License to Thrill. Tori Carrington

between the sheets.

      He heard the click of her swallow as she moved restlessly beneath him.

      Oh, she remembered, all right. He could tell by the way she arched against him even as she sought to put more distance between them. Impossible, given their current position.

      “I don’t think it’s a good idea for either of us to remember,” she said quietly, turning her head away when he would have pressed his mouth against her jawline.

      He forced himself to pull back. “I think it’s the best idea I’ve heard in a long time.”

      She turned her head toward him. “Just one of the many examples of how differently we think, isn’t it?”

      He recognized the shadow of pain in her eyes. He’d seen it once before. The night before she was shot. The night they’d had their first and, as luck would have it, last argument. The night she had asked if he loved her.

      Remembering the moment, Marc found swallowing almost impossible. But upon closer examination, he discovered there was something else in the depths of her eyes that was somehow unlike the pain she had so clearly felt then.

      Before he could pinpoint exactly what, she moved one of her legs up, catching him off guard, though her stockings guaranteed her attempts were ineffective. He grimaced, thinking it was a good thing he’d tossed her shoes into the back or he’d have been in trouble.

      “You’re getting rusty, Mel.” He patted her legs then reluctantly drew back. “I guess a dress and a couple months under Mother Wilhemenia’s roof will do that to a person.”

      He watched the color return to her cheeks, though she still refused to meet his gaze. “And you’re still as reckless as you always were, aren’t you, Marc?”

      “You used to tell me my…how did you put it? My adventurous nature was what you loved about me.” He cringed at the loose use of the L-word.

      “What?” The cuffs clanked as she shifted to look at him. “I never said I loved that about you. That trait is exactly what made me—what made us so different.”

      Marc eased himself out of the car and closed the door. He drew in a deep breath and worked his shoulders to loosen the muscles there. Yes, Mel had always appealed to him in a way he’d never wanted to examine too closely, but this… He thrust his hand through his hair, frustrated by his inability to define what he was feeling. One thing he did know was that he’d have to control it if he was going to protect Mel in the way she needed to be protected. And if he was going to get her back into his life.

      He glanced toward the inn. Why didn’t it surprise him to find Mrs. Weber marching through the door? He grimaced, watching as she motioned to a man about his own age. Marc clutched the driver’s door handle. Mel’s groom, he guessed.

      No, this wasn’t going as planned at all.

      Then again, nothing with Mel had ever really gone as planned. If it had, she would still be with him and the division and she wouldn’t be getting ready to marry some other fool on Saturday morning, putting herself at more risk than she knew. And making him feel lonelier than he’d ever thought possible.

      He climbed in and slammed the door so hard the Jeep rocked. He started the engine.

      “Where are you taking me?” Mel asked again. The persistent clank of the cuffs told him she was examining them. He didn’t have to look. She knew as well as he did there was no way she could free herself. Not unless she carried a key in her bra. Something he doubted, but he had prepared for the possibility anyway by making sure she couldn’t reach it if she did have one.

      “Just sit back and enjoy the ride, Mel. You’re not exactly in a position to do much else.”

      She pushed at the back of his seat with her feet. Marc leaned forward. She might have gotten a little rusty, but she still packed a hell of a punch. And he wouldn’t put it past her to have enough strength in those long legs to send him flying through the windshield.

      He should have brought some shackles.

      Stick to the plan.

      Just because the plan was off course didn’t mean he couldn’t proceed with the rest of it.

      He thought back to a magazine article he’d recently read. When having problems, focus on the good things.

      “Mel?” he said quietly.

      A long silence, then a tentative, “What?” drifted from the back seat. He looked to find her still examining the cuffs. Marc faced the road again.

      “Remember the time we were on the vice-presidential detail in Seattle?”

      Silence.

      “You remember. He was in Washington for the preprimary debate, and we were placed on extra alert—”

      “I remember,” Mel interrupted, apparently giving up her study of the cuffs.

      He glanced to find her staring at him. “Then you remember what you did when you saw that perp in the hotel kitchen? You wrestled the guy to the floor before he had a chance to identify himself.” She turned her face away. “Good thing the vice president’s ticker was strong, or you would have given him a heart attack.”

      No response. Marc tightened his hands on the steering wheel. Maybe that hadn’t been the best memory to use.

      “Of course you couldn’t have known he liked to walk the streets incognito, picking up a paper or two. Hell, none of us knew.”

      Silence.

      Marc cleared his throat. The art of conversation was obviously not an inherited skill. His father was a pro at it—at least with others—as was his brother Mitch. Given Mel’s response, he guessed he was still an amateur. “Not in the mood for reminiscing, Mel?”

      “Don’t call me Mel,” she said finally. He exhaled in surprised relief. An angry Mel was much easier to deal with than a silent one. “My name’s Melanie. And no, I don’t feel like revisiting the past, Marc. I’d just as soon forget it.”

      He turned onto the on-ramp for I-270 South. “It wasn’t that long ago.”

      “Ninety-two days. Two-thousand, two hundred and eight hours. One hundred, thirty-two thousand—”

      “All right, I get the picture already,” he grumbled.

      “—four hundred and eighty minutes,” she finished, her voice little more than a whisper. “That’s a lot of time. Enough time for a person to completely reinvent herself.” She paused. “I’m not rusty, Marc. I’m not the person you knew.”

      Maybe she had a point there. Marc rubbed his fingers across his chin. Then again, his reaction to her hadn’t changed. While Mel still carried her .25—strapped to her milky thigh, no less—she didn’t call herself his partner anymore, in either sense of the word, no matter how much he wanted to lose himself in her. Now more than ever. Three months without Melanie had done that to him.

      He resisted the urge to rearrange a certain painfully erect body part into a more comfortable position. He reminded himself that his plan had as much to do with physical urges as it did with the threat that loomed over Mel’s head. And the changes in her merely amplified her need for protection.

      What would she do when he told her Hooker had escaped from custody en route to his hearing? That it was strongly suspected he was coming after her to finish the job?

      He looked at her in the rearview mirror, flinching when the rock she wore on her left ring finger reflected the sunlight. He thought about the velvet pouch in his pocket. His ring was nothing compared to the one she had on. Little more than costume jewelry. Why had he decided an emerald was prettier than a diamond?

      He grimaced, wondering why he carried the stupid thing around, anyway.

      Marc mulled the situation over for the half-hour ride into the city, finding no easy answers to his questions or the ones Mel kept asking. Honesty