Drop Dead Gorgeous (19 page)

“Maybe he meant to. He was probably just wiped out.”

“He was half asleep when he got back tonight, but still, I can’t believe he just picked up a stray and forgot to tell me!”

“Lori, don’t be too mad at him. There’re a lot worse trouble boys can get into at that age. Thirteen is tough.”

“Fourteen,” she said distractedly.

“Fourteen?”

“He just turned fourteen,” she said.

“He’s a great kid.”

She nodded. “I don’t mind a kitten. It’s just that—I’m already so jumpy.”

“You need an alarm.”

“All right, all right, I admit, I need an alarm. I’ll get one.”

“I told you—”

“I’m fine financially,” she lied. Sh
e smoothed back her hair. “Um…
thanks for coming over.”

“Don’t mention it,” he told her. His voice was deep, husky. The lazy sound of it seemed to brush along the length of her spine
.
Leaning against the door that separated the office from the kitchen, he studied her with an amused half smile as he stroked the kitten. He wore worn jeans that hugged his figure nicely and a tailored denim shirt with the sleeves rolled up and the front buttons down, exposing his throat and a V of his chest. There was something so naturally masculine and sensual about the way he stood there that Lori felt an alarming wave of heat radiate through her limbs.

Desperate to get a grip, she nonchalantly stepped forward. “Here, let me put this little invader back in his box,” she said, scooping the kitten from his arms and nestling it in with the soft T-shirt. “You might have ruined my exclusive designs, do you realize?”

She straightened, turning to look at Sean. “I guess—” she began.

Her terry robe, tied only with a terry belt, chose that moment to untie. Sean remained against the door frame, casual, his gaze flickering slowly over the length of her before meeting hers once again. For long seconds he didn’t move. His eyes darkened. Somehow she missed the obvious. She retied the robe.

His eyes remained locked with hers, and still neither of them moved.

He waited.

Then, apparently, he’d waited long enough.

He left the doorway and came to her. Lifting her chin with his thumb and forefinger, he kissed her lips. Very lightly at first. And still she felt the explosive heat in his touch, in his body, so close to hers. She wanted to step quickly back in panic, and she wanted to leap on him, feel his length with her nakedness. But as his lips rose above hers she whispered, “We—can’t do thi
s. We can’t do this. We can’t…
honestly, we just can’t.”

He didn’t seem to be paying attention. His hands slid into the opening of the robe. He had long hands, with long, tapering fingers. Powerful hands, bronzed from the sun, they were dark against her breasts as they cradled and stroked her flesh. His palms were rough against her nipples, creating a shower of sparks that became a stream of liquid heat, cascading down to settle as a searing ache between her thighs. His lips touched hers again, found her throat, followed an erotic trail along the valley between her breasts. He came down upon a knee before her, hands on her hips, lips and tongue moving lower. Her hands fell on the top of his head, fingers digging into the richness of his dark hair. “We can’t
…
do this
…
” she repeated.

This
…
so different, yet the same. Some instinct remained within her that wanted him in the same way she had all those years ago. Wanted to touch him, feel his flesh sliding along her own, luxuriate in the heat of his body
pressed against the warmth of her own. It was all the same, yet she’d been so inept then, not even really knowing what she’d wanted until she got it. And now, of course, she knew, but this was too fast, and she was so afraid of the lies of the past and
…

“Oh…
”

His hand stroked the flesh of her inner thigh, higher, lower, higher, lower, until his fingers and tongue were intimately between her. Her fingers had a death grip on his hair; her limbs and body were trembling. She couldn’t stand, her protests were inarticulate. He had taken her from zero to sixty in split seconds, and she raced at a dizzying speed toward a sweet oblivion. He was entirely focused on her, his touch exquisitely experienced. She thought she was going to die on her feet, explode into a thousand pieces of glass and shatter to the floor.

She was dismayed by the force of the climax that ripped through her, choking back a scream that had formed in her throat. He stood, catching her in his arms when she might well have falle
n, finding her lips in a heart-
breakingly slow, tender kiss that tasted of all the years she had been alone and hungered for exactly this.

Her arms were around him. She clung to him.

Then to her amazement, he disentangled himself from her arms and turned away, walking through the kitchen toward the front of the house.

A cool wave of humiliation and anger washed
over her. She wrenched her robe into place, passed him in the den, and walked through to the front door, opening it.

“Thanks. Thanks so much for coming over. I’m delighted to be such a source of amusement. Please, don’t come again.”

He stood still. He was smiling. “Actually, I’m not the one who—”

“Get out.”

“Lori,” he said patiently, “we’re downstairs. You were right. You have a son, I was way out of line.”

She exhaled on a long breath. He came over to her at last, closing the door. He touched her face lightly with the knuckle of his forefinger. “And then, I admit to being afraid.”

