When I Wasn't Watching (11 page)

She sat down as Matt poured them both a glass of wine.

‘Chicken tikka masala. My own recipe,' he said with pride, then cursed as the microwave pinged to let him know very conspicuously that the ready-made rice was indeed ready. Lucy laughed, looking instantly girlish as she bit her lip to stifle her giggles.

‘You know,' she said in an amused tone as she watched Matt dishing up, the spicy aroma warming the large, rather minimalist kitchen, ‘curry is apparently the most popular dish in England now?'

‘Just as well as it's about the only thing I can cook,' he admitted, setting her plate in front of her.

A silence ensued as they began to eat, but it was, he noticed, a more companionable silence than the awkward pauses that had been so evident in the restaurant. At least she was enjoying the food; she looked like she needed a good meal.

‘So how was your day?' Lucy asked eventually.

‘Uneventful,' Matt admitted, ‘though in my line of work, that's usually a good thing.'

‘No one got killed then,' she said, and though her voice was light there was an edge to it that made him look up sharply. Lucy gave a wry smile. ‘There isn't really a safe subject is there?'

‘I guess not.' Her eyes were watering again, but as he reached over the table in concern Lucy waved him away, coughed, and took a large drink of her wine.

‘I'm fine. This is just a bit spicier than I'm used to.'Matt shook his head.

‘On our first date I make you cry, now I'm making you splutter on the second. Maybe next time we should stay away from food?'

‘Good idea.' They both paused, acutely aware of those words.
Next time
. Matt inhaled and went to speak, not quite knowing what it was he meant to say. He never would, as Lucy set her cutlery down and looked at him intently.

‘I need to be honest with you, Matt.'

‘Oh?'

He drank his wine, doing his best to look casual.

‘I had slightly ulterior motives when I gave you my number.'

Matt sat back in his chair, an eyebrow raised but he didn't answer, instead just gazed at her and waited for her to speak as if he had all night. It occurred to him that he used a similar tactic in the interrogation room when he sensed a confession. It had the desired effect as Lucy, obviously expecting him to draw out of her whatever she intended to say, looked wrong-footed and blurted out, ‘I wanted you to find out his address.'

Matt kept his face deliberately blank as he spoke, though he already knew the answer.

‘Whose address?'

Lucy paused.

‘You know whose.'

‘Terry Prince.'

It wasn't a question, but she answered it anyway.

‘Yes.'

Matt ran a palm over his chin, a habit Lucy was beginning to recognise.

‘Are you angry?' Her eyes were wide and she was poised in her chair, giving the impression she was about to bolt.Matt forced himself to relax, aware of the tension in his jaw and shoulders. ‘Honestly?' He paused. ‘I don't know.'

‘I'm sorry,' she said in a whisper, then carried on talking so quietly Matt had to lean over the table to hear her. ‘It was crazy of course, but you have to understand, I wasn't thinking straight. At first all I could think about, could focus on, was that he's free and I don't know where he is. And I need to know. Not because I could do anything necessarily, I just
need
to know. It feels like my world's been turned upside down again. If I could just understand why, maybe I'd have some control again.'

Matt felt for her. She looked so vulnerable, yet tense, as if she would bite if he got too close. Like a caged animal almost. He understood, in a way. Hadn't it been the first question he had asked Dailey?

‘I couldn't help you if I wanted to, Lucy. You know that.'

‘I know.' Her voice was small. ‘Do you want me to go?'

‘No, of course not. Assuming that you still want to be here?'

She looked grateful. ‘Of course. That's what I was going to say. It was a crazy notion, but now, well, I like spending time with you.'

Her gaze dropped to his lips and Matt felt an immediate heat in his groin as he remembered that sudden, passionate kiss in his car.
Get your mind out of the gutter, Winston
.

‘I'm glad. I know it's difficult, me having worked your case. Probably a good enough reason for us to stop seeing each other, but I don't want to.'

‘You don't think I'm an awful person?'

