Sunset Point: A Shelter Bay Novel (23 page)

“I brought you here to keep you safe,” he insisted in a deep, low voice that vibrated through her. “You have to believe that.”

Her breath shuddered out as he stroked her throat with the pad of his thumb. “I do.” Though there was nothing safe about the way he made her feel.

Just when Tess thought he was going to kiss her, Nate tilted his head so that his lips grazed her cheek. Her mind spinning, she moaned softly as his firm but featherlight lips trailed around the curve of her jaw to her other cheek. “But that doesn’t mean that I haven’t been losing sleep thinking about all the ways I want to make love with you,” he said.

When she turned her head, intent on capturing his tantalizing lips, Nate’s mouth deftly glided up the satin of her skin, leaving her tingling with anticipation. His breath warmed the hollows of her cheeks, her chin, her temples. When it whispered gently over her eyelids, they fluttered closed.

Tess couldn’t think; she couldn’t breathe. Every fiber of her being was brilliantly alive, concentrating on the drugging feel of Nate’s clever, wicked lips. When his breath feathered intimately at her ear, she gripped his forearm, as if to keep from falling off the edge of a wildly spinning world.

“I want you, too,” she admitted throatily.

He sighed and closed his eyes for a long, significant moment. When he opened them again, Tess could see the raw emotion in their emerald depths as she lifted her lips to his.

She tasted almost unbearably sweet. Like the nectar of meadow flowers gathered by hummingbirds on a lazy summer day. Or a succulent peach ripening in the warm sun. As his writer’s mind searched for the proper similes, he concluded that Tess’s warming flesh also bore a richer, more pungent taste that reminded him of aged brandy before a winter fire. She was the essence of all those things. And more.

Tess Lombardi was a woman for all seasons. And whether she was prepared to admit it or not, she was his.

But at this moment, she was turning him inside out. If he had his way, they’d both be upstairs naked. And by morning they’d be naked and a lot more than just friends. They’d be lovers.

And then what? Nate asked himself again.

He’d watched her in court, slowly building up that case for the jurors, layer upon layer, until she had them eating out of her hand. Unfortunately, someone in that jury room had proven a holdout, causing her to lose the case. But despite having a well-deserved guilty verdict stolen from her, she had gotten a conviction on the son.

The thing to do, he decided, was to co-opt her own technique to convince her that what they had going was more than her reluctant friendship. Or chemistry and the hot sex that came with it.

He’d have to be patient. Take his time. Even though just being in the same space with her was sending him over the edge.

“It’s late,” he said, struggling to think like an intelligent, rational human being instead of some horny guy who just wanted to get her clothes off. Which he was. “I have a long night of writing ahead of me. And you should get some sleep.”

“I’m sorry I’m keeping you from your work.”

Hell, he never lied. Well, almost never. Nate figured telling his cousin Joe that his six-week-old baby girl, who was unfortunately born with Mr. Spock ears, looked like a cute little elf didn’t count. That was a social lie. A white lie. And from the way both the new mother and father had swelled up with pride and agreed that the infant did, indeed, look like an elf, it had made them happy. It had also kept him from ruining the baby’s baptism and having about a gazillion family members wanting to throw him off the lanai into the lagoon.

But in the rest of his life, he didn’t lie, because one, he wasn’t any good at it, two, it was too much trouble trying to keep track of what lies you told to whom, and, three, lies always came back to bite you on the ass.

Like now.

The hurt in her eyes made him feel like the worst guy on earth. “Okay, that’s a lie. I don’t need to work. But this isn’t a rejection.”

“That’s funny,” she said. “Because I could have sworn it was.”

“It’s definitely not,” he repeated. “Okay. Here’s what I’m thinking…Only a few hours ago, we agreed to be friends, and although you’re pretty much my every hot fantasy come to life—” He rubbed the heels of his hands against his eyes as he tried to figure a way out of this. “No, strike that. You
are
every hot fantasy I’ve had since the day I discovered girls were more fun than baseball… But the thing is, I’m trying to act like a grown-up.”

“And you’re saying I’m not?”

“No. I mean yes. You always behave like a rational, responsible adult.”

“Now you make me sound boring. No wonder you’re turning me down.”

