The Last Victim (27 page)

I can feel the texture of the floor beneath my feet. I can smell … What can I smell? Slow-roasting meat, and the citronella from the torches, and plants and flowers and a hint of perfume from the woman in the black dress who just danced by. I can smell Garland. He smells like the sea
.

His hips cradled hers. His thighs moved against her thighs. She could feel the roughness of his jeans against her bare legs. She could feel the pressure of his hand splayed possessively across the small of her back.

The music was that same torchy love song that had played before, with its slow, throbbing beat.

We’ve got tonight.…

Dancing with him, swaying to the music, the tough leather of his boots sliding alongside her bare feet, she felt her body start to pulse with that same slow, torchy rhythm.

Earlier, when she’d been dancing, first with Tony and then, for that brief, infuriating moment, with Garland, her body hadn’t quickened and started to go all warm and liquid inside. It hadn’t softened, and it hadn’t wanted.

But this time, in Garland’s arms, in her dream, it did.

“Where’s Tony?” she asked, because if this was some kind of semi-skewed re-creation of her evening, Tony should be in it, too, along with Crane and Kaminsky, although she hadn’t seen them yet, either.

A muscle twitched at the corner of his mouth.

“Fuck Tony,” Garland replied coolly, which made Charlie smile because it sounded so exactly like something Garland would say that her dream suddenly felt way real again.

Only it wasn’t, because it couldn’t be.

But it felt real enough when, without warning, his thigh moved between hers, rough and solid, pressing against her, sliding hard against her silky panties. The effect was electrifying. Her body instantly tightened. It instantly burned.

“What …” Her eyes shot to his face in instinctive protest, but then she was distracted by the realization that there was now a ceiling above them as they danced. Dark and metallic, it glittered with a thousand brilliantly colored stars thrown by a disco ball that hung spinning high above her head. Charlie gaped at it, gaped at the crowd, which as quick as a blink had turned rougher and younger, and at the packed tables crammed in around the dance floor. The smell had changed, too: it was now popcorn and beer. Cool smooth wood lay beneath her feet. The couples dancing near them looked like bikers
and their babes. The bar stretching along the far wall was packed with revelers. The vibe was low-class and raucous, the decibel level off the charts. The music was hotter, wilder, with a different, pulsing rhythm. The song—she knew that song. What was it?

Adele’s wailing “Rolling in the Deep.”

“… just happened?” she finished, because the transformation was so mind-boggling she forgot that she had been meaning to conclude with a starchy “… do you think you’re doing?”

Holding her close, swaying with her to the pounding music, moving that long, powerful thigh between her legs to devastating effect, Garland smiled into her eyes. She could feel every muscular inch of him. The combination was enough to send a fresh infusion of heat rushing through her veins.

Forget starchy. This was its opposite.

“Don’t know. But this is more my kind of place.”

“How did we get here?” Foolish question. How did anyone get anywhere in a dream?

“Beats me.” The music was so loud that he had to speak right in her ear. “Whatever you do, don’t let go of me, Doc. Wouldn’t want to lose you.” She felt his warm breath against her skin, and then what she thought were his lips, nuzzling the outer curve of her ear. A delicious little shiver ran along her nerve endings. She didn’t pull away.

“Do you think that’s possible?” The thought was faintly worrisome. He lifted his head to look down at her. Charlie frowned at him.

“Who knows? This is one screwy dream. I vote we don’t test it.” His voice took on a husky note. “Put your arms around my neck, Doc. Both of ’em.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Garland lifted the hand he was holding and guided it around his neck. Charlie didn’t resist. Instead her arms encircled his neck while he wrapped his arms around her waist. He was holding her so tightly now that it was hard to know where she ended and he began.

Because of his height and her lack of shoes, hanging on to his neck pulled her up onto her toes. She was practically glued against the warm, taut wall of his chest while his body moved suggestively against hers. The pleasurable throb inside her intensified until it was something way hotter and more liquid.

This is sexual foreplay to music
, she thought. This baddest of bad guys was heating her up. Turning her on.

He was doing it deliberately, too, she was sure, and she—face facts—was reveling in it.

