by Dawn Brown
“Well?” he asked. Don’t let him be home. Don’t let him—
“I don’t see him,” she said.
Good.
Something pushed against the back of his leg.
“What the hell?” He stumbled sideways, shoving Shayne away from the door and smacking his elbow hard on the door handle. Tingling pain shot from the joint into his fingers, throbbing in time to his thudding heart.
A huge, orange tabby gazed up at him with one amber eye, the other socket empty and scarred.
“Jesus Christ,” he muttered. He must have looked like a complete idiot. He turned to Shayne. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” The corners of her mouth twitched. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, yeah.” He rubbed his elbow and looked down at the cat. “Menace.”
The tabby flicked his badly kinked tail, then proceeded to rub back and forth against Des’s legs, purring loudly. The blatant affection seemed odd from such a battle-weary animal.
Shayne bent and scratched the top of the cat’s head. “The way my luck’s running, you’ll probably give me fleas.”
“I don’t think Bigwig has fleas.” Des jerked around at the sound of the woman’s voice from nowhere. Shayne straightened.
The woman stood at the edge of the patio in a faded blue bathrobe. Her hair, the color of wet sand, stuck up on one side of her head as though she’d only just rolled out of bed. Deep lines scored her face around her eyes and mouth, becoming more pronounced with her deepening frown as her dark brown gaze moved from Des to Shayne.
“Is this your cat?” Des asked, mostly for something to say.
The woman shook her head. “Nope, a stray, but Robert’s been feeding it and taking it in at night.” Des tried to envision the man who’d blown away his mother and stepbrother caring for the mangy cat, but couldn’t. “Gave him that stupid name too.”
“It’s from Watership Down.” When the woman stared blankly, he added, “The book about the rabbits.”
Julia’s favorite book. When he was small, and Heddi, on one her tirades, would terrify him, his sister would read the book to him, her soft voice calming. And when he grew older and their roles reversed, he would read the book to her. God, he could probably recite the thing backwards and forwards.
The woman’s pencil-thin brows rose. “He named a cat after a rabbit?”
Des shrugged. “He was the biggest rabbit.”
“Stupid name for a cat.” The woman reached into the pocket of her bathrobe and pulled out her cigarettes. She slid one from the pack, popped it between her lips and lit the tip with a plastic lighter. “You a friend of Robert’s?”
He almost laughed aloud. Not even close, lady.
Shayne intervened. “No, I’m a writer and he was helping me with a project. My name is Shayne Reynolds, and this Des An…Des. Are you Mr. Anderson’s neighbor?”
“That’s right.” The woman exhaled a slow stream of blue-gray smoke into the chilly air and gave Shayne the once over again. “Tina Masters.”
“Have you seen Mr. Anderson lately?”
Tina hauled hard on the cigarette, breathed deeply, then exhaled, shaking her head. “Not for a few days, I guess.”
“Is he away?”
Tina shrugged. “Truck’s still parked in the underground. If he is around, I wish he’d do something about that damned cat. He starts feeding the thing, and now it’s out here meowing all damned night.”
Des tuned out Tina’s diatribe about the cat. If his truck was there, where the hell was he? He turned to the sliding-glass door, now standing open about two inches. It must have been unlocked, then slid open when he hit his elbow.
He gripped the handle and pushed the glass wider.
“Hey,” Tina called after him, “what do you think you’re doing?”
“Door’s unlocked.” Des shoved back the heavy curtain.
Inside, the small apartment was neat and dark, the stale air tinged with a faint, putrid stink. Unease blew through him like a winter’s wind. “Des, you can’t go in there,” Shayne whispered, but she followed him inside anyway.
With the door open, Bigwig raced past them into the apartment. He grabbed for the cat, but missed. “Damn it.”
“Don’t go any farther,” Shayne said softly, perhaps picking up on that same sense of dread wrapping around him like an icy cloak. “Let’s call the cops and wait outside.”
“And tell them what exactly? That we broke into someone’s apartment and it stinks?” That smell could have been anything. Rotten food in the fridge. Garbage that hadn’t been taken out. A backed-up toilet.
