Being inside her was a necessity, he needed her. Now. He wanted to take her and consume every inch of her delectable body. Yet, it was more than that, something in him never wanted to be without this grinning little imp that he held in his arms.
A bell rang, but it didn’t distract them from each other. ‘Last call,’ Molly whispered. ‘Everyone will be out of here soon.’
‘They will,’ he murmured.
‘The place will be empty.’
Taking one of her loose curls between his thumb and forefinger, he squeezed it and enjoyed the texture of her soft lock as it ran between his fingertips.
‘Do you think it worked?’ she asked. ‘Did we do good?’
Coiling his arm further around her waist, he held her to the length of him. ‘I’m feeling pretty good right now. How about you?’
Relieving her of her weight, he tightened his grip, and she took the chance to grind her hips to him, making his eyes almost roll from his skull. ‘I feel better now.’
‘You’re the scoundrel in this relationship, do you know that?’ he groaned, and she continued to move. ‘You delight in your mischievous ways, don’t you?’
‘I like the effect I have on you,’ she said. ‘It makes me feel sexy.’
‘I would think just getting out of bed in the morning would do that.’
The ability to talk, or indeed to stand, was rapidly leaving him and when his forehead fell onto her, she laughed. The sound was like an adrenaline shot to the heart. A need to possess her, forever, to never let her free, consumed him. He didn’t want this moment to end. But he knew it had to. He just wasn’t ready yet.
‘Mol?’
All too soon her attention was lost as she turned to the voice addressing her. ‘Hey,’ she said.
Though she now had her back to his chest, he kept her body in his embrace, and she hid the issue in his jeans without a thought or protest. It seemed that she didn’t want the room to know how she affected him. She wanted to keep it to herself. The possessiveness of her action stirred his gut with a tingling heat, a swirl within him that wanted to return the favour.
Kissing the top of her head, he increased the pressure of his embrace until she was on the very tips of her toes. She accepted the new position, resting her head on his jaw. Holding her was natural in a way that it had never been with any previous woman in his life.
‘We’re heading off, just thought we should say goodnight,’ Belinda said. ‘But you look like you’re in for a long one.’
Belinda, her sister Melissa, and Shona stood in front of them, with Belinda at the head of the group. These women were Molly’s friends, but that didn’t stop him from scrutinising them. ‘Could just be,’ Molly said.
His observations were interrupted when Molly’s lips met his jaw. Though unexpected, it certainly wasn’t an unwelcome advance. In fact, it was very well played. Intimacy of moments like that were just what was needed to draw Choker out.
Reminding himself of the game didn’t detract from the fact that it had been another possessive show. Molly seemed to want the room to know that he was hers. Returning the favour, he dipped his head below hers and kissed her neck through the deep, soft throngs of her hair.
‘I don’t think there is any doubt in his mind,’ Belinda said.
‘I’m sorry about the fire,’ Melissa said. ‘If you need anything, you’ll let us know, won’t you?’
‘Thanks,’ Molly said, and giggled at the tickle of him at her neck. Curling in his arms, she gave his hand a playful swot. ‘Baby, in a minute.’
‘We should leave you two to it,’ Shona said, pulling on the two sisters and eyeing the amorous couple with her own churlish smile spread on her face. ‘Before you’re mounting each other on the dance floor.’
Making a show of taking his mouth from her hair, Blake laced his tone with innuendo. ‘We’ll wait until everyone has gone home to do that.’
‘Will we?’ Molly said. ‘My bedroom is just down the hall… or there is always the restroom, the stalls lock.’
‘Mmm,’ he said. ‘We’ll do a tour later.’
‘There’s a lot of stalls,’ Molly said.
‘You give me a lot to work with,’ he said. ‘We can do them all.’
‘Wow,’ Melissa said, averting her attention.
Belinda leaned in to Molly to stage whisper. ‘You are such a bitch. I am so jealous… Does he have a brother?’
‘Yeah, but he’s taken.’
Belinda huffed. ‘Typical… Anyway. Goodnight.’
