Authors: Allison Brennan
Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #General, #Suspense, #Thrillers
“Megan,” he whispered in her ear, then nibbled on her lobe, his tongue darting in and out and around, his hands on her breasts, her shoulders, her head. His hands moved in a rhythm they created together, seeming to touch her everywhere, but not enough. She wanted more, more of him, as much of Jack as she could have.
She grabbed his hands, held them tight, and arched her back so she could kiss his neck. His day’s growth of beard was both rough and incredibly erotic as it scratched her cheeks and lips. Her tongue came out, licked him like he was a chocolate ice cream cone, up to his lips, where she claimed them as hers. At least for now, at least for tonight.
Jack had known from the moment he kissed Megan in the plane hours earlier that he would be in her bed tonight. One kiss did not satisfy him; he’d been tasting her ever since. He was intoxicated with the need, on the verge of losing control. He never lost control. Not in life, not in the field, and not in bed with a woman.
But with Megan, he felt that hard-wired control slipping away, her body both sexy and timid, arousing him beyond reason. He wanted her now, all of her, without hesitation. Her skin was soft, her muscles hard. The contrast was as sexy as the woman herself. She had no idea how he’d craved her, no idea that the minute she burst into the jail cell when Carlos Hernandez’s goons were trying to kill him that he’d wanted her just like this. Naked. With him. In bed.
Her hands were everywhere, his head, his back, squeezing his biceps. Her legs moved as well, up and down his calves, her back arching whenever he eased up, trying to catch his breath, trying to slow things down. Slow things down before he couldn’t. But slow meant being in control, and his last thread of restraint snapped.
He didn’t want slow. He wanted
now.
He put his hand between her legs, damp from the pool, damper with desire. She gasped when he pushed his finger into her. He leaned up, watched her face. The way her flushed face glowed. Her lips red and swollen from his relentless kisses. Her hair was wet and loose around her head, tangled and wanton. Her eyes were half-closed, and she licked her lips, her breath heavy, her fingers clutching his shoulders as she sighed.
“Look at me.”
She opened her eyes at his command. He kissed her softly, his tongue and lips trailing up to her ear and back to her mouth. He stared into her eyes, so dark green and so deep he could drown in them.
This moment in time was perfection.
He forced himself to enter her slowly, easily. She gasped and wrapped her legs around his calves. For a moment they both froze, as if they’d reached a juncture and didn’t know which way led to safety, which way to destruction.
“I want you, Megan.” He sank into her, not knowing which path this union would ultimately take, but willing to fight for them, this primal possession unfamiliar but real. More real than anything Jack had felt or believed in for a long, long time.
He wanted her, yearned for her, needed her. He couldn’t articulate it, he couldn’t fathom how he could have Megan in his life. It was an overwhelming sensation of rightness as he wrapped his arms around her, holding himself deep inside her, wanting to go slow, to savor her touch, her smell, her tightness, her trust. But slow wasn’t in the cards, not this time, as the blood rushed from his head and Jack could no longer think, and all patience disappeared.
Megan lost her ability to reason as Jack began to move deep inside of her, slowly, the muscles in his neck tense with forced restraint. She put her hands on his tight backside and held him inside her, wanting to stay like this forever, but needing to rush the explosion that was building rapidly within her. It was as if all the energy in the room, in the city, in the entire state, had merged within them, combustible, waiting for the blast.
“If you touch me like that I’m going to lose it.”
“I. Am.” She couldn’t finish her sentence. She
had
lost all common sense and reason when he touched her at the pool. She knew then that they’d only be able to appease their desire in bed. It was lust, pure animal lust.
But it felt so much bigger than simple sex. She didn’t want to think too much for fear their connection would slip away.
His slow strokes moved faster and dove deeper. She gasped, her hands running up his back, squeezing, to his shoulders, her short nails digging in as she felt the last of her energy rushing to the spot where their friction generated combustible heat.
