by Julie Miller
“Dr. Kate.” He came back to her, scooting down on the bed and quickly reclaiming her mouth as if he’d missed the hungry pressure of their lips joining together as much as she had. He slipped his arm beneath her and palmed her butt. He squeezed and lifted, dragging her to lie more fully on top of him, bunching the covers between them. And as her body softened against the teasing hints of hardness beneath the layers of cotton and batting, Boone shifted the intensity of his kisses into something far more seductive than sharing strength or comfort.
His hands slipped beneath the hem of her long-sleeved tee and the elastic waist of her flannel pants. Every callused stroke against her skin made her want the same freedom to explore the textures of his body. She tugged in frustration at the covers until she could lay her palm over the swell of a flexing pectoral. The muscle quivered beneath her touch. The flat male nipple tightened and poked between her fingers. The crisp dusting of dark hair tickled her sensitive palms.
“Sweet Dr. Kate.” His raspy beard stubble grazed along her jaw and the soft underside of her chin as he followed the path of her pulse with his lips and tongue.
Kate arched her neck and then her back, granting him access to every needy nerve ending that longed for his touch. He pulled her up along his body, the shifting covers and friction between them revealing the evidence of his desire.
She snatched at the covers between them, wanting to feel skin on skin. His fingers tugged with a needy lack of finesse, finally pulling her shirt off over her head. Before she could free her arms and toss it onto the floor, his lips reached up and caught her breast in his mouth. She gasped in pleasure at the swirl of his tongue against the pebbled tip and collapsed against his mouth, stabbing her fingers into his hair and clutching his scalp, urging him to deepen the sensual torment of his rough beard and soothing tongue against her most sensitive skin.
And then he was sliding her pants down her thighs, sitting up and spilling her into his lap, reaching between them to unhook the lone button holding his jeans together.
But when she felt the bulge in his jeans pulsing against her, Kate knew a split second of painful inadequacy. She flattened her hand against his chest and pushed. “Wait. Boone, stop.”
His chest heaved beneath her hand, and his voice was a ragged gasp. “Did I hurt something?” His eyes were clear, probing, as he captured her face between his hands and brushed his thumb near the bruise on her cheek. “I know you took a pretty hard tumble.”
“No, I...” She pulled her hands back to cover her body. “I wanted...”
He bowed his head in a frustrated sigh and rested his forehead against hers. “Ah, Doc. We’re going to think this through, aren’t we?”
“We’ve been through a lot in the last few days. We’ve spent time together, and...” Leaving one arm covering her bare breasts, she latched on to his wrist and tilted her gaze up to his, begging him to understand that this hesitation was all on her. “You may have expectations of me that I can’t deliver.”
“Honey, I’m not going to force you.”
“I know. You would never do that. And God knows you’ve got the goods...” Kate shrank back from his gaze and felt her entire body heat with embarrassment. “Please tell me I didn’t say that out loud.”
His worried expression stretched into a Boone-sized grin. “Maybe I shouldn’t worry about how much you like to talk. That may just be the best damn compliment I’ve ever had. And trust me, Doc, the feeling is mutual.”
She tilted her eyes to him again. His flattery was wonderful, as much of a stroke to her fragile feminine ego as the proof of his words still evident beneath the covers. But he had to see the logic in what she might be sparing him. “Thank you, but...you have needs, and I—”
Boone swore. He said words she hadn’t used in a long time, and he said them twice. “That lowlife bastard scum of an ex didn’t deserve you.”
The grip he held on her face strengthened, yet somehow gentled at the same time. “When was the last time you were with a man? It was with him, right? And what, he probably stopped sleeping with you and blamed it on too much work or not understanding his needs—and all the time he was screwing someone else?”
Kate read the turbulence in his eyes. She felt it in the shaking control of his fingertips. Had he gone through something similar with his ex-wife? Had Irene ever made this utterly masculine and virile man feel like anything less than he was?
Kate nodded. “Something like that.”