‘Night,’ Molly said, and hit Blake’s hand in prompt. ‘Don’t be rude.’
Elevating his mouth from its resting place on her crown, he called after them. ‘Goodnight!’
The three women departed and then Molly twisted in his arms to face him again. ‘Can I cash out now, or do you still need a shield?’
‘Can I want a shield as opposed to needing one?’
But he’d pushed his luck as far as she’d let him, because with a laugh she moved out of his arms. She didn’t venture away, she had every intention of keeping him close, because she took his hand and led him to the bar.
A few people still milled around, finishing drinks. But those who were going on to clubs had hurried out, probably in an attempt to miss the lines, although all their fellow revellers had much the same notion.
‘How did we do?’ Molly asked, sitting on a stool and taking their linked fingers to her waist. Blake took position behind her, not yet ready to be apart from her either.
‘We should have charged for the show,’ Vanessa said, stacking glasses in the glass washer. ‘You two would have raked in a fortune.’
‘Yeah, Mol,’ Joel said. While Vanessa could talk and work at the same time, Joel could not. He stopped wiping down the bar to address Molly. ‘What does this guy have that I lacked?’
‘A shred of decency,’ she said.
Joel considered her response with a look at the faces around him, and then he lifted one shoulder with a sigh. ‘Fair enough, can’t argue with that.’ After his surrender he went back to his job of cleaning the bar.
‘It’s weird to think that we might have served her tonight,’ Vanessa said. ‘That blonde thing at the window was very interested in you two all night.’
Knowing that it would be Molly’s instinct to look, Blake caressed her cheek, giving the impression of affection but actually preventing her from turning her head. Scanning over his own shoulder under the guise of seeing how many patrons there were left to get rid of, he absorbed the features of the woman that Vanessa was talking about. Right enough, she was peeking in their direction. When she noticed Blake, she quickly took her gaze from them.
‘I’m going to turn off the music,’ he said.
Releasing Molly, he aimed for the music player, which was next to the blonde’s position. He didn’t pay any heed to the woman who was fascinated by him and Molly, instead he just nodded at those who glanced in his direction and reminded folks to drink up.
From his brief assessment, he’d say the blonde beauty was in her mid-twenties, a C-cup and with the tiniest waist he’d ever seen. He was impressed, intellectually, by her figure. To get a detailed description, he didn’t have to look directly at her. The hair colour was fake, as were the talons, and her shoes were half a size too small, which spoke of severe insecurity or vanity. Or, if she was the killer, maybe the shoes held some significance.
The tight white dress she wore sat at the very top of her thighs and revealed most of her bosom, yet there was no one around her. Immediately this piqued his interest, because there should be men crawling all over her. Why would a woman like this be alone?
Bouncing into the booth, which would be used by the DJ if they had one, Blake began messing around with CD’s, and wires, and the laptop, giving the impression of cleaning up. Turning off the music was as easy as flipping a switch, but he had to draw out his time in proximity to this woman. He glanced up to see her tongue her straw back into her mouth, and though her body was angled
to face the dance floor, her focus flitted in his direction. After he offered half a smile, her attention left him. Except a moment later, she peeked back.
‘Good night?’ Blake said.
‘Sorry?’ she asked. Her tone drawled with sweet honey, but she fed it to him with such innocence that if he’d heard it alone, without seeing her in the flesh, he would be sure it came from a child.
‘Did you have a good night?’
‘Not really,’ she muttered, and her body slumped with dejection.
Ceasing in his feigned tidying, he braced a hand on the edge of the booth just next to her. ‘Why not?’
She inhaled. ‘I was stood up.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry. I’m sure he has a good reason for not coming.’
‘An excuse,’ she said, and sucked more alcohol from her glass. ‘He’ll give me an excuse… I’ll probably fall for it too. I just hate myself when I’m with him. He treats me like shit, but I let him. It’s my fault.’
‘Hey,’ Blake said, and stepped out of the booth. ‘It’s not your fault. You shouldn’t have to put up with anyone’s shit. You’re a beautiful woman, you could have had any guy in the place tonight.’
