The two of them said nothing on the elevator ride up to Rook’s loft. They just stared at each other as they had in the backseat of the Roach Coach. The air between them flowed thick with a longing that had no words, and they both knew that to try to find them or speak them would only weaken the overwhelming magnetic pull each of them felt. They stood close. Not touching—that would break the spell, too. Just near enough to almost touch . . . just enough to each taste the breath of the other as the rocking motion of the ride brought them to almost brush bodies.
When he closed his front door, they threw themselves at each other. The force of the heat that engulfed them plus the wave of exhilaration from their close call propelled Heat and Rook into a dimension of sexual longing that was as unstoppable as it was primal. Gasping, Nikki pulled her mouth away from his and leaped up onto him, hooking her legs behind his. Rook flexed his leg muscles for balance and steadied himself, pulling her tightly to him. She pressed her face to his ear and bit. He moaned with surprise and excitement and turned her to sit up on his kitchen counter. As he undid her coat front, Nikki reclined herself backward onto her elbows so she could watch him, finally speaking. “Now,” she said, “I need you right now.”
* * *
“This is where petting leads,” he said later.
“Petting? What century are you from?” She unfolded herself from their lazy, naked tangle on his couch and poured each of them another glass of wine from the bottle on the coffee table.
“Do not mock me because I am a wordsmith. Would you rather I called it groping? Because that’s what you did in the Roach Coach, you know.”
“Oh, I know.” Nikki handed him his glass and they tinked. “You say that like you’ve never been groped in a police car.”
“Well, only yours.” Her cell phone rang, and as she got up to retrieve it from her knot of a coat, he continued, “But if you have some notion about starting some sick sexual game where we do it in police cars, I’m all for it.”
Lauren Parry said, “Hope I’m not interrupting sump’n-sump’n. Miguel says by the look of you two when he and Raley dropped you off, I should wait a decent interval. Actually, he called it an indecent interval.” Nikki looked down at herself, not wearing a stitch, and Rook, just the same, his fine ass making its way down the hallway.
“No, we were just relaxing.”
Her friend said, “Pants on fire.”
“What pants?”
The two had a nice laugh about that, then Lauren said, “Listen, since I’m betting you don’t have a pen anywhere on you, I’ll give you a second to find one. I have some interesting off-the-record stuff to share. . . . Even though Detective Ochoa tells me you are anything but still involved in case work due to your suspension.”
Nikki plucked a rollerball from one of the numerous coffee mugs that Rook had converted to pencil cups and scattered around his loft. One of the perks of sleeping with a writer. “I’m ready.”
“First off,” began the ME, “and this is why I really called, because I knew it would give you some peace of mind. . . . The bloodwork on Father Graf’s Roman collar came in and it was a negative match for Captain Montrose.”
“Yessss.”
“Yeah, I thought that would be a lift. I’m already having them run Sergio Torres, and now I’ll add this guy you took on tonight—unarmed.” Lauren put an underscore on the word that made it sound as boldly comical as it did insane. The objective view of her best friend wasn’t lost on Heat.
“OK, I do have to admit I got a little sloppy. Still adjusting to the whole unarmed private citizen thing.”
“Don’t know what to say, Nikki. I’d tell you to get a hobby, but we both know what the chances are of that.”
“Don’t be so sure,” said Heat. “Is vigilante considered a hobby?”
“You’ve been hanging out with Jameson Rook too long; you’re starting to talk like him.” Which gave Nikki the second reason to smile in that conversation. Lauren continued, “I also have lab results that came in on that little chip of leather. Remember that?”
Heat pictured it, looking like a tiny bacon bit in the bottom of the vial when Lauren had showed it to her in the autopsy room. “Sure, the fragment you found under Father Graf’s fingernail.”
“That’s the one. It came back sourced from a commercial brand of leather.”
“Bondage gear?” asked Nikki.