“Just mind your own fuckin’ business, Striker.”
We were going to sleep together and she was worried about whether her foul mouth was my business? “One more. Just one more curse from you and I’ll give you another spanking.”
She glared at me, but didn’t utter a sound.
I took a different tack. “Come on. Let’s dance for a while.”
Slowly, she uncurled herself from the couch and approached me. I took her hands and put one on my shoulder, holding the other against my chest. She took my cue and rested her head in the center of my chest. I started swaying to the mellow music and she followed my lead. As we moved to the music, I could feel her body relaxing against mine. She smelled like orange blossoms, warm orange blossoms. After four songs or so, I reached down and tilted her face up. Her eyes were closed.
“I believe,” I started, our faces so close together that I could almost taste the sweet bourbon on her breath, “this is how we started.” Her eyes opened slightly, and her gaze went from my eyes to my lips and lingered there, as I moved in and pressed my lips to hers.
There was no hesitation between us. We were not shocked by the other’s agreement. Instead, we shared a gentle kiss that turned into something more powerful and passionate as the seconds passed. We stopped dancing and focused solely on kissing, tongues twining, teeth nipping, my hands holding the back of her head, tugging on those silky tresses now and then. Her sighs and moans were better than the music in the background, spurring me on to a more forceful kiss.
When we finally broke, we were both somewhat breathless. I drew my hands down her slender arms and then around to her back. I could feel the bra under her clothes, but there was no way for me to reach it. I wanted to touch her small breasts, to weigh them in my hands, to feel her soft skin and discover the size of her nipples and their sensitivity. “Off.”
Nodding, she unbuttoned the front of her blouse and shrugged out of it, tossing it onto the couch carelessly. As she reached back for the bra, I stayed her hands. “Let me,” I said.
I started by touching the front of her chest, feeling the lace of her bra cups, gliding my fingertips over the exposed flesh above them. She shivered and her eyes closed. I pushed one cup down and ran my fingers down the vertical plane of that breast, touching the pink nipple that was already hard and excited. On my way back up, I paused long enough to give her nipple a squeeze, a pinch, and a light pull. She groaned and pressed closer toward me. My erection was raging, but I didn’t want to rush this. I wanted her—wanted her badly—but I might only have this one encounter, and I wanted to make it good. So I reached behind her and unhooked her bra, sliding it off her shoulders, down her arms, and then gave it a toss to the couch. My attention went to her other breast, where I did much the same as I had before, but added my lips, bending down to lick her, take her nipple in my mouth and suck, biting every so often, and causing her to grip my shoulders and moan.
I kissed her lips again, and her passion was formidable. She drove her tongue in my mouth, nibbled at mine and my lips, stood on her tiptoes to slant her mouth forcefully against mine. I have to admit, her enthusiasm was intoxicating. I returned her lust with my own.
I’m not sure how we got that way, I was overcome by the call of my erection and the sexy little woman in my arms, but soon we were naked, rubbing our bodies together, my prick against her belly, and her breasts against my chest. When I was nearly desperate with need, I picked her up—she weighed next to nothing—and carried her to my bedroom. I hadn’t made the bed that morning, but I’m sure she didn’t notice. Her gaze was on me alone.
I put her on the bed and crawled up next to her. She raised her arms to me, and I moved to cover her with my body. I hated to break the spell, but there were precautions any man needed to take. So I took the chance of ruining our moment. “Birth control?”
“Pill. Religiously, every day.”
“HIV?”
“No diseases. Honestly, Jase, I’ve only had three lovers.” Her hands traveled over my shoulders and down my arms. “What about you?”
“I’m not on the pill,” I joked, and that got a tension-relieving laugh from her.
“I can risk it this time, Striker,” she said.
“And I’m disease-free. However, if you’d like me to wear a condom, I have some.”
She shook her head. “I trust you.”
