” Matt called down the hallway.

“Thirty seconds,” Eve said on her way from the bathroom to his bedroom, where her small suitcase sat on the chair. “A minute, tops. I promise.”

She'd said that five minutes ago, but at least now she was running around in a top and skirt, progress toward the eventual goal of dinner at her parents' house. The look on his face when she wore nothing but her white microfiber underthings suggested she get dressed or miss dinner entirely. She'd gotten dressed. In an adult lifetime of shocking, disillusioning, and downright disappointing her parents, missing dinner tonight of all nights was out of the question.

“You're sure we have to do this,” he said.

“If the point of this whole exercise is to look like we've fallen for each other fast and hard, then yes.” With a clatter, the bottle of foundation slipped from her fingers into the sink but didn't break. She muttered a curse, swiped her nose and chin with the makeup sponge, then said, “I have dinner with my parents every Monday night. We're dating, you work at my bar and have Mondays off, therefore you'd be coming over too. It will look strange if I miss it.”

“Why Mondays?”

“Dad works Sundays, and between services, study groups, and appointments, he usually works all day. He takes Mondays as his Sabbath and the evenings were family time. I'm ready.”

She emerged from the bathroom wearing a fitted pink blouse with short sleeves and about thirty pearly pink buttons running from the upright collar to the hem that hit just above her hip bone, an A line skirt the color of a green olive, and flat brown sandals. She'd straightened her hair, parted it on the side, tucked behind her ears, and she wore just a touch of makeup, foundation, mascara, lip gloss. He wore khakis and an Oxford, and standing in the hallway, looking at him, she had a disorienting moment where the world tilted just enough to leave her a little unsteady.

It was like the surface of reality cracked open for just a moment and a timeless truth flashed in the rip in the space-time continuum. Something she couldn't identify glinted in his hazel eyes.

“What?” she asked, as she smoothed her skirt over her hip bones. “Did I spill foundation?”

“Huh? No. You look nice,” he said.

She cocked her head and considered him. “I don't look like we were in bed together thirty minutes ago, right?”

“No,” he said seriously. “You don't look like you've ever thought about going to bed with a man.”

“Perfect for family night,” she said, and started down the hallway, only to come up short when he didn't move. In her flat-heeled sandals she had to look up into his eyes.

“Your brother will be there,” he said.

“Caleb comes and goes as he pleases,” she said noncommittally. “Depending on how busy he is at work, he's there for the whole meal, or just dessert, or not at all.” When he didn't respond, she stepped past him to rummage through her purse and come up with her sunglasses. “Come on, pokey. We're going to be late.”

He locked the front door and followed her down the ramp. Beside his Jeep she raised an eyebrow at him. “You put the top on?”

“We may be flaunting this … this … all over the East Side, but I'm not driving you around in an open vehicle two days after someone tried to kill you,” he said as he unlocked her door.

His hesitation, neatly avoided, summed up their current problem. What exactly
was
this besides a mirage?

She recoiled as hot air rolled out of the open door. “The AC works, right? It's been over a hundred degrees for three weeks straight.”

“Yup.” He braced a hip on the seat, started the Jeep, and turned on the air conditioning, then got back out and closed the door.

She shut her door and waited for the AC to work, watching him across the black hood as she did. “What would you call
this
if you were working with another cop?” she asked.

Hands on hips, he scanned the street, then the yard. “A flagrant violation of departmental rules governing conduct between officers.”

Between the sex and the sense of humor, it was getting harder and harder to stop the shift from
deceptive asshole
to
okay guy
. “So you and Sorenson…?”

“Never.”

“Why not? She's very pretty. She's smart, which I think you like, and you work well together.”