by Leslie Kelly
Yeah, good friends. Slime one and slime two. “What time was it?”
“About ten. It was really nothing. We met at a coffee shop around the corner, sat outside for a half hour, then I left to go take team photos for a local high school football squad.”
Sounded innocent enough. Not that his lieutenant was going to believe that when he found out. “You sat outside the whole time? With lots of people around?”
“Absolutely.”
“Was he by any chance drinking juice out of a foam cup?”
“Uh-uh. Coffee out of a ceramic mug.”
Okay. That was better. But he was still going to have to tread very carefully. He was now officially sleeping with a woman who might somehow be involved with two murders.
No, he didn’t for a moment suspect Melody had anything to do with the deaths of Drake Manning or Jonathan Rhodes. Any more than he thought she’d shoved a meatball down Charles Pulowski’s throat or held that golfer in Atlanta at gunpoint and made him stick his dick in a wall.
But four deaths in two months…two in one week. That was one hell of a coincidence.
“I’m going to have to come by later to take your statement,” he said wearily.
Her voice subdued, she replied, “That’s fine.”
God, he hated to leave things on that note. So cool and impersonal. If he’d turned the damn television off last night, he might right now be waking up in Melody’s arms after an incredible night of sensual pleasures.
He had to close his eyes at the very thought of it. Nick wanted her so much it hurt. He wanted to slowly remove her clothes, to kiss every inch of her beautiful, soft body. To stroke away every unpleasant thought and love her until the rest of the world didn’t exist.
As if she read his mind, she asked, “After you take my statement, are you going off duty? I mean, am I only going to be seeing Detective Walker today?” Clearing her throat, she added softly, “Or am I going to be seeing the man I wanted so much to make love with last night?”
The cop in him said to back off. To cool their relationship to a purely professional one. Not just for the sake of the case, but possibly for Melody’s own good.
If somebody was out there knocking off guys to get at her—either to frame her, or to claim her—the last thing he needed was to let his emotions get any more entangled with the woman. She needed him to be clearheaded and professional. Not emotional and berserk with the need to protect her.
But it wasn’t the cop who answered. It was the man. “As soon as I’m off duty, I plan to take you to bed and not let you up until we’re both on the verge of starvation.”
“Oh, thank God,” she said, sounding relieved. With a soft laugh, she added, “I think I’ll go now and stock a cooler full of food to put in my bedroom.”
Finally feeling the tension ease out of him, Nick laughed as well, wondering how he’d ever thought his life was pretty good before Melody had been in it. Because every time he spoke with her, every time he looked up and saw her smiling face, he realized she was doing the impossible. The woman was working her way into his heart. Making him wonder if there really were second chances for people who’d been as unlucky in love as both he and Melody Tanner had been.
He didn’t know yet. But one thing was sure—as long as he had breath in his body, he was going to make sure she was okay.
ROSEMARY WAS dying to tell her friends about her amazing news—that she was going to have Dex Delaney’s baby. She’d been ready to explode for days, ever since she’d gotten the call from her doctor confirming what she’d suspected for a couple of weeks. And she’d fully intended to call Paige, Tanya and Melody and have them meet her so she could tell them in person.
But another darn murder had interfered.
“What rotten luck,” she muttered as she trudged around the house Friday morning dressed in a bathrobe and fuzzy slippers. There was no point in getting dressed. Considering how difficult it was to get through a morning without losing her breakfast, she had the feeling she’d be back in bed before noon. Not only because of the morning sickness that had plagued her for the past couple of weeks, but also because she was so heartsick over what had happened Wednesday at dinner.
God, she needed to talk to Melody. Her friend was just the person to share her happiness—and her sheer terror—about her pregnancy. And she would also be able to help Rosemary figure out what to do about Dex. Unfortunately, she didn’t suppose Melody would be in a cheerful frame of mind, considering yet another of the guys on her Men Most Wanted list had keeled over dead.
Definitely rotten luck.
