Chapter 16
His smile disappeared, but he recovered quickly. “Oh, no good has ever come from that sentence. And here I was hoping you’d decided to discuss the benefits package.”
“Nope. I want to know why you’re living in Blake Malone’s apartment and answering to his name,” I said as I tossed Mrs. Q’s book on the small table by my door.
He froze, and the kitten looked up at him expectantly. “Who says I’m not Blake Malone?”
“His wife.”
He relaxed, absently scratching between the kitten’s ears. “Well, I suppose she would know.”
One of a private investigator’s best tools, one I’ve had to cultivate in spite of my nature, is patience. Often, if one waits, the other person will fill the silence with just the information you were looking for.
After two excruciatingly long minutes, it became clear Malone was not one of those people.
I took one of the dinette chairs and turned it around so I could straddle the chair and lean my arms on the back while I stared at him. Intently.
He had reopened the Nora Roberts. Without looking up, he said, “That strategy isn’t going to work.”
“Stubbornness,” “pettiness,” and “spite” were all ugly words often used to describe women who were merely persistent; I had been blessed with all three.
“Seriously, I couldn’t tell you if I wanted to,” he said.
Waiting made me itch from the inside out, but I maintained my position and exuded a calm demeanor that was the very antithesis of how I really felt.
He had yet to turn a page, and the book was one of my favorites, Midnight Bayou, so I knew he was only pretending to read.
With a sigh of exasperation, he closed the book and met my gaze. “Look, it’s complicated.”
“Then simplify it for me, Artist Formerly Known as Malone.”
“I am Malone.”
“Well, you’re not Blake.”
“Thank God!” he said with so much feeling that my kitten looked up at him in disgust and then scampered off to find a seat that wouldn’t move so much or make loud noises.
I pounced. “So you know him. I’m guessing you’re the mysterious California cousin.”
“Yes,” he said through gritted teeth. “I am his cousin. Unfortunately.”
One theory confirmed. “And you don’t like him, but you’re pretending to be him?”
He sighed. “It’s complicated.”
“So you say, but this isn’t a Facebook post, so you’re going to have to do better than that, Malone. Why are you pretending to be your cousin?”
“I’m not. I’m just not disabusing anyone of the notion that I’m him. When I said I couldn’t tell Mrs. Q about the job I’m doing, that wasn’t a lie per se.”
“Well, I’m not Mrs. Q. Call me old-fashioned, but if you’re willing to share your body, then I think you should also be willing to share your secrets.”
He looked down to where the kitten had returned to sit at his feet because she couldn’t resist him any more than I could.
She gazed up at him with blinking adoration.
She might follow him home whether he wanted her to or not.
After what felt like an eternity, he muttered, “I knew you were going to be trouble.”
“What did you say?”
His eyes met mine. “I knew it would be trouble to have a private investigator living across the breezeway from me.”
“So you looked me up?”
“Of course I looked you up. I researched everyone in this apartment complex.” He pressed his lips together before he could say more, but he’d already given up valuable information with that one sentence: Whatever he did for a living was very similar to what I did, because the first thing I had done before moving in was take a look at who my neighbors would be. Informally, of course.
“Are you a private investigator?”
“Not exactly.”
“What do you mean ‘not exactly’? Either you are or you aren’t. Which is it?”
After a pause, he said, “That casserole sure was atrocious.”
“Hot sauce was genius, by the way.”
“Thanks.”
“Also, you’re not changing the subject that easily.”
He took in a deep breath and expelled it while setting his shoulders. “I’ve already told you more than I should have. I can’t tell you anything else. I won’t tell you anything else.”
My eyebrow arched.
Much like the Mounties, I always got my man.
“I’m sworn to secrecy. You couldn’t even torture it out of me.” The corners of his mouth twitched.
“Who said anything about torture? How about a little quid pro quo.”
He leaned forward. “I’m listening.”
“Maybe I put benefits back on the table . . .”
“I think that’s extortion.”
“No money will change hands. Besides, this isn’t a spy movie. The stakes are relatively small, but I don’t like loose ends. Blake Malone is a loose end, and I have a feeling his wife will be calling me sooner or later asking for help. I also think you know where he is.”
“Honestly, I don’t. Wish I did.”
“I think we need to make this conversation more intimate.” Slowly, I rose from my chair. “May I sit in your lap, Malone?”
“Please.” The word came out choked.
I slid into his lap and then placed a hand on his face and felt his jaw tense. I rubbed my thumb lightly over his bottom lip. “There. That’s better for an intimate conversation like this, isn’t it?”
“Uh-huh.” His hands clamped down on the sofa cushion.
I chuckled. “What? Now you don’t want to touch me?”
