“I’ll have to work on that,” she breathed, curling her fingers through the hair at his nape.
“I’ll help you,” he replied, covering her mouth with his. He kissed her slowly, tenderly, expertly, more to soothe than inflame her desire. Even so, she found herself moaning and rubbing her naked belly against his.
A wave hit her backside, cooling her off right where it counted. She laughed softly, putting her face against his warm, brown throat and stroking his shoulders until they were ready to return to shore.
Making a tacit agreement to call it a day, they gathered up their belongings and left the beach. Sidney didn’t feel her feet hit the sand once.
In the outdoor shower, they explored each other languidly, his mouth on hers, her hands gripping his water-slick back. She stripped away her bikini and he dropped his shorts, but their intimacy didn’t go beyond kissing and light touching for a long time.
“I want you in bed,” he whispered, burying his head in the curve of her neck.
She wanted him against the shower wall, but she acquiesced readily enough, needing no special intuition to realize he wouldn’t be fast or rough with her this time. Wrapping a towel around her body and handing him another, she slipped into the house ahead of him, pretty sure the terry cloth wasn’t keeping her bottom decently covered. Maybe it was cruel to tease, but the way he was looking at her, all lean cheeks and hungry eyes, made baiting him irresistible.
As they mounted the stairs, his tension was palpable.
In her bedroom, the oscillating fan whirred lazily, circulating whatever breeze was coming off the Pacific through her open window.
“Lay down.”
A hot thrill raced down her spine, turning her knees to jelly. Dropping her towel on a nearby chair, she crawled across the bed naked, watching him through half-lidded eyes. His body was truly gasp-worthy, every inch of it hard and strong. When he took away his towel, she stared at him unabashedly, wetting her lips in anticipation. It was all she could do to keep herself from spreading her legs and pulling him down on top of her.
Setting a different pace, he stretched out beside her and kissed her moist lips. He cupped her breasts, pushing them together and tracing her cleavage with his tongue. He licked and sucked at her nipples until they were wet and rock-hard.
“Marc,” she moaned, reaching out to curl her hand around his throbbing erection.
He let her stroke him for a moment, closing his eyes, as if her touch pained him. Then he brought her hand up to his mouth and kissed the center of her palm.
Desire flowered between her thighs, hot and sultry.
Moving down her belly, he dipped his tongue into her navel, dropped a kiss on her hip, nuzzled the tops of her thighs. When he finally put his mouth where she really wanted it, his tongue was indolent, his touch designed to heighten, rather than assuage, her arousal.
“Oh, please,” she breathed, lifting her hips.
To her intense frustration, he came up beside her and kissed her mouth again, stroking her parted lips with his tongue, sharing her taste. Easing a hand between her thighs, he explored the seam of her sex, separating her with his fingertip before he slipped it inside.
“You’re so wet,” he murmured against her mouth, sliding his middle finger in and out of her while she gasped and writhed. Then he withdrew, grazing his slick fingertip over her clitoris, barely touching her. With a feather-light motion, he rubbed her back and forth, using only enough pressure to drive her crazy.
Beyond self-control, she rocked her hips in a steady rhythm, straining toward ecstasy. When he replaced his hand with his mouth again, she begged for mercy, and he gave it to her. The instant his tongue came in contact with her sensitive flesh, she climaxed, lacing her fingers into his hair and screaming her pleasure.
Apparently drawing out the sensation also intensified it. Her scalp tingled, dark spots flashed behind her eyes and her pulse throbbed a wild beat in her throat.
Now that was an orgasm, she thought, resting her head on the pillows.
Before her vision cleared, he parted her legs and entered her slowly, bracing his weight on his outstretched arms. “Are you sure I didn’t hurt you last time?”
Her eyes fluttered open. “Yes.”
“When I first came inside you, you tensed.”
She smoothed her hands over his sweat-slick shoulders, realizing what maximizing her enjoyment had cost him. “It had been a while,” she said, touching her lips to his. “And you are rather…large.”
