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Ohh-kay, Callie thought as he curled a knuckle under her chin. So much for small talk.
He tipped her face to his. “As I was saying before I got dragooned into boomerang duty, it wasn’t just those damned emails keeping me awake these past weeks.”
His voice got lower and huskier with each word. Combined with the brush of his thumb along her jaw, he managed to get every one of her nerves bucking.
“You’re so beautiful.”
The compliment touched a secret place deep inside her. She didn’t lack confidence in herself or her abilities, but she’d spent a lifetime in Kate’s and Dawn’s more flamboyant shadows.
“When did you have your last eye exam?”
“I’m not talking the externals. I’m talking about what’s inside. The quiet self-assurance. The serenity.”
The happy glow faded a bit.
“I haven’t felt all that self-assured or serene in the past few months.”
“You hid it well, even from your best friends.”
“There was so much happening in their lives. I didn’t want to add to it.”
“So you drew on your own inner strength, Callie. I admire that.” His thumb made another pass. “You’re the kind of woman I’ve been looking for. The kind I could come home to.”
She didn’t know why that doused the glow completely, but it did. She pulled back and searched his face. The scar didn’t so much as enter into her thought process as she tried to interpret his expression.
It hit her a second later. Affection. That’s what she was seeing. Admiration tinged with warm, genuine affection. Humiliatingly similar to what she saw on Dawn’s and Brian’s faces when they played with their son’s pup. The fact that Joe’s was spiced with an unmistakable dollop of desire didn’t soothe the swift, lancing hurt. Concealing her dismay, she eased out of his arms.
“Sorry, but I’m not sure I understand. What, exactly, do you mean by ‘come home to’?”
“Well...” He paused, obviously searching for the right words and opted for a demonstration instead. “How about I just show you?”
He reached for her again and drew her closer. When his head lowered, Callie hesitated for just a moment before meeting him halfway. Her lips molded his. Her palms found his shoulders, circled his neck. It wasn’t just affection, she told herself. She could taste his hunger, sense it in the arms that tightened around her waist.
When he widened his stance and positioned her between his thighs, she couldn’t quite stifle a groan. She could feel him against her belly. A minor distraction at first. Then a hard, rampant bulge that shot heat from her midsection to every other part of her. She wanted this man. Ached for him. Would take him any way she could have him.
And when he scooped her into arms, she didn’t hold back before responding to his gruff, “Which way to the bedroom?”
* * *
He undressed her with a skill that might have given Callie pause if she hadn’t been so intent on matching him button for button, tug for tug. Her heart melted when he took time to sheathe himself. If she hadn’t already been a little in love with him, his determination to protect her even in this most intimate act would’ve done the trick. That, and the fact that he drove her to sensual heights she’d never experienced before.
Every stroke, every kiss, every scrape of his late-afternoon bristles on her breasts and belly and thighs pushed her higher. She was panting when he parted her legs. Almost mindless with need when he entered her. Just enough sanity remained for her to take him along on the wild ride.
Her belly tight, she locked her calves around his. Her muscles contracted. Every muscle! She thrust her hips against his again, once more, and gave herself up to the roaring tide of sensation.
When they untangled, she came within a hair of succumbing to his offer of tomorrow and forever. Most likely would have, if he hadn’t tucked her against him and stroked her hair. Slowly. Lazily. Again, with the same absent affection Dawn or Brian might stroke their son’s puppy.
She didn’t draw away. Didn’t vocalize the return of her insidious doubts. Instead, she buried them deep as she and Joe took turns in the shower. He’d brought his carryall with him from the airport and changed into jeans and a misty-blue cashmere sweater that softened the steel gray of his eyes.
In deference to both the season and the occasion, Callie dressed up a bit in ballet flats, black tights with just a touch of silvery sparkle and a Christmassy green wool tunic. Twisting her hair up, she caught it with a jeweled butterfly clip she’d picked up on a foray to one of the DC area’s many malls.
She was wearing her usual smile when she and Joe joined Dawn and Kate and their respective spouses to celebrate the end of her harassment.
* * *
Her calm smile stayed in place even when Kate and Dawn dragged her into the kitchen, using the excuse of making coffee for a tête-à-tête. Kate barely waited for the door to swish shut before she pounced.
“Details! The fat, pregnant sow wants details!”
Neither Dawn nor Callie bothered to point out that her tiny pooch barely even qualified as a baby bump.
“Rumor has it you and Joe got all close and cuddly this afternoon,” Kate said. “Then you disappeared for several hours.”
“Rumor being our gossipy friend here?”
“Hey!” Dawn protested. “Since when is any area of our lives off-limits? Seems like I can recall you two demanding every intimate detail when I got engaged the first time.”
“And the second time,” Kate admitted.
“And the third,” Callie conceded.
“There! See? Turnabout’s fair play. So how was it?”
“Pretty amazing, actually.”
“You can do better than that, girl. On a scale of one to ten?”
“Twelve and a half.”
“Way to go, Joe!”
Kate raised both palms and got slaps from the other women. Callie’s was just a fraction slower than Dawn’s, but the other two women picked up on that millisecond instantly.
“What?” Kate asked. “Twelve and a half didn’t ring your bells?”
“They rang. Several times.”
“But?”
She’d shared too many ups and downs with these women to hide her silly, niggling doubt from them. Still, she felt foolish even putting it into words.
“Turns out I want Louis Jourdan, and he wants Lassie.”
Chapter Three (#u8c59b598-0523-5405-8c65-656f8f3a7c22)
Dawn understood the reference to their earlier conversation, but Kate was totally confused. “Lassie? What’s she got to...? Oh!” Her eyes popped. “Calissa Marie Langston, you sly thing! Just how kinky did you and Joe get this afternoon?”
