Shades of Temptation (14 page)

I can’t. “No,” she whispered. “I’m good. Thanks for letting me
crash here.”

“Anytime. Remember that. And remember this conversation is far
from over. Good night, Carrie.” He went back into his bedroom and lightly shut
the door.

Carrie sighed and got ready for bed. Finally, she settled into
the sofa. She thought about what he’d said about their conversation not being
over. And she wondered why that statement made her feel just as happy as it did
afraid. Within minutes, she dozed off.

Eventually, the nightmare came.

* * *

I
N
HER
DREAM
, C
ARRIE
,
dressed in dark clothes and camouflage, crept
silently up to a house with the rest of her team. At her signal, DeMarco fired
four tear-gas shells through the window, and Simon kicked in the door. Carrie
and Jase followed close behind him, the light on their rifles penetrating the
darkness, revealing plumes of smoke and shadows.

Her eyes strained to identify movement. Suddenly, she saw them.
The Embalmer’s first three victims covered in garish makeup. Then another
stepped out of the shadows. Kelly Sorenson. Her body whole but weeping
blood.

As Sorenson approached her, the shadows behind her moved. It
was Sorenson’s killer. The Embalmer. Or someone different? She didn’t know, but
she could see the whites of his eyes, his irises colorless in the dark. She
tried to aim. Couldn’t move. Why couldn’t she fire? She watched the killer lift
his gun. Saw the flash of his white teeth as he grinned. Tried to call out but
couldn’t.

She didn’t hear the pop of the gun, but she saw the sudden
flash from the muzzle as the killer shot each of the victims in the head. One by
one, they dropped to the floor in front of her. She registered another flash in
the dark and heard Jase scream behind her.

Before the shock could register, she felt heat explode in her
chest, flinging her back and down so that she lay on her stomach, her face
turned to the side.

Blood drained out of her, and she was paralyzed. Unable to look
away from the carnage in front of her. Jase’s body was in the distance, and she
struggled to get to it. Kelly Sorenson was closer, her face tilted toward
her.

Carrie could see her eyes. Lifeless, yet staring back at
her.

She tried to scream, but her mouth was frozen in a wide yawning
hole of silent despair. She heard the pounding of her heart slow. Slow. Slower
still. Until there was no sound. No sight. Nothing.

Nothing but darkness.

And the inescapable knowledge that she’d failed.

Again.

* * *

C
ARRIE
BOLTED
UP
, shaking and sweaty. Her breath
came in such rapid pants that for a moment she felt close to hyperventilating.
The scene, the emotions, had been so clear, so vivid in her mind, it took her a
moment to realize where she was and that she’d been dreaming. The unfamiliar
surroundings made her panic spiral out of control.

She scrambled for her gun, which she’d placed next to the sofa,
and disengaged the safety. She swept it in an arc in front of her, scanning the
room for movement. Nothing.

But then Jase barreled into the room, bare-chested and pajama
bottoms hanging low on his hips, his own gun in his hands.

They stared at one another.

She forced herself to loosen her shaking grip on her gun and to
take slow calming breaths. After a while, her breathing returned to normal and
she engaged the safety on the gun before laying it back down. “Sorry. Bad
dream.” She covered her face in her hands, trying not to cry.

The nightmare had been different, but worse. It had magnified
her failure to shoot Kevin Porter, but this time, instead of resulting in her
own death, Jase and others had died. Was it prophetic? No. No way was she going
to let anything happen to anyone else. Especially Jase.

“Carrie.”

“I really need to be alone, Jase.”

“I think that’s the last thing you need right now.” He sat
beside her and lifted her chin. “Talk to me. Tell me what your dream was
about.”

“Death,” she said tiredly. “My dreams are almost always about
death.”

“Whose death? Yours?”

She shook her head. “That’s the worst part. It’s never about
me
dying. It’s about all the people I fail to
save. Even—even the ones I’ve killed.”

“You mean Kevin Porter, don’t you? Damn it, Carrie, you know it
was him or you. He didn’t give you any choice.”

