You Only Love Once

“What, are you actually inventorying each of my doomed romances so you can be sure to get in all your I told you so’s?” Bronte grimaced and held up her hand. “And don’t try to give me that innocent look either.” Her blue eyes twinkled as she sipped her purple drink. “Just how do you think I learned how to give you a hard time now?”

Kelli squinted at her.

“Every little jab I’ve just hit you with, you’ve poked at me over the years.”

Touché. She leaned over the table and lined up her next shot. Right before she would take it, she glanced past the cue ball and directly into the suggestive eyes of the man in question. She scratched so badly she nearly tore a hole in the green felt.

The guy grinned and began swaggering their way again.

Bronte dropped her voice. “Just don’t say I didn’t tell you so, you hear?”

Kelli didn’t absorb her friend’s words, concentrating instead on the heat spilling through her bloodstream, the tingly tightening of her breasts. Tonight she wanted to be the ravisher and the ravishee. She wanted to throw her hands up in the air and say “I am woman, hear me roar.” And she wanted to swallow the gorgeous guy moving toward them whole.

Shamelessly she openly eyed the man’s physique. Oh, he was a cop all right. There was no denying that. Everything about him spoke of cockiness and authority, a rough-around-the-edges attitude that stemmed as much from knowing himself capable of saving someone’s life as from the certainty that he could take a suspect’s. And he was still young enough to think himself immortal.

She briefly caught her bottom lip between her teeth again. Maybe he was just the thing this good girl needed to turn very, very bad.

He reached the pool table just as someone finished feeding the jukebox a slew of coins. Bronte rolled her eyes as Bob Seger’s “Night Moves” attempted to drown out the hum of conversation and clink of glasses from behind the bar.

The devil in blue jeans slapped a fiver on the edge of the pool table near the coin slot. “I play the loser.” His grin made her heart race. “David McCoy.”

Kelli repositioned her pool stick and slowly shook his hand, the heat the simple touch generated exhilaratingly cathartic. “Kelli Hatfield.” She released his hand then tapped the stick lightly against her side. This was one game she was going to enjoy losing. “You’re on.”

TWO HOURS LATER, David launched a renewed assault on Kelli Hatfield’s luscious mouth and backed her toward her stripped bed in the corner. Her hungry but obviously inexperienced response made him harder than steel. As drop-dead sexy as the woman was, an innocence clung to her silky skin like an irresistible perfume, making him want to breathe her in, eat her alive, thrust into her like nobody’s business.

And that’s exactly what he intended to do. That is, if he could pull his thoughts together long enough to take things further than kissing.

The strength of his reaction was like a sucker punch to the gut. Even he had to admit surprise at how quickly they’d ended up back at her place, clawing at each other’s clothes, devouring each other’s mouths. He’d lay ten-to-one odds that the woman even now clumsily unzipping his fly had never uttered the words “one-night stand” before, much less indulged in one. Still, he hadn’t had to resort to any of his old come-on lines at the bar. It had always been a bit tricky trying to get a woman between the sheets while keeping her well away from serious commitment territory. After their sexually charged game of pool, he’d simply suggested they get out of there, and she’d agreed. Even Connor and her friend, Bronte, had held up their hands as if their leaving were inevitable and said little more than “Bye” when they grabbed their coats and practically ran from the bar.

Just thinking about the remarkable, lightning-fast string of events sent David’s pulse rate skyrocketing off the charts. Hell, he felt he might lose it if he couldn’t bury himself in her hot flesh right then and there.

He supposed she might be drunk, but he knew what signs to look for and she displayed none of them. In fact, he didn’t detect a hint of liquor. Rather, he tasted something hot and undeniably sweet on her tongue. Then there was her skin….

Peaches. She tasted like peaches, for crying out loud.

Off went that stretchy pink top and her lacy bra. He palmed her breasts and groaned at their nicely rounded weight. Not too big. Not too small. Pure heaven.

“Wait…I…” she whispered huskily.

He pulled an engorged, pale nipple into the depths of his mouth. She gasped and ceased trying to speak.

