by M. Leighton
With a growl, I closed my phone and pitched it onto the bed. I changed into some tiny pink Victoria’s Secret shorts that made my butt look great and a tiny matching t-shirt. I pulled my hair back in a twist to one side, chiding myself for taking such care with my appearance. I shouldn’t care what Grayson thought. Things weren’t going well and I’d probably be doing myself a favor if I could just forget about him, romantically anyway.
But I couldn’t. I cared too much to give up and I doubted I could forget him even if I tried. Nothing seemed to dampen my feelings for him.
I was in the kitchen fixing some sweet tea when I saw him pull up. I went to the door and motioned for him to come on in. When I saw that he noticed me, I went back in to finish the tea.
When I heard the door open, I looked up. I couldn’t stop the visceral reaction I had to him. He looked positively mouthwatering in a pale taupe shirt and black pants. He’d ditched his tie and rolled the sleeves of his shirt up to his elbows, revealing tanned, muscular forearms. He had on sunglasses, too, which he took off when he closed the door behind him.
“So,” he said, cutting right to the chase. “Tell me what happened.”
“I went to her office to talk to her about switching majors. She agreed to talk to me for just a few minutes before her next appointment. When she asked why I wanted to switch, I told her that I was interested in finding a way to prove I knew who Lisa’s killer was.”
“What did she do?”
“Nothing really. It was later that I could really see a reaction.”
“Go on.”
“She wanted to know how I knew who the killer was. I told her I saw her. She asked me to tell her what I’d seen, said she might be able to help. I told her I knew she did it.”
I had Grayson’s complete attention. He was rapt. “And?”
“And she denied it at first, but then she admitted to it,” I said with a shrug, stirring the tea in the pitcher.
“Just like that.”
“Yep.”
“She just confessed to murder.” He was doubtful and had every reason to be. It did sound kind of farfetched.
“Yep.”
“That’s,” he paused, running his fingers through his hair and then smoothing the ruffled pieces down. “That’s insane.”
He said that a lot.
“But it’s true.”
Grayson rubbed his jaw and looked around the kitchen, as if debating what to do. When he looked back at me, suspicion was written all over his face. “What did you do?”
“What do you mean?”
“You expect me to believe this?” he asked angrily. “You expect me to believe that she just up and admitted she killed Lisa, and that you did nothing to…encourage it?”
“Y-yes,” I said, uncomfortable with lying to him.
“Mercy,” he said warningly, stepping toward me.
“What?” I squashed the urge to back away; that would just make me look guilty.
“Tell me,” he said flatly, his eyes boring into mine.
I licked my lips nervously, wishing he’d just drop it and believe what I told him without asking questions. Then, willing to give my little talent one more shot with him, I wished even harder, focusing all my desperate attention on how much I wanted him to do exactly that.
There was not so much as a flicker, though. He just kept edging his way toward me. He looked like a predator stalking prey that he was trying not to spook.
“Mercy. Tell me.”
“I don’t know what you mean. Th- there’s nothing to tell,” I stammered.
“Tell me,” he demanded, his face grave and serious.
And just like that, I caved. Like a chink in my armor, he was somehow able to find and exploit my weakness. The strangest part about it, though, was that my weakness seemed to be him.
“I convinced her to confess,” I blurted. And he stopped.
“Convinced her? How do you mean?” At least he’d stopped stalking me.
“Just that. I convinced her.”
“How?”
I fidgeted uncomfortably, knowing that the explanation was going to make me sound like a wackadoo.
“How?” he shouted, causing me to jump nervously.
“Alright, alright. You don’t have to be so loud,” I said, stalling.
“Mercy,” he hissed through gritted teeth. His patience had apparently come to an end.
“Sometimes when I concentrate really hard on something, I can sort of…influence people, make them do what I want.” I looked down at the tea, watching the swirling liquid rather than meeting his eyes.
When he said nothing, I looked up at him. His expression wasn’t blank, it was just inscrutable. I had no idea what he might be thinking. But his next question gave me the general direction his thoughts had taken and, of course, it wasn’t good.
“Have you ever done this to me?” His voice was so quiet, so steely, it reminded me of a Black Mamba. They say their strike is so fast, so sharp and so deadly, that you feel like you’ve been kissed rather than bitten.
Even if I’d been so inclined, I couldn’t have lied to him. Something about his eyes…
“Yes,” I admitted then clarified, “Well, I’ve tried, but it doesn’t work.”
“What have you tried to do to me?”
I felt my cheeks heat and knew they’d be pink with color. “Once I tried to get you to kiss me, but you didn’t. Once I tried to get you to tell me all about Lisa Bauer’s case, but you didn’t.”
