The Lost (Celestial Blues, Book 2) - By Vicki Pettersson Page 0,61

home yet.”

So Kit arched up to him, and showed him the way.

Chapter Fourteen

By the time late morning rolled around, the summer heat had been switched to full-blast, scorching the air and setting Vegas’s blacktop streets to broil. Grif had his sleeves rolled, but wanted to strip down to his undershirt as soon as the sun’s rays hit his body. It took a while for Kit’s classic convertible Duetto to cool, and he couldn’t help but think of the sun’s violent plasmic state—all that fire and cosmic fuel burning the atmosphere.

So deep, Grif thought, that there was nothing it couldn’t split, sunder, or touch.

And speaking of deep, Grif thought, stealing a glance at Kit. There’d been something deeper niggling at her when he’d arrived home that morning. More than just worry or irritation over his absence. He’d sensed it as soon as he entered the living room, the same way he sensed a soul recently loosened from its body. It might have been the dregs of their conversation about Evie the day before, and Kit’s harebrained idea that Grif somehow compared the two women in his mind. It was a talk he’d been determined to revisit, though he wasn’t so sure now.

Do you ever dream about me?

No, he didn’t really want to bring that up again. And there was no comparing Kit and Evie anyway. They could have been alive at the same time, same era, and still wouldn’t exist in the same universe. Evie was moody and melancholic and prone to fits of passion, good and bad. Grif had often held his breath when she entered a room, waiting to see which it would be, sighing in relief when she turned the beautiful moon face his way, a calming force over the wild sea.

Kit, on the other hand, was like a newly opened soda pop. All effervescence and sparkle and fizz. It was a strange feeling when a woman’s smile made you want to hold her inside of you just to feel more of her cooling effect. So her mood yesterday had cold-cocked him. He didn’t know what to do with her when she was flat.

Thankfully, whatever was bothering her had melted away during the course of their lovemaking. What started out as sweet and tentative on the living-room sofa transitioned into a wild vertical roll down the hall. They’d ended up back in their bedroom, where they eventually slept, as if trying to make up for the missed night.

God, but this woman made him forget himself. It was such a complete lapse in purpose and reason that it almost worried him. Should he react to another person like she was an addiction? Or allow himself to burn with a need so fiery all he wanted to do was add more fuel?

Half the time, Grif thought, he didn’t even know he was craving her—her touch, voice, nearness. Then the need climbed into him like a bandit, and it was only after he was already bruising her lips with his and devouring her flesh like an animal that he realized how hungry he’d been for her at all. By the time they were done, both sated and sweaty, loose-limbed and exhausted—he could barely remember his own name.

He even forgot why he was here.

Grif shoved that thought—all of them—away. The important thing was that Kit was back to her normal self, volleying theories on the Cuban-Russian connection like she was playing tennis with herself. By the time she’d come to a halt in the hospital lot, she was armed with plans to confront the Kolyadenkos, Mary Margaret, and Al Zicaro in one fell swoop.

Five minutes later, though, after following the ER nurse’s directions to the hospital’s cafeteria, they were faced with a sight that made them both fall still and silent. Jeannie Holmes’s mother was already waiting.

The woman’s hollow gaze skimmed Kit first, wistfulness blooming, before dying on the next blink. Seeing the look, Kit shoved her bag into Grif’s hands, and rushed to take the woman’s hands in her own. “Thank you for agreeing to see us, Ms. Holmes. I know this is a terrible time for you.”

Ms. Holmes’s face damned near turned to dust. Her head fell, and she dropped back into her seat, and slumped. Yet her fingers remained locked with Kit’s, who moved to sit next to her. Grif remained standing across the Formica tabletop.

“Call me Jann,” she said, finally looking up. “Detective Carlisle told me you’d be coming. And that you saved my daughter. Thank you. No