Silk Confessions (4 page)

“So sue me for a prurient streak.” She had
so
not been flirting with him.

Had she?

Forcing herself to consider the notion, she wondered if her sexual impulses could conspire to act without her explicit permission? What if her artistic persona and businesswoman facade hid yet another facet—a decadent and determined inner seductress? She’d blossomed into a daytime TV heroine in record time today. All she needed was a bout with amnesia.

Maybe she had fallen through the damn sand in the hourglass at 2:00 p.m. today. Instead of transitioning from businesswoman Tempest to artist Tempest this afternoon
as usual, she’d walked into a time fugue and ended up in the middle of the drama.

Frustrated with herself, with him and with the undeniable attraction she felt for a man she probably had nothing in common with, she forged ahead. “Look, I’m sorry if it seemed like I was coming on to you. The profiles happened to intrigue me.”

“So you’re saying your sudden interest in threesomes didn’t have a damn thing to do with me?”

“Correct.”

He grinned. A slow, sexy, I’m-going-to-have-you grin that incited a sensual shiver down her spine. “Good. Because I’m not the kind of guy who shares.”

T
EMPEST
was still recovering from that grin two hours later as Wes clicked through profile after profile, searching for some clue on his murder case.

She might have been able to forget about their ex change if she hadn’t been subjected to reading through all sorts of kinky sexual fetishes and fantasy requirements for every woman in search of a date on the MatingGame site. But honestly, how could she think about motive and intent when every page that scrolled over her screen referenced a new sex act she’d never tried?

She was beginning to feel very deprived and inexperienced, but she had no intention of allowing Wes to read any hint of hunger in her eyes. Restless and on edge, she sprang up from her chair.

“I should take Eloise for a walk.” Seizing on the idea like a lifeline, she started picking up their popcorn dishes along with some Thai food take-out containers from the dinner Wes insisted they eat.

“I’ll go with you.” He unfolded his tall body from the
unforgiving wooden chair that had to be damn uncomfortable by now.

“That’s okay. You finish up and I’ll be back in a minute.” Maybe then she could reclaim her apartment and her wayward sexual thoughts.

“And what if your apartment is being watched?” He took the empty containers from her arms and dumped them in the wastebasket they’d left in the middle of the studio during their clean-up efforts. “If my murder case is linked to your break-in, then you’re dealing with a dangerous threat. My guess is the killer came here hoping to erase her profile from the MatingGame database and when she didn’t find the Web site files on the computer, she trashed the apartment and left the message to scare you.”

If Tempest hadn’t been frightened before, she sure as hell was starting to worry now. Almost enough to pack up her stuff and sleep at her family’s ostentatious place on Park Avenue, but not quite. “Don’t you think this murdering prostitute chick was a little excessive in wrecking the apartment? She broke every statue I ever made.”

“Don’t forget we’re dealing with a criminal mind. Studies show a high percentage of these people are mentally unbalanced in one way or another.” He whistled to Eloise, who came bounding over, pink tongue lolling out one side of her mouth. “All the more reason to let me go with you tonight.”

“You haven’t seen Eloise in action.” She couldn’t let Wes start thinking he needed to look out for her. She hadn’t even managed to free herself from her family business yet, so she definitely couldn’t afford to get mixed up with anybody who might start having expectations of her. “She might look sweet and friendly, but she’s as kick-ass
as any police dog when it comes to watching my back. I couldn’t ask for better protection.”

“Unless the killer shoots her.” Wes pulled Eloise’s leash down from a hook by the front door like he’d been living there all his life. “I’m not trying to scare you, Tempest, but you owe it to yourself and your dog to be careful until I catch this person.”

She willed herself to nod her head. He was right, and she knew it.

Tempest just hadn’t figured out how to reconcile her need for independence with her desire to stay alive. The choice might not have been so difficult except that she wanted to stand on her own two feet and Wes Shaw looked like a man well-versed in sweeping women right off them.