I lowered myself, rubbing my hard dick against her mons, feeling the groomed curls there. “I trust you, too.” And for that moment, in that situation, maybe risking too much, I did trust her. Something told me she was the genuine article: a woman with morals and character.
I suckled her breasts again, and we were soon wrapped in our lusty cocoon once more. She squirmed and made small encouraging sounds, and I wondered if she was ready enough for me. All the signs were there, but I needed to be sure. She was so small, so petite—though nothing about her spoke of fragility, I knew she was physically no match for me. I leaned on one elbow and reached between us, finding her slit and touching her intimately. She was wet, and when I rubbed her clit, she arched. Yes, she was ready.
I moved back to my position above her and nuzzled her cheek. “Tell me no now, Angel, and I’ll respect your wishes.”
“I can’t say no. I want it. Do it.” Her breath was ragged, each word a staccato exhalation. Her legs wrapped around my waist and her body was open to me.
What could I do but take what she offered? I drove into her with one quick movement, and she pressed her hips upward. “Yessss,” she said on a heavy breath.
“Yes,” I agreed, with no control left. I pumped into her, enjoying the wet slickness, the tight grasp, the smell of her arousal, and the smoothness of her thighs around my body. We went like that, in, out, faster and faster, for several minutes. She was frenzied, moaning loudly, crying out, until finally she drove her hips up hard, pressing me deep into her body, and coming with an orgasm so sweet and powerful that it made it impossible for me to hold back any longer. She was groaning still when I came inside her, rippling and spurting, my movements slowing as the sensation washed over me and began to ebb.
I admit, I collapsed on top of her, but not for long. I rolled us over, popping out of her pussy, though I was still mostly hard. It would subside as I rested. We cuddled there for a while, breathing calming as we waited for sanity to return.
She rested against my side, her head on my chest, fingering the groomed mat of hair on my chest.
“It didn’t work, Striker.”
“You should probably call me Jase,” I suggested. “What didn’t work?”
“I don’t feel like we put this behind us.”
“You’re not satiated? I thought—”
“Yeah, I came. I came so hard I was seeing stars, but that’s not what I meant. I meant, this was supposed to be an experiment. We were supposed to fuck and then move on, tension released, nothing to get between us anymore.”
“Well, I’m not feeling tense,” I teased.
“Don’t be dense.” She slapped my chest.
“Ouch,” I said, though it hadn’t actually hurt. “Okay. So it didn’t work. Maybe if we did it again, we’d have better luck.”
She turned her head up; I could feel her movements against me. I let my eyes remain closed. “Maybe. But I have this feeling that twice wouldn’t be enough. That ten times wouldn’t be enough.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I don’t know how I feel about you, Jase. I’m confused.”
I was equally confused by the tender feelings I had for her. I felt protective, dominant, deeply attracted to the little woman with the smart mouth. It wasn’t wise. It wasn’t even practical. But it was there, and suddenly undeniable.
“Let’s take it one day at a time, Angelica.”
A nod, and then her touch traveled down my body to stroke my dick. If she wanted a reaction, she got it.
Eventually, we slept for a few hours, and then, about an hour after dawn, I drove her home. The sunshine was weak, and fluffy white clouds scudd
ed across the sky. The light barely made it into the shadowed courtyard of Angelica’s apartment.
We were sharing a parting kiss at her door when my cellphone chimed. It was the ring tone that I’d set for police business. I put my hand up to hold her from going inside.
“Striker.”
“Striker this is Donati. I’m sorry, but this can’t wait until office hours. We’ve got another homicide. Part of that rose case you’re working on. I want you to get to the scene right away. We haven’t got time anymore. The press is on this like a bad Sunday suit. This is a serial killer and he has to be stopped.”
“Right, Cap. Address? Contact person?”
He rattled off the information and we rung off.
“Change quickly, Angelica. We have to roll. Another white rose murder, and Donati wants us on the scene ASAP.”
Her face went from tired and relaxed, to high alert in less than a second. “Got it. Come in while I change.”
