He was seeking to assert dominance over her with his fierce masculine energy, but his vain efforts just aroused her more. “I'm sorry you feel that way,” she said. She gripped his arms, pulling him down to her. “Come on, Seth. Don't be coy.”
“Open up for me,” he said softly. “All the way. Ankles for earrings.” He pushed her thighs still wider and spread the lips of her sex open delicately with his fingertips. “Perfect. Show me that sweet sexy thing, all buttered up just for me.”
“I'm ready,” she urged him, arching her back.
“I know you are, sweetheart. I've got your sex juice all over my face.” He slid his hand beneath her bottom and gently nudged the blunt tip of him inside her. “God, look at you.”
“Do it,” she snapped. “Don't be a tease.”
She cried out at his first deep thrust, but not in pain. He stopped, alarmed. “You OK?”
She yanked him closer. “I'm fine, I'm great. I love it. Please, Seth.”
“You got it,” he muttered. “Nothing fancy today, sweetheart.”
He gave her exactly what she wanted, a deep, surging rhythm that caressed every part of her swollen, aching sex, to her very depths. He arched over her, the thick, heavy muscles of his shoulders taut and corded, his face rigid with concentration. Sobbing breaths gasped out of her with each plunge, and she clutched his arms and urged him on. Neither wanted anything other than that rhythm, just more of it. Hotter and faster, deep and furious and relentless, until they both exploded.
He collapsed and draped himself over her, trembling. “My God,” he said. “It's always like this with you. It scares me.”
She reached down and ran her fingers lazily through his sweat-dampened hair. “What scares you?”
He pulled out of her and folded down to his knees, hooking his arms under her legs. He clasped her hips in his arms and rested his head on her belly. “You're scaring me,” he mumbled.
“Seth,” she murmured, wiggling. “I'm all wet.”
“Yeah, and I want to rub it all over myself. Your perfume makes me crazy with lust” He inhaled, a deep, hungry whiff. She giggled at his foolishness. “I told you, I don't wear perfume.”
“I'm not talking about perfume from a bottle. I'm talking about your perfume. All the scented things you use, soap and lotion and stuff, they add to the mix, but they're only overtones. The basic perfume is like—” he stopped, burying his nose in her navel and breathing deeply, “—like a cross between honey and violets. Violets after a rainstorm. But warmer, hotter. Softer. Mix the smell of sex into it, and I'm a dead man.”
She struggled up onto her elbows and gazed at him, touched. “Why, Seth. You're a poet,” she said softly.
He looked alarmed. “No way. I'm just stating the plain facts. They just happen to sound poetic by accident.”
“Oh. I see,” she murmured. “God forbid that I should think you had a lyrical, poetic side “
He scowled at her as he pulled off the condom, wrapped it up and disposed of it. “Yeah,” he muttered suspiciously.
“God forbid.”
Raine sat up, gathering her courage. “Seth, next time—”
“What? What did I do wrong this time?”
She was startled by the sharp edge in his voice. “Nothing at all,” she said hastily. “You did everything incredibly right. I just wondered if the next time you'd let me try ... um, you know.”
He shook his head. “I don't dare guess. Spit it out, sweetheart”
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “Oral sex” she whispered. “You're always doing it to me, and I'd like to try doing it to you. But I've never tried it. So I probably wouldn't be any good.”
When she finally opened her eyes, he was gazing at her with a look of almost comical dismay on his face. “God, Raine. You don't have to ask. Do whatever you want with me. Do that, and I'll be your slave. Anytime, anywhere, and I'm not kidding. Right now, if you want.”
She blushed, and shook her head. “I'm already late. Next time.”
“I won't let you forget.” He lunged on top of her, pinning her onto the bed. “There's just one more thing I have to know before we face the day. How do you like your eggs?”
She stared at him blankly. “Eggs? I don't have any eggs, Seth.”
“Sure you do. I got breakfast stuff last night, along with the deli stuff. Eggs and bacon and orange juice and toast and coffee. With real cream. You need to get some more meat on your bones.”
