Wendy Rosnau - A Younger Woman

He’d done the math quickly. She was nineteen, no longer jailbait—no longer off-limits. And she was kissing him like she knew what she was doing.

He’d lost control after that, and before he had taken her home, they had stopped off at his apartment.

It had been the beginning of the end for them. A short month of heaven, and then hell had arrived in town and ripped their lives to shreds.

Ry’s gaze locked on Margo’s jeans where he’d tossed them to the foot of the bed. Immediately his body reacted to the memory of undressing her, stripping her long legs bare, exposing her slender thighs. If he was a man who believed in fate and happy-ever-after, he’d say Margo’s sudden appearance in his bed after two long years meant something.

Swearing softly, Ry walked to the window that overlooked the backyard. It had stopped raining, the night air as heavy as a flannel blanket and twice as warm. He closed his eyes, tried to chase the sight of Margo’s lithe body out of his head, but it was no use. Content to simply suffer, he relived each agonizing minute of easing her jeans down her narrow hips, then moved on to his fingertips brushing her satin panties, grazing her tanned, flat belly. And like he’d been doing for the past two years, he relived his own body going through its tortured ritual each and every time he allowed himself the pleasure of remembering how unbelievable that one incredible month with her had been.

The sound of her mumbling the word cold jerked Ry back to the present. Feeling the effects of the weather as well as his own physical frustration, he couldn’t imagine how Margo could be cold. Nonetheless, a sheen of perspiration covering his bare chest, he left the room and found a blanket in the hall closet. On his return, he spread the covering gently over her, then left the room again.

While he paced the hall, he went over everything she’d told him. He played back phrases she’d used, dallied with the what-if game and ten minutes later he was back inside, shedding his boots and socks, prepared to spend a sleepless night in the stuffed chair he’d pulled close to the bed.

Halfway through the night she started to babble incoherent phrases. Ry reached out and felt her forehead, expecting to find her burning up with a fever. To his surprise and relief, she was cool. When the babbling continued, he pulled the nightstand drawer open and flipped the switch on a sophisticated three-inch recorder. When she began to thrash and fight the visions haunting her mind’s eye, he leaned forward and placed his hand on her cheek. “Easy, baby. You’re safe with me.”

Still caught up in whatever it was, torturing the dark recesses of her mind, she cried out Blu’s name. And there it was. Ry’s greatest fear had just been realized—whatever dirty business Margo had fallen into tonight had been prompted by her brother—and he figured that could involve damn near anything, knowing Blu the way he did.

Ry dozed off an hour later, something he had fought hard against. How long he was out, he didn’t know. The sound of water running in the bathroom jarred him awake, and he slammed himself upright, his gaze locking immediately on the bed. When he found it empty, he jumped to his feet and headed for the open door.

The sight of Margo weaving slowly back into the room hauled him up short. “You should have kicked me awake if you needed something,” he growled, then hurried toward her.

She didn’t say anything, just stood there with her right arm drawn close to her side, her face ghostly pale. Afraid she would fall, he lifted her into his arms and carried her back to bed. As he carefully laid her down on the soft mattress, he scolded, “No more getting up without my help. You could have fallen, dammit. If you break open those stitches, I’m taking you to the hospital whether you like it or not.”

“You can try,” she muttered, her voice half-strength.

He pulled the covers to her chin. “You still cold?”

“Cold?”

“You’ve been talking in your sleep.” Ry noticed his words gave her pause. “What’s the matter, Margo, you afraid you said something you shouldn’t have?”

“No,” she insisted.

Ry didn’t press the issue, though he damn well wanted to. He would get the truth out of her. That was his job, and he was damn good at it. “Go back to sleep, baby. You need to rest.”

She nodded, tried to get comfortable and winced in the process.

“I almost forgot, I’ve got some pills. I’ll get you a couple.” He started for the door, surprised that he had forgotten about the sleeping pill in the medicine cabinet.

“No pills.”

Her objection stopped him and he turned around. “They won’t hurt you. They’ll just take the edge off,” he promised, knowing that the prescription was potent as hell. A life saver when you needed to forget for a time and let sleep rescue you from your pain—pain of any kind; the pill didn’t discriminate.

“I don’t take pills.”

“More whiskey, then?”

“So I can do more talking in my sleep?” There was accusation in her tone, in her beautiful brown eyes.

He strolled back to the bed. “Afraid you’ll share your darkest secret with me? Afraid you’ll confess you still love me?” The comment was ridiculous of course, but Ry had always hoped she still cared for him, that even after he’d played the bad guy, he hadn’t destroyed everything they’d shared.

“I never loved you,” she insisted. “I only thought I did. I guess that’s what you get for robbing the cradle, Detective Archard—a girl too young to know her own mind.”

“Did a shrink convince you of that?”

“A shrink?” She frowned. “Why would I need to go to a shrink?”

Ry passed off her question with a shrug, then sat on the chair. “I thought it was the thing to do these days. Everyone has a shrink, right?”

“For what it’s worth, I think there are far too many shrinks out there advocating whining these days. They always say something stupid like, talk it out and you’ll feel better. What they should be saying is, you’re not the only one in misery’s boat, so shut up and paddle through it.”

Ry grinned, reminded of how refreshing he had always found Margo’s honest assessment about anything she had an opinion on. “Go back to sleep, and next time you need to use the bathroom, wake me up so I can help you.”

“So you can watch?”

Enjoying her sudden spunk, he teased, “A perk for rescuing you? I like the way you think, baby.”

She eyed him without saying a word.

“Come on, Margo, backing down so soon?”

“We both know the truth about you, Detective Archard.”

“And just what truth do you think we know?”

She hesitated only a few seconds before saying, “You taught me how to kiss dirty, old man? I was barely eighteen that first time.”

She knew she’d been legal. But Ry had to agree she’d still been too young for a jaded cop who kept a .38 Special in the bread saver in the kitchen. But just for the record, he said, “You know you were nineteen plus.”

She closed her eyes and muttered, “How long?”

“How long, what?”

“I met you when I was fifteen. How long had you wanted me?”

The question was unexpected. But she was right to imply it had been an on-going problem for years. He’d been crazy to have her, so crazy that when he had finally gotten her into his apartment that first time, he’d been a man on a single-minded mission. He wasn’t proud of the fact that he had ached to have her, that he’d made love to her virgin body three times the first night before he’d come up for air. Back then his ego had been the size of his libido, full-blown and hungry to be stroked. And when she had met him more than halfway, nothing could have stopped him from climbing inside her except her objection. But that hadn’t happened because she had confessed that night she had wanted him with the same crazy intensity.