Sex, Lies, and Online Dating (18 page)

“Hot date?” she asked as if she didn’t care. As if the thought of him with someone else didn’t carve at her heart.

He glanced at her, his brows drawn together as if he just realized he wasn’t alone in the car. “What?”

“The flowers. Do you have a hot date tonight?”

He returned his gaze to the road and turned onto Broadway Avenue. “No date. Just you, Sunshine.”

Of course, having her in his house was trading one distraction for another, but he’d rest easier if she was with him and Millie, where he could keep a closer eye on her. Millie might be young and immature, but she was territorial and one hell of a barker.

He turned off Broadway onto his street. Once Sergeant Mitchell found out that Quinn had stashed Lucy in his house, shit would hit the fan. There wasn’t a hard-and-fast rule against moving a former-suspect-turned-state’s-witness in with him, but that didn’t mean the sergeant was going to like it. After the latest letter, there wasn’t even a possibility that the sergeant wouldn’t ask where she was or what security measures were being taken, and Quinn was going to have to tell him.

He hit the garage door opener and parked the Crown Victoria next to his Jeep. The best way to handle it was to inform the sergeant as soon as possible. That way it would appear aboveboard.

He turned off his car and grabbed his notebook and laptop off the passenger seat. He carried Lucy’s suitcase with his free hand, and she followed him into the house. He set his files and computer on the kitchen table and turned on the lights as they moved down the hall to the spare room. He tossed her suitcase on the queen-sized bed, made up with a red quilt he’d bought at Costco at the same time he’d bought Millie’s dog bed. The quilt was soft but not fancy, probably not the sort of thing a woman who drove a BMW would buy for her home.

“I refinished the wood floors in here,” he said as he moved to the doorway and leaned a shoulder into the jamb.

“They’re nice,” she murmured as she set her laptop on the dresser. She moved to the window and opened the blinds. He wondered what she thought of the room, and he wondered why he cared. Then it hit him, and he was appalled. He wanted her to
like
his house. As if it mattered squat. He wanted her to
like
him. As if that would ever happen. She was only here with him because those Breathless letters scared her more than she disliked him.

“If you change your mind about staying here, I can put you somewhere safe,” he felt compelled to say.

She looked over at him through blue eyes and didn’t answer for several moments. Part of him wished she’d opt for somewhere safe—the reasonable part of him that knew living with her just down the hall was going to be a pure, torturous hell.

“I’ll stay with you,” she answered.

“I have to go pick up my dog,” he said and pushed away from the door frame.

Her eyes got that squinty look he was beginning to recognize. “The infamous Millie?”

“Yeah.” He’d take the squinty look any day over the fear he’d seen there earlier. “Make yourself at home.”

He left the house without looking back and drove to his mother’s. On the way there, he picked up the telephone and called Kurt. He told him about the letter and where he’d stashed Lucy.

“I thought she didn’t like you,” Kurt said.

“She doesn’t, but for some reason, I think she must feel safe with me.”

“The sergeant isn’t going to like this. Maybe you can figure something else out in the morning.” They talked about the advantage of placing undercover cops in her house with her, but the more Quinn thought about it, the more he didn’t like the idea of two men living with Lucy. Before making detective, Quinn had worked undercover security a few times, and it had worked out one of two ways. Either he’d wanted to kill the witness or he’d come to like the witness very much. He didn’t have to wonder how a couple of young cops would feel about Lucy.

He hung up the phone as he pulled into his mother’s driveway. He knew Kurt was right, but he was going to keep Lucy with him. He was a grown man. He’d been a cop for sixteen years and had learned a thing or two about control. He could control himself around Lucy. He could keep his hands off her. No problem.

He loaded Millie into the back of his Jeep and left his mother’s before she could ask too many prying questions. He had one stop to make before he headed home.

Morris Hill Cemetery sat just above Julia Davis and Katheryn Albertson parks. Ancient trees shaded the crypts and towering head-stones in the older sections of the cemetery. Quinn drove through the iron gates and wove around narrow roads until he pulled to a stop in front of a simple white headstone. He placed the roses beneath Merry’s name and shoved his sunglasses over his eyes. The memory of her face in life was beginning to fade, adding to his guilt over her death. He brushed twigs for the white stone and stayed by the grave until he had a picture of her in his mind. She deserved at least that much from him. Then he got in his car and drove from the girl he’d failed to save toward the woman he intended to keep safe, or die trying.

He found Lucy asleep on top of her bed. She was curled on her side, facing the doorway, and sunlight poured through the slats of the blinds, across her face and blonde hair. One of her hands lay palm up by her nose, while her other arm fell across her stomach. Her feet were bare, and a bar of light fell across her red toenails.

Millie shoved her head between Quinn and the door frame, and he grabbed her collar before she could enter the room. Together they watched Lucy sleep, watched the slight rise and fall of her chest as she breathed in air past her slightly parted lips.

“What do you think about having another female in the house?” he asked his dog.

Millie let out a loud whine, as if she had a few complaints, and tugged at her collar. Quinn knew what Millie wanted. She could probably smell Lucy’s cat on her clothes, and she was dying to investigate. Quinn figured the last thing Lucy needed was to be woken from a sound sleep by an excitable dog. “You can meet her tomorrow,” he promised as he pulled Millie from the doorway and continued down the hall to his bedroom. She protested with more whining when he shut her inside. “Knock it off,” he ordered, then moved to the linen closet and took out an extra blanket. Several hardwood boards protested beneath Quinn’s feet as he walked into the guest room. He covered Lucy’s legs with the blanket, and when he pulled it over her hips, she gasped and grabbed his arm. She sat straight up and about stopped his heart.