“I don’t know how to dance like this.” She sounded faintly breathless to her own ears. Sad to realize that she had never given herself the opportunity to learn. From the time she was seventeen, her life had been all about accomplishing one goal. She hadn’t played, she hadn’t partied, and unless a social occasion she was attending had called for it, she hadn’t danced. And even when she had, those had
been country club dances. Nothing like what was going on around her now.

“Just hang on and trust me. You trust me, don’t you, Doc?”

“No.” She shook her head, and he laughed.

She was plastered so close against him that she was able to feel every bulge and sinew and belt buckle and zipper, moving with him like he was her lover, like he was her man. She had never in her life danced the way they were dancing now, swaying and sliding and turning and writhing in a sensuous give and take that made her feel like someone she didn’t even know.

“Why am I dreaming about dancing like this with you?” Tinged with vexation, the words popped out of her mouth, because it had just occurred to her that if she was going to get blown away by sexy dream fantasies, the man they should be focused on was Tony, or one of her ex-boyfriends, or some great new guy she was just now imagining—or, basically, anybody but
him
.

“ ’Cause you like me.” Garland lifted his head from where it had been nuzzling into her hair and met her gaze. His eyes were intense, with a dark, smoldering gleam. “Come on, Doc, admit it. You know you do.”

Charlie couldn’t say anything. To deny it would be a lie. To admit it—she wasn’t going to admit it. Not even in her dream. Not to him. Not to anyone. Not with her heart beating a mile a minute and her pulse racing and her breathing coming way too fast. When he saw she wasn’t going to answer, he didn’t press her. Instead his head dipped, and his lips found her throat. Hot and damp, his mouth slid down the side of her neck. Charlie shivered. She went weak at the knees. His mouth found the tender curve between her neck and shoulder, and she could feel his tongue caressing her there. She sucked in air. Her body suddenly felt boneless. His arms tightened, pulling her closer still, and her breasts swelled against his chest and her nipples tightened and yearned. His leg between hers was part of the dance, she knew that now, but the friction of it moving against that most sensitive part of her made her body quake.

She liked the quaking. She liked his lips on her skin. She liked the way he was making her feel. And yes, although she wasn’t about to admit it out loud, she liked him.

Actually,
like
was too pale and puny a word. But it was as far as she was willing to go, even in her dream.

She was so tight against him by this time that every movement he made felt erotic. His hands on her lower back slid down the silky stuff of her nightgown to cup her butt. In real life, if a guy had grabbed her like that while they were dancing, she would have decked him. If real Garland had tried it, he would have been thrown in the hole for days. And if ghost Garland had ever so much as
thought
about it, she would have gone after him with her sage incense. But in her dream, feeling Garland’s big hands on her butt sent excitement rocketing through her. She was practically riding his thigh now, arms locked around his neck as he turned with her and dipped her this way and that. The hot throbbing inside her intensified and concentrated on that one burning point of contact until she thought she might melt right there in his arms. Tiny scalding thrills raced along her nerve endings. Holding her close, he rocked into her as they danced, letting her feel him, leaving her in no doubt that he was aroused, turning her on to her back teeth.

“You’re dancing like a pro now.” Garland pressed his lips to the delicate hollow below her ear. Charlie went all shivery inside. It was a good thing he was bearing most of her weight, because she was pretty sure that at this point her legs were so rubbery she couldn’t stand.

“Do you always make out with your partners on the dance floor?” she asked tartly, in pure self-defense. The hot crawl of his mouth along the underside of her jaw was thrilling her clear down to her toes. But the telling thing was, despite the bite of her words she didn’t try to pull away.

“Nah.” He was still kissing her neck. She could feel his quick smile against her skin. “Only with the real babes.”

At his teasing, she had to smile a little, too, although her heart was going a mile a minute and her body had all but turned to putty in his hands. He was doing it on purpose, she thought with the minuscule part of her mind that was still on watchdog duty, charming her even while he made her want him times about a thousand.

Which was exactly what a charismatic psychopath would do.

And she let herself go with it, because she liked it so much—and anyway, none of it was real.

For the first time in a long while, she was with a man who made her feel like a woman.

Probably you ought to try waking up about now
.

