Page 35 of Grissom
The world of men was not her specialty, certainly not her strength. If anything, she put everyone she touched in danger. Being with all of these people emphasized everything she lacked. Grissom had his sons. The TEAM wives had their husbands and children. And there she sat, caught like an itty-bitty fly in a sticky trap of honey, the honey being the handsome man rubbing herfeet with his magic fingers. The danger being the threat of falling in love with the gentle side of Grissom, then being pushed away the moment his anxiety took over. Or worse, of getting him killed, too.
This was as close as she’d been with any man since she’d traveled with Shane Hayes and Heston Contreras. But being with them hadn’t been intimate. They’d never kissed her or made passes. They were friends. Guy friends. Grissom was something else. A large brooding beast one moment, then so kind and sweet the next she couldn’t keep up. Being with him was like being the ball in a ping-pong match. Tuesday refused to waste the rest of her life being pulled in close one minute, only to be batted away and sent flying the next. And she’d never risk the life he had with his boys.
Tonight, he’d opened a bottle of white wine and turned the gas log in the fireplace on, then asked her to sit with him. The only light in the family room came from the orange glow cast by the flames. Tanner and Luke were asleep in his bedroom. Grissom had left his door cracked, then turned on the baby monitor sitting on the mantle, saying, “I need to be able to hear them. Usually us guys go to bed at the same time, but they’re really tired tonight, and” —he’d shrugged— “who knows what the night will bring?”
He hadn’t said that suggestively, just poured two glasses and handed one to Tuesday. He set his wine glass on the coffee table between the couch and fireplace, then reached for her ankles and slipped her socks off. Now they were playing a version of truth or dare, but had yet to come up with questions the other couldn’t or wouldn’t answer. She knew his favorite color, his birthday, where he was born, and that his parents still lived in his hometown, Portland, Oregon. He knew the same minutia about her. They’d talked about her role in taking Maeve Astor down, and everything that demented woman had done to frameTuesday for several murders. Grissom knew Tuesday went to college in New York City. She knew he hadn’t graduated high school, but had his GED and nearly enough credits for the business degree he was working on.
“The problem with attending college full-time is soldiers deploy a lot. Statistics is the next class on my to-do list, though. It’ll happen.”
“What then? Will you stay with The TEAM or do you have other plans once you have that degree under your belt?”
“Not sure. It’s been a tough year, between me being in that wreck and almost losing my boys. Plus, Pam trashed our old house before she fled the States. Murphy took care of the mess and selling it, and my buddy Taylor found this home for us. All the furniture’s second hand. I sure couldn’t afford buying new stuff. Maybe once the boys are back in school and things settle down, I’ll know what I should do. Until then…” He tipped his glass to his lips, emptied it in one swallow, and set it back on the table.
Tuesday watched the muscles in his neck flex with that manly swallow. Grissom’s beard and sideburns were neatly trimmed. She had no idea what style it was, but it was more manicured than shaggy. His neck was clean-shaven, and he’d recently splashed on some brand of heavenly fragrance, maybe when he’d put the boys to bed.
He tapped her kneecap and teased, “Am I boring you?”
Startled out of her fanciful wondering, she chuckled. “I was just wondering if beards have styles and what style yours is.”
He scratched his fingers over the shadow on his chin. “Don’t know about style, just know it itches if I let it grow too long. So… boyfriends? Girlfriends?”
Tuesday scoffed. “Who, me? Not hardly. I was married before college, remember, so no boyfriends. No girlfriends.” No friends at all. This was where Grissom found out what a patheticloser she was. To forestall the inevitable, she focused on swirling the fruity Moscato in her wine glass, coating as much of the bowl as she could without spilling a drop.
“I don’t have any girlfriends, either,” Grissom said, with just enough tease behind his words that Tuesday’s head came up. His hazel eyes were bright. The joker was grinning.
But this was a serious subject, and he’d already figured her out, so Tuesday admitted her biggest secret. “No college kid, male or female, wants to hang out with married women, much less one whose bodyguard stands ten feet behind her wherever she goes, and yes, even to class. I was a media target even back then. I was toxic. Me, a girl with no class, from Duluth, Minnesota, all because of my famous husband. Trust me, the paparazzi’s worse than a pack of starving hyenas. They don’t mind spilling blood or tearing you apart if it gets them a photo and story.”
“No significant other?”
She met his frank stare. “No, Grissom. Nobody but Robert Freiburg in my life, and he’s fifty-something and married. I did have a lot of fun with Heston when he accompanied me to New York City for that interview, though.”
Grissom’s head canted. “Oh?”
Tuesday knew what she was doing was dangerous, but she was doing it anyway. “Yes!” She feigned gushing excitement. “He took me dancing at a club and then to a Broadway play. We ate at the best restaurant in China-Town, and he tracked down the most delicious New York cheesecake in the city. We even saw the Naked Cowboy! Heston took me on a wonderful river tour, bought us delicious Gray’s Papaya hotdogs, and—”
Oomph!The glass was out of her hand, and Tuesday found herself pulled away from the armrest and flat on her back, staring up into Grissom’s handsome face. Her legs were nowtrapped between his knees. His hazel eyes were dark, and, oh, so dangerous.
His thighs were thick and powerful. He was a beast, a bull, the heft of his body weighing her down, holding her in place, and she was a quivering caged rabbit beneath him. There was no escape. She’d never felt so small before. Or so alive.
A scorching wave of heat swept through her like a hurricane. Tuesday tried to swallow but settled for licking her suddenly dry lips. A gush released between her legs. Her mouth seemed parched, yet she was overly wet in other places. How’d that work?
Oh my, my, my.All the naughty things, those nasty, compromising things she’d been taught in school that good girls never, ever did, wouldn’t think of doing, she wanted to do with the beast breathing his heavenly wine-scented breath over her face. Something strange and wonderful was happening to her body. She was on fire, burning with fever and want and—lust. Her. An untried virgin who had no idea what lust felt like until now. Or what to do with it now that it was burning her. What to do next.
Stay perfectly still? She could do that; she’d done it often enough before—if she could get her nerves to settle down and her body to stop quivering.
Should she take a risk? Reach out and pet the fierce animal gazing down at her through thick, black velvet lashes? Her arms and hands weren’t caged. She could do that. Maybe. If her heart would stop pounding like the entire percussion section in her high school band.
Be brave? Throw caution to the wind and kiss him?
The perfect question.
Cautiously. Slowly. Terribly afraid she was wrong and that he might ridicule her, Tuesday reached one hand up to Grissom’s face and nervously cupped that prickly masculine chin. His eyesclosed. He growled, the deep bass vibrating through his body into hers. His eyes shuttered. Lines of pain stretched out from their corners and etched his brow. He was a mountain and she was a tiny mouse. Everywhere their bodies touched became a flame, a burning, glowing brand soaking into her skin. Insanely intoxicating. Downright indescribably tempting.
“You’re a New Yorker. Hadn’t you already done all those things?” he bit out, his voice husky and threateningly deep.
“N-not with anyone my age. Freddie was high-class. He took me to operas and charity affairs. B-b-ut Heston was fun-class.”
“And…?” Grissom growled. “What else was Heston?”
