“Max, what on earth is going on?”
Sobs escape me as I try to speak. I believe Oprah would call this ‘ugly crying’.
“I l-I lost my…my mother’s pearls. Oh, God, Jack, they’re the last thing she gave me before she died…
His Plunder
I can practically smell the panic seeping out from her pores as the beautiful scene of angst unfolds before my eyes. I can see her but no one ever sees me. I’m hiding in the best place a person can hide, right out in the open.
My dick stiffens as I finger the pearls. She’s so very pretty, but that isn’t what excites me. She’s sobbing, beating on the man’s chest in between panicked attempts to find the very thing I’m holding in my hands. I roll the pearls between my fingers and smile as I rub them against the crotch of my jeans. I think I could come just from the thought of how good they’re going to feel wrapped around my dick.
My Max certainly has every reason to be upset because, really, this is all her fault. She pushed me to do it. I asked her very nicely to contact me and she ignored me. Fucking ignored me, just like all of these people do when I walk the streets at night, hunting. Always hunting.
I can’t resist tugging at my hoodie, pulling it down over my face as I cross the street. I shuffle down the sidewalk toward her with the pearls concealed in my hand. I stroll on by, close enough to bask in the sound of her weeping and his low murmurs as she’s comforted by her hero.
Neither of them knows it yet, but he can’t save her. No one can, except me…
Chapter Twenty Five
Jack
Poor kid. She’s huddled against my chest, sobbing for all she’s worth and I can’t do a damn thing about it. I pull her back by her shoulders and force her to look at me. I wrap her fingers around my handkerchief and she dabs at her eyes.
“Let’s look for the necklace and, who knows, someone may turn it in.”
She nods her head and we canvass every inch of the parking lot and look under every parked car. When we’ve done all we can do, we reluctantly agree to return to the compound in our respective vehicles.
“Are you sure you can drive?” I ask gently.
“Yes, I learned how to suck it up and hold my own a long time ago.” Her defeated tone combines with her determination and strength to squeeze at my heart and, once again, I feel helpless. I wait until I get in my car to smash my palm against the steering wheel. I take a moment to breathe deeply and flex my fingers before I hit the ignition, grip the leather upholstered wheel and pull into traffic.
I need Valerie. Nobody knows me better and somehow she’ll know exactly what to say and exactly what I need. She understands when the darkness encroaches on my soul because she’s built her life around being a cop. She gets it. We both know how things can go from zero to a hundred in a matter of seconds. And she seems to know instinctively how to help me cope with my emotions when all too often my efforts to deal with them alone come up short.
I connect with Valerie in the most visceral, almost primal way and know I’m in good hands with her g-- but this is a whole different ball game. I’m prepared to train the members of this fledgling team, but I never factored in how to handle caring about them. Between the sicko who’s dropping body parts all over my city and my pathetic efforts to help Max face her grief about her mom, I feel gutted.
I pull into my spot and see Max safely inside for the night. I’m relieved to see that Valerie’s already here. As soon as I walk through the door, she takes one look at me and sets her laptop aside, removes her reading glasses, and pins me with those lovely eyes.
“What’s wrong?”
I stalk in her direction, pick up her laptop and place it on the nightstand. I keep my eyes locked on hers as I peel out of my clothes until I’m naked in front of her. My cock is at full attention, hard and needy for her hands, for her mouth, for the wet heat that waits for me between her legs. When the guys down at the precinct would joke about being hard enough to hammer nails, I always laughed along with them. I’m not laughing now. I close my eyes and breathe deep a few times because I don’t want this to be over too soon. I need to work my woman over hard and I hope like hell she’s ready to take me on.
“You’re making it real easy, sitting there in my t-shirt,” I whisper as I hook my thumbs under the sides of the dainty little panties that are peeking out from under the t-shirt. With one hard tug, I tear them in two. She knows she’s in for it and, from the look in her eyes, she’s up for just about anything. There’s a taunting humor in her eyes as she lies back on the bed, a dare of sorts, a dare I’m more than willing to accept. I grab her ankles and spread her legs as far apart as they’ll go, rolling my hips just enough to tease her slick pussy lips with the broad head of my cock.
“You ready for me?” The question is a guttural rumble from deep in my throat. I’m coiled so tight I can barely breathe. My lips are pressed into a firm line, my jaw clenched as I hold her legs apart. I push her ankles down until they’re resting on the mattress next to her head. My woman is limber like that and I’m a lucky son of a bitch. I talk to her as I thrust my hips toward her so slowly, relentlessly driving my cock into her center.
“I see the look in your eyes, Val. You want to be taken hard…used…pleasured by me.” When I’m fully seated inside her and my balls are pressed tight against her ass, I see what I’m looking for there in her heavy-lidded eyes: her complete surrender to my will. “That’s it, there it is.”
Her head lolls to the side on the pillow and she cries out as begin to thrust feverishly in and out of her wet heat. That’s how it feels, like a damn fever is burning me up from the inside out. I know she feels it too as her breathing becomes ragged and the most gorgeous moans pour out of her mouth.
