Silk Confessions (5 page)

“I almost hate to ask why I’d need an alibi for last Saturday night.” She swiveled away from her laptop to face him.

“I wanted to be damn sure you weren’t my murderer before things started heating up between us.” He down-sized the S and M woman and clicked on a—surprise—totally nude chick. There hadn’t been many nude photos on the site, but nudity wasn’t prohibited by the guide lines either.

“I rescue animals from trash cans, for crying out loud. Why would I ever kill someone?” She huffed out a sigh
before turning toward his computer screen and the naked babe whose body was admirable enough, but it wasn’t the body he wanted to see. “And on another note, nothing is going to heat up between us.”

“Things are already heating up.” He reached for the errant lock of hair at Tempest’s temple and coiled his finger through the curl. Silky and sexy, the sable strand clung to his skin as if it wanted to linger with him.

Around him.

“You’re just getting hot and bothered because you’ve been reading about every sex fetish under the sun and now you’re staring at a disrobed female with perfect breasts.” She eased back from him, taking her sweet curves and soft brown waves a few more inches away.

“She’s not the one making me hot and bothered.” He stared into Tempest’s surprised brown eyes, wondering how she could possibly ignore such a blatant come-on. Did she find it that difficult to believe he would be interested? “Tell me, Tempest, do you date much?”

“Is this question of a professional nature?” She tugged on her necklace in what he began to realize was a nervous gesture. Fondling the small pearl at the end of the gold chain, she slid the charm to the right and then to the left, back and forth.

He imagined that mesmerizing touch skimming across his skin instead. Back and forth.

“Yes and no. We were talking about your alibi, but then it made me remember your alibi was a date.” He rescued the pearl from her twitching fingers. “It made me wonder if you go out much or if you have a significant other in your life.”

She went utterly still as he replaced the necklace just below her collarbone, being careful not to actually touch her. He had the distinct impression that under Tempest’s
somewhat shy facade lay a woman of emotions as fiery as her name implied. If he ever touched her…sparks would definitely fly.

“I don’t have time for significant others.” She shrugged, the movement shifting the pearl along her skin. “I barely have time to watch my soap opera and feed my dog.”

“So the coffee shop guy doesn’t hold any special place in your affections?” Not that he was jealous, damn it.

“I don’t date.” She said it more firmly, perhaps reading some of his intent in his eyes. “And I don’t think you can find people who will be remotely compatible with you by hanging out in your average nightclub or coffee shop. I always thought a service like MatingGame would be the better way to go.”

“You can’t test chemistry online.” He couldn’t imagine meeting a woman in such a sterile environment. How would you know what the personal dynamics would be like unless you met face-to-face? Much better to get close.

“Chemistry is overrated. What about common interests and shared values? That’s the heart of a great relationship.”

Wes had heard the same spiel from his partner Vanessa, but had never given her ideas the time of day. Now that Tempest seemed to place stock in them, too, he wondered how a man would go about winning over her mind as much as her body.

Not that it should matter to Wes. His plans for Tem pest were simple. Straightforward. Soon to be satisfying.

“Maybe you’re right.” He turned back to the computer, thinking he’d finish a little business at the same time he got to know Tempest better. “I thought I’d play around with the MatingGame application form anyway to get an idea what they want to know to match people up with
dates. You want to help me? Maybe we can learn a few things about each other.”

“We don’t need to know much about each other to work together.”

Undeterred, Wes started filling in blanks on the application form. “Qualities I value in a woman—loyalty, faithfulness, integrity.”

Beside him, Tempest snorted.

“What?”

“What do you mean ‘what’? You sound like you’re shopping for a dog, not a girlfriend. Everybody wants loyalty in a relationship, Wes. That doesn’t say squat about what kind of woman you’d like.”

He stared at his application, still liking his answers. “This is the stuff that matters.”

“What about creativity and vision? What about finding a woman who follows her dreams and celebrates life? Someone who isn’t afraid to thumb her nose at conventional norms so she can immerse herself in her art…” She trailed off, her tawny gaze suddenly a bit horror-stricken.