With more strength than he would have thought possible, she reversed their positions then pushed him toward the mattress. Off went her slacks, his jeans. Before he knew it, his fingers were entangled in her hair, his mouth greedily pulling at hers, and she was poised, ready, above him.

He tugged his mouth from hers and met her eyes. In the fleeting beams of passing headlights, he saw on her face a gravity, a need, a beauty that made him groan. He’d experienced one or two one-night stands in the past, but this was different somehow. Rather, Kelli Hatfield was different. He’d never felt so in tune with a woman, so completely wrapped up in her. And though they didn’t know each other well, he felt that he knew her on a level that transcended the trivial details normally exchanged during the traditional first few dates. He didn’t know what college she had attended in New York, where she’d said she just moved from, but he knew that she wanted him as much as he wanted her. And that was saying a whole lot.

Her gaze remaining locked with his, Kelli lowered herself. His hips bucked and suddenly her tight, slick flesh surrounded him.

He recaptured her mouth and closed his eyes, feeling an odd sensation of inner calm even as their movements grew restless, their breathing ragged. When they climaxed together minutes later, he felt an odd sense of completion that stemmed from more than just the physical. The sensation was foreign, frightening, electrifying, and completely blew his mind.

“Wow,” Kelli whispered, her damp flesh resting against his.

“Yeah…wow,” he repeated.

Slowly, his breathing evened, his heartbeat went back to normal, and the world came back into focus. He glanced around the room. Boxes everywhere. There weren’t even sheets on the bed, though the old radiator in the corner emanated so much heat, it didn’t matter. He vaguely wondered if she’d just moved in, but didn’t have the energy to ask. For the first time since he could remember, David McCoy was completely devoid of words.

She rolled off of him and reached for a robe pooled on the bare wood floor. He fought the urge to pull her back.

“I could do with a glass of something cold. How about you?” she asked, tucking her tousled hair behind her ear.

David noticed the way she didn’t look directly at him, rather concentrated on a spot just over his right shoulder. His brows shot up. He recognized her actions all too well, because, simply, he was usually the one who made them after sex. He pushed himself up onto his elbows. God, this was a first. “I…yeah, sure. I could go for some water or something.”

A whole holding tank full of ice-cold water, he thought.

Tying the robe around her trim waist, she scooped up the empty condom packet from the nightstand, then padded barefoot from the room.

David lay still for a long moment staring after her. So that was it, huh? The most explosive sex he’d had…well, that he’d ever had, and it was over. It was time for him to leave.

He closed his eyes and groaned. Mitch had always warned him that one day he’d pay for his errant ways. He absently scratched his head, the thought of one brother leading to thoughts of another. Was Connor somewhere getting better acquainted with Kelli’s friend, Bronte, right now? Or had he taken off right after he and Kelli had?

For the life of him, he didn’t want to move. He wasn’t sure what exactly had happened just now. The sex between him and Kelli was…well, whatever it was, he had to get himself some more of that.

Something cold and wet nudged against his foot. David went from complete relaxation to nearly catapulting from the bed at Olympic record-setting speed. He thoroughly searched the area but found nothing on the quilted blue-flowered mattress. If that was a bug, it had to be one of the slimiest…

There was a click-click against the wood floor. David looked anxiously around the room for something to defend himself with. He settled on one of his hiking boots. He slowly moved toward the end of the bed aided only by the boot and the dim light filtering in through the window. Not only did it have to be the slimiest, it must be the biggest damn bug—

A hulking, jowl-drooping blond boxer stuck his head out from around the corner of the bed and eyed him, his tongue seeming to curve upward toward his nose. David sagged with relief. A dog. It was a dog. Sensing that the crisis had passed, the ugly pooch came loping around the corner, his wagging short tail making his entire overly plump body shimmy.

David reached down to let the canine sniff the back of his free hand. “Hey…” he craned to see, “boy. How are you doing, huh?” He heartily rubbed him behind the ears.

A switch clicked, then an overhead light filled the room with its harsh glare. David blinked rapidly to adjust his eyesight, then looked at where Kelli stood in the doorway, a brow raised in question. David grimaced at his undressed state and the hiking boot he still held. Way to go, McCoy. It began to sink in that he wasn’t going to be getting anymore of anything anytime soon.

