She tilted her head and made a derisive sound. “Jeez, Kincaid, what are you, twelve?” Her eyes met his, bright and brave. “I’m not asking you to a damn sleepover. I don’t need you to protect me. I don’t want you to sleep on the couch. Don’t you get it? I want you to stay with me.”

He didn’t say a word, not one word. Just stood there and looked at her, and for once she couldn’t read him at all.

Her first impulse was to hit him-anything to jar that stony expression off his face. Her second was to cover her face, hide her eyes. But she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing how devastating his rejection was.

She felt cold, and any moment now she was going to start to shake.

It took all her courage not to look away and all her strength just to make her facial muscles form a smile. “Well, I sure as hell am not gonna beg,” she said, and pushed past him, wanting only now to get away.

His fingers closed around her upper arm, and her response was automatic. She jerked back against his grip, and for a few seconds there was a kind of silent tug-of-war, her desperation against his greater strength.

Finally, he said in a low growl, “For God’s sake, Billie-” and she gave a sharp little cry as he pulled her into a hard embrace.

It was what she’d wanted, what she’d asked for. She had no idea why she went on fighting him; her reasoning mind had deserted her. She’d managed to get her arms folded up between her chest and his and refused to let herself give in to the temptation his body offered…the warmth, the strength, the comfort she yearned for.

“Don’t do me any favors,” she managed to get out between clenched teeth as she struggled.

Above her head she heard a small gust of a laugh, and when she looked up in fury, his head swooped down with the quickness of a hunting hawk. She had time only for a muffled and wordless protest, and then her mouth was no longer hers to control. He simply took it…claimed it…made it his.

And she had no objection. Her reason had already fled, and the same primitive imperatives that had made her fight him so mindlessly now compelled her to surrender. She felt herself growing weak and soft, and all her muscles becoming pliant. Her head fell back because her neck would no longer support it, but that was all right, because his hand was there to provide a cradle for it instead. Of their own accord her arms abandoned their barricade and crept around him like soldiers quitting the battlefield. And it was then, when her guard had been vanquished and she was left defenseless, that she felt it begin…the insidious invasion of emotions she’d been holding at bay for so long. First the ache…in another moment there would be tears.

I can’t…I can’t.

From somewhere, some reserve she didn’t know she had, she found the will to pull herself back from the edge. Back…from the brink, yes, but not from him. No…because he felt too good, and she needed him too much.

And so, finding her mouth once again hers to control, she now gave it up to him. And remembered as she did how good he’d felt before when she’d kissed him. And wondered why she’d waited so long to kiss him again.

Her senses returned and they brought her pleasure, something she’d almost forgotten these past few days, and was surprised she could still experience. He smelled good…that elusive aftershave she’d noticed before, and the warm, earthy scent that was essentially, unmistakably male. He tasted pleasantly of the coffee they’d both been drinking. Her ears were filled with muted sounds, like the throbbing of distant drums…heartbeats and soft sighs and murmurs, and the shush of skin on skin. But mostly, the sense that dominated, that ruled, that overwhelmed, was feeling.

Every nerve ending in her body seemed to be alive and humming, quivering with eagerness for his touch.

And everywhere he touched her the pleasure was almost too intense to bear. So intense it brought tears to her eyes, and because she could not, would not cry, she laughed instead. A soft little gulp of laughter, caught in the sweet warmth of his mouth.

She felt his lips curve against hers in an answering smile, and she lifted one hand to touch his face. Her fingertips tingled exquisitely from their contact with the roughness of beard and the vibrant warmth of skin beneath, and her smile blossomed against his. She was shaking now, with silent laughter that was her only available release for the emotions that theatened to overwhelm her, and she felt his hand touching her face in much the same way she touched his.

It seemed a long time that they remained like that, lips touching, alternately forming smiles and kisses, fingertips exploring the vibrant, constantly changing landscape of each other’s faces, bodies melding so naturally together she almost didn’t notice the intimate ways they’d begun to shift and cling.

Then he let a breath out, long and slow, and his hand moved to cup her cheek, fingertips combing into her hair as he lifted his head and pressed a kiss to her forehead. She tensed then, waiting for him to release her, wondering how she’d bear it when he did. But instead he whispered words against her sweat-damp skin.

“Does this feel like I’m doing you a favor?”

Chapter 7

She needs me, Holt thought. That’s all this is.

She needs me, he told his conscience, and I’m not walking out on her.

Gotcha, his conscience replied. Reading you loud and clear.

For a while then, blessedly, he didn’t have to think at all. Kissing Billie, he was discovering, was a full-time occupation, an all-encompassing pleasure, one that involved every part of him, including his brain. And your heart, too? Yeah, what about that, Holt?

But that, too, was something he didn’t have to think about. At least, not then.

That fascinating mouth of hers, with its impish little up-turn at the corners…who would’ve thought it could feel so lush and ripe and full of sweetness? And her hands-card-player’s hands with their nimble fingers-no surprise that they should be so clever, but who would’ve thought they could also be gentle, almost tender in the way they touched his face. In stature she was petite, her body small and compact, well-muscled and tidy…but who would’ve thought she could feel so soft, and fill his arms so completely.

