Last First Kiss (12 page)

Did he know she
wanted him all over again
? Her womb pulled
;
her pussy beat to a steady rhythm,
and yes, eve
n
her panties were getting damp.

“I think that’s enough
,
or you’ll spoil me,” said Wade.

Does he really know how this is bothering me? Is that the reason he’s asked her to stop?

Cathy ran her hands over his shoulders one last time and then kissed his neck
while looking at Sophie
.
Cathy
wiped her hands on a tissue as she spoke.

“I need to get to the babysitter to pick up Max
,
and then we’re heading to the library. He wants to get a new book for you to read to him before he goes to bed tonight.”

Wade looked at Sophie again before he spoke.

“As long as it’s not
War and Peace
,” said Wade.

“Nope, I’ll make sure it’s a short one so he can go to sleep
,
and we can have some time by ourselves.”

She looked at Sophie again
,
and this time Sophie looke
d away. The kiss on the neck
might have been a sign of affection for her boyfriend
,
but after that remark, Sophie knew Cathy was baiting her.

“I’ll see you around 6 p.m.
,
and don’t be late because dinner will be waiting. Nice seeing you again, Sophie.”

“Same here.”

Sophie watched as she
put her bottle of massage oil into her bag, picked it up and headed out of the office with an air to her step.

“I bought you one
of your favorite lemonades.” Sophie
slid it across the desk to him, hopi
ng he was planning to put
his shirt back on.
Some of the oil still glistened on his chest hair
,
and a drop clung to the muscle near his collarbone. Sophie had the strangest urge to lick it away but kept her bu
tt firmly planted on the chair just in case she carried through with her wish.

Wade leaned across and took the lemonade and sipped on it.

“I haven’t had one of these since I’ve been home. Wow, that’s really good. Remember we used to spend all our allowances in
that place?
Mostly on these and
,
oh yeah, those
lemon meringue pie
s
.”

“You’ve just made me
want
a slice of one of those so badly. Don’t tell Grans
,
but not even her lemon meringue pies a
re as good as those
.”

“Speaking of Emily
, how did you get on at the bank?”

“The bank president agreed to us putting Mountainview up for
collateral
. Richard’s taking
the paperwork to Grans as we speak
,
so she should be released very soon.”

Wade took a deep breath
, causing his chest to rise up. Sophie wrapped her hands around the con
tainer of lemonade, feeling its
cold exterior bite into her skin. It took every ounce of control she had not to
slink across the desk and kiss
him.

“I’d need
to sit down with her as soon as she gets home
,
and we can talk about her case
. I’d like to start looking for the real killer straight away before the case gets lukewarm.”

“Wade, you’re going
to
be careful, right?”

“You know I have Emily’s best interests in mind.”

“I didn’t mean that. What if you start digging around
and some
one
tries to hurt you?”

“Oh, Soph, I’m an ex
-
cop. I can take care of myself. Hey look, Wade’s a big, tough guy now.”

With that he curled his
arms
upward
and made fists so his bicep
s
sprang up.  If only he hadn’t done that she would have been perfectly okay.

Sophie stood up, walked over to him and ran her hands ove
r his arms and shoulders,
fee
ling the slightest trace of oil still on them.
He looked up at her
,
and she knew she’d done something terrible.

“Hey, I’m sorry. Look, I have to go to pick up Grans.”

With that she ran as fast as she could out of the building and back down
Main Street
.

****

Wade tried to catch up with Sophie, but he’d forgotten how fast on her feet she could be. She had been since she was a kid. They’d often raced one another
to the la
ke. He being older and
, a boy, had
always
given her a head start. However, when she began beating him by more than a couple of hundred yards, he decided giving her an advantage was plain stupid. Sophie was a born sprinter.

He managed to catch a glimpse of
heading down the street. Her touching him like she had, well, that had thrown him for a loop. He hadn’t expected
it,
but yes, he’d wanted it more than words could describe. All the time Cathy had been massaging him and Sophie had sat there watching
,
he’d wished it was Soph
’s
hands on him. He’d even go so far as imagining it was actually her fingers gliding over his skin.

Knowing he’d never catch up with he
r
, he walked back over to his desk, picked up his shirt from the back of the chair and put it back on. Sophie and Emily would need a ride back to Mountainview
,
and once he was done with that he had to go to dinner with Cathy and her son.

Dinner
.

H
e probably could handle
that
,
but staying the night and making love with
Cathy was going to be tough if not impossible
tonight.

He sat down and ran his hands through his hair.

Now that Sophie was back in his life no
thing was straightforward
any more
.

