Dashing Through the Snow (27 page)

“You,” she sighed, “just you,” she finished
breathlessly before she opened her mouth to greedily accept his
plunging tongue. She sucked it into her mouth and released his
wrist to fist her hand in his hair to bring him closer.

Smith kissed her one last time before lifting
his head. As he gently fondled her clit between two fingers, he
watched her face flush as her breathing accelerated, watched her
eyes go opaque as her pleasure increased. “More?” he asked against
her mouth, right before he devoured it with his own.

Frantically, Lily nodded as she pumped her
hips against his hand. She felt him pulling at her legs and eagerly
let him adjust her body until he had her where he wanted her
--stretched out with her thighs laying across his thighs while she
lay back on the couch. He tugged at her panties to pull them off
and she bent her legs so he could pull them down and completely
off. She watched in agonized desire as he lifted them to his face
and after sniffing them, sucked the crotch into his mouth.

She cried out and squirmed, her naked bottom
rubbing against his jeans and the fabric of the sofa. “Oh, God,
Smith,” she moaned, “hurry!”

Tossing the panties aside, Smith looked down
at her with eyes that burned bright with want. Slowly he slid his
hand up her thigh and she widened them, praying to feel his fingers
deep inside. Ecstasy exploded within her when he slipped two
fingers inside her and pressed her clit at the same time. She went
off like a rocket as heat rushed from every part of her body to
coalesce in that one spot where he was so skillfully working his
magic. Overwhelmed and feeling like she was drowning in the heat,
Lily screamed and bucked against his hand.

Opening her eyes at half-mast a few moments
later, she smiled at him. He was looking at her as he rubbed her
thigh. Making sure to be careful of her hand, she turned on her
side toward him, bending her knees for optimum comfort. Smith
simply transferred his ministrations to the curve of her hip and
her behind.

“Mmm,” she moaned huskily, “that feels good,”
she told him and languidly moved against his hand. “Do you have a
condom?”

“Is that a rhetorical question? I’m here with
you, aren’t I?”

She grinned and reached out to lovingly trace
his lips. “Put it on, then.”

He winced and looked uncertain, but continued
to caress her, subtly, but inexorably, heightening her arousal.

“What?” she asked.

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Hurt me? It’s my finger that’s broken, not
my --”

“I just want to be careful with you.”

“You can’t hurt me, Smith. I want to feel you
inside me. Please.”

He bent to kiss her and she wrapped her arms
around his neck. He slid his arms beneath her thighs and lifted and
turned her so her back was flush against the back of the sofa. He
joined her, stretching out in front of her and lifting her arm with
the injured hand, placed it on top of the sofa.

“That should keep it out of harm’s way,” he
murmured. After unzipping his pants and letting his cock spring
free through the slit in his boxers, he slipped the condom on and
putting his hand on her thigh, lifted it and placed it so that the
bend in her knee was embracing his hip. He pressed closer and with
his hands at her waist, kissed her gently. “Just let me take care
of you, okay?”

She nodded and then caught her breath when he
slid his cock smoothly inside. As always, his possession of her
body left her completely defenseless and weakened her to such an
extent that she felt lost and vulnerable within her own body. She
threw her head back and shut her eyes at the feel of his body
continually joining with hers, making them one.

“Look at me, sweetness,” he commanded softly,
and she opened her eyes to find him looking tenderly, but fiercely
at her. “You’re mine, you know? Always have been, always will
be.”

Tears filled her eyes and she nodded and
helplessly wrapped her arm around his neck. “Ah, Lil,” she heard
him chide softly, “I told you that I’d take care of you. You
weren’t supposed to move that arm.”

She kissed his neck. “Hush. I like it much
better this way,” she told him and cried some more as he rocked
them gently to completion. Loving him as she did, there wasn’t much
else she could do.

Chapter Twenty-three

Lily shivered and burrowed closer to Smith,
who grabbed the throw from the back of the sofa and covered them
up. “Thanks.”

He pressed his lips to her forehead. “You’re
welcome. So, what do you think about adding Ramirez to our list of
suspects?”

“I think we have to, seeing as how it’s
likely he’s the one who sicced those goons on me at the
museum.”

