by Deborah Camp
“Good Lord!” She covered her parted lips with her hand. “I’d say that was a heck of a coincidence, but . . .it seems to be so much more than that.”
“Yeah, right.” He sat back and drummed his fingers on the table for a few seconds. “Anyway, the kid – Clayton Nelson – was hitchhiking in New Orleans when a guy in a pickup stopped for him. He couldn’t see much of the man’s face because he wore a ball cap and sunglasses. He had a mustache that looked fake to me. He used the ploy of something being wrong with his truck to get the kid to look under the hood and then he knocked him out with a blow to the head. Clay came to in a basement, his wrists and ankles bound with plastic ties and chains.” He shuttered his gaze from her. “That’s where he was murdered.” A few seconds ticked by before his lashes lifted to reveal his dark blue eyes that never missed much. “You’ve been in contact with the murderer already, haven’t you?”
Her heart jolted. He was uncanny. “I was in contact with someone who’s warped. I don’t know if it was the salvage yard killer.”
“Was he murdering someone?”
“Something. A cat.”
Levi’s upper lip lifted in disgust. “Jesus.”
“Yeah. He was practicing, I think.” She shuddered and blocked out the memory.
“The kid in my head showed me a compass and pointed to the N on it.”
She gasped at the reference. “Your true north?”
“Bingo. His way of telling me that you were already part of this.”
She unfolded her legs and reached for her glass of juice. They must be destined to examine this case. How else could she explain what happened to Levi and what she’d already experienced? Sensing some reluctance on his part, she asked, “Can you clear your schedule?”
He gathered in a big breath and released it in long sigh. “I don’t know. I’ll have Darla look at my calendar for the next week and let me know.”
“A week? You think this will only take a week?”
“I figured we could take a week and see how it goes.”
“If we commit, we’ll stick with it, won’t we?”
He finished the wine before he answered. “This guy has murdered nineteen people over a decade. Evidently, the police are stumped because they haven’t zeroed in on anyone, so far. They could have a suspect list, but if they do, they’re not putting the heat on anyone on the list.”
“But we have a name – Desmond Forté – and Jazeem even gave me a sketch she did of him.”
“So?” One shoulder bounced. “That’s a far cry from evidence, Trudy. This is the kind of case that can take a lot of time.”
Ah. More than a little reluctance on his part. “Time you don’t want to give?”
“Time I don’t know if I can give. We’re heading into spring and summer. That’s when the construction business is in top gear. I have three buildings being refurbished now and I have four more that we’ll get started on within the next sixty days. Plus, I have six houses flagged for Re-Home improvements.” He ran a hand through his hair in an agitated gesture. “I’m also expanding our architectural restoration division. I’ve hired two more restoration experts and support staff for them. We have several clients ready to hire us already.”
She realized she was shaking her head in amazement and stopped. The amount of information she didn’t know about his other business was staggering. “I didn’t realize . . . “
“I know.” He leaned forward, his expression warm and tender. “I have a lot going on. We have a lot going on. Don’t get me wrong. My paranormal work is important to me, but I have people depending on Wolfe Enterprises for their paychecks. My plan is to become less involved in the day-to-day activities, but that can’t happen overnight. I have to groom people to take on more responsibilities and totally trust that they’re the right ones for the jobs before I turn over the reins.”
“If you would rather not take this one on, I understand. Maybe I could delve into it myself and—.”
“No. What I’m saying is that I’ll take a week and then I’ll have to come back here to see to business for a few days. I’ll have to work on the New Orleans case a few days at a time. I can’t just leave my business here for a month or two right now.”
“Oh. Okay.” She chewed on her lower lip, pondering the days ahead. “It’s not that I’m all excited about working on this one. I just don’t think I’ll be able to stop slipping into the guy’s head now that he’s found a way in.”
