Renegade

“In my way, I did,” she said, surprising him. “He was one of two people in my entire life who were good to me without expecting anything in return.” Her smile was cynical. “You can’t imagine how many times you get propositioned in my line of work. It took years to perfect a line that worked.”

“You can’t blame men for trying, Tippy,” he said curtly. “You look like every man’s dream of perfection.”

Her heart jumped. “Even yours?” she asked in a teasing tone. Except she wasn’t teasing. She wanted him to want her. She’d never wanted anything so much.

He let go of her hair. “I gave up women years ago.”

“Aren’t you lonely?” she wanted to know.

“Are you?” he retorted.

She sighed, studying his strong features with a vague hunger. “I’ve got cold feet,” she said huskily. “Once or twice over the years I took a chance on someone who seemed nice. But nobody wanted to talk to me, to get to know me. They only wanted me in bed.”

His eyes narrowed. “Can you…?”

Her gaze fell to his chest, where the muscles were outlined by the close fit of his knit shirt. “I don’t know,” she replied honestly. “I haven’t…tried.”

“Do you want to?”

She bit her lower lip and frowned, staring at the dinosaur without really seeing it. “I’m twenty-six years old. I don’t risk my heart, and I’m happy enough. I have Rory and a career. I suppose I’ve got all I need.”

“It’s a half life.”

“So is yours,” she accused, looking up at him.

“I have an even better reason than yours,” he said coldly.

“But you won’t share it,” she guessed. “You don’t trust me enough.”

He rammed his hands into his slacks pockets and glared down at her. “I was married once, years ago. I was in love for the first time in my life and crazy to share everything with my wife. She’d just told me she was pregnant. I was over the moon. I wanted to tell her all about my life before I married her.” His eyes grew cold. “So I did. She sat and listened. She was very calm. She didn’t say a word. She just listened, as if she understood. She was a little pale, but that wasn’t surprising. I did horrible things in my line of work. Really terrible.” He turned away from her. “I had to go out of town on business for a few days. She saw me off very naturally, no fuss. I came back with little presents for her and some thing for the baby, even though she was only a few weeks along. She met me at the door with her suit cases.”

He leaned forward against the banister. He didn’t look at her while he spoke. “She told me that she’d gone to a clinic while I was away. She’d seen a lawyer, too. Just before she walked out the door, she told me that she wasn’t bringing the child of a cold-blooded killer into the world.”

Tippy had thought there was something traumatic in his past, besides his work. Now she understood what it was. The hunger he displayed for Judd and Christabel’s twins made sense now. She could almost feel his pain, as if it were her own. She was deeply flattered that he trusted her with something so intimate.

“No comment?” he drawled poisonously, without looking down at her.

“Was she very young?” she asked softly.

“She was my age.”

She lowered her eyes to his hands on the steel rail. He wasn’t showing any emotion at all, but his knuckles were white from the pressure he was exerting on the bar.

“I won’t step on an insect if I can avoid it,” she said quietly. “I would never be able to sleep with a man without using protection unless I loved him. I think a child is part of that.”

His head turned slowly and he looked down at her curiously. “She was right. I was a cold-blooded killer,” he said flatly.

She searched his hard face and her eyes were soft and tender. “I don’t believe that.”

He scowled. “I beg your pardon?”

“Rory’s commandant told him that you were part of a crack military unit in special ops,” she said. “You were sent in when negotiations failed, when lives were at stake. So don’t try to convince me that you were a hit man for the mob, or that you killed for money. You aren’t that sort of person.”

He didn’t seem to be breathing. “You know nothing about me,” he said abruptly.

“My grandmother was Irish. She had the second sight. It’s a gift. All the women in my family have it, except for my mother,” she added. Her eyes softened on his face. “I know things that I shouldn’t know. I feel things before they happen. I’ve been very worried about Rory lately, because I sense something dangerous connected to him.”

“I don’t believe in clairvoyance,” he said stiffly. “It’s a myth.”

“Maybe it is to you. It isn’t to me.” She glanced around the room, looking for her little brother and picking him out of a crowd looking up at a stuffed coelacanth suspended from the high ceiling of the room.

Cash felt violated. He felt as if he’d become trans parent with this woman, and he didn’t like it. He kept to himself, he kept secrets. He didn’t want Tippy walking around inside his brain.

“Now I’ve made you angry. I’m sorry,” she said gently, without looking at him. “I’m going to the Einstein shop. Rory wants a T-shirt. I’ll meet you both in the lobby in an hour or so.”

He caught her hand and tugged her back to him. “No, you won’t. We’ll go together.” He tipped her chin up so that he could see her eyes. “I told Rory once that I value honesty.”

“No, you don’t, not if it concerns having anyone else guess about your private life.”

“I told you about my private life,” he replied. He took a slow breath. “I’ve never told anyone else about my child.”

“I have that kind of face,” she said with a tender smile.

“Yes, you do.” He touched her cheek lightly. “I’ve got more emotional scars than you have, and that’s saying something. We’re both damaged people. That being the case, it would be insane of us to get involved with one another. So that’s not going to happen.”

Her eyes became shy, curious. “You would… You’ve thought about…getting involved with me?” She asked the question as if she didn’t believe what she’d heard.

That it flattered her was obvious. He was surprised. He hadn’t thought she felt attracted to him. It would be difficult for her, with her past.

“With your past…” he murmured aloud.

She moved a step closer to him. It made her breathless. “You’re forgetting something. You’re a cop.”

“And that’s why you’re not afraid of me?” he murmured. He was feeling a little breathless himself at her proximity. She smelled like flowers.

One perfect shoulder lifted nervously. “Judd Dunn was a Texas Ranger. I felt safe with him.”

“Are you making a point?”

She nibbled her lower lip and her high cheekbones flushed a little. “I don’t feel…safe…with you, exactly. You stir me up inside. I feel…shaky. I feel swollen all over. I think about touching you, all the time. I keep wondering,” she whispered while they were briefly isolated from the other visitors, “how it would feel if you kissed me.”

He couldn’t believe she’d said that. But her eyes were saying it, too. She seemed almost dazed.

His lean hands contracted a little roughly, pulling her up closer to the long, heated, muscular length of his fit body. He felt her breath catch. His dark eyes dropped to her full lips. “I think about touching you, too, Tippy,” he said deep in his throat. His thumbs edged out under her arms, tracing just at the curve of her full breasts. His mouth hovered inches from hers. His breath was warm, minty. “I think about the silky feel of your skin against my chest. I think about breaking your mouth open under mine and tasting you, inside, with my tongue.”

Tippy gasped. Her body trembling. She leaned her forehead against his chest while she tried to breathe normally. Her nails bit into his chest. “Cash,” she groaned.

His thumbs became insistent. Desire coursed through him like a great flood. He felt himself going rigid, losing control. He thought about stepping back, but her hips moved just faintly and he shuddered at the lash of pleasure he felt.