Lover's Bite. Maggie Shayne
He shrugged. “To thank me for my help. To show some gratitude that I’m trying to keep you safe. To—”
“To shut you up?” She rolled onto her side, facing him, and pressed her lips to his. It was a peck. It was brief, and firm, but when she pulled back, she could still feel those lips under hers. He had the softest lips. He always had. Her heart softened a little, and she leaned in again. This time she pressed her mouth gently against his, pulling back when he parted his lips and began moving them in that way he had that always drove her wild.
She could still taste him.
“Sleep well, Topaz,” he whispered.
“No choice about that.” Thank God, she thought. Because if there were, she knew she wouldn’t sleep at all. Not with him this close. Not with every night they’d ever spent wrapped around each other replaying in her mind.
She felt the sun’s energy rising, and with a rush of gratitude, she let her eyes fall closed.
5
When her eyes fluttered open at sunset, Topaz stretched and rolled onto her side. Someone was there—a familiar someone—and, still half-asleep, she nuzzled his lips with her own. His hands buried themselves in her hair, and his mouth captured hers. A mouth she knew, one she relished, one she loved kissing. And so she did. Her lips parted, her arms wound around him, and the kiss heated and grew until they were trying to devour each other.
And then, suddenly, she pulled free and lay there gasping, panting, hungering—and wide awake.
“Don’t stop,” Jack murmured. “Baby, don’t stop. Not now.” He reached for her.
She held up a hand, palm facing his chest. “You promised you wouldn’t touch me, Jack.”
“And I haven’t.”
“What do you call trying to swallow my tongue just now, then?”
“You started it.”
“I did not.”
“You kissed me first, Topaz.” He got off the bier and pushed both hands through his hair, heaving a sigh. “Hell, woman, I’m only human.”
“No, you’re not.”
“You know what I meant.”
Reluctantly, she nodded, unable to meet his eyes, knowing he would see the naked hunger glowing from her own.
“Topaz, come on. We both want to. You know it’s the truth.”
“Forget it.”
“You can’t deny what just happened. It’s freaking explosive, what’s between us.”
“So’s dynamite. Doesn’t mean I’m going to put a stick down my pants and light the fuse.” She shook her head hard, trying to drive her insistence into her own mind as much as his. “You broke my heart, Jack. I’d be stupid to give you a chance to do it again.”
“So keep your heart out of it. You hate my guts now. It shouldn’t be too hard. Let’s just have sex.”
She shot him a look, then got up. Without another word, she located her clothes and put them on.
“Fine,” he said. “Deny it. Delay it. But it’s gonna happen. Sooner or later, it’s bound to happen, Topaz, and I think you know that every bit as well as I do and want it just as badly as I do. It’s inevitable.”
“Not if you leave.”
“I’m not leaving.”
She finished dressing, then snatched his clothes up and handed them to him. “Get dressed, will you?”
“Can’t resist me without my clothes on, right?”
“I want to get back to the mansion. Take a shower, get some fresh clothes, do my hair and makeup.”
“And what do you have planned for after midnight?”
“Very funny. I want to start talking to the men who were in that file. The ones the police thought looked good for my mother’s murder.”
“And your landlord?”
“I haven’t decided what to do about him yet. If we tip him off that we know about the bugs in the house, he’s liable to throw us out, or, worse, let us stay and find some other method of eavesdropping.”
“I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Let’s just find the bugs and watch what we say until we do.”
Jack nodded. “Actually, I have a few errands to run while you’re primping. I’ll see if I can find us a sweeping device, so we don’t miss any.”
Topaz frowned at him. “Where would you find something like that in the middle of the night?”
He averted his eyes to begin dressing. Or maybe that was just the excuse he wanted to use. “I have no idea.”
She had a feeling it was a lie.
What he wanted from her, Jack decided, was forgiveness. Okay, sex would be good, too, but forgiveness was tops. He’d been racking his brain to figure out what had drawn him here to her, made him feel as compelled to help her find her mother’s murderer as he would have been to protect one of the Chosen. It wasn’t love, certainly. He didn’t believe in love. Love was a con man’s most powerful tool, but it wasn’t real. His reason for being here wasn’t physical attraction, either—or at least it wasn’t only that. It was something more, and it had been bugging him that he didn’t know what.
Now, as he stood in a nearly empty parking garage, waiting for his contact to show up, he thought he’d figured it out. What he was feeling was guilt, plain and simple. And no wonder it had taken him so long to identify it. It wasn’t something he’d ever felt before. But he felt it over her. If he’d known that all her life she’d been plagued by people who claimed to love her while coveting her money, he would never have chosen her as a mark.
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