“Did anybody ever tell you that you’re bossy?” He nuzzled her nose with his.
“Do you have a problem taking orders from a woman?” She lifted her hands to his buttocks and clutched him firmly.
“I’d love to take orders from you, honey. Just tell me what you want and I’ll do my best to deliver.”
I want you not only to make love to me, I want you to really, truly love me. I want you to be so crazy about me that you can’t imagine your life without me.
She looked him in the eyes and said, “All I want is you.”
He stared at her for one heart-stopping moment before he swooped down and kissed her, effectively taking her breath away. She kissed him back, putting all her feelings—everything she didn’t dare say to him—into that single kiss. Clutching his buttocks, her nails biting into his flesh, she lifted her hips in an invitation.
Take me. Take me now.
Jim spread her thighs and slipped between them, then eased his hands beneath her and grasped her hips. Bringing her up to meet him, he kissed her again and again, as if the taste of her excited him.
“Bernie…I—” He rammed into her. Hard and fast. To the hilt. “God!”
She wrapped herself around him and moved to the rhythm he set, quickly losing herself in him as their bodies joined so perfectly. They went at each other with wild abandon, and a few minutes later, they both came, almost simultaneously, she only seconds before he did. He groaned and trembled and melted down on top of her. She moaned as her second orgasm hit.
Breathing heavily, sweating profusely, their bodies hot and damp, they shared a moment-after kiss that expressed what neither had the energy to say.
It was good. Damn good.
Eventually he rolled off her, onto his back and rested beside her. She turned onto her side and cuddled up against him. He eased his arm under her head and pulled her close.
“Stay with me tonight,” Jim said. “I don’t want you to go.”
She caressed his chest, then kissed his shoulder. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m right where I want to be.”
Now and forever.
With only a towel wrapped around his waist and his hair still damp from his shower, Jim grabbed Bernie the minute he walked out of the bathroom. Before she could say a word, he pressed her up against the wall and kissed her.
He had awakened her not long after dawn this morning and they’d made love again. The experience had been slow and lingering, neither of them in a rush, each wanting and needing to explore the other. Being Jim’s lover was even better than she’d dreamed it could be. He was passionate, yet considerate. Demanding, but equally giving. How any woman in her right mind could have ever let this man go was beyond her.
While he’d been in the shower, she’d gone into the living room and gathered up their discarded clothes. After slipping on Jim’s shirt, she’d laid her garments out on the bed and frowned when she’d seen how wrinkled they were. She was, by nature, a neat, orderly person.
She needed to go home, take a bath and get ready for church services. If she didn’t show up, her mother would want to know why not. She could hardly say that she’d spent the entire morning in Jim’s bed, could she?
Why not, Bernie? You’re a grown woman of thirty-two. Your love life is none of your mother’s business and you have every right to tell her so.
Love life? She actually had a love life!
Neither of them had said those three magic words. Not last night. Not this morning. She was in love with Jim, but didn’t know how he felt about her.
When he lifted his head after kissing her and then smiled, Bernie’s stomach flip-flopped. She was just plain nuts about this guy.
She wrapped her arms around his neck. “I need to go home, take a shower and change clothes, so you’d better hurry up and get dressed,” she told him. “If you take me home before eight, I’ll have time to fix us some homemade pancakes before I have to dress for church.”
“What time is church?”
“Early service is at nine, then Sunday school at ten and late service at eleven.”
“You could skip Sunday school and go to the late service. If you do that, we might have time for a quickie after breakfast.”
“Jim Norton, you’re insatiable.” She rubbed herself against him seductively, letting his hunter green shirt gap open in front where she’d closed only a single middle button. “It’s one of the many things I lo—like about you.”
He studied her expression so seriously that she wondered if he was questioning her near-slip in saying the “L” word.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
“There are a lot of things I
love
about you, Bernie. I could make a mile-long list, starting with just how beautiful you are first thing in the morning.”
“Oh, Jim…” She felt tears misting her eyes and hated that she’d reacted in such a silly, girlie-girl way to his compliment. “You must need glasses. I’m an absolute mess.”
He clasped her upper arms and looked deeply into her eyes. “I’m the one who messed you up, and I like my handiwork.” He reached under his shirt that she was wearing to caress her bare butt.
“No fair,” she pleaded as she tried to pull away from him. “You know how easily I give in to you.”
He let her escape, only to yank her back into his arms. “That’s another thing I love about you.”
“You love that I’m easy?” Giggling, she yanked off his towel, leaving him buck naked.
“Yes, ma’am, I do. I love it that you’re easy, but easy only for me.”
“Only for you.”
Jim undid the single button on his shirt that she was wearing and spread it apart, then walked her backward across the room, straight to his unkempt bed. Just as he toppled her over, both of them eager to make love again, Jim’s telephone rang.
