“We’re still okay, aren’t we?” he said. “At the heart of it?”
She said, “Griff, listen,” but she could hear the lack of conviction in her tone. He would hear it as well. He would know what it meant. Because it did mean…Oh the closeness of him, the scent and the strength. Holding her down, his two hands imprisoning hers on the mattress, and his kiss, his kiss. Her hips in the rhythmical, rotating dance and then tilting tilting because nothing mattered then or even later but wanting, having, and satiation.
She knew that he felt it as well. She knew that if she dropped her gaze-which she would not do-she would see the evidence behind the tight denim.
Griff said roughly, “Listen to what, Rike? My heart? Yours? What they’re telling us? I want you back. It’s crazy. Stupid. I can’t offer you one bloody thing just now except the fact that I want you. I don’t know what tomorrow might bring. We could both be dead. I just want you now.”
When he kissed her, then, she did not move away from his embrace. His mouth found hers and then his tongue coaxed her own mouth to open. She moved back against the desk, and he moved with her so that she felt the hard, hot demand of him pressing against her.
“Let me back, Rike,” he murmured.
She slipped her arms round his neck and kissed him hungrily. There was danger everywhere, but she didn’t care. For beyond the danger-above it and hindering its ability to harm her-there was this. Her hands in his hair, feeling the rough silk of it between her fingers. His mouth on her neck as his hands sought her breasts. The pressure of him grinding against her and the desire to have him, combining with the absolute indifference to discovery.
They would be quick, she told herself. But they could not part until…
Zips, knickers, and the gasp of pleasure on both their parts as he slid her up on the desk and entered. Her mouth on his, her arms clinging, his arms holding her hips in position, and the brutal thrust of him that could never be hard or brutal enough. And then she felt the blessed contraction and its release and a moment later his own groan of pleasure. And they were clasped together as they were meant to be, safe and secure, in less than sixty seconds.
They parted slowly. She saw he was flushed. She knew she was too. He was breathing rapidly, and he looked stunned.
“I didn’t mean that to happen,” he said.
“I didn’t either.”
“It’s what we are together.”
“It is. I know.”
“I can’t let it end. I tried. But it doesn’t work because I see you and-”
“I know,” she said. “I feel it too.”
She pulled her clothes back on. She could feel him leaking out of her already, and she knew the smell of their sex was all over her. She was meant to care about that, but she didn’t.
He felt the same. He had to because he pulled her back to him and kissed her.
Then, “I’m going to find a way.”
She kissed him. The rest of Colossus didn’t exist, out there beyond her office door.
He finally tore his mouth from hers with a laugh. He held her to him, pressed her head against his shoulder. He said, “You’ll be there for me, won’t you? You’ll always be there, won’t you, Rike?”
She raised her head. She said, “It seems I’m not going anywhere.”
“I’m glad. We’re together now. Always.”
“Yes.”
He caressed her cheek. He returned her head to his shoulder and held her. “Will you say that, then?”
“Hmmm.”
“Rike? Will you…?”
She raised her head. “What?”
“That we’re together. We want each other, we know it isn’t right, but we can’t stop ourselves. So when we have the chance, nothing else matters. The time, the day, whatever. We do what we have to do.”
She saw his earnest eyes-how closely they watched her-and she felt a coolness come into the air. “What’re you talking about?”
Griff gave a lover’s chuckle, tender and indulgent. She pulled away. He said, “What’s wrong?”
She said, “Where were you? Tell me where you were.”
“Me? When?”
“You know when, Griffin. Because that’s what this”-she gestured at the two of them, the office, the interlude they’d just created-“is all about. You. My God. It’s always about you. Having me so besotted that I’ll say anything. The cops come calling and the last person I want them looking at closely is the man I’m fucking on the side.”
He produced an expression of incredulity, but she was not taken in. Nor was she moved by the wounded innocence that replaced it. Wherever he’d been on the eighth, he needed an alibi for it. And he’d blithely assumed that she would provide it, secure in the knowledge that they were the star-crossed lovers that fate-or whatever it was-had intended them to be.
She said, “You bloody self-centred bastard.”
“Rike-”
“Get out. Get out of my life.”
He said, “What? Are you sacking me?”
She laughed, a harsh sound whose humour was directed only at herself and her stupidity. “It always comes down to that, doesn’t it?”
“Down to what?”
“Down to you. No, I’m not sacking you. That would be far too easy. I want you here, right under my thumb. I want you jumping when I say frog. I intend to keep an eye on you.”
Incredibly, he still said, “But will you tell the cops…?”
“Believe me, I’ll tell them whatever they want to know.”
LYNLEY DECIDED he owed it to Havers to let her in on the second interview with Barry Minshall, since she’d been the one to collar him in the first place. So he fetched her from the incident room where she was in the midst of looking into the background of the bath-salts vendor in the Stables Market. He told her only to come with him. As they took the stairs down to the underground carpark, he put her in the picture.
“He’s looking for a deal, I’ll wager,” she said when he told her that Barry Minshall was ready to talk. “That bloke’s got so much dirty laundry, he’s going to need a Persil factory to clean it all. Mark my words. Will you play, then, sir?”
“These are boys, Havers. Just out of childhood. I won’t make their lives less valuable by giving their killer any option but the one that faces him: life residence in a very unpleasant environment where child molesters are the least popular of the denizens.”
“I can live with that,” Havers told him.
Despite her agreement, he found he needed to say more, as if he were in debate with her. It seemed to him that only by striking hard would anyone ever be able to extirpate the sickness that had begun to plague their society. He said, “Somewhere along the line, Havers, we’ve got to become a country without throwaway children. We’ve got to move beyond being a place where anything goes and nothing matters. Believe me, I’m happy enough to start by using Mr. Minshall as an object lesson for those who think of twelve- and thirteen-year-old boys as disposable items akin to take-away curry cartons.” He paused on one of the landings, then, and looked at her. “Preaching,” he said ruefully. “Sorry.”
“No problem. You’re entitled.” She lifted her head to indicate the upper floors of Victoria Block. “But, sir…” She sounded hesitant, which was completely unlike her. She barreled forward. “This Corsico bloke…?”
“Hillier’s embedded reporter. We can’t get round it. He’s not listening to reason any more than he’s listened to it all along.”
“The bloke’s staying in bounds,” she reassured him. “It’s not that. He’s not looking at a thing, and the only questions he’s asking are about you. Hillier said he’s going to be profiling people, but I’m thinking…” She looked restless. Lynley could tell she wanted a cigarette, which had long been Havers’ form of Dutch courage. He finished her thought.
“It’s not a good idea. Bringing the investigators into the picture in a public forum.”
“It’s just not on,” she said. “I don’t want this bloke fingering through my knicker drawer.”