Start Me Up

“Nice toes,” he said stupidly, and watched them curl against the carpet. Clearly he needed to finish the beer. Who the hell told a girl she had nice toes?

When she’d had enough of him staring at her feet, Lori spun for the kitchen and opened the oven. “Another few minutes,” she muttered. “I’ll make the salad.” By “make,” she apparently meant “get out the bag” because she cut open a plastic bag and dumped the salad into two bowls while Quinn smiled at her back.

Her shoulders were straight and beautifully pale, brushed by shiny, bouncy curls as she moved. He caught her profile as she went back to the fridge for salad dressing and couldn’t help but lose himself in the careful line of her throat and chest. Her breasts were small, but they rose in a graceful curve that drew the eye. No wonder she wore that baggy outfit at work. The men in her employ would get nothing done if she showed up like this.

“Do you want to go to The Bar after dinner?” he blurted out.

Her head popped up and she frowned. “Why?”

“Because I didn’t bring any wine.”

“And you think they’d have good wine at The Bar?”

Well, she had a point. The place was so old and crusty it didn’t even have a real name. “To Aspen then,” he corrected. “There’s a great wine bar on Hopkins Avenue.”

“Did you talk to Molly today?” Lori suddenly demanded.

“I—”

She cut him off by slamming the dressing bottle onto the counter. “Damn it, I told her I didn’t want to date you!”

Quinn wondered if the air conditioner had just kicked on with a vengeance. All the pleasant warmth of the evening vanished in an instant and left him in the freezing cold. “Really?”

“Yes!” Lori ran her hands over her face, then shook her head before she met his eyes. “I’m so sorry, Quinn. I’d love to date you, honestly, but that’s not what I’m looking for right now.”

Now he was confused. That sounded a lot like, “It’s not you, it’s me,” except that they’d never even gone to lunch. “I see,” was all he could say.

“I can’t believe this,” she muttered.

“Look, I just wanted to take you out for a drink, and maybe we could—”

“Whatever she told you, I am not going to use you for sex.”

The imaginary air conditioner switched off. So did his brain.

“Not that I wouldn’t love to!” she went on. “But it’s really about random, meaningless fun, not dating. I’m not in a good place for dating right now. I’m sorry you were dragged into this. She just won’t drop it.”

“Who?” he rasped.

“Molly! What did she tell you to get you over here?”

Quinn clutched the beer bottle tighter, feeling the smooth glass press his skin, grounding himself so that he could make his brain work. “Molly hasn’t called me in weeks.”

Though she’d been reaching for her own beer, Lori’s hand froze just an inch from the bottle. “Excuse me?”

“I’m not quite sure what you’re talking about.”

Her hand fell away to hover near her side. “That doesn’t…No. Why would you be here if Molly hadn’t called?”

Maybe she wasn’t as smart as he’d always thought. “Lori, I came over to ask you out. Period. It’s not that complicated.”

“Oh.” The pink started right at the skin just above her shirt and floated inexorably higher, past her collarbones, then up her neck to her jaw. Her cheeks flamed redder than the rest of her skin. “Oh, God. Are you sure?”

“Very sure. But what were you saying about using me for sex?”

Her body tilted slightly to the left, then the right. Alarmed, Quinn was moving toward her, meaning to grab her elbow and help her to a seat, but the oven timer went off and the sound snapped her straight.

She moved stiffly to the oven, grabbed a hot pad, and in a moment she was standing at the counter, staring down at a perfectly roasted chicken and a loaf of hot bread. “Okay,” she said to the poultry. “Okay.”

“Lori—”

“No, just…Let’s have dinner. I’m sorry there’s not more. I was just going to have a salad and…Oh, Jesus.”

Quinn let silence fall, utterly unsure of how he should proceed. His thoughts were ping-ponging back and forth, running into each other like drunk kids in a mosh pit. When Lori moved, grabbing plates to set the table, he jumped on the opportunity to give them both time and took her beer and the bottle of dressing.

Sex. Lori Love wanted sex.

He grabbed the salads and carried them over while Lori brought the chicken.

No dating. Just sex. Nothing else.

He watched her hips as she hurried back to the fridge and let himself imagine. Sex. With Lori. The images came easy and quick.