“Afraid?” she breathed.

“I wanted to be with you from the time I saw you standing in that school hallway, your little nose up in the air as you tried to determine how you were going to deal with Ricky Garcia’s aggression. I knew I was never good enough for the Kellys—”

“Don’t say that, Sean,” she murmured uncomfortably, her eyes falling. She moved her face so that his hand fell away, and she spoke with her eyes still averted from his. “I—I love my folks—”

“You should love them. And appreciate the fact that you have them. But they were down on me.”

“They’re not, really.”

“They were. Maybe they’re not now. I hope it doesn’t matter now. I hope that you feel
enough of what I feel to want to give this a chance, and that we’re both old enough and mature enough to stand on our own feet, make our own decisions. I thought I should stay. On the couch. You were really unhinged when I got here. That’s another thing. I really did take advantage of the situation
…
I’m sorry.”

She didn’t say anything. He was silent as well, so she looked at him again at last.

“Lori, now you’re supposed to say that you wanted me to take advantage of the situation.”

She smiled. “I…
”

“Never mind. Want to get me some pillows and sheets? Or do you want me to go? I’d really feel better if you’d let me stay. I don’t want you to be afraid—”

“I was afraid. And I do need to get some sleep. I’ve got a session with my grandfather in the morning. I’ll fix up the couch,” she said without hesitation.

“Thanks.”

She hurried up the stairs to the hallway linen closet, found extra bedding, and hurried back down. She started to make up the sofa, but he stopped her. “I can do it.”

“Okay.” She left the bedding and backed toward the door leading to the foyer and the stairs. “Thanks again for staying.”

“Sure. Is that all?”

Lori frowned. “I don’t know what you mean.”

He absently smoothed back dark hair that had fallen over an eye. “You’re supposed to say, you were terrific.”

Blood rushed to her cheeks. She watched him for several seconds, then shrugged. “Thanks,” she said huskily. “You were terrific.”

Then she turned and sped up the stairs.

L
ori Kelly’s new house, Lori in it.

Sean in it.

Interesting. And what a way to go. Let Sean get his rocks off
…
leave his fingerprints everywhere, his semen, maybe even cut himself shaving
…

Let it happen. And when Sean left, he could slip into Lori’s house
…

Easy. The old place had no alarm.

There was the boy.

Just a boy, easily subdued, and if he could do the mother, why not the son?

Why not? He could make her watch, or make the boy watch what he did with her, one way or the other
…

He frowned, realizing suddenly that he needed more and more for the real thrill. At first it had been just seeing the terror he could instill. Then he had needed the real kill, and then to feel the blood against his flesh, warm, hot, in a rush
…

He liked the careful planning as well, he realized. Fooling the police, his friends—fooling everyone. Fooling his victims until the last possible minutes
…
then watching. The alarm, the fear, the disbelief, the despair
…

But this
…

This might well be the ultimate. Lori, his toy, until he tired of her. Killed her.

Then seeing Sean Black squirm
…

And this time he would surely fry in Old
Sparky. Maybe his head would even catch fire in the electric chair, as had been known to happen. He sat there and laughed suddenly. Death-penalty opponents had called the sta
te’s electric chair “dangerous.
” Well, what the hell was the damned thing supposed to be? If it all happened fast enough, there could be the rich, famous Sean Black, a. k. a. Michael Shayne, burning in the electric chair, protesting his innocence while his brains fried

It was just fucking perfect.

13

S
ean hadn’t fallen asleep. He’d stripped down to his briefs and jeans, and lay on the couch, studying the ceiling. Life suddenly seemed damned good. Not that the years past hadn’t been all right; he had managed to do well enough. He’d liked anthropology, and he liked writing, liked the people with whom he worked, the travel that was part of it all.

Things were just better now. Maybe he’d been running for a very long time, and discovered that he could never really run fast enough or far enough to escape the past. And maybe he’d been searching for something he had almost had once and needed to find again. What the hell. It was good to be home. Here. And lie on a couch somewhat frustrated, but still feeling the taste of the woman who had always fascinated him.

He heard a rustling sound, tensed, then smiled.

The kitten.

“Hey, thanks, cat,” he murmured aloud. And Brendan—he owed the boy for bringing in the stray and forgetting to tell his mother.

He frowned, suddenly certain that he had heard a noise from outside. He rose in the darkness and moved to the window. Nothing. It was a pretty street, lots of foliage, bougainvillea from pastel shades to deep purple crawling over cement fences, brickwork, and the houses themselves. Sea grape tree, royal poincianas, and old oaks lined the walkways. Lots of trees.

Lots of places to hide, illuminated only now and then when moonlight broke through the clouds.