W
ES STUMBLED
over his own feet the next morning, bleary-eyed and fuzzyheaded after too little sleep. Blindly he fought his way through the maze of gym equipment that accounted for the sum total of his living room furnishings. Despite his best efforts, he stubbed his toe on a dumbbell and unleashed a string of curses that brought his St. Bernard, Kong, running from the bedroom with a woof.

“All clear,” Wes shouted to the dog whose protective instincts would have made Miss Independent Boucher break out in hives.

She’d practically hyperventilated the night before when Wes suggested he spend the night at her place for safety reasons. Suddenly, she’d developed all sorts of plans for beefing up the security around her apartment, insisting she’d be fine without his help. He’d tried to convince her to go back to her family’s place where she apparently stayed during the week, but she’d been stub born on that count, too.

Damned independent woman. Thinking of her there alone had cost him plenty of shut-eye.

He’d stayed up half the night thinking about her, after checking and re-checking every lock in her apartment. Her door had shown no visible signs of tampering, but the only way into the third floor space had been through the front entrance or the door to the fire escape, which had a dead bolt whose lock was collecting dust. Wes had
talked to her superintendent along with the old woman who lived a few doors down and had been home during the break-in. Neither of them had heard or seen anything unusual.

After forcing himself to leave her building, he’d gone back to the precinct to go over his case file on the murder and enter an incident report about Tempest’s intruder. But late-night brainstorming with Vanessa hadn’t helped them figure out the connections between their murder investigation and Tempest or MatingGame.

At least they’d eliminated Tempest as a murder suspect since she had an ironclad alibi for the victim’s time of death. A lady photographer caught her date with a local coffee shop owner on film for a tabloid column, and Wes ended up with the distinct displeasure of con firming with the guy that he and Tempest had taken in a movie together that night. Too bad no amount of the man’s assurances that they were just friends did a damn thing to improve Wes’s mood. Obviously, he shouldn’t care who she dated, but it irritated him to picture her with the artsy-fartsy coffee shop guy who managed to weave Kafka references into conversation on two separate occasions.

And as if that wasn’t bad enough, Wes now discovered he’d lost his taste for coffee.

Reaching into the refrigerator for a bottle of some bogus energy drink, he chugged a few swigs and started thinking through his day. First and foremost was making a phone call to authorities in Mexico for some more information on Tempest’s father. Not that he didn’t trust foreign cops—he just didn’t trust
any
cop outside his own precinct.

A suspicious nature came with the badge. And Wes had all the more reason to be careful with Tempest since his instincts couldn’t be trusted where she was concerned. He
planned to check her out ten ways to Sun day so the next time he showed up on her doorstep, he wouldn’t have to hold himself back from the attraction that had gnawed at him ever since he’d first walked into her apartment.

Because the next time she leaned and stretched or wriggled those oh-so-fine curves of hers in his direction, he had every intention of showing her how appreciative he could be.

T
EMPEST DIDN’T APPRECIATE
the stomach-clenching fear her intruder had instilled in her.

She might have given in to her worries and spent the weekend at the Boucher family home if it hadn’t been for Eloise. Her dog had slept by her all night, ready to keep away any returning criminals or stray bogeymen who threatened her safe haven. Too bad her faithful ca nine wasn’t as effective at keeping away men who threatened her peace of mind.

This morning, Tempest had been awake since dawn, cleaning and organizing the studio until she’d achieved some semblance of its former order. Now she reviewed the summary of her missed
Days
episode online while she told herself she wasn’t listening for Wes’s footsteps in the hallway.

She’d read the same line three times about the latest character to come back from the dead—normally a topic she loved—when Eloise ran to the door and barked.

Tempest peered through the peephole in time to spy a familiar figure striding down the hall. Obviously, her dog was even better attuned to the new man in their lives than Tempest. By the time Wes rapped on the door, she was already opening it.

