by Desiree Holt
“The guy’s got some bad habits.” Cale’s voice was tight with anger.
Regan had told Linnea once that the Sentinels had enormous respect for women and didn’t take any too kindly to men who abused them.
“D-Do you think he did this?” She wasn’t even sure she wanted to find out. “Maybe killed Cathy and hid her body?”
Cale reached across the table for her hand, squeezed it, then lifted it to his mouth and kissed the knuckles.
“If he did, believe me, we’ll find out. You can take that as a promise.”
Brian swept all the reports into a pile again. “I think we need to check these guys as wolf,” he told Cale.
“B-But how will you do that?” Linnea’s brain couldn’t comprehend. “You can’t just go wandering the streets in broad daylight. Can you?”
Cale chuckled. “No, but the night is our friend. Trust me. We’ll get it done.”
Chapter Four
Linnea was cleaning up after Brian and Regan had left when Cale came up behind her, swept her hair aside and kissed the nape of her neck.
“I need to run,” he told her quietly.
She finished scraping the plate she as holding and turned around.
“Now? Well, okay. Let me change to my running shoes and I’ll go with you.”
He rested his hands on her shoulders. “Linnea. That’s not exactly what I meant.”
“It isn’t?” She frowned, then awareness stole over her face. “Oh. Oh! You mean your wolf wants to run.”
“Is that all right with you?”
“Of course.” She brushed her mouth against his. “I just need to remember, that’s all.”
His hand tightened slightly. “If all of this bothers you, now would be a good time to tell me.” His stomach twisted in anticipation of her answer. What would he do if she said it was too much?
But she shook her head and smiled at him. “Not at all. It’s just a learning process for me.” She gave him another light kiss. “You’re what I want, Cale. Don’t doubt that, okay?”
He let out a breath. “Okay, then. Good. So. I won’t be gone long. Don’t turn on the back lights, okay?”
“No problem.”
She watched, fascinated, as he stripped, folded his clothes in a neat pile and put them on the stool next to the counter, tucking his boots beneath it. Then he closed his eyes and willed his body to change. His wolf came out at once, needing this freedom. It had already been four days since he’d been able to run. He had to do this now before the wolf took charge at an inopportune time.
He nudged the knob on the back door with his nose and waited while Linnea opened it for him. Looking carefully in both directions, he loped across the lawn and into the thick woods at the back of her yard. He turned his head once and saw her standing there, waved his tail at her, then plunged into the woods.
It was a clear night with just enough cool in the air. He could smell the sharp aroma of every leave, every tree and shrub. The floor of earth and deciduous leaves were soft beneath his paws as he raced along, leaping over a fallen log here, ducking around an overgrown shrub there. Running like this gave him a freedom he never had in his human skin, and he wondered how people who couldn’t shift handled being restricted like that.
As his wolf absorbed the night, his brain examined the situation with Cathy Porter. They would have to pick a night and, as wolf, track each of the three men. That meant hacking into their calendars to see what night would work the best, and that could be a little tricky. Also, while Gray Fisher and Brad Macintyre lived in large houses in areas where there were plenty of hiding places, Jim Franklin had a condo. They’d need to scope out that area to see where they could conceal themselves while checking him out.
Cale was hoping the scent would do it for them. As wolf they had the peculiar ability to tell by a person’s odour if they carried guilt or not. The problem with these three men was, they were all guilty of something, so how would they identify which one was connected to Cathy?
He was back at the edge of Linnea’s yard now, pausing to make sure no neighbours were hanging around outside before running to her back porch. She must have been watching for him, because she had the door open before his paws hit the porch. She stepped back to let him into the kitchen, then knelt to run her hands over his big head. He gave her chin a long swipe with his tongue and she grinned at him.
“I love you as wolf,” she told him in a low voice. “And when we make love, I imagine the wolf is with me, too. Ferocious and claiming and demanding.”
He licked at her again, then gathered himself and changed back into human form.
