Grim Shadows (Roaring Twenties) (19 page)

“Mmm,” he said against her lips. “A nice palmful. Just enough.” His thumb found the hard peak of her nipple. Pleasure shot through her. She gasped. He groaned, pushing his erection into her hip. A joyful sort of carnal amusement weighted his voice. “Feels good, does it? Let’s try the other. Put your arm around my neck.” As she did, he pinched a nipple, worrying it back and forth through the fabric of her dress. Her legs wantonly parted like the Red Sea in front of Moses. She nearly fell off his lap.

“C’mere,” he whispered, shuffling her around to face him.

“Your burn,” she protested.

“Hush, Nurse Bacall.” He pulled one leg across his lap until she straddled him like she was riding his motorcycle, dress rucked up around her thighs. Only, instead of a cold metal bar threatening the vee between her legs, the tented bulge of his erection loomed between them. A very significant bulge. The academic part of her wanted to reach between them and run her hand over it for analysis.

Shocked at the thought, she looked away and circled his neck with her arms to keep herself in check. Dear lord, his body was hot. “Lowe—”

“Rule still stands. No skin. I just need to feel this.” He helped himself to two handfuls of her backside, kneading her flesh with abandon. “Lush.” He wiggled her cheeks in his hands. “Best ass I’ve ever seen in my life. God
damn
, you feel incredible.”

It felt incredible to her, too. All her muscles had turned to jelly.

“What’ve you got back here? More peacock feathers?” He craned his neck over her shoulder and lifted her dress before she could protest. “Purple. Are those grape vines?”

She reached back to pull her dress down. “Don’t make fun.”

“Believe me, I’m not. I’ve fantasized about your fancy lingerie since the first night I met you.” He swept his hands up and down her back while he nipped at her neck, just under her ear. She groaned in surprise, and that was distraction enough to overlook his straying hand until it was now already under the front of her dress, sliding over her stocking.

“Oh, God,” she murmured.

“No skin,” he assured her, sounding almost gleeful with victory as he came to the rubber garter clamp holding up the top of her stocking. He slowed there and walked his fingers up the narrow garter, chuckling low when she meeped in distress. Then he found what he’d been hunting. Over her tap pants, he cupped her and slid a finger over the silk between her legs.

She lifted off his lap and cried out, her back bowing as she shuddered in pleasure. He kept a steady arm around her waist, holding her in place.

“Soaking wet. My, my,” he whispered, slowing rubbing the damp fabric back and forth over her clitoris. “Right here?”

Her head fell against his shoulder. “Yes.”

“Mmm. I feel it through the silk. Think you’re almost as hard as I am.”

Good God. No one had ever talked to her so candidly. A shaky inhalation was her answer.

“Want to know a secret?” he whispered, changing the direction of his fingers, side to side. “I stroke myself to sleep every night thinking of you.”

His words sent an electric bolt of pleasure through her center. She rested her brow against his. “God . . .
Lowe
.”

“You feel marvelous. So damn marvelous.” Fingertips slid farther back, and even with the barrier of her tap pants limiting his explorations, he did his best to dip into the wetness pooling at her center. Nice, but not as nice as what he’d been doing.

“Please don’t stop.”

“Yes, ma’am, so sorry,” he said, not sounding sorry at all, but returning to his previous ministrations and rubbing her sensitive bud. “I couldn’t help myself. Better?”

He knew it was. She bowed her head, cheek against cheek, and moaned.

It had been so long since she’d been touched this way. So very long.

And it felt so spectacular and new that she wondered if she’d ever been touched at all—everything in the past was a dream and this was her new reality. The standard by which any other touch should be measured.

“Tell me how it feels,” he demanded.

“So good” was all she could manage, but he made a pleased noise in the back of his throat, as if it were exactly what he wanted to hear. So she repeated it like a mantra between hard breaths until—

What was that noise?

The door.
The door!

“No, no, no!” She jumped off his lap to pull her dress down before moving in front of the chair, as if she could block the view of a six-and-a-half-foot-tall Scandinavian with no shirt and an enormous erection.

