Love you to Death

by Shannon K. Butcher

  He pulled his truck into the garage and triggered the door to shut behind them, blocking out the bright sunshine. In the dim glow of the garage, he looked almost feral, with deep shadows cast over his face.

  Elise unbuckled the seat belt and slid her body over his, straddling him. She was a bit more awkward than she would have liked, and she was afraid her ass was going to set off the horn, but Trent didn’t seem to mind.

  He took her hips in his palms and pressed her down against his erection.

  Thanks to last night, she knew just how hard and thick he was, how he filled her hands and then some. It made her mouth water and her stomach flutter in anticipation.

  She saw his jaw harden, saw a look of determination steel his features, and she knew he was about to push her away. She didn’t want that. She wanted him to drive away the fear that was still shaking her body. She wanted him to take away reality for a little while, so Elise could regroup and regain her strength. But mostly, she wanted to feel safe and alive in the arms of a man who made her soul sing and her blood heat.

  Before he could change his mind, Elise kissed him. She cupped his face in her hands, held on tight, and kissed him for all she was worth.

  She flicked her tongue against the seam of his mouth, begging him to let her in, and he did with only a slight hesitation. His groan of pleasure tasted better than the finest chocolate. She didn’t understand how she’d survived this long without it.

  His hands clenched against her hips, and she could feel him warring with himself, trying to hold back and stop this from going any further.

  She couldn’t let him do that. Not now. Not when her body was aching and so hot, she thought her skin would melt.

  “Take me inside,” she said against his mouth.

  He pulled away and looked at her. The golden slivers in his blue eyes seemed to catch and hold the dim light. “I shouldn’t. You’re hurt.”

  “I only hurt when you don’t touch me.”

  His nostrils flared and a deep, primal rumble rose up from his chest. “Get inside.”

  Victory. She could feel it in the fine tremors his hands were giving off, see it in the way his pupils dilated as he stared at her mouth.

  Elise scrambled from his lap and got out of the truck. Trent reached under the seat to grab a sack and was right on her heels.

  She wasn’t taking any chances he’d change his mind, so she started shedding her clothes as she moved to the bedroom. By the time she got there, all she had on was her bra and panties. Trent stood in the doorway, watching her as she slid those off, too.

  Elise had never been shy or modest, despite her mother’s efforts to the contrary, but never before had she felt quite like she did right now. Trent’s eyes were fixed on her, roaming over her as if he was memorizing her curves. He looked at her like her nakedness was a gift—a precious treasure she was sharing with him.

  She stood there, letting him watch as he tossed the sack on the bed and stripped out of his own clothes. The ridges in his abdomen were tight with lust, and his chest moved heavily with every breath he took.

  She’d never seen anything so beautiful, so mesmerizing as Trent. All he had to do was breathe and her body softened, heated.

  He crossed the room, his movement slow and steady. “Lie down.”

  Clearly, playtime was over. The man standing in front of her meant business, and she could hardly wait to see what he had in mind.

  Elise stood there, ignoring his rough order. All the remnants of adrenaline in her blood lit on fire and snaked through her system, making her body hum.

  Trent’s erection stood out proudly from his body, and Elise couldn’t help but stare. Her mouth watered, remembering the feel of him, the taste of him on her tongue. Her knees went weak, and she nearly fell to the floor right there so she could get another taste, but Trent had other ideas. He grabbed her arms to steady her, then pressed his body fully against hers.

  Elise’s head spun at the contact. He was living heat, pure pleasure, hard and smooth and rough all at the same time. She couldn’t untangle so much sensory input at once.

  Trent didn’t give her a choice. He took her mouth in a kiss, sliding his tongue past her lips, piling yet more sensation onto her already overloaded mind.

  She welcomed him into her mouth as she was dying to welcome him into her body. His hands slid over her arms and shoulders, so gentle on the bruised spot, then back down, over her ribs to her waist.

  Her world spun and tilted for a moment, and when it righted itself, she was lying down as he’d told her to do, and he was hovering over her with a pleased smile curving his mouth.

  “You like to win, don’t you?” she asked him.

  “You have no idea.” He bent his head to flick his tongue across one nipple.

  Elise jerked and sucked in a breath. Her hands went to his head, telling him without words that she wanted him to stay right there and do that some more. His short haircut tickled her palms and added one more sensation onto an already oversized pile.

  “I like your haircut,” she breathed out between wicked swipes of his tongue.

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What do you think about this?” he asked, then moved his head so the short strands brushed over her nipples.

  A wave of sparkling pleasure rushed down her body and pooled in her belly. She let out a sound she was sure only whores should make, but Trent didn’t seem to mind.

  He gave a low chuckle as his body shifted down the bed. “If you liked that, you’re going to love this.” Pure male confidence rang in his tone, and she was struggling to figure out what he meant when his hands pressed her thighs wide and his tongue swept over her labia.

  He drove all thoughts from her head. His fingers slid along her flesh, opening her to his devastating tongue and wicked lips. She felt his warm breath wash over her, felt his probing fingers slide inside her, finding just the right spots. She was flying high, straight toward a hard, fast climax, when he stopped.

