Sex, Lies, and Online Dating (8 page)

Lucy pulled the Beemer inside and shut the garage door. She entered the back of her house through the kitchen and tossed her purse on the tile counter. She looked out the window over the sink and into the neighbor’s backyard. Mrs. Riley was out back, pulling up plastic poinsettias and replacing them with bright tulips. Plastic, of course. She would repeat the process this coming summer and fall. Lucy had asked her once why she planted plastic flowers each season, and she had answered as if it had been the most logical thing in the world, “Why, because I like pretty things.” Which also explained why she’d painted her house bright yellow, blue, and green.

As Lucy watched Mrs. Riley work in the yard, her thoughts returned to Quinn and her date with him that evening. She was looking forward to seeing him more than she wanted to admit. More than was wise, since she didn’t even know him.

It was possible he was a plumber trying to move on after the death of his wife, but it was just as possible that he was one of the seventy percent who were online just looking for quick sex.

Lucy supposed the bigger question, and the one more difficult to answer was, why was she picking him apart only to make excuses to put him back together again? Why was she obsessing over a guy she didn’t know?

Quinn looked across his shoulder at Lucy Rothschild, at her red-and-black Steelhead’s jersey and the big foam finger stuck on her hand. He’d never encountered anyone in his life who looked
less
like a serial killer.

“That’s what I’m talking about!” she yelled as a Gull got knocked on his ass.

Okay, so she was a little bloodthirsty, but for some strange reason, that didn’t shrivel his sac. Nor did the tape recorder jabbing the small of his back, reminding him that she just might be a psychopath who got off on watching men die.

Quinn leaned back in his seat, and the small black recorder pressed into his spine. Kurt was across town on a date with brneyedgrl, while Anita sat in the van recording the other detective. Quinn was on his own tonight, but he wasn’t real worried, the most obvious reason being that it wasn’t likely Lucy would try and kill him in an arena filled with several thousand pumped-up hockey fans. But even if they’d been alone, getting hot and sweaty in his bed, he wasn’t all that convinced Lucy was a serial killer. He just didn’t feel it in his gut. No, when he looked at her, he felt something entirely different in that general area. But just because he didn’t feel she was a killer didn’t mean he was going to rule out the possibility either.

“You suck!” a young guy a few rows up yelled as a Gull muscled the puck from a Steelhead.

Quinn didn’t know much about hockey. He was more a football guy. He’d played the game from the age of ten to eighteen and knew the rules. As far as Quinn could see, hockey was chaos on ice. It looked like a bunch of guys chasing a puck and knocking the hell out of each other when the referees weren’t looking.

“Ooow,” Quinn winced as two players collided like freight trains but managed to stay on their skates. Beside him, Lucy laughed, and her eyes lit up like a kid on Christmas.

“Lord, I love this game,” she said through a huge smile. “Especially in the play-offs when both teams are out to kill each other.”

So maybe she was more than a
little
bloodthirsty, but she seemed to fit right in with the rest of the crowd.

“Do you come to a lot of games?” he asked above the sound of sticks hitting the ice and the rise and fall of shouting from the crowd.

“I try to see as many as possible. How about you?”

“I’ve never been before tonight.”

She turned her head, and her big blue eyes met his. She blinked as if she couldn’t quite figure out what she was seeing. Like maybe he was an alien. “Never? You’re kidding me?”

“Nope. I’m a football guy.”

“Football’s okay, I guess. But hockey is more fun to watch.”

“It looks chaotic.”

“It’s organized chaos.” She returned her attention to the ice but leaned her head close to him. “The players up front are the forwards and the center.” She removed her hand from the foam finger and pointed. She’d painted her fingernails red. “The guys that stay back are the defenders, and of course, the goalies.” She dropped her hand to her thigh. “There are a lot of rules in hockey, and I can’t keep all of them straight. And just when I think I’ve figured them all out, they change.”

Quinn had always been a sucker for shiny red nails. He absolutely loved watching a woman slide her long fingers and red nails down his abdomen.

“See the player with the puck? He’s a forward and he’s about to pass it to the center.” She leaned in a little closer, and her shoulder brushed his. “Just like that. Now he’ll set up a shot.”

Through the wafting scent of beer and concessions, he smelled her hair. He recognized it from the night of the Red Feather, when she’d reminded him of a garden and sunshine. With her head tilted toward his, her hair brushed the shoulder of her jersey and his bomber’s jacket. If he leaned just a bit, he could bury his nose in the top of her head.

“Damn it!”

“What?” Quinn’s gaze slid from her hair to the side of her face.

“The goalie stopped the puck.” She turned to look at him, and her nose lightly brushed his chin. If she raised her face a few inches, his lips would touch hers. A dull ache settled between his legs, which was ridiculous. He was thirty-six. He kicked ass and took names for a living. He was on a job. He didn’t get sexually excited just thinking about kissing a woman.