“It’s going to be a tough one. It’s going to get real ugly. From how he talked to Clayton Nelson, he has disdain for his victims and sees them as lazy good-for-nothings. And he’s vicious. Cold-blooded as they come. Is that how he came across to you?”
“I wasn’t inside his head long enough to form much of an opinion. I just know that he enjoys hurting and killing. It fascinates him.”
“If we get in over our heads or it looks as if we’re not making any progress, we’ll call it quits. How’s that sound?”
She nodded, although she couldn’t imagine him quitting something he started.
“Enough of this.” He pushed up from the chair. “Let’s go back to bed.”
She looked up at him and her blood thickened when his eyes darkened to midnight blue and the air seemed to crackle around her. He trailed his fingertips down the side of her face and tucked his thumb in the corner of her mouth. Parting her lips, she sucked his thumb before biting down until he hissed.
“I want that mouth on my cock.”
She closed her eyes as part of her winced at his bold, bald statement and part of her thrilled to it. The thrilled part won out, as usual. Keeping her gaze locked on his face, she curled her fingers around the elastic band of his pajama pants and slowly pulled it down until his penis bobbed free. Slipping out of the chair to her knees, she grasped the base of it and brought the tip to her lips. Tonguing him, she watched his expressive eyes change from cobalt to almost black as he grew longer and harder in her hands and mouth. She took him to the back of her throat and received a moan of pure pleasure from him. His fingers burrowed into her hair and against her scalp. There was power in this kind of pleasuring – woman power. She loved that she could make a tremble race through him, make him close his eyes in a near swoon, and that she could drag moaning murmurs of adulation from him. He planted his feet more firmly and locked his knees as if he were afraid he might collapse in a puddle of pleasure as she continued to stroke and suck.
When she ran her tongue along the vein on the underside of his cock and massaged the tip with the flat of it, he shoved his hands under her arms and lifted her up off her knees. In a deft move, he turned her around to face the dining table and pressed a hand to the back of her neck, signaling her to bend over. Oh, yes! She flattened her breasts and belly against the tabletop and he tapped his foot against her ankles to get her to widen her stance. He shoved her sleep shirt up past her hips and kissed her backside. She wiggled her butt at him and he leaned lower and bit one cheek and then the other.
“Owww.” She wiggled again. “Quit teasing.”
“Impatient, huh? Tell me what you want, Trudy.”
“You,” she whispered. “All of you.”
He kissed the curve of her back. “You want me inside you?”
“Yes.” The feathery touch of his fingertips gliding down her back, along her sides, under her body to caress between her thighs shook more words out of her. “Hard and fast. Make me come, Levi.”
His teeth closed on her shoulder as he growled deep in his throat. “Gladly.”
And then he drove home, filling her up so quickly and sharply that she scooted a little on the table. The angle allowed him to go deep and he did, each jolting thrust sending her higher and higher. She heard herself grunt and moan and rasp out his name, but her mind had gone fuzzy as her core heated up, melted, and spilled out between her thighs.
“So wet and creamy,” Levi whispered, feverishly, his hands clasping her hips as he thrust into her, stilled, and then rotated his hips so th
at he rubbed her G-spot.
Her climax pounced, devouring her thoughts. Her body tensed and shuddered and she reached out to the edge of the table and clung to it as Levi pounded into her, unrelenting and definitely unromantic. This was primal Levi. Powerfully determined and growling her name along with feral needs. “Take it, take it, take me. . . come on my cock, baby . . .Trudy, oh fuck, this is mine . . . this beauty is all mine!”
He drove in one final time and pulsed inside her. He covered her body with his and she felt the thundering beat of his heart between her shoulder blades. His lips moved lazily against the side of her neck.
“You slay me,” he whispered in that raspy voice that made her tingle all over. “You fucking own me. Body and what’s left of my heart and soul.”
She wiggled under him and he lifted off her enough for her to flip over and stare into eyes that were framed with black eyelashes. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she brought him down for a long, tongue-stroking kiss.
