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“I don’t know what to say.” He was standing on her front porch, far too late at night to be disturbing her even if they had both officially begun their weekend. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, back and forth, unable to stand still. He couldn’t find anything to do with his hands, and they kept going in and out of his pockets.
She thought he looked like a little boy who got caught being naughty. That thought brought images to mind she’d been having to fight harder and harder lately, so she just opened the door wider and stepped aside so he could come in.
“You don’t owe me an explanation.” She couldn’t force herself to say she didn’t want one.
“Yeah, I do. Well, maybe not. But I think I do. Do I?” She laughed, and he looked hurt.
“I’m sorry. You just looked so…” Go ahead, just say it. “You looked cute, all flustered like that. I’ve never seen it before.”
“Hey! I am not cute. Babies are cute. Dogs are cute. Grown men are not ‘cute’.” But his lips twitched, and some of the tension left his shoulders. “I thought you’d be mad at me.”
She couldn’t honestly say she wasn’t. “I shouldn’t be. It’s not like we’re dating and you were hiding this huge thing from me. I figured part of it out. You’re leaving us. Going back into the field. This wasn’t just a ride for you, they were evaluating you.” She didn’t mention the part she hadn’t figured out, the part he couldn’t know she knew. What the hell had all that been between him and the Detective?
“There’s a bit more to it than that, luv.” He was pacing, not looking at her. “And I’ll tell you. Later. If you want. I just - it wasn’t a great night for me, and I’d sort of like to forget about it for the weekend and then tell you later. ‘Cause, yeah, I know I have to if you ever decide that we’re dating, but if we’re not dating then I’d rather not go into it.”
She was confused. “But if you aren’t going to transfer, why would you be working instead of just observing? I mean, you’re sworn, so as long as you can pass an eval all you’d have to do is ride with a training officer for a couple of months if they had an opening and you got it.” Which they hadn’t had, because she would’ve seen the posting. It just didn’t make sense.
“Did you hear the part where I didn’t want to talk about it?”
“Sure. Fine. Whatever. Don’t think you’re going to use my curiosity to blackmail me into the dating thing.”
“I was hoping to use something else all together to tempt you into the dating thing.” His tone had changed, and there was no other word for what he was doing besides stalking. Maybe prowling. Like a big cat.
Who was getting closer to her with every breath, his eyes roaming over her scrungy sweats like she was some kind of temptress and dressed to kill.
Her heart was beating very fast.
“lizbeth?” Damn, but she loved the way his voice sent tingles up and down her spine.
“Uh-huh?”
“You know how sometimes all you can do is forget it and feel good for a while?”
Oh God, did she remember that.
“mmm hmmm” a little nod. His looked - hungry.
“Do we have to be dating to do that?”
“Yeah.” She took a deep breath, but didn’t step back. She couldn’t step back, even though her brain was very loudly telling her legs to do so.
He stopped, and closed his eyes, blowing a deep breath out between his teeth.
“Okay.” He wasn’t moving. She wanted him to move again. To finish what her mind had already started, accosting her with visions of them doing all sorts of things that she’d never imagined doing before she started spending time with him. Sexual things she only knew about in theory suddenly seemed very interesting, and he was just standing there.
Oh. Yeah. Was it really blackmail if she were already doing it? She was dating him. Calling it what it was wouldn’t make it dissapear. Apparently, it would make it just that much better.
“I guess we’re dating then, huh?” She whispered, and his eyes flew open.
“You guess? I can’t work with guess. Guess leaves a lot of room for me to make a big bloody mistake and for you to decide you never want to talk to me again.”
Grrrr….he just had to make it hard, didn’t he?
“Fine. We’re dating. We have been dating, and I’m just a stubborn bitch with too much baggage who was trying to avoid being all datey and stuff.”
He grinned at her. “You’re not a bitch.”
But he was moving again.
This time they made it to the bed, and she actually got to see him without his clothes.
Will woke surrounded by warmth, tangled around Elizabeth in her huge bed with her blankets wrapped tightly around them. She was sleeping, her mouth slightly open, with her hair down and spread across his chest.
He’d thought it was good before. He’d not scratched the surface of good. Before had been fast and sloppy and drunk, raw and harsh. This wasn’t anything like before. He’d never felt anything like this before.
