“Reptiles.” Cory sighed. “Wonderful. You’re such a guy.” But her lips curved up.
He ducked his head again, but this time Jase watched him hide a little smile of his own. “Lizards are cool,” the boy said to the preliminary drawings in front of him. “They’re like the last of the prehistorics. And we could slip them into all kinds of places. Like here,” he said, pointing. “Or maybe here or here.”
Poppy shoved her dishes away and said, “Open up your sketchbook, Henry. I want to show you something. Cory, if you can spare a page or two, I’d like to use yours for a minute.”
The kids did as she asked and she hitched her chair closer to Henry’s. She dug two pencils from out of her massive tote and handed one to Henry. “Do what I do,” she instructed and drew a long oval in the middle of the page.
He drew a similar one on his pad. She added another, smaller oval toward the top of the first one, then attached a long, skinny triangle to the larger oval’s bottom curve.
He followed suit and after several more minutes of adding a line here, refining or erasing an existing section there, a lizard began taking shape on both pages. Henry gawked. Then he looked up at Poppy, his face alight. “I drew that!”
“Yes, you did,” she agreed. “I can walk you through a couple of other types of lizard as well, and maybe a snake or two. The trick when you’re beginning is to do them a layer at a time.”
He tore his glance away from the reptile he’d drawn to look at her.
As if answering a verbalized question she said in her easy way, “Look, if we start over from the beginning and use two different colors of lead, you can see both how we begin with the core shapes and how we refine the design from there. It won’t turn you into an artist overnight, and you’ll have to practice at home from the sketches we work on today. But it’s a start, huh?”
“Yeah.” He stared down at the lizard he’d drawn. Cleared his throat. “Yeah.”
Jase leaned over to study the sketches with a critical eye, surprised to see that while Henry’s lacked some of the realism of Poppy’s, it was pretty damn proficient for a kid who couldn’t draw.
And he heard the mental snap of a trap springing closed.
He had been avoiding looking at her as much as possible ever since he and the kid had arrived at the busy coffee shop, but he glanced at her now.
And swore under his breath.
She was so freaking…extraordinary. Pretty, sure. Nice—he’d already established that. One hell of a teacher, without a doubt.
And he was in the mother of all fixes.
Because he found himself saddled with a stupid-ass investment in this project, an investment he’d neither sought nor wanted. Found himself caring more than was smart about what became of these kids. He wanted to know why, while she seemed totally pumped about this project, Cory kept shooting nervous glances at the café door. How Henry would do with a few basic art lessons under his belt. What the exceedingly well-spoken Danny’s story was.
So, sure, he could cut back on how often he participated in the upcoming art-on-the-side-of-the-wall venture. He could try to keep things to a minimum.
But there was no way in hell he was going to be able to just walk away from it entirely.
It was all Poppy’s fault. She was like a damn Venus flytrap, and he was the poor sucker who’d made the mistake of leaning too close to check it out.
Only to have her—all big, soft eyes and satin skin—suck him in and take him prisoner so fast he barely knew what had hit him.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Man, when it rains, it fricking pours, doesn’t it?
JASE PUSHED through the padded fake-leather door of Sessions, currently the hottest blues bar and dance club in Seattle’s Columbia City neighborhood. The hot riffs of a guitar, combined with a wailing harmonica and sax, hit him like a one-two punch to the solar plexus. He felt surrounded in a sound so visceral it tugged at his senses. He wasn’t much for dancing, but the music had a driving rhythm that made it hard not to move.
The joint looked like a dive, housed as it was in a squat no-frills building with a décor that ran to scarred wooden tables and neon signs advertising alcoholic beverages. He imagined that the owners probably had no burning need to make the place attractive in order to haul in the crowds since it consistently got the best bands in the city. But the bar had one big, fat negative in his book, and that was its location. Columbia City was no place for an unescorted woman to be running around after dark.
