She didn’t see any reason either of them had to spend the evening alone. “I was going to make some pesto pasta tonight. Would you like to join me?”
She expected an eager response. What man who’d been eating prison rations for fourteen years would turn down a home-cooked meal? A chance to eat all he wanted? But he surprised her by rising to his feet. “No, thank you. I should get back.”
He’d spoken as curtly as though he had an important meeting, but she knew he had nothing scheduled. Nothing until Tuesday. “You’re choosing whatever you’ve got in that grocery bag Wallace provided over my garlic bread and pasta?”
“There’s no need for you to put yourself out.”
“Cooking for two isn’t much different than cooking for one.”
“I’m fine. Thank you.”
Refusing to lower his guard, he’d started already walking toward the door.
“Are you trying to prove a point, Virgil?”
He stopped. “What point would that be?”
“That you don’t need anyone? That you don’t want anyone? That you’re fine on your own?”
“I am fine on my own.”
She pursed her lips. “A simple dinner might threaten that? Threaten you?”
“Maybe. In any case, I’ve already warned you.”
“Warned me.” To be careful of the signals she sent him, he meant. She shook her head and laughed. “To a man who’s been in prison for so long I probably look pretty good. But don’t let that confuse you. Any woman would look good.”
“Quit acting as if I can’t tell the difference between you and someone else, as if I have no taste, no ability to discriminate. I’ve had other opportunities. Once I established who and what I was, the only person who ever came on to me in prison was a woman. She would’ve spread her legs at the snap of my fingers.”
Peyton pushed her chair back. “How’s that, if you were housed in a male prison?”
He shoved his hands into his pockets. “She wasn’t a prisoner.”
“So it was a staff member?”
“A C.O.”
“Did you take what she offered?”
“Hell, no. She got off on passing herself around to as many men as she could, mostly prison scum. Who knew what diseases she carried? I could never be desperate enough to sleep with her.”
It wasn’t difficult to imagine a female C.O. taking an interest in a man like Virgil Skinner. He’d caught her eye, hadn’t he? “Who was she?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Staff having sex with inmates, that’s against the law.”
He shrugged. “Don’t look at me to rat her out.”
“Why not? It doesn’t sound as if you’re too impressed with her.”
“No, but I live and let live, unless I don’t have any other choice.”
Prison rules. What remained of the values, for lack of a better word, he’d developed on the inside. Peyton recognized it easily. “So, if you don’t need me, why are you running?”
As he chuckled under his breath, his eyes ranged over her. “What do you care if I leave? Aren’t there enough other men to admire you in Crescent City?”
“Stop it. I’m not trying to— Never mind.” Getting up, she scooped her car keys off the table. “If you’d rather go back to the motel and eat alone, fine. I’ll take you.” She made a move to stalk past him, but he caught her by the arm, and when she looked up, into his face, she realized he wasn’t nearly as unimpassioned as he’d implied.
“You know what I want from you,” he said. “If you want it, too, you don’t have to make me dinner. You don’t have to view me as an equal. Hell, you don’t have to do anything at all. Just ask.”
He was determined to maintain the upper hand, at least when it came to any personal interaction between them. But what he didn’t understand was that she couldn’t justify such a shallow encounter. She’d never had one before; no way was she starting now. She wasn’t angling for a thrill, although there was that aspect. For some reason, she craved a real encounter with this man, something as honest as meeting him had been unexpected. “I’m not interested in a quick tumble.”
“Who said it had to be quick?” He sent her a lazy grin. “We’ve got all weekend. And despite my past, I’m clean, if that’s what you’re worried about. They tested me before my release.”
“Good to know, but I can’t accept your terms. Although not for the reasons you think.”
Two grooves formed between his eyebrows. “Then what do you want from me?”
His close proximity made her feel…odd, breathless, aroused. “Does it have to be so complicated? I want you to stay for dinner. That’s what I invited you to do, isn’t it?”
When his eyes lowered to her chest, she knew he was anything but unaffected. “If I stay, it won’t be for dinner.”
Their eyes met again and she saw what she hadn’t been able to see before—vulnerability, maybe even confusion, beneath a shield of male pride. That he hated feeling as needy as he did made her want to touch him and be touched by him all the more, if only to provide him with some comfort after what he’d been through. But she couldn’t respond to the emotions he evoked in her. She barely knew him. And even though the CDCR hadn’t officially hired him, she was working with him. As a woman trying to be successful in a man’s world, a woman who already had the odds stacked against her, she’d always been careful to maintain her professionalism. So why, out of nowhere, was she tempted to indulge herself? With him?
“Then I’m taking you home,” she said.
“That’s what I thought.” He responded with a careless smile, but that didn’t fool her. He was disappointed.
And so was she.
6
“They also use a pendulum,” Peyton said as she drove. She was trying to get her mind back on business, back on the reason they’d gotten together in the first place, and stem the rush of hormones.
Virgil glanced over at her. “What are you talking about?”
He hadn’t spoken since they’d left. Gripping the steering wheel tighter, she drew a deep breath. “The Hells Fury. You asked me about their symbols. I didn’t mention the pendulum, but they use that symbol, too. I’m guessing it represents the passage of time, the steady march toward death.”