Snoops in the City (A Romantic Comedy) (15 page)

He was right. She remembered from high school that the endings of Spanish nouns depended upon whether they were masculine or feminine. She couldn't admit that now.

"That doesn't make sense,” she said. “Next you'll tell me I should have named her Fatsa instead of Fatso."

She waited nervously while Grady scratched his jaw and swept his gaze around the apartment. He paused at Gordo's brand new water bowl and the flimsy cardboard cat carrier the pound had supplied. Why hadn't she thought to put it out of sight?

The guarded look that had been missing when he arrived at her apartment returned. "Why don't you give it up and admit you just got this cat?"

"Gordo is a beloved pet," she bluffed, feigning outrage. "How can you suggest such a thing?"

A heavy pounding interrupted his response. Glad of the reprieve, Tori hurried to the door, still with Gordo in her arms. Her heart sank when she saw her visitor was Mrs. Grumley.

"A ha! I thought you had a. . ." Her landlady’s voice trailed off and her head tilted. "Is that a mouse?"

"No, it's not a mouse. It's a cat," Tori said, dooming herself and Gordo along with her.

"Whatever it is, it spells trouble for you," Mrs. Grumley said. "I'm here to inform you that violating the clause in the Seahaven Shores lease prohibiting pets is grounds for eviction."

Tori turned her back on Mrs. Grumley, met Grady's unfriendly stare and prayed he wouldn't abandon her in her time of need.

"Help," she silently mouthed before facing her landlady. “She isn't my cat, Mrs. Grumley. She belongs to Grady."

At that, Tori walked over to Grady and shoved Gordo at him. The cat bared her claws and made her strange growling noise. In self-defense, Grady held on to her by her torso and extended her from his body so that her legs dangled like sticks.

Mrs. Grumley's already small eyes narrowed. "That cat doesn't even like him."

"She's persnickety," Tori said.

"He doesn't look like a cat owner to me," Mrs. Grumley declared.

Before Grady could agree, Tori implored him with her eyes not to contradict her. His mouth twisted slightly as he seemed to decide what to say. Tori held her breath.

“She’s my cat, all right." He petted Gordo awkwardly with the hand not attached to her torso. "I'm a cat lover. Gordo and I came for a visit."

The glint in Mrs. Grumley's eyes said she didn't believe him, but she couldn't prove it. "When you leave, make sure you take that thing with you," she said before pivoting and stalking away.

Tori closed the door on the retreating landlady, filled her lungs with air, then slowly turned. Gordo had sheathed her claws and was now emitting harmless meows, but Grady still held her extended from his body. He didn't trust the cat any more than he trusted her, Tori realized.

"Thanks," she said. "I owe you."

"What you owe me is the truth," he said harshly.

She closed her eyes, wondering what to do. The solution came to her in a flash, like it had the other night when he'd questioned her about why she was following him. She'd tell the truth.

"Okay," she said. "I admit it. I lied."

Grady's stomach pitched to the floor at her admission of deceit, making him feel disgusted with himself.

If this were a Western, he wouldn't be playing the part of the hero. The hero was never a sap.

He'd known when he came to her apartment tonight that she'd lied to him about the play. It hadn’t mattered. He’d been eager to overlook not only that tall tale but also his fear that she was playing him for a fool.

He couldn't shut out the multitude of lies any longer. He was involved in some serious FBI business. If someone at City Hall had caught on to him, it could spell danger.

"I knew you didn't believe me when I said I had a fat cat so I went to the pound this weekend to get one," Tori began. "Instead, I came home with Gordo."

He remained silent, waiting for her to damn herself even further than she already had.

"I lied about the play, too. I didn't go to Miami Beach on Friday night. I went home."

He hadn't expected her to own up to that. However, she might have figured out he already knew
Grimm Tales from the Reaper
was a high school production for fairy tale aficionados.

"I did it all because. . ." She paused, her chest heaving up and down in a silent sigh.

They were finally getting somewhere
,
Grady thought.
Now she’d tell him who had hired her to keep tabs on him.

". . .I didn't want you to think I was easy,” she finished.

"What?" The word exploded from him.

Gordo meowed, causing Grady to realize he still held her. He put down the cat on a nearby sofa. She scrambled to the edge, her entire body on alert as she stared him down. The cat appeared poised to leap if he made one false move.

"Look at it from my point of view, Grady." Tori's brown eyes seemed earnest. "I made up the excuse about bolting from the golf course because of the fat cat because I was afraid you'd find out I was following you."

"You admitted you were following me. Getting the cat wasn't necessary.” He kept his voice soft because of the cat's suspected kamikaze tendencies.

"It was to me. I didn't want you to think I was a liar."

"You are a liar. First about the cat, then about the play."

"Only because I thought you intended to take me up on what you believed I was offering."

"You’re saying you told both lies to get out of going to bed with me?"

"Exactly," she said, nodding.

Grady felt as though she'd stabbed him in the gut with a butcher knife. "So the story about thinking I was hot was just that? A story?"

"Oh, no," she denied. "That's the truth."

He let out a breath and shook his head. "Come on, Tori. I was there on the Ferris wheel Sunday night when you told me to stop."

"You think I did that because I'm not attracted to you?" she asked with wide, rounded eyes.

His head started to pound. "You just said you don't want to sleep with me."

"I said I didn't want to sleep with you when we first met, but only because it was too soon." She paused, giving her next sentence more weight. "All I've thought about since Sunday night is how much I want to make love to you."