Groaning, he began to move inside her, drawing himself in and out with deliberate precision, letting her feel every inch. She knew he was holding himself back, and that made tenderness well up inside her, along with a renewed excitement.
Last night, in the cab of the pickup, he’d been hard and rough and uncontrolled, and she’d loved every second of it.
Tonight, she had time to savor an experience that transcended physical sensation.
They melded, mouths and hearts and bodies. They rolled, him on top, then her, coming close to the brink, then edging back. He put her leg over his hip and took her on her side, facing him, always touching full-length, damp skin sliding against damp skin.
She stroked his back, his shoulders, his sinewy arms, his taut buttocks. He did the same, exploring every part of her, flicking his tongue over her tight nipples, brushing his thumb over her wet clitoris. She lost track of how many times he brought her to orgasm.
When she couldn’t take it anymore, she straddled his waist and moved up and down on him with sinuous motions, milking him with her body, demanding his release.
“Sidney,” he grated, gripping her undulating hips, trying to slow her.
“Let me,” she murmured, moving faster, repositioning his hands on her bottom. Cradling his head to her chest, she let her breasts muffle his hoarse cry as he came.
Marc trailed his fingertips down Sidney’s naked back, watching the room grow dim as evening fell. She wasn’t asleep, but he wished she was, because every bachelor instinct he possessed was telling him to flee the scene.
He never slept with a woman after sex. Sometimes he stayed long enough for her to drift off, but he usually didn’t bother. It was part of the convenience of using condoms. He had to get up to dispose of it, and then he was gone.
Why he was still lying beside her, not exactly cuddling, but caressing her, was a complete mystery to him. An anomaly. An aberration.
The sex had been…different, too. Better than last time, and last time had been amazingly good. For him, at least.
He’d remembered to use protection. He’d shown a little more finesse, and a lot more restraint. Somehow, the experience had gotten away from him all the same. God, he’d almost wanted to weep when he came, the pleasure was so intense.
He must have overdone it. Held himself back too long.
“I have to go to the kennel,” she said finally, stretching her arms over her head.
“Fine,” he said, rolling out of bed as if he’d been waiting for an excuse to get up. Which he had been. Hadn’t he?
He watched her dress as he pulled on his own clothes, finding her yellow cotton panties and simple white bra impossibly alluring. Her baggy Bermuda shorts hung down to her tanned knees, and a blue dolphin arced across the front of her Sea World T-shirt.
His lips curved into a smile. At what point had her lame, sexless fashion sense become quirky and endearing? The answer hit him like a bolt of lightning: the same time he’d fallen in love with her.
For a moment, he was too stunned to move. He just stood there, his hands frozen at the fly of his jeans, as panic assailed him.
She sat on the bed to put on her shoes, oblivious to his plight.
He turned, buttoning up his pants and grabbing his T-shirt, every nerve in his body on red alert. He had to get out of here before she saw the dopey, lovesick expression on his face. He had to get away from her before she touched him.
Flipping open his cell phone, he strode out of Sidney’s bedroom.
<
br /> “Lacy,” she answered, sounding breathless.
“I need you to do some surveillance.”
He heard another woman’s voice in the background, a muffled giggle. “On whom?”
“Sidney. Meet us at the kennel in fifteen.”
“I just got off,” she groaned.
“You can get off again later,” he promised, hanging up.
He was shoving his cell phone in his pocket when Sidney came down the stairs, looking so positively dewy with female satisfaction that he gritted his teeth against the renewed urge to take her back to bed and screw her senseless.
After a few moments of silence inside his car, her pleasant afterglow faded. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
“I have some work to do. Lacy’s going to take over for me for a while.”
“When will you be back?”
“I don’t know. Do I have a curfew?”
