Sex, Lies, and Online Dating (11 page)

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.

She found Quinn standing in the middle of the living room staring into the unlit fireplace. He looked up, and his dark gaze followed her as she walked across the room to the mantel. Across the distance, she felt his desire pulling at her. Threatening to suck her under. Maybe she should leave. Grab her purse and run before she did something stupid. Like forget she didn’t have sex with guys after knowing them for little over a week. No matter how much he made her ache. No matter that she was halfway in love with him, as ridiculous as that seemed.

“Who’s this?” she asked as she picked up a picture frame.

“Millie.”

She looked closer at the woman he’d married. Red curls framed her face, and big green eyes looked out from behind a pair of brown framed glasses. Millie had been cute in a healthy, runs-ten-miles-and-climbs-rocks sort of way. Whatever Lucy had expected his wife to look like, this wasn’t it.

Quinn moved behind her and placed his hands on her shoulders. “That was taken about a year before she died,” he informed her.

“How old was she then?”

He paused a moment, then said next to her left ear, “My age.”

Lucy set the photo back on the mantel. “She looks younger.”

“Yeah, she hated that.”

“Quinn?”

“Hmm.”

“I think…I don’t think…” She glanced up into his image, reflected in the mirror in front of her. “I don’t think we should have sex.”

His dark gaze stared into hers. “I don’t want to do anything you’re uncomfortable with.” His hands moved down her arms and came to rest on her waist. “You tell me when to stop.” Slowly, he slid his palms to her stomach and pulled her back against his chest. “Are you uncomfortable when I kiss you here?” He bent his dark head and placed his mouth on the side of her throat. She watched him brush his lips across her skin, and the fine hairs on the back of her neck tingled. She shook her head.

“That’s good. I like kissing you right here. Where your skin’s soft and your hair smells like flowers and looks like the sun.”

He hooked his thumbs inside the waistband of her skirt and slid them to her sides. The backs of his thumbs brushed her black hose.

She tilted her head to the right and he opened his hot, wet mouth and sucked her skin. The heat of his kiss spread outward, across her shoulder and down her chest. Her heart pounded and swelled, and her breasts grew heavy. She leaned back into the solid, warm comfort of his embrace and took a deep breath. The scent of him, his musky cologne and Quinn, filled her head. His gaze locked with hers as he slipped his fingers up beneath the edge of her sweater.

His heavy lids lowered to half mast, and there was no mistaking the desire burning in his eyes. No mistaking the long hard length of it pressed into her behind. He slipped his big hands beneath her sweater, and his fingers fanned across her bare stomach. She would stop him. Soon. But not when it felt so good. When everything about him, his gaze, his touch, the scent of his skin, made her want to sink back into him and stay there awhile. Her feelings for him seemed to expand beyond her control. Overpowering, like Quinn himself, and she felt as if she were in a free fall. A long, hot fall into Quinn McIntyre, and there didn’t seem to be anything she could do about it.

His thumbs brushed the underwire of her bra, a lazy back and forth that drove her crazy before sliding up the swells of her breasts to press into her hard nipples. Her breath caught in her chest, and she knew that if she was going to stop him, she had to do it now. She opened her mouth, and he circled her nipples with his thumbs. She’d tell him in a minute. A heavy ache pooled between her thighs, and she instinctively squeezed her legs together. Her lids drifted shut as his hands slid up and cupped her breasts.

“Your nipples are hard,” he whispered into the side of her throat. “Like a woman who wants to make love.”

She looked at him in the mirror. At his gaze looking back at her with unconcealed lust burning in his eyes. He definitely looked like a man who wanted to make love, and Lucy turned and wrapped her arms around his neck. His hands slid to her back, and her breasts smashed into his chest. She kissed him full on the mouth. He slipped the fingers of one hand beneath the waistband of her skirt and pressed his warm palm into the small of her back, holding her against his rock-hard penis. His other hand moved up her spine and the kiss got hotter, turning into a maddening chase and follow, a slick advance and retreat of hot tongues and mouths.

His fingers continued to slide up and down her spine, his touch light and feathery, making her shudder and moan deep in her throat. Lust, hot and liquid, rushed through her veins, getting all mixed up and confused with the feelings deep in her soul. The last ounce of her self-control slipped away as Quinn rubbed against her and his hands slid over her body, touching everywhere, turning up the heat and taking control. Everything got hotter and dizzier, and somehow she lost her sweater. Before she knew quite how it happened, it was on the floor by her feet. Quinn took a step back, and his hooded gaze moved from her face, down her throat and shoulders, to her breasts.

His harsh breathing lifted his chest, as if he’d just jogged ten miles. Lucy knew the feeling.

“I love a woman in lace,” he whispered and lifted a hand to touch the lace edge of her bra with the tips of his fingers. “You’re so beautiful, you make me forget.”

She licked her lips and endeavored to control her breathing before she passed out. “Forget what?”

