I thought about the other books I had read. Romance novels. Books filled with passion. With need. With sex that both partners wanted. And I thought about Yummy and her interest in Occam. “No.”
“Ohhh. Sugar.” His hand slid around my head, to my nape. His palm cupped my head. Carefully, he stood so his body didn’t touch me. His lips lowered the fraction of an inch. Touched mine. Warm, gentle. They slid across my mouth. Heated. Not chapped. Not demanding. Not hard.
I smiled against his mouth. And leaned in to the kiss. Something like electricity leaped from Occam to me. Electric heat spun through me. Down my limbs to my toes and my fingertips. Like a flurry of snow caught in a whirlwind, if snow were made of sparks. Back up to my belly, where the warmth and charged flurries pooled, low down.
I breathed out a sound I didn’t know I was going to make, half moan, half surprised pleasure. Occam’s other hand caught my face, holding me tenderly between his cupped palms. His thumbs caressed both cheeks. I closed my eyes. His tongue licked across my lips. My mouth opened and his tongue slid along and inside my lips, across my teeth.
I touched my tongue to his.
He stopped. Froze in place for a heartbeat or ten. I slid my tongue along his, testing the texture and the shape. His tongue moved. Following mine like a dance.
My breath was coming fast. Fear and excitement trembled through me. My cell buzzed and I jumped halfway into the kitchen. So did Occam’s. The werecat cursed softly, and we both pulled our cells.
I read the group text from Rick aloud. “Debrief in sixty. No exceptions.” I didn’t look up before I added softly, “So much for a date.” The word felt odd on my tongue, as if it didn’t belong there. Like the kiss. One not sanctioned by family or church or contract for marriage. Negative lifestyle patterns. I wasn’t certain if I was relieved or disappointed. I touched my mouth. Looked up at Occam.
“Temporary delay, Nell, sugar. Temporary delay.”
“But that was a very proper kiss.” I felt my mouth form a surprised and satisfied smile as I turned to the kitchen.
I put the Dutch oven in the fridge, gathered up my gobag and coat, and followed Occam out of the house. Thinking. I could eat a meal with Occam. I could. I had kissed him. Not because I was supposed to, or had Daddy’s permission to, or had wifely duties to perform, but because I wanted to. So. Dinner. Though I might not swallow a single thing. I might just push food around on my plate nervously. But I could sit at a table with him. I could kiss him again. Maybe.
SIX
The EOD—end-of-day debrief—was short and full of nothing much. While we ate pizza from the “All” shelf, Rick spoke. “PsyLED isn’t lead agency for the investigations, but it’s probably only a matter of time. So I want each of you to keep up with all interagency findings. First up is the fire at the Justin Tolliver home. Initial testing results are uncertain regarding accelerant on-site. However, consistent with the way the fire spread, investigators are still looking at the possibility of an accelerant-induced fire, deliberately set. I want the Tollivers’ lives combed through. FBI has financials, offshore accounts, cumulative debt, life insurance, trust funds, extramarital affairs, friends, lovers, enemies. I want us to take their data and sift it. Find out if this is part of the restaurant shooting and the Holloways’ party shooting, an accident, or just an opportunity taken by an unhappy spouse or family member or business partner.
“Pierced Dreams. JoJo? Casings? Physical evidence?”
JoJo punched a key on her laptop. “All the casings collected from the shooting sites have been tested for fingerprints and all were clean. The shooter used gloves from the beginning of the process to the end, likely nitrile, according to the tech who looked at them under a scope. Nitrile can leave swipe marks that cotton won’t, and nitrile is more common these days for shooters, since it gives good tactile sensation. All the casings matched. Same gauge, same brand of ammunition, further indicating that we have only one shooter. None of this has been released to the media so unless someone at one of the hospitals talks about the caliber they pulled out of the victims, we’re good on keeping this part of the shooter’s MO under wraps.” To Rick she added, “I’m putting on weight. You gotta stop picking up pie from Elidios’.”
The SAC’s face softened into an almost-smile and I realized how seldom Rick had actually relaxed since he got back from New Orleans on his last trip. I needed to call his ex-girlfriend and my only almost-friend who lived outside of Knoxville. There might be things I needed to know.
As if the near-smile had been her goal, JoJo said, “On to physical evidence. We have three cigarette butts from the Carhart Building, all the same brand, but recovered from a location that would make the shots fired difficult to make, about twenty feet from the nearest casing. I’m guessing that someone in the building takes illegal ciggie breaks up there, but the butts have been sent to the forensics lab for possible DNA evidence. A lot of fast-food wrappers and empty water bottles, a used condom, and two flip-flops, both of them left feet, one orange, one white with skulls on it, were also bagged from the Carhart roof. From the roof of the other building, Occam and his vampire partner recovered a tarnished key, three old marbles, a stick of pink chalk, a pair of men’s underwear—briefs, size medium—an old faded ID, possibly a Michigan driver’s license from the seventies—”
“Anything pertinent to the case?” Rick interrupted.
“Not a thing. But it’s all gone to FBI labs for workup.”
Rick thumbed through printed reports on his table. “What do we have on the number of threatening e-mails and letters and their writers provided by the senator’s office and by Ming of Glass’ personal assistant?”
Tandy said, “There were no overlaps between the two. No name appeared on both lists,” he clarified. “No similar handwriting. No similar e-mail addresses. The feds eliminated four serious death threat contenders for the senator, and according to my research, one is in jail, one’s dead, one’s too disabled to be our shooter, and one’s living in the Pacific Northwest, working in a marijuana bar and too stoned to want to travel. Fifteen others they eliminated based on lack of skill set. We eliminated another dozen based on them being human, wrong general body type (too tall, too short, major weight difference from the blurry images we have to date), or with alibis that checked out on initial inspection. We still have about twenty on the original list of possible suspects.”
“And on Ming of Glass’ list?” Rick asked.