Now Matt did reach over the table for her, taking her hand and turning it palm up in his, running his thumb in small circles over the centre.

‘No; I actually think you're pretty incredible.'

Lucy blushed, taking her hand from his and picking up her wine glass again. It was infuriating, the way she seemed to step towards him, then pull back, leaving him at a loss as to how to handle either her or his feelings for her. It was a new experience for Matt, who preferred uncomplicated, straightforward relationships.

Not that that had particularly worked out for him, he admitted to himself, thinking immediately of Carla. He had barely given her a thought in the past few days since their less than amicable split; something perhaps that he should feel guilty about, but all his thoughts had been mostly tangled up with the woman now sitting in front of him.

He wasn't quite sure how to process her latest revelation. When she had questioned him over dinner it had been fairly obvious she was wondering how much he knew, but the idea that it had been her main reason for initially dating him, well, that kind of wounded his pride. Matt shook his head at himself and changed the subject.

‘What reporter was bothering you earlier? When I phoned?'

‘Oh.' Lucy looked surprised, as though she had only just remembered. ‘It wasn't. A reporter, I mean. It was some psychic woman claiming to have messages from Jack from beyond the grave.' She rolled her eyes, but he didn't miss the glimmer of pain in them.

Matt swore. It never ceased to amaze him how damn insensitive some people could be. ‘You put the phone down, I take it?'

‘Of course. It's not the first time I've had calls like that. Every psychic in the country seems to have spoken to him.'

‘If she rings again, threaten her with a harassment charge. They can suck you in, these people. Ruin lives.'

‘Don't the police use psychics sometimes?'

‘Not if they work with me,' he snorted, then wondered if now he was being insensitive. Grief, and that desperate need to speak to the lost one again, that could do strange things to people. At least his mother hadn't gone down that route in grieving for his father; she had sought him in the bottom of a bottle instead. But he knew people who claimed a faith in the afterlife helped them through their pain. He wondered what Lucy believed.

‘You don't believe in any of it yourself then?'

Lucy shook her head, but she looked thoughtful.

‘No, but it's hard not to want to isn't it? You see, about a year after it all happened, Ricky started saying he could see him.'

Matt was confused.

‘Jack,' she explained, looking down at the table, ‘he started saying he could see Jack. We were starting to really worry about him, even to the point of taking him to a child psychiatrist, but then his hallucinations – or whatever they were – seemed to stop. I'm not even sure if he remembers much about it, he never talks about it. But that's all the more reason why I don't need cranks calling my home,' she added with vehemence.

Matt felt another surge of admiration for her, and for the obvious love she bore her son. He knew only too well what grief could do to a person, how it could rob them of the ability to still love the living. His mother had been a shining example, Matt being nothing but an obstacle to her drinking herself to a reunion with his father.

‘You're a strong woman.'

‘I don't always feel like it,' she admitted.

They gazed at each other for a long moment before her gaze dropped again to his mouth. Matt felt that familiar heat curling in the pit of his belly and before he had known he was going to do it he was walking around the table towards her, holding his hand out to her. She stood up into his embrace, her head resting on his shoulder, the smell of perfume and an undertone of coconut – shampoo perhaps – assailing his senses. They stood like that, neither of them moving, until Lucy tipped her head back and looked up at him. Waiting.

Matt hesitated only a moment before brushing her lips with his own. He had the feeling that if he didn't make a move now then the moment would be lost and they would be dancing around each other forever. Still, he didn't want to push her.

Lucy surprised him with the urgency of her response, kissing him back fiercely, hands entwining around his neck and gripping at his hair. It ignited his own need and before he had time to think she was perched on the edge of the table, her legs hooked around the back of his and her body pressing into his. With a groan he slid his hands up her body, pulling her hips into him and feeling himself hard against her, sliding his hands up her ribcage to cup her breasts beneath the woollen fabric of her dress. Even through it, he felt her nipples harden at his touch. He forced himself to pull away, his breath ragged. Her face was flushed, her hair tumbling around her cheeks, her lips swollen from their kiss. She looked so temptingly fuckable it was all Matt could do to keep from taking her then and there, but he wouldn't. Not the first time.

