Dare to Love (8 page)

Her breath caught as he stepped forward to introduce himself. He looked dependable in his navy blues. More than that, he looked impressive. The uniform she'd always thought rather plain bore no resemblance to its usual self with Doug's body inside of it.

Andrea squirmed in her seat, pulling the sweaty material of her own set of blues away from her thighs. She ran her fingers through her hair, thankful that she could hardly do damage to its short, sassy style, and hoped that Dave had no idea that she was suddenly feeling like she was sitting on hot bricks.

Her butterflies were back full force, and Doug's ten-minute speech loomed before her like a week-long specter.

“Kids do drugs. Good kids do drugs. Honest, moral, sensitive kids do drugs.” Doug's words filled Andrea's mind as his voice boomed out across the auditorium.

And suddenly she was listening to the man, not reacting to his body. For the first time she was hearing from the man inside of Doug, the one she'd sensed was there, the one she'd despaired of ever finding. She'd feared him dead.

“It's not the drugs that do the damage, ladies and gentlemen, it's the adults that make babies and then refuse to be parents. Children are innocent. They have no weapons to fight the cruelty in this country. But thousands of them are sent out into it anyway, without a clue how to cope. They aren't mature enough to think clearly, they haven't yet developed the ability to separate their thoughts from their emotions, or even to control their emotions. All they know is that they feel. They
feel.
And if they receive nothing but crap from the bodies that gave them existence, if taking chemical substances is the only way to make themselves feel good, my money's on the substance every time....”

Doug's speech absorbed Andrea. She listened to it for a full five minutes before she even remembered she was supposed to be evaluating it. He
knew.
He knew what they were trying to do here. He knew about the stages of chemical dependence; he knew how drug abuse started, how it got worse; he knew how pushers were born. And she knew he couldn't possibly have been sleeping during her lecture that weekend.

He told a couple of stories about kids he'd known. They were tragic stories, with tragic endings, but the most tragic part of all was the fact that with a little outside guidance, with a caring hand, they might never have happened at all.

Doug's voice drifted off, leaving the auditorium silent, but teeming with an almost palpable sense of responsibility. Andrea reached up to her cheek and was startled to find tears there, streaming slowly down her face.

DARE needed this man. It needed his intensity, his strength, his never-give-in attitude. She couldn't let him fail now. She was going to have to find a way to teach him how to soften up, to make himself accessible to the tender affections of the children who needed him, without giving up who and what he was. And she was going to start with the apology she owed him....

“God, he's good!” Dave's whispered words followed Andrea as she headed to the front of the auditorium.

Doug saw her coming. And she was the last person he wanted to see. He'd just spilled half his guts out on the stage and was still trying to figure out how to clean up the mess he'd made of things. He'd practiced his public address half the night, and it had been good. But it hadn't been the speech he'd just given.

He wasn't sure what was happening to him, but he knew two things: he didn't like it, whatever it was; and it had something to do with Andrea Parker.

He fell in with several other trainees who were heading toward the door of the auditorium. Safety in numbers. The old adage came back to him, guiding his choices as did all of the other hard-learned lessons from his past. They'd been keeping him alive for thirty years.

“Doug!”

He heard her, but chose not to stop. The talk droned around him. And then a light, feminine hand settled on his forearm.

“Doug,” Andrea said breathlessly.

He slowed down, falling away from the crowd. If she was going to be that determined, he might as well get it over with. “Yeah?”

“It's time for another one-on-one. I'd like you to meet me in the executive suite after dinner, if you don't already have other plans.”

He thought about having other plans. He considered another trek downtown. But a vision of the girl he'd sent home the other night flashed before his eyes, and he knew he'd rather risk a meeting with Andrea than go back down there.

“What time?”

“Is seven o'clock okay?”

“Fine.” Doug turned and walked away, deciding he'd rather order room service than face the congeniality of his colleagues in the dining room.

