Chapter 11
REZNOR
The coffee scalds my tongue, but it’s worth it in the morning silence.
The still air is filled with birds chattering and somewhere in the distance a rooster crows.
The jingle of dog collars and sharp nails on wooden floors can be heard from where I sit, and I notice how last night’s rain washed away the mud from yesterday where it fell off the tarp and onto the concrete.
The door opens and dogs bound out of the house to the grass area. She appears shortly behind them in a different outfit from last night—but one that has me thinking about how her tits lifted with the fabric when I pulled her tank over her head.
Shit.
So many things I’ve relived about last night and yet I’m sitting here. I’m waiting for her. I’m wondering what the hell is going on.
The dogs—one black, one multi-colored, one with only three legs—do their business, but it’s only when she turns to go into the house that she sees me sitting in the chair in the far corner of her porch.
Her yelp fills the air and her hand flies up to her chest. “What are you doing here?” she asks. But there is something in her eyes—genuine fear—that makes me think her being startled has to do with so much more than me surprising her.
“Sorry,” I murmur and then knock on the table in the pattern I established earlier. Knock-knock. Knock-knock-knock. “Hi, it’s me.”
She huffs out a breath and rolls her eyes. “So?”
“Just enjoying my morning coffee,” I say in a slow, steady drawl as her eyes narrow, and she tries to figure out what’s really going on. “The dogs were good, then?”
She walks over slowly and takes a seat opposite me as the dogs come to greet me. I take my time giving them love so she can wonder more, and when the dogs go back to explore the yard and leave us be, I return my attention to my coffee.
When the waft of her shampoo or body spray or whatever the hell it is hits my nose over the dark roast, last night comes rushing back—not like it was far from my mind. The taste of her skin. The feel of her pussy. The sound of her moaning my name.
The panic in her voice when she jolted out of bed afterward.
“My job is interesting most days,” I begin and see her stiffen in attention out of the corner of my eye.
“Self-defense?”
I snort a chuckle. “Nah. SWAT.” I think about everything I’m missing by being here.
Am I missing it or do I miss the chaotic normalcy and unpredictability?
“Some weeks it’s neverending boredom. Hour after hour.
Day after day. Sitting and waiting for the next call, the next crazy person, the next whoever needs our help.
Other weeks, we can’t even put our weapons in their lockboxes before the next call comes in. ”
“It sounds—”
“Exciting? Daunting? Unconventional?” I ask as she nods cautiously, inquisitive eyes cast my way. “You could say that.”
“I’m sure you’ve seen more than most people could ever imagine.”
“Pretty much.” I bring the mug to my lips. For some reason, I wish there was a little something stronger in it...when that’s not something I’ve wanted in a long time. “It’s all about control.”
“What is?”
“My job.” My life. “Who has it. Who wants it. How to transfer it from one person to another with the least amount of damage to everyone involved.”
“It’s a power play.”
“Most times, yes.”
I look her way and the barrage of questions normally thrown at me are in her eyes: Do you ever burn out? What’s the worst you’ve seen? Have you ever been injured? And on and on...but she doesn’t ask. She sits there with patient eyes and a soft smile, waiting for me to talk.
“I don’t sleep at night, Desi, because every time I close my eyes I picture things I don’t want to see.”
“Rez—”
“A call went bad a few weeks ago. A hostage situation where kids were involved. I made the call to breach the house. Instead of the suspect taking his anger out on my team—shooting at us—he killed his kids, because he didn’t want us to give them back to their mother.”
“Christ.”
“Nah, he wasn’t anywhere in sight that day,” I murmur as my mind takes me back to everything I see when I try to sleep.
The hazy smoke in the air. The spray of blood on the wall from where my guys engaged and took the suspect out.
The tears welling in Bull’s eyes when he came out of the side bedroom and shook his head because the kids were gone.
“Those poor babies. My God. What animal would—”
“People do all kinds of things under the wide-reaching blanket of love.”
“That’s not love.”
“Not how I see it, it isn’t.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“There’s nothing you can say. It was just a shit situation. A decision I’ll second-guess for a long time. Should I have waited him out or would it have ended up with the same result regardless?”
“So that’s why you’re here?”
“More or less,” I say and take a sip of my slowly cooling coffee. “I needed a change, something to clear my head for a bit.”
“You’re going back then?”
“Eventually. I think.” I chuckle and run a hand through my hair. “Two months ago, if you would’ve asked me if I could see myself sitting in a slow, quiet wine town without going stir-crazy, I would’ve told you that you were the crazy one...but it’s been a good change of pace.”