Chapter Six

Sophie couldn’t look Wade in the eye when he arrived at the police station offering her and her grandmother a ride home to Mountainview.

“You’re a saint, Wade,” said Grans as he opened the back passenger door of his SUV to her.

He took her arm and helped her up
into the back seat
.

“I feel
like Martha Stewart now I have an
ankle monitor.”

“I’m guessing you’re a better cook than she is,” said Wade. “Okay, make sure your legs ar
e inside before I shut the door.”

Sophie slid in to the passenger
seat at the same time as Wade
got into the SUV
. They almost bumped heads as they did so.

“This is just like old times, isn’t it?” said Grans. “The three of us back
together
. The first thing I’m going to do when I get home is take a nice long bath. I can still smell that jail cell on me. And the blankets, well, someone should tell them th
ey need a good fabric softener. In fact, I might take them some tomorrow.”

Sophie and Wade glanced at one another, both on the verge of laughter but managed to keep it under control.

Wade pulled out of the parking lot and headed to the road leading to the edge of town and the sh
ortest route back to the bed and breakfast.

“Wade, why don’t you stay and eat dinner with me and Sophie tonight
?” asked Emily.

Wade gave a quick glance at Sophie.

“I’d love to
,
but
I’ve already promised Cathy I’d have a meal with her. I’ll take a rain
check if that’s okay.”

“It’s more th
an all right
. In
fact, how about tomorrow night?”

Wade slyly looked at Sophie
again
.

“That would be perfect,” he said.

“Good
,
and I’ll make all your favorites.”

“What about my favorites?” asked Sophie.

“If I remember you both always liked the same things,” said Emily.

It was Sophie
's
turn to glance at Wade.
It was true they had liked all the same things. Food, movies and music.

“Is Cathy a good cook
?” asked Emily.

Sophie couldn’t stand to listen to her name mentioned again. Shit, was this Karma paying her back big time
?
Wade
had
probably hated the name Travis for years.
For all she knew he still might
have an aversion to it.

“Emily, I tell you i
f I ever found a woman who can
cook as
well
as you, she’d get a ring on her finger tomorrow.”

Sophie hoped Cathy was the worst cook in the world.

Emil
y slid
forward and perched in
the space
between the two front seats before she spoke again.

“Maybe you should send her to my place for some cooking lesson
s
. Well, that is
,
if that’s the only thing that’s stopping you from proposing,” said Emily.

Sophie turned the radio on
,
and it blasted through
out
the SUV.

Wade flinched as Emily put both hands over her ears. Wade turned it down to a less painful level.

“That was very rude
, Sophie,”
said her gran
dmother.

“Sorry,” sai
d Sophie looking out of the window.

“At least you haven’t forgotten how to apologize,”
said Emily.

Sophie knew Wade was looking at her again. She sighed with relief when she saw
they were just a few hundred yards away from the ent
rance to Mountainview. Once inside she’d
go up to her old room and get everything out of her system with a good cry.

She
was first out of the car and held her g
randmother’s arm hoping she could manage the step down from the SUV
.

“It’s so nice to be home,” said Emily taking a deep breath. “I’ve only been gone overnight
,
but I feel like I’ve been away for months.”

“I’d like to stop by tomorrow so we can talk about my investigation,” said Wade.

“Absolutely. Why don’t you drop
by in the afternoon
,
and then you might as well stay if you’re having
dinner with me and Sophie
?”

“Sounds ideal. I’ll plan
on that.”

Wade looked at his watch
. “And if you don’t mind me just dropping you off and leaving
,
I’m already late for dinner with Cathy.”

“Of course, you run along to your honey,” said Emily.

He hugged her grandmother and gave her a peck on the cheek
,
and then looked at Sophie.

“See you tomorrow,” he said.

“Yes, have a nice evening,” said Sophie, almost having to force each of those words out of her mouth.

Her grandmother insisted they stand on the step to the entrance to Mountainview and wave until Wade’s SUV was out of sight.

She got hold of Sophie arm and squeezed it as they walked into the owner’s living quarters.

“Maybe I’m wrong
,
but I detected some tension between the two of you on the drive home.”

Sophie shook her head. “We’re getting on just fine.”

Sophie was about to walk away
,
which she knew was horrible because she hadn’t seen her grandmoth
er for close to eight months. Now they
finally had a
chance to visit with each other
,
but she needed time by herself for an hour or so.

However, her
grandmother caught her hand and prevented her from walking another step.

“Sophie, I wasn’t talking about fighting tension. I sensed something romantic
. No
, not that
, it was
sexual.”