Trust Me, page 12
“Like?”
“Books,” he said. He grinned. “I used to make fun of the band geeks, but they would make fun of this here science fiction geek.”
“You are not a sci-fi fan,” she said.
He nodded. “Biggest one I know. I’ve read Gibson’s Neuromancer so many times I can damn near recite it verbatim. And I’ve read just about everything Niven ever wrote.”
“I devoured Ringworld the first time I read it,” Mack said.
Ezra shook his head. “There you go, blowing my mind again. I would have guessed you’d be into legal thrillers or maybe even romance novels.”
“Hey, I read those too. I’ve got more romances on my bookshelf than any other genre, but science fiction has always been my first love. Back when I was in high school, Octavia Butler was my escape.”
“Butler is a legend. I have a paperback copy of Parable of the Sower that’s being held together by paperclips and packing tape, but I refuse to replace it.”
She slapped her hands to her chest. “That’s one of my favorites. Second only to Kindred.”
“Kindred,” Ezra said at the same time. He grinned. “You look like a Kindred kind of girl.”
“It’s such a heartbreaking, eloquently written piece of fiction.” They stared at each other, both grinning in their shared geekiness. “You know,” Mack continued. “One of the biggest fights I ever had with Carter was over an autographed copy that I bought on eBay. It cost an obscene amount of money, but I’d pay it again in a heartbeat. I consider that signed book one of my most prized possessions.”
“First edition?”
“You know it.”
“Wow. I’d love to see it.”
“I’ll show it to you the next time you come over. The book,” Mack hastily tacked on. “You’re more than welcome to see the book.”
It hadn’t occurred to him that she’d meant anything else, but the fact that she thought she had to clarify her statement told Ezra what she had been thinking. It sent his already robust imagination on a journey it had no business taking in the middle of this crowded square.
Mack swallowed down a large gulp of beer and started to gather up their empty paper dishes. “Are you ready to head to the music stages?” she asked.
Ezra didn’t want to go anywhere, unless it was somewhere quiet where he could learn more about her.
No. No!
Learning more about Mackenna Arnold should not be a part of his agenda. Knowing that she played clarinet in the school band, and that she found escape through the world of science fiction novels the way he had when he was younger, was already more than Ezra needed to know about her. It only invited him to want to learn more, when what he should be concentrating on is investigating the story that could reinvigorate his stagnant career.
Mack had handed him a golden opportunity with this lead on Lucien Warner. If there truly was something underhanded going on in the mayor’s office, and he was the reporter to break the story, Ezra knew it would put him on the radar of news outlets from around the country.
That’s what he needed to focus on.
Mack stood and dusted off her sundress. And just like that, Ezra’s focus jumped from what he should be concentrating on to the only thing he wanted to concentrate on right now. The amazingly gorgeous woman who was turning out to be more of a surprise than he ever thought possible.
* * *
As she danced among the thousands of people crowding around the main stage, Mack was hyperaware of one person in particular. While her body’s reaction to Ezra shouldn’t have been a surprise, every slight brush of his arm against hers sent shockwaves racing through her bloodstream.
Today had been full of surprises. Mack had known there was more to Ezra than being a fierce—maybe even overzealous—investigative reporter. Today, she’d been granted a glimpse into the man underneath the hard-hitting exposés and newsboy cap.
She observed him as he swayed to the beat of the Rebirth Brass Band, one of the city’s premier jazz ensembles, who were tearing up the stage with their signature style of play. Despite his sturdy, solid frame, Ezra moved with ease, exhibiting a laid-back suaveness that did interesting things to Mack’s insides. There was something decidedly sexy about a man who could look so smooth while he danced.
When the band climbed down from the stage and into the crowd, leading a second-line march around the grounds, Ezra pointed at her and crooked his finger. Her first instinct was to say no, but where was the fun in that? After all, that’s why she’d come here this afternoon, wasn’t it? She’d been in much need of some fun in her life.
