“This is decadent,” she pronounced.
A large warm hand moved over the bare curves of her bottom. “Glad you like it.”
She didn’t just like it; she loved it. The colors were wonderful. A dull brown would have been awful, but this brown was so deep and rich she felt as if she could sink into it. The gold of the faucets seemed to pick up gold flecks in the vanity top, making it glow.
She opened the shower door and peered in. “Wow.” The shower stall was at least eight by five feet, fashioned in marble streaked with brown and rose. There was a showerhead at each end of the enclosure, positioned so one would be rinsed front and back simultaneously.
The hand on her bottom became more insistent, urging her into the shower. She turned, and faced a very naked man. Her breath caught. She had already seen him mostly naked and had imagined him completely so, but the reality was so much better than her imagination. He was in marvelous shape, but it was more than that; he looked exactly the way a man should look, in her opinion, mature and muscular and interested. Impulsively she reached out and closed her hand around his stiffened penis, only half-hearing his involuntary hum of pleasure, and concentrating instead on how the thick shaft jumped in her hand.
He said, “If you aren’t careful, you won’t get that shower just yet.”
“Is that important?” she murmured.
“I’m trying to be considerate and romantic.”
She tilted her head back, lifting her brows in interest. “Romantic?”
“I’ve been thinking about this for a solid week, planning what I would do.”
One hand remained at his crotch. The other stroked over his hairy chest. Her breath panted softly between her parted lips. “What romantic plans have you made?”
“Well, there’s really only one.”
“One? What is it?”
“Fucking your brains out,” he said matter-of-factly, and when she fell back shrieking with laughter, he prudently removed her hand from his sex. While she was helpless, he herded her completely into the shower and turned on the water.
He had showered with a woman before, she realized; he adjusted the showerheads so the streams of water hit close to her waist, leaving her hair mostly dry. A few minutes later, with his soap-slick hands roaming all over her body, she conceded that he also knew a good bit about bathing a woman. A few minutes after that, condom in place, he demonstrated what he knew about having sex in the shower. It was fast and hard and carnal, with her pinned against the marble wall while he hammered into her. She came fast, writhing and bucking in his arms. Afterward she could barely stand, and he supported her as he dried both of them. He was still hard, not having climaxed, and the realization dawned on her that he would be much, much slower to climax the second time, and that she could look forward to a long session of lovemaking. She didn’t know whether to rejoice or plead for mercy.
Then he carried her to the bed, and all thoughts of pleading for mercy went right out of her head. He spent a long time kissing her, from head to foot. He sucked her nipples until she was almost sobbing with pleasure and frustration; his finger probed and stroked between her legs, and then he replaced his fingers with his tongue and she climaxed again, screaming from the intensity of the sensations. He let her rest for a little while, then rolled her over on her stomach and took her from behind. She was so swollen that he felt impossibly huge, barely able to fit inside her; she was acutely aware of every inch of him, probing deep into her. His slow thrusts rubbed her body against the sheets, and against the hand he had tucked under her so that every movement moved her on his wickedly knowledgeable fingers.
The fourth time she climaxed, he was with her, and afterward they lay close together, her head cradled on his shoulder and his hands leisurely stroking her buttocks, her breasts, her hips and belly and thighs, as if he couldn’t get enough of the feel of her. Closing her eyes, she listened to his heartbeat, and her own, as they gradually slowed and adjusted until they were beating in time, two hearts, one rhythm.
“Tell me if you need to sleep,” he murmured after a while, rolling on top of her.
She felt him probing, but not yet entering, and knew he wouldn’t if she told him she was tired. “No,” she whispered, clutching his back and tilting her hips so that he slipped inside her a tantalizing couple of inches. “Don’t let me sleep tonight.” She had had enough of murders and paintings and feeling as if her life was subject to the whim of an unseen, unknown power. She wanted to drown her senses with Richard, lose herself in the purely physical.
He did just as she asked. A couple of times she thought she dozed, but perhaps not, perhaps she was in a daze of completion. He made love to her endlessly, and even when they rested, he was inside her. When she became too dry to take him, he used lubricant to ease his way into her. He pushed her hard, and a couple of times she cried because she didn’t think she could take any more, but she always found that she could, and for that night he kept the cold away.
They were lying quietly together when the sky began to lighten. He stroked her hair back from her face, his touch infinitely tender. “Tell me about the painting.”
She tensed, momentarily resisting the ugly intrusion into the happiness of the moment. Then she sighed, accepting the return of reality. “I finished her face.” She found she had to swallow. “When I woke up and saw it, I tried to call the gallery, but there wasn’t any answer. I didn’t have her number, so I called you and—and I found out I was too late.”
“Don’t blame yourself,” he said fiercely, cupping her chin in his hand and turning her face up to his. “The detectives think she was killed around midnight. By the time you finished her face, it was already too late.”
“I—” Her throat closed. She knew he was right. Given the time she had gone to bed and the length of time it would have taken her to finish the face, Candra had already been dead. The artist in her knew that. The woman, the human being, felt as if there should have been something, anything, that she could have done.
