Guilty Pleasures (19 page)

He didn’t reply.

“You left that life behind. Now you think you’ve got to take it up again because of me.”

“Can you face what may be happening to you alone? You’ve been attacked by someone who was armed and deadly serious. Do you want to be in the same place with him again, and
unarmed?”

Polly could only look into his unblinking eyes.

“Facing up to force isn’t a testosterone thing for me,” Nasty continued. “It never was. The steps I’m taking to keep you safe are necessary. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, I understand.”

“Good. And ‘this,’ as you call it”—he indicated the hardware on the bunk—“is part of what I
am.
It’s part of what I’ll always be. No man lives by instinct and reflex and intense training—for years—and then switches it all off like a car at its final destination.”

“You’re a warrior,” she said softly. “A man trained to fight and kill.”

“I’m a man,” he told her. “Just a man. Trained to fight and kill, yes, but not a man who wants to fight and kill. I only
want to make sure I use my skills to safeguard those who can’t protect themselves.”

“Is that what you did in the Navy?”

He bowed his head until she could no longer see his face. “In the Navy I did what I was told to do. One more part of intense training. And doing what you’re told to do is the one thing I expect of you.”

“Oh, no,” she told him. “I’m not a recruit in your battalion, or whatever.”

He ducked his head and entered the small cabin with her. “You may not be a recruit, sweetheart
.
But don’t fool yourself—you’re in the middle of a battle. I just hope you listen up and help me make sure you and I win this one.”

“You scare me.”

“You’ve told me that before. I don’t like it. But if that’s what it takes to make you take what’s happening very seriously, so be it.”

Polly’s temper flared. “Last night I
was punched and pushed and…
and, I had my clothes cut off by a lunatic. De you think I don’t already know I’m in trouble?”

His presence just inside the door made the cabin feel even smaller—and he filled all of it. “You may know you’re in trouble, but you walked out here alone—in the dark. That was suicidal. Dusty thinks you’re still there, doesn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll give it minutes before my phone rings. If you think I get testy when I’m pissed, wait till you hear Dusty.”

“I had to come.”

“You had to do what was best—what was safest.” He gripped the doorjamb overhead. “I’m no different from any other man whose
…
Any other man would react as best he could to protect the people he cares about.”

Polly started to sit on the bunk, looked at the pile of evil hardware there, and changed her mind. “That’s what I’ve got to talk about. Would we be getting so close, so fast, if I wasn’t being threatened?”

“When you and I
met for the first time, I didn’t know you were being threatened.”

“
I
did.”

He frowned and swung his torso forward, flexing his powerful arms. “I don’t follow you.”

“I’d been getting those calls for several weeks. Then there was you. And you were strong and determined, and you knew what you were doing. And you weren’t afraid—aren’t afraid. You behave as if vicious people doing vicious things are part of your everyday life. You just
do
whatever you think it is you have to do about it. And—”

“Whoa.” Releasing the jamb, he settled his hands on her shoulders instead. “Slow down. Cut to the chase and tell me what you’re trying to say in a few words.”

Tell him in a few words—think clearly enough to be brief when she longed, longed desperately to shut the cabin door, crawl into his arms, and stay there?

The power of her desire for him, now, here, stunned her. “Polly?” He shook her gently and tilted his head to one side. “You’re right when you say I behave as if this sort of thing was commonplace to me. That is what you were saying, isn’t it?”

She nodded yes.

“Yeah. Well, it is, or was, and some old habits never quite die. The point is that I don’t act scared because I’ve been here too many times before. But I am nervous for you. Not because I expect anything awful
to happen to you—not now that I
know how closely I’ve got to watch you—but because I hate what this must be doing to you. Let me take care of you, Polly.”

“And that’s exactly why I had to come and talk to you,” Polly told him. With flattened hands, she patted his chest. “I will not use you. I don’t want to use you. But I think that may be what I’ve been doing.”

“Uh-huh?” His
gaze
settled on her mouth, and he rocked her back and forth. “Go on.”

“You are the sexiest man I’ve ever met.”

He cleared his throat. “Stop it. You’ll embarrass me. What else?”

Polly smiled a little. “You can always make light of things, can’t you? You’re sexy and gentle, and you turn me on.”

“Shucks, I’m sorry, ma’am.”

“Be serious.”

“Not on your life. Not if it
makes you stop telling me what I
want to hear.”

This was harder than he knew, and the timing was all wrong, but she didn’t seem to have any choice but to go on. “I haven’t had a lot of practice telling men what I think. Not on a personal level. For Sam I was someone he owned. When he couldn’t make me do what he wanted me to do—-he told me to get lost.”

All humor left Nasty’s face. His eyes turned hard. “His loss. Your gain—and mine.”

“There have been one or two men since then—nothing serious. They never meant anything to me.”

“But I do?”

She undid a button on his shirt and smoothed the hair on his chest. “Yes.” The weakening in her legs, the heat in her belly, were instant. This response she couldn’t squelch clouded her judgment. “It’s al
l muddled up. I think I feel…”

He slid his long fingers from her shoulders to her neck and
r
ubbed his thumbs up and down beneath her ears. “What do you think you feel?”

“An emotional thing.” She felt strange, almost disoriented. Too much had happened, too fast. “A
feelings
thing.”

“A love thing?”

Catching her next breath, Polly met his eyes. “That’s not fair.”

“Why? I’ve already told you where I stand.”

“And I’ve told you it’s too soon for you to tell me that.”

