“Thank you,” she said. “I’ll try not to.”
He stayed another hour, catching her up on everything going on in his life and asking her tons more questions about her plans. Through it all, her heart was warmed by his obvious love, and she tried to remember how lucky she was to have people who loved her and wanted the best for her, even if it didn’t align with her own plans.
After he left, she strolled back to her borrowed room, more determined than ever to start her new life. She couldn’t wait to find a home of her own. And once she did, she’d take a lover as well! Hopefully, a green-eyed police inspector.
* * *
QUINN REMAINED AT THE station until almost one in the morning. He’d managed to accomplish a few things despite his exhaustion, but he’d become more and more frustrated by his lack of progress as the evening wore on. They had so little to go on, but he’d realized time and again that crimes that weren’t solved quickly were rarely solved at all.
Daisy hadn’t been located, which was a bit strange since she should have been back to Mercy Street by curfew. Perhaps she had just gotten spooked and went to stay with a friend or relative for the time being, but Ness thought she knew something, and Quinn’s own suspicions had grown when she’d gone to ground.
He sighed as he stepped out into the autumn chill, shivering as he drew his overcoat tighter around him. If Belle did know something, she probably wouldn’t tell them, and the last thing he wanted to think of was another dead girl, killed for what she knew. If this monster killed again, the entire city would be in chaos, and all the pressure of that would fall squarely on his shoulders.
As he walked the dozen blocks to his home, he sorted through all the events of the past forty-eight hours, trying to make sense of it all. Still, no matter how hard he tried to focus, his mind kept drifting back to that moment this morning in the supply closet, and Allison melting into him, her excitement and arousal palpable.
Quinn’s first sexual encounters had been with a woman far older than himself. Since then, he’d taken a few lovers in his life, widows and dance hall girls, women who had been willing to warm his bed for a few weeks or months. But except for his first lover, all of his sexual encounters had been somewhat perfunctory. Pleasant, but he’d never met a woman who’d thrilled him, acted as though she’d liked it as much as he had, made him consider actually turning the relationship into something long-term.
He'd certainly never met a woman who could distract him from his work, make him daydream in the middle of the afternoon, kiss her in a supply closet when he should be investigating a case...
Turning down his street, he caught sight of his modest rowhouse and increased his pace. He couldn’t wait to sit down in his favorite chair in front of a roaring fire and lose himself in a good book for an hour or so until his mind had settled enough to go to bed.
But suddenly, he imagined a different life. One where a woman waited inside, the lights brightly lit, the fire already started. She would ask him about his day and then lead him upstairs...
The things the couple at the warehouse had done with each other filled his mind. The sensuality, the primal sights and sounds... He’d only heard about such things in whispers, never been with a woman who he could imagine asking to do that, to take him in her mouth...
With a groan, he covered the last few feet to his front steps and unlocked the door, spilling inside and leaning against the wall as he struggled to get his mind and body to behave. He finally turned on the light, staring around his small but clean sitting room and, for the first time, finding it lacking. This place was a palace after the way he’d grown up. Electric lights, running water, his name on the title... those were all things he’d never dared to dream of having for himself when he’d been a child struggling to survive on London’s streets.
But when he thought about the woman who was waiting for him when he walked in the door, the woman who might try some of those erotic, exciting things, he could only imagine Allison Croft.
And Allison would never leave her brother’s mansion to come live with him in a tiny rowhouse in Bethnal Green.