Rush (8 page)

He cupped her breast, so small and firm, her nipple pressing into his palm. Her hand had found its way under his t-shirt and he’d thought he’d die with need for the feel of her hands on him. He left her mouth, nibbling and kissing a path down her neck. He hooked a finger, then another into the neckline of her nightgown, pulling it down. She arched into his caress, lifting up onto her knees.

“Meow.”

She jerked away from him, reaching for the kitten she’d dislodged from her lap. His fingers lost their grip and he watched in shock as her nipple disappeared back down the neckline of her gown. He’d been millimeters from having it in his mouth.

Damned cat.

“Oh, Gooch. You poor thing.” She examined the kitten, lifting it up. “You could have been crushed.”

“He’ll live.”

She settled the kitten in her lap again. “Have you taken him to the vet? He might have fleas and he’ll need shots.”

“I know.”

“Where does he sleep?”

“I have a box for him in the laundry room.”

She looked at him as if he put the cat to bed dangling at the end of a fishing pole out the window.

“What?” he asked.

“You make him sleep
alone
?”

He didn’t have a coherent response for that. He figured it was probably a trick question anyway so even if he could come up with an answer it would be akin to
Why yes, those pants
do
make your ass look huge
. But then he looked down into those amazing golden eyes and grew stupid enough to say, “He can sleep with you tonight.”

“Really?” Holding the kitten, she bounced up to her knees. She put a hand on his shoulder and leaned in, dropping a kiss on his cheek. “Thank you.” Before he could get a hold of her, she was on her feet, walking away. “Goodnight.” She snuggled the kitten to her neck, murmuring to it as she disappeared down the hall.

He glanced down at the raging hard-on straining against his shorts. Fucking Gooch always did get the girl.

*****

The following morning Lucas and Mi met the detective in charge of her case at Mi’s house. She wanted to stay in the truck, but Lucas wouldn’t let her. Following him and the lead detective into her house, loneliness crept over her, leaving her oddly bereft. Her little neighborhood had gone through a transformation, changing from a place she felt safe to a place that had let her down. Mrs. Wickerson peeped through her drapes across the street just as she always did when anything bigger than the Stanton’s Chihuahua stepped foot on the street. Where was her nosy neighbor when that creep had installed cameras in her house?

Lucas took Detective Rolls through the house to her bedroom to show him the cameras he’d found. The detective seemed to defer to Lucas and his knowledge of covert surveillance from the moment he’d stepped foot in the house. Plainly showing how impressed he was, Rolls asked question after question. The steady flow of them reached Mi in the entryway.

Mi stood in the foyer of the house she’d been so proud of, feeling it had somehow betrayed her. Somebody had been watching her in her most private moments. Tears pricked the back of her eyes and she swallowed hard, pushing back the sob that crept up her throat. Rubbing her arms, she shuddered. She heard Lucas and the detective coming back down the hall. Dropping her arms and standing up straighter, she pasted on a brave face.

“I’ll need a team to go through the place. That’ll take some time, ya know.” Detective Rolls turned his fat wrist, glancing at the watch straining against his flesh. “Couple hours or so. You got somewhere to be?”

“I have to be at work by ten,” Mi said.

“Work,” Rolls snorted as he shook his head, his jowls flapping, like a hound dog. “Jesus H. Christmas just when I’d thought I’d seen it all.” He gave Lucas a jab with his elbow. “You seen what they do there for profit?” He didn’t wait for a response. “Now I ain’t one to judge, mind you. What two reasonably mature people do in the privacy of the boudoir and all sure ain’t my business. But it just seems so unseemly, all them fake wieners lyin’ about. And then those other things.” He waved a meaty hand around. “Whatchya call ‘em? Them things with the holes for the men?”

“Strokers,” Mi provided.

“Strokers. Jesus H. Christmas. Don’t need to waste my money when I got Rosie and her five sisters right here.” He put his hand up and wiggled his sausage fingers. “If you catch my meanin’.” He winked and prodded Lucas with his elbow again.

Mi rolled her lips under, suppressing a smile. She’d come across Detective Rolls’s type before. They were relatively harmless, seeing what Mi did as a novelty. It was the others, the ones who didn’t think what she did was fun or entertaining who were the dangerous ones. People like Cookie Dixon and the members of C.A.L.M.