Once the food was served and all the busywork ran out, they both lowered themselves slowly into chairs and looked anywhere but at each other as they dug into the salad.

Though he’d never been into meaningless sex, Quinn wasn’t above liking the idea of it. And, actually, it would solve one of the more serious problems in his life: he was a terrible boyfriend. Seriously bad. Out of all the women he’d dated, not one had been happy for more than a month.

He forgot things, important things like dates and birthdays. On the phone, he had the attention span of a gnat. Worked late more often than not and liked to read books about engineering when he got home. It was a sad measure of a relationship when a woman grew jealous of New Physics in Architecture.

Quinn started on the chicken.

Considering his track record, asking Lori out in the first place had probably been idiotic. But if they kept it meaningless and casual…None of his shortcomings would matter, would they? They’d simply go their separate ways, some very nice memories between them.

A few minutes later, Quinn set down his fork and raised his eyes. Lori kept chewing for a few moments, until she noticed his attention and swallowed hard.

“What?” she asked.

“Did you mean what you said?”

Relief softened the anxiety on her face, but her smile popped into place with too much brightness. “No! No, of course not. I was obviously joking. Duh.”

“Mmm-hmm.” He stared at her until she squirmed, then stared some more.

Her smile vanished. “What?”

“Because if you weren’t joking—and I don’t think you were—then I’d like to volunteer.”

“Volunteer?” she breathed. “For what?”

Quinn took a deep breath and placed his hands flat on the table for balance. “I’d like to have meaningless sex with you, Lori Love.”

T HE ROOM WAS spinning and hot. A convection oven of mortification spiced with a hint of lust.

Quinn Jennings had just propositioned her in the most inappropriate way. The last thing she’d ever expected.

“We can’t do that,” she blurted out.

“Why not?”

Because I like you, was her first thought, but that was ridiculous. Did she want to have sex with someone she didn’t like? If so, how could it possibly be any good? She reached for the next thing. “We know each other.”

“Um…Were you planning on hanging out at a rest stop or something?”

She gasped in horror. “No!”

“Bathroom at a club?”

“Quinn!”

“Well, you know my name and where I work. That’s about it, and I’d hope you’d want to know at least that, even if you picked somebody at random.”

“I just…” God, it sounded so sordid when he described it. Then again, she’d been wanting sordid, hadn’t she? And yet that guy at the restaurant had been cute and polite and interested, and the idea of taking him home had left her cold. “I know a lot more than that about you, Quinn. I know your sister and your best friend. It would be too awkward.”

He frowned at that, his straight brows descending into an angry V. “Not as awkward as being hurt—or worse—by some stranger you decided to experiment with. It would be really, really stupid for you to hook up with a complete stranger. Is that really what you’re planning?”

“Hey!” she protested, but couldn’t think of anything more than that. Just those few words made her flush with embarrassment, because he was right. Risk was fun until it actually got risky. But still…“You sound like your dad when you say things like that.”

Anger simmered in his gaze, but he quickly tamped it down, closing his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, his face flushed with regret. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I just don’t want to think of you putting yourself in harm’s way. Especially when you have a willing victim right here.”

“Victim, huh? That’s flattering. Thanks, but no thanks.” He grabbed her wrist when she pushed back to leave the table. Lori froze, hovering an inch above her chair.

“I didn’t mean it that way. Honestly, Lori, I’m the perfect candidate.”

“Do this a lot, do you?”

“Of course not. Never, in fact.”

She hadn’t realized that jealousy had crept inside her skin until it slunk away. Jealousy over what? Quinn? When her thighs began to tremble from exhaustion, Lori slowly let her body collapse back into the chair.

He watched her with very serious eyes. “I’m no good at relationships, Lori. I work too much and I forget about all the boyfriend stuff and end up carelessly hurting any woman in my life. I’m inattentive and distracted…” He shrugged, gaze leaching from serious to weary. “I suck at being a boyfriend, but you don’t want a boyfriend.

“I like you. I respect you. You know me, but not so well that I won’t fit into your sordid plan. Just well enough to be sure I’m not going to drug you and post dirty pictures on the Web.”

Another point in his favor, though her career as a mechanic didn’t hinge on a spotless reputation. Maybe it would be exciting to be caught up in an Internet sex scandal. Maybe she’d get more customers. Or maybe she’d die of embarrassment.

