Sacred Sins (32 page)

“All right.” She went down the first step, then stopped and turned back. “I guess it would be improper conduct for you to kiss me here, while you're on duty.”

“Yeah.” He bent down, and in the way that never failed to make her limbs weak, cupped her face in his hands. Eyes open and on hers, he lowered his mouth. Her lips were chilled, but soft, generous. Her free hand gripped the front of his coat for balance, or to keep him there an extra moment. He watched in fascination as her lashes fluttered, then lowered slowly to shadow her cheeks.

“Can you remember just where you were for about eight hours?” Tess murmured.

“I'll make a point of it.” He drew away, but kept her hand in his. “Drive carefully. We wouldn't want the uniforms to be tempted to give you a ticket.”

“I'd just have it fixed.” She smiled. “See you tonight.”

He let her go. “I like my steak medium-well.”

“I like mine rare.”

He watched her get into her car then pull competently out of the lot. The uniforms stayed a car length behind.

T
ESS
knew she was dreaming, just as she knew there were solid and logical reasons for the dream. But it didn't stop her from knowing fear.

She was running. The muscles in her right calf were knotted with the effort. In sleep she whimpered quietly in pain. Corridors sprang up everywhere, confusing her. As much as she was able, she kept to a straight route, knowing there was a doorway somewhere. She had only to find it. In the maze her breathing bounced back heavily. The walls were mirrored now, and threw dozens of her reflections at her.

She was carrying a briefcase. She looked down at it stupidly, but didn't set it aside. When it became too heavy for one hand, she dragged it with both and continued to run. As she lost her balance, she thrust out a hand and connected with a mirror. Panting, she looked up. Anne Reasoner stared back at her. Then the mirror melted away into another corridor.

So she ran on, taking the straight path. The weight of the briefcase hurt her arms, but she pulled it with her. Muscles strained and burned. Then she saw the door. Almost sobbing with relief, she dragged herself to it. Locked. She looked desperately for the key. There was always a key. But the knob turned slowly from the other side.

“Ben.” Weak with relief, she reached out a hand for him to help her over that final step to safety. But the figure was black and white.

The black cassock, the white collar. The white silk of the amice. She saw it come up, knotted like pearls, and reach for her throat. Then she started to scream.

“Tess. Tess, come on, baby, wake up.”

She was gasping, reaching up for her throat as she dragged herself out of the dream.

“Relax.” His voice came calm and soothing out of the dark. “Just breathe deep and relax. I'm right here.”

She clung hard, with her face pressed into Ben's shoulder. As his hands moved up and down her back, she fought to focus on them and let the dream fade.

“I'm sorry,” she managed when she caught her breath. “It was just a dream. I'm sorry.”

“Must have been a beaut.” Gently, he brushed the hair from her face. Her skin was clammy. Ben pulled the covers up and wrapped them around her. “Want to tell me about it?”

“Just overworked.” She drew her knees up to rest her elbows on them.

“Want some water?”

“Yes, thanks.”

She rubbed her hands over her face as she listened to the tap run in the bathroom. He left the light on so that it slanted through the door. “Here you go. You have nightmares often?”

“No.” She sipped to ease her dry throat. “I had some after my parents died. My grandfather would come in and sit with me, and fall asleep in the chair.”

“Well, I'll sit with you.” After he got into bed again, he put an arm around her. “Better?”

“A lot. I guess I feel stupid.”

“Wouldn't you say, psychiatrically speaking, that under certain circumstances it's healthy to be scared?”

“I suppose I would.” She let her head rest on his shoulder. “Thanks.”

“What else is bothering you?”

She took a last sip of water before setting the glass aside. “I was making an effort not to let it show.”

“Didn't work. What is it?”

Tess sighed and stared at the slant of light on the bedroom floor. “I have a patient. Or I had one, anyway. This young boy, fourteen, alcoholic, severe depression, suicidal tendencies. I wanted his parents to put him into a clinic in Virginia.”

“They won't go for it.”

“Not only that, but he missed his session today. I
called, got the mother. She tells me that she feels Joey's progressing just fine. She didn't want to discuss the clinic, and she's going to let him take a breather from his sessions. There's nothing I can do. Nothing.” It was that, most of all, that had slapped her down. “She won't face the fact that he isn't progressing. She loves him, but she's put blinders on so she doesn't have to see anything that isn't in straight focus. I've been slapping a Band-Aid on him every week, but the wound's not healing.”

“You can't make her bring the boy in. Maybe a breather will help. Let the wound get some air.”

“I wish I could believe that.”

It was the tone of her voice that made him shift, and bring her closer. When he'd woken to her screams, his blood had run cold. Now it was pumping warm again. “Look, Doc, both of us are in the business where we can lose people. It's the kind of thing that wakes you up at three in the morning, has you staring at walls or out windows. Sometimes you've just got to turn it off. Just turn the switch.”

“I know. Rule number one is professional detachment.” His hair brushed her cheek as she turned her face to his. “What turns the switch best for you?”

In the shadowed light she saw him grin. “You really want to know?”

“Yes.” She ran a hand down his side until it rested comfortably at his hip. “Right now I especially want to know.”

