“You shave your pussy,” he said.
“I told you before that I do.”
“It’s different hearing it than it is seeing it. Jesus.” He looked up at me from between my thighs. “This okay?”
I spread my legs wider in answer. He laughed and dipped his head. He didn’t go at it like he wanted a taste. He went at it like he was a starved man and pussy was his favorite meal. He licked once across my slit, and then he settled at the top, where that bundle of nerves already pulsed like mad. He licked and sucked and pulled and pushed and breathed into me, his fingers sliding into my body, curving wickedly and deliciously. I rocked my hips toward his face, and he caught the rhythm of my body with his lips, his teeth, and his tongue, and it nearly drove me mad. I lifted one hand to the top of his shiny bald head, applying pressure. I felt him grin against my nether lips as he dug in harder.
And then I broke apart. I held his face close to my heat as I came, shuddering in his grip, my ass rocking with the force of my orgasm. He didn’t let go. He kept at it, until I gave his forehead a tender shove. He laughed and gave me one last lick, making a final shudder surge up my spine, and I relaxed, rubbing my fingers over his ears. “Wow,” I breathed. Or at least I tried to breath. I found I wasn’t really good at breathing right now. Or anything else for that matter.
Gently, he pulled me forward and then flipped me over, so that my stomach lay on the desktop. He flipped my sundress up from where it had fallen, and he palmed the two globes of my ass in his hands, squeezing gently. Then he smacked me.
I jumped. “Did you just spank me?” I looked over my shoulder at him, where he stood grinning, unfastening his belt buckle and unbuttoning his suit pants.
He laughed. “Only in the most loving way.”
Then he fit himself at my opening, and pushed in slowly, holding my ass cheeks apart with his palms. He stared down at where we were joined as he filled me up.
“God, that’s beautiful,” he said, and he pulled back. I pushed back with my ass, chasing his departure until he returned. And he returned hard. He pushed in fast and furiously, so hard that the desk under me rocked with the force of it. “Too much?” he asked so quietly that I could barely hear him.
“If you ever do anything I don’t like, I’ll tell you.” My voice was raw with passion, and I knew I sounded like I’d just been screaming for hours.
“Please do,” he replied.
He set a rhythm that was both brutally punishing and wickedly tender, and I felt myself coming apart under him. “I’m going to—”
“Good,” he replied. He didn’t slacken his pace. If anything, it grew faster, more relentless, more punishing, more perfect.
And when I felt the warm pulse of him coming, coupled with the guttural noise he made, I let go too. I came with a force I didn’t know existed. I came hard, harder than ever before, and he collapsed on my back, his breaths harsh and full of wonder. He rained tiny kisses over my shoulder, through my dress, and then he laid the side of his face on my shoulder, and he just breathed.
“You okay?” he finally asked.
“Yeah.” My voice was squeaky and new. “I’m fine.” But I wasn’t fine. I wasn’t sure I would ever be fine again, mainly because he’d cracked my world open.
“I might like you more than a little,” he said quietly as he pulled out of me. “Is that okay with you?”
“Yeah,” I replied. “It’s okay with me.” Because I was pretty sure that I was more than a little bit in like with him too. “One day, we should try this in a bed,” I said flippantly.
He laughed and went to the bathroom, coming back with some tissues. He very casually wiped me off, helped me stand up, and pulled my panties back up my thighs and back to where they should have been.
He kissed me, and then he went back to his office.
My phone rang and I answered it, not even sure I could form a coherent sentence. “Hello.”
“Hey, Shelly, it’s Aubrey.”
“Hey Aubrey.” I said nothing more. My mind wasn’t working. At all.
“Are you all right?” Worry made her voice urgent.
“I just had the most amazing sex on my desk, actually, and I can’t think.”
“Oh,” she said. Then she stopped and said nothing for a long moment. “Tell me he already pulled out.”
“Oh, yeah,” I replied. “We’re done.”
She laughed. “Thank God for small favors.”
“Did you need something?” I asked. Suddenly, I wondered if Lynn had contacted her. “Is everything okay?”
“Oh, yeah, everything is fine. I was just sitting here and Mal is getting on my nerves, so I thought you might want to meet me for dinner. Or drinks. Or something.”
I had never understood how she could stand Mal for more than five minutes, so the fact that he was getting on her nerves didn’t surprise me. “I’d love to. Where? When?”
She rattled off a place and a time and I agreed to meet her.
“Hey,” I suddenly blurted. “Do you know how to make a friendship bracelet?”
“I made them when I was younger. At camp. Why?”
“If I get a kit, would you teach me?” I held my breath. I felt like I was showing her all of my cards.
She paused. Then she snickered. “Oh, Shelly. You’re so funny.”
I waited. “Why am I funny?”
“Shelly in love is fucking hilarious.” She let out a loud laugh, loud enough to be obnoxious. Then she sobered. “I’ll help you with your bracelet. Get the kit and meet me. We’ll make it over dinner.”
“I’ll see you then.” I hung up and looked toward Will’s office.
“Who was that?” he asked, popping into the doorway.
“Aubrey. She wants to have dinner with me tonight. You don’t mind, do you?”
