As her top veed open to the night air, and the chilly dampness bathed her in goose bumps, Rafe left her. “No. Don’t stop.”
But Rafe wasn’t leaving, he was looking for a little more privacy. He tossed her bag inside and before Josie could follow his lead, he lifted her onto the seat, shutting the door behind him and following her across to the passenger side. With little heed for long legs and cramped quarters and layers of clothing, Rafe maneuvered her onto his lap. He tugged off his belt and placed his gun safely in the glove compartment as Josie’s fingers tested the contrasts between his short, silky hair and the rougher texture of his stubbled jaw. And then she had his full attention again. Rafe slid his arms beneath her jacket and blouse and pulled her hard against him, his hands roaming at will against her skin, his mouth claiming hers. The urgency of every touch, every kiss, conveyed the depth of emotion that Rafe had been unable to speak.
Josie cracked open a little more of her battered heart and answered. This wasn’t about slow seduction. It wasn’t about finesse. It was about needing and caring, giving and taking.
“I don’t ever want to have a child look at me that way again,” Rafe rasped against her lips. “I don’t want to hurt like this. I don’t want to feel…”
“Shh. It’s okay. Let it go.”
With Josie’s knees splayed on either side of Rafe’s thighs, and the hard bulge of his zipper pulsing against the seam of her jeans, he left no doubt about what he was asking of her. “We never… I shouldn’t…”
His face was buried against her neck, and he was shaking so hard with the effort to restrain himself that her body vibrated right along with his. But she could also feel the heat and moisture of the tears he blinked against her skin. She pulled away just far enough to hold his face and turn his golden-brown eyes to the dim moonlight. The tears she saw pooling there made the decision for her. Her heart couldn’t say no.
“You know I’ve wanted this. Wanted to be more than friends.” Josie reached down to unzip her jeans, to assure him of his welcome and her own desire.
He studied her face, looking as surprised as she by the unexpected passion and soul-deep empathy burning between them.
“It’s okay, Rafe.” She leaned in and kissed him. “We’re okay.”
And then Rafe began to move with the urgent efficiency with which he defused bombs and took down bad guys. It was all fast and furious—a physical expression of every powerful emotion surging between them. Zippers crunched. His billfold came out. Clothes were pushed aside.
“I need you, Jose. I need you. I need…” Molding hands and desperate kisses made her blood drum through her veins. The heat rising inside her was almost unbearable. She could only hold on to his sturdy shoulders as he slid inside her, moving and rocking until they were both mindless with this physical, sensual outpouring of emotion.
“I love you, Rafe,” she whispered as he crushed her in his arms and plunged inside her one last time, groaning with the release that she freely and willingly gave him.
HE SHOULD BE feeling better than this.
Rafe drew his fingers through the condensation forming on the side window of his truck and brushed the cool moisture across his feverish cheek. Oh, his body was well and truly satisfied—too spent and content to want one more thing. And those hated emotions that had raged through his system had dissipated under Josie’s patient insistence and undeserved generosity.
She was snuggled up against his side in the truck now, her rumpled clothes refastened, her breathing slow and even. When he felt her stirring, he leaned over and pressed a kiss to the crown of her dark sable hair. When she tilted her chin and smiled at him, he knew what he was feeling.
Guilt.
He’d taken slaps across the face and a belt across his backside that didn’t hurt as bad as this. He’d betrayed a friend tonight. Two of them. On the day Aaron had died, he’d made him a promise. Visiting his son in jail and boinking his daughter weren’t exactly how he’d intended to honor Aaron’s memory.
Some damn fine protector he turned out to be.
Josie’s soft smile turned into a quizzical frown. “What are you thinking about?”
“Your dad.” He shifted a little space between them, so that his thigh was no longer touching the tempting warmth of hers. “This wasn’t my finest moment. I took advantage of that big heart of yours. I needed…” His deep sigh of remorse echoed in the truck. “I just needed.”
“You needed to connect with someone who cared. Someone who would listen and let you feel what you needed to.” She zipped her jacket and folded her arms across her middle. Was she cold? Rafe slid over to the steering wheel and pulled out his keys to start the truck and turn on the heater.
“Yeah, well, I should have stopped at talking.”
“Not your strong suit,” she teased. “You’ve always been a more physical being.”
“I told Aaron I would always take care of you. Tonight, I just used you.”
“That’s insulting.”
“Josie.”
“Hey, I’m not a naive girl anymore. You’re not my first, Rafe, so I knew what I was doing. It’s not like you forced me.”
“Damn close.”
He found her crystal-blue eyes across the cab, saw them blanch wide and then darken. She turned in her seat, twisting the argument back on him. “You would have stopped if I’d asked. But I didn’t want you to stop. Sometimes a relationship works that way. One partner needs more than the other at a given time. It’s a mutual give and take.”
“We don’t have a relationship like that.”
“Would that be such a bad thing?”
Oh, yeah. He was not relationship material. Definitely not with his former partner’s daughter. After tonight, he might not even be friend material. “My emotions were out of control. That was a mistake.”
She sat up ramrod straight, her Irish temper coloring her cheeks. “Making love was a mistake? Or feeling something was a mistake?”
Making love? She thought that wham-bam, thank-you, ma’am, was how it was supposed to be between a man and a woman? Just what kind of jerks had she been dating, who hadn’t shown her how good it could be if a man took his time and… Ah, hell. Put on the brakes. Don’t go there.
He squeezed his hands around the steering wheel. “I’m sorry, Jose. I made a promise to your dad to take care of you. I’m sorry.”
“Stop apologizing. I always figured it would be intense with you. That’s kind of exciting. And you know I…care about you.”
And he cared about her. But he couldn’t keep trouble away or screen those jerks or even make sure she got safely to her car when she worked too late if his senses were blurred by his emotions and his focus was distracted by long legs and lush lips and that gorgeous fall of dark hair. He could hardly do right by her if he was the trouble. “Look, I already failed Patrick. I couldn’t keep him off drugs and out of jail. I don’t want to mess up what we have.”
“Rafe, what about what I want?”
He opened his door and stepped out into the night. The bracing air filled his lungs and cleared his head of her lingering scent. “You’ve got class in the morning and you need to get home. I need to get back to the precinct garage and get the SWAT van cleaned up and refitted for our next call.”
She grabbed her backpack and climbed out her side of the truck. “You have to do that tonight?”
Oh, yeah. He needed to get his hands busy doing something besides itching to reach for Josie