pants. And the potent contradiction posed by Tess’s curl-up-and-die looks and little-girl-lost mouth would tempt a saint.
But his loss of control wasn’t her fault. Her voice echoed accusingly in memory, her flip tone not quite hiding the insult to her feelings. Anyway, you kissed me.
She was right, Jarek acknowledged fairly. His frustrated body was his problem. Her hurt feelings were his responsibility.
And if Tess, in a typical female snit, decided to smear him in the paper and stake him out for the local gossips to feed on, then the resulting loss of public goodwill would be his headache.
Jarek frowned as he watched Tess’s tin can compact zip toward the off ramp. He signaled his intentions to the empty lane behind him and then followed her down the exit to Eden. He was determined to keep his private life private. His failed marriage and his unhappy daughter were off-limits as topics for the press. But ticking off the reporter assigned to introduce him to the town was bad public relations.
Maybe he should agree to that interview Tess wanted. He could steer the talk away from his hopes for his family and onto his plans for the town.
He would have to be nice to her, he decided. If he wanted her cooperation. It was practically his duty.
His mind drifted to all the ways he’d like to be nice to Teresa DeLucca. His body buzzed with anticipation.
He did his best to ignore it.
Tess’s fingernails beat a nervous, angry tattoo against the steering wheel. Every time she looked up, she saw Denko’s car in her rear view mirror, a dark blue, unmarked Crown Victoria. Nothing new, nothing flashy, nothing to signal whatever midlife crisis had triggered his move to Eden.
His driving was like the rest of him: patient, dogged, steady. She told herself these were not qualities that appealed to her. He probably made love the same way. She pulled a face at her windshield. Nothing kinky or exciting for Chief By-The-Book Denko.
She passed the brightly lit Gas-N-Go and turned under an arch of trees onto a dark residential street. Of course, Denko would still get where he was going that way. She bet he made sure his partners did, too.
The barred moonlight ran over the hood of her car. She shivered a little, with temper and lust.
The Plaza parking lot was quiet, all the seniors’ cars tucked in safely for the night. Tess found an empty space and cut her engine. In the silence, she heard the rumble of Jarek’s engine as he pulled in behind her. His door slammed.
She took a deep breath and got out of her car. “You want my license and registration, Officer?”
“I’ll pass, thanks.” He strolled toward her. “I wouldn’t say no to a cup of coffee, though.”
The moon had ducked behind the trees. The glare from the building’s security lights could hardly be called romantic. That was okay. She didn’t want romance. Particularly not with a tight-lipped cop who came equipped with a school-age daughter.
“Oh, no,” she said. “Offering you coffee is what got me into trouble in the first place.”
His eyes narrowed. “What kind of trouble are we talking about here?”
Tess cursed her big mouth. One of these days she was going to learn to think before she spoke. Yeah, and then she’d probably never talk at all.
“I just think we should keep things on a professional footing,” she said weakly.
Denko nodded, his gaze still fixed on hers. “I wasn’t suggesting anything else.”
Disappointment and a lack of sleep made her incautious. “Sure you weren’t. I bet you invite yourself up to women’s apartments at three in the morning all the time.”
Maybe his lean cheeks reddened slightly. Under the sodium security lights, it was hard to tell.
“You wanted an opportunity to talk,” he said.
“So I’ll call the station and make an appointment.”
“You might not catch me in. I’m in and out a lot.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Fighting our big crime wave?”
The creases deepened around his mouth, but he didn’t smile. “More learning my way around. Trying to get a feel for things. You could help.”
His intensity pulled at her. He wasn’t a big man—lean and only average height—but she still felt threatened.
She shook her head. “Not in my job description, Chief.”
“Then…as a friend?”
“I’m not feeling very friendly at the moment.”
He took a step closer, close enough that she could smell the wickedness that clung to his hair and clothes, the tang of beer and cigarettes from the bar, the scent of his skin. “Maybe we should work on that,” he murmured.
Possibility quivered through her. Don’t be dumb, DeLucca. You don’t want this. You can’t want this.
“Sorry,” she said. “It wouldn’t work. You held out on me.”
He watched her closely. “Would it help if I apologized?”
“I don’t think so. You’re not exactly my type.”
“Want to tell me why?”
“Well…” She could think of a million reasons. Couldn’t she? She moistened her lips. “For one thing, you’re a cop.”
“I won’t apologize for that.” He sounded more amused than upset.
She stiffened with annoyance. “And you have a kid. I don’t do men with kids.”
“Why not?”
Because she needed to keep him at a distance, she told him the truth. Part of it, anyway. “I raised one family already. I’m not interested in taking on another.”
He stepped back. “Got it. We’ll keep it professional, then.”
Obviously he wasn’t crushed by her rejection. Tess tasted flat disappointment. “I think we’d better.”
But she didn’t object when he walked with her across the parking lot to the Plaza’s cheerless entrance. At three in the morning, she wasn’t up to arguing either about her building’s negligent security or Jarek Denko’s outdated notions of male courtesy. The anticipation she’d felt earlier that evening driving down to Chicago in pursuit of a story had evaporated. She fumbled for her keys, feeling flat and tired.
She was completely taken aback when Jarek stooped and brushed her cheek with his lips. Pleasure fizzed along her veins.
“Professional courtesy,” he explained blandly. “Sleep well.”
Oh, right. Tess staggered up the four flights to her empty apartment, her hormones churning and her brain in turmoil. She’d be lucky if she closed her eyes at all tonight.
She prowled into the kitchen, fueling her nervous energy with some stale chips from the bottom of the bag. She ate standing at the counter, listening to the hum of her refrigerator and the persistent gurgle of her leaky toilet. She licked her finger and pressed it to the seam to catch the last salty potato crumbs.
It was only the late hour that made her notice the silence, that made her feel so alone.
Jarek’s car swooped onto the lake bridge north of Eden and over a sea of mist. His eyeballs were gritty. A headache had been building at the base of his skull since the radio call that jarred him awake almost half an hour ago.
As a rookie detective, Jarek had learned to go for days without much sleep. His new schedule gave him hours alone on a brand-new, super firm, double-wide mattress. But for the past three nights, he hadn’t slept so well. Maybe it was the new job.
Or maybe it was the woman.