Lover Beware

time we strap on a gun and take on a suspect, we put our lives on the line. It doesn’t matter if I’m a woman. Men die, too. Good men. In the line of duty. They leave wives and children and parents behind…because they want to make the world a safer place for their families. Where would the civilized world be without us?”
    She blinked sleepily. The searing pain on her neck and the ache between her shoulders were duller now. Soon the memories of the attack would be quieted. Soon the realities of the case would return.
    Focus. She didn’t want to think about those realities now. Focus. On here. Now. On the man who looked at her with such craving and love in his eyes she felt her heart melt.
    Struggling to sit up, she slipped her hands around her back and unclasped her bra. She lay back down and lifted her arms to him. “For old time’s sake,” she whispered.
    Jerry unsnapped his jeans and slid them down his hips. He tossed his shirt aside, lowered his body gently down on hers, and buried his head in the crook of her neck, his breath warm and moist against her ear.
    “I love you. I’ll never stop loving you,” he murmured.
    She slid her fingers through his thick, dark hair. It slightly curled around her fingers. And she realized, in that moment, that the thoughts that had fractured through her mind in those terrifying moments at Gonzales’s hands, that it had been Jerry’s face that had flashed before her eyes. Images of his smile. His tenderness. His teasing. And his heartbreak.
    As he lifted his head, her lids fluttered open, looking through the dark into his eyes that regarded her with so much desire her heart felt, for an instant, as if it had stopped beating entirely. An ecstasy of emotion flooded through her as he brushed her mouth in a tenuous kiss.
    “I love you, Anna,” he told her again, the pain resonating so in his voice that tears rose to her eyes.
    He moved. Peeled her panties down her legs, which she opened freely, sighing as his fingers stroked her, sliding into her, until she was wet and slick and aching.
    “For old time’s sake.” He smiled, sinking his body deeply into hers, fingers twisting into her hair. He moved against her, tenderly at first, until the strain of passion overcame them both. Until their bodies writhed with remembered fervor, and fever. Seeking. Sliding. Insistent. The tip of his penis teasing her entrance, but barely, until their groans quickened and her body moved as abandonedly as his. Until the end came much too swiftly for them both and the fall back to earth was like snow drifting from heaven.
    Quiet, motionless, they lay together. Arms and legs entangled. She closed her eyes—so easily she could give in to the painkilling drug the doctor had pumped into her veins. So easy to glide away into oblivion, forget the last hours. Forget the last years. Forget Jerry Costos…just for a little while.
    But she wouldn’t. She couldn’t.
    Jerry rolled to his back, pulled her against his side, and cradled her as he stared at the ceiling, releasing a sigh of relief.
    “We got him, Anna, thanks to you. You deserve one hell of a commendation.”
    “No,” she whispered, lifting her head to look into his eyes. “You got Gonzales, Jerry. He’s still out there, the French Quarter Killer.”
    His gaze hardened and he looked away. “You’re wrong.”
    Laying her head on his chest, she listened to his heart thud. “I hope you’re right,” she said, and nothing more, just lay unmoving until his breathing became deep and his arms around her relaxed.
    As easily as possible, she slid from the bed, slipped on her clothes, and checked her watch. Just enough time to get back to the hotel, collect her belongings, and catch the five A.M . flight back to Quantico.
    She paused at the bedroom door—told herself not to look back. But she did anyway. Jerry appeared to be sleeping—but she doubted it. He would watch her walk out of his life once again, knowing that it had been inevitable.
    Anna blew him a kiss and whispered, “For old time’s sake.”
    Then she silently left the apartment.
    Too damn bad they could never make a go of it.
     
    HE WHISTLES TO himself as he folds the newspaper in half and tucks it under his arm. The stewardess for Delta Airlines requests that all first-class passengers board. She flashes him a smile and says, “Good to see you again. Have a great flight.”
    He gives her a wink and a smile, shifts his fine leather briefcase to the other hand