I’m working her over hard because it’s what I need from her. I need her to give in to what I’m doing to her, accept what I’m giving her. “You know you’re the only thing that sates me when my soul goes dark. I. Love. You. Woman.”
“Ahh, fuuuck, I love you, too, baby.” Her inner channel suddenly flutters along my length and I know she’s seconds away from clamping down on my cock in earnest, the way she always does when the pleasure takes her over. I whisper in her ear, taunting her, reminding her that only I can give her what she needs, “I see it in your eyes, you want me to show you the darkness you know I’m feeling. How ‘bout I just stop?”
“Nooooooo, Jack,” she gasps against my neck as her hips meet mine in our brutal, perfect rhythm. “Please, I’ll do anything, just make me come!” she wails as her body writhes beneath me and her hands roam frantically over my skin. She digs her nails into my ass, desperately trying to pull me in deeper and harder.
“Say it again! Tell me who this pussy belongs to—tell me you’re mine, that no one else gets to touch this pussy because it’s mine.”
“Anything, yes, I love you, Jack. So fucking much. This pussy belongs to you, no one touches it but you...”
I raise myself up on an elbow and bend my knee outward on the mattress so I can get at her from a different angle, one that will have my pelvic bone hitting her clit with the perfect amount of pressure to get her off. She screams and holds on tight when she climaxes. Her hungry cunt demands the same from me and I explode, releasing all of my angst and anger deep within her body.
She is succor to my dark soul and I will never let her go.
Chapter Twenty Six
Max
I thought I could watch her die, thought I could hold her hand as she walked into the light when this horrible nightmare of life was over. I gaze out the hospital window as she sleeps. All they can do now is ‘keep her comfortable’. Whatever that means. My mother is a fighter but she’s no match for this disease.
I hate you, cancer, from the depths of my soul, I fucking loathe you.
She was diagnosed with breast cancer a year ago—a year ago when we had hope. Now…I have nothing; nothing but gut wrenching heartbreak and anger. I’m crumbling inside, swallowing back the grief and the tears. I
t feels like I’m swallowing a bowling ball because I don’t want her to see me break down.
“Sweetie, Maxine… Come sit by Momma.” I turn to see her patting the bed. I walk over, straightening the pretty scarf she wears to hide the loss of her hair from chemo. All that sickness and throwing up and she’s still going to die, it’s so fucking unfair. I want to die with her—who am I kidding? I am dying with her. A piece of me is dying with her and nothing will ever heal me or replace the void that will be left in me when she’s gone. ‘Time heals all wounds,’ my ass. The wounds scar over, but they don’t heal. Her voice pulls me from my enraged thoughts.
“I want to give you something, baby. Open the drawer there and hand me the black felt box.” I open the drawer and pull out an oblong, black box.
“My mother gave these to me, Maxine, and I want you to have them now.” The grandmother I never knew because this same fucking disease took her too. She opens the box and lovingly runs her fingers over the pearls before handing them to me.
I take them from her, clasping them around my neck and repeat the process I witnessed her do only seconds ago. Running my fingers over them when I wear them will become a habit that follows me through the years. Two days later my mother died and a piece of me followed her to the grave.
I pull myself out of the memories and viciously punch relentlessly at the pillow I’m holding. Those pearls were the last thing I had of my mother. Oh, God, why, why, why did I wear them?
Chapter Twenty Seven
Jack
We’ve both had time to hop in the shower and I settled for just throwing on some sweats but no shirt. I step out of the bathroom, running my fingers through my towel dried hair. My lover has taken good care of me; now I need to talk to my best friend. It’s 2:00 a.m. and neither of us is feeling the slightest bit sleepy.
Valerie pats the bed next to her. “Do you want to tell me what’s going on?”
“I don’t know that it’s any one thing, Valerie. I’ll start with what happened tonight and we’ll see where it goes.” She says nothing, just levels me with those blue eyes that wrap me in her profound compassion and understanding.
“Max went out with a doctor tonight. Well, really it was more of an interview type thing. She met him when she was out having coffee with her old professor. They guy’s an orthopedic surgeon and she wanted to pick his brain.”
“Because whoever is placing the body parts is cutting them off like they have extensive medical training.”
It isn’t a question but I still confirm it, “Yes, exactly. So anyway…I wait up for her. I think the serial killer contacting her has put me on high alert, but anyway, she gets home and it’s all good. All of a sudden she runs out of her room and tears out of the parking lot. Needless to say, I’m glad I had Cash put trackers on these new phones so I could follow her and find out what the hell was going on. I’m baffled when she goes back to the restaurant. When I get there she comes barreling out in tears and runs right into me. Bottom line—she lost the pearls her mother gave her on her death bed.”
“Oh, no, Jack. Those are irreplaceable, how devastating for her. Do you think someone will turn them in?”
“Years of working as a cop make me skeptical, but that’s a high end restaurant so there’s a possibility.”
“Jack, we both know people with money aren’t exempt from being thieves.”
I chuckle, “Look who’s being skeptical now. What I’m saying is it isn’t like she lost them on the strip where junkies are hustling for a fix. Most people with money are going to steal for the thrill of it or they deal in white collar crime. They have jewelry, so a set of pearls isn’t a big deal to them.”
