Chapter Nineteen
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Easton had been shooed out of the kitchen when it was time to do the dishes with some lame excuse that he was a guest so he didn’t have to help with housework. He’d made the counterargument that she’d done most of the cooking but one look at Dizzy’s cute but stubborn little chin and he’d clearly seen he wasn’t going to win. Instead, she’d ask him to light a fire in the fireplace as the temperature was dropping quickly.
Stepping out onto the back porch to get an armload of wood, Easton stopped and stared at Stanford’s house. His gaze automatically went to that window where Dizzy had watched her neighbor strangle an unknown woman.
An unknown woman.
But she had to be known to someone. Surely family or friends had to be wondering where she was.
Scooping up the firewood, he strode back into the kitchen where Dizzy was loading plates into the dishwasher.
“I think we need to take a different route. If looking at Trip doesn’t get us anywhere maybe we should look at his victim.”
Dizzy dried her hands on a dishtowel and seemed to weigh his words. “But we don’t know who she is.”
“Somebody does and they miss her. Chances are she has friends and family, at least one if not the other. They might have filed a missing persons report when she disappeared and they couldn’t get in touch with her.”
Dizzy smiled, renewed hope in her eyes. “That’s brilliant. We’ll get going on that tomorrow. Someone, somewhere has to be wondering where she is and what’s happened to her. You’re pretty brilliant, Easton Anderson.”
He didn’t feel brilliant. It felt like he was finally making a contribution.
“I think you’re giving me far too much credit but thank you. Now I better get that fire started, it’s freezing out there.”
It didn’t take long to get the fire going as he’d done it a time or two hundred. He settled onto the floor next to the fireplace and stretched out his legs as he settled back onto an oversized cushion that he knew Dizzy had made with her own two hands. Splashed with color, it was like everything else in this room – comfortable and bright. A little like being with Dizzy. She made his usually gray world technicolor.
It wasn’t that he was unhappy or depressed. That wasn’t it at all. But his life had fallen into a pattern these last few years. Work had become the be-all and end-all of his existence and like most things that he’d done for a long time, the newness has worn off. There was rarely a surprise, even when there were problems and issues to battle. There was hardly any challenge and it all felt a little too easy recently as if he’d done it all before and he was caught in the movie Groundhog Day.
But with Dizzy, everything felt like the first time. It was the way she looked at life, so different from his own perspective. She had an artist’s eye and to her even the most mundane detail took on a completely different meaning.
“I hope you’re still hungry.”
Pulled from his thoughts, he saw Dizzy standing in front of him with an armload of food and a triumphant smile.
“I’m pretty sure I see marshmallows. If you’re thinking s’mores you might be the most perfect woman on earth.”
Dropping to her knees on the soft rug she dumped the food on the coffee table next to them. “Being perfect sounds awful. Who would want to be that? Everyone knows it’s the imperfections that make something or someone interesting.”
Easton was beginning to believe that. He only hoped it worked in reverse too. Did Dizzy find his flaws fascinating or frustrating? In his experience, the women he’d dated all wanted to change him. Some in small ways and others wanted to completely make him over, but he’d never quite been good enough just the way he was.
Dizzy had indeed brought the fixings for s’mores and she quickly slapped chocolate onto graham cracker squares while Easton slipped marshmallows onto long skewers. Handing one skewer to her, he held his up high over the warm flames, hating when they got too burnt. Dizzy, on the other hand, shoved hers right into the flames and then had to pull it out, blowing and giggling as she tried to extinguish the fire.
Christ on a unicycle, they even roasted marshmallows the same way they lived. Him? Cautious and thoughtful. Dizzy? Full speed ahead and worry about the problems later. He could only wonder if everyone was like this. He made a mental note to check at the next Anderson bonfire.
They smashed their marshmallows between the graham crackers and chocolate before taking a greedy bite. Eating a s’more was never an elegant or delicate activity. Dizzy had a dollop of chocolate at the corner of her mouth and he had a sudden urge to lean forward and lick it away, then head south to parts even more interesting.
