“God forbid.”
Raine sat up, gathering her courage. “Seth, next time—”
“What? What did I do wrong this time?”
She was startled by the sharp edge in his voice. “Nothing at all,” she said hastily. “You did everything incredibly right. I just wondered if the next time you'd let me try ... um, you know.”
He shook his head. “I don't dare guess. Spit it out, sweetheart”
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “Oral sex” she whispered. “You're always doing it to me, and I'd like to try doing it to you. But I've never tried it. So I probably wouldn't be any good.”
When she finally opened her eyes, he was gazing at her with a look of almost comical dismay on his face. “God, Raine. You don't have to ask. Do whatever you want with me. Do that, and I'll be your slave. Anytime, anywhere, and I'm not kidding. Right now, if you want.”
She blushed, and shook her head. “I'm already late. Next time.”
“I won't let you forget.” He lunged on top of her, pinning her onto the bed. “There's just one more thing I have to know before we face the day. How do you like your eggs?”
She stared at him blankly. “Eggs? I don't have any eggs, Seth.”
“Sure you do. I got breakfast stuff last night, along with the deli stuff. Eggs and bacon and orange juice and toast and coffee. With real cream. You need to get some more meat on your bones.”
He looked so pleased with himself, she had to laugh. “You were feeling pretty confident last night, huh?” she asked, caressing his face.
“Don't hold it against me.” He rubbed his cheek against her hand like a cat, then grabbed it and kissed her palm. A warm, glowing feeling heated up her chest. It had been so long since she'd had any reason to feel happy in the morning.
She glanced at the clock, and winced. “Actually, it's really late. I'd better just pop into the shower and run. I have to—”
“They can goddamn well wait until you get some breakfast into you.” His voice cut harshly over hers. “You've been opening your veins for that place for weeks. Enough already.”
She was unnerved by his uncanny grasp of all the details of her life. “How do you figure that?” she asked hesitantly.
“All I have to do is look at you.”
She winced. “That bad, huh?”
“Cut it out,” he said. “You're drop-dead gorgeous and you damn well know it. But you need to eat more. And I'm the one who's driving you to work, anyhow. I'm not doing it until you eat.”
Her eyes wandered from his scowling gaze, down over his naked, gorgeous golden body. “Do you want to shower with me?” His frown vanished, and his gaze heated up. “Oh, yeah. Only more than I want to breathe. But you know exactly what would happen. And I want you to eat breakfast”
Sensual images rushed through her mind of soapy hands slipping and sliding over flushed skin, clouds of steam rising as he pinned her against the slippery tile. Hot water pouring,
pounding.
He backed away from her, shaking his head, “You are dangerous, babe. Go quick and take your shower, or I'll fuck you again right now.”
She scurried into the bathroom and turned on the shower. She stood beneath the stream of water, amazed and grateful to feel no residue of terror or grief from a nightmare clutching at her. She was rested and relaxed, her muscles loose, filled with energy. Joyful.
She was actually hungry. She'd never felt hungry in the morning in her life. Lately, she'd begun to forget what hunger felt like altogether. But right now, bacon, eggs, toast and orange juice sounded like heaven. She danced beneath the water, humming as she worked shampoo into her hair. A dark shadow loomed on the other side of the glass door. Seth slid the door open, his eyes raking her soapy body.
“I tried to be good,” he said. “I tried to be self-controlled. I tried to be civilized and restrained. I tried to resist temptation.”
Raine rinsed foam out of her eyes and blinked at him.
“Oh? And?”
He stepped into the shower and reached for her. “I failed.”
Chapter 14
“You remember the drill?”
Raine leaned across the seat and kissed him. “Don't worry, Seth.”
She meant the smile to be reassuring, but it had the opposite effect. It made him uncomfortably aware that she wasn't taking him seriously enough. If she knew the whole truth, she'd be scared to death.
“I didn't ask if I should worry. I asked if you remember the drill.”
The hard edge in his voice made her pull away, eyes wide and wary. He took a deep breath and tried to soften his tone. “Not one foot out the door of that place without contacting me. Got it?”
“Yes. You have a lovely day, too, Seth. Have fun inspecting the warehouses.” She smiled over her shoulder at him, and was promptly swallowed into the revolving glass doors of the building.
He fought down the urge to run in after her, and distracted himself by keying her transmitter codes into the handheld monitor. He adjusted it until the cluster of signals were showing in the grid, spatial data streaming in a continuous flow of changing coordinates alongside the flashing icons. He punched up McCloud's number.
Connor answered on the first ring. “Yeah?”
“I need to know everything you can find out about a guy named Peter Marat,” Seth said. “Get Davy to run a check. He worked for Lazar about seventeen years ago until he mysteriously drowned.”
“What's the connection?”
“He's Raine's dad. She wants to prove that Lazar snuffed him. An apparent sailboat accident when she was a kid.”
There was a brief silence. “The plot thickens,” Connor said, in a mock ominous tone.
“Just get on it. One of you guys has to cover her while I'm in Renton. I'm heading out there now. She's at the office. I planted five Colbits on her yesterday. Here are the codes. Got a pen?”
“Hold on a sec ... yes. Go”
Seth read out the transmitter code sequences. “Key up one of the monitors and get your ass over here, fast. I don't want her uncovered. Get Sean to tail Lazar this morning “
“Yeah, sure. No problem. Hup, hup. You know, Seth, when all this is over, you and I are going to have a serious talk about your social skills.”
“No, we're not”
Seth broke the connection and edged the car back into the dense morning traffic. A window dresser was putting up Thanksgiving decorations in a shop, and he stared at him idly while he was waiting for the light A wicker cornucopia with squashes and corncobs spilling out, a papier-mache turkey, mannequins dressed in pilgrim garb. His stomach clenched. Jesse had been killed in January. The winter holidays without Jesse were staring him in the face. He wasn't ready.
Not that holidays had been any big deal to them when they were kids, on the contrary; but they had taken on more significance once they started hanging out with Hank. The holidays had been important to Hank, like some kind of emotional link to his long-dead wife, so he and Jesse had played along, grumbling all the way. Every year they'd buy a pre-roasted Safeway turkey, pumpkin pies, stuffing, all the rest of that holiday slop. They'd scarf the stuff off of paper plates and spend the night listening to Hank's old Julie Andrews and Perry Como Christmas albums, knocking back shots of Jack Daniels until Hank started getting maudlin about his lost Gladys. That was their cue to take him by the armpits and haul him off to bed. It had gotten messy and sad towards the end, when Hank was so sick, but it was as much of a family as any of them had, and they were all three of them grateful for it
For some reason, in the last few years after Hank died, he and Jesse had kept up the habit of hanging
