The Last Kiss Goodbye: A Charlotte Stone Novel
Page 26
Charlie sighed. “That’s the problem, don’t you see? There isn’t anywhere safe. I’m as liable to be running into danger as I am to be running away from it. Tam says I’m in danger near dark water. If you think about it, there’s dark water everywhere. For my money, the reason I’m in danger near dark water is almost certainly because there’s a serial killer out there who knows my name. Therefore, the way to make me safe is to catch the serial killer. And at a guess, I’d say I’m safer surrounded by three armed FBI agents than I would be on my own.”
Their eyes met. You’d be with me, his said, and hers replied, You can’t protect me, and his narrowed and his mouth tightened in angry acknowledgment.
“You’re scaring me to death here, all right?” His words were abrupt. His face was tight. “At least tell Dudley about what the damned woman said so he’s on his guard, would you please?”
“Fine,” she snapped, annoyed at herself because it touched her that he would disregard the rivalry she knew he felt with Tony to try to make sure she was protected. “I’m scared, too, you know. I’m always scared, all the time. I live with this constant, low-grade fear and have since my friend was killed and I found out what kind of evil exists in the world. What Tam said simply cranked it up a couple of notches. But what I’ve learned over the years is that the only thing to do when you’re scared is stay cool and keep moving ahead.”
Even as the words left her mouth, Charlie realized it was the first time in her adult life that she had ever admitted to anyone that she was afraid. Fear had been her constant companion for as long as she could remember; she had learned to hide it, to deny it, to hold her head high in the face of it and carry on.
But she had never admitted to it out loud until right now—to him.
Her ghost.
And what did that say about the state of her heart where he was concerned?
“Charlie.” His eyes darkened and slid to her mouth, and she knew he wanted to kiss her. And she knew that if there had been any way, any possible way to make that happen, she would have walked straight into his arms and slid her own around his neck and kissed him until kissing wasn’t enough. And then she would have gone to bed with him.
Because that’s what she was burning to do.
Just thinking about it made her go all soft and shivery inside.
Her face must have given her away, because his eyes blazed at her. Suddenly passion beat in the air between them, as tangible as the pounding of her heart.
A knock at the door broke the spell.
“That’ll be Tony,” she said, and saw his eyes flare.
She was still aching for Michael when she turned and opened the door to find Tony standing there.
“Why, Dr. Stone,” Tony greeted her on a note of surprised pleasure, doing an exaggerated double-take as she stepped out into the bright light of the hallway and he took in her in her dress. He wasn’t his usual FBI agent-correct self, either, having lost the coat and tie and rolled the sleeves of his white dress shirt up to his elbows. The tail end of his shirt was out, too, and she presumed that was to hide his gun.
“Why, Special Agent Bartoli,” she echoed on the same note, giving him a copy of the exaggerated once-over he had given her, and he laughed and caught her hand and brought it to his mouth and kissed it. The brush of his lips on her skin was warm, and pleasant, and the casual grace of the gesture made her heart hurt a little.
Because it served to underline the fact that she was never going to have that with the man (?) she really wanted. The simple pleasures of casual physical contact were never going to happen between her and Michael.
But, she decided as she smiled at Tony and he tucked his hand around her arm—it felt warm and strongly masculine against her skin, and she was suddenly acutely conscious of it—and they started walking side by side toward the elevator where Kaminsky in her new dress and Buzz in rolled-up shirtsleeves were waiting, she wasn’t going to let her heart get broken. Having it break over a dead man would be stupid. Because it wouldn’t change a thing: he would still be unavailable for the life she wanted—he would still be dead.
There was a phrase from a song her mother used to listen to: love the one you’re with.
She liked Tony a whole lot. She found him attractive, sexy. His kisses turned her on.
Tony she could kiss. Tony she could have sex with. Tony she could even, eventually, if things worked out, make a life with.
Stupid she wasn’t. She knew enough to choose the possible over the impossible.
So that’s what she made up her mind to do.
They joined Kaminsky and Buzz at the elevators just in time for Charlie to overhear Kaminsky saying to Buzz, “So where’d you go last night?” to which Buzz replied with a startled, “What?” while Kaminsky pinned him with a censorious look and answered, “I was in the room next door, remember? I heard you go out,” before they both shut up as Charlie and Tony reached them. Charlie had the fleeting thought that Kaminsky’s oversleeping that morning was thus explained: she’d obviously stayed awake listening for Buzz to return from wherever he’d gone. Which meant that the situation between them was getting interesting. Charlie realized that she hadn’t been paying much attention to them, which wasn’t surprising: she had her own (way complicated) situation going on, after all.
The elevator came, and the four (five) of them piled in.
