Read Online Nice & Naughty by Tawny Weber - Free Book Online

honey licking.
    Oh, to be licked by a man who knew what to do with his tongue. Who could use it gently, in soft swirling enticement. Or roughly, with voracious hunger. Or, oh, please, yes, with plunging strength, in a scream-inducing rhythm.
    “Sweetie, are you sure you should be in this morning? You could have taken the day off, you know.”
    Crap.
    Her face flushed and breath a little shaky, Jade ripped her gaze from the computer screen and her mind from its fantasy over Diego Sandoval licking warm honey from her naked body.
    “I’m fine, Mom. I don’t like laundry enough to take an entire day off to do it,” Jade said, trying to lighten the worry lines etched in her mother’s forehead. Opal Carson had seen enough stress in the last five years. She didn’t need to be worrying about creeps fondling her daughter’s undies.
    “Still, you don’t look like you got much sleep.” Opal frowned up at her daughter from her motorized scooter. “You could have taken a half day, slept in a little.”
    “I’d rather be here, keeping busy,” Jade said with a cheerful smile, hoping to redirect the conversation. “Besides, if I stayed away today, I’d have to come in tomorrow. And tomorrow’s crafts day.”
    She gave an exaggerated shudder, rubbing her hands over the billowing sleeves of her shirt as if trying to overcome the horror.
    “You know how I feel about crafts day, Mother. Don’t make me face glue sticks and glitter. And sequins. Oh, the sequins.”
    Opal’s lips twitched and she shook her head. “It’s beyond me how a girl as creative as you could hate crafts.”
    “I have no imagination,” Jade said, shrugging as she slid from the stool. Time to quit drooling in the name of research and get to work.
    “Darling, you have the best imagination of anyone I know.”
    “That’s because you’re the best mother of anyone I know,” Jade said, coming around the counter and bending to plant a loud kiss on her mother’s cheek. “And I’m not at all biased.”
    “Jade—”
    Dammit. Tension spiked through Jade’s system, swirling through her temples as if it wanted to take up residence and start pounding away. Before it could, and more important, before her mother could voice whatever motherly concern had her frowning at her middle child, a voice interrupted.
    “Excuse me, ladies?”
    Jade turned, automatically stepping aside so her mom could maneuver the scooter around the desk to face the speaker.
    Well, well. Look who was turning into her very own knight in leather armor. Detective Sandoval stood just inside the entrance, the morning sunlight filtering in behind him doing nothing to soften his bad-boy edginess.
    She offered a wide, welcoming smile. It was only her mother’s presence that kept her gaze from dropping to the front of his jeans to see if they fit as well as she remembered. Checking out a guy’s package was definitely a nonparental event.
    “Good morning, Detective Sandoval. This is my mother, Opal Carson.” Just a little breathless, she introduced them with a wave in what she figured was her mom’s general direction. Her mom might have been perched on the roof for all she could tell, though, she was so fixated on the sexy detective. “Mom, this is Diego Sandoval. He’s the detective that Mayor Applebaum brought in to deal with the underwear thefts.”
    “Detective, it’s nice to meet you.”
    “Ma’am,” Diego greeted, shaking her hand with a quick smile that flashed enough warmth and charm to make Jade wish she was the panting type.
    “I hope you’re taking this case more seriously than the rest of the town.”
    “I take every case seriously. This one is no different.” He had that perfect “just the facts, ma’am” tone. “I won’t stop until I’ve found the creep who broke into your daughter’s house.”
    His words were intent enough for Jade to settle against the counter, pretty sure her mother wouldn’t send her to the Religious Studies section to get a bible for