Kincaid’s Dangerous Game

Chapter 7

She needs me, Holt thought. That’s all this is.

She needs me, he told his conscience, and I’m not walking out on her.

Gotcha, his conscience replied. Reading you loud and clear.

For a while then, blessedly, he didn’t have to think at all. Kissing Billie, he was discovering, was a full-time occupation, an all-encompassing pleasure, one that involved every part of him, including his brain. And your heart, too? Yeah, what about that, Holt?

But that, too, was something he didn’t have to think about. At least, not then.

That fascinating mouth of hers, with its impish little up-turn at the corners…who would’ve thought it could feel so lush and ripe and full of sweetness? And her hands-card-player’s hands with their nimble fingers-no surprise that they should be so clever, but who would’ve thought they could also be gentle, almost tender in the way they touched his face. In stature she was petite, her body small and compact, well-muscled and tidy…but who would’ve thought she could feel so soft, and fill his arms so completely.

Then, once again they were breathing in ragged little gusts of air, clinging to each other, and Holt wondered if she was trying as hard as he was not to show how shaken she felt. If she was wondering, as he was, what to do next.

About then was when she said, “Okay,” and cleared her throat, pressed her palm against his chest and stared at it. He could see her forehead wrinkle with a frown.

“Yeah,” he said, and cleared his throat, too, not really helping much.

“This is the really awkward part,” she said, and valiantly lifted her face to meet his eyes. “I don’t suppose you, uh…came prepared for this. I mean, I understand if you don’t have anything, but the thing is, I’m pretty sure I don’t. I’m covered for the pregnancy thing-yeah, learned my lesson there-and I’m clean, too. Had myself tested before Hannah Grace was born, and I’ve been careful since, but I don’t expect you to just trust me. I mean, you’d have to be pretty stupid to-”

“Billie,” he said, “shut up.” He kissed her again, but a shorter time than before. When he lifted his head she started to say something else, so he kissed her again, for a lot longer, and this time when he released her mouth she just licked her lips and stared at him, slightly cross-eyed.

“You’d be stupid to trust me, too,” he said softly, “but I think we’re both in luck. I drove down from Reno and came straight here this morning. I’ve got my overnighter in the car. I’m pretty sure there’s something in there.”

She was gazing at him in wonder. Her dimples flashed, and his heart gave a little leap, the way it did when he caught a glimpse of a deer dashing across Laurel Canyon Boulevard in the early, early morning.

“Hold that thought,” he murmured, then touched a kiss to the tip of her nose and left her.

All the time he was getting his suitcase out of the Mustang, locking up, heading back to the house, he refused to let himself think about anything except what he was doing at that moment in time. Don’t think, don’t analyze…stay in the here and now. That’s what he told himself whenever a glimmer of thought tried to sneak past his mental firewalls: Here and now. That’s all that matters.

Back in Billie’s house, he found she’d turned off the lights in the kitchen. Following the glow from the hallway, he made his way to its source, which was the larger of the two bedrooms he’d cleared earlier while checking for intruders. He’d noticed then that although it lacked frills, it was a distinctly feminine room, done in neutral tones of cream and tan, with accents of black and green. There were plants near the windows, which were curtained now against the darkness, and Audubon prints and Ansel Adams photographs in simple frames on the walls. Now, with Billie added to the setting, he realized how perfectly the room suited her. And what an intimate thing it was, to share that room with her. He wondered if she knew.

She was standing beside the bed, which was neatly made, with an assortment of throw pillows casually arranged on top of the spread. The only light came from the lamp on the table beside the bed, which she’d evidently just switched on. She lifted her head and smiled at him, but without dimples.

“Okay, Kincaid, this is your chance,” she said in a tone that wanted to be airy, the tension she was trying to hide betrayed by only the slightest of tremors.

He set down his overnighter and returned the smile in a tentative way. “Chance? For what?”

“To change your mind.” She turned to him, moving her body side to side in a way that suggested a wavering of will. “You know-the moment’s passed and we’ve both cooled down…pulses steady. Isn’t this where reason and common sense usually step in?”

“And have they?” When she only clasped her arms across herself and looked away without answering, he persisted gently, “Are you having second thoughts?”

She gave a sharp little laugh and brought her eyes back to him. They seemed to shimmer in the lamplight. “I asked you to stay with me, remember? Because I, um-” She closed her eyes and struggled with it, and he took pity on her and mentally filled in the words she couldn’t bring herself to say.

You need me.

“Billie, no, I haven’t changed my mind. If you need me, I’ll stay.”

She looked at him for a long moment, smiling that little half smile, then slowly shook her head and whispered, “Kincaid, you are such a Boy Scout.”

