Snoops in the City (A Romantic Comedy)

by Darlene Gardner

  "Thanks," she said. "I owe you."

  "What you owe me is the truth," he said harshly.

  She closed her eyes, wondering what to do. The solution came to her in a flash, like it had the other night when he'd questioned her about why she was following him. She'd tell the truth.

  "Okay," she said. "I admit it. I lied."

  CHAPTE R SIXTEEN

  Grady's stomach pitched to the floor at her admission of deceit, making him feel disgusted with himself.

  If this were a Western, he wouldn't be playing the part of the hero. The hero was never a sap.

  He'd known when he came to her apartment tonight that she'd lied to him about the play. It hadn’t mattered. He’d been eager to overlook not only that tall tale but also his fear that she was playing him for a fool.

  He couldn't shut out the multitude of lies any longer. He was involved in some serious FBI business. If someone at City Hall had caught on to him, it could spell danger.

  "I knew you didn't believe me when I said I had a fat cat so I went to the pound this weekend to get one," Tori began. "Instead, I came home with Gordo."

  He remained silent, waiting for her to damn herself even further than she already had.

  "I lied about the play, too. I didn't go to Miami Beach on Friday night. I went home."

  He hadn't expected her to own up to that. However, she might have figured out he already knew Grimm Tales from the Reaper was a high school production for fairy tale aficionados.

  "I did it all because. . ." She paused, her chest heaving up and down in a silent sigh.

  They were finally getting somewhere, Grady thought. Now she’d tell him who had hired her to keep tabs on him.

  ". . .I didn't want you to think I was easy,” she finished.

  "What?" The word exploded from him.

  Gordo meowed, causing Grady to realize he still held her. He put down the cat on a nearby sofa. She scrambled to the edge, her entire body on alert as she stared him down. The cat appeared poised to leap if he made one false move.

  "Look at it from my point of view, Grady." Tori's brown eyes seemed earnest. "I made up the excuse about bolting from the golf course because of the fat cat because I was afraid you'd find out I was following you."

  "You admitted you were following me. Getting the cat wasn't necessary.” He kept his voice soft because of the cat's suspected kamikaze tendencies.

  "It was to me. I didn't want you to think I was a liar."

  "You are a liar. First about the cat, then about the play."

  "Only because I thought you intended to take me up on what you believed I was offering."

  "You’re saying you told both lies to get out of going to bed with me?"

  "Exactly," she said, nodding.

  Grady felt as though she'd stabbed him in the gut with a butcher knife. "So the story about thinking I was hot was just that? A story?"

  "Oh, no," she denied. "That's the truth."

  He let out a breath and shook his head. "Come on, Tori. I was there on the Ferris wheel Sunday night when you told me to stop."

  "You think I did that because I'm not attracted to you?" she asked with wide, rounded eyes.

  His head started to pound. "You just said you don't want to sleep with me."

  "I said I didn't want to sleep with you when we first met, but only because it was too soon." She paused, giving her next sentence more weight. "All I've thought about since Sunday night is how much I want to make love to you."

  He ignored the heat that arrowed to his groin, reminding himself he didn't believe a word she said. "You're not making sense. You don't want to go to bed with me."

  "I do, too," she said indignantly.

  He took a step closer to her, expecting her to back away. She held her ground. Her eyes glittered with determination. A pulse beat fast in her throat when she looked him directly in the eyes.

  "I happen to think you're very sexy," she said.

  "Oh, yeah?" he asked skeptically.

  "Oh, yeah," she said, her voice rising. "Just try me and see."

  The gentleman inside him warned him to back off but the man who didn't appreciate being made a fool kissed her.

  Not gently, the way their first kiss had begun on the Ferris wheel. Enthusiastically, the way it had ended.

  The moment her lips parted, he deepened the kiss, tracing the roof of her mouth and the sides of her cheeks before tangling his tongue with hers.

  He kept a firm hand at the small of her back and another buried in the hair of her nape to keep her stationary, but she showed no sign of wanting to escape.

