A Widow's Guilty Secret, page 14
And she had certainly done that, he thought. There wasn’t so much as a crumb left on her plate. “Want anything else?” he asked. “Dessert? Coffee?” And then he shifted gears by asking, “Or would you like to have a drink?”
Suzy shook her head in response to each suggestion, although she hesitated for a moment when he mentioned the last item.
Part of her wanted to throw back a drink, or three, in order to numb the fear and pain that were so very close to the surface. She was so very afraid for her son’s and sister’s safety. But she knew that aside from it being only a temporary “fix” that actually fixed nothing, a drink, depending on its strength, could render her incapable of thinking clearly. And she needed to remain clearheaded just in case the kidnapper called back tonight—or Nick’s team called with a lead for them.
“No, no drink,” she finally said. “We’ll have one together to celebrate once Lori and Andy are safe again.”
“Sounds good,” he responded, and she believed he meant it.
To her surprise, he helped her clear the plates and load them into the dishwasher. When they went back out into the living room, she couldn’t help looking around, part of her expecting to see Lori there holding her son.
When she didn’t, the pang that rose up within her was all but paralyzing. Tears rose in her eyes.
Nick saw the tears and knew what she was thinking. “We’ll have them home before you know it.” Promises like that were not typical for him, but he sensed she needed to hear the words.
“Home,” Suzy echoed. The word sounded so empty to her. Felt so empty, she thought, looking around. “Right now it doesn’t seem very much like home,” she confessed freely. “Not after all that’s happened.”
Nick nodded. “I understand how you feel.”
The words cut across her heart, drawing blood. She looked at Nick sharply as her temper suddenly flashed. Suzy couldn’t keep the words back. “How could you possibly understand?” she asked, struggling not to lash out, not to shout at him for being so condescending as to assume he knew what she was suffering through. She wasn’t being fair to him, but she didn’t want this police detective patting her on the head as if she was a child, giving her platitudes. “My cheating, dead husband turns out to be a possible traitor, betraying not just me but his whole country as well and because of him, my sister and my son were kidnapped and who knows what else? Are you trying to tell me that happened to you, too?” she demanded hotly.
“No,” Nick replied in a voice that was completely stripped of any emotion. He debated leaving it at that. He was, after all, a private person. But in the face of her pain, he decided to make the ultimate sacrifice and share his experience with her.
“I found out my wife was pregnant a week after she’d terminated her pregnancy. She’d swept that little life away without so much as passing thought, despite the fact that she knew I really wanted to have a family. When I called her on it, she told me that if I wanted to have something looking up at me adoringly, I should get a dog.” He paused for a moment to purge the bitterness that always came along with the memory of that confrontation, then said, “I got a divorce instead.”
Once the words were finally out, he realized that they—and the anger that propelled them—had been bottled up inside him all these long years, ever since he’d walked away from Julie that same afternoon he’d found out about what had happened to his unborn child. He’d never looked back. But the anger had lingered. And festered.
He felt almost liberated.
And just like that, her heart ached for him. “I’m sorry,” Suzy whispered, emotion threatening to all but choke her windpipe.
It started to rain outside. The raindrops hitting against the living-room window made for a mournful sound, separating the two of them from the rest of the world.
“I didn’t tell you that to get your sympathy—I told you to let you know that you’re not the only person who’s ever been blindsided by someone they thought they could trust. And if you ever repeat any of this,” he warned her, “I’ll deny it.”
So he’d confided something to her that wasn’t common knowledge. She found that comforting somehow, to be sharing a secret with him.
“I won’t,” she promised, then said in a slightly clearer voice, “And I’m still sorry. Sorry you didn’t get a chance to find out what it feels like to hold your baby in your arms. But most of all, I’m sorry that I yelled at you just now. You’re only trying to help me.”
She dragged her hand through her hair, wishing she could organize her thoughts as easily. “I feel like my nerves have been peeled down to the very core, but that’s still no excuse to take out my frustrations on you. You’ve been nothing but good and kind to me and I shouldn’t be repaying you for that by going ballistic on you just like some kind of shrewish harpy—”
Nick held up his right hand for a second, calling a halt to Suzy’s torrent of words. “Don’t go painting wings and a halo on me just yet,” he told her.
Suzy smiled at him, waiting for a second, just until the tears in her throat left so that she could talk. “Too late,” she whispered.
But he heard her, even though he chose to say nothing, and just shook his head. On his best day no one would have ever accused him of being an angel.
“Well, I guess I’d better be going,” he told her.
Her eyes widened. “You’re leaving?”
“I’m not going very far,” he answered. “If you need anything, I’ll be right outside.” He nodded in the general direction of his car. He intended on keeping vigil a few steps from her front door.
She shook her head, vetoing the idea. “The last policeman who stayed right outside my house didn’t fare too well,” she reminded him. “He wound up dead.”
Her concern touched him even though he tried not to let it.
“I’ve pulled protective duty before,” Nick assured her. “And I obviously lived to tell about it. Now, once I go out, I want you to lock up,” he instructed. “I’ll wait right outside the door until I hear you flip the locks and put the chain on.”
