She didn’t want to lose him.
He rinsed her, kissed her skin until she moaned out loud.
“Rowan,” he whispered in her ear as he pushed her against the tile wall of the shower.
“I want you.” Her voice was low and husky and sounded nothing like her.
He slid into her and she wrapped her legs around him, the wall holding her up. She tasted his rough, unshaven skin and moved to his lips, drawing in his tongue, loving the taste of him, wanting to stay here and forget the world outside. To give him the love she’d never been able to share before. To take his love in return.
They didn’t have a lot of time. She planned to make the most of it.
Her muscles clenched and she groaned into his mouth. She pushed her pelvis hard into his, and he pulled out.
She opened her eyes and frowned. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
John picked her up and carried her wet body to the bed. She was more relaxed than he’d ever seen her. She reached up and touched his face, her gesture endearing, and his heart skipped a beat. Slowly, he entered her, watching her face react to his sensual invasion. Her lips parted as she closed her eyes.
“Open your eyes,” he said huskily, and they popped open.
He held her hands above her head and watched her face as he made love to her. As her pleasure mounted, she wrapped her legs around his waist, meeting him thrust for thrust. When her eyes grew hazy with passion, he gathered her up in his arms as he poured himself into her. She climaxed with a moan and murmured his name.
They lay wrapped in each other’s arms, breathing heavily. He pulled the sheet around them, holding her close. He knew they should get up, but he didn’t want to let her go. Not now.
Her hand lay on his chest, over his heart, and he felt her own heart beating against his arm. He brushed a stray lock of wet hair from her face and kissed her forehead.
“I heard you worked for the DEA and quit,” Rowan said after several moments. The change from passion to business surprised him. “I-I guess I’m just curious. What makes you tick.”
She started to move away from him, but he pulled her back close to his side. If she thought she could distance herself from him now, she had another thing coming.
“After five years in Delta Force, I decided I’d had enough and sought one of those cush government jobs.” He tried to laugh, but it fell flat.
“Hmm. And I joined the FBI because I wanted to be Dana Scully.”
A joke? From Rowan? But John didn’t smile. He saw Denny’s empty-eyed death stare as if he’d found his body yesterday.
“I had an idyllic childhood,” he said after a moment. “A regular Leave It to Beaver house. My dad was a cop, straight as an arrow, honorable. My mom stayed home. Baked cookies, drove us to every activity under the sun, always there to listen. It was a good life. Hell, it was perfect.”
He missed his parents. They’d died less than a year apart. His dad from an unexpected heart attack, his mother-John suspected-from a broken heart. That was three years ago, but it still hurt.
“They’re not around anymore?” Rowan asked softly.
“No.” He cleared his throat, swallowing the sudden sorrow that had crept up. “My best friend was Denny Schwartz. He lived down the street and we did everything together. Michael usually came with us, but Denny and I were the same age, in the same classes; we both liked the same games. Mickey always wanted to be a cop, like our dad. So when we played cops and robbers, he was always the cop.”
“You were the robber?”
“Sometimes. Usually, I found some other role to fill, sometimes siding with Mickey, sometimes with Denny. We had other guys in our little gang as well, but Denny was-the best.”
Denny had always come up with the most original and complex role-playing games. Had always smiled. Always made him laugh. John was surprised at the intense emotion that swept through him when he almost heard Denny chuckle in his ear. Can’t believe you’re mourning me when you have that hot mama in your arms.
“Denny was a joker. Practical jokes. My mother didn’t particularly cotton to him, but she accepted him into her house because he came from a broken home. His father left when he was five and he had two younger sisters. His mom worked two jobs to make ends meet. It wasn’t easy, but Denny never complained.”
I have a plan, Johnny. I’ll take care of Mama and the girls, you’ll see.
“I wanted him to join the Army with me. I enlisted when I was eighteen. Didn’t really care much about going to college, though I did end up there after my five years, courtesy of the GI Bill.”
“Good program.”
He shrugged. “Yeah. Well, Denny didn’t want to go. He had plans. Always a new scheme.” He paused, stifled an urge to scream. Had he known what Denny’s big plan was, he would have quit the Army and hauled him as far from L.A. as he could.
“This big plan of his involved drugs. Big-time.”
“You didn’t know.”
“I didn’t even suspect.” He was still disgusted that he’d been so clueless about his friend’s illegal activities. “We were young, didn’t write back and forth much, e-mail wasn’t around yet. Tess wrote, told me Denny had gotten into a rough crowd, but she wasn’t that close to him, didn’t know how rough, how bad. And Mickey was still in high school, then the police academy and night school-Denny didn’t have anyone else.”
“You blame yourself for leaving.”
Of course John blamed himself. Had he stayed in Los Angeles, Denny wouldn’t have died. He’d never have gotten involved in drugs, sold them to kids, gotten himself killed for stealing from the hand that fed him.
Rowan’s hand roamed his chest. Not in lust, but in understanding. He took it with his free hand and brought it to his lips. She smelled of soap and sex and he couldn’t imagine being anywhere else but here, with her. Sharing a story he hadn’t shared with anyone, not in any detail.
“I came back to L.A. and started classes at UCLA. Looked up Denny. He wasn’t living at home, and his ma hadn’t seen much of him. Which was strange. He’d always been close to his mother and sisters.”
Mrs. Schwartz looked tired, worn out, from years of two jobs and raising three kids on her own. “Johnny, I don’t know where he’s living now,” she said with a shrug. “He comes by every now and then, hands me a roll of money, and leaves. I don’t know where he gets it.” She paused, looked at him with watery eyes. “I can’t spend it. I think-I think he’s doing something wrong.”
“I tracked him down through old friends. Right away I knew he was up to something. One of his get-rich-quick schemes. One of his big plans. Of course he didn’t tell me about it. Didn’t clue me in to the fact that he was hawking drugs to high school kids. And younger.” His voice cracked. “No, I had to learn that on my own. When I followed him.”
“I’m so sorry. That must have hurt.”
“No, it didn’t hurt. I was too pissed off for it to hurt. I brought my father down to talk to him, straighten him out, when I couldn’t do it on my own. Dad could do anything. He was that kind of guy. Knew how to talk sense into young punks who thought they knew everything. Punks like Denny. Because that’s exactly what he’d turned into. A drug-dealing punk.”
“Denny boy,” Pat Flynn said as he looked around the opulent house in Malibu that Denny had somehow bought at the age of twenty-four with no known job or means of support, “I think you’ve gotten yourself in too deep.”
John watched from his father’s side, positive he could talk sense into Denny. His arms were crossed, defiant.
“Uh, Mr. Flynn, you shouldn’t be here.” Beneath his cockiness, Denny looked scared.