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“So you came over here, intending to cozy up to me and I scared the shit out of you instead.”

“Like I said,” she shrugged, “bad idea. Guess I’ll get back to where I belong now.”

“Wrong,” Guy declared, emphasizing the word by trapping her on her back again, only without any pressure this time. “The only flaw in an otherwise perfect idea was my failure to explain how I might react if I were startled. I neglected to make sure you understood the need for you to make plenty of noise so I wouldn’t do what I just did.”

“Hmm.” Tori’s brows crinkled. “I do something impulsive, something that I would have known not to do if I’d bothered to think at all, which you perceive as a threat to my safety so you switch into super-cop mode and now you’re making it seem like it was your fault. Nope. Not going to work. Thanks for trying though.”

He shook his head. “I see we need to spend more time on this one. I was irresponsible, Tori. But I can wait until morning to make you see that. I’d much rather discuss the fact that you just acknowledged that you know you sleep better when you’re with me.”

“Hate to burst your bubble, Detective, but it’s a temporary thing. Once this is over and I’m back to my regular routine, I’m sure I’ll be just fine. If you didn’t breathe so loudly I wouldn’t have thought of it tonight either.”

“More denial,” Guy stated. He rolled to his back with Tori stretched along his side. “It’s okay though. Hang on to that if you need to. I won’t say I told you so when you admit it.”

“You’re being a jerk again.”

“Since when does having the patience to wait for the woman of my dreams to let herself accept that she loves me as much as I love her qualify as being a jerk?”

“When you know it’s not true and act like a smug asshole while you pretend it is.”

“Better watch what you say. Since only one of us is pretending and it isn’t me you might want to reconsider making your current misguided definitions known.”

Tori was too tongue-tied to choose between her sarcastic responses so she punched the side of his stomach instead.

“Aren’t we past that yet? If you want me to handcuff you, say so. Hitting me to get me to caution you against assaulting a police officer really isn’t necessary.”

“Oh, get a grip, will you? Not everything is about sex. Sometimes people get hit because they deserve it. And before you say it, I came over here to sleep, not because I had some secret plan to trick you into pawing me again.”

“Really?” Guy acted totally shocked. “You aren’t longing to find out what other ways I can use my hands to make you scream?”

“No.”

“You really weren’t lying in bed, unable to sleep because you kept remembering how good my fingers felt inside your pussy?”

“No.”

“Huh? No burning need to discover how long you can stand having your nipples tormented without begging for my cock?”

“No. Jeez, get over yourself already. Can’t you take a hint? I’m not interested. I simply do not want you at the moment. Why is that so hard for you to understand?”

“Oh, I understand all right. I understand perfectly well. Yep, I sure do understand what you’re telling me. Just like I understand that you’re lying. Badly.”

“I am not.”

“No? Good then, since you’re not at all excited, you won’t mind if I give you a proper goodnight kiss to help me get back to sleep.”

“No problem. Take your time. Talking to you has me almost asleep anyway. Don’t mind me if I nod off in the middle of your little kiss.”

Guy chuckled at the bored expression on Tori’s face. It might have been convincing if her nipples weren’t poking his side and he wasn’t able to smell her arousal. “You go right ahead if you’re that tired. Don’t force yourself to stay awake for me. I can entertain myself.” He winked as he lowered his mouth to hers.

Guy started with little, tight-lipped kisses that he once thought were the best the first time he worked up his nerve to try them. He continued until he slowly covered every bit of her lips several times, long after Tori began to respond. He eventually progressed to kisses with looser lips but still closed-mouth. When she attempted to pressure his lips to part, he ignored her. He refused repeatedly until she forced her tongue into his mouth. Even then, Guy remained passive, letting Tori work to make it into something more.

“Damn it, Guy. Kiss me for real!”

“Gee, Tori, I think this is real. What am I doing wrong?”

She groaned in frustration and shifted to her back with him leaning over her. Tori wrapped her arms around Guy’s neck, inviting him to press his length against hers but he merely used one elbow to prop up his head as he rested his other hand along his thigh. Soon she wiggled one leg between his and used it to move his over hers so she was more able to arch against his groin. She grabbed his hand and held it to her breast but failed to encourage him to fondle her. Nothing she did encouraged him to participate as she craved.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, completely confused. “I thought you wanted me.”