This seemed to brighten her demeanour, and he propped his hip on the windowsill, keeping himself just a little too close to be decent.
‘I saw you with your girlfriend,’ she said. ‘Out there on the dance floor… I bet you wouldn’t stand her up.’
Blake exhaled a laugh. ‘She’d have my balls if I did.’
‘She’s a lucky woman,’ the blonde said.
Blake shook his head and he let his gaze fall. ‘Nah… I’m not good enough for her.’
‘Are you kidding? I saw you two out there. You were totally devoted. I’ve never had a man look at me that way.’
‘You haven’t found the right one, that’s all. You need to kick tonight’s guy to the kerb and find a guy who’ll treat you like you deserve to be treated.’
‘Like the way you treat your girlfriend?’
‘She’d hate me if she knew the truth.’
‘The truth?’
‘She’s crazy about me. But I… I never really stop looking around, you know? I can’t help myself around beautiful women.’
‘I’m sure you have your reasons,’ the blonde said. One hand left her glass to touch his. ‘It’s not your fault that she doesn’t give you everything you need.’
‘She’s a great girl,’ he said. ‘And she’s devoted to me… I don’t know why I can’t be satisfied with that.’
‘Because you want more,’ she said. ‘Trust me… I know all about wanting more.’
Chapter Twenty
While brushing a fallen lash, which probably wasn’t even really there, from her cheek Molly tried to be as subtle as she could in her attempt to glance toward the media centre.
‘You’re going to give yourself a migraine,’ Vanessa said.
‘What?’ Molly said. It was only when her neck snapped back that she realised just how much she’d been craning it. Vanessa was drying glasses, but she was no fool and must have seen exactly what Molly was trying to do, despite the fact that she was supposed to be cashing out the register.
‘If you’re that worried, then go over there,’ Vanessa said, sliding another glass into place.
‘Worried?’ Molly said, counting out the bills. ‘What would I be worried about?’
‘She’s holding his hand, they look pretty intense… I would be worried too.’
‘No. I’m not worried. That was the point of the night, remember? We were supposed to draw her out.’
‘She doesn’t look like the type,’ Joel said, ceasing his glass-drying activity to hook his elbows onto the counter at her side.
‘Don’t look over there,’ Molly said. ‘You need to give them their privacy.’
‘If you want to give them their privacy, why are we still here?’ Joel asked. ‘Cleaning every glass in the place will wait until tomorrow. There’s two guys at the pool table. We can kick them out and go back to Mason’s. We’ll take a bottle or two and—‘
‘You remember what happened the last time we did that?’ Vanessa snarked.
‘It’s not likely to happen twice, is it? I say we’re safe,’ Joel said. ‘That way she can get on with killing him and then we can all get back to our lives.’
‘They’re not doing it here,’ Molly said. Panic crept in and all thoughts of spying on Blake and the blonde vanished. What if they did? What if Blake seduced the blonde in her bed? Shivers crept up her spine at the very idea of his hands on that woman, any woman. Nausea churned until it met her throat.
‘Where else are they going to do it?’ Joel asked. ‘Do you really think he will take her all the way back to his place?’
Vanessa shrugged, putting away another glass and tossing her towel over her shoulder. ‘I don’t know, if the blonde thinks that Blake is with Molly, then she might assume that this is his place too.’
‘Not if she really is the killer,’ Molly said. ‘She should know that I live alone.’
A churlish laugh echoed through the room, and instinct took the attention of her group around to the blonde. She flicked her hair over her shoulder and beamed at Blake, who stood with his back to the bar.
Infuriation rose within her. Blake had been with her, he couldn’t go home with the blonde now. If she and Blake really had been in a relationship, then she would never put up with that sort of behaviour and it wouldn’t appear very genuine if she tolerated it tonight.
‘You’re in love with him, aren’t you?’ Mason asked.
