Seeing no other option for a believable cover, Ellie placed both of her hands on Spinner's chest and shoved him down onto the couch, the soft leather squeaking with the shift in weight. Before he could protest, she settled herself onto his lap, hands going to his face as she kissed him deeply and his palms fell to her thighs, exposed where her dress had hiked up.
In the back of her mind she registered the voices growing louder outside the door of Spinner's dressing room but they were slightly dimmed by the feeling of Spin's fingers digging into her thighs and his mouth sliding hungrily against hers like …
Well, almost like it was a real kiss.
One hand slid up his face, tangling into his hair, and the other skimmed down his neck and onto the strip of skin bared by his unbuttoned shirt. She felt rather than heard Spinner inhale sharply through his nose and one of the hands on her thigh dug a little deeper, moving upwards under the hem of her dress. Then she felt fingers dancing along her shoulder blades, taking full advantage of the fact that her dress was backless.
"Spinner," she breathed against his lips. He pulled back only long enough for her to see that his eyes were fairly smoldering-gazing into hers with an intensity that made her heart jump in her chest. The hand in his hair slid down onto his chest beside her other one, moving across his skin to spread his shirt apart. Her palms felt like they were on fire as they moved over his flesh, feeling the muscles rippling beneath them and her mouth lowered back down to his, hovering, just close enough for their lips to barely brush against each other's with each breath.
It was Spinner who first moved the fraction of an inch that separated them and seized her lips. Their mouths touched in a caress as soft and quiet as a whisper. This went on for awhile, lips only touching for quick, teasing nips until Ellie captured his bottom lip and grazed her teeth slowly over it, causing him to turn up the kiss. He opened his mouth, prying apart her lips with his tongue before plundering, allowing her a taste for the first time. He tasted sweet yet spicy-addictively so, and they clung together, as their mouths fused together while tongues tangled.
The kiss changed from gentle and lazy to hard and desperate. Their lips bruised each other as their tongues met thrust after thrust. Only gasps and murmurs of wanting exchanged between them as their hands started to roam; his delving under the hem of her dress, long since bunched up to the point of indecency, his hands gripping the back of her thighs and hers had moved to the sides of his face. Their breaths merged as they both breathed heavily, pressed so tightly together their hearts seemed to beat in tandem. Spinner's fingers slid up her spine, sending tingles along each of her nerve endings, to tug her dress ties loose at the back of her neck…
Ellie awoke with a start, sweat making her hair stick to the back of her neck and her forehead. She realized that her face was buried in the pillow she was clutching and that, in her dream induced haze; she had substituted it for Spinner.
"Damn it!" she wailed. "No, no, no, no, no. This can not be happening." Burying her head under her pillow seemed to be the most logical solution at the time. All she wanted was to hide from the bizarre leftover fluttery feelings in her stomach from the dream.
That dream…
It had all seemed so real. Every touch, every kiss, every single sensation of his skin on hers was so tangible that the fact that she had imagined them was enough to make her want to cry.
"This is crazy," she muttered into the mattress below. "This is Spinner. The same Spinner who leaves his boxers on the bathroom floor, who left the toilet seat up every day the first three months he lived here. I cannot be in lust with Spinner. I can't."
Even with the mound of feathers pressed against her ears she could hear Spinner's door open in the room next to hers and his heavy footfalls to the bathroom across the hall. When the sound of the shower being turned on reached her, images assaulted her-images of Spinner that did little to help her situation and she moaned again. "I can't."
…0...
Marco was at the breakfast table when she walked into the kitchen, reading the Arts section of the newspaper. "Morning."
She grunted at him in passing, causing him to lower his paper and observe her crankiness. Ellie was never a morning person, but this was grouchy even for her.
"El? You okay?"
She waited until after taking a long sip of her coffee before she let her eyes focus on her best friend at the table in front of her. "I didn't sleep well," she stated in a flat voice that he didn't believe for one second.
"If this is about me teasing you last night-" he began. Ellie waved a hand and cut him off.
"Don't worry about it, Marco. I honestly just didn't sleep too great. I had … odd dreams"
He sat up straighter in his chair and Ellie mentally kicked herself. Marco's major in social work had forced him to take several psychology classes and he'd taken a particular shine to the dream analysis section and any mention of dreams prompted his eyes to light up like a kid on Christmas morning. "What kind of dreams?"
