Into the Flames

by Multi-Author

  “Duncan please!”

  He finally took pity on her and, tugging the panties down her thighs, buried his face between her legs.

  She cried out, both hands finding the back of his head as he sucked soft and hard, slow and fast, in an ever-increasing tempo of bright, sharp bliss that had her slamming bonelessly back to the couch, her hips rising to meet his delicious invasion. Ecstasy wrapped her in molten heat, turning her will to butter, and soft cries of pleasure climbed her throat, coloring the air around them.

  Delight built upon itself, creating layers of tension that had her holding her breath as release beckoned…only a heartbeat away.

  Finally she found the cusp of that release, its energy sizzling through her, and stilled beneath its all-encompassing power. She screamed his name as jolt after jolt of pleasure sent her tumbling into a well of sensation.

  She barely climbed out of that delicious void before Duncan’s talented lips pulled her over again, her muscles clenching under the assault.

  As the last waves of bliss rolled through her, Hilda lay limp and happy for a moment, her eyes closed. But when she felt him move her eyes shot open. He was standing before her, his jeans open and his hands tucked in the waistband.

  She stopped breathing at the sight of his wide, sculpted chest, flawless except for a spot high on the left shoulder where puckered skin served as a timeless reminder of the fate which had ripped him from her.

  Hilda’s heart stuttered in her chest, sadness filling her.

  Then Duncan shoved his jeans down and she forgot all about sadness and past pain. There was only that moment and the pleasure they were about to pursue together. He had something in his hand and, as she watched him, licking her lips like a hungry lioness observing her prey, he tore the foil packet and removed a condom.

  Duncan smiled. “I learned my lesson last time.”

  A surprised giggle burbled up from her chest. Suddenly forgetting that she was limp with pleasure, Hilda sat up and took the coil of latex from his fingers. “Let me.”

  He held himself rigid while she gently cupped him, her fingers sliding over the engorged vein on the underside of his long, thick shaft. She found the heavy sac between his legs and cupped it, pulling it taut as she lowered her lips and kissed the engorged head.

  Duncan groaned, long and soft, his eyes dropping closed.

  His fingers clenched into loose fists. He seemed to be fighting the urge to grab hold of her but the struggle had turned his muscles to iron. Hilda reveled in his struggle. It was intoxicating having that kind of power of such a strong man.

  She lowered her lips to the dense tip of his erection and touched it, her tongue snaking out to slide across the taut flesh.

  He sucked in a harsh gasp, his fingers fisting more tightly.

  Hilda opened her lips and sucked him inside, pulling him as deep as she could without choking. His big body spasmed, his fingers sliding into her hair. “That feels amazing.”

  She opened her throat and tried to take him deeper, but he was long and thick and she wasn’t able to accommodate much more of him, so she let him slide back out until she held only the heavy tip between her lips. Sucking eagerly on that tip, she engaged a quick series of hard strokes with her lips that had his head dropping back.

  When he was nearly vibrating with need, Hilda placed the condom on the tip of his shaft and put her lips over it, sliding it over his length with her mouth.

  Duncan moaned and reached for her, pulling her to her feet. He picked her up and placed her on the wide, padded arm of the couch, spreading her legs and stepping between them.

  She started to lay back, to close her eyes.

  He shook his head. “Look at me, Hilda. I want to see your face when I make love to you.”

  It was no hardship to hold his gaze. He was the most beautiful man Hilda had ever met. He had marked her for his own fifteen years earlier, when he had been young but she had been younger, and he had seemed like everything she would ever want. They were friends but they were so much more.

  He was her protector, her confident, and the person she most wanted to explore the future with.

  She slammed her mind closed on thoughts of the past and sighed as Duncan positioned himself at her moist crease. He pressed gently and she gasped with pleasure as he slipped inside. He stopped, only the tip of his erection between her swollen lips.

