by Kat Martin
He pondered the notion. Tommy should be safe for at least a couple of days.
Maybe changing his priorities could wait.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Kate wore her denim skirt with a sleeveless pink top and a pair of sandals to their rendezvous at the Sunshine Motel. She didn’t want to look like a streetwalker tonight—or any night in the future.
Jase pulled the Yukon into the lot in front of the motel, which was only two stories, a total of twelve rooms. Room 8, where Lollie was supposed to be waiting, opened off the walkway upstairs.
Jase parked his SUV in front, and they both got out. Neither Eli nor Snoopy was around, which, if Lollie was actually there waiting for them, was a relief. As they walked toward the motel, the door to room 8 on the second floor swung open, and a slender blonde woman in a short, see-through lavender nightgown stepped out to the railing that overlooked the parking lot.
Kate and Jase headed for the stairs. The woman didn’t back away as they approached along the upstairs walkway.
“You must be Hawk,” Lollie said when they reached her, giving Jase a practiced come-on smile. Her gaze cut to Kate, then back to him. “Snoopy told me you’d be bringing a lady to join in the fun.”
At the woman’s fake enthusiasm, pity curled in Kate’s stomach. “I’m Kate,” she said, extending a hand. “And you’re Lollie, right?”
“That’s right, honey. Lolita’s my real name.” She accepted the handshake, clearly surprised by the gesture. She was a little too thin, her eyes slightly sunken, hair short and curly. Her fake black lashes were heavily mascaraed, her cheeks brightly rouged. She looked old beyond her twentysomething years, but she had once been pretty.
“Come on in.” The woman stepped back and Kate walked into the room, Jase a few steps behind her.
Lollie closed the door, her gaze moving from Jase, who took up way too much space, to Kate, who was way taller than Lollie, to the sagging queen-size bed.
“It’s all right,” Kate said gently. “We aren’t here for sex.”
“We’re paying Snoopy for your time,” Jase said, “but we only want to talk to you, ask you some questions.”
Relief flickered over her face, followed by wariness. “What kind of questions?”
Kate managed to smile. “My last name’s Gallagher. The girl you knew as Tina Galen was my sister, Chrissy.”
Lollie glanced away, her eyes clouding. “I heard what happened. I’m real sorry. I liked Tina. We were friends.”
“Yes, that’s what we heard,” Kate said.
Jase shifted, probably feeling claustrophobic in the close confines of the tight, seedy motel room. “We’re hoping you can help us figure out who might have killed her, Lollie.”
The woman started shaking her head. “I don’t know anything. I told the police that when they came knocking at the door.”
“Do you know if she might have had a john who liked rough sex?” Jase asked.
“She might have. She never mentioned it.”
“What about a regular customer who might have started getting a little too possessive?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Can you tell us a little about her?” Kate asked. “My sister ran away two years ago. She was only sixteen. My mom and I tried to find her, my father, too, in the beginning. We never heard from her again. I never knew where she was until I got a call from the Dallas Police Department asking me to identify her body.”
Kate’s throat tightened. “I’ll never forget the way she looked lying on that stainless-steel table. My sister was beaten to death, Lollie. Someone needs to pay for what they did to her.”
Lollie sank down on the mattress, her hands clasped together between her thin legs. “I didn’t know her for very long. We only just met a few weeks before she was killed.” A wobbly smile touched her lips. “For some reason the two of us just hit it off right away.”
“Sometimes that happens,” Kate said, sitting down on the bed beside her. “I’m glad she had someone who cared about her.”
“She wasn’t from Dallas. I don’t know where she came from—Tina never said. She’d only been working the area a couple of nights when Eli spotted her on the street. She was in his territory, you see? You can’t just work like that on your own. You gotta have a protector.”
“So Eli Zepeda became her pimp?” Jase asked.
“Eli didn’t give her any choice. And the truth is, Tina needed him. She was in bad shape when she got here. She was hungry. She needed a place to stay, and...”
“And...?” Jase pressed.
“She needed a fix. Eli takes care of that for all his girls.”
Kate and Jase exchanged glances. The track marks on Lollie’s arms were impossible to miss.
“What else can you tell us?” Kate urged gently.
“Tina went to work for Eli, but she was determined to get out of the life. She told me she had family in Dallas.” Lollie looked at Kate. “She must have been talking about you.”
The lump in Kate’s throat grew more pronounced. She swallowed. “I moved to Dallas before Chrissy was in high school. Why didn’t she call me? I’m her sister. I would have helped her. Surely she knew that.”
“She wanted to see you—very much. But she wanted to be clean and sober before she called, wanted to straighten herself out first.”
Chrissy had been trying to turn her life around. Kate blinked against the tears burning behind her eyes.
“She wanted a better life, but she was murdered before she got the chance,” Jase said.
Lollie shook her head. “That isn’t what happened. A few days after she started working for Eli, Tina found out about the rehab center. It’s a place called New Hope, a big old house just around the corner. Tina talked to the people who worked there, told them she was ready to change her life, but she needed their help. They don’t take many girls, but they agreed to take Tina. The day she moved in—that’s the last time I saw her.”
