Hot and Irresistible (16 page)

He walked toward her.

“You’re hurt and I’m mad at you because you lied about meeting Cleveland and you’re mad at me because I stole your gun and knife and I went into the attic, but Charlotte was with me and no one else came along and—”

“Cupcake, I’m not that mad right now. I’m betting neither are you and let’s talk about the attic later and me pissed later.” He dropped his towel, her eyes zeroing in on his erection as he came to her and undid her pants. They started to slide off her, but she grabbed them.

“You don’t want?”

“I want.” She pulled a condom from her back pocket.

“I’m not the only one full of surprises.”

She eyed his dick. “But you’re the one with the bigger surprise. Make that biggest surprise I ever saw.” She dropped her jeans, heavy with his gun and knife.

“Black bikini panties?” A smile softened his face. “You did it; you believed me when I said you were beautiful.”

She shook her head, her hair gliding over her shoulders driving him crazy. “I like to feel pretty. I like the feel of silk and I never knew that before.” She took his dick between her warm fingers. “I like the feel of you and I’ve known that for a while now. I’m still not sure how we wound up here. This was supposed to be breakfast.”

He slowly ran his hands over her bare bottom. “You’re not in any shape to be doing this, you know.” She looked at his dick again. “Well, actually, you are in the right shape, but Doc Stevens said you had to take it easy.”

“There are easy ways.”

“Right.” She slid onto the cart, dishes of food and glasses of orange juice crashing to the floor.

He smiled. “Your legs are apart, just the way I wanted.” He unbuttoned her blouse. “And I’m going to see your breasts in the sunlight and taste your nipples and watch them turn pink with desire and the areolae flush and rosy and know it’s all because of me.” He kissed her lips. “You’re all for me.”

He peeled her blouse over her naked shoulders, leaving her in a black silk teddy. “No bra?”

“I’m not big enough to really need one and with the teddy under the blouse and…”

“I like it.” He grazed his palm over her breasts, her nipples like pearls under the thin material. “I think you got everything you need.”

She blushed, then pulled the teddy over her head, and the delicious hard pearls were right there in front of him for the taking. He licked one, then the other, her gasps the only sounds in the room. They were such lovely sounds. “I want you, Donovan.”

And that sound was even better. He ripped open the blue foil packet. “I want you, too, Bebe.” And then he was sliding into her, her hot wet flesh parting for him, yielding, taking him in, making him one with her. Her legs parted wider, her hips arching and her head dipping back, revealing her delicate throat. Cupping her derriere, he buried himself in her completely, then withdrew so he could take her all over again. Would he ever get enough of this woman?

He plunged back into her. Never. He knew as soon as he climaxed with Bebe he’d want the experience all over again and again and again and again.

“Oh, Donovan,” she panted, her head now resting on his shoulder. “I think that was the breakfast of champions, because you are some champion and I hope you didn’t hurt your side because trying to explain this to Doc Stevens is more embarrassment than I want to deal with.”

“I’m fine.” He kissed her neck. “More than fine. But how are we going to explain this breakfast mess to the maids?”

She looked at him and laughed, her eyes sparkling. “I think I’ll tell them the truth and let them eat their hearts out. See you tonight.” She scooted off the table and collected her clothes.

“Wait a minute. We have sex and you leave? I thought that was the guy’s role.”

“Times are a-changing, Bubba, and I have to get back to the station, but I’ll be at the morgue for the tarot card thing. What are you going to do with the rest of the day?”

“Read about tarot cards. Maybe Prissy can turn up something. Like you keep reminding me, this is the South and things are different.”

Bebe pulled on her clothes. “The gun that shot you was the same one that shot Charlotte’s parents. The bullet that nicked you was old, thirty or forty years. Forensics could tell by the lead content. No casing, so it’s a revolver. .22 Smith and Wesson most likely with a silencer, or the shooter could have used a potato or even a can. .22s are easy to silence.”

She ran her fingers through her hair to straighten it up, then headed for the door. “And that means we’re looking for one suspect for everything going on. Least it narrows the playing field.”

