17

THE KISS

(Still Seventeen Months Ago)

“There. It looks almost homey in here, doesn’t it?” Grant stepped back and surveyed my apartment, now adorned with the guard lion and a couch. He looked overly satisfied with himself for having wrangled me into temporary domesticity, but considering he basically hauled the couch up here on his own, I let him have his moment. “I like it,” he added.

I squinted in the encroaching darkness of our midafternoon rainstorm. “Oops. I forgot to get a lamp.”

“No matter.” Despite the darkness, I could make out his wolfish smile just fine. “I’m sure we can find ways to entertain ourselves with what we’ve got.”

I was all over that idea—and would have happily been all over him—but that wasn’t the entertainment he had in mind. He rubbed his hands together and crouched next to the record player, which he’d had to put on the folding chair. It was as close to a table as we were going to get.

“Jeanine said she tested it a few weeks ago, so it should work fine. Where’s the record?”

I didn’t move to fetch it right away. Watching him get all sexy and down-to-business in my apartment was entertainment enough for me. “I distinctly remember being promised lunch first.”

“I ordered takeout when you were in the bathroom.” He checked his watch. “It should be here in about fifteen minutes.”

Oh, how well he knew me, despite a dating record of just two months. I gave a squeal of delight and launched myself at him, fully expecting to be caught and twirled or at least embraced by the time I landed. But he stopped me with a hand on either side of my waist, holding me at arm’s reach.

“Before you get too effusive, I should warn you that I won’t be able to stay and have it with you.”

My disappointment was a palpable thing, impossible to hide.

One of his fingers came up to stroke my cheek. “Sorry. Duty calls. I’m already pushing things with my section chief as it is.”

Since I technically was his duty, I was starting to find that excuse wearying. Maybe if I’d played harder to get, he would have been ordered to spend more time in his pursuit of me. Penelope Blue would be his one and only concern.

I almost laughed out loud at the thought—it was far too late for that. I was hooked, and we both knew it. The only thing to do now was turn that weakness to my advantage.

I stuck out my lip in a pout. “Is that why you won’t kiss me again? Because of work?”

The hand on my waist flexed. “No.”

“Is it because you’re still upset about Riker?”

Tighter still. “No.”

“Is it because you don’t find me attractive?”

I willed the words back as soon as they escaped. Not only did the question make me sound needy and pathetic, but there was a good chance it was the truth. I’d done enough meaningless flirting in the line of duty to know that sometimes, you had to fake interest in order to see results.

But then his hold on me reached even higher levels—the level of desire, the level of need—and he refused to let me budge. “Don’t say that. Don’t ever say that. Whatever else happens between us, know that this, at least, is real.”

“Is it?” I couldn’t help asking. How could he possibly know?

He didn’t answer right away—at least not in words. With a low, rumbling growl, he dropped his head to mine for a kiss unlike any other we’d shared. Uninterrupted, private, and fraught with a passion so intense it couldn’t be feigned, the feeling of his lips moving intently over mine was one I’d never be able to forget. It wasn’t just that he was good at it—though he was definitely good, his tongue flicking expertly into my mouth, tasting and savoring and demanding I do the same in return. It wasn’t even that he kissed with his whole body, holding me so firmly against his hard muscles that I was practically absorbed into his skin.

The gentleness is what undid me. Back at the store, our kiss had been more challenge than anything else, the pair of us pushing and pulling to determine a victor. I’d wanted to force him over the edge, make him go beyond the boundaries he’d set for himself, get him to admit that he wanted me as much as I wanted him.

There was none of that urgency here. I don’t know what I did or said to change things, but the way Grant held me—as if I were something precious, worth cherishing—shook me in ways I was unprepared to face. His arms crushed me to him, his kiss deepening until he was the only thing I tasted, breathed, knew.

In that moment, I felt eternal. Danger could come. Circumstance could rip us apart. The world could fall away beneath us. And still, Grant would hold me close and kiss me like I was the only thing that mattered.

For that brief space of time, I mattered.

By the time he pulled away, my breath was shaky and uneven, my entire body rattled. He pressed his forehead against mine, but the action didn’t do anything to settle my pulse. If anything, the intimacy of the gesture only made my heart take flight all over again.

“That’s how I know it’s real.” His words were a groan. “You could ask anything of me right now, and I’d do it. Any question, and I’d answer it. Any promise, and I’d make it. You know that, don’t you?”

I did. Partly because of the way he looked at me, with stars overtaking the darkness in his eyes, but mostly because I felt the same way. I’d give up everything I had and knew if only he’d kiss me like that again.

“Why don’t you try to sleep with me?”

My question startled us both. He blinked and shook his head as if trying to clear it. “I beg your pardon?”

Now that I’d spoken the words out loud, I couldn’t take them back. I could only commit, so I swallowed heavily and tried again. “You said I could ask you anything. Why don’t you try to sleep with me? What’s stopping you from taking a kiss like that to its natural conclusion?”

He pushed me away, laughing without humor. His hands raked his hair in a gesture that spoke of the same desperation I felt. When he looked up, I could detect genuine pain mirrored back at me. “You don’t want to know why I have to leave and go to work this afternoon?”

I shook my head.

“You aren’t curious what caused me to run out on our date at that Italian restaurant last month?”

I shook my head again.

“You honestly don’t care about anything else I may see or do as part of the U.S. internal intelligence network?”

Oh, I cared. I wanted to know. I felt the urge to turn the key to this man’s soul and climb right in.

But I would never do it like this—not when I had him at a disadvantage. Not when it was unfair. I could be accused of many wrongdoings throughout my life and career, but I always, always played fair.

I shrugged. “We all have secrets.”

His laugh that time was more assured—and warmer. Richer. As if he’d just found out the world wasn’t such a terrible place, after all.