“Boy Scout?” He gave a surprised huff of laughter. “Don’t think I’ve ever been called that before. And why is it,” he added wryly, “I get the feeling you don’t mean that as a compliment?”

“I do, actually. I haven’t met that many Boy Scouts in my life…” She studied him thoughtfully, and her eyes seemed to kindle. He felt their heat from where he stood, two full arm’s lengths away. “Who would’ve guessed. That’s sure not what I thought of when I first met you.”

“Yeah? What did you think of, then?” He realized they were speaking in low murmurs, the tone lovers use to exchange erotic suggestions under cover of darkness, though there was still that distance between them. A distance that seemed vast and unbridgeable.

“Harry Callahan,” she said.

“Who?”

“You know-Clint Eastwood movies…Dirty Harry…”

He burst out laughing-he couldn’t help it.

“You know,” she said, watching him with her head slightly cocked, “I think that’s the first time I’ve ever seen you do that.”

“Do what?”

She gave a little shrug. “Never mind-it’s gone now. It was nice while it lasted, though.”

She turned to take the pillows off the bed, saying over her shoulder as she did, “Bathroom’s across the hall-it’s all yours.” She didn’t see him go.

She told herself not to think, but, as thoughts will, they came anyway. Why am I doing this? I guess I know why, I know what I think is why, but why do I need him when I’ve done all right without him up to now?

She began to undress, her fingers stiff and cold on the zipper of her jeans, tossing her clothes in the general direction of the dresser on the other side of the bed. It seemed too…intimate, too personal, to leave them lying where he would see them when he returned.

When he returns…

She tried not to think about how it would be. How he would look.

His body…

I wish he’d make this easier for me. He’s leaving it up to me to call the shots. I understand why, but I almost wish he’d take the lead. Funny…who would’ve thought he’d turn out to be so damned nice?

I don’t need him to be nice. I need him to kiss me again. I need him to hold me. I need him to not let me think…

She lifted the corner of the bedclothes and crawled between the sheets, shifting herself all the way to the other side of the bed to leave room for him. The sheet rasped across her goose-bumpy skin like sandpaper. She was shivering, and no matter how hard she tried she couldn’t make herself stop.

Holt left the bathroom and crossed the hall, his shaving kit in his hands and images of Billie in his mind. Not voluptuous, fantasy images-he didn’t have enough intimate knowledge of her body nor enough prurient imagination to provide material for those-but flashback images of her face in all its different moods, constantly changing, like a kaleidoscope. He didn’t try to stop them. It was better than thinking.

He hadn’t any expectations of what he’d see when he walked back into her bedroom, but even so, the scene that met his eyes jolted him in ways he couldn’t explain. He wished there had been a camera in his mind, some way of freezing that moment in his memory. Not a scene that could be considered sexy or erotic, not in the usual sense: Her face-just her face, her body a surprisingly small disturbance beneath the covers-nestled in a pile of pillows, its features indistinct, its outline blurred in the soft lamplight though the colors were pure and vivid, like a watercolor painting on silk. But for a moment he felt a weakening in his knees and that odd dropping sensation in his chest, and the need to remind himself all over again what he was doing here.

She needs you, Kincaid-that’s all this is. Be good to her…handle with care…and when the time comes, let her go.

She raised herself on one elbow and watched him walk toward her, wearing all his clothes and carrying what appeared to be a small toiletries kit in his hands. She searched his face for a hint of a smile. Instead, his eyes seemed to burn her, and she wondered how blue eyes could do that.

“I left the light on for you,” she said in a rasping voice. “You can turn it off, if you want to.”

He placed the kit on the table beside the lamp and looked down at her. “Would you like it off?” he asked as he began to unbutton his sleeve cuffs.

She shrugged, and he reached for the lamp. “No-wait,” she said breathlessly, “leave it on.”

Why was this so hard? Why did it feel so awkward?

Because you never asked a man to share your bed before. Always before, sex was something that just sort of happened, or it was his idea and you went along with it. It was fun and games. Or two warm bodies obeying a biological urge. Whatever.

So…why does this feel like something more?

Because you’re using him, maybe? Because you have a conscience after all?

But if she did, it was playing hide-and-seek with her, ducking out of sight again as she watched his fingers work their way down the front of his shirt, then pull the two halves apart and at the same time free of the waistband of his pants. It shouldn’t have been a big thing to her, this first glimpse of his body, so the little hitch in her breathing caught her by surprise. She searched his face for some sign that he’d noticed, but his intent expression, the slight, compassionate frown, didn’t waver. She caught her lower lip between her teeth and watched him fold his shirt in half and lay it on the floor beside the night table, then take his gun out of its holster, check it briefly, then lay it carefully on top of the shirt.

