by Maria Luis
Feeling shaken to her core at the arresting sight of him, she met his amused gaze. “You’re wet,” she said dumbly.
He crooked a thumb over his shoulder. “Ran into a wet T-shirt contest on the way here.”
Her brain cells must have scattered at his unexpected presence because all she said was, “Really?”
“No.” His lips curved into a heady smile that did wonders to the fluttering mariposas in her belly. “It’s raining. But I’d be more than happy to hold a contest for just the two of us.” He took a step toward her, his big body forcing her back into her apartment. “What do you think of that?”
I think I’m down and ready to be naked and wet with you whenever you want.
Then, from the heart of the living room, Sammie’s voice shouted, “I think the problem has arrived!”
Nathan gave her a smoldering glance. With a shake of his head, water droplets went flying everywhere, landing on Jade’s exposed skin and giving her the chills. The grin he flashed her was all naughty sensuality before he stalked around her and toed off his dirty shoes.
“Do you have a visitor?” he asked, sinking to his haunches before the laptop.
“Yes, sort of.” Jade scurried around the coffee table to join him on his other side. As she passed behind him, she made a cutting gesture at her throat. Sammie only rolled her eyes.
“I’ve been Skyping with Sammie—”
He glanced at her, recognition flaring in his gray eyes. “Your sister. The younger one, right?”
Surprise warmed her at the realization that he’d remembered. “Yeah, the younger, more pain-in-my-behind one.”
“Hey!” snapped Sammie. “I take offense to that.”
“It was meant with only love,” Jade quipped, dropping her butt onto the couch. Her position granted her the view of the back of Nathan’s head and his thick head of hair. It was almost a shame for a man to have hair like that. He didn’t even bother to style it with anything besides his fingers. “Sammie, this is Nathan.”
If Nathan was at all surprised by her use of his first name, he didn’t show it at first. But then, outside of the peripheral view of the laptop camera, he slid his hand over her socked foot and gently squeezed.
“Nice to meet you, Sammie,” he said warmly.
Sammie, who’d never been one to mince her words, blurted, “So, you’re the problem?”
He turned to look at Jade over his shoulder. “I don’t know,” he murmured huskily, “am I?”
At the sound of Sammie’s howl of laughter, Jade dug her toes into the worn carpet. She clapped her hands together. “All right then!” Her foot slipped out from under Nathan’s big hand. “Time to go, si? Tell everyone hello for me.”
Sammie’s gaze was pure devilish humor. “Why don’t you just tell everyone yourself? Here they come. Ma! Papi—”
Jade didn’t wait to discover whether her sister was kidding. She shouted, “love you, talk later!” before ending the video call with a punch of her finger. There. Done.
It was so lovely to breathe normally again.
“Sorry about that.”
Leaning back against the sofa, Nathan twisted his upper body to face her. “I’m taking the problem comment as a compliment.”
“Oh,” she rushed to say, “you should.”
His fingers trailed up her calves, the ridges of her knee, then skated over her thigh until fingertips met the fabric of her cotton shorts. Jade squirmed in her seat. How was it that just a single touch of his hand had her heating up faster than an inferno?
Trying to regain control of her lust (because, Díos mío, it was definitely only lust), she moved to the corner of the couch and drew up her legs. His gray eyes watched her steadily, his mouth kicking up in a knowing grin when she said, “So, were you just in the neighborhood?”
“I wanted to see you.” He stood, knees popping as he straightened to his full, towering height. Yep, there was no hiding it: Nathan Danvers was one fine male specimen. Mouth twisting in wry self-deprecation, he added, “Unfortunately, N’Orleans decided to be N’Orleans and downpour when the forecast was for sun all day.”
Jade bit her lip to restrain a laugh. “I could offer you sweatpants.”
“Somehow,” he drawled silkily, “I don’t think your yoga pants are going to cut it.”
But what a sight it would be, she thought. “A towel?” she offered instead.
“That’d be fantastic.”