Shayne started digging through her purse, probably looking for her phone. He moved deeper into the apartment. Vaguely, he noticed the newspaper folded on the coffee table. Books jammed tightly into a cheap faux-wood shelf on the far wall. Anderson’s home. His things.
The wind moaned outside, drowned out by Bigwig’s mournful meows. Absently, Des reached for Shayne’s hand, their fingers lacing together.
“Something’s wrong,” she said, softly.
He tightened his grip on her hand. “I know.” But he couldn’t stop. He had to see for himself.
They passed the kitchen. The stench was stronger, but didn’t seem to be coming from anything in the room. He pulled Shayne down a short, dark hallway. The only light spilled from the open bedroom door at the end of the hall. Through a foot-wide gap between the door and the frame, he spotted an unmade bed, clothes piled on top of the dresser and a pair of legs stretched over the floor. Bigwig rubbed against one limp, sock-clad foot.
“Shit,” Shayne hissed from beside him. She disentangled her fingers from his, and he lifted his hand to push the door open the rest of the way.
“Don’t,” Shayne said. He glanced at her, her skin unusually pale in the dim light, her phone pressed to her ear. “Don’t look.”
But he had to. He pushed the door and it swung wide. His gaze followed the denim-covered legs, to the plaid shirt over the torso, then to the mangled, bloody pulp where the man’s face should have been.
Chapter Fourteen
“Further investigation would reveal Robert Anderson was attacked from behind with a hammer, and with shocking savagery.”
—excerpt from Blood and Bone by Shayne Reynolds
You’ve opened one hell of a can of worms, prying into things that are none of your business.
Anderson’s words from the last time Shayne had spoken to him replayed again and again in her head, her stomach churning. There were a number of reasons the man could have been murdered. Robbery gone bad, crime of passion—he could have pissed off the wrong person while in prison or since he’d been released—yet she couldn’t shake the feeling his death was somehow connected to her book.
She flipped through the stack of articles he’d given her less than a week ago and frowned. If there was some clue here as to why the man was dead, she was missing it. With a sigh, she pressed her fingers to her burning eyes and rubbed.
God, she was tired. Exhaustion oozed into her extremities, leaving them heavy. Yet despite her fatigue, her body hummed with restless agitation. Every time she closed her eyes, Robert’s battered image filled her head.
She tossed the pile of papers down on the table and glanced at the clock mounted on the wall. Nearly two a.m. and Des still hadn’t returned to the cabin. He’d left half an hour earlier and probably wouldn’t be back. Who could blame him? As bad as her day had been, his had been substantially worse.
Once the police had arrived at Anderson’s apartment, both she and Des had quickly found themselves labeled “potential suspects.” They’d been taken to the station and questioned in separate interview rooms. Her interview had lasted over three hours, and Des’s a good forty-five minutes longer. His familial tie to Anderson made him a far more likely suspect, apparently.
He’d looked wrung out when the police finally let him leave. The whole trip back to Dark Water, he’d been quiet and lost in thought, his usual cocky humor wiped clean.
She wished she’d been able to say something to comfort him, to ease the tension in his tight expression, but the words had eluded her.
When she’d finally pulled up to the cabin, he’d planted a light kiss on her mouth and muttered he’d be back, but she didn’t expect him anytime soon. He probably needed space.
A yawn caught her off guard, nearly swallowing her face. She should go to bed and finally put an end to this hellish day. Instead, she flopped onto the sofa next to Bigwig. The huge cat blinked his one good eye, rolled onto his side, pressed himself against her thigh and purred.
She scratched the fur between his ragged ears. “You know, since it was his bright idea to bring you back with us, he probably should have taken you with him when he left.”
The cat’s purr grew louder until he hummed like an outboard boat motor.
Shayne lifted the remote for the TV and flipped through the stations, looking for something to distract her. Maybe she could zone out and finally fall asleep. The movie The Birds flashed onto the TV screen, and Shayne stopped channel surfing. Alfred Hitchcock probably wasn’t her best choice after finding a man brutally murdered, but it was either that or infomercials. Besides, it wasn’t as if she were watching Psycho.
