Jack Stone - Wild Justice by Vivien Sparx Read Free Book Online Page B

to shudder with a sudden convulsion. It was like a ripple that vibrated down her spine. Her lips were parted, and she gave a soft silent little gasp. Without realizing it she had leaned forward as Stone had been speaking, as if she were being drawn to him in the night by his words and the deep steady sound of his voice, so that now the space between them was just a few inches.
    She blinked suddenly, flinched. Then she sprang from the chair quickly and went to the kitchen counter where the kettle was, as if driven by the urgent need to put more space between them.
    Stone said nothing. Did nothing. He sat back in the chair, watching the delicate but precise movement of her hands as she spooned coffee and sugar into mugs. She kept her back to him, standing over the hissing kettle until the water boiled and the automatic switch cut the power off. Her body was tense. Stone could see it in the rigid square set of her shoulders and the straightness of her spine.
    Lilley brought the mugs back to the table, but she didn’t sit down. Instead she went and stood behind her chair, like she was keeping herself behind barriers.
    “You never told me how long you will be in town for,” she said. Her voice sounded husky with strain.
    “As long as it takes to find answers,” Stone replied honestly. “Maybe a few days. Maybe a little longer. It depends on what I turn up.” He wrapped his hands around the coffee mug, felt the warmth through the ceramic. Then he stood up.
    “Lilley, if my being here makes you uncomfortable in any way, I am happy to stay at the motel back on the highway – or maybe a motel here in town. I don’t want to cause you any problems.”
    “No – ” She came to him and placed her hand on his forearm, but then could not continue. Instead she stared up silently into his face and her eyes were huge and luminous and unfathomable. Stone saw the throb of a pulse in her long graceful neck, from a point just below her ear. Lilley’s lips parted as though she were about to say something. They were full soft lips, and she dabbed at them with the tip of her tongue, leaving them moist, and somehow even softer. She closed them again. Said nothing. But the pressure of her fingers on his arm grew stronger and she shifted her weight so that her lower body swayed towards him and her back arched, lifting up her chin slightly.
    She shook her head suddenly and violently. “No,” she said again, with just a hint of something desperate in her voice. “I want you to stay here,” she said. “It’s not a problem, it’s just…. well… Jack Stone, I think you’re a very handsome man, and you’re very hard to resist. But that’s my issue, not yours.”
    He finished his coffee quickly, like that was the end of the conversation, but he knew it wasn’t.
    “I think I’ll turn in for the night,” he said. “I have a lot I want to get done tomorrow.”
    Lilley pushed herself away from the chair. “Of course,” she said. “I keep a spare room made up across the hallway from my bedroom. I’ll show you.”
    She led him down the passageway, and pushed the last door on the left open.
    Stone stepped into a room and flicked on the light to orientate himself. It smelled faint ly of cooking odors. Not a bad smell. There was a narrow single bed in the middle of the room with the headboard pushed up against the far wall. The bed was covered in a mustard yellow blanket. There was an old wardrobe against one wall made of dark solid timber, and a window set into the opposite wall with the shades pulled all the way down. Not the Ritz, but not the worst place he had ever spent a night. He set his knapsack down at the foot of the bed.
    “Thanks,” he said, turning round to Lilley who had held back in the doorway. “I really appreciate your hospitality.”
    She smiled again. “I’m going to take a quick shower,” she said, “so you might hear the water clunking in the pipes for a few minutes.”
    Stone nodded. “No problems. Thanks