Sex, Lies, And Online Dating

knees. She wore red shoes with high heels, and for one brief second, Quinn let himself wonder if she was naked beneath that coat.

She looked right at him, and he stood and moved from behind the corner table. Subdued bar lights shone in the gold hair curling about her shoulders. She walked toward him looking like a centerfold and turning heads. Her hair bounced a little with each graceful step.

Too bad she might be psychotic.

He took the soft hand she offered him. Her fingers were chilled, and he looked down into her face, searching for signs that she was crazy. The kind of crazy that slipped a bag over a man’s head while she rode him like Seabiscuit. All he saw was a hint of humor shining in her deep blue eyes.

“You’re on time,” she said with the same humor curving her red lips. “Your dog didn’t get into the trash tonight?”

“No. I put the garbage in the garage before I left.”

She let go of his hand and set a small red purse on the table. “I was a little surprised to get your e-mail.” She reached for her belt, and Quinn moved behind her.

“The first e-mail? Or the second one, when I had to beg?” The tips of his fingers brushed the smooth skin of her neck as he moved her hair aside and grasped her coat by the collar. She smelled like his mother’s garden in spring, and holding her hair was like holding a bit of sunshine. Like…he stopped. Good Lord, he was beginning to sound like those sappy e-mails Kurt sent. Even in his own head. If he wasn’t careful, before he knew it he’d be listening to Jewel and writing shitty poetry.

She looked up at him over her shoulder, and her cheek brushed the backs of his fingers. “You didn’t beg. You were persistent.”

“Whatever you call it, it worked.” He let her hair go and held the collar as she shrugged out of the coat. He was in the Red Feather to work the Breathless case, not get sidetracked by how her hair smelled or her smooth cheek. Tonight he was going to listen and watch and seduce information out of her. If that meant he was going to have to seduce the hell out of her in the process, he was only doing his job. At some point in the investigation, he might have to slide his hand to the back of her head and bring her mouth to his. And while he did that, he was going to remember that she was the number one suspect in a criminal investigation. It wasn’t personal. It was the job.

“I turned you down the first time because I’m really not dating right now.”

He handed the coat to her, and she hung it over the back of a chair. “Why is that?” She wore one of those fuzzy red sweaters made of rabbit or something equally soft. It clung to the tops of her arms, defying gravity and leaving her neck and shoulders bare.

“I’m extremely busy with work,” she said as his gaze slid lower, down her spine and over the curve of her behind covered in a black skirt that reached just above the backs of her knees.

He held her chair for her while she sat. “At the hospital?”

She stilled for a fraction of a second, then said, “Yeah.”

“Which floor do you work on?” He moved to sit across the small table from her.

Silence as she reached for the drink menu, then, “Maternity. Hmm…let’s see here. What should I have? Martini or mojito?”

She wasn’t all that great a liar. He’d certainly been around better, but not all sociopaths were good liars. Even some of the bad ones still managed to pass a polygraph. But the one thing all of them had in common was a total lack of conscience.

A waitress who didn’t even look old enough to serve drinks approached the table. Lucy ordered a mojito, Quinn, a bottle of Becks. While they waited, he sat back in his chair and tilted his head to one side. Time to get busy. “Tell me about yourself.”

She leaned forward and rested her forearms on the table. “I’m so dull I’d hate to bore you to death.”

“Oh, I doubt you could do that.” The candle in the center of the table flickered, scattering tiny shards of light across her clavicle and bare shoulders. “Tell me about your family.”

“There’s really not much to tell. My mother and father divorced when I was in the sixth grade. They fought a lot, so it wasn’t a big shock when my dad left.” She shrugged, and the little right sleeve of her sweater slid down her smooth arm to her elbow. “After that, my mother worked long hours, and I took care of my little brother.”

“How old is your brother?”

“He’s twenty-four. I’m ten years older than Matt.” She raised a hand to push the sweater back up to the edge of her shoulder. “How about you? Brothers? Sisters?”

“I have a younger brother and sister,” he answered truthfully. He told her about his seven nieces and how loud holidays were with all those shrieking girls running around. “My father died about three years ago, and my mother’s been nagging me to produce a grandson.”

“You’ve had a rough time in the past few years.”

Quinn’s gaze followed her sweater as it once again slipped down her arm. “How’s that?”

“First your dad and then your wife.”

Oh yeah. His wife. “Yes,” he said and returned his gaze to hers. “I loved Millie very much. She was everything in the world to me, but I need to move on without her. I have to try and get my life back. She’d want that for me.” He wondered if the lies about Millie sounded as lame as he thought they did. He wondered if Lucy had worn that sweater to distract him.

“She’d want you to date as many women as you can possibly meet via the Internet?”

Quinn didn’t point out that Lucy was meeting men via the Internet. Possibly killing them too. Instead he said, “Millie would want me to do whatever makes me happy.”

Lucy pushed her sweater back up. “I imagine a lot of women would want their husbands to pine away for them a little longer than six months.”

“Millie is different from a lot of women.” If Lucy continued to do battle with her clothes, it was going to be a very long night. Watching her was like watching a slow striptease.

“Don’t you mean was different?”

“What?” He raised his gaze to hers as desire, hot and unwelcome as hell, twisted and tugged and gave a little kick to the pit of his stomach. The woman looking back at him over the flickering candle might be innocent. Might be a mystery writer and nothing more. A victim of circumstance. Or she might be responsible for the murder of three men.

“You said, ‘Millie is different’ as if she were still alive,” Lucy said.

Shit. He’d let himself get distracted by her sweater. She was sharp, and he was going to have to be even sharper. Which meant he was going to have to pay more attention to doing his job and less attention to the smooth skin of her neck and shoulders. “I meant was, of course.”

A tiny crease appeared between her brows. “Perhaps it’s too soon for you to date.”

“No.” He shook his head and gave her his best “trust me” smile. One he’d used many times to put murder suspects and drug dealers at ease. “Sometimes I still refer to my father in the present tense, too,” he lied as easily as he smiled. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t know he’s gone. Just like I know Millie’s gone and she’s never coming back. I will always feel the loss of her, but that doesn’t mean I have to stand in one place and feel the pain of it every day. For the rest of my life.”

Her brow smoothed, and he knew the second she decided to believe him. Yeah, she was smart and very perceptive. If she wasn’t a murder suspect, she was just the sort of woman he usually went for. But she was a suspect, and it would be a cold day in hell before a suspect outsmarted Detective Quinn McIntyre. No matter how smart and gorgeous. No matter how hot she was or how hot she made him.

Chapter 4

Skeptic: Seeks Lady in Red…

The cocktail waitress returned with their drinks, and Lucy sat back in her chair, the alarm bell in her head fading beneath his charming smile, which she didn’t quite trust. He’d used the present tense regarding his wife.