Quinn’s fingers shifted, and she realized he was still holding her wrist. Her heartbeat jumped as his skin slid against her pulse, heat smoothing against that delicate, beating place usually covered by thick leather work gloves. The nerves in that one square inch gasped to life, then quickly spread the word to their neighbors. Warm prickles tingled up her arm.

She jerked her hand away and shoved to her feet. “Do you want some ice cream?” Not bothering to wait for an answer, Lori rushed to the fridge and yanked open the freezer.

“Plus, I find you very attractive,” Quinn added as if that were the least of her concerns. But those few words froze her lungs as she banged the tub of ice cream down.

Shit. He found her attractive? Very attractive? It could be true, or it could be an attempt to get some free sex from a woman who was offering. Just as she tried samples of things at the fancy grocery store in Aspen. She didn’t particularly want cranberry-flavored waffles, but she’d eat one if it was pushed in front of her.

Just as Quinn would eat her if she lay down naked in front of him.

Her cheeks burned as she scooped vanilla ice cream and thought of Quinn lapping her up. The strength of her yearning shocked her into panic.

“I can’t!” she groaned. “I—” A loud knock stuttered through the house.

Gasping with relief, she darted for the door. Her relief didn’t die even when she opened the door to find Ben standing there, looking for all the world like bad news in a uniform. But whatever he was there for, he was only saving her from having to reject Quinn. Or not reject Quinn. Either prospect seemed terrifying.

“Lori,” he said, hand tipping his Stetson down a fraction of an inch. Lori frowned. An awfully formal gesture from a man she’d known forever.

When she waved him in, Ben’s gaze slipped past her, eyebrows rising for just a moment before he looked serious and official again. “Quinn,” he said with not a hint of inflection at finding his best friend in Lori’s living room. “How’s it going?”

“Great,” Quinn answered. “I think.”

Lori blushed and felt Ben’s eyes noting each shade of pink as it rose up her cheeks. Damn cop eyes. “I apologize if I’m interrupting your evening,” he said.

She shook her head. “No! No, we had something to eat. But we’re done now. Quinn was just leaving!”

“Huh,” he said from behind her. Lori didn’t turn around.

Ben’s eyebrows rose again. “You sure?”

“Yes!”

Quinn cleared his throat. “Well, all right then. Lori, why don’t I give you a call about that bill tomorrow.”

“I don’t—”

“We’ll discuss the details then.”

Oh, jeez. He wasn’t going to drop it. But at least she’d have time to think before then. And, knowing Quinn, he’d forget to call anyway.

“Thanks for dinner, Lori. It was a very pleasant surprise.” He brushed past as she nodded, holding her breath at the touch of his arm against her shoulder. His skin felt so hot…

Well, of course it was hot—98.6 degrees, as a matter of fact. Nice and toasty and no different from anyone else. Unless, of course, he was a werewolf!

“Lori?”

“What?” she barked, trying to pretend she wasn’t staring at the door that had closed behind Quinn a few seconds ago.

“Look, I was going to come by tomorrow, but I was walking past and thought I’d stop by tonight. I’m sorry if I interrupted something.” A tiny question hovered in those words, but she pretended not to hear it.

He cleared his throat. “I have notes on your dad’s treatment in the emergency room, but do you think you could get me copies of any X-rays or scans that were done?”

“Sure. Why?”

“I want to have the medical examiner take a look at those, too.”

She crossed her arms tightly and nodded.

Ben flipped out his notebook and jotted something down. “What about the motive question? Did you think of any possibilities?”

“No. Nothing.”

“Nothing? No rivalries? No bad blood?”

“Not that I know of.”

“And what about girlfriends?”

The idea of her father dating felt as bizarre now as it had two days ago. But maybe the stranger part of it was just how odd it seemed to her. “I honestly don’t know. I asked Joe about it, and he said my dad dated occasionally but there was never anyone serious. I had no idea he even dated. He kept it from me.” She laughed a little. “I’m beginning to think it’s weird that I can’t answer these questions, Ben.”

