by Addison Fox
She was happy. For the first time in longer than she could remember, she felt carefree. Unencumbered.
Content.
She’d felt that way her first few years in New York. The pace and energy of going to school, immersing herself in fashion and earning her degree. Those had been special days and she’d drunk them in, forming friendships for the first time in her life that weren’t tainted by the fact that she was a Colton.
Her friends in New York didn’t know where she’d come from. The Colton name didn’t mean anything to anyone unless they chose to go internet hunting for details and she hadn’t given people any reason to go looking. She was just Claudia, a hard worker and a student who loved fashion. A friend who could be trusted. A girl who was trying to make her way.
That girl had graduated to a hardworking, dedicated employee and, once again, she’d managed to avoid sharing details about her past. The studios she worked in appreciated her for her eye and her style and there wasn’t any reason to go looking for more or assume she had a past worth digging up.
Growing up in Shadow Creek, she’d lived with the knowledge that everyone knew her family and knew what she’d come from. It had been positively glorious to find that in New York, no one cared.
She was just one of many and she’d reveled in the anonymity.
“You look good.” Hawk spoke, his voice mixing with the music that still spilled out of the dance hall, filling the air along with the lightning bugs.
Something in his expression stopped her. The sweet smile? The attraction that spilled off of him, like the music behind them? Or maybe it was just the needy, hungry way he stared at her, as if she were the most essential woman alive.
Was there anything more wonderful than that?
“I feel good, too. Dancing was a good idea.”
“Dancing was an inspired idea.” Hawk pulled her close, his mouth finding her neck and nuzzling a small kiss there. “Even though I’d initially protested in my mind in favor of staying home and doing something else.”
She ran her fingers through his hair, the short strands soft against her palm. With her lips pressed near his ear, she whispered, “Why do you think I suggested the dancing?”
He lifted his head, his grin flashing in the moonlight. “Vixen. It really is going to be my new word for you.”
“Let’s go home, Hawk. Let’s keep dancing. Please.”
Although he’d stopped drinking after a few beers, his movements were slow and easy as he half danced them through the parking lot. She could hear other couples laughing as well, some walking to cars, others pressed against each other in the warm night air.
The simple joys of summer, she thought happily, as she moved with her man in the moonlight.
Although the sexual tension was high, the drive home had an easy quality to it. Need rose and fell in tempo with their conversation, along with the laughter and conversation. From a remembered joke at dinner to a particularly vigorous number the DJ had played, to her quiet comments about just how happy she was for Maggie and Thorne, they discussed it all.
And that simple conversation of their shared experience had carried them home.
Claudia ran a hand over her fluttering stomach, the lights over her apartment door spilling onto the small parking lot behind Honeysuckle Road. Main Street was quiet and the late hour meant both Whiskey Sour and Aldo’s had closed for the evening, their patrons already headed for home. The diner still boasted a few patrons in its windows, but otherwise, Shadow Creek had quieted for the night.
That quiet wrapped around her like a cocoon—wrapped around them both as Hawk came around and helped her out of the car.
His gaze was steady, his question simple—gentle almost—when he spoke. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
She took his hand, the grip firm, and walked with him up the back stairs to her apartment. A few mosquitoes flitted against the light over her door and she swatted at them easily as her gaze caught on an envelope stuffed in the door. The landlord was forever sticking things in the jamb to communicate and she tugged on the envelope, fumbling when something fluttered to the ground.
“What’s that?”
“Likely just more—” She broke off as her gaze alighted on the newspaper letters that covered the small wooden platform in front of her door. “What?”
She dropped into a squat to pick up the letters, Hawk doing the same but careful not to bump heads. “Claudia. Don’t touch it.”
His voice was sharp—alert—and was enough to break through the dreamy haze that had carried her up the stairs, already making her imagine being in Hawk’s arms.
“What is it?”
The letters were like a waterfall, spilling out and fluttering over the small porch. K’s, I’s and L’s filled the space, their edges flittering in the barely there breeze.
The letters made a jumble, but several spelled out one word, repeating, over and over.
KILL.
“I’m calling the police.”
* * *
Hawk did his best to leave the scene as they found it. Although the small breeze kept tickling the thin newspaper, he took off his boots and laid the length of them sideways to keep the majority in place, right where they’d fallen. He’d also snapped off several photos and made a quick video in hopes of preserving what he could before he’d laid down the boots.
Although he’d been less than impressed with the Shadow Creek police to date, the blue flash of lights had arrived quick enough and even now he could see the deputy from the other day, along with another one, heading for their stairs. Maybe they’d escape the sheriff’s influence this evening.
He could only hope.
Claudia hadn’t said much and it was her silence that bothered him even more than the dull look that washed out the pretty gray of her eyes beneath the porch light or the tired set of her shoulders.
She’d been so happy, only a short time before. And now they were right back to where they’d started, danger seething in the shadows around them.
