Intimate Desires (The Love and Danger Series) (7 page)

She waited until she’d walked up the stairs to her apartment before turning to confront him.  “Okay, what
are you keeping from me?” she demanded, tossing her purse onto her sofa and fisting her hands on her hips.

Sam almost chuckled at how sexy she looked, thinking she could intimidate him like that. 
And then he turned serious. “Look, Walker and I need to get back to the station and go through our notes with Brock and Colt.  We’re combining efforts to figure this one out so we’ll make better progress.  Promise me you’ll stay here in this apartment until I get back.”

She eyed him carefully, not willing to promise him
anything at this point.  “What time do you think you’ll finish?”

He rubbed the back of his neck.  “I’m not sure.  We need answers before anyone else dies.  Promise me.” 

She sighed and nodded her head. “Okay, but you’ll give me answers when you get here tonight, right?”

“I’ll tell you everything I can,” he replied and pulled her into his arms as if it were the most natural thing in the world. 

Hannah resisted for perhaps one second, but she really needed his strong arms around her at that moment.  “What can I do to help?” she asked, looking up at him.

“This,” he told her and covered her mouth with his, kissing her deeply. 
Thoroughly. 

Her arms had just started to slide up his chest to his shoulders when he pulled back and groaned.  “It’s going to be a long night,” he grumbled and pulled out.  “A police officer is going to be either outside your door or in the parking lot.  Don’t leave without calling me first, okay?”

She nodded and looked up at him. “Is all of this really necessary?” she asked, the promise of the kiss wearing off as the reality of the past few days came back to her.

“Until we know what we’re dealing with, let’s just play it safe, Okay?”

“Okay.”

He took her spare set of keys from the hook
beside her door and disappeared out the door before she realized she should protest.  Why would he need her spare keys? 

She shook her head and looked around.  Her apartment seemed so quiet now that he’d left.  Sam seemed to make the air around him sing with electricity.  She wrapped her arms around her and wandered over to her kitchen to figure out what she was going to have for dinner.  Unfortunately, she hadn’t gone shopping recently, hence the pickles and
wine for dinner.  There were a few frozen meals in her freezer, but other than that, she had condiments and pickles. 

Deciding she needed to get rid of some of this nervous tension, she went to her bedroom and pulled on her exercise clothes.  Slipping an exercise DVD into the player, she stretched out and shifted her furniture to make more room for the aerobics.

An hour later, she jumped into the shower, feeling enormously better.  She shampooed her hair, shaved her legs, exfoliated her elbows and enjoyed an extra-long shower.  Afterwards, she put on a romantic comedy and painted her toenails.  By the time the movie was over, she was exhausted.  It was just past midnight when she padded into her bedroom.  She was going to regret staying up so late tomorrow when her alarm went off at four thirty.  She opened the shop each day at five o’clock and the other employees arrived just before six when the office crowd started to filter in for their morning jolt. 

Curling up underneath her sheets and summer blanket, her last thought before she fell into a deep sleep was that she hoped Sam was okay and not in any danger.

Sam pulled up outside of Hannah’s apartment building and looked at her windows.  Everything was dark and he wondered if she’d been able to sleep at all.  It was just after one in the morning now and he was exhausted.  They hadn’t been able to come up with any leads and were still trying to connect the two victims.  Unfortunately, the homeless people who frequent the chess area of the park had already left and it was extremely difficult to find them once they’d burrowed into their sleeping spots for the night. 

He looked around and spotted the unmarked police car that was sitting in the left side of the parking lot. 
A perfect spot to observe Hannah’s apartment as well as a good portion of the back of the building and the main entrance.  He got out and came over to the officer, showing his badge as he approached. 

“Anything happen
tonight?” he asked, handing the guy a large cup of coffee.  It wasn’t nearly as good as the stuff Hannah sold, but he’d gotten it at the gas station around the corner.  The officer was a guy he knew from the traffic division, a good guy. 

“Not a sound.  Lights in her place went out about an hour ago.  I’ve walked around the perimeter several times just to make sure the place is secure.” He pointed to the top of the building.  “Good area.  There are motion sensor lights in the back of the complex and a
well-lit parking lot.  All the stairs are well lit without any lights burned out.  Good management,” he finished.

Sam nodded his head and clapped the guy on the shoulder.  “Thanks for hanging out.  I know it wasn’t the most interesting task tonight.”

“Hey, it beats following drug dealers around for the night,” he joked.

Sam laughed, knowing it was a favorite pastime of the police force when things were quiet to follow around known drug dealers.  It wasn’t considered
harassment and it slowed the dealer’s ability to transfer his product.  Obviously not a perfect solution, but better than nothing. 