When they emerged on the ground floor to head across the cavernous, marble-floored lobby and through the big glass doors into the covered outdoor walkway beyond, it was full night. A ruffle of strategically placed potted palm trees blocked the patio from view. Soft romantic music filled the air, along with the sounds of conversation and laughter from their fellow late diners. The moon was a tipsy crescent high in the sky and thousands of stars twinkled like tiny rhinestones set into midnight velvet. A few steps down took them to the wide patio with its wrought iron tables and chairs. It was enclosed on two sides by smaller buildings connected to the hotel, but the front was open. The surrounding landscaping was lush and fragrant, and the flickering lights from dozens of jewel-toned hurricane lanterns glowing on the tables and on tall, willowy stands around the perimeter added a magical beauty. It was still hot outside, but the humidity was made bearable by a slight, salt-scented breeze blowing in off the ocean. In the distance, across a stretch of pale, barely seen beach, Charlie glimpsed the roll of whitecaps on the gleaming black water. Much closer at hand, down a path that led from the patio to the beach, the hotel’s grottolike pool still accommodated a few die-hard swimmers. Dark water, Charlie thought, and felt a cold finger of fear slide down her spine. Her step faltered for a second—but really, what was there to do, run back to her room and stay there until Tam gave her the all clear? Saying, “At least stay away from the damned water” in a goaded tone, Michael moved in close beside her, placing his big body between her and the pool and the sea, but it was Tony’s hand that slid around her arm again. It was Tony’s touch she felt, Tony who was solid and warm and as physically present as she was. Refusing to even glance at Michael, Charlie deliberately leaned into Tony a little, just enough so that their bodies brushed, and looked up at him and smiled.
Over dinner, Charlie concentrated on the man she could have, and pretended the one she couldn’t have wasn’t there. Because in a world that didn’t absolutely suck, he wouldn’t have been, and she could have fallen in love with Tony without any damned infernal interference.
Which was why, when Michael joined her in the restroom, she was braced for him to be ticked off at her. And she already knew that, his anger notwithstanding, she was going to hold to the course she had chosen, and not back down.
She was choosing Tony, and Michael was simply going to have to live (or not) with that.
So now Michael was in the bathroom scowling at her. “You got him thinking he’s going to get lucky tonight.”
Finishing with her lipstick, giving herself a final check in the mirror, Charlie turned to face him. No point in beating around the bush. Th
e thing about it was, with Michael attached to her like a tail to a kite there no way he wasn’t going to know. Not only about Tony, but about everything she ever did in her life from that point on until either she died or he disappeared. The knowledge was unsettling. No, terrifying. But all she could do was find a way to deal with it—him—on terms she could live with.
“Maybe he is.” She gave him a level look. “I’m thinking about it.”
“What?” To say Michael looked astounded was an understatement.
“At some point, if my relationship with Tony continues, we’re going to have sex. I’m thinking about making it tonight.”
Astounded gave way to flabbergasted, which was replaced almost instantly by plain mad.
“The hell you are.”
“You don’t have anything to say about it. I’m telling you as a courtesy, so you can stay out of the way. In other words, if I go into a hotel room with Tony, you stay outside, got it?”
“In your fucking dreams.”
“I thought watching wasn’t your thing.”
“Baby, I’m telling you up front that if you go into a hotel room with Dudley with the intention of having sex with him, that’s going to turn into the most haunted hotel room you’ve ever been in in your life.”
Her brows snapped together. “Guess what, Casper: since I’m the only one who can see or hear you, if I simply shut my eyes and tune you out there’s nothing you can do.”
“Try me.”
“Oh, I’m going to. I get to have a life.”
His eyes narrowed at her. “You got turned on, didn’t you? In the bedroom earlier. I turned you on, and now you’re wanting to get your rocks off with Dudley. Just so we’re clear, that ain’t going to work for me.”
“You’re disgusting,” Charlie hissed at him, her cheeks flaming. She started walking toward him, because she wasn’t wasting any more breath arguing, and he was blocking the door.
“It’s the truth and you know it. I’m the guy you want to fuck, not him.”
“Get out of my way.”
He folded his arms over his chest. “Uh-uh.”
Her blood boiled. What he seemed to forget was that she could walk right through him, which was what she did, and the electric tingle be damned. Yanking open the door, she realized a couple of long strides beyond it that she was stalking instead of walking, and moderated her gait. By the time she reached the table, she was able to smile at Tony, who was signing the check and handing it back to the waiter, like all was right with her world, and never mind Michael’s honey-infused voice at her back growling, “You ever try eating a turkey sandwich when what you really want is a pizza? When you finish the sandwich, you’re still craving that pizza.”
Of course she didn’t reply.
“In case that went over your head, I’m the pizza.”
Oh, she’d gotten it, all right. And she still didn’t reply.
“Damn it, Charlie,” Michael said, planting himself in front of her. Narrowing her eyes at him, she veered around him. Walking through him was possible, as she’d just proven, but the truth was it was something she didn’t like to do.
“Hey.” Tony stood up as she reached the table. “This was dinner,” he said, smiling at her, and she remembered that they’d agreed to dinner as a first step in their take-it-slow pact. “Want to try for a dance before we go up?”
There was a cleared area on the far side of the patio, over by another ruffle of potted palms that almost hid the solid brick wall behind it. Couples were dancing there, eight or nine, ranging in age from young professionals to grandma and grandpa. Nothing fancy, no Dancing with the Stars glitz, simply all of them holding each other close as they swayed and turned and circled the floor to the music.
“You don’t want to do this,” Michael said.
