Running Hot

TWELVE

There was only one other person in the elevator, a woman swathed in one of the hotel’s plush white spa robes. Luther stifled a grin when he sensed Grace’s disappointment. He knew that she had been hoping to test her sense of touch on someone else to determine the extent of the “cure.”

When they reached the terrace where the open-air restaurant was located, Grace got out first. He followed, thinking that he couldn’t remember the last time he had felt so good, so

refreshed.

“Can you use that aura manipulation trick to make a woman get instantly hot for you?” Grace asked with what sounded like academic curiosity.

The urge to smile vanished instantly. He knew a trap when he saw one.

“Damn it, Grace, keep your voice down.”

He looked around quickly, hoping for a distraction. But none of the half-dozen people in the airy colonnade that led to the restaurant were close enough to eavesdrop. So much for that excuse. He lowered his own voice and injected as much steel into it as possible.

“Doesn’t work like that,” he said.

“You can’t blame me for being curious. I haven’t come across your particular talent in any of my genealogy research.”

He put on his sunglasses and looked at her. She had taken a shower after the hot, sweaty sex. Her still-wet hair was combed back behind her ears. She had on a pair of trousers and another one of her long-sleeved shirts. The sleeves of the shirt were rolled up almost to her elbows, though. A very daring move.

“I’m not some small electric you can plug in whenever it’s convenient,” he muttered.

“No,” she agreed. “You are definitely not a

small appliance. So? What’s the answer?”

“We’re about to eat breakfast. Usually I read newspapers when I’m eating breakfast. Could we have this conversation some other time?”

“A simple yes or no will do.”

“There is no such thing as a simple yes or no when it comes to sex,” he said.

That was good, he thought, pleased. Smart answer, Malone. Brilliant, in fact.

She tilted her head to look at him, eyes veiled by the dark glasses.

“That’s not an answer,” she said.

He exhaled slowly and went for

deeply offended. “You’re asking me if I can use my talent to seduce any woman I want.”

“No.” She stopped and turned toward him, clearly shocked. “I know you wouldn’t do anything that unethical.”

He stopped, too. “Yeah? How do you know that?”

“I’m an aura profiler, remember?”

He frowned. “You profiled me?”

“Of course,” she said coolly. “Do you think I’d go to bed with a man I haven’t analyzed? Especially given my issues?”

“I guess I haven’t thought about it quite that way.” He paused. “I, uh, passed the profile test?”

“Oh, yes.” She gave him a smile that was brighter than the light of the tropical morning. “You definitely passed.”

“And here I’ve been wondering if the reason you were attracted to me was because you could touch me without getting fried.”

“What?” It was her turn to be outraged. “How dare you think I would fall into bed with a man simply because I could touch him.”

“You did say you haven’t been able to get close to a man for over a year.”

“My phobia issues had nothing to do with what happened last night or this morning,” she snapped. “At least, not in the way you mean. I am insulted.”

“Take it easy.”

“I will not take it easy. I am more than insulted. You just made me mad. Really, really mad.”

“I know. I can see it,” he said, admiring the heat leaping around her.

“Let’s get something clear,” she said evenly. “I would never go to bed with a man just because I could

touch him.”

The fires of her feminine outrage were resonating nicely with the hot, exciting wavelengths of desire. She was furious but she wanted him. He suddenly felt much more cheerful again.

“You can’t blame a man for leaping to the obvious conclusion,” he said.

“Yes, I can.”

“Ever heard the phrase ‘You’re cute when you get mad’?”

For a few seconds he thought she was going to explode. But she made a face instead.

“Fine,” she said. “Be that way. I’m hungry. Let’s eat.”

She turned on her heel and took off very quickly, heading toward the entrance to the restaurant. He retaliated by playing the injured card, making a show of limping after her. By the time he reached the podium, the hostess was waiting with menus in her hand and pity in her eyes.

Grace glared. He smiled, satisfied with his petty revenge.

