Maggie Shayne - Lover's Bite

“You kissed me first, Topaz.” He got off the bier and pushed both hands through his hair, heaving a sigh. “Hell, woman, I’m only human.”

“No, you’re not.”

“You know what I meant.”

Reluctantly, she nodded, unable to meet his eyes, knowing he would see the naked hunger glowing from her own.

“Topaz, come on. We both want to. You know it’s the truth.”

“Forget it.”

“You can’t deny what just happened. It’s freaking explosive, what’s between us.”

“So’s dynamite. Doesn’t mean I’m going to put a stick down my pants and light the fuse.” She shook her head hard, trying to drive her insistence into her own mind as much as his. “You broke my heart, Jack. I’d be stupid to give you a chance to do it again.”

“So keep your heart out of it. You hate my guts now. It shouldn’t be too hard. Let’s just have sex.”

She shot him a look, then got up. Without another word, she located her clothes and put them on.

“Fine,” he said. “Deny it. Delay it. But it’s gonna happen. Sooner or later, it’s bound to happen, Topaz, and I think you know that every bit as well as I do and want it just as badly as I do. It’s inevitable.”

“Not if you leave.”

“I’m not leaving.”

She finished dressing, then snatched his clothes up and handed them to him. “Get dressed, will you?”

“Can’t resist me without my clothes on, right?”

“I want to get back to the mansion. Take a shower, get some fresh clothes, do my hair and makeup.”

“And what do you have planned for after midnight?”

“Very funny. I want to start talking to the men who were in that file. The ones the police thought looked good for my mother’s murder.”

“And your landlord?”

“I haven’t decided what to do about him yet. If we tip him off that we know about the bugs in the house, he’s liable to throw us out, or, worse, let us stay and find some other method of eavesdropping.”

“I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Let’s just find the bugs and watch what we say until we do.”

Jack nodded. “Actually, I have a few errands to run while you’re primping. I’ll see if I can find us a sweeping device, so we don’t miss any.”

Topaz frowned at him. “Where would you find something like that in the middle of the night?”

He averted his eyes to begin dressing. Or maybe that was just the excuse he wanted to use. “I have no idea.”

She had a feeling it was a lie.

What he wanted from her, Jack decided, was forgiveness. Okay, sex would be good, too, but forgiveness was tops. He’d been racking his brain to figure out what had drawn him here to her, made him feel as compelled to help her find her mother’s murderer as he would have been to protect one of the Chosen. It wasn’t love, certainly. He didn’t believe in love. Love was a con man’s most powerful tool, but it wasn’t real. His reason for being here wasn’t physical attraction, either—or at least it wasn’t only that. It was something more, and it had been bugging him that he didn’t know what.

Now, as he stood in a nearly empty parking garage, waiting for his contact to show up, he thought he’d figured it out. What he was feeling was guilt, plain and simple. And no wonder it had taken him so long to identify it. It wasn’t something he’d ever felt before. But he felt it over her. If he’d known that all her life she’d been plagued by people who claimed to love her while coveting her money, he would never have chosen her as a mark.

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