As she went to her supply closet and grabbed a fluffy towel—hot pink, because she simply couldn’t resist—she heard him moving about in the living room. When she returned, it was only for her mouth to drop open.
He was naked.
And, if she’d wondered at all if the cold rain had caused any shrinkage, the answer to that was a succinct “no.”
She hurled the terry cloth at his damp chest.
“Hot pink?” he said dryly as he nevertheless secured the towel around his lean hips. “Why do I get the feeling you chose this on purpose?”
“It suits your complexion.”
“Another compliment, Jade? Careful now, my head’s starting to swell.”
Jade pointedly glanced down to the pink towel settled around his hips. “Somehow, I don’t think it’d be the head on your shoulders doing the swelling.”
He grinned. Broadly. Wolfishly. “No?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head, “it’d be your teeny tiny umbrella.”
Nathan launched into motion so fast she barely had time to squeak and run for the mountains.
Or, her kitchen, as the case may be.
She got as far as the stove before he caught her by the hips and tugged her into the warm, damp cage of his arms. A shudder worked down her spine and she instinctively reclined into his hold, the fight of the chase escaping her at the promise of having his hands on her body.
“Nathan,” she whispered, “what about the other night?”
He nudged her legs apart and dropped a kiss to her forehead. “I like the way you say my name.”
Somehow she found herself up on the kitchen counter, her legs wrapped around his hips, her hands tugging at his wet hair, her mouth parting under his and giving back twofold. Against the soft place between her legs, he rocked his not-so teeny tiny umbrella, drawing out moans from somewhere deep in her soul.
When she locked her ankles together and nipped at his lower lip, he bit out a grumbled curse and claimed her mouth in an all-consuming kiss.
“Is this what you came here for?” she asked against his mouth.
He drew back and touched his forehead to hers. “I’ve got a feeling this is one of those times where the man is never going to have a right answer.”
“There’s no right answer,” she said, her palms paving a path up his flat stomach.
“But there’s a wrong answer.” He caught her wrists and planted them on the counter behind her. Her new position shoved her breasts against his chest, and the dampness of his skin turned her nipples to hard buds. “Should we make it a game and see how I do?”
Jade couldn’t help but laugh at the hopeful note in his voice. “You like your games.”
Gray eyes flicked up to her face. “I like games when my prize is you.”
Oh. Oh. She thanked God that she didn’t have a mirror, and so couldn’t see the dopey smile she knew had worked itself onto her face. Her nails scraped against the countertop when she shifted her hips to better cradle him.
“That was a good answer,” she told him.
“But was it the right one?” Nathan released his grip on her wrists to comb his fingers through her loose hair. “I’m sorry about the other night.”
At the unexpected statement, Jade blurted, “Why are you sorry? I’m the one who went on the speech tirade.”
“You were right,” he said bluntly, his gaze tracing the lines of her face, “About everything.”
If he’d expected her to jump up and down with joy, pumping her fists into the air to hear him say the words, he was dead wrong.
“I shouldn’t have said anything. It wasn’t my place.”
“I needed to hear it. Maybe I didn’t want to hear it, but I needed it.” He offered her a small smile. “I don’t let in people easily. Honestly, I can probably count on one hand the number of people who know everything . . . and even then that number is skewed.” His smile turned self-deprecating when he added, “You may have noticed that I have a bad habit of evading topics that stray a little too close to home.”
Jade bit her lip. “I may have.”
“I’m probably the worst with my family.”
Cradled up on the countertop against his body had created an air of safety about them, as though a truce had been formed. She didn’t want to break that truce. She definitely did not want to send him back to that dark place from the other night. But . . . “Do you think, maybe, they simply thought you were okay?”
“What do you mean?”
She wasn’t sure she could have this conversation with him in just a hot-pink towel. Jade pushed at his chest with the flat of her hand, jumping down from the kitchen counter when he fell back a step.
