Jaded (18 page)

“I—I was lonely.”

“You work with a room full of men. Why me?”

She turned slightly to look up at him. “I don’t like them.”

“But you like me?”

She chuckled softly. “I like what you do to me.”

He rolled over onto her, rubbing his nose across hers in an Eskimo kiss. “Do you want more?”

“Yes.”

His gaze swept her face. He touched the swelling on her cheek. She flinched, his question wrestling her back to her reality. “What happened?”

If she told him about Otis, then she would have to tell him other things. Other things that were better left unsaid. “I bent down to pick up a piece of paper that fell on the floor in my office and hit my cheek on the corner of the table.”

“Liar.”

She shivered and moved to pull away, but Jase pulled her back into the warmth of his body.

She looked intently at him. “I didn’t kill Andrew Townsend or Mr. Hiro.”

“Who did?”

Jade moved up onto her elbows and searched Jase’s face. “I don’t know.”

“Did you see Townsend after he left with Genny?”

Jade couldn’t lie to him, not while this close, not while this intimate. “Yes, out in the parking lot.”

“Were you the one who called nine-one-one?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Jade closed her eyes, took a deep breath, than looked directly at him. “He was waiting for me, and he wanted to extend our date. I didn’t. I’d made it clear earlier. When he forced himself on me, I stabbed him.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I was afraid I killed him. It was self-defense, but who would believe me? Bran told me earlier Andrew died of asphyxiation.”

“What did you do in Hiro’s room?”

Jade stiffened and tried to pull away from Jase, but his fingers tightened around her arm, holding her close. “Tell me,” he said through clenched teeth.

“We talked.”

“About what?”

Heat flushed her cheeks.

“What did he want to talk about, Jade, that he couldn’t discuss at the club?” Her eyes darted to the ceiling, then to the wall behind him, settling on the low flames of the fire. “Did he want a live version of a nine hundred call?”

She tried to pull away again, and this time Jase rolled over onto her. His gaze held hers. “Is that what he wanted, dirty talk?”

“Yes!”

“Is that what you call what I saw at the restaurant?”

She tried to twist out of his arms. He held tight. “Let go of me!”

“I want the truth, Jade! Were you fucking Hiro for money?”

If she could have slapped him, she would have. “I’m not a prostitute!” Hot tears stung her eyes. He looked so angry, and…disappointed. “Coming here was a mistake. Let me go.”

“Not until you tell me what the hell it is you do, what Callahan’s does. Make me understand, Jade.”

She could lie, she could tell the truth, or she could tell him nothing at all. No matter what she told him, he wasn’t going to like it. And she decided the lies had to stop sometime and now was as good a time as any. “Everything I told you about the club is true, on the up-and-up. If the girls want to take their dates home, that’s between them.
I’m not a pimp.”

“What about Jack Morton?”

“What about him?”

“What’s his take?”

Jade let out a long breath. “I’ve heard he has cash-flow problems.”

“And how does he plan to remedy that?” he asked.

“He’s lowered the membership bar—”

“And what else?”

“He…he’s given some of our new members the wrong impression. Like Townsend, and apparently Mr. Hiro. I was shocked to walk back into our private dining room at La Hacienda Rosa and find him spread-eagle and naked. He has always been the epitome of a gentleman. When I denied him, Mr. Morton had a few words with me, and explained that Katsuo had paid a lot of money for some extra handling.”

“And that included dirty talk?”

“Look, I have a sister in college, and her tuition sets me back. My job pays well. Jack told me if I didn’t go over to see Katsuo I could pick up the want ads on my way out the door.”

“So you went.”

“I did. But I did it with the intention of pleading to Katsuo’s gentleman side. When he wouldn’t bite, we met in the middle. I didn’t touch him, and he didn’t touch me.”

“So he jerked off while you told him how much you wanted to suck him and fuck him.” It wasn’t a question, it was a statement. And an accurate one at that. “Did you go back feeling humiliated, and whack off his balls?”

Jade gasped, her eyes widening. “He was gelded?”