He concentrated on her lips, concentrated until he couldn’t see them, because they were pressed to his own. Nasty kissed
Polly softly, with quiet intensity that flayed her senses. “You can’t get rid of me,” he told her. “You’ve grown under my skin, and I like you there. Just let me call the shots for a while, okay? Let me take care of you because I can—and you may not be able to.”

Blindly, she sought his mouth again. He made it too easy to stop questioning her own motives. He felt so good so warm, so right.

“I’d better call Dusty and tell him you’re with me,” he said when they paused for breath. “I don’t think I can go back just yet.”

She blushed. “This isn’t the time.”

“For what?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know.” Her frankness astonished her. Glancing at him, Polly put a little space between them. “Couldn’t a woman find a man irresistible because she needed
him?”

His stillness returned. “Maybe.”

“Couldn’t I be attracted to you—want you with me, because I’m scared out of my mind, and I know you’ll take care of me?”

“I guess.” He watched her without blinking. “You could also be attracted to me just because you are—attracted to me. And the fact that I’m not afraid to do what’s got to be done to keep one step ahead of the loonies is a side benefit. Doesn’t that sound reasonable?”

Reasonable, yes. Certain, no. “I’m not sure I can trust what I feel. I wanted to come clean with that. I owe it to you. Until I met you I was sure I would always want to be independent. I’ve finally reached a point when I can take care of myself and Bobby without needing help from anyone. That’s important to me.”

“I can see that.” He watched her mouth again. “Does that mean you’d decided you were never going to allow another man to be part of your permanent plans?”

She rested her fingertips on his lips. “I hadn’t really thought
about it. But then there was you, and I did. Before we actually met, I just liked looking at you. I liked the way I felt when I looked at you.”

He blew on her fingers.

“But that’s a sexual thing, Nasty. It’s lust. It has to be when you don’t know the other person.”

He nodded his head. “It’s the tits-and-ass reflex.”

When she gasped, it was his turn to go a little pink. “Figure of speech,” he said. “I mean that what a man notices first about a woman is her body—the way she looks. He reacts to that before he starts thinking about what a lovely mind she may have. You were doing the same thing—only as a woman looking at a man.”

Polly lowered her eyes. “You’ve got a lovely ass.” She raised her shoulders and gritted her teeth. “I can’t believe I said that. Believe it or not, I’m a bit straitlaced, or I was.”

“I think I believe it.” Nasty laughed and caught her against him. “I’m corrupting you. But I’ve got one up on you. At least I watched the show and got very interested in the mind inside the pretty head before we met
.
”

“Yes,” she sighed, clinging softly to him. “Oh, yes. And I like what’s inside yours, too. But I keep asking myself if I’d be as eager to wrap my life around yours if I wasn’t desperate.”

“Polly—”

“No.” She put her fingers over his lips again. “No, please don’t argue with me. You don’t know the truth, not for sure. Any more than I do. It’s unfair because we deserve a chance to find out if we could have something special.”

“We already do.” His eyes narrowed in a purely sexual way. “We have the makings of something more than special. First we get through the messy stuff, then we work on the other— us.”

“I’ve made a decision.” Pressing his arms back at his sides, Polly put space between them. “I’m going to deal with my own problems. With the help of the police—that’s what they’re for. With their help, I’ll work my way through the business of
this man who’s obsessed with me. It’s not something that never happened to anyone before.”

“No.”

“And when it’s all behind me—if you still want to, that is—we’ll see if we’re meant to try being together in some way.”

“No.”

“Of course, if you…
No?”

He picked up a handful of bullets and dropped them into a compartment in a leather case that stood open on the bunk. “No, you’re not dealing with this on your own. With the aid of the police.” A gun made of very light-colored metal fitted tightly into a velvet lined space that seemed made for it. “With or without your permission, I’m in this thing now, and I don’t walk away from anything I’ve started.”

“You didn’t start it.”

“That’s not a sure thing.”

The knife strapped onto his forearm, beneath his sleeve, and disappeared when he buttoned the cuff again.

“When did you get the first crank calls?” His voice held absolutely no expression. “Try to count back the number of weeks.”

She thought about it. “Several weeks. Why?”

“How many? Ten?”

“Oh, no. Nowhere near that long. Three, maybe. Four even?”

“Think harder. For instance, how long ago did you first notice me around the docks?”

Denying that she’d noticed him some time ago would be pointless now. “Four weeks. It was on a Friday.”

“Exactly right.”

She snorted and settled her fists on her hips. “You can’t be sure that’s exactly right.”

He raised his arched eyebrows. “Can’t I? I think I can, love. On the Tuesday I poked around trying to see if I could catch a glimpse of you. On the Wednesday, I did. And on Thursday.
Both days I was in the par
k
when you walked out to the dock. The next day—Friday—I took the Zodiac over and hung around until you showed up. It was the first time you actually looked at me. For about ten seconds. I’ll never forget how it felt.”

Neither would she. “You aren’t afraid to talk about things like this. A lot of men hide their feelings because they think they make them less—
manly,
I guess.”

Nasty chuckled. “If a man knows he’s a man, he doesn’t have to be afraid to say what he feels. Polly, the calls started after the first time you saw me in the Zodiac?”

“Yes.” What was he getting at? “A few days after, I guess.”

“That’s what I was afraid of. It could be that I’m the reason for all this.”

“No! Why would that be?” The jealousy she’d suspected?

He leaned against the wall and crossed his ankles. “If I am the reason, it’ll become clear before too long. I thought about leaving—leaving town. Just in case I was putting you in danger, but—”