Thomas
“Last location?”
“Along a string of apartment buildings down by the docks.”
Still in the city then, I took note. “There’s something there if this is the second time you’ve tracked him to the area.”
“There’s nothing here but run-down apartments and the rank stench of rotting fish in old warehouses.”
“It’s one of those two then.”
“Rotting fish?” Sage joked.
I didn’t bite, and instead, I penned the last word I’d been looking for. “They must be meeting there somewhere.”
“Tom, look, I can be out here every night for weeks, you know I’m good for it, but what if I don’t find anything?”
Light footfalls approached the library, but I didn’t remove my eyes from the page of my journal. “You will,” I said.
“If you say so.” Sage sighed, and I hung up.
Locking my phone without looking, I set it down on the side table next to the armchair I was sitting in. “Looking for something, Little Dove?”
“You, actually.” My head rose, eyes studying the way her hands folded over her midsection. With her pink lips parted, her gaze roamed the room. “And a book.”
“Luckily for you, you’ve stumbled across a two for one.”
She smiled, and my pen scratched a line of black ink across the sentence I’d just labored over.
Unable to find words, I gestured for her to look around and watched as she ran her fingers over the spines of old history books. She walked the perimeter of the room then stopped at a shelf by the fireplace, her gentle fingers tugging and inspecting some of my mother’s favorite books. Bodice rippers, mainly. But I wasn’t one to judge.
Jemima’s shoulder leaned into the shelf as she read the blurbs for three books, her lashes fluttering, and I knew when she’d found one that piqued her interest due to the way her eyes flared the slightest bit.
I tamped down the urge to ask a million questions, settling with the knowledge that if she was looking for something to read and putting Lou to bed, she was growing more comfortable here.
My hand had rubbed at my chest after overhearing my Dove tell Lou to call her by her first name, but I didn’t dare to hope that meant what I wished it did.
That she’d stay. That she’d look beyond the blood and the scars to see what lies beneath.
It was a part of me, yes. In fact, it worried me to think what I’d do without the particular outlet that I’d come to depend on. But it did not define me. We all had our passions when it came to careers. Mine was merely a little more … unique than some others.
“She fell asleep before I could finish the story.” Her sweet voice, combined with her attention falling on me, made the pen slip from my fingertips. Inwardly, I scowled at myself for acting like such a buffoon.
Such things just couldn’t seem to be helped around her.
“Yes, she never lasts long after eight,” I informed.
Jemima crossed the rug and came to sit in the twin wingback chair across from mine. As she eyed my phone for a second, her bottom lip vanished between her teeth. “How did you come up with the name Lou Lou?”
“It was my aunt’s. When I was young, she lived with us when she was undergoing treatment for breast cancer.”
Little Dove’s lashes lowered, her palm skimming the cover of the paperback on her lap. “I take it she didn’t survive.”
“No,” I confirmed. “But she was … different.”
Dark lashes rose as her eyes lifted. “What was she like?”
Her interest snaked thorny branches into my gut, hooking and trying to drag me closer. “She was vibrant and bold yet soft. She was older than my mother by seven years, but they were best friends, no matter how different their lives had turned out. My mother married an Italian mobster, a hard businessman, while my aunt remained single and alone most of her life, backpacking and adventuring any chance she could.”
At my pause, Jemima asked, “So she came here for help?”
I nodded. “Even my father, despite being cold-blooded most days, wasn’t immune to the Lou Lou effect.”
A sad smile tugged at Jemima’s lips, weighing down her brows. “I see.”
I tilted my head back against the plush leather, waiting.
She did the same as she continued, “Your aunt brought life and love into this house.”
“She did.”
“And your Lou does the same.”
Feeling as if I’d been drugged, I stared at every perfect curve of her face. From her forehead to her cheekbones, to her chin, she had the face of an angel and the heart of a queen.
Depriving me of her eyes, she scratched at a scuff mark on the leather chair. “How did you get her enrolled in school? Being that she’s not really yours.”
So very inquisitive. “Fabricated birth records. Her father’s name was wiped from her and her mother’s lives, which wasn’t hard being that he wasn’t around long, and mine added.”
