Wolfe Watching Read Free

since Eric had enjoyed the pleasure derived from a woman’s legs wrapped around him—for any reason.
    So, in light of his self-imposed celibacy, Eric told himself, the reactions he was now experiencing were perfectly normal, if a bit intense. And they certainly were intense, with fiery strands of sensation coiling around the sides of his hips and converging in a most vulnerable section of his body.
    Eric attempted to moisten his parched lips with a quick glide of his tongue; it didn’t help much. His tongue was every bit as dry as his lips.
    Wild.
    Eric utilized an enforced wait for a traffic light to ponder these not-at-all-normal physical responses. All this heat from the feel of Tina’s wool-covered legs clasped to his jeans-clad hips? he marveled, revving the motor impatiently. What in hell would it do to him, how would it feel, to be cradled by her silky thighs, naked flesh pressed to naked flesh?
    It would feel good...maybe too damn good.
    Keep your mind on the business at hand, Wolfe, Eric advised himself, shifting once more in the bike’s saddle to ease a gathering tightness in his body, and zooming through the intersection when the light blinked to green.
    Business.
    Hell.
    Gripping the handlebars, Eric swooped around the slow-moving car of ancient vintage putt-putting in front of him. The business at hand concerned the illegal possession and sale of narcotics. A nasty business, and very likely conducted to the tune of millions of dollars.
    And he was fairly certain that business was being conducted in that ordinary-looking middle-income house across the street and down a few properties from the garage apartment he had so recently moved into.
    What Eric wasn’t at all certain of was the possible involvement—or lack thereof—of one Christina Marianna Kranas in that nasty business.
    The question mark stabbed at Eric’s mind as persistently as the memory of her encasing legs stabbed at his body.
    * * *
    “Ouch!”
    “You okay, Tina?” Susan Grant poked her head around the doorway into the workroom.
    “Yeah.” Tina’s self-disgust was evident, even with the tip of her finger stuck in her mouth. “I pricked my finger on a corsage pin,” she explained to her frowning assistant.
    “You’ve been kind of not quite with it all morning,” Susan said, stepping through the doorway separating the workroom from the showroom. “Something bothering you?”
    Not something, someone.
    Keeping the thought where it belonged, inside her rattled mind, Tina shook her head. “No, I guess I’m just a little distracted today.”
    Susan’s frown dissolved into a teasing smile. “Thinking about tonight...and Ted Saunders?”
    “Well...perhaps.” Tina forced a light-sounding laugh and turned back to the worktable. Her answer had verged on an outright lie. No “perhaps” about it...she hadn’t given a single thought to the coming evening or her date with Ted. In fact, until Susan mentioned it, Tina had completely forgotten she had made a date for that evening. Why had she made a date with Ted for this evening?
    Tina frowned. Oh, yeah, her car was in the shop. For that matter, she didn’t really consider it a real date...even though Ted had been after her to go out with him for some weeks now. She had consistently put him off.
    She would have put him off again when he called late yesterday afternoon, but Ted hadn’t actually asked her for a date. Ted had asked her if she planned to join their group of mutual friends at their usual Friday-evening get-together at the tavern. Tina had told him she was. Knowing her car was in the shop for repairs, Ted had then offered to stop by her place and give her a lift to the tavern. Fully aware that he had his own agenda, that of convincing her to regard him in the role of prospective suitor, Tina had nevertheless accepted his offer with gratitude.
    End of date business; she still had no intention of expanding their friendship into a more intimate relationship. She wasn’t