“How early?”
“Now.”
She really needed to work, since she doubted she’d get much work done later tonight. “I have to go home and change.”
Quinn opened the doors for her. “Don’t change. I like your skirt.”
“Well, I still have to go home. I made dessert.”
“Really?” Together they moved across the sidewalk to the curb. “What did you make?”
A chocolate torte that she worried might be too much this early in the relationship. It never paid to cook so soon. It set a bad precedent. “Something decadent.”
“You wrapped up in that skirt is decadent.” He slid his hand beneath her ponytail and lowered his mouth to hers. He kissed her for several heartbeats, then lifted his head. “See ya in a few.”
“Yeah, see ya.” She watched him move across the parking lot to his Jeep, and her gaze slid down his back to his tight behind in his jeans. He’d driven all the way across town just to hear her talk to a group of women mystery writers. It was such an incredibly sweet thing to do. She felt a scary little pinch in her heart.
She reached inside her briefcase and pulled out her sunglasses. She slipped them on the bridge of her nose, then turned to glance inside Barnes and Noble. Jan Bright and a few of the other ladies stood just inside, watching her and Quinn. Lucy waved good-bye before stepping off the curb and heading toward her car. Toward dinner and decadence with a man who seemed too good to be true. A man who made her heart pinch in her chest.
A man who, if she wasn’t very careful, could make her fall in love with him.
Quinn watched Lucy raise the fork to her lips and slide the piece of chocolate torte into her mouth. She licked frosting from the corner of her lips and gave him a smooth smile. The kind of smile a woman gave a man after he’d satisfied her in bed. “Mmm,” she said, her voice as deep and decadent as the cake. Her deep blue eyes shone with pure pleasure. “It’s wonderful.” With her hair up in soft curls, she was sexy as hell. Too bad she was a serial killer.
“Take a bite,” she urged.
Breathless had never poisoned her victims. Not yet, anyway. Quinn didn’t want to be the first. He waited until she took another bite before he picked up his fork and dug in. It was better than wonderful. So damn good that he leaned across the table and kissed her on the mouth, killer or not. He meant to pull back, but her lips clung to his, tasting like fine chocolate and warm woman. In spite of everything he now knew about her, the dull throb of desire tugged at his groin. He didn’t want to feel anything for her. Nothing. Anger mixed with lust as he raised his mouth from hers.
“Is something wrong?” she asked.
He gave her an easy smile. “No.” He knew how to play the game. To make people think he was someone he wasn’t. He’d always had fun catching the bad guys. This time, he wasn’t having any fun. “Nothing other than you taste good,” he said and leaned back in his chair.
She took another bite, and he watched her closely. He watched her lips close over the fork tines and her eyes get dreamy like she was in the throes of afterglow. If he hadn’t seen with his own eyes the book she was working on, he wouldn’t have thought the woman in front of him, who was eating cake like she was having an orgasm, was capable of killing anyone. It wasn’t until he’d seen the proof that he’d realized he hadn’t really believed she was Breathless. Now, there was no denying it. She’d written things that only Breathless would know. The flexi-cuffs. The polyethylene bag over the victim’s head. The position of the bodies. There was no longer room for denial, and everything she’d talked about at that mystery meeting earlier took on new meaning.
Before she’d arrived tonight, he’d placed two framed photos of Anita next to the clock in the living room because she had red hair like his “dead wife Millie.” The props made his house seem more like the home of a widower. The real Millie was at his mother’s house.
That morning a few tech guys had shown up with their equipment. They’d placed motion detecting audio and video surveillance in an air purifier in the kitchen, in a fake clock on the mantel in the living room, and in a clock radio beside his bed. The whole house was bugged for motion and sound. The only places the cameras couldn’t see or hear were down the hall and in the bathrooms. Across the street from Quinn’s house, Kurt and Anita sat in the Econoline, watching, listening, waiting for Lucy to cuff him to his bed and try to kill him.
“I think the Women of Mystery thought you were cute,” she said through a teasing smile. “When you left they were looking out the windows at you.”
Quinn doubted they thought he was cute. More likely a few of them were wondering what Lucy was doing with a cop. He’d recognized two of them, and before they’d been able to make their way toward him, he’d hustled Lucy out of the store.
She licked the back of her fork with the tip of her tongue and he felt it between his legs. “Sometimes, chocolate is better than sex,” she said.
“Sunshine, nothing is better than sex.”
She set the fork on her plate and pushed it aside. “I guess that would depend on your basis of comparison.”
Lucy Rothschild was Breathless. What angered him most was the fact that she could make him want her. He rose from his chair and reached for her. “Come here,” he said and wrapped his arms around her. It was time to turn up the heat. Add some pressure. Trigger her stress button. It had been several weeks since the last murder. She had to be feeling the compulsion to kill again. It had to be riding her like his compulsion to bury himself deep inside her was riding him. Neither would get release.
“Let’s give you something good to compare.” He lowered his mouth to hers and gave her a kiss filled with need and frustrated desire. He wished it were a lie. He’d give anything if he could tell himself that it was all just an act, but the ache in his crotch called him a liar. He swept his tongue into her mouth, and his hand slid down her back to her behind. Through the cool leather of her skirt, he filled his palms and pulled her up onto the balls of her feet. Against her pelvis, he let her feel his full-blown hard-on. He fed her hot, wild kisses as he rocked his hips and slowly thrust against her. Pushing her to react.
He was in hell.
She pulled her head back and sucked in a deep breath. “I need to use your restroom,” she said, her eyes wide. It wasn’t quite the reaction he’d wanted.
He let go and pointed behind her. “Down the hall. Second door on your right.” The heels of her boots tapped across the hardwood floor as she disappeared around the corner and down the hall. As soon as Quinn heard the bathroom door close behind her, he moved into the living room and reached for her purse, which was sitting on the couch. He turned it upside down, and a big collection of crap fell out. On top was a scarf and a set of keys, three tubes of lipstick, a business card case, an address book, and Autographed by Author stickers. He pawed through the pile, pushing aside a red leather wallet, a can of pepper spray, a personal alarm, a stun pen, and a pair of brass knuckles. If he found the flexi-cuffs and a dry-cleaning bag in her purse, he could arrest her right now. Along with everything, it would be enough circumstantial evidence to take to the prosecutor. But it seemed like she’d brought everything she owned-except those two items.
He looked at the other stuff and frowned. What? Was she planning on shocking him with a stun pen? It wouldn’t kill him, but it would hurt like hell. Or did she plan to hose him with her pepper spray, then coldcock him with brass knuckles?
Down the hall, the toilet flushed, and Quinn shoved everything back into her purse. She could have the cuffs on her. Probably in her bra. It was possible. He was going to have to search her underwear.
It was his job. Shit.
Lucy washed her hands, then dried them on the dark blue towel hanging by the sink. There was something different about Quinn tonight. A few days ago, he’d said he wanted to take things slow. That he wanted more than sex. Earlier, as he’d cooked steaks on his grill and as they’d eaten dinner, he’d kept the conversation light. He’d seemed relaxed and comfortable in his white dress shirt and blue jeans. He’d entertained her with funny stories about all his nieces, and they’d talked about the latest Cold Case Files episode-then wham. He’d hit her with that kiss, and she’d felt as if she’d been knocked in the head. In zero to fifty, he’d gone from Mr. Friendly to Mr. Man-on-a-Mission. A mission to get her naked.