And Henry had told him late this afternoon that Poppy was coming here tonight with her girlfriends.
He couldn’t freaking believe it. He’d thought she was smarter than that. Dammit, it was Friday night and he had plans of his own—he was supposed to meet Hohn and a couple other detectives at a cop bar up north at eleven, which was just a little over an hour away. But here he was, compelled to make a ten-mile trip so he could impart a few security tips to the Babe and her friends. The minute he made sure there was a plan in the works for getting them safely home when they decided to hit the road, however, he was out of here. So the quicker he found them, the better.
The only problem was, he didn’t see them. He circled the room until he ended up back near the bar without catching so much as a glimpse.
Of course half the bar appeared to be on the dance floor—it was a writhing mass of people dancing with various degrees of talent. As usual, more women than men crowded the area, since females these days no longer sat around waiting for men to ask them to dance, but rather hit the floor on their own schedule. He could hardly say that he blamed them—women who liked to dance must outnumber the men who did four to one.
He saw Poppy’s friend Ava first. She was hard to miss. It wasn’t only the sleek red hair or her spectacular retro body. And just when the hell had it become more rule than exception for so many of today’s females to be built like concentration camp survivors, anyway? Not that her attributes didn’t contribute to her noticeability, of course. But mostly, the woman could dance. Her arms flowed and her curvaceous hips swiveled and she simply moved as if she were an integral part of the music.
Then the couple dancing next to her moved together in some sort of dirty dance move and he saw Poppy.
Jesus. He backed up until his butt bumped against a stool at the bar. Wrenching his attention away from her, he saw that the seat was unoccupied, which was lucky since he sure as hell hadn’t been paying attention. Hitching a hip onto it, he braced one foot on the floor and hooked the other over the stool’s lower rung. His gaze went straight back to Poppy.
He was accustomed to seeing her in one of her midcalf, flowing skirts or the occasional pair of jeans or sweats. But she’d dressed to kill tonight, wearing a short, tight bronze-colored dress and skyscraper fuck-me shoes, with stiletto thin heels, open toes and skinny little straps that circled her ankles. Her hair looked somehow even curlier than usual and she was wearing more makeup than he’d ever seen on her, her eyes lined in smoky black and her lips painted a gleaming near-red. Guys all over the bar were checking her out.
He didn’t like it.
Not that it was any of his goddamn business, but ask him if he cared. She had no business looking like that in a joint like this without someone packing a 9 mm, minimum, to stand guard. You asked him—hell, asked any cop—she should be wearing something more sensible, say one of those granny dresses. Or, hey, maybe a nice, loose burka.
“Get you something to drink?”
Tearing his gaze away once more, he glanced over his shoulder at the bartender. “Give me a glass of whatever you got on draft.”
“You got it.”
He turned his attention back to the dance floor. Poppy had disappeared from view, but now that he knew her general location on the floor, it was easy enough to find her again. And once he had, he settled back to sip the beer the bartender brought him and wait for the dance to end. As soon as she came off the floor, he’d have a short, succinct talk with her, then get the hell out of here so he c
ould start his own evening.
Great plan—except it never occurred to him that she might not come off the floor. When the first song ended she simply talked to some of the other people milling around, then started dancing again when the band launched into the next number.
Well…shit. He took another slug of beer. Okay, the end of this song should bring her to wherever it was the women were sitting. He looked around for an empty table holding at least three purses, but that was about every other one.
He rolled his shoulders. Okay, what the hell. He’d just enjoy this number, which really was good.
Four songs later, he had finished his beer and she was still on the freaking dance floor. He’d swear her dress was getting tighter, too, as perspiration from her exertions shrink-wrapped the damn thing to her body. That same humidity seemed to make her hair grow fuller and fuller.