“This usually works.” In one easy move he rolled her on top of him. He felt the give of firm breasts pressing against him, smelled the fragrance of her hair as it curtained his face. He took a handful and brought her mouth down to his.

How well she seemed to fit. The thought ran through his head. The brush of her fingertips on his skin was like
a blessing. There was something about her hesitancy that had his own excitement drumming. If he ran his own fingers along her inner thigh, she shivered, just enough to let him know she wanted him but was still unsure.

He didn't know why or how it should seem so fresh with her. Each time he found himself holding her in the dark, in the quiet, it was like the first time. She was bringing something to him he hadn't known he'd missed and was no longer certain he could do without.

Her mouth moved lightly over his face. He wanted to roll her over on her back, pump himself into her until they both exploded. With most women it had always been that last, split second of insanity that had washed everything else away. With Tess it was a touch, a murmur, a quiet brush of lips. So he pushed back that first rage of desire and let them both drift.

He could be so gentle, she thought hazily. At times when they made love, it was all speed, all urgency. And then … When she least expected it, he would be tender, almost lazy, until her heart was ready to break from the sweetness of it. Now he let her touch the body she had come to know as well as her own.

There were sighs. Sighs of contentment. There were murmurs. Murmurs of promises. He buried his hands in her hair as she tasted, almost shyly at first, then with growing confidence. There were muscles to be discovered. She found them taut, and delighted in the knowledge that she caused the tension.

There were bones in his hips, long and narrow. When her tongue glided over them, he arched like a bow. The trail of her finger along the crease of his thigh had his long body shuddering. She sighed as her lips followed the path. There was no more thought of nightmares.

He'd had women touch him. Maybe too many women.

But none of them had made his blood hammer like this. He wanted to lie there for hours and absorb each separate sensation. He wanted to make her sweat and shake as he was.

He sat up, grabbing her hands at the wrist. For a moment, a long moment, they stared at each other in the narrow beam of light. His breath came in pants. His eyes were dark, glazed with passion. The scent of desire hung heavy in the room.

He lowered her slowly, until she lay on her back. With his hands still gripping her wrists, he used his mouth to drive her to the edge. Narrow, delicate, her hands strained against his hold. Her body twisted, arched, not in protest, but in a delirium of pleasure. His tongue slid over her, into her, until she thought her lungs would balloon and explode from the pressure. He felt her go rigid and call out as she came. Her scent spilled into the room. She was limp, boneless, when he filled her.

“I'm going to watch you go up again.”

He braced himself over her, and though each muscle trembled with the effort, went slowly, exquisitely slowly. She moaned, then opened her eyes as the sensations and pleasure began to build again. Her lips trembled open as she started to say his name. Then her fingers dug into the rumpled sheets.

Ben buried his face in her hair and cut himself loose.

I
APPRECIATE YOUR
making time to see me, Monsignor.” Tess took a seat in the front of Logan's desk and had a quick, not entirely comfortable flash of how her patients must feel during their initial consultation.

“It's my pleasure.” He was settled comfortably, his tweed jacket draped over the back of his chair, his shirt-sleeves rolled up to reveal sturdy forearms sprinkled with hair just beginning to gray. She thought again that he seemed to be a man more accustomed to the rugby field or racquetball court than vespers and incense. “Would you like some tea?”

“No. Nothing, thank you, Monsignor.”

“Since we're colleagues, why don't you call me Tim?”

“Yes.” She smiled, ordering herself to relax, starting with her toes. “That would make things easier. My call to you today was on impulse, but—”

“When a priest is troubled, he seeks out another priest. When an analyst is troubled …” As he trailed off, Tess found her conscious effort to relax was working.

“Exactly.” The fingers on her purse loosened their grip. “I guess that means you get hit from both ends.”

“It also means I have two roads to choose from
when I have problems of my own. That's a matter which has its pros and cons, but you didn't come to discuss Christ versus Freud. Why don't you tell me what's troubling you?”

“At this point, a number of things. I don't feel like I've found the key to the mind of … of the man the police are looking for.”

“And you think you should have?”

“I think being as involved as I am now, I should have more.” She lifted one hand in a gesture that spoke of frustration and uncertainty. “I've talked to him three times. It bothers me that I can't get through my own fear, maybe my own self-interest, to push the right buttons.”

“Do you think you know those buttons?”

“It's my job to know them.”

“Tess, we both know the psychotic mind is a maze, and the routes leading to the core can shift and shift again. Even if we had him under intensive therapy in ideal conditions, it might take years to find the answers.”

“Oh, I know. Logically, medically, I know that.”

“But emotionally is a different story.”

Emotionally. She dealt with other people's emotions on a daily basis. It was different, and much more difficult, she discovered, to open her own to someone else. “I know it's unprofessional, and that worries me, but I'm past the point where I can be objective. Monsignor Logan—Tim—that last woman who was killed was meant to be me. I saw her in that alley. I can't forget.”

His eyes were kind, but she saw no pity in them. “Transferring guilt won't change what happened.”

“I know that too.” She rose and went to the window. Below, a group of students rushed across the grass to make their next class.

“May I ask you a question?”