Serving Up Trouble Read online

  Still staring at her, he let out one long breath. “You’ll make a great butterfly, Angie. You will. You were made for it. But for me…that sort of thing doesn’t work. Control does.”

  “And tough ness.”

  “And tough ness,” he agreed with a hint of a smile. He dropped his hand from her hair. “It’s how I want to be. No exceptions.”

  “But—”

  He touched her again, put a finger to her lips. “No exceptions,” he repeated.

  She didn’t want to look at him, not when she knew her heart was right there in her eyes for him to see. He’d hate that, so she did the first thing that came to her. She closed her eyes and pressed her face back against his throat.

  He smelled so good. Like soap and heat and man. And she remembered her new vow, not to let anything stop her from what she wanted, not ever again.

  So she was scared, so what? Fear wouldn’t stop her either, and she leaned into Sam’s heat and strength, letting it surround her.

  His arms surrounded her, too, probably because he thought she needed more comfort, but that’s not what she wanted at all.

  Not from him.

  So she lifted her head, found his mouth with hers and showed him what she did want.

  For one long heart beat, he froze. Very lightly she touched the corner of his mouth with her tongue, then the other corner, and with a low, rough groan, he dragged her closer, whispered her name hoarsely and opened to her.

  It was a kiss like nothing she’d ever known. She felt like she was drowning in him, in the pleasure and heat and need of it.

  But from the window came the sound of one car pulling up, then another. Telltale blue and red lights flashed, slashing through the room.

  Angie’s reinforcements had come, which meant this little interlude, the most amazing she’d ever had, was over.

  Chapter 7

  An hour later, the excitement was over. The police were tracking the prank calls. They’d dusted for prints. They’d made a report. They’d left.

  All that remained now was for Angie to wait until they made sense of what had happened.

  Normally Sam felt only impatience for the victim who couldn’t do that. Now, suddenly, he felt his own vicious impatience with the system that required her to hang tight like a sitting duck and wait it out.

  Angie stood in front of her living room window, staring out into the dark night. She’d put on a tank top and a pair of sweat pants that had seen better days. Faded and nearly thread bare, he could have sworn a patch low on her very lovely behind had nearly worn through, showing him a hint of bare flesh.

  Suddenly all he could think about was whether she had anything on beneath, and if not…

  Sam shook his head and purposely shifted his gaze upward, to her narrow, tense shoulders, and the way she had her arms wrapped around herself as if she had no one but her own company for comfort.

  Moving forward, he put his hands on her shoulders to shift her away from the window, wanting to bring her farther into the room, but at the touch of his fingers, she jerked.

  “Hey, hey,” he said softly, lifting his hands from her, smiling easily as she whipped around, eyes wide, breath hitching. “Just me.”

  “Yeah.” Again her own arms snaked around her waist. “I knew that.” She looked around. “So…I guess you’re going to go now, too, right?”

  “I’d rather you let me call someone, a friend…anyone.”

  “No, I’m fine. Thanks.” But her smile didn’t reach her eyes.

  “Angie—”

  “Really.” She turned toward the front door. A not-so-subtle invitation for him to go. “Good night.”

  No reason for him to feel that he had a vise on his heart, just because she was trying to be so brave, so tough, when any idiot could see it was all for show.

  She opened the front door.

  He stepped toward it. At his side, she stood there waiting, her head bowed so he couldn’t see her face, her eyes.

  Just go, O’Brien. Walk away.

  He almost did it. Started to pass her, but then before he could think, he was reaching out, lifting her chin with his fingers, using his other hand to gently tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “I can’t leave you like this.”

  “I won’t be someone’s burden.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  She took a deep breath and stepped back from his touch. “Then how did you mean it?”

  His mind blanked.

  At his lack of response, she turned away. “I’m sorry, never mind. But thanks again for coming,” she added with extreme politeness.

  “Go,” she whispered, when he stood there.

  Yeah, he should go, because he knew, just as she did, that if he stayed…

  “Please, Sam.”

  He even lifted his foot to take the last step out of her door. Right out of her life.

  But he set it back down again, tugged her clear from the door and shut it.

  “Sam—”

  “I’m not leaving you here alone, damn it, don’t ask me to.”

  “But…” She blinked a little un certainly. “Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  Without another word, she threw her arms around his neck and hugged him, plastered her warm, curvy body to his.

  She probably meant to soften him, or to simply comfort herself, but the connection actually had the opposite effect. As his body tightened in a mixture of arousal and protective affection, he pulled her close and let himself be sucked into the surge of pleasure.

  It destroyed him, this terrible need he had to keep her safe, far more than the lust did.

  The lust he expected. The lust was normal.

  But the other…

  How in the hell was this happening?

  “Thank you,” she whispered against him. He pressed his face to the warm skin of her neck, breathing in her fresh scent, thanking God she was really okay, that nothing had happened to her. He pressed his mouth to the tender curve of her neck, inhaling deeply of her when she closed her eyes and tipped her head, allowing him better access. “Angie,” he murmured.