“Did you even check to make sure it was me?” Wes
frowned at her, his vintage suit replaced by faded jeans and a blue T-shirt underneath a long tweed wool coat.

In a word—
yum.
The more fitted clothes were put to good use on a man as ruthlessly toned as Wes Shaw.

“Eloise told me it was you.” She opened the door wider, her gaze flicking south as he walked past her into the apartment.

So she noticed he had a great butt, okay? That didn’t mean she was going to do anything about it. Slamming the door shut behind him, she braced herself for another round of temptation. She’d already decided today would be all about clearing her name with Wes and helping him find out what was going on with MatingGame. “She
told
you?” He leaned down to pet her pooch’s ears before tossing a folder on the boxes of debris she’d stacked by the front door. “Lucky for you, I own a dog, too, or I might think you were losing your mind.”

“You have a dog?” She shouldn’t ask him about it, didn’t need any reason to like this guy any more than she already did, but curiosity got the better of her.

“Kong. She’s been with me since— For about two years.”

She sensed more to that story, but it didn’t look like he’d be sharing any more of it since he backed closer to her computer.

“Kong’s a girl?”

“Trust me, it fits. She’s not a girlie girl.” He bent over her keyboard and scanned a few lines about her soap opera before moving his hand to the escape key. “You mind if we pick up where we left off last night?”

Her heart slugged in her chest at the images that idea conjured. What if they picked up right at the point when Wes had been sitting beside her, his steely gray gaze drifting down over her mouth? Lingering.

She blinked hard, waiting for her clearheaded thoughts to return. Daydreaming about Wes wouldn’t get anything accomplished today and she refused to let a little sexual attraction delay his progress on clearing her business’s name.

“That’s fine. I placed a call to the MatingGame head Web mistress who still oversees the day-to-day operations of the company. She’s out of town until Wednesday, but I left her an urgent message that we needed to discuss the business. I can’t imagine MatingGame is involved in anything improper, but if there is trouble in the company, this woman will know exactly where to look for it.”

“Good. Were you able to access her files for the site?” Wes slid into the seat in front of the computer and clicked a few buttons to review recently downloaded material.

“Her assistant sent a disk over by courier. It’s in the drive now.” Tempest watched him go to work on the files, his computer savvy obvious as he opened windows and accessed files.

“Can I get you some coffee?” She could do that much at least, since she would have offered the same to any other visitor.

He grumbled something unintelligible under his breath and then asked for tea.

Three hours and numerous cups of tea later, Wes hadn’t found anything unusual in the computer files. He’d forwarded names and addresses to his police station, checking out the women—and even some of the men—who posted profiles on MatingGame. So far not a single person had been linked to prostitution or violent crime. He’d flagged two sex offenders who had snuck through the screening process, however, and re ported them to police stations in California and Wisconsin where the profiles originated.

Tempest couldn’t help but admire his thorough ap
proach to his work and the noble intentions behind it. She could appreciate the importance of his job, even if it put her on the defensive as owner of the dating company.

Sipping from a small glass of orange juice, she stole past the small desk for the tenth time in the last few hours, curious about his work but not wanting to get too close to him. He’d warned her about sitting beside him last night and she’d taken him at his word. No way would she send him any signals that implied sexual interest.

Even if she felt it.

“If you told me what you were looking for, maybe I could help you find it.” She set down her juice to wave her laptop in front of him. “I could work at the table and review files from there.”

But Wes scarcely seemed to hear her, his concentration devoted to the text onscreen, which he’d enlarged. “Take a look at this.”

She started to lean over his shoulder and then decided she’d be better off just pulling up a chair, since he seemed engrossed in his work anyway. Settling next to him, she retrieved her juice in an effort to keep cool around the sexy detective. “It’s the coding for one of the profiles, right?”

Her gaze scanned along the text that suggested the woman who’d written it was especially adept at blow jobs.

Tempest nearly spewed her orange juice.

“Yes. But it’s unusual coding since it includes this graphic of an asterisk here and I can’t see any explanation on the site for what significance an asterisk has. Do you know?”

