Body of Evidence

by Stella Cameron

  “I’m going to fix them.” Almost unconsciously, she raised her chin to make it easier for him to stroke her. “Let me do what I can for you.”

  Sincerity rang in her voice. What the hell did he think he was doing, sitting here in bed with her, in the dark, baring his soul? “Thanks,” he said.

  “Your dad died of a gunshot wound to the head,” she said. “Wouldn’t they be able to tell if someone else pulled the trigger? Even if the gun was in his hand?”

  “Yup.”

  “And they decided there wasn’t anyone else around?”

  Listening to logic shouldn’t make him mad, but it did. He breathed through his mouth. “So I’m told. But it doesn’t add up, not with what I know about him, and not with what Eileen says about the last time she saw him—hours before he died.”

  Enough questions, Emma decided. “You need to find the truth.”

  “He was good at what he did, and he loved it. He loved my mother more than anythin’ and he loved his kids. Dad tried to be a father to Aaron, too. No, it doesn’t sit right with me. It’s my job to get at the truth.”

  “You worry me,” Emma said. “Can you accept it if what you’ve been told turns out to be true?”

  Finn shook his head no. “It’s not.”

  “I was afraid you’d say that. You won’t be happy until you find someone to blame.”

  “Blame isn’t the point. Not now. You must have heard how my mother died of a stroke. She already had cancer, but she might have beaten it. That was only months after Dad went. Whoever shot him might as well have taken the gun to her, too, because she quit livin’ when he did. I want whoever did it punished, is all.”

  “You want a closed case opened again. How likely are you to be able to force the cops to do that?”

  “I don’t give a damn if they open it or not. I want the records, a starting place,” Finn said, and sounded so strange, so different. “The rest, I’ll do myself.”

  Dread overwhelmed Emma. “It’s not a good idea to take the law into your own hands.”

  “So the cliché goes,” he said. “I’ll do things my way. I know personally what it can do to you if you don’t clean up your own messes. Allowing someone to do it for you doesn’t cut it.”

  Emma turned toward him in the all but dead blackness. Wind hammered the window, whined in the trees outside, and rain clattered fitfully. She was grateful the thunder and lightning had quit. “You’ll make sure this person—if there is one—you’ll make sure they go to trial?” Her heart thudded harder.

  “Of course,” he said, much too softly. “The trial’s about to begin. I even know what the verdict will be, and the sentence. All I need is the identity of the shooter.”

  17

  “We’re not goin’ to discuss this anymore,” Finn said, when the silence had stretched way too long. “Who knows what will happen? Can we leave it, at least for now?” He’d said more than he should have.

  So chilled she had goose bumps, Emma turned to him. She felt him watching her. Resting her cheek on his chest, she slowly put an arm around his middle. She was reading too much into his words.

  Finn held Emma and slid down in the bed, taking her with him. He’d been trained to kill but not to like it—or dislike it—when a subject had to be taken out. There would be no explaining how a man like him felt about such things, how he had learned to make peace with what he did and relegate each incident to a place in his memory where he hoped it would stay. He was one of the unlucky ones; he saw faces, and they were the ones who kept him awake, the faces and betrayal by a friend.

  Tonight he needed this woman. He needed her because he’d wanted her for days, and because he didn’t want to think about anything but the white heat of taking her body.

  He pulled her over him and held her tight, too tight. She made a sound, and he eased up. Emma pleased him, because he admired her, too, and liked her, and enjoyed being with her. Whatever he did, he must not forget that the needs weren’t all on his side—or the dangers. Leaving victims in his wake wasn’t his plan.

  The struggle she waged turned her cold inside. She wanted to be here with this man. Her marriage was over in every way except the official one, but she still felt like an unfaithful wife.

  Too bad Orville hadn’t been able to keep it in his pants around other women. This probably wouldn’t be happening tonight if he had.

  Emma considered how she felt about that conclusion. She wanted to be right where she was, regardless.