He kissed her square on the mouth. “He’s not a part of your life anymore, Kate. I am. It feels right. I want this. I want you. I haven’t wanted any woman for I don’t know how long until I met you. You’re in my head day and night. I want to feel those sexy hands all over me.”
His vehement argument was making sense. Sort of. “My hands are sexy?”
“What you do with them is.” Brad had called her beautiful. A lovely compliment, easy to say. But Boone talked specifics. Striking scenery. Pretty eyes. Sexy hands. “Do you believe me? Please, Kate. I need to know that you believe how much I want you.”
She nodded, believing.
“And I need you to believe how much I think you want me, too.”
“I do want you. I want this.”
His grip on her eased. The smile crept back across his features. “I want you to be completely sure.”
Kate dropped her hands to the covers between them. She matched his smile and stretched up to kiss him. “Do you have a condom?”
Leaving time for nothing but feeling, nothing but wanting, nothing but trusting that this was right, Boone fell back against the pillows and pulled Kate with him. In a flurry of bumping hands and laughter, of climbing out of bed and diving back in again, they slipped off clothes and stole kisses and burned away any lingering shadows from the past.
Soon, there were no covers, no clothes, no doubts between them. There was only Boone. Rising over her, sliding inside her, claiming her mouth with the same exquisite thoroughness with which he claimed her body.
Kate clutched his hips between her knees to welcome him more fully. She slipped one hand down between them and touched her fingertips to where they were joined. Boone moaned at the brush of her fingers and his entire body went taut.
“Oh, Doc,” he panted against her ear. “Damn sexy.”
He thrust one more time, carrying Kate over the edge with him as he poured out inside her.
She hugged him close as his body went slack and he collapsed beside her. They dozed in each other’s arms for a few minutes, until the sheet cooled and goose bumps shivered across her skin.
Boone pulled the covers over her and left her for a few minutes. But after she heard the water run in the bathroom, he came back and slipped beneath the covers with her.
He gathered her back into his arms and she studied her ordinary, unadorned hand resting at the center of his chest. “Sexy hands, hmm?”
“Oh, yeah.” He splayed his fingers over hers and trapped them against the reliable rhythm of his heart.
She’d opened herself up to Boone this morning, baring far more than her body—sharing more with him than she’d shared with any man, including her late husband. She felt raw inside—curiously content, but emotionally wrung out. She recognized an important breakthrough just as she would recognize one in a client. But she also knew that a mental and emotional catharsis didn’t mean she was instantly cured. She had scars on her heart that would still require time and nurturing in order to heal.
But for the first time since she’d learned of her husband’s infidelity and death, Kate believed that she would heal.
She rested her cheek against the pillow of Boone’s shoulder. “Would you stay for a little while? At least until I fall asleep?”
He pressed a kiss to the crown of her hair. “You’re not gettin’ rid of me.”
With that promise to hold on to, she smiled and drifted into a deep, dreamless sleep. She knew she was safe from the demons in her imagination as well as the real ones out there in the world�
��for now.
She’d take for now with Sheriff Boone Harrison.
She’d trust...for now.
Chapter Nine
“He’s not our man,” Boone muttered under his breath. He closed the door behind the graduate student who scooted past him into the hallway outside the Fairfax Community College art room and turned to face the older man who’d replaced the student at the makeshift interview table across from Kate.
“Professor Ludvenko?” Kate asked.
Boone took a half step back into the room until a sharp glance from Spencer Montgomery reminded him that he wasn’t officially a part of the investigative process here. Biting down on his frustration, Boone anchored himself in his boots and did what he’d silently been told to. Stay back and watch the door. Make sure this stays a private conversation.
Door duty? Really? He’d been in the police business at least as long as Kate, and certainly longer than Spencer Montgomery. And now he was stuck watching through glass doors and windows into an empty hallway while Kate and Montgomery interviewed every male on campus who’d had any sort of regular contact with Janie.