Her face registered a mixture of hurt and surprise at his sudden personality change. Five minutes ago he’d been hanging all over her; now he couldn’t meet her eyes. Adding insult to injury, when he dropped her off at Pacific Pet Hotel, he didn’t say goodbye.
He headed home, needing some alone time to analyze the inconsistencies of the case. If he stayed overnight with Sidney, the only thing he’d be working on was going a few more rounds between her sleek, silky thighs.
As the headlights of his car hit his closed garage door, he noticed something taped to it. A manila envelope. Leaving the engine running, he got out, ripped the package off the door and sat behind the wheel to open it over his lap.
A dozen or so large, digitally printed photographs tumbled out.
At first, the images were so jumbled he couldn’t make sense of them. As the lines and shapes began to take form, he saw that they were extreme close-ups. The first depicted a woman’s round, supple breast, the upper curve framed by dark cloth, as if she’d lifted her top.
Sidney, he realized, his blood running cold.
Her legs, wrapped around his waist. The long, slender column of her throat. Her hands, clutching his hair as she climaxed.
There was only one full-length photo, and it was incredibly explicit. Their faces weren’t in focus, but what they were doing was clear. He was on top of her, pinning her beneath him, his pants pushed down his hips. His buttocks were clenched. Her hands were curled into fists, resting against the driver side door.
In contrast to the other images, which were vague and erotic, this one was shockingly graphic. It looked like a rape.
“That bloodsucking bitch,” he said, backing out of the driveway in a squeal of tires and heading south, toward Carlsbad, where Crystal Dunn lived.
Crystal was home, if the soft lighting visible through the small octagon-shaped glass window in her front door was any indication. She was also entertaining, judging by the dark green Jaguar in her driveway.
Straightening his shoulders, he knocked on the front door.
“Marc,” she said when she answered it, her expression revealing genuine surprise. “What brings you here?”
“I need to talk to you. Alone,” he added, knowing her latest plaything was lounging in the background.
Her eyebrows rose at his tone, but she stepped aside to allow him entrance.
It was a very cozy scene. Crystal was barefoot and casual in slacks and an ice-blue silk blouse, her pale hair cascading around her slender shoulders. Her coanchor was in his shirtsleeves, no tie or jacket, sipping red wine on her white leather couch.
“Brandon, why don’t you run to the store for me?” Crystal asked as he stood self-consciously. “I need some Evian.”
“Of course,” he said, slanting a glance in Marc’s direction. They’d only met once, but he knew the younger man recognized him. “Lieutenant Cruz,” he said quietly as he passed by, acknowledging his predecessor.
Marc didn’t grace him with a response. As soon as the door shut behind him, he strode forward, dumping the contents of the envelope out on her designer sofa.
Arching a brow, she perched her tiny little butt on the armrest and picked up the photos, studying them with mild interest. “This can’t be you,” she said unequivocally. Glancing up, she caught his sharp glare and looked again. “It is you! My God, were you drunk?”
“What’s your angle?”
Taking a sip of wine, she flipped through the photos once more.
“My guys didn’t take these. Whoever did used a telephoto lens with a nighttime scope, an expensive camera, no doubt about it, but consider the shots. Not one of them is worth a damn. How would we use this? Obscure close-ups and indiscernible faces?”
“Don’t mess with me,” he warned.
“Like I would,” she replied. Scorn blazing from her eyes, she shoved the pictures back into the envelope and returned them to him.
“You certainly have before.”
“Not when I had nothing to gain. You were taken off the case-”
“Because of you,” he interrupted.
“You have no leads, no suspects, no new information. I wouldn’t waste a moment of my time following you.”
He examined her cold, pretty face, knowing she was telling the truth. If he’d stopped to think, before flying off the handle, he would have reached the same conclusion. Crystal only made moves to feed her ego or her ambition; she was self-serving and unapologetic about it. Her ruthless personality had appealed to him at first, because he thought he’d finally found someone he didn’t have to pander to.