He stared at me—hard—for a long time before he said, “Is that all?”
“Well, I tried just now to get you to drop this, to stop asking me about it,” I said, then grinned a shaky grin. “You can see how well that worked.”
He was quiet again, but he started walking toward me again. I resisted the urge to back up against the sink.
“You realize that you could’ve cost us this investigation.”
Alarm set in. “What? How?”
“Never, never, never dabble in an ongoing investigation like that,” he warned.
Though he was obviously aggravated about that, too, there was something else in his eyes, something…hungrier.
“Have you ever tried to manipulate the way I feel?” he asked.
He wasn’t doubtful or concerned that I had this “talent.” He was just worried about how I was using it against him. And that irritated me.
“No. Of course not!”
He was only inches from me now. I could feel the heat radiating from his body and smell the cinnamon on his breath.
“So you’re not making me feel anything right now?”
“No. If I could, I’d make you leave,” I confessed nervously.
His eyes flickered down to my lips then back up to mine and I lost the ability to breathe. That’s what was in his eyes. He was hungry. For me.
The knowledge of that—of his desire for me, of his hunger for me—burst into a white hot flame of yearning that threatened to burn out of control.
Just like the strike of that Black Mamba, Grayson’s hands were gripping my upper arms, squeezing the tender flesh like steel bands, and hauling my body up against his.
When his lips found mine, there was no tenderness in them, only passion. Fevered need. A furious appetite for my flesh and my soul. And I responded with nothing less. My hands were in his hair, holding his mouth to mine. Our tongues tangled in a hot, wet twist.
And then his hands were all over me. They circled my waist and roved over my back and hips. Then he was lifting me.
I felt the cool granite of the island beneath my legs as he set me on top of it. Grayson pushed them apart with his body as he settled between them. With a will of their own, my legs wound around his waist.
He groaned, his fingers digging into the flesh of my thighs as he pulled me tight against him. He crushed his pelvis into mine and warmth poured through my body, pooling between my legs where our bodies met. He swayed against me and a purr of pleasure that I couldn’t control bubbled up fr
om my throat.
The sound of a car door penetrated the passionate haze that had settled over my brain, but I was slow to react. Grayson, however, was not. Suddenly, there was distance between our bodies and he was setting me back on my feet. He walked over to stand near the door, running his fingers through his hair again then smoothing it back down.
His breathing was ragged and when our eyes met, there was raw need in their burning depths. It made my toes want to curl.
I felt giddy with unfulfilled desire. But also, I felt confused for having been interrupted so abruptly. Grayson didn’t appear to be suffering from that at all.
When my Mom came through the door, I casually put the lid on the tea and said, “Mom, you remember Detective Grayson, don’t you?”
Mom’s eyes went from me to Grayson and back again. The smile that lit her face when she looked back at me told me that whatever was going on, she approved of my choice. It was that kind of a smile.
I walked to the refrigerator to hide my answering grin. I was elated for some reason.
“Of course. Detective Grayson, how are you? How’s the investigation coming?”
“Just fine. Thanks for asking. I was just following up with Mercy.”
“Mmm,” she said, smiling devilishly. I hoped that he couldn’t read her smiles as easily as I could. How embarrassing!
“Well, I guess I’d better be going. Mercy, thank you and I’ll be in touch.” With that, he turned to my mother and nodded. “Ma’am. Nice to see you again.”
“And you, Detective,” she replied knowingly.
Grayson left, closing the door behind him.
Dramatically, Mom turned slowly toward me and put her hands on her hips. “Well, I hope that was as friendly a visit as it looked like from my end.”
I felt like I would bust wide open if I tried to hide the smile that was radiating from my heart and oozing through my every pore.
“It was friendly,” I said. Then with a giggle I couldn’t contain, “Very friendly.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Surprisingly, the next day I felt rested. I attributed it to a residual high from repeated revisiting of the details of the previous afternoon, ones that were permanently etched into my brain. I think they sort of obscured how tired I was. I didn’t really notice and I didn’t really care.
That had to be it because my night certainly hadn’t been restful; quite the opposite in fact. My heated exchange with Grayson was the only thing that was different, but boy! What a difference it had made.
I was fairly certain that, somewhere along the way, against my will and without my notice, I’d fallen in love with Detective Grayson. That seemed particularly weird when I didn’t even know his first name. I know they’d said it on the news once, but I couldn’t remember it. Not that it bothered me. It didn’t seem to matter what small details I didn’t know about him. The important thing was that I knew the big stuff, like what kind of a person he was deep down. That was all that mattered to me.
