Whiskey Beach(65)
“That one had some potential.”
“I thought so, and drawing did help you think. The cast of characters, the connections between them, or among them, the timelines and factors, all there, all logical. That all seems like a good start. I think I’m going to make notes of my own.”
He considered a moment. “He’ll look at you. Wolfe will. And when he does he won’t be able to find any contact between us before I moved in here. He also won’t be able to find anything that weighs on the side of you being a lying, murdering, skanky ho.”
“How do you know?” She smiled at him. “I haven’t told you my story yet. Maybe I’m a recovering skanky ho with murderous tendencies.”
“Tell me your story and I’ll be the judge.”
“I will. Later. Now it’s time for your massage.”
He gave the table an uneasy glance.
“Your honor is safe with me,” she said as she rose. “This isn’t foreplay.”
“I keep thinking about sleeping with you.” Actually, he kept thinking about tearing her clothes off and riding her like a horny stallion, but that seemed . . . indelicate.
“I’d be disappointed if you didn’t, but that’s not going to happen during the next hour. Strip it off, get on the table—faceup. I’m going to go wash up.”
“You’re bossy.”
“I can be, and while that’s a flaw and I do work on it, I wouldn’t want to be perfect. I’d bore myself.” She trailed a hand over his arm as she walked out of the room.
Since it didn’t seem time to tear her clothes off, he took off his own.
It was weird, being naked under the sheet. And weirder yet when she came back, turned on her nature music, lit candles.
Then those magic fingers started on his neck, the top of his shoulders, and he had to ask himself if it was weird when sex slid to the back of his mind.
“Stop thinking so hard,” she told him. “Let it go.”
He thought about not thinking. He thought about thinking about something else. He tried using his book, but the problems of his characters oozed away along with his muscle aches.
While he tried not to think, or to think about something else or use his book as an escape, she released knots, soothed aches, melted away hot little pockets of tension.
He rolled over when she told him to, and decided she could solve all the problems of wars, economy, bitter battles, by just getting the key players on her table for an hour.
“You’ve been working out.”
Her voice stroked as expertly as her hands.
“Yeah, some.”
“I can feel it. But your back’s a maze of tension, sweetie.”
He tried to think of the last time anyone, including his mother, had called him sweetie.
“It’s been an interesting few days.”
“Mmm. I’m going to show you some stretches, some tension relievers. You can take a couple of minutes to do them whenever you get up from the keyboard.”
She pulled, pressed, twisted, tugged, ground, then rubbed every little shock away until he lay limp as water.
“How’re you doing?” she asked when she smoothed the sheet over him.
“I think I saw God.”
“How did she look?”
He let out a muffled laugh. “Pretty hot, actually.”
“I always suspected that. Take your time getting up. I’ll be back in a couple minutes.”
He’d managed to sit up, mostly wrap the sheet around the important parts, when she walked back in with a glass of water.
“Drink it all.” She cupped his hands around it, then brushed his hair away from his forehead. “You look relaxed.”
“There’s a word between ‘relaxed’ and ‘unconscious.’ I can’t think of it now, but that’s where I am.”
“It’s a good place. I’ll be in the kitchen.”
“Abra.” He took her hand. “It sounds weak and clichéd, but I’m going to say it anyway. You have a gift.”
She smiled, beautifully. “It doesn’t sound weak and clichéd to me. Take your time.”
When he came in she had the soup warming on the stove, and a glass of wine in her hand. “Hungry?”
“I wasn’t, but that smells pretty damn good.”
“Are you up for another walk on the beach first?”
“I could be.”
“Good. The light’s so soft and pretty this time of day. We’ll work up an appetite.” She led the way into the laundry for jackets, zipped up her own hoodie.
“I used the telescope earlier,” she told him as they stepped outside. “It’s a good spot for it.”
“I saw some crime-scene techs poking around by the lighthouse.”