Jaded (12 page)

Jase shrugged and chewed a piece of beef. “I just don’t.”

“Did your mother abandon you?” she asked. His eyes narrowed and she smiled a slow sad smile. Ah, so the detective’s mom wouldn’t win any mother-of-the-year awards. Small world. “Mine did, not physically, but emotionally. I had to take care of myself and my sister. My mother wasn’t—capable.”

Jase nodded, the gesture barely perceptible. “My mother had a constant string of men through our house. My sister, too. No sooner would one walk out the back door than another would be coming in the front door. They took what they could from each of them before they sent them on their way,” he said.

“So you think all women want the same thing?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never cared enough to find out.”

“What about your father?” she asked.

Again, Jase shrugged. “I never met the man.”

Jade smiled. “Me, either.”

Jase set down his fork and gave her a long, steady look. “We’re a lot more alike than I thought.”

Jade nodded. Maybe they were.

“Why don’t you like to be touched?”

His question caught her off guard. She laughed, nervous. “I—why do you think that?”

“Why do you always answer a question with a question?”

“Maybe I don’t like giving the answers.”

“Maybe if you were honest about the answers, you could move on.”

It was her turn to shrug. “Maybe I like just where I am.”

“Do you really?”

Jade shrugged again, avoiding his gaze, and moved a piece of beef around her plate with her fork. “I’m right where I want to be in life.”

“I doubt that. Seriously, if you could be anywhere, doing whatever you wanted, what would you do?”

Jade looked up at him and pondered that question long and hard. No one had ever asked her what she wanted. And surprisingly, she had no answer. “I don’t know.”

He frowned. “No childhood dreams of falling in love and having a family?”

Jade suddenly felt very cold. More like childhood nightmares. “I don’t believe in love. Not that way.”

“Which way?”

“The romantic kind. But,” she smiled, “I love my sister. I’d do anything for her.”

“Even at the expense of your happiness?”

“I am happy!”

“Really?” Jase leaned toward her and pinned her with his blue eyes. “You’re happy leading men on for a living? You’re happy having to constantly steer clear of a man’s roaming hands? You’re happy working twenty-four/seven and not doing anything for yourself? Are you happy being numb? Don’t you want to
feel,
Jade?”

Jade laid her fork down on the edge of her plate and speared him with a glare. “You seem to think you know an awful lot about me, Detective. You don’t know me at all. And for someone who asks a lot of questions about feelings and love, you just told me you have no aspirations of ever committing to a woman. Isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black?”

“I never said I didn’t like relationships. I like them, a lot, so long as they are short.”

“Wham bam, thank you, ma’am?”

Jase grinned like a little boy and shook his head.

“I like to feel, Jade. I like to feel a lot of things. Like the softness of a woman’s skin. I like the physical connection of good sex. But I make it clear to my partners I’m not a long hauler. It works for me,
and
for the women in my life.”

Intrigued, Jade asked, “What exactly does sex mean to you?”

“A physical connection. A good time.”

“No emotion?”

Jase grinned. “Is lust an emotion?”

“I don’t know.”

“Have you ever been in lust with a man?”

Jade frowned. The question brought back too many memories she had long ago buried. “I thought so once. But I—it wasn’t.”

“Why do you hate men?”

“I don’t hate men. Men pay my bills. How can I look a gift horse in the mouth?”

Jase reached across the table to her hand. She let him touch her. “What happened to you?”

She snatched her hand away. It was time to fold and go. She pushed away from the table and stood. “I made a mistake coming here.”

Jase stood up and came around the table, then reached out to her shoulder. She flinched, moving away. “Not all men are bastards, Jade.”

“That may be true, but I don’t care enough to find out.”

He pressed his fingertips to her skin. “Not all men hurt.”

Her body stiffened under his touch. Not because she found it unpleasant. Quite the contrary. She found it soothing. Moist heat stung her eyes. What would it feel like to walk into this man’s arms and let him hold her, and feel safe for just a minute?

He moved closer to her. His warm breath brushed her cheek. She dared not look up. He would see her fear, see her lies, and see her vulnerability. He’d see her for the fraud she was.

