Wrapped in Flame (8 page)

“There is no
us
, Erica. Remember that. Say it. Mean it. Believe it. Because that’s what’s going to help us right now. It’s the only thing that’s going to get us through. You’ll find it pretty easy after a while. I should know. I’ve been telling myself that since the day you married Keith.”

He took a giant step away. “Come on, guys. Time’s short. I’ve got to get back to work.” His gaze met hers once more. “I’ll give you space…for now. Don’t get used to it.”

As she watched him walk away, Erica wasn’t sure if she’d been gut punched or served notice he was coming for her when the smoke cleared.

Chapter Seven

Mike clutched the steering wheel in a death grip and cursed himself a thousand times over. Male pride sucked. He never imagined it raged so deeply inside him. One part of him wanted to beat his chest and yell,
I’m the man. I take care of you.
Another, no doubt wiser, part urged caution. Coming at Erica balls-out might find him without said balls. She’d put up with that kind of attitude from Keith—pushy, aggressive. Mike wasn’t about to do the same to her.

It was hard, though. He wanted Erica to cling to him, to let him take care of everything, to be the man she’d want in her life forever. He’d waited so long to have her, loved her so much. Instead, she’d pushed him away, thrown up walls because she was scared and in shock. So he threw up his own walls and got pissy about it.

“Did you tell her you were pulled off the case?” CJ asked.

“No. She’s upset enough that Posner’s sniffing around us.”

“It’s better to tell her before she finds out,” Bub said from the truck’s backseat. “No telling how she’ll react if she finds out you weren’t honest.”

“She’s on the edge,” Berto said behind him. “I’ve see that freaked-out look in people’s eyes before. And she thinks we’re going to leave her be? I hope you set her straight on that.”

No, he’d made it worse. “She should know you all well enough by now to know better.”

“And you?” CJ drummed his fingers on the console between them.

“Things have changed.”

They responded with a communal grunt. Thankfully, they left it at that.

“We getting everything from your spare bedroom?” Bub asked as Mike backed the truck into his driveway.

“Yeah. And that extra recliner from the living room. The end table and lamp next to it as well.” She’d need kitchen stuff too. “I’ve got some boxes in the garage. We can load up some cookware, dishes—”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to have her live here?” Berto asked.

“She’d never stand for that.” They needed to fully understand the situation, even if that meant violating her confidence. “Keith pushed her hard. I won’t do the same thing. I don’t want her to feel as if she doesn’t have a choice.”

“Well”—CJ flipped his seat belt off the second Mike cut the engine—“there’s not pushing, but then there’s letting her know exactly where you stand and
then
giving her space.”

He had a point. “When did you get to be so smart about women?”

CJ snickered. “Never. It’s easier to see stuff when you’re not directly involved.”

“I’ll remember that when it’s your turn in the box,” Mike said over the laughter in the backseat.

CJ tossed up his hands. “Hey, stranger things have happened. But I’ll tell you this”—he jabbed his finger at Mike—“I can guarantee I’m not going to scuff my toe in the sand and dick around. I’m going to go for it. Because if you’d done that from the start, we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in now.”

Verbal uppercut, right to the jaw, and straight to the core of the matter.

He’d been beyond miserable this last year, wanting Erica and seeing her with someone else. High road be damned. Now that she was free, now that he’d had a taste of what it was like to have her exclusively, Mike couldn’t stay away from her, no matter how much space she wanted. No matter how much sense it made to lie low until the investigation was over. She belonged in his arms, in his bed, under his body—in his life forever. Everything about Mike demanded he step up and prove to her…so many things he couldn’t begin to count them all. He couldn’t wait any longer. He
wouldn’t
wait any longer.

Mike swallowed the emotion that welled up. There was nothing he could do to fight the fear that went with it. He fell back on words he’d lived since the night before.
Don’t fuck this up.

“We gonna load this stuff up, or are you going to sit there looking all moonfaced?” Bub asked.

“Shut the fuck up.” Mike pushed the truck door open and headed for the house, trying to ignore the snickers behind him.