  She grasped his hips but he resisted going deeper. Instead he thrust and withdrew almost completely, using only the first three inches of his length to tease and tantalize the ring of delightful nerve endings at the entrance to her channel.

  Each shallow thrust sent delight slicing through her, each withdrawal set a new edge of rabid expectation. Hilda’s breathing quickened, her pulse pounding as tension turned her body rigid with expectation.

  Duncan gradually went deeper, enhancing the exquisite pleasure of each stroke as he held her gaze. The experience was beyond magical. The connection between them in that moment almost surreal.

  When Duncan finally thrust himself fully inside her she cried out, her body exploding under the imperative of his thrusts. She finally closed her eyes because she couldn’t stop herself.

  Bliss beat against her sexual core. Like breakers on a hot beach the delicious waves pounded over her and then retreated, leaving behind soft lines of residual pleasure that doubled and tripled as the surf struck again.

  Her cries turned husky and a sheen of sweat coated her skin as Duncan continued to plunge deep, his pecs and hard, flat belly flexing with every thrust. The hair around his face darkened with sweat. A sheen of perspiration glistened on that yummy upper lip but his sexy green gaze never wavered from hers. He never looked away.

  And when the power of his orgasm finally took him, he let her see the overwhelming play of emotion in his eyes as he succumbed.

  That sight alone sent her tumbling against the shore again, her sexual core pulsating under a driving hunger she could no more ignore than she could stop breathing.

  It was a moment she’d dreamed about for as long as she could remember. A moment filled with the knowledge that she and Duncan had always been meant for each other. A moment she’d long since lost hope of experiencing.

  But as he pulled her into his arms and, whispering soft words of yearning into her ear, started to move within her body again…Hilda knew that she could happily die tomorrow, cherishing the memories they’d created in that moment with her very last breath.

  Chapter Twelve

  “There is no text on her phone,” Detective Raul told Duncan. “If it was there in the first place—”

  “What do you mean if it was there?” Hilda’s temper spiked. “I’m telling you I got a text right before the fire in the restaurant started.”

  “You don’t even know it was from him,” Detective Raul stated with a frown.

  “You mean the text you don’t believe she got?” Duncan asked. He stood next to her chair, his body language hostile and protective. “If Hilda said she got a text she got one.”

  “That may be, but I can’t verify it.” Raul slipped Hilda’s phone back into the evidence bag.

  “Why are you keeping my phone?”

  “It’s evidence, Ms. Bennet. I’ll need to keep it until we close the murder investigation.” He narrowed his gaze on her, accusation dripping from his next words. “Maybe longer.”

  Duncan had received a call the morning after their life-changing night together and Detective Raul had asked them to come down to the station to answer some more questions. Hilda had gone willingly, wanting only to help with the investigation so the police could catch the guy.

  She was starting to realize the flaw in her reasoning. It seemed the police already thought they’d caught the Artist.

  They believed it was her.

  To make things worse, apparently Duncan had been replaced in the investigation of Madison Lane’s murder by Raul. The Indianapolis Chief of Police and Duncan’s boss, Chief Bi
tters had put their heads together and decided the case was too big for a fire investigator to handle alone. Though Duncan had called his superior and angrily pleaded his case, he hadn’t been able to talk his way back to lead on the investigation. The bottom line was, the fire was his but the murder, despite its obvious ties back to the arsonist, was Raul’s. It was just one more thing for Hilda to feel guilty about. She was pretty sure the decision to remove him from the murder investigation was because of his relationship with her.

  Shaking herself from her thoughts, she decided to take Raul head on. “Look, detective, I’m not your fire bug. I have no reason to set fire to my own house and my place of business. I certainly had no reason to kill that poor woman. What motive do you think I have?”

  The cop leaned back in his chair, crossing beefy arms over his chest. “I haven’t figured that out yet.”

  Hilda noted he didn’t deny that he thought her guilty.

