He kissed her. He’d made her come without once
kissing her, and the touch of his lips seemed shocking. Too intimate.
After what he’d just done?
But, yes, too—
His tongue pushed past her lips. Tasted her. Took and claimed hers, and she met him head-on.
Sam liked the way he tasted. There was wine in his kiss. Just as there must be champagne on her tongue. Tangy, but sweet.
The man knew how to use his tongue. Knew how to thrust and lick and have her straining to meet him.
Her fingers clenched around the phone. Her nipples ached, and her sex quivered.
More. More.
They couldn’t have all night, but they could have a few moments. Right there.
Sam tore her mouth away. “I-I’m sorry… I’ve got—work.”
He stared at her with his jaw clenched and his strong chin angled down as he studied her. “What kind of work would call you
in this late at night?”
He didn’t want to know. Sam let her lips curve. Being fake was becoming so easy. “I work with…” Oh, jeez, but she needed her
voice to stop sounding so breathy and weak. “C-computers. I-I have a tech emergency.”
Half-truth. Half-lie.
He blinked. “You—”
“I have to go.” She’d have to change. No way could the others see her in this outfit. It would take an hour to drive out to
Melbourne from D.C. Why did Dante want her? And—
Another body?
That didn’t fit the pattern. No way. She eased away from Max and reached for the door.
“You’re running again.” Arousal still rumbled in his words. The rough timbre of a man who hadn’t gotten his pleasure.
“No, I’m just walking away.” She didn’t look back.
Say something
. She knew that she should. Leaving the guy like this—
The old Sam would never have done that.
Then again, the old Sam was dead. She’d died in the water months before when a serial killer had left her broken body in a
lake. And these days, it felt like her ghost was all that remained.
Her spine straightened. “Sam Kennedy.” The words came out softer than she’d intended. “My name’s… Sam Kennedy.” She waited,
wondering if he’d make the connection to her mother, but there was no flicker of recognition on his face. As far as she knew,
Max and her mother had never met face-to-face, and since her mother was in Europe right then, she doubted their paths would
be crossing soon.
But her heart still beat a little too fast. By giving him her last name, she’d given herself one less shield from him.
“Samantha Kennedy,” Max said softly as if tasting the name. But, no, he was wrong.
Max kept calling her Samantha when she was just plain old Sam. Despite her mother’s hopes, she’d never been fancy enough for
Samantha. Her fingers curled around the door knob, and she began to pull it open.
“How do I find you, Samantha?”
He
wanted
to find her?
Well, duh, Sam, you left the man with a hard-on. Of course he wants to find you.
But she didn’t want him to see her world. Not ever. In this fake life, she and Max could touch here. Nowhere else.
Not on the streets. Not in the shadows where she worked. Not with the killers. He didn’t need to see them.
“You don’t, Max,” Sam said with a sigh, and she finally glanced back now. “But I can find you, and I will.” Unless he told
her to screw off. Unless—
“Sounds like a promise.”
It was.
She gave a quick nod and opened the door. A man stood nearby, young and handsome, close to her age, and he eyed her with a
knowing smile on his lips.
Sam walked right past him, her mind already on the case.
On the dead body that waited for her.
Samantha Kennedy.
So he had a full name. A name and a face and a hard-on that was really damn painful.
Max Ridgeway stalked to the edge of the balcony. His hands gripped the thick metal railing, and he sucked in a deep breath.
And still tasted her.
Samantha.
She’d come against his hand. He hadn’t missed the hard clench of her sex or the soft cream that coated his fingers. She’d
come, she’d kissed him, then she’d walked away.
Using him for sex.
Jesus Christ—women usually used him for money. For power.
Sex?
Probably shouldn’t complain. He was supposed to like that, right?
But he didn’t. Max yanked at his bow tie, loosening the knot, hating the damn thing, hating the stupid party he’d been forced
to attend. Five years ago, he never would’ve
been caught in this scene, but these days, he knew he had to play the game in order to keep his business in the black.