The towel had loosened, so that his sharp hips bones were on open display . . . as well as the thin happy trail ducking under the terry cloth like an arrow pointing toward heaven.
Her version of heaven, anyway.
Carefully, she mulled over her choice of words. “Maybe they don’t think to ask you anything because you give off this carefree vibe. Maybe that’s what you want them to see of you.”
His brows furrowed into a deep V. “You saw beyond that.”
Yes, she had, and she still wasn’t quite so certain how. “Maybe you were blinded with lust when it comes to me.”
“I’ve been blinded by lust before and I never said anything then.”
Jade choked out awkward laughter. “You need work on your complimenting game. I rate you a C for effort but a D-minus on execution.”
“Not what I mean.” He stalked toward her, the hot-pink terry cloth threatening to slip loose from his hips and show the world what Nathan Danvers was made of. “This between us is more than just lust. I don’t know what the hell it is, if you want blunt honesty, but I’ve never once looked at a person and saw both a friend and a lover. I’ve never once looked at someone and felt their joy like it was my own.”
Was it love? The thought froze Jade in her spot, making her helpless to defend herself when he closed in and snared her with the unnamed emotion in his slate-hued gaze.
She felt shook-up all the way down to her core.
His words weren’t a declaration of love—not even close—but what did it say about Jade that they were perhaps the most romantic words she’d ever received?
Head still whirring at that pitiful revelation, Jade could only listen in silence as he continued.
“I’ve been thinking hard about what you said and you’re right. I don’t know when to ask for help. Never have. But I’m asking right now.”
The fog in her brain cleared, just slightly. Enough to know that she was missing something integral here. “Wait, what are you asking me for help with?”
He met her gaze unflinchingly. “The Zeker case.”
“The Zeker . . . I don’t understand. I’m not a homicide detective.”
Nathan shook his head. “I don’t need you to be one. I need you to do exactly what you do.”
Jade twisted away, aimlessly moving about her small living room. “Nathan, what I do is find evidence. I don’t analyze the evidence. I take photos and dig around under houses to make sure that stray strands of hair aren’t there.” She stopped to stare at him. “Díos mío, I count shell cases and store them in plastic baggies.”
He seemed to realize that she needed space to think. With his arms crossed over his naked chest, he looked nothing at all like the man she’d met that first night at his mother’s house. There was no hint of joviality lining his expression as he waited her out.
He was . . . serious about this.
“Danvers—”
“Nathan,” he corrected instantly.
She flushed. “Nathan,” she began anew, “what am I going to tell my boss? I can’t be just . . . ” Trailing off, she waved her arms about in the air wordlessly. Desperately.
This time, he closed the distance between them in a matter of three quick strides, halting two feet from her. His near proximity forced her to tilt back her chin to meet his imploring gaze. “I’m not asking you to compromise your job, Jade. I would never do that. What I’m asking you to do is to help me save mine.”
21
River Ridge Neighborhood, New Orleans
Nathan killed the car ignition and glanced up at the two-story New Orleans-style Camelback house. It was painted a vibrant pink with purple trim on the windows. Children’s toys littered the small front yard and a white SUV sat parked in the driveway.
It was a family’s home.
Miranda Smiley’s home.
From the passenger’s seat, Jade softly asked him, “Do you think she’ll recognize me from the restaurant?”
“Probably not. So much has happened in her life the last few weeks that I highly doubt it.”
He’d visited the house only once, when the connection had finally been made clear between Miranda Smiley and Charlie Zeker a few days after Shawn’s release from jail. Nathan had a bad habit of being annoyingly persistent, and Ms. Smiley had finally caved and agreed to talk.
What he’d learned hadn’t been all that surprising. Miranda Smiley was Zeker’s mistress, lover, whatever you wanted to call it. He’d set her up in this house a year or two back.
When Nathan had questioned her possible involvement in Zeker’s murder, she’d vehemently rejected the idea. But that photo from Ms. Bev’s house still sat front and center in his mind’s eye, and he’d decided that returning here would probably be a good start to restructuring the Zeker investigation. Especially after the information he’d gathered from Shawna just yesterday . . .