* * *
The scene was a busy city street, plugged up with morning commuters who were less than thrilled to have to follow a traffic cop’s gestures to go around our crime scene. The victim lay on the ground, half in the street, and half on the curb and sidewalk. She was a young woman, about the same age as the other two, with rich brunette hair, and a good figure. There was a sprinkling of freckles on her fair skin. The position of her body on the street suggested that she’d been hit by a car, so I looked around for the cop in charge. It was Miller again, but this time he looked harried and distracted. Other officers were talking to people around the scene, potential witnesses to the accident.
This was no accident, however. The victim had a white rose on her chest.
Angelica took some time to talk with a few of the officers on the street before she walked over to look at the victim. Her gasp and whispered, “Shit!” got my attention.
“Yeah,” I said. “Another victim of the rose killer.” Then I turned to look at her. She was white. “What’s wrong?”
“I know her. She’s Camilla Ross—‘Cammy’ on the street.”
“A friend of yours?”
“No, not really. An acquaintance. I met her when I was working on a Vice case,” she replied, still staring at the victim. “She was a nice girl. Crazy about a new boyfriend. She wasn’t dealing or using, as far as I know. I met her at a used clothing shop on North Orange, when I was working undercover. Then I ran into her again at the bodega by Hoover High. We talked a little, and she seemed less happy that time, but still upbeat. I found out that she was living with the guy she was so wild about, and that he was somehow different than the guy she’d run away from home to be with. I guess that relationship didn’t work out. She didn’t strike me as terribly bright, but, like I said, she was nice.”
“No name for the boyfriend?”
“Umm. Lemme think a minute. I think she said Billy or Willy or Wally…something like that. I know that’s not very helpful. I didn’t think it was important at the time, and it’s been a couple of months.”
“How could you know? Maybe you’ll remember more now that it’s important to the investigation.”
“I’ll work on it.” Her eyes had never left Camilla’s battered form. “Poor kid. What a way to go.”
“Yeah.” The things Angelica remembered could be key. I hoped she’d recall more, and soon.
We did hit a little luck with this scene. There were witnesses to the accident, and two had seen a man chasing after the girl as she ran from the alley to the street like the devil was after her. Barry’s devil, maybe. The man stopped at the curb when she got hit, and paused there for a moment, then, before anyone could take action, he leaned over the dead or dying woman and withdrew the white rose from inside his pea coat. He placed it carefully on the girl’s chest and ran away before anyone could stop him to ask questions.
Finally, we had something to go on. A witness had taken phone pics of Camilla in the street, one with the man hunched over her, and another of her with the white rose on her chest. I saw the photos on his phone and had to confiscate the device as evidence. He was boiling mad at that, but I had no choice for two reasons: I needed those pictures; and I didn’t want potentially important case details to end up on the internet. He assured me he hadn’t uploaded them to Facebook or Instagram yet. I had to hope he was telling the truth.
Reporters were there, interviewing people, getting in the way of the officers on the scene, and the older woman who’d hit the girl with her car was nearly hysterical with remorse. It didn’t appear that it was really her fault. The girl had darted between two parked cars and right into traffic. The older woman had just been unlucky.
CSI arrived and took pictures, gathered samples, and looked over the body. Her coat was a worn, somewhat frayed woolen car coat, torn in several places, including having the side pocket torn nearly down to the hem. I wondered if someone had grabbed that pocket and torn it in an effort to stop her from running. Then the CSI team found a pregnancy stick in what was left of the pocket.
Angelica, who had moved back to talking to witnesses, came over when I called. “What do you make of that?” I asked, pointing to the stick as the CSI guy bagged it.
“There are commercials for those things on TV all the time. Was this one in its box?” I asked Carmichael, who was wearing his white evidence protection gear.
“No. Loose in her pocket.”
“Used?”
Carmichael looked at it carefully. “Used. Has a plus in the window.”
