Unraveled (Turner #3)(51)
“Jeremy,” Miranda said slowly. “I ought to introduce you to someone.”
Jeremy looked up. He took in Smite, and his eyes widened.
Beside him, Miranda was still speaking. “Jeremy Blasseur, this is Smite Turner. Turner, this is Jeremy—he’s one of my best friends.”
“Lord Justice,” Jeremy said dazedly, scrambling to his feet. “You’re Lord Justice. Miranda, you little devil, you never told me the man in question was Lord Justice.”
A small smile curled the corner of her lip. “Yes. I rather wanted to see your response the first time you met him.”
She’d wanted to introduce him to her friends?
“This was not the sort of person I expected you to—” Jeremy stopped abruptly.
“Do you know something about Mr. Patten’s death?” Smite heard himself ask. “Something not in those papers?”
Jeremy took a long moment to shake his head—perhaps too long a moment. One couldn’t enlarge on the length of a second, Smite told himself. And if this Jeremy didn’t seem overly upset, grief took different people in different ways. Jeremy didn’t hold Smite’s gaze. He looked at the floor instead. “I just heard this story half an hour ago,” he mumbled. “How would I know anything about it?”
“If you think of anything that might assist the authorities in finding out who killed him—any enemies he might have, any rumors that come to your ears—justice might be served.”
Mr. Blasseur shook his head. “No,” he said in subdued tones. “I don’t believe there can be justice. Not for this.”
AFTER JEREMY LEFT, MIRANDA wasn’t sure what to say. Turner hadn’t pushed Jeremy out or made him feel unwelcome. Nonetheless, he stood now and looked out the window of her parlor. She stayed seated on the sofa, watching him.
He turned his head slightly. “I suppose you’d prefer to be alone?”
Miranda shook her head. She almost never preferred to be alone.
He didn’t move toward her. “Do you…you don’t want to talk, do you?” He made no effort to hide the unsubtle horror in his voice.
Miranda shook her head once more. Her grief was rolled up inside her—more for Jeremy than herself. It was Jeremy, after all, who grieved most for George. It was Jeremy who hadn’t yet comprehended that one of his best friends was gone forever. Miranda had known George only through his friendship with Jeremy.
Still, young people weren’t supposed to die.
“Smite,” she asked softly, “do you have any idea what to say to me in a situation like this?”
“Of course I do,” he retorted. “I have plenty of ideas.” He met her gaze ruefully. “Of course, they’re all wrong, and so I’m totally at sea.”
She patted the cushion next to her. He crossed the room and lowered himself down. And then, because he didn’t seem inclined to do it himself, she picked up his hand and slid it around her shoulders. His muscles stiffened for a moment, but she leaned her head against his chest and he relaxed. His other hand came up to stroke her shoulder in a light caress, and Miranda shut her eyes and melted into him.
“I feel cold,” she said.
It wasn’t a cold that could be driven away by fire. The only warmth she found was in the butterfly-light touch of his fingers. He seemed hesitant to hold her, as if afraid she might break. But when she leaned into him, he grew bolder. Tiny caresses gave way to broad strokes of his hand, covering her arm from shoulder to elbow. After long minutes of that, she looked up at him.
He was watching her intently. She gave him a tentative smile, but he didn’t return it. Instead, he shifted. His breath touched her cheek. His hands continued to stroke her arms, and Miranda let herself fall back onto the cushions of the sofa. When he paused, she pulled him atop her. He levered himself over her gingerly, his weight neither heavy nor stifling, but comforting. The warmth of his breath touched her cheek.
If death had its opposite, it was this. She came to life for him, her whole body tingling. Her br**sts awakened. Her thighs parted. She fairly sizzled. And when he leaned in and captured her lips, it sent a shot of vitality through her being.
She didn’t wait for him to take the lead. Miranda slid her hands down his hips of her own accord. She found the hard ridge of his erection in his trousers.
He froze and pushed away from her. “I’m not so ruled by my lusts that I must consort with you, even under these trying circumstances.”
“I don’t want you to consort with me. I want…” Miranda lifted her head and looked into the blue of his eyes. “I need you to touch me. To hold me. To remind me I’m still living.”
He focused on her intently. Then slowly, slowly, he leaned back into her. He set his lips against hers, light at first.
This was what it meant to be alive—to conjure his want from kisses, to have her breath stolen with desire. She kicked her skirts up to her knee, and he obliged her by pushing up onto his forearms and then sliding the material farther up, parting her legs as he did so.
She spread herself out for him, and he slid to the floor beside her. Her drawers slid off, and he parted her folds with his thumbs. Before she could quite comprehend what was happening, he leaned over her and set his mouth on her sex.
He was the most determined, intense man she’d ever met. Small surprise that when he brought that intensity to bear on her, she exploded. His tongue slid down the length of her slit and then up, up, to swirl around the button of her sex. He slipped a finger inside her, and then another.