He ignored the heat that arrowed to his groin, reminding himself he didn't believe a word she said. "You're not making sense. You don't want to go to bed with me."

"I do, too," she said indignantly.

He took a step closer to her, expecting her to back away. She held her ground. Her eyes glittered with determination. A pulse beat fast in her throat when she looked him directly in the eyes.

"I happen to think you're very sexy," she said.

"Oh, yeah?" he asked skeptically.

"Oh, yeah," she said, her voice rising. "Just try me and see."

The gentleman inside him warned him to back off but the man who didn't appreciate being made a fool kissed her.

Not gently, the way their first kiss had begun on the Ferris wheel. Enthusiastically, the way it had ended.

The moment her lips parted, he deepened the kiss, tracing the roof of her mouth and the sides of her cheeks before tangling his tongue with hers.

He kept a firm hand at the small of her back and another buried in the hair of her nape to keep her stationary, but she showed no sign of wanting to escape.

She threaded her fingers through the short strands of his hair, holding his head in place while she angled her mouth to better fit his.

The blood rushed through his veins, settling in his crotch. He vaguely remembered that he had some purpose for kissing her but could hardly think over the galloping of his heart. It thundered, like hooves flying over track.

Focus
, he told himself sharply as he continued to search his mind for the reason he'd kissed her. Oh, yeah. He'd intended to prove she wasn't attracted to him.

He forced himself to pay attention to her body language for an indication that she wanted him to stop. She sucked lightly on his tongue and rubbed her lower body against his growing erection.

Nope, neither of those were the sign.

The loud, guttural moan that didn't sound quite human might be. She tore her mouth from his, looked at him quizzically and asked, "What was that noise?"

The moan sounded again. They turned toward the sofa and a cat with one amazing larynx. Gordo appeared ready to spring, her watchfulness reminding Grady more of a hawk than a cat.

"Maybe you should rename her Simba," he said, his voice husky and out of breath. "You know, after the lion in the Disney movie."

"It's okay, Gordo." Tori sounded as breathless as he did. "Nothing to worry about."

"Tori probably would have stopped me soon anyway," Grady added.

"I would not!" Tori said indignantly. She didn't try to move from the circle of his arms. "Did you know that you're a very negative person?"

He kept his arms around her, mostly because he liked having them there. "I prefer to think of myself as a skeptic."

"Don't you ever take a leap of faith?"

"If you leap without looking, you could get flattened by a bus."

"Then look at me. Do I look like a woman who wanted you to stop?" she asked.

He took in her disheveled hair, mussed clothing and lips that were full and ripe from his kisses.

She grasped his hand and placed it over her breast, underneath which her heart hammered. "Does that feel like the heartbeat of a woman who wanted you to stop?"

He swallowed the sudden thickness in his throat, afraid to accept what stared him in the face. At the same time, he longed to believe it as much as he wanted to take his next breath.

"You're telling the truth, aren't you?" He heard the awe in his voice. "You really want to do this?"

"Yes, I do," she said indignantly. "But I'll change my mind soon if you don't get with the program."

The corner of his mouth quirked at her spirited reply even as his heart soared. "We still have a problem."

She rolled her eyes. "What it is now?"

"I think Gordo might be a voyeur. Did you ever notice how she's always staring?"

She cut her eyes at the cat. "Gordo's asleep."

It was true. Obviously weary of their discussion, the little cat had backed into a corner of the sofa, laid herself down and tucked her head under a paw. She opened one eye, which seemed to glare at him.

"She still can't be trusted," he said.

Tori skimmed her fingers over the line of Grady’s jaw and smiled. He detected none of the forced brightness he'd noticed when they first met.

"Last I checked," she said, nodding toward the open door of her bedroom, "Gordo couldn't pick a lock."

Blood swirled through him in a heated rush, making him ignore his long-held belief about things that seemed too good to be true. If Tori were one of those things, he didn't want to know.

"If she tries it," he said, "I could probably put on a deadbolt."

Laughing, she grabbed his hand and pulled him into the bedroom. He spun her around when they'd barely cleared the threshold, and she came willingly into his arms.

The passion ignited again. Maybe it had never extinguished. How long had it been, he wondered, since he'd felt this powerful connection when he kissed a woman? Months? Years? Never?

That bond, he realized, was why he'd pursued her in the face of his doubts. Since their kiss on the Ferris wheel, his thoughts had been consumed with making love to her.

She clung to him, her hands braced on his shoulders, her soft body rubbing against him as her tongue swirled inside his mouth.

He reached under her shirt, smoothing his hand over her flat stomach and venturing higher to her breast. She gasped into his mouth as he kneaded the soft flesh through the flimsy material of her bra, touching and teasing until her nipple pebbled.

"Wait," she said.

He drew back, his body growing taut. He braced himself for a last-minute retreat, unprepared for the feel of her hand at the waistband of his jeans, tugging his shirt free.

"You're wearing too many clothes.” She pulled the shirt over his head and smoothed her hands over the hair-sprinkled contours of his chest.

After that, there was no turning back.

They left a trail of clothes to the bed and then came together in a fast, furious explosion of feeling in the darkness. She gasped and convulsed a moment before he reached a plateau higher than he'd ever been before.

He leaned his forehead weakly against hers as their heartbeats slowed and they caught their breath.

"We forgot to close the door," he said.

"Doesn't matter." She ran a hand over the faint stubble on his jaw. "Gordo has to find herself her own stud."

"Stud, huh? You shouldn't say things like that to a man who's still inside you."