Sex on Tuesdays (18 page)

“No. I whipped into the chemist on the corner while waiting for my forensic mate to show up,” he admitted. “I didn't want to be caught unprepared, especially when you'd already asked me to stay the night.”

“Lie still and let me dress you.”

He groaned. “Okay, but do you have to do that to my balls while you're putting the damn thing on?” His grin was as wicked as the twinkle in his eye. “You know, you are
really
asking for a hot ride, little gal.”

“And you'd better be prepared to give me one, big boy, cuz tonight breaks a two-year drought for me.”

His fingers ran down over the contours of my stomach and found the wetness between my legs. “In that case, climb aboard the stallion of your dreams,” he said, slipping two fingers inside me.

Heat like I'd never felt before had me riding his fingers, slipping in and out, the fire building to a crescendo. “Please, Simon…now,” I moaned, my mouth hard against his lips while hot desire for him bubbled over.

As his hardness slipped slowly inside me, I moaned again.
Oooh, my God.
Although I wanted him to burst my dam, create another universe, send me to the moon and back—I also wanted this feeling of bliss to go on forever. “Simon,” I whispered. “I know this is only lust but it isn't a one-night stand, is it?”

“Not for me, darlin'.”

“And we'll still be friends in the morning?”

“Will you shut up, Dani?” he gasped, panting and groaning as he pulled slowly out and then plunged all the way in again.

Wrapping my legs around his waist, I arched against him, urging him in even deeper. No matter how far he thrust inside it wasn't enough. This man who'd always been a friend—who smelled of pine cones and earth and who was now deep inside me making me feel warm and protected—was the man I'd been searching for. The man I wanted to spend the rest of my life loving.

But I also knew Simon Templar of the
love 'em and leave 'em
philosophy, was a man who ran from relationships—ever since Penny dumped him almost thirty years ago.

19

Friday, 6:30 a.m.

When I woke the following morning my first thought was—
Simon's gone!
and I let out a whimper. But before the whimper could turn into a wail, the tantalizing aroma of sausages cooking on the griller wafted in from the kitchen and teased my nostrils.

I had no fairy godmother—especially one who dropped in to cook breakfast for me in the morning. Which meant—drum roll—Simon had not crept out of bed as soon as it was daylight and scooted off home. Instead, he was in my kitchen right now, planning to surprise me with a delicious breakfast, followed by an even more delicious morning of lovemaking.

Bliss….

After spooning against Simon's warm body during the night in between bouts of breathtaking sex, the coldness of the sheet beside me was a reminder of the poisoned pumpkin bread and the fact that someone out there was hell-bent on turning me into a statistic.

Reluctant to journey down that rocky road again, I swung my legs out of bed, stood up and stretched like a cat. There was a fullness between my legs, a lovely feeling of satisfaction tinged with slight tenderness. Smiling, almost purring, I stuffed both arms into my blue candlewick dressing gown and, while tying the belt, danced towards the bedroom door.

Doing a boogie along the passageway like a love-sick teenager, I poked my head around the kitchen door and grinned. There was Simon in front of the stove with one of my barbecue aprons tied around his middle, declaring he was
The Sweetest Cook in Town.
He was busy turning sausages with a fork while my dog—the dog who declared undying love to me at least ten times a day—glanced briefly in my direction, then went back to gazing adoringly at the man with the meat.

“Better have your shower, Dani, your sausages are almost ready,” said Simon, breaking off a piece of cooled sausage and feeding it to my dog. “Jack Rivers has an eight o'clock meeting at
Gape
followed by a flexi-day, so he could arrive home any time after nine. Oh yeah, and I've hung a grey dustcoat with an AGL emblem on the front over the rail in the bathroom. Put it on. If we leave here at seven o'clock, we'll be ready to move into the rendezvous position the moment our target moves out.”

Woah…

And here was silly me thinking we'd engage in some long drawn-out morning sex—just to prove last night hadn't been a one-off.

Simon slid two plates on the table, eyes barely flicking in my direction. “How do you like your sausages, Dani? Medium or well done?”

“No sausages for me. I only eat toast in the mornings,” I grumped, glaring at both Simon and my traitorous canine. “And coffee. Gallons and gallons of the strong brown stuff.”

“Caffeine is bad for you,” he sang out as I stamped off toward the bathroom like a five-year-old denied a treat. “Shall I squeeze some oranges for you instead?”

“Oranges remind me of pumpkin. I want coffee!”

