“That’s true.”
“We also don’t know if the soot has made any discernible impact on engine performance. I’ll ask maintenance to conduct some run-ups, collect more data.”
“Yes, sir. While we’re waiting for that data, I’ll have my people start collecting samples from the storage tanks. Just in case.”
“Incidentally, what did Petrie have to say about this business?”
She fought to keep the edge from her voice. “Mr. Petrie didn’t have anything to say about it. He took leave this week. Lieutenant Ourek’s on top of the situation.”
“Is he?” Clearly skeptical, the colonel nevertheless gave the brown-bar the benefit of the doubt. “I hope so.”
Actually, Jess put more faith in Ed Babcock than either Ourek or Petrie, but didn’t say so. Hamilton had voiced doubts about her decision to give the sergeant one last chance.
Ed Babcock called Jess at six-forty-five. In a more animated tone than she’d yet heard him use, he confirmed minute traces of SF445 in the samples he’d pulled earlier that day.
“We need to notify the Defense Fuels Center,” he said. “The lieutenant’s standing by, waiting your okay.”
“Tell him to go ahead.”
“When will the flying wings stand down?”
“They’re not going to stand down. Not right away, at least. Colonel Hamilton wants maintenance to conduct some run-ups and collect more data on the residue.”
The silence at the other end of the phone was thunderous.
“Tell Lieutenant Ourek to press with sampling the storage tanks,” Jess ordered. She didn’t want to sit on her hands any more than Ed did. “Keep me posted on the results.”
“We can pull the samples, but I can’t get more chemicals from the research lab until tomorrow. They’re running a test of some super-classified propellant tonight. Said I’d need a clearance from God himself to get past the front door.”
“All right. Do what you can.”
It was after eight when Jess walked out into the summer night. Clouds trailed across a smoky blue sky, playing hide and seek with a moon already glowing white-gold and full.
Still wired, Jess clicked the remote to unlock the vehicle she’d privately dubbed Big Blue and swung up into the bucket seat. The new-car smell wrapped around her. It was a man smell. Rich. Leathery. Stirring the senses when it should have soothed.
She sat for a moment, wrists draped over the wheel. The events of the day swirled through her mind. She needed an outlet for this nervous energy. Even more, she needed someone to talk to. As they had this morning, her thoughts zinged to Steve.
Caution warred with a sudden, intense craving to hear his voice. Maybe he’d received the results of the paint analysis of the vehicle that crowded her Mustang off the bridge. Maybe he had a handle on Bill Petrie’s whereabouts.
And maybe she didn’t need an excuse to call him except the obvious one. Quickly, before common sense stayed her hand, she fished her cel phone and the number of the Walton County sheriff’s department out of her black leather clutch.
A dispatcher who must have been a sultry torch singer in an earlier life put Jess’s call through. She could hardly hear over the rattle of plates and cutlery when Steve answered and regretfully declined her invitation to share a pizza.
“I’m in Freeport, at a Lion’s Club banquet,” he telegraphed over the din. “Soggy broccoli, tire treads disguised as roast beef, and a roomful of teenagers waiting to be recognized for their participation in the Just Say No program.”
The intensity of her disappointment should have warned Jess.
“Too bad,” she tossed off with a credible show of nonchalance. “I was going for broke tonight. Anchovies, Italian sausage, and pineapple.”
“What? Hang on a second.”
Drumming her fingers on the leather-wrapped steering wheel, she hung on.
“Look, I’ve got to get up and make a speech,” he informed her when he came back on the line. “Call in your order. I’ll be at your place in an hour.”
“Do you really want pizza after soggy broccoli and tire treads?”
“No, Jess. I want you.”
Chapter Thirteen
Jess’s unexpected phone call destroyed any faint hope Steve might have harbored of enjoying the rest of the banquet.