Jase smiled and silently cursed himself. He’d let that very important fact slip. Had he done it on purpose? Did he want Jade innocent, so he could have her to himself?

“Among other things.”

“Oh my god, what a horrible way to die.”

“It’s not what killed him.”

A sudden thought occurred to Jade. “Did—did Katsuo die the same way Townsend did?”

Jase nodded.

“The same killer?”

“Maybe.”

“I didn’t kill either of them, Jase. When I left Townsend, he had a stab wound to his lung, and Katsuo was naked and happy, drinking sake when I left his room.”

“It’s a bit coincidental that two club members, both your dates, die the same way, and both times you were the last person to see them alive. Can you explain why Townsend’s cell phone was found in your trash can?”

Jade looked surprised and leaned up on her elbows. “What are you talking about?”

“The day you were burglarized, one of the techs found it in your trash can.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Why didn’t
you
tell
me
?”

She pushed away and he let her. “First of all, I didn’t put it there, and if I knew it was there—” She looked hard and long at Jase. “Honestly, if I knew it was there, I would have wiped it clean and mailed it to you.”

“You talk like a guilty person, Jade.”

“I’m guilty of many things, but killing Andrew Townsend and Katsuo Hiro isn’t one of them.” She pulled the throw tight around her shoulders.

“How did you get the fresh bruise on your cheek?” And before she could answer he added, “The truth, Jade.”

She couldn’t tell him the truth and she was tired of lying. “I plead the Fifth.”

He nodded and stood up, his great warrior body glowing like burnished bronze in the low flicker of the fire. She couldn’t help passing her gaze down his hard abs to the hairline that started below his navel and shot straight to his cock. He was all man, and what made him that way was on the rise. Her eyes moved up to his hard gaze. He stepped closer to her and yanked her hard against him, the velocity of his move knocking the breath from her chest. Despite the offensive move, her blood quickened.

“We can play it your way, Jade, but be warned—your day of reckoning will be your bitter pill to swallow, not mine.”

She nodded, unable to form words in answer. She knew more than he, what her end would entail. Until that time came, she planned on living to the hilt. No more worries. She was resigned to her fate, and until it came to claim her, she would not look back or have regrets.

Jade moved into Jase’s space. Running her hands up his chest, she dug her nails into his back. “Then let’s play while we can.”

Jase pulled her head back by her hair, his blue eyes glittered like ice in the firelight. “Play with fire, Jade, and you get burned. Be careful.”

She dug her nails deeper into his flesh. His body flinched and she smiled. “Can’t handle the heat, Detective?” His cock flexed against her belly in answer.

“I can take it as hot as you can turn it up.” He nipped at her bottom lip. She moaned and arched against him. Jase picked her up and spun her around, spreading her on the kitchen table. He pulled her legs toward his waiting cock.

Jade cried out as he speared her. “Oh my god, Jase, you feel so good.”

“So do you.”

He brought her closer into him. She wrapped her legs around his hips and he moved deeper into her. With his arm around her waist, he steadied her with the other, and their connection was complete.

Jade kissed him, her lips sucking and licking his. His hips moved back and forth in a steady motion, the tension growing with each thrust, their bodies slickening. Her orgasm came quickly, the velocity of it nearly unseating her. Jase’s arms tightened, his fingers digging into the tender flesh of her bottom. She cried out just as he released deep inside of her. The force of his ejaculation nearly pushed her away from him, but he hung on to her. Before she could collect herself and regulate her breath, he carried her upstairs and into the bathroom.

He turned the shower on and pushed her in. He lathered her up, then rinsed her, then did the same to himself. He patted her dry and carried her into his bedroom, where he proceeded to toss her onto the soft down comforter. “Get some sleep.”

He moved into what she assumed was a walk-in closet and emerged in a pair of flannel pajama bottoms. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Jase cursed under his breath all the way down to the family room. He wasn’t pissed he’d fucked her. Not for the first time or the second time, he was pissed because he wanted a third and fourth time. He picked up the glass bowl, which had once held oranges, from the floor and fished the fruit out from under the sofa and recliner. He pulled the fur throw up off the floor and couldn’t help bringing it to his nose. Her sultry scent marked it, mingling with his own.