“Oh, I want to touch you very badly, but I’m not going to participate in my own honey trap.”
“Fine by me.” I framed his handsome face with both hands. My breath hitched. This was a bad idea, a very bad idea.
But now it was also about the principle of the thing: Malone had information I needed, and I aimed to have it.
In the back of my mind, I also wanted to prove to myself that I still had what it took to beguile a man. Soft Hands had called me a saggy-ass bitch with such disdain. Months earlier, Ken had said I was getting too old to play the honeypot, but . . . what did he know? I was almost forty—not dead.
Slowly, I moved in for the kiss, gratified by Malone’s quick breaths.
At the moment he surrendered and leaned in to kiss me, I turned my head so his lips grazed the corner of my mouth.
He graced me with a gratifying groan. I kissed along his jawline until I whispered in his ear, “In all seriousness, I will stop if you want me to. Despite the fact you were the one to first mention benefits, I’m going to need some enthusiastic consent to continue. ”
“Oh, I’m on board with the kissing,” he said, his voice rumbling through me. “But you’re not getting any answers out of me.”
I sat back to gaze into his eyes. “Either way, I’ll have fun trying.”
“You were wrong,” he said. “This is torture.”
I wrapped my arms around his neck and began to move in for the kiss. “For you, maybe.”
His lips parted ever so slightly.
The minute my lips met his, electricity shot through my each and every nerve.
We sat like that for seconds that felt like hours, long enough for me to breathe in his distinctive scent beneath the vanilla bourbon and spice cologne.
I groaned in spite of myself, and he deepened the kiss, his hands leaving the cushions to pull me closer.
I should’ve been asking him questions, but I wasn’t done tasting him, feeling him, reveling in his reaction to me. His beard rasped against my face, but I didn’t care. His thumb twitched respectfully on my rib cage just under my bra band, and an impatience for more burbled through me.
Sabbatical, Stella!
I broke up our kiss. “What’s your job?”
He kissed a spot behind my ear. “I can’t tell you.”
“I don’t believe it’s that classified.”
“No, it’s so unsexy, you’ll kick me out immediately.”
“Try me.”
“Forensic accountant.”
I rewarded him—and myself—with another kiss. When I finally came up for air this time, I asked, “Why are you pretending to be Blake Malone?”
Gently placing me on the sofa beside him, he sighed. “And here I was hoping you were kissing me for me.”
“I am, but I also want information. It’s called multitasking, Malone.”
He studied me. “I’ll tell you everything I can if you’ll accept the benefit package.”
My turn to hesitate. Oh, I had no problem kissing him, but I couldn’t date him.
It wouldn’t be dating, now would it?
“You drive a hard bargain, Malone.”
“Not really,” he said. “Seems to me it’s win-win. You get your answers . . . I get you . . . Fun will be had by all . . .”
“Malone—”
“Going once!”
“Seriously—”
“Going twice . . .”
“Okay, okay. Friends with benefits.” I extended my hand.
“Stark, don’t you think that this sort of arrangement should be sealed with a kiss?”
I waited for him to advance on me, but instead he pointed to his mouth to signify I should make the first move.
Ah, so it was going to be like that, was it?
I considered, taking my time to look into his eyes, gauging the difference between chilly blue and warm brown. Slowly, exquisitely, I leaned in to give him the lightest, chastest of kisses before asking in a low whisper, “What’s your first name?”
He groaned. “Can’t we leave some mystique to this relationship?”
“Nope.”
“My first name is Tiberius. My father is a huge Star Trek fan.”
That answered why he preferred to go by Malone. Middle school must’ve been hell with a name like that. I gave him a long, tender kiss for his past pain and suffering.
When we came up for air this time, he said, “Woman, I will give you my Social Security number, date of birth, and mother’s maiden name if you will get naked with me right now.”
With information like that, I could find out anything and everything I’d ever wanted to know about him, and he knew it. My old friend, confidence, warmed me from the inside out. I couldn’t have quit grinning if I’d tried.
Slowly, I stood, knowing that anticipation was the key to all good things in life. I took the hem of my shirt and raised it ever so slightly, looking at him expectantly.
“January twenty-fifth, nineteen eighty-one.”
Over my head went my shirt, to reveal a lacy concoction of a bra. My subconscious had known I would eventually cave to Malone’s appeal. I loved that about my subconscious.
“Mother’s maiden name: Franklin.”
With a languid grace I had learned from a former client who was an exotic dancer, I maintained eye contact while unhooking my bra in the back and then holding my arm over my boobs so the straps fell but the cups remained.
“This is happening.” Malone pinched himself. “This is really happening.”
I arched a brow.
“Okay, okay. Five four six—”
Someone banged on my apartment door.