Two men suddenly sandwiched her between them, moving in concert with her rhythm. The dark-browed redhead looked familiar but Jase couldn’t place him off the top of his head. The dark-haired man with him looked like some damn nun-debauching priest or something, and Jase slammed his empty glass on the bar and surged to his feet when the guy wrapped long hands around Poppy’s hips and rocked them side to side while he all but dry-humped her round butt.
Stalking over to the floor, Jase wove between dancers without much regard and the minimum of apologies to those whose space he invaded. He didn’t have the entire goddamn night to wait on Poppy and her friends—he had a social life of his own.
By the time he reached her where she’d moved deeper into the crush of dancers, the men had moved on and she was once again dancing on her own. He stepped in front of her and leaned down to yell over the music, “We gotta talk.”
He wasn’t prepared for her to act as if he wasn’t even there, but she looked through him as if he were a pane of glass before boogying in a half turn that left him staring at her right profile. He maneuvered to face her again. “Did you hear me? I said we need to talk.”
“Is one of my kids in trouble?” she asked, without looking at him.
“No.”
“Somebody burn down one of the buildings they worked on?”
He scowled. “No.”
“Then we’ve got nothing to talk about.” And she swiveled around in a complicated undulation of hips and arms that this time left her back to him.
“What the hell?” He moved around her until they were nearly chest-to-chest again. “What’s your problem?”
“Got no problems, copper. It’s Friday night and I’m copasetic. A little buzzed, perhaps, but, hey, that’s all right. I’m not driving.” She shooed him away with a languid sweep of her hand. “Move along.”
“Not until I know you’ve made arrangements for a safe ride home.” He stared at her, puzzled and frustrated by her attitude. When a dancer behind him knocked him into her, he gritted his teeth at the warm, plush press of her body.
“Didn’t I just say I wasn’t driving?” Stepping back out of touching range, she stopped dancing for just a second, then picked up the rhythm again. “What the hell do you care how I get home? Isn’t involving yourself in my transportation arrangements against your precious professional code of ethics?”
Shitfuckhell. It’s what he had said to her the day Murph interrupted them making out against the fridge: that getting involved with her was against his and the city’s code of ethics. And wasn’t he just one hell of a detective, though? Every time he’d freed up a half hour to drop by the project to check on the kids this past week, he’d been so busy trying to avoid spending one minute more in Poppy’s company than was absolutely necessary that it had entirely skipped his attention she hadn’t exactly been tripping all over herself to catch his interest.
On the contrary, given the way she’d just thrown his words back in his face, he’d take a wild stab here and guess she had been avoiding him with a diligence that rivaled his own. A fact that shouldn’t be catching him by surprise now, given the way she had slammed out of his apartment without a word that day.
She opened her mouth—no doubt to lambast him—just as the music segued into something slow and bluesy. A man strode toward her with clear intentions, but before he could ask her to dance, Jase grasped her wrists and pulled her into his arms, giving the other guy his best back-off! cop eyes.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she demanded, staring up at him.
“We’re going to finish this conversation.”
She stood rigid in his arms, but he pulled her hands around his neck and started to sway in time to the music, expecting her to shove him away at any second. After a moment, however, she loosened up enough to follow his less than Dancing With the Stars– worthy lead. But she angled her chin up as if to say, You’re here, so I’ll dance with you—same as I would do with any guy. His hands tightened around her wrists for a second.
Then, exhaling a quiet breath, he loosened his grip and wrapped his arms around her, splaying his hands against her back. Resting his cheek against her hair, he inhaled the scent of her shampoo.
And for a moment he felt almost…peaceful.
In tacit détente, they slow-danced without speaking. Then, just as the song was winding to a close, he felt her lips move against his collarbone as she said something he couldn’t hear over the music. He tucked his chin to gaze down at her and a strand of blond hair clung like spider silk to his stubble for a second before pulling free to drift back to her temple. “What?”
“You should go home, Jason.”
His jaw tightened, the peaceful feeling slip-sliding away as if it had never been. “Yeah. And I will. As soon as you assure me you’ve got a plan in place for getting home safely when this place closes down.”