He tossed it onto the sofa. Why the hell was she lying to him? What was so difficult about telling the damn truth? If she were as innocent as she claimed, what was the big fucking deal? He sighed. She wasn’t innocent, that was the big fucking deal.

Jase resisted the urge to run upstairs and shake her until she told him what she was so afraid of, why she couldn’t,
wouldn’t,
tell him the truth. At the very least, if she were innocent, she was the key to the murders, her or the club, and if she opened up he just might be able to put Townsend’s murder to bed, because whoever did him had done Hiro, too.

He set the coffeepot down and mumbled another curse. His cupboards were empty. One of the worst chores on earth to him was grocery shopping. He hadn’t been in weeks. At least there was enough coffee for a pot. He’d go out in the morning and get breakfast food. He scratched his belly, he was famished, but it wasn’t for ham and eggs, it was for the hot dish up in his bed. Turning off the lights, he jogged up the stairs, looking forward, for the first time since he could remember, to sleeping with a warm body next to him.

He was fucking losing it.

Jase rolled over, expecting to find Jade’s warm naked body beside him. Instead, the sheet still warm from her body heat was empty. He jolted upright in bed and squinted at the clock: 3:32 a.m. The bathroom light was on. He lay back against the pillows. He drifted back into the heavy fog of slumber. He woke with a start several hours later. The sheet beside him was cold. It was 6:30 a.m. “Jade?” he called. Silence answered. The bathroom light was off.

He ran downstairs. The coffee was just starting to brew. Next to the pot was a note.

Jase frowned. Why the hell would she take his truck and not her car? He went back upstairs and brushed his teeth and washed the sleep from his face. Just as he poured himself a cup of coffee, the front door opened. Jade came in, a shy smile on her face. She was dressed casually in a sexy sporty pink-and-black workout set. The fabric hugged her curves. Her face was fresh, her hair damp and pulled back in a ponytail.

“Good morning, sunshine,” she said in deference to his scowl.

“Where have you been?”

She set the two bags of groceries on the counter. “One night, and now you’re in charge of me?”

He set his cup down on the counter next to the groceries. “I don’t usually wake up and find my lover
and
my truck gone.”

Jade was not to be deterred, and Jase was unsure why he was so angry. It wasn’t because she’d taken his truck, it was because he thought she had left him, just as he had done to every woman before Jade.

“I left a note.” She picked it out of the trash can and waved it under his nose. “See?”

“I saw it.”

“I took your truck—first, because I was almost out of gas, and second, and more importantly, I—I’ve been followed, and well, I just didn’t want to be looking over my shoulder this morning. I went back to the Blue Orchid and took a quickie shower and changed. Then did a little shopping.”

He stood looking at her, a mutinous frown on his face. Jade handed him his keys. “I’m a big girl, Jase. If you don’t do breakfast after sex it’s okay.”

“Do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Do breakfast after sex?”

“Since you’re the first guy I’ve ever slept with, I’ll let you know. But right now I’d say the chances are slim, seeing as how the guy
I
slept with is a bear in the morning.”

“Yeah, well, he’s grumpy when he’s hungry.”

Jade smiled brightly. “I can take care of that.”

He moved in and slipped an arm around her waist and pulled her toward him. He kissed her long, languid, and lovingly. “I bet you can,” he whispered against her lips.

Jade slipped her arms around his neck, molding her body against his. His warm skin smelled clean and fresh, the muscles supple and fluid. She liked the hard definition of his body, and she liked his cool guarded nature. They were a matched pair in that regard. She knew what effort it took him to admit even on the slightest of scales that he was unhappy she left him, and it would have been equally as hard for her.

She rubbed her nose against his chest, his chest hair tickling her. “I didn’t realize big bad Detective Vaughn was a big baby at heart.”

His arms tightened around her. “Be careful. This big baby can turn into a big bad wolf.”

She looked up at him, her eyes smiling. “And just how bad can you be?”