As it turned out, having a woman treat him as casually as he’d treated all the others wasn’t that much fun.
“Is she the one?” Crystal asked, her cool eyes assessing him.
“The one who what?”
Smiling slyly, she set her wineglass aside. “You never did me in the front seat of a car. Or on a picnic table.”
“You were more comfortable on your knees, if I recall.”
Her amused expression turned hard. “Do you even remember why you were there? In my dressing room that day?”
The question caught him off guard. They’d hurled insults back and forth, but never actually discussed the incident. Was she trying to claim he didn’t know what he’d seen? “I remember everything,” he asserted.
“Sure you do,” she said with a laugh. “You brought me flowers. It was a grand romantic gesture, for someone like you. Why did you do it?”
Women obsessed over insignificant details, he decided. “What difference does it make?”
“We had a fight the night before,” she continued, but it didn’t jog his memory. “I said I wanted to see you exclusively. I told you I didn’t want anyone but you.”
“Then you’re a liar and a cheat.”
“Goddamn it, Marc, I said I loved you. At the very least you should remember that.”
He shook his head wordlessly, surprised by her vehemence.
“Do you know what you said, in return? ‘Love someone else.’”
The conversation floated back to him, like a dream. He had said those exact words. God, he was a bitter bastard. “And you took my advice to heart, didn’t you?”
“You’re goddamned right I did. I thought we were over. If I’d ever, for one moment, imagined you’d be knocking on my door to apologize the next day, flowers in hand, I would have told Carlisle to take a hike.”
The self-righteous indignation he’d been carrying around for the past few years dissolved into faint regret. How ironic it was for him to be having this conversation with her, today of all days. Crystal was the only other woman besides Sidney he’d ever thought he’d loved, and the feeling was twice as unsettling the second time around.
“I’m sorry,” he said finally.
“Why?”
“Because, once upon a time, you were the one.”
“Oh, Marc,” she wailed, her blue eyes filling with tears. Taking his hand, she allowed him to help her up, and put her head against his chest. “You are so insufferable.”
Chapter 16
Marc
left Crystal’s residence with his mind reeling and his shoulders taut with tension.
The photos in his possession were career-destroying. Unlike the shots from Guajome Lake Park, which had caused a minor stir, these would be the end of him. If she saw them, Stokes would have his badge for sure.
It seemed unlikely that Derek DeWinter had been the photographer. His residence was below the hill Sidney’s truck had been parked on, his line of vision obscured by orange trees. Even if he’d run to higher ground, he’d never have made it in time for the main event, which had lasted all of two minutes.
A friend or accomplice could have taken the shots from another vantage point, however, after a simple phone call. Marc would have to go out to Bonsall and scope the scene.
He decided to drop in on Tony first. It was late, and for once, his laid-back friend wasn’t happy to see him.
That made two of them. Furious with himself for getting caught on film for the second time that week, and with Tony for having shady business connections, he jerked his best friend outside by the front of his shirt.
Whispers began barking hoarsely from behind the screen door.
“Tell me about everyone DeWinter deals with,” he ordered.
“I already told you,” Tony returned, shoving him backward. “I don’t know.”
He bit off a curse, feeling his anger fade away, replaced by desperation. “Have you seen anyone outside my house today?” he asked. “Taping an envelope to my garage door?”
“No. Why?”
He groaned, rubbing his hand over his eyes. A riot of sensations from the past few days assaulted him. Sidney, lifting her mouth to his. Her body tensing as he thrust inside her. Him, burying his face in her breasts as he came. What sorcery had she seduced him with? He’d completely lost control, not once, or twice, but every damned time he touched her.
“You have to go out to Bonsall with me,” he said, shaking away the disturbing images. “Case the area.”
“Are you out of your mind? I’m not suicidal.”
“You said he wasn’t dangerous.”
“Men guard marijuana fields with shotguns, Marc.”
Dangerous to Touch Page 18