  Finn kissed her hair. He rubbed her back slowly, up and down, all the way under her hair, where he could settle his fingers on her neck. “Are you going to be okay with this?” he said. “With us bein’ together? I don’t want to be a reason for you to feel guilty.”

  “You won’t.” I hope.

  “Are you leavin’ early tomorrow?”

  She swallowed. “Not until I check to see how many RSVPs came back. He’ll want to know.”

  “I think I’ve talked Eileen into comin’ to the party with me. It’s time she had a special night out.”

  He made her throat tighten. “You are a nice man.”

  “That’s true,” he said. “Nice and trustworthy. Once the party’s over, you’re out of there, right? You’ll leave him?”

  “Yes.” But she wouldn’t be finished with Orville. “I’m goin’ to find out what goes on inside that club he just about lives in. I’ll take my time, but I wouldn’t be surprised if those photographs were taken at Damalis’s. Just once, I want to walk in on Orville at one of his ‘meetings.’”

  His hand tightened in her hair. “You won’t do that. Catchin’ him might sound like some sort of payback, but it isn’t worth the risk. Don’t discuss it with me, just accept that you just suggested the most stupid move you could make and now you’re goin to forget about it.”

  Emma stiffened, but she kept her mouth shut.

  “Relax,” he said. “You’re mad. I can feel it. Okay, I’ll go into greater detail about why you’re not goin’ to that club. Like you said, for all we know, those photos were taken there. That means it may be a…full service club. Booze, women, men losin’ money and lookin’ for someone to take it out on. You are a gentle woman, gently raised, and somehow you’ve stayed that way. You could get hurt in there, do you understand?”

  “I wouldn’t get hurt,” she mumbled. “I’m not an idiot.”

  “A man who’s wasted doesn’t stop to ask permission. Promise me you won’t do it. Orville’s gonna get his. There are some people in this town who think they’re entitled to whatever they want, but no one has any right to you unless you say so. Promise me.”

  She’d spent twelve years being told what to do.

  “Emma?”

  No promises. She didn’t owe any.

  “Okay, I didn’t want to say this, but there’s a murderer in this town, and we don’t know who he is or where he is. Takin’ risks in places like Damalis’s wouldn’t be smart.”

  She arched her neck and in the darkness saw the glitter of his eyes. “I won’t do anythin’ stupid,” she said. “Quit worryin’.”

  She heard the start of a word from him and put her lips over his. The kiss she offered didn’t part their lips. A soft kiss of comfort—and a kiss to shut him up and maybe make him forget his train of thought. Men weren’t difficult to distract.

  A man could be expected to react to a woman’s kiss while they lay in one another’s arms. Finn did, parting their lips a little, sweeping the tip of his tongue along the smooth, wet skin just inside her mouth.

  Emma’s nipples tingled, and the folds between her legs. They ached.

  Finn slowly opened their mouths wider, and she was ready to give as good as she got. He rolled, pushing her to her back and using his fingers behind her neck to tip her face up to his. Clinging to him, Emma tried to keep up, but he was strong, and she didn’t think he was long on control tonight. Elsewhere he was real long, hard, thick and heavy against her leg, and even while her excitement threatened to mash her mind, she
feared, just a little, what she was doing.

  He broke the kiss but repeatedly touched her mouth with his. “Emmy,” he said, “has Orville ever been violent with you?”

  She swallowed. “Why do you ask? Especially now?” Her laugh sounded false.

  “Has he?”

  “I don’t want to tell you lies, so can we not discuss this? You’ve got things you don’t want to talk about.”

  “I thought so,” he said, resting his face on her shoulder and licking salt from her skin. “If I do anythin’ that makes you feel uncomfortable or threatened, just smack me or yell at me. I’m not about to make you freeze up on me because you’re wait-in’ to be hurt.”

  Her response? Emma shifted her arms to his neck and held him as fiercely as she could, and she urged him to look at her. She took his bottom lip gently between her teeth and sucked. His moan made her feel smug. She found his tongue with her own and went to war. They panted, and wound their bodies into positions that shouldn’t be possible.

  Emma slapped his chest.

