Nora Roberts - Sacred Sins

His mouth was close to hers. His hand was still on her hair. “You like butter on your popcorn?”

Tess didn’t know whether to laugh or curse. Deciding to do neither, she told herself she was relaxed. “Tons of it.”

“Good. Then I don’t have to spring for two boxes. It’s cold outside,” he added, leaning away from her. “You’ll need gloves.”

He drew out his own scarred black leather ones before he opened the door.

“I’d forgotten just how frightening those movies were.” It was dark when Tess settled back in his car, sated with pizza and cheap red wine. The air was biting, stinging her cheeks with the first brush of winter before she slid into Ben’s car. Neither the cold nor the media was keeping Washington indoors. The Saturday-night stream of traffic rolled by, on its way to clubs, supper, and parties.

“I’ve always appreciated the way the cop gets the girl in the House of Wax .”

“All Vincent needed was a good analyst,” she said mildly as Ben adjusted the radio.

“Sure, and he’d have dumped you in the vat, coated you with wax, and turned you into…” He turned his head for a narrowed-eyed study. “Helen of Troy, I think.”

“Not bad.” She pursed her lips. “Of course, some psychiatrists might say you chose that, subconsciously linking yourself with Paris.”

“As a cop, I wouldn’t romanticize kidnapping.”

“Pity.” She let her eyes half close, not even aware of how easy it was for her to relax with him. The heater hummed in accompaniment to the moody music from the car radio. She remembered the lyrics and sang them in her head.

“Tired?”

“No, comfortable.” As soon as the words were out, she straightened. “I’ll probably have a few nightmares. Horror movies are a wonderful escape valve for real tensions. I guarantee no one in that theater was thinking about their next insurance payment or acid rain.”

He let out a breezy chuckle as he drove out of the parking lot. “You know, Doc, some people might look at it as simple entertain-ment. It didn’t seem like you were thinking escape valve when you dug holes in my arm when our heroine was running through the fog.”

“It must have been the woman on the other side of you.”

“I was sitting on the aisle.”

“She had a long reach. You missed the turn to my apartment.”

“I didn’t miss it. I didn’t take it. You said you weren’t tired.”

“I’m not.” She wasn’t sure she’d ever felt more awake, more alive. The song seemed to be playing just under her skin, promising romance and exquisite heartache. She’d always thought the first was somehow incomplete without the second. “Are we going somewhere?”

“A little place I know where the music’s good and they don’t water down the liquor.”

She ran her tongue over her teeth. “I’d like that.” She was in the mood for music, something bluesy maybe, with the ache of a tenor sax. “I suppose in a professional capacity you’re well acquainted with the local bars.”

“I’ve got a working knowledge.” He punched in his car lighter. “You’re not the bar type.”

Interested, she faced him. His profile was in shadows, struck intermittently by streetlights. It was funny how sometimes he looked safe, solid, the kind of man a woman might run to if it were dark. Then the light struck his face another way, and the planes and angles were highlighted. A woman might run from him. She shook off the thought. She’d made a policy not to analyze men she dated. Too often you learned more than you wanted to know.

“Is there a type?”

“Yeah.” And he knew them all. “You’re not it. Hotel lounge. Champagne cocktails at the Mayflower or the Hotel Washington.”

“Now who’s doing psychological profiles, Detective?”

“You’ve got to be able to type people in my business, Doc.” He pulled up and maneuvered into a space between a Honda three-wheeler and a Chevette hatchback. Before he turned off the key, he wondered if he was making a mistake.

“What’s this?”

“This.” He pulled out the keys but left them jingling in his hand. “Is where I live.”

She looked out the window at a four-story apartment building with faded red brick and green awnings. “Oh.”

“I don’t have any champagne.”

Her decision. She understood him well enough to understand that. But she understood little else about him. The car was warm and quiet. Safe. Inside, she didn’t know what to expect. She knew herself well enough to understand how seldom she took risks. Maybe it was time.

“You have scotch?” She turned back to see his smile.

“Yeah.”

“That’ll do.”

The air snapped cold the moment she stepped from the car. Winter wasn’t going to wait for the calendar, she thought, then shuddered, thinking of another calendar, one with the Madonna and Child on the cover. The little twist of fear had her looking up and down the street. A block away a truck let out a blast of exhaust.

“Come on.” Ben stood in a pool of light from a streetlamp; the light bounced from the planes of his face. “You’re cold.”

“Yes.” She shivered again when his arm went around her shoulders.

He led her inside. There were about a dozen mail slots against one wall. The pale green carpet was clean but almost threadbare. There was no lobby, no security guard at a desk, only a dim set of stairs.

“It’s certainly a quiet building,” she said as they climbed to the second floor.

“Everybody here pretty much minds their own business.”

There was a faint scent of cooking in the hall when he stopped to unlock his door. The light overhead winked weakly.

His apartment was tidier than she’d expected. It was more than just a general preconception of a man living alone, Tess realized. Ben seemed too relaxed and casual in other areas to bother clearing dust or old magazines. Then she decided she was wrong. The room might be clean, but it did reflect his style.

The sofa was the dominant piece of furniture. Low and far from new, it was plumped with throw pillows. A Dagwood couch, Tess thought. One that simply begged you to relax and take a nap. There were posters rather than paintings. Toulouse-Lautrec’s cancan dancers, a single woman’s leg standing in a four inch heel, skimmed at the thigh with white lace. There was a Dieffenbachia thriving away in a plastic margarine bowl. And books. One wall was nearly filled with them. Delighted, she pulled out a worn hardbacked copy of East of Eden . As Ben’s hands went to her shoulders, she opened the flyleaf.

“To Ben.” She read the spiky, feminine handwriting. “Kiss, kiss. Bambi.” Putting her tongue in her cheek, she closed it. “Bambi?”

“Used bookstore.” He removed her jacket. “Fascinating places. Never can tell what you’ll pick up.”

“Did you pick up the book or Bambi?”

“Never mind.” He took the copy from her and stuck it back on the shelf.

“Do you know, one gets an immediate mental image from certain names?”

“Yeah. Scotch, straight up, right?”

“Right.” A streak of gray whizzed by and landed on a red pillow. “A cat too?” Amused, Tess strolled over to stroke it. “What’s his name?”

“Her. She proved that by having kittens in the bathtub last year.” The cat rolled over so Tess could scratch her belly. “I call her D.C.”

“As in Washington?”

“As in Dumb Cat.”

“It’s a wonder she doesn’t have a complex.” Running her hands over the rounded belly again, Tess wondered if she should warn him he’d be getting another litter of gifts in a month or so.

“She runs into walls. On purpose.”

“I could refer you to an excellent pet psychologist.”