by Marie Jermy
At Archie’s whine, Scott watched as the dog’s eyes followed the ghosts as they floated across the office, giving him a thumbs up in the process—obviously they were on their way to owning a bar with Todd Marshall as their partner. And then damn, if Leia’s eyes didn’t do the same as Archie’s. He knew she’d sensed those ghosts. He had to distract her. “Leia, why don’t we spend the day together away from the office? It can be our first date.”
“What’s the Federation?” Leia again asked, her attention fixed on the opposite wall where the two ghosts had disappeared through.
His response was to pull her sideways into his lap and fuse his mouth to hers. Tangling his tongue around hers and grinding his hips against her ass, Scott knew he’d definitely distracted Leia when she wiggled from his grasp, freed his throbbing cock from his pants and relieved him all the way to heaven.
* * * *
Vampires and ghosts and whatever this “Federation” was had all made Scott edgy. Leia could sense his tension even after he slumped in his chair, panting like Archie on a hot day, his hot cum caught in some napkins he had removed from his desk just before he’d climaxed.
Just what was Scott hiding?
Leia knew she’d find the answers the closer she got to him. Starting with their first date. With a smile, she traced her fingers over his face, feeling his satisfied yet tight smile. “Feel good?”
His smile widened. “Oh, yeah.”
You don’t fool me, Scott Rafferty. He bolted upright, and she heard his chair wheel away with speed. She just about contained her laughter. “You know it would have been better if I’d blown you instead of whacking you off.”
“Leia Howard, I’m shocked! I didn’t know you had such a crude mouth.”
As his masculine heat and woodsy cologne wrapped around her, Leia ran her fingers over his firm and kissable lips. “And I can’t help but wonder what your mouth would feel like on me. Eating me.”
“Drop your pants and wonder no more.”
She gave him a nudge backwards. “Date, remember?” she said to Scott, then to Archie, “Archie, boy, we’re going to spend the day with Scott. Won’t that be fun?”
From across the room came two woofs.
No.
“So what do you want to do?” Scott asked as they rode the elevator down to the basement parking area. “Where do you want to go?”
“Your place,” Leia decided. Normally, she didn’t like anyone other than Archie guiding her, but because she liked how his icy touch made her whole body sizzle, she accepted Scott’s hand under her elbow as he steered her to where she presumed he’d parked his car. There was a bleeping like that of a car alarm. “If we’re to be convincing in our roles as secretary and boss having a steamy affair, then we should get to know each other. Yes, I can’t see, but I can still learn a lot about a person by using my other senses.”
He stopped, and she heard the opening of a door. She put out a hand to feel for the top edge in order to stop herself hitting her head but touched air.
“It’s a convertible Aston Martin DBS Volante,” Scott explained. “Silver in color. Personalized plates of ‘Scott 1’. Um, not that I’m bragging.”
She smiled; Scott actually sounded hesitant in admitting to owning a flash car. “I didn’t think you were. It’s just a case of boys with their toys.”
“Yeah, exactly.” He released Archie’s harness from her fingers. “Archie, back seat. And try not to drool.”
Leia laughed and then purred with content as she sank down into soft leather. She went to belt herself in, but Scott leaned over and did it for her. “I can manage, you know.”
“I know, but I wanted to do this.” His lips locked with hers for a bone-melting kiss, and one of his cold hands molded to her right breast. Her nipple immediately beaded. “My car. You. A damned powerful and sexy combination. I can’t seem to contain myself.”
“Try.” Just as powerful and sexy, his laugh was accompanied with the soft purr of an engine. A pleasant autumn breeze ruffled her hair as they drove along. “You always drive with the top down?”
“Yeah, especially on fine days like this. You’re not cold, are you?”
“No, I’m fine.”
“Well, if you change your mind, let me know. With a flick of a switch, I can have the roof up in seconds.”
“Boys with their toys,” she sighed, shaking her head. “So where do you live?”
