Dare to Love by Tara Taylor Quinn

didn’t keep her control, she’d be lost.
    She needed to sit down, but was afraid to show him any weakness.
    â€œYou’re right, of course, and I’m sorry.” She saw the surprise flicker across his features. “But, please, can’t you see that you’re not right for this particular assignment? It’s nothing against you, as a man or as a police officer. There’s no shame in the fact that not everyone is cut out to work with little kids.”
    He stood up from his chair, coming over to stand within inches of her. Andrea could smell the hotel soap he’d used, the shampoo scent in his hair. His heat was burning her up.
    He wrapped his hand around her neck, forcing her to look up at him. His touch was insistent without causing her any real pain. “Let’s get one thing straight right now. I am not leaving DARE. I will graduate next week, and by fall I will be working in the classroom.”
    Andrea knocked his hand away. She’d never come up against such stubbornness in her life.
    â€œWhy?” she asked, looking up at him as if she could somehow read in his eyes what his mouth wouldn’t tell her. What was it that was driving him, that was making him so insistent on remaining in a program where he clearly didn’t belong? Did he have a reason, or was he just playing the macho hero, unable to admit that there was something he couldn’t do?
    His eyelids lowered, shuttering himself off even more from her probing gaze. “Why not?”
    â€œBecause you seem to think that class time is bedtime. And I somehow don’t think that you use bedtime to study.”
    â€œYou’re still harping on that? So I made a mistake. Are you so all-fired perfect?”
    â€œA mistake? How many times can you repeat the same mistake and still have it be just one?”
    Doug turned away from her, shoving his hands into the back pockets of his jeans as he walked toward the window. His wristband strained against his arm.
    Andrea’s glance rested on the taut flesh his fingers outlined, and then on the implacable back above it, as she waited for an answer. She wasn’t going to let him walk away from this.
    Doug turned back to her, his expression laced with disappointment. “I figured you were better than this, Andrea. I figured you were above the usual games, the dishonesties, the making of things what they aren’t. Obviously, you’re so against an attraction between us that you’ve resorted to making mountains out of molehills. I fell asleep on Monday, and it was wrong. But I will not leave the DARE program because of that. Nor will I be continuously persecuted because of it. Now, if that’s all you wanted, please leave.”
    â€œWhat about today?” Andrea shot back, doing her best to ignore his tone. “Was falling asleep today just a continuation of the same mistake? Or wasn’t it a mistake at all?”
    â€œToday?”
    â€œYes, today. I looked over as I finished my lecture. You were sleeping.”
    â€œI was.” It was more a statement than a question.
    â€œI saw you, Doug. When the lights came on after the slide presentation, you were sleeping.”
    Doug studied her face for several seconds, his expression serious but otherwise unreadable. She didn’t know what he was looking for. But she had a feeling that something was happening, something over which she had little control, something that was going to matter.
    He nodded once and then walked to the door, opening it for her. “I can assure you that it won’t happen again, Officer. Now if you’ll please be so kind as to give me my room back, I’d like to finish dressing for dinner.”
    Andrea watched him for another second and then left, careful not to touch him as she walked past. She knew she’d just failed. She just wasn’t sure at what.

CHAPTER SIX
    D OUG DIDN’T MAKE DINNER , after all. He’d meant to go down, to meet