He managed to make his speech. Even managed to hold his ummarked cruiser to just a few miles over the speed limit for most of the drive from Freeport to South Walton, although the demons hopping up and down with anticipation inside his head shouted at him to hit the siren and strobe lights.
He’d laid it on the line during his brief phone conversation with Jess, had told her the absolute truth. He wanted her. Despite the unanswered questions, despite his growing conviction that the dark incident from her past somehow still shadowed the present, he wanted her. The fact that she hadn’t slammed down the phone or told him to piss off when he’d admitted as much had put Steve into an instant sweat.
He stayed in a sweat until halfway across the Mid-Bay Bridge, where the cruiser’s headlights picked up the temporary repairs to the guardrail. The shiny new metal patches speared right into his gut.
Like a leaping tiger, the cruiser jumped forward. Cursing, Steve wrestled it and himself back under control, but the effort ate a considerable bite out of what was left of his will power. As a consequence, he wasn’t as diplomatic as he might have been when Jess answered her doorbell.
Light spilled from inside the condo, painting her tumble of hair a warm, honey brown. The same glow rendered her white linen camp shirt damned near transparent. Her obviously bra-less state hitched Steve’s breath. Her frown when she took in his uniform produced another, less pleasurable effect.
His job required him to wear civilian clothes more often than Walton County’s green and gray, but every time Jess saw him in uniform, she froze. Swearing under his breath, he yanked open the glass storm door.
“I’m not Boudreaux. I’m not here to hustle you out of town.”
Taken aback by his curt tone, she returned fire. “So I gathered from our phone conversation. You intend to hustle me into bed instead.”
“Do you have a problem with that, Blackwell?”
“Maybe.”
“Then this time we’d better deal with it before we get naked.”
He walked past her into the living room. The door behind him closed with a thud.
“You’re pretty sure of yourself, sheriff.”
“You called me, remember?”
“I don’t suppose it occurred to you that I just want to talk?”
His summer weight Smoky the Bear hat with its shining leather chinstrap went sailing toward the sofa. The brim skimmed mere inches above the coffee table littered with the remains of her pizza. Hooking his thumbs on his Sam Browne belt, Steve called her bluff.
“We haven’t conducted a single discussion yet where I didn’t have to drag every word out of you. You want to converse, we’ll converse. As long as you’re prepared to go wherever the conversation leads us.”
She back-peddled instantly. He saw the shutters come down, had fully expected them. Although the cop in him acknowledged that she was smart not to lay herself bare, the swift withdrawal rubbed a raw spot.
“Decide, Jess. Which will it be? Do we talk, or do we pick up where we left off on the boat?”
“There are other options.”
“I don’t think so. Not tonight.”
Her arms folded over her chest. A bare foot tapped the plush gray carpet. She didn’t like being pushed. After driving across half the county in a sweat, Steve was definitely in the mood to push.
“Need some help making up your mind?”
Sliding a hand under her hair, he drew her forward. Her rigid shoulders gave him a perverse satisfaction, as did the tight set to her lips when he covered them with his own.
He took his time, tasting her, taunting her, stroking his thumb against the side of her neck. She remained stiff, her mouth softening a mere f
raction to accommodate his, but he knew her decision before he lifted his head.
Whatever else might lie between them, the heat was there, just under the surface of the skin, needing only a touch, a breath to spark it. The flames crept into her cheeks, darkened her eyes to smoky jade.
“You laid down the ground rules last time, Jess. Want to try it my way tonight?”
A shudder went through her. For a moment, he thought she might bolt, but she surprised him by standing her ground.
“That depends on what your way entails.”
“It’s slow,” he warned, feathering his thumb along the tendon in the side of her neck. “Real slow. Might take all night. I don’t promise you’ll get much sleep.”
“Then I guess it’s fortunate I don’t need much.”
The shadows under her eyes made a liar out of her, but this wasn’t the time to debate the matter. Steve’s concentration narrowed down to a single focus. It would probably kill him, but he intended to make good on his promise to savor every minute of the next few hours. Without another word, he scooped her up and headed down the hall.
