What Dreams May Come (Berkley Sensation) Page 17

  Others angled away from the tom, but didn’t appear to see the cat.

  Boris’s head swiveled back and forth, his ears perked and rotated. He was obviously a cat with a mission. When they reached the tennis courts, Boris stopped. “This is a good spot. We will wait here.”

  “You can,” Jake said, and got a couple of odd looks. He snapped his mouth shut, took a stride away from the cat.

  “If you continue on the path, I guar-an-tee you will step in dog shit and ruin your shoes.” Boris grinned.

  Jake liked him better when he scowled. Jake looked down at his new white leather, expensive, cross-trainers. “Geeze.”

  “Isn’t it time you said shit?” asked Boris.

  “Shit!” The word brought the image of the sad old man who’d corrected him and he felt bad. He could overcome that, but why? He scowled at Boris. “I’m going to stick with geeze.”

  The cat’s smile was worse. “A mature decision.”

  “What are you going for, wings?”

  The smile widened to Cheshire-cat proportions. If Boris disappeared and left the smile, Jake would check into the nearest mental health clinic.

  But Boris remained, ugly smile and all. “Yesssss.”

  A cat’s high meow distracted Shauna as she did a final tour with Mrs. Mally of her flower beds bordering Skyline Park. Since Mrs. Mally, also a cat lover, ignored the whine, Shauna did, too.

  “I am so glad you’ve started your own business, dear. With the drought the last couple of years, I’m rethinking my lawns and gardens.”

  Shauna smiled briefly. “Very wise. Plants natural to the plains have their own beauty, and I’ll ensure you’ll have an arresting yard in all seasons.”

  “I’m very happy with our plans. The budget is acceptable and so is the time frame. You can start on Monday?”

  “Absolutely. You’re my first priority.” Shauna beamed back at the lady.

  “How many clients do you have, my dear?”

  “Five,” Shauna said proudly.

  Mrs. Mally nodded. “Off to a good start. We’re finished?”

  “Yes,” Shauna said. The cat yowl was insistent. If it had been one of her cats, she’d have placated it five minutes ago.

  “I’ll see you Monday.” With a wave Mrs. Mally entered her house.

  As Shauna turned, she realized the cat sound wasn’t coming from the Mally yard but from the park, near the tennis courts.

  With a sigh she placed her plans and notebook in the car—she’d have to think about turning it in for a truck—locked up, and went to find the cat.

  The howl rose and fell at irregular enough intervals to drive a sensitive person mad.

  Then she saw the cat and stopped. He was black-and-white and hefty, like Boris, whom she’d had to put to sleep. She gulped. He seemed entangled in a swatch of old net hanging from a large trash can. She wondered if he was feral.

  When she approached, he grinned a big, silly grin, a lot like Boris’s. He looked incredibly like Boris, down to the black spot in the middle of his nose. She bit her lip. Boris had only been gone a couple of days. Seeing this cat hurt.

  “Hi, guy,” she said, advancing slowly, trying to figure out how he was trapped. As she got closer, he rumbled a purr. She swallowed. So much like Boris!

  Shauna looked down at the cat and frowned. He didn’t appear caught in the netting, just sitting on it.

  “Hey!” a man shouted.

  She turned and stared. It was the man who’d haunted her dreams last night. All thoughts of cats vanished.

  Three

  Her heart pounded. Her mouth went dry. She couldn’t think of any reason for the trembling in her knees, or her breathless anticipation as he walked toward her. Except they’d been very intimate in her dreams. She remembered the feel of his body, his touch, and his eyes more than anything else. But she knew him now and would never forget.

  He was slightly over medium height, well built, and muscular, obviously in fine shape. His blond hair, blue eyes, and ready smile made him the image of a mature all-American boy.

  Very mature. His wide shoulders and the faint lines around his eyes showed he was in the prime of life. Vital. Virile.

  Yet there was an air of darkness around him, painful secrets behind those stunning blue eyes. Shauna didn’t know how she knew, but she did. One look at him and she sensed he was the utmost danger to her. She could fall for him hard. If she let him into her heart, he could break it.