This was their fourth interview this afternoon. If this Maksim Ludvenko was the guy she’d been seeing, then Boone really had lost touch with his sister these past few months. The long-haired weasel with the eastern European accent was as far from anyone Janie had ever dated in Grangeport as a chicken was from a horse. He’d much prefer hearing that Janie had been dating that younger graduate student, or the nearsighted academic adviser they’d talked to before that, than this guy. Surely this man was too old for his sister. The fact that the fiftyish art professor would rather pick at paint stains on the table where he sat across from Kate than look her in the eye when she asked a question didn’t sit well with him.
Professor Ludvenko was too fidgety, too evasive to not be guilty of something. The more Kate prodded, the more he dodged her questions and protested as though he was the victim. That self-preserving egoism didn’t sit well with Boone, either.
“Professor Ludvenko, please.” Kate pulled a folder from her purse and opened it on the table between them, displaying far more patience than Boone could have mustered. “We’re just asking for information about your colleague. We’re not accusing you of anything.”
Boone didn’t know how Kate could sit there and coolly ask Maksim Ludvenko questions about the classes he taught at the Fairfax Community College, when he wanted to put his hands around the guy’s throat and ask him point-blank if he’d had an affair with Janie that had ended so badly, he’d killed her. Or maybe he’d ask if raping strong, independent women was more his style.
“I cannot talk about this here.” Ludvenko waved a dismissive hand in the air and glanced up at the red-haired detective circling behind him, ostensibly glancing at the half-finished canvases mounted on easels throughout the room. “Not with this man watching over me or that man there, his eyes accusing me of things I did not do.”
Boone nodded at the professor, glad to be included in the conversation, and happy that the man could accurately read his thoughts.
“Then just talk to me,” Kate reasoned. “Ignore them. Did you have a personal relationship with Jane Harrison?”
There was no trace of either the mind-blowing passion or the vulnerability she’d shown him early this morning in their hotel room. Dr. Kate Kilpatrick couldn’t be ruffled by a lack of proper sleep, a late-night attack by a crazed fan or spending several hours sharing her most personal fears and desires with him. Maybe she could turn her emotions on and off like that, or maybe their time together hadn’t affected her as profoundly as it had him. He was falling in love with Dr. Kate. Hook, line and sinker. It would be kind of nice to think she was feeling more than empathy or had the hots for him.
That doubt of hers must be contagious, because this morning he’d been certain the falling-in-love stuff was mutual. And now the ice princess was even harder than usual to read.
But then, maybe the cool, calm and collected act was for Ludvenko’s benefit. The professor shot up out of his chair and headed for the bay of windows opening into the hall. “I cannot talk about this now. My wife is teaching accounting upstairs—”
Boone blocked his exit out the door. “Sit down and answer the lady’s questions.”
“No. I want my attorney.”
Montgomery flanked the artist on the opposite side. “You don’t think your wife’s going to know something’s going on then?”
“Sheriff, Detective—it’s all right.” Kate walked up to the professor and tapped his arm, urging him to face her. “Just have your attorney meet you at the Fourth Precinct offices. We’ll take you in and do the questioning there.”
“Oh, yes,” Ludvenko snapped sarcastically. “That would be so much better.” Classes must be changing. All of a sudden the handful of students meandering through the hallway were now thirty or forty people walking past. Ludvenko looked through the windows, catching the eyes of a few curious onlookers. Perhaps he decided getting this over with as quickly as possible was a better choice than climbing into a police car out front and setting all sorts of tongues wagging. “Fine. I will answer your question.” He made a sharp reverse turn and returned to his seat at the art table. “I do not date my students.”
“Janie wasn’t a student. She taught jewelry making and welding sculpture classes. She was a colleague of yours...and your wife’s.” Kate unhooked the button of the blazer she wore and sat. “Maybe we should ask the other Professor Ludvenko if she knew who Jane Harrison was seeing.”
