“I’m sorry, Zaniel, I don’t know what got into me.”
“It’s okay, Reggie, but I would never follow you to see what you’re doing. I would trust you to tell me if there was something I needed to know.”
“Oh, Zaniel,” she said, her voice soft and exasperated all at the same time, as if she couldn’t decide if she wanted to hug me or get mad at me again.
“What is wrong, Reggie? Why would you block my car in like this, like you’re trying to catch me out or something?” That made me ask, “Have you been following me around to see if I’m dating someone?”
“No, of course not,” she snapped that time, anger and that disdainful I-wouldn’t-stoop-so-low tone in her voice.
I was tired of feeling like I’d done something wrong when I hadn’t. “You accused me of doing it, why shouldn’t I ask you the same question?”
She opened her mouth to say something sharp and probably hurtful, but she stopped herself. She took a deep breath in and then slowly let it out as if she was counting. She was seriously angry, but I had no idea what about. It was like she was having a hugely different conversation inside her head than the one I was having with her. That wasn’t like Reggie; she was emotional, but not usually this confusing.
“You’re right, I started this, you have every right to throw it back at me. I am sorry for jumping to stupid conclusions. Too many people giving me bad advice from their divorces, I guess.”
“No one at work is telling me anything, except good luck with working it out.”
“That’s very mature for a bunch of cops.” And there was the disdain back in her voice, like she couldn’t help it.
“Well, at least the immature cops aren’t giving me bad advice that’s making me angry at you for things you haven’t even done, unlike your mature teacher friends.”
I expected her to be angry again, but she surprised me by saying, “You’re right, my friends haven’t been giving me very good advice.”
I didn’t know how to react to her just giving up; even if she was in the wrong, she didn’t give up on a fight this easily, but then maybe it wasn’t a fight—yet.
“I just want to come back home with you and Connery. I’m sorry you hate my job, but I’ve been a cop the entire time you’ve known me.”
“I know,” she said; her voice still sounded defeated, which I didn’t hear from her often. I didn’t like it, my Regina defeated.
I wanted to touch her face, to make her smile, but I wasn’t sure how she’d take the touch, and that made my chest tight like someone had hit me over the heart. Honest, the therapist kept telling us, we needed to be honest.
“May I touch your face?”
“You don’t have to ask just to touch my face, Zaniel.”
“I’m not sure of the rules, so I’ve been not touching you or looking at you, because it seemed to piss you off, so I’m asking.”
Her lips curled upward just a little. She reached out and took my hand in hers. Even that sped my pulse, and part of me felt stupid for reacting to such a small gesture. She placed my hand against the side of her face and smiled up at me.
I cupped the side of her face in my hand with her hand pressing against mine and it felt so right. “May I kiss you?”
“Yes,” she said, and this time I felt her face move as she smiled up at me.
I leaned over her and she turned her face upward to meet me, my hand still cupping the side of her face. My lips touched hers, and the first thought was how soft they were, and then the slight thickness of her lipstick stopped me, because I knew it would smear. She didn’t like to have it smeared in public, especially when she was wearing base makeup. Her mouth tasted sweet and alive, but the lipstick was bitter; a lot of the darker lipsticks tasted that way.
I drew back to stare down into her face, which was still raised up toward me like an offering. I couldn’t see through the dark glasses to see if her eyes were closed or if she was gazing up at me. It wasn’t until I felt her face move slightly against my hand that I realized she’d opened her eyes. For some reason the fact that she’d closed her eyes made me even happier than the kiss alone had.
She moved her head, so I dropped my hand away. “Why did you stop kissing me?” she asked.
“You hate it when I smear your lipstick all over your base.”
“I don’t hate it,” she said.
I almost said, out loud, You could have fooled me, but luckily, I was smarter than that and said, “You’ve told me not to smear your lipstick, especially when you’re wearing base.”
She leaned her hands against my chest, putting her body weight behind it. I started to put my arms around her automatically but hesitated partway through.
“Hold me, Zaniel,” she said.
I wrapped my arms around her, and she leaned into the hug for the first time in longer than I could remember. I finally felt free to smile, but I was still tense holding her, waiting for her to pull away or tell me I’d overstepped my bounds. What had once been so natural and easy between us had become a minefield that I no longer knew how to walk.
“Hold me, Zaniel.”
“I am holding you,” I said.
“Your arms are around me, but I can feel that you’re all tense like you can’t relax. What’s wrong? Don’t you want to hold me?”
“More than anything else in the world.”
“Then relax,” she said.
I was almost afraid to, but I tried to let go of the tension in my shoulders and arms. It was like I was poised for fight or flight. I realized I was scared, which seemed ridiculous; Reggie wasn’t dangerous. And then another part of me whispered that she was more dangerous than any gun or knife. They could only take my life; she was killing parts of me that the hospital couldn’t put back together.
“Zaniel,” she whispered. She slid her arms around my waist and pressed her body to the front of mine. The feel of it went through me in a wave of need that made me close my eyes so she wouldn’t see it, but I couldn’t hide my body’s reaction to her. She wiggled her hips against me, and I shuddered. God help me, I had better control than this.
I tried to step back, but she held on. I heard a sound that was almost a whimper and realized it was me. “Let me go, please.”
“Why?” She made it breathy and sexual, her phone sex operator voice I’d called it when we were dating.
“Because our date isn’t until next week.” My voice sounded choked and gravelly, that bass growl that usually came only during sex, or a great deal more foreplay than this.
“I love that I can still make you react like this,” she said.
I looked at her; she had that teasing, happy look that if we’d been living together would have meant something. Now this was the closest I’d been to any woman in over six months, and I had to go to work, had to look at what they’d found at the Cookson house, had to help find a demon and the sorcerer it was riding. Mark Cookson might not be a real sorcerer with all the power that implied, but he had to have done sorcerous magic that used demons as its fuel and power base or he wouldn’t have a demon sharing his body.
“And there it is, you went away into your head and the case, right? It was the case, wasn’t it?”