Under the shower, after rethinking what Simon had said, I calmed down. He didn't mean it. All this business of…
if we leave here at seven we should be ready to move into the rendezvous position the moment our target moves out
stuff was a joke to wind me up. Get me hot and panting for him. He'd certainly succeeded in doing that. Letting the shower wash away the tension, I soaped and rinsed and waited for Simon to appear beside me wearing nothing but a cheeky grin. Any minute now, he'd slip in and offer to scrub my back and any other areas that needed his special attention. And then he'd take me hard against the shower wall, with the warm spray running over our backs and our wet bodies fused together as we climaxed.

All fantasy…

The closest Simon got to me was when he banged on the bathroom door five minutes into my shower, telling me to hurry up, time was ticking away and my sausages had gone cold.

Was this his way of saying last night's sex wasn't as good for him as it was for me? Or that things were moving too quickly and he needed another ten years to prepare himself for a real honest to goodness relationship?

Men!
I thought as I slipped the ugly grey AGL dustcoat over my jeans and pullover.

Just when you thought it was safe to go out in the water again….

* * *

Huddled in Simon's car on the corner of Jack Rivers's street, I shivered and drew the collar of the dustcoat up around my ears. Two minutes ago, the weatherman on the radio said in his bright early morning voice that it was 6 degrees, with a maximum of 12 degrees for the day. Immediately, I'd attempted to turn on Simon's car heater only to discover it was on the blink. Being an ornery male, he'd probably refused to get the heater fixed when it conked out, believing hardship to be a great character builder. Either that…or he didn't want to spend money on trivialities when there was a sure thing running in the fourth race at Angle Park that night.

I shivered again and leaned closer to Mister I-Can't-Be-Hurried. “Jack will be late for his meeting if he doesn't leave soon.”
Put your arm around me you big lug, hug me, keep me warm.

“Mmm,” grunted Simon, his mind definitely not on keeping me warm. “It's almost eight o'clock.” He shook his head and scowled. “What a stuff-up!”

“Perhaps he's sick.”

“Jack's never too sick to be at the forefront of a big scoop.”

At that moment, our quarry dashed through the front door and sprinted to his car, overcoat and laptop bumping against his legs as he ran.

“Right,” said Simon handing me a clipboard as soon as Jack's Audi had disappeared around the corner. “It's party time.”

Some party! We were breaking into a house at eight o'clock in the morning—not midnight with its added bonus of darkness. As I slid from the car and stood on the footpath, my heart beat so fast it threatened to crash through my chest. While Simon locked up, I tucked the clipboard under my arm and checked for signs of movement on the street, slowly doing up the buttons on my fake AGL dustcoat as I surveyed the area. Only one scraggy dog and three humans. They were all scrambling into a silver station-wagon. Looked like an overworked, harassed mother getting ready to take her two squabbling kids to school.

Once I'd managed to slow my heart rate down to just a tad over normal, I glanced across at Simon and gave him a shaky smile. He winked his acknowledgement before setting out along the footpath—head up, arms swinging—every bit the knowledgeable employee from AGL. If Simon hadn't been with me I knew what I'd be doing right about now. Not hurrying to keep up with him. No, I'd be burning rubber, driving as fast and as far as I could to get away from here.

I had a bad feeling about this mission.

A really bad feeling.

Outside Jack's house, I stopped and took a deep breath. Simon, still radiating confidence, must have noticed me standing there with my feet nailed to the footpath. He turned back. “You okay?” he asked tipping his head to one side and reminding me of an appealing Cocker Spaniel I once owned. “Don't worry. This'll be a piece of cake. All you need to do is look official. If anyone stops us to query what we're doing, leave it to me. You and I are here to read the meter and check out the reason Mr. Rivers's electric bill was so high in his last reading. Right?”

“Okay,” I said, looking furtively over my shoulder. “Sorry, but I guess breaking and entering isn't one of my better talents.”

He ran one finger lightly down my cheek. “Don't worry about it, Dani. You have other talents.”

Wow…

“Ready?”

I straightened my shoulders and nodded. Time to get serious. We had a mystery to solve and time was running out. A woman had been murdered, someone had attempted to kill or maim her husband with a lethal 4WD, and that same someone had planned to eliminate me via a poisoned loaf of bread.

Definitely time to get serious.

I glanced down at the clipboard Simon had passed me before we'd climbed out of the car, and began to laugh. He'd sketched a cartoon of Wile E. Coyote—a racing form guide clutched in one hand and wearing Simon's favorite baggy jumper—chasing after a stick-figure Road Runner dressed in my kick-ass red dress and killer shoes.

“You've made my legs too skinny,” I muttered under my breath as we marched toward the front door, looking for all intents and purposes like two AGL workers with a prearranged appointment to visit the householder. “And old Wile E. is way too handsome.”

“You'll pay for that,” he warned as he rapped his knuckles on the wooden door.

