And I have you all to myself. Twisting sideways, Heather reached out, brought his head down, and clamped her mouth to his. No time like the present, she thought giddily. His body stiffened in surprise; then he drew her into his arms so that they stitched together. She deepened the kiss, and his firm lips responded with fervor. Recognizing that his need matched her own, Heather pressed herself against his length until she thought her bones would melt. She wanted to obliterate Logan’s questions and the business expert’s opinions, to escape from momentary pain and experience pleasure so elemental so she could forget everything else. Rex was someone she could rely on, even though they both aimed toward the same prize that only one of them could take home. She let her gratitude expand and encompass him, showing how she felt by abandoning all reason.
Not all of her senses fled, however.
“We should go upstairs,” she murmured, when they pulled back for air. “Logan might have put a camera in here, knowing one of us would find this makeshift wine cellar.”
“That’s true.” His eyes glimmered as he regarded her. “Here, take our glasses and the opener. I’ll bring another bottle.”
“Your room or mine?” she whispered after they’d repositioned the bookshelf.
“Doesn’t matter. Are you sure?”
“Absolutely,” she answered, glad he cared enough to ask.
She’d just shut the door to her bedroom when he moved in like a vulture sniffing prey. Putting the wine goblets and corkscrew on her nightstand, she turned and sought his embrace. Her lips parted, and she snuggled against him. His gaze fired before his mouth descended on hers. She responded readily as he grazed her lips with hungry abandon. Her nostrils picked up his cologne, its scent sending tendrils of desire along her nerves. Warmth coiled through her groin, fueling her passion.
Eager for more, she let her tongue dart out, starting a duel that brought them to a new level of intimacy. She explored the far reaches of his mouth, probing his teeth, tasting the remnants of red wine and pretzels. Feeling naughty, she closed her lips to suck on his tongue. He groaned and squeezed his arms around her so tight she could barely breathe. His hips ground against her, inducing in her belly an upward spiral of need.
She could easily lose herself in his virility. It didn’t matter what tomorrow would bring. Even if one of them got kicked off the show, they’d have memories of tonight to savor. She hadn’t met a man who could be so giving while pursuing his single-minded goal. The heady mixture inspired her so she could do anything, have anything ... or anyone. Instinct melded the two of them together, as though he were the only one for her.
She wrapped her arms around him, clutching his strong back. If only she could feel his bare skin, she’d run her hands over his powerful muscles. But his clothing was in the way.
Detaching her mouth from his suctionlike grip, she stepped back. “Take your shirt off, Rex.” Her husky tone didn’t sound like her own.
“Yes, ma’am.” His breathing quickened, but his movements were deliberately slow. Watching her reaction, he unfastened his shirt button by button, while her eyes feasted on his exposed chest. He tossed the shirt to the floor, followed by his belt. When his hands poised on his pants zipper, she sucked in a sharp breath. Then he stood before her naked, grinning as she gaped at the evidence of his arousal.
“Your turn,” he said with a devilish glint in his eyes. With a quick movement, he slipped her dress over her head. It joined his clothing on the carpet. Underneath, she’d worn her favorite black lace bra and panties, but he wasn’t in any hurry to remove them. Her face flushed under his lazy perusal.
“Beautiful,” he murmured in a thick voice, while impatience strained her limits.
Her blood surged, her body needing his touch. She closed the distance between them, thrusting her bosom against his bared flesh. But he wouldn’t give her satisfaction yet. Bending his head, he brushed her mouth, tracing her contours with his tongue.
Still he didn’t touch her.
Heather moaned in agony. Her breasts ached, her nipples swollen with need. Desire pooled in her core like bubbling lava seeking eruption through a sealed path.
When she was so weak-kneed she could barely stand, his hands found the upward slopes of her breasts. “Kill the lights,” she said, reduced to monosyllables. Although video in their bedrooms was supposed to be turned off by now, she felt self-conscious being exposed in the bright room.
