“I’m just looking. I want to make sure you’re not mad at me anymore.”
“I’m not mad at you.” To prove it, he kissed the tip of her crooked nose.
No, not angry, she thought, searching his eyes. But there was something else shadowed there. She couldn’t quite identify it. “My middle name’s Louisa.”
With a half smile on his lips, he tilted his head. “Okay.”
“I’m trying to think if there’s something else you might want to know that I haven’t told you.” Needing to be close, she rested her cheek against his. “I really don’t have any secrets.”
He turned his face into her hair. God, what was she doing to him to tie him up in knots like this? He pulled her against him, wrapping his arms tight around her. “I know all I need to know,” he said quietly. “We’re going to have to figure out those rules, Bess. We’re going to have to figure them out fast.”
“Okay.” She wasn’t sure what was holding her back. It would have been so easy to hurry out of the club with him, to go home and be with him. Her body was straining for him. And yet...
The first tremor of panic shocked her enough to have her pull back and smile, too brightly. She wasn’t afraid, she assured herself. And she didn’t need to overanalyze. When the time was right to move forward, she’d know it. That was all.
“Come on, Detective.” Still smiling, she pulled him away from the table. “Let’s see if you can keep up with me on the dance floor.”
Chapter 7
Alex read over a particularly grisly autopsy report on half of a suspected murder-suicide, and tried to ignore the fact that Bess was sitting in a chair to his right, scribbling in her notebook. She was as good as her word, he was forced to admit. Though she did tend to mumble to herself now and again, she was quiet, unobtrusive, and once she’d realized he wouldn’t answer her questions—much less acknowledge her presence—she’d directed them to Judd.
He couldn’t say she was a problem. But, of course, shewasa problem. She was there. And because she was there, he thought about her.
She’d even dressed quietly, in bone-colored slacks and a navy blazer. As if, he thought, the conservative clothes would help her fade into the background and make him forget she was bothering him. Fat chance, when he was aware of her in every cell.
He could smell her, couldn’t he? he thought, seething with resentment. That fresh and seductive scent had been floating at the edges of his senses all morning. Sneaking into his brain the way a good second-story man sneaks through a window.
And he could sense her, too. He didn’t need a cop’s instincts to know she was behind him, to picture those big green eyes drawing a bead on his every move. To imagine those never-still hands making notes, or that soft, agile mouth curving when a fresh idea came to her.
She could have dressed in cardboard and made him needy.
He was so damn cute, Bess was thinking, smiling at the back of his head. She enjoyed watching him work—the way he scooped his hand through all that gorgeous black hair when he was trying to think. Or shifted the phone from one ear to the other so that he could take notes. The sound of his voice, clipped and no-nonsense or sly and persuasive, depending on what he wanted from the listener.
And she particularly enjoyed the way he moved his shoulders, restlessly, annoyance in every muscle, when he became too aware of her presence.
She had a terrific urge to press a kiss to the back of his neck—and to see what he was reading.
After a couple of scowls from him, she scooted her chair back and stopped peeking over his shoulder.
She was cooperating fully, Alex was forced to admit. Which only made it worse. He wanted her to go away. How could he explain that it was impossible for him to concentrate on his job when the woman he was falling in love with was watching him read an autopsy report?
“Here you go.” Bess gave him a cup of coffee and a friendly smile. “You look like you could use it.”
“Thanks.” Cream, no sugar, he noted as he sipped. She’d remembered. Was that part of her appeal? he wondered. The fact that she absorbed those little details about people? “You must be getting bored.”
Taking a chance, she sat on the edge of his desk. “Why?”
“Nothing much going on.” He gestured to indicate the pile of paperwork. Maybe, just maybe, he could convince her she was wasting her time. “If you have your TV cop doing this, it isn’t going to up your ratings.”
“We’ll want to show different aspects of his work.” She broke a candy bar in half and offered Alex a share. “Like the fact that he’d have to concentrate and handle this sort of paperwork and detail in the middle of all this chaos.”
He took a bite. “What chaos?”
She smiled again, jotting down notes. He didn’t even see it any longer, she realized. Or hear it. All the noise, the movement, the rush. Dozens of little dramas had taken place that morning, fascinating her, unnoted by him.
“They brought a drug dealer in over there.” She gestured with a nod as she continued to write. “Skinny guy in a white fedora and striped jacket, wearing a heavy dose of designer cologne.”
“Pasquale,” Alex said, noting the description. “So?”
