Karma Patrol (26 page)

He let himself give in to the panic for a few minutes, the tightness in his chest intensifying as his mind raced with thoughts of all the terrible things that could
have happened tonight. He could have been killed. Jade could have been killed. The shooter could have returned for a second round after the initial shooting, and any of the cops he worked with who’d shown up to cover the scene could have been killed.

While he was indulging his fear response, he went ahead and let himself panic a little over Jade’s revelations. It felt like the conversation they’d had about destiny and soulmates had been months ago, but he’d really only had a day to come to terms with the incredible impact the information had on his life. He believed her now; how could he not, after what he’d seen in the past two days? Somehow, that only made it harder in some ways. If he believed her, then fate and destiny and karma were all real, and it made him question everything he’d thought he knew about the world. Until this week, he’d attributed all of the unhappiness and misery he’d suffered throughout his life to the luck of the draw and the fact that life wasn’t fair. Now he was starting to wonder whether he’d done something to deserve all of the pain he’d been through, whether his childhood had been some sort of karmic preemptive strike for the bad decisions Fate had known he would make as an adult.

And the idea of having a soulmate… even after all of the soul searching he’d done in the past twenty-four hours, the thought of it still made him want to bolt for the nearest exit. He’d survived this long by playing his cards close to the vest and never letting anyone in past the superficial. He’d never had any intention of falling in love. Love would make him vulnerable, and he’d learned enough about vulnerability as a kid to never want to be in that position again. Jade seemed like a genuinely good person, and he couldn’t deny his physical attraction to her, but after a lifetime of pushing people away, he was terrified by how easy it was to care about her.

After about five minutes of hyperventilation that bordered on a panic attack, he cut himself off from the anxiety and the fear, using the breathing techniques he’d learned during his military marksmanship training to bring himself back under control. Splashing water on his face helped, as did a vigorous scrubbing of both arms up to the elbows with soap and water. They’d managed to get all of the blood off his injured upper arm in the ER, but both of his hands had been liberally stained with dried blood and a brief wash at the triage room sink hadn’t managed to get them completely clean.

Finally, he was as calm as possible without the use of pharmaceuticals and as clean as he was going to get without a shower, which he wasn’t allowed to take until tomorrow according to the doctor who’d put in his stitches. He took one last deep breath and headed back out into the main area of the apartment to rejoin Jade.

She was sprawled across his bed on her belly, her knees bent and her bare feet bobbing idly in the air above her as she read a book. She really was gorgeous, he reflected ruefully. Even with her curls in disarray and his baggy t-shirt hanging off of her slender frame, he was still attracted to her. He might not have had any plans to fall in love, but if he had to end up with a soulmate, he could have done a lot worse than Jade Bailey.

“What are you reading?” he asked, taking a seat on the edge of the bed next to her hip, and she tilted her head to the side and smiled up at him.

“I made a selection from your Shakespeare collection,” she replied, holding up the leather-bound book so he could see the title emblazoned on the spine in gold lettering. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“Not at all. Are you a fan? I noticed you’ve got a pretty big collection of your own.”

“Oh, I love his plays,” she told him, setting the book down on the bed. “
Much Ado About Nothing
is one of my favorites.”

“‘I may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me, because I have railed so long against marriage, but doth not the appetite alter?’” he quoted, deciding the line was uniquely appropriate to his current mindset, and her smile widened.

“‘If she should make tender of her love, ‘tis very possible he’ll scorn it; for the man, as you know, hath a contemptible spirit.’”

That was a not-so-subtle dig at him, and he couldn’t resist a little dig of his own in return.

“‘Tell me, for which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me?’”

If she’d followed the script of the play, the next line would have been another jest at his expense. Judging by her thoughtful expression, she knew full well what the rejoinder was, but instead she offered a quote from a different part of the play.

“‘I do love nothing in the world so well as you. Is that not strange?’”