She caught his hand as he turned to leave. He looked at her quizzically. Her eyes held his for a long moment. When she spoke, it was to make a request. “Come inside. Stay the night with me.”
The way she said it, and the plea he saw in her eyes, left him no choice.
“Wait right here,” he told her. Crossing to the door, he flipped first one lock, then the other, testing each individually before finally putting on the chain.
“I’ll camp out on the couch,” he began as he turned around to face her.
He supposed that he wasn’t surprised by what came next. If he was honest with himself, on a subconscious level he’d seen it coming.
Because, on that same level, he’d been aware not just of Suzy’s overwhelming vulnerability, but of his own, as well.
Something about the look in her eyes, the pain she was feeling not only spoke to him but also evoked memories of his own pain—the pain he’d thought buried along with all his unspoken hopes and plans for the future and for a family life.
Julie’s heartless, thoughtless betrayal and the callous way she had erased all traces of their unborn child, not even pausing to think of the promise she was also erasing, had wounded his heart. To save himself and to stem the hemorrhaging flow, he’d literally denied his pain and sealed off that area of himself.
Sealed off all possibility of his feeling anything except a sense of duty and dedication to keep the citizens he served safe.
That was supposed to be enough.
It had been enough.
Until Suzy sealed her mouth to his.
Nick had no weapon at his disposal to try to hold her off. And rather than hold her off, he did the exact opposite. He eagerly sought the comfort, the warmth that she silently offered.
The flicker of momentarily unguarded pain she had seen in Nick’s eyes reached out and touched her, communicated with her own pain and went so much further than merely letting her know that he’d endured hurt the same as she had.
It assured her that she wasn’t alone. That he wasn’t just there for her but he had been there—where she was—as well. Reaching out to comfort him temporarily silenced her own pain.
Her own fears.
She desperately wanted something to blot out the overwhelming fear for her baby and her sister that made it hard for her to even breathe.
And then it was no longer about pain, about fear, about the waves of anxiety. It was stripped raw of all its layers and, at bottom, it was about the solace she discovered there, in Nick’s arms, in his touch. In his kiss.
And she was ravenous for it.
Peter hadn’t been a husband to her from the moment he’d learned that she had conceived. In withdrawing not just his attention and sexual contact, but any displays of affection as well, he’d made her feel like half a person, completely undesirable. She’d found herself adrift in loneliness.
More than anything, she now admitted, she’d craved a gentle touch, craved quiet, reassuring affection. Craved knowing that she mattered.
All these needs, wants, desires had seemed to burst to the surface the moment she and Nick walked into the house and closed the door. Unable to cope, to be alone with all these burdens she’d been carrying a second longer, Suzy threw her arms around the only lifeline she had.
Nick.
Every logical bone in his body told him this was wrong. That he couldn’t go through with this. That he needed to separate himself from this woman he was so completely attracted to before he compromised not only her and himself, but his principles.
Nick knew he would regret this—for her sake—but he didn’t care. He’d had regrets before. Better to regret a deed that was done than to regret never having done it at all.
He wanted to feel whole again, for however brief a time. Though it made no sense to him, for some reason, Suzy Burris made him feel whole. He’d sensed it almost from the moment he’d first laid eyes on her.
As was the case with everything in his life that didn’t go by the book, he’d tried to bury it.
But it just wouldn’t stay buried, not when she presented herself to him like this, all warm and willing, supple and wanting.
Nick was no match for that.
Nick was no match for her.
He kissed her over and over again, even as his brain ordered him to stop. He couldn’t stop. It was beyond his control, beyond the spectrum of his power.
He needed what she had, what she gave, and a part of him tried to assuage his conscience by telling himself that she needed what he had to offer, as well. Comfort, affection and reaffirmation.
It wasn’t a slow, languid dance the way he would have wanted it to be if it had been in his power to bestow on her. Instead, what was happening between them resembled a charged frenzy, underscored by articles of clothing now littering the floor, marking a path that went from the front door to the sofa several feet away.
And in the interim, as clothes continued to rain down, he kissed, caressed, touched and worshipped every square inch of her that he came in contact with, every single part of her body.
Firm and taut, her skin still felt like cream against his palms. He lost himself in that sensation. His heart raced as every kiss, every pass of his hand and hers bred a desire for more of the same.
No matter what he did, he couldn’t seem to get enough of her. He found himself desperately wanting that final thrill yet just as desperately wanting this momentum they’d created to continue forever.
Or at the very least, awhile longer.
She didn’t know what had come over her.
Maybe it was the abject loneliness. Maybe she just wanted to feel desirable again, to feel something other than pain, anger and weariness again. Peter had had her doubting herself, doubting her womanhood and even, these past few days, doubting her sanity and her ability to think clearly and make solid judgments. By his very actions—staying out late, hardly saying a word to her when he was home—he’d made her feel like a victim, unworthy of attention or affection or even the smallest kindness.