Since Blake had left to talk to the blonde, and Molly had come around to help behind the bar, Mason had kept his distance and said very little to her. His words made her spin and she saw that he’d joined the trio, but his expression was unfamiliar, hard and somehow pissed off but resigned.
‘In love with who?’ Molly stabbed a thumb over her shoulder. ‘Blake? No! Why would you say that?’
‘I saw you with him, Mol. I’ve never seen you like that with anyone, and I’ve known you a long time.’
‘It was an act!’ Molly asserted. ‘We had to put on a good show.’ Vanessa and Joel backed away from them a little, enough to still be able to hear what was going on, but not enough to impede her and Mason’s privacy.
‘That wasn’t a show, it wasn’t even courtship,’ Mason said. ‘You were out there marking your territory, the pair of you.’
‘That was the point,’ Molly said. ‘We had to look convincing.’
‘Convincing?’ Mason said. ‘Then why did you come out of the office flushed? No one was in there to see anything. Who were you convincing in there?’
‘What is your problem, Mason? We did this to take the heat from you.’
‘I would rather have the heat on me than have him touch you like that if you didn’t want it. But you did want it, didn’t you?’
‘Why are you being like this?’ she asked. ‘Blake is a good guy, he is trying to help us.’
‘I thought you hated cops,’ Mason said. ‘You always told us you would never have one in here. Not after Cal. They did nothing for him. They laughed at you, do you remember the hurt? The humiliation that they put you through? Cops don’t give a fuck about anyone, isn’t that what you always said? Nothing but a bunch of paper pushers.’
‘I don’t think of Blake like that,’ Molly muttered. ‘I’ve tried, but… he’s not like the rest of them. He listens to me. He cares about making a difference.’
‘He’s no different,’ Mason said, and the anger in him had transcended every other emotion he’d approached her with. ‘He’s asked you a thousand questions, and none of those answers have made an ounce of difference in solving this. Isn’t that what you always said? That all of their promises of resolution were nothing more than false hope and appeasement?’
‘He cares, Mason,’ she said.
He dumped his towel on the bar. ‘No, he doesn’t,’ he said. ‘You want him to. You lose all perspective around this guy.
I don’t know how he’s done it, but he’s changed you… I’m just not sure I like this person you’ve become.’
Drawing back, her jaw swung loose, but Mason was already striding away from the bar. She watched him walk the length of the room and out of the building, then she regarded Vanessa and Joel, neither of whom were looking at her.
‘What just happened? What was that about?’ Molly gaped.
‘He’s jealous,’ Vanessa said. ‘He wants you to look at him the way you look at Blake.’
‘He’s Mason. He’s been my friend forever and—‘
‘He’s hard for you, honey,’ Vanessa said.
Molly switched to Joel who nodded. ‘Since when?’
‘Always,’ Joel said. ‘Since we were kids. You were off limits when Cal was around, and now that Cal’s gone… he respects your brother’s memory. It’s stopped him from making a move.’
‘Seeing you with Blake breaks his heart,’ Vanessa explained. ‘You never smiled at Harry the way you smile at Blake, and that scares the shit out of Mason.’
‘Shit,’ Molly breathed.
Her best friend was hurt because of her, and now he was alone. She couldn’t abandon Mason now, they’d supported each other through everything life had thrown at them. Vanessa and Joel were waiting for her to say something, but words weren’t needed here. Molly knew that she needed to take action. Deserting her post, she went after Mason. Everything else could wait, right now Mason needed her and that took precedence.
Maintaining an air of civility was getting increasingly difficult. The blonde, Tia, didn’t seem to recognise how fake Blake’s interest was. Now that he was convinced she wasn’t the killer, all he wanted was to make a swift departure. But Tia had been talking for at least half an hour about every man she’d ever been involved with, and giving him a blow-by-blow on how they’d all screwed her over.
From the sounds of things, Tia was far more interested in stalking the specific man who had stood her up tonight than she was in current events. He would be surprised if Tia even knew that there had been murders in the area, let alone been the one to commit the acts.
Reluctant Suspicion Page 24
