yanked his mouth onto hers.
HE TASTED OF HEAT AND SEX, like fire in a snowstorm. Two seconds in, and Romana’s blood went from a sizzle to a roar. She’d plunged into the kiss unthinking. She wanted him to respond the same way.
To her surprise, he did, and with a swiftness that both excited and intrigued her. His mouth devoured hers. His lips explored and his tongue probed in such a wonderfully thorough way that she wished it could go on forever. She wished more that the soft warnings deep inside her mind would disappear.
Shoving them back, she released Jacob’s hair, let her hands streak across the smooth lines of his shoulders. The workout with Dylan had heated his skin and now, she thought with a hazy smile, it was heating hers. Couldn’t get much better than that, even in a dream.
Jacob’s grip on her waist shifted lower. He snugged her hips against his. She felt his arousal, and with a satisfied purr, bumped herself against him. Drawing his full lower lip into her mouth, she regarded him through her lashes.
“You should punch out your rivals more often, Detective. I like the aftereffects.”
“You’re only feeling the ones that don’t involve bruises.” His lips trailed upward over her cheekbone, but while his breath on her temple brought a shiver, she really wanted that mouth back on hers.
He did truly amazing things with his tongue. However, pretty much anything he did right now would only fuel her desire to tear off his sweats and have sex with him on the gym floor.
Her roving hands snagged his waistband. For a second, she considered tugging on the drawstring. But even as his mouth returned to feed on hers, she knew she wouldn’t do it. Wasn’t quite that uninhibited. She feathered her fingers over his back instead, then upward again until they were tangled once again in his hair.
Now if only the nagging voice in her head would go away. But it kept sneaking out, reminding her that no matter how much she wanted him, the ice she stood on was far too thin to be trusted. What would she do if it cracked, if everything she believed, needed to believe, turned out to be a lie?
The question haunted, almost as much as he did. Jacob Knight rocked her senses in a way that no one else ever had. He threw her off-balance, tripped her up when he kissed her, then, piece by piece, stripped away every last scrap of her common sense.
Ah, but if she was honest, wasn’t that what she wanted him to do? After all, she’d been the one to initiate the kiss.
Romana supposed it was fortunate that a sergeant from Internal Affairs, a woman who knew them both and who’d been on the force for more than thirty years, should breeze into the room with a sarcastic, “Oh, knock it off you two. If I can’t smoke in here, neither can you. Heads-up, Grey. You might want to think twice before letting this one get you on your back. Beautiful he might be, but I can tell you firsthand, pretty much every female under sixty at HQ is lined up and itching to take their best shot at him. And not with bullets.”
Romana didn’t look at the woman, nor did she step away. She did, however, let her eyes sparkle up into Jacob’s.
“Does that lineup include you, Sergeant Davenport?”
“Would if my hubby wasn’t still the love of my life.”
She kept walking. Like Romana, she didn’t glance over or pause as she passed. “I was just at HQ if you’re interested. Word’s out that Critch has jumped parole, and he’s on a vengeful tear. No surprise, Knight, your captain decided to have a chat with Critch’s prison shrink this afternoon. I won’t go into detail, but suffice to say the shrink figures his patient’s either cured and functional, or he’s completely off the map and incurably, nonfunctionally, carry-his-grudge-to-the-death insane.”
Chapter Seven
“You know,” Romana mused, “just once it would be nice to talk to someone who had something positive to say about this situation.”
Jacob surveyed the bustling main aisles of the north-side shopping mall. “Like what?”
She thought for a moment. “Well, the Cincinnati police force does have an excellent reputation for apprehending lunatics before they strike.”
“Do we?” Still scanning, Jacob grinned. “That’s news to me.”
“It would be, seeing as you cops in Homicide always look at life from the dark side. I teach criminology, Jacob. I see the stats. When it comes to apprehending crazies, this city’s police officers are among the finest in the country.”
“Either that or the majority of the nutcases gravitate to warmer climates.”
“So what-you’re saying most of the nut balls live in Florida, or California, or Texas, or Louisiana, or…” She knocked his arm with her own. “You know I could go on for quite a while here, don’t you?”
“Yeah, I’ve discovered that about you. I’d rather you went on about that e-picture again.”
She shuddered off the sensation of floating, ghostlike, on the ceiling and staring down at herself in death. “Surrounded by mistletoe leaves,” she murmured. And halted the thought there. “I wonder why he used them?”
“Who? Critch or the killer?”
“Either. Both. Okay, Critch was re-creating his wife’s death with the picture he sent today, but what do you suppose was going on inside the murderer’s head when he placed mistletoe around Belinda’s body?”
“Maybe we should ask Critch’s shrink.”
“If that shrink’s name is Raymond Haines, don’t bother. The man’s at least two hundred years old. God, Jacob, he was ancient when Doctor Gorman retired, and Gorman was in his late seventies by the time he left Forensics- which he only did because the hospital board put an enormous amount of pressure on him.”
“Should I know what you’re talking about?”
Exasperation swept in. “You’re in Homicide, Knight. You must have met Gorman at some point.”
“Tall, shriveled guy who looks like a cross between an undertaker and a cadaver? Yeah, I met him. Belinda said he made several passes at her.”
Romana twitched a shoulder. “I have absolutely nothing to say to that.” But she did and he knew it, damn him, because he merely waited her out. As they stepped onto the escalator, she kicked the metal step with her toe. “Was there a man in this city that Belinda Critch didn’t sleep with?”
“I never said she slept with Gorman.”
“Come on to, then.”
“I didn’t say that, either.”
“I know Doctor Gorman, Jacob. For the last five years of his tenure, staying awake and reasonably aware occupied the bulk of his time, to say nothing of his thoughts. The only way he’d have noticed Belinda Critch or any other woman is if she’d plunked herself down in his lap naked and made a blatant attempt to seduce him.”
“Maybe she did.”
“But you just said…”
“I said she said he made several passes at her. Doesn’t mean she didn’t invite them.”
“Uh-huh.” Romana took a quick look around the upper level. “I think you’re contradicting yourself. That says to me you’re preoccupied, which in turn suggests you think Critch is tailing us.”
“There’s a good chance he is, and the idea doesn’t sit well with me in a crowded shopping mall.”
“At least it isn’t peak time.” But she cast her eyes along the rows of glittering storefronts and wondered how far a carry-his-grudge-to-the-death insane person might go to achieve his goal. “Maybe we should meet this toy store actor away from his work.”
“In a theater, for instance?”
“Is he doing a Christmas play?”
“He’s in an amateur version of
Romana slowed her footsteps as they neared The Toy Box. The crowd around them seemed much larger all of a sudden. “Local theaters are smaller than malls,” she reflected. “But his home would really be the logical…” She stopped speaking as her eyes landed on a woman across the mall.
