The Soul Catcher - Alex Kava [106]
“Mission accomplished.” She pointed to the perfectly wound spaghetti still on his fork. “You’re a quick learner.”
He hesitated, then brought it to his mouth. He tried the process again while he chewed, lifting his fork to show her when he managed it on his own. This time their eyes met and neither of them looked away until one of the wait staff interrupted, offering to refill their wineglasses, which Gwen accepted. She was sure it was probably a good idea to also anesthetize the unfamiliar arousal she was suddenly feeling.
With this glass of wine, she did manage to eat some of her fettuccine and even clean up her half of a cannoli dessert. Through coffee and during a long cab ride back to the hotel, she found herself telling Tully about her practice and the old brownstone she was restoring, while he told her about Emma and the trials and tribulations of raising a fifteen-year-old girl. She hadn’t realized he had custody of his daughter. Somehow his being a devoted single father only completed the annoying image she already had of him as the perfect Boy Scout.
At her hotel door, she invited him in for a glass of her complimentary champagne, sure the Boy Scout wouldn’t accept and that she was safe. The Boy Scout accepted. Before she poured the champagne, she turned to him, needing to say what she had avoided saying all evening.
“I need to thank you,” she said, meeting his eyes and holding him there, so he couldn’t joke his way out of this. “You saved my life today, Tully.”
“I couldn’t have done it without your help. You have really good instincts, Doc.” He smiled at her, obviously still uncomfortable with taking any of the credit. Okay, so he was going to make this difficult.
“Could you just let me thank you?”
“Okay.”
She came to him, stood on tiptoe and still had to tug on his tie to bring him down to her height so she could kiss his cheek. As she did this, she noticed that his eyes were now serious. Before she pulled back, his mouth caught hers in a gentle but passionate kiss that was no longer about gratitude.
She rocked back on her feet, feeling a bit out of breath and staring up at him.
“That was unexpected,” she said, surprised that she was feeling light-headed. It had to be all the wine.
“I’m sorry,” he said, restoring her image of the Boy Scout. “I shouldn’t have—”
“No, you don’t need to apologize. Actually, it was…it was quite nice.”
“Nice?” He looked wounded, and she smiled though his eyes were still serious. “I think I can do better than nice.”
In two steps he was kissing her again, only this time it wasn’t long before his mouth refused to be confined to her lips. Gwen leaned against the back of the sofa and her fingers slid across its texture, looking for something to grab hold of while Tully continued to convince her that he could, indeed, do better than nice.
CHAPTER 55
Ben Garrison didn’t get back to the Ritz-Carlton until late. He found the employee door at the back alley and took the freight elevator up to the fourteenth floor. This morning he had argued with the desk clerk about getting moved to a different floor. No matter how anyone looked at it, the fourteenth floor was still the thirteenth floor. Surely there had to be another corner suite available. But now, it looked like it wouldn’t matter. His luck was back. Nothing could go wrong. After these photos hit the newsstands, he would be king of the fucking world again.
As soon as he got back to his room he threw his duffel bag on the bed and stripped out of his clothes, bagged them in one of the plastic hotel laundry bags and tossed the bag next to the other trash he’d dump in the morning. He set his boots in the whirlpool tub to clean later and slipped on the plush terry-cloth robe that the wonderful housekeeping staff had left fresh and clean on the back of the bathroom door.
He had packed his developing tank and enough chemicals to develop the film. He could make a contact sheet