Ace Is Wild (14 page)

“Get in the truck, Vivi.”

She turned, stared blankly at him for a second before reality kicked back in. Then she took a minute to process what he was saying. And what it meant.

She couldn’t go home. Daniel was right about that much, and since what she needed was to go with him anyway, and he wasn’t dumping her, she was actually getting what she wanted. But she didn’t like it, and not just because she didn’t have a choice. Being a psychic didn’t exactly put her on the road to riches—at least not the way she did it. Heck, she was barely on the rutted dirt lane to making ends meet. She worked hard keeping her head above the financial water. She’d already gone a week without working. It wouldn’t take long for her to end up in the poorhouse.

Seeing Daniel sitting behind the wheel of her grandmother’s truck helped lighten her mood. She could have warned him, but Daniel was a show-me kind of guy.

He turned the key. Nothing happened. So he turned it again. “Why do I get the feeling the problem isn’t mechanical?” he asked.

Vivi shrugged. “You insulted Maxine.”

Maxine?
he parroted silently, just his mouth moving, then aloud, “I knew I shouldn’t have asked that question.” And he turned the key again.

Maxine made a sound that would have been termed a raspberry if Maxine had been human. Then the engine turned over once, and the truck lurched forward a couple inches, steam hissing out of the radiator.

“You mocked my grandmother, too.”

This time Daniel kept his head down and his mouth shut. Gathering his patience.

“You should try apologizing,” Vivi suggested.

That brought his head up. He stared at her for a second, then reached for the key again. He snatched his hand back just as quickly, shaking off a nasty shock.

Vivi crossed her arms on the open driver’s window, grinning.

“It’s just static electricity,” Daniel said.

“Go ahead, try it again.”

He thought about it, the stubborn idiot.

“Maxine’s not going to let you drive her, Ace.”

“You’re telling me the truck is possessed?”

Vivi tipped her head to one side, this time communing with her sense of humor. “I didn’t say a word.”

“At least not that I could hear,” he muttered, eyes narrowed.

“Getting a little paranoid?”

By way of response he slid over to the passenger’s side. Vivi climbed into the driver’s seat, turned the key, and Maxine cranked right over, settling into a loose, rattling shimmy in rhythm with the rough idle of the engine. “Where to?”

“Somewhere over the rainbow, apparently.”

“I’m not a witch.”

“Good thing,” Daniel said, “otherwise my house would have fallen on you.”

“Yeah, and I’m not wearing the right kind of shoes for that.”

She followed his directions to a part of Boston she’d never been in before. It had seen better days, that was for sure. Mortar was crumbling on the old brick buildings, windows were broken or boarded up, graffiti was everywhere, and either X-rated or gang-related. The overall attitude was apathy, nobody on the street except working girls, dealers, and buyers of one or another commodity. The rest of the neighborhood stayed behind locked doors and looked the other way.

Vivi turned the pickup into the no-tell motel Daniel pointed out, the engine giving a little derisive-sounding cough and shudder as she steered it into a parking space in the back where it couldn’t be seen from the road. Not much chance the hit men would be trolling for them in this neighborhood, but it never hurt to be careful.

Daniel was wearing worn jeans, a faded T-shirt and an unmistakable air of authority. Probably no one recognized him as an assistant U.S. attorney when they walked into the tiny lobby, but the half-dozen men lounging in front of the ancient television definitely took him for the john and her for the flavor of the night.

She found it amusing, the more so when she realized Daniel didn’t. “I can set them straight if you like,” she said to him.

“No point in you being any more memorable than you already are.”

“Well, we can’t have that.” She sidled up to him at the desk, plastering herself against his side and keeping her face turned into his chest. Her hands were busy, too, but she kept them above his waist. Playing the hooker was kind of fun, feeling his muscles quiver under her palm was . . . interesting. Letting herself get caught up in the moment would be a mistake.

Once he’d paid for the room and put his wallet away, she headed for the elevator, swinging her hips and crooking a finger at him.

“Way to be forgettable,” he said, taking the opposite corner of the elevator.

“This being the kind of place that charges by the hour, I figured memorable would have been me keeping my distance.”

“Not from where I was standing.”

THE ROOM MET ALL VIVI’S EXPECTATIONS. FADED WALLPAPER, musty draperies, and a bed that had seen hard duty. Even with the threadbare chenille spread pulled up, she could see the dips and sags. If she hadn’t been coming down from a major adrenaline rush, nothing could have induced her to get within a mile of that bed. Not even the memory of Daniel’s muscles under her palms, the scent of him when she’d had her face pressed to his chest . . . On second thought, best to add him to the list of reasons why the bed was a bad idea.

The rest of the room was minimally furnished, no chair, no table, a small nightstand with a lamp perched on it. No drawer so no Bible. Even the Gideons had given up on the place.

“I’m going to take a shower,” she said, thinking maybe if she gave herself a good scrubbing she’d feel better about everything . . . And she didn’t need that little nudge at the edge of her thought processes to know she wasn’t kidding anyone, including herself. It wasn’t crashing her grandmother’struck into Daniel’s house that had her on edge. It wasn’t being shot at, either, or ramming the hit men into that semi.

It was Daniel. More specifically, it was spending the night alone with him in this room, with one bed that made her think of sex. Sure, it was tawdry sex, but at the moment she couldn’t think of one reason why a little tawdry sex would be bad. No money would be exchanging hands, and it had been so long—

“I thought you were going to take a shower,” Daniel said, his voice sounding a little strained.