Silence fell in the shabby motel room.
“So Tina was living in the rehab center when she was killed?” Jase asked, while Kate was still trying to wrap her head around the fact that her sister had been trying to get clean, that she had wanted to see Kate again.
“I’m not sure if she stayed there. They have strict rules. Most of the girls who try to get clean don’t make it. Maybe the folks over at the center will know more about what happened.”
“Did you tell this to the police?” Jase asked.
Lollie shook her head, moving her short blond hair. “Snoopy doesn’t want me talking to the cops.” She looked at Kate. “But you’re Tina’s family. I figure she’d want you to know.”
Jase walked over and placed a wad of folded bills on the dresser. “Snoopy expects you to get three times your usual fee. The extra’s for you.”
Lollie picked up the bills and started counting. She stashed the money in the drawer and looked up at him. “Thank you.”
Kate walked over and hugged her. “Take care of yourself, Lollie.”
The woman made no reply. There was really nothing else to say.
Kate and Jase left the motel. All the way back to her apartment, Kate thought of her baby sister.
Her eyes burned. So far she’d been able to compartmentalize, keep the emotion she was feeling under control. After talking to Lollie, knowing her sister had wanted to reach out to her, emotion tightened her chest.
She thought of the short, terrible life Chrissy had lived. When she’d found herself in trouble, why hadn’t she called home? Surely she knew her family loved her. Even if Kate hadn’t been there for her, Chrissy had to know their mother loved her.
What had happened to her after she’d run away? How had she ended up a prostitute? Kate was desperate to know.
As the Yukon turned down her street, her insides ached with the awful sense of loss and grie
f. She blamed herself, blamed the system that had somehow failed a sixteen-year-old girl, knew she wouldn’t be able to get the terrible things she had learned out of her mind, and suddenly she wasn’t ready to face the long night ahead.
She wiped tears from her cheeks and turned to Jase. “Do you think you could...? Would you...come up for a while? Just for a while. Maybe have a beer or something?”
His beautiful blue eyes held a trace of pity. “I could use a beer,” Jase said, though she doubted he was looking forward to such dismal company. Instead of pulling up in front, he parked in a visitor’s space in the garage, came around and helped her out of the Yukon.
She rode the elevator upstairs in silence, her mind spinning with troubled thoughts. Guilt and regret made her heart hurt. If only Chrissy had called her, somehow reached out to her. Together they could have beaten her addiction. Chrissy would still be alive and she would be safe.
Her chest tightened as they walked into her living room and Jase closed the door. His eyes ran over her, took in the track of tears that had dried on her cheeks. He was standing so close she could feel the heat of his big, hard body.
“You want that beer?” he asked, his gaze locked on her face. “Or do you want something else?”
The last time she’d felt this terrible pain was the night she had met him. That night she had wanted him to take away the awful ache she felt inside. To make her forget, if only for one night. She wanted that same thing now.
“I want something else,” she said softly, her arms sliding up around his neck. “I want you, Hawk. You’re what I want tonight.”
* * *
Arousal burned through him. Jase was already hard by the time he pulled Kate into his arms and kissed her. She needed him tonight, and he damn well needed her. Had since that night at the Sagebrush Saloon.
He forced himself to slow down, to kiss those soft full lips, taste the heat and need he had seen in her eyes, a hunger that matched his own. Desire rose up, thick and pounding, strengthening his arousal, running hot in his blood.
His hands slid over the perfect round globes of her ass and he settled her in the vee between his legs, let her feel how much he wanted her. Her body was toned and strong, and yet her skin felt soft as silk wherever he touched her.
He kissed his way down the side of her neck, claimed her mouth again, delved deep, took what he wanted. Her fingers dug into the muscles across his shoulders, and Kate took the kiss even deeper.
He wasn’t sure how they managed to reach the sofa, but it was exactly where he wanted to be. Her panties were gone by the time he sat down and pulled her on top of him, her knees straddling his lap, the powerful erection beneath the fly of his jeans pressing into the sweet spot beneath her short skirt.
He’d lived this fantasy a dozen times since she’d left him that first night, imagined what it would be like to finish what they’d started, imagined the pleasure.
He stripped her soft knit top off over her head, unfastened the hook on the front of her lacy white bra and slid it off her shoulders, filled his hands with her magnificent breasts, ached to put his mouth there. He bent his head to the task, his tongue running over the pebbled crest, laving and tasting, satisfying at least one part of his fantasy, would have enjoyed taking more time if his need hadn’t been so strong.
Kate pulled his T-shirt off and tossed it away, pressed her lips against his heated skin, trailed kisses over his chest and shoulders.
Jase groaned. Reaching between them, he unzipped his fly and freed himself, felt the dampness between her long legs. She was ready for him, and he was more than ready for her.
He managed to dig his wallet out of his back pocket and pull out a condom. Kate took it out of his hands, opened the foil packet and sheathed him. Jase kissed her as he lifted her, and she eased down on top of him with a soft, sexy purr. Cupping his face between her hands, she bent and settled her mouth over his.