  He was not a man she should ever consider being with. A woman who valued safety and security and a calm life would run from such a man. Screaming.

  She wanted to fling herself in his arms and feel the hardness of his muscles pressing against her. She wanted to caress all of him, learning his shape and the texture of his skin and all his beauty. She wanted.

  “Hey,” he said again, more softly, and smiled.

  “Hi,” she managed, caught by the blue eyes with shadowy depths.

  “Did you notice the cat? Want to take him off my hands?”

  “What cat?”

  He closed his eyes as if praying.

  That lessened the spell on her. Enough for her to recall the cat and glance at the garbage can. The net was gone, and so was the cat.

  “He is gone, finally!” The man grinned at her.

  “Um, did he follow you home?” She hadn’t heard that story in ages. She could understand why female gazes would follow him, why bolder women than she might literally follow him, but a cat?

  The man scanned the park, shook his head, but his smile didn’t dim—until he met her eyes again and they locked gazes.

  She knew him. Didn’t she? Even before recently in—She felt light-headed, dizzy, and concentrated on her balance, the solid earth under her feet. Shauna could always count on the earth. Still, as she noticed the darker rim of blue-gray around his eyes, she felt as if he drew her very heart to him. To play with, put in his pocket, and forget? Could she even try to believe that he might cherish a woman’s heart?

  “Yeah. The cat has been a nuisance. You wouldn’t believe . . .” He stared at her. “I know you. Haven’t we met? Beyond—” He snapped his mouth shut, hunched his shoulders an instant, then straightened. “You saw the cat?” he asked in measured tones.

  “Yes, he looks like one I used to have.” Her smile wobbled a bit; she blinked. “Must be one of Boris’s descendants.”

  “Boris,” he said flatly.

  Shauna frowned. “Is something wrong?” She touched his arm and sparks of desire zipped from his skin, through her fingers, to her core.

  His gaze was cool, very observant. He held himself a little stiffly, and kept his emotions from his eyes and face. It was something he was used to doing, she realized.

  “You’re Shauna?” he asked.

  “Yes, Shauna Russell.” She took a step back from him.

  His eyebrows raised, but he didn’t follow. He held out a hand. “I’m Jake Forbes. I think we have a mutual—friend.” Jake did a swift review of the garbage can, the tennis courts, the park. “The cat’s gone.”

  The park was even more crowded than a few minutes before, but Shauna didn’t see the tough, black-and-white cat. Jake Forbes. The name tingled at the back of her mind. She associated that name with—with what had happened to her yesterday. With Boris. Memory came. “Jake Forbes. You’re the police officer who was shot.”

  He rubbed his chest and looked stoic. “Yeah.” Then he held out his hand again.

  She looked at his hand and the tingle increased. If she took his hand, everything would change.

  She was turning over a new leaf. Not playing it safe anymore. There wasn’t true security even in her own home. She put her fingers in his.

  Everything changed. Her heart gave one hard thump as she recognized her man.

  Jake started, dropped her hand. “Maybe we should do a lap on the path to make sure the cat’s really gone. Would you take him if we found him?”

  Shauna sighed. “I already have two cats. But, yes, I’d
take him. No one could ever replace Boris, though; he was such a character.” Jake walked rapidly and that was a blessing; it stopped the stupid tears behind her eyes.

  “I haven’t seen you around here before,” he said.

  And as a cop, he would have noticed her, she supposed.

  “I’m a landscape designer.” Saying it amazed and thrilled her. “I have a client.” She waved a hand in the direction of Mrs. Mally’s and tried not to pant. He sure was in good shape. She wasn’t. Her breath escaped on a quick sigh. A man like him would want someone as buff as himself. She wouldn’t qualify. Easy to dismiss the attraction. Not so easy to forget about him, but her new career would help.

  “I live in Skyline Condos.” He gestured.

  Shauna knew them. They had no charm, either in the architecture or the landscaping. Another difference between them.

