and closed the e-mail program.
“Do you think the security company knows?” she asked.
“Probably wouldn’t matter unless he had a record as Jesse Pennington.”
“So this might be unimportant?”
Daniel shook his head. “Too soon to say.” He opened his phone and dialed a number. After a pause, he said, “Captain Green, it’s Daniel Hartman. You may know this already, but I’ve come across some information about Jesse Phillips.”
As Daniel told the captain what he’d learned, Rose sat back in her chair, a strange numbness working its way through her limbs. “Thirteen years ago. That’s about when the murders started, right?” she asked Daniel when he hung up the phone.
“Yes.”
The numb sensation reached her fingers and toes. “It’s him, isn’t it?”
Daniel turned to look at her. “There’s no way to say at this point-”
“I started getting the notes the day after I met Jesse Phillips at the neighborhood meeting. He put the security systems in Alice’s apartment and Melissa’s house. Plus, I’ve seen multiple death veils in his presence, twice now.” She raised one trembling hand to her mouth, as if she could hold back the helpless smile curving her lips. “It has to be him.”
“He’s looking better for it,” Daniel admitted, putting his hands on her knees. “But if he’s Orion, he knows what he’s doing. It’ll take solid evidence to put him away-a lot more than just doing his job and changing his name, both of which are perfectly legal. Don’t drop your guard yet.”
She caught his hands in hers. “Can’t I be happy for a few minutes? Can’t I feel normal for one night?”
His thumb brushed the back of her hand. “As long as you can feel normal without leaving this house, yeah. Have at it.”
She smiled at him suddenly. “Do you dance?”
His eyebrows quirked. “No.”
She laughed, jumping up and pulling him to his feet. “Well, tonight, you do.”
Chapter Fourteen
Daniel didn’t recognize the woman dancing around the living room. This Rose Browning glowed with life as she stepped and swayed to the driving beat of a Dierks Bentley song. Dierks hit the chorus with gusto, and Rose’s hair slid out of the tidy twist at the base of her head, spilling across her shoulders.
She’d shed her suit jacket as soon as she’d reached the living room, revealing a lacy, blue, sleeveless camisole beneath. Her shoes had been the next bit of apparel to go, ending up on opposite ends of the living room with two quick kicks in rhythm with the music.
She turned to look at him, her eyes alive with frantic energy. “Come on, Daniel. Don’t be a wallflower.”
He shook his head, smiling at her energy. “That adrenaline rush is going to wear off in a few minutes, and I’ll need all my energy to carry you upstairs to bed.”
She pouted, a sexy little thrust of her bottom lip that sent shockwaves straight to his groin. She danced her way across the room to the CD player and punched the advance button a couple of times. The husky baritone of Dierks Bentley disappeared, replaced by a slow, sexy Trisha Yearwood ballad.
Rose held out her hand, her eyes warm with invitation. He couldn’t have resisted if he wanted to.
He pulled her into the circle of his arms, sliding his hand down her back until it settled just above the curve of her buttocks. He pressed her close, releasing a long sigh of pleasure as she melted into him, her arms sliding around his neck. She rested her forehead against his jaw, her breath hot against his throat.
“There. That’s not so bad, is it?” she murmured.
He tangled his fingers in her hair, breathing in the tangy sea scent lingering in the dark waves. It reminded him of the sight of her sleeping on top of the covers of her bed, too exhausted to bother sliding between the sheets.
Had it been only that morning? It seemed a lifetime had passed since he’d pulled a chair up next to her bed that morning to watch her sleep.
Rose’s lips brushed the side of his neck, soft and moist, eliciting a groan from somewhere deep in his chest. His hand slid lower down her back to pull her hips flush with his, pressing his growing hardness against her soft heat.
A guttural sound escaped her lips in a rush of hot breath against his flesh. She lost the slow beat of the ballad, rocking her hips against his in primal rhythm that his body recognized instantly.
Curling his fingers in her hair, he tugged her head back and claimed her mouth in a hungry kiss. She tasted of sweet tea and spicy shrimp, her tongue dancing against his, demanding more. His body responded with a surge of longing that made his head spin. He needed to be inside her, swallowed by her slick heat.
“You sure about this?” He hardly recognized the words from his lips. Since when did he try to talk a woman out of sex?
She leaned her head back, her gaze searching his face. Was she trying to gauge his intentions?
Or was she looking for a true-love veil?
“What are you looking for, Rose?” The question spilled from his lips before he could stop it.
She looked down at his chest. “Assurances, I guess.”
He expected to feel irritated by her admission. What he didn’t expect was a rush of sympathy that drove out any thought of anger. He might not believe she could see death veils or true-love veils or whatever the hell she wanted to call them, but he knew they were real to her. Losing the true-love veils, however it had happened, had obviously been a crushing blow to her, and he couldn’t feel anything but sorry for her pain.
He cradled her face between his hands, making her look at him. “I know, you don’t want to hear this, but everybody else in the world has to roll the dice and hope for the best when it comes to relationships. Now you know how the rest of us feel.”
“That may be the least romantic thing I’ve ever heard in my life,” she murmured, but her lips curved with amusement.
He stroked her hair. “Would’ve fed you a smooth line, but you’d have just seen through it.”
She leaned her head against his shoulder. “I hate feeling like a blind man groping in the dark.”
He smoothed his hand over the curve of her hip. “Trust me, you feel nothing like a man.”
She chuckled, the sound vibrating through his chest.
He wrapped his arm around her and stepped back into the rhythm of the ballad, swaying to the slow beat. “Don’t overthink this, Rose. Doesn’t have to be anything but a dance.”
She swayed with him. “And if we don’t stop at dancing?”
“We’re just two people enjoying each other.” He wasn’t sure that was the right thing to say, but he was too honest to make promises he couldn’t keep.
He’d spent the last eight years putting everything else in his life second to his need to find out who had killed Tina Carter, to make up for his unforgivable lapse in judgment that night and the days after. Maybe the arrest of Jesse Phillips was the end of the road, but he didn’t know that for sure.
Until he did, he couldn’t make promises to anyone. Not even himself.
Rose stepped out of his embrace, her expression thoughtful. After a moment, she gave a nod. “Okay. I can deal with that.”
She held out her hand.
Heart pounding, he put his hand in hers. Her warm fingers closed around his, her grip firm and sure. His skin tingled where she touched him, pleasure radiating through him from that single point of contact. Their gazes tangled, questions asked and answered in that one breathless moment.
Then she led him out of the living room and up the stairs to her bedroom.
ROSE HAD THOUGHT it would be easy. Sex was one of the most primal of needs, as old as history and powerful enough to keep the human race alive despite the millions of ways nature and human frailty had conspired to destroy it over the centuries.
