Indulgence (328 page)

Surely the sergeant’s warning would make him wake up to what
he was risking for all of them. Now that he knew she didn’t want to play along,
maybe there would be a way he could control that demon inside him so they could
work together.

Time to prove she wasn’t afraid of him any longer. Whom was
she doing this for, though, herself or Sam? In any case, she hoped to God this
meeting worked. Gina was running out of options and in danger of blowing the
whole operation. Because of the rocky start they’d had, she was also in danger
of losing her badge.

Sam had agreed to meet her at one of the outdoor cafes along
the Strand. She wanted lots of people around her, and the protection of
daylight hours. She also knew this area was not one that Mia would frequent.

She flipped her silverware back and forth as she sipped on
her iced tea. Sam’s huge frame soon shadowed her table. He wore his black
leathers, coming in the disguise he’d agreed to wear whenever she met publicly
with any member of their task force. He sat down without being invited. He knew
he looked hotter than hell.

Damn the man. He still pushes my buttons.

Sam’s cool blue eyes looked clearer than the last time she’d
seen him, when they’d been blustering and bloodshot. His mouth was twisted in a
smirk, and she could see he wasn’t making much of an effort to look or act
civil. Still, it could work, as part of the undercover act.

“Thanks for coming,” she said and then examined her ice tea.
“You want to order something?”

He grabbed the small cardboard menu stuck between the napkin
holder and the salt and pepper shakers. He ordered a burger, fries and a
milkshake from the young waitress who stopped by. He didn’t reel in his gawking
at the waitress’s ample chest.

Some things never change. You think I’m jealous? I’m so
far away from seeing anything in you I even like.
She had a job to do, so
she donned her emotional disguise. She had to play nice with this cretin or
she’d never get anywhere.

He was watching the waitress’s ass sashay down the row of
tiny tables. “Sam, this is really difficult for me to say, but I do need your
cooperation.” The words almost stuck in her throat.

“Damned right, Gina.” He finally pried his eyes off the
waitress.

“Can we just be serious here for a second?”

Sam smiled to the wall next to him, giving her a profile
view of his reddened face. She’d not noticed how ruddy his complexion had
become and knew he’d been way too cozied up with alcohol recently. It was going
to be a problem for all of them, she decided.

He leaned into the table and drilled her with his cold blue
stare. “I got the touch. I know where you itch.”

Gina turned red. Sam winked. Suddenly the need to bolt from
this meeting became overwhelming. She began to hyperventilate. She grabbed for
her herbal iced tea and began to gulp it down, but managed to spill a wide
ribbon down her shirtfront. She felt it trickle over her bare breasts beneath
the shirt fabric. Sam noticed her natural perkiness and his eyes flashed. He
looked like he was having a good time at Gina’s expense.

What was I thinking?

“Thank you, baby.” He was staring at her nipples, which
tightened for him in spite of herself.

“I’m not your baby.”

“I know what you like. I dream about it all the time, Gina.
Don’t you?”

“No.” She said it so loudly that several customers looked
over.

Sam began to chuckle. “You’re one messed-up chick, Gina. I
know how to fill all those cracks. You know I do.”

She tried to put the scenes out of her head. Sam with the
handcuffs. Sam with the velvet-encased rope. Taking her from behind, in the
rear. She rubbed her temples, temporarily erasing the erotic images.

“Being involved with you nearly cost me my badge. But you
were the best piece of ass I ever had, Gina. You must know how I feel about
that.”

That? He’s thinking of my ass. Not me.

She was left with the sickening feeling he would never let
her go.

Now what have you done, Gina? Why didn’t you report him?
Now it’s too late. And you thought you could work with him now?

Gina gasped for air as anger exploded in her chest.

Sam continued to pursue his direct. “I sacrificed a lot for
you, baby. Left my wife. Almost lost my job.”

He was actually blaming
her
for his career blunder?
For their affair?

She had to jump in. “You wouldn’t fuckin’ leave me alone,
Sam.
You
came on to
me
.” She lost her ability to control her own
temper as her insides boiled.