His body pleased her; with not much fat to hide the pull and tug of tendons and ligaments, she could see the way muscle moved beneath pale skin in sculpted patterns. She liked that he wasn’t tan-which she thought showed a lack of vanity-and that the hair on his chest was beginning to gray a little, to match the silver at his temples.

“Are you always so neat and tidy?” she asked in a voice that felt unreliable, and was surprised when he smiled.

“No,” he said, as he unzipped his pants, “but I do try to be a well-behaved houseguest.”

She let go a small gust of nervous laughter. “Houseguest. Is that what you are?”

He didn’t answer, but reached instead to turn out the lamp.

The bed jolted as he sat on the edge of it, and wobbled with his movements as he divested himself of the rest of his clothes, shoes and socks. She felt the cold caress of wind when he lifted the covers and slipped easily between them. She waited for him to reach for her, to come to her, and she thought resentfully, Do I have to ask him to hold me? She couldn’t seem to stop shivering.

“Billie,” his voice came out of the new darkness, “are you cold?”

“No,” she said, furious. Just hold me, dammit.

He gave a little growling sigh and put out his arm and she scooted over into its curve. He drew her close to him and she nestled against his body, but didn’t relax. He could feel her shivering, and her body’s shape felt warm and silky but unyielding, like a sun-warmed sculpture in polished marble.

He’d never thought of himself as a sensitive person, but uppermost in his consciousness was the thought: I want to do this right. For her.

He didn’t want to think about what that meant.

Though it was dark already, he closed his eyes. And though he’d never seen her body, he began to see it now with his hands…his fingers.

She was small-he’d known that. But beneath skin as soft and fragile as something newly born her muscles were firm, her bones strong. Woman-strong. His mind’s eye followed his hand along the graceful, sweeping curve of her spine, down into the valley, then up the gentle rise…and the roundness of her bottom seemed custom-made to fit his hand. Moving slowly on, even the jut of her pelvic bone seemed soft to him beneath the velvet drape of her skin, and her belly, covered in that same velvet, quivered when he stroked it like the hide of a restless tiger. He rested his hand in the hollow below her rib cage and let his fingers play for a moment along the undulations of muscle and bone while she sucked in her stomach and her breathing hung suspended. Then, slowly, he raised his hand along her ribs to cover one small, round breast.

Small, yes…but it filled his hand to perfection. He heard her breath sigh between her lips, and realized only then that she’d turned her face into the hollow of his neck. The warmth of her sigh poured over his skin like liquid sunlight. Her legs were shifting, too, one knee drawing up to rest on his thigh.

“You’re not shivering anymore,” he whispered, stirring the feathers of her hair. She didn’t reply. He counted the thumps of her heartbeat against his arm, then added, “It’s okay if you just want to go to sleep. You’ve had a long day. You don’t need to feel-”

“Hush up, Harry,” she said. “Just kiss me.”

After that it was easy. What was it about kissing this man, she wondered, that blew every conscious thought out of her head? When he kissed her a warm darkness seemed to settle over her, the darkness of a sultry summer night, and the air felt like melted butter on her skin. She heard only the hum of her own life forces, and maybe his, too, and the song they made filled her head and her whole being, as compelling, as hypnotic as the throbbing rhythm of drums. His mouth…his kiss…became her world, and she never wanted it to end.

But it did-it had to. And she gasped a breath, tangled her fingers in his hair and growled from the depths of her need, “Don’t…stop.”

“I won’t,” he whispered. His hands cradled her head; his thumbs stroked her cheekbones…her temples. His body became a blessed weight, an all-encompassing embrace. He whispered it again, into her mouth. “I won’t…stop…”

Holt came awake with two realizations clear in his mind. One, he’d slept well and without dreams, at least none he recalled. And two, Billie was very close by. For a few moments then, he kept his eyes closed and let his other senses flood him with evidence of her presence: Her breathing, an uneven cadence to it that told him she was awake; a fresh, sweet scent reminiscent of flower gardens with a hint of toothpaste that suggested she’d been up and perhaps showered; a humid warmth that was simply woman, and uniquely her.

He opened his eyes and discovered she was sitting cross-legged on the bed next to him, hands clasped, elbows resting on her knees, watching him. Her eyes were dark and unreadable in the thin early morning light. His first impulse was to hook his hand around her neck and pull her down for a good-morning kiss, but because he was aware of the fact that she’d brushed her teeth and he hadn’t, and that there was something vaguely wary about the set of her shoulders, he settled for a murmured, “Mornin’, sunshine,” instead.

