Sex & Sensibility (9 page)

From the private journal of Jay Singleton

Okay. Still with the older man. What a theory. Much as this makes me sick, I also don’t have to be a shrink to see what’s going on.

Is my little girl really hitting on older guys as some kind of substitute for attention from me? When we find her, she’s going into therapy. This has to be fixed. How in the hell could I have given her attention when I was on the other side of the country trying to make enough money to keep two households going? So I missed her eighth-grade graduation and her prom and some godawful father-daughter thing Barbara made a big stink about. Those were just events. Nothing affected the bedrock of my love for my little girl.

I did the best I could. Some guys make dramatic gestures, like whipping a prom dress out of a box. Some guys go and scream at soccer games and fight with other parents behind the fence. But what did I do? I just loved her. A man has to get credit for that, doesn’t he? My gestures aren’t very dramatic, but they kept her fed and clothed and in a good school, didn’t they?

Is this some kind of punishment for not being around? The phone works both ways, you know. Not to mention the fact that a private-school education is damned expensive.

Why is nobody giving me credit for what I did do, instead of making me feel like shit for what I didn’t do?

“I
HOPE YOU
didn’t really want to go home,” Tessa said as they crossed the patio. Lamps on posts at intervals around the flagstone square illuminated it gently.

Because of course he had a home. Somehow she’d pictured him spending his nights standing up outside Jay’s office, like a deactivated droid. “Where do you live?”

“In Santa Rita. It’s okay. We have a job to do. I can sleep anytime.” Griffin opened the door to the cottage and stood aside so Tessa could pass him. “That said, I still think we’d get further faster if he’d call in the P.D. If something happens to Christina, he’s not going to be able to live with it.”

Tessa shivered. It was true. Singleton had cut off one hand of the investigation and without it they were nearly helpless.

The thought brought another chill. Or maybe it was just the fog moving in for the night, breathing in through the cottage’s open windows. She crossed the room and closed them, turned on a lamp, then took her blue sweater out of the suitcase and tugged it on over her T-shirt.

Wearing something this clingy to a club was one thing, but after those circus remarks earlier, she figured he’d rather she were covered head to foot in baggy sweats. There were two reasons for that. One, he was attracted to her. Or two, he didn’t like women.

She had a feeling it was definitely not option two. Not that it mattered to her one bit. She was not excited by a grumpy ex-cop, no matter how well he danced.

He is for damn sure excited by you. And is trying for all he’s worth not to be, which is kind of insulting when you think about it
.

He’s an honorable man,
she reminded herself. He wasn’t going to jump her bones just because they were alone together late at night in these cozy surroundings. But she had felt the desire coming off him in waves, both at the club and in the truck on the way home. It was hot and dark and exciting, and she had no idea what to do about it.

Enjoy it, silly.

Right. Hey, they could go at it like minks in this room and then be all cool and Sherlock Holmes in the daytime.

She could. She doubted he could, though.

“Let’s see what she’s got in her CD rack.” Tessa knelt next to the bookshelf, which, instead of holding books, held about a thousand CDs and DVDs for the compact entertainment center on that wall.

The truth was, once she’d gotten over the arrest thing—which had happened right around the time he’d admitted he had been wrong to do it—she’d found herself liking things about him. Riding to his mom’s rescue. Keeping his temper instead of knocking the chip off the club manager’s shoulder.

And—okay, deep, dark confession time here—she liked that he was attracted to her. Maybe that was why she’d chosen the suede skirt. Maybe she’d wanted to provoke a reaction—exactly the reaction, in fact, that he’d had. And perversely, she liked that he hadn’t acted on it. It was strong. It was sexy. It was a challenge, and the only challenges she’d had lately were the kind that involved thesis topics. This was much more interesting.

Uh-huh. I thought you weren’t into cops? “Scary whack jobs,” I believe you call them.

Those are the ones Linn works with. They’re probably honorable men, too, but you still wouldn’t want to get involved with a guy who could go out and shoot someone
as part of his job. Besides, Griffin isn’t a cop anymore. He’s just a guy who thinks I’m hot.

You are so pathetic. When did you say you had sex last?

“Uh…don’t you want to change or something?” he said from behind her.

She glanced over her shoulder, surprised. “What, into something more comfortable?”

He shrugged. “It’s just a suggestion. When I get home from work it’s the first thing I do.”

She stood and gave him a curious look. “Griffin, does the way I dress make you nervous?”

“No, not at all.” He picked up the perfume bottle from the vanity, seemed to realize what it was a moment too late, and put it down. “You just said you needed a nurturing, comfortable environment to bring on a vision, that’s all.”

