solid to hold them up.
But never like this.
“A pity hug from you. I am pathetic.” But she didn’t pull away—she sniffled into his shoulder, and it was such a strange sensation. Holding and comforting someone he barely knew. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d done this for someone he did know.
“How long has he been like that?”
She stiffened. A question she didn’t want to answer, and inevitably the question that got her to pull herself together and step away.
Because the impulse to touch her face, wipe away the tears there, was shockingly strong, he shoved his hands into his pockets. There was something all wrong about this whole exchange, and it wasn’t her crying or pulling away. It was him. His reaction to it. The wanting to understand and fix wasn’t unique; he felt that a lot.
But he never felt compelled to act. Never acted against the voice in his head telling him to put up a barrier or step away. He had learned his lesson from childhood, damn it.
“Look, um, thanks. Really.” She wiped her face with her palms, let out a shaky breath as she looked around. “Can’t say I’ve ever broken down in a hallway before.”
“Where do you usually do your breaking down?”
“Alone.”
Christ.
“But those big broad football shoulders are good for crying on.” She ran her fingertips down his chest, and this was a completely inappropriate time to think of anything sexual, but he could not force himself to be appropriate.
She pulled her hand away and the way she looked at him, he had to wonder if she felt it, too. The little zing of heat and inappropriate attraction.
She took a full step back, eyebrows drawing together. “Anyway. Hopefully you won’t be put in that position again. It isn’t...normal.”
“It isn’t?”
The vulnerable bafflement on her face immediately changed, blanked. “Enjoy your day off tomorrow, Marc. You earned it.”
“I only did my job.”
She cocked her head. “You did a little more than that, Captain Quiet.”
Before he could argue with the obnoxious moniker again, she stepped inside her apartment and shut the door.
He found himself here far too often, wanting to understand more, with a door shut in his face. When he should feel nothing but relief, he felt the exact opposite.
TESS SCOOTED FARTHER down into the cooling bathwater. It was her day off and she didn’t want to face it. So much so, she’d taken a bath, something she almost never did. Infrequently enough she didn’t even have bubbles. She’d squirted some shower gel in there and now she was lounging in tepid, bubbleless water.
It seemed terribly appropriate.
At least she didn’t have to face Marc. Small mercies. Her embarrassment wasn’t likely to fade anytime soon, but maybe she could get a better handle on it with a day in between sitting in a car with him for eight hours.
Eight long hours knowing he’d seen through her so easily. All the bravado, all the work she’d done to create this persona, and it’d only taken her father threatening someone with a butter knife and her asking Marc to keep people from pressing charges.
Marc saw her for what she was. A scared little girl with daddy issues so wide no submarine could cross.
She thought about the way she’d cried all over his shoulder then commented on the broadness of said shoulders. It was so out of character. At the very least when she flirted with a guy she didn’t do it in the middle of a good cry.
And she did not flirt with cops. Attraction didn’t matter. She’d seen enough to know if she got together with one cop, all the hard work she’d put into building her reputation would be for nothing. It was rare these days someone rolled their eyes at her simply for her gender.
She wasn’t undoing all that work for an impressive chest. Except she’d already done it with tears and Dad.
It was an impressive chest. What was the harm in a little fantasy when he wasn’t here, and she was in the bath, and—
Nope. Whole lotta harm. Because she had to share a damn patrol car with the guy for weeks upon unending weeks, and she did not need actual fantasies in her head.
Which was enough impetus to get her out of the bathtub. The only problem was—now what? She should go see Dad, check his place for signs of drugs, figure out what was going on.
She should. She should. What else might he do if she didn’t?
I don’t care. I don’t care. I don’t care.
She was over the crying and the hurting. So she’d do the only thing that ever helped that—run her ass off.
She pulled on her running gear and slipped her apartment key in her shoe. She purposefully left her phone on the kitchen counter, strapped her MP3 player to her arm and stepped into the hallway.
There was Marc.
Well, hell.
She mustered her best I-did-not-wipe-snot-on-your-shirt-last-night smile.
“Morning.”
“Um, morning.” He cleared his throat, looking around the hallway at everything but her. “I was, um, going for a run.”
She could see that. Despite the cool March temperatures, he was in shorts. Showing off legs. Long, muscular, powerful, strong legs. A whole lotta adjectives for legs.
She had to stop looking at his legs. “I was, too.” Run till her brain exploded. Hopefully her libido, as well. But not in the fun way.
“Ah.” He nodded, looking at some point behind her on the wall.
“Yeah.” She scratched her head, pointed awkwardly at the stairs. “Um, after you.”
He gave one of those little Marc nods. She could not think of anyone else who could pull off that terse, distanced demeanor and still be something of a marshmallow on the inside.
Marc Santino had hugged her while she’d cried last night even after she’d given him a total out. No getting around that marshmallow move. Which was not something she had a lot of experience with. Which meant she should be wary, not interested.
“I should...get to it.”
Tess nodded. Not interested. Not interested. Not interested. Her eyeballs weren’t getting the message, because they were homed in on his butt as he walked down the stairs in front of her. Granted, in the loose athletic shorts she couldn’t get a good butt vantage point, but she’d seen it plenty in his uniform pants.
And