Guy lightly traced her jaw. “I do. But the only thing I suggested was a simple goodnight kiss. As I recall, you are the one who wasn’t interested in anything other than sleeping beside me. I won’t force myself on a woman after she specifically says she doesn’t want me.”

“But couldn’t you tell I changed my mind?”

“It seemed like you might have but maybe you were teasing me to punish me for scaring you. You might have been trying to lure me into a trap so you could accuse me of taking advantage of the situation even though you already made your wishes for the evening perfectly clear.”

Tori untangled herself so they were no longer touching and frowned as she searched Guy’s expression. “You really think I’d deliberately do stuff like that?”

“Honestly, no. Not unless giving in to your need to be next to me tonight has you afraid that you might let me get close to you and your subconscious came up with a different tactic to keep the distance between us. Could I be over-thinking again and letting my own paranoia of screwing up with you blow things out of proportion? Without a doubt. But I’d rather screw up in that direction than misread your reaction and destroy what little trust you’re able to give me.”

“My, how interesting,” she commented sarcastically. “Do tell, oh, wise one, what form of trust it is that you think I’m capable of?”

“Physical. Think about it, Tor. You have to trust me with your body or you’d never have let me hold you for longer than it took you to stop crying. You certainly wouldn’t have let me pull you onto my lap. You wouldn’t have demanded I touch you intimately. You wouldn’t let me peel off your shirt and comfort you with the feel of our bare skin pressed together. You wouldn’t have considered sharing a bed without being in a blind panic first and there is no way in hell you wouldn’t have my ass hauled out of here after I held a cocked gun to your head if you didn’t trust me fully with your physical safety.”

“Yeah. Probably. But I think you were more shaken up than I was that you were about to kill me.”

“Scared the hell out of me,” he admitted.

“Me too. Remind me to tell Lita that you ask first before you shoot. She thought you might do it the other way around when I said I was ready to scream in the locker room,” Tori paused. “Oh, wait. She was just saying that to keep me from losing it when I figured out who she was. Duh!”

“Overall, I’d say you’re right but it wasn’t entirely for your benefit. We’ve met briefly but most of what she knows of me is hearsay. Until you actually work with someone, it’s only natural to speculate how they’ll react in a given situation. When you’re in a line of work where you sometimes have to trust an unknown with your life you do need a certain amount of blind faith. You have to believe they have the ability and desire to do their job to the greatest extent possible as they, in return, expect from you.”

“Isn’t that hard?”

“Sometimes. I’ve been very lucky. Barry’s been my partner since the beginning. We were friends long before we bumped into each other at the academy. It surprised both of us since we hadn’t been in touch for almost a year but we still knew we’d watch each other’s back.”

“I thought they discouraged friends from working together.”

“At times if their friendship could interfere with their purpose. Barry and I work well together. We have a lot of the same instincts and can often sense what the other will do without discussing it.”

“I’m sorry, Guy, but can we talk about something else? It’s selfish but I really don’t want to think about what you’d be doing if you weren’t stuck baby-sitting me. It’s good to know that you and Barry watch out for each other but I can’t handle the way you accept the need for it because the next person you run into might want to kill you.”

“Aw, damn, tiger. I wasn’t thinking.”

“Don’t.” Tori pressed her fingers to his lips. “I started it. You were just explaining things to me. You shouldn’t have to think that continuing a conversation that’s already in progress might make me freak on you. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“Sure you should. I want to know what you’re thinking, no matter what it may be. It’s called getting to know you and that’s one of my top priorities.”

“For now, but I don’t want to argue about it. We already know what we’d say so let’s skip it this time. You were sleeping and I came to snuggle so I could too, not to wake you up for a repeat of the same thing again.”

“I certainly don’t mind talking to you anytime you want to talk about whatever the topic happens to be.”

“I knew you were going to say that,” she sighed. “Turn off the light please.”