Kate kissed him deep, kissed him hard, and desperate hunger burned through him. She was riding him now, slow and easy at first, then faster, deeper, harder. The lust he’d felt that night returned tenfold, and he clamped down hard to stay in control. Even those efforts didn’t last long.
Kate braced her hands on his shoulders, fitting their bodies together, moving in perfect rhythm. Her climax struck, her passage tightening around him, and Kate cried out his name. Gripping her hips to hold her in place, he drove into her again and again, drove into her until she came once more.
Need clawed through him, so powerful his jaw clenched, and release hit him hard, his muscles going rigid, pleasure burning through him, hot and fierce. All consuming.
“Kate...” he whispered, saying her name like a vow, a promise of things to come.
Because one thing Hawk Maddox now knew—having her once wasn’t going to be nearly enough to get over his obsession with Kate.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Kate awoke later than usual the following morning. As events of the night came rushing back, her gaze shot to the other side of the bed, but Jason wasn’t there.
Relief filtered through her, followed by uncertainty. She sat up in bed, feeling aches in places that had never ached before. Maddox had done that, driven her to heights she had never experienced. Doubt swelled. She wasn’t sure how she felt about what had happened, had no idea how it would affect the job she needed done.
Sunlight streamed through her bedroom curtains as she came to her feet, grabbed her robe and headed for the bathroom. Jason was already gone. She hadn’t heard him leave, wondered if he had left to avoid the always difficult morning after conversation.
Whatever the reason, she would never forget the night they had shared. Instead of lonely hours filled with grief and regret, he had swept her into a night of passion, a place where sadness didn’t exist, just heat and need and pleasure.
She had known he would be a demanding lover, hadn’t expected him to also be generous and attentive. His lovemaking had been unlike anything she had experienced before. It was impossible to regret what had happened. Or at least not so far.
On the other hand, she had no idea what Jase would expect from her now, or if he was the kind of guy who was mostly about the conquest, the kind who would be moving on after spending a night in her bed.
The smell of coffee reached her as she emerged from the bathroom, drawing her toward the kitchen. A white mug with a yellow daisy painted on the side sat next to a freshly brewed pot of coffee on the counter. A few words scribbled on a piece of paper sat beside it. She reached for the note. Pick you up at ten, it read. Nothing more than that, nothing personal. Part of her was disappointed, though she had no idea what she would have liked him to say. Far more important, he wasn’t going to ignore his pledge to help her, even if their relationship had taken a major turn.
Even if things were uncomfortable between them.
Kate poured the mug full of coffee. Whatever happened last night, Jase wasn’t to blame. Having sex had been her idea. He had simply done what she’d asked him. He’d just managed to do it far better than she ever could have imagined.
Kate took a sip of the thick dark brew, which had turned strong and bitter while she had been sleeping, and grimaced at the taste. Without time to brew another pot, she carried the mug into the bathroom to shower and get ready for Jase to pick her up.
As she turned on the water and waited for it to get warm, an odd mix of excitement and trepidation slid through her. She had no idea what to expect from him. On a personal level, they needed to go back to where they were before last night, to focus on solving Chrissy’s murder. They needed to talk to the people at the New Hope Rehab Center, to Elijah Zepeda, and also to Marco Bandini, the last of the three men arrested for assaulting a prostitute.
As she brushed her hair and applied her makeup, she tried not to think about last night. When that failed, she tried to convince herself she didn’t want it to happen again.
But when she walked into the living room a little before ten o’clock, she found herself in a pair of sexy skinny jeans, heeled sandals and a formfitting, cap-sleeved, scooped-neck blue top that showed some cleavage.
It wasn’t blatantly sexy, but it wasn’t a pillowcase, either.
Her stomach fluttered when the intercom buzzed and the front desk announced Jase’s arrival in the lobby. Kate slung her purse over her shoulder and headed for the elevator. When the doors slid open, he was waiting. In jeans, boots and a dark blue T-shirt that hugged his amazing chest and showed the tattoo on his biceps, the man was definitely eye candy. A sliver of heat curled low in her belly.
His gorgeous blue eyes ran over her. “You okay?” he asked.
Was she okay? She wasn’t exactly sure. She felt different, as if making love with him had changed her in some fundamental way.
“I’m ready to go to work on the case, if that’s what you’re asking.”
A corner of his mouth tilted up, and she knew what he was thinking. “Glad I could be of service.”
Memories arose of the things he had done to her, and heat rushed into her cheeks. “I’m sure spending the night with a distraught woman wasn’t your top priority, so...thank you.”
As they reached her side of the SUV, he caught her shoulders and turned her to face him.
“I stayed with you last night because being in your bed was exactly where I wanted to be. That hasn’t changed this morning. Neither has my commitment to finding your sister’s killer.” He pulled her hard against him, and his mouth crushed down over hers. Heat and wild hunger roared through her, the instant before he broke away.
“We’ve got work to do,” he said gruffly. “Let’s go.”
Still shaken, her body still humming, Kate climbed into the passenger seat and closed the door. She hadn’t seen things going in this direction. She hadn’t been sure he’d be interested in a repeat of last night, wasn’t sure he’d want to get involved on more than a superficial level.