They were in sync, their bodies moving together for the mutual benefit and need to pleasure the other, skin slick with perspiration. Meg closed her eyes again, the sensation of their flesh together so dominate, so volatile. Her hands gripped his shoulders.
“God. Jack.”
He kissed her, his lips moving in rhythm to their hips, and she cried out into his mouth as her body turned inside out, releasing her lust, her mind, and her heart to Jack.
When Megan’s body shook beneath him, Jack let go. It had been an inner battle to hold on as long as he did. He wasn’t a teenager anymore—what was with this insatiable need? He’d gone in too fast, unable to stop himself. He didn’t lose control.
Until now.
He rolled over onto his back, bringing her with him. Kissed her over and over again. Her skin tasted of salt and chlorine.
“Now,” he said, “I can do it the right way.”
“If that was the wrong way, I like the wrong way.”
He smiled and kissed her.
“I want to make love to you.”
“And what was that?”
“That, darling, was sex. Pure lust. Now I’m going to make love to you.” He kissed her. “Slowly.” He brushed her hair away from her face and licked her forehead. “Very slowly.” His heart still raced and he felt hers pounding against his chest. His hands caressed the side of her face. “You’re beautiful, Megan.”
His hands ran down her body as she rested on top of him, breath heavy and satisfied on his chest. He loved the taste of her, especially now, her body hot and slick and relaxed. She seemed to melt all over him, as relaxed as a purring cat.
His fingers trailed down her spine, to her waist, and over rough skin. Feeling . . . what was that? He circled his hand over the unexpected texture of her flesh.
She tensed and tried to roll away. He didn’t let her. He pulled her back. “This was where you were shot?”
“Yes.” Her voice was clipped.
She didn’t want to talk. Jack wasn’t going to let her remain silent. The light was dim, but he sat up and wiggled her around until he could see the wound clearly.
The scar was large, part of it round, part an incision from where the surgeon had gone in to remove the bullet. But it wasn’t a small invasion. It had been major surgery to remove her damaged kidney.
“I know, it’s ugly.”
He kissed her scar. “All better.”
She’d turned her head away from him. He turned her head back. Her eyes watered. Oh, God, no. He couldn’t take tears. Not these kind of tears.
“Sweetheart, if you think a little scar is going to bother me, you don’t know me.”
As he said it, he realized that they didn’t know each other. Not the details. He didn’t know where she was born, where she grew up, if she had brothers or sisters, why she and her mother didn’t get along.
But he knew her heart and her mind. He could predict with relative certainty what she would say or do. He knew the important stuff. Her compassion was endless and her sense of right and wrong well formed. She was worthy of love. To love and be loved. Jack didn’t know if he was worthy of her.
Megan stared, eyes probing his, and he kissed her. He didn’t care, he would do anything to keep her in his life.
He might not know everything about her, but he knew that she fit with him. He wasn’t good with emotions or explaining his thoughts and feelings. That was why he’d been estranged from his family for so long. He was a man of action. Do it, don’t talk about it.
But something about this scar bothered Megan deep inside. She’d been flip yesterday when she told him about being shot in the back. But she wasn’t flip about it now.
He kissed her lightly on the cheek, and adjusted their bodies so that she was spooned closely against him, his arms tight around her, his lips on her ear.
“Tell me.”
“I have one kidney.”
“I know.”
It took her a minute to speak. He didn’t move. He wasn’t going anywhere. Neither was Megan.
“I was ambushed. I wasn’t watching my back when I should have been. And took a bullet. It’s only one kidney, and it’s gone, and yeah, it still bothers me, but I’m fine.”
The way she said it made it sound like a betrayal, but Megan didn’t say more. She took one of his hands, the one that had been lightly caressing her breasts, and kissed his palm. Her tongue sent jolts of lust down to his hardening cock.
“You were going to show me the difference between having sex and making love.”
“I am.”
