impulse was to hook his hand around her neck and pull her down for a good-morning kiss, but because he was aware of the fact that she’d brushed her teeth and he hadn’t, and that there was something vaguely wary about the set of her shoulders, he settled for a murmured, “Mornin’, sunshine,” instead.
She leaned down to kiss him, but in a brief, distracted way.
He muttered, “Hmm…Sorry-you smell good and I don’t. Be right back…” and rolled out of bed and headed for the bathroom.
When he came back, she was still sitting where he’d left her, wearing a T-shirt a few sizes too big for her that made it impossible for him to tell if she was wearing anything else underneath. But since it was obviously early, barely daylight, and she didn’t seem to be eager to be up and about, instead of reaching for his clothes, he got back into bed, too.
She cleared her throat, a sound full of portent. “Hey, Kincaid…”
He turned on his side and pulled the sheet up over his hip, propped his elbow on the pillows and leaned his head on his hand. “Billie?” he said somberly.
“I want you to know something, okay?” Her voice sounded blunt and self-conscious. A suspenseful little pulse began to tap-tap in his stomach. She closed her eyes briefly and held up one hand. “Look, don’t get me wrong-last night was great. I mean-” she gave a breathy laugh and her voice dropped an octave “-more than great-really, it was-” She looked away, obviously stalled, and he saw her throat move with a painful swallow.
The tap-tapping in his belly became his heart going thump-thump…“Billie,” he said gently, “it’s okay, spit it out.” He offered an encouraging smile. “I sense a
She hauled in a breath that lifted her shoulders, and the words came out in a rush. “I just want you to know, you don’t have to be afraid I’m going to be making, um, you know…demands. I don’t expect you to say nice words…stick around…ask me out-stuff like that.”
She paused, frowned, and he murmured a tentative, “Okay…” But she wasn’t finished.
“I mean, look, let’s face it, you’re not a forever kind of guy, right? I just want you to know I’m cool with that. Because for one thing, I’m not a forever kind of woman, either.” She gave herself a little concluding shake and her gaze came back to him, fierce and intent. “So-we straight on that?”
He gazed back at her. There was a weird, fluttery feeling in his chest, and he didn’t know whether it was laughter or tenderness. He settled for a smile. “Yeah, Billie, we’re straight. No forevers, no expectations, no nice words.” He paused a beat. “Does this mean I don’t get to tell you you’re beautiful?”
She jerked back as if he’d insulted her. “You’re making fun of me.”
He lifted his hand and brushed her cheek with the backs of his fingers, ran his thumb lightly across her lower lip. “I’d never do that.”
She licked her lip where he’d touched it. “I told you, you don’t have to say things like that to me, just because…”
“I know I don’t have to…just because. I can say it if it’s true, though…right?”
She clasped her hands tightly together and hugged her arms against her sides like a self-conscious child, and didn’t answer. What he wanted to do at that moment was take her down into the tumbled sheets and show her without the pretty words just how beautiful she was to him. Instead, he let his hand fall away from her and said softly, “I have one question, though. You don’t know me all that well…so how do you know what kind of guy I am- forever-wise?”
She unclasped her hands and held one up, thumb extended. “One, you’re not married.” A forefinger joined the thumb. “Two, you’ve never been married.” Another finger. “You’re in your forties, you live alone-” her hand returned to join its mate in her lap, and she shrugged. “Obviously not somebody who’s into commitment.” She tilted her head. “Just out of curiosity, what happened?”
“What…happened?”
“To make you that way. I mean, you know why I’m the way I am. So, what’s your story, Kincaid? Come on-give. It’s only fair.”
He just stared at her, his face stony, and her heart did a weird little skip-hop she’d never felt before. She wanted to reach out and touch his face the way he’d touched hers-a way no man had ever touched her before, that she could recall. She wanted to touch him like that and say the words that were in her mind.
“You’re right,” he said, just when she’d been sure he wouldn’t answer. “It is only fair. So, here it is, my reason-my
“I was five years old. I remember it because I’d just had my birthday party, and there was a pony.” A smile flickered briefly. “I think that was the first and last time I was ever on a horse. Anyway, a couple of days later, my parents left me with a babysitter and went out to dinner and a movie, and never came back.”
He said it so matter-of-factly, it was a moment before it registered. She did a little double take, then whispered, “What happened? Was it a car crash?”
His hand continued its idle journey up and down her arm. “Their car was found in the movie theater parking lot. My parents never were. They just disappeared.”
She stared at him, appalled, half-disbelieving. “That’s…crazy. People don’t just disappear.”
“Actually, they do-more often than you’d suppose.” His eyes dropped to his hand, which had left her arm to brush across the front of her T-shirt where her nipples had beaded against the clinging cloth.
She shivered. “What happened? To you, I mean?”
“Well, my babysitter told me lies, at first. Everybody did. About how my parents had had to go away suddenly, but they’d be back soon. Eventually, I was sent to live with my mother’s aunt. She was a school-teacher-unmarried. She did the best she could, I’ll give her that.” His smile was wry, his eyes forgiving. “Let’s just say she wasn’t a warm and fuzzy sort of person.” He shrugged in a dismissive way that didn’t alter the smile. “She died when I was seventeen, and I joined the army soon after. When I got out of the service, I decided I wanted to become a cop-a detective-so I could find out what happened to my folks.”
“And did you?” It was hard to keep her voice steady, with his roving hand straying downward, stroking lightly across her thigh…
“No,” he said. “But I found out I was more interested in finding missing people than catching bad ones, so I quit the force and that’s what I’ve been doing.” He didn’t say any more, and a certain wariness in his eyes told her he probably wasn’t accustomed to saying even that much.
That awareness made her feel chastened and humble, at first. Even, in an odd sort of way, vulnerable, too. But then a new feeling began to grow in her, one she remembered experiencing only once before in her life-the day her daughter was born. Something so primal she couldn’t even put a name to it. Or didn’t want to. But whatever it was, it filled her with a new kind of power and purpose.
All the while this momentous thing was happening inside her, she was looking into Holt’s eyes and he was gazing back at her. His hand was sliding under her T-shirt and finding her nakedness all open to him, his for the taking. First, she gasped…shuddered…melted. Then, with her new inner strength, whispered, “No…” and leaned over to find his mouth, and at the same time was unfolding herself, finding her way inside the covers to sink against him and lay her body full length on his.
He made a sound low in his throat and his hands were big and warm on her back, stroking downward to hold her buttocks, then on to her thighs. But when he urged them apart, she murmured once more, “No…” mingling the word with the dark, sweet essence of his mouth. And then she slid down his body, slowly, kissing every part of him she met on the way, her heart growing quivery at the incredible sleekness of his skin. His hands were light on her sides, letting her slip between them, and his breath escaped him in the gentlest of sighs when she nestled her face in his warm, damp hair and kissed him there.
When he could take no more, he pulled her up to him and lifted his own body to meet her, and they found each other like old lovers after too long a time apart. He wrapped his arms around her, one low on her spine, the other cradling her head, and she brought her legs around his waist and arched to press her torso against his, nesting her breasts in the tickling softness of his chest hair.
Her mouth found his and she opened to him with no reservation at all, and would have gladly lost herself there, but for the sharp gasp that rushed from her throat when he seated himself deep inside her. He caught the gust of
