First she had to explain to a friend that she’d suspected he was a murderer. How she’d breached the borders of friendship and rifled through his life.
She inhaled, closed her eyes. When she opened them again, it was to find Darren staring at her, no accusation, just curiosity.
The feeling wasn’t as bad as when she’d believed her mother blamed her for Bec’s death, but it came close. She deserved accusation, not trust and understanding.
It was more than difficult to find the words to explain. But she had to try.
‘Sure you won’t join me?’
Everything in Jayda trembled as Seth brushed her hair aside and pressed his lips to the back of her neck. Her fingers slumped onto the keyboard and a line of incoherent letters raced across the computer screen. She really should remove her hands, but the amble of his lips across her skin robbed both her strength and inclination.
‘I promise to wash all your difficult to reach bits.’
She dragged her hands into her lap. ‘I told you, I need to finish this.’
He swivelled her chair and kneeled between her legs, pressing the lever beneath her seat. It squealed, and with a whoosh of air, slowly lowered her to eye level. Murmuring approval, his palms rested on her hips and his mouth gained better access, this time to the racing carotid on her throat. ‘You’ve been working at it for hours. Haven’t stopped since we arrived home yesterday. Don’t you think it’s time for a break?’
His fingers inched inwards, igniting the need to touch him back. As her palms spanned the breadth of his chest, she wondered if she’d ever get tired of knowing she could. That his body had become as much hers as hers had become his.
‘What about if I pay particular attention to the less difficult to reach and more fun parts?’ He stopped long enough to waggle his eyebrows and then leer sexily at her, before continuing the journey with his lips, which were almost lost in the cleavage of her new, burgundy lace push-up bra.
Yes, she’d finally gone and done it, splurged on a collection of new underwear while they were out yesterday afternoon. Seth had insisted on tagging along. For her safety, he said. And in between acting all tough and bodyguard-like—which made her laugh since she was the one with the gun—he’d spent the time offering suggestions, even offering to help fit each item and provide feedback when necessary.
She’d breathlessly declined, preferring to wait until they’d returned home before she modelled the garments for him. Not that they’d stayed on much longer than the time it took for him to stand back, admire, and then unclasp and slide them off.
Even now, she didn’t know what turned her on more—the gossamer feel of satin and lace against her skin, or the heat in Seth’s expression every time he looked at her.
At the moment his look, not to mention his touch, were hands-down winners. She turned to the screen and tried to refocus on her list. Now the Night Terror had changed tack and come after her, the case was worth another look from that angle. When things turned personal, killers tended to become sloppy. She could only hope their killer fell prey to this same logic.
‘I need to finish this.’
‘Really?’ He glanced at the screen, then back at her askew neckline, and as his fingertips worked her nipple through her top and bra, she gasped. Her head fell back, pressing her breast even deeper against the hand that cupped and squeezed her towards heaven.
‘Sure I can’t convince you?’ His mouth returned to her neck, doing delicious things that made her want to melt right onto the floor.
She dragged in a breath and wriggled back into the chair, pushing against him with both palms. ‘You’re not playing fair, and I really do have to finish this.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, really.’ One look at his woeful expression and she bit back a laugh. ‘But if you’re good I promise to make it up to you later.’
‘Promise?’
This time she did laugh. The man was impossible.
‘I promise.’
He tugged at her neckline and peeked down her top. ‘The only thing I love more than this colour on you, is this colour off you.’
She swatted his hand. ‘I said be good.’
‘You didn’t say what at.’ Again his eyebrows waggled.
She pointed at the door. ‘Go. Shower. Now!’
‘Boy, you’re bossy.’
‘You only just worked that out?’ As he sauntered towards the bedroom, she didn’t even try to hide how much she appreciated the way his butt filled his jeans. He turned to face her and she amended her thought. How everything filled his jeans.
He quirked a brow. ‘There are times I quite enjoy it. Last night, for instance.’ Heat hit her face while the memory struck places lower and much, much deeper. What he’d been doing when she’d begged him—ordered him—to go faster, deeper, harder. Damn! How the hell was she supposed to concentrate now?
He grinned. ‘Shame you don’t need a shower as much as I do. Guess I’ll have to suffer through all that soaping and scrubbing alone.’
Then he left her, squirming, steaming; brain anywhere but on the case. Imagining all that naked, bronze skin, wet and lathered. She knew how it felt, smelt, tasted.
Now she did need a shower—one that was ice-cold.
Instead she poured herself a glass of water from the fridge, drinking half and tipping the remainder into her hand. She sluiced it over her face and down her neck. If basic physics were to be believed, the cooling effects couldn’t help but travel south.
It took a while to highlight and delete the gibberish which had jumped all over the screen. Once that was done, she leaned back in her chair and stared at what remained—a sequence of events that had a large red flag stuck square in the middle.
She doubted it was paranoia making her believe that the Night Terror had anticipated her every move since early in the case. As if he’d read her, seen exactly what she was planning and when, as though—and she knew how crazy it sounded—as though he had a direct link into her mind.