  She tried to lift her head to see what he was doing, but it was too heavy. She heard the crunch of paper, something rip, a plastic crinkle that was barely audible over her labored breathing, and then he was there, hovering over her.

  His face was set, his jaw bunching as he lowered his forehead to hers. His skin was damp with need, and the thick tip of his erection was pressing against her, begging entrance.

  Elise slid her hands over his hips and urged him toward her. He sank in, slow and steady, filling her up until there was no room left to breathe. Not that she cared. Trent was in her arms, in her body. She didn’t need anything else.

  “Wow,” he breathed out, holding still and deep. He twitched inside her, grazing nerve endings that hadn’t been reached in years. Maybe never.

  “Amen.”

  “You okay?”

  Words escaped her, so instead, she gripped him with her inner muscles and let him be the judge.

  His mouth came down onto hers, giving her a ferocious kiss. And then he started to move.

  Elise had always preferred to be a participating partner in bed. She liked to take charge once in a while and keep a man on his toes, but with Trent, that wasn’t going to happen—at least not today. The man didn’t leave her room for any such plans. He didn’t leave her room enough to think straight. Her whole body was alive, taking what he had to give, and loving it.

  His muscles bunched and flexed around her as he moved, dragging her into a hard, devastating climax. Her body shimmered, fell apart into shards of pure sensation. Her mind was a pile of splintered little pieces, and still he did not relent. His pace slowed, but that was all.

  He speared his fingers through her hair and angled her mouth for a deeper kiss. She could taste his determination, feel it in the steely weight of his powerful body moving against her. There was something more going on here than merely sex; she just couldn’t gather enough of her wits to figure out what it was.

  Trent said something, growled it into her mouth, but
she didn’t understand. How could she when he kept moving, kept pushing her higher?

  He leaned back, shoved his forearm under her hips, angling her body so each thrust created slick friction over her clit.

  Need coiled tight inside her. She clutched his shoulders and dug her fingers into hot, hard muscles.

  “I won’t let you,” he said, staring into her eyes.

  This time she understood the words, even if she couldn’t make sense of them.

  “Less talk. More kiss,” she said, grabbing the back of his neck to pull him down. She needed his mouth on hers again, needed to taste the slick skin just inside his lower lip.

  She was close—hovering on the edge of another round of weightless ecstasy—and she needed to feel that again. She needed that pleasure to drive away all the fear and grief and ugliness that had invaded her life, even if it was only for a few, brief seconds.

  And like the man of her dreams, Trent gave her what she needed and then some. He shoved her over the edge of pleasure, hurled her toward the sun and let her burn. It went on forever, that flying, screaming pleasure he’d given her. And then he was there with her. She felt him tense, felt him throb inside her, heard his ragged shout of release.

  As the last bit of endless sensation wore off, satisfaction filled Elise, making her glow. Trent’s body was heavy and replete on top of hers, protecting her from the rest of the world. Her body was humming and content.

  In that single moment, nothing else mattered. She was safe and happy, and Trent had made it happen.

  Trent extracted himself from Elise’s clinging limbs and flopped onto his back.

  She’d killed him. It was the only explanation for the way he felt now.

  All his rage and frustration were gone. He was too worn out for any of that. All that was left was a satisfied kind of warmth swelling up inside him. If he didn’t know better, he would have thought it was almost like happiness.

  She rolled onto her side and tossed her arm over his ribs. He needed to get rid of the condom, but it could wait a minute. Having Elise reach for him might not. For all he knew, this would be the last time she ever did.

  The thought left him feeling helpless, angry.

  He wanted to make her love him. Make her stay. And if that kind of mental track didn’t scare the hell out of him, he didn’t know what would.

  She had a life, a career. He was just a pit stop along the way for her, and that was fine with him. Or at least it should have been.

  He’d almost lost her today. A hundred different things could have happened, ending her life. Those thugs could have shot her. They could have run her off the road a few feet one way or another, driving her car into a tree. Another car could have been on the road, causing a head-on collision.

  He could think of so many ways she might have died, it was hard to believe she’d walked away with hardly a scratch.

  Trent traced the long red parallel marks on her left shoulder—the ones the seat belt had caused. She’d have a hell of a bruise there by tomorrow, but other than that, she was fine.

  It was a miracle—one he wasn’t going to throw away because she insisted on looking for Ashley.

  The guys in the car had sent her a message: Back off.

  Trent was going to see to it that she listened.

  Ed Woodward flipped through the six-year-old file, scanning it for any clue that this cold case was connected to the one he was working now.

  The crime scene photos showed a woman’s partially decomposed headless, handless body. Only this woman was also missing one of her breasts.

  It was the kind of thing that should have turned his stomach, but he was way past that now. After the photos he’d seen today going through the archives, he was confident nothing could shock him.

  Only three of the deaths he’d looked into seemed to have any similarities to the Jane Doe in the morgue. That’s not to say they were definitely connected, but there was a chance.