“Then I have one very easy answer,” he said.

“Yes?” I leaned in, unable to help myself.

He pinched my chin, stopping me before I got too close. “Because I’m trying to woo you, Penelope Blue. The good, old-fashioned way. The way you deserve.”

* * *

After a declaration like that, it was no wonder I grew mushy as I pulled my dad’s record out of the kitchen cupboard.

Grant sat cross-legged next to my new record player, fiddling with the dials as he waited for me to return. It was such a normal and boyfriend-like thing, that relaxed jeans-clad pose of his, and I felt another pang of regret that my life was so far out of the realm of ordinary.

I wanted to deserve this man and the gentle wooing he’d undertaken. I wanted to be the kind of woman who could make him happy. Instead, I was awkwardly clutching a record worth a grand total of fifty cents to my chest. It was, at once, the most and least valuable thing I owned.

“Is that it?” He looked up, his lopsided and crinkly-eyed smile as familiar to me as my own. “Remind me to buy you a few more so you don’t wear that one out.”

That was it. That was all it took. A kind word and a seductive hint of the future, and I padded across the room to hand over the only thing left of my father—to the only man with the power to use it against me.

“It’s not worth anything,” I warned, lest he get any funny ideas about it being an original signed copy or something. “Just memories.”

The crinkles around his eyes softened. “Memories are worth something.”

Not nearly as much as he thought. A girl couldn’t spend memories, couldn’t eat them, couldn’t curl up with them during cold winter nights without a roof over her head. “Then I should be living like a queen,” I joked.

It was everything and nothing and all I could say in that moment. Grant seemed to understand, pausing as he waited for me to place the record in his waiting palms. When I finally did, his pupils went wide for a fraction of a second before they flared back to normal.

I pointed at the record’s case, which was not the traditional psychedelic image associated with the album. I’d spilled milk on it when I was a kid, so my dad had been forced to store the record in an alternate sleeve, which he’d carefully covered in plastic so it wouldn’t get ruined again. “I told you it’s not worth anything. I actually made that cover.”

One of his brows came up as he appraised the colorful scribbles of the makeshift cover. If you squinted and held it at arm’s length, you could almost make out a face in the middle. “You painted this? That’s some talent right there.”

I gave him a gentle shove. “Don’t be mean. I was little.”

He looked curiously at me. “How little?”

“Oh, I don’t know—four? Five? I can’t remember.” I ran my fingers over the familiar image. Clearly, I’d never been cut out for a career as an artist. “I’m not much better now, to be honest. I can only do stick people and clouds.”

A smile touched his lips. “It just so happens that stick people and clouds are my favorite.”

Grant Emerson was my favorite, though I wouldn’t have dared to say so out loud. He pulled the record out almost reverently, careful as he blew off the dust and placed it on the turntable.

It was a waste of energy. As soon as the needle hit the vinyl, we heard a rip and a stretch. I glanced down, alarmed, to find that either time or mishandling had caused a scratch to form around the outer rings of the record. It was unplayable. Useless. Another memory turned to dust.

I sat back on my haunches and started to cry.

I tried my best to hide the welling tears and raw ache in my throat—the last thing I needed was for Grant to see how sentimental and weak I was capable of getting over my father—but he took one look at my quivering lower lip and swore.

It was a violent curse—a harsh and guttural sound that seemed out of place, given the circumstances—but I could only be grateful for it. It was the sound I wanted to make, the sound that had been lodged deep inside me for so long, it had become a part of my soul.

“Oh fuck, Penelope. I should have realized—” He didn’t bother finishing his statement, choosing instead to crush me against him, his hold so tight, I could barely breathe.

Not that the wracking sobs threatening to overtake me qualified as breathing anyway. His hand moved in a soothing pattern over the back of my head, and his heart beat against mine in time to his words. “Shh. Don’t cry, my love. I’m so sorry. Please don’t cry.”

I was so upset, I barely registered his words or the implication they contained. All I knew was that I felt them, felt the reassurance of his presence in ways I didn’t know a human being could.

“It’s not as bad as it seems,” he continued, still petting and soothing, a man who knew he held a wild and dangerous creature in his arms. “I can get it repaired, I swear. We have tech experts who’ll have it back to new in minutes. You’ll never know it was damaged in the first place.”

I sniffled, not yet ready to give up the comfort of being held like this. In all my life, I couldn’t remember anyone holding me tight and rocking away my pain. Of all the jewels I’d stolen and all the high-class places I’d broken into, nothing could beat the pure luxury of this moment.

“Really?”

“Really.” He leaned in and pressed a soft kiss against my forehead, his hands heavy and reassuring where they rested on my shoulders. “This one is easy to fix. This one I can do.”

I didn’t ask which ones he wasn’t so confident about.

“I’ll take it in with me now, if that’s okay?”

I nodded, getting ready to wipe off the last of my tears, but he kissed them before I had a chance. If I thought it was pleasant to have someone hold me when I was about to break down, nothing could have prepared me for the vast extravagance of Grant’s lips brushing away my pain.

My throat was tight and the jagged edges of my heart raw as Grant pulled me to my feet again, but there was no time to do anything more than wonder at how quickly things had turned around. A knock at the door signaled the arrival of my takeout, and Grant went to answer it, the record and its sleeve tucked securely under his arm.

Since I could hardly sit there crying forever, no matter how much I might want to, I managed a watery smile. “Food will help,” I said. “For some reason, I always get emotional when I’m hungry.”

“That’s good to know,” he said with a quirk of a grin. “I’ll remember that. In times of trouble, food is the answer.”

“Preferably pizza.” I sniffled.

“Noted.”

“Especially from that place on 44th.”

His only reply was a warm laugh and a promise to write it down.