“Yeah, that’s the most likely scenario and if
it proves true then it means he was lying about the diamond.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

“But then there’s also the possibility that
they’ve been following us all along,”
Smith said.

She shrugged a bare shoulder. “True, but if
they were, who put them onto us in the first place?”

“Could have been one of several people: Kip,
Winscoff and Tam for starters.” There was one more person he could
have added to the list, but he wanted to ruminate on the
possibility some more.

Lily sighed. “This is making my head hurt,
and besides, we need to shower if we’re going to make it to Mom’s
and Dad’s for Sunday dinner. You’re planning to come, aren’t
you?”

“Yes, if you’re going, but I’m surprised you
want to go.”

“Why? Because of my hand? I might as well get
it all the remonstrations and told-you-sos about my choice of
profession over with,” she told him after he’d nodded. “I can’t
hide it from them, and I promised my mom Sunday dinners for the
foreseeable future.” She gave him a one-handed soft shove to the
chest. “Up you go.”

Smith rose and helped her stand. “I’m liking
the new wardrobe choice, sweetness.”

She frowned at him. “I’ll just bet you are.
What’d you do with my panties, anyway?”

Smith retrieved them. “Aw, will you look at
that? They’re all wet,” he said in mock sympathy. “Guess you’ll
have to traipse up the stairs naked…in front of me…at least by two
feet.”

Lily snickered at the
striving-for-innocence-but-failing-spectacularly expression on his
face and reached for the blanket.

He snatched it up before she could. “Ah-ah.
I’m afraid this is a no-no, too. You’ll have to run now if you
don’t want to catch cold.”

Lily burst out laughing. “You are such a
freak! Give me the blanket.”

“Aw, come on, Lily-bud,” he protested even as
he handed the blanket over. “Why you gotta be that way? It’s not as
if modesty is some type of virtue or anything.”

“I don’t understand why you have to wear
these boots,” Smith muttered as he helped her put on the leather
boots and zip them up. “They’re so impractical. Those heels must be
at least three inches and they might as well be toothpicks for all
the support they’ll give you in this kind of weather.”

“They go best with my outfit, which I admit,
I’m using as my metaphorical armor. I have to look as confident as
possible when I see the family. Besides, I’ll just be going from
the house to the car and back again since you’re going to drive
us.”

Smith looked up from the second boot. “Drive?
It’s only five blocks!”

Lily poked her bottom lip out and tried to
look weak and pitiful. “But my finger hurts.”

Smith narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “Does
it really?”

“Some, yes…I mean just a little…okay maybe
not really,” she said with a giggle when he continued to give her
the stink eye, “But remember it’s cold outside and I can’t fit a
glove over this contraption,” she said and held her hand up
gingerly as she looked at him through her lashes. “And of course
I’m not going to walk around wearing just one glove, so both my
hands would be exposed, which would be awful, because I might get
sick. And you wouldn’t want that, would you? Not on top of
everything else? ”

“Oh, all right!” he shouted, sounding and
looking like a man at his breaking point. “Shit!”

Lily grinned and kissed his cheek after he’d
helped her up from the sofa. “Thank you.” She turned for her
coat.

“And don’t think you’re not going to pay me
back for having the hotel boutique add this weird little space man
jacket to my hotel bill,” Smith warned her as he helped her put on
the white bubble jacket.

Lily winced. “I really am sorry about that. I
was being a bitch because you’d left without me to see Landry’s
mistress. I’ll pay you back, honest. I’d fully intended to pay for
it myself anyway -- putting it on your bill was just a momentary
way to get back at you -- but I wasn’t around when you paid the
bill. ”

“Speaking of Landry,” he said, the matter
apparently forgotten as he opened the passenger side door for her.
“Where the hell do you think the man can be?”

“I have no earthly,” Lily said. “But we’ve
got less than a week to find him.”

“Sobering thought,” Smith said.

“Here’s something even more sobering,” Lily
told him as they pulled into her parents’ driveway, “I started
thinking about what Kip had said about how Landry sang the words to
the song “Sweet Home Chicago” when he told him he was going home
and I looked up the song. Okay, so the song, throughout its
existence, has referred to several destinations besides Chicago,
including Kokomo, Indiana; Des Moines, Iowa and California.”

