Cavanaugh Justice: The Strong Silent Type Part 18

She wanted more, always more.

And then he was over her, taking her. She wrapped her legs around his torso, arching so that he could drive himself deep into her. She resisted the urge to bite down on his shoulder as he took the last shred that comprised the essence of her and left her all but numb. And very, very contented.

She didn't think that her heart would ever stop pounding.

"What was all that about?" she asked when she finally summoned the strength to form words without gasping for air.

He lay over her, hardly aware of his surroundings beyond the way her b.r.e.a.s.t.s rose and fell, brus.h.i.+ng against him as she breathed. He didn't remember ever feeling happy before. Was that what this was? he wondered. Happiness? He had no frame of reference to draw on.

"Hmm?" Hawk raised his head, surprised at how much effort the simple action required. "Did I do it wrong?" Resting an elbow on the bed, he propped his head up and looked at her.

"I know what you did." She laughed. "You just seemed a little more-" Teri hunted for a word "-inspired this time."

"Maybe you inspire me." Things were going on inside of him again, things he would need to examine eventually, but not yet. Not yet. Taking a strand of her hair, he wrapped it around his index finger slowly. "Why do you have this need to turn everything into an interrogation?"

She struggled not to wiggle beneath him as her body reacted to the pressure of his. "I'm not interrogating, I'm trying to understand."

"Well, don't." It was friendly advice, but with a warning. "Some things don't hold up well under scrutiny."

"What does that mean?"

He smiled into her eyes then. He found himself wanting her again. d.a.m.n, but she could raise the dead. "It means that I'm going to have to kiss you again to shut you up."

This time she did move beneath him. And felt his desire for her growing. "Is that the only reason you're going to kiss me again?"

He s.h.i.+fted slightly, tantalizing her with each movement. "I plead the Fifth."

She didn't want to know things anymore. She just wanted to be with him. "You don't have to plead at all."

But he did. He had to plead for mercy, at least in his mind, because he was completely at hers and that was a source of great concern to him. But not now. Now, he just wanted to lose himself in her again. To take slowly what he'd s.n.a.t.c.hed up so quickly before. To savor it this time because tonight was all there was.

Now was all there was.

It was the one lesson in life he'd learned, the only true lesson that life had to offer. He'd learned it the hard way. Nothing lasted. Ever. And it was best to move on rather than allow yourself to be run over, to allow yourself to be devastated.

But all that was for dawn's early light. The night was made for pa.s.sion and he had it to spare.

He had no choice.

She gave him no choice.

He had to switch partners before it was too late for him.

If it wasn't already.

He could feel his resolve slackening, could feel himself slipping quickly. He couldn't afford to let that happen, couldn't let himself become weak.

Besides, he had nothing to offer her. She was light; he was the complete absence of it. She came from a large, happy, well-adjusted family. His had been the last word in dysfunctional. They didn't belong together and the fact that he wanted them to be together only brought home to him the fact that he needed to get out now, before he couldn't anymore.

Sitting in front of the steel-gray desk, he watched the chief of detectives' face as the man reviewed the paperwork on the desk in front of him. He couldn't help thinking that Brian Cavanaugh was the spitting image of his older brother, Andrew.

Finally, the man looked up at him. The expression on his face was incredulous. "You're asking for another partner?"

Ordinarily, the situation was reversed and it was his partners, for one reason or another, who were asking to bail out. But this was different.

"Yes, sir." It was either that, or transfer out of the department entirely.

Maybe going back to Homicide was the answer. Hawk debated the possibility.

Brian Cavanaugh set down the lengthy form he was looking over. "Would you mind if I asked why?"

Hawk wasn't about to get into it and he didn't like lying. That gave him no options. "It would just be better all around."

It was obvious by his expression that the chief of detectives had his own opinion on the matter. "You know, I put you together with Teri for a reason. Not because she's my niece," he said firmly, forestalling any debate in that direction, "but because I had a feeling that she could make a difference for you."

Hawk drew his eyebrows together. "Excuse me?"

The chief's manner was calm, soothing. He'd been known to quell more than one tempest in his time, but Hawk didn't feel like being a.n.a.lyzed. He bit his tongue, waiting.