“I own a penthouse apartment overlooking the north side of Central Park. I could describe my place to you, but I guess, as with when you touched my face, you can build a better mental image if you actually go there.”
“Exactly. And then afterwards, you can come to mine.” A comfortable silence fell between them, then as he told her they’d arrived at his apartment, she felt the air surrounding him tightening with tension as he switched the ignition off, and the unbuckling click of his seat belt sounded. “What’s wrong, Scott?”
“Huh?”
“You’re tense. What’s troubling you?”
“Damn, you’re right! I can’t fool you.” Scott laughed, easing some of the tension. “It’s not that anything’s troubling me as such, and I do see your logic in getting to know each better for the case…”
“But?”
“Well, it’s just that I’m a private man, Leia. I don’t like talking about myself. So showing you around my place and describing everything…” He sighed. “It’s going to be hard for me to open up. You may want a nutcracker.”
Leia unbuckled her belt and leaned toward Scott who immediately pulled her over the center console and settled her into his lap. Her fingers traced the groove in his brow. “Actually I was thinking more along the lines of a crowbar and a stick of dynamite.”
“Yeah, that ought to do it.” His frown remained, but a smile was evident when he brushed his lips across hers. Then, opening the door, and as if she weighed nothing, he got out of the car before setting her on her feet. Two beeps indicating he’d secured the car, he linked his right arm through her left, whistled to Archie, and started walking.
“Archie’s offended,” she said at his series of disgruntled woofs.
“At what? My whistling for him to follow or for me guiding you?”
“Both.”
“Sue me on the first and call it a vacation on the second.”
Leia stifled her laughter at Archie’s “Or maybe I will bite you in the balls” response. A few minutes and another elevator ride later, they stood in Scott’s hallway. Though as detailed and as thorough as Ross had been with the office, she found Scott’s descriptions and tour of his penthouse quite stilted.
“Relax,” she said, her fingers stroking the groove in his brow again. “I’m not going to be offended by your porn collection.”
Wooden floors throughout and decorated in tones of coffee, caramel and cream, with clean lines and a modern contemporary feel, the living room, kitchen and bathroom were large rooms. The one bedroom, however, which Scott described as painted with a calming green color and furnished with dark wood pieces, was the largest by far. In fact, by the time Leia had felt her way around it, she decided the room could easily be divided into three.
A super king-sized bed dominated the far wall. She couldn’t contain her sigh of longing as her fingers brushed across the rather rumpled bed linen. She’d be quite happy in that bed with Scott, naked and just as tangled as the sheets.
“How embarrassing,” Scott said, making the first joke since entering his home, “I didn’t make the bed.”
Opposite the bed were three wardrobes. Scott as her guide, she went over and opened the first. Inside, she ran her hand over the numerous hanging suits, each one as expensive-feeling and tailor-made as the one before. His woodsy cologne hung faintly in the air. “All gray?” she asked.
“Yeah. Why?”
“Just wondered. Do you own such items as jeans?”
“Of course I do!”
Scott sounded pissed, and Leia laughed. “Will you wear a pair for me to
morrow? Yes, you feel gorgeous in a suit, but in denim, you’d be drop-dead gorgeous.”
“How can I refuse?”
There were a series of woofs from Archie.
Easy. Just say no.
“Nobody asked for your opinion,” Leia told Archie. She returned to the bed. She was just about to ask Scott whether he slept in the middle, on the right, or the left when she smelled a faint wisp of roses. A woman’s perfume, if she wasn’t mistaken. “Has another woman been here recently?” she asked, the question sounding like a jealous accusation and slipping out before she could stop it. “I can smell perfume.”
“It’s probably the detergent from the sheets,” Scott explained without hesitation. “I know the laundromat I go to uses some sort of rose water spray to iron out the creases.”