How? Was there a leak in her squad? Immediately Georgie’s face appeared. Their catch-up had been a partial success, resolving some issues while raising others in turn. None of which, it seemed, related to the Night Terror.
Georgie’s presence in the building that day had been explained away. She’d been visiting a new love interest and wasn’t ready to share their identity.
She understood her friend’s need for privacy. How she didn’t need her own Liam incident rushing in and wrecking her career. News spread through the squad as easily as butter melting over hot toast, and the ribbing would have been just as liberal. Georgie had already survived one very public relationship and breakup. It made sense she’d want to keep this one under wraps until she was sure about it, which was probably why she was still holding something back.
There was more to her story than met the eye.
A mental sift through every male on her floor had none leaping out as an obvious candidate. Unless she should consider the women? That might explain Georgie’s reluctance to share. She shook her head. It didn’t matter. As long as they—male or female—made her happy.
It was unthinkable that her friend would contravene her sworn oath as an officer. She’d lost her father twenty-plus years ago to a stray bullet in a robbery gone bad. It was the reason she’d joined the force, the reason she believed far too deeply in justice to be anything but on the right side of the law.
So, if Georgie wasn’t the leak, who was? Chase? Despite being a dick at times, he was no criminal, to the point where before joining homicide, he’d been instrumental in blowing the whistle on police corruption in Victoria.
One by one she discounted the members of her team. She had to be missing something. What?
She rifled through the papers beside her computer to locate her notebook. Writing her thoughts rather than typing them always helped her see things more clearly.
Her continued search yielded no joy and, more importantly, no pen. There were times when it felt as if o
dd socks and pens lived a doomed existence, all of them sucked through the same universe time warp, never to be found again.
Yesterday she’d had three pens, today she had none. Surely Seth must have one. Somewhere.
Running water still hummed from the shower. She glanced at the buffet with its array of drawers, then back to the door. It wasn’t as if the house were Seth’s, so she shouldn’t feel guilty about searching it when he wasn’t around. And searching in the living room felt less invasive than entering the more private domains he’d adopted as his study and bedroom.
It wasn’t as if she were searching for more than a pen.
She pulled out one drawer, sifted through a bunch of old crocheted doilies and embroidered napkins, then opened the next.
Her jaw dropped. Her gaze darted to the closed bedroom doorway, then back. Seth hadn’t lied. Not exactly. Half-truths were just that, a mix of what you were willing and unwilling to share. Although why he hadn’t shared this . . . The house wasn’t just anybody’s.
She shook her head.
The frame on top was gilded black and the photo inside could have been any family if it weren’t for the younger but recognisable version of Seth on the right.
She’d wondered at the lack of photos, but hadn’t for one moment imagined it was because he’d hidden them from sight, had hidden the fact that he wasn’t house-sitting for just anyone.
She stared at the photo, as if sharper scrutiny would reveal something of its past. A family of four stared back.
Seth’s father was greying even back then, with round glasses and deep frown lines bordering his mouth. His dour face was a perfect match for his wife’s, but she had Seth’s raven hair, and grey-blue eyes that lacked the humour and sparkle of her son’s. The child between them, unsmiling and non-descript, had to be Callum.
Then there was Seth. He stood at his mother’s side, arms straight, shoulders squared, like an army cadet. His chin jutted outwards, an almost desperate determination in his expression which made her heart ache for the child he once was.
There were other photos, all taken before or around the time Callum must have died. None existed after. And in none of them did Seth appear happy or connected to his family.
She dropped all but the first back into the drawer, unable to drag her eyes away from the Seth of back then.
‘Jayda?’
She turned, the photo still grasped in her hand. ‘Why didn’t you tell me this was your parents’ house?’
57
Genius. Pure fucking incredible genius.
The splay of his lips widened across his teeth. His hand hovered, then tapped send.
It was done.
Fingers flexed, then bent, as if wrapping round pulsing skin and bone. A bloody cough hacked into laughter.
His grip tightened. He pictured her, pleading, anguished, the light in her witch’s eyes fading as he extinguished what remained of her life. Her last thoughts that she’d lost everything she loved.
The end was close. Squeeze.
Squeeze.
Squeeze.
58
Seth stood in the doorway, gorgeous and wet, hand gripping a white towel wrapped low on his hips.
‘You rummaged through my drawers?’
‘I don’t know about rummaging. I was looking for a pen, not family secrets.’
‘I don’t have any family secrets.’
‘Really?’ She tapped the photo in her hand. ‘You hid this.’
He blinked before returning his gaze from the frame to her face. ‘Why does it matter?’
‘It didn’t until you chose not to tell me.’
‘The house belongs to my parents and I’m minding it. End of story.’
‘If it’s such an issue, why not get your own place?’
‘It’s not an issue. I have my own place and it’s rented out. I stay here because it’s convenient.’
‘For who?’
‘Both parties. Does it matter?’
‘I don’t know. It mattered enough for you to keep it secret.’
‘That’s where you’re wrong. It just didn’t matter enough for me to make a big deal of it.’
‘What about these, then?’ She waved the photo at the others stacked in the drawer. ‘Why hide them?’