Angelica’s voice was tight when she said, “She was pregnant, Striker. That’s two in that condition.”
Things were beginning to fall in place.
The coroner arrived, but he had nothing new to tell me yet. I could see for myself the age of the girl and what had killed her. I also knew the approximate time of death. It was time to head back to the station and go over what we’d found, as well as get an analysis of those phone pictures. We were a lot closer to identifying the culprit. I felt my pulse speed up at the possibility that we’d end this case in short order.
Chapter Six
Both Angelica and I were tired, but the case was taking shape and we had to focus on it and leave the previous night and its activities behind. We needed to find this Billy-Willy-Wally guy, and figure out why two of the victims were pregnant. I thought there was some connection to the fact that Amy had a kid as well. It all seemed too similar to overlook.
We knew now that there was a serial killer on the loose, and that stepped up reports from the lab and the coroner’s department. I got the pictures from the guy’s camera from CSI, blown up and, although grainy—the phone hadn’t been a newer model—they did show the White Rose Killer clearly. Or, at least the back of his head. He had short, brown hair and broad shoulders. He was wearing a dark, maybe navy or black, pea coat, jeans, and what looked like hiking boots. We couldn’t see his hands clearly enough to tell if there were tattoos or rings. It wasn’t much, but it was something. Of course, we wondered if he was Billy-Willy-Wally, but we couldn’t know.
One thing that was interesting was that Camilla would have died without being hit by a car. She’d shot up with a lethal dose of heroin before running into the street. However, it was the only needle mark on her body. If she’d been using before, her methods were different.
There had been a bus locker key in Camilla’s untorn pocket. CSI identified it, but I asked to do the checking myself. I was on top of this case and didn’t need a bureaucratic layer between this evidence and me. They gave it to me without an argument.
When CSI ran her fingerprints, we got a match on the locker key, and an address. Angelica and I took that information to the street.
We were driving toward the last known address of the victim, when I told Angelica that we’d have to approach cautiously. We didn’t know if the boyfriend would be there, or if he was armed or dangerous.
She looked peevish, when she said, “I’m no greenhorn, Striker. Don’t treat me like a rookie.”
�
��I know you have experience, but I still want to warn you to be careful.”
“Mmhmm,” she said, dismissing my concerns.
Truth was, after our night together, I felt uncommonly protective of Angelica. I hated that we might be entering dangerous territory. It was everything I’d been worried about before we embarked on a less-than-platonic relationship. I tried to put it aside, tried to look at her as a professional, and one who’d been in dangerous situations in the past. She was armed. She was trained.
But she was also my responsibility. Now more than ever.
We parked in front of a run-down building on the outskirts of an industrial area in southeast Glendale. The paint on the three-story apartment building was peeling, and the windows had bars on them. Straggly patches of grass and weeds thrust up from the muddy dirt of the front lawn. There was an open staircase on the right side of the building, leading up to the second and third floor walkways. I didn’t like it. “Angelica, maybe you should wait in the car.”
“No fuckin’ way! Will you stop treating me as if I’m the town idiot?”
Someone from the third floor raised the corner of a curtain and looked out. I couldn’t tell if they looked at us or not, but I didn’t much like broadcasting our presence.
“Okay. You can go, but stay behind me. I’ll take point.”
“God damn it, Striker! I’m perfectly capable.”
I frowned at the ruckus she was making. The person in the window was still looking out. I wished I could see a face, but all I could make out was some sort of light colored clothes. “Quiet down,” I said, trying to remain calm. I took off my Ray-Bans and tucked them in the breast pocket of my suit jacket so I could give her the irritated gaze I knew she’d take seriously.
“‘Quiet down,’ he says,” she said, derision dripping from her voice. “I’m not interested in your orders at this moment.”
“Well, you’d better be.”
“Or what?” She snatched my sunglasses from my pocket, dropped them on the ground and then stomped on them. They crunched.
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