So, instead of following her first instinct, Mack placed her hand in his and allowed him to lead her to the dozens of people who were now following the band. Several festival-goers recognized her and started a “Go Councilwoman, Go Councilwoman” chant as Mack high-stepped to the rhythmic beats. Someone handed her a handkerchief, and she waved it in the air, rocking in time with the music.
“I know this will end up on YouTube, but I don’t care,” she said.
Ezra winked at her. “You’re going to make people jealous of New Orleans. When people around the world see it, they’ll wish they had a city council member as cool as you are.”
The band played long past their allotted time, but there were no complaints from the crowd. Mack wouldn’t mind if they played for the rest of the afternoon. This lazy, carefree feeling was one she didn’t want to let go of. It felt so amazing to just be…free. Free of the strife down at City Hall and the court cases piled high on her desk at the Arts Council. Free of Carter and his continual bullshit. She could just be herself, if only for a few more hours.
As she and Ezra danced, Mack was hyperaware of every brush of his skin against hers. His hand traveled along her bare arm as they swayed with the music. She knew he hadn’t meant for it to be overly sensual, not while hundreds—thousands—of people surrounded them, but it was definitely sensual.
It was growing late, but Mack didn’t want to leave. She could stay out here all evening long.
As if the weather gods read her mind, a crack of thunder rent the air, making the decision for her and all those who had been enjoying the festival and didn’t want to go home. Ezra pointed to the darkening sky across the Mississippi River.
“I’d say we have another twenty minutes before that gets here.” More thunder cracked. “Maybe not even that long,” Ezra amended. “Where’s your car? I’ll walk you to it.”
“I took Uber,” Mack said. “I didn’t want to have to worry about finding a place to park.”
“Wish I’d thought of that,” he said with a grin. He hitched his head. “Come on. I’ll drop you home.”
As they started toward Esplanade Avenue, Mack learned that Ezra’s meteorological skills were nowhere near as sharp as his investigative journalism skills. The twenty minutes he’d predicted they would have before the downpour started was more like eight. They quickened their steps as the raindrops began to fall, and started running faster when the rain gained momentum.
By the time they arrived at Ezra’s navy sedan, the rain was falling at a steady pace, and Mack’s flimsy peach sundress lay plastered to her skin. She hadn’t bothered with a bra, a decision she now regretted. Her nipples poked out like stiff beads underneath the wet material.
Mack slipped into the passenger seat and awkwardly tried to cover her chest.
“You can put your arms down,” Ezra said. “I promise not to look.”
“Do you?”
“No, I just want you to put your arms down. That looks uncomfortable.”
Mack rolled her eyes. “I don’t live too far away. I can handle the discomfort for the short drive.”
“I’ve seen breasts before, you know? I haven’t seen yours, of course, but are they really that different?”
“Just drive,” she said.
Mack kept her arms exactly where they were, moving them only to adjust the air vents once Ezra turned on the heater. The hot summer rain, combined with the warm air blowing from the vents, turned the inside of the car into a sauna. Still, she’d rather be hot and wet than cold and wet.
By the time they arrived at her condo, the thundershower had gained strength. Luckily, Ezra was able to find a parking spot on the street close to the building’s main entrance.
“Please tell me you’re better than I am at keeping an umbrella in the car?” Mack asked.
He reached behind them, feeling around the backseat and, a moment later, came up with an umbrella. “Stay there. I’ll come around to get you.”
Sharing the umbrella wasn’t ideal, but at least they made it to her apartment building without getting another drenching. Ezra insisted on following her up to her condo. The temperature in the building was, as usual, dialed to frozen tundra, negating the brief relief Mack had achieved from the car’s heater.
They got off on her floor and made their way to her front door. Mack was more than aware of Ezra’s eyes on her when she had to drop her arms in order to search for her keys.
“You’re looking,” she said as she fished the keys from her bag.
“Yeah, I think I was wrong about that whole ‘seen one set of breasts, seen them all’ thing. Yours are amazing.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to lay into him, but instead Mack burst out laughing.