Keys jingled as an elderly woman with white hair stepped into the apartment. She looked up and stopped dead in her tracks, eyes big as dinner plates.

Hadley straightened her posture and pasted on a smile. “Good evening, Mrs. Wentworth.”

LOWE PRETENDED TO LEAVE.
He parked the Packard across the street and sat in the driver’s seat half the night, watching Hadley’s apartment building to make sure they hadn’t been followed. No flaming lioness goddesses, no suspicious cars. The lights in Hadley’s windows flicked off. Maybe she was in bed now. After conjuring the memory of her moaning on his lap, he unbuttoned his fly and pleasured himself in the darkened car until he came on his hand, hoping she was doing the same, nine stories above him. When the milkmen began making their rounds in the wee hours of the morning, he finally went home and slept.

The next afternoon, he headed into the Fillmore District and stashed Lulu in a new hiding place. Then he walked a meandering path to ensure he wasn’t being tailed. Along the way, he smelled something achingly familiar and stopped in front of a florist. Wooden buckets of greenhouse tulips and daisies lined the sidewalk, but he looked past them and spotted the star-shaped Siberia lilies. A middle-aged blond woman brushed off her hands. Norwegian, he guessed, from the flag in the window. “Like a bouquet for your sweetheart?” she asked.

“Not a bouquet, but I do have something in mind.”

“Anything you want, we can do,” she said, waving him inside.

Fifteen minutes later, he emerged from the shop and headed down a side street to Adam’s. Stella looked up from her doll party and spied him at the back door before running to greet him.

“Hello, Miss Goldberg,” he said, hauling her into his arms as Adam appeared.

“Found another piece to that amulet, did you?” Adam said with a grin. “Let’s see it.”

After returning Stella to her dolls, Lowe gave his friend the second crossbar and inspected the finished copy he’d made of the base. An exact match. Even Hadley might be fooled, though this particular thought made him feel a little guilty. More than a little, truth be told.

“What’s the matter with you?” Adam asked after the pieces were stashed in the vault.

“Had a long night, that’s all.”

“Are you sure? Because the way you’re smiling and frowning at the same time, it looks like you’re either ill or doped up. Maybe both.”

Lowe slouched in his chair. “How did you know Miriam was the one?”

Adam stared at him for a long moment. “Oh, no.”

“Look, I’m not saying I have feelings for anyone.”

“For Hadley,” Adam corrected.

Lowe groaned. “I’m just saying I
think
there might be the chance that what I once thought was just lust could be something more. Maybe. Possibly.”

“You think? Listen, you either have feelings or you don’t.”

He ran a hand over his face and rubbed the heel of his palm over a brow. “I just advanced a florist one hundred dollars.”

“Are you mad? That was—”

“Stupid.”

“Most definitely stupid.”

Lowe’s shoulders slumped. “It really was.” Then again, he had a long history of making stupid mistakes. Maybe this was nothing out of the ordinary.

 • • • 

Hadley rarely made stupid mistakes, so she had to assume that her inability to add simple numbers and use the telephone without accidentally hanging up on the caller were indirectly related to the time spent on Lowe’s lap. And her newfound stupidity continued to hobble her throughout her workday. The other curators squinted at her like there was dirt smeared on her face. George asked why she was smiling to herself. Her father—blind, at that—suspected illness and suggested she go home and rest.

Rest was the last thing she needed. She was wound tighter than a cheap watch, bursting at the seams with an antsy sort of elation.

But as the hours passed, all that elation shifted into a nervous anticipation that created a dull fog over her brain. When five o’clock finally came, and she was on her way out of the office, she found herself standing at the front desk while Miss Tilly slowly repeated what she’d already said twice, looking at Hadley as if she’d lost her mind. Maybe she had.

She stared at the secretary’s hand in disbelief, her insides jumping with glee. “For me?” she said dumbly, finally catching on to what the woman was telling her.