She could feel the tension in him, thrumming through his muscles and communicating itself to her through his hands. “God, I was so worried about you,” he said in a tone of stifled violence, crushing her against him.
“I’m okay.” She kissed his collarbone and thought how wonderful it was to be safe and warm, and so thoroughly satisfied. Love for him filled her, making her heart swell. She wrenched her thoughts back to the subject. “I won’t lie to you; it was pretty rough, but I managed. You don’t have to worry; this proves I can handle it on my own.”
His dark eyes glittered. “You shouldn’t have to do it on your own. I should have been there.”
“You couldn’t. You had to—You had to take care of Candra.” Her throat tightened again. “She was your wife for ten years. I know you must be upset—”
He made a harsh sound in his throat and released her, rolling over onto his back. He stared up at the ceiling. “I don’t mourn her, if that’s what you’re asking. I can’t be a hypocrite and fake grief. Maybe people think I should, but I’m not going to put on a show for them.”
Sweeney felt the power and frustrated rage in him and gave him the same comfort he had given her, putting her arms around him and gently stroking his face, his chest. “Of course not. It wouldn’t be honest.”
He glanced down at her. “You didn’t do any work on the man’s face?”
She shook her head. She tried to be nonchalant, but her eyes filled with dread for what was coming, and he knew that yesterday morning’s episode had been the roughest yet.
It was his turn to stroke. “I wanted to call you,” he whispered. “I spent all day with the police.”
“I know. I knew you had to make arrangements—”
“Not to mention being the prime suspect.”
Her pupils flared. “What?” She would have bolted up in bed, but he controlled the surge of her body, keeping her clamped to him.
“I was the most logical person. When a woman is murdered, it’s usually th
e husband or boyfriend who did it. We were getting divorced. They had to eliminate me as a suspect.”
“Are you? Eliminated, I mean.”
“Yeah, I’m eliminated.” His smile was crooked. “I didn’t have a motive, and I could prove I was here.”
“How?”
“The computer. I was on-line, and my server had a record of the time.”
Sweeney closed her eyes in relief. She tilted her head a little, rubbing her cheek against his chest. “I need to go,” she murmured. “I know you have a million things to do today And . . . shouldn’t I take the painting to the police?”
“No,” he said forcefully. “Promise me you won’t do that.”
“Why?” she asked, bewildered.
“Do you really think they’ll believe you painted it in your sleep? Honey, you’ll become their prime suspect, at least for a while. I don’t want you to have to go through that; plus if they’re concentrating on you, they’re wasting time when they could be looking for the real killer. When you finish the painting, and we see who you paint, then I’ll think of some way to point the cops in the right direction.” He rubbed his thumbs under her chin. “Promise me.”
“Okay.” Her smile was wobbly. “I guess the whole thing is a little out there, isn’t it?”
“No more so than your average Twilight Zone episode.”
Her smile widened, became more genuine. “That bad, huh?”
“That bad. When you paint the killer’s face, then I’ll think of some way to point the cops in the right direction, but other than that, I don’t want you involved at all.”
* * *
Outside in his car, Detective Aquino yawned and stretched, battling the need for sleep. He really, really needed to take a leak, and he really, really needed some coffee. Staying awake today was gonna be hell. He should have gone home, and he knew it. It didn’t mean a damn thing that Worth had a girlfriend.
But curiosity was his besetting sin, and he wanted to know more about the woman. He wanted to know who she was and where she lived, and why she had arrived on foot, apparently unexpected, then stayed all night.
Maybe it was nothing, but then again, his hunches had worked out before. He intended to see what happened with this one.
CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN
Richard sent her home in a taxi. Sweeney had been prepared to walk home, since she hadn’t carried her purse with her the evening before when she set out for a stroll. All she had in her jeans pocket was a couple of crumpled ones and some change, but that was enough for a bus if she got tired of walking. He glared at her as he called a cab, and that was that. He paid the driver, kissed her, and handed her into the cab as if she were royalty.
It was nice not to have to walk home, she admitted as she let herself into her apartment. Her knees felt dangerously wobbly and all her muscles were weak. She thought about taking a nap, but dread kept her awake. She couldn’t face another episode of sleep-painting and the awful cold that came afterward, not now. Both physically and emotionally, she wasn’t up to the strain. She thought about the painting, with the big blank space where the killer’s head would be, and her head began to hurt, sharp pains stabbing through her temples. She didn’t even want to go into the studio to work on other paintings, where she would see the murder scene. She didn’t want to think about Candra being dead or imagine the terror she must have felt in those last horrible minutes of her life. She wanted to be at peace for a little while, to gather strength for the finish. She wanted to think about Richard, remember his lovemaking and the incredible night she had just spent with him.
She wanted to revel in, and marvel at, the miracle of loving him. She loved, fully and wholeheartedly, when she hadn’t thought she ever would. She had felt so smug about her ability to concentrate wholly on her work, confident she was immune to the emotional uproar called love. Hah! She was not only not immune, where Richard was concerned she was downright easy.