Her back arched, her legs trembled. When his hands slid around her waist and gently brought her into his embrace, Jade resisted before she relaxed into the warm strength of him. He smelled good. Masculine, spicy, strong. His arms tightened around her and he held her. Not asking anything from her, only offering his strength. And it felt good.

She pressed her cheek against his chest, his heart beat a solid steady rhythm against her.

“Does that hurt, Jade?”

Jade closed her eyes, and not trusting her voice, she shook her head. It was the wine getting to her. She rarely drank and wine always had that warm cozy effect on her. What should have been an impersonal dinner had turned into something she was not prepared to handle.

She stepped back out of Jase’s embrace. She wanted to minimize what had just happened. “Thanks for the hug.” Then she proceeded to clear the table. When she turned back a moment later to look at Jase, he stood where she’d left him, a small smile quirking his lips.

“What?” she demanded.

He shook his head and walked toward her, taking the plates from her hands. “Take your wine and go sit by the fire. I’ll clean up.”

For reasons he could not explain, Jase held back the questions burning to be asked. And it wasn’t easy. Jade Devereaux intrigued him as a woman just as much as she intrigued him as a suspect, and he knew if he went any further she’d bolt. And for purely selfish reasons that had nothing to do with the case, he wanted her to stay.

When she curled up on the sofa and wrapped the throw tightly around her shoulders, Jase threw a few more logs on the fire and left her staring into the flames. After he finished up in the kitchen, he checked on her. Her eyes were closed and he noticed that her wineglass was empty. Maybe she’d sleep for a while. He had computer work to do and now was as good a time as any.

When he came downstairs several hours later, she was sound asleep on the long leather couch.

He stood for a long time staring at her, watching the soft even rise and fall of her breasts against the throw. And for the hundredth time, he wondered who the hell had damaged her. He wanted to break the bastard’s neck. His protective feelings toward her confused him. As a cop he was sworn to serve and protect, and he did just that for the general populace. It was part of his job. He just did it without any emotional involvement. He’d seen too much shit over the years and had for self-preservation constructed walls around his heart.

But somehow this woman had breached his security system and gotten to him. He wanted to go out and fight her battles for her. He swiped his hand across his chin. “Hell,” he muttered. She was no damsel in distress. Jade Devereaux was quite capable of slaying her own dragons. She was a survivor, like him.

Yet there was a vulnerability about her he couldn’t deny. Jase looked at the burning embers in the fireplace and debated leaving her on the sofa or attempting to get her into the guest room bed. He opted for the bed.

When Jade woke the next morning, she started just as she had the night before. She sat up in the bed and looked wildly around. Her senses took over. A strong, spicy, masculine scent infiltrated her nostrils and she calmed. Jase. His house. She looked around the nondescript room. A guest room? She didn’t remember climbing the stairs. She looked under the covers and blew out a sigh of relief. She was still in the clothes she’d shown up in.

A piece of paper on the nightstand caught her attention. In his dominant-male scrawl, Jase had written:
Coffee on. Breakfast in the oven.

Jade sank back into the pillows and frowned. What was he up to? He got her drunk last night on that great cab, embraced her, then carried her up to bed and didn’t touch her? Not even an attempt? She touched her shirt. Every button was buttoned, nothing out of place. He’d told her not all men were bastards. She figured he was stringing her along. It’s what men did.

To add insult to injury, he leaves her with coffee and breakfast? Jade shook her head, wondering why she felt so odd. The last thing she wanted from any man was to be taken advantage of, but this feeling that she was less of a woman because Jase hadn’t? What did that mean?

She slipped out of bed and hurried into the adjoining bathroom and found a toothbrush, toothpaste, a towel, and soap on the counter.

Jade brushed her teeth and washed her face. After she pulled her hair back into a ponytail, she inspected her face. Not too bad. The swelling was nearly gone, and the bruising wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been. With a little concealer and heavier foundation, she’d look as good as new.

Jade sipped her coffee and nibbled on the ham-and-egg biscuit that constituted breakfast, wondering about the man who’d made it for her. What did he really want from her?