“And you’re sure it has nothing to do with my skirt?”

He straightened his spine, as if he were on review and his commanding officer was inspecting his shoes. “Of course not.”

Which meant, of course, that it did. Smothering a smile, she said, “You’re probably right.” She got up from the floor and pulled her peach flannel pajama bottoms and the tank top that went with them out of the suitcase. “Back in a sec.”

In the bathroom, she kicked off her sandals and changed quickly, then pulled on the blue sweater again. Bouncing out there with nothing between them but a thin film of cotton jersey was probably not going to help him feel more comfortable around her, though she had no problems with it. He liked looking at her breasts, so what was wrong with letting him? She could comply with the letter of the law the way he was laying it down, but the way the sweater draped over her braless curves didn’t exactly hide them.

Too bad. If he wanted her in sweats, he was going to have to say so. She wasn’t going to make this easy for him. This was temporarily her bedroom, after all.

As she opened the door, she felt his gaze on her, as warm as the cashmere sweatshirt.

“Now then, where were we?” Just as she reached out to pick up a CD, the world wavered, as though a transparent curtain billowed in the space between reality and dream.

“Oh, my,” she said. “It’s a—”

And then reality went away.

“I
T’S A WHAT
?” Griffin watched her straighten, her gaze fixed on the middle distance. Her eyes moved from one point to another and back again, as if she were watching the action on a movie screen.

Watching. Of course.

The hair on the nape of his neck stood on end as he realized that for all intents and purposes, Tessa Nichols had left the building. The question was, where was she? And could she talk while she was there? She’d answered questions before, so maybe it would work here, too.

Griffin moved to stand next to her. “Where are you?” he asked softly.

“Don’t know.” Her voice came from far away, pitched just above a whisper.

“What can you see?”

“A window. With orange curtains. A motel sign. It flashes.”

Griffin’s heart sank. A motel meant Christina and her captor were on the move. Once they were on the road, it would be nearly impossible to track them down.

“Are you Christina?”

“No. She’s there, lying on the bed.”

“Tied up?”

“No.” She paused. “Nice camisole. Silk, with thick lace trim. He’s buying her things.”

Of course he would. She’d left with nothing but her purse. But buying things meant credit card receipts, which meant a trail to follow. Too bad they didn’t have a name to start with.

Buying things also probably meant they weren’t dealing with a kidnapper at all. And buying high-end silk meant Tessa had been right about the older boyfriend.

Griffin didn’t know whether to be relieved that Christina was probably not in the danger they’d feared, or furious that she and the boyfriend would put her family through this.

“She’s smiling,” Tessa whispered. “Looking up. He’s in the bathroom doorway, next to the bed.”

“Describe him.”

“Tall. Dark hair. Dark eyes. He’s looking at her like he’s hungry.”

“What’s he wearing?”
Just give me a clue. Anything.

“Nothing.”

Okay. On to Plan B.
“Any identifying marks or scars?” Griffin wondered how specific she could be.

“He’s very well hung,” she sighed, tilting her head to one side. “He looks at her like she’s the only woman in the world.”

As the kids said, T.M.I. He would have been quite happy not knowing
that.

“Now he’s lying down beside her. Touching her. He runs one finger under the strap of her camisole. She sits up and takes it off. It’s brand-new. He’s ripped her underwear off her before, but she doesn’t want him to do that to this. It’s too nice.”

“Was it rape before?” The question was torn out of him. If so, how was he going to tell Jay?

“Oh, no,” that faraway voice reassured him. “Not at all.”

“Now what’s happening?”

“He’s touching her. Kissing her. Here.” She lifted her hands and cupped her breasts, and Griffin nearly swallowed his tongue. All his sensible questions fled his brain like a startled flock of birds, replaced by the sight of Tessa, her head thrown back, cupping her breasts in both hands in exactly the way she had before, in this very room.

His jeans tightened with the suddenness of his erection. He’d give anything to be able to make some kind of noise and break this up, but then they might miss a valuable clue. Somehow he had to find the objectivity to tough it out. Maybe he could think about what he was going to charge this guy with when he found him. Or maybe—

Tessa stroked her hands down her ribs, to her hips, to her thighs, and his brain fritzed out again. “He’s touching her all over. She’s so in love, every touch is setting her on fire. She’s impatient. Wants him to hurry.”

Oh, God, was she going to watch them have sex and take him through it, play by play? “What color is the motel sign?” he blurted in desperation.