“More wine?” he asked, handing her a filled glass without waiting for her reply. He twisted his arm around hers, offering her his goblet. Feeling immersed in his power, she sipped the fruity ambrosia until her legs felt rubbery and she craved more than wine on her lips.
He took her glass and put it on the nightstand next to his own; then he flicked off the light switch. The room fell into darkness except for faint moonlight filtering through the blinds. Feeling bold, she unsnapped her bra, tossed it away, and wriggled out of her panties. Rex gave her a long glance south before he accepted her offering. He covered her breasts, massaging gently. His kneading reduced her to putty, especially when he stroked his thumbs across her tips until they peaked. Sensations sizzled directly to the female apparatus below her belly.
“Down,” he commanded, pushing her gently onto the bed. Her eyes widened as he knelt at her feet. “By God, you’re lovely.” Slowly, he pushed apart her thighs to stare at her.
She felt streaks of lightning wherever he caressed her. When he tickled her inner leg, every nerve in her body quivered with excitement. He was determined to drive her to a frenzy. His fingers skirted her triangle, making her arch in response. When his hand returned, probing her folds and sticking a finger inside to assess her readiness, she thought she’d fly over the edge right then.
He wasn’t about to allow her that luxury. Not yet. He straightened his body over hers, hard muscled flesh against her softness as his weight settled atop her. His lips descended on her mouth. While a maelstrom of desire swept her into a seething vortex, his tongue thrust hotly into her deep recesses.
Suddenly, she felt air cool her skin. He’d leaped from the bed and leaned over to retrieve something from the floor. “I don’t want to forget this,” he said, joining her again. He held up a foil-wrapped object. “Would you like to do the honors?”
Although Heather was on the pill, she was grateful for his intervention. She rolled it on him while he gazed at her with lust-ridden eyes. Then they resumed their previous pose.
As he slanted his mouth over hers to plunder her swollen lips, his strong muscles forced her legs wider apart. Through a haze of lust, she felt him prod her most intimate place. When he ground his hips from side to side, she tottered on the brink of ecstasy. The pressure became unbearable.
When she thought she couldn’t hold on a single moment longer, he grunted, “Guide me inside you, sweetheart.”
Breathing short, shallow breaths, she complied. He plunged into her welcoming heat.
Slowly at first, then with an increasing tempo, he timed his thrusts to an ancient rhythm. Heather wrapped her legs around his torso and gyrated with him. Sweat formed on her brow as the sweet ache in her pelvis expanded until she raced toward a climax. When she reached her upheaval, shudders of pleasure wracked her body.
While she was lost in the throes of her last spasms, Rex responded with his own spurt of hot desire as they joined together in a dance of the ages.
A dance that was interrupted by a sudden howl of terror from the hallway.
Seven
Tossing on their clothing, Heather and Rex slammed out of her bedroom and into the hall. Lights flicked on and doors crashed open. Sarah and Jon joined them in racing to the stairwell from where they heard a series of groans. At the bottom, Dave stretched on the floor, his left leg twisted at an odd angle.
“Someone pushed me,” he gritted between clenched teeth. “My leg ... I think it’s broken.”
“I’ll call for help,” Rex said while Heather knelt beside the stricken man.
“Shit,” Jon
cursed. “We don’t have liability insurance yet.”
“Is that all you can think of?” Heather retorted. “It wouldn’t matter anyway. Dave is a contestant, not a guest.”
“Yeah? Well, the studio should be doing more to guarantee our safety. Who’s responsible for these incidents? You’d think the tapes would show someone we might recognize.”
“Oh, dear,” Sarah cried. “I-I’ll get Dave a glass of water.”
“The ambulance is on its way,” Rex told them, replacing the phone receiver on its cradle. “I called the detective, too. I thought he should know about this.”
“Who pushed you?” Heather asked Dave.
“I couldn’t see. The person had something over their head.” He gasped as a spasm of pain caught him. “Maybe. . . check outside. Whoever it was ran out the front door.”