He looked so pleased with himself, she had to laugh. “You were feeling pretty confident last night, huh?” she asked, caressing his face.
“Don't hold it against me.” He rubbed his cheek against her hand like a cat, then grabbed it and kissed her palm. A warm, glowing feeling heated up her chest. It had been so long since she'd had any reason to feel happy in the morning.
She glanced at the clock, and winced. “Actually, it's really late. I'd better just pop into the shower and run. I have to—”
“They can goddamn well wait until you get some breakfast into you.” His voice cut harshly over hers. “You've been opening your veins for that place for weeks. Enough already.”
She was unnerved by his uncanny grasp of all the details of her life. “How do you figure that?” she asked hesitantly.
“All I have to do is look at you.”
She winced. “That bad, huh?”
“Cut it out,” he said. “You're drop-dead gorgeous and you damn well know it. But you need to eat more. And I'm the one who's driving you to work, anyhow. I'm not doing it until you eat.”
Her eyes wandered from his scowling gaze, down over his naked, gorgeous golden body. “Do you want to shower with me?” His frown vanished, and his gaze heated up. “Oh, yeah. Only more than I want to breathe. But you know exactly what would happen. And I want you to eat breakfast”
Sensual images rushed through her mind of soapy hands slipping and sliding over flushed skin, clouds of steam rising as he pinned her against the slippery tile. Hot water pouring,
pounding.
He backed away from her, shaking his head, “You are dangerous, babe. Go quick and take your shower, or I'll fuck you again right now.”
She scurried into the bathroom and turned on the shower. She stood beneath the stream of water, amazed and grateful to feel no residue of terror or grief from a nightmare clutching at her. She was rested and relaxed, her muscles loose, filled with energy. Joyful.
She was actually hungry. She'd never felt hungry in the morning in her life. Lately, she'd begun to forget what hunger felt like altogether. But right now, bacon, eggs, toast and orange juice sounded like heaven. She danced beneath the water, humming as she worked shampoo into her hair. A dark shadow loomed on the other side of the glass door. Seth slid the door open, his eyes raking her soapy body.
“I tried to be good,” he said. “I tried to be self-controlled. I tried to be civilized and restrained. I tried to resist temptation.”
Raine rinsed foam out of her eyes and blinked at him.
“Oh? And?”
He stepped into the shower and reached for her. “I failed.”
Chapter 14
“You remember the drill?”
Raine leaned across the seat and kissed him. “Don't worry, Seth.”
She meant the smile to be reassuring, but it had the opposite effect. It made him uncomfortably aware that she wasn't taking him seriously enough. If she knew the whole truth, she'd be scared to death.
“I didn't ask if I should worry. I asked if you remember the drill.”
The hard edge in his voice made her pull away, eyes wide and wary. He took a deep breath and tried to soften his tone. “Not one foot out the door of that place without contacting me. Got it?”
“Yes. You have a lovely day, too, Seth. Have fun inspecting the warehouses.” She smiled over her shoulder at him, and was promptly swallowed into the revolving glass doors of the building.
He fought down the urge to run in after her, and distracted himself by key
ing her transmitter codes into the handheld monitor. He adjusted it until the cluster of signals were showing in the grid, spatial data streaming in a continuous flow of changing coordinates alongside the flashing icons. He punched up McCloud's number.
Connor answered on the first ring. “Yeah?”
“I need to know everything you can find out about a guy named Peter Marat,” Seth said. “Get Davy to run a check. He worked for Lazar about seventeen years ago until he mysteriously drowned.”
“What's the connection?”
“He's Raine's dad. She wants to prove that Lazar snuffed him. An apparent sailboat accident when she was a kid.”
There was a brief silence. “The plot thickens,” Connor said, in a mock ominous tone.
“Just get on it. One of you guys has to cover her while I'm in Renton. I'm heading out there now. She's at the office. I planted five Colbits on her yesterday. Here are the codes. Got a pen?”