Not usually.

Lucy lifted her gaze to Quinn’s, and within her eyes he saw the same need that was twisting his insides, reflected back at him. He wondered what she’d do if he kissed her right there in front of thousands of people? If she’d kiss him back like she had on a downtown street?

She straightened and turned her attention to the game, but he hadn’t imagined the desire in her eyes. Knowing she wanted him as much as he wanted her turned him from semi to stiff in seconds, no matter if he wanted to be turned or not. And he didn’t. Not in the middle of a hockey game, and not with a murder suspect. If he hadn’t purposely worn his jacket to conceal the recorder taped to his back, he would have slipped it off and covered his lap.

He turned his attention to the ice and sucked cool air into his lungs. He leaned forward to rest his forearms on his thighs. On the ice the referees blew their whistles, and play stopped. Chumbawamba blasted through the sound system, singing about getting knocked down, and Quinn felt the heavy beat through the soles of his boots.

He didn’t know why he was getting all excited over Lucy Rothschild. Sure, she was a beautiful woman, but there were a lot of beautiful women around. She was a murder suspect, and that alone should wilt big Willie. But since the first night he’d seen her sitting in Starbucks, that fact seemed to be having the opposite effect on him. Probably because he knew he was going to have to push her for sex as hard and fast as possible. He didn’t stop and wonder why the prospect didn’t excite him with the other suspects. At the moment, he needed to get his mind off Lucy. Off getting hot and sweaty and freaky and back on the job.

On the ice, the puck was dropped and sticks slapped the ice. He thought he smelled flowers and sunshine again, and he purposely thought of Lawrence Craig and the others, bound to their beds, clear plastic pulled tight around their faces. Beneath his button fly, the tension in his groin eased, and Quinn relaxed.

When the first period ended, the Steelheads were up by two and the crowd buzzed with anticipation, although Quinn wasn’t sure which caused the bigger buzz—the score or the Bud Lite pouring freely inside the arena.

During the second frame, Lucy and Quinn ate soft pretzels and drank beer. On the ice, the players hammered the puck and each other. The penalty boxes were put to good use, filling the Plexiglas enclosures with bloodied players and blue language.

As the game progressed, Quinn picked up the rules and began to see that hockey wasn’t as chaotic as it seemed at first glance. Halfway through the third period, Lucy leaned close to Quinn and pointed to the penalty box, where a guy sat getting tampons shoved up his nose. “See number seventy-one, he still has the black eye he got four games ago.”

Quinn folded his arms across his jacket and told himself not to look at her so close again. Not to get excited. To just do his damn job. “Who did you come with to that game?” He couldn’t recall if any of his victims had been to hockey games.

“My friend Adele. She loves hockey, too. We spend a lot of time arguing about who’s the hottest player.”

Before he could stop himself, Quinn looked over his shoulder into Lucy’s eyes. “So, who’s the hottest player tonight?”

One corner of her mouth lifted. “Number twenty-eight on the Steelheads. He’s sitting on the bench right now.”

He glanced across the rink and looked at the hockey player with his helmet shoved up his forehead, chewing on his mouth guard. “You’re kidding. He looks about nineteen.”

“Actually, he’s twenty-two.”

“He’s barely legal.” She’d obviously read up on him.

Her eyes got all wide and innocent. “Barely legal for what?”

“You know what, and if I were looking at some twenty-two-year-old woman, you’d think I was a pervert.”

“True,” she said through a grin. “Aren’t double standards a bitch?”

He preferred women around his own age. Mostly because women his age knew what they were doing in bed, but he knew better than to say that out loud. Women were always talk talk talking about how they wanted you to tell them the truth, but they didn’t. “I like women in their thirties. There’s more to talk about.”

“That’s probably true, but—”

Quinn slid his gaze to Lucy’s. “But what?”

Her brows lowered, and she shook her head. “Who said anything about talking?”

Quinn chuckled deep in his chest. Her directness not only surprised him but it was also refreshing as hell. He appreciated a woman who was honest about sex.

Too bad she was busy lying to him about everything else. Yeah, he was lying, too. But he was trying to catch a serial killer before she struck again. Part of being a cop was being a good liar. It was his job, and he was good at it. Lucy wasn’t a good liar, and if she had nothing to hide, why was she lying like it was
her
job?

As the swing gently swayed back and forth, Quinn asked about her life and told her about his. He talked about the time he’d popped wheelies on his Schwinn to impress the neighbor girl only to end up in the emergency room with a broken arm. Somehow, they got on the subject of her past relationships. Lucy usually didn’t talk about past boyfriends with potential future boyfriends, but for some reason, Quinn got her to talk about all the losers that littered her past.