“Then let’s do it now,” he told her. “Only you have too many clothes on.”
“I can fix that.” She cast a seductive look over her shoulder as she raced for the stairs, pulling off her clothes as she went.
By the time he reached her bedroom, she was standing in the middle of the room, cheeks stained with the flush of desire, eyes bright with need. He paused to drink in the sight of her, the firm breasts with the dusky nipples, the nipped in waist and slightly rounded tummy, the nest of dark curls guarding the entrance to her pussy. Her scent was everywhere, the musk of her arousal, and it made him painfully hard.
Slow, slow, slow. For once don’t rush it.
He forced himself to take a deep breath, let it out on a slow exhale, then drop to his knees before her. He slid his hands around to cup the cheeks of her ass as he inhaled her, then probed through her curls to the wet flesh beneath them. God, she was so delicious. The tip of his tongue found her clit and danced back and forth over it. She shivered in his grasp, and erotic little sounds echoed from her.
He spent a lot of time tasting her, rubbing his face against her, sliding his tongue the length of her slit again and again. She leaned into him, moaning, the sounds so pleasurable to him.
Cale had been with a lot of women, probably far too many, but none had ever been so honestly sensuous, so totally responsive as this one.
It was meant to be.
There it was in his head again and he knew it was true.
Rising from the floor, his hands still holding her, he carried her to the bed. Shifting her against him so he could use one hand, he ripped back the covers and lowered her to the cool, cotton sheets. Now he spread her thighs wide so her pussy was fully exposed to him, a feast of pink flesh.
He went back to work on her with his mouth, nipping at her clit, then probing her hot, delicious channel with his tongue. She bucked beneath his onslaught, begging him for her release, but he kept her just on the edge. For what he planned to do tonight, he needed her as hot and ready as he could get her. Twice he brought her to the edge of orgasm, and twice he backed off, ignoring her desperate pleas.
He ate at her as if she was a banquet and he was a starving man. Her taste invaded him, permeating all his senses, accentuated by her erotic little moans and cries. He plunged his tongue in and out of her cunt, lapping her cream, then dragging it down between the rounded cheeks of her ass to the tiny hole that waited too temptingly for him. When he touched it with the tip of his tongue she cried out, pushing herself towards him.
He lifted his face, his mouth slick with her cream. “Do you know what I’m going to do now?” he asked.
She nodded, staring down at him wordlessly, her lips parted.
“Tell me you’re okay with it.” He heard the harsh edge to his voice and swallowed it back.
“I’m okay with whatever you want to do, Cale. With me. To me. It’s all good. Just do it. Please.”
He pressed kisses along the inside of first one thigh then the other before turning her over. Lifting her to her hands and knees, he grabbed pillows from the head of the bed to prop beneath her tummy. He stared transfixed at the winking opening of her anus as he scooped more of her cream from her lusciously wet pussy to paint the tight skin.
It took every effort of will to insert one finger very slowly, smoothly the lube inside her very tight opening. She made a soft little noise as he penetra
ted her all the way to the last knuckle. When he was sure she’d adjusted to it, he slowly inserted a second finger alongside the first and began to scissor them, stretching those tissues to make her ready for him.
He leant forward and traced light kisses over the swell of her buttocks. Her skin was like satin and smelled like the peach body wash she used. He inhaled again as he moved his mouth over her skin, drawing her essence into the very core of his body. Heat speared through his balls and made them tighten. He wanted more foreplay with her, but if he didn’t get inside her soon he’d explode.
He placed the head of his cock against the tight, delicate opening. “Take a deep breath, darlin’.” His voice was thick with lust.
Her body shifted as she inhaled. On the exhale, he pushed forward, managing to get just the head of his cock inside her. She squeezed tight around him and he nearly ground the enamel off his teeth trying to maintain control. Leaning forward, he reached one hand around her until he found her clit and took it between thumb and forefinger. Then, with careful precision, he began to move in and out of her ass, a steady rhythm, slow and precise.
