daughter, is a legitimate one, but it’s just that, a theory. And Davenport...well, now that I’ve met him...now that I’ve actually talked with him...”
“He doesn’t seem smart enough to have pulled off these murders?” Nina nodded. “I’m afraid I have to agree.”
“Everything points to him having done it. But a chain of evidence is almost never this clean. It almost seems like he’s being set up. Again, I’m not saying I believe that. Eighty percent of me thinks he’s good for the Cann and Hastings murders.”
“But twenty percent of you doesn’t. And you’re not willing to risk that the real murderer is still out there. That’s why you’re taking me back to your house, right? Why you don’t want me to go back to my place yet?”
“Do you want to go back to your place?”
“I should. I need to get a more secure security system installed. I mean, I know DeMarco put in a good one, but Davenport managed to get around it. I really want something better. Something befitting Fort Knox would be good.”
He smiled slightly. “We’ll arrange for that. I can call Lana’s father, Gil Archer. He runs one of the top security firms in the city, remember? As for you going back home? I’m not sure if the evidence techs have fully processed the house yet. Besides, I didn’t ask if you should go back to your place. I asked whether you want to go back there.”
She paused, then said, “No. I don’t want to go back there. Not yet.”
He looked at her. “Good.” After a few seconds had passed, he reached out and placed a hand on her leg. The gesture was both comforting and arousing. “Then you’ll stay at my house again.” He squeezed her leg, and fire settled low in her core. Good God, did her body respond to Simon Granger’s touch.
As if sensing her reaction, Simon grinned and murmured, “I’ll cook you dinner. Put you in bed. Let you get some sleep.”
Nina recalled how Davenport had looked in that interrogation room. She still felt sad, but she refused to wallow in it. Simon was right. They couldn’t be certain that Davenport had killed Cann and Hastings, but it was the only possible explanation so far.
In the end, however, it was up to Simon, not Nina, to put all the pieces of the puzzle together. Stevens had been right about Nina’s inability to be completely objective when it came to evaluating Davenport the way a doctor should. She was his victim, and she’d have to leave the assessments and his treatment to someone else. In the meantime, she refused to deprive herself of whatever happiness she could find, no matter how temporary it might be.
She turned until she faced Simon. “I’ll go home with you. But only if you promise you won’t let me sleep.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
THE AIR RUSHED OUT OF Nina’s lungs when her back hit Simon’s bed. Once she’d agreed to stay at his house again, Simon hadn’t taken things slow. He’d driven her back to his place, unbuttoning his shirt as soon as they crossed the doorway and unzipping his pants with one hand as he led her into the bedroom with the other. Once there, he’d stripped her, quickly and efficiently, and then he’d pushed her onto the bed.
At first, she’d been surprised by his aggression. By the fact that he wasn’t treating her with kid gloves. But then she realized why and she was grateful. If he’d moved too slow or too gently, it would have made her think about why he was doing so. As it was, she could barely focus on anything past her own passion and urgency.
“Condoms?” she asked, stroking her own belly and winding her legs together in a sinuous pattern as Simon ripped off his shoes, pants and then his shirt.
He stood before her, straight and proud, his erection jutting out. “In the nightstand next to you,” he said, “but we won’t need them for a while.”
His stated intent to stretch out the foreplay made her breath catch.
She wanted him, wanted his body on top of hers, wanted to feel his heat inside her. And yet he just stood there, at the edge of the bed, staring down at her. The warm, soft smile toying at his lips set her on fire, and she felt a strong urge to meet his aggression with her own. This wasn’t going to be another night of her lying on her back while Simon took the lead to distract