“I’d love to,” Charlie told Tony with determination, and when he smiled at her and took her hand she followed him onto the dance floor and turned into his arms.
She had danced with him before, but only as part of working on a case. It had been a careful and formal dance, under the watchful eyes of Kaminsky and Buzz and a camera. This dance was different. This was her plastered right up against Tony, with his arm tight around her waist and his body hard and unmistakably masculine against hers. It was personal. It was romantic. It was real.
“You look good,” Tony told her, his mouth close to her ear. “You smell good, too.”
“Thank you,” Charlie said. She tipped her head back to smile at him. The moonlight made his eyes seem very dark as he met her glance, and highlighted the lean hard bones of his face. He looked good. He felt good. He was good. Really, what was not to fall in love with?
“You actually think you can have a relationship with him? You can’t even tell him about the things you see,” Michael spoke in her ear. “You’re afraid to tell him that you’ve got a voodoo priestess friend who’s saying you’re in danger. He has no idea that you’re looking at a ghost over there in the corner who’s got half his head blown away. And we both know you’re sure as hell never going to tell him about me.”
Of course Michael was going to be a pain in the ass. So what else was new? Yes, she did see the spirit in the corner, a young man standing over an upscale-looking sixty-ish couple talking earnestly over dinner, who clearly had no idea he was there. But so what? She saw ghosts all the time, and this particular one was keeping his distance, and that meant he was none of her business. Just like what she told or didn’t tell Tony was none of Michael’s business.
As a movement of the dance turned her around, she glared at Michael over Tony’s shoulder. And mouthed, “Go away.”
“So tell me how you came to be an FBI agent,” she said to Tony. Manhunting 101: get the guy to talk about himself. It had been a while, but she remembered the drill. Anyway, he knew all (well, almost all) about her from the damned background check he’d run on her. If she was going to start a real relationship with him, it would probably be a good idea to learn a little more about what made him tick.
“It was either be an FBI agent or a lawyer,” Tony said. “What would you do?”
She laughed. “FBI, definitely.”
His arm tightened around her waist. They were swaying together, turning a little, basic box step stuff. His cheek—she thought it was his cheek, but it could have been his lips—brushed her hair.
“There you go,” he said. “They lured me in with the great government salary. And the hours. Then they clenched the deal when they told me that occasionally people might shoot at me with a gun.”
She laughed again. She liked him. And she felt safe with him. Those were two sturdy pillars on which to begin to build a relationship. I can do this, she told herself, as the prospect of the normal life she had always wanted but been afraid to reach for shimmered tantalizingly in her mind’s eye. All she had to do was keep her mouth shut about the woo-woo stuff in her life, pretend it (most especially Michael) didn’t exist, and she could build her own future just the way she wanted it.
“So did you pick your own team, or were Buzz and Kaminsky assigned to you?” Charlie asked. Tony’s hand slid down below her waist, not quite to her butt but getting there. He wasn’t quite as tall as—he was tall enough so that they weren’t crotch to crotch, but she could still feel what was going on below his waist, and registered it with an interested tingle.
“Didn’t your mama ever tell you that classy women don’t let men feel them up on the dance floor?” Michael’s drawl had an edge to it. He was behind Tony again, so all she had to do was look over Tony’s shoulder to see all six-foot-three infuriating inches of him.
She turned her head instead to admire the clean line of Tony’s jaw.
“Crane was assigned to me,” Tony told her. “Kaminsky was a cop when Crane recommended we use her for a case because she speaks fluent Bulgarian, which we needed. She did an amazing job, not only with the language but with everything. So I told her that if she joined the Bureau, I’d hire her. She did and I did.”
“Babe, you shouldn’t ought to have to work that hard to get turned on. Why don’t you give up and admit that Dudley ain’t lighting your fire tonight?”
Charlie’s eyes shot open. Michael was behind Tony, watching her like a hawk hunting for rodents. His tone was mocking, but the skin over his cheekbones was hard and tight as he focused on her face.
She glared at him. Then she turned her face into Tony’s neck and pressed her lips to the smooth warm skin there. It felt good. She was definitely getting turned on.
“Charlie,” Tony whispered huskily, and she lifted her head and he kissed her mouth. Not a full-out kiss, because they were, after all, on a dance floor, but more of a tasting.
She liked it.
Crash.
The noise was so unexpected that Charlie jumped. So did everyone else, including Tony, whose arms dropped away from her as his hand shot behind his back toward where, she imagined, he had stashed his gun, probably in his waistband. Looking through all the moving shadows that played across the patio, she saw that one of the hurricane lanterns had fallen from its stand to shatter into a million ruby red shards on the stone at the edge of the dance floor.
She saw, too, that Michael was standing next to the stand where, seconds before, the lantern had flickered. Her eyes widened. Was it possible that he had … ? As she remembered the remote he’d learned to work, and the computer he’d managed to operate, and the two or three occasions when he’d actually manifested for a few seconds in solid form, her blood pressure skyrocketed. Yes, she grimly answered her own question, it was possible. In fact, knocking that hurricane lantern from its stand was exactly what he had done.