She heard the humming in her head. A nice, quiet sound of easy pleasure. He tasted faintly of wine and spices, and his firm lips seemed to accept the gesture as it was meant—as one of affection and curiosity. Her lips were still curved when she dropped back on her heels.
“Good night, Alexi.”
He nodded. He was fairly sure he could speak, but there was no point in taking the chance. Turning, he walked into the foyer and punched the elevator button. When he glanced back, she was still standing in the doorway. Smiling, she waved another goodbye and started to close the door.
It surprised them both when he whirled around and slapped a hand on it to keep it open. The fact that she took an automatic step in retreat surprised her further. But it was the look in his eyes, she thought, that made her feel like a rabbit caught in a rifle’s cross hairs.
“Did you forget something?”
“Yeah.” Very slowly, very deliberately, he slid his arms around her waist, ran his hand up her back, so that her eyes widened and her skin shivered. “I forgot I like to make my own moves.”
Bess braced for the kind of wild assault that was in his eyes, and was surprised for the third time in as many minutes. He didn’t swoop or crush, but eased her closer, degree by degree, until she was molded to him. His fingers cruised lazily up her back until they reached the nape of her neck, where they cupped and held. Still his mouth hovered above her.
His hand moved low, intimately, where skin gave way to silk. “Stand on your toes,” he murmured.
“What?”
“Stand on your toes.” This time, it was his lips that curved.
Dazed, she obeyed, then gave a strangled gasp when he increased the pressure on her back and pressed them center to center. His eyes stayed open as he moved his mouth to hers, brushing, nipping, then taking, in a dreamy kind of possession that had her own vision blurring.
The humming in her brain increased until it was a wall of sound, unrecognizable. She was deaf to everything else, even her own throaty moan as he dipped his tongue between her lips to seduce hers.
It was all slow-motion and soft-focus, but that didn’t stop the heat from building. She could feel the little flames start to flare where she was pressed most intimately against him, then spread long, patient fingers of fire outward. Everywhere.
He never pushed, he never pressured, he savored, as a man might who had enjoyed a satisfying meal and was content to linger over a tasty dessert. Even knowing she was being sampled, tested, lazily consumed, she couldn’t protest. For the first time in her life, Bess understood what it was to be helplessly seduced.
He hadn’t meant to do this. He’d been thinking about doing just this for hours. However much pleasure it gave him to feel her curvy body melt against his, to hear those small, vulnerable sounds vibrating in her throat, to taste that dizzy passion on her lips, he knew he’d made a mistake.
She wasn’t his type. And he was going to want more.
The instinct he’d been born with and then honed during his years on the force helped him to hold back that part of himself that, if let loose, could turn the evening into a disaster for both of them. Still, he lingered another moment, taking himself to the edge. When his system was churning with her, and his mind was clouded with visions of peeling her out of that swatch of a dress, he stepped back. He supported her by the elbows until her eyes fluttered open.
They were big and dazed. He clenched his teeth to fight back the urge to pull her to him again and finish what he’d started. But, however stunned and fragile she looked at the moment, Alex recognized a dangerous woman. He’d been a cop long enough to know when to face danger, and when to avoid it.
“You, ah…” Where was all her glib repartee? Bess wondered. It was a little difficult to think when she wasn’t sure her head was still on her shoulders. “Well,” she managed, and settled for that.
“Well.” He let her go and added a cocky grin before he walked back to the elevator. Though his stance was relaxed, he was praying the elevator would come quickly, before he lost it and crawled back to her door. She was still there when the elevator rumbled open. Alex let out a quiet, relieved breath as he stepped inside and leaned against the back wall. “See you around, McNee,” he said as the doors slid shut.
“Yeah.” She stared at the mural-covered walls. “See you around.”
“Holly hasn’t been able to stop talking about that party.” Judd was scarfing down a blueberry muffin as Alex cruised Broadway. “It made her queen of the teachers’ lounge.”
“I bet.” Alex didn’t want to think about Bess’s party. He especially didn’t want to think about what would be after the party. Work was what he needed to concentrate on, and right now work meant following up on the few slim leads they’d hassled out of Domingo.
“If Domingo’s given it to us straight, Angie Horowitz was excited about a new john.” Alex tapped his fingers against the steering wheel. “He’d hired her two Wednesdays running, dressed good, tipped big.”
Judd nodded as he brushed muffin crumbs from his shirt. “And she was killed on a Wednesday. So was Rita Shaw. It’s still pretty thin, Alex.”
“So we make it thick.” It continued to frustrate him that they’d wasted time interrogating the desk clerks at the two fleabag hotels where the bodies had been found. Like most in their profession, the clerks had seen nothing. Heard nothing. Knew nothing.
As for the ladies who worked the streets, however nervous they were, they weren’t ready to trust a badge.
“Tomorrow’s Wednesday,” Judd said helpfully.
“I know what the hell tomorrow is. Do you do anything but eat?”
Judd unwrapped another muffin. “I got low blood sugar. If we’re going to go back and look at the crime scene again, I need energy.”
“What you need is—” Alex broke off as he glanced past Judd’s profile and into the glaring lights of an all-night diner. He knew only one person with hair that shade of red. He began to swear, slowly, steadily, as he searched for a parking place.
“You really write for TV?” Rosalie asked.
Bess finished emptying a third container of nondairy product into her coffee. “That’s right.”
“I didn’t think you were a sister.” Interested as much in Bess as in the fifty dollars she’d been paid, Rosalie blew out smoke rings. “And you want to know what it’s like to turn tricks.”
“I want to know whatever you’re comfortable telling me.” Bess shoved her untouched coffee aside and leaned forward. “I’m not sitting in judgment or asking for confidences, Rosalie. I’d like your story, if you want to tell it. Or we can stick with generalities.”
“You figure you can find out what’s going on on the streets by putting on spandex and a wig, like you did the other night?”
“I found out a lot,” Bess said with a smile. “I found out it’s tough to stand in heels on concrete for hours at a time. That a woman has to lose her sense of self in order to do business. That you don’t look at the faces. The faces don’t matter—the money does. And what you do isn’t a matter of intimacy, not even a matter of sex—for you—but a matter of control.” She scooted her coffee back and took a sip. “Am I close?”
For a moment, Rosalie said nothing. “You’re not as stupid as you look.”
“Thanks. I’m always surprising people that way. Especially men.”
“Yeah.” For the first time, Rosalie smiled. Beneath the hard-edged