She shook her head. “I don’t want to touch anything here if I can help it.” With a secretive smile, she reached into the pocket of her jeans and pulled out something white, flimsy, and slick. “Ta-da!”
He sucked in a breath, realizing she’d brought a pair of gloves. Gloves she intended to wear for his protection.
Something shifted. The floor. His view of the world.
Something just…changed.
Mick couldn’t remember anybody ever doing something so thoughtful for him before. Oh, sure, friends made an effort to avoid touching anything of his—his coworkers would never lay a finger on his coffee mug, or his pens, paper, or anything on his desk. When they were out to lunch, they were careful not to brush a hand against his glass or plate, and they all avoided anything resembling shoulder claps or casual, friendly pats on the back that would implant a memory on his clothes. Some of the carnies had apparently forgotten the lesson, and he’d wanted to rip off his shirt on Saturday, after so many hugs and shoulder claps. But Shane and Gil had never forgotten. They were always cautious. When he was a teenager, they’d let him have his room exactly the way he wanted it, never going in, saying they wouldn’t “contaminate it.”
Women he’d been with had sometimes been disbelieving—thinking it was all some kind of game and they’d touched as much as they could. Others were overly sympathetic and so careful, he’d been left wanting to scream that he was just a normal goddamn man and to stop acting like he was radioactive.
But never, not once, had anybody stepped into his version of reality and tried to live life through his gloves.
Not until now. Not until Gypsy Bell.
“Are these thick enough to work?” she asked, apparently not noticing his stunned reaction. She began to pull one on. “I mean, I know they work for the CSI guys—I swiped them from a storeroom at the station. But is it enough of a barrier for you, Mr. Magic Hands?”
“I guess we’ll find out.”
He’d had a hard time pushing the words out of his mouth; he was still so stunned by her gesture. She hadn’t brought the things as a joke. She’d already pulled one on, fitting it carefully between her fingers, tightening it up like a doctor about to conduct an exam, and then did the same with the other. She was deadly serious about this, her thoughtfulness something he’d never anticipated.
“What?” she asked, catching him staring at her. “Isn’t this right?”
“It’s fine,” he mumbled. “Fine.”
He couldn’t repay her courtesy with anything except trust. So he didn’t put his own gloves on. Instead, he took them from his pockets, and tossed them on the counter.
She stared at him. He smiled a little, and she smiled back. “You’re sure?”
“Yeah. I’m sure.”
“Okay, let’s try this out,” she said, reaching for two bottles from the torn-open cardboard container. She set one down on the counter, and handed the other to him.
He took it. Manufacturer. Distillery. Alcoholic working on the line as a test of his sobriety. Quality compliance officer thinking about last night’s date. Rattling bottles making a delivery truck driver batty. Liquor store owner.
Followed by…nothing. Blank. Not a single impression of the person who’d bought the bottle or lifted it out of the container and handed it to him. Blessed silence.
“Well?”
“You’re totally absent,” he said with surprised relief. He wanted to laugh out loud. “Were you wearing those gloves when you stopped at Marty’s Liquors on A1A?”
Her eyes might have flared, though, of course, it took a lot to impress this woman. “No, but I was very careful to hold it by the cardboard and not accidentally touch the bottles until just now.”
“Thanks for that, and for the beer.” He nodded toward her hands. “And for those.”
Their stares met and locked. He tried to pretend the moment hadn’t meant something very important, but suspected he’d failed. He was still too touched to be blasé, and he had no doubt his expression said that.
She saw. She knew.
She diverted.
“Anytime, Dumbo.”
Same old Gyp. “I think I’ve grown into my ears.”
She looked down, twisting-off her bottle cap. “Not to mention everything else,” she mumbled.
He heard her and hid a smile. He wasn’t the only one feeling off-kilter and out of balance here. Her world was spinning, too. She was trying to be quippy and casual, but occasionally revealed some of her other thoughts. Him too.
She’d come here for friendship, yet they both knew something more was happening. As much as they both knew it shouldn’t.
Uncapping his bottle, he held it up, and she clinked hers against it.
“To Barry and Jersey?” he asked, remembering her wish to toast to lost friends.
“To Barry and Jersey.”
And rubber gloves.
They didn’t get drunk. Nowhere close to it. But over the next hour, he and Gypsy sat in his living room, her being careful to keep her gloved hands away from his things—the table, the lamp—just to be on the safe side. She also kept a good distance between them, a foot of space on the leather couch. He did the same, not moving close, not willing to tempt fate when they were both trying to so carefully maintain the equilibrium of a see-saw balanced between up and down, friendship and want.
They maintained. They ignored the tension. They drank some beer. They talked.
Not about the case. He sensed they were both a little raw, ready to put the murders out of mind for a while. No, instead they talked about the past—their childhoods in the carnival, and then outside of it. They talked about the present—their jobs, their friends, their lives. They talked about their futures—what she faced after the next local council election, why he stayed at Extrasensory Agents.
It was easy. That was the only way to put it. They talked easily and openly, like the old friends they were, even though their friendship had endured a twenty-or-so-year hiatus, and even though he had no doubt they were both thinking about how good they would be together.