“Breathe, Linnea,” he urged her. “In and out. That’s it.”
With each inhale, he pulled back. As she let out her breath, he pushed hard into her. As she adjusted to him and her tissues softened around him he increased his tempo, massaging her clit in cadence with the pumping of his body. She resisted slightly at first—he knew the burn of that first penetration—but she was so aroused that before long she was moving in rhythm with him, even pushing back against him to take him inside her.
The familiar icy hot tingling raced along his spine and through his balls, signalling the rise of his climax. He worked her clit harder and faster as he pounded more rapidly into her tight ass. He drove her hard until he felt her body tighten around him. Two more thrusts and he carried them both over the edge, bodies exploding in an orgasm of epic proportion. As he spurted into her and she clenched around him, one word echoed in his brain.
Mated!
* * * *
“I have three pieces of information for you.”
Cale clapped his cell phone to his ear. It was barely seven o’clock. Linnea was in the shower and he was still lying in bed, hanging onto the last of the erotic memories of the previous night.
“I hope they’re good ones,” Cale mumbled in his early morning voice.
“Damn good.” The click of computer keys echoed over the phone. “Gray Fisher had a second and third mortgage on his home which he just paid off in the past month. Hmm. Where do we think he got the money from?”
“How many guesses do I get?” Cale asked, his mind clicking. “If I say the Foundation, would I be too far off?”
Brian’s chuckle had no humour in it. “Since that’s his only access to large funds, I’d say you’re right on target.”
“What’s next?”
“He and Macintyre are more than just business buds. Seems the attorney got him a membership to the so-called gentleman’s club, a place that Josh told me caters to ‘exotic tastes in behaviour’.”
“Kinky sex,” Cale muttered.
“And then some. Plus, they own a cabin together in the Hill Country just outside of Fredericksburg.”
“Josh must have been busy last night.”
Brian chuckled again. “No shit. You know him. He gets like a dog with a bone when he’s on the hunt.”
“I just hope that at whatever sites he hacked into, he didn’t leave any cyber-fingerprints.”
“Trust me. He’s a ghost.” More clicking of keys. “Anyway, the cabin’s in a pretty isolated area and we haven’t had a chance to check into it more. I thought maybe you’d like to take a ride out there today and scope it out. Luke said he’s available if you want him to go with.”
“Yeah. That would be good. Can you tell him I’ll pick him up in an hour at the office?”
“Will do.”
“Oh, and is there someone we can send to shake down the boyfriend? Just in case?”
“No problem. Drew and Ann Marie drove back up today. They can double team him.”
He disconnected the call just as Linnea came in from the bathroom, a towel wrapped around her like a sarong, another around her head.
“News?” she asked.
“Sort of.” He passed along what Brian had said.
She pressed a hand to her chest. “Do you think they were doing something and Cathy found out?”
“I’m hoping we’ll know soon. Josh will keep riding the computer, but Luke and I are going to scope out the cabin.”
Linnea’s eyes were filled with pain. “Do you think they killed her and buried her there?”
“We’ll sure as hell find out.”
She unwrapped the towel from her hair and began drying the long strands. “Does this mean Jim Franklin is out of it? What about the woman he beat up?”
“Drew and Ann Marie are going to see him today and lay the cards on the table.” He pulled her against his naked body, willing his cock to behave itself. “You go on to work. Are you in court today?”
She shook her head.
“Then keep your cell on at all times. I’ll check in with you.” He kissed her hungrily, thrusting his tongue into her mouth, savouring her taste to keep with him throughout the day. “I’ll call you.”
“Okay.” She leaned against him for a moment, her small fingers threading through the hair on his chest. “Be careful, please.”
“Always am. And I won’t be alone.” He patted her on the rear. “Now get some clothes on before I forget we have things to do and ravish you right here on the floor.”
She winked at him, trying to smile. “We can save that for later.”