  By the time they’d reached the path leading to the tennis courts, Shauna was sure she’d imagined her previous feelings and that stupid idea there was something important, fateful, between them. He couldn’t have been her dream lover. That man had been sensitive to her needs, tender. She snorted, a dream lover for sure, nothing like a real man. Jake was a real man; his muscular body and the faint sweat of him told her that at every step.

  Jake stopped when they reached the tennis courts again. She followed his glance to the garbage can. No net. No cat.

  There’d been no cats at all in the park.

  She summoned up a bright smile. “Nice meeting you.” If she left fast, it would put an end to her indecision about him.

  “Don’t go,” he said. By now he was sure this was the woman who’d starred in his dreams, doing wonderful things to him with her hands and mouth. That notion irritated and intrigued him, and being a cop, he had to solve the puzzle. Get his mind around it, his hands on it. His hands on her.

  She was so pretty. So . . . different, like a fairy. No, that couldn’t be it. Fairies were little and slender. She was little, but plump. Pleasingly plump. Nice round breasts his hands itched to touch. Nice round hips he wanted to squeeze. He’d copped a glance at her ass, too. Sweet. Very sweet. Yeah, that was it. She was sweet and had this distracted air—that’s why he thought of fairies.

  Her light golden blond hair was so fine that the breeze wisped it about her head in tendrils. He wanted to smooth and, in smoothing her hair, touch her skin, slip down her cheek, and tilt the small round chin up so he could gaze into her eyes for a long time. Eyes that were the color of an amber glass candy dish his mother once had, that he couldn’t stay away from despite all warnings and slaps.

  He’d loved picking up that dish and holding it to the window to watch sunlight stream through it and turn it into pure gold. But he’d touched it once too often, been caught, and in the jolting surprise and scuffle with his dad had dropped the dish and watched it shatter. More than a few slaps then. When he cleaned up the mess, he’d mourned. And inside her haze of drugs and liquor, his mother had never noticed the amber dish was gone.

  So he wanted to touch Shauna, but kept his hands to himself and just stared. “Don’t go.”

  She nibbled at her lip. “I should.” She glanced to the west, where the sun was dipping behind the purple smudges that were the mountains.

  “You like sunsets?” he asked. Fairies would like sunsets.

  She stared. “Sure. What’s not to like?”

  The fact that it led to the dark, and in the dark a lot of crimes were committed.

  “Skyline’s the best place in Denver for sunsets,” he said. He caught up her hand again, accepted—welcomed—the shock of attraction, of some sort of strange link between them, liked the feel of the sizzle along his nerves, the heating of his blood. He was throbbingly alive. “Walk with me,” he said.

  Her small, red, and tempting tongue came out and dabbed at her lips. “Yes.”

  They stopped at the west edge of the park, where it fell away to rocky hillside. “I want to kiss you,” he said. He’d thought of other, more charming lines, but decided to go with honesty. Something about being with her demanded honesty from him. That was interesting and a little alarming, but part of the puzzle.

  “I’ve dreamed of you,” she whispered, and he got the idea that she hadn’t wanted to say it and didn’t want him to know.

  “I’ve dreamed of you, too.” He grinned wholeheartedly. “Excellent dreams.”

  She just looked up at him with wide eyes.

  “Shall we see how they compare to reality?” He dropped her hand to slide his arm around her waist. He’d anticipated the move and figured it wouldn’t be anywhere close to smooth. But his body, tight though it was with nerves, moved easily.

  He drew her close to his side, and they fit as he’d never fit with any other woman—a fact his body celebrated but gave his scrambling mind pause. She pressed against him with muscles as quivering under her skin as his own. Her scent came to him, floral overlying the fragrance of her own womanliness.

  He let his hand cup over the upper curve of her ass, and his heart picked up a beat. She didn’t say anything, just kept a half smile on her face. He traced his finger up the indentation of her spine, spread his hand across the top of her back—she was small.

  He paused a breath before his lips touched hers. That close, with eyes locked, tingles of sensation raced between them. Her body trembled.

  Slowly he bent his head, brushed her lips with his own. No zipping sizzle like the shock when their hands first met, but the pulsing attraction between them was tangible, tantalizing. Her eyes darkened to deep amber flecked with gold, her breath sighed out between her open lips and into his own mouth, and a tremor rippled through him, sensitizing his skin until the air felt heavy like a coming storm. Thudding came to his ears—his pulse or hers?

