Where There's Smoke

Chapter One

He’d never particularly liked cats.

His problem, however, was that the woman lying beside him purred like one. Deep satisfaction vibrated through her from her throat to her belly. She had narrow, tilted eyes and moved with sinuous, fluid motion. She didn’t walk, she stalked. Her foreplay had been a choreographed program of stretching and rubbing herself against him like a tabby in heat, and when she climaxed, she had screamed and clawed his shoulders.

Cats seemed sneaky and sly and, to his way of thinking, untrustworthy. He’d always been slightly uncomfortable turning his back to one.

“How was I?” Her voice was as sultry as the night beyond the pleated window shades.

“You don’t hear me complaining, do you?”

Key Tackett also had an aversion to postcoital evaluation. If it was good, chatter was superfluous. If it wasn’t, well, the less said the better.

She mistook his droll response as a compliment and slithered off the wide bed. Naked, she crossed the room to her cluttered dressing table and lit a cigarette with a jeweled lighter. “Want one?”

“No, thanks.”

“Drink?”

“If it’s handy. A quick one.” Bored now, he gazed at the crystal chandelier in the center of the ceiling. The fixture was gaudy and distinctly ugly. It was too large for the bedroom even with the light bulbs behind the glass teardrops dimmed to a mere glimmer.

The shocking pink carpet was equally garish, and the portable brass bar was filled with ornate crystal decanters. She poured him a shot of bourbon. “You don’t have to rush off,” she told him with a smile. “My husband’s out of town, and my daughter’s spending the night at a friend’s house.”

“Male or female?”

“Female. For chrissake, she’s only sixteen.”

It would be unchivalrous of him to mention that she had acquired her reputation for being an easy lay long before reaching the age of sixteen. He remained silent, mostly from indifference.

“My point is, we’ve got till morning.” Handing Key the drink, she sat down beside him, nudging his hip with hers.

He raised his head from the silk-encased pillow and sipped the straight bourbon. “I gotta get home. Here I’ve been back in town for…” he checked his wristwatch, “three and a half hours, and have yet to darken the door of the family homestead.”

“You said they weren’t expecting you tonight.”

“No, but I promised to get home as soon as I could manage it.”

She twined a strand of his dark hair around her finger. “But you didn’t count on running into me at The Palm the minute you hit town, did you?”

He drained his drink and thrust the empty tumbler at her. “Wonder why they call it The Palm. There isn’t a palm tree within three hundred miles of here. You go there often?”

“Often enough.”

Key returned her wicked grin. “Whenever your old man’s out of town?”