After setting the remote back on the table, she snapped off the lamp, then shimmied down so she could rest her head on the arm of the sofa. Bigwig yowled in protest. His ire was short-lived, though. Once she settled in, he curled up at her feet.
With only the flickering picture from the television illuminating the dark room, it was easy to lose herself in the movie. She tensed as Tippi Hedren crept down that road away from the school, flocks of birds gathering around her.
A heavy clunk sounded from the front door.
Shayne’s heart jumped. She sat up, swinging her feet to the floor and nearly sending the cat flying. Who in the hell? For an instant, she imagined Tic, Hudson, even Robert Anderson’s mangled corpse filling the opening.
Des stepped into the dark room and relief swept over her like a warm wave. Her body sagged. “You have your own key for this place?”
He shook his head, his hair damp. “No, but I’m Mrs. Matheson’s real estate agent. I know where she keeps the spare. I didn’t think you’d still be awake.”
“I was too wound up to sleep.”
He dropped his duffel bag by the front door and came closer to the couch, glancing at the TV and frowning. Birds swept down and pecked at people running madly on the streets of the seaside town.
“And this is helping?” he asked with a chuckle.
The humor in his voice eased the tension knotting her insides. He sounded better. Looked better too. The hollow, empty stare was gone, dimples grooved his cheeks.
“I wasn’t sure you’d be back,” she told him.
His dimples vanished, his brows drawing together. “I said I would. I have to work in the morning, so I picked up some clothes for tomorrow, and I had a shower while I was home.”
“I thought you might want some time alone,” she told him. “I would have understood.”
“I don’t want to be alone.” Slowly, he moved between her and the TV. His voice was low, with a rough edge that hummed over her skin. He crouched on the floor in front of her, pressed his hands to each of her knees. Her breath caught in anticipation. The heat from his palms seeped through her jeans, warming her flesh as he parted her legs and settled between them. “And I don’t want to talk about what happened. I’ve talked about it enough.”
Her heart beat faster. Her mouth went dry. Good thing he didn’t want to talk. She couldn’t have formed words if she’d tried.
The flickering glow from the TV cast his features in shadow and gray light, his dark eyes intent on her face. She drew a shuddering breath. God, he smelled good. Clean with the faint spice of whatever he used to wash and a distinctly male scent that was all him. She loved his smell. Loved the way it clung to her when she’d been close to him.
He slid his hands up the insides of her thighs, stopping at the crease where her legs met her hips. Without tearing his gaze from hers, his thumb grazed her apex. A jolt shot through her. She gasped, her hips jerking, wet heat flooding her core.
A predatory smile curled his lips as he popped open the fly on her jeans and gripped the waistband. He tugged down the denim and her underwear together. She lifted her backside off the sofa, eager to help him in his endeavor. After he pulled the jeans off her legs, he tossed them aside, then went for the buttons on her blouse. An invisible energy pulsed beneath her skin, leaving her hungry and needy. She wanted to wrap herself around him, to take him inside her and ease the throb between her legs. She arched up, desperate for his touch, to feel his big hands moving over her bare skin. But his fingers fumbled with the tiny fastenings.
“This is going to take too long,” he muttered and gripped the edges as if he meant to tear her shirt open. She grabbed his wrists to stop him.
“Don’t, it’s my sister’s.” And she didn’t want to replace the blouse or explain why all the buttons had been popped off.
“Fine,” he growled, “you do it.”
She unfastened the small buttons as quickly as she could. There were far too many of them. His silver eyes hungrily tracked her hands and a warm flush tinged her skin. He looked at her like he wanted to devour her. Her belly pulled tight.
Something grazed her cleft. She gasped. Her body jerked, and she dropped her gaze to Des’s hand between her legs. His finger slid between her folds, swept a circle around her clitoris.