WOW.

The word ran through Kelli’s mind like a hit compact disc on permanent replay, despite the strange scene she encountered when she returned to her bedroom.

Her brain had effectively stopped working, oh, about an hour and a half ago at the bar, when she’d basically decided she was going to take one delectable David McCoy home with her. And it hadn’t switched on again until she found herself lying on top of David, gloriously sweaty, wondering what in the world had just happened.

Despite her arguments to Bronte to the contrary, the limited scope of her experience had left her criminally unprepared for this man and her phenomenal reaction to him. She pulled her white, threadbare robe more tightly around herself with one hand. If this was what made Bronte jump into every bed she came across, then she herself had definitely been missing out on a whole lot of something for much too long.

The only problem was that remembering how very bad she’d just been made the good girl come out to do some mental finger-shaking.

The boot David held clunked to the floor and he grinned boyishly. “Uh…your dog and I were just getting acquainted.”

Dog… Oh, God, her dog! “Kojak! Come here, boy.” She’d purposely closed the bedroom door when they’d come in, but the pooch must have snuck in while she was in the other room. “There you are.”

“I thought he was a bug.”

“What?”

David was tugging up his jeans, his back to her, his firm, rounded behind tempting her touch. She averted her gaze and felt her cheeks color—which was ridiculous, because mere moments before she’d shamelessly run her fingers all over the flesh in question. “Never mind.”

“I have your water,” she blurted needlessly, the plastic glass in her hand.

Clad only in jeans, he sauntered over to her and accepted the cold drink. While he drank, Kelli covertly skimmed the well-toned body she had hungrily molested in the dark and was shocked by the rush of desire to consume him all over again. She mimicked his movements by swallowing hard. The guy was perfect in every sense of the word. His abs stood out in wondrous relief, making her itch to run her fingers over the sculpted muscles, down to where a thin line of blond hair disappeared into the waistband of his jeans.

“So that’s it then, huh?” he asked, holding out the glass to her.

Kelli took it. “Did you want more?”

The odd way he looked at her made her rethink her question. “Depends on what you’re referring to.”

Kelli’s cheeks burned hotly all over again. He wasn’t talking about water. He was likely referring to the fact that she hadn’t given them the chance for more. After they’d…had sex, she couldn’t have run from the room quicker had it been on fire.

The dog butted his head against her shin, then ran around her legs in an attempt to gain her attention. “Not now…Jack.”

David’s grin nearly knocked her over. “Good thing you clarified who you were talking to, ’cause I was just about to grab my shirt.”

Bronte would be happy to know that every last thing she’d uttered about David McCoy was absolutely, positively, one hundred percent true. He was a pro. And now that Kelli’s head was working again, she was beginning to fear she was greener now than she’d ever been. Beginning to fear that it was impossible for her to have casual sex, because tomorrow kept intruding, making her wonder about stupid things like whether or not he would call her, or if he liked Chinese food.

Her gaze drifted down the sculpted planes of his chest and her own breathing grew curiously ragged. Green or not, she still wanted this man with every fiber of her being. She looked at his flat, beaded nipples and her own tightened and ached to be touched. She saw the thick ridge pressing against the zipper of his jeans, and felt a rush of hot desire between her bare legs.

She flicked her eyes up to stare into his, recognizing and instantly responding to the need reflected in the midnight blue depths. The hungry, sex-deprived wanton may have abandoned her, but she was finding that the good girl wanted everything she had…and more.

A tiny whimper gathered in her throat. Oh, to hell with tomorrow and consequences and hearing Bronte say “I told you so.” The simple truth was that it was still night, and she wanted to spend every single last moment of it with David McCoy cradled between her thighs.

Forgetting the dog, she practically leapt on David, circling her arms around his neck, pasting her mouth against his and hungrily letting him know exactly what she was feeling. He slid his hands inside her robe and the ineffective belt slid to the floor…right along with the empty plastic glass. David grinned then scooped her up and practically tossed her back on top of the bed.

2

“YOU’RE LATE, Officer McCoy. Again.”

