to Eve’s house as home. Not her home, but just “home.”
Had she picked up on that? Looking at her, he couldn’t tell.
He supposed in the last few weeks, he had come to think of Eve’s place as home. Her house was where he spent most of his downtime.
Moreover, this was where his daughter was.
Careful, Serrano. You’re just here to look after her, to make sure the scum you’re associating with doesn’t harm her or the baby. Nothing more. Don’t let yourself get caught up in something you can’t handle.
The father of her child. Eve realized she was smiling at him. Maybe it was the afterglow of a successful dinner party, small though it was. Or maybe she was just too tired to keep her guard up, but she was having some very kind, not to mention sensual, thoughts about Adam right now.
Maybe she’d been too hard on him.
After all, he didn’t have to come around all these weeks and help her until she finally got her “mother” legs firmly planted beneath her. But Adam had come through for her with flying colors.
All this after she had, in essence, run out on him.
Don’t forget why you ran out on him.
But he’d changed, Eve silently argued with herself.
She’d tried to cling to the belief that people were basically good and that, if they went down the wrong path, with enough effort, they could redeem themselves. They could get back to the right path again. There was nothing to indicate Adam had brought his old way of life with him or that he was still associating with addicts.
When would he have the time? His days were divided between the bookstore and the baby and her.
“You’re awfully quiet,” Adam observed after several minutes of silence had gone by. Despite her arguing to the contrary, had all this been too much for her? She usually wasn’t this quiet. “What are you thinking?”
Not wanting to admit that she’d been thinking about him, that lately, most of her thoughts were centered on or around him, Eve said, “I was just thinking about going back to work at the animal hospital on Monday. Vera has been pretty swamped and she’s had to close the place on Sundays. I don’t like not being available to my patients one day a week.”
He knew her. If she went back, she’d throw herself into her work wholeheartedly. It was easier to watch over her in her house. A lot of people came into the hospital. An assailant could easily slip in.
“You think you’re up to going back full-time?” he asked. “Maybe you should try going back just parttime for now, work your way back up to frantic over the course of a month or two.”
She’d already made up her mind. There was a place for the baby in the back office. She, Vera and Susannah could all take turns keeping an eye on Brooklyn.
“I don’t like just dipping my toe in the water,” she told him. “I like diving in.”
The smile that came to his lips was automatic. “Yes, I remember.”
Her cheeks suddenly turned a fascinating shade of scarlet. Adam did his best to bite back a laugh. As he did, he felt that same strong, breath-stealing stir whirl around his insides, the one he experienced whenever he would look at her, really look at her and realize just how beautiful she was.
Allowing his instincts to govern him, the way he would during a mission, Adam brushed his knuckles against her cheek. He saw a glimmer of desire flash in her eyes. Considering what was at stake, that should have been his red flag, his signal to back away. Now.
But he ignored it.
Ignored everything but this unmanageable yearning that was holding him a veritable prisoner. With one hand gently touching her face, Adam leaned in and lightly brushed his lips against hers.
Though his lips barely touched hers, it still had the same effect as the first time he’d kissed her all those months ago. He felt as if a fist had been slammed into his midsection, knocking all the air right out of him.
Okay, this was where he had to pull back. He’d had his sample, had tasted how sweet her lips still were and had rediscovered just how overwhelmingly susceptible he still was to her. All his questions were concisely answered.
This was where he needed to cut and run, or at the very least, to retreat. There was no way this could lead to anything except for frustration. And the more he allowed this longing, this need, to build up within him, the more frustrated he’d be. There was no recourse but to leave. The woman had just given birth, for God’s sake. She was literally in no shape to give him what he so badly craved—and that was a good thing because, deep in his soul, he knew she was a habit he needed to kick.
For her sake.
He had nothing to offer her except for bits and pieces of himself and a life that was forever being lived on the edge. If she were part of his world, really a part of his world, she’d be in danger all the time. And he would be worried about her all the time, her and the baby. The first thing he’d been taught was that an operative with a split focus was a dead operative.
He couldn’t let himself go, for her sake more than for his.
So, with supreme effort, Adam drew away, his adrenaline racing through his veins as if he had his back to the wall and was facing down an entire squadron of drug dealers, every last one of them intent on slowly vivisecting him.
Stunned, Eve blinked. Oh, no, he wasn’t going to do this to her. He wasn’t going to stir her up, making her, in the space of hardly a few seconds, mentally forsake each and every one of the promises she’d made to herself just to pull back.
Was he trying to prove something to himself? That he could walk away from her at any time? Or was there more to it? Was he showing her that he still had power over her? That he could still press her buttons, make her need him more than she needed the very air to breathe?
Well, she would be doing the showing, not him.
Very deliberately, Eve wove her arms around his neck, her eyes more than her arms holding him in place. The next moment, she brought her mouth to his. Brought her soul to his, kissing him as if the very world would be doomed if she didn’t.
Damn it, Eve, why are you making this so hard?
Pulling his head back, Adam gently but firmly removed her arms from around his neck. “We can’t,” was all he said.
She put her own interpretation to his words, praying she wasn’t being the biggest fool the world had ever seen. That he wasn’t just toying with her because he could.
“I’m all right,” she whispered, her eyes on his. “The doctor told me that I could … be with you if I wanted to.”
Be with you. What a tenderly innocent way to say it, he couldn’t help thinking. Maybe, just maybe, if he could just have this one last time to make love with her, that would somehow sustain him. He knew all too well that making love with her wouldn’t quench the fire, but at least it could dowse it for a small space of time, allowing him to reapply himself to what he really needed to concentrate on. With any luck, the worthless piece of trash he was dealing with would slip, giving him the name of the head supplier and the department could move in for the kill.
He wasn’t naive enough to think that once this present head of the cartel was captured that would be the end of it. Like a hydra monster, if one head was cut off, one if not two more would suddenly pop up in its place. But with luck, there would be some downtime and maybe, the department could further clean up the streets.
With effort, they might make it more difficult for a new foothold to form in the high schools currently being supplied with narcotics. Any respite was better than none and who knew, maybe in that small time frame the users would see the upside of even partially regaining control over their lives. Maybe they would think twice before abdicating it again,