  “Hilda’s in danger, Raul. She’s been a target of this guy since her house became part of his portfolio of work. By focusing on her you’re not only going to let the real killer get away, you’re going to put her in even greater danger.”

  “Not if she’s in jail.”

  Hilda felt Duncan stiffen…saw his big hands clench into fists. She realized he was about to make things worse so she reached over and placed her hand over his. “Sit down, Duncan. We can discuss this rationally and calmly.”

  He slid her a glance, his gaze brittle with anger and his jaw clenched, but he nodded, dropping stiffly into the chair beside hers. Taking a deep breath, he tried to reason with the cop. “I believe that I’m this guy’s ultimate target, Detective Raul. He’s got some grudge against me. I’ve been finding his grisly artwork for weeks now. And he’s definitely escalating. We’re running out of time to find him.”

  “What proof do you have that he’s been targeting you?”

  “No proof. Just a gut feeling. He’s been taunting me with nearly invisible signatures at each fire. As if he was testing me. The evidence he leaves behind is mostly obscured by the fires he sets. I’m only seeing it because I’m looking for it. And because I’ve seen the pattern between the fires.”

  “When you talk about a signature, I assume you’re talking about the letter A he left behind at Madison Lane’s apartment?”

  Duncan nodded.

  “Have any of the other investigators seen this signature?”

  He expelled a breath, clearly frustrated. “No. Which is why I know this is all targeted at me.”

  “Then why has Ms. Bennet been directly involved in two fires and a murder?”

  Duncan sat forward, his expression angry. “She’s not in any way involved in Madison Lane’s murder. You have absolutely nothing to tie her to that.”

  “Except that the killer left the same signature in the apartment where she was staying.”

  “That ties the murderer to both places,” Hilda agreed reasonably. “But it doesn’t tie me.”

  “What about the footprints at Hilda’s house? Has anyone else in her neighborhood seen someone lurking around the houses? Have there been any reports of peepers?”

  Raul shook his head. “No. But that doesn’t prove anything.”

  “It certainly implies that I was being watched,” Hilda told him. “I’ll give you all my shoes to test against the prints if that would help.”

  Raul stared at her for a long moment and Hilda thought she’d found the weak point in his case. Her breathing grew shallow as she waited for him to respond.

  Raul pulled a drawer open in the side of his desk and reached inside, pulling something out. He threw a clear bag onto the top of the desk between them. “Recognize this?”

  She leaned close and frowned. “It looks like a red crayon.”

  Duncan swore softly. “I gave that to you in good faith, Raul.”

  “And I took it in good faith, Yves. Now I’m telling you in good faith that this crayon, as you are well aware, was found in the bathroom of the place where Ms. Bennet is staying.” He narrowed his gaze accusingly. “Where the Artist left his…or her message.”

  “That doesn’t prove anything,” Duncan said. “Do you have DNA that ties it to Hilda?”

  Raul didn’t respond. “The label’s missing. I’m sure that’s not a coincidence.” His message was clear, he assumed she’d removed and destroyed the label on the crayon to destroy any fingerprints. The detective clasped his hands in front of him on the desk and leaned closer. “Here’s what I think. I think this killer, this Artist, is somehow tied to you two. And I think the fact that your past includes an unexplained fire…”

  Duncan surged to his feet. “Stop right there, Raul! What happened back then has nothing to do with this.”

  Hilda’s heart pounded against her ribs as panic set in. The detective had checked up on them. He knew what happened. “It’s okay, Duncan. Let him talk.”

  “No. I won’t listen to him repeating lies from fifteen years ago.”

  “Are you so sure they’re lies?” The cop asked him. “Ms. Bennet’s family seemed pretty certain she was responsible.”

  Hilda suddenly found it hard to breathe. Pain razored through her and it felt like her insides were being flayed with a knife. Stars burst before her eyes.