Wes couldn’t help the smile that curled his lips. He leaned in closer to Tempest, ready to find out if she harbored passion and fire beneath her nervous twitches and tendency to wriggle.

“Someone like you?”

T
EMPEST COULDN’T ANSWER.
Couldn’t think. Couldn’t make herself move away from the six-foot-plus detective inching closer to her with every breath.

If she had reasons for keeping her distance from this man, she certainly couldn’t remember them now when her whole body shivered in anticipation of whatever might come next.

His lips brushed hers in a whisper-light caress, just enough to whet her appetite for more. She caught the scent of peppermint tea on his breath and spicy after shave on his jaw, her senses focusing solely on Wes until the rest of the room around her disappeared. She could only taste this moment, this man.

Sliding her hands up his shoulders, she absorbed the feel of him the way she would test a new batch of clay. Except Wes was already perfectly formed and sharply defined, chiseled by more skilled fingers than her own. She eased her way up his corded neck, molding her hands about his strong jaw until she pulled him closer, deepening the kiss.

He was beautiful. Her hands recognized the physical appeal of his cleanly defined muscles, savoring the supple skin over hard, rippled strength. But the delights for her hands couldn’t come close to the feast for her mouth. His kiss teased and invited, daring her to give more of herself to him.

She hoped she knew better, because the languid strokes of his tongue tempted her to fall right into him. Breathe him in. Experience firsthand the most amazing sculpture imaginable.

She skimmed her fingers into his dark hair, winding them around his neck. He growled deep in his throat, encouraging her.

Until he kept on growling.

Arching back, she broke their kiss. Only to discover Eloise doing the growling a scant foot away, her ruff raised in aggressive warning as she snarled softly at Wes.

“No, Eloise,” Tempest scolded her, using the stern voice the doggie-school instructor had taught her. “Go lie down.”

Eloise cocked her head first to one side and then the other—clearly confused.

“She thinks I was devouring you,” Wes supplied, keeping still until the dog trotted off to her open kennel where Tempest kept her blanket and a few toys.

“She’s my voice of reason.” Tempest knew she should listen to the dog instead of her sex-deprived libido, but Wes didn’t make it easy. “And I would think she did you a favor.”

“By making sure I didn’t get past first base?” His softened tones brought to mind pillow talk and break fast in bed. “How do you figure?”

She shut out the sound of that seductive voice in an effort to keep her distance. Maintain space. Remember that he suspected a business she’d brought on board at Boucher.

“Kissing me only complicates things for you. For all you know, I’m selling my fellow sisters on the street for a few quick bucks.” Growing more indignant by the
moment, she straightened in her chair, easing away from him. Where was his sense of honor, for crying out loud?

Wes rolled his eyes. “Whoever is behind this isn’t selling anyone on the street. If my informant is right, anything connected to MatingGame would be very high-end.”

“Earth to Wes—that’s all the more reason you should suspect me. My whole lifestyle is very high-end.” She looked around her unassuming little studio with a thirteen-inch TV and a futon couch she’d dressed up with extra pillows. “Okay, so maybe I don’t look too sophisticated around here, but you know perfectly well I come from a ridiculously privileged family.”

“Who’s the cop here anyway? Will you trust me to do my job? I’ve got great instincts about who to suspect, and frankly, you seem a little too unfamiliar with three somes to run a call-girl operation.” He tipped back in his chair, drumming his hands on his chest. “Besides, when it comes right down to it, I’m not investigating MatingGame,
per se
. I’m only interested in how it relates to my murder case.”

“So I should feel fine about you kissing me because you would never have to be the one to bust me?”

“You should feel fine about kissing me because I make you feel damn good.”

Was she that transparent? She suppressed the urge to run her finger over her lips that still tingled from his kiss. “Do you always say what you think?”

“Hell no. I’ve been a detective for nine years, so there have been plenty of times I can’t say what I think. Would I have a job that long if I pointed fingers at people and told them they were guilty as hell?” He tugged a curl at her shoulder and watched it spring back into place. “I’ve got to reserve my professional opinion, but I make snap judgments on a personal level just like everybody else. I know better than to share them.”