He shook his head. “Not in the least. You’ll come home after, right?”
“I’ll come home.”
He grinned. “Promise?”
I held up one hand. “I promise.”
He came over and kissed me. “I’d miss you if you didn’t.”
I’d miss him too, and that was the part that scared me.
Chapter 37
Clark
My phone rang at nine o’clock, almost on the dot. I had been looking over files on my computer, files which Shelly had patiently organized, all cold cases the PD wanted me to consult on. Shelly had already figured out four of them and she’d left little notes in the margins explaining her theories. Her brain never ceased to amaze me. I smiled and reached for the ringing phone in my pocket.
“Clark here.”
“Clark, it’s Mal,” a man’s voice said. His breath heaved and his voice quivered.
Mal was Lynn and Mason’s best friend, and Aubrey’s husband, but I had to admit that I didn’t know him very well. I had no idea why he would be calling me, particularly now. “Is everything all right?”
“No,” he bit out. I could hear crying in the background. “It’s Shelly.”
“What about her?” I was already walking out of my office door and toward the elevator.
“Someone took her,” Mal said.
My heart leaped into my throat. “Who took her?”
“I have no idea. Can you come to the pub around the corner?”
“Five minutes,” I replied, and then I hung up on him.
Someone had taken Shelly. Shelly was in danger. In the back of my mind, I had the sudden and concise thought that the person who had taken Shelly was the one in trouble, but I pushed that thought back. I’d know more when I got there.
I opened the door to the pub and found Aubrey sitting on a stool, shaking and crying.
“He just took her,” she wailed, and then she buried her face in Mal’s shirt.
I walked over toward her and pulled a stool up close to where she sat. “I need for you to tell me everything that happened.” My words were crisp and succinct, and a little short, I knew. I watched Mal bristle. I held up a hand to fend off the protest I
knew was going to come from him. He settled only a little, still bristly and offended.
“We were sitting over there.” Aubrey pointed toward a booth that was now in disarray. Plates were scattered across the table, with food lying where it had flown off the plates. There was an open box on the table, and bright, colorful strings littered the surface. “We were making friendship bracelets.”
I knew the significance of that, but I couldn’t stop and think about it right now.
“Then what happened?”
She pointed toward the door. “This guy walked in. And he came and scooted into the booth beside Shelly.”
“What did Shelly do?”
“She didn’t say a word. She sat there and smiled at him.”
“Smiled at him like she knew him? Or like she was about to kill him?”
“I can never tell the difference with Shelly.” That was true. It could have been either and no one would ever know. Except maybe me. I’d know. I knew her. I knew every look and I knew every thought. And the ones I didn’t know, I desperately wanted to find out.
“Then what?”
“Then he shot her with this thing, and she crumpled into a heap. He picked her up, threw her over his shoulder, and carried her out the door.”
“And no one tried to stop him?” I looked around the bar. It was nearly empty.
She pointed at a man across from her who lay prone on the floor, covered with a simple tablecloth. “He did. He tried to help.” She hiccupped and finally let out her breath. “He’s dead now.”
I looked down and realized that Aubrey’s hands were covered in someone’s blood. “Whose blood is that?” I asked.
She nodded her head toward the body. “His.” Then she began to sob again. Mal drew her against his chest.
“How long have you been here?” I asked him.
“I got here right after it happened, apparently.”
“Why were you here?”
“Because my wife was out with Shelly. Duh.” He stared at me.
I nodded. “I’ll need to see the surveillance footage,” I said to the college student who was apparently in charge.
He motioned for me to follow him. The footage was grainy and dark, but I was able to isolate a face, which I sent to John Spanner. He called me immediately, and I told him what was going on.
“We’ll need someone to secure the scene.”
“They’re on the way,” John replied. “You stay there until they get there, do you understand me?”
“No can do.” I hung up on him.
My phone rang again almost immediately. “Clark,” I said.
“Don’t go off half-cocked, Clark,” John warned. I hung up on him again.
I wasn’t half-cocked. I was fully cocked. I was ready to blow.
I looked at Mal. “Call Lynn and Mason and tell them to come home. When I bring Shelly back, she’ll want to see her sister.”
Mal gave me half a nod. “Where are you going?”
“To get Shelly.” I’d get her or I’d die trying.
I got in my car and pulled up the tracking app I used. I’d hidden tiny little tracking devices in Shelly’s belongings. There was one in her purse, one on the bottom of her shoes, and I’d hidden one in the tiny little plastic clasp on the bracelet I’d given her. Shelly wasn’t the only one who could be devious. I had my fair share of intuition, and something had told me that shit was going to go down eventually, and that I needed to be ready for it.
The vehicle was twenty minutes ahead of me, heading out of town. I followed. It was all I could do. I couldn’t get there any faster. By the time we were three hours away from our starting point, I knew where we were going. What I couldn’t figure out was why.
Chapter 38
Shelly
I woke up to the sound of someone humming across the room. I blinked my eyes slowly open and fought back the nausea that instantly swamped me. I didn’t move, trying to figure out where I was. I swallowed back the bile that crept up my throat and tamped down the feeling that I needed to move. I did not need to move. I needed to stay very, very still, at least until I figured out where I was.