His business. The minute he’d seen Samantha, he’d forgotten all about the deals that he’d been working on at the party. As
a rule, Max didn’t go for one-night stands. He was long past the stranger pickup. Well, he had been. Until Samantha had touched
him, and he’d gotten lost in her dark, turbulent eyes.
Walking away from her that night hadn’t been possible, not after he’d tasted her. He’d taken her lips and known he’d take
her
.
The beginning. For him, that’s what it had been.
Max wanted more from Samantha Kennedy than just a few hot hours in the dark.
Down on the street below him, she ran from the building, hurriedly dodging in and out of the lights. The lamps caught the
red of her hair, flickering almost like fire in the heavy curls.
Samantha.
When she’d come up to him at that bar, her heart-shaped face had been so pale. Her brown eyes so wide. Her mouth—slick and
red—had trembled.
She’d been afraid, and he’d wanted her.
A fast fuck.
No.
Max knew when a woman had secrets, and Samantha carried those secrets like a cloak around her sensual little body.
Samantha jumped into a small red VW Bug. He almost smiled at that. Hadn’t been expecting her to—
She shot out of the lot with a roar of the car’s engine, and he watched until the red taillights vanished.
It would be easy to find her. He had connections in D.C. His, his stepfather’s. He could track her and discover everything
that there was to know about Samantha Kennedy in a matter of hours.
If that was what he wanted.
Secrets.
He had them, too. In spades.
I’ll find you.
She’d better. Because Samantha Kennedy had made a mistake. She’d given him a taste, and now Max found that he wanted more.
Being a greedy bastard was part of his nature. When he wanted something, he took it.
He wanted Samantha.
“Thought you didn’t go for the society ladies.” His stepbrother’s mocking voice drifted in the air to him.
Max didn’t glance back. He’d heard the door open, just as he’d heard it earlier when Quinlan came outside.
At a piss-poor time.
“Sorry for the interruption.” The soft tread of Quinlan’s shoes padded over the tile. “Didn’t expect you to be… occupied out
here.”
Max forced himself to release the railing.
Quinlan’s rough laugh filled the night, only to end with a nervous edge. “Didn’t know you went for sex in public places, man.”
“I don’t.”
Normally.
“And whatever you thought you saw out here,
forget it.
” Kissing and telling wasn’t his style either. Slowly, Max turned around and stared at his younger brother. Hell, his stepbrother
was probably a lot closer to Samantha’s age than Max was at thirty-three.
Quinlan gulped and looked away. His left hand lifted to rub against his neck, and his golden horseshoe
ring—his so-called lucky charm, a gift from Quinlan’s father—glinted.
His stepbrother always seemed to have trouble looking him in the eye. Since his mother’s death, so did their “father.”
Max headed for the door. He was done with this scene. He didn’t need to schmooze and party. What he needed—well, she’d driven
away.
I’ll find you.
She’d better.
Find me, or I’ll find you, baby.
S
weat was slick on Sam’s palms as fear settled heavily in her belly. She slammed the car door, rubbed her hands on the black
pants she’d changed into at her place, and stared up at the looming mansion.
Two police cruisers were parked near the gate. A crime scene investigation team fanned over the area.
She sucked in a deep breath, then shoved back her shoulders and marched forward as she pulled out her ID. “I’m with the FBI—where’s
Agent Dante?” Dante, not Hyde. She didn’t want to see him just then.
A uniform pointed toward the big house. “With the body.”
Another kill didn’t make any sense. The Briars only had one son so no one else at the residence fit the kidnappers’ profile.
The vics were rich males in their early twenties. Party boys who had parents with too much money and too little time for them.
The first kidnapping had occurred three months ago. The ransom demand had come twenty-four hours after
the college student disappeared. The father paid, and the next day the son was back and able to provide absolutely no description
of his abductors.
Next a man had been taken from Virginia, then one from D.C. Poor Jeremy Briar had been abducted from Maryland.
All of the men disappeared from college campuses, or rather, from bars located near the campuses.
Two men had come back alive.
Two hadn’t been so lucky.
The serial kidnappers were smart, very good at covering their tracks, and too good at picking targets.