Leia believed him. Still, as Scott guided her into the living room, she found herself wanting to know more about Laura. What sort of woman had she been? What had attracted her to Scott and vice versa? Oddly enough, she even wanted to know about the perfume Laura had worn. She would ask but knew she’d have to be very subtle about it. She didn’t want to distress Scott or cause him to tense up again.
At a large bookcase, she felt along the top and came across a solitary photo frame. She picked it up and ran her fingers over the glass. She immediately sensed that the photo, and an extremely happy one at that, was of Scott and an older woman. She felt Scott grow still beside her. “It’s you and a woman. And you’re both smiling.”
“Grinning like loons actually, but how on earth do you know?” he asked awed.
“It’s got a very happy vibe. Is the woman Laura?”
“How do you know her name?”
“Oh, Jessica mentioned it,” she replied lightly.
“And what else did Jessica mention?”
“Just that Laura died eighteen months ago and that you loved her deeply.”
His tone was tight. “Yeah, I did. And she loved me.”
Leia patted his arm in a soothing and understanding gesture. She heard a deep breath and then his fingers entwined with hers.
“Yes, it’s Laura. Sam Carrick, you know he phoned yesterday, he took the photo. It was two years ago. On my birthday.”
“When’s your birthday?”
“December ninth.”
Leia thought for a moment. “So that makes you a Sagittarius. My birthday’s July twenty-seventh. I’m a Leo.”
“So we fight fire with fire. We’re both fire signs, Leia,” he explained at her slight frown.
“Oh. Um, don’t take offense at this, Scott, but I sense Laura was older than you.”
“No offense taken. And you sense correctly. There was thirty years between us, but she had such life, such energy, the age difference didn’t matter to me.” He brought her hand up and pressed a kiss to her palm. “You’ve got that same energy, Leia. I love the way you sound. The way you look. And your smell…”
“Do I wear the same perfume as Laura?” she asked, seeing a subtle opening.
“No, she wore lavender…”
Scott trailed off, and Leia felt his mood turn pensive. She kicked herself. She shouldn’t have asked anything further, but the words popped out of her mouth anyway. “How did you two meet?”
He was silent for a moment, then on a heavy sigh, said, “I met Laura when I saved her life. The date was—”
“No,” Leia interrupted, immediately sensing pain and grief. She gave herself another kick. “I shouldn’t have asked. You and Laura… well, it nothing to do with the case.”
“But I want to tell you. You deserve to know and, besides, it’s time I let somebody in. The date was September 11, 2001. It was my first day on duty, and my first call-out was to the World Trade Center…”
Scott continued, explaining by the time he and his partner, Rob— who he’d known for an hour at the most—arrived, the South Tower had, too, been attacked. They were separated. Rob went to the North Tower, and he went to the South, where he was given orders to help evacuate the area, stopping people from being seriously injured by falling debris and those poor souls who had run out of options and jumped.
“Oh, God,” Leia whispered.
“I think we would have liked God to have been on our side that day, but I guess he was busy elsewhere.” The trace of humor did little to mask the pain and guilt. “I never saw Rob again. He was one of the officers lost.”
Leia laid her free hand on Scott’s shoulder. The muscles beneath were tense. “Would it be trite of me to say you shouldn’t feel guilty for surviving?” His shrug was indifferent, which struck her as decidedly false. Indifference was not in Scott’s psyche. He cared too much. “You don’t have to go on. I’ve heard enough.”
He ignored her. “After the crowd thinned, I saw a woman holding onto the wall and hobbling. It was Laura. She’d sprained her ankle in the stairwell. I went over and helped her outside. We got, oh, about a hundred meters away when I heard this roaring sound. I can’t even begin to describe it, but for as long as I live I’ll never forget it.
“I turned around, and a wall of imploded concrete and metal and glass was bearing down toward us. I picked Laura up and ran. Managed to turn the block and dived under a parked vehicle. Though Laura was beneath me, I couldn’t see her through the choking dust. For months after, we were still coughing that crap up.”