“Logically, I know that. Logically, I know that I’m not
responsible for Kelly Sorenson’s death, either. But my dreams aren’t about
logic. They’re about what I
feel.
I’ll always feel
like I should have done something different. Something more.” She looked at him
now. “Don’t you ever feel that way?”

“Sometimes. Sometimes it’s hard not to think that. But no one
can beat death. All we can do is delay it, and we can’t do it alone, not when
others are working against us. So when logic eludes me and I start to feel
hopeless or helpless, I focus on other things.”

“Like what? Your women? Pleasure?” Far from sounding critical,
she merely sounded skeptical. As much as it hurt her to think of him with other
women, she couldn’t begrudge him whatever solace and pleasure he could manage to
attain in life. But neither could she quite understand how it actually worked
for him.

“Sometimes grabbing pleasure when we can is the only way to
survive the other stuff. What we do, it’s so dark. You tease me about my women,
but, yes, they’re my way of trying to balance things out. To remember that there
is beauty and pleasure in life, too.”

“I don’t believe there’s as much beauty and pleasure in the
world as you do, Jase.”

“That can’t be true. I’ve seen your house. You like to surround
yourself with pretty things. You just need to accept that one of the beautiful
things in the world is you.”

“Don’t,” she said, voice clipped.

“Don’t what? Don’t call you beautiful?”

“I’ve seen the women you date. I can’t compete.”

“You’re wrong. They’re the ones that can’t compete with you.
But it’s not a competition. It’s just life. Trying to do as much good as you can
but also not forgetting to take the pleasure you can, too.”

“Pursuing pleasure is a luxury I can’t afford right now.”

“I have a feeling you’ve been telling yourself that for a
while, haven’t you?” He sighed and stood. “I’m sorry. We’re talking in circles
and you must be tired. Let me know if you need anything.”

He smiled gently and turned to walk back into the bedroom.
Panic wound through her. Suddenly, all her logic and arguments and defenses
dropped away. All she knew was she couldn’t stand for him to leave her. “I need
you,
” she blurted out. “I want pleasure, Jase. I
just—I just don’t know how I can have it and do what I’m supposed to do,
too.”

He froze. When he turned back, he looked as stunned as she
felt.

The longer he stared at her, the more she regretted her foolish
words. “Never mind. I don’t know why I said that. You’re right. I
am
tired. I—”

He knelt down next to her and cradled her face in his hands.
“You’re a good cop, Carrie, but you’re more than that. You have to
let
yourself be more than that. If you need me, you
have me. I’m right here. If you want pleasure, I can give it to you. I
want
to give it to you.”

“But it’s not that easy,” she said, her eyes growing moist. She
blinked rapidly, commanding her tears away.

“How long has it been since you’ve allowed yourself to be
pleased, Carrie?”

She averted her eyes. “I do things for myself all the
time.”

“Let’s start with the most obvious answer. Sex.”

Her breaths were escalated now, but hearing Jase mention sex
made the air rush completely out of her lungs. “I’m not sure we should be
discussing this—”

“How long?”

“Six years.”

He didn’t appear shocked by her answer, which irked her a
little. Her first instinct was to ask how long it had been since he’d had sex,
but she was afraid the answer would simply make her feel worse.

“Why so long?” he asked without a hint of judgment. “If nothing
else, sex is usually a great stress reducer. It should be enjoyed. Freely given
and freely accepted.”

She pulled away and his hands dropped. “Nothing’s free.
Everything comes with strings attached.”

“Sex shouldn’t. And it wouldn’t. Not between the two of
us.”

She stood. “Right. So you’d still respect me as a cop once
you’d had me naked and under you? Once you’d been inside me? You wouldn’t think
maybe it gave you rights? To protect me? To tell me what to do, on the job and
in the bedroom?”

Jase rose slowly. “Is that what other men you’ve been with have
done? Slept with you and then started bossing you around?”

“With me and men? It always becomes a power play, with them
needing to prove they know best and can teach me a thing or two whether I want
to be taught or not.”

“Slow down. Are we talking about a man trying to dominate you
in bed or out?”