“I know. I thought the same thing,” Miss Tilly said before glancing up at Hadley’s irritated reaction. “Oh, no—I didn’t mean that no one would ever send you flowers, it’s just that no one has.”

“Yes, I’m quite aware, but thank you for the reminder,” Hadley said dryly. “Who brought it into the building?”

“A delivery boy. He was sort of handsome,” the secretary said, flouncing her too-perfect strawberry hair. “Anyway, he said I could expect to see him a lot, because the gentleman who ordered it paid for daily delivery.”
Daily?
“Every kind of lily they can get their hands on, a different one each day.” She handed Hadley the single oriental lily, snowy white and smelling both sweet and spicy. On its long stem, a brilliant purple ribbon was tied in a bow. “Terribly romantic, don’t you think?”

Hadley had no experience with which to judge such a thing, but her heart was beating so fast, she feared she might break down and do something embarrassing, like laugh inappropriately or twirl in circles. It was all she could do to squeeze out a disinterested, “Mmm.”

“Is it from Mr. Ginn?” Miss Tilly whispered, wide eyes blinking with interest.

“Probably,” Hadley lied. She knew exactly whom it was from, and why no card was provided. After all, her father couldn’t find out they were working together.

She bid the secretary good night and stepped out into the parking lot. Should she call Lowe? They didn’t make plans after Mrs. Wentworth walked in on their erotic tête-à-tête last night. And though Hadley expected to find the woman’s resignation when she got home, she was more concerned about what to expect from Lowe. He said a lot of things that pointed to something of substance between them, but her mind still tugged her back to his casual “I’ll just call Ruby” speech from their trip to Lawndale. And though he’d flat-out told her he wasn’t interested in Ruby or any other girl, doubt lingered.

Because if she let herself believe in the possibility that he meant everything he said in her apartment, a dark fear whispered that she’d be setting herself up for disappointment.

Normal women probably didn’t have these obsessive reservations. And if Hadley wanted a shot at being normal, she reckoned she’d better shake off the fear and figure out what she wanted from Lowe. She sniffed the lily and pictured his muscled chest and arms.

I stroke myself to sleep every night thinking of you.

She glanced around guiltily, as if passersby could hear her thoughts.

All the tumbling joy and the nervous anticipation and the heavy fog swirled around her head like a mad game of musical chairs. If she wasn’t careful, she might trip over her own feet. So she pushed his words from her thoughts and focused on heading to the spot her usual taxicab sat every day at five. Standing on the sidewalk between her and the waiting yellow car was Oliver Ginn.

“Pretty flower,” he said, hands shoved in his pockets.

“Hello, Oliver.”

“Who gave it to you? That Magnusson fellow? He seemed awfully territorial that night at the Flood Mansion party. I would’ve thought you preferred brains over brawn.”

She brushed off the insult. “If you wanted to send me flowers, nothing was stopping you. Instead, you send me strange books.”

A wounded look flashed over his face. “I thought you liked books.”

“I do,” she said, wishing he wouldn’t make her feel so guilty. “Where did you find it? No author was listed.”

“It’s something from my family’s library. Did the passage strike a chord?”

“How did you see what you claimed to see at the Flood Mansion party and associate it with that particular myth?”

He exhaled heavily. “If you want to know the truth, I’ve seen them before.”

The muscles in Hadley’s neck tightened. “Where?”

“Someone I used to know,” he said, removing his hat. “Someone I used to care about. I didn’t understand what was happening at the time, but I’ve since learned things. And I can help you, I promise. If you give me a chance, there are so many things I could teach you. So much I could show you.”

He sounded so sincere, and if it were any other matter but this, she might give him the benefit of the doubt. “I’ve never even heard of another person plagued by such a thing. And yet, you’ve somehow met two of us?”

“When I first came into town, I heard rumors from other curators about strange things happening in the de Young Museum. All of those rumors seemed to lead me to you.”

Anger swelled. The edges of her vision darkened. “You courted me under false pretenses?”

“No! I was curious, of course, but when I saw you, everything changed. My entire world opened up. Look at you—brilliant and strong. A scholar who’s not afraid to make her mark in a man’s world. Just like your mother.”

