“DO YOU WANT to come upstairs?” Donata stood outside the door to her building after Sean dropped her off at her apartment that evening.
The paperwork had been filed at the precinct and Rosie had admitted her deep hatred for Donata, even if she hadn’t confessed on all the charges against her and her new boyfriend, Richie Ford. Thankfully, Mick had brought in Richie earlier that day along with the guy’s computer files that incriminated him as an online predator who offered big bucks to teenage boys to plant webcams on the computers of their female acquaintances. The scam had yielded lots of juicy footage for Ford and his girlfriend to post on their private, subscription-only Web site that had morphed out of the original “fastgirlz” site.
Sean opened the door for her, but his feet didn’t venture across the threshold.
“You don’t know how much I’d like that, Donata, but I don’t think that would be wise considering your need to cool things off between us.”
The day had already challenged Donata to the limit as a professional. The cut on her cheek still burned and her eye had swollen purple beneath her eyebrow. But the challenge confronting her now had the potential to hurt her more deeply than any physical wound.
“I’m sorry I panicked in the car. I don’t think I expressed myself very well and I wish you’d at least let me explain.” She didn’t pay any attention to the pedestrian traffic on the street behind her as she stood outside the open door. Inside her building a young couple exchanged kisses and curious looks as they checked their mailbox. But all Donata cared about was fixing things with Sean.
A grizzled older man walking his dog entered the building as Sean held open the door. Even the furry white pooch rubbing against Donata’s leg didn’t distract her from maintaining eye contact with Sean since she had the feeling if she let him go now, it would be another four years before their paths crossed again.
“Whether you expressed it well or not, I definitely got the message.” Sean reached for her cheek on the uninjured side of her face and brushed a gentle thumb over her jaw. “Being alone with you hurts too much.”
Had she already chased him away for good with her need to protect her heart? The thought sent a pang through her core, assuring her she’d failed miserably on that count.
“You know, in my old relationship, I would have just faked that my vision was blurry to get help up the stairs and land the object of my affection right where I wanted.” She recalled the way she and Sergio had worked around each other to fulfill their needs and pretend they had a good rapport. “But I don’t want to play games with you, Sean, because I respect you too much for that. I made a mistake and I really, really need you to come upstairs for five minutes. If you want to leave after that and continue your reign as the king of short term, I promise I’ll understand.”
She gladly shed her pride—one quality that usually never failed her—to gamble on a man worth so much more than her facade as a tough chick.
At his small nod, he dropped his hand from her face and Donata walked inside the building. As he followed her into the elevator and down her hall, she knew she needed to find the right words to make him stay. To make him understand she wasn’t the kind of woman to change her mind every other day.
“Will you continue to investigate this case now that you’ve arrested two of the primary suspects?” He switched the topic to business, and she wondered if that was to deflect the serious tone of an intimate conversation or because he wanted to retreat into the comfort of his professional world.
“You don’t think we’ll find out that Richie and Rosie have been turning the webcam footage into mass-marketed films?” The pair had so many DVDs stockpiled in the warehouse that Donata had hoped a little more police work would link the twosome to the larger distribution scheme that put the webcam footage on store shelves as reality porn.
Sean shook his head as she unlocked her apartment door and let them inside.
“The footage they sell by the private subscription Web site is too raw and unpolished compared to the slick product that goes into movie rental places and stores. The packaging of those pieces is done by someone with more film industry savvy and the connections to distribute underage porn without any red flags.”
“You think Rosie is in cahoots with some Hollywood type?” Donata found it hard to believe any legitimate industry professional would have anything to do with a woman who practically seethed evil. Rosie had been behind all of the personal attacks on Donata’s privacy. The woman’s jealousy and resentment had only grown in the last four years. Sergio’s former mistress had even been the one to take a sniper shot from a neighboring building the night before since she’d been following Donata all week. That alone would amount to serious jail time.
“Not necessarily. But this could be the work of an underling in a New York production company. There are certainly plenty of filmmakers in the city with the clout to get their movies on store shelves throughout the country.”
“I don’t know if I’ll continue working the case.” Donata tossed her keys on her coffee table and slipped out of her shoes. “Although if you want to keep tracking that angle, I’d work with you if you’d have me.”
Truth be told, the teen exploitation angle was a little too close to home for her comfort and she felt as though she’d done a good deed by bringing Rosie in. But if it meant salvaging at least some kind of relationship with Sean, Donata would continue her efforts on the reality porn case.