He was probably thinking about tawdry sex, too. The notion didn’t do much to reassure her. One of them had to have some self-control, and it might not be her.

“Right,” she said, “on my way,” and she escaped into the tiny bathroom. A shower might help lower her body temperature, but it wasn’t going to do much for what was causing the heat, namely the generally dirty direction of her thoughts. A gallon of soap and a hinged skull wasn’t going to sanitize the pictures in her mind. She had to settle for cold water, shivering under the paltry flow as long as she could bear it. Then she rinsed out her bra and panties, hung them over the shower rod and stepped out. No towel, she realized, and it wasn’t the kind of motel that provided robes.

She’d never been one to balk at a little nudity, until there was a really bad purpose for it standing on the other side of the door. She sluiced off as much of the water as she could, wrung out her hair, and put her clothes—jeans and a T-shirt—back on, exiting the bathroom before she could talk herself out of it.

Too bad she hadn’t taken the time to think about how it would feel to go pantiless. It felt . . . free. And a little naughty. Not the kind of feelings she’d intended to come out of a nice cold shower with. Not the kind of feelings that were going to keep her on her side of the bed. Especially with Daniel staring at her like that, intense, heated, noting she wasn’t wearing a bra and liking it. She liked it, too, and the unfettered body parts he was currently focused on were advertising just how much she liked it.

His eyes lifted to her face and it felt like all the oxygen had been sucked out of the room. He eased to his feet and the same coiling, tingling heat in her nipples spread everywhere, making her shift restlessly, her hands curling against the urge to reach out . . .

She didn’t have to. Daniel came over, and the way he was walking had nothing to do with his injury. She lifted her eyes over his abs and chest, up until their gazes met, having to tip her head back because he’d stopped only inches away from her.

He didn’t say a word, didn’t move a muscle, never took his eyes from hers. And still she felt like she’d been touched. More than touched. It went deeper than her skin, deeper than her pounding heart. Something shifted, something more than physical. Something . . . “Oh no,” she said, backing off a step.

Daniel started a little, seeming to come out of his trance, too, and clearly not happy that he’d been in one to start with. And he was blaming her.

That was the least of Vivi’s worries. They were in real trouble, she thought, collapsing onto the bed without any concern for the horrible diseases and pestilential vermin it might be harboring. A whole lot of trouble.

And it had nothing to do with sex.

DANIEL BOLTED TO THE BATHROOM LIKE A MAN IN drastic need of a life preserver. And there were Vivi’s panties mocking him from the curtain rod. Game over. The ship was going down and he was sinking with it, drowning in a sea of hormonal stupidity. That’s what sex with Vivi would be. Testosterone-based stupidity.

He didn’t know where her loyalties lay. He didn’t know anything about her, except she was a crackpot. But he knew himself, and if normal women weren’t a part of his five-year plan, crackpots were definitely off the list. Even for casual interaction.

It took a lot more mental adjustment and a cold shower, but by the time he walked out of the bathroom he was able to act like nothing had changed. As long as he kept his eyes to himself.

“I have some questions,” he said.

“Did something move under the bedspread?”

Daniel looked in her direction just in time to see her bound off the bed and slap at the bedspread a couple of times. He didn’t see anything moving under the spread. Her shirt was a different story.

“You’re wasting your time grilling me again,” she said, going to lean against the nightstand beside the bed.

Daniel took the opposite wall. The distance couldn’t hurt his concentration. “You’re the common denominator,” he said.

“Didn’t tonight prove anything?”

“You waited until it was almost too late before you did anything.”

“You told me to butt out.”

“Now you’re following instructions?”

“I was trying to prove there’s no way I could have known those guys were going to show up.” She pushed away from the nightstand, pacing like she did when she was agitated or frustrated. “They couldn’t know they were going to fail the other day. If I knew they were going to hit again, or if they were using me to draw you out, they’d’ve had to be in contact with me. You already know that’s not true.”

“How do I know that?”

“My phone is tapped, and you’ve had agents on me every minute since the restaurant. I’m not working with whoever’s trying to kill you.”

“The spirits told you there’d be another attempt, Karnack?”

“I’ve saved your life three times, Ace.” She stomped across the room and went toe-to-toe with him. “I practically destroyed my grandmother’s truck and let me tell you, she probably knows it, wherever she is.”

“Worried she’ll come back to scold you?”

“It’s only a matter of time,” she griped. “What the hell is it going to take to convince you?”

“How about the truth? You’re hiding something.”

“Go to hell.” She turned for the door, but he blocked her exit.

He didn’t touch her. “I’m hungry, how about you?”

She eyed him suspiciously for a moment, then backed off a step before turning into the room. “I don’t think this place has room service.”

“I don’t think anyone stays here an entire night,” Daniel said, which was a mistake, because it turned his thoughts back in a direction he didn’t want them to go. And, of course, his body followed.

To make matters worse, the couple in the next room chose that moment to prove his point. Very vocally, mixed with a nice rhythmic beat from the headboard. And if he and Vivi weren’t going to follow their example, and they weren’t going to eat, talking was the only thing left.

“I’m tired of talking,” Vivi said, crossing to look out the window. “I’m tired, period.”