“Altruistic, aren’t you,” she said irritably.
“And kind. And handsome. And sinfully sexy.”
One side of her mouth lifted sadly. “You’re incorrigible.”
“Mama always says that.” He sobered, stroking the side of her mouth with his thumb. “Tell me, Susannah. I won’t laugh. I promise.”
“Let me up. I can’t talk to you like this. Please.”
He opened his arms and she slid back down to the floor. “I miss my dog,” she said, petting Darlin’. “She probably thinks I’m not coming home.”
“Tell me why you named a female sheltie Thor.”
“Thor’s the god of lightning,” she said. “The night I found her, we had a horrible storm with thunder and lightning. I’d driven out to the cemetery to Darcy’s grave. I go every year on January nineteenth.”
“In January, you had lightning?”
“It happens, but it’s rare. It was snowing like crazy, so I was only going about ten miles per hour. If I’d been going faster, I would have hit her. There was this enormous bolt of lightning and there she was, bedraggled and wet and cold, standing in the middle of the road, like ‘Hit me or save me but don’t ignore me.’ ”
“So you stopped.”
“It was a rental car. What did I care if it got a little dirty? I’d planned to take her to the vet and leave her there, but then she licked my face, and… I’m a sucker for that.”
“I’ll remember that,” he said wryly, and she laughed, but sadly.
“It’s not the same. Turns out she was microchipped. She’d escaped from a family up north months before and she’d survived all that time on her own.”
He was starting to see the parallel. “Tough little sheltie.”
“Yeah. They’d already bought their kids another dog, so they said I should keep her. So I did. It makes a difference, not walking into an empty silent house every night. There have been a lot of nights she sits up with me at three a.m. when I can’t sleep. She’s a good dog. I’m lucky to have her.”
“Sounds like she’s just as lucky to have you.”
“There you go, being kind again.”
“Susannah, tell me why you can’t have sex.”
She sighed, heavily. “All right. I can, but not the regular way.”
“What do you consider the regular way?”
“This is so embarrassing,” she muttered, and he had pity on her.
“Missionary, you mean?”
“Yeah. But I can’t do it. I can’t… look at a man. During.”
“You mean, during sex?”
“Yeah. It’s like I’m trapped. Not enough air. I panic.”
He sat on the edge of the bed, stroking her hair. “After everything you’ve been through? I’m not surprised. So during your… encounters before, how did you do it?”
She laughed self-consciously. “Not facing them.”
He drew a careful breath, determined she would not know how that turned him on. “That’s all? That’s your only problem?”
“No. Just one of them.”
“What are the others?”
She made a strangled sound. “It has to be… unconventional. Has to be. Or I can’t.”
He frowned. “Susannah, does anything you do hurt?”
“Sometimes. But only me. Nobody else gets hurt.”
He closed his eyes. “So you like it…”
“Rough. And I hate that,” she said fiercely.
Have mercy. He opened his mouth to say something, anything, but she went on in an explosion of angry words.
“I hate needing it that way. I hate that that’s the only way…” She stopped, trembling.
“The only way you can come.”
She dropped her chin to her chest. “It’s wrong. It’s not normal.”
“And by needing, and wanting it, then doing it that way, you got your friend killed.”
“I’m not that complicated, Luke.”
Oh, yes, you are. He scooted back, his legs apart. “Come here.”
“No.”
“You don’t have to look at me. Come here. I want to show you something, and if you don’t like it, I won’t ever mention it again. I promise.”
“You promised before,” she grumbled, but she stood.
“Now sit. No, don’t look at me,” he said when she would have turned around. He pulled her to sit between his legs. “Look over there.” He pointed to his dresser mirror. “Look at you. Don’t look at me.” He put his arms around her waist and pulled her closer. “I’m dressed. You’re dressed. Nothing’s going to happen here except this.”
He pulled her hair back and kissed her neck, her quick intake of breath sending shivers prickling over his skin. “It’s just you and me and the mirror,” he said.
“This is silly,” she said, but she tilted her head to give him better access.
“Does it hurt? Do you feel panicked?”
“No. Not really. Just stupid.”
“Just relax. You think too much.” He kissed his way down the side of her neck, then ran his tongue along the curve of her shoulder. “Don’t I do that better than Thor?” She laughed breathlessly. “You have a very long neck,” he murmured in her ear. “This could take awhile.”
“But you… You can’t be…”
“Enjoying this? Susannah, I’ve got my arms around a beautiful woman who thinks I’m sinfully sexy and she’s letting me kiss her neck. What more could I want?”
“Sex,” she said flatly, and he laughed.
“I’m not that kind of guy. You have to buy me a drink before I hit you a home run.”
In the mirror he saw her close her eyes. “I can’t believe I told you this.”
“I’m engaging. Besides, you were ready to tell someone. I’m just glad it was me. I won’t tell anyone. You can trust me.”
“I know,” she said seriously, and he had to take a moment to control himself, to keep it slow and nonthreatening when he wanted to gobble her whole.
He’d started on the other side of her neck when his cell phone buzzed, making them both jump. He held her, flipping open his phone with one hand. “Papadopoulos.”
“It’s Chase. I need you back here.”
Luke straightened and let Susannah go. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Lots of stuff,” Chase said. “Get in here as fast as you can. And bring Susannah.”
Luke pocketed his phone. “We have to go,” he said to Susannah. “Chase wants you to come. You should probably change your clothes. I’ll walk the dog and then we can go.” He had his hand on the doorknob, then decided to take a chance. From deep in his closet he pulled a dusty box and set it on his dresser. “You’d be surprised what’s normal and what’s not, Susannah,” he said, then clicked his tongue. “Come on, Darlin’.”
Susannah sat on the edge of his bed, staring at the box for a full thirty seconds before giving in to her curiosity. It obviously had not been opened in some time. She struggled with the lid, then stared when it finally budged.
“Goodness,” she murmured, lifting out a set of fur-lined cuffs. There were all kinds of toys in the box. Some she’d used before. Some were tame, some lame, but all enticed her on a level that made her ashamed. But… She frowned, dropping the cuffs back into the box and replacing the lid.
Her heart was racing to beat all hell as she changed her clothes quickly. He hadn’t been repulsed. He shared her tastes. But that doesn’t make it right. Does it?
He knocked on the door, startling her. “Are you… decent?”
He’d chosen the word carefully, she knew. “You can come in.”
He did, glancing at her, then the box. Without a word he put it back in the closet. “Let’s go. It’s time to get back to work.”
Atlanta, Sunday, February 4, 1:45 a.m.
Susannah paced outside the door to the conference room. Luke had been in there for twenty minutes and with every minute her dread climbed. She’d only had to look at Chase’s face when they’d arrived to know something was very wrong.