One minute I’d been happily chatting with Aubrey, and the next—BAM! I’d crumpled like a paper doll as darkness crowded the corners of my vision. And that was the last thing I remembered.
I desperately wanted to roll so I could bring my arms out from where they rested beneath me. But I couldn’t. I blinked again, waiting for the haze to clear from my eyes. The room was shrouded in shadows, but I could see. Not much, but I could see.
What surprised me the most was that I knew this room. I knew it, because it was mine. She’d taken me to my own little cottage in the woods. It was empty, aside from a few pieces of cozy furniture and some throw rugs that were scattered around, just like I’d left it.
“I know you’re awake,” the voice said from across the room.
I groaned and rolled onto my side, wiggling my fingers so I could bring some life into them. “Who are you?” I asked, although I already knew. Or at least I thought I knew. “Or should I ask which one are you?” I said the last more to myself than to her. I didn’t know if she was Megan or Riley James. I was completely confident that she wasn’t Marley. Marley was sweet and kind. She didn’t pay really big men to incapacitate women and throw them into trunks.
Now that I was on my side, my fingers were starting to wake up, and tingles shot up my arms to my shoulders. My chest still hurt where the guy had hit me with the taser, but I’d had worse wounds. I’d recovered from those too. This was nothing.
She grabbed a chair, set it a few feet away from me, and straddled it so that she was facing me. “Megan,” she said. “Nice to meet you. Again.”
“Always a pleasure,” I replied.
She shook her head. “You really are a smart ass, aren’t you?”
“I do try.” I began to work the zip ties that held my hands bound together behind my back. She’d used the tough kind, the kind I wasn’t going to be able to get off without some work. “Where’s your hired hand?”
She gestured vaguely toward the door. “Outside. Waiting for Will to come and rescue you.”
I snorted. “You think Will is going to come and find me? He doesn’t even like me.” I knew that wasn’t the truth, but I didn’t intend to show her all my cards right away.
“I think he more than likes you,” she replied, her tone soft and…hurt? “I think he’s falling in love with you.”
“I’m not a very lovable person.” That much was true. I knew it.
“I didn’t think you’d be much of a threat when I first met you, you know? I really didn’t think he’d fall for you. He has been in love with Marley for so long.”
My head jerked up. “You know about Marley?”
“I know everything.” She waved a hand in the air like she could brush my skepticism away.
“Is that why Marley has been gone so long? Because you’re in control?”
She puffed out a heavy breath. “Marley has been gone for years because she’s spineless. She could come to the forefront if she really wanted to.”
“That’s not necessarily true.” When my sister, Lynn, had been gone while other personalities took over, she sometimes tried and tried to come back, but couldn’t push through. In fact, the last time she’d left, Mason had to be almost fatally wounded before she came back. She’d sensed that he was in danger, and pushed through, but it took a lot of work. “Maybe Marley is just scared.”
“She’s scared of everything.”
“Maybe she has a reason to be scared. Whatever trauma caused all of you to show up, it happened to her, right?”
She tilted her head to the side. “What trauma?”
“Marley protects you from the past. She hasn’t even told you what happened to her.” I knew. I knew because I’d read about it in Will’s secret files.
She scoffed again. “Nothing happened to her.”
I nodded my head, and I began to work the edge of the z
ip ties that bound my wrists against the sharp edge of my watch. It was slow work, but it was the only thing I could think to do. “She was taken against her will and raped over and over by a bunch of young men her first year of college. That’s when you came to the forefront.”
She jumped to her feet. “That never happened.”
“It never happened to you. It happened to her.” I worked the bindings on my wrists, and finally felt a small pop as one of the zip ties came free. I didn’t let her see. I lay there instead, still pretending to be helpless.
“You’re lying.”
“I never lie. I don’t need to. Deception is for pussies.”
She laughed. “I don’t think you’re as bad as you’d like for people to believe.”
“I’m worse,” I replied. “You have no idea.” Another pop and a second tie broke free. I wiggled my fingers and flexed my wrist.
She walked over toward me, something hidden in her palm. “This isn’t going to hurt,” she said. “It’ll just help you sleep.”
“I don’t need to sleep,” I protested. My hands were now free, but I wasn’t sure that I could move my arms yet.
“Well, I do need some rest. I’ll figure out what to do with you tomorrow.”
“How do you see this ending?” I asked, and I rolled up to where I could sit straight up. I left my hands behind my back, like I was still bound.
“Sadly, I see it ending with your death. It’s the only way.”
Suddenly, the back door flew open and a man stumbled into the room. Megan spun around to face him, and I finally brought my hands to the front of my body. He clutched at his chest, where an oozing wound poured blood down his shirt. Blood poured over his fingers and down his arms as he stood there in the doorway, gurgling. Blood pooled from his lips and flew out of his mouth in one big spray. Megan lifted her hand to wipe her own face. That was disgusting.
“Well, this is most unfortunate,” Megan said, her voice cool. “I guess Will is here.” The man fell to the floor with a jarring thud. “Don’t worry,” she said. “He was expendable. And not very smart.” She made a tisking sound with her mouth.
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