Heather wondered if she could find any clues by looking outdoors. Not in the dark. That kind of investigating was best left to the police. Too bad the alarm system wouldn’t be activated until Friday, or it would have alerted them to an intruder. She didn’t see how someone from inside the house could have pushed Dave down the stairs, charged out the front door, returned through another entrance, and come upstairs....
Wait a minute. She’d only gotten a quick look at the owner’s suite on the ground floor level, with its private entrance on the other side of the living and dining rooms. Could there be a back staircase that she didn’t know about? Her mind’s eye pictured the door at the far end of the upstairs corridor. She had opened it briefly but assumed the dark space held a closet. Torn between wanting to investigate and providing support, she patted Dave’s clammy hand, contemplating what his injury would mean to their team.
“You’ll get fixed up and come back,” she told him. His pallor alarmed her. Was he going into shock? “Rex,” she said, her pitch rising.
“It’s okay. I’m here.” Rex knelt beside their colleague. “Hang in there, buddy. The medics are coming. Hear the siren? We’ll save your place at the table for you.”
“I don’t think so.” Dave’s voice broke. “Looks like I’ll have to work toward the pool service on my own. Maybe I can find myself a rich mama who digs hanging with a tough guy like me.”
Heather’s lower lip trembled as she fought tears. For all his masculine posturing, Dave was a whiz with computers. He’d carried his weight and deserved winning the prize same as the rest of them.
Just how valuable Dave’s job had been became evident after daybreak when Jon sat at the computer to work on his spreadsheet. Heather heard his cry from outside, where she’d been inspecting the front lawn and shrubbery for clues to last night’s visitor. She ran indoors to find Jon jumping up and down. “Everything is gone,” he yelled, flapping his arms. With his ruddy complexion and spiked hair, he reminded her of a rooster.
She glanced at the blank monitor screen. “What do you mean?”
“The hard drive. It’s wiped clean. I can’t even bring up Windows.”
“Oh, golly. All our files, the work Dave did. Lost?” She glanced around for Rex before remembering he’d gone into town to buy more supplies. Since when had she become so reliant on him? Sarah wouldn’t be any help. Her skills centered in the kitchen. “Maybe the data can still be retrieved,” she said. “Give me the phone book. I’ll call a technician.”
“It’s a good thing I wrote our figures in the book,” Jon said, giving her a dark glance. “Backups are essential. Did you copy your stuff to a disk?”
“Dave said he would do that for me.” She bit her lip. Had last night’s accident been an attempt to derail his efforts?
She called a computer expert who said he’d be out later that afternoon. Then she returned a few reservation inquiries left on their telephone answering machine. Already some of her advertising initiatives were showing results.
Her stomach growling, she entered the kitchen for a midmorning snack. Sarah, wearing an apron, was cutting vegetables in preparation for lunch. She had dark circles under her eyes, and her lids looked puffy. Heather had noticed earlier but hadn’t taken the opportunity to speak to her privately.
“Be careful with that knife. The way you’re chopping those carrots, your finger might slip. We don’t need any more accidents,” Heather warned.
Sarah paused, giving a furtive glance at one of the recessed camera lenses. “Can I talk to you outside?”
“Sure.” They might get a quick minute in the backyard before a cameraman and sound tech bustled over.
The shorter woman walked with Heather toward the lake. A clump of banana plants hung over the water, one of them sporting a deep purple blossom. Heather sniffed moisture in the air, a sign of impending rain. Cumulus clouds powdered the sky, a deep celestial blue. She glanced at the lake, where sunbeams showered the surface with sparkles of light.
“What’s on your mind?” she prompted Sarah.
Sarah’s brow knitted. “It’s about Dave. I never told anyone, but I saw somebody on the patio the night Gary got clobbered.”
“I thought you said the blinds were closed.”
“They were lowered, but the slats weren’t shut. I didn’t get a clear look, though.”
“This could be important to the police.”
She lowered her pixie-cut blond head. “I didn’t want to say anything in case it was Dave. He knew about my ... he saw me ...”
“What?” Heather swallowed her impatience.
“It would disqualify me. You have to promise not to tell.”