“There never seemed to be a difference, in my experience.”

“Then you need more experience.”

“Says the voice of experience,” she said drily.

Jase shrugged. “Like I said before, I’m more discriminating
than you give me credit for, but I certainly haven’t been abstaining for six
years. One thing’s for sure, who we are at work won’t have anything to do with
who we are in bed together.”

“That’s certainly true given we’re not going to be in bed
together. I’m comfortable right here on this sofa.”

“You sleeping on my sofa is the safe thing, but it’s not what
either of us really wants, is it? But I have to admit, this whole conversation
has me a little confused about what you’d really want in bed. I don’t mind a
woman who’s assertive in bed and takes what she wants. It doesn’t threaten me to
be with a strong woman. Does it threaten you to be with a strong man?”

He was watching her carefully. So she chose her words just as
carefully. “This conversation is going in circles. Men who use their strength,
whether in bed or out, tend to use it to get what they want, not to give others
what they want.”

Fury, then something that looked perilously close to pity
flashed across Jase’s face. “I think I’m beginning to understand. And I’m not
liking what you’re implying. Have men hurt you in bed, Carrie? Have they used
their strength to take what they want whether it was something you wanted or
not? Have you been raped?”

Carrie’s head was spinning. She couldn’t actually recall how
they’d gotten on this topic. One minute they’d been talking about pleasure
coming with strings, and the next…

She crossed her arms over her chest and looked around, but
there didn’t appear to be a handy escape route in sight. Besides, where would
she go? She didn’t have a home to go to right now, and Jase’s bedroom certainly
wouldn’t be a good idea. “I’m not having this conversation, Jase.”

His jaw tightened. “And that’s quite an answer. Who was
it?”

“Let’s not go there.”
Please,
she
thought.
Not there. I don’t want you to pity me. I don’t
want you to see me that way. A woman pretending to be strong because all
she’s ever been is weak.

“Go where? Into the personal? The uncomfortable? Fuck that. I
want you to answer my question. Have you been raped?”

It was the second word he’d uttered that night that shocked
her. The first, because it had made her picture the two of them together. Naked
and intimate. This one because it made her picture herself naked. Vulnerable.
Unworthy. Indeed, she was nothing like the women Jase normally dated. It was
best that he accepted that once and for all. She faced him head-on. “Yes. I
have. Are you satisfied now?”

He didn’t dignify her question with an answer. Instead, he
turned away from her and strode to the window where he clasped the frame so hard
his knuckles turned white.

Warily, she watched him. Watched his back heave as he struggled
for control. Watched as he wrestled with what she knew would be feelings of
anger and helplessness. Yes, Jase was a good cop. He’d be outraged by the idea
of any woman being assaulted. But as he’d been telling her, as she now accepted
on every level, he did care for her. She wasn’t sure why and she wasn’t sure how
deep those feelings ran, but she knew he was hurting for her. And that made her
hurt for him.

“Jase, it’s okay—”

He whirled around and pointed his finger at her. “It is not
okay. Don’t ever try to pretend what happened to you was okay.”

“I didn’t mean that. I just meant… It was a long time ago,” she
said. “But it taught me an important lesson. Men might like strong women, but
not when they’re afraid the woman is stronger. Not when they feel threatened.
When most men are threatened, they think they have something to prove, however
they can prove it.”

“Who was he?” He didn’t move any closer. Did he doubt his
ability to remain distant? Was he afraid to reach out to her now that he knew
what had happened to her?

“Why does it matter?”

“It just does.”

She hesitated. Giving Jase too much information was a bad idea.
They were working a difficult case right now. The last thing she wanted was for
him to get distracted by thoughts of avenging her, but she also knew he wouldn’t
let things go until she gave him some kind of answer. “A college boyfriend. But
there’ve been men since him who’ve walked the line. And I’ve decided I’m sick of
walking that line. I’d just as soon pleasure myself, if you get what I
mean.”

“Oh, I get what you mean in spades. And I understand why you
would think that way. But do you really think I’d ever use my strength to hurt
you? To do anything that you don’t want, in bed or out?”