The Witness

me—to stop you. He’s seen you touch me, and I’ve instructed him you’re a friend, and to stand down. He sees I’ve brought you up here without duress, that I touch you.”
    She laid a hand on Brooks’s chest, then glanced at the dog, gave him an order.
    “What language was that?” Brooks asked when the dog walked over to a generous dog bed, circled three times and laid down with a windy sigh.
    “Farsi.”
    “Seriously? You and Bert speak Farsi?”
    “Not very well, but I’m working on it. I told him to rest. I don’t want to put him out of the room. He wouldn’t understand.”
    “Okay. Is that a stuffed bear in his bed?”
    “Dogs are pack animals.”
    “Uh-huh, and a stuffed teddy bear is Bert’s pack?”
    “It comforts him. I’d like to turn down the bed.”
    “I’ll give you a hand.”
    “No. I have my—”
    “Own way. Fine.” He wandered over, studied the computer station set up very like the one on the first floor.
    “It makes you wonder.” She folded the simple duvet onto the padded bench at the foot of the bed. “I’m in the business. I believe strongly in security, and feel a separate obligation to use and test products and systems.”
    “I think that’s true. But that’s not all.” He turned around, watched with appreciation when she took a condom from the nightstand drawer and set it on the table by the bed. “And we don’t need to talk about it now. Is it okay if I put my weapon on the desk here?”
    “Yes. Should I undress?”
    “No. I have
my
own way.”
    After he took off his gun, set it down, he crossed to her, trailed a hand down her hair, her cheek, her shoulder. “I like finding out for myself what’s under there.”
    He kissed her, testing, teasing, his fingers still skimming, over her face, down her side, up her back. Light and easy as he could feel her holding back, holding in.
    “You have good hands.”
    “I haven’t put them to much use where you’re concerned yet.”
    “But you will. I’d like to see,” she said as she began to unbutton his shirt. “You don’t wear a uniform like your deputies.”
    “I got out of the habit. Didn’t much feel like picking it up again.”
    “I like that you don’t. You wear your authority in a different way.” She parted his shirt, spread her hands over his chest. “You’re in very good shape.”
    “Thanks.”
    And lifted her eyes to his. “So am I.”
    “I’ve noticed.”
    “I’m very strong for my build, and have exceptional endurance.”
    “You’re the sexiest thing, in the strangest ways.” He peeled her shirt up and away.
    “I—”
    “Ssh.” He laid his lips on hers as he boosted her onto the bed.
    The dog didn’t make a sound, but Brooks could feel the guarded stare boring into his back as he lowered himself to Abigail.
    Her skin was soft, warm and smooth, the muscles of her arms, her shoulders taut. And though her mouth met and answered his avidly, those eyes stayed as watchful as her dog’s.
    “Close your eyes,” he murmured, nibbling his way to her throat and back.
    “I like to see,” she repeated.
    “Close your eyes for a minute, and just feel.”
    He waited until she did, then closed his own. Then let himself sink, just a little deeper.
    She felt. Nerve endings, pressure points, textures, all the more erotic with her eyes closed. A kind of trade-off for control.
    She was safe, she reminded herself. She was capable. And she needed.
    “Don’t think.” He skimmed his teeth over her jaw. “Just feel.”
    She wasn’t sure she knew how not to think. But she kept her silence since he seemed to prefer it, tried to let her mind relax.
    Different, everything was different here, with him. She wanted to analyze why, but it was so pleasant to only experience.
    Just this once, she told herself.
    She softened under him, just a little. Just enough. He glided his lips along the subtle swell of her breast over the simple line of her bra, slid his tongue under the cotton, heard her breath catch. So he lingered there, stirring her while his hands roamed.
    She’d opened one of the windows partway so the night breeze fluttered through, carrying the scent of the woods, the steady music of the creek.
    Moonshine shimmered in hazy beams.
    He flipped open the button of her pants, eased them down a few inches and felt the ridge of a tiny scar high on the blade of her hip.
    He took his time, wanted time, to discover her, the angles and curves and dips, the simple clean scent of her skin, the way