“Hold on a sec ... yes. Go”
Seth read out the transmitter code sequences. “Key up one of the monitors and get your ass over here, fast. I don't want her uncovered. Get Sean to tail Lazar this morning “
“Yeah, sure. No problem. Hup, hup. You know, Seth, when all this is over, you and I are going to have a serious talk about your social skills.”
“No, we're not”
Seth broke the connection and edged the car back into the dense morning traffic. A window dresser was putting up Thanksgiving decorations in a shop, and he stared at him idly while he was waiting for the light A wicker cornucopia with squashes and corncobs spilling out, a papier-maché turkey, mannequins dressed in pilgrim garb. His stomach clenched. Jesse had been killed in January. The winter holidays without Jesse were staring him in the face. He wasn't ready.
Not that holidays had been any big deal to them when they were kids, on the contrary; but they had taken on more significance once they started hanging out with Hank. The holidays had been important to Hank, like some kind of emotional link to his long-dead wife, so he and Jesse had played along, grumbling all the way. Every year they'd buy a pre-roasted Safeway turkey, pumpkin pies, stuffing, all the rest of that holiday slop. They'd scarf the stuff off of paper plates and spend the night listening to Hank's old Julie Andrews and Perry Como Christmas albums, knocking back shots of Jack Daniels until Hank started getting maudlin about his lost Gladys. That was their cue to take him by the armpits and haul him off to bed. It had gotten messy and sad towards the end, when Hank was so sick, but it was as much of a family as any of them had, and they were all three of them grateful for it
For some reason, in the last few years after Hank died, he and Jesse had kept up the habit of hanging together on the holidays. They usually opted for Mexican or Thai rather than the insipid traditional stuff, but the shots of Jack deep into the night were a memorial to Hank. The first Christmas after his death had been depressing, but they'd gotten through it. They'd cracked a lot of lame jokes, clenched their teeth, tossed back the whiskey, and faced it down together.
He had no idea how he was going to face it down alone.
The swishy guy in the store window was arranging the pilgrim maiden's long yellow hair. Seth was comparing the Dynel floss to the warm gold of Raine's hair when the idea came to him. The perfect way to get through Christmas unscathed.
He could kidnap Raine and take her away to the coast with him. Find a hotel room with an ocean view and a Jacuzzi tub and spend the whole holiday in an endorphin-induced haze. Ply her with champagne, hand-feed her oysters on the half shell in between bouts of hot, juicy sex while rain pounded against the window, and surf pounded on the shore. White foam surging across the sand in sensual, rhythmic pulses.
Hell, yes. He almost shouted with glee. That would be one righteous mother of a distraction. Jesse would have been proud of him. He could persuade her. He could play her like an instrument. She was so sweet, so affectionate. It would be awesome. He could hardly wait. He got so excited, thinking about it, that for a minute or two, he completely forgot what the hell he was here for.
Jesse, Lazar, Novak. Bloody retribution. Christ, what was he thinking. Everything was subject to this investigation. Everything.
Still, a part of his mind clung stubbornly to the idea of himself and Raine, the hot tub, the pounding surf. Maybe he could get this fucking nightmare wrapped up by then, and Christmas at the coast with her could be his reward. Assuming he lived through it.
Horns blared. Someone howled an obscenity. The light was green, and he was still staring at the pilgrim maiden's vacuous smile. He laid his foot on the gas and forced himself to remember what Jesse's body had looked like when Novak was done with him.
Just the image to shake a guy's priorities right back into place.
“Can you wait for me?” Raine asked the cabbie. “I won't be long “
The cabbie slumped down in his seat and rummaged for a paperback book. 'The meter's gonna be running “ he informed her.
“That'll be fine,” she assured him.
She rechecked the Lynnwood address on the scrap of paper and walked slowly up to the bungalow. She rang the bell. The door opened and a white-haired woman peered out from behind the chain. “Yes?”
“Dr. Fischer?”
That would be me.”
“I’m Raine Cameron. I called you this morning regarding the autopsy report of Peter Lazar.”
The older woman hesitated, and unhooked the chain. “Come in.”