That cool prickle of clarity came from another, more forceful stirring of the practical part of her mind, the watchdog part, the guardian. Charlie heard it. But she wasn’t going to allow herself to listen to it, or think about all the reasons why feeling sexy in Garland’s arms was wrong—or, worse, plain dumb. She wasn’t going to think at all. She was just going to go with the flow, as he had suggested, and exist in the moment. Indulge herself a little. Let herself imagine that he was something other than what he was, and take pleasure at being in his arms. Take pleasure at the stirrings of her body, the rising sexual tension, the delicious heat. Closing her eyes, Charlie surrendered, allowing her head to rest on his wide shoulder, giving herself up to the music and him, immersing her senses in the sheer sensual delight of his mouth exploring her neck and his hands cupping her butt and everything else that was going on between them. Take pleasure in moving with him and against him, of feeling his hard masculinity against her softer, feminine self. He was a good dancer, no surprise there, such a great-looking guy would have had every opportunity to practice with a wide variety of partners. His body radiated heat, and because an unexpectedly cool breath of air feathered across her bare skin just then, she snuggled voluptuously into him. At the same time she tightened her grip on his neck and moved her head so that he could have better access to the hollow of her throat, which was where his lips were headed. She felt his breathing change, dig down a little deeper, come a little faster, as she arched into him.

Listening to the uneven cadence of his breathing, she felt almost dizzy, almost as if she’d had too much to drink and had a buzz going, although she hadn’t consumed any alcohol at all. At the same time, her body pulsed and throbbed. He was taking her higher and higher.…

You want to be careful here
.

As that cautionary thought flitted through her mind, his thigh slid out from between her legs. Charlie felt instantly bereft. She made an importunate sound. Gripping her bottom, he pulled her closer still in a single rough movement that brought them pelvis to pelvis, leaving her in no doubt that whatever had distracted him hadn’t distracted
him completely. As they’d danced, his big hands had by degrees worked their way up beneath the short hem of her nightgown to cup her bottom through her silky panties. Now his hands stilled and tightened, so she could feel every bit of their heat and strength as well as their broad-palmed, long-fingered shape through the fragile layer of cloth.

I love the way his hands feel on my butt
.

They weren’t dancing any longer. She could no longer hear the music over the drumming of her pulse in her ears.

His mouth left her skin—reluctantly, she thought. As another whisper of surprisingly cool air touched the dampness he had left behind, she felt him straighten to his full height. Her arms still circled his neck, so she had, perforce, to stretch upward with him, until she was on her tiptoes. She wanted in the worst way to go back to what they had been doing. She made that come-hither sound again. Her head fell back so that her neck was fully exposed, inviting the return of his mouth.

“What the hell are you wearing, Doc?” he asked with a touch of wry humor: not what she had expected at all. She was still all but lost in sensation, but his tone cut through the haze of desire that had been fogging her brain. Her eyes blinked open. He was looming over her, tall and blond and gorgeous, typical Garland. Before she could answer his question, his hands left her butt and slid up farther beneath her nightgown to grip her hipbones. She felt the imprint of his hands like a brand as they closed over her bare skin. He pushed her a little away from him, just far enough that cool air could circulate between them, even while he maintained his grip on her. She lost her hold on his neck; her hands slid down over his shoulders to rest flat-palmed against his chest. It felt warm and sleek and unyielding beneath his shirt, and she pressed her hands into the firm muscles there with instinctive, sensuous pleasure. As she looked up at him she saw that his eyes were gliding down her body.

Charlie looked down at herself, too.

Her nightgown was a lustrous pale blue, silky and insubstantial, with lavish trimmings of cream-colored lace. Wide lace straps hugged her shoulders, traced the deep V neckline, and edged the hem that ordinarily ended just at the very tops of her thighs, although Garland’s
hands underneath rucked the delicate garment up almost to her naval. The matching bikini panties, dainty in silk and lace, showed beneath, leaving the lower part of her toned midriff and her long, tanned legs bare. The material clung to her breasts, revealing their fullness and shape. Her aroused nipples were embarrassingly visible against the thin cloth. Only the thing was, realizing that Garland was seeing them that way, was seeing
her
that way, didn’t embarrass her at all, Charlie discovered.