Tess Gerritsen - The Apprentice

“Jane?”

“Yes?”

“No more hidden agendas between us, okay? What I say is what I mean.”

“If you insist.”

“You don’t believe me, do you?”

“Does it really matter?”

“Yes,” he said quietly. “It matters a great deal to me.”

She paused, her pulse suddenly quickening. Her gaze swung back to his. They had kept secrets from each other for so long that neither one of them knew how to read the truth in the other’s eyes. It was a moment in which anything could have been said next, anything could have happened. Neither dared to make the first move. The first mistake.

A shadow moved across her open car door. “Welcome to the Watergate, ma’am! Do you need help with any luggage?”

Rizzoli glanced up, startled, to see the hotel doorman smiling at her. He had seen her open the door and assumed she was stepping out of the car.

“I’m already checked in, thank you,” she said, and glanced back at Dean. But the moment had passed. The doorman was still standing there, waiting for her to get out. So she did.

A glance through the window, a wave; that was their good-bye. She turned and walked into the lobby, pausing only long enough to watch his car drive out of the porte cochere and vanish into the rain.

In the elevator, she leaned back, her eyes closed, and silently berated herself for every naked emotion she might have revealed, everything foolish she might have said in the car. By the time she got up to her room, she wanted more than anything to simply check out and return to Boston. Surely there was a flight she could catch this evening. Or the train. She’d always loved riding trains.

Now in a rush to escape, to put Washington and its embarrassments behind her, she opened her suitcase and began to pack. She’d brought very little with her, and it did not take long to pull the spare blouse and slacks from the closet where she’d hung them, to throw them on top of her weapon and holster, to toss her toothbrush and comb into her toilet case. She zipped it all into the suitcase and was wheeling it to the door when she heard a knock.

Dean stood in the hall, his gray suit spattered with rain, his hair wet and glistening. “I don’t think we finished our conversation,” he said.

“Did you have something else to tell me?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact.” He stepped into her room and closed the door. Frowned at her suitcase already packed and ready for her departure.

Jesus, she thought. Someone has to be brave here. Someone has to grab this bull by the horns.

Before another word could be said, she pulled him toward her. Simultaneously felt his arms go around her waist. By the time their lips met, there was no doubt in either of their minds that this embrace was mutual, that if this was a mistake, they were equally at fault. She knew almost nothing about him, only that she wanted him, and would deal with the consequences later.

His face was damp from the rain, and as his clothes came off they left the scent of wet wool on his skin, a scent she eagerly inhaled as her mouth explored his body, as he made competing claims on hers. She had no patience for gentle lovemaking; she wanted it frenzied and reckless. She could feel him holding back, trying to slow down, to maintain control. She fought him, used her body to taunt him. And in this, their first encounter, she was the conqueror. He was the one who surrendered.

They dozed as the afternoon light slowly faded from the window. When she awakened, only the thin glow of twilight illuminated the man lying beside her. A man who, even now, remained a cipher to her. She had used his body, just as he had used hers, and although she knew she should feel some level of guilt for the pleasure they’d taken, all she really felt was tired satisfaction. And a sense of wonder.

“You had your suitcase packed,” he said.

“I was going to check out tonight and go home.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t see the point of staying here.” She reached out to touch his face, to stroke the roughness of his beard. “Until you showed up.”

“I almost didn’t. I drove around the block a few times. Getting up the nerve.”

She laughed. “You make it sound as if you’re afraid of me.”

“The truth? You’re a very formidable woman.”

“Is that really how I come across?”

“Fierce. Passionate. It amazes me, all that heat you generate.” He stroked her thigh, and the touch of his fingers sent a fresh tremor through her body. “In the car, you said you wished you could be more like me. The truth is, Jane, I wish I could be more like you. I wish I had your intensity.”

She placed her hand on his chest. “You talk as if there’s no heart beating in there.”

“Isn’t that what you thought?”

She was silent. The man in the gray suit .

“It is, isn’t it?” he said.

“I didn’t know what to make of you,” she admitted. “You always seem so detached. Not quite human.”

“Numb.”

He had said the word so softly, she wondered if he’d meant it to be heard. A thought whispered only to himself.

“We react in different ways,” he said. “The things we’re expected to deal with. You said it makes you angry.”

“A lot of the time, it does.”

“So you throw yourself into the fight. You go charging in, all cylinders firing. The way you charge at life.” He added, with a soft laugh, “Bad temper and all.”

“How can you not get angry?”

“I won’t let myself. That’s how I deal with it. Step back, take a breath. Play each case like a jigsaw puzzle.” He looked at her. “That’s why you intrigue me. All that turmoil, all the emotion you invest in everything you do. It feels somehow… dangerous.”

“Why?”

“It’s at odds with what I am. What I try to be.”

“You’re afraid I’ll rub off on you.”

“It’s like getting too close to fire. We’re drawn to it, even though we know damn well it’ll burn us.”

She pressed her lips to his. “A little danger,” she whispered, “can be very exciting.”

The evening drifted into night. They showered off each other’s sweat and grinned at themselves standing before the mirror, wearing matching hotel robes. They ate a room service dinner and drank wine in bed with the TV tuned to the Comedy Channel. Tonight, there would be no CNN, no bad news to sour the mood. Tonight, she wanted to be a million miles away from Warren Hoyt.

But even distance, and the comfort of a man’s arms, could not shut Hoyt from her dreams. She lurched awake in darkness, drenched in the sweat of fear, not passion. Through the pounding of her heart, she heard her cell phone ringing. It took her a few seconds to disentangle herself from Dean’s arms, to reach across him toward the nightstand on his side of the bed and flip open her cell phone.

“Rizzoli.”

Frost’s voice greeted her. “I guess I woke you up.”

She squinted at the clock radio. “Five A.M.? Yeah, that’s a safe assumption.”

“You okay?”

“I’m fine. Why?”

“Look, I know you’re flying back today. But I thought you should know before you got here.”

“What?”

He didn’t immediately answer her. Over the phone, she heard someone ask him a question about bagging evidence, and she realized that at that moment he was working a scene.

Beside her, Dean stirred, alerted by her sudden tension. He sat up and turned on the light. “What’s going on?”

Frost came back on the line. “Rizzoli?”

“Where are you?” she asked.

“I got called to a ten sixty-four. That’s where I am right now-”

“Why are you answering burglary calls?”

“Because it’s your apartment.”

She went completely still, the phone pressed to her ear, and heard the throb of her own pulse.