  She threaded her fingers through the short strands of his hair, holding his head in place while she angled her mouth to better fit his.

  The blood rushed through his veins, settling in his crotch. He vaguely remembered that he had some purpose for kissing her but could hardly think over the galloping of his heart. It thundered, like hooves flying over track.

  Focus, he told himself sharply as he continued to search his mind for the reason he'd kissed her. Oh, yeah. He'd intended to prove she wasn't attracted to him.

  He forced himself to pay attention to her body language for an indication that she wanted him to stop. She sucked lightly on his tongue and rubbed her lower body against his growing erection.

  Nope, neither of those were the sign.

  The loud, guttural moan that didn't sound quite human might be. She tore her mouth from his, looked at him quizzically and asked, "What was that noise?"

  The moan sounded again. They turned toward the sofa and a cat with one amazing larynx. Gordo appeared ready to spring, her watchfulness reminding Grady more of a hawk than a cat.

  "Maybe you should rename her Simba," he said, his voice husky and out of breath. "You know, after the lion in the Disney movie."

  "It's okay, Gordo." Tori sounded as breathless as he did. "Nothing to worry about."

  "Tori probably would have stopped me soon anyway," Grady added.

  "I would not!" Tori said indignantly. She didn't try to move from the circle of his arms. "Did you know that you're a very negative person?"

  He kept his arms around her, mostly because he liked having them there. "I prefer to think of myself as a skeptic."

  "Don't you ever take a leap of faith?"

  "If you leap without looking, you could get flattened by a bus."

  "Then look at me. Do I look like a woman who wanted you to stop?" she asked.

  He took in her disheveled hair, mussed clothing and lips that were full and ripe from his kisses.

  She grasped his hand and placed it over her breast, underneath which her heart hammered. "Does that feel like the heartbeat of a woman who wanted you to stop?"

  He swallowed the sudden thickness in his throat, afraid to accept what stared him in the face. At the same time, he longed to believe it as much as he wanted to take his next breath.

  "You're telling the truth, aren't you?" He heard the awe in his voice. "You really want to do this?"

  "Yes, I do," she said indignantly. "But I'll change my mind soon if you don't get with the program."

  The corner of his mouth quirked at her spirited reply even as his heart soared. "We still have a problem."

  She rolled her eyes. "What it is now?"

  "I think Gordo might be a voyeur. Did you ever notice how she's always staring?"

  She cut her eyes at the cat. "Gordo's asleep."

  It was true. Obviously weary of their discussion, the little cat had backed into a corner of the sofa, laid herself down and tucked her head under a paw. She opened one eye, which seemed to glare at him.

  "She still can't be trusted," he said.

  Tori skimmed her fingers over the line of Grady’s jaw and smiled. He detected none of the forced brightness he'd noticed when they first met.

  "Last I checked," she said, nodding toward the open door of her bedroom, "Gordo couldn't pick a lock."

  Blood swirled through him in a heated rush, making him ignore his long-held bel
ief about things that seemed too good to be true. If Tori were one of those things, he didn't want to know.

  "If she tries it," he said, "I could probably put on a deadbolt."

  Laughing, she grabbed his hand and pulled him into the bedroom. He spun her around when they'd barely cleared the threshold, and she came willingly into his arms.

  The passion ignited again. Maybe it had never extinguished. How long had it been, he wondered, since he'd felt this powerful connection when he kissed a woman? Months? Years? Never?

  That bond, he realized, was why he'd pursued her in the face of his doubts. Since their kiss on the Ferris wheel, his thoughts had been consumed with making love to her.

  She clung to him, her hands braced on his shoulders, her soft body rubbing against him as her tongue swirled inside his mouth.

  He reached under her shirt, smoothing his hand over her flat stomach and venturing higher to her breast. She gasped into his mouth as he kneaded the soft flesh through the flimsy material of her bra, touching and teasing until her nipple pebbled.

  "Wait," she said.

  He drew back, his body growing taut. He braced himself for a last-minute retreat, unprepared for the feel of her hand at the waistband of his jeans, tugging his shirt free.

