Brenda Jackson - Seized By Seduction

“Well, I’m sure justice will prevail and the killer will eventually be caught,” she said, tilting her head in that sexy way of hers.

The shrill ring of his mobile phone disturbed the comfortable conversation between them. He tried to hold his anger at bay when he recognized the ringtone. The call was from his father.

“Do you need to get that?” she asked him.

He shook his head. “No. I have the rest of the weekend off,” he said, although he knew the call was personal and not business.

“I like this place,” she broke into his thoughts to say. “It reminds me of a restaurant back home.”

“And where is home for you?” he asked, knowing already but wanting her to tell him anyway.

“Richmond. But I love coming to DC. I attended college here at Howard for my BS, and then Georgetown for my master’s and PhD. Georgetown is my favorite part of DC.”

He nodded. “You come to the nation’s capital often?”

“Often enough. I have family here, and I like visiting them as often as I can. Sometimes my work can take me away a lot.”

“You have a big family?”

She smiled, and he could feel his stomach tighten even more when that smile produced beautiful dimples. “Depends on what you mean by big. Compared to most, I don’t consider it big, but when my parents have family get-togethers, inviting both my mom’s side of the family—the Haywoods, and my father’s side—the Fullers, there are a lot of us. We’re a close-knit group.”

“Is it a coincidence your sister’s name is Haywood, after your mom’s family?”

Her smile widened. “No coincidence. Mom says she’d always been proud of being a Haywood and wanted to pass the name on to her first child, whether it was a son or daughter.”

She’d angled her head to look at him, making a mass of hair cascade even more over her shoulder. “What about you, Quasar? Do you have a large family?”

He could feel his jaw tighten at the question. “No,” he said and decided not to add they were definitely not close-knit.

“Any siblings?”

He immediately thought of his brother. His one and only brother...at least biologically. “Yes, I have a brother. An older brother by four years.”

“And where did you grow up?”

Quasar loved her smell. Why did her scent have such sexy undertones? “Los Angeles.”

“You’re a long way from home.”

And he wouldn’t want it any other way. Instead of telling her that, he said, “Yes, I am.”

Wanting to shift the focus from him back to her, he said, “So tell me some more about you, Randi.”

She laughed and the sound fired his blood. “I would bore you.”

“I doubt that. Try me.”

* * *

TRY ME.

Randi didn’t want to think of all the ways she could try him, and they were ways she’d never thought of until now. She never considered herself an overly sexual being, even when she and Larry had been together. But the man sitting across from her looked so ridiculously sexy, it was hard not to fantasize a little. Um, maybe a lot.

His chestnut complexion, aquiline nose, sharp cheekbones and strong chin were what female fantasies were made of. Then there were his brown bedroom eyes and chiseled jaw that made him appear too handsome to be real. The straight texture of his dark hair that stopped at his shoulders made her curious about his ethnicity. Mexican? Italian? Or other? His mouth was holding her senses captive, namely the shape of his lips. They were the kind of lips a woman would want to kiss and lick until she was sexually silly. Pretty much how she was feeling now.

And when he’d stood, he appeared to be around six feet two or three inches of solid muscle, a lean, well-built physique with great broad shoulders. She couldn’t help but appreciate a body that was so powerfully male. And why did his scent, a masculine blend of soap, aftershave and cologne, travel along her nerve endings? What she found so mind-boggling was the fact that the man sitting across from her, playing havoc on her body from top to bottom, was meant for her.

“I’ll tell you what,” she decided to say. “If I tell you a little about me, then you have to tell me things about you.” This meeting between them was important and would establish the framework for the rest of their lives. Of course there was no way for him to know that.

He shrugged, smiling over at her. “With your psychic abilities, I’d think there’s not much about me you wouldn’t know already.”

Searching his eyes, she considered his words and knew she needed to nip that assumption in the bud. “You’re not showing up on my mental radar,” she said truthfully. “I don’t have the ability to read every single human being.”

“Then how did you know I was an ex-con?”

She tilted her head. “I didn’t until you mentioned it. I had no idea.”

He held her gaze as if trying to divine the veracity of what she’d said. “Then why didn’t you react when I told you?”

She lifted an eyebrow. “How was I supposed to react? Did you expect me to run out of here hollering and screaming?”

After huffing out a short laugh, he shook his head. “Nothing that drastic, but experience has taught me to expect some sort of reaction.”

Randi wondered what kind of response he was used to getting. Was it similar to the one she got whenever it was revealed she had psychic powers? She decided to explain a few things to him. “My father is a defense attorney, probably one of the best...at least I think so. And the one thing he’s instilled in me is the belief that not all people in jail are there because they are guilty. Not saying whether you were guilty or not. All I know is that you’re sitting here, which probably means you served your time.”

“I did. And that’s good enough for you?”

“Yes, Quasar. That’s good enough for me.” When you want to tell me more about that time in your life, you will, she thought to herself. When he didn’t say anything but continued to look at her, she said, “I wanted to follow in my father’s footsteps and become a lawyer.”

“You did?”

“Yes. From the time I found out what he did for a living. I was so proud of him. That wasn’t in someone’s plans for me. But in all fairness to my gift, which I am now very proud to have, I learned early on that it’s meant to help others more than to help myself, which is why I probably can’t read you. I’m meant to find out some things on my own.”

She’d discovered this when Georgie betrayed her and Larry broke things off with her. She’d felt with her paranormal abilities that she, of all people, should have known Georgie couldn’t be trusted and Larry would end up being a jerk.

“You said that now you are proud of your gift. Does that mean that hasn’t always been the case?”

“Yes,” she said, nodding her head. “What fifteen-year-old wants something like that dumped on her? The realization that she has psychic powers? To be considered a freak of nature?”

She forced to the back of her mind Larry’s cruel words to her that day. She figured if Larry saw her that way then others would, as well. “I knew my great-grandmother was psychic as well as her mother, but not in a million years did I think the gift would be passed on to me.”

“How did you come to terms with it?”

Randi immediately recalled that year spent on Glendale Shores. That had certainly helped. But more important had been her relatives. She decided to credit the latter. “My family’s love and support.”

“Then you should consider yourself fortunate to have such a wonderful family.”

At that moment, the waitress returned with her tea and Quasar’s cup of coffee. That was good timing since it gave Randi a chance to dwell on what he’d just said. His words led her to believe that his family was anything but wonderful, not even close.