When it came to knowing the identity of the abductors, the SSD had nothing.
Nothing.
She hurried down an elaborate walkway and eased past a fountain that sprayed water high into the air. Voices rose and fell,
drifting out of the house through the open doorway. She stepped off the path and found herself on a mosaic that reproduced
a Rembrandt painting.
Too much money. Maybe too much time, too.
Sam eased past the uniforms stationed near the door, keeping her ID out. “I need to find Agent Dante.” She still didn’t know
why he’d called her in, but she wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.
“He’s in the study,” the nearest cop told her.
Sam’s brows rose. That was supposed to tell her what, exactly?
The cop flushed a deep red—a red that matched his hair. “Down the hallway, second door. The room with the body.”
Right, the body. This family had sure been through hell.
Her shoes whispered against the tile. First they’d lost their only child and now—
Sam skidded to a halt just outside the study. The techs were bagging the victim, an older guy with gray-streaked hair, tanned
skin, and half his skull missing.
“Morgan Briar,” Luke Dante murmured, looking up from his notes and giving her a cool nod. He stood near the large window to
the right. “He’s been dead about five hours now.” Luke’s green eyes held hers.
Morgan Briar.
The father. Oh, Jesus. “What happened? Why—”
“
No, I don’t need a damn lawyer!
” A woman’s shrill cry tore through the air. Sam glanced over her shoulder and saw a tall, icily beautiful blonde being led
down the stairs. The woman wore slim black pants and what looked like a white cashmere sweater. The sweater was stained with
blood.
“That’d be Mrs. Kathleen Briar,” Luke murmured.
Kathleen’s hair had come loose from one of those fancy twists that Sam had never been able to manage.
Cops flanked the woman on either side. One, an older guy with graying hair at his temples, was reading the woman her rights.
“If you can’t afford—”
“I can afford a fucking attorney. I just don’t want one right now!” Kathleen’s voice rose to a screech.
“She called it in about an hour ago,” Luke said quietly, and Sam heard the hint of a drawl beneath his words. He strode forward
and came to her side.
Luke was still the newest agent in the SSD. He’d transferred up from Atlanta and had immediately paired up with the unit’s
top profiler, Monica Davenport. “From the looks of things,” he continued, motioning
toward the bar, “Mrs. Briar had a gin before making that call.”
“She killed him?” Sam shook her head. Okay, she hadn’t expected that.
The cop kept reading the Miranda rights to his perp. “
Anything you say or do can be held…”
“She told the 9-1-1 operator that she shot her husband.” Luke crossed his arms and watched the procession. Kathleen and her
guards were almost at the study door now. Almost…
Kathleen stopped to glare at Sam and Luke. “I’m not sorry.”
Luke lifted one shoulder. “Never said you were, ma’am.” His voice was cool. Odd, because of all the agents, he was the one
who always seemed the most intense. The one who seemed to care too much.
Maybe he’d been hanging around with Monica and Hyde too long.
Kathleen’s eyes were bone dry. No tears for her. “Jeremy was
mine
. That asshole should have told me about the call. He should have—” She broke off and shook her head. “Jeremy would be alive.
Alive.
”
Now her husband and son were both dead, and there was fury glittering in her green eyes.
“He cheated on me,” Kathleen admitted in a stark voice. The cops beside her were silent, their own eyes wide. “He bought houses
for those sluts that cost more than my son’s ransom.” She swallowed. “He let Jeremy die. I can still see him, cut up. My baby…”
Her eyes closed.
Luke watched her with a somber stare, then he caught the gaze of the older cop. “Take her outside.”
This kill would be the local PD’s show, not a case for the SSD, but the cops were still looking to Luke for guidance.
The cop nodded and reached for the cuffs on his hip.
“No.” Luke shook his head. “Just put her in the back of the squad car.”
Kathleen’s lashes lifted, and the fury had vanished. That fast. She blinked and just looked… lost. “Jeremy’s gone.”
Sam swallowed.
So was Morgan.
“Mrs. Briar, I really think you should reconsider that attorney.”
Another slow, almost confused blink. “
My baby
…”