“My mother?”

“I know you say you don’t remember her, but surely you’ve read about her achievements. That photograph of her standing in front of the temple at Karnak with your father was printed in a dozen publications—you look just like her. It’s uncanny.”

Yes, her father had often said the same thing when he was feeling sentimental. But when Hadley looked at her mother’s image, all she saw was the woman who had paid her nanny.

“Everyone said your father stood upon her genius, and you have that same spark,” Oliver insisted, his hand reaching out for her face. “And so much more.”

She drew back sharply. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I am
not
my mother’s daughter. Nor am I some curiosity to be studied.”

His dark brows knitted. “Of course you aren’t. And I can’t apologize enough for not telling you sooner that I knew about your gift. It’s just that I wanted to make sure the rumors were true, and I wanted you to trust me. I’m not interested in you as a curiosity or a whim. I truly believe fate brought you into my life. Fate brought us together,” he insisted, reaching out unexpectedly to trace her jaw with the tips of his gloved fingers. “You’re not cursed, Hadley. You’re blessed. Let me into your life, and I’ll prove it.”

His hand curled around the back of her neck. He leaned in before she could pull away. Cool lips pressed against hers, unyielding and insistent. Tobacco and the strong scent of bay rum smothered her senses as a keening anxiety turned her muscles to stone.

Everything inside her screamed
no!
And that was enough to tear her out of her panic. She shoved at his chest and stumbled backward, wiping her mouth on her coat sleeve. Good God. If she ever had any doubt about the lack of spark between them, she certainly didn’t now.

Wrong man. Absolutely the wrong man.

Jaw slack, he blinked as if dazed for several moments. His chest heaved with labored breath. Then his mouth warred with a manic smile. “Oh, Hadley. My darling—”

“I’m late for an appointment.” She brushed by him and headed toward the waiting cab.

“If you give me a chance, I will give you the world,” he called out behind her. “And instead of suppressing your gift, you can be what you were born to be.”

What exactly he thought that was, she didn’t bother to ask.

 • • • 

Lowe followed Dr. Bacall’s butler through a drafty Russian Hill mansion. The old man sat in a wheelchair on a closed-in porch that overlooked a sizable backyard for this part of the city, and, in the distance, San Francisco Bay, shrouded in dusk. A fine view, no doubt, but the blind man couldn’t see it. And yet he faced a large window as if he could still picture it all, a plaid blanket over his lap and a cup of steaming tea in his hands.

The servant announced Lowe.

“How are you, m’boy?” Bacall said, seemingly glad for the company.

“I’m sorry to bother you right when you’ve just gotten home from your workday, but I was hoping you might have a minute to answer some questions.”

“Sit,” the man said. “I’ll be glad to help however I can. Tell me about the search while you’re at it. Do you have good news?”

Lowe pulled a wicker chair closer to Bacall and tossed a glance toward the door to ensure servants weren’t lingering. “I’ve found the second crossbar.”

“Indeed?” Bacall grinned. “That’s marvelous!”

“Yes, but I’m a little worried about looking for a third piece.” Lowe set his hat on his lap. “Someone nearly killed me. I’m being tracked, and not in the usual manner. Someone’s using a very specific kind of magic to try to steal the crossbars.”

The man stilled. “What do you mean?”

“Someone who has the power to manifest mythical Egyptian chimera.”

The surface of the tea inside Dr. Bacall’s cup wobbled, but he didn’t answer.

“When my sister-in-law channeled your wife, her spirit warned me to keep the amulet away from Noel. I’m going to take a wild guess and assume this is your old excavation partner.”

Bacall nodded. “Noel Irving.”

“Perhaps it’s time for me to know exactly why you want the amulet so badly and what it has to do with this man.”

“You won’t believe me.”

“Won’t I? I was nearly burned alive by an Egyptian fire goddess. And before that, a griffin tried to peck my eyes out. So maybe you’d better tell me who I’m dealing with so I have a better idea about what kind of magic I’m up against.”