Frisk Me (25 page)

L
uc made it through the first half of the interview as if he were in a trance, his responses on autopilot as he answered the innocuous questions.

The questions went on and on, and Luc forced himself not to snap at Ava that she already knew all of this stuff.

Because he wasn’t talking to Ava, friend and lover.

He was talking to Ava Sims, reporter. She looked the part too. She had on some expensive, sexy heels. Her hair was shiny and perfect and sort of hard looking, molded into big waves. Her glasses were nowhere in sight, nor were her yoga pants. She wore an emerald green blouse and black slacks. She looked pretty. Perfect.

He hated it. Hated her.

He wanted
messy
Ava back.

But messy, approachable Ava had been a fake, hadn’t she?

Because although he knew he’d seen glimpses of the
real
Ava—sweet, funny, and vulnerable—the aspiring anchorwoman part of her was bigger. Bolder.

It was this cold, calculating Ava that had ruthlessly dug into his past and then instead of talking to him about it, gone behind his back to talk to Beverly Jensen and the Johnson family.

His family had begged him not to come today, and up until an hour before, Luc had fully intended to skip this farce of an interview. He couldn’t stop them from running the footage and info they already had, but that didn’t mean he had to be a willing participant.

But his family hadn’t known the whole truth. Hadn’t known that it was Luc himself who had pushed her to this. Luc who’d insisted she follow her gut, tell the big stories, blow off the superficial BS and dig for
truth
.

She was dedicating her whole heart to her career, and really, was Luc any different?

Were
any
of the Morettis different? Cops got credited with being a lot more noble than reporters, but at the end of the day, they were both jobs. And more important, they could both be dreams.

Being a journalist was Ava’s dream, and he couldn’t bring himself to take that away from her.

Even if he destroyed his own dreams in the process.

And so he made two phone calls. One to Bev, the other to the Johnsons. He wanted their blessing before talking about their loss on national television, and he’d gotten it.

They’d all agreed that it was time—that some publicity would do more good than harm.

And so Luc had come to the studio. For Shayna. For Mike. For himself.

But mostly for Ava.

He’d done it for her, even though she’d betrayed him.

Luc refused to let himself acknowledge what that might mean, but some part of him already knew. Knew that his feelings for this woman went deeper than he’d realized.

Her questions continued, alternating between cheeky and somber.

Is it true what they say about cops and doughnuts?

How do you think 9/11 changed the perception of first responders, especially in New York?

Then she asked him one that caused him to stumble for the first time since he’d sat in the overstuffed chair.

All the ladies out there are wondering, so I have to ask…are you single?

Previously, Luc had been looking at Ava without really seeing her…not wanting to connect with her now that he knew what was coming.

But with that last question, his eyes zeroed in on hers, and she lifted an eyebrow. A challenge.

Challenge accepted, Sims.

“Yes, I’m definitely single,” he said, his eyes never leaving hers.

Ava was a professional, and the only sign that his response hit close to home was a slight, almost imperceptible, shifting in her chair.

“I’m sure the single women of New York will be glad to hear it,” she said with an easy smile, giving away nothing. “Are you looking to settle down someday?”

He knew that she was asking for the benefit of the viewers.

All day, she’d been asking questions that she already knew the answer to, and this one was no different.

Except it
was
different, somehow. They both knew it.

There was a too-long silence, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Haley woman exchange a puzzled glance with her assistant.

Then he cleared his throat. “You know, being married to a cop is hard. Really hard. I don’t want to put any woman through that.”

“What if she decided it was worth the risk?” Ava said. Her easy smile never wavered, but Luc found himself searching her face all the time.

Was this just another generic interview question?

Or something more?

Luc intentionally let a wide grin spread over his face. “Well then I guess I’d have to decide if
she
were worth the risk.”

There was a beat of silence. Everyone watching would assume his response was a guy response, just a twenty-something dude trying to maintain his bachelor status for as long as possible.

But the slight flinch in Ava’s features told him she heard it for what it was.

He was telling her that
she
was a risk.

One he wasn’t willing to take.

Ava recovered. “A dedicated bachelor then,” she said with an answering smile.

“I think so.” He fake-smiled right back and their gazes clashed for a second too long before she leaned forward to take a sip of water.

Her hand shook just the tiniest bit, and Luc instinctively tensed before forcing himself to relax his shoulders.

It was coming.