“I
‘
M SORRY
.”

Andrea stopped Doug with the words as soon as he entered the executive suite two hours later.

“For what?” He sounded defensive.

She stood up from the corner of the couch where she'd been curled up for the past half hour. Her regulation shorts and DARE T-shirt were slightly wrinkled, but otherwise she knew she was as well groomed as she'd been when she'd inspected herself for a final time before coming to this meeting. It was wrong, but she'd wanted to look good for Doug Avery. She'd wanted to look like a woman.

“For misjudging you the other day. I don't know what you were doing when you appeared to be sleeping, but it's obvious you didn't miss a word of that lecture.”

He nodded his head in acknowledgment of her apology and then proceeded to the other end of the couch, slouching down in the corner, his jeans stretching taut against his hips. He fiddled with his wristband for a moment, and then let his arm drop to the couch.

“So what's this all about?” he asked, gesturing between the two of them.

Andrea tried not to notice the biceps bulging from the sleeves of the black cotton T-shirt he wore. They were not the issue here. Somehow she was going to have to convince herself of that fact.

“I just thought it was time we talked again. I've had sessions with the rest of your teammates. It's your turn.”

He shrugged, folding his arms across his chest. Andrea's stomach sank. She'd been hoping to open him up, not close him off.

“Your speech today was pretty intense.”

The cold mask she'd come to know settled across his features. The jagged scar at his temple stood out as he clenched his jaw. Again he acknowledged her words with a single incline of his head.

Andrea was waiting for some sexual innuendo, some little zinger designed to throw her off. So far, he'd come up with them every time she got too close. She hoped she was prepared not to let it succeed this time.

“I was wondering where you did your research—besides Saturday's lecture, I mean. Some of the stories you told had to be true.”

“Maybe.”

“So, where did you meet those people?”

“Around.”

“Do you still know them?”

“Nope.”

He wasn't giving an inch, but he wasn't evading her question, either. Andrea grasped onto that fact with everything she had inside of her.

“So do you think there's hope for any of them?”

“The kids, you mean?”

“Yeah.”

“Before or after?”

“I think we both know there's hope before they get hooked or we wouldn't be here. What about afterward?”

Again he shrugged, and slipped further down into the couch, stretching his long legs out in front of him. Andrea was beginning to suspect that sometimes Doug's lazy posture was just a cover for his sharp mind.

“Yeah, there's hope. Not much. But there's hope.”

That was more of an admission than Andrea had ever dared expect.

“Have you ever seen anyone make it?”

“You mean after they're hooked?”

Andrea nodded. She was afraid to say too much in case she shut him down.

“Yeah, I've seen one or two. ‘Course, I've seen hundreds who didn't.”

She had, too. Which is why it took a special person to notice the one or two that did make it back after an addiction to drugs.

“What would you do if you ever came across a kid personally who had a habit?” Andrea asked, holding her breath. This was what it all really boiled down to. Was it really each man for himself, or would Doug stick his neck out to help someone else?

“Kick the stuffing out of him.”

Andrea released her breath and smiled. Doug cared. Whether he knew it or not, he cared. He wouldn't just walk away.

He was watching her through narrowed eyelids, but even so, Andrea noticed the instant his mask slipped. She saw the warmth seep into his eyes as the muscles around his jaw unclenched.

“What are you smiling at?” he asked.

“I think that beneath all of your gruffness you're a good man, Officer Avery.”

He looked startled and somewhat skeptical as his dark brown eyes met her open stare. Andrea felt herself being swallowed up by the depth of his gaze, by the potential in him that she was only now beginning to discover.

“And I had you figured for a smart lady,” he retorted, but the edges of his lips twitched with just a hint of a grin.

“Why don't you do that more?”

“What?”

“Smile.”

“Is that what I'm doing?”

“Looks that way to me.”

“Then maybe you need to have your eyes examined. And have your IQ looked at while you're at it.”

