Sleepwalker (20 page)

He made a sound that was a cross between a snort and a laugh. “Two point five kids and a house in the suburbs is not the way I see my life going.”

“I take it that’s a no.”

His hand slid an inch or so lower as he shifted position again. It now rested partly on the lowest part of her tank and partly on the inches-wide strip of bare abdomen above her panties where her tank had ridden up. Again, his hand was heavy and warm, unmoving, no inappropriate
advances at all. But the skin-to-skin contact, slight though it was, was where her attention suddenly focused.

“Yeah, it’s a no,” he said.

They were this intimately entwined from necessity and for no other reason, Mick reminded herself. There was nothing else going on here. Besides, until a little over twenty-four hours ago, she’d thought she was in love with Nate. But still, she could not help but realize that this guy was really starting to register on her as a man, and a very attractive man at that.

“I’m glad.”

“Oh?”

“I’d hate to think you were a family man. In case you wind up spending the next decade or so of your life behind bars.”

“Don’t you worry your pretty little head about me. What about you? There’s got to be somebody. Or have you taken a vow of celibacy or something?”

“I had a boyfriend. We broke up. Recently.”

“Still in the crying-in-your-pillow stage, hmm?”

“Screw you.”

“That’s a yes if ever I heard one.”

“You know, I’m really starting to look forward to hauling you off to jail.”

“Hey, it’s not me you’re mad at. I didn’t do a thing.”

Somehow her tank had ridden up enough so that his hand was now meeting nothing but bare skin. It nestled between her navel and the waistband of her panties as if it belonged there. The pads of his fingers were slightly rough, and his palm was broad and firm and his skin was just so
warm
. The annoying part was that she kind of liked the way his hand felt there. And if she pushed it away or made a move to dislodge it, he might figure out precisely why.

“You mean besides totally ruin my life?”

“We’ve been over this. Unless you want to keep fighting about it, I think we’re just going to have to agree to disagree.”

“I don’t agree to any such thing. You broke the law. I didn’t.”

“That’s certainly one way to look at it.”

Mick made a disgusted sound by way of a reply, both because arguing about this was a waste of good breath and because she was really getting distracted by what was going on below her waist. The tingle was back, only stronger and more insistent than before. The thing was, she was starting to have brief, unwelcome fantasy flashes about having his hand slide on down inside her panties. All it had to do was move a fraction of an inch lower, and his fingers could slip beneath the elastic waistband. His hand, big and hot, could slide ever lower inside the silky fabric until it covered her, then delve between her legs. …

Mick felt heat start to curl somewhere deep inside her.

My God, was she easy, or what?

Reaching down toward that tantalizing hand, Mick gripped his wrist.

“Problem?” Jason asked, really interested in what she was going to come up with by way of an excuse for repositioning herself. Having registered the slight quickening of her breathing, her sudden stillness, and the tightening of her belly as his hand rested on it, he had a fairly good idea of what the truth was: their proximity was turning her on. He knew, because it was doing the same thing to him.

Having had his fair share of women over the years, Jason knew the signs. When she grabbed his wrist, he thought for a moment that she was going to go all aggressive on him and take him right on down to the Promised Land, which he had to admit he wouldn’t have fought too hard to resist. But she didn’t. Instead, she lifted his hand and settled it firmly around her waist on top of her shirt, securing it there with her arm resting on top of his, holding it in place. At the same time she moved, changing position slightly, easing away from him everywhere she could, which in the end didn’t amount to much because the quarters were too tight. The sweet smell of her hair as she moved her head and the brush of her silky skin against his legs as she stretched served as a potent reminder of just how very feminine this tough cop was. Not that he really needed to be reminded: the small, tight roundness of her ass, the marked indentation of her waist, the graceful curve of her back all made it clear that it was a woman he was holding in his arms.

A desirable woman to whom he was fiercely attracted, although he
hated to admit it. See, that was the sad and sorry truth: he was hot for her, too.

Luckily, he had heaping helpings of self-control.

“My leg was going to sleep.”

