“I'm not secretly anything.”
“Well then, what? What?”
“It's you. You're a walking disaster. A man would have to be a total masochist to be interested in you.”
“Okay,” I said. “Maybe I will have another schnapps.”
He poured two out, and we both threw them back. It was easier this time. Less fire. More glow.
“I'm not a walking disaster,” I said. “I can't imagine why you think that.”
“Every time I get social with you I end up all by myself, naked, in the middle of the street.”
I rolled my eyes. “That only happened once . . . and you weren't naked. You were wearing socks and a shirt.”
“I was speaking figuratively. If you want to get specific, what about the time you locked me in a freezer truck with three corpses? What about the time you ran over me with the Buick?”
I threw my hands into the air. “Oh sure, bring up the Buick.”
He shook his head, disgusted like. “You're impossible. You're not worth the effort.”
I curled my fingers into the front of his T-shirt and hauled him closer. “Not even in your dreams could you imagine how impossible I can be.”
We were toe to toe with my breasts skimming his chest, our eyes locked.
“I'll drink to that,” Morelli said.
The third schnapps went down smooth as silk. I gave the empty glass to Morelli and licked my lips.
Morelli watched the lip licking, and his eye
s darkened and his breathing slowed.
Aha! I thought. This was more like it. Got him interested with the old lip-licking routine.
“Shit,” Morelli said. “You did that on purpose.”
I smiled. Then he smiled.
It looked to me like his “gotcha” smile. Like the cat that just caught the canary. Like I'd been had . . . again.
Then he closed the space between us, took my face in his hands and kissed me.
The kisses got hotter, and I got hotter and Morelli got hotter. And pretty soon we were all so hot that we needed to get rid of some clothes.
We were half undressed when Morelli suggested we go upstairs.
“Hmmm,” I said with lowered eyelids. “What sort of a girl do you think I am?”
Morelli murmured his thoughts on the subject and removed my bra. His hand covered my bare breast, and his fingers played with the tip. “Do you like this?” he asked, gently rolling the nipple between thumb and forefinger.
I pressed my lips together to keep from sinking my teeth into his shoulder.
He tried another variation of the nipple roll. “How about this?”
Oh yeah. That too.
Morelli kissed me again, and next thing we were down on the linoleum floor fumbling with zippers and panty hose.