Chapter 45
Chapter
Forty-Five
Hours later, Kate giggled at him as they sneaked out from the bedroom into the kitchen. Once he’d determined Yagi wasn’t there, Thomas started pulling out pans, raiding the fridge. In a surprisingly short amount of time, he’d managed to pull together a meal.
“Somehow, I knew you could cook.”
Thomas wiggled his eyebrows, then placed the plate in front of her with a flourish. “Grilled cheese is my specialty, darlin’.”
She attacked the sandwich like a starving shark. Sex with Thomas Kestrel would work up the appetite in any woman, she rationalized as she devoured it. The man was a god in the sack. Now, with sexy bedhead and just a pair of sweats on, he looked good enough to eat, and she was definitely ravenous.
And he wasn’t bad in the kitchen, either. The sandwich was almost as tasty as the man.
Once she finished, she rested her cheek on one hand, watching him make his own snack. It was something like midnight, she guessed.
“This is probably a bad idea, isn’t it?” she mused.
“What, the pear and the bacon?” He shook his head. “Trust me. It’s awesome. Like I said, grilled cheese is my specialty.”
She smirked at him. “No. This.” She gestured to him, then to herself...naked, wearing only one of his scrumptiously sexy shirts. “Sleeping with you is probably not the smartest thing I’ve ever done, and with my track record of epically bad decisions, that’s saying something.”
“Possibly.” He sounded downright cheerful. “But if I only did the smart thing, I wouldn’t have the money I do now. So maybe it’s one of those long shot, ‘so dumb, it’s brilliant’ kinda things.”
“I’ll bet.” She bit her lip. Of course, not all his gambles paid off. After all, he’d lost his soul—and put hers in the balance. Still, it was really hard to think about that when she was in the hazy afterglow of some truly righteous sex. “You know, there’s one thing that was bugging me.”
“What’s that?” He flipped his own sandwich onto the plate with the air of much practice, then sat down on the barstool next to her.
“Ginny.”
His expression tightened. “Yeah. She wouldn’t be thrilled about this.”
“Huh? Oh, that doesn’t bother me,” Kate said. “I mean, I’m sorry she’s dead. But you were fair game, buster. And she needed to learn no means no.”
His grin was sexy, and it made her stomach tighten. Especially when he leaned over and kissed her neck, nibbling at her jaw line.
“Well, the playing field’s open any time you feel like it,” he drawled, and she shivered.
“Seriously. You are ludicrously sexy,” she said, then shook her head, trying to regain her train of thought. “But that’s not what I’m talking about. Ginny’s phone.”
“What about it?”
“It wasn’t there.”
He frowned, pulling away from her. “What do you mean?”
“That red phone,” Kate said. “She never went anywhere without it. Did she jump with it, or what?”
He frowned. “Not that I recall. The police didn’t mention it,” he replied. “But like you said, she was pretty fond of that thing. I wouldn’t have put it past her to jump with it. And if she did, then somebody might have grabbed it.”
“What, off a jumper?” Kate asked, appalled.
“It is Oakland,” he pointed out.
She glowered at him. “You say ‘Oakland’ like it’s a demilitarized zone, and that’s bullshit,” she muttered. “I feel safer with most of the people in Oakland than I do with the rich people you run with, that’s for damned sure.”
Still, in this economy, he had a point. The Vuitton probably went for a couple of grand.
Besides, you didn’t need to have a huge criminal bent to realize the woman wasn’t going to have a need for a smartphone anymore.
But something wasn’t resonating. “From the interactions I’ve had with her, and the way she seemed to feel about anybody ‘beneath’ her…
I think she couldn’t stand the idea of some poor person having it just because she jumped.
Or am I just being uncharitable? I didn’t know her that well. ”
He sighed heavily. “I have no idea. Still, I’ll ask the police. They’re probably going to be questioning me soon anyway.”
She finished her sandwich, sorry that she’d put that distance between them by bringing up the subject.
“Well, thanks for feeding me, and—you know, everything,” she finished lamely, taking her plate to the sink and washing her hands.
“I ought to be going. It’s late.” She glanced at the clock.
One a.m. They’d already had two rounds of sex, once in bed, once in the tub.
“What, you’re going to ravage me, let me feed you, and then just walk out on me?
” He walked behind her, wrapping his arms around her.
She felt the sizeable bulge of him, nudging against the small of her back, and she felt his breath on her shoulder as he gave her a few companionable nips.
She shuddered, pressing back despite herself.
“I’ve got a full day of work tomorrow,” she said, but her voice was breathless and frankly, her heart wasn’t in it. “I think, anyway. We never did talk about my duties.”
“Well, let’s do that now, then,” he said, scooping her up and carrying her back to the bedroom. He plunked her on the bed, his smile wide. “I’m definitely one of those demanding bastards. I’m going to want you to do everything you humanly can to make me happy.”
Since he was unbuttoning the shirt she was wearing as he said it, she smirked. “That so?”
“Yup.” He stripped the shirt off, then skinned out of the sweats, stretching next to her. “And of course, I expect you to be thorough.”
“If you say jump, I’m supposed to say how high, that it?” She closed her eyes as he cupped her breasts with his hands, then replaced one palm with his mouth. She gasped, arching her back.
When he surfaced for air, he was grinning at her. “That said, I’m more than happy to explore your needs, and show you precisely what I’d like done,” he said, his blue eyes going midnight dark, his voice husky. “It’s a two-way street on my team.”
“Oh, stop with the double entendre,” she said, dragging him up on top of her and kissing him solidly, her legs wrapping around his waist.
“Now, Kate, you’re going to have to learn to stop being so passive,” he said, with amusement.
She struggled, and finally managed to get him on his back. “I’ll show you passive,” she said, and went for him.