Good one. But he didn’t say that. Instead he said, “Speaking of sleep, we should probably try to get some.”

“Mmm,” was her reply, which he took as agreement. She didn’t say anything more, but from her continuing relative rigidity he knew that for all she had to be exhausted, sleep wasn’t happening for her just yet. Just like it wasn’t happening for him, either. The lithe sexiness of the half-naked body in his arms was having a predictable effect. He was getting a bad case of sex on the brain, which at the moment he absolutely did not need. Those itsy-bitsy bikini panties of hers practically begged him to peel them off her, and that tank she was wearing revealed almost more than it hid. Just from looking, he knew her breasts were small enough that he could hold each one in a cupped palm. He knew they were firm enough not to jiggle all over the place even when she was running. He knew that they were nicely rounded, with perky little nipples of the type to amply reward some careful attention. Couple that with a supple dancer’s physique, a pretty face and the kind of badass attitude that he was discovering turned him on in spades, and he was attracted, no doubt about it. Chemistry and proximity joined forces to equal severe temptation, which he was doing his best to resist. He had little doubt that if he made a serious move, she would be his for the asking. But while that might bring immediate gratification, it came with a whole dump truck full of problems. She might be hot and he might be getting teeth-clenchingly horny, but like anything else, giving in to his instincts would bear consequences. Besides the obvious, which, of course, would include what he was fairly sure would be some pretty amazing sex. But tomorrow inevitably had to be faced, and in the aftermath of really good sex women tended to fall into one of two
categories, in his experience: pissy or clingy. For better or worse, he and she had to make their way out of this disaster of a situation together. The last thing he needed was a pissed-off cop out to bring him down because she was having an I-hate-myself-in-the-morning moment, or an infatuated cop wanting to keep him close when the time came for them to part ways. Because parting ways was going to happen, and fast, too. She might have been planning to arrest him as soon as she could—hell, she had all but explicitly told him that that was what she meant to do—but he had something else in mind entirely. As soon as they were safely back in some semblance of civilization, he was going to ditch her and head for Ypsilanti, where a Beechcraft Bonanza was waiting for him at Willow Run Airport, about seven miles west of Detroit Metro. He and the cash were headed for Grand Cayman. There he would hook up with Jelly and Tina, who would already have flown out in what was their agreed-upon plan in case the shit should hit the fan, as it had. The three of them would lay low for a while, living the good life for the next few months while the smoke cleared. Then they would resume making their very lucrative living in the best way they knew how. Not that a one-night stand with Miss Tits would change any of that, really. Only besides being attracted to her he had come to like her, and doing her, then dumping her, seemed like a poor way to end what he was going to classify as a special, if brief, friendship.

So he kept his hands to himself, fought off every stray subversive impulse that assailed him, ignored an increasingly urgent erection, and simply lay there in the dark listening to her breathe. Until gradually her breathing slowed and deepened, and her body relaxed in his hold. That’s when he knew she was asleep, and he was finally able to relax enough to fall asleep himself.

Only to be awakened abruptly by a hoarse cry and something slamming hard into his ribs. Instant alarm and exploding pain acted on him like a jolt of cold water to the face, yanking him out of sleep, making
him instantly aware. Even as his eyes snapped open to a whole lot of dark, he jackknifed upright, or tried to, but his limbs were confined so he couldn’t quite do it. Sleeping bag—he remembered being zipped up in a sleeping bag. …

With the wild thing who was now seemingly fighting for her life beside him.

A flying elbow was what had smashed into his ribs. He knew, because he barely dodged another one headed for his stomach as he flopped over onto his back, freed an arm and grabbed for his gun.

Only there didn’t seem to be anyone else in the cold, dark box with them. His eyes had adjusted to what was just enough charcoal gray filtering through the chinks in the boards to distinguish something from nothing, but that was about it. Still, after a lightning glance around, he felt pretty sure they were alone.

“
No
.” This time her cry emerged as a single, intelligible word. He couldn’t see her face because her back was turned, which left him looking at a long, thick mane of tossing hair, but he could feel the tension in her body as she lashed out violently in what he was pretty sure was an attempt to escape the sleeping bag.

