Читать книгу Mouth To Mouth - Erin McCarthy - Страница 6

Chapter 2

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Laurel Wilkins sipped her coffee and tried to figure out what in the world Russ was talking about. She wasn’t having much luck, so she contented herself with admiring his cuteness while waiting for him to explain himself.

There was a lot of cuteness involved, so she could be looking for a while. He was delicious, like a caramel wrapped around a crème filling. Strong jaw, a baseball cap over his light brown hair, eyes the color of dark chocolate before it melts. Broad shoulders, visible even through his navy winter coat. Hard chiseled muscle beneath a jersey-gray T-shirt. Jeans that had hugged his crotch when he’d walked toward the table. Large hands that could benefit from a good moisturizing lotion, and an earnest expression that was incredibly sexy.

Laurel’s whole body went hot and sensitive, moist, like she’d spent too long in a steamy shower.

“Look, I’m sorry, but you’ve been exchanging e-mails with a man who’s using my name. Trevor Dean is a con artist, he rips women off. First he meets them—some online, some around town—then he gets them to trust him.” Russ shifted a little, but met her gaze head-on. “He sleeps with them, moves in with them, then cleans them out. The PD has been investigating him for theft and fraud.”

Laurel’s lovely thoughts of seeing Russ strip to Bruce Springsteen music evaporated. Theft and fraud? Had she misread his lips? “What?”

“Theft and fraud.”

She took a fortifying sip of her third mocha latte. So much for her wild and wanton plans. “How do you know it’s him I’ve been chatting with?” And exchanging personal thoughts and feelings, and most embarrassing of all, a little sexy flirtation.

She’d told that person she hadn’t had sex in six years. He had probably turned right around and tagged her e-mail address as “dumb blonde ripe for the picking.”

“We found your name and this appointment among the personal things he left behind at his last victim’s house.”

Laurel couldn’t decide if she was more embarrassed or disappointed. Disappointment was edging out embarrassment by a horny head. But she couldn’t admit that to Detective Dream Boat. “This is very embarrassing.”

“Don’t be embarrassed. Be glad you found out now.”

Easy for him to say. He hadn’t put on pink underwear in anticipation.

And worst of all, she’d really liked the guy. He was funny and thoughtful, always free with a smiley face in his e-mails. Laurel felt her cheeks pinken, until they probably matched the hue of her scarf. Her mother always said she was too nice, that she’d offer to help a serial killer learn how to tie better rope knots.

That was a ridiculous exaggeration, but maybe she was too trusting. It had never even occurred to her to doubt that Russ Evans was Russ Evans.

The Russ Evans in front of her gave her a stern, paternalistic look. “And you shouldn’t be giving out your personal information online, you know. The world is full of crooks and weirdos. And never, ever agree to meet anyone in person like this again.”

While she had just come to that conclusion herself, it made her feel like a disobedient child to have him say it. She couldn’t stand it when people patronized her, especially not when she could think of better “p” words Russ could do to her. “I’m in a public shop. Nothing could have happened to me here.”

His eyes rolled back and his lip curled. “Give me a break. There’s one guy working here who probably has more hair than brains. Someone could pull a gun on you, wave it at the clerk, and haul your ass out of here in about thirty seconds, no one to stop him.”

Well. That was a cheery thought.

“And don’t be so trusting, Laurel…you haven’t even asked to see my ID. I might not even be a cop, for all you know.”

Oh, God, he was right. She didn’t know if he was a cop. She didn’t know anything, really. Maybe he was the con artist, but was talking her into believing he was a cop. Confused, she primly held out her hand. “ID please.”

He nodded in approval, extracted his wallet from his pants, and handed it to her. “Never trust anyone.”

Laurel thought that was a sad tableau to live by, but she flipped open his wallet and studied the Cleveland Police Department badge. She glanced at his address, 350 W. 135th, on his driver’s license and noticed that the BMV headshot didn’t do him justice any more than the high school picture had.

Both her mother’s and his warnings resounded in her head. “How do I know what you’re telling me is the truth?” she asked, running her finger over the raised surface of his badge.