She wished Dex was around so she could ask him for the details. But he wasn’t around…and hadn’t been since Wednesday evening. “Dammit, Dex, get your ass over here,” she whispered, looking at the phone, which had remained ominously silent all day yesterday and again this morning.
He wasn’t very happy with her. Oh, sure, he’d done a good job disguising his shock when she’d so foolishly dropped that little bombshell on his head in front of her entire family. He’d been incredibly sweet, taking care of her, helping her up to her room to lie down. Kissing her on the forehead, he’d told her to stay in bed and take it easy.
One tender, fleeting touch of his hand on her stomach had said even more. But they’d both known they couldn’t have that conversation with her family in the house. So Dex had gone back into the lion’s den to face her father.
Lion’s den…how appropriate an expression. Her father had roared all right. She’d heard him from her room. Splashing some cold water on her face, Rosemary had come back downstairs to try to smooth things over, only to find that Dex had left.
Without saying goodbye. Without telling her how he felt about the baby. Without anything.
She hadn’t heard from him since.
“I’m not calling you,” she snapped at the phone, even as hot tears rose in her eyes. She dashed them away angrily, attributing them to pregnancy hormones. Because Rosemary Chilton didn’t cry over any man. “You can just forget it, sugar, because I am not chasing after you.”
She only hoped Dex would come back chasing after her. Given the way her father had acted, that might be questionable.
Simon Chilton, for all his insistence that he was a modern, reasonable man, was still remarkably old-fashioned and a bit hotheaded. He certainly wasn’t happy that she was pregnant by a cop to whom she wasn’t even married. He’d made that pretty clear to Dex. Which was obviously why the man she loved had left minutes after learning he was going to be a father.
The rest of the family had been wonderful. Patty hadn’t even tried to hide her excitement. And Deidre had asked a million questions. Since Deidre had been talking about having a baby for a while—but had been thwarted by her asshole husband—she seemed to want to experience pregnancy vicariously through Rosemary.
Brian had stammered his congratulations, telling her he expected that he and Melody would be the baby’s godparents.
The baby. Her baby.
She dropped her hand to her stomach, wondering when she’d start feeling pregnant instead of merely nauseous. Hopefully soon enough to deal with whatever was going to happen with Dex.
Whether he came back or not, stood up and behaved as the man she knew, or turned into a rat bastard she’d never want to know, she was going to have to be strong. Both for herself and for this baby, whom she already loved so very much.
“You hang tight in there, little guy,” she whispered. “Your daddy’s going to come around sooner or later. And after I kick his ass, we’re all going to be real happy. Mama guarantees it.”
MELODY WATCHED for any snippets of news on the Drake Manning case throughout the day Friday, hoping for a glimpse of the detectives investigating the case. She needed to see Nick’s face.
The way they’d left things last night had made her tense and unsure. Yes, she knew he still wanted her…as much as she wanted him. But had anything else changed? Was he eyeing her with suspicion now? Because, really, this was getting b
eyond ridiculous. Melody had heard of people being bad luck, but she’d never imagined she might one day be cursed. They might as well start calling her Madame Melody, the deadly divorcée of Savannah.
“Come on, come home,” she muttered as she looked at the clock and saw it was now after five.
She realized she’d said the word home a moment after it left her mouth. How utterly strange. This wasn’t Nick’s home. She hadn’t even quite grown accustomed to it being her home yet. So why would she think such a thing?
It was too early to think that way. Much too soon to think she could have a future with the man. Could grow to love him.
“No,” she whispered. She wasn’t going to do that, wasn’t about to open herself up to the kind of pain love could bring.
Sex was one thing. A torrid, passionate, deliciously wicked affair, that was all she’d mentally signed on for the other night when she’d asked him to make love to her.
Not the deep feelings that had left her pacing her apartment all day, wondering where he was, if he was okay. If he was thinking the worst about her.
