Ava sat on the edge and waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. Still she couldn’t see his outline on the couch. Against her own good judgement Ava eased off the bed and tiptoed across the room.
Definitely a bad idea.
Her heart plummeted at the sight, burning a trail through her on its descent. Keen lay on the living-room floor. The heft of his bare chest rose and fell with easy breaths. One hand stretched over his shoulder and bent at the elbow, cushioning his head. His wounded shoulder and arm stretched out beside him. His scar puckered in a jagged line discolored from the rest of his smooth bronzed skin.
Ava’s gaze slid south and reached another discolored scar on the left side of his lower abdomen. This one was older and looked very similar to another scar on his right side just below his ribs.
“Oh God.” Instinctively she stepped forward with her hand outstretched. The need to heal and protect his marred body took hold.
In a flash he pulled a gun from beneath the small throw and aimed its barrel at her chest. His eyes opened. Quicker than he’d brandished it, Keen flipped on the safety and set the pistol next to his leg.
He sat. His gaze skittered up her bare legs and she dragged hers from his naked chest. Their eyes met and held. Her pulse raced and her body quickened in preparation for the feast it desired, the pistol forgotten.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I just… I came to see if you needed a pillow or blanket. It didn’t occur to me the other night.” She lied
“I can sleep anywhere, standing, sitting. I’m good.”
She hesitated to leave. Her gaze fell yet again to his chest.
“What?” His was gruff, bordering rude.
“How many times have you been shot?”
“Go to bed, Ava.”
“Or what?”
“Or I’ll do something we’ll both regret.”
Lust flash-fried her brain. A sheen of sweat broke over her belly. Her chest rose and fell in erratic pants. “I have my fill of regrets, but this wouldn’t be one.”
His eyes flashed hot, but cooled before he spoke. “It would be for me. Now, go to bed.”
Pain backed her up a step, but she couldn’t go back to the numbness of conciliatory living.
“How many times have you been shot?” The steel in her own voice surprised her.
Maybe it surprised him too. “Three.”
“My mother called to tell me you were in ICU. I was up to my elbows in techs, agents, and precious evidence of the strangler’s next to last murder. For the first time in my life I didn’t care about catching the bad guy. When you woke I wanted to be at your bedside. I would have been, if I wasn’t two days from civilization in the thick of the Boise National Forrest.”
He kept stubbornly silent.
“What else happened, Keen? How’d you get the other two scars?”
“Maybe later, okay?”
“No, it’s not okay. You’ve been shot three times. You nearly died the last time.”
“I’m fine, Ava.” His arms shot wide, and then his hands scrubbed over his chest. “My body just has character now.” He collapsed onto the floor. “It’s been a long couple of days and we need to get some sleep.” His tone was firm. His words dismissive.
“Fine.”
She deserved his brush off. After all, she’d done the same to him. Ava allowed herself one last look before turning back to the bed. She hit the light on the way, plunged the room into faux night, and tossed herself onto the mattress.
The covers irritated her heated skin. They trapped heat and threatened to bake her to death. Not to mention each inhale grazed her nipples against the heavy fabric.
Her fist pounded the pillow. It only created lumps. She flipped onto her stomach. Bad move. The tip of her swollen clit pulsed onto the firm mattress. Her breasts also had full-on contact. A moan bled from her lips. She drowned it into her pillow, flopped onto her back, and tossed the covers off her primed body.
Shit, it wouldn’t take much to make her come. One finger. The scent of his skin.
“Go to sleep, Ava.”
“I can’t.”
“You can do anything you put your mind to.”
“Even seduce you?”
“No,” he barked.
“I can try.”
Three days ago she wouldn’t have had the guts to say that. Two days ago she would have curled into a ball at the rejection. One day ago—who was she kidding—one hour ago she wouldn’t have had the balls to do this.
Ava arched her back off the bed. Her fingers dug into the soft cotton of her shirt and slipped it over her head.
“I may be a virgin, Keen, but that doesn’t mean I don't understand desire. It doesn’t mean you haven’t made me come a thousand different ways, a thousand different times, over the last eleven years.”
“Ava,” he warned.
Her hands cascaded down her sides, molding to the curve of her back and the swell of her bottom. Up they traveled, teasing the swell of her lips for the briefest of seconds. A moan broke free and she let it seep into the chilled air.
“Fucking hell,” Keen growled.
“I need this. I need to have you, if only in my mind. I need to come.” Ava tweaked her nipples. Blood rushed to the tender peaks. She pinched again, harder. Her back bowed. She rustled her legs back and forth enjoying the pressure they placed on her swollen sex. “Yes.”
“Ava, don’t do this.” Desperation clung to Keen’s voice, a desperation she understood all too well.
“Make me stop,” she dared.
A groan, sexy and sweet, rumbled from the other side of the room. “I can’t make myself stop. How am I supposed to make you?”
“You’re not.” Ava bent her knees and spread her legs wide. Cold lapped at her hot flesh like Keen had one time after drinking ice water during their last summer together. The only time she’d ever let his face wander south.
Her father and the boys had taken the boat as usual, but stayed in the bay, catching specks. Ava had felt herself pulling away. In a desperate effort to push past her insecurities and salvage their relationship she’d driven the jet ski to the boat and dared him to come with her. Through cat calls and boos he’d dove into the water and paddled to her. She’d stolen him away to her favorite private marsh. They necked for hours. The sun heated her skin to the point of melting and Keen’s practiced hands hadn’t helped.
“Do you remember the last time on the marsh?” she asked.
