'Put your hands behind your head,' she ordered.
Suspicion shone in his eyes, but he did as she asked. 'What are you going to do?'
'I'm going to blow your mind.'
'That's a bold statement.'
Gabrielle just smiled. She'd taken six months of belly dancing, just enough to know how to roll and undulate real good. She raised her hands high in the air and rotated her hips as she swayed. She closed her eyes and lost herself in the feeling of him touching her deep inside. 'You like this?'
'God-d da-mn!'
Her smile grew, and with him buried deep inside, she blew his mind.
'Are you sure I don't smell like a girl?' Joe asked for the third time as he stood in her dining room and pulled his boxers to his waist.
Gabrielle buried her nose in his neck. After they'd picked themselves up off her bedroom floor, she'd dragged him into the shower and revived him with a loofah and a special bar of her homemade lilac soap. He'd stopped complaining about the girly smell when she'd knelt before him and soaped him up real good. 'I don't think so,' she said as she stepped into her panties, then hooked her bra in place. He smelled like Joe to her.
She folded her arms beneath her breasts, leaned her behind against the table, and watched him button his pants around his waist. The overhead light caressed the russet waves of his wet hair.
'I don't want you to answer the telephone today,' he said as he walked into the living room and reached for his shirt and jacket. 'At least not until after three. Kevin might try and contact you after his arraignment-I would suggest you don't talk to him.' He shoved his arms into his shirt and buttoned the wrists before he worked on the front. 'And be sure you eat something healthy. I don't want you getting sick.'
What was it with him and food? Gabrielle watched him from the distance of the dining room, loving him so much it hurt. She didn't know how it had happened, but it had. He wasn't the type of man she'd thought she wanted, but he was the man for her. She felt it in the quick beating of her heart and the horrible flutter in her stomach, and she knew it in her soul. It was more than great sex. More than mind-blowing orgasms. He was her male to his female. Positive to negative.
There was only one little spot of potential misgiving on her otherwise blissful euphoria. She wasn't certain if he realized it too.
He shoved one hand into the pocket of his jacket, pulled out his pager, and glanced at the display. 'Maybe you should stay with your mother for a few days. Shit. Where's the phone?'
Gabrielle pointed to her feet, where it lay sprawled across the floor. He grabbed his jacket and shoulder holster and walked back into the dining room. With one hand, Joe scooped up the telephone. With his thumb, he pressed the disconnect button, then pushed the seven digits.
'Shanahan,' he said as he set his holster and jacket on the table. 'Yeah, my pager was in my car… what can I tell you? I just found the telephone off the hook.' He shoved the tails of his shirt into his pants, then reached for the jacket. 'Tell me you're bullshitting. It's not even noon!' With the telephone cradled between his ear and shoulder, he pushed his arms through the sleeves. 'When was that?… I'm on my way,' he said and dropped the receiver back in the cradle.
'Shit!'
'What?'
He glanced at her, then sat on the ladder-back chair and pulled on his socks. 'I
'What?'
Joe covered his face with his hands and scratched his forehead as if his skin was way too tight. 'Damn,' he sighed and dropped his hands. 'Carter and Shalcroft changed the meeting time. They were arrested fifteen minutes ago. Dispatch tried to contact me, but couldn't.' He stood and shoved his feet into his shoes.
'Oh.'
Grabbing his holster, he raced for the door. 'Don't talk to anyone until I talk to you again,' he said over his shoulder. He yelled a few more obscenities, then ran from her house without even saying good-bye.
Chapter Fifteen
Joe cranked the steering wheel and flipped a U in the middle of Gabrielle's street. The right tire hopped the curb as he tore at the nicotine patch at his waist and chucked it out the window. He shoved his sunglasses up the bridge of his nose and dug around in the glove compartment until he found a pack of Marlboros. He lipped a cigarette from the pack and lit it with his Zippo. A cloud of smoke billowed toward the windshield, and he took another long pull. His jaws were clenched so tight his teeth felt as if they would shatter, and he didn't know how he would explain the new dent in the Chevy. The dent that was exactly the size of his foot. He'd love to kick his own ass, if it were humanly possible.
The biggest arrest of his life, and he'd missed it. Missed it because he'd been having sex with his confidential informant. It didn't matter that maybe technically she hadn't been his informant at the moment of penetration; he'd been on duty and dispatch hadn't been able to contact him. There would be questions. He didn't have the answers. None that he wanted to give, anyway. Questions like Where the hell have you been, Shanahan?
And what could he say-'Well, Captain, since the arrest wasn't supposed to go down until three, I thought I had plenty of time to have sex with my informant!' Joe scratched his forehead and took another drag. 'And hey, she has the most incredible body, after I made love to her once, I got greedy and had to have sex with her again. And that second time was so phenomenal I thought I needed a precoital thump to restart my heart. And captain, you have not had a shower until you've been soaped up and scrubbed down by Gabrielle Breedlove.' And if he admitted that, he'd probably have to turn in his badge and become a security guard.
Another cloud of smoke filled the car as Joe exhaled. There was a chance no one would discover his affair with Gabrielle. He certainly didn't feel the need to broadcast the incident or unburden his conscience. But she might, and then he was screwed. When the case went to trial, he could just imagine Kevin's defense attorney grilling him with questions like Isn't it true, Detective Shanahan, that you've had a sexual relationship with your informant, my client's business partner? And isn't this just a case of jealousy perpetrated against my client?
Maybe Kmart needed someone to watch their stores at night.
It took Joe fifteen minutes and another cigarette before he pulled the Chevy into the police lot. He clenched his hands into fists and shoved them in his pants pockets, controlling his anger. The first person he encountered on his way to the booking room was Captain Luchetti.
'Where the hell have you been?' Luchetti barked, but there wasn't a lot of bite behind his words. The captain looked about ten years younger than he had the day before, and he actually smiled for the first time since the Hillard theft.
'You know where I've been.' Joe and the other detective had spent hours last night and early this morning poring over every detail and every move the department planned to make. They'd made contingency plans. Plans they'd obviously used without him. 'I was at Ms. Breedlove's warning her of Carter's arrest. Where is he?'
'Both Carter and Shalcroft are wrapping themselves in Miranda. Neither are talking,' Luchetti answered as they continued down the hall toward the interrogation rooms. For the past week and a half, the air inside the building had been grim and thick with tension. Now everyone Joe passed, from detective to desk sergeant, wore a great big smile. Everyone was breathing again, but not Joe. Not with his ass so close to the wringer.
'Do you smell flowers?' Luchetti asked.
'I don't smell anything.'
The captain shrugged. 'Dispatch couldn't get a hold of you.'
'Yeah, I guess I didn't have my pager on me.' Which was basically true. His pager had been in his pants, and his pants hadn't been on him. 'I don't know how that could have happened.'
'Me either. I don't know how a detective of nine years could get caught without his communication. When we learned Carter changed the meeting time and you couldn't be reached, we sent a patrol unit over to that shop on Thirteenth. The officer reported that he knocked on both front and back doors, but no one answered.'
'I wasn't there.'