She sat back in her chair and Luc waited for her to triumphantly throw down her trump card.

But to his surprise, there was hesitation there.

No, more than hesitation. Agony.

She didn’t want to do this.

She didn’t want to sell him out.

For a second, Luc felt like he could fly.

Until he remembered that it didn’t have to come to this. She could have told Luc earlier what she was planning.

Every step of the way, Ava had made it clear
this
was what she’d wanted more than anything. It was time to see it through.

He patiently waited for her gaze to come back to his. The entire hesitation had probably lasted only a couple of seconds; likely the audience would see it as nothing more than a slight gathering of thoughts, but it felt much longer.

And when her eyes finally found his, she looked so bewildered and lost that he wanted to rip off both of their mics, hold out his hand to her, and lead them both away from this circus.

Instead, he nodded at her. Nothing obvious. Just the slightest tip of his head.

Permission.

Do it, Sims.

And so she did.

“Officer Moretti, as I was researching your impressive history as a police officer, I couldn’t help but notice there was a bit of a, shall we say, blip on your record…”

Luc refused to acknowledge the pain that ripped through him.

You can do this.

It was time to put everything behind him. It was time to move on.

And Ava had just made it really easy to move on from
her
.

I
t had taken a serious amount of groveling, but Luc had eventually convinced Nonna and Anthony to give him his space.

Actually, Anthony had agreed almost immediately. After making sure that Luc wasn’t inclined to do anything stupid, Anth had quietly packed an overnight bag. His brother understood that sometimes being alone with whiskey and dark thoughts was exactly what a situation called for.

Nonna, on the other hand, had only been coaxed out of the apartment when Anthony held a lighter under her precious yoga mat and threatened to toss all her lacy push-up bras in exchange for bulk cotton bras from the local drugstore.

Luc had thought his grandmother was going to faint at the notion, and she’d finally agreed to leave, only after making Luc homemade macaroni and cheese. It wasn’t classic Italian in the least, but it
was
bona fide comfort food.

Luc hadn’t touched it.

Neither had he gone for the whiskey, although he figured that would be on the agenda at some point tonight. For now, it was him, a beer, ancient flannel pants, and hopes of losing himself in TV, or a book, or anything that would save him from thoughts of Ava.

It was strange how one could carry around two years of emotional baggage, finally heal, only to be ripped wide open by a woman.

Even more ironic was that it was the same woman who’d helped him come to grips with the first issue.

Without Ava and her CBC vultures shining a light on every dark corner of Luc’s past, he’d never have gotten the courage to talk to his brothers about his nightmares.

His father never would have come clean about his interference with the media two years ago.

Luc wouldn’t have gone to see Mike’s widow, wouldn’t have called to check in on the Johnsons…

He certainly wouldn’t have talked about it on national television. Wouldn’t have spoken about his feelings of guilt that often came with the sometimes no-win world of law enforcement.

Luc couldn’t quite say he was over what happened that day. He probably wouldn’t ever be over it, and that was okay.

But for the first time, he felt like he could move on. Each breath was just a little bit easier.

Luc tipped his beer back. Not that he’d be sending Ava and her people a thank-you note. Any good that had come out of her manipulation was a happy coincidence.

It certainly wasn’t from good intentions.

Luc wasn’t sure that Ava Sims had any.

He swore softly and stood to get another beer as he remembered what an ass he’d made of himself at her apartment a week ago. When she’d asked if she was a cold, calculating bitch, he should have said
yes
.

Instead he’d looked into those lying gold eyes and let himself be totally fooled by a truly beautiful face.

And the hell of it was?

He didn’t hate her. Not even now, when he knew he’d been thoroughly used.

What he felt for Ava wasn’t hate, or dislike, or antipathy.

It felt alarmingly the
opposite
of that. A word Luc wasn’t ready to put a name to under the best of circumstances, and certainly not when the circumstances were what they were:

Completely shitty.

He popped the top off his beer, but set it on the counter instead of taking a drink. He couldn’t seem to help but torture himself, wondering what she was doing now.

Popping the champagne with her skeevy co-workers?

Laughing with Mihail as they planned their next story?

Would she still work for CBC? He had no idea how that worked. He knew she wouldn’t deliver the story she wanted, but it was a headlines grabbing story all the same. That had to count for something.

He hoped so. In spite of everything, he still wanted that for her, because
she
wanted that.