Lucas cleared his throat. His brows nearly touching over the bridge of his nose, his mouth pressed into a grim line, the glare he gave Rolls was hard-edged reproof. He waited until the other man subsided, visually shrinking under Lucas’s stare. “I’m guessing you’ll find a camera either outside over the front door or over there.” Lucas pointed to the sliding glass door that lead out to the small backyard. “He’d want to see her enter.”

Rolls gave Lucas an assessing look, his florid face bunching up around his eyes. “Uh, huh. And just howd’ya figure that?”

“It’s what I’d do.”

“That so. What else wouldya do?”

“I’d want an eye in every room.”

Lucas seemed to settle into the roll of expert as he walked Rolls through the living areas, pointing out the best possible vantage point for each camera. Mi wasn’t sure she liked this side of Lucas. It brought him in line with the man who’d invaded her home, her privacy. Mi moved to the door, shivering. She wanted out, away.

“Ah, damn.” Lucas came to her and rubbed her arms. “Sorry. Do you want wait in the bedroom while we talk?”

She shook her head. She didn’t want to be in there alone. She just wanted to be far, far away. “No. I’m fine.” She waved him off with false reassurance. “Go ahead.”

Lucas looked as though he wanted to call a halt to the whole thing and maybe whisk her off until Rolls drew his attention away.

“What about at night? Wouldya need night vision?”

Lucas gave her a half smile that didn’t reach his eyes and her arms a gentle squeeze. “We won’t be much longer.” He turned to Rolls. “And motion detection. I’d want ears, too, but then I’m greedy.”

Lucas really seemed to be in his element. Mi was glad to have him on her side.

“
That
would cost ya.” Rolls draped an arm across his belly and propped his elbow in his hand while he stroked his chin, considering. “There’s a factor to keep in mind. Whoever did this had some bank. Or access to.”

“I’d be surprised if you found more than basic motion activated cameras. But if you do, would you let me know?”

“I could do that. I bet you have some stories to tell.” Rolls nudged him with his elbow again. “I was an Army man myself. Got me an in with the force, but then that was before all that Post Traumatic B.S.”

“Uh, huh.” Lucas’s brow buckled in a deep frown. “An associate of mine is on his way over. He’ll lock up when your guys are finished.”

“Ah, here’s the tech boys now,” Rolls said, moseying to the screen door to let them in.

Lucas and Mi waited while Rolls directed his team. When he’d finished, Lucas handed over the letters from Doyle Gann, explaining what the convict’s last letter contained.

Rolls snorted. “Revolvin’ doors, that’s all prisons are these days. I’ll contact his parole officer.” He waved the plastic bag with the letter. “This’ll get him revoked, I’m sure. Don’t cha worry miss, we’ll get ‘im.”

She sincerely hoped that was true. “Thank you, Detective.”

Lucas led Mi out of the house and into the hard baked sunshine. Heat waves shimmered above the pavement and the air closed in around them, like a stifling embrace. A sleek red car pulled up across the street and a tall, lean black man emerged, his eyes covered with mirrored aviator glasses. Mi watched him cross the street with an ambling gate, all loose limbs and confidence.

“Malcolm, thanks for coming.” The men performed a combination handshake/half-hug greeting. Lucas turned to her. “Mi meet Malcolm Oubre. Malcolm, Miyuki Price-Jones.”

Malcolm whipped off his glasses, revealing startling turquoise eyes. He bent over Mi’s hand, his deep baritone vibrating her chest. “Miss Price-Jones, a pleasure.”

Mi couldn’t help it. She blushed, her other hand fluttering over her breasts. Such charm should be bottled and sold with a warning label. “Pleased to meet you, too, Malcolm. Please, call me Mi.”

Lucas shifted behind her a fraction, swelling up to his full height. He leaned in, crowding Malcolm out. She felt the heat from his wide palm low on her back like a brand.

Malcolm straightened and donned his glasses, his wide, white-toothed smile never wavering. “Oh, I always aim to please, Miss Mi.
Always
.”

Mi resisted the urge to fan herself. She was surely buying whatever it was Malcolm was selling, as Lucy would say. “I’m sure you do.”

“If you’re finished,” Lucas said to Malcolm, disapproval sharpening each word. “I’ll introduce you to the detective in charge so you can get to the job you came here to do.”