  Again. He pressed his lips against hers, accepting the shock of wonder, of desire. His tongue slid over her mouth to taste. Sweet. Almost too sweet to bear.

  He couldn’t keep his eyes open. Impossible, for the first time. But his body—demanded he learn her from her mouth, from the pliant arms around his neck.

  Tentatively he sent the tip of his tongue past her lips. Her mouth opened wide to his foray, and he sensed her entire self, opened to him for his pleasure. For him to plunder and ravage if he wanted. He could only sigh.

  She shuddered against him as she took his breath inside her, as if his breath alone would change her forever. Exultation surged within him. Triumph. He’d claimed her with his breath, with the lightest of kisses. Her. His woman.

  He slipped his hand beneath the hair at the nape of her neck. Her head tilted back and her eyes looked at him, unfocused. “More,” she said.

  “Yes. More.”

  Jake angled his lips on hers. Her mouth opened and he swept his tongue inside to taste all. But taste was not enough; he pulled her against him. The feel of her body—that he wanted to savor, too, to stretch into as many moments of pleasurable tension as he could. She felt like no other, the plumpness of her belly cradling his hard erection in softness that teased him with how he’d feel inside her. Her breasts, with their hard little points against his chest, lured him to forget their surroundings so he could explore her curves. The silky fall of her hair over his hand at her nape made him think of all the other textures of her. All the tastes.

  Passion roared through him. He lifted her and drew them together sex to sex. She moaned into his mouth.

  Her tongue rubbed against his. He captured it and sucked it and brought the true taste of her deep within his memory so he’d never lose it.

  She pushed against his shoulders, broke the kiss. Her panting breath sounded loud. As loud as his thundering heart.

  “We were supposed to be out of the park by sunset. They’ll be closing the roads.” Her teeth flashed. “A cop will drive by to ensure only residents are here.”

  All his blood was pooled in his groin. He was in no shape to make love to a woman in short grass over earth baked hard from drought. Though he desperately wanted to.

&
nbsp; “You’d better put me down before we do something that will humiliate us.” She blushed.

  He blinked. Even in the dim light of nightfall, he was sure. She had blushed.

  He set her gently on her feet. “Shauna,” he said, and watched his breath stir her hair.

  “Hmmmm?”

  He smiled. “Just trying your name out.”

  “Good. You’ll remember it.”

  “No chance of forgetting.”

  “Not for an observant cop like you.”

  A chill made his toes curl. “Does that bother you? My job?”

  She looked up at him, and her face, highlighted by the sun’s dying radiance, was serene. Serenity wasn’t something he’d often seen. He didn’t know that serenity was an emotion many cops ever saw. He wondered how many cops would cherish it and only knew that he did.

  “Being a police officer isn’t just a job for you, is it, Jake? It is you.”

  How did she figure that out so fast? Was she learning things about him from the quiet between them? What things? How much was he unconsciously telling her?

  “That’s right,” he said. The light was too dim to see the amber of her eyes and that hurt a little—how often would he see her eyes? How long would this strange interlude last?

  “I’ve never had a friend who was a police officer. I don’t know how I’ll act when your profession affects me—us.” She ended on a whisper. “Do you want there to be an ‘us,’ Jake?”

  “Yes!” he answered without thought. “Want to get together tomorrow?” he asked gruffly and waited an eternity, staring into her eyes. Why was he letting her go now? He didn’t want to. He wanted to take her home. To bed. And keep her there, preferably under him. He shifted at the thought and his bruises twinged. Well, maybe over him, then. With him, though, positively.

  She tore her gaze from his. At least it seemed she was having problems not looking at him.

  “Um,” she said.

  He thought that was a good sign. “Tomorrow.” He ached with unfulfilled lust, but beneath that were the all too real aches from his recent bout with a concrete sidewalk and a bullet. A hot bath and as much sleep as possible would be best if he could talk her into bed tomorrow.