Linda Howard - To Die For

“That’s your point of view. In mine, it goes against every instinct to not make love to you as often as possible, because that’s how a man makes sure a woman is his.”

From his voice I could tell he was getting testy now. I sort of wished a light were on so I could read his expression, but that would have meant he’d be able to read mine, too, so I left well enough alone. “ If we were that far along in our relationship, I’d agree with you.”

“From the evidence at hand, I’d say we are.”

So we were both naked and in bed together. So what?

“But we aren’t. We’re very much physically attracted to each other, but we don’t know each other. For instance, what’s my favorite color?”

“Hell, I was married for three years and I never knew her favorite color. Men don’t think about colors.”

“You don’t have to think about something to just kind of notice it.” I glossed over the fact that he’d been married before. I’d known it, of course, because his mother had told me before she ever introduced us, but I didn’t like thinking about it any more than I liked thinking about my own failed marriage. In Wyatt’s case, however, I was just plain jealous.

“Pink,” he said.

“Close, but no cigar. That’s my second favorite color.”

“Good God, you have more than one?”

“Teal.”

“Teal’s a color? I thought it was a duck.”

“Maybe the color comes from a duck. I don’t know. The point is, if we had spent a lot of time together and really gotten to know each other, you’d have noticed that I wear a lot of teal and you might have guessed it. But you couldn’t, because we haven’t spent a lot of time together.”

“The solution to that is to spend more time together.”

“Agreed. But without sex.”

“I feel as if I’m banging my head against a brick wall,” he said to the ceiling.

“I know the feeling.” I was beginning to get exasperated. “ The point is, I’m afraid you’ll break my heart if I let you get too close to me. I’m afraid I’ll fall in love with you and then you’ll walk away again. I want to know you’re with me every step of the way if I do fall in love with you. How can I know that if we’re having sex, when sex means so much to a woman and it doesn’t mean much more to a man than just jerking off? It’s chemistry, and it short-circuits a woman’s brain, sort of drugs her, so she doesn’t notice she’s sleeping with a rat until it’s too late.”

There was a long pause; then he said, “What if I’m already in love with you, and I’m using sex to show you that, and to get closer to you?”

“If you’d said ‘infatuated,’ I might have believed you. I repeat, you don’t really know me, therefore you can’t truly love me. We’re in lust, not love. Not yet, and maybe not ever.”

Another long pause. “I understand what you’re saying. I don’t agree with it, but I understand it. Did you understand what I said, about using sex to show you I care?”

“Yes,” I said guardedly. What was he leading up to? “And I don’t agree.”

“Then we’re at a stalemate. You don’t want to have sex and I do. So let’s make a deal: any time I put the move on you, all you have to do is say no and I promise I’ll stop, regardless. I may be on top of you about to put it in, but if you say no, I’ll stop.”

“That’s not fair!” I wailed. “What’s my record so far in saying no to you?”

“Two years ago, you were two for oh. This time, it’s four-zip in my favor.”

“See! You’re two-thirds better at this than I am. I need a handicap.”

“How in hell do you handicap sex?”

“You can’t touch my neck.”

“Uh-uh. No way in hell are you putting your neck out-of-bounds.” Just to prove his point, he hauled me up his body so I was level with him, and before I could stop him, he buried his face in the curve of my neck and shoulders and lightly bit me. Lightning pleasure shot through me and my eyes rolled back in my head.

Yes, he cheated.

A while later, bracing himself over me on his arms, both of us sweaty and our lungs pumping like mad, he said, with great satisfaction, “Make that five -zip.”

I hate it when a man gloats, don’t you? Especially when he cheats.

“We’ll fly home,” he said as we packed our bags after breakfast.

“But my truck-”

“We’ll turn the rentals in here. My car’s at the airport at home. I’ll take you to pick up your car.”

Finally I was getting my car back! That part of it was a good plan. But I don’t like flying all that much; I do it, occasionally, but I’d much rather drive. “I don’t like to fly,” I said.

He straightened and stared at me. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid.”

“I’m not afraid, exactly, not gasping for breath and things like that, but it isn’t my favorite thing. The squad was flying to the West Coast once for a ball game, and we hit some turbulence and dropped far enough that I thought the pilot would never be able to pull us out. Since then I’ve been uneasy about it.”

He watched me for another minute, then said, “Okay, we’ll drive. Follow me to the airport so I can turn in my rental.”

Well, blow me down. For a minute there I’d expected to be strong-armed onto a plane; I’d told him so many fibs these past few days, why should he believe the truth? But he evidently had a Blair Truth Detector like the one Mom had, and realized that if anything, I was understating a little how much it bothered me to fly. Just a little, because I truly don’t panic or anything.

So I followed him to the airport, where he turned in his rental, and then waited behind the wheel while he stored his gear beside mine in the bed of the truck. He surprised me yet again by getting in on the passenger side and buckling himself in without even asking to drive. Only a man secure in his own masculinity will let a woman do the driving in a pickup truck… either that or he was very sneakily buttering me up. Whatever. It worked. I was feeling much more mellow with him during the long drive back home.

It was late afternoon when we got to our small regional airport, where he’d left his car. I turned in the rental truck and we transferred everything to his Crown Vic; then he drove me to Great Bods to get my car.

To my dismay, the yellow crime-scene tape was still strung around most of my property. About half of the front parking lot was taped off, and all of the building and the back parking lot. He pulled into the section of parking lot that was open. “When will I be able to reopen?” I asked as I handed over my car keys to him.

“I’ll try to get the scene closed tomorrow. If I do, you’ll be able to open on Tuesday-but I’m not making any promises.”

I stood beside his car while he walked around back, and a moment later he reappeared driving my Mercedes. He pulled in on the other side of the Crown Vic, closest to the street, and stopped beside his car. Leaving the Mercedes running, he got out and transferred my duffel to my small backseat, then stepped back only a little, so that he was standing very close beside me when I started to get into the car. He caught my arm, his big hand warm on my skin.

“I have to work tonight, shuffle some papers around. Will you be at your parents’ house?”

Thoughts of him had so completely consumed me for two days that my nervousness about being named as the witness to Nicole’s murder had almost completely calmed down. “I don’t want to do anything stupid, but is there really much of a chance this guy will try to eliminate the witness, namely me?”

“I can’t discount the possibility,” he said, looking grim. “It isn’t likely, but it isn’t impossible. I’d feel better if you were either at your parents’ or if you came home with me.”