In spite of it all, he cared enough about her to want her happiness. Desperately.

He was an idiot.

“This sucks,” he muttered to nobody.

He was halfway back to the couch to resume his brooding when there was a knock at the door.

A strange sense of calm came over him as he moved to open it.

He knew it wouldn’t be his brothers.

Nor would it be Nonna or his interfering parents.

It wouldn’t be Lopez or any of his other guy friends.

He opened the door.

Ava.

While he wasn’t surprised to see her standing there, he
was
surprised to see this version of Ava.

Gone was the smart-looking blouse and pressed pants and perfect makeup.

Her brown hair was pulled back in a messy knot and her lipstick was long gone. Her feet were in flip-flops, her glasses just slightly askew on her nose. Seriously, why didn’t she get ones that fit better?

“Sims,” he said, leaning against the doorjamb.

“Moretti.” She pushed past him.

“Come on in,” he muttered.

He’d barely closed the door before she threw a crumpled-up ball of paper at his head. He dodged it. “What the hell?”

“I’m not paying that damn ticket.”

In spite of everything, he nearly smiled as he played dumb. “What ticket?”

“The one you left on my desk at the station!” she snapped. “You can shove it up your
ass
, Moretti.”

He lifted an eyebrow, mockingly.

She got in his face, shoving at his shoulders, and he was surprised to see anger in her eyes. Why the hell was
she
angry?

A tear ran down her cheek and Luc felt real alarm, even though he was supposed to be mad at her. “Sims?”

“Why’d you do it?” she asked.

“Honestly, if I knew you were going to be such a pain in the ass, I probably wouldn’t have bothered with the ticket,” he muttered. “I’d have let you be some other cop’s problem.”

She shoved at his shoulders again. “No, I mean why’d you get up there and let me ask you those questions?”

Ah.
That
.

He swallowed. Lied. “I didn’t know you were going to ask them.”

“You knew. You
knew
.”

“Yeah, I knew, though not because you told me!” he exploded, temper snapping. “What the hell, Sims?”

Her eyes darted away, guilty, as she should be. “When we were feeding each other spicy tuna rolls you couldn’t find two seconds to say, by the way, I know about Shayna and Mike and the cover-up?”

“It’s not a cover-up, not officially,” she said quietly. “We did our homework. There’s no way anyone can press charges against you or your father, or your brothers for colluding.”

“Oh, well, that’s nice, Sims, thanks for that,” he said sarcastically. “That makes me feel so much better about the fact that I fucked up and people
died
.”

“You didn’t fuck up,” she said quickly. “I tried to make that clear by the end of the interview that there was nothing you did wrong.”

“But you certainly planted the seed, didn’t you? Had to make sure everyone knows a little girl and another cop
died
on America’s Hero’s watch.”

“You’re twisting my words.”

“Yeah, Sims,
you’re
the victim here,” he said, swearing and moving toward the kitchen, needing space from her.

“Luca—”

The sound of his name on her lips ripped at him, and he closed his eyes. She moved up behind him.

“Why did you let me?” she asked, her voice small. “I need to know.”

He turned around, prepared to lay into her about how she didn’t have the right to ask anything of him. He’d already given her everything.

But then he saw the vulnerability on her face, and all he could see was a woman who’d never been loved, not really. A woman who had everything she’d ever wanted within her grasp but who wasn’t really sure it was what she wanted after all.

He knew the feeling.

And though he knew it was the worst kind of mistake, he did what he hadn’t done that day two years ago. He acted on his instincts.

He pulled her toward him.

The kiss was hard at first. He meant it to be hard, punishing and fast, just to give them both a taste of what could have been, but when she made a soft noise against him, he couldn’t bring himself to push her away.

The kiss gentled, their lips brushing softly, their tongues teasing. Her hands slipped up his back and his found her face. The kiss went on endlessly, a quiet declaration of something neither would say out loud.

When he took her hand and led her to the bedroom, she let him lead her.

And when he roughly pulled her shirt over her head, pushing her pants down her hips, she let him do that too.

She wasn’t wearing a bra, and he didn’t bother with preliminaries as he took her the way he wanted. His knees bent, his head dipped, and he wrapped her nipple in his mouth, suckling her as she clutched at his head.

He moved to the other breast as her fingers fumbled with his belt, and he stepped back just long enough to take off his own clothes before wrapping an arm around her slim waist and pulling her back to the bed.

