Rachel Gibson - Sex, Lies, And Online Dating

She walked into the spare bedroom and tossed her empty suitcase on the bed. She’d call first thing tomorrow morning.

“Lucy.”

She turned and looked at him standing in the doorway. A dark lock of hair fell over his forehead as his dark gaze stared into her. After everything, there was a part of her that wanted to throw herself against his bare chest and forget what he’d done. He could make her forget about everything for the few moments he held her. She loved him, and she wished she’d never met him.

“Promise me you won’t leave until after I get back.”

Once again she felt humiliated and heartbroken and all because she’d made the mistake of loving Quinn.

“Promise me,” he repeated.

She supposed he needed to get the security in place at her house before she returned there. “Fine.”

“Promise,” he insisted.

“Cross my heart.” Once again she’d been a fool where he was concerned.

Lucy turned her back on him and unzipped the suitcase she’d unpacked the night before. She heard him move down the hall, and a few moments later, the water to the shower turned on. She shut the door and sat on the bed. Her vison blurred, and she wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her robe. She did not want to cry. She would not let Quinn see her cry.

She thought about the night before and the way he’d touched her. She thought about the way he’d made her feel, and the way she felt right now. In her mind, she could not resolve the two feelings. They didn’t fit. The pleasure and pain of loving Quinn, being thrown from one extreme to the other, was too much.

She listened for the water, and after it shut off, she moved across the room to the small dresser. She opened the top drawer and discovered the missing white blouse and pink panties she’d lost the night before. They’d been washed and folded and placed neatly in the drawer. She picked up the blouse and held it to her nose. It smelled like Quinn’s shirts. Again her vision blurred, and she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Even with everything else going on in her life, Quinn and her broken heart took front and center. It was crazy, but there was no denying it.

She heard Quinn’s footsteps on the other side of the closed door. They paused for several heartbeats before continuing down the hall. Afew moments later, she heard the garage door open and his Jeep pull away. When he returned, she would be ready to go.

Lucy set her black bra and underwear, a khaki skirt, and a black T-shirt on top of the dresser, then dumped the rest of her clothes back into her suitcase. She opened the door, and Millie followed her into the bathroom.

“Out,” she commanded. Millie lay down and looked up at Lucy through sad eyes. “Fine,” Lucy muttered. She jumped into the shower and washed her hair and body. When she was through, she stepped over Millie and brushed her teeth and dried her hair. She pulled her hair into a ponytail, and by the time Quinn returned, she was sitting on his leather couch, dressed and waiting for him.

His face was set in hard lines, and his jaw looked brittle enough to break. He wore jeans and a white Guinness T-shirt. She stood, expecting him to give her the details of the new security arrangement. Instead he took her hand and placed two small cassettes in her palm. “What’s this?”

“The videotapes taken the night the house was wired.”

She looked up. He had his cop face on, the blank, expressionless set to his features that made him look hard. Except for his dark eyes. He couldn’t wipe the emotion from his eyes. It flickered just beneath the surface, hot and alive and something he couldn’t control the way he could control the rigid set of his jaw. “How did you get these?”

“Don’t ask.” He dropped his hand.

“Did you check them out or something?”

He looked at her for an eternity before he said, “No.”

“Quinn?” He simply stared at her, and this time she knew that he wasn’t going to answer. She couldn’t outwait him for an answer, but she didn’t need to. His silence spoke for him. He’d stolen them out of the evidence room. For her. “But what if they’re missed? Won’t you get in some kind of trouble? Fired even?”

He just continued to stare at her.

“Won’t someone know they’re missing?”

“Probably. The less you know about it, the better.”

“What am I supposed to do with these?”

“Whatever you want. But I would recommend that you destroy them and forget that you ever saw them.”

“Isn’t that destroying evidence?”

He shrugged one shoulder. “Technically, yes.”

She looked down at the cassettes. “Are you certain these are the right tapes?”

“They were labeled, so I’m pretty sure.”

“But you’re not certain.”

“You want to see them?”

Not really, but she wanted to make sure she had the right tapes in her possession. She handed them back. “Yes.”

He pointed to the couch. “Sit tight.” He walked out of the room, and when he returned, he had a video camera. He hooked it up to the television and popped one of the cassettes inside.

She wanted to know if he’d get fired. The answer was, Hell yes . If caught, he’d be charged with petty theft, but since the tapes were useless to the Breathless investigation, the criminal charges would probably be set aside with the agreement that he not contest his termination.

Quinn started the tape, then he moved across the room and sat on the couch next to Lucy. On the screen, their black-and-white images appeared, and Lucy leaned forward to watch as the two of them made dinner and talked about everything from the weather to local politics.

In the past, he’d bent and stretched the rules, but he’d never completely broken them. He loved his job, and if anyone had ever told him that he’d steal evidence, he would have told them they were nuts. If they’d told him he’d steal it for a woman, he would have told them they were fucking nuts . But then he’d messed up and told Lucy about the tapes, and she’d looked at him as if he’d just killed her cat. One minute she’d been looking at him as if she’d wanted to jump on him and continue his workout, and the next, like he’d stabbed her in the heart. He would have done anything to have her look at him as she had the minute before.

When he’d left, he’d taken the latest Breathless letter with him and dropped it off in the crime lab for the technicians to look over in the morning. He’d planned to take it in that day anyway. What he hadn’t planned until he’d looked in her eyes filling up with tears was a little petty theft, but by the time he’d walked out his front door, he’d known what he would do.

He was a dumb ass. He’d put his job on the line for a woman who would never forget that he’d undressed her in front of a hidden camera. He’d risked getting terminated for a woman who sat next to him as stiff as a poker. A woman who’d made him want something he’d given up on. Something he’d convinced himself he was better off not having in his life.

Quinn watched their images on the television screen as they ate dinner together, talking as if they were just two people getting to know each other. He didn’t recall the meal so much as he did her sweater and leather skirt. Then she brought out the chocolate cake, and he recalled how he’d felt watching her put the fork into her mouth.

“Sometimes, chocolate is better than sex,” she spoke from the television.

“Honey, nothing is better than sex,” he’d said.

She set the fork on her plate and pushed it aside. “I guess that would depend on your basis of comparison.”

He rose and said in a voice so sexually charged that he hardly recognized it, “Come here.” From across the room, Quinn watched the screen, where he wrapped his arms around Lucy. “Let’s give you something good to compare.” Then he kissed her and it was as hot as he remembered. Sexual energy rolled in waves from the television screen, scorching a path across the living room, and Quinn got a little hot watching it. He slid his gaze to Lucy to see if she felt it too. Her brows were lowered, and she appeared more pissed off than excited.