“Little Miss Hot Pants Flirty-Flirty, ‘Oh, I didn’t do
anything but flaunt myself in his direction and he just came after me,’” he
said in falsetto. Lowering his voice, he hissed, “Gina, you know you wanted it.
If I’d had enough time with you, you would have begged me for it.”

An army with pointed helmets was jumping up and down her
insides. Droplets of sweat traced down her spine. “Shut up, Sam. When are you
going to wake up to the fact that you
hurt
me? You lied to me, abused my
trust. You didn’t tell me you were married, and you physically…” Gina felt the
hot tears welling up inside. This was not going the way she wanted it to go.
She wrestled with being truthful. How much of their affair had she secretly
wanted? Even after she found out about his wife? Didn’t she find herself
daydreaming about him sometimes? Thank God she got out way back then, before he
would consume her. Just in time. It had taken everything she had, but she
threatened to tell the sergeant if he didn’t leave her alone.

Sam grabbed her forearm, instantly shifting her thoughts.
“Because I cared for you.”

Gina extricated her arm from Sam’s thick fingers and folded
her hands together under the table. She stuffed down the worry. She welcomed
the crowd around her, feeling safer in their midst. “You’re so wrong, Sam. I am
not your possession. Don’t you get it? I never belonged to you. Why can’t you
just leave it alone?”

“What if I’ve moved on?”

Gina wasn’t convinced. “Really?” She crossed her arms and
waited for him to explain.

Sam wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction as he ground
ice with his back molars, staring at her impassively.

“I was sorry to hear about your divorce,” she inserted,
going for kind. The man had paid a heavy price for his own indiscretion. “I
never wanted that to happen, even after all this. I feel like I owe an apology
to your wife, for God’s sake. But not to you.”

“Nah, you were just the excuse we needed to separate. We
hadn’t been good for some time. But I left her because of you. You do know
that, don’t you?”

Gina could see the fierce honesty in his eyes. The man was a
wrecking ball of emotion. He was totally damaged goods, but she didn’t feel an
ounce of love or compassion for him. And whatever he thought he was feeling
towards her, she was sure it wasn’t anything close to love, either. The only
thing that mattered right now was her job. She needed to complete her first
mission to get her career jump-started. If that meant making “nice” to Mr.
Awful, well, she’d just have to. She was working in a man’s world and she’d
made some mistakes. Why should that be front page of the
New York Times
?
Who hadn’t made mistakes in their past?

“Look, Sam. It doesn’t matter now. None of that matters.
We’re not going to ever be an item. You’ve got to understand that, Sam.”

It was Sam’s turn to cross his arms.

Gina added, “I need you to honor that boundary, if you can.
And if you can’t—well, I’m going to have to pull out and regroup somewhere
else. This mission is what I’ve trained for. I
wanted
this job. I
need
this job.”

He was searching her face, examining her hair and shoulders,
her arms, being careful not to check out her chest. She could see he was trying
to be decent.

“Sam, I came to ask for your help. Your cooperation. You
need to tell me if you can do this.”

“Glad to see you’ve come to your senses. Or was it your
decision?”

“No. But the way I see it, I have little choice. I think
you’re a good cop, not that I trust you personally as far as I can throw you.
You’ve got Tito and all the other informants you’ve cultivated over the years.
I’m no fool. We need your connections right now. Professionally, you know more
things about the job than I’ll probably ever know. I need you to put the
personal side of ‘us’ on the back burner. Better yet, take it off the flame
entirely.” She searched his face for a trace of empathy, something to convince
herself he could be the man she knew he had been at one time. “Can you do this
for me?”

He leaned back in the chair as the waitress brought his
order. He looked at Gina’s empty place setting.

“I’m not hungry,” she explained, which was the truth.

He picked up a fistful of fries and stuffed them into his
mouth. With his jaw muscles working overtime, he watched her staring back at
him. Gina tried not to put any emotion into her gaze. Nothing he could latch
onto or be hopeful about.