She leaned down to kiss him, but in a brief, distracted way.

He muttered, “Hmm…Sorry-you smell good and I don’t. Be right back…” and rolled out of bed and headed for the bathroom.

When he came back, she was still sitting where he’d left her, wearing a T-shirt a few sizes too big for her that made it impossible for him to tell if she was wearing anything else underneath. But since it was obviously early, barely daylight, and she didn’t seem to be eager to be up and about, instead of reaching for his clothes, he got back into bed, too.

She cleared her throat, a sound full of portent. “Hey, Kincaid…”

He turned on his side and pulled the sheet up over his hip, propped his elbow on the pillows and leaned his head on his hand. “Billie?” he said somberly.

“I want you to know something, okay?” Her voice sounded blunt and self-conscious. A suspenseful little pulse began to tap-tap in his stomach. She closed her eyes briefly and held up one hand. “Look, don’t get me wrong-last night was great. I mean-” she gave a breathy laugh and her voice dropped an octave “-more than great-really, it was-” She looked away, obviously stalled, and he saw her throat move with a painful swallow.

The tap-tapping in his belly became his heart going thump-thump…“Billie,” he said gently, “it’s okay, spit it out.” He offered an encouraging smile. “I sense a but in there somewhere.”

She hauled in a breath that lifted her shoulders, and the words came out in a rush. “I just want you to know, you don’t have to be afraid I’m going to be making, um, you know…demands. I don’t expect you to say nice words…stick around…ask me out-stuff like that.”

She paused, frowned, and he murmured a tentative, “Okay…” But she wasn’t finished.

“I mean, look, let’s face it, you’re not a forever kind of guy, right? I just want you to know I’m cool with that. Because for one thing, I’m not a forever kind of woman, either.” She gave herself a little concluding shake and her gaze came back to him, fierce and intent. “So-we straight on that?”

He gazed back at her. There was a weird, fluttery feeling in his chest, and he didn’t know whether it was laughter or tenderness. He settled for a smile. “Yeah, Billie, we’re straight. No forevers, no expectations, no nice words.” He paused a beat. “Does this mean I don’t get to tell you you’re beautiful?”

She jerked back as if he’d insulted her. “You’re making fun of me.”

He lifted his hand and brushed her cheek with the backs of his fingers, ran his thumb lightly across her lower lip. “I’d never do that.”

She licked her lip where he’d touched it. “I told you, you don’t have to say things like that to me, just because…”

“I know I don’t have to…just because. I can say it if it’s true, though…right?”

She clasped her hands tightly together and hugged her arms against her sides like a self-conscious child, and didn’t answer. What he wanted to do at that moment was take her down into the tumbled sheets and show her without the pretty words just how beautiful she was to him. Instead, he let his hand fall away from her and said softly, “I have one question, though. You don’t know me all that well…so how do you know what kind of guy I am-forever-wise?”

She unclasped her hands and held one up, thumb extended. “One, you’re not married.” A forefinger joined the thumb. “Two, you’ve never been married.” Another finger. “You’re in your forties, you live alone-” her hand returned to join its mate in her lap, and she shrugged. “Obviously not somebody who’s into commitment.” She tilted her head. “Just out of curiosity, what happened?”

“What…happened?”

“To make you that way. I mean, you know why I’m the way I am. So, what’s your story, Kincaid? Come on-give. It’s only fair.”

He just stared at her, his face stony, and her heart did a weird little skip-hop she’d never felt before. She wanted to reach out and touch his face the way he’d touched hers-a way no man had ever touched her before, that she could recall. She wanted to touch him like that and say the words that were in her mind.

Who hurt you, Holt? Who made you afraid to trust anyone with your heart?

“You’re right,” he said, just when she’d been sure he wouldn’t answer. “It is only fair. So, here it is, my reason-my excuse, I should say-for choosing to remain unencumbered by…emotional attachments.” His hand reached out for her again, this time to lie briefly on her shoulder, then brush lightly down her arm. And his eyes held hers like a hypnotist’s, with that ice-blue gaze she was beginning to realize was anything but cold.

“I was five years old. I remember it because I’d just had my birthday party, and there was a pony.” A smile flickered briefly. “I think that was the first and last time I was ever on a horse. Anyway, a couple of days later, my parents left me with a babysitter and went out to dinner and a movie, and never came back.”

He said it so matter-of-factly, it was a moment before it registered. She did a little double take, then whispered, “What happened? Was it a car crash?”

His hand continued its idle journey up and down her arm. “Their car was found in the movie theater parking lot. My parents never were. They just disappeared.”