“Did what I just say hurt my chances of getting invited in for coffee?” he asked. “Tell me you’re not going to send me back out in that rain.”
She pushed open the door and gestured for him to enter. “Offering you coffee is the very least I can do after you rescued me from the rain. And for teaching me that newest line dance so I didn’t look like a fool out there. And for meeting me at the festival in the first place.”
“Damn, I did do all of that, didn’t I?” He grinned as he stepped aside so she could turn off the condo’s alarm. “I’d say that deserves more than just coffee.”
“There’s leftover bread pudding from Galatoire’s in the fridge,” Mack said, tossing the keys on the table next to the door. “You’re more than welcome to a bite of it.”
“Not even close to what I want a bite of,” he murmured. His eyes shot to hers. “I said that out loud, didn’t I?”
She nodded and had to swallow the unnamed emotion clogging her throat before she could speak. “Yeah, you did.”
That look in his eyes was unmistakable. It caused a shiver that had nothing to do with her wet clothing to travel down Mack’s spine. Awareness prickled her skin in response to the blatant desire evident in his gaze.
She pointed toward her room. “I’m…uh…I’m going to change out of this.”
Ezra nodded, his gaze still latched on to hers.
Mack raced to her bedroom and closed the door. She leaned her head back on the solid wood and pulled in several deep breaths.
She’d known that they would eventually have to confront this mutual attraction. It was too apparent, too potent, to leave things unsaid in hopes that it would magically go away. There was no escaping this, but Mack wasn’t sure she was ready for the conversation just yet. Acknowledging the attraction between them would put it at the forefront, and could very likely prove detrimental to the real goal here: investigating the mayor.
Maybe she could pretend for just a bit longer that the spot between her legs didn’t pulse with need every second she was around him.
“Good luck with that,” she muttered as she finally pushed away from the door.
She was tempted to jump into the shower, but settled for toweling her damp skin and throwing on one of her favorite loungewear sets. The heather gray leggings and lightweight hooded pullover were soft and comfy, but still presentable. She’d even gone down to the 24-hour drug store in these once.
She sucked in a calming breath, searching for her center of control before leaving the safety of her bedroom. The rich aroma of coffee and chicory hit her the moment she opened the door. She entered the kitchen and found Ezra searching her cabinets.
“Made yourself right at home, didn’t you?” Mack asked.
He turned. “Hope you don’t mind. I figured I’d get the coffee started. Where do you keep your mugs?”
“You sure you don’t know?” Mack teased, pointing to the cabinet just to the right of him. “I was sure you’d searched my condo months ago during your little investigation.”
He looked at her over his shoulder and winked. “Breaking and entering goes a bit past my comfort level.” He took down two mugs and filled them with steaming coffee.
Mack grabbed the half-and-half, along with the leftover bread pudding, from the fridge. She transferred the bread pudding to a ceramic bowl and zapped it in the microwave for twenty seconds before bringing it, along with two spoons, to where he stood.
“We’re sharing,” she said, tossing a spoon on the counter in front of him. She dipped her own spoon in the bread pudding, bumping Ezra with her hip as she broke off a healthy chunk. “I hope you feel as special as this situation warrants. I normally wouldn’t share my leftover dessert with just anyone.”
Oh, good Lord. She was doing it. She was flirting with him! Didn’t she just vow to keep this professional not even five minutes ago?
“You should feel pretty special yourself, Councilwoman,” he returned. “I don’t eat just anyone’s dessert.”
And just like that, Mack’s body lit up like a furnace in the dead of winter.
Maybe she could better handle a game of sexual innuendo tit-for-tat if it hadn’t been so damn long since she’d been with a man, but she was in the middle of a year-long drought. Everything out of his mouth had a panty-melting affect.
“So, did you mean for that to sound as dirty as it did?” Mack asked.
“I’m not sure yet,” Ezra said. “I’m still trying to figure out how far you’ll let my flirting go.”