  “Shh.” Her hands cupped his jaw, brought his mouth back to hers, which was blindingly seeking…and when their lips touched, they both sighed. Like a coming-home sort of sigh, and he decided to worry about it later, because he couldn’t think of anything except how she felt against him, whole and safe in his arms, pressed against his aching flesh.

  Her hands moved over his shoulders, restlessly over his back and up his chest. This wasn’t just a kiss. He knew this, even in his be fuddled state. Then she deepened the connection, her tongue shyly sliding to his in an age-old rhythm that had him growling low in his throat and tugging her even closer. His hands moved, too, and he wasn’t too far gone to know he should be thankful she’d put on clothes, because he didn’t know if he could have resisted Angie in nothing more than a small, damp towel.

  Then her hands slid beneath the hem of his shirt, gliding over the bare skin of his back, and God help him, but he did the same. His fingers danced over the back hook of her bra, dallied, played…

  “Sam.”

  The way she said his name, on a sigh of breath that could have been a plea, a prayer, a curse…But her mouth came back to his—insisting, needy, hungry, and he gave her all he had, which was far more than he’d known he had. Tasting, sucking, nibbling—by the time they broke apart, breath less, he couldn’t have put a thought together to save his life.

  Then he was kissing her again, and she was kissing him back, and he wasn’t worried about breathing, because nothing mattered more than this. Her hands slid up his bare belly now, her fingers gliding over his chest, his nipples, which actually hardened beneath her touch and elicited another deep-throated growl from him.

  At the sound, she pulled back slightly, her mouth wet and already swollen, her eyes slumberous but just with a twinge of anxiety. “You…don’t like that?”

  “No. Yes.” What was he doing? “Don’t stop,” he said i
n a strangled voice.

  “Oh, good, because I was hoping…” Then she covered his hands with hers, and gently but inexorably moved them off her hips, over her ribs, then even higher, until the tips of his fingers were just touching the bottom curves of her breasts.

  He closed his eyes and concentrated on breathing.

  “Sam,” she whispered in that voice again, the one thready with desire and need, and there was no way he could resist her sweet plea, no way he wanted to.

  She fit perfectly in his palms, one sweet, curved breast in each, and as she let out a choppy breath, he stroked his thumbs over her satin-covered nipples, groaning at the feel of them tightening against his touch.

  Her head fell back against the front door. Her hair was free, flowing over her shoulders, a strand of it clinging to the stubble of his jaw. Her eyes were closed, her breath coming in little pants as he rasped his fingers over her again and again. Her mouth fell open a little, as if she needed it open to simply breathe. Her skin glowed damp and rosy. And against his, her hips arched, rubbing the neediest part of her over the neediest part of him.

  He didn’t have a condom. That thought stopped him cold, as did his second, and far more devastating one…she was not the sort of woman who could separate sex and love. For her the two would come together.

  Not for him.

  Not ever for him.

  This shouldn’t happen. This couldn’t happen, but before he pulled back, she did. She put a finger to his lips and sighed as she opened her eyes. “I’m sorry.” She met his gaze and slowly shook her head. “I don’t want to stop. God, I don’t want to. But…”

  “Protection.” He had to clear his rough throat. “I know.”

  “No. Not that.” Her smile was so many things—sweet, sad, regretful, as she pulled her hands from beneath his shirt, leaving him feeling…cold. “This isn’t some thing I…” Her cheeks went a little red, further endearing her to him. “I don’t do this lightly, you see, and—”

  “Angie, I know. I—”

  “Please. Let me finish. I want to make love with you. I want to because I think we could really have some thing. You’re smart and wonderful and…” Her blush deepened. “And I think you’re really sexy. But I don’t want to be with someone who doesn’t feel the same. I want you to respect me. I mean me as me.”

  When he opened his mouth, she put her fingers back on his lips. “I need someone who can see me for what I really am on the inside, not just the…well, you know, the pesky waitress.” She drew a deep breath and straightened her shirt. “So this is a bad idea, no matter how much I want you.”

  He was the biggest jerk he knew. “Angie… God. I never meant to make you feel—”

  “I know.” She focused her dark eyes on his. “But let’s be honest, okay? I’m a big old pain in your butt half the time. We both know that.”

  He winced, dragged his hands down his face, and turned to look at her again. “I’m an ass. I really am. Know that right now. I like to keep people at arm’s length. I mean, I really like that, Angie, and you’re pretty impossible to keep that way.”

  “I know, I’m s—”

  “Don’t apologize. Don’t. It’s who you are. And no matter how I snap or growl at you, don’t ever think I don’t like or respect you, all right? I just…”

  “Don’t like to like me?”

  That tore a smile out of him. “Yeah. Some thing like that. Look, my own mother doesn’t understand me. I don’t expect you to, either.”

  “Being a cop is who you are, Sam. I get that. I’m not like your mother. Don’t you two ever talk about it?”

  He blew out a breath. “No.”

  “Maybe you should.”

  “We never talk. Period.”

  Her eyes went soft. “Does she live near here?”

  “She’s a librarian here in town.”

  “At the library right across the street from your station?”

  “Yeah. But we don’t run in the same circles. Not everything can be fixed by some sort of epiphany, Angie.”