“
Mick
.” Laying his gun back down on the floor, he hitched himself around so that he was facing her, wincing at the impact of her elbows and heels as he found himself catching the backside of her blows. He realized even as he reached for her that she must be fast asleep.

“No, no, no, no, no,” she moaned, struggling. “Mom. Mommy. No.”

“
Mick
.” He wrapped his arms around her, not too tightly but just securely enough to, he hoped, calm her down, as she slashed and kicked at the side of the sleeping bag in what seemed like a desperate battle to be free.

“No!” At his touch she turned on him, attacking fiercely, punching and kicking, fortunately with considerably less than the deadly force she’d loosed on him in Marino’s study. He dodged as best he could, but
the confines of the bag worked against him, too, and she got in a few good kicks and blows that he wasn’t quite quick enough to ward off. She was battling not him, he knew, but something he couldn’t see, and he realized even as he grabbed her wrists and hooked a leg around hers to still them that she was deep in the throes of a nightmare.

“Mick!”

“No!” she cried. “No!
Mom
.”

“Mick,
shh
, wake up. Mick, it’s me.”

“Mom!” As he held her fast she tried to head butt him, and he jerked out of the way just in time. Jesus, he had to remember not to let down his guard with her. She might look and feel feminine and defenseless, but she definitely was not.

“No, no, no!”

“Mick!” he almost yelled in desperation, giving her a little shake, and at last her eyes flew open. With only the first gray fingers of approaching dawn and the red gleam of the stove to alleviate the darkness it was difficult to make out any details at all, much less read her expression, but what light there was reflected off her eyes, showing him how wide and disoriented they looked. Her eyes were open, yes, but he got the impression that she wasn’t yet fully aware. He could hear the ragged gasp of her breathing, feel the desperation in the still struggling, supple body he was trying so hard to contain, and knew she didn’t still quite grasp the situation. “Mick, it’s all right. You’re safe.”

Well, not really, given where they were and what was going on, but still it seemed the thing to say. Anyway, for the moment she was safe with him.

She went still, took in another big, ragged gulp of air, and blinked. Their eyes met, she frowned, and that was when he knew that, finally, she was awake and aware. That was also when he saw the wet gleam of tears spilling out over her lower eyelids to slide down her face.

“Jesus, are you crying?” Probably there was dismay in his voice,
because dismay was certainly what he felt. A crying woman, any crying woman, was bad enough: he had few defenses against female tears. But for this ball-busting, tough customer to cry—it made his gut clench.

She took one of those gasping breaths again.

“Hell, no.” Despite the trouble she seemed to be having with her breathing, her voice was iron hard, if low and a little hoarse, and her eyes narrowed challengingly at him. But then she swallowed another of those great, shuddering gulps of air and he realized that they weren’t gulps of air at all but sobs. He saw more moisture sliding down her cheeks, the wet tracks gleaming in the faint light, and his heart turned over.

Yeah. She was.

“Shit,” he muttered, resigned, and let go of her wrists to gather her close. “Hey, there’s nothing that bad.”

Which was when she burst into full-blown, noisy tears.

“Shh, baby, shh.” He cradled her against his chest. That didn’t help at all. She wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face in his shoulder and wept like she’d been holding the storm inside for years. What could he do? Swearing silently, he held her and let her cry. And did all those useless things that men do: stroked her back, smoothed her hair, murmured inane attempts at comfort like
It’ll be all right
and
Don’t cry
. She felt small and vulnerable in his arms, not like the Mick he knew at all. He kind of liked her like that, he decided, although the butt-kicking variation had its own charms, too. Whispering a disjointed stream of would-be soothing words in the general direction of her uppermost ear, he rocked her against him and patted her and held her close as she shook and gasped and wept. When he felt hot tears flowing like Niagara down his chest, he set his teeth. She was getting to him big time. Knowing he was skating dangerously close to trouble, he pressed his lips to her hair and pulled her closer yet, settling in for the long haul. And tried to stop noticing how sexy she felt in his arms.