Even more, she was eager for an opportunity to demonstrate to him again just how easy she was.
But for now, she faced a day of doing nothing, or at least nothing much. She didn’t dare nap and couldn’t work. She was too tired to go out for a day of sketching. That left watching television, reading, or doing the laundry. She leaned toward reading, but the need to do laundry nagged at her conscience. Promising herself she would do the laundry after an hour of reading, she put on a pot of coffee and settled down with an oversized book about the use of acrylic paints.
The doorbell jerked her out of a study of brilliant colors. Muttering to herself, because she knew it couldn’t possibly be Richard and therefore had to be a nuisance, she went to the door and looked through the peephole. Two men in suits stood in the hallway. “Who is it?” she asked, keeping her eye to the lens.
“Detectives Aquino and Ritenour, New York Police Department.” The beefy man closest to the lens was the one who answered, and he used the entire phrase rather than the initials. Both men held out badges to the lens, as if she could read them through a fish-eye.
There was no way they could know about the painting, as only she and Richard knew she was doing it, but evidently someone had told them she was involved with Richard. She sighed as she opened the door. They were only doing their job, checking out all possibilities, but still she felt uneasy.
“Ms. Paris Sweeney?” the burly cop asked.
Her brows snapped together in a ferocious scowl. “Just Sweeney,” she growled.
He looked a little startled, then his expression smoothed into impassivity. “May we come in?”
He looked more tired than she felt, with dark circles under his eyes and his complexion gray. He looked freshly shaved and his hair was still the teeniest bit damp, indicating he had showered and probably changed clothes, but that couldn’t hide his exhaustion. The other detective, lean and sandy-haired, looked much more rested but not nearly as friendly.
“Would you like a pot of coffee?” she asked as they both sat down, because the burly guy really looked as if he could use a caffeine kick. “I mean, a cup of coffee.”
The sandy-haired detective got that stony, wild-eyed look of someone trying not to laugh. Detective Aquino shot him a dirty look. “That would be appreciated. Sugar and cream. A lot of both.”
“Same here,” Detective Ritenour said.
She freshened her own cup, and prepared two more, loading them down with enough sugar to send the average kid bouncing off the walls for ten hours, and enough cream to raise their cholesterol levels several points. They must drink a lot of bad coffee, she thought, for both of them to disguise the taste this way.
She put the cups on a small tray and carried it through to the living room, setting it down on the coffee table. Telling herself there was no reason to be nervous, she sat down and lifted her own cup. What was the procedure for interrogation? Should she invite them to begin?
The burly cop, after an appreciative sip of the coffee, began without her help. “Ms. Sweeney, are you acquainted with Richard Worth?”
She gave him a disbelieving look. “Well, of course I am, otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”
He coughed. “You’re aware that his estranged wife was murdered night before last.” That was a statement, not a question.
“Yes.”
“Were you also acquainted with Mrs. Worth?”
Sweeney’s eyes darkened. “Yes,” she repeated, softly. “I’ve known her for years. I exhibited at the gallery.”
“Oh, so you’re an artist.”
“Yes.”
“No kidding.” He looked at a large landscape on the wall. “Did you do that?”
“No.” She didn’t hang her own work. When she relaxed, she liked to look at something someone else had done.
That conversational gambit exhausted, he returned to the subject at hand. “Mrs. Worth wasn’t happy about your involvement with Mr. Worth, was she?”
The super, Sweeney thought. That scene in the entrance lobby. “She told me she didn’t care, but t
hen when she came here one morning to see me and Richard was here, she was upset.” She was pleased with that masterful understatement.
“When was this?”
They already knew, she thought. They had already talked to the super. They were asking questions to which they already knew the answers, to see if she would tell the truth. “A few days ago.”
“How long have you been involved with Mr. Worth?”
She blinked at him, more taken aback by the question than most people would have been. “I don’t know. What day of the week is it?”
They shared a quick glance. “Thursday,” Detective Ritenour said.
“Then it’s been a week. I think. I lose track of days.”
“A week,” Detective Aquino echoed. He made a note in his little book. “You stayed at Mr. Worth’s town house last night.”
Sweeney blushed. Great. Now they knew how easy she was. “Yes.”
“Where were you night before last, Ms. Sweeney?”
Ah, now they were getting down to the meat of their questions. Sweeney felt a flicker of alarm. She had been alone here, with no calls, no witnesses—no alibis. “Here.”
“Alone?”
“Yes.”
“All night?”
“Yes.”
“Did you maybe step out for some fresh air, a walk before bedtime, anything like that?”
“No. I didn’t leave the apartment.”
Ritenour rubbed his nose. “Did you make any calls, talk to anyone?”
“No.”
“Have you ever been to Mrs. Worth’s apartment?”
“No. I don’t know exactly where she lived.”
“Did you have any contact with Mrs. Worth after the scene a few days ago? Since she was so upset, did she call you afterwards and maybe make a couple of threats, you know, the way people do when affairs of the heart are concerned?”