It was almost like Dru, before she’d gotten sick. But that was so long ago he sometimes felt like it happened to someone else. Like he’d seen it in a movie or read it in a book. The good times, before her illness and everything that happened after that. Before his life went to shit.
Almost like that, but different. He’d been so young then that he hadn’t understood how common good sex was or how rare making love would turn out to be. He’d loved his wife with all of his heart, but she’d been there since he was fifteen and he’d lived with the assumption that everyone got that. Everyone got someone to love.
And then she was gone, and he’d believed for a long time that it was the end for him. That he would never feel anything remotely like that again, but at least he could get laid.
But that wasn’t all this was, and last night he’d passed his field eval and all he had left was the psyche. He couldn’t force his eyes away from her. It was almost as if she was giving him his life back. The one he’d lost when he lost the person he’d built his life around.
It was different than he remembered. Scarier.
“’ornin”
He chuckled. “Morning. You awake down there?”
“No.” Then the body in arms stiffened, and he the fear flew up several notches. “What time is it?”
“No idea. Why?”
“I’ve got to get to work.” She was struggling to get away from him, so he let her go. “It’s the weekend, sweetheart.”
She stopped, shook her head, and glanced back at him over her shoulder. “Okay.”
When she climbed right back where she’d been before, he sighed in relief.
“What’s wrong?”
“Just afraid you were going to start going on about what a nice mistake it was.” Shouldn’t have said that. He knew better. What was it that made constantly goad her, when he really wanted her to snuggle down and go back to sleep with him?
“Oh.” She was quiet for a long moment, then shrugged, “Nope. Guess not. But you’re all tense and iffy.”
He closed his eyes. “Just thinking.”
She scooted away, and very obviously not looking at him. “What about?” Her voice shook, and she heard his own earlier fear reflected in her voice.
“Nothing bad. Kind of private.”
“We’re naked. In bed. After doing very private things. Twice. I think you can tell me what you’re thinking about.” She did look at him now, and her voice had taken on a teasing tone. Reassured he was where he wanted to be, just that easily. She’d changed so much in such short time that it couldn’t be permanent. He shoved that thought away, and took her mood at face value.
“Was thinking that the last time I felt anything like this was before my wife got sick.”
She flinched like he’d hit her. “So, you were all with the comparing me to your dead wife? That’s what every girl wants to hear.”
“No.” He reached out for her, but she dodged him. At least she didn’t leave the bed. “I just meant - had a lot of sex since then. Hadn’t made love since. Sounds like a bloody cliché, but there is a difference. You make me myself again. Just by existing. Wasn’t comparing you to anyone. No one bloody compares.” He knew the moment he went too far. The instant it clicked with her that his statement implied a word she didn’t want to hear.
He saw her force herself to be still, to not stand up, and when she met his eyes there were tears in hers.
“I really like you. I do. But -”
“That’s enough. You asked what I was thinking, so I told you. We’re dating, right?”
She slumped, relieved. “Yeah. We’re dating.”
She just couldn’t stop thinking about it. Will said he wanted to not even think about it himself for the whole of the weekend, and she’d tacitly agreed to that somewhere in the conversation that had led to more having of sex. Making love.
Will called it making love, and the way he looked at her made her slightly uncomfortable and all warm and gushy at the same time. He made her feel so many things at once that he exhausted her. How was it she could be curious and uncomfortable and excited and secure and scared all at the same time?
Because it was Will, and he did that to her.
And now, he was in her kitchen collecting popcorn and soda’s and she was cuing up the DVD player.
Monty Python. When he’d seen the copy on her shelf, he’d bounced like a little boy and suggested they curl up on the couch and laugh their way through it. He’d looked so excited about it that she found herself actually wanting to, instead of just placating her official boyfriend-like person.
She was actually starting to remember what it was like to want to do things, instead of just having to do things.
And doing things she didn’t want to, like obsess over what was going on with him to be working patrol Friday night, and only forget about that when she wondered what his wife’s name had been and what she’d been like.
He was driving her crazy. He was also settling beside her on the couch. And was there really a reason to examine anything at all this weekend? Was it silly for her to want to take a couple of days and live in the fantasy without worrying about the reality?
She decided that she was going to do just that whether it was right or wrong, and curled into his side to watch the movie. As long as she didn’t think, she could just feel good with him for a little while.