So, so good.
“Okay, so you’ve gotta fess up,” she said during a lull in the conversation. “Your boss, Julia? She doesn’t really see ghosts, does she?”
“Just one.”
“Are you sure it isn’t just a gimmick to keep the rest of you in line?”
He shook his head. “She sees him, all right. The bastard cheats at poker.”
“How…”
“He walks around behind everyone and checks out the cards.”
“Handy.”
“It really is too bad he’s been dead for so long,” Mick said, not joking now, but entirely serious. “I think I would have liked the guy. Although none of the rest of us see him, we all feel like we know him. Like he’s one of us.”
“Fascinating,” she murmured.
“And what about your co-workers? I’ve noticed you have a few tough, burly cops on your team. Any of them resent having a woman boss? Or are they all in love with you?”
She rolled her eyes and snorted indelicately, tipping her head back to finish her drink. Water, now. She’d had two beers and switched over because she had to drive back to Florida later. “I have seven direct reports. Two are women, Mays and Fratelli, and they’re both great. Deandre Williams had my six from day one—he’s had enough experience with discrimination himself. I hired Fluke, and that made a difference from the start. It was the original guys, the other three, who were really a pain in my ass. Bill A. and Bill B.—no relation—are fifty and forty-nine. They hate reporting to a young woman, but at least they don’t disrespect me to my face anymore.” She sighed heavily. “Then there’s Carl Potter, who’s been there the longest.”
“At least his name’s not Billy.”
She actually laughed—a real laugh that wasn’t muted by pressure, worry and regret.
Gypsy leaned back into the sofa cushions, and turned to face him. She looked more relaxed than he’d ever seen her. �
��I needed this,” she admitted. “I needed…normal.”
“You call us normal?”
She laughed softly. “Okay, not normal. But easy. Good.”
“Me too.” He glanced at her gloves. “Thanks for that.”
“You’re welcome.”
Their stares met. All evening they’d been talking smoothly, comfortably, but he knew—and she had to, as well—that the undercurrent of attraction filling the space between them was growing by the moment They could be friendly, could joke, could tell stories about lost friends, could bitch about co-workers. But underneath it all, there were things they were both thinking but were not saying.
Things like: Why you? Why now?
Why not?
He had no answers. Especially for the third question. Right now there seemed to be no logical reason why they shouldn’t act on the electric tension that had been dancing between them for days.
“Gypsy…”
“We can’t,” she murmured. Even as she said it, thought, she shifted a little closer, arching her back as if to stretch out tight muscles. Or as if anticipating a touch. A flush rose in her cheeks. Her mouth might be saying they couldn’t, but she was moving toward him, as if her body had already decided otherwise. She licked her lips—God, those lips—and insisted, “We just can’t, Mick. We have too much to do, too much else to focus on to let anything distract us.”
He moved closer, too. “Uh-huh.”
“I mean it. Nothing can happen between us.”
Her stare never leaving his face, she lifted her hand and slowly began to peel off one glove, tugging each finger free. She seemed almost unaware she was doing it, and Mick could only wonder how a woman removing a medical glove could look so fucking erotic. And how good those strong-yet-soft hands would feel on his body. And how much he wished he hadn’t put the shirt on.
“You know that, right?” she murmured as she tossed one glove away and removed the other one.
“Got it,” he said as he turned to look at her. He said nothing else as he reached out to cup her face in his bare hand. His palm fit against her cheek, and he had to stop for a second to indulge in it.
Touching. Such a simple thing to most people. Something you didn’t have to consider, debate, or fear. Unless you were Mick Tanner. No, his ability didn’t work on other human bodies. But there had always been that worry that one day it would. Just as his power had surged, changed, and become supercharged after the abuse in his grandfather’s house, he had to wonder if one day he would take someone’s hand and realize he was twining fingers with a monster.
It hadn’t happened. He prayed to God it never would.
Even if it didn’t, though, once people got to know him well enough to progress to touching, they were usually the ones too nervous to be touched.
Being deprived of touch for much of his life had heightened its power, until it had become an erotic pinnacle for Mick. He could spend hours stroking her. Days. Years.
Her face was the perfect place to start.
He groaned and closed his eyes, savoring the feel of her soft skin, and then of her lips as she turned her face into his palm and kissed him there.
“I’m sorry.” His eyes shot open and he watched as she took his hand, pulling it away slightly. She brushed her fingertips over his own, and then followed with her lips, softly kissing his scars. “So sorry.”
“Ancient history,” he muttered, not knowing what she knew, only knowing she had to suspect. “Not worth ever thinking about again.”
“All right.”
She pressed the curve of her jaw back into his hand. The sensory input was powerful, something as easy as skin-to-skin contact making him feel like he was involved in the most powerful sex act of his life. His body throbbed with need and want, hunger striking him with relentless blows.
“Come here,” he demanded, reaching for her waist and wrapping both hands around it. A few images tried to intrude—Gypsy putting on the jeans, thinking about whether she should even go up to Savannah tonight—but he thrust them away with every ounce of his power. Lifting her off the couch, he pulled her over onto his lap. Her legs instinctively parted, and she straddled him, all soft, womanly heat pressing down against his groin.
