Unspoken (Shadow Falls: After Dark #3)(71)

When she trusted that what she felt was … real, and not just because of shared blood.

She glanced at Chase. He glanced at her. He smiled.

Her heart dipped.

It hit then. She’d felt this before, before she’d known he was still lying. She’d put on black underwear thinking …

Would she … could she trust this … trust him again?

Then she pushed all that aside. Why in Hades was she thinking about this?

Two weeks.

“Have you come up with a plan for tomorrow?” Della asked.

“A plan?” He sounded as if he’d been lost in his own thoughts.

“Where are we going first? Should we see if we can find this so-called girlfriend or should we go check out the addresses of the Douglas Stones?”

“I haven’t thought about it yet.”

She got a feeling the reason was because, like her, he’d been thinking of other things.

They arrived at the path that led to her cabin, and she started down it. Chase spoke up, “Do you want to come to my place and do this? My computer is ten times faster than the one at your cabin.”

The thought of being alone with him—alone with no worries of Miranda or Kylie appearing—sounded dangerous.

“I like my computer.”

“You like it?” He looked confused.

“Yeah,” she snapped. “And if you ever try to feed me again, you’ll be sorry.” She took off.

Three minutes later, Della was on the computer at the small desk in her kitchen. She did a search on expensive snakeskin tennis shoes.

“Bingo!” She glanced at Chase standing behind her. “That’s them.”

“Okay.” He looked impressed. “Now run a search to find out where they are sold in Houston.”

As she typed in the question, she felt him lean in to see the computer. His hand came down on the back of her chair and his knuckles touched her shoulder. Tingles slow-danced down her spine and she misspelled “Houston” three times.

She would have snapped at him to move his hand, but then he’d know. Know that his touch did crazy—and wonderful—things to her skin.

Finally, she typed it in right. She waited for the computer to search.

“See, your computer is slow.” His words stirred in her hair.

“What’s a few more seconds?” Right then her computer dinged with a new email.

She ignored it and waited for the computer to finish its search.

It finally spit out the information. Della pushed the thoughts of Chase’s touch away.

“Four places.” She glanced back with a smile. “And look!” She pointed to the screen. “This one is about a mile from the park where the murders happened.”

“Do you want to call Burnett?” Chase asked.

“You do it,” Della said. “I’m going to make a list of these addresses, so we’ll have them for tomorrow.”

While she collected data on her slow computer, she listened to Chase give Burnett the lowdown. More than once, Chase gave her credit for finding the lead. Once or twice, she felt him staring at her. She looked back and found she was right. He leaned against the fridge, looking so at home there, his phone to his ear, but his eyes on her.

“You got anything on the gang or the number Sam gave you?” Chase asked.

Della heard Burnett’s answer. “Not yet.”

Turning back, she got the rest of the addresses copied to a Word document and then hit print. While she waited for the computer to wake up her printer, she jumped over to her email to see if she had anything from her sister.

Chase hung up and she heard his steps moving to her. He leaned over her shoulder. “Burnett said to email him a list of the stores.”

As she opened her new email tab, and copied and pasted the info into the document to send, she felt Chase breathing down her neck again. That soft whisper of his breath made her mind go to mush.

She hit send. Or tried to. The computer had to think about that as well. Trying not to react to Chase’s nearness, she stared at the screen without seeing anything. Then she felt Chase edge closer and heard him inhale.

“Are you smelling my hair?” she asked, hoping her tone came off as irritated, even though right now, the thing that irritated her was her lack of irritation.

In her mind’s eye, she saw Liam brush back Natasha’s hair and kiss her neck.

“Yeah,” he said, and his smile came across in that one word.

“Then stop,” she said.

“But it smells so good.”

She felt him sweep her hair to one side, just like Liam had done to Natasha. The brush of his fingers felt like feathers.

“And your hair is so soft.”

He pressed his lips against the back of her neck. “Your skin tastes … sweet.”

She closed her eyes. “You should … probably stop.”

“Probably?” he asked and then said, “How about if I do this instead?” His lips shifted to kiss the side of her neck, sending all kinds of wonderful tingles down her back, her arms, to her breasts, and even lower.

“Stop,” she said, a little firmer.

He stopped, but he didn’t move away. “Why, Della?”

“I’m not ready for this. I’m still…” I put on my black underwear for you last time and look what happened.