"You're a d.a.m.n good detective, Hawk, and I'm happy to have you as part of my team, but I see a great deal of potential in you that isn't being tapped." Hawk struggled not to s.h.i.+ft impatiently in his chair. "A man keeps things bottled up inside of him for years, there's no telling when he might go off."

"I'm not planning to detonate, sir," Hawk answered as politely as he could under the circ.u.mstances. "At least, not if I can change partners."

Brian looked down on the page again. Hawk had cited irreconcilable differences as the reason for the request. He began to place the page in his desk drawer. "Tell you what-why don't you sleep on it?"

The look in Hawk's eyes stopped him from closing the drawer. "I don't have to sleep on it, sir. I've already made up my mind."

Resigned, Brian reluctantly nodded. "All right. But I think this is a mistake. Teri's the first partner you've had who didn't come in to me to complain about you." He waited, but there was nothing. "But if this is what you want-"

"I do."

Brian checked the roster. "I'm switching you with Toby Mitch.e.l.l, effective immediately. You'll be teamed up with Alan Williams. I'll send through the paperwork right away." He made a notation on the form, then looked up at Hawk. "Do you want to tell her, or shall I?"

Hawk shrugged. "Either way." Although he would have preferred not to have to face her. Luck was riding with him. He got his wish.

"I'll handle it," Brian said. His tone was far from pleased.

Hawk didn't have to open his door.

He knew he would find Teri on the other side the moment he heard the pounding. What he hadn't expected was to find her all but breathing fire. He'd never seen her this angry. This magnificent. Sparks almost flew from her eyes.

The second he opened the door, she pushed her way in, then whirled on her heel to look up at him.

"There are a lot of words I would have used to describe you, Hawk, most of them not very pretty, but the one word I was completely certain didn't apply to you was coward." Her chin was up, her tolerance down. She couldn't remember ever being more furious, ever feeling more betrayed in her life. "Why weren't you man enough to tell me you were putting in for another partner? I thought we had an understanding, that we'd reached a rhythm. If there was something wrong, why didn't you just tell me?"

"Because it wasn't something to talk about, it was just something to do," he ground out. "Besides, this was the way it always happened for me. One minute I had one partner, the next I had another." And it had all been the same to him, marginally tolerable. Until now.

"Well, that's not the way it's ever happened to me," she declared hotly. "The only other partners I had retired. Besides," she said, poking at his chest with her index finger, "what happened in the past doesn't count here." She reinforced each word with a jab to his chest. Each jab was harder than the last, shadowing her fury.

He let her get through the sentence, then grabbed her hand and pushed it away. "You're making a hole in my chest."

"Good. It'll match the one in your head." But she let her hand remain at her side. "I thought we were more than just two people riding around in a car together."

Had she just been fooling herself? Was this what he was like with women? Made love to them until they were mindless, then bailed out? No, if that were true, she would have heard. Even though he was so closemouthed, in-house gossip would have brought word to her long before anything had exploded between them.

He was turning away from her. Incensed, she grabbed his shoulder and yanked him around.

"d.a.m.n it, Hawk, you owed me a little courtesy. You should have come to me to work out whatever problem is bothering you."

"You are the problem that needs to be worked out."

She felt as if all the air had been let out of her lungs. "What?"

He struggled to keep his temper in check, his voice even. Struggled to keep from telling her more than he wanted her to know. But it wasn't easy.

"You've gotten under my skin. Gotten to me and I don't want to be gotten to. So just go home, Teri. Go home to your nice house, your nice family and leave me the h.e.l.l alone."

She wanted to fight him on this, to tell him that he wasn't making any sense. That maybe he was feeling as scared as she was about the path they were on, but that it was okay because she'd hold his hand and he would hold hers and somehow they'd get through it together.

He'd called her by her first name again. That had to mean something. She was grasping at straws, she told herself. If she had to do this much persuading, maybe they wouldn't get through it together.

Or maybe most of it was in her head, maybe most of the feelings were all one-sided. Her side, not his.

Even she knew that there came a time when pus.h.i.+ng wasn't the way to go. Although it was against every single natural impulse she harbored, Teri stepped back, raised her hands and surrendered.

"Okay," she said quietly. "Okay. You win. Do whatever you want."

With that, she turned on her heel and walked out of his apartment. Before he could see her cry.

Hawk stood where he was for a long moment, staring at the door she'd just closed. And then, letting loose with an oath, he doubled up his fist and slammed it into the wall.

