Chapter 6 #3
Things he couldn’t change.
“No.” She met his gaze, perhaps sensing the answer was important to him.
Thank God. He couldn’t imagine how easy of a target she would have made as a teen—out by herself, with little parental supervision and a damaged relationship with her mother.
Of course, Gabriella had been in the same situation.
“Did you have a laptop? Or a family computer you used?”
“No. My parents said we should be outside doing things, not indoors and plugged in. And given how much my home life sucked by then, I wouldn’t have wanted to be glued to a laptop.” She rose from where she’d knelt by the baby seat and returned to the couch.
Did that mean she felt like the most stressful part of the conversation was over? He hated to think in terms of catching her off guard when he liked Amy. A lot.
But this case was too important to overlook key pieces of evidence just because he was attracted to her—then and now.
“When was the last time you remember seeing Gabriella?”
Her expression shifted. Shuttered. She went back to flipping the hem of her dress over her knees, tugging and tucking it under her.
He hadn’t been imagining it. She knew something.
“I listed a couple of occasions when I thought I might have seen her. I can’t remember for sure.”
Vague information from the woman who liked data and details.
He debated how tough to play it. How much to push.
But before he knew what was happening, she was on the love seat next to him.
“What about the last time I saw you, Sam?” Her voice had a soft, intimate quality to it that changed the air in the room.
Her knee brushed his. Her cool fingers landed on his arm.
Everything in him stilled for a moment. Right before his heart rate jacked up.
“What about it?” He had thought about that night a lot—especially lately. But he hadn’t planned to make it part of this conversation.
“I can remember a lot of details about that.” Her soft words weren’t flirtatious. She wasn’t a flirt.
So if she was bringing it up now, it meant...
She was totally serious about what she was saying.
His pulse moved into overdrive and stayed there.
“I don’t think a ten-year-old discussion of us going all the way affects the outcome of this case.” Because that had been the topic of their last conversation. He remembered that day just fine, and that was not the direction he wanted to take this visit.
So when his gaze slid down to the soft fullness of her mouth, he cursed himself for being ten kinds of idiot.
“I took a lot of grief from my mom about us having a physical relationship that we never actually had.”
“That seems like a technicality. Witness the skinny-dipping day.” Things had been physical, to say the least. Teenagers excelled at pushing those boundaries. They’d both known where the relationship had been headed.
“Still.” She tipped her head sideways against the love seat, contemplating him from just inches away. “It always struck me as damned unfair that I bore the punishment without any of the fun.”
He closed his eyes to try to dilute the appeal of this woman who’d gotten under his skin from the first time they’d met. Like she’d been born knowing how to turn him inside out when other women called him unapproachable. Intimidating.
And, occasionally, an unfeeling bastard.
Why the hell had she never seen what everyone else did when they looked at him?
“I can’t afford relationships that are just for fun anymore.” That time in his life had ended when Cynthia showed up on his doorstep with Aiden in her arms.
“Or maybe you need fun in your life now more than ever.” Her fingers walked along his shirt cuff.
The smallest, least sexual touch he could imagine. Yet his temperature spiked like someone had thrown gasoline on the fire in the hearth.
Clearly, the woman he remembered with the sparkle in her eyes and the urge to live on the edge was still buried under all those gray clothes.
“Some people would point out that kind of thinking is the reason I have to buckle down now.” He nodded in the direction of the room where Aiden slept. “I’m still trying to get my feet under me after finding out I’m a father.”
Her fingers stopped their tantalizing walk. Her eyes flipped up to his.
“Lucky for us, ‘some people’ don’t ever have to know. Only you and me.”
She was propositioning him on his family room couch.
Something was wrong with this picture. But his brain had a hard time figuring out what when his heart slugged an insistent, pounding rhythm inside his chest. His hands itched to be on her, to pull her across his body and pick up where they’d left off ten years ago.
He wanted to see if she still kissed the same way.
If she’d still tunnel her fingers through his hair and press into him like she couldn’t get close enough.
Would she make those tiny noises in the back of her throat?
Encouraging sighs when he touched her where she liked best?
Remembering every detail of that last night together—when things had gotten way too hot and out of hand in his truck behind the closed pizza shop—Sam could almost convince himself it was okay to touch her again. To kiss her again.
To make her cry out his name while he helped her find release.
Except they weren’t together anymore, his brain chimed in at the last second. And she had changed gears during this sorry excuse for an interview when he’d mentioned Gabriella.
“Are you purposely trying to distract me?” His voice was so dry and hoarse he hardly recognized it.
She withdrew her touch. He felt the loss all the way to his toes, damn it.
“No, Sam.” She shook her head. “I was trying to distract myself. I have a lot of unhappy memories from that time in my life.” She crossed her legs and shifted away from him, all her body language communicating that she wouldn’t be coming on to him again.
“Excuse me for thinking I could indulge in one of the pleasant ones.”
He wanted to ask her about that. Had so many follow-up questions he didn’t know where to begin. But before he could even form words, his son’s cry blistered his ears.
“Aiden’s awake.” He closed his eyes for a moment, mentally shifting gears before he headed to the nursery.
But Amy shot right off the couch. “I’ll get him.”