He hadn’t wanted to leave her, but he’d done a quick perimeter search in his socks, his gaze shifting between the ground, the surrounding area and the woman who sat as a lone figure on the top step.
“Why is this happening?” She hadn’t moved from her seat, her gaze focused outwardly on the surrounding area behind her store. “Who would want to do this? My mother? Her minions? Her enemies? Who?”
Hawk silently vowed to find out before standing to greet the two officers.
“Evening, ma’am. Sir.” The guy from the day before tipped his head. “What’s happened here?”
Hawk walked them through what they’d discovered upon returning home. The second deputy lifted the edge of one of his boots to look at the letters and let out a low whistle. “There are a lot of them.”
“Is that a letter, too?” The other deputy snapped off a few photos before moving off the other boot and lifting the envelope.
The move pulled Claudia forward and she reached for the envelope, ignoring the deputy’s protests to leave it alone.
Several more letters fluttered to the ground before she pulled out a folded sheet of white paper and opened it up, a sob catching in the back of her throat.
KILL CLAUDIA COLTON
“Give it to me, please.” Hawk took the note from her, refolding it so the letters were hidden from view once again.
She touched his arm, her eyes pleading. “Who is doing this?”
“We’re going to find out, ma’am. We are.” With Jeffries out of the picture, it was interesting to see the deputy’s behavior had changed. His quiet demeanor had faded out of the oversight of his sheriff, his tone conciliatory and committed to helping her.
The officers took down his and Claudia’s statements and then their own photos. They also gave him
an email address where he could send the pictures and videos he’d captured. Both had insisted on checking the apartment as well, the move going some way toward improving Hawk’s image of the Shadow Creek PD. The officers followed procedure and had good form as they entered the apartment and swept it fully.
It was proof just how dangerous Bud Jeffries’s assumptions about the Colton family really were. He was more content to throw innuendo and dismissive suggestions than deal with the fact there might actually be a problem.
They’d spent another five minutes wrapping up questions and finalizing statements and then were on their way, the flash of blue fading as they turned off the police lights and drove out of the parking lot.
Hawk stood at the window and watched them go, his gaze drifting to the perimeter of the parking lot. Was someone out there, watching and waiting? He thought about River’s words earlier.
Escalation.
While this didn’t have the element of death that the rodents and the road incident at Jade’s had, the kill reference coupled with the obsessive capture of letters from the newspaper smacked of a growing need to do harm. And while the approach had an amateur feel to it, the desired effect was shocking.
Claudia sat on the corner of the couch, her legs tucked up underneath her. She’d said little other than answering the questions asked of her, but her gaze had followed all that took place.
“Who’s doing this?”
“I don’t know.”
“It’s because of Livia. I know it.”
He knew it, too, but had no idea how to prove it. Nor could he center on a motive. There was menace and anger, but nothing tangible to lead them toward the reasons for why the faceless person was acting.
Just like Jennifer.
Of all the leads he’d followed—and there had been hundreds—nothing ever panned out. Instead, all roads led to dead ends, nothing ever quite connecting. It had nearly killed him to do it, but he had found a modicum of peace the day he’d decided to accept her death had been random and senseless.
It lacked closure in finding her killer, yet made a strange sort of sense for all its chaotic simplicity.
Some things simply were.
The deputies had taken the note and cleaned up what they could of the newspaper letters, but it was those elements that Hawk focused on as he moved to sit beside Claudia on the couch.
Unlike Jennifer, these things weren’t random. Nor were they senseless. They were deliberate actions, designed to deliver a focused goal. Scare. Intimidate. Disarm.
Livia Colton’s influence was all over this, whether as the conduit or as the object of the violence.
She finally spoke, her weariness invading her tone beneath each and every word. “I’m sorry our night was ruined by this.”
“That’s not possible. Not when I’m with you.”
She shuddered when he pulled her against his side before sinking into his hold.
“Who wants to do this?” she asked. “It’s hateful. No, it’s evil. Purposeful and deliberately cruel.”
“Someone dangerous. It’s also someone with a vendetta.”
“What do they have against me?”
He debated what to say, finally settling on the truth. He kept his voice gentle as he ran his fingers over the silky strands of her hair. “They may have nothing against you. They may have everything against you. The motive isn’t clear yet, but it will be. We’ll find it. I will find it.”
He spoke the words as he meant them. As a promise, yes, but more as a vow.
“I won’t leave you alone, Claudia. And I’m not going back to Houston until this is through.”
She lifted her head from where it rested against his chest. “Make love to me.”
His body hardened at her suggestion and he struggled to find the right words to reassure. “Shh, now. It’s late and it’s been a difficult evening. There’s time for that. Time for all the things we want to do.”
“But what if there isn’t?”
He sat up at that, his hold gentle as he gripped her arms. “I will keep you safe. I’m not going anywhere and I will help you find answers.”
“But don’t you see? This is exactly why I don’t want to wait. I want you. I want to be with you. We need to take this, Hawk. For us. To prove that the good can drive out the bad.”