  “What?” He shot to sit up. Dammit, what had he done?

  “Nothin’. I want to do somethin’. Lay down again.” When he’d shifted lower, she sat on his belly, one knee on either side of his body.

  “Ooh, Emmy,” he whispered. “I don’t know if you should do that.”

  “I do.” Only her parents called her Emmy, but she liked the sound when Finn said it. She pulled the baggy T-shirt over her head and dropped it to the floor. “I should be dressed the way you are, and you can’t see me in the dark, anyway, can you?”

  “Yes,” he said, and sounded breathless again.

  “Mmm, as long as you can feel me, that’s the main thing.”

  He closed his eyes and slid his hands up her back, eased her toward him, lifted his head and nuzzled his face into her cleavage. He opened his mouth on a full breast and shifted his head from side to side, wetting her skin and feeling how she got wet elsewhere. The idea of losing control had disgusted him as long as he could remember, and he couldn’t let it happen now, but he was close. His penis pulsed inside the damn shorts he wanted to wish away. He could feel her through her panties, hot and damp against his belly.

  The woman was as ready for sex as he was—or she seemed to be. He still wouldn’t take anything for granted. He raised her right arm and nipped at the soft skin between her side and her breast. She wiggled and attempted to get him closer. He knew what she wanted him to do, but the more intense the need became, the bigger the charge she would get. And he would be the winner, because the more ready she would be for him.

  Emma writhed, gripped the sides of his face and moved his mouth back to her breast, to her nipple. He closed his mouth, and flicked his tongue back and forth, slowly. She strained against him, begging for more.

  Finn smiled, loving the faint rose scent of her skin, loving the power he had over her. He took her nipple in his teeth, then backed off and made circles on the swelling skin around it. Finally Finn sucked at her, harder and harder, moved to the other breast and sucked. Emma gasped and drove her fingernails into him.

  He slid his hands inside her panties and cupped her bottom, separated her cheeks, tipped her forward and smoothed a finger between her legs to find her sweet spot.

  He found it, and she rocked on his hand, panted, kissed his shoulder, found his flat nipples and pulled at the tips until he jerked and said, “Ah, I can’t take that. You’re driving me mad.”

  “Good. Two crazy people in one bed.”

  Finn stroked her hot, damp body again and again, finding all the places guaranteed to drive her higher. He got rid of her panties and flipped their positions, disappeared under the sheet and sank his face into heated and moist hair between her legs.

  Emma pushed on the top of his head, wriggled and tried to get away.

  He held her hips and shot his tongue in and out, while her bottom rose and fell on the bed, moving faster and harder while he brought her closer to the edge.

  She’d never experienced anything like this. Finn thrilled and embarrassed her. Her breasts swelled; her body burned.

  Again he moved, twisting her to sit on the side of the bed, his hands holding her ankles in place on the mattress. He kept her knees wide apart and returned to making her writhe on the mattress.

  Emma let out a moan. The sensation he made with his tongue, reaching it into her, withdrawing, reaching, withdrawing, making rapid, hard attacks on the most sensitive spot on her body, drove her wild. But she didn’t try to stop him. She hovered, an instant from the brink, and he took his mouth from her. Already she throbbed. The beating in her flesh built, and she climaxed. Lying there, open to him while he watched, she tossed and forced a hand down to touch herself, to jerk with the ripples of pleasure.

  Finn released her ankles, and Emma’s feet slid from the bed. Her legs hung, as if useless. He pressed his penis hard but didn’t relieve any of the demanding pressure.

  Emma moved so fast, she caught him off guard. Laughing, springing to stand on the mattress and bounce, she taunted him.

  “I would never have taken you for a tease,” he said, with laughter in his voice. He flipped on the bedside lamp and enjoyed watching her breasts jounce, seeing how red and puffy her nipples had become, and the way her pubic hair glistened. She was a wet dream, and tonight she was his.

  Finn got up and made a grab for her, but she was too fast. Off the bed on the other side, she ran to a corner of the room, but she’d stopped laughing. Emma knelt, knees tight together, and beckoned him near.