He slid his jacket off his shoulders in the first sign that maybe he wouldn’t run right out her door and Donata’s heart leaped with hope.
“Actually, I think it’s time for me to take a little time off from Internet predators. My sister’s been asking me to change focus for a while and maybe she’s right. I’ve got a great team of technical people who can track a lot of other online crimes. And now I can say I did my best to blast some of these molesters out of cyber hiding.”
“We’ll be arresting subscribers to the Web site for the next few weeks.” Donata looked forward to that part. “The number of arrests will only go up.”
“Making you look damn good in the department’s eyes.” Sean reached for her, then caught himself midway and shoved his hands in his pockets.
Donata ached with the loss of that touch.
“You’re looking damn good as far as the precinct is concerned, too,” she said. “You know you could have a place on the detective squad again if you wanted it.” She’d seen firsthand that his techniques—while sometimes unconventional—were effective.
“I don’t. I’m happier calling the shots for myself. My instincts might not always be on the money, but they serve me well.”
Seeing an opening, she took a deep breath.
“My instincts aren’t always the best either. That’s why I ended up blurting out a plea for space that I really don’t want after Rosie took a shot at us last night.”
Silence met her admission for a long moment.
“I’ve been so careful with women since my sister was molested because I’d never want to be the pushy guy who took advantage of a date.”
“You’d never be that kind of man.”
“You thought I was.” His eyes broadcast the pain of her long-ago accusation in a way he’d never let her see before. “I’m not blaming you about the accusation, but it made me realize how easily attraction can be misconstrued or even misrepresented. I got even more careful after that.”
Her mouthy personality, the one she’d used as a shield during those months of hell she’d lived a lie with Sergio to send him to jail, had ended up hurting this noble, honorable man so much more than she’d realized. Not because of the career he’d walked away from, but because of the guilt she’d heaped on his strong shoulders.
She’d unwittingly played a large role in turning him into the king of short term. Tears burned her eyes as regret singed her heart.
“I’m so sorry.” She reached out to him, relieved when he let her rest her fingertips on his broad shoulder. His chest.
“It’s not your fault,” he assured her again, even though she knew damn well it was. “That’s what happens when your work life focuses on scumbags for so long. Your vision of the world skews and grows more cynical. Darker. I see that now, but I’ll never be the kind of guy who can handle a woman who’s not one hundred percent sure she knows what she wants.”
How could she convince him she wasn’t like that when the night before she’d been pushing him away? Her hopes wavered, her fear growing that she’d made her second colossal mistake in her love life. Her first had been falling for a gangster. Would her second be letting the greatest guy she’d ever met slip away?
Her fingers swiped back and forth across his chest, as if she could erase all the mistakes she’d made with him since they’d first met. If only relationships—if only love—were that easy.
And she did love him. She knew it today even if she hadn’t wanted to face it in the emotional jet lag of the night before. But love didn’t disappear just because you were scared to face it. And if anything, she’d awoken today with the knowledge of love in her bones.
“I do know what I want.” The resolution in her voice soothed her somehow. Whether Sean recognized it or not, she heard the absolute truth of her words by the strength of her tone.
Twilight cloaked the room in purple hues as a stray shaft of the sinking sun’s rays penetrated her living room window. The light seemed to land on the old photo of her as a girl with her hippie father in the Doors T-shirt, almost as if her misguided but well-meaning dad was encouraging her to be true to herself and not act out her past pattern of self-protection.
Go for it, sweetie.
“I realized I love you last night, Donata.” Sean’s words were as strong as hers, but tinged with a sadness of a man who knows his love might not be returned. “I’m not in a position to play games or to sleep together. Maybe in the back of my mind I’ve avoided falling for anyone in the past because I knew when I did, I’d go all out. It’s a quirk of personality for me that when I want something, I don’t hold back.”
His self-deprecating smile gave her the last nudge she needed. This time it would be her turn to go all out. Sean wouldn’t be the only one taking chances.
“You say you realized you loved me last night after the sniper shot.” She cupped his face in her hands, willing him to understand her the way she seemed to understand him. “Well, it only took me a day longer to come to the same conclusion.”
His eyebrows furrowed, expression intensifying.
“But you told me you didn’t even want us to see each other any more.”