  He was talking about the holdup. How she’d made the conscious effort to change her life because of it. “I know.” She just thought it so wrong. She took one good look at the magnificent man in front of her and wondered who’d want to walk away from him.

  Not her.

  His hair was all messy, his shirt slightly askance. She’d done that, she realized with a good shock. She’d nearly devoured him.

  And him her.

  Stopping had been one of the hardest things she’d ever done, but even she had her pride. Sam, incredible kisser and amazing man that he was, was not the man for her. He never would be.

  But he was still looking at her as if he wanted to gobble her up for dinner, and it was making her knees quiver. “I haven’t made the wisest of choices with men before. And last time, I sort of ended up…”

  “Hurt.” He grimaced. “I know. Josephine told me. Right before she threatened to kill me with her paring knife if I did the same.”

  “She…threatened you?”

  “Yeah. She’s—”

  “Fearless,” she said with him, then laughed while he went very serious.

  “You’re different,” he said quietly. “You…know me.”

  “I do.”

  He stepped close to her again, so close she could see the dance of light in his eyes, and the beginning hint of a five-o’clock shadow on his jaw.

  “So tell me,” he said very quietly. “What sort of lowlife could ever hurt you?”

  “Oh. That.” She lifted a shoulder. “Long story.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Well…Tony’s an assistant district attorney.” And another whose unrealistic expectations she’d avoided. “He’s smart. Strong. The perfect guy, everyone always tells me. I should have done whatever I could to keep him. But he didn’t like my clothes, my job, or anything about me other than I suited his life style because I was easy-going. I didn’t rock the boat. And it was true, Sam. I wanted to make him happy. I really wanted that.”

  “And then he left you.” He touched her cheek. “He was an idiot, Angie.”

  She shook her head. “You think he left me.”

  “Forget him.”

  “No, wait. You really think that.” A little mirthless laugh escaped her. “You know, that’s what everyone assumes. Which means I’m pretty pathetic in people’s eyes.” She looked up at him, her first spurt of temper feeling really, really good. “Tony left poor Angie. She’ll never recover. How could she from losing a perfect man like that?”

  She knew her eyes were suspiciously wet when she stabbed her finger into his chest and didn’t care. “Well, guess what, Sam? I have some pride, at least. I left him.”

  She strode away from him rather than do something tempting, like start a fight he didn’t deserve. But her body was humming, yearning, and she knew it was a hunger only Sam could fulfill, and that it wasn’t going to happen. Which left her entitled to her grumpiness. “I’m not that same woman who’d go on status quo rather than face the truth. I wasn’t living. I was existing.”

  “Angie…”

  She kept walking, and since her apartment just wasn’t that big, she was at the end of the hallway with nowhere to go but the bathroom or bedroom, inside of three seconds.

  “Angie.”

  The bathroom, she decided. Good protection. Not for her, but for Sam, whom she still had the most terrible urge to plaster herself against.

  “Hey, wait up.” And then his foot was in the door, holding it open when she tried to slam it in his face.

  “While I’m thrilled you’ve changed your life,” he said, muscling his way in with ease. “I’m a little confused.”

  “You’re confused?” This entire evening had been a bad night mare. The break-in. Calling Sam—why had she called him? And then him finding her in her little pathetic huddle in the tub. She was stronger than that. “I have no idea what’s happening to me,” she said, feeling baffled.

  “You need rest.�
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  “No.” She said what was really bothering her. “Sam, I don’t want to die and not have really lived.”

  “You’re not going to die.”

  “We all die. I enrolled in college. It’s what I’ve always wanted.”

  “Okay. College is good.”

  “I don’t intend to back off when it comes to your suspect.”

  “Angie—”

  “I don’t,” she repeated firmly.

  “Yeah.” He moved in closer, let out a sigh and gently slid his arms around her for a hug that was shockingly welcome. “I already knew that.”

  When she set her head on his shoulder, he sighed again. “I’m sleeping on your couch.”

  “That’s not necessary.”

  “I think it is.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You’re a horrible liar.”

  “I’ll turn on all the lights. No biggee.”

  “I’m staying,” he said, and this time he put his finger on her lips. “Don’t argue with me.”

  She wrapped her fingers around his wrist. “I imagine not many would dare.”

  “You would.”

  “I’ll try to restrain myself. So…you’re sleeping here.” When she spoke, her lips slid over his fingers.

  Electrified, they both shivered.

  “Yeah,” he said. “On—”

  “The couch,” she finished for him. “You’ve mentioned.”

  “Just do me a favor. Don’t come out in the morning in your towel. I’m going to do my damnedest to act like the professional I am.”

  Chapter 8

  They cleaned up the apartment a little. Then Sam spent a long night on the couch, staring at Angie’s living room ceiling, wondering what she was doing in her bed, wondering what she was wearing, how she looked… It was so damn juvenile.

  Determined to think of some thing else, anything else, he flipped over…and fell off the couch. He spent some time swearing, before climbing back up and trying again. Tossing restlessly, he finally napped.

  He rose at dawn. He crept down the hall and stared at Angie’s closed door, his hand on the handle before he got a grip on himself and turned away.