Mi followed them back into the house, going no further inside than the foyer. In a moment Lucas came back down the hall, gripped her elbow and led her back outside to his truck. She had to jog a little to keep up with him. He opened the car door, wrapped his hands around her waist and hoisted her up on the seat before she knew what was happening. She began to say something about Lucas’s strong reaction, but the door shut abruptly, leaving her open mouthed and sputtering.

Lucas climbed into the truck and turned the key with more force than necessary. She’d just barely clicked on her seatbelt when the truck shot away from the curb, knocking her back against the seat. She angled herself to glare up at him, preparing to unleash her temper, but one look at his at his face stopped her before the words could form.

“You’re grinning.” Her bubble of annoyance evaporated into disbelief. She gaped at him, sure she was stuck in the cab of the truck with a lunatic.

“You should have seen yourself.”

“What?”

“Malcolm.” He shook his head, his smile spreading, crinkling the corners of his eyes. “I don’t know how he does it.”

“What?”

They’d stopped at a light and he turned to her, his dark eyes glinting in the morning light, like the gleam of sunlight off deep water. “I wish I could do that. Just once. That man could charm the panties off a superfluity of nuns.”

“A what of what?”

He smacked the steering wheel with the palm of his hand. “And when he pulled his shades down… the look on your face.” He chuckled, letting her in on the joke.

A smile tipped up one corner of her lips. “He is good.”

“It’s a damn shame his door doesn’t swing that way.” Lucas shook his head sadly. “Such a waste.”

“How do you know him?”

“Navy. We were on the same team until he got out two years ago.”

“What about ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’?”

He hitched a shoulder. “No one asked, no one told, but everyone knew. Didn’t matter with Malcolm. Everyone wanted to be his wing-man.”

“I bet. What does he do for a living?”

“Private Investigator.”

They turned into the industrial complex, then made a right turn headed toward the
Pleasure at Home
studio. They could see the crowd already gathered at the gates, banners and picket signs in use. The smiles slid from their faces, their moment of levity crushed under the weight of reality. Lucas sat up straighter in his seat, signaling his shift into the role of bodyguard. Mi wrapped her arms around herself and slunk down in her seat, resenting her role of hapless victim.

Lucas glanced over at Mi’s pale face, hating the hunted look in her eyes. He clicked her seatbelt open. “Get down into the foot well. Stay down until I tell you to get up.”

As they neared the gate, the crowd’s attention switched from Cookie Dixon and the man standing next to her on the makeshift dais to the truck coming toward them. The chanting increased at the sight of the new target. They closed in, surrounding the truck, making it difficult to move more than a few inches at a time toward the gate.

Lucas laid on the horn, taking satisfaction in making a few of the protesters start at the sound. Fists pounded the truck’s exterior as it inched past. They were fully surrounded now. Lucas resisted the urge to jam down on the accelerator. Narrowly. He hit the horn again, then just leaned against it, drowning out all but the closest voices. Faces pressed against the windows briefly before sliding away with the truck’s movement. He hoped to God they would only see him in the cab and not Mi.

Cookie Dixon sneered down from her perch, shouting into her megaphone. Her face reddened with the effort to be heard. The man beside her looked on, watching as though he was memorizing the truck and driver. Lucas made a mental note to find out who that guy was. Something about the way he stood, separate but interested, made the fine hairs on Lucas’s neck stand on end. He never ignored his instinct.

CHAPTER FIVE

The mob broke, parting at the property line of the
Pleasure at Home
studio, allowing Lucas to enter. He hit the gas pedal, eager to put the noise and anger behind them. Mi seemed to sense the danger had passed and inched up into the seat. She kneeled, leaning over the back of the seat, looking out the darkly tinted back window, her ass nearly eye level. Lucas narrowly avoided plowing into a parked car. The spike of adrenaline apparently had no dampening effect on his ability to appreciate her ass. And what a sweet little ass it was, snug in tight denim.

He rolled the truck around the corner of the building and into a parking space out of sight from the entrance. Mi dropped down into the seat and sighed, leaning back to look at him.

“Are you all right?” he asked, taking her in from head to toe. She didn’t look any worse for wear other than the lip she chewed on. “Hey.” He reached out and ran a fingertip over her worn lip. “None of that. You’re fine. I’ve got you.”