Her brows snapped together over stormy eyes. “What are you, my daddy?”
“No, dammit, I’m a cop who knows too much about what can happen after dark in this neighborhood!”
There was a scramble at a nearby table, and he glanced over to see a young woman retract a fistful of bills while the man sitting opposite her slid what looked like a quarter gram of weed out of sight. On an ordinary night he’d have had a little talk with them, but he was a bit preoccupied here and his attention immediately snapped back to Poppy when she poked him in the chest.
“Fine,” she said. “Then you can trot off contented in knowing I have a plan in place for exactly that.”
Which should have been sufficient, considering the way he was still smarting over the daddy crack. Yet he heard himself demanding, “What is it?”
“I’ve enlisted the help of a couple of fine strapping Irish lads to see us to Jane’s car.” The band announced a break and she disengaged herself from his arms and stepped back. “In fact, here comes one now.”
She was looking past him and he turned to see the guy who’d had his hands all over her hips.
The jerk had the stones to look at him in return as if he was the lowlife, then transferred his attention to Poppy. “This joker giving you trouble?” he demanded. Then he studied Jase more closely. “Do I know you?”
“This is Detective de Sanges, Finn. He was just leaving.” She turned to him. “I’m not stupid, you know. We realized this wasn’t the best neighborhood to be out and about in at night. Ava, of course, was all for renting us a door-to-door limo. But Jane and I opted to go the cheaper route and enlist Jane’s husband, Dev, and Finn here. They’re twice as effective as any chauffeur and they work for beer.”
“And close contact with hot babes,” Finn put in, slinging an arm around Poppy’s shoulder and staring at Jase, daring him to say something.
He felt his blood pressure rising.
Poppy nodded. “And the occasional dance,” she agreed. “They’re also Kavanaghs—as in the construction company remodeling the Wolcott mansion? I think you met them when you came out last fall.”
Kavanagh didn’t offer to shake and neither did he. “I talked to Devlin, I think it was,” he said stiffly. Who, of course, was the
redhead he’d thought had looked familiar. “I didn’t meet Finn.”
“Yeah, I remember now.” Finn’s expression didn’t grow any friendlier. “I saw you arriving as I was leaving the day Jane was attacked.”
“So, good,” Jase said, turning back to Poppy, who had stepped out from under the drape of Kavanagh’s arm. “That’s all I wanted—to make sure you got home safely. I’ve got plans of my own, so I’ll let you get back to your evening and I’ll get on with mine.”
“Have a good one,” she said as if she couldn’t care less whether he did or not, then turned away without another glance to start weaving through the tightly packed tables toward one back in the corner where her girlfriends sat with the redheaded construction worker. The guy named Finn raised a dark brow at him, then ambled off in her wake.
Leaving Jase, stringing obscenities together beneath his breath, to head for the door.
POPPY COULDN’T catch her breath. For several long moments after arriving back at the table, she simply sat as her friends’ conversation swirled around her. She didn’t absorb more than one word in ten.
Damn him.
Damn him, damn him, damn him!
What was it about Jason de Sanges, anyway? She reacted to him in ways that never in a gajillion years could anyone else make her do. She couldn’t think of one circumstance in which she’d ever have allowed another man to pull that macho bullshit on her—she would have chopped him off at the knees so fast, he’d be four foot two before he ever felt the blade.
But had she done anything even remotely like that with Jason?
Oh, no.
Instead, like little Miss Wishy-washy, she’d let him pull her into his arms after she had sworn—sworn!— to herself that he would never get another opportunity to mess with her head, her ego, her libido that way. She should have pushed him away, had fully intended to push him away, when he so high-handedly drafted her into that dance.
Then she’d smelled the clean scent of his skin, felt the warmth and firmness of his body through his soft navy cashmere sweater and charcoal slacks, and had simply…yielded.
Bending the Rules Page 17