  And then there was the second pile of files. The ones where only part of a body had been found. Those were the ones he was most interested in. He wasn’t convinced that Jane had been mutilated to hide her identity, especially since they’d found her hand. If someone was really trying to cover up who she was, why didn’t he burn her prints away with acid or fire? Why toss her hand into the river and hope for nature to do the job?

  No, something in his gut was nagging him, telling him there was more to this than what appeared on the surface.

  The stitch marks. That’s what kept throwing him for a loop. This wasn’t just some Mafia hack job. If it had been, why would there be suture marks?

  If some sicko was out there, killing women, cutting them apart, and sewing them up again, why? Did he get off on it? Was it some kind of ritual? Was he sending a message to other women somehow? And why sew up the part that had been taken off?

  What the hell had it been sewn to?

  The whole case left a bad taste in his mouth and a sick feeling in his stomach. He wasn’t sure which of the cases stacked in front of him, if any, were connected to his Jane Doe. What he was sure of was that whoever was doing this wasn’t going to stop unless someone made him.

  Ed was going to be that man.

  Gloria had no choice but to go grocery shopping. She hadn’t stocked the cupboards since she moved, and her kitchen was empty. There wasn’t a single piece of fruit or slice of bread to be had. Peanut butter on a spoon had been both breakfast and lunch, but she couldn’t stomach the thought of making it dinner, too.

  She grabbed a bright red shopping basket and headed for the produce section. Standing in front of a display of zucchini was a man she was sure she’d seen before. She couldn’t place him, but she’d been on high alert since the incident on campus, and she wasn’t trusting anyone right now.

  She veered right, making a clear path around him when he looked up and caught her eye. He had a puzzled look on his face and a spindly zucchini in his hand.

  “Excuse me,” he said to her, “but could you help me?”

  Her body went tense with suspicion, and she took a half step away from him. “Um, I’m kinda in a hurry.”

  His tone was deep with disappointment. “That’s okay. I’m sure someone else will be by in a minute.”

  She let out an almost inaudible sigh, feeling like a loser for not helping him when she was in the middle of a brightly lit store full of people. “What do you need?”

  “Is this squash?” he asked.

  “It’s one kind. What kind are you looking for?”

  His brows drew together in puzzlement. “I don’t know. The recipe just said squash. My mother is on a strict diet since her heart surgery, and I wanted to cook her something, but I guess it’s not as easy as it looks.”

  Now Gloria felt like a total bitch. Here he was, trying to take care of his sick mom, and she was treating him like Jack the Ripper.

  She stepped closer and offered him a sympathetic smile. “That’s so sweet. I’m sure she’ll love whatever you make.” She picked up a yellow squash and handed it to him. “Try this one. Mix it with the zucchini, and you’ll be set.”

  “Thank you,” he told her, sacking the vegetables.

  “No, thank you. It’s good to know there are still nice guys left in the world. Lately, I’ve begun to wonder.”

  His smile widened, deepening into a more seductive grin. He took a small step toward her, letting her know he was interested. “I don’t suppose you’d like to go out with the last remaining nice guy, would you?”

  She hesitated for a moment. The last thing she needed was another Ken in her life, but she missed dating—missed being with someone. Maybe not this guy, but someone.

  “You don’t remember me, do you?” he asked.

  “You look familiar, but no, sorry. I don’t.”

  “I work at your bank. You changed your address the other day.”

  “Right. I remember now.”

  “So, what about it? Do you think you could go out with a stuffy banker?”


  “I’m really not interested in dating right now. Sorry.”

  He reached into his pocket and took out his business card. “Here’s my number in case you change your mind.”

  He placed his card in her hand, and his fingers grazed hers. They were oddly cold, like he’d been holding those chilled veggies for too long.

  Gloria tucked his card into her pocket. “I’m sure I’ll see you around,” she said and left him to finish her shopping.

  It only took her fifteen minutes to grab enough food for the week, and she had just loaded it into the trunk of her car when she noticed her rear tire was flat. Totally flat.

  Great. That was all she needed—being stuck changing a tire when she was sure some wacko was stalking her.

  “Need some help?” came a man’s voice.

  Gloria whirled around, her heart pounding in her throat, but it was just the guy from the bank.

  She pressed her hand over her heart in an effort to slow it and gave him an embarrassed smile. “You scared me.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.” He nodded toward the tire. “Do you have a spare?”

  She went to the trunk and moved her groceries aside to access the spare tire. “I think so,” she said. “I’ve never had to use it before.”

  The banker stepped up behind her, and that feeling of eyes on the back of her neck slammed into her full force.

  She whirled around to see who was watching, when a white cloth covered her nose and mouth, filling it with a vile stench.

  She tried to scream, but all she managed to do was suck more of the awful vapor into her lungs.

  Her legs went weak. The world around her shimmered, then wavered toward blackness. The last thing she saw was the banker open the back door of his car so he could shove her in—the same luxury car that had been following her on campus.

  Gloria’s body hit the backseat, driving the breath from her lungs. Her cheek grazed the supple leather interior, and then she felt nothing.

  Elise was up well before dawn, revising her list of people to interview today, when Trent shambled out of the bedroom and found her at his dining room table.

  “Can’t sleep?” he asked.