“Promises. Promises.”

“A promise I'll keep when I get you home. Now, stand in front of me while I work my magic on this door.”

First I checked to see if the street was empty, and then moved across to block Simon's illegal activities from any prying eyes that might be watching from behind curtained windows. “Okay maestro,” I muttered out of the side of my mouth. “Get to work.”

And within seconds we were inside the house.

“Holy cow!” I closed the door behind us and took in the modernistic features and luxurious furnishings of the room we'd stepped into. Stretching from one side of the house to the other, there was a full-sized billiard table, several soft tempting couches, a fully functional bar and a state-of-the-art entertainment centre. “Boy! Either this guy is seriously loaded or his mother is one very classy decorator.”

“Actually, Jack's mother is one very classy socialite who has never done a day's work in her life,” said Simon, and handed me a pair of fine rubber gloves. “Put these on. We don't want to leave fingerprints behind.”

“Oh,” I said, and slipped my fingers into a glove—while trying to figure out who I'd invest my one and only phone call on if we were caught and charged with break and entry.

My mother? No…she'd bring her entire entourage to the police station with her and they'd block the passageways with their wheelchairs and walking frames.

Definitely not my sister Penny. Her diatribe on arrival would curl the toes of the hardened criminals languishing in the cells. In fact, when I thought about it, the only person I would ring in a crisis was standing right beside me. As deeply in the mire as I was.

“So,” I said, attempting to shake off that persistent feeling of uneasiness. “What are we looking for, Simon?”

Simon shrugged one shoulder. “Your guess is as good as mine. Anything that shows Jack Rivers knew the dead woman, I guess.” He glanced around the room. “Do you want to take upstairs and I'll do the ground floor? We can meet up in Jack's home office—wherever that is—in half an hour.”

“Okay with me,” I said and checked his watch against mine.

* * *

Twenty minutes later, after searching fruitlessly through four upstairs rooms, I pushed against the fifth door only to find
another
bedroom.

But this bedroom was different. The moment I walked into the room, I knew I'd found Jack Rivers' s private sanctum.

A full-length ceiling mirror floated over an ultra large king-sized bed with a gold and burgundy cover and recessed speakers in the headboard…

Soft, intimate lighting shimmered reflections in a spa bath larger than the average plunge pool…

A DVD library, overflowing with movies you wouldn't take home to mother….

Yes, this was the bedroom I'd created in my head when Jack flirted with me at Erika's Eatery—pretending to be my blind date—leading me on with his blarney.

It felt decidedly icky checking through Jack's dresser drawers, fingering his personal belongings, and I grimaced when my hands collided with a black silk g-string. When I found nothing but socks, jocks and a collection of women's panties in the last drawer of my search, I opened up his walk-in wardrobe and took a step inside. Blimey, this guy had more clothes than a city department store. But no clues that Mary had ever been anywhere near his bedroom, or left a handkerchief or lipstick in any of the thirty suits hanging in his closet.

Only one place left to search. Down on hands and knees, I stuck my head under the bed. Huh…not even a girlie magazine or a furball. Jack must have a one-in-a-million housekeeper…who could be walking down the driveway right this moment, intent on polishing his silver and dusting the finger bowls.

I checked my watch. Twenty-five minutes since splitting from Simon. How long before Jack returned?

Pushing aside my growing disquiet, I entered Jack's en-suite bathroom and shook my head in disbelief. This room was bigger than my lounge, kitchen and study combined. Three people could fit in the tub and still have room to soap each other. Still drooling, I opened Jack's medicine cabinet. And frowned. As well as little plastic bags containing a suspicious-looking white substance, there must have been at least two dozen bottles of pills on the shelves. Small green pills, large pink pills, square white pills…

But as far as I could tell there was nothing to associate Jack Rivers with Mary Foster—alias
Sweet Lips Barbarella
.

Anxious to get the hell out of Dodge, I ran down the stairs to Jack's office, only to find Simon already in there, his head buried in a filing cabinet, his fingers running over the files.

“Find anything?” I asked, forcing my eyes off the sight of well-fitting jeans pulling tight across butt as he bent over the cabinet.

“Nothing connected to
Sweet Lips
; but Jesus, this guy has a file on everyone from his mother's lesbian hairdresser to a politician whose wife is a kleptomaniac. And I bet the scum has backup files in a storage box at his bank.”

“Where does he dig up this information?”

“Perhaps he has a team of paid spies.” Simon shrugged. “But more importantly—what does he use the information for?” He narrowed his eyes, and glancing around the room, answered his own question. “Judging by his luxurious accommodations—blackmail.”

“Did you find a file on Mary Foster?”