What he’d thought would only be one truckload wound up being three. He expected Erica to challenge him at some point, to tell him enough was enough, especially during the second load when her uplifted eyebrow had met their arrival. But she let him have his way. That alone gave him the courage to take a stand. All he needed was time alone with her.

And if she doesn’t feel the same?

Mike followed Erica’s every move, watching her set things to rights or telling others where she wanted stuff. Everyone but him. She was flame in his arms, and the burn still simmered under his skin. It always would. Then she caught him staring. Her cheeks flushed, her breath caught. The sweep of those long eyelashes shielded her big brown eyes seconds before she locked her gaze on to his. The cacophony around them faded to background noise. The others could be sitting on the sidelines with popcorn, and he wouldn’t have noticed. Or cared.

She ducked into her bedroom. Mike followed and filled the gap between them, stopping short of pressing her against the wall. His heart raced. Skin tingled.

“Keith came between us when he was alive, Erica. I’ll be damned if I’m going to let him do so now that he’s dead.”

“He already has.”

How could so brief a silence last an eternity? A lifetime in which Erica’s unblinking stare seared into his eyes, grabbed his balls, and yanked them to his throat. At least they had good company. His heart had been lodged there since the moment he’d first met her. With those three words, Mike wondered if she was ready to crush body parts along with his hopes. So much for not fucking things up.

“And you don’t arbitrarily get to decide that, Mike. This is my life. My choice. I asked you for space and distance to get my head on straight, and you respond by backing me into the corner.”

The woman was hell on wheels, controlled fury, passion fired. His dick started to fill again. Clearly it had no idea how precarious a predicament it was in right now. Or rather, it didn’t care. The thing always had a mind of its own. And apparently a death wish.

“Technically, it’s the wall. And you aren’t really backed into it. You can slip away any time you want.” His mouth wasn’t much smarter than the rest of him. “Now this”—he dragged her against him and pressed her to the wall—“this is backed.”

“And this”—her knee shifted to his groin—“is a precarious predicament for you.”

“Really? You’d do that?” He cocked his head and frowned.

“It’s for your own good. Why can’t you see that?”

She wiggled a bit, adjusting her stance. It gave Mike the opportunity to slip his knee between hers. Her heat wrapped around his thigh and put his erection on full notice. Apparently she wasn’t as disinterested as she pretended.

“So what are the rules and boundaries? I don’t want to presume or make any missteps.”

She huffed out a beleaguered sigh.

“Ah, I recognize the Sigh of Doom when I hear it. We kids heard it a lot from our mom.”

“Mike—”

“I’ve waited a long time to have you. I sure as hell don’t want to screw things up now. What lines should I not cross? For instance…” He drew her hair away from her neck. “Can I do this?” He nipped a line down the curve of her neck, loving that small gasp she made.

“Or this?” He palmed her breast, rolling the nipple to a peak hard enough to wear through her bra.

On another gasp, she pressed into his hand. “This isn’t getting us anywhere.”

“Maybe this will help clarify.” He slid his hand to her crotch.

She moaned softly. Her thighs locked his hand in place. When that failed to stop his plundering fingers, she clamped her hand around his wrist. “Stop trying to distract me with sex.”

“Oops. Sorry. Didn’t mean to break the rules.” He jerked his hands away and took a giant step back.

“Stop being an ass.” She smacked his chest. “You’re making a joke out of something that’s really important to me.”

“You hurt my feelings.”

“Your feelings or your pride?” she shot back. “So rather than talk about it, you decide to hurt mine back by not listening?”

Mike’s turn to sigh. He slipped his arms around her and hugged her close but loose. “You’re right. I’m sorry. You say ‘rules and boundaries.’ I hear ‘you’re not good enough for me.’”

She wedged her palms between them. “It’s not about you. It’s about me.”

“I can’t give you what you want, Erica. I can’t set you apart from me. Not now. Not ever. I made the mistake of letting you go once before. I won’t do it again.” He watched her throat as she took a hard swallow.

“I wasn’t yours to begin with. You said it already. There is no
us
.”

Another fuckup. He was racking them up today.

“Hurts, doesn’t it?” she said.

Mike stared down his nose at her smug expression. “As much as you shutting me out.”

“Point made.” She pushed gently against his chest.

Mike reluctantly let her go.