He kissed her neck, turning her on to her back so he could have easier access to all her soft skin. Lips to lips, lips to neck, lips to breast. His hands kneaded her shoulders, her arms, her thighs.
“There is not going to be an inch of your skin I don’t taste,” he whispered, his voice rough. “From your head . . .” he kissed her eyelids, his tongue trailing down to her ears, then to her neck. “To your painted toes.”
He slid off the bed and Meg groaned from the sudden chill. Then his mouth was on her toes and she gasped. Electric bolts jolted her body as Jack sucked her toes, licked the bottoms of her feet, kissed her ankles. The backs of her knees. And higher.
True to his word, Jack tasted every inch of her flesh. Slowly.
And slowly, they brought each other up and over the edge once again.
After killing Ethan and Lyle Hackett, Karin walked a mile to the hotel she’d checked into the day before under one of her aliases, Erin Hunter.
She’d always liked that name. Hunter. It suited her. Erin
the
Hunter. Erin. Hunter.
Huntress.
She grinned.
It was late, but the hotel was brightly lit and she wasn’t positive that her late-night dip in the ocean had washed away all the blood. She slipped in through a side door, using her card key, and rode the elevator up to the penthouse suite. She deserved the penthouse. She’d ordered champagne when she first arrived, asking the staff to deliver it while she was gone. It was still cold, sitting in a stainless steel cooler filled with cold water.
She stripped, shoving her bathing suit and sarong into the black bag. The bag had to be disposed of, but she needed to destroy the evidence first. A heavy dose of bleach, then toss it in the ocean or a lake. She hadn’t wanted to take the knife, but after Ethan cut her, she had no choice. She worried about her blood on the floor, but hoped either the crime scene investigators didn’t test the small square where the knife had fallen, or that there was so much contamination they couldn’t differentiate her blood.
Even if they were able to test it, her DNA wasn’t in any database. Still, she didn’t want it to be, and now she would have to be far more careful in her work.
First things first. She had her own vengeance to seek. Then she could go back to business as usual.
She showered and scrubbed her body under water as hot as she could stand it. Shampooed her hair twice. When she stepped out, her skin was pink and she felt fabulous. She stared at her reflection, took out scissors, and cut her hair yet again. She wished she didn’t have to do it, but hair grew and having a straight, short bob instead of shoulder-length curls would help with the disguise.
Next, she took brown hair dye and colored her hair again. The dye wouldn’t stay as well on the blond she’d used yesterday, but all she needed was to change her overall appearance and this light brown was closer to her natural color.
The end result was pretty good, a golden sort of brown. A little lighter than she wanted, but different enough from the woman—
Rose—
who’d been seen drinking in the bar with Lyle Hackett.
She slipped into a luxurious white hotel bathrobe, the logo embroidered in gold on the lapel.
Time to celebrate.
She popped the cork off the champagne, poured herself a glass, and walked out onto the balcony. It was chilly on the coast this late at night, even in southern California, but she didn’t care. She breathed in the salt air, the breeze raising goose bumps on her damp skin.
She’d take these hours to rest, and then she’d watch the police and the FBI run around in circles. And when the time was right . . .
. . . she’d finish the job. She had Ethan to thank for her new skills. She could hardly wait to use them.
“To Ethan,” she said to the ocean and drained her champagne.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FIVE
Megan was awakened by the hard, naked body wrapped around her.
Jack’s arm was draped over her, the blankets were on the floor, and the sheets a tangle around them. She would have been freezing if she wasn’t lying next to a self-charging heater.
“Your phone’s ringing,” Jack said. “I didn’t think I should answer it.”
She jumped up and found her phone in her purse, which she’d dropped on the small desk when she first came in the night before. Before the spontaneous swim, before making love to Jack.
She missed the call. It was from Hans. Suddenly, she was mindful of her nakedness.
“You’re blushing,” Jack said.
“How can you tell?” she asked, looking around for her shirt. She found the cami she’d worn the night before; it was still damp from the pool. She opened her small suitcase.