“What?” Hell, he couldn’t win. “I told you, I’m not turning you down. I’m just trying, even though my balls just happen to be the size of coconuts right now, to do the right thing and call a time-out. For now.”

“Oh.” He could practically see the wheels turning around in her head as she considered the idea. “That’s probably wise.” Her eyes, as they drifted to the metal buttons of his jeans, checking out his claim, said otherwise. “I guess, then, I will go to bed. Alone.”

“I’ll walk you upstairs.”

“That’s not necessary. I can find my way. Thank you for the dinner. It was delicious. Five stars, definitely.”

As he watched her walk up the stairs, her sweet little heart-shaped ass swaying beneath the long purple sweater she was wearing with a pair of black leggings, Nate decided that sometimes it sucked to be a grown-up.

The house was quiet when Tess woke the next morning. She took a quick shower, hoping that Nate was right about the captain’s discretion, hand scrunched her hair rather than attempting to blow-dry it, dressed quickly in her Stanford Law sweatshirt, jeans, and another pair of thick socks the elderly victim continued to make for her, and went downstairs to the kitchen.

Nate was nowhere to be seen, but he’d left her a note that he was upstairs in his office, writing, and if she needed anything, to feel free to interrupt. Which she had no intention of doing. She wasn’t a guest, after all. He had no responsibility to entertain her.

Making herself a mug of free-trace coffee from the Keurig on the counter, she sat down at the kitchen table with her laptop and went over Vasilyev’s file with a fine-tooth comb, looking for something,
anything
, she may have missed. That one tiny loose thread that might unravel the entire fabric of her case against the Russian.

Which had her thinking of Jim Stevens again. Tess missed her former mentor. Not just on a professional level, but a personal one. She missed having someone to talk with about work and life in general. She’d offered advice on teenage girls while he’d been dealing with three still at home; they’d argued about fictional cases on
The Good Wife
, and had an ongoing competition on which real-life “Ripped from the headlines!” case a
Law and Order
episode might be based. No Googling allowed.

She’d gone to summer barbecues and holiday parties at his house, and once when she’d been dating Donovan, they’d gone out sailing with Jim and his wife, Susan. Susan, a family physician, had welcomed Tess into their home as if she were part of their family, while Jim had been more than a mentor. Over the years he’d grown into another father figure.

And then, one day, without warning, he was gone, his body never recovered from the sea. Beloved by friends and family, and liked and respected by his courtroom opponents and judges he’d appeared before over his long, distinguished career, the turnout for Jim Stevens’s memorial mass at St. Mary’s Cathedral had been standing-room only.

Tess sighed with regret for the loss of such a good man. But he’d taught her well as he’d created such a tight prosecutorial case that the Russian’s attorney hadn’t been able to find anything in the original procedure to get the mobster off the hook. And she was damned if she was going to allow him to use this latest ploy as a loophole to wiggle out of the steel net Jim’s relentlessly hard work had created.

Rubbing the back of her neck, which had tensed up during what she now realized had been several hours hunched over her laptop, she made another cup of coffee, then walked over to the front window. Looking out the telescope beyond the shipwreck, she studied a sea stack covered with what appeared to be sea lions.

“Amazing,” she murmured.

“It’s Sunset Bay’s elephant seal rookery.” The familiar voice behind her had her jumping. Coffee sloshed onto the floor.

“Sorry,” he said, “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

“I was just surprised. Which does bring up a question,” she said as he went over to the kitchen and tore off some paper towels to mop up the coffee. “Were you chosen to be a Marine sniper because of your ability to walk on silent cat feet? Or did that skill come with training?”

“A bit of both,” he said. “And if you don’t mind, while Carl Sanburg described fog perfectly, I prefer to think of myself as stealthily stalking like a panther.”

“Correction noted,” she said dryly. It was, after all, a more accurate description. “That’s a lot of seals on one rock,” she said, returning to the telescope.

“You should see it at winter mating season. People come from all over the country to watch.”

“They come to watch seals have sex?” The thought was too astounding for words.

“It’s quite a show and brings in a lot of tourism. The parks department even has hourly tours.”

“Seriously?”