Donovan reclaimed his towel. “Yeah, to Cleveland.”

“Or the Raeburns with an accomplice; I just have to find out who that accomplice is and I’ll have my case.”

“I already have a case.”

Bebe faced Donovan, fatigue making little lines at her eyes and mouth. He felt bad about that. He slept and she’d been working her ass off and she had such a nice one.

“Ray Cleveland may be guilty of running a gaming facility, but he’s no killer.”

“Cleveland admitted that his first wife was one he could live without. I think he had a plan to get the necklace and keep the money and his plan failed for whatever reason and he ended up killing the Carswells and now he’s forced into keeping things going because we’re on to him.”

“Or the Raeburns hired someone who had access to an old untraceable gun from somewhere and someone who knows this town and the people in it. A professional.”

“Then why go and hire Jimmy?”

“Their original accomplice is getting nervous. And another thing you need to keep in mind is that Cleveland’s home-grown Savannah. He can shoot even better than me. If he meant to hit you, I’d be picking out funeral flowers and pretty songs instead of having this conversation. He’d have a gun that could pick the gnat off a donkey’s butt at five hundred yards in the dead of night. Savannah boys know their firearms, Yank, and getting ones not registered is no problem. He wouldn’t be rattling your cage with a .22 peashooter.”

“If he wanted to keep the heat off himself he would. He’s guilty, Bebe, and I’m going to prove it to you.”

She pulled his knife and gun from her pants pocket and put them on the dresser. “Thanks for the loaners. Maybe tonight we’ll get lucky and see where that necklace is.”

“Sweetcakes, I just got damn lucky!” He watched the door close and sat down. A carafe somehow survived sex-on-the-cart. He took a cup from the carpet and poured coffee. He wasn’t a very nice guy. He was screwing Bebe two ways. One way was good, damn good, and one way he wasn’t leveling with her. He hadn’t told her about Joe Earl and the Raeburns. That little bit of info would help her case. Joe Earl could get an old gun easily enough, he wouldn’t shoot Donovan to kill him—cops don’t kill cops—and Joe Earl had been in Savannah for over thirty years.

Except something didn’t feel right about the Raeburns or Joe Earl. But everything felt right about Cleveland, and Donovan felt that clear though to his gut. Cleveland had motive and opportunity and he ran a gambling casino. A crook was a crook. And Donovan was a bastard. If he put Cleveland away, he could live with the bastard part.

The question was could he live without Bebe, because that’s where all this was heading.

Evening cooled the air as Bebe parked her PT. She was late for the reading and Prissy was going to have a hissy and what else could go wrong today and that was a dumb thing to think because Dara came around the corner. “Heading for the morgue? How fitting. Is that where you’re living these days?”

“You know I live on Taylor.”

“Oh, that’s right. Funny that you should mention it. I had lunch the other day with your landlord and convinced him to make your complex pet-free. Keep down on maintenance, it’ll save him money. Guess you’ll have to find homes for those mangy felines you pick up, or maybe you’ll just have to put the little dears to sleep.”

Dumbstruck like she always was, Bebe stared after Dara. Donovan parked his car and got out. “What now?”

“She wants to kill my cats.”

“There’s some reason she goes out of her way to drive you crazy. It’s like she won’t let it go. But why.”

“That’s the way Dara gets her jollies.”

“Maybe it’s a distraction. Tie you up in knots and keep the heat off the important stuff. This goes beyond basic dislike, this is premeditated and she knows how to get to you. Are you investigating Dara for any reason?”

“I try and stay as far away from that witch as I can. Always have.”

“She’s keeping you off balance, Bebe. When you were a kid it was easy, but you’re not a kid anymore, so she has to work harder at it. Do you have anything on Dara at all?”

“I’d like to have a cement truck on Dara. Does that count?” He grinned and she instantly felt better. “How are you doing? Did our little exercise hurt you any? We probably shouldn’t have—”

He kissed her. “Best exercise I’ve ever had and we definitely should. I got some information on Shipley and Edwina. With them being from Boston it was easy. They might be greedy, but they’re clean.”

