He didn’t have to guess at what she meant. His dick did what it usually did when it saw her. Or smelled her. Or thought of her. He swelled as he watched her.
She reached across and turned down the heat. The bacon stopped spitting and settled down to cooking. She turned, humming softly, to his cabinets.
Some feminine magic led her unerringly to where he kept the plates. It was amazing. She’d never been here before and yet she moved around the little kitchenette as if she lived here. A few minutes later the table was set.
Actually set. As properly as his equipment would allow.
He usually ate over the sink. But she tore off paper towels to make mats, put the silverware on either side of the plates and placed two mugs carefully on the right hand side of each plate. She even put platters out for the bacon and the toast and the eggs. Amazing.
Sex wasn’t going to happen right now. That was okay, because they needed to talk, but his woodie wasn’t too convinced. Under the table, it stayed hard and aching. He ignored it because he had to.
He poured her coffee while she filled his plate. He was starved. She must have been, too, though she managed to eat daintily.
His teeth crunched on something. “Some egg shell got into the scrambled eggs,” he mumbled. “Sorry.”
“Yes,” she said serenely, forking another clump of eggs onto his plate and then hers. “And you oversalted the eggs and burned the toast. But you’re forgiven. Have we exhausted the food supplies?”
“Pretty much. We’ll have to make a food run into Fork in the Road some time today.”
She considered him, head to one side, silver eyes observing him soberly, and then nodded. “Okay. I need to buy some stuff anyway.”
Female stuff, he’d bet. She could buy whatever she wanted as long as he didn’t have to know about it. If it was female stuff, he didn’t want to go there.
Suzanne pushed her plate to one side and leaned forward, searching his eyes. “So. Tell me the truth, John. I need to know. For my peace of mind, if nothing else. How long are we going to have to stay here?”
“As long as it takes,” he answered bluntly. He debated, briefly, telling her about Todd Armstrong, then decided against it. She had a right to know, and she’d be angry later. But now it was his call and he decided not to overwhelm her. He needed her to think straight and she wasn’t going to do that knowing a friend was dead because of her. “We’re going to have to figure out what’s going on, honey. As long as we’re in the dark, we’re vulnerable. I need to ask you some questions.”
She nodded, poured herself another cup of coffee and folded her hands on the table. “Go ahead and ask.” She looked at him and waited.
John didn’t try to soften his words or pussyfoot around it. “Two men were sent to kill you. Do you have any idea why?”
She was still a long moment, and then shook her head. “No. Absolutely not. I’ve thought and thought and thought, but I can’t imagine why anyone would want to hurt me.”
“Okay. Let’s take it step by step. Let’s start with your job. What is it exactly that you do?”
She sighed. “I guess the easiest way to describe what I do is that I design spaces, both public and private. Not everyone has the time or inclination to decorate their office or home, so they call in a specialist. Me. I’ll visit the space to be decorated, come up with two or three alternatives and the client chooses which alternative he or she wants. Sometimes it’s an individual and sometimes it’s a committee. Then I arrange for the purchase of the furniture and with the help of a moving company, I’m there to set everything up.”
“Who are your clients?”
“Mainly people in the business community. Some private clients. I’ve helped in the design of three shops—two boutiques and a bookstore—and a couple of museums, too. It’s really tame stuff.”
John walked her through her clients over the past year, grilling her on every aspect of her job. She’d never worked for government agencies or for public procurement companies or defense manufacturers. Not even a software company. She wasn’t privy to any industrial secrets. She earned well but not spectacularly well. She had a small nest egg in the bank, but nothing that was worth killing for. John earned more than that per job. She’d built her business slowly, through word of mouth. Her clients were all solid citizens.
An hour later, frustrated, John rubbed the back of his neck. If there was any person on the face of the earth who had an innocuous job and a perfectly harmless life, looks like it was Suzanne.
Now for the biggie, the one he hated. He had to ask it and was dreading the answer.
“How about your love life? Any disgruntled ex-lovers, abusive former boyfriends?” John asked the question casually, but his fists were clenched under the table.
“Oh.” Suzanne looked surprised at the idea. “No, of course not.” She blushed, delightfully, but kept her eyes on his. “I, um—“ She stopped and drew in a big breath. “I haven’t…dated all that much. My mom was sick while I was in college and we were all pretty much caught up in her illness. Luckily, she’s fine now. And the past few years I’ve been concentrated on work.”
“Who’s the last guy you were seeing?”
“John…is this necessary?”
“Absolutely.” That was a lie. John didn’t know how necessary this was to the investigation. But it was certainly necessary to his peace of mind to have names to put to faces. The thought of another man’s hands on her made him sick with rage. As soon as he got a name or two he’d check them out and make damn sure they never approached Suzanne ever again.
“Okay. I guess the last man I dated was Marcus Freeman. He’s my bank manager. But it’s not—well, it was a very casual relationship. We never, um…we never—you know.” She shrugged. “The last man I, um, had a sexual relationship was Adrian Whitby, the director of the Kronen Museum. I designed their new annex. That was two years ago. We broke it off and I haven’t seen him since.”
Jacko was going to have to check Adrian Whitby out. John would be too tempted to smash his face in. He could maybe stomach checking Marcus Freeman out, knowing he and Suzanne hadn’t gone to bed together. The thought of another man kissing Suzanne, the thought that this creep Whitby had been in her, enraged him.
Suzanne was his. No other man was ever going to get within two feet of her. John realized he’d kill to keep it that way.
He sipped his coffee, needing to get his emotions under control, get his voice calm. Rage wasn’t a productive emotion. He sipped again and forced himself to concentrate.
“What about your family? Does your father do any sensitive work? Your brother? Sister?”
Suzanne shook her head. “We’re a small family. I’m an only child. My father is a retired college professor of literature, an expert in Chaucer. My mother is—was—a high school French teacher. She’s half French herself. They retired to Baja California, where Dad is writing what he fondly considers will be the Great American Novel. They’re perfectly pleasant, utterly harmless people.”
Another dead end. Shit. This wasn’t getting them anywhere. Frustration was an unusual emotion for him and he didn’t like it one bit. John pinched the bridge of his nose.
She’d answered his questions calmly, but he could tell she was upset. He didn’t want her upset.
What the hell?
How was it that all of a sudden Suzanne’s serenity was more important to him than information? This had never happened before. He’d never ever had any difficulty in keeping emotion separate from a mission. But there it was—he couldn’t stand to see her unhappy.
There was no precedent for these feelings in his life. What was going on? He needed to pump her, to push her harder and…he couldn’t.