He stood for a long time by the window but saw nothing. Cars were mostly parked in driveways or garages; only an occasional vehicle sat on the embankment that flanked the sidewalks. Coral Gables strictly enforced its codes, and there wasn’t a truck to be seen.

At last he turned away from the window and returned to the couch. As he did so, he saw headlights. He went back to the window and looked out. Ted Neeson going by, he thought. A City of Coral Gables police car was out front, pausing just briefly.

It moved on.

Sean headed away from the window, but even as he turned, he heard the stairs creak. He froze where he stood for a moment, waiting, listening. How could someone have gotten inside? But if they had
…

He pushed away from the wall, hurrying on
bare feet for the stairs. A body was stealthily creeping along. He rushed forward, instinctively turning to the old mode of his football days.

He set his arms around the body, and as they fell, he realized that he had tackled Lori.

On top of her on the stairs in the darkness, he demanded, “What are you doing?”

“What are you doing?” she demanded furiously in return.

“Trying to protect you! Why the hell were you creeping around?”

She hesitated, inhaling, looking up at him. Her eyes were pure tiger’s eyes, glittering a true gold. Her delicate features were firmly set. Her lips, taut, suddenly became wide and generous, and she smiled ruefully.

“I was trying to sleep with you,” she told him.

“Here, now?”

“Well, not on the stairs. I mean, I do have a sleeping child, and I’m not into the danger-of-exposure thing. I—I do have a bedroom.”

He arched a brow slowly. “Door does lock, I take it?”

“Tight as a drum,” she whispered.

“Think you can handle it?” he asked.

“Handle—it?” she inquired.

“I wouldn’t want you getting too loud.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

He’d lingered, he’d put on some bravado— he suddenly rose faster than the damned Energizer bunny. He reached down; she thought that he was helping her up, but he did more, sweeping her into his arms. She was tall,
she was shapely, she felt light as a feather to him then.

He found her bedroom, right at the top of the stairs. She’d probably been pondering whether she really wanted to come to him or not for some time; she was still wearing nothing more than the terry robe, and he had it off her before he set her down. Idiot. He was going to be so damned good. As he looked at her now, pale, filtered moonlight bathing her body in a silver glow, sensory memory kicked in. He tasted her again, felt her, without so much as touching her. He felt a frightening rush sweep through him, and he was suddenly afraid that he’d ejaculate like a raw kid before he could perform, period. But Lori wasn’t waiting. She rose from the bed, slipping her arms around his body. Her lips and tongue caressed the muscles of his abdomen, and he felt his flesh begin to ripple in response. A groan escaped him, and he threaded his fingers into the soft length of her hair. She undid his buckle, started on each button of his button-fly jeans. He felt he could pop the damn buttons. She hooked her thumbs into his waistband, but he caught her hands, stripped off his jeans, and fell atop her, bearing her back down to the bed. Good, he’d promised to be good, so he was going to have be good, and do it fast. He caught her knees, dragged them apart, and thrust into her, groaning as he buried his face against her neck, willing himself to pause and luxuriate in the moment.

Her fingertips snaked down his back, over his buttocks.

He found her lips, kissed her wetly, hot, openmouthed, while his hips ground into hers and spiraled into motion. Slow, dammit, slower, slower, he pleaded with his body, and he tried, determined to arouse, glad to arouse, groaning with each new thrust that seemed like a caress of pure silk around his cock. Then something white-hot burst inside him, and he was moving like a jackhammer, sweating bullets, taut as a fiddle string. He came with a violent climax that seemed to tear right through his guts, so full, so complete, so sexually good that the bulk of his weight nearly collapsed upon her, he was so sated and dazed. But he caught himself, falling to her side, realizing it had been remarkably like that first time when he had suddenly realized that he wanted her desperately and that she was there and willing. It had helped set aside any moral dilemmas he might have faced, considering that he’d been drinking his dad’s whiskey and he’d been three sheets to the wind at the time.

Well, hell, so much for being so wonderful that she wouldn’t be able to keep quiet
…

Yet next to him, she suddenly sighed, something almost like a sob, and her slick body moved next to his, closer, her fingers fluttering over his chest. Her hair, damp, beautiful skeins of it, brushed against his flesh; her face buried against him. He exhaled, smiling, relieved, grateful to the power above that she’d been every bit as desperate, as hungry
for him, and she hadn’t even realized how they had sped through the act like a pair of teenagers.

They lay together, still for a long while. Then he touched her, stroking the length of her spine, simply because the dip in her back was beautiful and he was compelled to touch her.

Then he was tempted to kiss the little hollow at the small of her back.

Then she was turning in his arms.