“Sometimes change is good for the soul.”
Our eyes meet as the dogs play in front of us, and we stare at each other in silence. “That’s why I was up last night,” I say then pause. “You?”
“Seriously?” She laughs, and I can see the change instantly. The stiffening of her spine and playing down of the fear I saw in her eyes when she found me sitting on her porch.
“Yep. Seriously. I’m trained to notice things, Des. How you jump when someone doesn’t announce themselves. The fear and panic you get in your eyes. The self-defense class. It’s written all over—”
“Maybe it’s none of your business.” Oh, there she is. Defiant. Fearless. Stubborn. “I don’t need a hero swooping in to save the day.”
My chuckle is raw and real. “I’m far from a hero, but I’d try to nonetheless.”
“It’s nothing. Leave it be,” she warns.
“Maybe it isn’t. But you wanna tell me what was up last night?”
“You were.” She cracks the joke, but I don’t give her the smile she’s working for.
Instead I give her my investigator’s stare and wonder if she knows what she looks like right now.
Like a teenager caught in a lie who isn’t sure what to say and knows that no matter what comes out of their mouth, it will land them in hot water in one way or another.
“Desi…”
“I told you, I needed to check on the dogs.”
“And I wasn’t exactly done with you yet,” I murmur and love the sudden catch of her breath that she tries to pretend didn’t happen.
Her eyes widen and she licks her lips as she tries to think of what to say.
“Yeah, I wasn’t. Not in the least. I had a few other ways to make you tired. ..but your loss.”
“There are things we didn’t talk about. Things that I don’t—I’m not someone who commits—who—”
“Perfect. I’m all for casual-neighborly sex.” I fight my grin, but lose the battle as I rise from my chair and move to rest my ass on the table so I’m directly in front of her. If she’s going to bullshit me, she’s going to have to look me straight in the eyes when she does it.
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Then what did you mean?” I fold my arms over my chest.
“I’m not a relationship girl.”
“Good thing I didn’t ask for one, then.”
She’s not getting out of this one as easily as I let her out of telling me her other truth. No way. No how.
I want the woman again—would have her right now if she let me—but something tells me there’s a lot more beneath the surface I’ve yet to find out...and hell if I’m not determined to uncover it.
“That’s not what I mean—”
“You keep saying that. And I keep waiting for you to explain what it is you do mean.”
“If you’d back up and give me some space, maybe I could think straight.”
I do the exact opposite. I step forward, put my hands on both arms of her chair, and lean down so we’re face to face.
“Maybe I don’t want you to think straight.
Maybe I know that’s when you’ll be the most honest. We slept together, Desi Whitman.
It was incredible...you were incredible.
..and I’d like to do it again with you real soon.
..but I need a little more from you than a wham-bam-get-the-hell-out-ma’am. That’s not my style. Far from it…”
“Maybe I’m just a one-night-stand girl.”
“First of all, you’re far from a girl.” I drag my eyes up and down the length of her body.
No man would be satisfied with one night with Desi.
She’s gorgeous, passionate...fucking hot.
“Secondly, I’m all for a one-night stand.
..if I’m not going to see the person again, but I’m going to see you.
I plan on seeing you...so yeah, I don’t think that kind of parameter is going to work for me. ”
“Reznor—”
“Don’t bother giving me your excuses,” I say as I lean down and brush my lips to hers. Fuck if it isn’t brutal to stop at a measly kiss from the woman who seems to harden my dick with just that. “Just practice saying yes.”
And with that, I stand to full height, smirk with a shake of my head, and walk out of her yard—this time with clothes on—leaving her and her stunned expression to think about the word yes.
The woman is scared.
And it’s not only of strange men surprising her on her patio.
She’s scared of someone getting close to her.
Emotionally, definitely. Physically, maybe.
..unless, it seems, she gets to set the rules.
A woman like Desi Whitman shouldn’t live in fear.
That carefree laugh of hers needs to be heard.
So is that why I did that? Is that why I can’t keep the fuck away from her when clearly she keeps trying to set boundaries?
Christ, Rez. Quit playing the hero. She didn’t ask you to be one.
Pausing at the steps of my porch, I look over at the fence that separates our yards and shake my head. Whether she asked me to or not, it seems I’m putting on the cape regardless.
If she thinks she’s done with me, she has another think coming. I’m making it my job to erase that look from her eyes.