Ladies' Man by Suzanne Brockmann

police force right out of high school?”
    That was an easy one to answer. “No, I spent two years in the Marines first. A recruiter came to our high school and made it sound as if we’d immediately be sent overseas, you know, stationed in Europe—cheese, wine, French girls, ooh la la…. My father was pushing for me to go right into the police academy. I think I figured it was my last chance to do something for myself. I wanted to see Paris and Rome. The Greek Isles.” He laughed. “I spent the first year in Kansas, the second in South Dakota. I hated every minute of it, but I was damned if I was going to let the old man know I’d made a mistake.” He smiled at her. “How was that? Personal enough for you?”
    Ellen smiled back, taking another sip of her wine. “It’s a start. Keep going.”
    “Are you sure it’s not time for a few of those distracting kisses?”
    She laughed. “Definitely not. Keep going.”
    “All right. Let’s see. I guess I can tell you that in retrospect, my two years as a Marine were a good thing. I made it through basic training—in fact, I got really strong, and that was good. Also, spending a few years away from home was very cool. It may not have been Paris, but the Badlands were incomparable. I made some good friends, learned a lot of Native American history, lived through a tornado or two, and totally pissed off my father in the process, which is every eighteen-year-old’s fondest desire. Yeah, it wasn’t as bad as I thought.”
    “Then you came back to New York and joined the police force?”
    “Correct for ten points. I went in, passed all the tests, and became a uniformed cop. I made detective five years ago, and…here I am.”
    “Thinking about quitting.”
    Sam winced. “We already talked about that. Are you sure you don’t want to discuss something easier, like old girlfriends?”
    “I think there’s probably too many of them to talk about—we’d be here all night.”
    Again, Sam couldn’t deny it. “When do I get to grill you about your old boyfriends?”
    Ellen shrugged. “Ask away. I only had one. Adam Webster. He moved away in the middle of senior year. High school. We were in love, I really think we were, but his father got a job in Ohio. We wrote for a while, but…” She took a delicate sip of her champagne. “And then there was Richard, whom I married. Foolishly.”
    Two men. There had only been two other men in Ellen Layne’s life. Sam couldn’t help but hope he’d be number three.
    “Your divorce,” he said. “It’s pretty recent, huh?”
    “In the scheme of things, yeah,” she said. “We were married for twelve years. Lord, I blush to think about how stupidly naive I was.”
    “Sometimes the hardest things to see are the things that are right in front of your face.”
    “Ain’t that the truth.”
    “What’d he do? Have an affair?”
    “I think maybe it’s time for one of those distracting kisses,” Ellen said.
    Sam didn’t hesitate. He moved across the car and sat down next to her. She set down her glass and turned toward him.
    “You’re good at this, aren’t you?” she asked.
    He just smiled. And kissed her.
    She seemed to melt into his arms. Her lips were heartbreakingly soft, her mouth as sweet as wine, and he felt a sharp hunger that made him want to kiss her deeper, harder. He wanted to inhale her, to drink her in. He couldn’t hold back.
    Each time he’d kissed her, he’d meant to kiss her gently, sweetly. But each time, he’d felt this hungry need that he hadn’t been able to ignore. And that need was further fueled by the passion of Ellen’s response. It was all he could do not to sink down onto the seat with her soft body underneath his. He knew with a certainty that it wouldn’t take much for him to seduce her. A little more wine, a few more kisses, and that condom he’d bought would be put to good use.
    He lifted his head. “Richard’s a fool. How could anyone cheat on
you?
”
    She touched his face,