“You’re beautiful.”
Her skin heated even more. At the rate she was going, she was going to look like a cooked lobster inside of two minutes.
“Don’t be embarrassed,” Jack said.
“I . . . we . . . it’s complicated.” Megan pulled on a T-shirt.
He chuckled. “If you mean to say that you and me having sex complicates things, yeah, maybe a bit, but I like complications. Especially one like you.”
He stretched like a satisfied cat, his long, hard body only partly covered by the sheet. She turned her back on him. She couldn’t look at him, not like that, without remembering exactly what they’d done together last night. How he made her feel not only during sex, but after. How he’d held her. Kissed her. She’d never felt so comfortable with a man, never felt so alive, so sexy, so desired.
She pressed Send on her phone to return Hans’s call. He answered immediately. “Meg?”
“Sorry, you woke me and I couldn’t find my phone.”
“General Hackett is dead. We’re going to Santa Barbara.”
“Hackett? Dammit, we sent agents to his house to warn him.”
“I spoke to the Los Angeles office. They said they called and Mrs. Hackett said her husband was out of town for the evening.”
“And they didn’t follow up?”
Hans paused. “They assumed that if he was out of town, the killers wouldn’t know where. See where assumptions can lead?”
Megan blanched. Hans was still angry, but she was more confident that her actions were right. “I’ll be ready.”
“You should also know that Barry Rosemont, the reporter Frank Cardenas told us about, was also murdered, and his partner is still at large. The gun that killed the two men was left at the scene, but the knife that cut Hackett’s hamstrings is missing. The detective in charge will meet us at the airport, fill in the details, and walk us through the crime scene. But the gun is the same caliber—nine millimeter—as the firearm that killed the Hoffmans. And,” he added, “same bullet casings.”
“What did—”
Hans interrupted. “We need to leave.”
“Jack can fly us. It’ll be faster, especially during morning commute time—”
“Ask him.”
She paused. Did Hans know Jack was in her room? “Okay. What about Rosemont’s partner? He just skipped out?”
“No sign of the partner at all. We don’t know if Rosemont or the UNSUB killed Hackett, but it’s clear that Rosemont was murdered. The police are going through all security tapes and are interviewing staff and guests. We’ll know more when we get there.”
“But—” She felt Jack behind her, his hands on her shoulders.
“Thirty minutes, meet me in the lobby.”
“Yes, but—”
He hung up before she could say anything else.
“What?” Jack asked, massaging her muscles.
“Barry Rosemont. He’s one of the killers, apparently.” She turned and faced Jack. “I’m so sorry. About this, about your friend, Scout. And General Hackett, he’s also dead. We couldn’t warn him in time. I feel awful.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“Hans is still mad at me. I don’t know what’s going on with him, but he’s not acting like himself. And we still don’t know who Rosemont’s partner is.”
“Maybe by the time we land in Santa Barbara the police will have answers.”
“I hope so. Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. I’m part of this until the end. You know that, right?”
She nodded. “We’re leaving in thirty minutes and I need to shower—”
“
We
need to shower.” He kissed her. Her lips were sore from last night’s passion, but his caress was gentle, kind, loving. He picked her up and carried her to the bathroom. “Thirty minutes should be just enough time.”
On the way to the airport, Hans was in front with the taxi driver, talking quietly on his cell phone. Megan had hoped that because she and Hans were working together on the case, he had rethought his comments from the night before, but if his icy reception this morning was any indication, he was in a worse mood now. Any other time she would have called him on it, but he wasn’t himself so she tread lightly.
Jack squeezed her knee. He leaned over and was about to say something when Megan’s cell phone beeped, indicating a high-priority e-mail. She glanced at it. “It’s from my office.” She opened the e-mail and added, “It’s about the van in Sacramento.”