He told her about his home off Boise Avenue that he’d bought after the death of his wife, Millie. He talked about the gazebo he and his brother had built in his backyard, and he invited her over to check out his Jacuzzi. Anytime. The skeptical part of Lucy that kept looking for problems relaxed a bit. A married man didn’t invite a woman over to his house, anytime.

They talked about the latest episodes of
Cold Case Files
and
The First 48
. Once again the conversation turned to the local men who’d been killed, and they speculated about the killer. It occurred to her that every time she was with Quinn the conversation turned in that direction, but she didn’t think much about it. Talking true crime was fascinating for her, and it was one thing they seemed to have in common.

“Off the top of my head, I would say that the perpetrator is an attractive woman with above average intelligence,” she said, as she tried to recall all the research she’d done over the years. “She has an antisocial personality disorder, probably psychopathic rather than sociopathic. She is controlled and organized.”

The swing slowly rocked, and Quinn looked at her beneath the porch light and asked, “Do you have an alibi for the nights of the murders?” He gave her one of his most charming smiles, like he’d meant it as a joke, but something within the depths of his brown eyes told her he was deadly serious.

In the distance, a back door slammed and a dog barked. She supposed that if the situation were reversed—if women were the victims—she’d want to know the same thing. “I’m not sure,” she answered truthfully. “Working, I imagine.”

“Diapering newborns?”

“Yeah.” Lying about her job was starting to make her feel more and more guilty, but now was not the time to confess. “Are you worried I’m going to murder you?”

“Not worried.” He tipped his head to the side, and this time the smile did reach his eyes. “Although it has crossed my mind that I should search your body for weapons.” He stood and tossed the blanket onto the swing. “But not tonight,” he said and pulled her to her feet. He placed his hands on the sides of her face and slowly lowered his head. His gaze stared into hers as his lips lightly brushed her mouth. Soft and sweet, as if he had all night and into the next morning. His breath hitched in his chest and feathered across her cheek as his tongue slid across her lower lip. The kiss teased a heated response deep in the pit of Lucy’s stomach, turning her on with just the light brush of his mouth. Her hands slipped up the front of his leather jacket, and she grasped both sides of the open zipper in her fists. She raised onto the balls of her feet and parted her lips. She felt a moment of hesitation, then bam, the kiss turned hot and wet, like it slammed into him and he couldn’t hold back a second more. Like he meant to eat her alive and couldn’t get enough.

Beneath her porch light, his tongue touched and teased, spreading liquid heat through her. His thumbs brushed her temples and cheeks, and he moaned deep in his throat. She slipped her hands under his jacket, and she felt his hard muscles bunch as she slid her hands up and down his chest and stomach. She moved her palms around his sides to the middle of his back. Without lifting his mouth from hers, he grabbed her wrists and took a step forward. He forced her back against her front door and pinned her hands next to her head.

“You can’t touch me,” he said through harsh, ragged breaths.

“Why?”

He pressed his forehead into hers. “Because I like you too much.”

Against her lower abdomen she could feel every inch of how much he liked her. He was long and rock hard, and he made her want to rub against him. “Are you sure you don’t want to come in for coffee?”

“No, I’m not sure.” He shook his head, dropped her wrists, and took a step back. “But if I come in, I’ll want to make love to you. I don’t think we’re ready for that. Not yet.”

What?
He was a guy. Guys were always ready for that.

“I want more,” he said and turned to leave. “I’ll call you.”

Lucy stood with her back against the door and watched him walk down the steps. “Good night,” she whispered. The big moon shone through the naked limbs of the huge oak and walnut trees and lit Quinn in pale light as he moved down her sidewalk to his Jeep parked at the curb.

She’d never been with a man who’d left her standing on her porch, staring after him and wishing he’d come back and give her a little more right then and there. No man had ever turned down her invitation for coffee.

As the Jeep pulled away, Lucy opened her door and entered the house. She locked the dead bolt behind her and flipped on the ceiling light in the living room. Well, she thought as she moved across the room and sank onto her burgundy silk couch, she didn’t have to wonder if he’d asked her out for sex. “I want more,” he’d said. To most men, sex
was
more.

She tossed her purse on her antique Chinese coffee table and stared at the brick fireplace to her left. He wasn’t married, and he’d just proved he wasn’t out for a quickie. He wanted more, but was that what she wanted?

Jumping into a relationship seemed a little precipitous. Rash. Crazy. She hadn’t known him long enough. She didn’t have time for a man. Especially a man who could be looking to replace his wife. All of those things spelled heartache for Lucy, but deep down inside, none of those very rational reasons mattered.

She wanted to see more of him. There was something about Quinn, some
thing
that made her smile and her stomach flutter a little. He intrigued her and made her want to slide her hands all over him. Yeah, she definitely wanted to see what he meant by “more.”

But there was just one small problem. For any sort of relationship to survive, it had to be built on the truth. She had to be honest with him.

No more lies.