“No,” he said immediately. “This is normal when a child—even an adult child—is answering questions about a parent. Believe me, it’s usually a bad sign if a kid knows too much. Your dad was your dad, and he kept his private life private. That’s just what he was supposed to do.”

“Okay.” She felt tears welling, and nodded quickly.

“The officers investigating at the time came up with the same information. As far as they could tell, there wasn’t a woman in his life. So you weren’t left out at all.”

“Okay.” The tears finally spilled over. She tried to wave him off, but Ben was having none of it.

He cursed and reached out to rest his hands on her shoulders. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have dropped in and ruined your Sunday like this. I’m heading to Molly’s in thirty minutes. Why don’t you come with me?”

Lori felt tempted for about five seconds. Then she remembered the lingerie Molly had picked up in Aspen the night before. “Um, no. I think I’ll just stay here and let you two have your evening. I’ve got invoices and…stuff.”

He objected a few times, but Lori finally got him out the door and shut it tight behind him.

She needed some ice cream. Or a drink.

Probably both.

CHAPTER FIVE

“I’ll take care of you,” Rafael whispered. Then she felt the scrape of his impossibly sharp teeth against the tender skin of her neck.

“You can’t protect me from everything,” Jodi protested, breath catching somewhere between a gasp and a sob. His hands held her still, her naked back pressed against his chest, ass snug against his erection.

“I can.” His surety vibrated over her skin, raising goose bumps. Finally, he loosed his grip and slid one hand down her arm to caress her hip. He teased her, stroking circles over her skin until his fingers found her sex and she cried his name like a prayer. And then his long, sharp teeth sank deep into her neck….

L ORI SIGHED and tossed the book toward the end of her bed. She’d been flipping through the pages since she’d awoken at 5:00 a.m. Too early, but she couldn’t get back to sleep and even the best of the stories couldn’t hold her interest. She’d lived all of Monday as if she were moving through water, every movement taking more energy than it should. It looked as though Tuesday would be more of the same.

Lori found herself wishing she could sink deeper into depression, deep enough that she could lie down and sleep for a good twelve hours. As it was, she seemed to be hovering between anxiety and the blues. Restless and lethargic at the same time. And seriously confused.

Ben must be wrong about her father’s injury. She wanted him to be wrong. And all the reports weren’t in yet, so Lori could still hope.

Her dad had been a good man, but he’d been rough-and-tumble. Sometimes, especially after her mother had left, he’d hit the town to get good and drunk. And he’d seen nothing wrong with throwing a few punches around if one of his drinking buddies pissed him off. Hell, his injury had happened at the now-defunct biker bar at the edge of town. Fistfights were part of the recreation. So he’d gotten punched and fallen against a stray rock, and whoever he’d been fighting with had taken off to save his own ass. The reconstructed scenario made total sense, and she’d never once doubted it.

Until now.

Damn Ben Lawson and his determination to run an organized police department. His persistent inquiries were working, at least on her. She’d spent hours lying in bed last night, trying to puzzle out this mystery. What had changed in his life? What had shifted?

She’d gone to college, yes. But how could that have inspired a crime? A mysterious drifter hadn’t moved into her room. What else? There hadn’t been any personnel changes, according to the records. Sometimes her dad had paid the occasional worker off the books, though. She’d have to ask Joe about that.

But there was one other thing that had changed while she was gone. A big change for her father.

He’d bought that land.

He’d purchased it just a month before his attack. Seemingly out of the blue. He hadn’t mentioned it to her until after the purchase, and Lori had been too wrapped up in college life to ask any questions.

Aside from this house on a lot chock-full of ecological hazards, that riverfront land was the only thing of value her father had owned.

Yet another developer had called about it on Monday. So at least two developers were interested in that twenty-acre plot. Why?

Lori covered her face in frustration.

If her father really had been assaulted, and if it had been premeditated, the land was the only motive she could think of. And that was the extent of her revelation. No who or how or why. She was going to have to spend the day going through his records, and those would probably tell her nothing at all.

“Crap,” she muttered, as she pushed herself off the bed. The red numbers of her clock glared 5:30 a.m. at her, as if she’d done something wrong. Dawn would be breaking by now, and if she couldn’t sleep, she needed to walk, wandering bears be damned.