  "You're wearing too many clothes.” She pulled the shirt over his head and smoothed her hands over the hair-sprinkled contours of his chest.

  After that, there was no turning back.

  They left a trail of clothes to the bed and then came together in a fast, furious explosion of feeling in the darkness. She gasped and convulsed a moment before he reached a plateau higher than he'd ever been before.

  He leaned his forehead weakly against hers as their heartbeats slowed and they caught their breath.

  "We forgot to close the door," he said.

  "Doesn't matter." She ran a hand over the faint stubble on his jaw. "Gordo has to find herself her own stud."

  "Stud, huh? You shouldn't say things like that to a man who's still inside you."

  "Why not?" she asked, then wriggled her hips, making him grow harder. She smiled a vixen's smile. "Never mind. I think I figured it out."

  Much later, after they'd finally eaten the pasta dinner and made love another time, he slipped out of her bed in the weak light of pre-dawn.

  She tossed and flung out an arm, as though reaching for him, and made a soft sound of protest. Then she turned over and fell back into a deep sleep.

  Exhaustion had obviously claimed her. Grady's eyes felt gritty from lack of sleep, too. It couldn’t be helped. He had an early meeting with the FBI agent coordinating Operation Citygate. Grady hadn't set an alarm but the meeting weighed on his mind, signaling an internal one.

  He glanced at the illuminated numbers of Tori's bedside clock. He had barely enough time to go home, shower and grab a bite of breakfast.

  He pulled on his pants and shrugged into his shirt before picking up his shoes. Sighing in resignation, he went in search of Gordo and herded the sleepy cat into the cardboard carrier. She meowed in protest.

  "It's only until we get to my place," he assured her.

  Memories of the night intruded when he was about to let himself out of the apartment, making it impossible for him to leave without one more look at her. He walked back to the mouth of Tori's bedroom and peered inside.

  She lay on her side, her hair spilled over the pillow, her lips curved upward as though she were having a happy dream. Let it be of me, he thought. The covers bunched around her waist left one beautiful breast bare.

  Merely looking at her made him want her all over again, and it seemed suddenly silly that he'd suspected her of spying on him. Something buoyant rose inside him.

  After a moment, he realized it was hope.

  CHAPT ER SEVENTEEN

  Tori flipped to the index page of So You Want to be a PI? and skimmed the tip of her pointer finger down the columns of topics. None addressed what she'd done last night.

  She went back to the letter T to make sure the book didn't contain a Top Ten List of private-eye pitfalls. She couldn't find one, yet common sense dictated that sleeping with a subject would command a lofty position on such a list. Maybe even higher than wearing dark sunglasses at midnight or asking the guy you're tailing where he's going.

  Yep. Having wild, mind-blowing sex with the subject under investigation was definitely wrong with a silent W.

  So why had it felt so right?

  She walked into her bedroom and tossed the book on her night stand, glad it hadn't been there last night. She wouldn't have noticed the book in time to hide it because all she'd been able to think about was Grady.

  She ran her hand over the pillow where his head had rested and drew in a deep breath. She could still smell his clean, woodsy scent, which could be why she hadn't made the bed.

  He and Gordo had been gone when she awakened that morning, the meaning of which she might have obsessed over if not for the note on her kitchen table.

  Hated to leave but had an early meeting, it read. Will call later. G.

  As far as love notes went, it was lacking. The inferred meaning, though, was clear. He'd left because he had to, not because he wanted to. And he'd done as she asked and taken Gordo, which said more than his note.

  The anticipation of his call made her whole body tingle, though not nearly as violently as it had last night when he'd whispered what he intended to do to her in her ear.

  Yes, it had probably been wrong to sleep with the man she had under investigation. But the case wouldn't last forever. If things worked out between them, he needn't ever know she'd been hired to follow him.

  As a precaution, she picked up the paperback and put it under her bed. No sense in taking any unnecessary chances.

  The phone rang. The cordless receiver that belonged on her bedside night stand was off the cradle again so she dashed for the phone in the kitchen.

