Perilously Fun Fiction: A Bundle, Pauline Jones [top 100 novels of all time .txt] 📗

ambulance and then helped me down. We stopped in the shadow space between the ambulance and a building. There was an illusion of privacy, of separation from the activity around the motionless body of the round headed man.

I looked up at the drifting flakes. I couldn’t look at him when I admitted, “I’m here with…friends.”

“Friends?”

I nodded.

“One of them wouldn’t be called Jerome, would he?”

I looked at him then. His face was expressionless in an unsettling way.

“How did you know?”

“He left a message on your answering machine.”

It took a few moments for my mental gears to grind round to the obvious. “You bugged my phone?”

“And your apartment.” He didn’t look the least bit repentant.

“You—I—how could you do that?” Had they heard me singing in the shower? Of course they had. This was the CIA. They could hear a gnat pass gas if they wanted to.

“We needed to monitor the inside of your apartment for your protection. You don’t have to be embarrassed. We all liked your singing. Especially Wild Thing.”

I covered my face. “You could’ve warned me.”

“If I had you would’ve been too quiet. I’m trying to protect you, but it isn’t easy. Sneaking off for a late date—”

“I left in the open with your guys on my tail.” It occurred to me that he sounded jealous. I started to smile. “Actually, it wasn’t a date.”

“Not a date?” He sounded as disbelieving as he looked.

“No. It was…dates.”

“Dates?”

“Jerome. Tommy.” I paused. “Drum.”

“You went out with three men at once?” He gripped my shoulders. I kind of liked his look of incredulity.

I shrugged. “Yeah, I guess they’re men.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

I studied his tie carefully. “They’re a little younger.”

“How much younger?” he asked.

“Does it matter? If they’d been ten or sixteen years older than me, no one would say a word. And it’s not like I seduced them. They asked me. They’ve been reading Cosmopolitan.” I smiled at him, inviting him to share the joke. After a moment, he started to grin and the joke was on me because I was already in a weakened condition.

“If it tells a guy how to deal with a woman like you, I’m going to get me one.”

I felt the change in his hands, saw it in his eyes, as he changed from clutching to caressing. I didn’t mind. I needed the heat spreading through my body.

“Are we forgetting who came through whose sun roof onto whose lap? Or is that whom’s lap?” My voice wobbled. He slid his hands across my back. My back liked it a lot. In the spirit of cooperation, I put my good arm around his neck.

“I can’t forget anything. I sure as hell can’t forget…” his mouth brushed the edge of my mouth “…this.”

He was temptation wrapped in an almost irresistible package, but I was a proper Baptist girl with a mandate from God to try.

“You’re the CIA. I’ll bet you know more about me than I know about myself.”

His hands slid to center back. Our hips came together like it was their reason for being. My blood was thundering in a way that probably wasn’t wise when there was a hole in my blood stream.

“I know you’re susceptible to strays and that you try to do the right thing.” His mouth moved over the curving skin of my cheek. “I know you sing in the shower and smile when you sleep.” He turned his attention to the area around my eyes.

I closed them and gave silent thanks for his attention to detail. “See,” my words came out in little gasps, “I knew you knew…something…”

I lost track of what it was I was trying to say, when his exploration moved to where my neck and shoulder met.

“I see desire in your eyes, Bel.” He traced their outline, his touch torturously sweet. “But it’s not enough. I want to watch them change while we make…fax.”

I don’t like admitting it, but if he’d just kept kissing me, he might have got fax. Instead he gave me a choice. He put me in charge of my own seduction. Cold air rushed between us when I stepped back. I could tell Kel wasn’t thrilled with my choice. I opened my mouth to explain, but Willis and Dillon were making a beeline for us.

If there’s one thing I hate in a cop, its lousy timing.

Both men looked at me, but Dillon said to Kel, “Got an ID on the shooter. Name of Robert Howard. Drug squad is on its way to his apartment, but I’ll bet money he’s not a dealer.”

“He could be,” Willis protested.

“No.” Kel came in on Dillon’s side. “I don’t know what this is about, but it isn’t drugs.”

“He’s a red neck, not a druggie,” Dillon agreed. “In the same National Guard unit as the Mitchell kid. The gun he was carrying was military issue. Mitchell was assigned to the supply depot. My gut is telling me someone was dealing in stolen military supplies.”

Kel looked thoughtful. “Pilfering has always been a problem. With all that’s going on in the Gulf, be a prime time to make some money.” He sighed. “Damn. This means military intelligence will want to get involved. We get anymore government agencies sniffing around this case it’ll be more crowded than the Desert Storm briefings.”

Now that Kel wasn’t warming me, I started to shiver. My coat was inside with the guys and I’d lost blood. It wasn’t that I didn’t care about this stuff, well, actually I didn’t care. How could I when each shiver felt like knives stabbing in my arm? “I need to go get my coat from the club. Look, my friends can run me home…”

Kel quickly shrugged off his coat. “You shouldn’t go back inside.”

“Why not? There’s no danger anymore, is there?”

Willis coughed. “You haven’t had a chance to see yourself, have you Miss Stanley?”

“Oh.” I guess I had kind of wallowed in garbage. And blood. I let Kel help me into his unpleasantly fragrant, but nicely warm coat. I must have