He sighed and began to pick up his burger. “I think I can do
that.” He said it to the burger and didn’t look at her as he took an enormous
bite. The burger erupted with drips of sauce, oozing forth a tomato slice,
which plopped onto the plate below. Sam wiped his lips, his hands and
absent-mindedly scanned the side of the wall next to him. Gina could see he was
thinking something over carefully.

“Sam,” she continued, “I
do
need your help. I don’t
think I can do this mission without you. I come to you as a colleague, as one
professional to another. I want to keep it that way, if you’ll agree.”

Exhaustion was becoming a factor in their little meeting.
Her self-control was waning. She had to get this over with. Hopefully with his
agreement, or the knowledge that she had to walk away from a job she thought
she could do with a little help.

“So you want me back? On the mission, I mean.” he said.

“Because of Tito and the others you’ve turned. Also, Mia
likes you. You’ve worked the gang task force for ten years. You trained me in
undercover work. And Koz wants us to work together.”

Sam’s eyes brightened as he aimed a huge smile and another
wink at her.

“Look, Sam, you’re a big, strong guy. But I can still have
you removed from the case if I say one word. I got assurances on that,” she
lied. “Because…” She almost choked on the words. As much as she hated to admit
it, this part of her story was true. She finished, “…because you also know me.
You’d know when I’m in trouble.”

Sam’s eyes got deep. Something dark hovered there for a
second before he blinked it away. Gina remembered the lost afternoons of sex
and desire. She remembered how she’d needed those afternoons like air and
water. When she wanted the dark side of sex.

Why?

She saw Sam want to reach for her, but hold himself in
check. She could feel the pride swelling in his chest about being needed, being
told he was big and strong. It was the core identity of every good cop she’d
ever met. Sam might still have some remnants of it after all.

“I’ll help you. This isn’t exactly easy for me, though.”

“I understand.” She leaned forward and, without thinking,
clasped one of his callused hands. “It isn’t easy for me, either. I’d like to
think I can trust you. You need to tell me, Sam. Can I?”

His large thumb rubbed over her fingers before they could
escape while he watched their hands entangled on the formica restaurant table.
Her stomach crawled with something oily and dark.

“I hope so, Gina. I surely do.” He smiled. “You ever think
maybe when all of this is over with there could be a chance—you and I,
together?”

Gina wanted to run, suddenly getting a chestful of the
uh-ohs
.
What had she done today? She had no business asking him to get involved in her
first very dangerous mission. What was she thinking? What part of that was a
good idea?

But if she’d ever believed him, perhaps now was the time to
put that worry aside and go forward instead of dwelling on the dark past. If
she was going to ask for his trust, she’d better start being honest. And if Sam
refused to help her, she ran a great risk of failure.

“Sam, I honestly don’t know. I can’t go into this with you
expecting or hoping this will happen, because I really don’t know.” She did a
pretty good job of delivering that lie, and she didn’t care. She knew she was
taking a huge risk by getting him involved in the operation.

Sam nodded, watching his thumb caress her fingers. Watching
as she didn’t pull away from him.

Gina added, “Let’s just start being co-workers on a case.
Let’s learn to trust each other first, and then let’s see where it leads.
That’s the best I can do, Sam. No promises. And I make no demands on
you
either,
except to leave me alone.”

That brought a smile to his lips as he nodded again. “Well,
sweetheart, after you, I’m kind of wrecked for anyone else.”

The soft side of Gina was winning over, but just slightly.
She couldn’t afford for it to show right now. Her eyes watered.
Am I like a
moth to the flame?
She knew she couldn’t trust Sam. Not yet. Perhaps never.
“But you have to, Sam. You have to forget there ever was an us
.”

Then she remembered the look Armando gave her as he had bent
down and asked if she was okay. As he whispered things to her in Spanish, as he
delicately told her of his craving and need for her. She knew she’d never have
to worry about being safe around Armando, and if she’d never met him, her
response to Sam might have been different.

But what was important to remember was that Sam was in lust
with the girl she used to be, and Armando was attracted to the woman she was
becoming.

With her tears subsiding, she gathered her wits about her
and removed her fingers from Sam’s grip. “Come on, I’ll buy you some ice cream
to wash down that burger.”