  “That’s bullshit! Unfortunately, her father believed Hilda’s brother, who wasn’t even there. He was just mad at her for not showing up to watch him play baseball and he took it out on her. It was a selfish, childish reaction and her father should never have taken his word.”

  Hilda’s thoughts spun dizzyingly. For a moment she thought she might pass out. She tried to speak up…tried to tell him to stop talking…but all she managed was his name. And that came out in a harsh, nearly inaudible whisper. “Duncan…”

  He didn’t even notice. Duncan was in full on protect Hilda mode.

  “The report said Hilda wasn’t sure if she started that fire or not. It said she was playing with matches, trying to light a candle in her playroom, and that she might have dropped one next to the candle.”

  That moment, so long ago, flared up in her memory in bits and pieces that she couldn’t paste into a coherent whole. She had been playing in the room next to the kitchen. She had found a pack of matches and she remembered thinking it would be fun to light one of the pretty, sweetly scented candles on the table nearby.

  But then she’d heard Duncan returning. She’d heard him calling her name. And she thought she’d dropped the pack of matches without even opening them.

  But she wasn’t sure. She’d never been sure. Something coated her memories like a thick gray blanket of smoke. Smoke just like the cloud of terrifying stuff she’d watched pluming up from their house, as she’d helplessly screamed Duncan’s name.

  She’d tried to tell anybody who would listen that he was in there. That he’d been in the kitchen when her brother grabbed her arm and pulled her away from the door.

  Josh had been so angry. He’d come looking for her. But he’d seen the fire and, instead, had pulled her to safety.

  “Josh just got home,” she said, without realizing she’d spoken. She looked up and into Duncan’s face, tears stinging her eyes. “He was so mad at me. He was yelling that I blew him off. That I promised I’d be there. But then he saw the smoke coming from that room. The room where I’d just been. And he told me we needed to get out of the house.” Hilda shook her head. “I told him we needed to get you…” The tears flowed freely, though she barely noticed them. She was trapped in that other time, that other place, where all her nightmares had begun. “I fought him, trying to get to you, but he wouldn’t let me go. He was so much stronger.”

  Duncan reached for her, pulling her to her feet and into his arms. “I know, honey. I know you tried to get to me.”

  She shook her head, her fingers scrabbling for him, clutching the soft fabric of his shirt as if she was afraid he’d run away. “I started that fire, Duncan. There was nobody else in the house. It h
ad to be me.”

  He kissed the top of her head.

  “It’s the only thing that makes sense, Yves,” Detective Raul agreed.

  Duncan wrapped her tighter, his heart pounding hard and fast against her ear. “Hilda didn’t start that fire. There has to be some other explanation.”

  “Well, if you really believe she didn’t start it, there’s only one other explanation that makes sense.”

  Duncan sighed. “I know.”

  Hilda broke his hold on her and stepped away, scrubbing at the tears on her face. “What?” She sniffled, looking at Duncan. “What are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking that whoever the killer is, he was there fifteen years ago. He started that fire for whatever reason. And he’s come back to finish what he started.”

  She stared at him for a moment and then pulled air into her lungs in a surprised burst. “You think it’s someone we knew back then?”

  “Yes. I do.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  They stood on Josh’s doorstep, holding hands like two lovers heading toward Hell together—despite the fact that Hilda had argued the dinner would be a new beginning for them…a chance to close old wounds.

  Unfortunately, the experience in Detective Raul’s office earlier in the day had made the idea of making amends with Hilda’s brother a nearly impossible task. Duncan thought he might never forgive Josh Bennet for assuming the worst of his sister…for creating doubt in everybody’s minds about her culpability for the fire.

  Even Hilda thought she was guilty.

  She tugged his hand, smiling at him as he turned to her. “Don’t look so fierce, babe. It’s just dinner.”

  Her use of the endearment made him smile, despite the dark thoughts roiling around in his head. He took the opportunity to lean down and kiss her sweet lips. “Just dinner. I got this.”