Ashes to Ashes

feeling like there's nothing left. I blamed the job, thought I'd given away so many pieces of myself to it that I don't know who I am anymore. But I know exactly who I am when I'm with you, Kate. That's what's been missing all this time—the part of me I gave to you.”

Kate stared at him, knowing he meant what he said. Quinn might have been a chameleon when it came to the job, changing colors at will to get the result he wanted, but he had never been less than honest with her in their relationship—at least until the end of it, when both of them had pulled the armor tight around bruised hearts. And she knew what it cost him to open himself up that way. Vulnerability was not something John Quinn did well. It was something Kate tried never to do at all herself. But she felt it now inside her, pushing hard at the gate.

“Have you noticed how our timing really sucks?” she said, winning a smile from him. He knew her well enough to realize she was trying to back them both away from this edge. A little joke to slacken the tension. A subtle sign that she wasn't ready, didn't have the strength to deal with it all just then.

“Oh, I don't know,” he said, easing his arms around her. “I think right now you need to be held, and I need my arms around you. So that's working out pretty well.”

“Yeah, I guess.” She let herself put her head on his shoulder. Resigned was the word that came to mind, but she didn't fight it. She was too tired to fight, and she did indeed need to be held. She didn't get many opportunities these days. Her own fault, she knew. She told herself she was too busy to date, that she didn't need the complication of a man in her life right now, when the truth was that there was only one man for her. She didn't want any other.

“Kiss me,” he whispered.

Kate raised her head and invited his mouth to settle on hers, parted her lips, and invited the intimacy of his tongue on hers. As with every kiss they had ever shared, she felt a glowing warmth, a sense of excitement, but also a sense of contentment deep within her soul. She felt as if she had been unconsciously holding her breath, waiting for this, and could now relax and breathe again. A sense of rightness, of completeness.

“I need you, Kate,” Quinn whispered, dragging his mouth across her cheek to her ear.

“Yes,” she whispered, the need pounding inside her like waves against rock. The need speaking above the fear that this would all end in heartache in a day or a week.

He kissed her again, deeper, harder, hotter, letting the reins out on the hunger racing through him. She could feel it in his muscles, in the heat of him; she could taste it in his mouth. His tongue thrust against hers even as he dropped one hand down her back and pulled her hips tight against his, letting her feel just how much he wanted her. She groaned deep in her throat, as much at the stunning depth of the need as at the feel of him hard against her.

Breaking the kiss, he leaned back from her and stared at her, his eyes hard and bright and dark, his lips slightly parted. He was breathing hard.

“My God, I need you.”

Kate took his hand and led him to the hall. At the foot of the stairs, Quinn pulled her to him again for another kiss, still hotter and deeper, more urgent. He pressed her back against the wall. His hands caught the bottom of her black sweater and pulled it up between them, exposing her skin to the air, to his touch, giving him access to her breasts. She gasped as he pulled the cup of her bra aside and filled his hand with her. It didn't matter where they were. It didn't matter that anyone going by could have glimpsed them through the sidelights at her front door. That fast her desire for him outstripped all sense. There was only need, primal and fierce.

She gasped again as his mouth found her nipple. She cradled his head and arched into the contact. She lifted her hips away from the wall as he shoved her snug knit skirt up and stripped down her black tights. Suddenly there was no case, no past, nothing but the need and feel of his fingers exploring her, stroking her, finding her most sensitve flesh, sliding into her.

“John. Oh, God, John,” she breathed, her fingers digging into his shoulders. “I need you. I need you now.”

He straightened and kissed her quick and hard, twice, then looked up the stairs and back at her, then over his shoulder at the open door to her study, where the desk lamp cast an amber glow that just reached the old leather couch.

In the next moment they were beside the couch, Quinn stripping her sweater over her head, Kate impatiently pulling at his tie. In a few rough moves their clothes were off and abandoned on the floor. They sank down, tangled together on the couch, breath catching at the coldness of the leather. And then the sensation was forgotten, gone, burned away by the heat of their bodies and the heat of their passion.

Kate wrapped her long legs around him, took him into her body in one smooth stroke. He filled her perfectly, completely, physically and deep within her soul. They moved together like dancers, each body exquisitely complementing the other, the passion building like a powerful piece of music, building to a tremendous crescendo.

Then they were over the peak and free-falling, holding each other tight, murmuring words of comfort and assurance Kate already feared wouldn't hold up to the pressures of reality. But she didn't try to dispel the myth or break the promise of “everything will be all right.” She knew they both wanted to believe it, and they could in those few quiet moments before the real world came back to them.

She knew that John needed to give that promise. He had always had a strong compulsion to protect her. That had always touched her deeply—that he could see the vulnerabilities in her when no one else, not even her husband, could. They had always recognized the secret needs in each other, had always seen each other's secret heart, as if they had always been meant for each other.

“I haven't made out on this couch since I was seventeen,” she said softly, looking into his eyes in the glow of the lamplight. They lay on their sides, pressed close together, almost nose to nose.

Quinn smiled like a shark. “What was the guy's name—so I can go and kill him.”

“My caveman.”

“I am with you. I always was.”

Kate didn't comment, though she instantly called to mind the ugly scene of Steven confronting her and John in his office. Steven choosing the weapons he used best: cruel words and threats. Quinn taking it and taking it until Steven turned on her. A broken nose and some dental work later, her husband had taken the war to a new playing field and done his best to ruin both their careers.

Quinn caught a finger beneath her chin and brought her head up so he could look into her eyes. He knew exactly what she was remembering. She could see it in his face, in the lowered line of his brow. “Don't,” he warned.

“I know. The present is screwed up enough. Why dredge up the past?”

He stroked his hand down her cheek and kissed her softly, as if the gesture would seal off the door to those memories. “I love you. Now. Right now. In the present—even if it is screwed up.”

Kate burrowed her head under his chin and kissed the hollow at the base of his throat. There was that part of her that wanted to ask what they were going to do about it, but she kept her mouth shut for once. It didn't matter tonight.

“I'm sorry about your client,” Quinn said. “Kovac says she worked in an adult bookstore. That's probably the connection for Smokey Joe.”

“Probably, but it spooked me,” Kate admitted, absently stroking a hand down his bare back—all lean muscle and hard bone, too thin. He wasn't taking care of himself. “A week ago I didn't have anything to do with this case. Today I've lost two clients to it.”

“You can't blame yourself for this one, Kate.”

“Of course I can. I'm me.”

“Where there's a will there's a way.”

“I don't want to,” she protested. “I just wish I'd called Melanie on Monday, like I usually do. If I hadn't been so preoccupied with Angie, I would have been concerned that I hadn't heard from her. She'd become emotionally dependent on me. I seemed to be her sole support network.

“I know this sounds odd, but I wish I had at least worried about her. The thought of her being caught in a nightmare like that with no one waiting for her, wondering about her, concerned for her . . . It's too sad.”

Quinn hugged her close and kissed her hair, thinking she had a heart as soft as butter behind the armor. It was all the more precious to him because she tried so hard to hide it from everyone. He had seen it all along, from the first time he'd ever met her.