It Must Be Love

Slowly, she slid her thumbs up and down his thick scar and added a little pressure. She remembered it so well, because just like everyone else in the city, she'd talked about it with friends, and she'd wondered if Boise didn't have a few trigger-happy cops running around shooting young men for nothing more than smoking a little pot. 'I'm sorry.'

'Why? Why would you be sorry?'

'I'm sorry you were forced to do something like that.'

'I was doing my job,' he said, a hard edge punctuating his words.

'I know.' She gently sank her fingertips into his thigh muscles. 'I'm sorry you were hurt.'

'You don't believe I'm trigger happy?'

She shook her head. 'I don't believe you're reckless, or that you'd take someone's life unless you weren't given a choice.'

'Maybe I'm as cold-blooded as the papers said. How do you know?'

She answered what she knew to be true in her heart. 'Because I know your soul, Joe Shanahan.'

Joe looked into her clear green eyes, and he almost believed she could see inside him and know something he didn't know with absolute certainty.

She licked her lips, and he watched the tip of her tongue slide to the corner of her mouth. Then she did something that stopped his heart and sent pure lust slamming into his groin. She bent her head and kissed his thigh.

'I know you're a good man.'

His breath caught in his throat, and he wondered if she'd still think he was a 'good man' if he asked her to move her mouth a little north and kiss his other, bigger, owie. He stared down at the top of her head, but just as he worked up a real good fantasy involving her face in his lap, she looked up and ruined it. She gazed at him as if she really could look inside his soul. As if she saw a better man than he knew he was.

Joe jumped to his feet and turned his back on her. 'You don't know shit,' he said as he moved to the fireplace and grasped the mantel.

'Maybe I liked kicking down doors and using my body as a battering ram.'

'Oh, I don't doubt that.' She came to stand beside him, then she added, 'You're a physical guy. What I doubt is that you had a choice.'

He glanced across his shoulder at her, then turned to gaze at the little candles burning on the mantel. 'I had a choice all right, I didn't have to chase a drug dealer down a dark alley. But I'm a cop, that's what I do. I chase the bad guys, and once I'm committed to something, I see it through. And believe me, I was committed to bringing Robby in.' He wanted to shock her. Shut her up. Wipe that look from her eyes. 'I was royally pissed off at him. He was my informant, and he'd double-crossed me, and I wanted to get my hands on him.' He glanced at her again, but she didn't look shocked. She was supposed to be a pacifist. She was supposed to hate men like him. She wasn't supposed to look at him as if she felt sorry for him, for God's sake.

'I saw the burst of fire from Robby's gun,' he continued, 'and I emptied my clip into his chest before I even knew I'd drawn my weapon. I didn't need to see him to know I'd hit him. Once you hear something like that, you know what it is. And you never forget. Later, I found out that I'd killed him before he'd even hit the ground. And I don't know how I'm supposed to feel about that. Sometimes I feel like shit, and others I'm just damn glad I was the better shot.

'It's a hell of a thing to know you've taken away all a man is and all he'll ever be.' He pushed away from the mantel. 'Maybe I was out of control.'

'I doubt you've ever been that out of control.'

She was wrong. Somehow, she'd gotten him to tell her more about the shooting than he'd told anyone else. All she'd had to do was look up at him through those big eyes like she really believed in him, and he'd babbled like an idiot. Well, he was through talking. For the past half hour, he'd sat on that uncomfortable chair, wondering how her breasts would fit in his palms. He had a raging erection urging him to grab one of those soft hands she'd rubbed all over him and shove it down his boxers so she could stroke something more interesting than his elbow.

He reached for her and covered her mouth with his. He recognized the taste of her full, sweet lips, as if they were lovers. As if he'd known her forever. He slanted his head to one side, and her mouth opened to him, hot and slick and welcoming. He felt her shudder as his tongue touched hers. Her arms twined around his neck, and she clung to him. The front of her bibbed dress brushed his bare chest, while her hips arched toward him, pressing into his rock-hard erection. Joe grasped her waist, and instead of playing it smart and shoving her away, he ground his pelvis up against her. The pleasure was exquisite and painful. Throbbing agony and ecstasy, and he wanted more from her than a kiss.