Russ’s mouth dropped open, then he laughed. “I guess you don’t. You could call the police department and ask to speak to me to confirm I’m a detective, or you could ask for my boss. He could vouch for me and the investigation.”

“The only problem is, I wouldn’t be able to hear his answer.”

Now Russ looked stricken. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think…”

He looked so embarrassed, she rushed to reassure him with a smile. It made her uncomfortable when her deafness made other people uncomfortable. “I wasn’t criticizing you or trying to make you feel bad. I was just being honest.”

But he didn’t smile back. He was studying her, resting back in his chair, large fingers playing with the napkin resting on the table. Laurel stopped smiling, deep regret dousing over her. This man, this very attractive and cautious man, was not who she’d been talking to.

And she had rushed up to him, so excited to see him, eager to meet him, grateful he hadn’t stood her up. How totally mortifying.

Maybe even worse, Russ Evans wasn’t her naughty little secret anymore, her reason to sneak off to her room and check her e-mail, hoping for a message from him. The man she’d been chatting with, he had been sweet and flirtatious, interested in her—or so she had thought. And none of it was real.

That man was a con artist, probably out to steal her money, and the real Russ Evans wasn’t the least bit interested in her.

Oh, God, she wanted to go home and eat a brownie.

“Well, I’m going to leave then,” she blurted. “Thanks for your concern, I hope you catch the guy and everything.” Laurel bent over to pick up her bag, purposely lingering facedown so she couldn’t see Russ’s answer.

It was a trick she had often pulled as a kid, closing her eyes when she was being punished so she couldn’t see the lecture. Eventually her mother had started cracking her on the butt when she did that to force her eyes open. But Russ Evans didn’t know her, or that her avoidance was intentional, and she just wanted to get out of that shop without further reprimands from him.

But when she sat back up and turned to pull her black peacoat off the chair, Russ touched her arm, held it. She looked at him, wary.

“Did Dean give you any clues about who he is or where he lives? What interests him?”

Laurel extracted her arm from his hand and shoved it in her sleeve, not wanting to think about all the things Dean had said, because that meant she had to remember all the gushy, naive, personal things she had written in return. “I don’t know. He said things like he was you. He was a cop, went to Lakewood High School, likes boating.”

“I don’t like boats. I’m more into camping.” Russ sat forward, intense, his expression determined, jaw set, and dark eyes confident. “There could be clues like that littered throughout his e-mails. Did you save any of them? How long have you been talking to him?”

“About two months. But I didn’t save any of them. I do remember he said he lived in Tremont, but he never gave a street.”

“Well, what do you usually talk about?”

“Anything. Everything.” Sex. She was eternally grateful she’d just dumped the trash in her e-mail.

Laurel jammed her other arm through her coat sleeve and fished in her pink purse for her keys. She wanted to leave in the worst way, get away from Russ Evans and his reminder that she was kidding herself, that her life was never meant to be wild and exciting. She was destined to shrivel up like dried fruit, to fossilize into old age never touched by human hands.

Russ Evans just wanted to capture his man, and she felt the need to lock herself in her room and write bad poetry.

“Like what? Can you give me specifics?” Russ seemed oblivious to her discomfort, picking up the wrong coffee cup and idly taking a sip from it, obviously unaware it wasn’t his.

Seeing his mouth on her cup, right where her lips had just been, made her snap. She wanted to shock him, to make him really look at her and see more than just the deaf girl who fell for the sweet-talking con. She wanted him to see her as a woman. Just once, she wanted the gorgeous guy to look at her, really see her.

“Sex. We talked about sex.”

Russ choked on the frothy sweet coffee, feeling it rise into his nose and sting like hell. Somehow he hadn’t expected Laurel to say that. She seemed so sweet, so naive, so elevated, that he wouldn’t have imagined she would want to talk dirty. The image rose in his head of Laurel whispering in his ear what she’d like him to do to her, and with what, and Russ went hard.

That was professional.