David waved away O’Leary, the desk sergeant, and his penchant for protocol as he rushed by on his way to the briefing room. He’d run into bumper-to-bumper traffic near Dupont Circle, so had parked his car in the station commander’s spot in front of the street level building to save time. His uniform shirt was wrinkled because when he’d looked for it on the passenger’s seat—where he thought he’d put it when he leapt into the car half-dressed—he found instead that he’d been sitting on it. And he hadn’t had a chance to clean and check his firearm, as he did every morning.

Despite all that, he caught himself whistling.

Okay, so it was tuneless, and he was also pretty sure he looked like Gomer Pyle on drugs, but he couldn’t help himself.

Slowing his step, he made sure the back of his shirt was tucked in, folded his police issue winter jacket over his arm, and started to turn the corner. Lieutenant Kowalsky would have his ass for being late again. Still, suffering through old Kow’s impending wrath didn’t bother him half as much as it normally would. His good humor might have something to do with last night, and the incredible mind-blowing sex he’d had with Kelli Hatfield.

Kelli Hatfield.

If it was true what they said about the whole Hatfield and McCoy feud…well, then, he and Kelli had made it their duty to put a huge dent into righting old wrongs.

“Nobody’s in there.”

O’Leary’s words reached him the instant David opened the door to find the briefing room empty. He relaxed his shoulders from their stiff at-attention angle then glanced at his watch. Certainly, he hadn’t missed roll call.

“Okay, O’L, what gives?” David stalked back to the front desk.

“Didn’t have your radio on during the drive in, did you, kid? Everyone’s downtown. Some guy’s holding his little girl hostage until he can talk to his estranged wife. The whole city and county forces are down there now, not to mention every branch of the news media.”

David felt the familiar, all-powerful burst of adrenaline kicking in. A hostage situation. Now that was a meaty way to start a day. He sprinted for the door, shrugging into his coat as he went.

“McCoy!”

David winced at Kowalsky’s shout. He’d recognize that low, eardrum-popping sound anywhere. The guys around the station joked that you could hear his voice in the next county if you listened hard enough.

“Yes, Lieutenant?” he said, turning to face him, though he maintained his momentum.

“Going somewhere?” Kow asked, eyeing his shirt and raising a brow.

David either had to go through the door or stop. Given the warning written all over his superior’s face, he opted for stop. “Yes, sir, I thought I’d head downtown to see if I could be of assistance.”

“Aren’t you forgetting something?”

“Sir?” Methodically, he patted his badge, his firearm, his cuffs. All there.

“Your new partner, McCoy. I’m talking about your new partner.”

David winced for the second time. That’s all he needed. A new guy to play getting-to-know-you with during the ride downtown. He quickly rebounded. “Sorry, sir. I’d assumed that since I was late, he would already be on the scene.”

Contrary to his name, Kowalsky was a six foot five African-American with the manner of a drill sergeant and a monstrous grin he used only to his advantage. That he grinned now made David mutter a mild oath.

“What was that, McCoy?”

“Nothing, sir. My new partner… Where can I find him?”

Kow’s grin widened. “Right here, McCoy.”

He turned to find the hall empty. The grin left his face. “Hatfield!”

The bottom of David’s stomach dropped out. Hatfield. His mind quickly calculated the odds that he would meet two Hatfields in less than twenty-four hours. They were very small. So small as to be minuscule. So tiny as to be impossible…

Naw. He had Hatfield on the brain, that’s all.

He made the mistake of looking at Kow’s suspicious grin, noting the telling absence of his new partner—as if he or she didn’t want to be seen—and felt the sudden, irresistible urge to run. Especially when the sweetly sexy, innocently insatiable, utterly feminine Kelli Hatfield popped out from around the corner, her face mirroring the shock he felt.

Forget his stomach. The floor had just dropped out from beneath his feet.

It couldn’t…wouldn’t…there was no way in hell that this…that she…was his new partner. Hell, last night he judged her competence to be somewhere between squirting perfume on little blue-haired ladies with platinum credit cards and helping panicky brides try on their wedding dresses. The reality that she was actually a cop was enough to send any man reeling.