Tiny bolts of sensation pierced low in her belly. Need tightened almost painfully at her center. She wanted…oh, wanted him. She tilted her hips up to meet his teasing fingers, closed her eyes and leaned back against the couch. The breath she’d been holding escaped on a low moan.
“Keep going,” he murmured. He plucked at her nub. His finger slid down, cresting her opening, and back up.
Going? Going where? “What?”
“Shirt.” He leaned forward, brushed his mouth over hers briefly and pushed his fingers inside her. She gasped, lifting up to meet his probing. “Unless you want me to finish my way.”
Shirt. Right. How the hell could she manage buttons with his slowly driving her crazy? She resumed her task, but her trembling fingers made sliding the buttons through the holes far more difficult than it had been.
“You know,” she managed, her voice dry and reedy, “this would be easier if you weren’t distracting me.”
“I like to touch you.” The low timbre of his voice trembled through her. The knotted need in her belly tightened.
Well, far be it for her to ask him to stop doing something he liked.
At last she came to the final button, pulled open her blouse and let the soft cotton slide down her arms and onto the couch behind her. Des’s light gaze moved over her bared flesh. He rested one hand on her chest beneath her collarbone, his palm big and warm. Her skin tingled where he touched, an invisible energy fissured to the frantic pounding at her core.
She watched his hand slide down, inside her bra and cup her aching breast. Shivery heat prickled in the wake of his touch. His thumb circled her hardened nipple. Instinctively, she arched her back, a groan tearing free from her throat.
He reached behind her, unhooked her bra and pulled the smooth satin away. He leaned back, peering down at her.
“My God, I want you,” he murmured, the words reverent. He hadn’t shed any of his own clothes, yet she was completely naked and spread before him. In that instant, she’d never felt as beautiful as she did with him.
Need throbbed in time with her pounding heart. She wanted him to do something. Touch her. Take her. Anything.
Without warning, he dropped his head to her breast, sucked the tender nipple between his teeth. He nipped at her pebbled flesh, then soothed with his tongue. Pleasure and pain burst inside her like tiny fireworks. His hand continued to move between her legs, in and out, driving her higher and faster to the edge that would send her careening toward orgasm.
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br /> “I want to taste you,” he murmured against her skin.
Before his words had even registered, he eased his hand away, bent his head and his mouth closed over her. His tongue lapped and plunged into her wet heat, his lips sucking her throbbing nub. She shivered and jerked beneath him like a frayed live wire. The onslaught of sensation overwhelmed her, and she came in a frenzied rush, her body arching like a bow.
And still his mouth drove her on until she collapsed back against the couch, trembling and weak. Her breath came in quick, shallow gasps, her muscles still quivering with the aftershocks as he lifted his head and shot her an entirely too-smug smile. Oh, she’d wipe that look off his face…as soon as she could move again.
He stood, shoved down his jeans and underwear, kicked them aside and pulled his T-shirt over his head.
Des naked before her turned Shayne’s mouth dry. His body was amazing. Lean and sculpted, but not bulky. Despite the heaviness in her limbs, she reached out and ran her hands up his hard legs. His short, coarse hairs tickled her palms. She continued over his narrow waist and up his wide expanse of chest.
He watched her exploration with hooded eyes. His chest rose and fell with each ragged breath. She trailed her hands back down, over the planes and contours of his stomach, the side of her thumb grazing the tip of his erection jutting from the tuft of brown curls.
He sucked in a breath, then groaned low in the back of his throat. “I have to get inside you.”
He dropped to his knees, hooked his arms under her legs, spreading her wide and rolling her back against the cushion in a single fluid motion. She gasped. He gripped her hips, lifted her backside up off the sofa. The blunt tip of his penis grazed her entrance. He thrust hard and deep, stretching her, filling her.
She nearly wept with relief.
Their position left her completely open and vulnerable to him. With her legs dangling over his arms, she couldn’t gain leverage. He had complete control. He set the pace, riding her hard and fast.
A sliver of panic tangled with her swelling excitement. Desperate to anchor herself, she clutched the back of the couch. Her fingers dug into the rough fabric so hard her knuckles ached.