Tessa’s eyes moved to the left, and her hands stopped on her pelvic bones in midcaress. “Black and yellow.”

Griffin commanded his neurons to focus. The Super 8 motel chain had a black-and-yellow logo. That narrowed the field to, say, fifty possible places in three states that were within fourteen or fifteen hours’ drive.

She moved, her back to him, and leaned into his chest. “He’s spooning her. They’re just so in love.”

Her soft derriere, covered only by the thin cotton of the
pajama bottoms he’d practically forced her into putting on, snugged up against the erection that wouldn’t go away despite his best efforts to change the subject. He should have stuck with the damn skirt. Griffin’s breath hitched as she bent her knees a fraction of an inch, then straightened, her hips doing a sinuous figure eight with each rise and fall.

“Tessa,” he said hoarsely.

Her eyes were half-closed. “She likes his arm around her. It makes her feel safe.”

Reaching down, she took both his hands and cupped them on her breasts, holding them there with her own while she did that thing with her hips against his pelvis. His jeans threatened to explode. A sound halfway between a whimper and a moan came out of his throat, but he couldn’t help it. Through the layers of cashmere and whatever stretchy thing she had on under it, the soft, round weight of her breasts filled his hands. Rigid nipples poked against his fingers. He’d been right, he thought through the red haze of desire. They were small and pointed and tight and there was nothing he wanted more in the world than to pull up her sweater and taste them. Right now.

“Yes,” she sighed, and tipped her head back to nuzzle the side of his throat.

One more second, and he’d do something to bring her out of this. Just one sweet lift and a gentle squeeze of her soft flesh, one illicit moment of pleasure he would probably regret because clearly he was a coward and totally taking advantage of—

She gasped and jumped a little in his arms, then turned to look up into his face. Her startled expression melted into a smile that held a mix of humor and carnal knowledge. “Well, well,” she purred. “Mr. Knox, did you change your mind?”

He stared at her for a moment while reality and dream collided, crashed, and fell into pieces around him. Tessa was back—and she was coming on to him. He released her and took a step back.

“I—we were…I mean, you were demonstrating what Christina was doing.”

“Did you like it?”

“I—you were telling me, and then you took my hands and—” He never stammered.
Get a grip, Knox.
“We were replicating what you saw,” he said firmly.

“Oh, I remember what I saw. Know what I see now?”

Oh yeah, he knew. The fact that she was looking at his crotch with undeniable interest was not helping.

Not one bit. He was as hard as a cop’s baton and couldn’t do a damn thing about it. “I’m sorry.” The apology felt just as inadequate as it sounded. “I’m going now.”

“Why? We were going to listen to music.” She looked so touchable, while the lamplight glinted on her hair and traced the curves that had felt like heaven in his hands.

“Tomorrow,” he got out, feeling for the door handle behind him. “Good night.”

He broke the land speed record getting back to his truck.

M
EN
.

Tessa sank onto the end of the bed and shook her head, but whether at herself or at him, she could hardly tell. Nine guys out of ten would have grabbed an opportunity like that with both hands, so to speak. But no, she had to get the one honorable man in the bunch.

Or maybe it was simpler than that. Maybe he just wasn’t into her, as the saying went.

Not true.
He was totally into her in a sexual way. And she was certainly partial to a long-legged man with focus and smarts and the kind of mouth that made a woman think about sin. She was willing to overlook his less desirable traits, such as his habit of arresting people without evidence, or his lack of belief in people’s talents, if he would just use that mouth on her.

Because this wasn’t about white picket fences or whatever was bothering him. She was an adult, he was an adult, and to the best of her knowledge they were both free to act on their attraction.

Too bad he wasn’t seeing it that way. Yet. Because it had been a long time since she’d felt such a rush of pleasure simply from being touched. Yes, okay, she’d been in the middle of a sensuous vision and had come out of it to find him reenacting it with her. That was a new one, she
had to admit, and no wonder she was left humming like a live wire.

But it wasn’t often that a man’s hungry gaze could turn her on the way Griffin’s did. Guys looked at her, sure, but most of the time it was an annoyance—as though she were improving the scenery for their benefit. Griffin looked at her as though she were unique, as though he was memorizing each curve as she revealed it to him.

You are feeling every one of the months since you last had sex, girl
.

She was feeling something, that was for sure.