* * * *
The drive from Sentinels’ headquarters at the north end of San Antonio to the cabin owned by Gray Fisher and Brad Macintyre took them a little over an hour. Luke had brought along some new information Josh had printed out and shared it with Cale while they drove.
“So Fisher and Macintyre knew each other before this?” Cale asked.
“Looks that way. Maybe as far back as when they went to the University of Chicago.”
Cale raised an eyebrow. “They were there at the same time?”
“Macintyre was in law school. He’s four or five years older. But listen to this.” Luke shuffled the papers on his lap. “After Fisher got bounced from the foundation he was working for there because of his affair, they called in an accountant to check the books and found substantial amounts of money unaccounted for.”
“So he’s done this before?”
“My guess is they were in this together. Fisher’s not in jail only because they couldn’t actually lay it at his door. He was very clever.”
“I’m surprised they didn’t tell the people here about it,” Cale commented.
“They couldn’t prove anything and the director whose wife got caught up in the affair was trying to hush things up, anyway.”
Luke’s cell phone rang at that moment. Cale listened to him, his side of the conversation consisting mainly of “Yeah,” and “Okay,” and finally, “Sure. I’ll tell him.”
“More news?” Cale asked.
“Yup. That was Drew. He and Ann Marie insisted Jim Franklin step out of his office and meet them for coffee or they’d come into the business and talk to him there. About Cathy. He was pretty shaken when they hammered him, but Drew’s convinced he’s not our guy. He said the situation with the former girlfriend had more to it than people think. Drew will tell us about it later, but he says we can write this guy off.”
“Then I damn sure hope we find something at this cabin.”
The place was set way back from the road, at the end of a dirt driveway lined with huge, ancient oaks and sycamores. The cabin itself wasn’t that big, set in the middle of a small clearing. Luke and Cale got out of the truck and moved around it, peering into the windows.
“Not more than two rooms,” Luke commented. “It looks empty.”
“And no one’s here,” Cale agreed. “It’s not looking good for finding Cathy Porter alive. Certainly not after all this time.”
“We need to sniff around,” Luke pointed out. “And sharpen our senses first.”
Just in case someone decided to come calling, they drove the truck up close to the two-lane country highway and stashed it in a thick copse of trees. Then they stripped, piling their clothes neatly on the front seat, and in seconds had shifted into wolf form, padding silently back to the cabin.
They circled around it, each going in an opposite direction, widening the circle of the search each time. When Cale was about fifty yards from the cabin, in the trees and standing on the soft forest floor, his nose alerted him to a differentiation in odours and he froze. He sniffed the area, moving away from the place he’d first picked up the scent, then back again. Cautiously he scraped at the bed of deciduous leaves and rotted wood, stopping when he uncovered something. Lifting his head, he gave a short, sharp howl calling Luke, hoping to hell no one was around to hear him.
Luke raced to his side, skidding to a stop and sniffing the area where Cale was standing. He lifted his wolf eyes to Cale, nodded. They both knew as humans the chance of catching this scent would be marginal, but their wolf senses never missed.
Then, as if with one mind, they loped further into the woods, eventually finding exactly what they expected. Cathy Porter’s car, hidden in a thick stand of trees and covered with leaves and branches. They raced back to the truck, shifted back to their human form and dressed quickly, Cale backed out onto the road and they roared away.
“I don’t know if it’s Cathy Porter,” Luke said when they’d driven a couple of miles, “but that’s definitely a body back there in some stage of decomp. And that’s her car back there.”
“No shit.” Cale ground his teeth, anticipating Linnea’s distress. “I wonder if they just expected to leave it there forever. They own all the land around here, so I guess the chance of discovery was pretty slim.”
Luke pulled out his cell. “I’m calling Brian to get everyone who’s around together. We need brainpower on this. We can’t just dig the bodies up without a warrant, and if we take the time to get a warrant they could get wind of what we’re doing.”