Chapter Fifteen.

H awk walked into his apartment, closing the door behind him. He removed his weapon and holster, placing it carefully beside the keys he'd dropped on the small counter. Dinner received a pa.s.sing thought from him, then was abandoned in favor of something more liquid.

Taking the bottle of beer out of the refrigerator, he dropped onto the love seat and aimed the remote at the television set. He had no preferences as to a program, only that there be a droning voice in the background. Silence just wasn't cutting it for him anymore.

He opened the bottle and took a deep drag from it, then stared down at the amber gla.s.s. He was rid of her, at least in theory. He and Williams had been partnered for two weeks now and were already working as if they'd been together from the very beginning.

He had what he wanted. Trouble was, he didn't want it anymore.

Hawk took another long pull on the bottle. A bright, smiling woman on the set was pus.h.i.+ng tooth whitener. Her smile reminded him of Teri.

Everything reminded him of Teri.

He'd thought that, given the right opportunity, he could easily reclaim his old habits, his old ways.

He thought wrong. It was like a snake trying to get back into the skin he'd shed. Impossible. Like it or not, he'd moved on in his life. Maybe even grown. That was something she would have probably said, he thought.

All he knew was that his old life didn't fit him anymore. Working and coming home wasn't enough, the way it had once been. Sharing a partners.h.i.+p with Williams wasn't enough.

The man was everything his old partner at Homicide had been. Quiet, reflective and a pretty decent enough detective when the chips were down. G.o.d knows Williams didn't talk his ear off, the way she had. At times, it seemed as if he and Williams were even on the same wavelength.

But there was no spark, no fire. No sheen. Everything seemed dull somehow. It was as if he'd been led out into the suns.h.i.+ne only to be pushed back into his cave again. The cave wasn't good enough anymore. He wanted his suns.h.i.+ne back.

Except that meant admitting he was wrong.

Hawk frowned to himself. He wasn't very p.r.o.ne to admitting he was wrong, he thought. So he'd continued to try. And continued to feel as if he were stumbling around in the dark, searching for the one way out of that cave.

Sitting back on the love seat, he put his feet up on the coffee table, crossing his boots at the ankle and staring at the set.

He still saw her.

They inhabited the same squad room, albeit at different ends. It was easy enough to avoid looking her way if he put his mind to it, but avoiding hearing her was another matter. He couldn't do that without putting in earplugs. He'd lost the knack of tuning things out. Tuning her out. He caught himself actually listening for her. For the sound of her laughter, which was the worst because it got under his skin. Reminded him of things he didn't want to be reminded of. Like being with her. Like making love with her. Like being tied up in knots and welcoming the sensation.

It was all wrong.

He'd thought of going back to the chief and asking him for a transfer back into his old Homicide division, had even gone up to the man's office once. But something at the last minute had kept him from going in.

Maybe it was the fear that the chief would think of him as a royal pain. He'd never needed special treatment before. But that had been before that d.a.m.ned witch had cast her spell over him.

It was all Cavanaugh's fault, he thought miserably. All of it. He'd been happy before she came.

No, he hadn't, Hawk admitted as he drained the last of his bottle. Setting it down, he debated having another. But an entire sea of beer wasn't going to cure what ailed him and nothing but a cure was acceptable right now.

He hadn't been happy at all before Teri had stormed her way into his life. That was the whole problem. Being with her had shown him a glimpse of what being happy could be like.

She'd make him laugh. More than that, she'd made him feel.

And fear of feeling was what had gotten him to this juncture in his life.

He didn't want to be in it anymore.

Muting the TV, he took out his cell phone and punched in a number.

Maybe she should have taken her father up on the invitation and gone to the movie. It was one of those action-buddy movies he favored. She did, too. But she didn't feel as if she'd be good company tonight. Besides, her uncle was coming and the last thing she wanted to hear was to have him ask how the new partner was working out.

He wasn't. Oh, he was likable enough and, unlike Hawk, Mitch.e.l.l talked. Talked a great deal and actually seemed interested in what she had to say. But that was just the problem. He was unlike Hawk and all Mitch.e.l.l did was make her miss Hawk more.

She had to get over this, she told herself sternly, had to get over being like some stupid, mooning adolescent who'd just broken up with the captain of the football team. She was a grown woman and these things happened. It was all part of life.

A life without Hawk.