‘Lucy. His voice sounded hoarse even to his own ears. ‘Are you sure?'

She arched her back, pressing her body into his as if it was all the answer she needed.

‘Yes,' she said, and kissed him again, rubbing her hand over the front of his jeans where his cock strained for her. It was enough to scatter all the rational reasons why this was not a good idea.

Matt picked her up, wrapping her legs around his waist, which made her both gasp and giggle at the same time. She wrapped her hands around his back, nipping at his neck as he carried her through into the hall, kicking open his bedroom door and banging his shin as he did so. He swore under his breath, making Lucy laugh. So much for being suave.

‘I've always wanted someone to do that,' she said as he set her down, more carefully this time, onto her feet. He assumed she was referring to his carrying her rather than his slapstick clumsiness.

‘Whatever the lady likes,' he murmured, running his hands down her body. In spite of her slenderness she curved deliciously, fitting into his hands. He splayed his palms over her hipbones, his thumbs moving in small circles in the indents there and she moaned softly, reaching for his shirt and pulling it up.

‘Take it off,' she demanded, running her hands over his torso, scratching her nails lightly over his skin and looking up at him with a wicked expression. This was yet another new side to her; one he hadn't expected. He kept thinking of her as somehow physically fragile, as if he must handle her like glass, but the woman now nibbling at his neck and reaching for his zipper was most certainly asking for handling that was anything but delicate. It took all his self-control not to just push her back on the bed.

Instead he dropped to his knees and began to push her dress slowly up over her thighs, kissing his way up her legs as he did so. She parted them slightly and coiled a hand in his hair, tugging gently as he made his slow ascent up to her groin. He stopped at her panties and kissed her mound gently through them, brushing his lips over her just enough to make her wriggle under him. He could feel the heat and dampness of her through the thin cotton of her underwear.

He paused there, breathing on her, then came up, slowly pulling her dress with him. As he lifted the material over her head and she lifted her arms and arched her back to wriggle out of it he had a sudden image of a snake shedding its skin.

Becoming something else, someone new.

It unnerved him, and he kissed her to stifle the feeling, not stopping her this time when she reached to undo his jeans. Any reservations were forgotten as he felt her tighten her hand around his shaft and squeeze, then reach inside his pants to cup and fondle his balls. He groaned into her mouth and now he did push her back onto the bed, straddling her and pinning her hands up over her head by her wrists. She smiled up at him and then closed her eyes in obvious pleasure as he pushed her bra up with his free hand, a scrap of cotton lace that barely covered her small breasts, and bent to take a nipple in his mouth, sucking on it until she whimpered.

As he rose above her and turned her onto her stomach before lying over her, poised to enter her, he allowed himself a surge of triumph. Whatever future their tangled interactions would allow, right here and now she was his.

Matt slid into her slowly, biting on the back of her neck, one hand fisting in her hair, the other gripping her ass, opening her to him, then when he was fully inside her he slid that hand underneath her to tease her intimately with his fingers. She was so wet, so warm and snug around him, he knew he wasn't going to last and so he held back, fucking her slowly.

Or at least he tried. Lucy arched up into him and pushed her hips further onto his hand, taking her pleasure with a hunger that both surprised and thrilled him. Her face was buried in the pillow but he could hear her stifled moans, her urging him to take her and so he upped his pace, reason forgotten as he gave himself over to the moment.

Lucy came in a warm rush of liquid that soaked his thighs and balls, her hands fisting in the pillow, her insides clenching around him. It was too much for him to hold back and Matt let go, almost bellowing into her neck as his climax racked his body, draining every last bit of energy and emotion he possessed.

They lay together, a damp tangle of limbs, until he got his breath back and rolled off her, then pulled her into his arms. She kept her head in the pillow and he wondered what she was thinking, hoping the regrets weren't setting in already.