had the hots for the woman standing beside her.
“She is not my detective,” Stonewall said, copping an attitude that Quasar chose to ignore.
“You want her to be, though. I know the two of you haven’t had an official date yet, but you’ve met up with her a number of mornings at that café on Monroe Street for coffee and donuts. You also met with her at Shady Reds a couple of times to grab a few beers.”
Stonewall’s frown deepened. “You know too damn much.”
“Not really, which is why I want to know who that woman is. The one in the dark slacks and leather blazer.”
“I heard your description the first time,” Stonewall snapped.
“Well?”
Stonewall took a huge gulp of water from the bottle he was holding, then swiped across his mouth with the back of his hand. Quasar knew his friend was trying to annoy the hell out of him by deliberately taking his time in answering. Finally he said, “Her name is Dr. Randi Fuller.”
Quasar lifted a brow. “The psychic investigator?”
“Yes, the psychic investigator. I admit I was a skeptic at first, but she’s made a believer out of me. She led everyone to this place, and just in time. I don’t want to think what would have happened if no one had taken Dr. Fuller seriously.”
Quasar didn’t want to think what would have happened, either.
“Well, let me get back over to Striker,” Stonewall said. “He’s about done giving his statement to the Feds now.”
When Stonewall walked off, Quasar returned his full attention to Dr. Randi Fuller. Randi. He liked that name and thought it was different. Tired of standing, he decided to crouch down a minute, and when he did so, as if the movement carried a sound that floated through the air, Dr. Fuller turned and looked over at him.
The moment their gazes connected, desire with an intensity he’d never felt before twisted Quasar’s gut, and primitive male awareness filled his every pore. A throbbing need suddenly consumed his senses, and there was an unmistakable pounding in his crotch. Crackles of sexual energy passed between them, hot, raw and relentlessly carnal. Even across the distance, he swore he could hear the intimate sound of her breathing, the fast pounding of her heart. He was convinced he could even smell her. It was an arousing scent of jasmine and some other entrancing fragrance.
Shit. What the hell was happening? With him? Between them?
She must have been trying to figure out that very same thing, because she suddenly broke eye contact with him. He used that time to suck in a deep breath and to force his aroused state under control. The strange connection they’d just shared was a jolt of sexual energy that rocked him to the bone. Nothing like that had ever happened to him before.
Moments later, when she glanced back his way and their gazes reconnected, his mind conjured up a number of erotic images. Like him burying his face in the hollow of her throat, undressing her, making hard-ass love to her while those long legs wrapped tight around his waist. His penis throbbed at the thought of pounding into her. Hammering hard. Then harder.
When Detective Ingram said something to get her attention, she looked away from him again. But he continued to stare at her, to will her to glance back. Although maybe it was a good thing she didn’t. He was so damn aroused he could probably come just from all this sexual chemistry surging between them. Explosive. Fiery as hell. The I-need-to-get-fucked kind.
“We need to talk to Striker,” Stonewall said, returning, interrupting Quasar’s heated thoughts.
Annoyed, he glanced up at Stonewall. “Why?”
“He’s about to make some crazy decisions about Margo Connelly.”
Frustrated, Quasar ran his fingers through his hair. “And you know this, how?”
“Because I do. He’s crazy about her and is fighting it.”
“Not my business, and neither is it yours,” Quasar said, standing back up and pulling his shirt down past his pants zipper.
“It will be our business if we’re the ones who have to put up with his crappy-ass mood.”
Well, hell, Quasar figured Stonewall was right about that. “Okay, so, what’s the game plan?”
As Stonewall began talking, Quasar glanced over to where Randi Fuller had been standing. Dammit, she was gone. He anxiously glanced around the crime scene but didn’t see her anywhere.
He sucked in a deep breath of disappointment and as he drew the oxygen through his lungs, he wondered if, somehow, someway, he would ever see the beautiful psychic investigator again.
Three months later
WHY IS THE NIGHT I saw Dr. Randi Fuller still so vividly clear in my mind?
That irritating question nagged the hell out of Quasar while at his home in Charlottesville, Virginia. Getting more annoyed with himself every passing minute, he grabbed a beer out of the refrigerator and a slice of leftover pizza from the microwave. The very idea that any woman could linger on his mind for this long was preposterous. Especially when it was a woman he’d seen only one time.
But damn, she’d been beautiful, and he would admit to being awestruck and mesmerized. So much, in fact, he hadn’t been able to stop looking at her that night. She’d caught him staring and had boldly stared back. He’d seen the same interest mirrored in her eyes he was certain shone in his. A part of him wondered if she’d read his thoughts. After all, she was a psychic.
Deep down he knew that her paranormal abilities had nothing to do with why she’d been stuck in his mind for three solid months. For a reason he couldn’t explain, he’d felt this strange connection between them. One that had him still thinking of her three months later. As far as he was concerned, nothing about his obsession with Dr. Fuller made sense. He dated women. He bedded women. What he didn’t do was get fixated on one.
His phone rang and he recognized the tone. It was a call from his father. Normally he’d have let it go, but he decided to answer it. Maybe if his mind was full of anger at someone, it would keep his thoughts of Dr. Randi Fuller at bay. He’d never known a time when a phone conversation with Louis Patterson didn’t end in shouting.
He looked at the clock. Usually his father didn’t call past dinnertime. There was only one way to find out the reason for this abnormality. “Is there a reason for your call, Louis?” He had stopped referring to his father as Dad years ago. As far as Quasar was concerned, the man didn’t deserve the title when he’d unashamedly picked one son over the other countless times. And unsurprisingly, his father hadn’t made a fuss about the change.
“Yes, I wouldn’t be contacting you if there wasn’t. Doyle has decided to run for public office.”
Quasar’s stomach clenched at the thought of his older brother. Doyle was and always had been his father’s golden child. “Any reason you thought I needed to know?”
“Forever the smart-ass, aren’t you, Quasar?”