“I love you, Leviticus David Wolfe.”
He closed his eyes for a moment as if the words unhinged him, and when he met her gaze again, his shimmered. “I know and I’ll never get tired of hearing you say it. I don’t understand how I got so fucking lucky. Will you love me forever?”
“Forever and a day.”
His smile was so tender it squeezed her heart. “I’m going to hold you to that, Trudy Louise Tucker.”
Chapter 4
With a mighty grunt and a snarl of determination, Trudy wrenched the zipper the rest of the way and then sat back with a sigh of triumph. There! She was packed and ready to fly to New Orleans in the morning. Assuming she and Levi would be there a week to ten days, she’d chosen her wardrobe carefully and conservatively so that she could fit everything into one wheeled suitcase and one large tote.
A gray body streaked across the floor and into her lap. “Hey, Mouse! Where have you been?” The aroma of savory meat drifted into the bedroom. “Oh, I can guess. You’ve been in the kitchen, hoping that Wes would drop something on the floor and you could scoop it up.”
“Hey, Toots.” Levi strolled in, hands in his trouser pockets, his suit jacket draped over one arm, and looking a little windblown. He tossed his jacket into a nearby chair.
“You’re home! I didn’t hear you come in.” She bounded to her feet and wrapped her arms around his neck as she bestowed a quick kiss on his stubbly cheek. “Hard day at the office, dear?”
“Mind-bending.” He ran his hands down her back and cupped her backside. “I see you’re packed.”
“I am. How about you?”
He arched a brow and patted her rear. “Wes packed me a bag yesterday.”
“I would have done that for you. You didn’t have to bother Wes.”
“Bother Wes?” He ran a hand through his hair, mussing it even more. “Trudy, I pay Wes to do stuff for me. You can ask him to do things for you, too.”
“I know, but I’m perfectly capable of packing my own luggage.”
He shook his head and aggravation flickered in his eyes. “You’re missing the point – on purpose. Wes has dinner ready. Let’s eat.” Bending down, he picked up Mouse in one hand and strode from the bedroom.
She wrinkled her nose at his back. He expected her to adapt and take up his habits in the blink of an eye. Did he realize how very different her life had been before he came along? She’d been pinching pennies, worried that she wouldn’t be able to pay her bills every month, scared spitless when she’d taken the inheritance her grandfather had left her and spent most of it on a motor home in which she could travel and make money as a psychic. She’d never had a paid staff, much less someone to pack for her!
Following, the scent trail into the kitchen, she was in time to see Wes remove a baking dish from the oven.
“So, what have you prepared for us?” Levi asked, setting Mouse down before he jogged up the steps to the elevated kitchen.
“Cornish hen, baked sweet potatoes, and grilled asparagus spears.”
Trudy sat in her usual chair at the dining table that faced the wall of windows and looked out at the long afternoon shadows stretching across the street and scenic park. As she listened to the two men discussing football scores and teams, she counseled herself to embrace the changes around her instead of resisting or questioning them. After all, Levi hadn’t always lived like this either. A few years ago, he’d lived out of his car! He’d told her, sketchily, of traveling from one psychic fair to the next where he made enough money so that he could buy fast food and booze for him and gas for his car. Then he’d had the good fortune of catching Quintara’s eye and she’d insisted on taking him under her wing and forcing him onto a better, more lucrative, and respectable path. Quintara had an eye for talent and it had been easy for her to see that Levi brimmed with it.
Eyeing Wes’s reflection in the window, Trudy smiled. She liked all of Levi’s staff, but Wes was her favorite. He was much closer to Levi than any of the others, too. Levi trusted Wes – which was exceedingly rare for a man with Levi Wolfe’s past. Trust was something almost foreign to Levi. Almost as foreign as love – although, since he’d met Trudy, Levi was beginning to believe that he was capable of giving and receiving both without the sky falling in on him or the earth swallowing him up.