The doctor seated her in a little parlor, and brought out coffee and a plate of sugar cookies. She sat down on the opposite end of the sofa.
“So, Ms. Cameron,” she said briskly. “How can I help you? I would have been happy to answer your questions on the phone.”
“I didn't have the privacy I needed, unfortunately. I want to ask a few questions about this report.” She fished out the manila envelope that the Severin Bay Coroner's office had sent her.
The doctor's eyebrows snapped together as she scanned the sheets of paper inside. “This was pretty clear and straightforward, as I recall. It was ruled an accident. I remember it quite well. I was the only doctor in the area who had a specialization in pathology, so I was called upon to do autopsies in surrounding communities fairly often. We didn't have many incidents of suspicious death in a place as small as Severin Bay, though. They tended to stick in one’s memory.”
“Do you remember actually doing the autopsy?” Raine asked.
“Yes. It was all just as the report states. Toxicology samples indicate that he'd been drinking heavily. There was a blow to the back of the head, presumably from the boom of the sailboat There was a nasty storm that afternoon, and we've all seen that happen. There was water and air mixed in the lungs, and water in the stomach. Indicating that he did indeed drown, if that’s what you're wondering.”
Raine searched for words. “Was there any reason to think that the death could have been ... anything other than an accident?”
The doctor's lips thinned. “If there was, I certainly would have indicated it in the report.”
“I'm not questioning your professionalism,” Raine assured her. “I'm just, well—is it conceivable that someone could have hit him? Was there a mark on the boom that corresponded to the head wound?”
“I suppose theoretically that someone could have hit him,” the doctor said grudgingly. “But several eyewitnesses saw him leave Stone Island alone, and the blow didn't break the skin. I can't imagine that there would be any corresponding mark on an aluminum boom. Particularly since the boat was capsized for hours afterwards.”
Raine placed her barely nibbled cookie on the saucer, fighting down the clench and roll of impending nausea. She rose to her feet, hanging on to her control. If she were going to have a panic attack, she certainly didn't want an audience. “I appreciate you giving me your time like this, Dr. Fischer,” she said faintly. “I'm sorry if my questions seemed out of place.”
“Quite all right.” Dr. Fischer followed Raine back to the foyer and took her co
at out of the closet. She handed the coat to Raine, and started to speak. She stopped herself, shaking her head.
Raine froze, halfway into her coat. “What?”
The doctor twisted her hands in the pockets of her cardigan. “I don't know if this is relevant, or useful to you. But you're not the only one who was interested in the results of that report.”
Raine froze into place, forgetting that her arms were twisted behind her into the sleeves of her coat. Dr. Fischer reached out and took the coat lapels, pulling until the coat sat straight upon Raine's shoulders. She gave Raine a little pat, as if she were a child. “Two FBI agents came to me, asking very much the same questions as you did. They seemed frustrated that Peter Lazar had gotten himself drowned. Convinced that I didn't know my job. Arrogant jerks, both of them.”
Raine tried to swallow, but her mouth was too dry. “What did they want from Peter Lazar?”
“Well, they weren't sharing any details with me, but there was a good bit of rumor and speculation at the time.”
“About what?”
The doctor's face tightened, as if she regretted opening up the can of worms. “Oh, the wild goings-on out at Stone Island, among other things. The place was aptly named, they say, for the quantity of drugs that went through the place. There were some truly legendary parties out there. Very few local people were ever invited, but everyone loved to tell tales. Most of it sheer nonsense, I'm sure, but you know how people are. And Alix made a splash, with her glamorous wardrobe and her celebrity attitude. Everyone loved to gossip about her.”
“Did you know her?” Raine asked cautiously.
“By sight,” the doctor said with a shrug. “She got her medical care in the city.”
Raine hesitated. “Those agents,” she ventured. “Do you remember their names?”
Dr. Fischer's eyes crinkled up. “You're in luck. The card they gave me got sucked into the void years ago, but I remember one of the names just because it was similar to that of an old college boyfriend of mine. Haley was the older one. Bill Haley.”
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