Tessa pulled off her sweater and lay back on Christina’s coverlet, which was made of soft lavender velvet stitched all over in swirling patterns. The last time had been with Kent, the artist who had wanted her to model for him. She had no idea why she’d gone out with him in the first place. Artists were great, but after growing up with two of them, she tended to go for variety, such as a fellow grad student in the psych program, a software designer who had literally forgotten about her when he’d hit deadline on his project, and a guy who ran a bakery and kept really odd hours. She’d gained fifteen pounds dating him and had to work all of them off when they’d agreed to part. So when she’d met Kent at a party the psych student had thrown, she’d shrugged her shoulders and gone out with him. The problem was, he was so fixated on how she looked in connection with light, fabrics, even seating that she’d begun to get a little paranoid about it. He could care less what she thought, but how she looked meant everything to the guy. When he’d started choosing her lipstick colors “to give her skin tone a nice contrast,” she’d called it quits.

Griffin didn’t look at her like that—as if he were mentally framing a composition shot. Griffin looked at her the
way a hungry man hurries by a bakery window, glancing over his shoulder to catch the last sight of the éclair. Wanting but not having.

She was going to have to invite him in, that was all. Let him know he could look and touch. And eat, too.

His hands had felt so good. She touched her breasts, holding them the way he had held them, but her hands were smaller and didn’t have that sense of gentle urgency. He had touched her nipples, too, the briefest of caresses, but still, they had leaped to attention under his fingers. She brushed them with her own. Yes, it had felt like that. She wished he would use his thumb and forefinger to roll them, like this, giving her a taste of what his mouth might be like.

She imagined how good his tongue would feel, and his teeth, too, nibbling her nipples and sucking. Her fingers mimicked the motion and she felt an answering throb of need deep inside. He would spend a lot of time pleasuring her breasts—at least as much time as he’d spent looking at them lately.

What would he do if she slipped into a tank top and conveniently forgot to wear a bra? He’d probably have a coronary. Or at least an orgasm.

She smiled at the thought.

This was good. Say she wore the tank top. Say he couldn’t take his eyes off her. Say he’d be sitting at a table and she’d come up and bend over to tell him something. Ooh, what would he do then? Jump up and run away? Or bury his face in her cleavage? Knowing Griffin, probably neither. But he would look. Oh, how he would look, the way he had this afternoon, mentally taking her clothes off and making love to every inch of her.

That was what she liked about his gaze. No, wanted. She wanted his gaze on her—on her mouth, on her breasts,
on her ass and legs. Her hands moved down her body, as though Griffin’s gaze were a physical thing.

It was, really. She could practically feel it, as hot and tactile as his hands.

A tiny rush of creamy fluid escaped her at the thought. He wasn’t even here and the thought of him turned her on unbearably. She wanted him to touch her. She wanted his mouth on her breasts and between her legs. She wanted his tongue to flick and taste and suck and bring her ecstasy. She wanted that thick erection he couldn’t hide in her hands. Then inside her body. She wanted to impale herself on him.

Tessa groaned, and slipped one hand under the elastic waistband of her pajama bottoms. With the other, she teased her nipples, imagining Griffin’s tongue swirling on them. Her finger slipped between her vulva and found a pool of fluid waiting for him to taste.

Oh yes, his tongue there, too. Her clit practically wept with welcome at the thought. His strokes would be long, like this, teasing, oh, he could eat her while she fondled her breasts with both hands and he watched, oh yes, he’d like that.

He’d eat her, yes, that tongue, stroking faster and faster, while his cock hardened and thickened and threatened to burst with desire—

“Take me!” she cried, and her orgasm exploded under her frantic fingers, shaking her body, making her break out in a sweat, leaving her breathless on the coverlet in the golden lamplight as she shuddered in the aftermath of pleasure.

If only he could see her now, plunge into her after he’d brought her to such a release. If only he could lose himself in her, explode into orgasm too, and ride the wave of desire to its crashing end.

If only he could be with her.

If only she weren’t alone.

I
F HE COULD JUST
control his body, he wouldn’t have to live through this kind of humiliation.

Griffin let himself into the house and flipped on the nearest light switch. Had it only been this morning that he’d broken the coffee carafe? The air in the house was faintly scented with it, a reminder of a time when he’d been relatively in control of his life.

Before Jay had called.

Before Tessa.

He toed off his boots and padded down the hall to the bathroom, where he stripped and stepped into the shower. He’d needed a cold one a half hour ago. Now all that was left of his hard-on was a simmering frustration and some stiffness in his bum knee where he’d twisted it tripping over her suitcase. He’d have to put ice on it tonight or it would twinge every time he turned around tomorrow.

It was one thing to deal with the consequences of his injury. It was quite another to deal with the consequences of touching Tessa.

