“Because of Gallo.”
“Yes. And because it could have been my mistake that caused Bonnie to be killed if I linked myself with a monster. You don’t blame me any more than I blame myself for being such an idiot.”
“I don’t blame you. I have no right. I was no saint when I was a kid. Hell, I’m no saint now. That’s not why I’m so damn upset.”
“Then why?”
“I’m jealous.”
“What?”
“Oh, not of Gallo,” he added grimly. “Though that may come. I’m jealous of the fact that there’s part of you I don’t know, that I might never know. I hadn’t thought about it before. When I met you, I knew I loved you almost from the very first. I couldn’t do anything about it because you were in agony about losing Bonnie, and you stayed that way for years. All I could do was stand by and be your friend. Then I got my chance, and I took it.”
“Thank God.”
“But because there was so much history between us, it blurred everything else. You were the complete package by the time I met you. I couldn’t imagine you any differently.”
“A very broken package.” She cuddled closer to him. “You helped put me back together. As I said, by that time, that other girl didn’t exist.”
“She has to exist. She’s part of you.” He added flatly, “And I don’t know her. I have to know her.”
Because Joe’s love was as possessive as it was passionate. Even Catherine had recognized that about him.
“What do you want to know?”
“I can’t demand, you have to offer. And you’re not willing to do that right now. Because I wasn’t part of your world, you don’t think I’d be able to relate.”
“And could you? You were a rich kid. You went to Harvard, for heaven’s sake. Do you want me to tell you about the stink of the projects, the graffiti on the walls? How it felt to be a teenage female and afraid of when I’d be targeted next? How I was afraid I’d never break free of them? As a cop, you’ve seen them, but you haven’t lived them.”
Silence. “And John Gallo has.”
“Yes, he told me that the project where he grew up was worse than the one where I lived.”
“So you became soul mates.”
“Our souls had nothing to do with it. Do you want me to tell you that we were drawn to each other because we were both slum kids? I can’t do that.” She was saying exactly what Catherine had warned her against. She couldn’t help it. She wouldn’t be anything but honest with Joe. “We were both loners. The only reason we came together was chemistry. And the reason we separated was that both of us realized that chemistry could ruin any chance of our climbing out of the dung heaps where we were born.” She was silent, then said, “Is there anything else you want to know?”
“Hell, yes. Every single detail, but I’m not going to ask because that would probably drive me crazier than not knowing. Damn chemistry.”
She suddenly started to chuckle. “Joe, don’t damn something that we value so highly. Chemistry may not have brought you and me together originally, but it’s helped to keep us together and strong for years. Do you think that anything I had with that kid, John Gallo, could have had the same kind of endurance and staying power?”
“I’ve no idea. But you’re not going to find out.” He was suddenly on his knees on the bed. “And I find I’m becoming annoyed at being thought of as the steady, boring stallion in the barn.” He threw the sheet that covered them on the floor. “Endurance? Staying power?”
She inhaled sharply as she gazed at him. She always loved the look of Joe naked. Beautifully muscular shoulders and thighs, tight buttocks and belly. He looked completely at home with his nudity, like Adam in the garden, or a sultan in his harem. Joe was a magnificent lover, innovative, passionate, sometimes teasing, sometimes wicked. In those moments, he was completely sexual, completely devoted to the act itself. Yet tonight there was something else …
His expression. His eyes were glittering recklessly as his hand reached out and cupped her breast. “Shall I show you endurance, Eve?”
Her heart was suddenly pounding beneath his hand. “I don’t know. Should I be worried?”
“Not you.” His mouth was suddenly on her nipple, drawing strongly. “You can take me.” His lips moved down to her belly. “You can match me. We just have to go to the next level.” He moved over her, cupped her buttocks in his two hands and sank deep. “Like this.”
The fever was starting. No, it was here, rising. She was moving, arching against him, trying to take more.
“That’s right.” His tone was guttural. His words came hard and fast with every thrust. “Give—me—everything.”
Harder.
Madness.
Deeper.
It couldn’t be deeper, but it was.
Her entire body was on fire. The sensitive nerves beneath her skin were causing the flesh to swell, become part of the act itself.
He was shifting her back and forth and rotating, each movement taking, building, peaking.
“Now,” he whispered in her ear. “Now, Eve.”
He drove deeper.
She arched. Her teeth bit into her lower lip as her entire body convulsed. “Joe!”
Pleasure. Intense. Explosive. Mind-blowing.
She was panting, clinging desperately to him, as the room whirled around her. Over. Dear heaven, it had been more intense than she could—
But it wasn’t over.
Her gaze flew up to his face. “You didn’t…”
“No.” His mouth was tense, but full and sensual. Everything about him held that same extreme sexual tension. He lowered his head and kissed her, his tongue teasing hers, then outlining her lower lip. He whispered, “Endurance.”
And he started to move again.
Skilled, teasing, alternating hard and gentle.
Her climax had been so intense, it wasn’t possible that she could climb to that peak again.
But it was happening. Joe was bringing her with him, using every sexual skill in his arsenal.
And it happened again.
“Endurance?” Joe asked as he looked down at her. “Not such a bad trait, is it?”
And he started to move once more.
The entire night became a sensual dream of arousal and satisfying that arousal. It was hours later that the passion ebbed enough for her to roll over and put her head in the hollow of his shoulder. It was her favorite place, but tonight even that position seemed to lack a certain security. “Were you … angry?”
“Did I seem angry?”
“I don’t—I guess not. It was just … fierce.”
“You didn’t enjoy it?”
“Of course I did. Don’t be an ass. You were … extraordinary.”
“Then I’ll have to do it more often until it becomes ordinary.” He kissed her temple. “And then we’ll go on to the next level.”
“There can’t be a next level.”
“Yes, there is. We’ll find it.” His tone was absolutely positive as he got out of bed and strode toward the bathroom. “Maybe I can’t ever know what made up the psyche of that sixteen-year-old girl, but I can make sure that our chemistry comes out way ahead of anything you knew back then.”
“It always did, Joe.”
“Maybe.” He stood there in the doorway, naked, confident, handsome, totally mature. Joe, who had been her salvation and her love. Joe, who could raise her to the realm of complete eroticism.
He smiled. “But I’m an overachiever. I think we’ll stretch our limits.”
He disappeared into the bathroom.
She lay there, her gaze on the door. Her body felt flushed, lazy, yet her muscles had an underlying tingle that wouldn’t leave her. It was as if they were waiting for the next touch, the next—
Her cell phone rang on the bedside table.
She reached over to get it.
Catherine.
“Sorry to call you in the middle of the night, but I thought you’d want to know as soon as I did. I just talked to Nate Queen.”
“And?”