Sometimes you’ve just got to turn it off. Just turn the switch.”
“I know. Rule number one is professional detachment.” His hair brushed her cheek as she turned her face to his. “What turns the switch best for you?”
In the shadowed light she saw him grin. “You really want to know?”
“Yes.” She ran a hand down his side until it rested comfortably at his hip. “Right now I especially want to know.”
“This usually works.” In one easy move he rolled her on top of him. He felt the give of firm breasts pressing against him, smelled the fragrance of her hair as it curtained his face. He took a handful and brought her mouth down to his.
How well she seemed to fit. The thought ran through his head. The brush of her fingertips on his skin was like a blessing. There was something about her hesitancy that had his own excitement drumming. If he ran his own fingers along her inner thigh, she shivered, just enough to let him know she wanted him but was still unsure.
He didn’t know why or how it should seem so fresh with her. Each time he found himself holding her in the dark, in the quiet, it was like the first time. She was bringing something to him he hadn’t known he’d missed and was no longer certain he could do without.
Her mouth moved lightly over his face. He wanted to roll her over on her back, pump himself into her until they both exploded. With most women it had always been that last, split second of insanity that had washed everything else away. With Tess it was a touch, a murmur, a quiet brush of lips. So he pushed back that first rage of desire and let them both drift.
He could be so gentle, she thought hazily. At times when they made love, it was all speed, all urgency. And then… When she least expected it, he would be tender, almost lazy, until her heart was ready to break from the sweetness of it. Now he let her touch the body she had come to know as well as her own.
There were sighs. Sighs of contentment. There were murmurs. Murmurs of promises. He buried his hands in her hair as she tasted, almost shyly at first, then with growing confidence. There were muscles to be discovered. She found them taut, and delighted in the knowledge that she caused the tension.
There were bones in his hips, long and narrow. When her tongue glided over diem, he arched like a bow. The trail of her finger along the crease of his thigh had his long body shuddering. She sighed as her lips followed the path. There was no more thought of nightmares.
He’d had women touch him. Maybe too many women. But none of them had made his blood hammer like this. He wanted to lie there for hours and absorb each separate sensation. He wanted to make her sweat and shake as he was.
He sat up, grabbing her hands at the wrist. For a moment, a long moment, they stared at each other in the narrow beam of light. His breath came in pants. His eyes were dark, glazed with passion. The scent of desire hung heavy in the room.
He lowered her slowly, until she lay on her back. With his hands still gripping her wrists, he used his mouth to drive her to the edge. Narrow, delicate, her hands strained against his hold. Her body twisted, arched, not in protest, but in a delirium of pleasure. His tongue slid over her, into her, until she thought her lungs would balloon and explode from the pressure. He felt her go rigid and call out as she came. Her scent spilled into the room. She was limp, boneless, when he filled her.
“I’m going to watch you go up again.”
He braced himself over her, and though each muscle trembled with the effort, went slowly, exquisitely slowly. She moaned, then opened her eyes as the sensations and pleasure began to build again. Her lips trembled open as she started to say his name. Then her fingers dug into the rumpled sheets.
Ben buried his face in her hair and cut himself loose.
Chapter 14
“I appreciate YOUR making time to see me, Monsignor. Tess took a seat in the front of Logan’s desk and had a quick, not entirely comfortable flash of how her patients must feel during their initial consultation.
“It’s my pleasure.” He was settled comfortably, his tweed jacket draped over the back of his chair, his shirtsleeves rolled up to reveal sturdy forearms sprinkled with hair just beginning to gray. She thought again that he seemed to be a man more accustomed to the rugby field or racquetball court than vespers and incense. “Would you like some tea?”
“No. Nothing, thank you, Monsignor.”
“Since we’re colleagues, why don’t you call me Tim?”
“Yes.” She smiled, ordering herself to relax, starting with her toes. “That would make things easier. My call to you today was on impulse, but-”
“When a priest is troubled, he seeks out another priest. When an analyst is troubled…” As he trailed off, Tess found her conscious effort to relax was working.
“Exactly.” The fingers on her purse loosened their grip. “I guess that means you get hit from both ends.”
“It also means I have two roads to choose from when I have problems of my own. That’s a matter which has its pros and cons, but you didn’t come to discuss Christ versus Freud. Why don’t you tell me what’s troubling you?”
“At this point, a number of things. I don’t feel like I’ve found the key to the mind of… of the man the police are looking for.”
“And you think you should have?”
“I think being as involved as I am now, I should have more.” She lifted one hand in a gesture that spoke of frustration and uncertainty. “I’ve talked to him three times. It bothers me that I can’t get through my own fear, maybe my own self-interest, to push the right buttons.”
“Do you think you know those buttons?”
“It’s my job to know them.”
“Tess, we both know the psychotic mind is a maze, and the routes leading to the core can shift and shift again. Even if we had him under intensive therapy in ideal conditions, it might take years to find the answers.”
“Oh, I know. Logically, medically, I know that.”
“But emotionally is a different story.”
Emotionally. She dealt with other people’s emotions on a daily basis. It was different, and much more difficult, she discovered, to open her own to someone else. “I know it’s unprofessional, and that worries me, but I’m past the point where I can be objective. Monsignor Logan-Tim-that last woman who was killed was meant to be me. I saw her in that alley. I can’t forget.”
His eyes were kind, but she saw no pity in them. “Transferring guilt won’t change what happened.”
“I know that too.” She rose and went to the window. Below, a group of students rushed across the grass to make their next class.
“May I ask you a question?”
“Naturally. I’m in the answer business.”
“Does it bother you that this man may be, or may have been, a priest?”
“On a personal level, you mean, because I’m a priest?” To consider it, he sat back with his hands steepled. As a young man he’d boxed both in and out of the ring. His knuckles were fat and spread. “I can’t deny a certain discomfort. Certainly the idea of the man being a priest rather than, say, a computer programmer, makes the entire business more sensational. But the simple truth is that priests are not saints, but as human as a plumber, a right fielder, or a psychiatrist.”
“When he’s found, will you want to treat him?”
“If I were asked,” Logan said slowly. “If I believed I could be of use, then perhaps. I wouldn’t feel obliged or responsible, as I believe you do.”
“You know, the more afraid I am, the more essential it becomes to me to help him.” She turned to the window again. “I had a dream last night. A rather dreadful one. I was lost in these corridors, this maze, and I was running. Even though I knew I was dreaming I was still terrified. The walls became mirrors and I could see myself over and over again.” Unconsciously she put a hand to the glass of the window, as she had to the mirror in the dream. “I was