He dried off vigorously and pulled on a pair of sweats. In the kitchen, he pulled a cold pack out of the freezer and a beer out of the fridge, then settled onto the couch to nurse both knee and beer and figure out how he was going to handle this.

Because it had to be handled, this attraction between them. He hadn’t managed to survive six years of being single by losing it or running away every time a woman came on to him. Oh, he could enjoy sex, no problem. He liked women—liked looking at them, liked being around them, liked talking with them and having the occasional good
laugh. But as for letting a woman grab control of his heart and emotions, just to strangle him with them—that was not going to happen again.

It had only been in the last year or so that he’d been able to look at his relationship with the woman responsible for this philosophy—his ex-wife—with any kind of objectivity, without that sick wave of grief and betrayal ambushing him. He had even found a certain measure of peace in the fact that Sheryl was happy, even if it was with Caleb Morgan and not him.

The simple fact was that he had failed to keep his marriage alive, the same way he had failed to see the kid with the gun in that darkened hallway. One had broken his heart and the other his body.

After that, who could blame him for having a healthy sense of self-preservation?

The phone on the end table next to his elbow rang, making him jump. He grabbed for the ice pack and settled it on his knee while he glanced at the clock. Late-night calls, in his experience, usually didn’t contain good news.

“Knox.”

“Hey, bro. Don’t you ever check your messages?”

Griffin cocked an eye at the digital display on the phone console. Four messages. “I just got home. What’s wrong?”

“Nearly midnight and you just got home?” Rhys sounded incredulous. “I heard that Jay Singleton was a slave driver and this proves it.”

“Not all of us have cushy programming jobs. Are you going to tell me what’s up or not?”

“Just wanted to let you know that you’re a proud uncle of a little girl, that’s all. Jess went into labor yesterday.”

“Geez. How come nobody called me?”

“Uh, rewind to original question about the messages.”

“I have a cell phone,” Griffin reminded his brother. “It’s good for times like this. So are baby and mom okay?”

“Healthy and tired and completely okay. Dad is a wreck and Tyler’s not sure about this girl business, but he’ll come around.”

“Congratulations, Rhys. I’ll come up and see you guys as soon as I can. What about Mom—is she there?”

“We wouldn’t be functioning if she wasn’t. She came up to Petaluma at the beginning of the week. She and Tyler have been having a great time. Plus I think I gained five pounds. I forgot how good her macaroni casserole is. So, what’s going on that you’re working eighteen-hour days?”

“Oh, the usual. Some internal stuff came up. Very hush-hush. Jay wanted me on it personally.”

“Uh-huh. You know, if you keep making his life easy you’re never going to have one of your own.”

Griffin snorted. “I have a life.”

“You have a case of social atrophy you’re calling a life.”

“Geez, you sound like Tessa.” Then he winced and resisted the sudden urge to smack himself on the forehead. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

“Tessa? Who’s Tessa? My God, is there actually someone lurking on the fringes of your sorry existence? A female someone?”

“It’s nothing.”

“Nothing, huh? But I’m sounding like her. This means actual conversation has occurred. Spill, bro. Who is she?”

“Just someone I’m working with.”

“What kind of a someone? Blond, brunette, redhead? Beautiful, smart, solvent?”

“Blond, beautiful, smart, and an economic disaster. But on the plus side, she drives a ’66 Mustang ragtop.”

“My God.” Rhys sounded as if he was about to have an orgasm. “You have to bring her when you come up. No arguments.”

“I don’t know if things will progress to the meet-the-family stage. It’s just physical. And we’re working together, so even that’s out of bounds.”

“Bull.” Rhys’s scorn indicated ethics like that deserved to go the way of the dodo bird. “We need that car in the family. Don’t disappoint me.”

“Okay for you. You’re not the one going crazy.”

“If you’re going crazy, that means you’re over Sheryl. For which you’ll observe me on my knees thanking God.”

“Yeah, me, too. But I don’t know. Tessa’s—different.”

“Different how? Different like she isn’t a boring cop type, or different like she just got released from Vacaville?” he asked, naming northern California’s correctional and psychiatric institution.

How was he going to explain this? “She’s a sensitive. As in, she uses psychometry to find things or people.”

A long silence hissed down the line.

“Rhys?”

“I’m still here. My mind tried to wrap itself around that and started unraveling instead.”

“You really sound like her. Too bad you’re already married.”

His little brother, he of the genius IQ and the runaway mouth, ignored him. “And Jay has you working on something with her. And she’s beautiful and driving you crazy. I dunno, bro. Sounds like you’re on your own with this one.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Being on his own with Tessa was the whole problem.