“Kate! I was speaking metaphorically.”
“Okay, now I’m really lost. How about translating for the verbally challenged? Where does Lassie come into this equation?”
Callie searched for the right words to frame her confused thoughts of a few hours ago. “Joe said I’m the kind of woman he could come home to. Not conquer worlds with. Not stand side by side with to battle the forces of evil.”
“Okay,” Kate said dubiously. “I guess that’s a start.”
“Some start,” Dawn snorted. “I like Joe. What I know of him, anyway. And I love how good he is with Tommy. But he’s not half as smart as I thought if he hasn’t figured out Callie’s the toughest one of the three of us.”
“You and I know that,” Kate agreed. “Travis, too. You gave him the most verbal abuse when he and I split, Dawn-O, but Callie sliced and diced him. The problem is, Joe hasn’t seen that side of her.”
“True.” Dawn aimed a frown across the counter. “He stepped right into the role of big, strong hero to our helpless heroine. Okay, maybe not helpless,” she amended when her friends opened their mouths on a simultaneous protest, “but you have to admit you haven’t been yourself, Cal. Not since you quit your job.” She cocked her head. “It wasn’t just stress or the emails, was it?”
“No. I was... I don’t know.” She rubbed absently at a spot on the marble counter with a fingertip. “I guess the best way to describe it is feeling restless. As though life was passing me by. I needed a change.”
“You don’t think getting involved with Joe would provide enough of a change?”
“Yes. Of course it would.” With a determined shrug, she shook off her odd mood. “Assuming, that is, he wants to get involved.”
“Yeah, right,” Kate drawled. “As if you can get more involved than twelve and a half.”
“Maybe not,” Callie agreed, laughing. “We’ll see. In the meantime, we’d better put that coffee on and get back to the guys.”
* * *
As much as Callie hated to admit it, Kate and Dawn were right. She had played the helpless heroine. Worse, she’d been more than willing to let Joe step right into the role of the big, strong protector while she hid out here in DC. It was time to take charge of her life again.
But first, she decided as her gaze rested on the man she’d opened her arms and the quiet corners of her heart to, she needed to find out just where Joe thought things between them might go. That could well color her decision on where to live and what new career paths to explore.
She approached the issue in her characteristically straightforward way. Serene and unruffled on the outside and nervous as all hell inside, she invited Joe to the gatehouse after they’d finished their coffee. The door barely closed before he had her backed against it.
“I like your friends,” he muttered, nuzzling her hair. “But they talk too much.”
“It’s...uh...called conversation.”
Oh, for pity’s sake! All the man had to do was blow in her ear and she stumbled over her own tongue.
“Not where I hail from,” he countered as his lips grazed her cheek.
The gruff reply reminded Callie of her objective. “We need to talk about that, Joe.”
He raised his head. “Where I hail from?”
“Among other things. Your security team dissected my life during the investigation. They checked out my Facebook friends. Where I buy my bagels. I don’t know anything about you.”
The withdrawal was so subtle, so slight. His expression didn’t change. He still pressed hard against her. Yet Callie sensed a few degrees of separation instantly.
“What do you want to know?”
“More than I can absorb with my back up against a door and your mouth three inches from mine.” She edged sideways. “Should I make another pot of coffee? Or would you like a brandy? Dawn left the bar pretty well stocked.”
“I’m good.”
“Okay. Well...”
She led the way into the combination living room, den and study. Like the rest of the gatehouse, it had been furnished with an eye for comfort and color. Periwinkle-blue hydrangeas and lilacs in full flower patterned the overstuffed sofa and easy chair. The sixty-inch TV was mounted at easy viewing level, and a small niche housed a built-in desk with hookups for all the latest electronic gadgets. As a tribute to both the season and the temporary nature of her occupancy, Callie had put up only a three-foot tree decorated with ornaments she and Tommy had made the previous Saturday morning.
Kicking off her ballet flats, Callie sank into the plush sofa cushions and tucked one foot under her. Joe took the opposite corner. She did her best to ignore the hard thighs and broad shoulders showcased to perfection by his jeans and that cloudy blue cashmere.
Joe met her gaze with a steady one of his own. “I can’t tell you much, Callie. Most of the ops I participated in while I was in the military are still classified, and those I work for my clients are confidential.”
“I’m more interested in the basics. Where’s home?”
“Originally? A little town in Texas you never heard of.”
“Try me.”
“Bitter Creek.”
“You’re right. I’ve never heard of it. Did you leave there to go into the marines like Brian? Or was it the air force, like Travis?”
Again, his expression didn’t change. Neither did his inflection. Yet Callie could sense the gap widening.
“Army. Rangers. Then,” he added slowly, reluctantly, “Delta Force.”
She had no idea who or what constituted Delta Force but decided she didn’t really need to know at this point.
“How long were you in uniform?”
“Nine years.”
Longer than she’d spent at the Office of the Child Advocate. Like her, Joe had changed direction in midcareer. More curious than ever, she probed deeper.
“Why did you leave the military?”
“It was time,” he bit out.
Okay. That was obviously not something he wanted to talk about. Well, there was one subject he couldn’t avoid. Raising a hand, she feathered a finger over his still fading scar.
“And this? Where did you get this?”
He froze her out. That’s the only way she could describe it. The icy mask dropped over his face so swiftly, so completely, that she blinked.
“That’s not open to discussion.”
Joe smothered a curse when she reared back looking as though he’d slapped her. Which he pretty much had.
No way he could tell her about Nattat, though, or his desperate, futile attempt to keep her safe. Exerting every ounce of will he possessed, he blanked out the all-too-vivid images of the mountaintop resort in the Caribbean and focused on the woman regarding him with such a bruised look.
“Sorry.”