“So where do we stand, Mike?” She raised her palm. “United, I get it.”

“You tell me. Friends or lovers?”

Erica opened her mouth, then closed it and shook her head. “It’s all too much to process right now.”

“I guess that leaves us right back where we started. With you needing space and distance,” he said. “All right.” He braced his hands on her hips and stepped away. “How ’bout we start over and forget the last few minutes happened?”

Erica glanced up at him. “Even that hard nibble you took down my neck?”

“Now who’s trying to distract whom with sex?”

She tilted her head and nodded. “Guilty as charged. But in my defense, it felt really, really, really good.”

“Mixed signals, Erica. What is it you really want?”

She looked everywhere but at him. Chances were she didn’t know the answer any more than he did.

“All right, sweetheart. It kills me, but…” He tilted her chin up on the crook of his finger and kissed her…long, slow, deep. Her fingers fisted his shirt as she clung to him. Somehow he found the strength to end the kiss and walk away. Now he had to find the strength to stay away.

“Mike, wait.”

He stopped shy of the doorway and turned. Sure steps brought her before him.

“There is an us. There’s always been an us.” She clasped her hands between her breasts. “And when you hold me, when you kiss me, when you fuck me… I can hardly breathe. I can hardly think. All I can do is feel, and it feels so damn good.”

His cock roared to life. Mike struggled against the need to pull her close, too afraid doing so would cause more harm than good. So he stared into her eyes and willed her to continue, because the longer she talked, the longer he was with her.

“Now here I am, at probably the lowest point in my life, and you’re ready to swoop in and save the day, to make everything all right. And it’d be so very, very easy to let you do that. But, Mike”—she placed her palm over his pounding heart—“Keith did a number on me.” She shook her head. “No, I
let
him do a number on me. He pushed, and I let him. I ignored my instincts and gave in. Right now, I’m second-guessing every decision that’s running through my head. Too much has happened. And you’re pushing just like he did, which would be fine if we were
just friends
. But we’re not. Last night is a bell we can never unring. And frankly, I don’t want to.”

That sounded like hope to him. Mike wrapped both hands around hers. “I’m sorry. I’m scared.”

“Me too. I know it’s your nature to fix things. But I don’t want you when I have no other choice. I need to know it’s real, that it’s my choice.”

“It’s always your choice, Erica. I’ll do whatever you need me to do.”

She cupped his cheek, brushed her thumb over his lips. “God knows I need you. More than I can say. But this has to be on my terms.”

As long as he got to be with her. “And those are?”

“I need my own space. I have to have my own money, take care of my own things and not someone else’s.” The words tumbled out. “I don’t want you living with me. No drawer. No stuff in my bathroom cabinets.”

“Not even one little toothbrush for sleepovers?” Mike dusted the backs of his fingers down her side.

Erica grabbed his wrist and held him in place. “First it’s a toothbrush, then it’s a razor, then a pair of underwear, an extra set of clothes in the closet, your favorite coffee. Next thing I know, we’re married with three kids and I’m at home worrying if your next fire call will be your last.”

“Relax, sweetheart.” He wrapped his arms around her and rocked her against him. “You’re getting way ahead of yourself here. It’s just me and you, enjoying some great sex. Nothing more, nothing less. Having fun. Going out. I’m not proposing, not taking over. I just want to be with you.”

Sighing, she sagged into his embrace. “Oh, Mike, we both know this is way beyond great sex.”

If she knew how far beyond, she’d be headed for the hills. “Be with me, sweetheart. It’s as simple as that. Nothing more, nothing less. No razor. No toothbrush. No drawer. Just me wanting you, and you wanting me back.” He leaned back. “But we still get to do sleepovers, right?”

“If you’re very, very good.”

There was the smile he loved so much. He hauled her hips right to his. “I’m told I am.”

“Too bad work calls.” She rubbed her belly over his erection.

Damn.
He’d been pulled from the investigation, but Posner and Chief Stanton hadn’t hammered out the details of this mass interview Posner wanted to do. So he did have to go in. “There’s always later.”

“Dinner? Here? Five?”

“I’ll be here. Need me to bring anything?”

“All I need is you.”