“I could just let it ring,” he said.
“You can’t. It could be Kevin, or it could be business.” She gave him a gentle shove.
He came up off the bed in one fast, fluid motion, then reached out and grabbed the bedroom extension phone off its base. “Yeah?”
Bernie rose up on her knees and crawled over to the edge of the bed, intending to pester him while he was on the phone. But she noticed the odd expression on his face and instinctively knew something was wrong.
“Okay. Yeah, you did the right thing calling me,” Jim said. “I’ll tell Bernie. You two meet us at her office in about an hour.”
Jim replaced the receiver and turned to Bernie. “That was Raymond Long.”
“What’s the matter? Has something happened to Robyn?”
Jim sat on the edge of the bed and pulled her over and onto his lap. “Last night when Robyn and Raymond entered her apartment, they found a note that had been shoved under her door.” Bernie tensed. Jim rubbed her back soothingly. “Then a little later, Robyn received a phone call from some guy whose voice she didn’t recognize.”
Bernie shook her head. “No. No, don’t say it.”
Jim wrapped her in his arms. “This guy told Robyn that he was her secret admirer and that the note she’d found was from him.”
Bernie trembled uncontrollably as her brain processed the fact that the Secret Admirer serial killer had chosen her baby sister as his next victim.
Bernie’s father arrived at her office while they waited for Robyn and Raymond. When Jim had called her dad before they left Jim’s house twenty-five minutes ago, he had simply told R.B. that Bernie needed his help on the case, that some new information had just come to light. There was no way he could tell a man over the phone that one of his daughters had been marked for death by a cold, calculating killer.
R.B. came bustling into the sheriff’s department dressed in a suit and tie. He looked right at Bernie. “Okay, girl, this had better be something that couldn’t wait, because your mother is none too happy with me for missing church and Sunday school.”
“Come on into my office, Dad,” Bernie told him. When he followed Jim and her, she added, “Close the door behind you.”
After R.B. shut the door, he glanced from Bernie to Jim. “What’s going on? I can tell from the looks on your faces that it’s bad.”
“Dad…” Bernie swallowed and tried again. “He’s chosen his next victim.”
“Who—the Secret Admirer killer?” R.B. asked.
Bernie nodded.
“How do you know? Has someone contacted you about—”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“About an hour ago. He slipped a note under her front door last night, and then later he called her and told her he was her secret admirer.”
“Son of a bitch.” R.B. scratched the back of his head and grimaced. “This just might turn out to be the break we need to catch this bastard. He finally picked a woman smart enough to know to be scared of this guy from the get-go instead of flattered.”
“Dad…”
Jim knew how difficult this was for Bernie.
“What is it, honey?” R.B. asked. “You’re acting mighty peculiar.”
“R.B., the woman who received the note and phone call is Robyn,” Jim said. “Raymond called me this morning. He was with her last night when she found the note and when the guy called her. Raymond’s driving her over to the courthouse. They should be here soon.”
“Robyn?” R.B. slumped down into the nearest chair. “He’s picked out my baby girl for his next victim?”
“Oh, Daddy.” Bernie rushed over to her father, knelt in front of him and grasped his hand. “We’re going to protect her. We’re going to make sure he doesn’t get anywhere near her.”
“Damn right about that.” R.B. growled the words.
A soft rapping at the closed door alerted them that someone else had arrived. All three of them stared at the door. Bernie rose to her feet as Jim crossed the room and opened the door. Robyn stood in the doorway, Raymond planted protectively behind her, his left hand on her shoulder.
“We’re here,” Robyn said, then looked beyond Jim to where her father had just turned around in the chair and gazed at her. “Daddy, what are you doing here?” She glared disapprovingly at Bernie. “Why did you call—?”
“Bernie didn’t,” Jim said. “I did.”
“Oh.”
Raymond squeezed her shoulder, then looked right at Jim. “When we got down to Robyn’s car a few minutes ago, we found a white plastic bag tied to the driver’s side door handle.” He lifted the sack he held in his right hand. “There’s a note, a sketch of Robyn, and a cheap pearl necklace inside. She didn’t touch anything, so the only fingerprints on it will be mine…and hopefully the man who sent her the package.”
R.B. rose to his feet and held open his arms. Robyn flew into her father’s embrace and wrapped her arms around him. “It’s going to be all right, baby girl.”
“Oh, Daddy, I’m so scared.”
Raymond handed Jim the white plastic sack.
Jim laid the sack on Bernie’s desk. “I doubt our guy left any prints. He’s never slipped up and done something that stupid before. He uses supplies that can be purchased just about anywhere, makes phone calls from various phones that can’t be traced back to him, and stays one step ahead of us all the time.”
“What can we do?” Raymond asked. “You know I’ll do anything I can to help keep Robyn safe.”
