This was what he’d wanted. Her. Willing. Open. Wanting him. He kissed her softly, intending to keep it chaste, but she whimpered and it broke his resolve. He turned in to her, threading his fingers through her hair, and the kiss turned hot and lush and . . . sultry. Because she was humming now, her hands on the collar of his shirt, pulling him closer.
He pulled back enough to whisper against her mouth. ‘Touch me anytime you want to. Anywhere you want to. Please.’ Then he dived back in, wanting to live forever in this one moment when he felt her melt against him, her tentative fingers pulling at the buttons of his shirt. Slipping one hand beneath the fabric to stroke his skin.
‘Like this?’ Her words were barely audible over the pounding of his own heart, but he heard.
‘Exactly like this.’ He wanted to do the same, to touch her soft skin, to cup her generous breasts in his hands, to feel their weight. To make her sigh in pleasure. But this was her show, so he settled for running a hand down her side, gripping her waist. Otherwise, he remained still as a statue. Letting her explore.
Her fingers skimmed over him, making him shiver. Her kisses made him feel drunk, but they weren’t enough.
Nothing would be enough, not with this woman.
He relaxed his hold when she finally pulled away, her lips red, plumped, and wet. She was breathing hard.
And there wasn’t a trace of wariness in her eyes. Just heat. And want.
And I need to stop now. ‘Just so we’re clear,’ he said, his voice gravelly and rough. ‘That was exactly right. And we need to stop, because I don’t have that much self-control. Not around you.’ She looked very pleased with herself and it made him grin. ‘You like that, do you?’
‘Yes, I do.’ She eased her thumb over his lower lip. ‘What now?’
He laughed helplessly. ‘Fucking hell, Mercy. Don’t ask me that. Not right now.’
Her gaze dropped deliberately to the erection that there was no way he could hide. Her lips curled up, like a satisfied cat. ‘Oh.’
He laughed again, joy bubbling up and warming him from the inside out. ‘Yeah. Oh.’ He pulled her against him, settling her against his chest, pressing his cheek into her hair. ‘I meant it when I said I have feelings for you. I’m not sure what comes next, either. I’m rusty at . . .’ He hesitated, then parroted her words back to her. ‘Being whatever it is that you need me to be.’
‘Just be you.’ She sounded sleepy already. ‘I like you.’
‘I like you, too.’
She was quiet for so long that he thought she’d fallen asleep, but she surprised him. ‘Tell me about Bella. If you want to.’
His heart stuttered. ‘Oh. Okay.’
‘You don’t have to.’
‘I’ll tell you. But why do you want to know?’ he asked. ‘I’m curious.’
She made a noise in her throat, part huff, part sigh. ‘I don’t know. Maybe because you know everything there is to know about me now. You don’t need to tell me about Bella, but maybe share one thing that nobody else knows about you?’
It was emotional quid pro quo and he was okay with that, because she was right. She’d opened her personal life like a book tonight and he knew it hadn’t been easy. Hell, he wasn’t sure how he’d managed to listen. He couldn’t fathom how hard it had been for her to reveal.
‘That would be Bella, then,’ he said. ‘Nobody knows about her. About our relationship. Well, almost nobody. She was the prosecutor assigned to my task force when I was in Gangs. I’d been undercover for nearly a year, trying to break into one of the bigger drug cartels in the county. She and I weren’t supposed to be together. Bad for our careers.’
‘And your safety,’ she murmured.
‘That too.’ He hadn’t cared about that so much back then. He’d just wanted to be with Bella in any way he could. ‘She knew my brother Jude first. They worked together in the prosecutor’s office here in Sacramento, and they’d been friends since college.’
‘Did he know about you and Bella?’
‘Not while we were together. While she was alive,’ he added, unable to keep the bitterness from his voice. ‘My partner and I were picking off the minor characters in the cartel. The foot soldiers. Bella was getting them to flip on their superiors, one layer of the cartel at a time. She’d give the information to us, so that we’d know how to function in the organization, who to focus on. Then one of the midlevel dealers double-crossed her. She’d offered him a deal, but he was loyal and directed his attorney to warn the bosses that she was getting too close, that it was just a matter of time before she had enough proof to bring charges against the upper echelon. That’s when my partner and I were supposed to close in and make arrests.’
He felt Mercy stiffen at his bitter tone. ‘What happened?’ she asked. ‘Were you compromised?’
‘No. But they got to Bella.’ He rubbed his jaw against the top of Mercy’s head, needing the contact. ‘They followed her one night when she left the office. And they killed her.’
She slid her hand inside his shirt, over his pounding heart. And left it there. Not stroking, not stimulating. Just . . . connecting.
His eyes burned. ‘And you thought you didn’t know how to do this,’ he whispered.
She pulled away just enough to look up at him. ‘Do what?’
He looked her straight in the eye. ‘Be who I need you to be. You’re doing it right now.’
Her expression softened, pleased. ‘Thank you. For telling me that. For telling me about her.’ She kissed his jaw, then settled back against his chest. ‘I’m sorry you lost her. But glad you loved her.’
It was so simple a statement, yet so very perfect. ‘I am, too. She was smart and funny. Stubborn as hell. Strong in ways I could never imagine. But she was compassionate, too. She made me a better person, you know?’
‘Then we owe her a debt.’
He smiled at that. She’d parroted his words back at him as well. ‘It was hard keeping our relationship a secret. I wanted her sitting next to me at Sunday dinner. I wanted the world to know that I was hers. But we couldn’t be public. Not until the case was over. We had plans. I’d asked her to marry me and she’d said yes.’
‘And after she was gone? Why did you continue to keep her secret?’
It was a valid question, a little harder to answer. ‘At first it was because I didn’t want to be transferred out of the task force, and I would have been had our relationship been known. I would have been “too close” to the case, and I wanted to bring the fuckers down.’