Never before had eating dessert been so…arousing. His palms were sweating, his heart racing, and his pants uncomfortably tight. It was like being a teenager all over again and he’d hated those adolescent years. Here he was, a grown man ten years Dizzy’s senior, and he didn’t know whether to kiss her or act like none of this affected him in the least.
Their gazes locked and the room suddenly went from cozy to sauna-like in seconds, the fire way too hot. Her amber-colored eyes were dark with…desire? At some point their bodies had swayed closer until she was so near he could smell the delicate scent of her skin, creamy and soft and begging to be touched. Very slowly, so as not to break the spell, he gently wiped away the chocolate on her lip with his thumb, giving her ample time to move away before bringing it to his own mouth. The sweetness burst on his tongue and made him want to beg for more.
“Easton.”
His name was a sigh on her lips and he wanted to hear her say it over and over while he was deep inside of her, driving them both to ecstasy. He wanted to be as close to her as two people could possibly be. His mind blanked and his world narrowed to only this woman. The primitive feelings only she evoked him in were battering at the cages that his civilized mind kept them in, safely locked away where he could pretend they didn’t exist. But he could no longer deny that he wanted Dizzy with a ferocity that he couldn’t keep locked away anymore. With only one look, she had to know what he was thinking and feeling.
The distance between them was a nuisance that they didn’t need. He hesitated, their lips mere millimeters from meeting, not wanting to assume anything. Suddenly he didn’t have to. Dizzy had leaned in and brushed her mouth over his so softly it could have been the wings of a butterfly fluttering against his flesh. Deepening the kiss, he ran his tongue over her lower lip until she opened to him.
Dessert cast aside, he situated her underneath him as they both stretched out in front of the fireplace. Orange and gold flames danced in the dim light casting shadows on the walls as if to exhort and encourage. He didn’t need a cheering section as he propped himself up on his elbows, not wanting to crush Dizzy. He captured her soft chocolate-covered lips in another sizzling kiss as he lowered one hand down the side of her body, his fingers tracing the enticing curves of her body. First to her generous breast, the nipple hard beneath his palm, before lingering at the indentation of her waist, then on to where her hips flared and the gentle swell of her perfect bottom began.
Trailing kisses over her delicate jaw, he paused to give her earlobe a nip and then traveled down her throat to the open neckline of her blouse. Nosing it aside, he revealed the lacy edge of her bra and he couldn’t stop himself from tracing it with his tongue. He could feel her shudder and shake against him, and his own heart beat in time with hers as if they’d somehow melded together into one being.
He didn’t consciously begin undressing her but somehow her blouse and jeans melted away, leaving her in her bra and panties. He had expected white and utilitarian undies but of course, Dizzy never stopped surprising him. What he saw took what was left of his breath away, making him want to fall to his knees in pure worship. She was a goddess and he a willing supplicant.
Lace. Satin. A pretty lavender with ecru edging. Her breasts spilled out of the cups just covering the pink nipples that had hardened under his gaze. Strumming them softly with his thumbs, they tightened further and Dizzy began moving restlessly against him, her thigh brushing his painfully hard cock.
So far, she’d been as eager and wanting as he was but he needed to be sure. Their relationship was still so new and this was a giant step forward. Once they became lovers, they couldn’t go back to being friends.
Brushing a stray strand of her long dark hair from her face, he lightly caressed her shell-like ear. “Are you sure?”
Holding his breath, he waited for the answer. If she said no, he’d be fine with that. Crushed and disappointed, of course, but he’d live. Probably. He couldn’t be too sure. He only knew that he’d never wanted a woman to say yes so badly in his entire life, and that included his first time with Amy Betts back in high school when he’d been sure that a man could die from a case of blue balls.
His doubts, however, were dashed away when Dizzy smiled and her own fingers reached up to trace his lips. Just that soft touch had him riding the edge. It wasn’t going to take much to send him over and he was a grown man, not a teenager. That’s how crazy she made him.
“I’m sure.”