“Really?” She noticed the ivy tattoo around his wrist and reminded herself to ask him about it. “Does that mean you have personal opinions about me you’re not sharing, even though you have no problem telling me how
I
feel?”

His eyebrows shot up. “Lady, what you don’t know about men is a lot.”

“Didn’t I say I don’t date much?” Since her father had been too busy wheeling and dealing his way through life, Tempest had learned much of what she knew about men from soap operas. And while she adored her TV he roes, most of the men she met in real life didn’t have secret identities, evil twins with ties to underworld gangs or sordid pasts in which they were raised by Gypsies.

“But you’ve heard the stat that men think about sex something like every ten minutes, right?”

“I thought it was every half hour.”

He shrugged, his T-shirt shifting along with his sculpted muscles. “It’s a lot. If you take that into account, you can probably guess that men spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about women. Yet I haven’t shared any of those thoughts with you.”

“Sex thoughts?” The air in the apartment suddenly seemed thick. Heavy. She breathed in the male scent of him and remembered the taste of his mouth.

“Definitely.” He turned back to the computer abruptly. “In fact, as long as I’m thinking major sex thoughts, I might as well enter my profile into the computer to see what MatingGame comes up with as a match for me.”

“You want to find a date?” Annoyed, she wondered how he could channel sexual energy so easily from one woman to another.

“I want to see if the system pairs me up with a legitimate date or a woman expecting to get paid for her fa
vors.” He tapped into the Blind Date section of the site. “But the only section of the company that could really orchestrate something like this would be the Blind Date service.”

Intrigued, Tempest watched him fill out the form about what he looked for in a woman. Interestingly, he deleted his ideas about loyalty and faithfulness.

“You want a woman who takes pleasure in her femininity and isn’t afraid to show it off.” Tempest puzzled over the words, coming up with only a vague image in her mind. “You mean someone who wears short skirts?”

She really hoped he wasn’t that tacky. Still, she couldn’t staunch the urge to peer down at the long cot ton dress she’s tossed on this morning because it covered her from head to toe. The fashion equivalent of body armor.

“No. Although short skirts are never a bad thing.” A dimple puckered into his cheek even though he didn’t crack a smile. “I thought it would be too cheesy to say I’d like a woman with a closetful of lingerie.”

Remembering the mounds of silk and lace strewn all over her apartment the day before, Tempest shrank deeper into her chair. “Very cheesy. Women want to be respected for their brains.”

Although being drooled over for their bodies wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, either. Especially if Wes Shaw happened to be the drooler in question.

Geez,
what was she thinking? Thank God she hadn’t worn a short skirt. She needed a cynical cop in her life like she needed a few more years in the corporate world. No, thank you.

“But now that I think about it, if I want to test the waters to see if there are women using this service to find paying customers, maybe I’d be better off sounding sex-starved. Cheesy may be the way to go.” He continued
typing away, finally turning the monitor toward her when he finished so she could see what he had written.

Tempest scanned the parts she’d already read, wondering what he’d thought of her heaps of lingerie scattered around her apartment yesterday. Had he been curious about the fact that there were ten times as many camisoles on the carpet as sweaters?

She happened to really enjoy lingerie.

“Must like dogs?” She couldn’t help but focus on the one other characteristic she shared with Wes’s cheesy dream woman.

“That’s too honest, isn’t it?” He tapped his finger along the delete key to get rid of his last line.

“And you honestly want a woman who likes dogs?”

“I’ve got Kong, remember? She’s a St. Bernard, so she tends to scare off all but the most adamant of dog lovers.”

There was something reassuring about a guy who had a pet. He could care for something. And chances were he had low blood pressure, right? Pet owners couldn’t be too fussy or uptight. “A St. Bernard?”

“I know—you think it’s too big for a city apartment, right?”

“Heck, no. I just say that because everybody automatically tells me I shouldn’t keep Eloise cooped up in here with me and I’m tired of hearing it.”

They compared dog notes, shared frustrations of hair on their favorite clothes and agreed a dog made the Sunday morning trek for the newspaper way more fun.

And somehow, Tempest really wished she’d be on the receiving end of his blind date.