She stared at him, appalled, half-disbelieving. “That’s…crazy. People don’t just disappear.”

“Actually, they do-more often than you’d suppose.” His eyes dropped to his hand, which had left her arm to brush across the front of her T-shirt where her nipples had beaded against the clinging cloth.

She shivered. “What happened? To you, I mean?”

“Well, my babysitter told me lies, at first. Everybody did. About how my parents had had to go away suddenly, but they’d be back soon. Eventually, I was sent to live with my mother’s aunt. She was a school-teacher-unmarried. She did the best she could, I’ll give her that.” His smile was wry, his eyes forgiving. “Let’s just say she wasn’t a warm and fuzzy sort of person.” He shrugged in a dismissive way that didn’t alter the smile. “She died when I was seventeen, and I joined the army soon after. When I got out of the service, I decided I wanted to become a cop-a detective-so I could find out what happened to my folks.”

“And did you?” It was hard to keep her voice steady, with his roving hand straying downward, stroking lightly across her thigh…

“No,” he said. “But I found out I was more interested in finding missing people than catching bad ones, so I quit the force and that’s what I’ve been doing.” He didn’t say any more, and a certain wariness in his eyes told her he probably wasn’t accustomed to saying even that much.

That awareness made her feel chastened and humble, at first. Even, in an odd sort of way, vulnerable, too. But then a new feeling began to grow in her, one she remembered experiencing only once before in her life-the day her daughter was born. Something so primal she couldn’t even put a name to it. Or didn’t want to. But whatever it was, it filled her with a new kind of power and purpose.

All the while this momentous thing was happening inside her, she was looking into Holt’s eyes and he was gazing back at her. His hand was sliding under her T-shirt and finding her nakedness all open to him, his for the taking. First, she gasped…shuddered…melted. Then, with her new inner strength, whispered, “No…” and leaned over to find his mouth, and at the same time was unfolding herself, finding her way inside the covers to sink against him and lay her body full length on his.

He made a sound low in his throat and his hands were big and warm on her back, stroking downward to hold her buttocks, then on to her thighs. But when he urged them apart, she murmured once more, “No…” mingling the word with the dark, sweet essence of his mouth. And then she slid down his body, slowly, kissing every part of him she met on the way, her heart growing quivery at the incredible sleekness of his skin. His hands were light on her sides, letting her slip between them, and his breath escaped him in the gentlest of sighs when she nestled her face in his warm, damp hair and kissed him there.

When he could take no more, he pulled her up to him and lifted his own body to meet her, and they found each other like old lovers after too long a time apart. He wrapped his arms around her, one low on her spine, the other cradling her head, and she brought her legs around his waist and arched to press her torso against his, nesting her breasts in the tickling softness of his chest hair.

Her mouth found his and she opened to him with no reservation at all, and would have gladly lost herself there, but for the sharp gasp that rushed from her throat when he seated himself deep inside her. He caught the gust of breath in his own mouth and held them both still, feeling the off-rhythm thumping of their combined heartbeats, until one or the other-maybe both-of them began to tremble.

Then he tore his mouth from her and in a rasping whisper said, “Billie…I-”

And for the third time she said it, a low, guttural sound from deep in her throat. “No-no words. Just…make love to me.”

“I will…I am…do you feel me loving you?”

And she answered, “Yes…yes…yes…” until she began to shake with dizzy laughter, the kind that sometimes comes with tears.

The next time they woke it was noon, or almost. This time hunger drove them out of bed and back to the kitchen, where a chilly November breeze was blowing through the broken window. While Billie made coffee, Holt taped a flattened cardboard cereal box over the hole, then turned on the noontime news.

“I usually eat peanut butter toast for breakfast,” Billie called from the other side of the counter. “Is that okay with you?”

“Yeah…fine,” he said absently, watching the crawl across the bottom of the television screen. He heard the thump-click of the bread being pushed down in the toaster and turned to say over his shoulder, “Hey, there’s an Amber Alert.”

She was coming toward him, rounding the end of the counter carrying a steaming cup of coffee, smiling. Her eyes went past him to the screen, and the smile seemed to dissolve into a look of utter bewilderment. “Holt?” she said, with almost no sound. The cup in her hands began to wobble, and he snaked out a hand and rescued it just in time to keep it from crashing to the floor.

He was licking his hand where the scalding coffee had slopped over and burned it when he turned back to the news broadcast. Then he no longer felt the scald. He felt as if all the air in his body had been sucked out of him.

Billie moved beside him in stunned silence, and together they stared at the face on the screen…the face of a little girl about ten years old, a little girl with blond hair and magical golden eyes.