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“It took us an hour to find this, so we might as well leave.”
Mike hated leaving empty handed. So did the rest of the team. What had he expected? To miraculously trip over evidence that a specialist might not discover?
Chapter 12
Cassie should settle down and concentrate on her lessons. That would be the sensible thing to do. But lately she’d been far from sensible. After a long day of working with active eight-year-olds, she was restless. Which had nothing at all to do with her students.
Mike.
She remembered the feel of his chest hair beneath her cheek. The way he smelled like a clean breeze and her own shampoo. The way he held her close and caressed her skin with amazing fingers, as if he couldn’t stop touching her. She lowered her head in a deep sigh and placed her hands on her scalp.
If she could just get him out of her head she could finish her third-grade lesson plan. With her attention span this evening, it was a good thing she did not teach high school. There was no way she could focus on essays and difficult questions. Cassie could be tough when needed. A teacher had to be strong. If not, her elementary students would walk all over her.
There were times when she wanted to be soft and feminine. And allow a strong, compelling man to take care of her. She looked around her living room, taking in the large empty space—full of furniture, but empty because she lived alone. Mike had filled the room with his overpowering presence. Without Mike’s company, the apartment appeared cold. The fireplace gave the impression of real flames and burning logs. She could turn on the heated lamp and live in the illusion of a warm and welcoming fire. But the temperature had nothing to do with the warmth she craved.
His accepting manner, his demeanor, the way he looked at her with those bone melting eyes, she could lose herself in a fantasy of Mike’s affection and his welcoming arms. She could imagine them stretched out on her couch. His hand sliding up her thigh, sending delicious tingles—
Enough.
She rose from the table she used as a desk and arched her back, deciding if she was going to play make-believe, she would indulge herself with a glass of wine. Mike had taken center stage in her mind, so she might as well relax and enjoy the evening.
On a teacher’s salary, she couldn’t splurge often, but she did have a few bottles of wine in her cupboard. A Bordeaux Dry White wine, a Merlot red grape wine, and a Ménage a Trois Silk Soft Red Blend 2015.
Cassie remembered the first time she saw it. She’d been shopping with Tammy and they’d found a wine store with rare wines. They couldn’t afford anything in the place and were just browsing. Then she’d spotted the label. Tammy had nearly gotten them thrown out with her jokes and sniggering laughter, but Cassie had purchased a bottle, which had calmed the owner down rather quickly. If for no other reason, she’d bought the wine for proof it existed—she would have the name in print! And it was a great conversation piece.
That’s the one she chose tonight. She poured a generous amount into a wine glass and inhaled the berry fragrance. Mmm. She wondered if this brand was supposed to beguile one into a night of passionate activity.
A night like the one she’d had with Mike.
She’d been perfectly content living alone in her apartment, her teaching job, her routine. Then the big firefighter had crossed her path and she’d found her perfect little world was no longer perfect. Even more disturbing, she discovered she liked this man disrupting her very ordinary life.
His job was dangerous and he’d scared the life out of her the night of the accident. But that was Mike. Saving people was his life. She wondered what obstacles had shaped him and made him choose the career of a firefighter. She took a sip of wine and settled back into the cushions, thinking of Mike, naked, with only a towel to cover himself. Then a blanket and how quickly it had landed on the floor along with her own clothes. She took another sip and leaned her head on the back of the couch, feeling the tension dissolve at the back of her neck.
In her first twenty-two years, her life had been filled with school, hard work and surviving her sister. Cassie loved children, so the decision to be a teacher had been an easy one. As for relationships, men were more interested in her physical assets than anything she might say and she had no desire for male contact just for the sake of having sex. She had hoped to find a man who would be comfortable with her. Someone who would share the day with her, not just the night. But she’d spent most of the last seven years alone and not actively looking.
When she’d seen Mike, she hadn’t thought about any of those things. One look into his alluring eyes and her brain scrambled. One touch and she’d melted. She closed her eyes and inhaled a deep breath, trying to recapture the scent of the man who filled her mind.
Men had come on to her before and she’d given in, wishing for contentment, a connection, a bond she’d never found. But Mike had scattered her senses and knocked her world upside down. She hadn’t succumbed to him because of a dry spell. The choice of abstaining these past two years had been her own.
So why did she lay awake at night, craving the touch of this one man? She couldn’t stop thinking about him. Now that she’d tasted bliss, she wanted him again, and again.
***
Another sleepless night.
Should he call her? Usually Mike dodged phone calls from women. Being on the initiating end was new to him. But Cassie had captured more than his interest.
The woman was educated, a teacher. Of little kids. He could only imagine the stamina needed to put up with a dozen or more pint-sized balls of energy on full throttle. She must be a saint. Not to mention gorgeous. And had a body men fantasized about.
Jesus. He gripped the coffee mug as he recalled the night he’d spent with her, visualizing naked limbs and plush curves and how much he’d like to see her again. The first step would be to call her. After losing the battle with his conscience, it only took a matter of minutes to bribe his buddy in the police department for Cassie’s number.
Just as he reached into his pocket, his cell phone vibrated. He checked the screen.
Laredo.
“Yeah.”
“Hey, Mike. It’s my turn to cook.”