There was an easy answer to that, a line of Benedick’s about her love being requited, but his stomach twisted at the thought of saying the words aloud. It would have been one thing a few moments ago, when the tone of the conversation had been light and humorous, but her last words had been in earnest. He thought he might be starting to come to terms with the idea of falling in love with Jade, but acknowledging the concept and confirming it aloud were two different things.

“‘Why, then, God forgive me,’” he quoted softly instead.

That was actually closer to the way the conversation in the play had gone, although they seemed to have recast themselves into each other’s roles at some point. That line belonged to Beatrice, not Benedick, and the character delivered it with wit and sarcasm rather than Luke’s resigned wistfulness.

He watched her face, seeing the flash of resignation when he avoided any mention of his feelings for her in his response, and the game abruptly lost its charm.

“Are you sure about this, Jade? About signing on for this soulmate stuff? I know we talked about it earlier, but I’m just—” He shrugged, helpless. “I’m an emotionally stunted loner who’s never managed to make a relationship last longer than a week. I’m not the kind of guy any woman would choose on purpose.”

“Do you really believe that?” she murmured, her voice soft as she pushed herself up onto her knees and reached out to lay a tender hand over the gauze bandage wrapped around his arm. “Luke, we haven’t known each other very long, but I already know there are a lot of things about you that I would choose in a soulmate.”

“Yeah?” he asked, hating himself for needing her reassurance. He quietly hoped she would be able to soothe the ache in his chest that arose every time he thought about falling in love with her only to have his heart broken when she found someone who could love her better than he could.

“Yeah,” she echoed, her hands moving to rest on his bare chest. “Like your dedication to doing the right thing, and your sense of honor, and the compassion that you keep hidden beneath that gruff exterior. And then there’s your sense of humor, which you also do your best to hide,” she added, flashing a quick smile before her expression turned serious again. “You love Shakespeare as much as I do or you wouldn’t be able to quote
Much Ado About Nothing
off the top of your head. You took a bullet trying to shield me from the shooter, which really ought to count for something. Plus, you introduced me to that cop in the lobby as your girlfriend, even though I’m pretty sure that your precinct’s rumor mill is going to have us secretly married with two children by tomorrow morning.”

He couldn’t help but laugh at that, both because of the mental image it provoked and because she wasn’t far from the truth.

“I guess I’m not all bad,” he replied, and she leaned in to press a gentle kiss to his lips.

“Not at all.” She paused for a moment, trying to decide whether she wanted to utter her next words, and then shrugged. Luke wasn’t shy about acknowledging his own less than stellar qualities. She owed him at least the same amount of consideration. “There are probably a few things you ought to know about me, too, while we’re talking about reasons someone might not want to date one of us.”

“For starters, you’re bossy,” he began, and laughed again at her insulted expression. “Come on, Jade. Tell me that wasn’t what you were about to say.”

She couldn’t, actually. “That doesn’t mean I wanted you to say it,” she retorted, and he grinned.

“Just go ahead and add ‘devastatingly frank’ to my list of negatives,” he advised her. “I don’t have much of a filter between my brain and my mouth.”

“You don’t have it or you don’t use it?” she asked shrewdly.

“Either way, the end result is the same,” he pointed out, running his fingers through her messy blonde curls. “For instance, I’m incapable of stopping myself from telling you that you look insanely sexy sitting on my bed and wearing my clothes.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” He leaned into her, tangling his hands in her hair as he punctuated his words with slow, sensual kisses. “You… are… gorgeous.”

Jade moaned against his lips, his kisses sending sparks of pleasure through her. He slid one hand out of her hair, his fingers trailing down the curve of her spine and slipping under the hem of her borrowed shirt to caress her bare back.

His touch galvanized her, and she pulled him flush against her as she deepened the kiss, turning it into something more urgent. Passion fizzed through her veins, a desperate need to claim Luke as hers, to press so tightly against him that they merged together, making a perfect whole from two separate halves. A distant part of her mind noted that her overwhelming need for him was probably due to their soulmate bond, which was humming with excitement, but all she could focus on was the intoxicating sensation of his lips trailing down the side of her neck as he tugged at the thin fabric of the shirt that separated them. He pulled the shirt up past her waist, his palms grazing against the curves of her breasts, and the intimate touch slammed her back to reality.