Her eyes narrowed. “How?”
A scratchy laugh preceded my words. “How, she asks. Little Dove, this world rotates via currency. And the right price will get you just about anything you need if you know where to look.”
She twisted her lips, and I wanted to smooth them back out. With my own. “And you know where to look, how?”
“My father was an influential man who had ties to the mafia, slave rings, and many other unsavory types.”
“Unsavory,” she said in a mocking tone. “Because what you do is absolutely respectable.”
“Careful, Little Dove,” I whispered, my dick rising as her tongue snuck out to lick her upper lip.
“Or what?” she whispered back. But despite the overconfident words, apprehension still lingered.
I merely smiled, and she looked more perturbed by that than anything I could’ve said.
“So”—she cleared her throat and straightened in the chair—“you said to come find you before I could leave.”
I purposely dropped my gaze to the book in her lap. “You’re leaving tonight?”
“No, but that’s what you said I needed to do.”
Contemplating my next move, I grabbed my journal and pen, setting them down on the side table before standing.
Her innocent eyes followed every move, and although I’d told her I’d let her go, I tamped down the guilt by reminding myself that I never agreed to how or when.
“Are you ready to strike a bargain, Little Dove?” I held my hand out to her.
She studied it, then looked up at me. “A bargain?”
“That’s what I said. You can leave, but first, I must ask for something in return for my … hospitality.”
An angelic laugh flowed past her lips and transformed her beauty into something ethereal. She wagged a finger at me. “I should’ve known there’d be a cost.”
“I never said there wouldn’t be.”
Her smile slipping, she set her book down, then finally, placed her soft hand in mine. “Fine.” I reveled in the touch, clasping her warm flesh within mine, and wondered what it might feel like to slide my tongue over every inch of her creamy skin. “What is it you want in return?”
I knew she was humoring me, and she knew it too. Though if she pretended this was what she had to do in order to walk away, then she’d be able to do it without any guilt.
Noticing the heat in my eyes, in my touch, and the way it pulled our bodies flush against each other, she croaked out, “No sex and no blood.”
Her head fell back at the affronted look on my face, another laugh delighting my ears and sending mixed signals to the organ in my chest.
Using her distracted state, I wrapped my arm around her, my hand coasting over and up to gently grip the back of her neck, while my other hand waited for her chin to drop, then grasped her face.
“We’ve done this before,” I said, feeling her heart pound against my chest and the beautiful, frantic beat of her pulse below my fingers.
“Not like this,” she rasped, her eyes moving to my mouth as she lifted to her toes. “And afterward, I can leave… anytime I want?” Her words floated over my lips, the sweet warmth of her breath searing.
“I’d rather you stayed, but I’m a man of my word.”
Hesitant hands landed on my waist, the touch snapping the last frayed thread of my control.
And so I kissed her.
I kissed her with purposeful gentleness until her breathing became heavy and her lips parted mine. Velvet stroked at my tongue, and I groaned, sucking hers into my mouth and walking us backward.
Her hands tugged at my shirt, and mine at her hair, wanting more, needing more.
The wood of a bookshelf bit into my back as she wrapped her hands around my neck, and I lifted her from the ground. Legs became a noose around my waist, and the push of her breasts against my thundering heart rendered me blind, incapable of doing anything other than feeling.
Her little moans as I nipped gently at her lips had me straining against my slacks. The guttural sound I made as she rocked over me had her hands gripping my face, tilting it for more access, then sliding into my hair.
Then my phone chirped with an email notification, and the spell was broken.
Jemima nearly fell to the floor with how fast she broke away from my mouth.
“Shit,” she breathed as I held her steady. She looked up at me, her skin delectably pink, lips mouthwateringly red, and her hair in tantalizing tangles, then swallowed and backed up toward the door.
Think, think, think, you insufferable moron.
But the swollen head inside my pants was overriding any function I had left of the one on my shoulders. I ran a shaky palm through my mussed hair as she mumbled a rushed good night in the doorway.
She was long gone by the time I muttered, “Until next time, Little Dove.”