When he was gone, Paul paced the kitchen. He hadn’t turned on any lights in the small room, preferring the dark, preferring not to be a target.
He wanted to call her, reassure himself that she was okay. Hell, who was he kidding? He wanted to go over there.
He had nearly talked himself into going back to bed when he heard his phone trill, signaling an incoming text message.
“Tibbet said he would tell you,
but so you know,
I’m okay.”
He read it, glad to see the words, hear them. It was a relief to have Torie confirm Tibbet’s assessment. The time stamp was less than a minute ago.
He hit return dial, and waited for her to pick up.
“Hey,” she said, her voice husky with sleep.
“Hey, back. You okay?” He slouched into a chair, closing his eyes to see her in his mind.
“Yeah. I guess. I was scared to death when Tibbet called from the front desk. I thought…I thought something had happened to you.”
Having felt the same, Paul reveled in her concern. “Yeah, I nearly freaked when he pounded on my door.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry he woke you,” she said.
“If he hadn’t, he’d have been hurting in the morning,” Paul stated as a blunt fact.
“Paul,” she admonished with a gentle laugh, “he’s doing his job.”
“Yeah. I know.” He didn’t want to talk about Tibbet, he wanted to talk about her. “You get some sleep?”
“Some. I was asleep when Tibbet called.”
“Hmmm. You sleeping now?”
“No.” She gave a soft laugh. “I’m talking to you, you goof.”
“I wish I was there with you.”
“I wish you were, too,” she admitted.
“I can be there in fifteen minutes, if you want me to.” Please, he thought. Want me. Every part of him wanted to leap up, head for her hotel. The thought that the cops stationed outside his door would know where he was going and what he was doing didn’t stop the wanting.
“I wish I could beam you over,” she murmured, and he heard the drowsy desire in her voice. “I’d be able to touch you.” She yawned and he did, too. The rest of his body was wide awake, however.
“You want to touch me?” he baited her. “Mmmm. That would be good. Then I could touch you, too. Everywhere. Anywhere you wanted me to touch you. Light,” he said, waiting so she could picture it. “Or firm, and deep.”
“Oh,” she whispered. “You’re making me crazy.”
“Not half as much as you’re making me, babe,” he said, thinking he was going to need a cold shower before heading back to bed. Either that or he was going to say to hell with all the phone sex, and climb in bed with her for some furious, awesome lovemaking.
“Good,” she murmured. “You’ve been driving me crazy for years. Mmmmm. About time I gave a little of that back.”
“Years?”
“Years. I’ve wanted to touch you like I did in your office today. Hold you in my hands.” She lowered her voice to that devastatingly sexy purr. “Feel you touch me. Everywhere.”
“I’m going to come over there and let you feel what you’re doing to me.”
“No, too many police in the lobby,” she crooned. “And they’d shoot you if you climbed in the window.” “Yeah, they would.”
“So, talk to me.”
“I don’t want to talk, honey,” he murmured. “I want to do.”
She laughed. “After the last dance?”
“You got the flowers, I take it.”
“They’re beautiful, like the roses.”
“Like you.”
“Sweet-talker,” she protested.
“You haven’t had enough of that, I think. So I guess it’s up to me.”
“Hmmm. Impress me.”
He did his best. By the time they hung up, it was nearing daybreak. He was so aroused, so ready to explode that only a cold shower would help him. As it was, he climbed back into bed with his hair wet and cold, and his body still on fire.
“Just wait, Torie Hagen,” he murmured. “You’ll dance with me, and I’ll never let you go.”
“So somebody drugged the cops? Wow.” Pam was shocked by the latest development. “Hard to believe.”
“Yeah, scared me,” Torie said, then thanked the waiter who served their breakfast plates.
“You should have called me. I would have come over.”
“I know.” Torie ducked her head so Pam wouldn’t see the blush that stole over her cheeks.
“What? What is it?” Pam eyed her with suspicion. “You’re blushing. Who did you call, Paul?”
When Torie didn’t answer, Pam laughed. “Can’t fool me, girl. I can see right through you. How long did you talk?”
“An hour,” Torie admitted. “Maybe more.”
“At three in the morning, eh? Well, well, well.”
“Stop that.”
“What?”
“Being so smug and I-told-you-so.”
Pam attempted to look serious, sliding her sunglasses off her head to perch them on her nose in professorial fashion. “Now reaaaaallly, darling,” she drawled with dramatic skill. “You muuuuust tell me everything. All the delectable details.”
“No,” Torie protested. “That’s personal.”
“Uh huh. Personal. So you’re going tonight, right?” In one of her lightning changes of subject, Pam shifted to the party. “The partner dinner,” she said, snapping her fingers under Torie’s nose. “C’mon, keep up here. You’re going, right?”
“Yes, I’m going. I wish you could be there, too. I could probably get you a date,” she said, trying for a sly look.
“God, don’t do that, your face might freeze that way. Who, some hunky, rich partner drooling to get his hands on little ol’ me, or merely another skanky lawyer?”
“You have dated a few.”
“You have no idea. So?”
“How about Melvin? He’s single.”
“Weaselboy? Uh, no way.”
“Did everyone call him that? I thought it was just Paul and Todd.”
“It was. Todd told me to stay away from him one time, at a party for a bunch of the frat brothers. Said he was trouble.”
“I guess he was for a while. Seems like he’s straightened out now.”
“Don’t get me wrong, I like a reformed bad boy as much as the next red-blooded American woman, but that one? I don’t think so.”
Torie paused, her breakfast forgotten for a moment. “Yeah, what is it about him?” Another thought distracted her. “Hey, do you remember Blaine and Deke?”
“The Big Blue Ox and Mister Muscles?” Pam asked, using the nicknames she had for them. “Yeah, I remember them. I ran into Deke at that Chamber thing you dragged me to. He hit on me, hard, but I didn’t have the time. And Blaine, seems to me I’ve seen him around, but I don’t know either one of them that well.”
“We looked at a list yesterday.” Torie explained about the list and the questions the men had asked of her.
“Oh, baby.” Pam’s eyes were wide with shock and glistened with tears. “Why didn’t you call me? You shouldn’t have had to go through that, relive that alone.”
Torie closed her eyes on tears of her own. How like Pam to think that way. “Thank you,” she said, her voice catching on the tears. “I wasn’t alone, though. Paul was there.”
“I see.”
Torie laughed at the dry rejoinder. “Pretty much, yeah.”
“So, I repeat my earlier questions, which you so did not answer.”
“Which is?”
“Game plan, girl. Game plan.”
“Okay, okay. Game plan. I’m calling the bank today about a business loan. I’ve already signed the lease with Kuhman on the house in Upper Darby, and I’ve got a builder/remodeler guy coming to the house on Sunday.”
“Darby house or Society Hill house?”
“Both. Society Hill first. The sooner I get started there, the better.” The keys to the padlocks were a weight in her pocket. Sorrels had dropped them off to her, asking her to replace the locks with some she’d bought, and return the existing ones to him.