Levi could let down his guard with Wes. At 45, Wes had kicked around the world, seen it and done it a few times, and was now settled down with a wife and three daughters. Levi often sought Wes’s advice.
“So, you’re going to be in New Orleans for a week?” Wes asked as he set the baking dish that held a perfectly browned Cornish hen onto the dining table.
“Maybe a few days more,” Levi said, sitting at the head of the table that would comfortably seat twelve. Trudy sat at his left. “Ten, max. I have to be back for a charity event in a couple of weeks. A dinner party at the Armhurst home in Buckhead. It’s raising money for the children’s shelter.”
Placing her napkin in her lap, Trudy digested that bit of news with a measure of pride. Levi’s big heart continued to surprise and delight her. In the next instant, she frowned because she realized she’d be expected to attend, too. Fancy social functions made her uneasy. She felt like an imposter at them.
“You’re going, too, aren’t you, Trudy?” Wes asked her.
She bobbed her shoulders. “I guess.”
“Don’t get too excited about it,” Levi drawled with a smirk.
“I’m not good at the social scene.”
That earned her frowny faces from both men. Wes finished bringing the rest of the meal to the table and then folded his arms against the front of his black t-shirt and the bib of his black pin-striped apron. The sleeves of his shirt rode up his powerful biceps, showing more of the U.S. Navy tattoo on his right arm and the American eagle and flag on the left one. “I was wondering, when are you bringing the rest of your clothes and other things here from Tulsa?”
Trudy paused in sprinkling pepper on her food. “I’ve moved in everything.”
“You have?” He glanced at Levi before addressing her again. “You don’t have any more furniture? No pictures to hang? No plants? What about more clothes, shoes, purses, and all the other stuff women have?”
Trudy answered each question with a head shake. “I sold or gave away a lot of stuff and put some in storage. I have moved all my clothes here.” Setting the pepper mill back onto the table, she smiled at his look of shock. “I’m not a big shopper. In fact, I’d rather spend the day in the gym – which we all know I despise – than spend it in a mall or clothing store.”
Wes looked at Levi again. “Now I understand why you asked me for names of personal shoppers.”
“You did?” Trudy asked Levi. “When?”
Levi waved away her questions with his knife and fork before using them to carve the Cornish hen. He placed slices of the white meat and wings onto her plate. “You’re going to need more evening wear. We’ll be attending social functions nearly every week when we’re here. I think I saw ma
ybe two dresses in your closet that would be suitable for a party or gala and you’ve already worn both of them.”
“So? I can wear them again. No law against that. As you’ve no doubt noticed, I wear my other clothes more than once. In fact, the pair of jeans I have on were purchased back in—.”
“Trudy,” Levi cut in, his voice not quite a growl, but close. “Don’t play dumb. You know that you can’t wear party clothes over and over again. There might not be a written law somewhere – but everyone knows, including you, that it’s poor taste to show up in the same outfit to multiple formal functions.”
She arched a brow. “You wear a different tux to every event, do you?”
His glance called her both a smart-mouth and too smart for her own good. “Not the same thing, and you know it. And I happen to own more than one tuxedo.”
“Yes. I noticed.” She let her droll tone speak for her. He not only owned more than one tux, he owned at least twenty suits and a dozen brand new shirts precisely folded and awaiting him in his gargantuan walk-in closet. Add to that other shirts and t-shirts, umpteen ties, dozens of socks, God only knew how many pairs of underwear, belts, rows of shoes, and . . . well, it looked like a men’s department store!
“How does a personal shopper work, exactly? Is it real expensive?”
“It’s worth it and the personal shopper receives a commission, so she’ll be thrilled to help you find clothes you like. She’ll get in touch with you about your sizes, preferences, needs, and all that. Then she’ll select items, bring them here, let you try them on and decide what you want to keep and what to send back to the shops.” He flashed a grin at her. “Easy peasy, baby.”