“Fine. Yes. I was sleeping with Jane. But I am not this monster you speak of—this rapist.” He waved his hand in the air again. “I did not do the things you are accusing me of.”
Detective Montgomery resumed his nonchalant stroll through the forest of easels. “If you think the Rose Red Rapist is a monster, then help us out. Tell us everything you can about Miss Harrison. The more we know about the night she was attacked, the better we’ll be able to narrow down the time frame of the assault. If we know more about her state of mind, about who she talked to that night, about who she saw—then it can put us that much closer to finding her killer.”
Boone was developing some grudging respect for the unflappable detective. He was as calm and logical as Kate. On paper, they’d make a perfect match. Sophisticated appearances. Scary smart. Cool under pressure.
While he was...hell. He’d better watch the door and keep an eye on the students in the hallway to stop anyone from coming in.
“Janie and I were kindred spirits. She possessed the soul of an artist—like me.” So Ludvenko was the creep who’d taken advantage of Janie’s big heart and thirst for life. “My wife, she is all about numbers and calculations—a good match for any man. But Janie...she was passion.”
Boone was getting irritated. “So your wife holds down a steady job, keeps a good home and enjoys a respectable reputation in the community.”
“Yes, my wife is all those things.”
“In other words, she’s boring.”
“Boone,” Kate cautioned.
“Harrison,” Montgomery warned.
“Yes...no.” Ludvenko turned his argument away from Boone and pointed across the table at Kate. “Dorothy is a good wife. Do not trick me into saying things. I will deny them all in court.”
Kate seemed pleased to finally have his full attention. “But you and Janie shared common interests—your love for art and learning? A passion for life?”
“Yes. We were drawn together at an artists’ retreat we both attended one weekend. We continued to see each other when my wife traveled or worked late, whenever we could.”
Man, wasn’t this scenario sounding familiar. The roles were reversed, of course, but it wasn’t too unlike the excuse Irene had given for straying from their marriage.
“Did you see Jane Harrison last Friday night?” Montgomery asked. “I already checked at the business office—your wife went to Phoenix for a weekend symposium.”
“No. S
he did not.” Ludvenko grew defensive at the detective’s interruption. “She was scheduled to leave, yes, but Dorothy came down with a cold. Her sinuses were so bad that flying was out of the question.” His manic gesticulations had been reduced to picking at paint on the table again. “So I called Janie and canceled our weekend getaway. She was not pleased. And then I read in the paper that she was murdered.”
Detective Montgomery had a follow-up question. “And your wife will confirm that you were home with her all night?”
“Yes.” He pounded his fist against the table. “I lose the woman I love, and I cannot even grieve for her...because of my wife.”
Sarcasm poured through Boone’s blood. “I’m crying for you, pal.”
“You do not understand what we felt for each other.”
“Better than you know. I pity your wife.”
When Ludvenko turned back to the relative safety of addressing Kate, she pointed to the picture of the ruby-and-diamond ring she’d set on the table. “Did you give this to Janie?”
“Yes. For her birthday.” His mouth curled with a rueful smile. “She said it would be a better present if I were to leave my wife and we could see each other without hiding from the world.”
“You never had any intention of leaving your wife, did you?” Boone accused. “You had your cake and were eating it, too.”
“I cannot help what the heart feels.” He threaded his fingers through his lion’s mane of hair. “I know she deserved better. But I would never hurt Janie. Never.”
Kate tapped the photo again. “Did she like this ring? It doesn’t exactly seem her style.” Where was she going with these questions about the ring?
“It was expensive. It proved my love to her.”
Boone snorted.
Both Kate and Montgomery glared him into silence again.
While Kate folded the photo into the file and sat back in her chair, pondering some unknown question, Detective Montgomery walked up beside Ludvenko. “Did she contact you at all that Friday night? Or early Saturday morning? The phone records we downloaded from her cell phone show she called a local motel—the Highway 40 Inn. Maybe she was hoping you’d changed your mind?”