“Jesus H. Macy. It’s okay, Lucy. It’s me.”

“Quinn?” Strips of light slid across her mouth and cheeks. Her wide eyes stared into his.

“Yes.”

“What are you doing?”

Her hair rested on her shoulders and he could see her rapid pulse beating on the side of her throat. Beneath the white fabric of her shirt, her breasts rose and fell and pushed against the thin material with each breath. “You’d fallen asleep while I was gone, and I was just covering you up.”

“Oh.” She let go of his wrist and pushed her hair behind her ears. “What time is it?”

He glanced at his watch. “A little after five.”

A frown wrinkled her brow. “You were gone quite a while.”

“I had something important I had to do.”

“With the Breathless case?”

He shook his head. “After I picked up Millie, I had to run some flowers to the cemetery.”

“Who died?”

“Just a girl.” He rested his weight on one foot and crossed his arms over his chest. Lucy looked up at him, waiting. “She was a confidential informant and she got killed because she was working with me.”

Lucy rose to her knees on the bed, and the bars of sunlight spilled across her shoulder and throat. “I’m sorry. Did you catch the killer?”

“Yeah. He’s doing life.”

“And you take flowers to her grave.” She shook her head. “That’s sweet.”

“No, it’s not.” He lowered his gaze to the front of her white blouse. With each breath she took, the stripes of light slid across her breasts. No, he was not a sweet guy, but he could be an honorable guy. Even if it killed him. “If I don’t do it, no one else will,” he explained and raised his gaze to hers. “I do it because I have a guilty conscience. Because I didn’t do my job and a girl got killed. She was a druggie and a whore, but she was a pretty nice person too. When she got killed all I could think about was how it impacted my case. All I cared about was my job.”

Lucy sat back on her heels. “Is that why I’m here? So you make sure I’m safe enough to keep getting those letters to you?”

He should lie and tell her yes. That he didn’t care about her at all. He’d been lying to her since the first day he’d contacted her online, and perhaps that’s why he couldn’t lie to her now. “I want to keep you safe, but that’s not the only reason you’re here. In fact, I’m sure I’m going to get reamed when my sergeant finds out.”

“Then why?”

He was saved from answering by a loud thumping down the hall.

“What’s that?”

Quinn glanced toward the door, then back down into Lucy’s face. “Millie throwing herself against my bedroom door. She knows you’re here, and she’s not used to having women in the house.”

Lucy tilted her head back a little, and a thin shadow slid from her nose to her mouth. “How many women have there been?”

“Here? Besides my sister and all my nieces? Only one, but Amanda left when Millie was a puppy, so I doubt she remembers her.”

“Who’s Amanda?”

He dropped his hands to his sides. “She was the woman I planned to marry.”

“What happened?”

He shrugged. “She decided she liked my best friend more than she liked me.”

Lucy winced. “Ouch.”

“Yeah. I found them in bed together.”

“I’ve dated cheaters, but at least I never had to see it with my own eyes. What a bitch. That must have been horrible.”

In that moment, he could have hauled her up and planted one on her mouth. But he’d told her he’d keep his hands and all body parts to himself. He was a man of his word, and he planned to keep it, even if it meant that walking around in a constant state of arousal just might do him in. At the very least it would take years off his life. “It was. Especially when she sat there naked in my bed and blamed me for her cheating.”

“Wow, that’s ballsy.” Lucy smiled. A slight curve of her mouth that went straight to his groin. He should leave. Just back away toward the door.

“I guess that’s one way of putting it.” Back away from the blonde sitting on his bed, looking all tousled and warm from sleep. “She had a point, though. Sometimes I have to work very long hours.”

Lucy shook her head, and the light slid across her lips. “That’s crap, Quinn. We all have to work long hours sometimes. It’s not an excuse for infidelity.”

Again he fought the urge to grab her up and kiss her beautiful mouth.

“I’ve had boyfriends who were cheaters,” she continued perilously. “And they always tried to pin the blame on me, but it wasn’t my fault.” She placed a finger between her breasts and pointed to herself. “I gave them lots of sex. Good sex. They were just losers. And I’ve always figured that it’s best that you find something like that out before you marry a person. Or the next thing you know, you’ve got three kids while your husband is out picking up skanks in bars. Bringing home God knows
what
disease.”

Quinn swallowed. Hard. “Lots?”

Her hand fell to her lap. “What?”

“Lots of good sex?”

“Well, not with a lot of different people. I haven’t had all that many boyfriends, but when I do…yeah.” She shrugged one shoulder. “Or what’s the point?”

He had to leave. Do the honorable thing like he intended. Just get the hell out of the room while he could still manage to walk.

“I’ve always figured that if I’m going to bother getting naked with someone, I’m going to have a good time.”

He swallowed—hard. A picture flashed through his mind of her up against the wall, his mouth on her breast. “Jesus H.,” he forced from his suddenly raspy throat. Keeping his hand and all body parts to himself was the toughest thing he’d ever done.

“What’s wrong?”

“You’re torturing me.”

For several heartbeats he watched her mouth, then slowly a smile tilted the corners, as if she hadn’t realized until that moment what he was talking about. “Do you want me to stop, Quinn?”

“Hell no,” he said just above a whisper. He was a masochist. “I want you to tell me how you give good sex.”