“Stop,” she gasped, pulling out of his embrace as she realized what they were doing.

He released her, clearly confused, but his expression changed to one of self-recrimination as she pulled the hem of her shirt back down to cover the expanse of bare skin.

“Damn it,” he swore, jerking back as though she’d burned him. “I just finished telling you I wouldn’t take advantage of you, and then the first thing I did—damn it!”

“No,” she said, surprised by his anger at his own behavior. “Luke, you didn’t take advantage of me. I wanted you to kiss me.”

He raked his fingers through his hair, a stress-induced habit he’d never quite managed to break, and shook his head.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—” He turned away from her, his shoulders slumping helplessly. “I’ll sleep on the couch.”

“Wait, Luke.” Her voice broke on his name, her heart seizing painfully in her chest when he turned back toward her and she saw the distress on his face. “Please. Just sit with me for a minute.”

He sat gingerly on the edge of the bed, his body language closed off, and she sighed in frustration.

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” she insisted, scooting over on the bed to sit next to him and sighing again when he stiffened at the brush of her knee against his. “I want you, Luke. I want you to make love to me like I’ve never wanted anything in my entire life.”

That seemed to thaw the ice between them, enough that he turned toward her and met her concerned gaze with his questioning one.

“Then why did you stop us?”

She bit her lip, not sure how to broach the subject, and his expression softened when he saw her distress.

“Forget it,” he said, interrupting her frantic thoughts as he reached over to take her hand in his.

“What?”

“Forget it, Jade,” he repeated. “Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter. You’re allowed to have your own reasons. If you say ‘stop,’ I stop.”

A pained smile tugged at her lips. “I didn’t want you to stop. I just—I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“I don’t know what either one of us is doing,” he agreed. “I mean, I won’t lie and say I’ve never taken a woman to bed on the first date, but I’ve definitely never done it after narrowly surviving a sniper attack. I don’t know if it’s the adrenaline or the soulmate bond, or just the fact that you’re so beautiful, but I can barely keep my hands off you.”

“That’s not what I meant,” she admitted reluctantly. “I really don’t know what I’m doing, Luke. I’ve never done this before.”

“Done what?” he asked, and then his eyes widened as he realized what she meant. “This? This, as in—seriously? Never?”

She blushed as his incredulous gaze roved across her body, lithe and shapely despite the oversized clothing she wore.

“It’s not like no one was ever interested,” she replied, defensive in the face of his visible disbelief. “I just—I wanted to wait. For you.”

“What?”

He sounded as perplexed as he looked, and she knew she owed him more of an explanation than that.

“I’ve known I had a soulmate out there somewhere since I was sixteen, remember? When I was younger, it seemed like the most romantic thing in the world to wait for the man I was destined to spend the rest of my life with. Why would I want to be with anyone else when I knew that the perfect guy really was out there waiting for me?” She looked down at their joined hands, unable to meet his gaze. “At first I thought it was a positive thing, waiting on having sex until I found my soulmate, but the longer I waited, the more isolated I felt. When I hit twenty-five, I went from just feeling old-fashioned to feeling completely alone. My stubborn devotion to a man I’d never even met turned me into a social leper, but I couldn’t do anything about it. I mean, I’d waited that long, you know? I had to keep believing that you were going to come along eventually. I’ve worried about it for the past few years, though. I had no idea how I was going to explain to you that I was completely inexperienced. I’ve been petrified that you’d be disappointed when you found out. I’ve spent my entire life waiting for you, and because of it, I don’t have anything to offer you.”

“That’s not true,” he argued, his tone sharp enough to cut through her miasma of self-pity. “How can you say that? Jade, you waited your whole life for me to come along and you didn’t even know who I was. You—” He faltered, shaking his head as he brought their joined hands up to his chest, resting them over his heart. “No one’s ever had that kind of faith in me.”