Then, once again they were breathing in ragged little gusts of air, clinging to each other, and Holt wondered if she was trying as hard as he was not to show how shaken she felt. If she was wondering, as he was, what to do next.

About then was when she said, “Okay,” and cleared her throat, pressed her palm against his chest and stared at it. He could see her forehead wrinkle with a frown.

“Yeah,” he said, and cleared his throat, too, not really helping much.

“This is the really awkward part,” she said, and valiantly lifted her face to meet his eyes. “I don’t suppose you, uh…came prepared for this. I mean, I understand if you don’t have anything, but the thing is, I’m pretty sure I don’t. I’m covered for the pregnancy thing-yeah, learned my lesson there-and I’m clean, too. Had myself tested before Hannah Grace was born, and I’ve been careful since, but I don’t expect you to just trust me. I mean, you’d have to be pretty stupid to-”

“Billie,” he said, “shut up.” He kissed her again, but a shorter time than before. When he lifted his head she started to say something else, so he kissed her again, for a lot longer, and this time when he released her mouth she just licked her lips and stared at him, slightly cross-eyed.

“You’d be stupid to trust me, too,” he said softly, “but I think we’re both in luck. I drove down from Reno and came straight here this morning. I’ve got my overnighter in the car. I’m pretty sure there’s something in there.”

She was gazing at him in wonder. Her dimples flashed, and his heart gave a little leap, the way it did when he caught a glimpse of a deer dashing across Laurel Canyon Boulevard in the early, early morning.

“Hold that thought,” he murmured, then touched a kiss to the tip of her nose and left her.

All the time he was getting his suitcase out of the Mustang, locking up, heading back to the house, he refused to let himself think about anything except what he was doing at that moment in time. Don’t think, don’t analyze…stay in the here and now. That’s what he told himself whenever a glimmer of thought tried to sneak past his mental firewalls: Here and now. That’s all that matters.

Back in Billie’s house, he found she’d turned off the lights in the kitchen. Following the glow from the hallway, he made his way to its source, which was the larger of the two bedrooms he’d cleared earlier while checking for intruders. He’d noticed then that although it lacked frills, it was a distinctly feminine room, done in neutral tones of cream and tan, with accents of black and green. There were plants near the windows, which were curtained now against the darkness, and Audubon prints and Ansel Adams photographs in simple frames on the walls. Now, with Billie added to the setting, he realized how perfectly the room suited her. And what an intimate thing it was, to share that room with her. He wondered if she knew.

She was standing beside the bed, which was neatly made, with an assortment of throw pillows casually arranged on top of the spread. The only light came from the lamp on the table beside the bed, which she’d evidently just switched on. She lifted her head and smiled at him, but without dimples.

“Okay, Kincaid, this is your chance,” she said in a tone that wanted to be airy, the tension she was trying to hide betrayed by only the slightest of tremors.

He set down his overnighter and returned the smile in a tentative way. “Chance? For what?”

“To change your mind.” She turned to him, moving her body side to side in a way that suggested a wavering of will. “You know-the moment’s passed and we’ve both cooled down…pulses steady. Isn’t this where reason and common sense usually step in?”

“And have they?” When she only clasped her arms across herself and looked away without answering, he persisted gently, “Are you having second thoughts?”

She gave a sharp little laugh and brought her eyes back to him. They seemed to shimmer in the lamplight. “I asked you to stay with me, remember? Because I, um-” She closed her eyes and struggled with it, and he took pity on her and mentally filled in the words she couldn’t bring herself to say.

You need me.

“Billie, no, I haven’t changed my mind. If you need me, I’ll stay.”

She looked at him for a long moment, smiling that little half smile, then slowly shook her head and whispered, “Kincaid, you are such a Boy Scout.”

“Boy Scout?” He gave a surprised huff of laughter. “Don’t think I’ve ever been called that before. And why is it,” he added wryly, “I get the feeling you don’t mean that as a compliment?”

“I do, actually. I haven’t met that many Boy Scouts in my life…” She studied him thoughtfully, and her eyes seemed to kindle. He felt their heat from where he stood, two full arm’s lengths away. “Who would’ve guessed. That’s sure not what I thought of when I first met you.”

“Yeah? What did you think of, then?” He realized they were speaking in low murmurs, the tone lovers use to exchange erotic suggestions under cover of darkness, though there was still that distance between them. A distance that seemed vast and unbridgeable.

“Harry Callahan,” she said.

“Who?”

“You know-Clint Eastwood movies…Dirty Harry…”

He burst out laughing-he couldn’t help it.

“You know,” she said, watching him with her head slightly cocked, “I think that’s the first time I’ve ever seen you do that.”

“Do what?”

She gave a little shrug. “Never mind-it’s gone now. It was nice while it lasted, though.”

She turned to take the pillows off the bed, saying over her shoulder as she did, “Bathroom’s across the hall-it’s all yours.” She didn’t see him go.

She told herself not to think, but, as thoughts will, they came anyway. Why am I doing this? I guess I know why, I know what I think is why, but why do I need him when I’ve done all right without him up to now?

She began to undress, her fingers stiff and cold on the zipper of her jeans, tossing her clothes in the general direction of the dresser on the other side of the bed. It seemed too…intimate, too personal, to leave them lying where he would see them when he returned.

When he returns…

She tried not to think about how it would be. How he would look.