“Scout’s honor,” he said, raising his right hand. “They’re damn impressive—the average bull is around eighteen feet long and weighs three, maybe four tons. The season starts when the bulls arrive at the beginning of December,” he told her. “The stronger ones establish their dominance by fighting all the others and driving off the weaker ones. Then they establish their territory.”

“Typical males.”

He flashed that trademark grin. “As soon as the battles over territory are won, the cows arrive. They’re much more petite. They only weigh a couple thousand pounds.”

Tess returned his smile. “That’s downright anorexic.”

“Isn’t it? Anyway, when the would-be brides come ashore, they’re corralled into harems.”

“Harems.”

“The beach masters run the largest harems. That way they get to mate more often.”

“Again, typical.”

“Now who’s guilty of sweeping generalizations?” he asked. “For the record, I’m a firm believer in monogamy.”

“Serial monogamy,” she guessed.

“Which doesn’t mean that I’m not looking forward to settling down. With the right woman.”

Tess wasn’t about to touch that line. She picked up a deck of cards on the bottom shelf of one of the many bookcases in the house, moving it from hand to hand as she continued to look out the window, which was safer than meeting his gaze.

“If this were any other situation, I’d suggest going into town for lunch,” he said. “Maybe walk along the seawall. We’ll have a do-over, and this time I’ll only touch you if you want me to. And you won’t break my nose.”

She glanced back over her shoulder. “I didn’t break your nose.”

“You came damn close. You’ve got some good moves.”

“I’ve taken self-defense lessons.”

“I could tell.” His gaze shifted to the deck of cards. “I told you I met your grandmother.”

“You said it was a story for another day.” But she’d been curious.

“It’s raining, which takes a walk on the beach off the table, so since we seem to be stuck here and are in the getting-to-know-you stage of our relationship—”

“Friendship,” Tess reminded him.

“That’s a beginning. Anyway, Rosa and I played gin rummy together. Since we’re stuck here, at least until the rain slows down, how we have some lunch, then play a game?”

“I’d rather play poker.”

“Okay, now see, that’s exactly what I’m talking about. I never would’ve guessed that. So now I know something else about you. The next question is, are you any good?”

“I’ve been known to win a hand or two,” she answered casually, not adding that growing up with Mike Brown had resulted in her learning to play poker before she knew her ABCs.

“Lady, you’re on.”

Three hours later, after slaw-topped spicy cod tacos that were better than anything than Tess had ever eaten in a restaurant, she was gloomily studying the pile of matches in front of Nate.

“You’re as bad as my grandmother,” she muttered.

He glanced up as he shuffled. “Your grandmother plays poker?”

“Gin rummy. And she cheats.”

Nate laughed as he dealt. “I know. I lost ten bucks to her.”

“When?”

“About six years ago.”

“Where?”

“In Washington. Do you want any cards or not?”

Tess studied her hand with an obvious air of dejection. “Three,” she decided rashly, ignoring Nate’s raised eyebrow as he dealt her three new cards. She struggled to hide her elation as she viewed her hand. Three kings and a pair of eights. A full house. Her luck was finally changing.

“In Washington D.C.?” she asked with more calm than she was feeling at the moment.

“Not the state,” Nate agreed easily. “I’ll stand pat.”

Tess eyed the cards he held fanned in his hand, wishing she had X-ray vision. He had nice fingers, she considered irrelevantly. As her imagination conjured up dreams of those fingers leaving trails of exquisite lightning over her body, Tess jerked her mutinous mind back to the game.

Did he have a hand that could beat hers? That was what she should be considering. Lifting her gaze, Tess fully understood the term poker face. Nate’s inscrutable expression gave nothing away. She wondered if that skill had come in handy while he’d been away in war zones and decided, like his being able to move without making a sound, it probably had.

“What were you and my grandmother doing playing cards in D.C.?”

“There wasn’t room in the holding cell to play basketball. Are you going to play cards or talk?”

“I’m playing.” Deciding that he had to be bluffing, Tess put two matches in the pot. “I’m afraid to ask what you two were doing sharing a jail cell.”

“I’ll see you and raise you five matches. We were waiting for our attorneys to show up with the bail money.”