“Could her date have stolen them?”
I look at her like she’s crazy. “You’ve got to be kidding me. What the hell would the orthopedist want with them?”
“I have no idea. I’m going on how we’ve been trained, ‘if you hear hoof beats think horses not zebras’. The only person close enough to her, I assume, was the doctor. Either he took them, or they came unclasped and fell off. I assume it’s an old set of pearls, most likely antique. If so, that means they probably have an old fashioned clasp. Something like a spring hook, a screw barrel or a slide out. Since they were pearls, I’m guessing it’s a slide-out. Not the sturdiest clasp, unfortunately.”
“Well, I can see growing up with a mother who dealt in antiques gave you some insider knowledge. You must have seriously been listening and learning.” Even though I chuckle, I’m impressed with my woman’s knowledge of vintage and antique jewelry. Who knows when expertise like that will come in handy.
“I’m still learning, it’s an interesting field of study. You should see what I know about furniture,” she says as she waggles her eyebrows at me suggestively. “Back to the matter at hand, a slide-out clasp could have easily been taken off of her neck, as well as… It could have come undone from years of use. All I’m saying is, if the good doctor has developed a fixation with Max, it could feed his obsession to want something personal of hers. We don’t know if he just happened to be at the coffee shop where you said she first met him.”
“I don’t get that vibe from this guy. And it was a spur of the moment decision for her and the professor to head that way. I don’t see how it could be anything but a coincidence.”
She raises a sardonic brow, “Have you ever met the orthopedist?”
“No.”
“So you’re basing your perception of him on his profession?”
Well, fuck me. I’ve never thought about it like that. She’s right. Maybe it’s time I take a closer look at the good doctor. You can never be too careful.
“Okay, I hear you, those are valid arguments. Remind me to never get on your radar.”
“You’re already on my radar. For example, I trust you but I’m not too proud to say that I’ve still watched you with Max.”
“And what have you come up with, Madame Detective?”
“You look at her like the daughter you don’t have.”
Her comment prompts me to bring up another topic that I need to hash out with her. “There’s something I’m having a hard time dealing with.” I don’t give her time to interject because I don’t want to lose my nerve. “When I started this crazy idea of training a team of private investigators, I didn’t give much thought to bonding with them beyond establishing strong ties as a professional team. I didn’t count on caring about them. You know me, Val, I don’t do that unless it’s cop-related. I bonded with you as a partner first before we became lovers. Although I won’t deny that it was definitely crossing my mind on a regular basis – I practically had callouses on my right hand to prove it.”
She rolls her eyes, then leans over to kiss my cheek. “You’re sweet,” she says and places her hand on my arm reassuringly. “I’d be more worried about you if you weren’t bonding. You can’t be disconnected from everything, Jack.”
“Wanna bet?” I cut my eyes at her.
“No, Jack, you may think you can, but emotions don’t listen to mental logic. You care about that kid, as you call her. You better be glad you do, too, because there’s a serial killer out there who’s contacting her, and probably knows more about her by now than any of us realize. Maybe it’s time for you to let her contact him.”
Chapter Twenty Eight
Max
Waking up this morning after a long night of intermittent sleep and relentless crying jags is beyond difficult. My ass is dragging and my eyes are all but swollen shut. The only thing prompting me to get into the shower and begin the day is knowing that today is the day Jack’s ‘suit’ hacker guy arrives.
I shuffle over to the coffee pot and flip the switch so it can brew while I’m in the shower. One good thing about being a tomboy by nature is that I don’t have to waste two whole hours getting ready. I’m in and out of the shower with wet hair and dressed in jeans and a t-shirt within ten minutes.
I stand at the window, nursing my coffee and staring out at nothing. I like
it here. I like having my privacy while also knowing that I’m part of something bigger than myself. I will another bout of tears away as the memory of losing my mother’s pearls last night creeps in on my moment of peaceful solitude. I abruptly shake my head and straighten my spine. I have to stay positive. Maybe someone will call today and give me good news. There are still good people in the world. I have to believe that.
I walk over to my desk, set my coffee down, and boot up my computer, ready to review the notes I managed to type up after all the excitement last night. Who knows if they’ll make any sense, I was in such a state.
A loud rumble breaks the silence and my coffee mug starts vibrating across my desk. What the fuck? I hurry over to the window. Some biker guy on a tricked out Harley pulls up to the office. How the hell did he get past the security gate?!
I know Jack has dealt with some really bad people over the years -- Is he about to be ambushed?! Before I have a chance to think, I sling the door open and stomp over to the intruder.
“Excuse me! Hey, you!” By now I’m standing in front of him with my hands on my hips. After the night I had, I’m more than ready for a confrontation.
His face and head are concealed by a black helmet emblazoned with a black widow design. He tilting his head to the side as he considers me. I continue my rant, “What the hell do you think you’re doing here? We don’t allow just anyone on the premises.”
He slides the helmet off and I feel like I’ve been sucker punched. My next words freeze in my throat as I take him in. There’s at least 6’3” of gorgeous, simmering testosterone looming over me. From his short-cropped, jet black hair and nearly black eyes to his five o’clock shadow, this is one badass bad boy.
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