“Only because I could feel myself falling down into an abyss of emotion that terrified me and I thought maybe I could stop the descent if I put on the brakes. But I woke up in love with you today, even with the brakes on. I see now that you can’t decide to take it slower with someone just because you’re scared. Love happens whether or not people feel ready for it.”
A grin broke over his face.
“Jesus, lady, you make it sound like a terminal condition.”
“No. But it’s definitely a permanent one and I can guarantee I’m not going to stop being crazy about you because I’m scared or because you’re impulsive when I’d like to study the parameters more.” She shook her head, her heart full of things she needed to express. In those moments when she’d realized that Rosie would gladly kill her, Donata had understood she couldn’t hold back her feelings for Sean. What if she’d never gotten the chance to tell him how much he meant to her?
Sean’s dark gaze raked over her face, searching for answers she would gladly spell out. She closed her eyes and let the words inside her spill free.
“I love that you fight on the right side of the law and I love it that you take the rules into your own hands when it comes to taking skanky pictures of me off the Internet even when I think maybe they need to be there for prosecution purposes. I love that you’re willing to share your instincts with me about people like Rosie Gillespie even when I’m only seeing the evidence right in front of my nose. You know how many points I won in the department today because of you?”
Sean studied Donata’s face in the soft shadows of evening and knew he’d be powerless to say no to this gutsy, determined lady who had made the best of every single tough situation life had thrown her way. Even now, as she pleaded with him so sweetly, she looked at him through a shiner that would linger on her pretty face for a week or two.
He brushed a thumb across the raw scrape on her cheek and knew he’d risk anything for another shot with her since his every noisy instinct told him she was The One. His first and last long-term woman.
“It wasn’t me who won you points with the guys at the precinct.” He’d just been doing his job the only way he knew how—following his hunches and making split-second decisions.
“Something made them change their minds about me,” she argued, stubborn and maybe just a little bit naive about police politics. But then, she had street smarts in spades to make up for it.
She’d been so focused on building her own character for the past few years that maybe she’d neglected her instinct radar for the people around her.
“You won their admiration by your ability to take a punch. In a police station full of guys, honor is given to those who are willing to spill a little blood for the good of the whole. So when you walk in with an arrest and a black eye to show for it, you buy yourself credibility that no squeaky-clean résumé can provide.”
Understanding gleamed in her blue eyes.
“That’s sick.”
“Sick or not, now you’re one of their own.”
Her lips pursed in thought.
“But I’d far rather earn your affection than theirs.” Her fingertips slid from his face to his chest to twitch restlessly.
“Donata.” He tipped his forehead to hers, inhaling the sweet scent of her that lingered despite being dragged through a building and thrown into an old van. “Don’t you know you already have my affection?”
“Will you forget about what I said last night?” She gripped his shoulders with surprising strength and Sean heard a world of messages in that urgent touch.
She needed him as badly as he needed her.
The rightness of their being together flowed through him like a warm tide.
“I don’t remember anything you said to me last night.” He’d gladly fake amnesia on that one.
Her smile clutched at his heart and held tight.
“I love you, Sean.”
“I’m right there loving you, too,” he whispered, brushing a kiss across her mouth. He cupped her cheek gently in one hand as he drew her closer with the other.
“I hope you brought your pillow tonight,” she murmured softly between kisses, her hand skimming under his shirt to splay across his back.
“Yeah?” He tilted her head at a new angle to access all the more of her sweet mouth. “And why is that?”
He knew. But was it so wrong to want to hear her say it?
“I’d like you to spend the night with me. All night. Every night. For as long as you can.”
The invitation meant almost as much to him as her saying she loved him since he had a damn good idea how tough it was for Donata to make herself vulnerable to anyone.
“Maybe, if I please you well, you’ll let me share your pillow.” He’d like nothing better than to please her every way possible if only she’d let him.
Her hips rocked against his as their bodies melded seamlessly together, the heat and fire intensified now that they’d let their hearts come into play. This kind of heat didn’t just sizzle. It seared them into true partners. Halves of one stronger whole.
And yeah, that knowledge made it easy for him to cross the line into commitment terrain.
“I’d like that.” Her fingers strayed south to the waistband of his jeans. “No stopwatches necessary either.”
He could see a future of waking up beside this amazing woman as clearly as he could envision taking her to bed for the rest of his life.
He dipped his head to kiss her neck and taste the soft hollow of flesh beneath her ear.
“Believe me, lady, the pleasure is all mine.”
* * * * *