Just as I was leaving my second class of the day, I heard the muffled chirp of my cell phone. I shifted to the edge of the steps and stopped to dig it out and answer it. My heart swelled when I saw that it was Grayson.
“Hello,” I said, unable to keep the smile from my voice. My cheeks got hot with embarrassment, as if Grayson could read my mind and could tell how happy I was to hear from him.
“Mercy Holloway,” he said in a low voice. Chills broke out all over my arms. The way he said my name was like a caress.
“Hey,” I said, feeling all melty inside.
“How’d you sleep?” Was that a note of mischief in his voice?
“Sleep? What’s that?”
He laughed, a deep, velvety rumble that tingled all the way to my toes. “Good. That makes two of us.”
It pleased me to know that he was as affected by our steamy session as I was. Though I hadn’t slept, I’d spent my time alternating between fiery fantasies and reliving reality, which was almost as good. And that was saying a lot.
“Where are you?” he asked, his tone a little louder and more business-like.
“At school. I’ve got one more class and then I’m out for the day. Why?”
“How ‘bout some lunch at the park?”
My already good day just took a turn for the spectacular. “Sounds good. You picking me up?”
“I can do that. Where will you be?”
“The main entrance to campus, right there beside the Administrative building, is not far from my class. Want to meet me there?”
“Yep. What time?”
“12:30 ok?”
“12:30 it is.” I figured he’d just hang up as usual, but he paused. At first I thought he had something else to say, but after a few seconds, he seemed almost to be floundering.
“Grayson?”
“Yeah. Sorry. Alright, I’ll see you at the main entrance at 12:30.”
“Ok. See you there.” Then he hung up.
I pulled the phone away from my ear and looked at it in puzzlement for a minute, then, with a shrug, I flipped it closed and dropped it back into my bag.
Unfortunately, having awesome plans like that only served to draw class out to at least three times its normal length. Every time I looked at my watch, it had only been, like, five minutes, but it felt like at least fifteen to twenty.
By the time the class had come to an excruciatingly painful close, I was up and out of my seat, headed for the door. I bobbed and weaved in and around students and clumps of people, hurrying to get to Grayson. My stomach was bubbling excitedly and I thought it quite possible that I’d never been happier.
When I crossed in front of the Admin building, I saw Grayson’s dark blue Charger turning in beside the campus sign. I stepped off the sidewalk and waited for him to pull alongside me.
I doubted that being trampled by a team of wild horses couldn’t have kept the smile off my face. But I didn’t feel so bad when I saw the smile that spread across Grayson’s lips when I hopped into the passenger seat.
I wanted to lean over and kiss him, but I resisted the urge. Not only was our relationship still new and not to the point of PDA yet, I doubted that it would be appropriate in view of ongoing investigations and all anyway.
He must’ve been feeling something similar, however, because before he guided the car away from the curb, he reached over and grabbed my hand. His eyes met mine and he lifted my fingers to his mouth.
The brush of his lips made my skin tingle. And though it was a simple gesture, it seemed to suck all the air right out of the car. Or at least, that’s how it made me feel—breathless.
When he lowered my hand from his mouth, he held it in his, resting our entwined fingers on the gear shift. Then, with a grin, he guided the car away from the curb and sped off toward the park.
My belly growled loudly. He glanced over at me and then down at my stomach. His lips twitched the tiniest bit before he turned his eyes back to the road.
“Hungry?” Something about the way he said it made me think he was talking about more than just food.
“Starving,” I said softly.
His eyes darted back to me and I saw fire burning behind the warm hazel color.
“Don’t do that,” he growled, his other hand tightening on the steering wheel.
“Do what?” I teased.
Without looking at me again, he said, “Keep it up and I’ll show you.”
Lava bubbled in several key places throughout my body at the promise in those words. I felt flushed all over and very, very attuned to the man sitting so close to me.
Neither of us spoke again until we reached the park. When he turned in to the lot, I had to ask, “I thought we were eating lunch.”
“We are,” he replied, pulling into a slot and cutting the engine.
“What were you planning on feeding me? Bark?”
“Funny,” he said, casting me a twinkling look. “Not real big on observation, are you?”
At first I was puzzled, but the longe
r he watched me, the more I figured I must’ve missed something. Something big.
Sure enough, when I really paid attention to things other than Grayson, I noticed the spicy smell of chili with a hint of underlying hotdog saturating the air. How I’d missed the mouthwatering smell, I hadn’t a clue. Well, that’s a lie. I know exactly how I missed it—Grayson.