“So you’re flirting too?”
His forehead dipped with his frown. “Wait, you were flirting?”
Well, hell. Maybe she was even more out of practice than she realized.
“I thought I was. That’s what this sharing dessert thing was supposed to be,” Mack said. She released a sigh. “But it’s probably not a good idea. You know, the whole flirting thing. It would just be a distraction.”
“You’re right,” Ezra said. “Maybe we should just get to the reason I’m here.” He tipped his head toward her bedroom. Mack’s eyes grew wide, but before she could speak, he said, “You’re supposed to show me your copy of Kindred, remember?”
Air whooshed from her lungs. “Oh, goodness, yes,” she said. Lord, but this overactive imagination was going to drive her insane. “Give me a minute,” Mack said.
She dropped her spoon and raced for her bedroom where she kept the book on a handmade bookcase, grateful for a few moments to catch her breath. She pulled the book off the shelf and turned to find Ezra standing at the door. Her heart slammed into her ribcage.
“Can I come in?” he asked.
Mack swallowed the lump of desire that had lodged in her throat. It felt way too intimate to have him in her bedroom, but what could she tell him? No?
She nodded. “Sure. Come in.”
He strolled up to her, his hands in his pockets. With a nod toward the book, he asked, “That it?”
She held the book out to him. “Yep. This is it. My prized possession.” She shrugged. “I don’t read this copy, of course. I have a couple of old, tattered ones I found at a used book store for that.”
He flipped to the title page and ran his thumb over Octavia Butler’s signature. “This is pretty damn cool.”
“I think so too.” She smiled up at him and noticed when his eyes dropped to her lips. At the same time, her tongue darted out of her mouth. She licked her lips and Ezra’s gaze intensified. Mack figured she had about eight seconds before her heart burst clean out of her chest.
“Our…uh…our coffee will get cold,” she said.
“Do you care?” He murmured.
Not one bit. But it was probably better if she got him out of her bedroom.
His eyes narrowed as he looked at something past her shoulder. “What’s that?” Ezra asked.
For the first time in a long time Mack experienced true fear when she realized that he was looking in the direction of her dresser, where she kept her vast array of sex toys in the second drawer. Her heart stopped. Had she put the one she’d used last night back in the drawer?
Mack was almost too afraid to turn around. Her shoulders wilted in relief when she finally did turn to find her dresser hot-pink-dildo free.
Ezra walked over to the dresser and picked up the plaque she’d been given by a school she’d visited last month, where she’d served as the keynote speaker for their Honor Roll assembly.
“Oh, wait. This isn’t what I thought it was,” Ezra said. He held up the plaque. “There’s this group of kids and parents in the Carrolton area who have formed something of a club—an unfortunate one. They presented me with a plaque like this for bringing attention to their story years ago. I thought you’d gotten this from them, but the two groups must have used the same trophy maker.”
“What did you do to warrant a plaque?” Mack asked. “And why would you call the group unfortunate? That’s an odd description.”
“Yeah, it is. But, sadly, it’s an accurate one.”
Mack frowned. “I want to hear the story, but something tells me I won’t like it.”
Ezra shrugged as he set the plaque on her dresser and perched his backside against it. He folded his arms over his chest and crossed his feet at the ankles. Mack should have been alarmed by how at home he looked in her bedroom. Alarm wasn’t what she felt at the moment. She didn’t want to think about what she felt at the moment as she took in his almost too perfect appearance.
“The story starts out pretty bad, but it has a happy ending,” Ezra said. “Actually, it started with a friend of mine. He noticed something weird happening with his son. The kid played on one of those neighborhood football teams. The games are all held at Tad Gormley Stadium, but the team Edwin’s son played on practiced at a park in their neighborhood.” He paused for a moment before continuing. “Joshua—that’s Edwin’s son—began getting sick a lot, but he’d had asthma as a baby, so Edwin and his wife thought maybe it stemmed from that.”