She skimmed the report. “It was wiped down with Clorox Clean-Up. Bleach. There were bloodstains, but they were contaminated. No prints so far, but they’re still going through it. However, there was a pair of shoes in the middle of the back of the van. Worn sneakers with blood. It’s our John Doe’s blood.” She tapped Hans on the shoulder. “Did you hear me?”
Hans turned, and pointed to the cell phone he held to his ear. She leaned back and sighed. “So we know where he was tortured, and they found two long, thin needles that appear to match the marks on the body. They sent one to the morgue for verification.”
“And nothing else?”
“No.”
Hans was on the phone the entire drive to the airport, and finally shut it off when Jack was taxiing the plane for take-off.
“That was Rick Stockton,” he said.
“And?”
“The Orlando field office is reviewing all the evidence in the Russo murder and will get back to me. He also pulled the Russo interview from CNN and ordered a transcript, which will be e-mailed to us as soon as they get it. But it was pretty much an apology for screwing up a mission. Russo took the blame. Or, as Rick said, he shared the blame with the whole team.”
“Prick,” Jack said.
Sitting behind, Hans didn’t respond.
“What do you think happened in Afghanistan?” Jack asked Hans.
“I don’t know.”
“I can tell you that Frank Cardenas doesn’t lie. If he said the reporter jeopardized the mission, then the reporter jeopardized the mission.”
“Soldiers tend to support each other,” Hans said. “When one speaks out—”
“They usually have an ax to grind,” Jack interrupted. “We take care of our problems internally. We don’t share them on Oprah.”
“A lot of good your internal solutions have been.”
“Your point?”
“The military is notorious for covering up failed missions. This time, they couldn’t.”
“You’re not going to get an argument from me on that one,” Jack said, “but failed missions are caused by many things, and leading the failures is bad intelligence, followed by assholes in public office who think they can run a battle from behind a desk and jerks like General Hackett who want to stroke the media and open our missions like a ride at Disneyland.”
“Hackett’s dead,” Hans said coldly.
“I’m sorry he’s dead, but that doesn’t mean he was right.”
“Hans,” Megan interjected from the co-pilot’s seat, not liking the direction the conversation was going, “can we get Rosemont’s medical records? Anything the military has? He must have been debriefed, hospitalized, maybe on medication.”
“The military isn’t going to share—it’s most likely classified. Rick already put in the request yesterday when we got his name, but doesn’t expect them to be forthcoming. As far as medical records, we need a warrant.”
“We should be able to get one,” Megan said. “There could be something important there.”
“I’ll make sure it’s put in. But it’s not going to bring Hackett or the Hoffmans back to life.”
“What is going on with you?” Megan demanded, turning around in her seat so she could face Hans. They were thousands of feet above the earth; no way he could avoid her this time. “You’re testy and snide and being an asshole.”
He glared at her, face hard, eyes unreadable. “I don’t have to answer to you, Agent Elliott. The only reason you’re on this plane to Santa Barbara is because Rick Stockton didn’t agree with me that you fucked up. But he’s looking into it so don’t think you’re in the clear yet.”
Megan turned away from Hans and blinked back the threatening tears. She didn’t know what to say; what could she say? His reaction to her wrong assumption about the victim in Sacramento was over the top. Something else had to have happened, and it was obvious Hans wasn’t going to tell her. Did he tell Rick? Was there something he wasn’t saying?
Did Hans know about her and Jack? Did he think she’d been unprofessional? Maybe she had been. It wasn’t like she’d planned to have sex with Jack Kincaid. And she didn’t regret it. She hadn’t jeopardized the case, or slept with a witness or suspect. Jack was essentially a civilian consultant. Hans thought she screwed up the case, that was it. But she couldn’t talk to him about it now. He wasn’t open to anything she said.
She saw her best friendship disintegrating and she couldn’t do a damn thing to stop it.
Santa Barbara Detective Grant Holden was in his early forties and reminded Meg of the blond cop from the classic show
Adam-12.
After introductions, he drove them to the hotel and filled them in on the double homicide.