Blinking her way past the shock of
blow jobs
writ ten in sixteen-point font, Tempest tried to focus on his question and not wonder if there was actually a technique to good
blow jobs. What other key pieces of sex advice had she been missing out on all her adult life?

“I don’t know what the asterisk means. Perhaps it only has significance to the site managers?” She congratulated herself on her calm, intelligent words despite her ridiculous thoughts. “Maybe it means the woman in question is a repeat customer or received a good rating from her dates or something.”

“But why put it there unless the Web site wants customers to see it?” Wes turned toward her, swiveling in his chair until he faced her head-on.

“Valid point.” She half wondered if the asterisk denoted adept blow job givers. “I can put in another call to the MatingGame people and see what they say.”

“What if it denotes the prostitutes in the crowd so that visitors who are aware they’re available can make sure they choose from the right pool of women?”

“I don’t know.” Shrugging, she found it hard to believe MatingGame had anything to do with prostitution. Or was it just that she couldn’t bear for her business instincts to have been so dead wrong? “Did you check out other women who have the asterisk graphic on their page?”

“I’ll put someone on it. I know you don’t want one of your companies to be found guilty of trafficking in sex, but one way or another, I have to get to the bottom of it.”

“I’m just as eager as you are to figure out what’s going on.” She didn’t need her board of directors questioning her business decisions now.

Reaching down to the floor, she picked up her lap top to show him how helpful she could be in his case.

Except that her arm brushed his leg as she moved. J
UST AN ACCIDENT
?

Wes might have written off the barely-there touch as
unintentional, except that coincidences were piling up as fast as he could count them in this investigation. His murder case just happened to be linked to Tempest Boucher, who seemed to be the target of an intruder bent on destruction. And he still wasn’t comfortable with the fact that her father had died while out with a MatingGame client, same as the victim in Wes’s case.

Maybe the incidents didn’t have a damn thing to do with one another and it had all just been chance. But—more likely—the events were genuinely related. He was anxious to speak to the day-to-day operations manager of MatingGame to see if she was selling more than dating advice.

Either way, Wes had reached his personal coincidence quota today. Since Tempest had touched him, he could only believe that she’d meant it.

Shifting beside him, she hefted her small computer onto the desk, her cheeks flushing pink.

“Sorry.” She murmured an apology before cracking open the case of her laptop.

“Are you?” He studied her while she flicked through the opening screens as her computer warmed up. One brown curl grazed her temple while the rest remained knotted haphazardly at the back of her head with only a felt tip pen to keep it in place.

She blew the curl away from her eyes impatiently as she huffed out a sigh. “No, actually, I’m not a bit sorry. I can’t help you unless I can access the MatingGame site. It’s not my fault your he-man sprawl of legs takes up every square foot of space beneath the desk.”

He watched her brow furrow in concentration, her lips pursed while she tapped more keys on the laptop. His gaze lingered on her mouth, which appeared deliciously free of lipstick today.

No doubt about it, he wanted her. Her alibi checked out for his case, so he wasn’t worried about the ethics of the situation. And although he wanted to find the homicidal hooker who had taken down her victim a week ago, Wes didn’t really have any other professional interest in MatingGame. If some facet of the company was involved in prostitution, Wes would stake his reputation that Tempest Boucher didn’t know a damn thing about it. Either way, that wasn’t his department. Another cop would make that bust, not him.

From where he was sitting, there wasn’t a reason in the world not to pursue the only woman to capture his interest in longer than he cared to remember.

“I checked your alibi.” He tossed the comment out there, as he navigated his way through a few more pro files of New York–based singles on the MatingGame site.

“Alibi?” Her computer keys stopped tapping.

“For last Saturday night.” His gaze wandered over another curly-headed brunette on-screen but the vampish female whose profile touted her S and M expertise left him cold.

What was it about Tempest that set a torch to his libido?