his body, imagined what it’d be like to slowly undress him, piece by piece, unveiling his strong, powerful, male body...
Adrenaline surged through her veins. Ah, she felt alive, lost in the sensations. She could stay like this forever, indulging in slow, erotic play, teasing and prolonging the sweet torture until...
With great effort, she shoved down the fantasy.
There would never be an until, only these moments now. Of course she knew that, yet something inside of her splintered, the shards slicing, hurting.
“Val?” His voice was gruff, yet tender.
“Sorry.” She opened her eyes. “Got lost in my thoughts.”
“Anything I should know?”
Staring into his face, she cupped his cheek with her hand, half wishing they were indoors so she could read the look in his eyes. Those brooding, wary eyes, always watchful, always vigilant.
“You need to lighten up more.” The words spilled out before she’d thought them through.
“Are we back to my carrying bags?”
“Actually, it was luggage.”
“And my bad mood fitting into it.”
“Actually, I said it was a good thing your bad mood wasn’t luggage because—”
“It’d be too heavy to carry.”
Listening to his amused chuckle, she smiled. Didn’t completely ease the pain she felt inside, but it was good to share a moment of playfulness.
“How about I lighten up more now,” he said, his voice dropping to a rugged register that sent a thrill skittering up her spine.
“Let me help...”
Pressing closer, she wrapped her arms around his neck. Molding herself against him, she let him feel the length of her body against his, close and tight, from her breasts to her thighs. Emitting a throaty purr, she opened herself to him and gently thrust her pelvis against his. Then once more—giving him an unmistakable confirmation of her body signals.
She felt him hardening against her.
He lowered his head. “That’s not what I call light.”
Leaning back her head, she parted her lips, shuddering her pleasure as he nuzzled her neck, his big hands kneading her bottom. She felt the change in him, the tensing of his muscles, his labored breaths. Kissing was no longer a game. She was playing with fire, and she wanted to be scorched, consumed.
She pulled his head down to her, closer, closer, until she felt his breath warming her lips.
“Give me some sugar,” she whispered.
With a low, guttural groan, his mouth barely touched hers—
A trumpet blasted a riff.
“Wha—?” He jerked back his head.
She blinked, steadying herself as a clarinet wailed, a snare drum tapped.
Drake looked around. “That sounds like...a Dixieland band.”
“It is.”
“‘When the Saints Go Marching In?’”
“Right again. It’s my ringtone.” She reached into her pocket and glanced at the caller ID. Someone from home was calling. Had to be one of her cousins, probably worried as it was late and they didn’t like her taking buses at night. She hadn’t had a chance to tell them that she was driving a rental for the next few days, or that her car would be fixed soon, thanks to the money from this honey-trap gig.
Now wasn’t the time to talk, though. She turned off the phone and stuffed it into her pocket.
“Let me guess,” Drake said, his voice taut, “that was Hubby.”
She barked a small laugh. Couldn’t help it. Of all the secrets he’d accused her of, she hadn’t expected that one. “Girls like me don’t have husbands. You got a wife? Or a girlfriend? A fiancée?”
“None of the above.”
His lie bothered her, even though she’d been expecting as much. She was glad the night shadowed her features, because confusion and hurt were probably stamped all over her face.
The door to Dino’s swung open, and the faint strains of a Coldplay song wafted onto the street. Traffic cruised down Las Vegas Boulevard with its mix of honking horns and screeching tires. The air simmered with the never ending, relentless heat.
Everything was the same as it had been when she first got here, but she had changed, irreversibly so. Until the past few minutes, she had not realized that, deep within her, she had put up a wall that protected something fragile, yet potentially devastating. Now it had been freed, and she could never put it back.
“I need to go now,” she said, fighting to keep her voice even.
“Where are you parked?”
“There.” She pointed in the general direction of the Honda rental, thirty or so feet away.
“I’ll watch, make sure you get into your car okay.”
She didn’t trust herself to speak anymore. With a wave, she walked away.
As her heels clicked across the lot, Jayne’s words drifted through her mind. Diamond Investigations never did honey traps because “inducing the behavior” to “objectively document” was unacceptable. Just like Jayne to couch it in clinical, detached terms.
Val could add an important side note to her boss’s rule. Honey traps were especially unacceptable because people whose hearts had been numbed might unexpectedly wake up and realize what had been missing in their lives—an impassioned connection, a sense of belonging or maybe just a person’s touch. When that happened, inducements became deterrents, and all objectivity was lost. The game became real.
She reached her car and turned.
He stood where she had left him. A dark, lonely form, vigilantly watching, protecting.
* * *
A SHORT WHILE later Val sat at the intersection of Las Vegas Boulevard and East Charleston. She still felt wobbly about what had happened in Dino’s parking lot. And embarrassed by telling him about the pulsations. At the time, she would have sworn they were dead-on real. She winced at her choice of words. Well, whatever, she should have kept the bulletin to herself.
Her nanny was the one who really had the “soul’s eye,” as she called it. Through it, she said she experienced impressions—images, feelings, voices—in the part of her brain where dreams lay, which resonated from objects imbued with memories of their owners’ lives, anything from significant events to people they had loved. Although some people called her gift psychometry, Nanny called it “measuring people’s spirits.”
When Val was thirteen, she’d thought she was picking up on objects’ impressions, too.