Sam walked up the stairs to Hannah’s apartment, keys in hand.  He unlocked her apartment as quietly as possible, irritated that she hadn’t put the chain on.  Not that chain latches stopped many people.  The chains were attached to the door frame which was stronger than the wall, but still not the safest security.  He made a mental note to put in a floor lock as soon as he could.  They were almost impossible to break down and easy to unlatch during an emergency. 

He saw the nail polish on the coffee table and smiled, thinking he’d love to see her nails in the pretty pink color.  He wondered if she’d done her fingernails or her toenails.  Or both?  He liked the idea of her cute feet with sexy pink toenails.  Was he now getting a foot fetish?  Probably only a Hannah-fetish.  Just about everything he discovered about her he liked.  He even thought it was cute that she wouldn’t eat the broccoli in Chinese food, dumping it onto a plate because she didn’t want it even close to her food. 

He put his gun on the coffee table, emptied his pockets and stripped down to his boxers.  Stretching out on the sofa, he wondered what Hannah looked like while sleeping.  As he stuffed a throw pillow under his head and pulled the blanket off the back of her sofa, he’d bet money she curled up on her side with a pillow tucked close to her.  His last thought before he fell into a light sleep was that he’d like to be her pillow. 

The noise from her bedroom woke him up.  He was already on his feet with his gun in his hand, trying to figure out what caused the noise.  He felt the adrenaline spike through his system and he considered calling it in, but didn’t want to move away from her door.  If there was a threat to Hannah, he was going to take care of it right now!

He moved into her bedroom, his eyes already adjusted to the dimness with only the streetlights coming through her blinds.  He looked at the window, still intact.  The closet door was closed, her bathroom…nothing but
rose scents in there. 

And then the noise came again and Sam realized that it was Hannah.  She was having a nightmare, her voice crying out in her sleep.  The sheets were tangled up around her legs and he could see she only wore a small, sexy camisole and pink, plaid boxers to bed.  And yep, her toe nails were pink.  She’d even put a little sparkly thing in the middle of her big toe. 

Damn, he liked this woman! 

She made another sound, her legs thrashing around again.  He watched her for all of two seconds before he made his decision.  Slipping under the sheets and pulling the light blanket up over her again, he pulled her against him, wrapping his arm around her slender figure.  As soon as she curled up against him, the anxious sounds seemed to die away and her breathing evened out.  Sam stared up at the ceiling, listening to her soft breathing and
feeling her full breasts press against his chest.  He thought he could die a happy man right at this moment.  Smiling, he closed his eyes, knowing he wasn’t going to sleep with her curled up against him like this.  He didn’t care.  He felt better being next to her anyway. 

Several hours later, Sam heard the strangest sound and he was instantly alert, about to re
ach for his gun when he recognized the sound was only country music coming from her alarm.  Looking at the clock, he realized that it was only four-thirty in the morning. 

“Not
gonna happen,” Hannah mumbled and reached for the alarm.

Sam watched her, trying to control his body’s reaction but failing miserably.  How was a man supposed to deal with a sexy, half-asleep woman wiggling against him?

He knew the moment she woke up enough to realize that something was different.  Her whole body froze, her hands clenching and he flinched when those fists caught a few of his chest hairs in the process. 

With a gasp, she sat up and stared down at him, her glorious hair tumbling around her shoulders and her soft, brown eyes trying to figure out why he was there. 

“What’s going on?” she demanded, looking around, seeing the bulge in the sheets and backing away as if she’d never seen a morning erection before.  “And why are you in my bed?”

She was scooting back so quickly he had to save her or she was going to fall out of the bed.  With one swift move, his arm snaked out and grabbed her only moments before she scooted
back too far. 

With her back against his side, he fell against the pillows and closed his eyes, wanting just a few more minutes of sleep.  “You were having nightmares.  I stopped them.”

Hannah heard the words but couldn’t believe how turned on she was just by his husky morning voice.  And that chest!  Her fingers ached to run along the muscles, to sift through the light coat of blond hair sprinkled over the chest.  Her eyes moved lower, seeing that bulge, amazed by the bulge, noticing that the bulge was…growing!

She jumped out of bed and stepped backwards, not wanting to deal with the consequences of that growth.  “You shouldn’t be in my bed,” she told him in an accusatory tone of voice.  She normally loved
mornings, enjoyed watching the world come to life and seeing the sun rise over the horizon.  But she hadn’t woken up with a man in her bed in over two years!  She wasn’t sure she’d even know what to do with a man in the morning.  Not that she wanted to do anything with Sam!  But still…the point was…

Well, she’d apparently been horrible at satisfying a man and she wasn’t willing to jump onto that bandwagon again
anytime soon.  Especially not with a man as amazing and virile as Sam.  No way! 