His eyes held hers as his fingers hooked into her panties, tossing them aside as he spread her thighs. His gaze held hers as he lowered until his shoulders were behind her legs and his mouth was inches from where she was already damp and ready for him.

She started to remove her glasses, but he stopped her with a curt,
don’t
.

Then he licked her, his gaze held hers until she cried out and arched her back, breaking the eye contact. He licked and suckled and teased, his assault rapid and relentless, only to stop when she was seconds away from release.

Her eyes were glazed with unfulfilled passion as he moved up her body, and when he kissed her, she returned his kiss sweetly and urgently.

He couldn’t remember ever wanting a woman so badly, and yet once again, the kiss gentled in a way he hadn’t experienced before.

There was heat and urgency, and there was something else there as well, and instinctively he knew what it was…

Their bodies knew what their minds struggled to accept. This was the end.

Her legs parted and he settled between them.

He pushed into her slowly, their breathing shallow and rough as they each tried to make it last.

When he was buried all the way inside, he pressed his face to her neck and stayed perfectly still.

Ava.

They moved slowly, the mating slow and hedonistic as though they were in some sort of trance.

Her hands found his face, forcing him to look at her as their pace quickened. “Say my name, Luc.”

He tried to look away, but she wouldn’t let him. “Please.”

Luc let out a sound of outrage as he understood what she was really asking for. Forgiveness. A chance.

And he cared about her.

But he wouldn’t take the risk.

Instead of saying anything, he buried his face against her neck, exploding with a gasp.

He felt her convulse around him seconds later, their bodies shuddering together in a harmony that their hearts would never find.

Luc wanted to linger, and it was
because
he wanted to, he forced himself to move the second the aftershocks came to a stop.

He stood, pulling his pants back on without looking at her, quietly picking up her clothes, handing them to her without making eye contact.

“Luc?” Her voice was questioning.

“You should go, Sims.”

She sucked in a breath. “Seriously? What was this, a booty call?”

He shrugged. “I didn’t ask you here; you just showed up.”

Pain flashed across her face, but he refused to relent. “Sims, we knew what this was coming to. No relationship, remember? I’m not going to put any woman through being married to a cop, not knowing if he’s coming home each night. Especially not you.”

Her eyes narrowed as she stood, pulling on her panties and bra as she continued to glare at him. “Why
especially not me
, Luc? Is it the same reason why you showed up today, sacrificing your own reputation for the sake of my career.”

She was trying to coax him into an admission, and he sidestepped.

He gritted his teeth. “You got what you wanted, Sims. Did they offer you the anchorwoman position, or did you take your ammunition and go to a competitor?”

“They offered it,” she said quietly. “They were a little shocked at first, but they said it was too big of an exclusive to pass up, even if it’s not their original vision.”

His heart soared on her behalf just for a minute, but her next words shut him down.

“But I’m not going back to CBC.”

Huh?
“Why, you get a sweeter offer somewhere else?”

“Nope. I quit.”

“You what?”

What the hell?

She lifted a shoulder. “Well I guess
technically
I haven’t quit yet, but I plan on it.”

“What the
fuck
, Sims. Journalism is your life. You were born to tell stories.”

She lifted her chin, met his eyes. “Maybe there’s something I want more.”

Something hot and hopeful surged through him, but he stifled it before he could identify it.

Luc turned away. “You betrayed me, Sims. Let’s just leave it at that.”

“No way, it’s too late for that, Luc. Don’t play this game. You don’t get to invite me in, make love to me like a man
in love
, and then decide you’re still mad at me after all.”

He left the room, but she followed.

“You want me to grovel, I will,” she said. “I should.”

“Yeah, you should, Sims.” He retrieved his beer, taking a reluctant sip.

She spread her arms. “Okay. Let’s go. I was wrong, Luc. So,
so
wrong. I knew something was weird about the Shayna Johnson incident weeks ago, and I should have asked you about it.”

He turned away.

She kept going. “And when I talked to Beverly Jensen and learned about what happened with Mike, I should have told you that too. And when I put the pieces together that your dad had called in favors—”

“Leave my dad out of it,” he snapped.

“I
did
leave him out of it,” she shot back. “Did you miss the fact that I never
once
mentioned your family’s involvement? CBC is pissed that I ‘forgot’ that part, but I would never do that to you.”

He snorted. “Right. Because you
clearly
have a moral compass.”