Scott’s voice had grown hoarse, as though reliving the horrifying and tragic events. “Scott, stop. Please. I can’t pretend to know how terrible it was for you or Laura. Not that I would do that anyway. But what I will say is that something good came from it. You and Laura made a life together—”
He suddenly dropped her hand, brushed the other from his shoulder, and said, “Laura was married. To a selfish and overbearing bastard who didn’t love her or deserve her. So, no, we didn’t make a life together. All we had was eight years of snatched moments, and then he put a bullet in her head because she finally found the courage to ask for a divorce.”
Leia opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She wondered who the “selfish and overbearing” murdering husband was but couldn’t bring herself to ask. She nodded and carefully put the photo frame back. “No other photos? What about your parents? You got any brothers or sisters?”
“I never knew my parents. When I was two months old, we were involved in a car crash. I survived, they didn’t. I was raised in an orphanage. In Milwaukee, to save you asking.”
Leia really wished that the ground would open up and swallow her. She turned and concentrated on the first two shelves of the bookcase that held books, some paperback, others hard. Two in particular she found interesting. Side by side, one was a dog-eared paperback, the other leather-bound. Since Scott hadn’t moved, she angled her head in his direction, unerringly locked eyes with him and raised a questioning brow. “These are the same adventure book, aren’t they?”
“Yes, they are,” he said slowly, sounding amazed. No doubt his mouth had dropped open. “I’m a great fan of Clive Cussler and his Dirk Pitt series of novels. That one’s my favorite. Raise The Titanic.”
She dropped to her knees and explored the third and final shelf, which contained a selection of CDs and DVDs. Her fingers stopped on one CD. “You’ve played this one recently.” If Scott wasn’t open-mouthed at her book revelation, then his jaw positively hit the floor at this one. She laughed. “It’s the only one that juts out,” she explained. “You didn’t put it back properly.”
“Damn, you’re good. You ever thought of becoming a detective?”
“A blind cop? Oh, yeah, the criminals would think all their Christmases had come at once.”
Scott dropped to his knees beside her and reclaimed her hand in his. “That was a compliment, Leia. So you’ve lost your sight, but that doesn’t mean you’ve stopped using this.” He tapped her temple. “And as for your four remaining senses? Forgive my language, but you’re fucking brilliant. If I was still a detective, I wouldn’t think twice about being partnered with you.”
Leia felt
herself blushing right down to her toes. She also felt Scott’s tension easing. “Did you always want to be a police officer?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I did. I remember one of the kids at the orphanage was always getting into the trouble. The same officer dealt with him every single time. One day, he caught me watching him. I was fascinated, and though he was extremely busy, he took the time to talk to me about what life was like as a police officer. His name was John Roskin, and he was definitely instrumental in why I joined when I left school. I enjoyed every single minute of it, including all the crap.”
“So why did you give it up? You said you made detective.”
“I got restless. I wasn’t based in one precinct, you see. I worked across the entire city, assigned to investigate and solve specialized cases. I enjoyed it at first, but like I said, I got restless and needed permanency. I, er, helped Ross with one of his cases, after which I turned private and joined Jessica at the agency.”
There was a huge gaping hole with Scott’s explanation about working with Ross, but Leia didn’t press. “So what’s the CD?” she asked, switching subjects.
“Nina Simone. Her greatest hits.”
“Oh, I like her, too. Fantastic singing voice. Can I borrow it?”
“Sure.”
She smiled as she recalled one of Simone’s songs. “Don’t tell me, your favorite is Ain’t Got No, I Got Life?” She started singing as she rose to her feet, tugging Scott with her. She stopped at the line about boobies and said, “Not that that applies to you. Unless, there’s something you’re not telling me.”
He burst into laughter, and the remaining tension melted away.
“You’ve got a very lively laugh, Scott. And I know your cold hands are through Raynaud’s, but your aura is so dark. Like death. Sometimes I wonder if you’re actually alive. If you’re, in fact, a ghost.”