He sounded like he was trying to be sarcastic, but he looked too pleased. Andrea shared a grin with him for a few dangerous seconds, and then sobered.

“Why are you so afraid of talking to me?”

She asked the question boldly, expecting a sexual comeback.

He crossed his ankles. “Who says I'm afraid?”

“Aren't you?”

“No.”

“Then why do you run every time the conversation gets a little thick?”

“I'm not going anywhere.”

Andrea digested that in silence. He was right. He was still hanging around. She wondered why.

“So why won't you tell me about your research for your speech?”

He lifted a hand to his hair, running his fingers through the lush brown strands. “It's not important.”

“How do I know that if you won't tell me? Are you doing some kind of work with troubled kids that you don't want me to know about?”

The possibility had just hit her, but she didn't think it was nearly as farfetched as it sounded.

“Nice try, but nope.”

“So that story you told about the kid escaping a chemically imbalanced mother—you just made it up?”

“No. It happened.”

“And the other, the one about the sexually abusive brother—was that real, too?”

“Even I couldn't make up something like that.”

“And you just met these people through your work on the streets?”

“Don't we all?”

Andrea supposed that at one point or another all cops came across stories as tragic as the ones Doug had told. But his stories hadn't been told by an impartial bystander. They'd come from the heart. That's why they'd been so painfully real, so able to move everyone who listened to them.

She was beginning to wonder if maybe those kids he'd talked about had been people he'd known. Maybe he'd gone to school with them. Maybe they'd even been his friends. How else could he have known the details he'd given that afternoon? Some of that stuff never made it into police reports.

It suddenly dawned on her that if Doug had a firsthand knowledge of the pressures these kids faced every day, he was probably more qualified to be a DARE officer than any of the other two hundred trainees in the hotel.

“I'm glad we had this talk,” she said. She'd pushed him far enough for the time being. She'd lose him forever if she tried for too much too soon. Men like Doug Avery just didn't crumble.

“Then I'm glad, too,” he said softly, reaching across the couch to brush his fingers against her cheek.

Andrea knew that he'd just crossed the imaginary boundary she'd erected between what she could and could not allow. She could tell by the watchful yet hungry look in his eyes that he knew it, too.

But his gaze was so full, so tempting, that she was mesmerized. Doug was the most intense individual she'd ever met, and she was responding to him in a way she couldn't seem to control. There were no half measures here, no cute little comments to defuse the moment. There was nothing a giggle would do except come out on a sigh of longing.

Her gaze was locked with his and she leaned into his simple caress as naturally as if she'd willed the action herself. He cupped his hand around her neck and pulled, guiding her across the couch until her lips touched his.

His very first kiss was hot and strong and full. Everything she'd come to expect from Doug was in that kiss, and the minute Andrea felt his mouth upon hers, her memories of the past, her concerns for the future seemed to disappear. He took and he gave with the same intensity with which he guarded his heart. He hinted at secrets, at mysteries yet to unfold. He made her hungry for more...and more....

Kissing Andrea was like nothing Doug had ever experienced before. She was so fresh, so brimming with passion, yet so innocent all at the same time. And, God, was she generous. She opened to him, allowing him anything he asked for, giving more than he demanded.

She allowed his tongue to explore the velvety sweetness of her mouth, but she teased it with her own, promising him a coupling that would be heaven for both of them. She didn't wait for him to give her pleasure; she took it.

With a groan he barely recognized as his own he pulled her across his lap, settling her bottom firmly against his tense zipper. He slid his hand beneath her T-shirt, and almost laughed with sheer male approval when he discovered that she wasn't wearing a bra. He boldly took possession of her naked flesh, claiming his right to do so.

She pulled her mouth away from his lips, burying her face in his neck, but instead of stopping things, instead of stopping him, she nibbled at the juncture between his neck and shoulder.

“You're so hot,” he said into her hair, his voice low and husky with passion. His fingers held her breast while he ran his thumb back and forth across her thickened nipple.