Robyn lifted her head from her father’s chest, eased out of his arms and smiled at Raymond. “He doesn’t want anything happening to me now that we’ve decided we might get married.”
“What?” R.B. and Bernie asked simultaneously.
Robyn walked over to Raymond and laced her arm through his. “I would much rather that y’all plan my wedding than plan my funeral.”
“Robyn!” Bernie gasped.
“We’ll have no such talk. Do you hear me, girl?” R.B. choked up, then cleared his throat loudly.
“Yes, Daddy. But I’m not naive, you know. I’m well aware of just how much danger I’m in from this madman.”
“I’ll make sure there is a deputy with you around the clock,” Bernie said.
“Abby had protection twenty-four/seven,” Robyn reminded them.
“We’ll make sure every deputy is experienced and that they all know that they can’t trust anyone,” Jim said. “And I think it might be a good idea for you to move back home with your parents for the time being.”
“That goes without saying.” R.B. gave his younger daughter a stern look. “Lord knows what this is going to do to your mother.”
“If there was any way we could keep this from her, we would,” Bernie said. “But we can’t.”
“Perhaps I should take Robyn away somewhere,” Raymond suggested. “If she’s not in Adams Landing, then the killer can’t get to her. Right?”
“Wrong,” R.B. replied. “We don’t know who the hell this guy is or how he’s able to stay several steps ahead of the law. If you take her away, he could somehow find out where Robyn is and…” R.B. looked at Jim. “This Secret Admirer killer has killed before, in other states, right?”
“Right. We’re relatively certain that Abby was his tenth victim.”
Robyn groaned softly and swayed on her feet. Raymond grabbed her, preventing her from falling.
“Goddamn. Goddamn.” R.B. socked his right fist into his open left palm as he paced the floor, cursing all the while. “There’s no way to know for sure that if Robyn left Adams Landing he couldn’t find her. No, she’s better off here where we can protect her. We won’t leave her alone for a minute. Day and night.” He narrowed his gaze as he focused on his elder daughter. “We’ll post a deputy inside the house, plus Raymond and I will keep a close watch on her and—” R.B. face’s contorted with rage. “By God, he’s not going to get his hands on her.”
Robyn and Bernie went over to their father, a daughter on either side, and put their arms around him.
Jim’s cell phone rang. Shit. He glanced at Bernie. “I’ll take it out there.” Hiking his thumb, he indicated the outer office. She nodded.
After exiting Bernie’s private office, he closed the door, then flipped open his cell phone and said, “Captain Norton here,” as he sat down on the edge of Lisa Wiley’s desk.
“Jim, I’ve got something for you,” Griffin Powell said.
“I hope it’s something good because we sure could use it right about now.”
“Has something else happened?”
“Bernie’s sister Robyn—my boss Sheriff Bernie Granger’s younger sister—is the Secret Admirer killer’s next intended victim. She’s started receiving notes, sketches, and presents. Last night he called her.”
“Then this case has become very personal for the sheriff’s department, hasn’t it?”
“Yeah, it has,” Jim said. “And for me, too.”
“How’s that? Are you involved with the sheriff’s sister?”
“No,” Jim replied, “I’m involved with the sheriff.”
Griffin didn’t respond, allowing a full minute of silence before he said, “I’ve managed to get hold of the list of Leighton Prep students the year Heather Stevens was a senior, along with a yearbook for that year. I’ll overnight the yearbook and I’ve already e-mailed the list to your office computer.”
“Resend it to Bernie’s e-mail address as soon as we hang up,” Jim said, then recited the address.
“Will do.”
“I appreciate this,” Jim said. “But I really need the yearbook and list of students for Heather’s junior year, too.”
“I’m working on it.”
“Thanks. And Griff?”
“Something else you need?”
“Not today, but maybe soon, I might need you to send a couple of your best men down here to Adams Landing to guard Robyn Granger.”
“That can be arranged. Just let me know.”
Abducting Robyn Granger would be a challenge, one he looked forward to facing. He had no intention of waiting for very long, not now that she had gone to the police with his notes, the pearls, and the sketch he’d drawn of her from memory. He could have given her more time and wooed her more slowly, but she’d taken that choice away from him. The sheriff and her chief deputy would think they had a couple of weeks before he whisked Robyn away to his secret love nest. They’d think that the gifts and sketches would arrive over a period of time, the way he’d sent them in the past. But not this time. He would outsmart them. And he knew just how he’d do it.
Play hard to get, my beautiful Robyn. Pretend you don’t want me. Lie to yourself all you want, but in the end, you will admit the truth to me. You’ll tell me how much you love me, how desperately you want me, how willing you are to please me.
He opened the front door to his home and walked out of the hot September sunshine and into his cool, air-conditioned living room. As he crossed over into the kitchen, he removed his coat and then his tie, laid them on the bar stool and undid the top button of his white shirt.