“There’s some reason they weren’t left the necklace in the first place. Do you realize we’ve been here for about five minutes and we now have two more questions to add to our long, long, long list of questions. Think we’ll ever get any answers?”

“For crying in a bucket,” Prissy said from the doorway. “You’re late as can be and here you are chatting away on the sidewalk without a care in the world.”

Donovan followed Bebe up the steps. “I’m sorry. I had work and Donovan had work and—”

“I wasn’t born yesterday. One look at you two and anyone can tell you’re off doing the hanky-panky even with Donovan needing recuperation. You already missed the reading, because it had to be at sundown with light passing to dark being the best time for such things.” She led them into the kitchen with Charlotte, Brie, Anthony, and Vincent staring wide-eyed over three red lit candles and pile of cards on a black silk scarf on the table.

Bebe took a seat with Donovan and Prissy. Bebe said, “What’s going on? You all look like you’ve seen a—”

“Do not say the ‘g’ word,” Prissy whispered. “We’ve had an episode.” She looked smug. “I think I’m getting better at this stuff.”

The candles flickered, the lights blinked, and everyone gasped. “See,” Prissy said. “Good mojo.”

“Everything in the reading fit,” Anthony whispered, a catch in his voice. “The card that is the Fool turned up. It tells of a long journey with nothing but faith and finding what you seek. That is Vincent and myself coming here, so it is true. The Four of Swords says there is a connection to tombs and cemeteries and here we are sitting in a morgue. The Ten of Pentacles says we will have great material success after a long struggle. We are all happy about that, as we will be finding the necklace. But there was also the High Priestess.”

“And that means there are secrets,” Prissy said.

Bebe exchanged looks with Donovan. “You are getting good. There are so many secrets about this case there should be a whole deck of those Priestess cards. You didn’t happen to get any answers, did you? We could use some answers. Get anything with a gun or bullet?”

Bebe rummaged in her purse and pulled out a slug. “Like this one? The one that got Donovan is with forensics, but Charlotte and I dug this out of the attic floor at Magnolia House. The shooter fired more than once.”

Brie held it in her palm. “Well, my goodness, who would think that something so small like this could be so heavy?” She dumped it into Prissy’s palm. “Feel.”

Prissy gasped and dropped the bullet on the table with a solid thunk. She pushed her chair back, her eyes black as the silk scarf on the table. “Bad bullet.”

Bebe looked around for a cookie. There had to be a cookie here somewhere. “The way I see it, it’s a good bullet. It missed me.”

Prissy took Bebe’s arm and looked her in the eyes. “You’re linked with this bullet, honey.” Prissy held out her arms. “Looky here, goose bumps. King-sized ones. I get these feelings and they’re for real. Remember Griff’s check when he first came to Charlotte four weeks ago and everything started to go wacky. I picked up that check and got the bumps then, too. The bumps are not to be treated lightly.”

“It’s just a bullet,” she said to Prissy to downplay the situation because she was right, the check thing was a definite goose bump hit and maybe this was, too. Bebe put the slug back in her purse. “I have to get back to the station and finish up some paperwork.” She said to Vincent and Anthony, “I think you’re on the right track. The jewels are probably here…somewhere.”

BrieAnn followed her to the door, Donovan trailing behind. Brie kissed her cheek. “Be careful, you hear? I’m spending the night with Prissy if you need anything. You’re looking so tired.”

“Dead bodies and getting shot and another Dara encounter makes me grumpy.”

“Dara?”

“Don’t ask.” Donovan joined her on the steps and BrieAnn closed the door. He sat and pulled her down with him. “Do you believe in Prissy’s connection theory? You sure got out of there fast enough.”

“Psychics can pull off some pretty weird stuff. At the station we’ve used them to find missing people and they do help steer us in the right direction. Prissy’s bumps are all I have to go on.”