If he’d already decided she just wasn’t worth the trouble. C.C. and Oscar stared at her as she paced around, until Melody felt almost judged by the felines. “Okay, so maybe I do still have some unresolved baggage,” she admitted out loud.
Maybe the things Nick had tried to convince her of the night before—like the idea that no woman would have been able to keep a man like Bill Todd faithful—were going to be harder for her to accept than she’d hoped.
“But I’m trying, dammit,” she said.
It was just awfully hard to try when every hour that went by made her suspect more and more that she was setting herself up for another major heartache. She hadn’t even been able to reassure herself with a brief visit—a professional one—because Nick had ended up sending someone else over to take her statement, telling her he was too close to her to do it.
Her friends would have been a great distraction, and she would have liked to hear their reactions to Manning’s death, but none of them were available. Tanya wasn’t answering her phone. Paige was working at her secretarial job. And Rosemary was apparently coming down with something. Sounding stuffy and tired, she’d admitted she was lying down and Melody had cut their call short.
So there’d been no easy way to get her mind off the man who’d occupied her every waking thought—and her every deep, erotic dream—for many days now.
At least she’d gotten some work done. She’d gone downstairs for a couple of hours, touched up some pictures she’d done for a local businessman needing a publicity shot. She’d manipulated the man’s under-eye bags right out of existence.
She’d also worked on her new company Web site, which had gone live last week. The site featured a number of shots Melody had taken of Savannah and her people and was, if she did say so herself, quite nice. Plus she’d begun working on a proposal for the engaged couple who’d provided her with an alibi last week. Thankfully, they still wanted to work with her, despite a visit from the police.
Sitting back to look at it, she realized her schedule was showing signs of life. As was Melody.
Unlike most of the men on her list.
When she finally heard a knock on the door at seven o’clock, she almost raced to answer it. Yanking it open and seeing Nick standing there, dressed in the same clothes he’d been wearing last night and looking as if he wanted to collapse into the nearest chair, she grabbed his hand and pulled him inside.
“You look awful.”
“I should have gone home to shower,” he said, running a hand over his eyes. “But I knew if I did, I’d pass out and I didn’t want to wait until tomorrow to see you.” Grinning, he admitted, “I owe my neighbor big-time for taking care of my shoe-chewing mutt last night and today.”
Smiling, she led him to the living room and pushed him onto the couch. “I’m glad you didn’t. Now, what’s first? Food, shower or sleep?”
“Kiss,” he replied, tugging her down, too. She fell onto his lap and met his mouth with hers for a deep, slow kiss that made everything else fade into insignificance. Tilting her head and curling closer into him, she twined her fingers in his hair and met every lazy thrust of his tongue with an equally seductive one of her own. Without a single word they said a lot of things. Mainly that it felt so incredibly good to be together.
When they finally drew apart and she saw the way his eyes were closed, his long lashes resting on his cheeks, she frowned. “You still awake over there?”
Without even opening his eyes, he nodded. “Oh, yeah.”
But he didn’t look as if he’d be that way for long. “Why don’t you go in my room and lie down?” she asked with a light laugh, tracing her fingers down the side of his face.
The man had an amazing face. Someday she was going to talk him into posing for her. Naked.
He caught her hand in his and kissed her fingertip. His eyes were wide-open now and his intimate smile told her he was feeling more hungry than tired.
“Did you miss me today?” he asked, his voice throaty.
“Oh, I guess you crossed my mind once or twice,” she said with a saucy shrug.
“Ditto.”
She wondered if he’d been thinking the same things she had. If he’d reached the same conclusions…as in, none. No conclusions about the future, at least not for Melody. She didn’t know what was going to happen tomorrow, she just knew she had to continue to take what she could get today.
Now.
“If you don’t want a nap, why don’t you at least go take a nice hot shower while I get you something to eat?” she said.
One of his brows rose. “Uh, are you making it?”