Smith looked at her with a frown. “As in the
entire state of California?”

“Unfortunately, yes. I left a message for my
dear cousin John, he of the police department, asking him if he
could possibly reach out to his fellow policemen in those places,
and perhaps the state police, but he hasn’t gotten back to me.”

“You asked him to see if they’d check for
Landry’s car?”

“Yeah, to see if they could put an All Points
Bulletin out on it or something.”

“Good idea,” he said as they walked up to her
parents’ porch. “Maybe I’ll have better luck with John. I’ll call
him.”

Lily opened the door. “It’s worth a shot.
Mom! Dad! You’ve got company,” she called and sighed when she went
to take off her coat and couldn’t. “Damn it!”

Smith chuckled and helped her with the first
sleeve. “Just keep thinking about the freedom you’ll get in three
weeks.”

Glenda walked into the room. “Hey, you two!
Why didn’t you call when you got back in town?” Her smile
disappeared when she caught sight of Lily’s hand. “What on earth?
Peter! Get down here!” she yelled.

Hearing the near-hysteria in her voice, Lily
reached for her mother. “Calm down, Mom. It’s a broken finger,
that’s all.”

Glenda hadn’t taken her eyes off Lily’s hand.
Unfortunately the bruises were in full black and blue glory. “But
your hand…and why are three of them wrapped? Peter!”

Lily rolled her eyes and looked helplessly at
Smith when she heard running feet --coming from the back of the
house and upstairs. She guided her mother to the sofa and sat down
with her. “I’m all right, Mom. I only have to wear the splint for
three weeks.”

“Oh, my poor baby!”

“Please, Mom, calm down,” Lily begged and
when the room filled with people, the only thing she could be
grateful for was that she wouldn’t have to tell the story more than
once. She looked around. Her father, one of her aunts and her
husband, and her cousin John and his wife were all there and
talking at once. There was also a round little man she thought she
recognized, but couldn’t quite place, who had come downstairs with
her father.

Finally, her father’s ear-splitting whistle
filled the air. “Hold it, hold it. Everybody be quiet so Lily can
tell us what the hell happened.”

All eyes turned to Lily and without preamble,
she told her story and afterward, escaped to the small powder room
in the basement where she planned to hide from the chaos for at
least ten minutes.

Fifteen minutes later, she came back upstairs
to the “Blame Smith for Lily’s Stubbornness” show.

“You mean to tell me that even after what
happened yesterday you haven’t been able to convince Lily to give
up this notion of being a private detective?” she heard her father
ask and she could hear a bit of anger in his voice.

“No sir,” Smith said in his usual laconic
tone. “What I’m saying is that I haven’t even tried. Why should I?
She’s got as much of a right --”

“Just because a person has a right to do
something, doesn’t necessarily mean they actually should, Smith.”
This came from John.

“He’s right, nephew,” Lily heard a voice that
was familiar, yet not, say and realized the stranger in the house
must be Smith’s Uncle Rowdy. She hadn’t seen him since she was ten,
but Smith had told her the man was living with him.

“There’s no reason why Lily shouldn’t pursue
her goal,” Smith said calmly. “Of course yesterday’s trouble was
horrible, but that’s out of the ordinary. I’ve been a private
detective for several years and I’ve rarely been hurt.”

“‘Rarely,’” Glenda repeated softly. “That’s
not the same as ‘never, is it?”

Lily had heard enough and started talking
before she crossed the threshold into the room. “Leave him alone.
What’s the matter with you guys?” she asked as she came to stand
next to Smith. “It’s hardly smart for all the crazy people to jump
on the one sane person in the room. It gives away the secret
--”

“What in hell…uh
heck
are you talking
about, girl? What secret?”

“That you’re crazy, John!” Lily said with
heavy sarcasm that implied that the answer was obvious.
“
That
secret. And stop calling me ‘girl’ in that obnoxious,
condescending way of yours. I hate it and it’s beneath both of
us.”

“It’s hardly necessary to call us crazy,
Lily,” Glenda said.