“If I remember from the night I broke in, your bedroom is right about…” He nudged a door with his left knee. “Here.”
Like the living room, her bedroom was awash in light. Deciding they could do without the spots, Steve flicked the switch beside the door. As he crossed the room, he formed a swift impression of cool gray walls, arched windows shuttered in white, and a needle-nosed palm sprouted from a white wicker basket in one corner. Artfully framed movie posters made bright splashes of color against the walls, but it was the queen-sized bed smothered in pillows that held his attention. When he lowered her to her feet beside the bed, the slide of her hips against his fly had his throat going tight and his hands reaching for the buckle of his Sam Browne belt.
Jess stood silent, mere inches away, while he shrugged out of the belt and holster. After all these weeks of dancing around each other, she hadn’t expected him to be so confrontational tonight. Or so damned direct.
Her nerves had been screaming for the past hour. Steve’s blunt response to her phone call had shattered her illusions that she could control the hunger that drove them both. She could have said no, of course. Or turned aside his declaration that he wanted her with a mocking laugh.
Instead, she’d let her startled silence speak for itself, then spent the next hour alternating between feverish anticipation and a resolve to talk matters through with him when he got here.
So much for her resolve! Steve had put her on the defensive the moment she’d answered her door. In a few terse sentences, he’d somehow managed to fire both her anger and her desire.
Now she could only curl her fingers into tight, sweaty fists as he shed his gray shirt with its knife-sharp creases and silver eagles on the collar. The broad expanse of chest and shoulders covered only by his crew-necked T-shirt made her mouth go bone dry.
Her nails dug into her palms. She kept her fists at her sides, fighting the need to reach out and stroke those hard ridges and smooth, rippling curves. She’d just about crawled all over the man before bringing matters to a screeching halt the last time they got this close. She wasn’t going to initiate anything this time.
Or end it, she swore silently.
When he started on the buttons of her linen shirt, the raw hunger she’d tried to keep harnessed broke free. Sudden, selfish greed punched through her. She wanted this. She needed it. No talking. No thinking. Just the brush of his knuckles against her breasts when he opened her shirt. The slide of his palms along her ribs. The warm wash of his breath as he nuzzled her throat.
Her lids drifted down. Her head went back. His teeth nipped the cords in her neck, sharp enough for pain, careful enough for pleasure. She shuddered again, as much from the tiny shock as from the air-conditioned chill on her nipples.
“Did I hurt you?”
She lifted her lids and sank into the treacherous turquoise of his eyes. “No.”
He took another bite, lower this time, in that vulnerable jointure of neck and shoulder. Pleasure was still darting up and down her spine when he peeled off her blouse. A single step brought him closer, so close her bare breasts brushed his chest. Needles of sensation shot from her nipples to her belly. When he eased back and broke the contact, she almost groaned aloud.
“No,” he ordered softly, “don’t move.”
His hands went to the waistband of her cut-offs. With maddening deliberation he popped the snap and found the zipper. Jess sucked in a breath, her stomach hollowing at the glide of his knuckles against her belly.
She had to touch him. The need was all consuming, impossible to resist any longer. Her palms flattened against his chest, winged up and across his shoulders. The downy cotton T-shirt was cloud-soft under her fingertips and still smelled faintly of bleach. It was a man-smell, like the woodsy tang of his after-shave, but the faint wash of cinnamon on his breath was all Steve. Wondering if she’d ever taste the spice again without thinking of this man and this moment, Jess locked her arms around his neck and drew his mouth down to hers.
One kiss and she wanted more. Two, and she was hot with need. He took her down to the bed, where they rid themselves of the rest of their clothes, but refused to hurry his pleasure or hers. Within moments, her body had slicked and her hunger had taken on a feral urgency.
Still, he played with her. “Slow, Jess. We’re taking this slow, remember?”