Guy did and settled on his back next to her. “You staying over there or do I get to hold you?”

“I don’t think it counts as snuggling if we’re not touching somehow.” Tori slid into his arms. She didn’t feel comfortable and finally figured out what the problem was. “Let go a sec,” she said, pushing slightly away from him. She felt Guy tense momentarily until she slipped her tank top over her head.

As Tori returned to his embrace, he chuckled. “Amazing how quickly you get used to something, isn’t it?”

“Shut up before you start sounding like a jerk,” she teased, relaxing into his warmth.

“Just making sure you noticed what you just did.” He ran his hand over her back. “I love the way your skin feels. You’re so soft and silky. Bet we’d both sleep even better if we were completely naked.”

“Then we should get that way,” Tori giggled and squirmed out of her shorts. “Who knows how many nights we’ll get without me screaming and keeping us awake. We need as much rest as we can get.”

Guy arranged Tori so she was draped halfway on top of him. His arms were wrapped around her. One leg held hers in place and he had her head on his shoulder. He waited for her body to relax before he spoke. “Feel how right this is, our bodies perfectly meshed together. We fit, Tori. This is where we belong. Now that we found this, neither one of us will ever sleep as peacefully alone as we will together. You might manage to convince your mind that you’re fine without me wrapped around you but your body will miss mine. After you fall asleep, you’ll spend the whole night, reaching for me. In the morning, you’ll wake up, restless. You’ll feel cold when you realize you spent the night alone.”

“Hmm, maybe I should go back to my room now, before we expose ourselves to something so dangerous.” She wasn’t really joking.

“Too late,” Guy whispered, not letting her escape. “We’re in the same bed for no reason other than this is where we both choose to be. I didn’t join you to comfort you and we didn’t exhaust ourselves with hot sex. It only takes an instant in the right person’s arms to be hooked for life. Running away now won’t make one bit of difference so you may as well stay put.”

“You are so full of bullshit, Detective,” Tori declared. “But I’m warm and cozy so I’ll let it slide this time.”

“I love you, tiger.” He kissed her hair. “Go to sleep.”

“You don’t but goodnight anyway,” she protested but kissed his chest lightly.

* * * * *

Diana smiled behind Tori’s back when the younger woman failed to respond to her question. She left the table, hoping to catch Tori’s expression before she retreated behind her polite mask. Diana was startled by the level of emotion displayed on Tori’s face as she claimed the rare and unguarded moment to study her.

As soon as Tori sensed Diana’s scrutiny, she lowered her chin, effectively hiding her features. When she raised her gaze to meet Diana’s, Tori’s expression was carefully blank. “I’m sorry, Diana. I didn’t hear what you just said.”

“Guess you were distracted by the view,” Diana teased, slipping an arm around Tori’s shoulders. “Can’t say as I blame you. That’s one fine bit of eye candy.”

“Diana!”

“What? No harm in looking. A woman would have to be dead not to notice a bod like that. Or are you shocked because you consider me too old to still be interested?”

“You’re not old.” Tori blushed. “It’s just that I never heard you say something like that before.”

“That’s because I never had an opportunity to tease you before. Not even when you were dating someone.”

“Huh? I don’t mean to be rude but I’m not really up to solving your riddles today.”

Diana considered her thoughtfully. “Yes, I can see that it is still a mystery to you. Tori girl, you can deny it all you want and I fully expect you to but you can’t hide the fact that you have feelings for Guy from me.”

“Well, sure I do.” Tori scowled. “He’s been with me continually for over a week now. He promised to protect me and keep me safe and he’s very patient and kind when my screams wake him up in the middle of the night. He even took me to the gym Wednesday to stop me from climbing the walls like I was about to do.”

“Guy took you to the gym?” Diana was amazed. “To work out or just to show off and flex all those nice muscles for you?”

“Aw, jeez. Neither, if you must know. He’s teaching me kickboxing.”

Diana laughed. “Now that’s something I wish I’d gotten to see.”

“Hey! I’m not a total slug.”

“I know. You must admit, however, that the image of you doing something athletic is not the first thing that comes to mind when I picture you away from here.”