He recovered himself. At least the part above the table. “I see. I don’t suppose there are any clues in that, then.”

“Not unless you want to know what his sex fantasies are.”

Oh, God, just shoot him instead. “I’ll pass.”

Now if she wanted to tell him her fantasies, he’d be willing to listen.

They both sat silent for a minute, Russ thinking, his mind a mix of perverted thoughts and puzzlement over what Dean was planning.

“Are you sure he’s a con man?” Laurel asked.

Because she looked wistful, Russ gave her a harsh answer. He did not want her to do something stupid like hook up with Dean after all. “Yes. Four women, that we know of, have had over a hundred thousand dollars stolen from them by Dean, before their beds were even cold. Got any money, Laurel?”

“Sort of. I have a small trust fund and even though I live with my mother, technically the house is mine.”

“Where?”

“Edgewater Drive.”

“Lakefront property.” Nice. Big money. Dean must be trying to step up in the world.

“Yes.” Laurel wrapped her scarf around her neck. “Well, there are other fish in the sea, I guess. Or online.”

His head snapped up. He didn’t like the sound of that. “Hold it. What do you mean?”

But she wasn’t looking at him. She was buttoning her coat. He tapped her arm impatiently. She looked up in surprise.

“Don’t meet men online, Laurel. It’s not safe. They could be anybody, say anything to you.”

“So could people you meet in person.”

Damn it, she had him there. But he just couldn’t let Laurel leave without understanding the importance of what he was saying. Letting her cruise the Internet alone talking to people would be like sending a bunny out to try and cross an eight-lane highway.

He kind of liked bunnies.

Especially this bunny. Laurel smiled at him. He sighed. He did not want to get involved with her and whatever she was looking for—God knows, he had enough to worry about keeping Sean out of trouble. He couldn’t be looking after this woman, too, but he had to extract some kind of promise from her that she’d be smart. He really didn’t want to read about her in a future police report.

“Look, there’s got to be a better way to meet people. At work, someone your friends know, church or something. There are plenty of nice guys out there looking for a relationship. Just be smart, safe, use protection.” And Jesus Christ, he sounded like a squeamish father handing his car keys off to his teenager.

Laurel’s jaw had locked, her cheeks pink. It was either from the heat since she had bundled up in her coat, or she was irritated with him.

“I don’t want a relationship. I just want to have sex.”

Oh, man, that wasn’t what he’d wanted her to say. “Laurel!” he blurted out, shocked in a way he hadn’t imagined was still possible.

“What? It’s true.” She looked down at the table, the lapels of her coat swallowing the sides of her face. “My whole life I’ve done what other people have wanted me to do. I’ve been good, polite, considerate, and most of the time I don’t mind that. I mean, I don’t want to be not nice or good or considerate, but for once I want to be selfish. Wild.”

Laurel didn’t look wild. She looked cute and fuzzy in her fleece, like the woman you’d take home to your mother, set up on a pedestal and admire from afar as an icon of female perfection. She didn’t look like a woman you should get down and dirty with.

Which didn’t explain his hard-on.

“Well,” he hedged. “How old are you? Twenty?”

Laurel watched his lips intently as he spoke. He thought it was pretty amazing that she knew what he was saying just from reading his lips. But it also meant a lot of times her eyes were on his mouth, not meeting his gaze. Which gave him the sneaky ability to watch her more closely than he could anyone else, without her thinking he was staring.

He liked looking at her, all pretty and pink, a woman very different from any he’d ever dated. Russ dated bold and brassy women because they were good at accepting what he had to offer at face value. They understood what it meant, having a little fun, and leaving it at that. He was committed to Sean first, his job second, and if a woman didn’t get that from day one, he wasn’t going to touch her with a ten-foot pole, no matter how hot her body was or how interesting she seemed.

At his question, her nose wrinkled in indignation. “I’m twenty-five! Almost twenty-six. And except for one year at college, I’ve never lived anywhere but with my parents.” Laurel’s voice was rising, and in his peripheral vision Russ could see the coffee clerk and a plain brunette glance their way. “I don’t date, I don’t do anything even remotely exciting, I don’t have sex.”