Demonstrating his intent, he cupped her mound and initiated a lazy, unhurried friction. He knew just where to rub, just when to ease the pressure. Ripples of pleasure built into waves. With each stroke, each press, the waves came closer and closer to cresting.
Jess stood it as long as she could. Panting, she jerked away from his touch and rolled onto her side. When she wrapped her fingers around his rigid flesh, her smile was lethal.
“Let’s see just how slow you can take it.”
His shoulder, she decided two cataclysmic orgasms later, made for a hot, lumpy pillow, but she couldn’t summon the energy to separate their bodies. She found enough to protest, though, when he stretched a hand to the bedside lamp and flicked the switch, plunging the room into darkness.
“What are you doing?”
He mumbled something unintelligible against her hair. Struggling up on one elbow, Jess blinked to adjust to the gloom. The digital clock on the bedside table glowed a bright green warning.
“Steve, it’s almost three. You’d better not go to sleep now or you’ll…”
“I’m not sleeping. Just recharging my batteries.”
“If you charge them any more,” she drawled, “we’ll both be dead by morning.”
Smirking, he opened one eye. “I can think of worse ways to go.”
“So can I, but not here and not now.”
His other eye opened. His smirk faded.
Without saying a word, they both acknowledged that there were, in fact, worse ways to go. Drowning, for example. Or sucking in carbon monoxide while your unsuspecting spouse puttered around upstairs in your bedroom.
The lethargy seeped out of her bones. Leaning across Steve’s chest, she snapped on the bedside lamp and forced the shadows to retreat to the far corners of the room. An awkward twist dislodged the tangled sheets from under her hips. She pushed upright, taking a corner of the sheet with her, and shoved her hair out of her eyes.
“The lieutenant in charge of my fuels branch came to see me today. Yesterday.”
Tucking his arms under his head, Steve gave her a sideways glance. “I met him,” he said after a moment. “A moon-faced kid. Seemed sharp enough, though.”
“He is. He’s also worried about one of the men who works for him.”
“Billy Jack Petrie.”
It wasn’t a question, but a flat statement of fact. Jess shifted, wanting to see his face more clearly. Needing to see his face more clearly.
“The lieutenant tried to call Petrie’s house. There wasn’t any answer.”
“
He and his wife aren’t there. I drove by the house a couple days ago and saw the newspapers littering his yard. I’ve had one of my men keeping an eye on the place since.”
Her heart began a slow thump against her sternum. “Did you also drive by Wayne Whittier’s house?”
“The hovel he lives in hardly qualifies as a house.”
“Was he there? Did you speak with him?”
“I did. I also spoke to Congressman Calhoun.”
“Are you going to tell me what they had to say about my mother…or about me?”
“Calhoun didn’t remember your mother,” he said slowly. “He doesn’t remember his own.”
“And Whittier?”
“Whittier claims Sheriff Boudreaux read matters wrong, that the waitresses who worked at the Blue Crab all understood the rules. If they took a customer into the backroom to earn an extra tip, they split it with the owner.”
Her lip curled. “Nice guy.”
“No, he’s not.”
Lowering his arms, Steve pushed upright. The sheet rode up his flanks and bared his hip. The rigid flesh that had driven into Jess such a short time ago lay flaccid amid its nest of wiry gold curls.
“He’s slime,” Steve said flatly, wrenching her gaze to his face. “The kind who deserves to be blown away. If the bastard doesn’t drink himself to death first, chances are someone will do just that. But not you, Jess. You won’t be the one to pull the trigger.”
The yeasty scent of sex still hung on the air. Her skin tingled from a rash of whisker burns, and her lips felt swollen to twice their size. Yet all she could feel, all she could hear was the implacable, unshakable certainty in Steve’s voice.
“How do you know it won’t be me? I told you before, I would have snitched my mother’s rusty old shotgun out of the trunk and gone after every one of those bastards if I’d known what they did to her.”
After Midnight Page 13