He glanced up at her, then returned his gaze to her nipples, which were making two distinct pebbles in the white cups of her bra. “That I should take it slow. That I don’t want to blow it by rushing things,” he answered even as he pressed his palms into her full breasts. “But it’s been so long.” The heat from his palms seeped through the satin material, and he pushed her breasts together as he bent forward and kissed her deep cleavage. “Why did you have to look like this?” he asked, his warm breath brushing across her flesh. “This would be easier if you weren’t so beautiful. If I didn’t want you so much that I can’t think of anything but getting you naked.”

Lucy knew that feeling, too. He lifted his face to hers once more and gave her a kiss that she felt clear to the soles of her feet. He ran his hands down her bottom to the backs of her thighs, and he lifted her. She didn’t hesitate to wrap her legs around his waist. He walked with her from the room, and she thought he would carry her to his bed.

They made it as far as the darker shadows of the hall before he pinned her back against the wall. He unhooked her bra and fastened his hot, wet mouth on her breast. He drew on her nipple as his hands shoved her skirt up around her waist. He slid his palms over her thighs then over her ribs and around to the small of her back.

Lucy ran her hands through his hair while he kissed and sucked her breasts as if he couldn’t get enough. He ground his incredibly hard penis into her through the thin fabric of her hose and panties, driving her toward the edge until she knew she’d either stop or embarrass herself.

She slid her legs from around his waist and stood. He moved his mouth to the side of her neck just above her clavicle as her fingers unbuttoned his shirt and pulled the tails from his jeans. She slid her hands over the hard muscles of his chest, abdomen, and back. Her fingers combed through the short hair on his chest, and he whispered something against her throat. With her skirt shoved up around her waist, Quinn slid his big hand between her thighs and cupped her through her panties and hose. She thought she heard him say, “Nothing here but Lucy.” That didn’t make sense, so she figured she’d heard wrong. But there was no mistaking what he said next. No mistaking what he did, either. He pulled down her hose and panties and slid his fingers where she was slick with desire. “You want me, and I want to fuck you until you can’t walk for a week,” he said as he touched her. “Until you can’t move. Can’t think. Can’t do anything but moan. Do you want that, Lucy?”

She swayed, and her knees got weak, and all she could manage was a breathy, “Yes.” Maybe under different circumstances she might have objected to his language. The f-bomb was not her favorite word, nor was she real fond of sex talk, but at the moment she wanted what he promised. Walking was overrated. She unbuttoned his jeans and slid her hand inside the waistband and beneath the elastic of his boxers. He sucked in a deep breath.

“You don’t have to do this,” he whispered next to her ear even as he began to stroke her.

“I know. I want to do this.” Her fingers curled around the heavy length of him. He was hard and hot against her palm, and she squeezed him tight. She could feel his pulse, and she brushed her thumb up and over the plump head of his rigid erection.

“Lucy,” he forced through a heavy groan. “I’ll help you, Lucy.”

“Yes. Please.” God, he was a talker. She could deal with that. She moved her hand down the long hard length of him, feeling his velvet-soft skin that covered every ridge and bulging vein.

“Yes, touch me there, just like that,” he whispered. “You won’t be alone. Oh, God that feels good. I’ll get you help. I’ll get you all the help you need.”

He was all the help she needed. Especially when he slipped one long finger inside her and continued to stroke her with his thumb. Her whole world narrowed and centered on Quinn and the wonderful things he was doing to her with his hand. Her flesh tingled and she opened her mouth to tell him to stop, but the first scalding wave of orgasm hit her before the words left her throat. All she managed was an, “Oh no!” before the force of it knocked her head back against the wall and her knees almost buckled. She raised her hands to his shoulder to keep from falling into a hot puddle at his feet. Her heart pounded in her ears as wave after hot wave rushed through her. Over and over, it seemed to last forever and not long enough. She held onto Quinn for support as the last pulsations eased. Above the pounding in her head and the harsh breathing that filled the hall, she heard the insistent ring of the telephone.

“I’m sorry,” she said through a shallow breath. “I didn’t mean to do that yet.”

He chuckled and lightly bit the side of her neck. “You’ll make up for it.” The telephone stopped, only to start ringing again. “Shit!” he said. He lifted his head and looked at Lucy through the dark shadows of the hallway. “I’ll be right back.” He moved into the living room and picked up the cordless phone next to the couch. “Yeah?”

Lucy pulled up her panties and hose and pushed down her skirt. She retrieved her bra from the floor, then moved a few steps down the hall to watch Quinn pace the floor in the living room.

“Because I was busy.” The phone was cradled between his shoulder and the side of his face, and his hands were busy buttoning his pants. “What?” He stilled, and one hand came up to grasp the phone. “Are you fucking kidding me?” He turned to Lucy where she stood against the wall. “Tell me you’re kidding me.”

The look on his face was unfathomable.