“Ha-ha,” she said, regretfully rising from his lap. “It’s not too hard to cut into a nice round of brie, warm up some crusty bread and open a bottle of wine.”
“Can I have a steak on the side?” he asked, half laughing, half groaning. “And some fries? And a cheeseburger?”
Chuckling, she pulled him to his feet. Nick was enjoying this, she could see by the twinkle in his eye. He liked the idea of her pampering him.
Well, frankly, she kind of liked it, too. He’d adopted the role of caretaker so many times since she’d met him. Now she was in a position to repay the favor.
Putting her hands on his back, she pushed him toward the bathroom. “Don’t fall asleep in the shower and crack your head open on the edge of my beautiful big bathtub. Blood might stain the hardwood floors and Brian would never forgive me.”
“That landlord of yours ever fix your pipes?” He gave her a decidedly lascivious look over his shoulder. “Because while I’m here, I’d be happy to check things over.”
“All fixed,” she said with a smirk. “Now go.”
“Maybe you should come with me to make sure I don’t pass out from sheer exhaustion,” he said, turning around to face her.
“I thought you wanted food.”
“I’d rather devour you.”
Suddenly the playfulness was gone from his face, replaced by serious, deliberate want.
She swallowed hard. Which was all the hesitation he needed.
Without warning, he scooped her up in his arms and strode into the bathroom. “What about your exhaustion?” she asked, laugher on her lips.
“I’m suddenly feeling much more energetic.” When they reached the bathroom, he lowered her to stand on her own. “And I need someone to help me wash my back.”
Reaching for the old-fashioned spigot, he turned on the water—hot, then cold—and plugged the drain. By the time he looked at her again, Melody was already holding out the jar of bubbles. Vanilla scented. He uncapped it, sniffed appreciatively, then dumped half the bottle into the tub.
She laughed softly. “There’s not going to be enough room for you in there with all those bubbles.”
He didn’t say anything, he merely began to untuck his shirt, his every move slow, deliberate and sultry, hinting of his mood.
Slow. Delib
erate. Sultry.
Oh, heavens, it was going to be an amazing night.
Nick tugged the shirt off, revealing his strong chest and rippled stomach. Then came his boots, his pants. Until finally he was completely naked.
Melody grabbed the door handle, trying to remain steady. Because Nick was the living example of male perfection. Broadshouldered, slimwaisted. Hard, masculine and ready.
And he wanted her. Her.
“Now you,” he murmured, reaching for the loose cottony fabric of her dress. He pulled it up and tossed it away, hissing when he realized she hadn’t been wearing a bra. His eyes grew even darker as he stared at her bare breasts.
Melody kicked off her shoes, then pushed her panties to the floor until she stood in front of him just as naked. “I guess you want to make sure I don’t get my clothes wet when I scrub your back?” she asked, her voice more seductive than teasing.
He didn’t say a word. He simply reached out to slide one big hand over her hip, his rough palm fitting perfectly in the indentation of her waist. “Come here.”
He drew her up against him, their skin meeting to create a new type of friction. Dropping his mouth to hers, he kissed her until they were sharing breaths, their hearts beating in unison.
“Oh, I’ve missed you,” she murmured as the excitement of his touch washed over her. Desire slid throughout her body. Particularly in the hollow core of her, where she’d been dying to be filled by him again.
Saying nothing, he turned off the water, then picked her up again and stepped over the side of the old tub. Melody almost purred when Nick lowered himself into the steamy, bubbly water, settling her on his lap. Her back was to his front, and his arm draped with deliberate possession around her waist. He tugged her back so she could recline on his chest.
It was heaven. Perfection. Hot and steamy and slippery. Beneath her bottom, she felt the delicious strength of his arousal and knew how this bath was going to end.
But Nick didn’t seem inclined to make it end anytime soon.
“The water hot enough for you?” he murmured as he lazily stroked her belly, her midriff and the bottom curves of her breasts. Every movement was lethargic, uncalculated, made only for the pleasure it brought to them both.