“That sort of behavior is called passive-aggressive,” she said when they were seated.

“I know.” He picked up the menu. “But it feels good. Look, I’ll try to answer your question but don’t blame me if things aren’t clear. It’s a very murky subject.”

She raised her brows. “I’m listening.”

“Manipulating sex energy is very complicated,” he began, assuming what he hoped was an air of scholarly authority.

“More complicated than tweaking other elements of an aura?”

“Yes.”

“Why?” she asked.

“How the hell should I know? Blame it on biology.” So much for sounding scholarly.

“You’re not getting off that easily.”

“For starters, I can’t work with what doesn’t exist,” he said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“If a woman isn’t already attracted to me, there’s no energy. I can’t create it out of thin air.”

“But what about her natural desire for sex? Couldn’t you just—” She made a little motion with one hand. “Enhance it a little? Put her in the mood?”

If only it were that simple.

“Maybe,” he said. “If she wasn’t concentrating on something else, like, say, painting or cooking or teaching a class in physics or listening to music.”

“Why would that be a problem?”

“Because sexual energy is a raw fuel that can be channeled into a lot of different engines or, in this case, passions. I might be able to heighten a woman’s sense of physical excitement under the right circumstances, but sadly, there’s no guarantee she would focus that excitement in my direction. She might decide that the guy she saw going down to the beach with a surfboard earlier in the afternoon looked a lot more interesting.”

Grace pursed her lips, thoughtful now. “But if she was interested in you in a casual way, could you intensify that interest?”

“Theoretically, maybe. But even if it were possible to get her into bed by fiddling around with her aura, what would be the point? The next morning she’d wonder what the hell she saw in me. That would not be good for the ego.”

“There are men who wouldn’t care at all about what the woman thought the next morning.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not one of them.”

“No,” she said, very serious, “you’re not.”

He frowned, unsure how to take that. “Even if there was no ego issue, there’s one other big reason why manipulating a woman’s aura in bed wouldn’t work well, at least not for long.”

“What’s that?”

“Viewing someone’s aura requires only a small amount of energy and effort. But take it from me, manipulating a person’s energy field requires enormous concentration and the maximum amount of power. The evening would be ruined for me because I’d have to work constantly every minute just to keep her interested on the psychic level. There wouldn’t be much left over to concentrate on the, uh, physical aspects of the situation.”

She tapped the menu lightly against the edge of the table. “I hadn’t thought about the heavy energy drain.”

“There’s no ducking the laws of physics.” He picked up his own menu. “Energy is energy. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. If you use a lot of power, it takes time to recover.”

The waiter showed up with coffee, took their orders and left. Luther saw Grace glance at a nearby table. An oddly wistful look crossed her face before she turned back and picked up her coffee cup.

He looked at the table that had drawn her attention and saw a family of four. The attractive, stylishly dressed blond mother was several years younger than her silver-haired husband. There was a lively little boy of about five and a small blond princess who was probably seven.

He picked up his own cup. “Don’t know about you,” he said in low tones, “but when I was a kid, Granddad and I didn’t do vacations at ritzy hotels in Maui. Camping in a state park was about as fancy as it got.”

Her fingers tightened around the handle of the cup but the expression on her face remained perfectly neutral. “That situation isn’t as perfect as it looks. Second marriage for him. He’s got kids by his ex-wife who are now adults and are not thrilled about having a couple of half siblings.”

“Especially when it comes to sharing the trust funds and the inheritance?”

“The battle over the inheritance will be all the more bitter because the first family didn’t get what the second family is getting.”

He cocked a brow. “Lots of attention from a doting father who is enjoying a do-over?”

“Yes,” she said.

“What about her?”

Grace moved her hand in a dismissing gesture. “The usual story when a young woman marries a much older man. She’s in it for the money and the status. For now she’s satisfied with the bargain but one of these days, she’ll take a lover.”