His hands moved to the clasp of her overall straps, and he easily unhooked them. The bib fell to her waist, and he made quick work of the buttons closing her white shirt. He pushed apart both sides of her blouse and finally, finally, filled his hands with full breasts covered in lace. Her lips trembled and she gasped as his thumbs brushed back and forth across her hard, pointed nipples. Then he pulled back and looked into her face. Her lids fluttered open and she whispered his name, the sound filled with the same craving that twisted a painful knot in his belly. Hunger shone in her eyes, and knowing she wanted him the way he wanted her made his blood burn in his veins. She was beautiful inside and out. She was passion and longing and fire in his hands, and he wanted to play with fire for just a bit longer.

Joe took a deep breath and let it out slowly as his gaze traveled from the auburn hair framing her beautiful face with wild curls, past her lips, moist and swollen from his kiss, and down her throat to his hands filled with her plump breasts. 'Now it's your turn,' he said and looked back up into her face.

Her eyes stared into his as he pushed her blouse from her shoulders. The white material slid from her arms and fell to the ground. She stood before him, her bibbed jumper buttoned at her hips, and the scalloped edges of her bra cupping her breasts. In the very center, her nipples pushed against the white lace, very hard and pink. He turned slightly at the waist and dipped his fingers into the warm oil. Then he touched the base of her throat and slowly slid his fingertips down her sternum and between the firm swells of her cleavage. Her incredibly soft skin brushed the back of his knuckles as he twisted the center clasp of her bra. It sprang open, and her breasts popped out of the cups. So beautiful and perfect that his throat closed. Joe lifted his hands to her shoulders and slid the lace straps down her arms until the bra fell beside her blouse. Then he reached for the lotus bowl and raised it between them. Slowly, he tilted it until the small amount of remaining oil poured over her white flesh, running down the plump sides and in between her breasts, down her stomach to her navel. Without taking his gaze from her, he emptied the bowl and tossed it on the wooden chair. One clear drop glistened from her nipple, and he touched it with his finger.

He opened his mouth to tell her she had great breasts, but all that came out was a tangle of swear words as he spread the bead of oil across the tip and circled her puckered flesh.

Gabrielle swayed and placed one of her hands on the back of his neck. She pressed her moist lips to his and gently sucked his tongue into her mouth. Joe smeared oil all over soft breasts and smooth belly. He wanted her. He'd never wanted anything like he wanted to give into the aching lust pounding his groin. His palms moved to the sides of her throat, and he pulled back to look at her, at her breasts gleaming in the firelight, the peaks shiny and moist as if he'd kissed her there. He'd never wanted anything like he wanted to shove his boxers down around his ankles and shove Gabrielle up against a wall or down on the couch or on the floor or wherever. He wanted to kneel between her soft thighs, and with the sweet smell of candles and of her filling his head, bury himself deep inside her and stay there for a while. Wanted to pull her nipple into his mouth while he slid in and out of her hot, slick body. She wanted it as much as he did. So, why the hell not give them both what they wanted?

But he couldn't make love to her. Even if she wasn't his informant, he wasn't one of those guys who carried contraception in his wallet, and he almost laughed with relief. 'I don't have a condom with me.'

'I've been taking birth control for eight years,' she said and moved one of his hands back to her slick-breast. 'And I trust you.'

He wished like hell she hadn't confessed that and given him the green light. The ache in his groin throbbed, and before his brain completely descended to his shorts he forced himself to remember who she was and what she was to him. He buried his face in her hair and dropped his hand to his side. He wanted her like he'd never wanted any other woman in his life, and he had to do something fast.

'Gabrielle, honey, can you channel Elvis?' he asked, gasping for breath and grasping at straws.