"What's wrong, did I overdo the candles?" he asked. "Sometimes I can come off kind of Mephistophelian when lit by flame."
"No, the candle's working." Nikki took a bite of quesadilla and said, "But I do have something serious I need to ask you."
"Sure, but we don't have to do any heavy lifting tonight. I know that was the plan but that can wait. I've almost forgotten how you crushed my spirit this afternoon."
"But I need to know this and I need to know right now."
"OK…"
She wiped her hands on her napkin and looked him in the eyes. "Who has black pillowcases?" Before he could answer, she continued, "It's been bugging me since your office. Were those your black pillowcases?"
"First of all, they aren't black."
"So they are yours. I ask again, who has black pillowcases? Besides Hugh Hefner or, I don't know, international arms dealers?"
"They are not black. They are the darkest of dark blue, called Midnight. You'd know that if you had hung around long enough to see my autumn bachelor linens."
She laughed. "Autumn linens?"
"Yes, seasons change. And by the bye, those sheets are eight hundred and twenty thread count."
"I can see what I've been missing."
"I'll bet," he said, dropping the wiseass from his tone. He paused and added, "You know exactly what you've been missing, and so do I."
Nikki studied him. Rook was not looking at her but into her, the candle flame dancing in his eyes.
He pulled the bottle from a bowl of ice and came around beside her to pour. When her glass was full, she rested one hand on his wrist and put the other around the bottle to take it from him and place it on the table. Looking up at him standing over her, Nikki held his gaze as she took his wrist and drew his hand inside her robe. She tensed with a shiver as his cool palm rested on her breast. And held her, warming.
Rook slowly lowered, bending himself to kiss her, but it wasn't fast enough for what was building inside Nikki. She clawed the front of his shirt roughly and pulled him to her. Her excitement made him come alive, and he fell onto her, kissing her deeply and drawing her close.
Nikki moaned, feeling a spreading warmth, and arched backward as she rose up to him. Then, sliding herself off the chair, she laid herself down on her back on the flat of the rooftop. Their tongues reached for each other, searching in some wild, aching desperation. He untied the sash of her robe. She unbuckled his belt. And Nikki Heat softly groaned again and whispered, "Now. Now…," and moved herself to the long-past beat of the "Fire Down Below."
Chapter Eight
Something stirred Rook awake. A siren, likely an ambulance, judging by its chirps and guttural honks, announcing itself at an intersection over on Park Avenue South before fading into the night. It was one part of New York living he never got used to, the noise. For some it became background they could tune out. Not for him. It challenged him in the day when he wrote, and he never got an unbroken night's sleep because this was the city that never did. Somebody should write a song about that, he thought.
With the eye that wasn't buried in the pillow, he read the luminous dial of his watch on the nightstand: 2:34. Three hours more sleep before the alarm. He smiled. Hm. Or maybe two hours. He slid backward across the bed to dock himself skin-to-skin with Nikki. When he reached the middle of the bed, he felt the sheet and her pillow. Both were cool.
Rook found her in the living room, perched on the window seat in a sweatshirt and a pair of Gap drawstring bottoms. He stopped in the hallway entrance and watched her, a catlike silhouette in the bay window with her knees pulled up to her chin and her arms wrapped around her shins, contemplating the street below. "You can come in," she said without turning from her view of the block. "I know you're there."
"Aren't you the trained observer, Detective," he said. He moved behind her and folded his forearms loosely around her neck.
"I heard you the second your feet hit the floor in there. You move about as subtly as a draft horse." Nikki settled back and lounged against him.
"You'll never hear me complain when the comparison involves a horse."
"No?" She turned her face up to his and smiled. "No complaints here, either."
"That's good. And saves me the trouble of leaving a survey card."
Nikki sniffed a little chuckle and turned back to the window, this time resting the back of her head on his abdomen, feeling the warmth of him on her neck.
"You thinking that he's out there somewhere?" asked Rook.
"The Texan? Oh, he is for now. Just for now."
"You worried he'll come here?"
"I hope he does. I'm armed, and if that's not enough, if he'll hold still long enough, you can subdue him with one of your famous nosebleeds." She leaned forward and head-nodded over the sill. "Besides, Captain put a patrol car out front." As Rook leaned over her to see the roof of the blue-and-white, pressing his weight on her shoulders, Nikki added, "Doesn't he know the city's in a budget crisis?"
"Small price to protect his star detective."
A change came over her. She uncoiled her legs and moved from him, sliding herself around to put her back to the window. Rook sat beside her on the cushion. "What?" he said. When she didn't answer, he leaned a shoulder against hers. "What's got you up and sitting here at this hour?"
Nikki reflected a moment and said, "Gossip." She turned her head halfway to him. "I've been thinking about how ugly gossip is. How it victimizes people, but how as much as we say we hate it, we still feed on it like it was crack."
"I hear you. It ate at me every day with Cassidy Towne. They call what she did journalism-hell, I even said it was the other day when I argued with Toby Mills's spin doctor-but, when you get down to it, Cassidy Towne was as much about journalism as the Spanish Inquisition was about justice. Although, Tomas de Torquemada had more friends."
"I'm not talking about Cassidy Towne," said Nikki. "I'm talking about me. And the rumors and gossip I've had to deal with since you put me on the cover of a national magazine. That's what got me all shitty with you in the car today. Someone made a snide comment insinuating that I slept with you for the publicity."
"It was that lawyer, wasn't it?"
"Rook, it doesn't matter who. It's not the first of those I've had to deal with. At least that was an overt remark. Most of what I get are looks or I catch people whispering. Since your article came out I feel like I'm walking around naked. I've spent years building my rep as a professional. It's never been called into question until now."
"I knew that shyster said something to you."
"Did you even hear what I just said?"
"Yes, and my advice is to consider the source, Nik. He's just working on your head to get some sort of psychological leverage in the case. His client's going down. Richmond Vergennes will be an Iron Chef, all right. Ironing in the Sing Sing laundry."
She tucked a knee up and scooted to face him, resting a palm on each of his shoulders. "I want you to listen carefully because this is important. Do I have you?" He nodded. "Good. Because I'm telling you about something that's going on with me that's a big deal, and you're spinning off on your own side road. You think you're with me but you're running parallel. Understand what I mean?"
He nodded again and she said, "You don't."
"I do. You're upset because that lawyer made an unfair crack."
She took her hands off his shoulders and folded them in her lap. "You're not hearing me."
"Hey?" He waited for her to face him. "I am hearing you, and here's what you're feeling. You're feeling like your life was rolling along fine until my article came out, right? And what did I do? I put you where you aren't comfortable-thrust into the spotlight with everybody looking at you and gossiping about you, and not always to your face. And you're frustrated because you tried to tell me it wasn't what you wanted but I had it so in my head it was good for you that I did everything but consider your feelings." He paused and took both her hands in his. "I'm considering them now, Nik. I'm sorry for how I made you feel. I thought I was doing a good job and apologize that I let it get complicated."