“The chief of the forensic unit is handling the evidence himself. He’s methodical and in my opinion the best in the state. You’ll want to talk to him when we get there; he can walk you through the crime scene. Frankly, the whole thing is a circus.”
“A circus?” Megan asked. She was in the back of the car, Hans was in the front. Jack stayed at the airport and said he’d take a cab—he needed to arrange to have Scout’s plane refueled.
“Media is all over it.”
“How’d they find out?”
“Police scanners. Hotel staff and guests. But it’s not that they’re simply on scene reporting a murder at the resort—they know Barry Rosemont is the Hamstring Killer.”
“That’s not good.”
“We think the info came from Hackett’s widow, but how can we accuse her right now?”
“Good point.”
“Because it leaked out, we decided to use it to our advantage. We’ve released a photograph of Rosemont to the media and have asked anyone who believes they have seen him in the last forty-eight hours to contact my office. We’re hoping if a witness comes forward he or she can describe Rosemont’s accomplice.”
Megan said, “Good. Let us know how we can help get the word out.”
“I do have more information than I had earlier this morning when I spoke with you, Agent Vigo,” Holden said. “Apparently, Hackett was getting chummy with a woman last night in the bar.”
Both Megan and Hans turned to Holden. “A woman?” they said simultaneously. Megan added, “Brunette?”
“Blond. Attractive, late thirties to late forties. Not a registered guest.”
“Name?”
“The bartender who worked last night is on his way to meet us at the resort. He’s the only one who talked to her.”
“What about the crime scene?” Hans asked. “You said the room was registered to Ethan Rose, but the manager identified Barry Rosemont as the individual who reserved the room and paid.”
“Correct.”
“And he came in alone?”
“Yes. We’ve been looking at the security footage and have seen Rosemont on tape only briefly—when he registered he entered through the main entrance. Yesterday early afternoon, one thirty-seven p.m. Alone. Asked specifically for a cabin on the beach. They weren’t going to rent it to him because they were booked for the weekend, but he wanted it only one night. Said he was passing through.”
“Driver’s license?”
“Ethan Rose. We found his false identification. Quality fake. He also had an expired New York driver’s license under the name Barry Ethan Rosemont, which we’ve learned is his real name. His prints came back as Barry Ethan Rosemont. Criminal record. He’d been arrested while a student at Berkeley, eighteen years ago.”
“For what?”
“Breaking and entering. He was working for the student newspaper and broke into the security office to pull reports of rape that had been filed by students. He was doing an exposé of the administration covering up on-campus assaults. Charges were dropped.”
“Did he run the story?” Megan asked, curious.
“Not that we know.”
Hans said, “Any leads on Rosemont’s partner?”
Holden shook his head. “Nothing so far. We’ve dusted the entire room, printed the staff, and are going through every guest methodically. So far, nothing. But there’s a lot to process. Extensive blood, spatter, angles. We’re still not exactly sure what happened. Ian, our chief forensics guru, can walk you through the evidence when we get there.”
He turned the sedan into the resort. He wasn’t kidding—the place was crawling with media. Every major and minor California television and radio station insignia was visible, plus two national news stations.
“Nobody’s talking to them, right?” Hans asked.
“Just our PIO, completely scripted,” Holden assured him. “I’ve threatened everyone else with bodily injury or working the next ten major holidays.”
“And the needles?” Hans asked. “You said you found a black bag with a couple hundred acupuncture needles.”
“Yes. I have no idea what Rosemont had planned. There were also two knives, but neither one had been used on Hackett.”
“How did the killer escape?” Megan asked. “He killed his partner and ran? Doesn’t the hotel have security?”
“Three minutes and forty seconds passed between the first report of gunfire until the head of security arrived at the crime scene. The report of a gunshot was probably a minute or two delayed. It wasn’t until after the final gunshot that someone called in. Plenty of time to escape.”
“Someone had to see something,” Megan said. “It’s a hotel.”