I didn’t break the kiss, but I must not have reciprocated the way he’d expected, because he pulled back his head, eyes glazed and hooded.
“No go, huh?” he said.
“I’m sorry,” I said, disentangling myself.
“Not your fault.” He sat up, concentrating on tucking in his shirt. “If you don’t feel it, nothing you can do about that.”
I gave a ragged laugh. “Oh, I feel it.”
His gaze shot to mine, lips curving slightly. “Yeah?”
I kissed him lightly. “Trust me, that’s not in question. But our timing really sucks.”
He laughed, put his hands around my waist and pulled me onto his lap. “The others wouldn’t appreciate it if we showed up tomorrow too tired to pull this thing off.” He nipped my earlobe. “And something tells me, if we start this, the night’s not going to be over anytime soon.”
I shivered and tried hard-really hard-not to think too much about that. He ran his teeth up my ear, and I ducked away.
“Enough.” I laughed. “I’m trying to be responsible here.”
“One of us needs to be.”
He slid his hands under the hem of my sweatshirt, tickling my sides, his grin threatening to take his hands farther north. I scrambled backward. He grabbed my hips, toppling me down on my back, then moved over me, on all fours above me, crouched there, grinning.
“Not going to make this easy for me, are you?”
“That depends. Am I close to getting a yes?”
“That depends. Can I be upstairs in about thirty minutes? Before Jack comes looking for me?” I arched my head back and pointed at the suitcase on the floor. “And before Felix wants his room back?”
“Shit. Forgot about that.” He tickled his fingers across my belly, where my sweatshirt was riding up. “Hmmm. Part of me is screaming to take what I can get. But there’s that other part that’s saying if I do, that might be all I get. Thirty minutes isn’t really enough to make a lasting impression…” He met my gaze. “And I want to make a lasting impression.”
Something inside me flip-flopped and I’m sure I blushed.
His lips lowered to my ear. “We could just make out for a while. Hands-over-clothes rule?”
I sputtered a laugh. “I haven’t heard that since high school.”
“I have maturity issues, in case you haven’t you noticed. Is that a yes?”
“Hands over clothes it is.”
“Does it still count if I take mine off?”
I put my hands on the back of his neck and pulled him down.
Quinn did manage to get his shirt off, but I didn’t complain. Otherwise, he stuck to his rules-just kissing, a relaxed, sensual intimacy that, in some ways, I needed more than sex.
After about ten minutes, Felix unlocked the door, but the chain stopped him from opening it. He must have figured out what was going on and called that he’d be in the lounge, and for Quinn to come get him when he was “un-occupied.”
We lay there for another minute, Quinn’s hand resting on the curve between my waist and hip.
“When this is over…” he began. “I know I can’t exactly ask you out to dinner and a movie, but I would like to keep in touch. It doesn’t matter how. Cell phone, e-mail, whatever you’re comfortable with. I just want…I’d like to stay in touch, whether anything comes of it or not. It’d just be nice. To talk sometimes.”
I smiled. “It would be. Nice, I mean.”
“Good.” A light kiss, then he pulled back.
“I should go,” I said. “Jack’s probably pacing by now, figuring I’ve done something stupid again and wound up in a ditch somewhere.”
“More like figuring I’ve put you in a ditch somewhere. Go on then. Get a good night’s sleep.”
FORTY-SEVEN
By the time I got upstairs, it was past one. I opened the door. The sitting room was dark. As I slid inside, I realized this was Jack’s room, now that I’d moved in with Evelyn. I started to back out, but before the door closed, I remembered something else, namely that I didn’t have a key card for the other room.
I tiptoed to the door joining the other sitting area. As I drew near, I heard voices. Typical hotel-you can shell out for big suites and nice views, but don’t expect soundproofing. It was Evelyn talking, though I could only hear snatches of the conversation.
“…to do about it?…sit back and feel sorry…”
A low rumble. Male, probably Jack, but too low to hear clearly. I considered knocking, but didn’t want to interrupt. Maybe I could watch TV, turn it up loud enough so they’d know I was here, in case they were waiting for me. And the blare of a TV would be less intrusive than a polite knock?
Evelyn again. “Fine, brood, not sulk…”
Jack answered, still unintelligible. As I reached out to knock, Evelyn’s voice grew louder, her words coming clearer. I rapped anyway, but she continued. “…need to take what’s yours.”
Another rumble.
Evelyn sighed. “…not yours, then. So change that. Do something.”
I took the handle and turned it, slowly, checking whether the door was open. It was. One final knock.
Evelyn continued. “If you think he’s going to let this blow over, and just walk away afterward, you’ve got a hell of a shock coming-”
As she spoke, I eased open the door, then gave one last, loud knock, and she stopped in midsentence. I poked my head through the opening.
“Sorry,” I said. “I tried knocking, but I guess you couldn’t hear me. I just wanted to let you know I’m back. I’ll wait over here…”
Evelyn pulled the door open and I nearly fell in. Jack stood across the room, arms crossed.
“Everything…okay?” I asked.
Jack uncrossed his arms, but Evelyn beat him to an answer.
“No, everything is not okay,” she said, looking at him. “But, apparently, it won’t be fixed anytime soon. Not that it matters. Fuck up this chance and I’m sure one will come around again…in another twenty, thirty years.”
“The plan, you mean?” I said as I closed the door behind me. “Has something gone wrong? Quinn hasn’t heard from Dubois, so-”
“The plan is fine…or as fine as we can make it at this point.”
“Maybe not,” I said. “Quinn and I discussed something, a possible change.”
I told them our thoughts on the “final” solution.
“Yeah,” Jack said. “Been thinking that. It’s a problem. Not just Wilkes getting off. He’s arrested? He’ll talk.”
“About you and Evelyn. Damn it, I didn’t think-”
“Doesn’t matter. We can handle that. Cops know we exist. You? Still an unknown. I want to keep it that way.”
“Fine, but I still say you guys are in more danger. He won’t hesitate to use whatever he knows as leverage and, if that fails, he’ll just give it away to make your lives difficult. That settles it, then. We can’t hand him over to Dubois while he’s in any condition to talk.”
“Easy enough,” Evelyn said. “We amend the plan so we hand over a corpse instead of a suspect. No big deal. You kill Wilkes, and Dubois will claim he did it in self-defense.”
And there it was. Easy as could be. “You kill him, Nadia.” I didn’t even have to suggest it.
I said, “With the ambition angle, we have some leeway. Dubois might see the danger of bringing in a dead man, but he’ll see the advantages, too. ‘Top federal agent takes on notorious serial killer in a fight to the death…and wins’ makes a lot better copy than ‘Top federal agent apprehends suspect.’”
“No need to decide anything until morning, so let’s take the night to think about it. In the meantime…” She glanced Jack’s way.
Jack hesitated, then looked at me. “You tired? Got a smoke or two left.” He took the pack from his pocket. “Should get them gone.”