  "Hello," she said, not bothering to hide her eagerness. She hadn't hid it last night either.

  A whispery voice came over the line. A female voice. Definitely not Grady's except familiar. Of course. Her client.

  "Ms. M? Is that you?"

  The caller said something unintelligible in response.

  "If that's you, Ms. M, please speak up. I can't hear you."

  "This is Ms. M." Her voice, louder now, still sounded furtive. "Can you talk, Jane?"

  Tori closed her eyes. It was no use trying to convince Ms. M she was no Jane Bond.

  "You're calling my home number," Tori said, sure that Eddie had provided it. "Nobody's here but me."

  Silence came over the line. "Aren't you going to ask if I can talk?"

  The question hadn't occurred to Tori. "Are you someplace you can't be overheard?"

  "Yes." Ms. M dispensed with the whisper in favor of the murmur. "I'm in my office. It's private."

  Where, Tori wondered, might her office be?

  "I'm sure it's not bugged," Ms. M added, another thing that hadn't occurred to Tori. "So let me have it."

  "Let you have what?"

  "The skinny. The dope. The lowdown."

  "Excuse me?"

  Tori heard Ms. M sigh. "What did you find out about the subject?"

  That he likes to make love with the woman on top, Tori thought. That he goes crazy when you nibble his ear lobe.

  "Not much," Tori said. "It's only been a few days since I talked to you."

  “But Detective Sassenbury said you made contact with the subject." Ms. M's disappointment traveled across the phone line like a living thing.

  Had she ever made contact.

  "That's true," Tori said. "I, um, met him the night of Mayor Black's party, and I've seen him a couple times since. The investigation is still in the preliminary stages."

  "Surely you've formed some impressions," Ms. M said. "Tell me this. Do you think he's an honest man?"

  Yes, her heart screamed. That constituted opinion, not fact, so she kept it to herself.

  "Particularly in his business de
alings," Ms. M specified. "It's important I know whether he can be trusted."

  "I don't have a good handle on his business yet," Tori said. "I do know he seems to be a favorite with city officials and that his company's in contention to get the contract to build the new community center."

  "That's interesting," Ms. M said, "especially in light of the gossip surrounding Seahaven City Hall."

  What gossip?, Tori wondered. She couldn't risk sounding out of the loop.

  "True," she said. "True."

  "Gossip is all it is at this point. Nobody knows for certain that anybody is taking payoffs."

  Tori's jaw dropped. This area of investigation hadn't occurred to her. It should have, considering Ms. M had hired Eddie's detective agency to discover what kind of man Grady was.

  "Of course, there's no reason for anybody to bribe the subject,” Ms. M said. “He'd be on the other side of the transaction."

  Tori mutely shook her head, refusing to believe Grady doled out bribe money to secure contracts. "He doesn't seem the sort," she told Ms. M.

  "That's opinion," Ms. M said curtly. "I learned long ago not to put stock in anything besides fact. You need to investigate his dealings with city officials and find out whether they're on the up and up."

  The heated talk she'd witnessed Grady having with Pete Aiken at the mayor's party came back to her. Combined with Grady's willingness to take the blame for the golf ball that had nearly felled the mayor, something about it had bothered her.

  "That's what I was planning to do next," Tori said, although the thought hadn't occurred to her.

  "Oh, goody. Tell me how you'll go about it. I just love stuff like this." Ms. M sounded as though she were rubbing her hands together in glee.

  Think, Tori extolled herself.

  "I may have to infiltrate City Hall," she said. There. That sounded suitably impressive.

  "How?" Ms. M asked.

  Tori rolled her eyes. How did she know?

  "No, wait. Don't tell me. Let me guess." Ms. M's voice grew excited. "Oh, oh, I've got it. You're going to get a job at City Hall so you can work there undercover."

  A job? It wasn't a bad idea, especially because the chatty City Councilman at the mayor's party had informed her an opening existed in secretarial. But the lack of a job is what had landed Tori in this mess so it was a stretch to imagine she'd be able to get one now. Unless. . .