Jade quieted for a moment, biting down on her lower lip in thought, before she said, “I feel like she may have done it.”
“Anything’s possible,” he muttered, “but I think she might be able to point us in the right direction at least.”
With that, he shoved open his door and unfolded his big frame from the front seat.
He waited for Jade to round the front of the car.
It hadn’t taken much convincing to persuade Mike Davis, head of crime lab, to put Jade temporarily on the Zeker case. Maybe it had something to do with the way Nathan’s stepfather stormed about Headquarters these days, threatening to fire everyone in his sight if the case wasn’t solved by the end of the week.
Could have been the way P.I.B., the Public Integrity Bureau, had sent out an alert to all law enforcement personnel that the next time a civilian showed up on their doormat with another fake Zeker story, they’d all be hand-delivered suspension days.
Or maybe it was the way that, in the last week, local media had hooked their claws into the Central Evidence Processing, or crime lab, claiming that they’d failed in their line of duty to bring the murderer to task.
Whatever the reason, Davis had granted Jade leave to team up with homicide as they started the investigation from scratch. In the two days since they’d joined forces, something had become very clear to them both: they were missing something major.
Hopefully Miranda Smiley would unlock the last bit for them.
“Do you think the kids are home?” Jade asked from his right as they took the paved path side by side. “Summer vacation just let out.”
“Probably.”
The possibility of Ms. Smiley’s kids running about the house wasn’t ideal. While Miranda had lost her lover, the kids had lost their father. Nathan wasn’t enough of a prick to speak ill about a deceased man in front of his children, even if Nathan himself didn’t agree with Zeker’s life decisions. And even if there might be something else underfoot here.
He rang the doorbell and stepped back, kno
wing that his size was often intimidating. From what he recalled of their brief meeting, Ms. Smiley was petite.
The door swung open, and Nathan’s gaze swung down to stare at a brown-haired toddler with her thumb stuck in her mouth. “Who’re you’s?” she demanded.
To his surprise, Jade crouched down to look the little girl in the eye. “We’re friends of your mommy . . . Is she home?”
The little girl’s thumb left her mouth with an audible pop! “Maybe.”
“Could you get her for us?” Jade offered the girl a patient smile, and why in the hell did that sweet curve of her lips warm him? Nathan shook off the thought, ignoring pop-up visions of Jade smiling just like that at dark-haired toddlers with dark, flashing eyes and golden skin.
Toddlers that looked just like her.
And, if Nathan were being honest with himself, toddlers that looked just like him too.
He managed to banish the images just as the little girl trotted off into the house, singing at the top of her lungs. “I LOVE YOU’S,” she hollered like a three-year-old banshee, “YOU LOVES ME’S! WE’RE A HAPPY FAMILIES.”
“I think she’s a fan of Barney,” Jade said, laughing.
Nathan winced. “I think my eardrums just died.”
She bumped her hip playfully with his, and it was all Nathan could do to keep his hands professionally by his sides. Since teaming up for work, they hadn’t teamed up on a personal level.
No spontaneous hookups.
No soul-wrenching kisses.
For all sense and purpose, he and Jade had progressed backward in their relationship.
“Mommy!” the little girl shriek from inside the house. “Mommy! You have friends.”
He and Jade shared a grin.
Their grins died the moment Miranda Smiley stepped in the doorway, a kitchen towel in her hands and no smile in sight.
Time to get down to business.
“Ms. Smiley,” he said, voice low and unassuming. He motioned to Jade, who offered a small tilt of her lips when he added, “This is Jade Harper, my partner.”
They’d agreed to keep it plain and simple. Partners. No mention that the NOPD was now scrambling to keep the media in its place. Homicides were, unfortunately, a dime a dozen in New Orleans, like in any big city, but the Zeker case had spiraled out of control, with the media feeding the flames of citizen outcry.