“Are you guessing or can you really see those things in their auras?”

“I can’t see the precise details. There’s no such thing as true mind reading, you know that. But I can detect patterns and themes and chords in auras. My talent allows me to interpret those elements and make certain kinds of inferences. It’s an intuitive process.”

“No wonder Fallon finds you useful.” He contemplated the couple with the two kids. “But I don’t think you have to be psychic to figure out the dynamics in that family. Older man, beautiful young wife and very young children. It’s a common enough scenario.”

“True,” she agreed. “But I happen to be very good at this game. Want to try another table? One where the dynamics aren’t so obvious?”

“Game?”

She shrugged. “I invented it when I was a kid. I call it the There’s No Such Thing as a Perfect Family game. I’ve played it a lot over the years. Show me a family, any family, and I’ll tell you where the fault lines are.”

He whistled softly. “Wow. That’s cold.”

She flushed, embarrassed. “Yes, I suppose it does sound that way. It’s a self-defense mechanism, of course. When I was younger I didn’t have to feel so bad about not having a family of my own if I could look around and see all the tensions and problems in other people’s families. Somewhere along the line the game became a habit.”

“Damn. I think you’re even more cynical than I am.”

“Wouldn’t be hard.” Her eyes gleamed with sudden amusement. “You’re a genuine romantic.”

“How the hell can you say that?” It was his turn to be offended. “I haven’t got a romantic bone in my body. Just ask either of my exes.”

She gave him first a surprised and then a considering look. “Your exes didn’t know you very well, did they?”

They sure as hell didn’t know me the way you do after only one night, lady, he thought. But he decided this was probably not a good time to say that out loud.

“According to them, I didn’t understand them,” he said instead. “They were right. The divorces were my fault.”

“Why do you say that?”

He shrugged. “Because it’s true. In hindsight, I think I scared both of them. Just took them a while to realize that they were scared. About a year in each case.”

“Were either of your wives sensitives?”

“No.”

She nodded sagely. “And you kept your little secret from them until after you were married, right?”

He felt himself redden. “Figured it would be easier to explain once they got to know me better. But it was the same pattern both times. Things started off with a bang and then went south. They would hear rumors about me from the spouses of some of the other people in the department. They asked questions. Each time I tried to ease into an explanation of how psychic talent works but that just made things worse. Eventually they decided that I wasn’t just weird, I was delusional. Possibly dangerous. They filed for divorce.”

“I think it was probably a little more complicated than that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Power of any kind is attractive at first. I’m sure each of your wives sensed your strength and found it exciting, even though they didn’t understand what it was that got their attention. But after a while they became uncomfortable because they intuitively knew that you were too strong for them. They probably began to feel intimidated, maybe a little overwhelmed, even though they could not explain why. The bottom line is that the balance of power was never even remotely equal. Unequal relationships are always treacherous.”

“Yeah? So what makes you so sure I’m a romantic?”

“It’s in your aura,” she said simply. “And in your career path, of course.”

“Of course?”

“You didn’t become a cop by accident, and it’s no coincidence that you work for J&J these days. You were born to protect and defend.”

“I’m also a bartender,” he said, wanting to challenge her. He wasn’t sure he liked being analyzed. In fact, he was very sure that he didn’t like it. “How does that fit into your little theory?”

“I don’t know yet but I’m sure it does, somehow. Tell me, did you ever think of trying arcanematch-dot-com?”

“No,” he said. “I’ve always heard that the Society’s matchmakers aren’t very good when it comes to matching exotics, especially when it comes to clients who lie about their Jones numbers. Too many unknowns and unpredictables. You?”

“No,” she said. She did not offer an explanation.

“Ever been married?” he pressed.

She shook her head again. “No.”

“Why not?”

She smiled sweetly. “Unlike you, I’m not a romantic.”

“Liar,” he said. “I think the reason you never married is because you’ve been waiting for Mr. Right.”

“Call me picky.”