Whoa, hello, just grab a megaphone and announce that. “Uh, Laurel…your voice is getting kind of loud.”

“What? Oh, sorry.” She peered around him and blushed.

“But just because you haven’t dated in a while isn’t a good reason to latch onto the first guy you meet. Casual sex has its merits.” Hell, he lived by casual sex and its merits. “But you still have to be careful.”

“I know that. I may be trusting, but I’m not stupid.”

“I never said you were stupid…” And somehow he had turned this into an interrogation and had alienated her. Smooth move, Evans.

To prove his point, she stood up and reached for her keys. “Thank you for your concern. I’m leaving.”

“Wait a second, Laurel.” They hadn’t resolved anything. She hadn’t agreed to stay locked up in her house yet where no men could touch or hurt her. “If Trevor Dean e-mails you again, you need to call me.”

“What’s his name again? I can’t figure out what you’re saying.”

Russ pulled a pen out of his jacket pocket and wrote Trevor Dean on a napkin. Under that he scrawled his own name and both his work and home phone numbers. He handed it to her. “Don’t answer him and don’t let him know you’re onto him. Just call me first thing, okay?”

“Fine.” She sighed a little, obviously not thrilled with the situation, but she was polite nonetheless. “Have a good night, Russ.”

“Wait.” He grabbed her arm again as he stood up. She was shorter than he’d thought, stopping below his nose, and he let go of her slight wrist. “I’m sorry I keep grabbing you. I don’t know how else to get your attention.”

“You can touch my arm, stomp on the floor, wave. I just don’t like it when people stick their hand right in my face.” Laurel didn’t sound angry, she actually looked pleased that he’d bothered to ask.

Russ felt that something again, that indefinable feeling swirling around inside him that he couldn’t let this woman walk out of here alone. He wanted to think it was the cop in him, drawn to her vulnerability, wanting to protect her from harm. But something told him it was more than that, complex. Something that he was going to ignore until it went away, like a toothache.

“Okay. Listen…my partner, Jerry, is outside and we have a car across the street. I would really feel better if you let me follow you home, make sure you get there alright. I don’t know why Dean didn’t show up, but it bothers me.”

Laurel chewed her lip, readjusted her purse. “Fine, if you insist. But I only live five minutes from here.”

“A lot can happen in five minutes.”

Yes, she could have an orgasm just from looking at him for five minutes. But she kept her face neutral.

“Promise me, Laurel—I’m serious here—that you won’t make plans to meet any more strange guys. That you won’t run off and have sex with someone you don’t know.”

His concern was sweet. It also infuriated her, the straw that broke her good-girl back. “I could have sex with you.”

Well, that felt good to say. Liberating. And she hadn’t even needed alcohol to work up the nerve to say it.

Russ looked like he’d been liberated of his ability to speak.

Laurel just stared at him, trying to project sassy slut, which admittedly was a stretch. Of about a hundred miles.

“What do you mean?” he finally asked, fiddling with the bill of his baseball hat again.

“I mean, we could have sex. You and me.”

Russ looked stricken, and Laurel felt the moment waning. The rush of boldness evaporating, nerve skittering off to hide.

What was she thinking? He wouldn’t want to have sex with her when he probably had exotic dancers on speed dial. And she shouldn’t have just blurted it out like that anyway, even if she had been half-serious.

“I’m kidding,” she lied, rolling her eyes for effect. “My point is, unless you want to sleep with me, it’s really none of your business what I do or with who.”

“I’m concerned! I don’t want to see you get hurt, or wind up dead, goddamnit.”

That had all the makings of a parental lecture. While it was really nice of Russ to care, it wasn’t what she was looking for. Laurel’s own father had died, and she wasn’t looking to replace him. If she did, it certainly wouldn’t be with a man she wanted to strip naked and lick.

“Thank you for the warning. But even though it may surprise you, I can take care of myself. I can even walk across the street by myself.” Laurel turned and left him sputtering.

Mouth To Mouth

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