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We collapsed against each other, and this time I welcomed the darkness as I drifted off into sleep.
***
The rain had stopped by the time I resurfaced, and the sun was a little brighter as it shone through the windows. I hadn’t found the courage to meet Jack’s eyes again after what we’d just done, and part of me was wondering when we’d get to do it again. Our legs were tangled together, and I couldn’t stop touching him, as if I needed to reassure myself that this was real. He hadn’t stopped touching me either.
“So—” I said. “This is different for us.”
His hand slipped down and squeezed my ass, and I snickered against his neck. “Different is good.”
I was feeling very relaxed and a little lazy. “We should probably get up at some point. Duty calls.”
“Yep.” His fingers started to work their magic again, and it wasn’t difficult to notice that Jack woke up from his napsveryhappy. “How long do you think it’s going to be before you can look me in the eye again?”
“I was thinking a week or two,” I said. “Maybe closer to Thanksgiving.”
“That’s what I figured,” Jack said with a long sigh. “Well, there’s only one thing to do.”
I was afraid to ask, but I couldn’t seem to help myself. “What’s that?”
He rolled me to my back and was inside me before I could blink. And there we were, face to face. His cheeks were stubbled, and his eyes were dark and satisfied.
“We’ll just have to practice until you get used to waking up beside me every morning.”
“Sneaky,” I moaned, even as my eyes rolled back in my head.
And then we stopped talking altogether.
Chapter Seventeen
“That was Vaughn,” Jack said when his cell rang an hour later. “He got a big shipment in yesterday afternoon, so he didn’t get our messages until it was too late to call. He’s still at the store, but he said I could talk to him there. Do you want to come along?”
We’d showered and gotten dressed, and I was surprised to see it was only a few minutes past eight when we made it down to the kitchen for coffee and breakfast. Jack was an early riser. In more ways than one.
“As long as I’m back by noon. I’ve got a busy day ahead of me.”
Jack nodded, and my mouth watered a little when he strapped on his weapon and clipped his badge to his belt. He grabbed his leather jacket and my coat, and I grabbed our to-go cups of coffee and slung my medical bag over my shoulder.
“I want to make another stop by Reverend Oglesby’s house while we’re over in King George. I think we might have been asking his neighbors the wrong questions.”
I tried not to think about the people staring at us as we made our way through Bloody Mary and towards King George Proper, but I knew without a shadow of a doubt that people were talking about me staying with Jack. And now they had reason for speculation.
I’d rolled my eyes when I’d looked in the mirror after my shower. I looked rested and happy, and there was a glow about me that hadn’t been there in months. I might as well have a letter A tattooed on my forehead.
“How long before you have the blood results back from the lab?” I asked, searching through my bag for some Chapstick. Mostly it was a good excuse to keep my head down.
“I need to give them a call. They were going to put a rush on it for me because of the nature of the crime. It’s been two days, so they might have something for me already.”
The lab in Richmond that Jack used did good and fast work. Depending on the nature of what was needed, it was fairly common to get blood DNA finished in a couple of days, especially since we were just looking to see if the blood we found at the back of Reverend Oglesby’s house was a match for the victim.
Vaughn’s antique store was in an old Victorian that had been restored about a decade ago, and he’d bought it for a song when the owners had gone bankrupt and had to foreclose. It was three full stories, complete with a widow’s walk, and painted a pale yellow. The porch spindles were olive green and the decorative trim was a dark rose. The house took up half the block, and there was a very tasteful sign in bronze and cherry wood that sat on the small patch of grass between the street and the sidewalk. It readRaines’ Antiques and Vitamin Shoppein slanted script.
“I hate coming here,” I said as Jack pulled into the small back parking lot. “I always see something I want.”
“Maybe it could be a wedding present,” Jack said.
“For who?”
“For us, dummy.”