“Are you really going to submit that form?” She wasn’t sure if he’d been serious, or if he just wanted to see what kinds of questions the program generated.

“Of course. I need to talk to the woman in charge of MatingGame, but until then, it might help me figure out whether or not the business is legitimate.” And before she could say another word about it, he clicked the send button to launch his dating criteria into cyberspace.

Surprise made her stare at the computer even after the form disappeared. “But you won’t actually go on the date?”

“Depends.” He shut down the screen and swiveled his chair toward her. “Right now I’m only interested in one woman.”

Tempest held her breath while she waited to find out who that might be. Like a Friday afternoon cliff-hanger, he left her tense. Anxious. And so much more intrigued than she should be.

But no matter what he said, Tempest knew she couldn’t let him stay.

W
ES TRACED HIS THUMB
down her soft cheek, knowing he couldn’t let her push him aside like she seemed to shove away everything else in her life. She wasn’t close to her family and didn’t enjoy being part of her father’s business so she lived a secret life in Chelsea when she wasn’t a corporate executive.

He liked Tempest. She didn’t put on airs. Didn’t pre tend to be something she wasn’t. And after women he’d dated in the past, he found that kind of honesty intriguing.

Hell—to be honest with
himself
—he hadn’t found anything about women intriguing during the rough months since they found his first partner’s body. So the fact that Tempest Boucher made him sit up and take notice was a major event.

He just didn’t want to let her know it or he had the feeling she’d run far and fast.

“I think I’ve made it obvious I’d like to get to know you better.” He’d let his kiss say as much, hadn’t he? “But when it comes to my job, I can’t afford to over look any avenue that will achieve my ends. I need to know what’s going on at MatingGame and Blind Date seems like the only place on the site that might allow a hooker to ply her trade.”

“You think your killer could be working alone? Maybe this woman doesn’t go through any kind of service.” Tempest remained very still as he touched her cheek.

Wes couldn’t afford to encourage the hope in her eyes. “I doubt it. Most women in the business know that’s not a safe way to work.”

“So you’ll test the Blind Date service personally.” She raised an eyebrow, clearly disapproving of his methods. Still, she didn’t take him to task for it, instead turning her attention to his hand. “Neat tattoo.”

He stared down at the green ivy snaking around his wrist. “It was a good save.”

“A save?” She wrinkled her nose. “What do you mean?”

“I tattooed an old girlfriend’s name on my wrist and came to regret it when she cheated on me with another guy. But I went back to the shop and the artist managed to transform ‘Belinda’ into a chain of ivy.” He’d actually asked for poison ivy at the time, using a twenty-two-year-old’s logic that tying yourself to a woman was the equivalent of a bad rash. Luckily, the tattoo lady had ignored him and produced something a little tamer.

Being a horticultural nimrod, Wes didn’t even know he’d gotten English ivy instead of the poison variety until a year later.

“Can you imagine?” Tempest shook her head, her brown curls hopping around her shoulders. “How could
anyone be so greedy to need two men at once? I never understood the rationale behind cheating. If you want out of a relationship, just tell the other person. Is that so hard?”

“Careful, lady, or I’ll start thinking you’re harboring a big store of loyalty and faithfulness and all those things you assured me I could only find in a canine.”

“I mold penises for a living, remember?” Her teasing tone made it clear she didn’t want any part of a serious conversation. “You can’t trust a woman who hunts down naked men to model for her.”

He knew damn well she was yanking his chain. What could it hurt to yank back?

“Really?” Rising, he reached for the hem of his T-shirt. “I’ve been looking for an excuse to get naked with you. Why don’t you give me your professional opinion?”

He waited for her to say no. Stop. Keep your clothes on. Anything. But as his T-shirt hit the floor and his hands reached for the button on his jeans, he wondered if maybe Tempest Boucher hadn’t been bluffing at all.

She watched him in fascinated silence—hell, he hoped it was fascinated and not horrified—her eyes lingering on every inch of exposed skin. And suddenly, blood whooshed through him so fast he was halfway to having a heart attack and an erection that would be evident from two miles away.

Damnation. What kind of stupid-ass idiot started peeling off his clothes around a woman he hardly knew? A woman he really wanted?