Was it weakness that had him considering her words? The primal lure of sex erasing all his better judgment?
Or was it something more?
When she shifted, reaching up to take his hands, he wanted to believe it was something more.
But when she leaned in, capturing his mouth with hers, Hawk knew the truth. Being with Claudia wasn’t simply something more.
It was everything.
* * *
Claudia kept a hand in Hawk’s as they walked the perimeter of the room. She doused the lights beside the couch and TV and left one small light burning in the kitchen before walking him down the short hallway to her bedroom. The apartment was small, but big by New York standards, and she had all the space she needed. Space that was now filled with the presence of the most amazing man she’d ever met.
She wanted him. With a need that increasingly bordered on madness, she wanted to join their bodies and reclaim—if only for a moment—some of that joy she’d had while dancing.
He followed behind her, his hands everywhere and nowhere as he touched her. The soft strokes against her hair. The light tickle of his fingertips against her back. The warm press of his palms when he laid her gently back onto the bed, then lowered to his knees to remove her heels.
He’d never put his boots back on and he made quick work of his socks and T-shirt, tossing both toward the corner so he was left only in his faded jeans. The flesh she’d only touched earlier was now bare to her gaze, moonlight flooding in through the windows highlighting every rounded muscle.
The man was truly magnificent, the strength she’d felt in him both physical and emotional. Here was a man who’d seen things. Had lived with things. Yet he still rose every morning. Still worked to build a life.
Did he realize that? Did he truly understand what he’d managed to overcome? The thought humbled her and she vowed to tell him how she felt. What she believed.
Not now and not tonight, but soon. The pain of his wife’s death didn’t belong in this moment—but she would tell him. Would tell him how it drew her in and warmed her. Let her know she was safe.
But now. This moment. This moment was only for the two of them.
With seeking hands, she reached out and trailed a finger over those ridges of muscle. Her touch had his skin contracting slightly, the reaction teasing forth a slow smile. “Ticklish?”
“Needy,” he growled as he came down over her on the bed. “There’s a difference.”
“Perhaps you could show me?”
His hands roamed over her sides, teasing the edges of her blouse before drifting to the hem and pulling the loose tank up her body. Cool air flowed over her stomach before he warmed her with his mouth, the soft strands of his hair ticklish where they met her flesh. That delectable mouth continued on its journey, exploring over the path from her belly button to the rim of her bra.
He pulled her against him, tilting them to their sides while his hand plucked deftly at the hook of her bra. Claudia felt the material slide free from her back before he used their positions to his advantage. He made quick work of the tank as well, lifting it off along with her bra in one smooth motion over her head.
And then she was bare to him, his gaze warm and appreciative as he stared at her breasts, before he reached out his index finger to trace their shape. “You’re so beautiful.”
The normal urge to cover herself—to hide the generosity of her flesh and the slight bit of extra courtesy of the biscuits and gravy she’d joked about earlier—simply
evaporated in the warmth of his gaze.
“You are so, so beautiful.”
And then he showed her, the appreciation in his gaze translating to an appreciation of her flesh. He kissed her while his hands roamed over her body. A lightly trailing fingertip over her clavicle.
The press of his lips to the sloping mound of her breast.
And the glorious sensation when his mouth closed over her nipple, his tongue teasing the tip to a turgid point.
In every move, in every way, he showed her she was beautiful.
And she believed him.
* * *
Hawk filled himself on the lushness of the woman beside him. She was responsive and generous, her moans of delight matched only to the determined seeking of her hands as she touched his body.
He was on fire.
Great, galloping waves of heat consumed him everywhere she touched. Her palms flowed over his chest, and the kisses that followed had him falling under her spell. His breath caught, the simple joy of being with her—of feeling her pressed against him—was nearly his undoing. Until—
Her temptress’s fingers slipped beneath the waistband of his jeans and briefs to wrap around the throbbing length of him and Hawk was lost.
His control, already ragged from their teasing touches earlier that day, had reached a fevered state and he wanted to make it last. Wanted to prolong the exploration and the pleasure that arced between them.
And while he knew he waged a lost battle, he reluctantly gripped her wrist, stilling her movements. “You’re killing me.”
“Isn’t that the whole idea?” Her smile was witchy and so full of promise in the moonlight.
He waged an inner battle with himself. Knew it was a losing one, but fought to hang in as long as he could. “Soon, baby. Soon. But until then—” He gently slipped her hand from his jeans, moaning in spite of himself as she drew a finger along the underside of his shaft.
“Vixen.”
Her voice was husky. “Don’t forget it.”
As if he could.
Determined to give all he could for as long as he could, Hawk continued his deft exploration of her body, his fingers gliding down to the edge of her skirt. With quick movements, he dipped beneath the hem, following the line of her inner thigh. His body throbbed against his jeans as he felt the heat of her. Grew even more urgent when her thighs parted to give him better access, the moment full of promise.