‘Why do you always add two plus two and come up with fourteen? No photos out means less dust. I hate dusting.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. Really. If that hideous vase had fit into a drawer, it would have suffered the same fate.’
She didn’t believe him. Not for a second. But nothing would be gained from pressing him further. He’d revealed and shared so much of himself in the short time she’d known him. Was she unreasonable to want more?
She carefully placed the photo back on top of the others and closed the drawer.
He moved closer, dragging her thoughts away from the buffet to the towel that hid and revealed so much. Scents of fresh pine and man beguiled her senses.
‘You promised you’d make up for missing the shower.’ The whisper of his words shivered across her skin.
She stepped back. ‘I haven’t finished yet.’
‘What say I help you finish, then you do the same for me?’ The dimple was back.
She fought a grin, instead giving him ‘the look’. ‘Are you kidding?’
He glanced down and her eyes followed his. The tent in his towel told her he was indeed serious.
She dragged her gaze upwards. ‘You’ll have to put some clothes on.’
‘A waste of time when I don’t intend to stay dressed for long.’
‘If you insist on helping in that get-up, my brain won’t be able to focus long enough for me to finish.’
‘Then turn your focus here and once we’re done I promise, like the good Boy Scout we both know I’m not, that I’ll help you to finish. I’ll even wear clothes to do it.’
She sighed. Her father always said the sign of a good sportsman was to know when you’re beat. To be able to pick yourself up and see if your end game couldn’t be won via another avenue.
She ran her hands down his torso then tugged at the towel until it fell to the floor. Stormy grey invaded his eyes as her hands found what his towel had failed to hide. She dropped to her knees and his breath hitched, his body frozen in anticipation. The heat already thrummed through her body, the flesh between her thighs pulsing with want. Her lips were so close, she tasted him on every inhaled breath.
She glanced up to find him watching her beneath hooded eyes.
‘I have one more proviso.’
He nodded and closed his eyes, losing himself in the sensation of her hand running up and down his cock. She could have asked for the moon and he would have handed it to her without a word.
Luckily for Seth, she didn’t want much.
‘I need you to find me a pen.’
‘The building’s not the same without you.’ Juz’s words brought a smile to Jayda’s lips as her still sticky-taped phone pricked against her ear.
She leaned back in her chair, languid and sated from Seth’s loving. ‘Tell the building I feel the same.’
‘At least you’ve still got your sense of humour.’
‘And my head.’ Silence. ‘Juz?’
‘Not funny, Jayda.’
‘I guess. But if I don’t laugh about it, I’ll cry.’ She swallowed. ‘I’m sorry about Tumbles.’
‘He was a good cat.’ His voice wavered. ‘He’d been through so much.’
Words clogged in her throat. Some memories never fade. A kitten’s poor, broken body dumped in the gutter outside their building. Juz’s gentle hands cradling him, his soft voice soothing until the vet could put all but his rear right leg back together.
‘You saved him.’
‘Not this time.’
‘You’d have to be a monster to kill an innocent animal like that . . .’ Her vision blurred and she blinked. ‘Sometimes I feel as if I’ll never get this bastard.’
‘You’ll find him.
I know it. What do we always say in class? If your opponent’s good . . .’
‘You need to be better!’ They finished it together and something a lot like yearning filled her throat. ‘I miss you, Juz. You always know what to say.’
‘That’s what friends are for, hon. You sound in dire need of a hug.’ He gave a throat-clearing cough and then his voice regained the old Juz quality she knew and loved. ‘Is that an indication that we’re not getting enough?’
‘We are getting more than enough, and that is all I’m saying on the subject.’ No need to see his face to sense his disappointment at her restraint. Juz didn’t do well when not in the know.
‘When am I going to see you?’
‘This case makes it impossible for me to plan anything.’ Instead of staring at a computer screen that refused to yield answers, she stood and began to pace. She heard a sigh. ‘Juz?’
‘Yeah?’ Another sigh, his tone uncharacteristically flat. Something was up.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Garry moved back to Sydney.’
She stopped so fast she nearly tripped over her feet. ‘He left you?’
‘He was offered a too-good-to-pass-up job at the Nicholson Museum.’
Jayda’s hand tightened around her mobile. ‘Telemarketing?’
‘No. Antiquities. Restorations, from what he told me, which wasn’t much.’
Her heart began to race. ‘Repairing old books and artwork?’
‘Don’t know. Does it matter?’
‘Has Garry been acting strange lately? Being secretive, or doing things out-of-character?’
‘Why? What are you thinking?’ His voice cracked. ‘Do you think there’s someone else?’
She bit her lip. It wasn’t as if she could share her suspicions with Juz. Not when she lacked proof and he was already hurting.
‘I don’t know what to think. Are you sure it can’t be fixed?’
‘I don’t even know how it broke.’
‘You were so good together.’
‘We were, until we weren’t. This past week he seemed distant. I thought it was to do with crap going on at work. Then a friend called two days ago, and the next thing I know, we’re having “the talk”.’
Lethal in Love Page 40