Eleven on Top (Stephanie Plum 11)

"I have profiles on the four missing men. I've been trying to tie them together. And I had a feeling Anthony Barroni and Spiro Stiva were involved somehow.

Now I'm not so sure. Maybe Spiro came back for the sole purpose of terrorizing me and eventually killing me. Maybe he's a lone gun out there and not hanging with anyone. That would partially explain why no one's seen him."

“There's a description out on him now. There's a corroborating witness that Spiro, or at least someone with a badly scarred face, was seen in the area when my garage went up. I don't know what to say about the men who were just found. It's pretty clear that someone called a meeting and executed them.”

“They had to have known the gunman,” I said. “I can't see any of these men getting in his car and driving off to a meeting on upper Stark at the request of a stranger.”

“I agree, but we don't know the relationship. It could have been something impersonal, like blackmail. And the blackmailer decided to terminate.”

“Do you think that's it?”

“No,” Morelli said. “I think they all knew each other, and there was a fifth member of the group who had his own agenda.”

“They were all in the same unit at Fort Dix .”

Morelli turned and looked at me. “You found that out?”

“Yeah.”

“So, not only are you hot but you're smart, too?”

“You think I'm hot?”

Morelli had his hand up my shirt, tinkering with my bra. “Cupcake, I'm not sharing my house with you because you can cook.”

I cut my eyes to him. “Are you telling me I'm here just for the sex?”

Morelli was concentrating on getting me undressed and not paying attention to the tone of my voice. “Yeah, the sex has been great.”

“What about the companionship, the friendship, the relationship part of this?”

Morelli paused in his effort to release the clasp on my bra. “Uh oh, did I just say something stupid?”

“Yes. You said I was just here for the sex.”

“I didn't mean that.”

“Yes, you did! It's all you think about with me.”

“Cut me some slack,” Morelli said. “I have a broken leg. I sit here all day, eating jelly beans and thinking about you naked. It's what guys do when they have a broken leg.”

“You did that before you broke your leg.”

“Oh man,” Morelli said. “This isn't going to turn into one of those issue discussions, is it? I hate those discussions.”

“Suppose for some reason we couldn't have sex. Would you still love me?”

“Yeah, but not as much.”

“What kind of an answer is that? That's not the right answer.”

Okay, so I knew his answer wasn't serious, and I didn't really think my relationship with Morelli was entirely sexual, but I couldn't seem to stop myself from getting crazy. I was on my feet, flapping my arms and yelling. This was usually Morelli's role, and here I was, working myself into a frenzy, going down a one-way street to nowhere. And I suspected it was Lula's jelly doughnut. The doughnut was bursting with jelly, and the jelly was squishing out in all the wrong places. And if that wasn't frightening enough, I was turning myself on. All the while I was yelling about Morelli wanting nothing but sex, the truth is, I could think of nothing else.

“Can we finish this upstairs?” Morelli asked. “My leg wants to go to bed.”

“Sure,” I said. “There are parts of me that want to go to bed, too.”

I was showered and dressed and ready to go to work. I'd had two mugs of coffee and an English muffin. It was 8:00 A.M., and Morelli was still in bed.