She pulled on the sweatpants and T-shirt she’d left next to the bed and padded to the bathroom to brush her teeth and fix her hair. Her curls were the only thing pretty and feminine about her, as far as she was concerned. Her nose was a bit too snub, her eyes and mouth nothing special. But since she’d learned to tame her hair into big loose curls with some very expensive product, she made sure never to leave the house without fixing it. If she let it get frizzy and dry, she’d look as washed-up as she felt.

Once she felt bouncy and minty-fresh, Lori tugged on her running shoes and headed for the door. The purple light of the rising sun only hinted at warmth, but she didn’t mind. It fit her strange and icy mood.

Birdsong swelled in the silence of the morning. But once again when her shoes hit the gravel of the parking lot, she couldn’t hear anything but that hated sound, so Lori pivoted and hurried directly for Main Street. Her destination was the river, and she could actually reach it through the junkyard, but there was no path along that stretch. Plus she really didn’t care to pick her way through ancient tires and rusted struts.

Several large pickup trucks passed her as she walked, kicking up diesel fumes as drivers raised a solemn hand in greeting. The old-timers didn’t really wave around here. Too much emotion. The cowboys in the movie Brokeback Mountain had reminded her of most of the men of Tumble Creek, minus the secret gay sex, she supposed. Though if it were secret, what the hell would she know about it? Regardless, the men of Tumble Creek and the surrounding ranches were stoic and hardworking and not inclined to superfluous laughter. Or words.

They certainly weren’t artistic and funny, not like Quinn.

The thought of Quinn made her mouth pull up into a smile as she passed The Bar. Quinn hadn’t called on Monday, despite his threat. If he were any other man, she’d assume he’d gone home, thought over the offer to be her lover and decided a quick disappearing act was in order. But it was Quinn, and she had no doubt he’d been locked in his office, furiously sketching out architectural plans for twelve hours straight and giving not one thought to his scandalous offer.

He would call at some point, when he returned to the real world, and he’d apologize profusely for his forgetfulness, but Lori was thankful for the brief reprieve. She had no idea what to say if he pressed the issue. “No,” probably. If she had any sense at all. Quinn was not the man to act out her fantasies with. It would just be too… intimate.

Wrinkling her nose in embarrassment, Lori turned onto the steep, potholed road that led down to the river. She was so focused on her feet and the loose pebbles that threatened to roll her down the hill, she didn’t even notice that she wasn’t alone.

“Hey!” a deep voice called, startling her into a stumble that nearly took her down.

“Fuck me,” she yelped, arms flailing.

“Anytime, babe,” Aaron Thompson shouted like the idiot he was.

“Thanks for rushing up to help,” Lori snapped back. “Good way to make use of those muscles.”

Completely missing the point, Aaron smiled and flexed his bare biceps. It didn’t really matter that it was only fifty-five degrees out and much colder in the water, Aaron was already dressed for maximum exposure in a sleeveless, skintight neoprene wet suit and a lean red life vest. Lori was pretty sure he never wore underwear. He certainly didn’t have any panty lines, though she could see the clear bulge of his manly junk. As usual.

“You finally coming for that private white-water lesson I offered?”

“Not in a million years.”

“What if I bring along a friend? I did this girl in Aspen last weekend who said she was bi. I told her about you. She seemed, you know—” he wiggled his blond eyebrows “—into it.”

“Aaron,” she bit out, then made herself count to twenty. Lots of people in Tumble Creek assumed she was a lesbian because she didn’t date much and she fixed cars for a living. She’d actively encouraged this belief in Aaron’s case, because she’d grown tired of him stopping by after his last river run of the day to show off his tight neoprene package. Especially after the time she’d caught him rearranging his goods to offer his best side just before he’d stepped into the garage.

Lori shuddered at the thought and watched Aaron’s pretty blue eyes drop lower to check out her chest. She crossed her arms.

“Aaron, listen. Please. I will never sleep with you. And I will never sleep with anyone else in front of you. Nor,” she interrupted when he opened his mouth to speak, “will I sleep with someone you know and then tell you about it. Is that clear enough? Just drop it, all right?”

“But…” He looked confused, not believing even a gay woman wouldn’t want to sleep with Aaron, god of the hot river guides. A deep crease of thought appeared between his eyebrows. “But I thought we were friends.”