"The kind that involves a certain best friend of mine transforming into a giant purple duck with an affinity for pimp hats," she told him. He made a face at her in annoyance, but he dropped the subject-the first bright spot in her morning. She grinned at him while pulling a box of Coco Puffs from the cupboard. She became wrapped up in fixing her painfully simple breakfast while attempting to keep her face and actions neutral enough that Marco wouldn't catch on, focusing to keep her mind on the chocolate puffs in front of her.
She would have succeeded had Spinner not wandered into the kitchen a while later, at the exact moment she was putting her bowel in the sink, fresh from the shower.
"Morning," he drawled.
"Hey, Spin." Marco reopened the newspaper and scanned without really paying much attention. "You not working today?"
Ellie had been so preoccupied at not looking at him for fear that she'd give something away she'd failed to notice for the first time that Spinner's uniform was nowhere in sight that morning. Instead, he was wearing a black tee shirt and jeans that fit perfectly and he was barefoot. Passing by her to get to the coffee pot, he gave of the still strong scent of his piney aftershave and excess heat from the hot water. She gripped the sink involuntarily.
"Nah," he answered. "I switched shifts with Rich so I have to work Sunday instead."
Marco grimaced. "That sucks."
"Yeah, but it's his wife's birthday today so it's no big deal." A shrug accompanied his statement, making the thin cotton encasing him shift. The material changed in front of Ellie's eyes, turning into the powder blue of the mock cop uniform he'd had on the night before.
'Get a grip!' he subconscious screamed at her. Shaking her head to scatter the thoughts away, she let her bowel drop to the sink with a clank and made to head upstairs for a shower. Spinner got up for a second cup of coffee at the same time and they collided-his hands flying to her waist to keep her upright.
Cheeks flaming, Ellie felt her breath catch when his dark eyes locked onto hers, intense and unreadable, his fingers tightening for a split second. But he released her and moved away so quickly she was left with a dazed wondering of whether or not it really happened. He moved past her, letting his gaze rake over her frame in her pajamas, before he managed to get to the coffee pot.
"Well that was interesting," Marco quipped. He had followed her up to her bedroom when she had regained her synapses enough to move and he perched on her bed, watching her rifle through her dresser drawer.
"What?"
Laughter bubbled over and he stared at Ellie in disbelief. "Are you serious? Ellie-when exactly did you develop a yen for Spinner?"
She whirled, tee shirts clutched in both hands. "Have you lost your mind?"
"Before I answer that," Marco told her, "would you mind closing your mouth? You look like a fish."
Ellie clamped her mouth shut. Folding her arms over her chest, tees shirts and all, she glared at the apparent delight Marco was taking in the situation. "I do not have a 'yen' for Spinner."
He eyed her silently, his face completely devoid of expression.
"I don't," she insisted. Still, Marco remained quiet. "Marco!" She stamped her foot in frustration. "This isn't funny!"
"Oh, I know," he answered. "And I take it back. Your behavior has made it very clear that you don't, in fact, have a yen for Spinner."
"Thank you."
His hand rose to cut off any further response from her. "I only say that because it's beyond obvious you have a major case of the hots for him."
Time seemed to stop for Ellie as the walls closed in on her. There was something about Marco being aware of her growing attraction for Spinner that made the full weight of the situation hit her right in the pit of her stomach. She collapsed back against her bedroom door, sliding down to the floor. "Oh my God."
Marco came over and settled beside her, his arm going around her shoulders. "It just hit you, huh?"
Nodding, she turned her head into her best friend's neck. A few deep breaths, combined with the feel of Marco's hand rubbing circles on her back, did a lot to calm her nerves, but they didn't do much to still the pounding of her heart. "I don't know how this happened, Marco. I was just following up on a tip about my story. And Spinner was there. He's covering the same one so we started working together. It just … it happened so fast." She looked at him, smiled shakily and shrugged. "Three days ago he was just Spinner. My roommate, my friend. Now he's this guy that makes me feel … like my bones are melting every time he looks at me. And I didn't even realize it was happening."
This was more serious than he had originally thought. A little lust was one thing. It was almost expected when two people lived together for a while. Flirtation, curiosity, a few naughty thought even, weren't that big of a surprise. It sounded as if Ellie was deep in the midst of some serious developing feelings that she didn't know how to deal with. That possibly, she couldn't deal with yet. "Are you maybe interested in starting something?"
"I don't know," she whispered. "What we're involved in, Marco … it could get dangerous and the idea of worrying over the person you're involved with-it's different than with a friend, you know?"
"Yeah."
Ellie sat up; her arms propped on her knees and buried her face in her hands. Dangerous. It wasn't until she said it out loud that it really began to sink in. Maybe Spinner had been right about her getting in over her head in the situation. She wasn't sure she could do this-it all seemed like too much to handle. The lying, the fake identities, the mob … the kiss especially-she didn't want this.