Kelli appeared to regain her bearings before he did. “Officer McCoy,” she said, clearing her throat. Apparently remembering their company, she moved her coat from her right to her left arm, then thrust her hand—her soft, slender, delicate hand—toward him.

David took it, tempted to use it to pull her into the nearest room so they could have a little talk. Now. Kow be damned.

Speaking of Kow, he glanced to find him staring at them guardedly. “You two know each other?”

David nearly choked on the words, “yep, in the most sinful sense.”

“Yes, sir,” Kelli answered instead. “We met last night at The Pour House. First night back in town, as luck would have it.”

“Good.” Kow nodded. “Now isn’t there some place you guys need to be?”

He had to be dreaming. That was it. This was all some sort of sick, twisted nightmare brought on by what happened to his ex-partner and his anxiety of who his new partner would be. At any moment he would—

“McCoy!” Kow barked. “Get with the program, man.”

David winced. If this was a dream, what the hell was Kowalsky doing here?

Kelli gave him a pointed look. “We’re on our way, sir,” she said.

Completely dumbfounded, David watched her walk by him. Catching a whiff of her subtle scent didn’t help matters any. His gaze zipped around the station lobby, but he didn’t find any chuckling officers hiding behind any doors or around the corner. O’Leary wasn’t even watching them. And Kow’s expression darkened further with each second that passed.

This is for real. It wasn’t some really bad practical joke being played on him by fellow, prankster officers. Kelli Hatfield truly was his new partner.

Yeah, and he was the king of Siam.

Picking up his jaw off the gritty tile, David hurried after Kelli’s trim little bottom. The door closed after them and he stopped again. After a few steps, she turned toward him, shrugging into her coat. “Are you coming, McCoy?”

“There’s no way…I mean, I don’t believe… Come on, Kelli, you can’t be a police officer,” he blurted.

She planted her fists on her hips, her expression altogether thunderous. “Which one’s ours?”

“Huh?”

“The car, Officer. Which is our vehicle?”

David pointed left to the cruiser in the lot and watched her head for it. She reached the driver’s side. The impact of what her actions meant provided the impetus he needed to finally move. He was next to her in no time flat. “I’ll drive.”

Rolling her eyes toward the sky, she took her hand off the handle, then rounded the car and got in the passenger’s side.

David stood still for a long moment, concentrating on little more than his breathing. This couldn’t be happening. Any second now he expected to wake up from this dream—nightmare—and find his mind was playing some sort of sick joke on him after last night’s recklessness. He bent over and looked through the window. Kelli was fastening her seat belt. He snapped upright again. Nope. She was still there.

Damn.

KELLI SAT flagpole straight, staring at the dash like a dazed crash victim waiting for the airbag to deflate. Her friend Bronte’s words of warning from the night before echoed in her mind. “Just don’t say I didn’t tell you so….”

Somehow she didn’t think this was what Bronte had in mind. Though her friend would probably argue it was exactly what she deserved—right after she laughed herself into hysteria.

Kelli closed her eyes tightly. Only to her. This could happen only to her. Her first night back home in D.C., the one and only night out of her entire life that she had thrown caution to the wind, and she wound up spending it with her new partner, screwing up both her personal and her professional life.

She scrubbed her damp palms against the scratchy material of her police issue slacks and whispered a long line of curses that would have done her police chief father proud. Well, it would have done him proud if, indeed, she’d ended up being the son he’d wanted instead of his only daughter. But she hadn’t, and it was a fact he never let her forget. Not when she’d played little league baseball. Not when she’d enrolled in the academy at twenty. Not when she’d graduated and was denied a spot with the D.C. Metropolitan Police. It hadn’t helped any when she learned that her father made sure her status was knocked down to third tier standby, essentially barring her from a job on the force. Apparently he had thought she would lose interest in her pursuit while in the academy. He’d always been so overprotective. As he’d told her, no little girl of his was going to get her butt shot off so long as he had any power within the department. And as Regional Assistant Chief for the East, he had more than enough to waylay her…at least in D.C. In New York, however, his power was nil.

The driver’s door finally opened and Kelli nearly launched from her seat. David slid behind the wheel. She pointedly avoided his gaze and suspected he did the same beside her.