  He didn’t reach her before she stretched out an arm, took hold of his distended penis and pulled him gently toward her. Rising on her knees a little, she rubbed the pulsing end of him over her breasts. A glance up at him, and then he felt her take him into her mouth, draw him in deep, and move him in and out until his thighs shook.

  Seeing her take him, turn her face to pass his bursting skin over her teeth, terrified him. He couldn’t come, not like this. “Let’s lie down, cher,” he said, and held the top of her head in both of his hands.

  Emma let him slip from her mouth. Her lips wet and shiny, she stood, kept her body pressed to his while she dragged herself up.

  He made a move to take her to the bed, but she grasped him in one clever hand and pumped. The last of his control snapped. She timed removing her hand to the second, and they clung together while his ejaculation pulsed.

  “Emmy?”

  She held him even tighter, and he knew what he felt on his chest was her tears. “Say somethin’.”

  Not a word.

  Easing out of her arms, he ducked and picked her up. She didn’t resist when he put her on the bed and got in beside her. She didn’t resist when he held her against him again. “That was incredible,” he told her. “Give me a few minutes and—”

  “Hush,” she said. “You’re tired. Let yourself sleep.” Where her abandon had come from, she didn’t know. Orville was a fastidious lover—with her. Bitterness burned her throat at the thought of what she’d seen in the photos.

  “I don’t want to sleep,” Finn said. The pliable quality of her body had faded. She lay stiff in his arms. He propped himself on one elbow and kissed her. Emma kissed him back, but only as a response, a sweet, undemanding response.

  The sensation he got when he felt her hand on his back, smoothing its length, set him on a sexual edge all over again, but he held back. He flattened a hand against her stomach, and she moved a subtle distance from him.

  Oh, God, she felt guilty, and they hadn’t even done anything. Not really.

  Very still, she remained exactly where she was. Finn tried to see her eyes. They were closed, and her breathing was regular. And he would lay odds that she was faking.

  Finn got another erection. He rolled to his back, then carefully onto his other side, facing away from Emmy. She had been willing; she had wanted him. Then everything had changed.

  He thought about the pictures. Could she have set out to get back at her husband, at le
ast in her own mind, then lost her nerve? Finn clamped his teeth together. If he’d been used, he hoped she decided to use him again real soon.

  Thunder had started again. Every few minutes quicksilver veins shattered the sky and a rolling boom cracked the night almost at once.

  Finally Finn slept. Emma made several careful, experimental moves, to make sure he didn’t wake or let her know he was pretending. She slid to the floor, gathered her jeans, his shirt and her tote bag, and glided out of the room.

  In the bedroom Finn used, she stood in the intermittent flicker of light from the broken skies and pulled on her clothes. She stuck her feet into her shoes, stood by the door to listen a while, then moved like a wraith along the landing and down the stairs.

  The raincoat hung in the passage where she’d entered the house. Emma put her bag strap across her body, pulled on the coat and let herself out into a night that took rain from the ground, boiled it and puffed steam into an opaque layer like a weightless feather blanket. The steam hovered feet above the grass and curled between trees.

  Don’t think.

  The keys were at the bottom of the bag, and she wasted too much time scrabbling among her possessions to find them. The top of the Lexus, poking through the cover of steam, shone with moisture.

  With the keys in her hand, she reached the car and got in. She would see Finn again. Perhaps they would be…close again. She hoped so. He was too special to let go, although that decision was probably out of her hands now. She wouldn’t blame him for being wary around her.

  His lovemaking had thrilled her, and she’d felt free as never before—until she froze again.

  The engine sounded like a plane taking off. He would wake up and discover she’d sneaked away. Emma bit into her bottom lip. If he still wanted her, she would be there for him…eventually.

  Taking the time to snatch up his jeans panicked Finn. He heard the side door close and ran, naked, with his jeans in his hand, down the stairs. Why do women have to be so complicated? Why do they think too much? He struggled into the jeans, zipped them, but didn’t bother to close the waist.