She moaned something unintelligible and brought her mouth back to his, rotating her hips against his crotch, nearly sending him over the edge before he'd even begun his ascent.

His hand moved to her other breast, delighting in its mysteries, its heaviness, the miraculous contrast between its outer softness and its tight, hard center.

It occurred to him that he'd left his wallet—and his protection—in his room. He wondered if she was on the pill, and why he was reluctant to ask. He thought about shooting his seed inside of her, of having it embedded within her, taking root, becoming life.

He rolled her over more roughly than he meant to, settling her on her back on the couch. His desire became liquid fire as her legs dropped open for him, making a cradle for his body. Her hands slipped under his T-shirt, running through the hair on his chest, pulling softly, passing lightly across his nipples. And as he reared back, afraid she was going to drive him over the edge too soon, he spotted an abandoned DARE training agenda on the floor.

It must have fallen out of someone's notebook. Here. In this room. And suddenly Doug was disgusted with himself. Andrea was no animal, there for his rutting pleasure. She was everything good and pure and beautiful that embodied womanhood. And she deserved better than a quick lay on a couch in a community suite where any one of five other guys could walk in and catch her unaware.

And with that realization came another: he was having sex and he wanted more than a climax. He was thinking beyond the moment; he was more concerned about the woman he was lying on than about the body beneath him. Something was happening inside of him that had never happened before.

It scared the hell out of him.

But when he gazed down at Andrea's passion-glazed eyes, when he saw the utter abandonment on her features, he couldn't just stop what he'd started. He couldn't leave her frustrated, dissatisfied. He sat up again, pulling her up into the corner of the couch, and slid his fingers inside the elastic waistband of her shorts.

With a few quick motions, he had her writhing beside him. He watched her climax. Her expression was one of wonder, and then peace, and Doug knew that if he died that night he'd have lived a complete life.

Her lovely blue eyes started to fill with consternation as they began to focus on him, as she realized what had happened. Doug leaned over to kiss her again. He didn't want to see any regret in her eyes. He didn't think he could bear it.

So with one last, long, sensual kiss, he stood up.

“Good night, sweet princess,” he whispered against her closed eyelids, and left her, still fully dressed, on the couch.

* * *

“H
EY
, A
NDI
, you wanna have dinner tonight?”

Andrea turned around in the corridor outside the Santa Maria meeting room to see Dave O'Dell striding toward her. His wasn't the voice she'd wanted to hear, which is precisely why she smiled warmly at her colleague.

“Sure, Dave. You offering to take me away from this place?”

“I figured we could both use a little R and R. How does Mexican sound?”

“Like I'm ready to go, anytime you are.”

The food was wonderful, the atmosphere relaxing and the company quite pleasant, but still Andrea didn't enjoy herself. Dave was witty, a perfect gentleman and safely married—Andrea's ideal dinner companion—but she wanted more. Or more precisely, she wanted different.

“Three days to go before Sunday's ceremony. You think your guys are going to make it?” Dave asked over coffee.

“Every one of them,” Andrea said without hesitation.

“Avery really seems to have come around, hasn't he?”

Andrea shrugged. “It took him awhile to loosen up, but I think he's going to make one hell of a DARE officer. We've been going over the seventeen-week curriculum they'll be taking into the classroom, and he's like a sponge soaking up water.”

“Yeah, I noticed him reading over some stuff at dinner last night. And one of my guys was telling me about some ideas Avery had for building self-esteem in some of the more downtrodden kids. He had some pretty remarkable insights. I was impressed.”

Andrea felt a thrill of victory as she listened to her colleague clarify what she was beginning to suspect herself. After much deliberating, she'd thrown away Doug's ledger the night before, and she was more than a little relieved to hear that her perception of the situation wasn't completely off. Doug was still a little too rough around the edges, but it looked like he was going to win his battle.