“But people don’t know that.”
“When did you start caring what people think? I thought you just wanted to help.”
“I’d still be helping people. Research on psychological models is necessary to developing effective therapies.”
“But you’re not on the front lines.”
“No,” she admitted. “But I’d be doing important work.”
“If that’s what you want. Is that what you want?”
His words struck at her heart. She hadn’t bothered to ask herself that question in a very long time. She’d been so focused on getting through each day, one task, one step at a time, that she never lifted her head to see where she was going.
Was she lost?
Or had she simply changed direction?
“Now who sounds like a therapist?” she asked breathlessly.Covering.
He shrugged. “I’m a cop.”
She arched her eyebrows. “‘We have ways of making you talk’?”
“You got a problem with that?”
“No. No, how could I? I’m the same way.”
He got her meaning immediately. “Cops and shrinks. Both observers.”
She nodded. “Listening for hidden meanings, watching for nonverbal clues.”Trying to get confessions.
His eyes were almost black. She could not read his thoughts. “So you’re saying we both play mind games.”
“That’s not a bad thing,” she said. “Exactly. Not as long as we understand each other.”
“And don’t get stuck in our heads.”
She smiled ruefully. “I do have a tendency to overthink things.”
He put his hand on her ankle. Warmth stole upward, traveling along her veins. “I have a cure for that.”
Her pulse fluttered. Her smile spread. “I’m in your hands.”
“That’s the idea.”
Holding her gaze, he slid his hand up her calf to her knee. His palm was warm and calloused, scraping her nerves to life. She opened her mouth to breathe, and he leaned in to kiss her, taking her mouth in soft, greedy bites that raised the fine hair on the back of her neck and tightened the tips of her breasts. She wanted to rub over him like a cat.
She twined her arms around his neck, scooting closer, and he kissed her again, lazy and deep, taking full possession of her mouth as his finger traced tiny circles on the inside of her knee, the curve of her thigh. Sliding under the hem of her skirt, moving higher. Her excitement rose with each small incursion, every warm advance, until she made a sound in her throat, and he reached under her with both hands and gripped her bottom. He half pulled, half lifted her toward him, astride him, her legs straddling his thighs on the padded bench seat. His hands stroked down her back, fitting her curves against his lean, tough body, breasts to chest, sex to sex.
This. Liquid desire. Here, now, only this. Only him. She shivered, overwhelmed by the delicious contrast between the cool breeze on her bare arms and the solid heat between her thighs, by the scent of salt and man.
“What are you thinking now?” A breath against her lips.
She blinked. “What?”
She felt his chuckle warm against her cheek, deep in her belly. She ground against the hard bulge of his erection, loving the way he felt, the way he made her feel, aching and trembling and hot. He inhaled sharply, his fingers curving, pressing in her flesh, moving down, delving into her ready sex. Her flesh swelled. She trembled, hiding her face against his hot throat, rising on her knees as he thrust one big finger inside her. Two. She gasped.
He released her. She cried out in disappointment, raising her head.