“All right.” She’d deal with the ramifications later. Right now, all Heather wanted to do was to prevent further incidents that caused bodily harm.
Glancing away, Sarah cleared her throat. “He caught me researching recipes in a cookbook. Remember Logan said we weren’t allowed any instructional manuals? I’d brought it from home in my suitcase. Otherwise, there’s no way I could have come up with all these menus on my own.” Her pleading look engaged Heather’s sympathies.
“So you kept quiet about what you saw because you thought it might be Dave outside, and if you told the police about him, he’d tell Logan about you?” She wrestled with her own anger. Sarah’s selfishness could have been responsible for Dave’s broken leg. He might have even cracked his collarbone tumbling down those stairs. Maybe he’d be unharmed if Sarah had spoken sooner and given the police some clues to follow.
“Did you see anything else? Was Gary struck from behind, or did he face the person who hit him?” Aware that a camera crew was heading their way, she spoke rapidly.
“I-I don’t know. Dave passed through the kitchen on his way to the garage, if that’s even where he went. I was upset when he caught me reading the cookbook, although he didn’t say anything. He left after giving me this smirk, you know? I made sure to keep away from the cameras. After I’d stashed the book in its hiding place, I glanced up to see the barest flash of movement on the patio. I was afraid someone might be spying on me, so I shut the blinds.”
Perhaps Dave had seen something significant on his way outside. That could be why he’d been targeted last night. But if that was true, why hadn’t he spoken up?
Because he had something to hide, too. Maybe he’d been on his way to an assignation. With whom? Kim had been upstairs. Michelle, though, had been prowling the territory.
The camera crew reached them as they were heading back to the house. “What did we miss, ladies?” Tanya cooed, her face coated with the appropriate application of pasty makeup. Heather gave her a critical glance. She must rise awfully early to primp herself in case the chance to be filmed popped up.
“We were talking about Gary,” she told the co-producer. “Tell me, did the police find anything on the tapes from that night?”
Tanya offered a chilly smile. “I’m afraid not. It was too dark. The lights were out.”
“Oh, yes.” Someone who’d been waiting on the patio might have switched them off when Gary appeared alone. It’s possible he’d recognized, or even greeted, his assailant beforehand.
Sarah had noticed movement in the shadows by the pool but nobody she could identify, and by the time Michelle had stepped outside, the deed was done. Michelle wouldn’t have had time after leaving the rest of them in the living room to fetch a shovel, bonk Gary on the head, and ditch the evidence.
Something didn’t play right about this scenario, but Heather couldn’t determine the source. For now, she’d hold her tongue about Sarah’s indiscretion. Ratting on her teammates wasn’t in her nature. It was more important that they make this venture a success, regardless of who would win.
As they entered through the patio screen door, a pang of yearning stabbed her. How she wanted to claim this house for her own. You can’t kid yourself. You’re dying to be the winner.
Scanning the sparse outdoor furnishings, an oblong glass table with four chairs and two chaise lounges, she thought about how she’d add another dinette set, citronella candles, hanging plants, and chimes. Kim had contributed that pitiful potted green plant that acted as a centerpiece. If the house were hers, Heather would find something more suitable to her tropical theme.
Straightening things came second nature to her as a real estate agent. Her practiced glance noted the clumps of dirt marring the glass tabletop. Halting, she scooped the soil into her hand and dumped it into the pot. After righting the lopsided stalk, she followed Sarah inside.
Rex had returned with a report on Dave’s condition. “His leg is in a cast,” Rex said, unloading a bag of weed killer from the trunk of his Corolla. His arm muscles bulged. Heather watched the byplay of his powerful shoulders while he lifted the heavy purchases and stashed them in the garage. “But he’ll be in the hospital a while longer, so I guess he’s out of action as far as we’re concerned.”
“Someone wiped our hard drive clean,” she told him. “Jon discovered it this morning. I arranged for a technician to come later to try to retrieve the data and reinstall Windows.”
“Great.” His eyes smoldered as he regarded her. “How are you holding up? Are you okay?”
Wicked Women Whodunit Page 26