She groaned when she felt how hard he was for her, and rocked against him, wanton, hungry. He arched up against her, wondering how she could have become the thing he wanted most in the world in just a few days.
But she was. She was sexy and beautiful, yes. It was also because of those damned rubber gloves. Also, he had to admit, because when he touched her, when he stroked her and his sensitive—extrasensory—hands brushed against her clothing, he was able to suppress the thoughts that tried to invade his mind. He could focus on her, only on her, on the way she felt and the way she sounded and the way she smelled.
She made everything else disappear. Made everything right.
Who’d have ever imagined Gypsy would make him feel like the utterly normal man he had never thought he could be?
“You smell good,” he growled, breathing her in.
Her hair carried the scent of some subtle spice—vanilla?—and her skin was redolent of peaches—an orchard on a hot Georgia night. Wondering if she would taste the same, he moved his face to her throat and kissed her there, licking at that soft skin, biting gently.
“And you taste good.”
He wanted to taste and touch every inch of her, to stroke her and explore her. Wanted to let his hands dance across her and play her like she was an instrument in need of tuning.
He settled first for a kiss. Twining his fingers in her thick hair, he pulled her face toward his until their lips met. They breathed together—one breath, one whispered assent—and then their mouths opened and the kiss deepened into a wild exploration.
She was hot and sweet, tasting like beer and gum and soft, slick woman. He plunged his tongue against hers, tasting, licking, memorizing the way her lips felt against his, and the silkiness of her hair against his fingers, and the shapeliness of the hip he cupped in one hand.
“Mick,” she groaned as she pulled away and drew in a few deep, gasping breaths. “We’re not supposed to do this.”
“In what universe do you think I give a damn about what we’re supposed to do?”
She smiled, that big, broad, happy Gypsy smile that could stop hearts. He smiled back, knowing they’d rounded a corner into something entirely new. There was no stopping this now.
She bent toward him again, and he rose to meet her.
But before their mouths could touch, before they could get rid of any last, lingering doubts by falling back into crazy-hungry desire, a loud ringing tore through the haze of want.
She stiffened. So did he, considering something was vibrating against his thigh.
“It’s my phone,” she explained.
He knew better than to suggest she not answer. She was the chief of police of a town that was being stalked by a psychopathic killer. Of course she had to answer.
She reached back, pulled her phone out of the back pocket of her jeans, and lifted it.
“Oh, no,” she whispered as she glanced at the screen, the rosy flush disappearing from her cheeks.
“What?”
“It’s my grandfather. Oh, God, please don’t let there have been another murder.”
He could do nothing, say nothing to reassure her. He’d suddenly gone on edge, too, worried about why Frank would be calling this late.
It could be bad news. Worse, even, than anything they’d experienced before.
This time, it could involve someone they loved.
Julia Harrington was getting worried.
“Twelve days,” she muttered, swiping a hand through her hair, and rubbing at her temples where a headache lurked, ready to lean in and really get to work.
It had been twelve days, and she hadn’t seen her partner at all. There hadn’t been the faintest whisper, or shadow, or the echo of a laugh riding on the air even after he’d departed.
; Nothing.
It wasn’t like Morgan, not at all, and she wasn’t happy about it.
She missed him. She missed brainstorming with him, throwing out ideas for cases, his usually more on the mark than hers ever were. She also missed his flirtatious smile, his sexy laugh, and his utterly stupid jokes. She missed the sultry innuendo that still revved her engines like nobody else had.
Sitting in her office late Tuesday night, exhausted from having spent the evening doing all the incessant paperwork that never seemed to get finished during the week, she kept lifting her head and looking around. She expected to see him every time she looked. Wanted to see him every time she looked. But he wasn’t there.
“Damn it, where are you?”
It wasn’t like she had to worry he’d been in an accident and was lying in a hospital bed somewhere, or that he had amnesia, or had been kidnapped, or hit by a car. So maybe he’d left. Maybe he’d gone to…wherever it was he sometimes talked about going. Some station that kept beckoning him to take a ride into an unknown eternity.
“You wouldn’t just leave without saying goodbye. I know you wouldn’t.”
Even if Morgan had decided he’d spent enough time hanging around with her, and he wanted to get on the train he’d mentioned and go somewhere—else—he wouldn’t do it without telling her. Wouldn’t just disappear without saying goodbye.
“So it’s the lawyer. It has to be.”
Nothing else made sense.
The thing with the lawyer she’d met in a bar on River Street one night two weeks ago had been stupid, a moment of weakness. Loneliness, horniness, tequila, and a guy who had a nice smile and big hands had combined to land her on her back with her legs open, her heart closed, and her mind empty.
The sex had been okay, but nothing earth-shattering. She didn’t even remember the dude’s name. Peter? Paul? “Hell, maybe it was Mary and you can start an old folk music trio,” she muttered.
She didn’t worry about being overheard; the rest of the staff had left hours ago. Even if she weren’t the last one here, everyone at Extrasensory Agents was used to her having conversations in empty rooms. They knew she was interacting with her partner, Morgan Raines. Her partner. Her lover. The one that got away—literally.
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