"I can't do it, Marco," she confessed. Deep in her heart, Ellie knew that the smart thing to do was to tell Spinner that she wanted out. Then go to Nina and refuse the story. True, she'd lose out on editor, and who knew when, or if, Spinner would be able to pin something on Antonelli, but there were some risks that were just too great. "I can't risk it-any of it. I just … I don't think I can deal with this."
…0...
Spinner threw down the boxing gloves he had wearing onto the small table where his water bottle sat, and wiped his face off a towel before taking a drink. Two hours with the punching bag at the station's gym had him feeling more confused than ever. This entire situation with the club and Ellie was really throwing him for a loop.
"Hey, man." Another cop, Sam, who had been in his class at the academy, wandered over to him. "Shouldn't you be practicing your lap dances?"
"Funny," Spinner snapped. He was used to the ribbing about his assignment by now. The majority of the department found it hilarious that he was stripping, and the comments, not to mention the women's underwear in his locker, had become routine. He put his gloves back on and began a series of quick, sharp jabs.
"Whoa. What's got your panties in a bunch?" Sam teased.
Scowling, Spinner hit the bag so it thudded against the other man's stomach. "Nothing. Spot me."
Sam took hold of the bag and held it so Spinner could hit it without it swinging wildly around. He didn't buy that nothing was bothering him. The only time he had ever seen him in the gym was when there was something weighing on his mind. "Is this about your case?"
"Nope," Spinner insisted. "The case is fine. Better than fine really. I should be able to close it soon."
"That's great, man," Sam said. But Spinner merely grunted in response. "Shouldn't you be happy about that?"
"I am. I just …" His voice trailed off and he shrugged, socking the bag half-heartedly one final time.
Comprehension dawned on Sam. Why hadn't he realized it before? "Girl trouble."
"Understatement of the century," Spinner muttered. He took his gloves off again and flung them to the ground this time. Collapsing into one of the chairs next to the locker room doors, he undid the Ace Bandage wrapped around his wrist to prevent an old sprain from becoming aggravated. Sam followed and plopped down beside him, focusing his attention on the way Spinner's eyes landed on the floor mat, but didn't really focus.
"Want to talk about?" Sam offered.
With a shrug, Spinner kicked his toe at the blue plastic covering the floor in front of his chair. "I don't know, dude, it's just-" He shook his hands in the air, trying to illustrate his point without actually making it. "Have you ever known a girl for a while-just as friends-and then suddenly … she's all you can think about?"
Nodding slowly, Sam leaned forward in his chair. "All too well, my friend. Wanna talk about it? Or her rather?"
Spinner wiped a hand over the back of his neck in distraction. It usually helped him get his thoughts in order and allowed the time to sort things out before he spoke. It didn't always work, but it helped. "It's my roommate. Ellie." He glanced over at the other officer before glancing down at his hands clasped in front of him. He propped his elbows on his knees.
"Is this the girl that's helping you with the case?" Sam asked. Off Spinner's disbelieving look, he held his hands up in defense. "Small prescient, big mouths. You do the math."
Sighing and nodding, Spinner sucked in a deep breath before expelling it slowly. "Yeah, that's her. I just can't believe I never saw it before."
"Saw …?" Sam prodded.
"You know-the thing!" Spinner exclaimed. When Sam didn't look any more understanding, he struggled for the right words to express what he meant. "I knew she was pretty. I knew she was smart. And sweet, and funny, and brave. But I didn't know she was … that girl. You know?"
"You mean," Sam asked, "the girl? The one who makes your brain short circuit?"
"Dude, it's like an entire power outage." It felt good to get it all off his chest finally. He couldn't tell Ellie how he was feeling. Or Marco. Who knew how roommate number three would react to the revelation that Spinner was harboring some pretty heavy duty wanting for a certain redhead. Given his protectiveness of Ellie, it was liable to be some cross between dazed silence and hysterical muttering in Italian. "But it can't happen."
"Why not? If you feel this strong about her, go for it. In my experience, there aren't too many people out there with the ability to make you meltdown the way you're describing. You'll hate yourself if you pass on this."
"I'll hate myself if she gets hurt because of this case." There was no other way, Spinner saw that now. He couldn't let Ellie risk this-and he couldn't risk her getting hurt. In any way. And there was certainly no way she'd back out on her own. He needed to make the decision for her-for her own good. "I've gotta get her out of this."