Touching him. Kissing him. Just a little hesitant at first. But their lips melded, locked, their tongues dueled in a frenzy, and his hands were on her, all over her, and she was breathing heavily, in arousing little pants. Her heart was thrumming like butterfly wings. Her fingers encircled his sex, stroked, played. He felt her hair feathering around him, and then she was down on him. This time he managed to enjoy the pure torture of wanting while he kissed, teased, licked, stroked, her in return until they were both desperate, both awkward and graceful in their need to be together again. The first time was incredible; the second time was even better, more involved, more intimate. They were soaked, entwined
…

And he thought that it was the closest he had ever been with anyone, physically and more. The night was almost gone, but it didn’t matter. It might have been the best night he’d ever had.

D
ead still, he watched the house. He knew the area. His car was down the street—not too far, in case he needed it quickly—and he was well hid
den behind
one of the big banyan trees on the
embankment
in front of her house.

He
shifted, stiff, growing irritated.

Sean Black was still inside.

Then he realized—Sean Black wasn’t leaving.

He swore to himself, his temper soaring.
“Do it, do it, do it, do it anyway!”
a voice inside him cried out. The sound of his own voice startled him, and he realized in a panic that he was out of control, that he had actually spoken aloud
…

Do it. Just do Sean, too
…

Dumb move, he told himself Disorganized. Disorganized assholes were the ones who were caught all the time. He had to be smart; he wasn’t crazy.

He managed to lower his voice, to swear to himself. Then he nearly jumped, feeling something brush his legs. He looked down. A cat. A dumb black cat. He stared at the creature, reached for it. He gripped it tightly. The animal started to mewl in protest. “Kitty, kitty,” he said softly, stroking the animal. He glared at it with hatred even as it began a soft purring sound. “Dumb animal!” he repeated, his tone placating, his teeth gritted together. He gently stroked it once again.

Then, with a single motion, he broke its neck.

He tossed it toward the trash pile between Lori’s driveway and her neighbor’s.

He needed the element of surprise to do them both. If he could get in while they were sleeping
…

He looked up at the sky. Lots of clouds.

He waited.

The moon was covered, and despite the streetlights it was very dark. He’d see how tight the house
was. He wasn’t a fool. He wouldn’t try the front. It was a courtyard house.

There would be other doors.

T
ime slipped away. Comfortable time. She remained next to him, warm, supple, even as their bodies cooled, and she reached for the covers.

“Lori,” he whispered, slipping an arm around her and pulling her even closer.

“What?”

“I think I love you.”

She stiffened suddenly. She didn’t pull away, but something had changed. “Don’t say that, Sean, not now, in the heat of the moment, in—”

“Lori, the heat of the moment is
before
intercourse, not after.”

“No, no, I mean, you don’t really know me. We’ve barely seen each other again—”

“You always meant something to me.”

“You can’t
know
that now, and you don’t know what I’m like now. You don’t know if I’ve changed over the years. You don’t—”

He shifted, pinning her, staring into her eyes. She swallowed hard, staring back.

“Then, give me a chance to get to know you.” Her eyes were wide, glistening. He wondered for a moment if she was afraid of him, and he felt the old tension seeping back into him. But then she moistened her lips, and he thought that she looked
guilty,
not afraid.

She smiled suddenly. “It seems I am giving
you a chance to get to know me again. I don’t usually invite men up to my bedroom and lie around naked with them.”

He nodded somberly. “Glad to hear it.”

She pushed him to the side, coming up on an elbow. “What about you?”

“I never invite men up to my room and lie around naked with them.”

She smiled again. “Women?”

“Too many,” he admitted.

“Do you tell them all you think you’re in love with them?”

“I’ve never said it to another soul.”

Her smile deepened. “Really?” she said softly.

“Really.”

“Cool.”

He cupped her face, anxious to feel her lips again, when he heard something.

What, he wasn’t sure.

A scratching
…
a sound. But not from within the house. From outside
…
?

“What is it?” Lori asked.

“I don’t know.”

He stood abruptly, walking to the window. He cracked the drapes, looked out. There was enough foliage to hide an army out there. But it was nearly dawn, and the black shadows had begun to turn gray.

“You have any lights out back?” he asked her.

“A big floodlight by the back door—it’s near the kitten’s box. If it’s working.”

He arched a brow at her, grabbed his jeans,
and pulled them on. Lori stood, slipping into her robe.

“You should just stay here—” he began.

“Hell, no,” she told him.

“Brendan is up here.”

“The noise came from the back door,” she said firmly.

Her eyes met his. She had heard it, too.

“Stay behind me.”

She did. He moved out of her room, silent on his bare feet. She was just as quiet, coming behind him. They moved down the stairs and started around to the back.

Headlights suddenly flooded through the curtained windows in the den. Sean moved to the window and opened the drapes slightly, looking out.

“Ted’s out there,” he told Lori.

She nodded, glanced at her watch. “It’s after six. Want to ask him in for coffee?”