When she was ready to re-join the mating game, and she was possibly decades away from that point, she would find a nice, kind, considerate and unintimidating gentleman.  There wasn’t an unintimidating bone in Sam’s body!  He practically screamed “intimidation”. Even
lying in bed among her flower covered sheets, he looked like a man who knew exactly how to please a woman.  She just didn’t happen to be a woman who could please a man!  And the evidence was incontrovertible so she needed to get Sam out of her bed, and out of her life, fast!  Before he discovered how pathetic she was in bed.

“You have to go,” she blurted out.

Sam slowly turned his head, opening one eye to survey her appearance.  “You’re not dressed yet.  We can’t go anywhere.”

She gasped and looked down at her thin camisole and short shorts, only then realizing how revealing her attire was.  She grabbed a pillow and held it
against her, trying to hide the very obvious nipples from his all-seeing eyes. 

“Too late,” he said with a smile, closing his eyes again and appearing to relax back into sleep. 

She watched him, not sure what to do.  “Sam?”

“Hmm?” he sort of replied.

“Sam!  You have to get out of my bed.”

Sam chuckled and shook his head.  “I’ve been trying to get into your bed since I saw you that first day at the coffee shop.  Think I’m going to get out easily?”  He laughed and rolled over.  “Think again.”

She stared at his back, amazed once again by all the muscles rippling there as he pulled her pillows close. 

“Go take a shower.  Get ready for work and then I’ll take you to breakfast before I drop you off at the coffee shop.”

Hannah heard his words, but wasn’t sure what to do.  Shower?  With him in her bed?  No way! 

“I can’t shower with you in my bed,” she finally stated very firmly.  “You have to get up.”

He opened one eye and looked at her.  “Hannah, the only way you’re getting me out of this bed at four thirty in the morning is if you’re offering to shower with me.  Since I don’t think that’s on the table, I’d suggest you get into your bathroom and hurry before I decide to make the decision for you.”

She stood there with wide eyes, looking ridiculous with the pillow clasped to the front of her while he apparent
ly went back to sleep.  She wasn’t sure how to move forward with this.  The idea of showering, being naked, with only one door between them, frightened her silly.  But she really needed to get moving in order to make it to work on time. 

And she was fairly certain he wasn’t bluffing with his threat to join her. 

With a sigh of irritation, she stomped into the bathroom, throwing the pillow at his head a moment before she slammed the door closed, locking it behind her. 

She turned on the shower and jumped in as soon as the water was hot.  She didn’t dawdle as she normally would,
knowing that there was only a thin piece of wood between her and an enormous man with a fascinating and drool-worthy erection. 

Hannah was just rinsing her hair when she heard the door open.  Surely he wouldn’t! 
She’d locked that door!

She froze, her mind conjuring up images of him standing in her bathroom. 
Of him stepping into the shower with her. 

He wouldn’t! 

Would he?

She peered around the shower
curtain, her eyes blinking as the soap slipped down her face.  When she saw what he was about to do, she yelped and ducked back behind the shower, waiting until he was finished with his business. 

She heard the toilet flush and then silence for a moment. 

“You don’t have any spare tooth brushes,” he commented. 

When she warily peeked around the curtain again, she saw him using her toothbrush and her stomach melted once again.  She stood under the water, trying to figure out how to handle this.  He was acting like this was no big deal, but it was to her.  She had no idea how to handle him being this intimate.  And she didn’t like the fact that she didn’t completely object to this intimacy.  It felt good.  Right, somehow. 

Even while she was thinking things through, his head and massive shoulders popped back around the shower curtain.  “You’d better hurry up,” he told her.

Hannah yelped and grabbed the pink shower curtain, holding it in front of her like a shield.  “What are you doing?” she demanded.  “Couldn’t you wait?”

His grin told him he’d seen everything he wanted to see.  At least for now.  “After that challenge you tossed at me?  Not a chance.”

His head disappeared and Hannah didn’t waste any time
rinsing out her hair and finishing up her shower.  She didn’t trust him any longer.  Not that she’d completely trusted him to begin with. 

When she turned off the water, a pink, fluffy towel appeared and she grabbed it, wrapping it around her
self before pulling back the shower curtain.  “Couldn’t you give me some room?” she asked.  “And you never explained why you are here.”

He didn’t give her any room.  In fact, he moved closer, his body heat and minty scent of toothpaste hitting her libido and ramping up all her crazy sex ideas. 

“No, and protecting you.”  He looked up and down her body, obviously liking what he was seeing.  “Are you going to get out or are you joining me for my shower?”

She
huffed a bit as she moved around him, but there was so little room and he was too big.  In the end, he simply lifted her up and twisted around so she was on the other side of him.   But he didn't stop there.  No!  The man had to lower her slowly, her body sliding against his almost naked frame and she closed her eyes as the tremors started up in full force. 

“You play dirty,” she whispered, opening her eyes and looking up into those tantalizing blue ones. 

“Don’t ever forget it,” he replied and bent down to kiss her tenderly.