He slid his fingers into her hair, leaned forward, and touched his mouth to hers experimentally. A jolt went through him, a deep current that pulled at him, pulled him closer to her. He settled his mouth against hers and tasted her, whiskey warm and sweet with a kind of innocence he could barely remember. His hand cradled the back of her head and he kissed her deeply, without reserve, his tongue sliding against hers.
Annie sat frozen, paralyzed by the emotions and sensations unleashed by his kiss. Heat, fear, need, a dangerous excitement. It shocked her that she allowed him this intimacy, that she wanted it. That she wanted him. Her tongue moved against his and he groaned low in his throat.
The sense of power that rose within her, the passion that rose with it, terrified her. Fourcade was a man of dragons and deep secrets. If he wanted more than sex, he would want her soul.
She pulled away from the kiss, turned her face away, and felt his lips graze her cheek.
"I can't do this," she whispered. "You scare me, Nick."
"What scares you? You think I'm crazy? You think I'm dangerous?"
"I don't know what to think."
"Yes, you do," he murmured. "You're just afraid to admit it. I think, chère, you scare yourself."
He touched her chin. "Look at me. What do you see in me that scares you? You see in me what you're afraid to feel. You think if you go that deep you might drown, lose yourself… like me."
A fine chill threaded through her. She pushed herself past it, pushed to her feet, kicked awake what wits hadn't gone entirely numb.
"You should be in bed-and not with me," she said, letting the plug out of the sink. Her heart was beating too fast. She couldn't quite get her breath. She fumbled with the stopper and dropped it on the floor. "Take some aspirin. Take a cold shower. You probably shouldn't drink too much in case you've got a-"
He caught hold of her wrist as if holding her physically could stop her from prattling on. Annie looked at him with suspicion. She had let him cross a barrier, and suddenly he could touch her. If he could touch her, he could pull her toward him, literally and figuratively. She told herself she didn't want that. She couldn't handle him, didn't know if she could trust him. She'd stood on the edge of a dark parking lot and watched him beat a suspect senseless.
"I need to go," she said. "After last night, God knows what might be on the agenda tonight."
"What happened last night?" he asked, coming slowly to his feet.
Annie backed into the hall, trying to pass off a casual attitude she didn't feel. She told him in the briefest detail, the way she would write a report-without emotion. Nick propped himself up in the bathroom doorway, the near-empty glass of whiskey in his hand. He seemed to concentrate on every word she said.
"What did the lab say about the entrails?"
"Nothing yet. They'll call tomorrow. Pitre insisted it was pig intestines. It probably was. It was probably Mullen and his band of merry jerks just trying to rattle me, but…"
"But what?" Fourcade demanded. "You got a feeling, 'Toinette, let's hear it. Speak your mind. Don't be shy."
"Someone, presumably Renard, left a mutilated animal on Pam's doorstep back in October. Now I'm working the case and this happens."
"You think it could have been Renard."
"I don't know. Does that make sense? He didn't start harassing Pam until she'd rejected him. She rejected him, he punished her. He thinks I'm his champion. Why would he do something to jeopardize that?"
"Maybe punishment wasn't his goal with Pam," Nick suggested. "He was always quick enough to offer his concern after she had something bad happen."
Annie nodded, considering. "I know what it is to be persecuted," Renard had said to her just yesterday. "We have that in common."
"Whoever did it-I'd like to wring their neck," she muttered. "It scared me. I hate being scared. It pisses me off."
Nick almost smiled. She was working hard to be tough, to be a cop. But she'd never found herself involved in anything like this-not with the case, not with him. He'd seen the uncertainty in her eyes. He had to give her points for pushing past it.
"Call me when you get home," he ordered. "Partner."
Annie looked up at his battered face and felt that strange pull toward him. It scared her. And it pissed her off. In ten days she would have to testify against him.
"I have to…" She moved her hand in the direction of the door.
He nodded slightly. "I know."
As she walked out of his house, she had the distinct feeling that their parting words hadn't been about leaving at all.
All she wanted was to do the job, to find some closure for Josie, for Pam. She had never meant to fall into this… this-God, what could she even call this thing with Fourcade? Attraction. It wasn't a relationship. She didn't want a relationship. She didn't want… to go that deep.
Shit.
There was still a light on in the store when she pulled in at the Corners, though closing had come and gone an hour ago. Sos had probably been regaling his cronies with the tale of the past night's adventure. But if he had had company, they'd gone home. There were no other cars in the lot. Down the way, the light burned low in the Doucets' living room. Tante Fanchon would be settling in for the news, soaking her bunions in the minispa foot bath Annie had given her for Christmas two years ago.
Annie turned the Jeep off and sat looking up at the apartment, her thoughts drifting back in time to her mother. Lovely Marie, so unto herself, so complicated, so mysterious… so deep. So deep she had drowned in herself, swamped by the intensity of her emotions.
There was nothing wrong in not wanting that. There was nothing wrong in staying safe on the ledge above that abyss.
She took a cleansing breath, feeling silly for having overreacted. She barely knew Fourcade. He'd stolen a kiss. Big deal.
She wanted him. Big deal.
She locked the Jeep, slung her duffel bag over her shoulder, and started toward the building as Sos came out onto the porch.
"Hey, chère, what you doin', draggin' in dis hour?" he asked, grinning. "You on a hot date or what?"
"I could ask you the same," Annie retorted, shuffling toward the edge of the gallery. Sos had left, the security lights on, something he rarely did because he had a grudge against. the electric company.
"Mais non!" He laughed. "T'es en erreur. Your tante Fanchon, she'd take a stick after me, chère. You know it."
Annie managed a smile.
"You been out with Andre?"
"No."
"Why not? How you ever gonna marry dat boy, you never see him?"
"Uncle Sos…" She couldn't bring herself to go into the speech, partly because of fatigue and partly because of a vague sense of guilt she had no desire to explore.
Sos stepped down off the porch, his boots scuffing on the rock. "Hey, 'tite chatte," he said softly, his face creasing into lines of concern. He touched her cheek with callused fingers. "You and Andre have another fight?"
"You've got A.J. on the brain," Annie muttered. "I'm just tired, that's all."
He sniffed, indignant, and pulled her with him to the steps. "Come on. You sit your pretty self down here with your uncle Sos and tell all about it."
Annie sat down beside him and leaned her head against his shoulder, wishing she could just tell Uncle Sos and sort it all out, the way she had done when she was small. But life had grown so much more complicated than when she was ten and didn't have a mother to take her to the mother-daughter tea at school. Sos and Fanchon had been there for her then, always. She didn't want them touched by what was going on in her life now. She would protect them any way she could.
Sos clucked his tongue softly and hugged her against him. "Like pullin' hen's teeth with a pliers, gettin' a story outta you. You all the time like dat, you know, even when you was just a tiny li'l thing. You don' wanna bother no one. How many times I gotta tell you, chine, dat's what family is for, huh?"