Jade scribbled a quick thank-you note and headed out. She had to get her house in order, but first she stopped by the club to pick up Genny’s address. A note on her desk in Mac’s handwriting informed her that Genny had never come in. Jade stood, staring at the note. How odd. Hastily, she called Genny’s cell phone number. It went immediately to voicemail.

“Genny, it’s Jade. I’m concerned you didn’t come in last night. Please call my cell as soon as you get this.” As she hung up, Jade began to wonder if Genny was afraid to come in or worse, was she hurt? Had Townsend damaged her before he sprung on Jade? Should she tell Vaughn? She chewed her fingertip, not sure how to proceed.

First on Jase’s agenda for the day was to track down Otis Thibodeaux. When he knocked on the suite door this time, Otis opened it and immediately tried to shut it. Jase stuck his foot between it and the jamb and paid for it in pain. He shoved the door back and entered the room.

“Hey, unless you got a warrant, you can’t come in here.”

“Call the cops,” Jase said.

Otis walked farther into the messy room. Jase followed, slammed the door shut, and locked it. Otis demanded, “What do you want?”

“I’m Detective Vaughn, Montrose PD. How do you know Jade Devereaux?”

Otis’s eyes darted to the ceiling, then left, then right. “I just met her the other night.”

Jase stepped closer to the lying bastard. “How did you know she was working at Callahan’s?”

“I didn’t. I saw her for the first time when I went the first time.” Otis backed up a step, the bed stopping his backward progress.

Jase moved in so the only escape Otis had was across the bed.

“Who did you think she was and why were you at her house the night before last?”

“I thought she was someone I used to know.” Otis swiped at his damp brow with the back of his hand.

“Who?”

“I don’t have to tell you that. I don’t have to tell you nothing.”

“You can tell me here or downtown, your choice, doesn’t matter to me which.”

“I thought she was a girl named Ruby Leigh. I was wrong.”

“Ruby Leigh?”

“Ruby Leigh Gentry.”

“From where?”

Otis pursed his lips. “You’re a cop, you figure it out.”

Jase smiled harshly. “I just need to look you up, Otis. I know you’re from Louisiana, and I’ll find this Ruby Leigh, or at least her past.”

“Then go do your job,” Otis said with sudden bravado.

“Maybe you need some time to think, like in jail.”

“On what charge?”

“Battery, to start with.”

“I heard about you California cops and how you slap bogus charges against people you don’t like. Well, I got friends here, Detective, high-up friends. Go on and arrest me. I’ll be out by lunchtime.”

Jase stepped into Otis’s very personal space and softly threatened, “You might get out by lunchtime, but you can be damn sure that lily-white Southern ass of yours will get screwed six ways to sundown before you do.”

Otis shut his mouth.

“Yeah, you’re yellow to the core just like I thought. Only a coward slaps a woman around.” Jase’s hands opened and closed. It was all he could do to keep his hands off the bastard.

“I—”

“Shut up, Thibodeaux, before I slap you myself.” Jase wrestled with what he wanted to do and what Jade asked him not to do. He’d made inroads with her last night. If he arrested this son of a bitch for battery, Jade would clam up for good. Against his better judgment, Jase left the sniveling Southern prick and called Ricco. “Go deeper on Otis Thibodeaux. Start with Louisiana. Any hit with his last name, put it in a file. Also, dig around for a Ruby Leigh Gentry, same state.”

“Got it. The coroner released Townsend’s body today. We can’t keep cause of death out of the papers, but we can keep the details out.”

“All right, but make sure the ME and her staff keep their mouths shut. I don’t want the details leaked.”

“I told her, and she gets it, it won’t be the first time. So where does that leave that long drink of water?”

“She’s involved, and she’s lying to me about some things.”

“Do you think she knows who killed him?”

Jase scowled. “I’m not sure. But she has information, info she isn’t divulging.”

“Maybe she’s being blackmailed by the killer.”

“I think that club is a high-class whore clearinghouse, and I think she knows it and I think she’s part of it.”

“You think she’s turning tricks?”

Jase paused and realized, especially after last night, for someone who had such an adversity to human touch, Jade Devereaux just might not be emotionally able to perform sex for money.