He’d begun to make her withdraw from life, which was when she’d decided she needed to save herself and divorce Peter.
But now, seeing herself in Nick’s eyes, she saw a different image, a different person. Moreover, in Nick, she both saw and sensed a kindred spirit. He spoke to her soul, made her transcend the rubble she’d found all around her.
She’d never thrown herself at anyone before, never wanted anyone before the way she’d wanted Nick the moment they’d closed the door and sealed off the world.
Suddenly there had been nothing and no one, just him, just her. And the hurt that thrived within both of them grew smaller with each step she’d taken toward Nick, each kiss they’d shared so wildly.
It was almost an out-of-body experience for her. She was in awe of her own actions, of the liberties that she was taking. She’d always been faithful to the man she was with, and as Peter’s wife, she’d been faithful to her vows. But Peter was dead and for the first time in a long time, she was not.
Nick brought out a wildness in her, and yet, there was this overpowering need for a connection. He was her connection.
To life, to love, to herself.
Every kiss seemed to flower into another one, creating equal partners of them even as she and Nick both tottered back and forth between being master and slave, captor and captive, each taking a turn at assuming all four roles.
When she felt she couldn’t hold back anymore, couldn’t wait a fraction of a second longer, Nick gathered her to him and, sealing his mouth to hers, he entered her, forming their union, making them one, a heartbeat before the rhythm of the act throbbed through both their bodies.
The tempo quickened with each passing second, each increasingly more zealous thrust.
Gasping and holding on to each other tightly, they leaped off the edge of the world and were suspended in space for an eternal moment. The euphoria surrounded them even as it pulled them back down to the earth.
And as they fell, she could feel his heart racing against hers.
She clung to that sensation, aware that all too soon, she would be at the mercy of her fears again, fears for her family’s safety. But for this singular moment, she took comfort in the thought that she was with someone who cared about her as much as she cared about him.
Chapter 14
Slowly Nick’s heart rate returned to normal, as did his ability to think.
And to own his actions.
Nick turned his head to look at the woman he was supposed to be protecting, not compromising. “You know, this wasn’t what I had in mind when I agreed to spend the night in your house.”
Her eyes met his. The euphoria had settled down to a comfortable glow within her. She knew she should be feeling guilty about this, but she couldn’t. Peter had been dead only a few days, but he hadn’t been her husband in close to a year. There were no ties there, no promises that she’d broken by making love with Nick.
She smiled at him now. “I know.”
As far as Suzy was concerned, she knew that she had made the first move. It truly was a first move on her part because she’d never done anything like that before, never literally thrown herself at a man before. But there had been something, a bond, a kindred spirit she’d sensed between the detective and herself that had removed the barriers.
But while there was no guilt for making love with Nick so soon after Peter’s death, something else hit her hard, broadsiding her when she least expected it.
He saw the tears in her eyes. “What’s wrong?” he asked, concerned. “Did I hurt you?”
She shook her head, afraid to speak, afraid that she would sob if she did.
“Tell me,” he coaxed softly.
It took her a moment more to gain control over herself. “What kind of monster am I?” she cried. “My son and my sister were kidnapped. Right now they’re at the mercy of some deranged lunatic—or worse,” she sobbed angrily. “And what am I doing? I’m throwing myself at the police detective who’s investigating my husband’s murder.”
Nick drew her into his arms, holding her as she struggled against him. Suzy finally just crumbled, her tears flowing freely.
“You’re not a monster,” he told her. “You’re a human being. And human beings need comforting when they’re in the middle of a stressful situation, the way you are. Suzy, you did nothing wrong,” he assured her, his voice low, reasonable. Comforting. He wiped away her tears with his thumb. “It’s going to be all right, Suzy. I promise. We’ll find them and get them back.”
She knew he couldn’t really guarantee that, but just as before, she clung to his words, to the idea that somehow, some way, they were going to find Lori and her baby.
She’d made love with him in order to stop thinking, but there was more to it than that. She’d made love with Nick because he made her feel that she wasn’t alone.
And she was grateful to him for that. But she didn’t want him to think she was some sort of a clinging vine.
Taking a breath to steady her nerves, she told him quietly, “This isn’t going to develop into a pattern.”
The remark seemed to come out of the blue, catching Nick off guard. Was she warning him off, or saying that for his benefit? How did he tell her that he wouldn’t mind if it did become a pattern? That making love with her had opened doors and windows inside him and had allowed the sun to come in for the first time in years?
He didn’t want Suzy to feel he was crowding her, as if he expected anything more from her, even though he would have welcomed it.
He didn’t want to scare her.
Going on instinct, he just continued holding her.
“You talk too much,” he told her quietly.
Maybe she did, Suzy thought. “Makes up for you hardly talking at all.”
Amused, Nick laughed quietly and brushed what was intended to be nothing more than a fleeting, chaste kiss against her lips. But he discovered the second that contact was reestablished, when it came to this woman, there was no such thing as fleeting, no such thing as chaste. He’d opened up the floodgates again and gotten himself swept away.
