“Oh my God, yes. We had margaritas.”
“Hand margaritas, to be precise. The heat wave caused a power outage, and we sat by candlelight much like this, getting liquored up the old-fashioned way.”
She laughed, “I needed that so bad.”
“And the drink, too.” He flicked his brows. “And what night of beginnings would be complete without the first meal we had up here on this very roof? Which is basically why I wanted to do this here.”
Nikki rested a hand on each stainless cover and guessed, “Quesadillas and smoked salmon.” She raised the lids and laughed again, seeing she was correct. “Rook, what a great idea.”
“Oh, I’ve got an endless supply of them. Here’s one.” He drew her to him for a kiss. But Nikki started getting ideas of her own and thrust forward, meeting his mouth with an eagerness that took him by surprise. Rook didn’t seem to object, and they held each other in the night, ignoring the food and the drink and the candles, exploring each other. They kissed with the passion that still attracted them over years together—and something else.
“Mm. Beginner’s mouth,” he said with a grin when they parted at last, making her laugh once more. This is what she missed; this is what she needed. She stared at his face—yes, his ruggedly handsome face, as he liked to point out—and thought about the art of his laughter. Rook’s laughter may have been his greatest gift to her, keeping her sane by banishing earnestness and lightening her up when she needed it most. Which was most of the time.
He held her chair and she sat. While he busied himself laying out the makings for the hand margaritas she surveyed the squarish form, the size and shape of a jewelry box, in his side-coat pocket, and the flutter she hadn’t allowed herself to feel for days tingled within her. Rook sat beside her, took her hand, and with unself-conscious intimacy licked the web between her thumb and forefinger before he shook salt onto it. He poured her a shot of Patron, which she hoisted to him. Then Nikki licked the salt, downed the tequila, and bit the lime wedge he held out to her.
“Your turn,” she said, and set him up the same way. Licked him, salted him, poured for him, and then teased him with the lime before putting it in his mouth while he sucked the juice from it.
After their second round, he said, “You going to tell me what the hell happened with Gilbert, or make me suffer?”
“I hadn’t planned on mixing business with all this.”
“Bullshit. It’s in our DNA, Nik. Spill, so we can move on to more pleasant topics.”
“OK, fine, but I’d like another one of these.” As he obliged with another shot for them Heat downloaded it all. No doubt the reposado had something to do with the ease she felt unburdening her cares. Of all the items, he seemed most interested in the missing Ruger from Gilbert’s study.
“That is Grade A weird,” he said. “Combined with his lawyer offering cooperation finding it…? If he knew the .38 wasn’t in that drawer, then why?”
“A mask of innocence. Wake up, Rook, you’ve been around.” His interest grew when she told him about Conscience Point, and she paused there to let the cogs of his conspiratorial wheels engage without interruption. Who knows? Maybe he’d leave the dark side and put his efforts in support of her case, after all. Nikki thought she’d nudge him along. “There is now an official nexus between those guys who came after me last night and Jeanne Capois.”
“DNA come in?”
“That’s still cooking in the lab.” She told him about the index card with the home invasion address. Seeing the impact of that, she added the detail of the surveillance information they had gathered on her. When he started to look over his shoulder, Heat said, “Does that bother you?”
“Hell, no. A squadron of crypto-SWAT, black ops, rogue commandos stalking us? Just my thing. As long as they don’t waterboard. I have very small nases.”
“Not to worry. There’s a radio car out front.”