“Panties stay on.” His response came in an almost pained cry of ecstasy.
That had been her unbreakable rule. That day he’d nibbled and kissed her clit through the thick layer of her bikini bottoms. She’d been mindless, right at the precipice of orgasm—much like she was now—and he’d side stepped her rule.
His fingers slipped into the edge of her swimsuit, pulled it to the side, and his icy tongue lapped her into his mouth.
“I never wanted you to see my scars, but I’ve shucked the rule.” She slid two fingers over her labia, bottom to top, spreading her slick excitement over the primed nub.
“You’re not wearing panties?”
“No. And I’m quite wet.”
“Fuck, Ava.”
She couldn’t hear the lewd smack of his flesh—not like it had been when Annelise had made her watch a porno—but his breaths came faster and there was a rustle of fabric. She knew he touched himself. Her ass cheeks clenched at the image her brain concocted. Keen’s powerful body bowed. His fist clasping his girth. The drive of his hips as he pumped his silky length in and out of her.
“I can see you,” he moaned. “The light is reflecting off your bathroom mirror onto your bed. I can make out your silhouette. The bend of your knees. The arch of your back. The points at the swells of your breasts.”
Instead of making her shrink, the declaration emboldened her. “Good.”
“You’re not touching yourself enough.” A fine strain bordered his words.
“If I do, I’ll come,
and I don’t want this to end. Not yet.”
Ava turned onto her knees, straightened, and faced Keen. With the moonlight filtering in through the bathroom mirror she couldn’t see him. Though she had told him this was about her, it was about him, about him seeing all of her—even the parts she didn’t like.
Her left hand toyed with her nipples, but she let her right hand drop to the junction of her hips. She held his gaze, or at least where she thought his gaze might be, while she ran a finger over each gnarled scar. A tear welled in one eye. Her index finger looped her erect peak and twisted. “Oh, yes.”
She pulled again. Her hips bucked. She longed to let her fingers drop to her pulsing clitoris, but she hadn’t stroked every puckered line.
“Do it again,” Keen breathed.
Her finger switched breasts, coiled, and yanked.
“Shit.”
Ava flattened her palm over all her scars. Slowly her fingers lowered, bracketing that raw bundle of nerves. Her hips lunged forward. She pressed down. “Keen.”
“I see you. I fucking see you. Damnit, you’re so beautiful.” The curses made his confession all the more sweet.
“I’m swollen and ready.” Ava rode her hand. Her breaths deepened. The sweet edge of oblivion caressed her.
He growled. “You’re ready for me.” The restraint slipped from his tone.
“Yes. I’m ready for you.” Her left hand slid from her breast, over her belly, across her hip, to her bottom. She dug her nails into her cheek and pulled. “I’m so ready. I can’t wait.”
“Come, Ave. Come for me.” He hollered and shouted his own release while she silently arched into her own bittersweet release.
It coursed through her, searing away the past, the pain, and the hurt. It wrung her muscles like wet rags, rubberized her bones. It zapped her angst and fear. Then it was over.
She collapsed onto her heels. Her quivering arms hung by her sides. Her chest heaved with shuddered gasps. His panted breaths rolled across the room, matching her own. Never had it been like this. Not on her own. Not with Keen all those years ago.
Before, she’d been a willing, but reserved, participant in their love play. Tonight she’d given herself over to the experience, to Keen. He hadn’t taken her, but neither had he been able to completely deny her offering.
His breathing slowed to near silence. It rippled across the room in a cold wave, severing their connection. Instinct begged her to cover her nakedness. She ignored it. The vulnerability gave her an odd sense of vitality, as though she’d just taken her first real breath in thirty-three years of existing. She lay on her side, stretched out on the soft sheet, propped her head on the pillow, and continued facing Keen though she still couldn’t see him.
Her chirping phone broke the silence. She debated declining the call. Gray would just yell some more and ruin her post-orgasmic peace. But she swiped the screen and snapped into the receiver. “What?”
“Get down to headquarters now. You and Hunt,” Gray ordered.
“Make me.”
She saw him then. Keen’s bare chest materialized from the dark. Her eyes cataloged the dips and swells of his physique, the scars, and the throw around his otherwise naked waist.
“What is it?” he asked. Her gaze lifted to his. Regret? Was that regret that clouded his blue eyes, or concern?
In her ear, papers shuffled. She kicked the mouth piece up and whispered, “Gray wants us at HQ.”
Keen’s gaze narrowed on her breasts for a fraction of a second before flying back to her face.
“What time did you get back from Angola?” Gray asked.
“An hour ago, if that. Why?” Suspicion lined her voice.
“There’s been another murder.”
18
They walked off the elevator and headed toward Winslow and Abbott’s office. Keen hadn’t said a word since he ordered Ava to come. His inner monologue though, read like a bad episode of Judge Judy. Weak testimony. Even weaker defenses. Lots of self-deprecating. Even more cussing.
What the fuck had he just done? Rules were rules for a goddamned reason. Ava’d had hers. He created his after she knocked his heart out of his chest.
Never take what you can’t have.
He couldn’t have Ava, not like he wanted or needed to have her. So, why the mother fuck had he let himself succumb to the scent of her arousal, the whimpers and moans of her desire, the hints of desperation in her voice, the shadows of her undulating curves?
Who the hell was he kidding? As much as he hated himself for buckling, he’d do it again if given the chance.
Anger, the ugly emotion he didn’t like to admit he sheltered toward Ava was the only thing that kept him from gripping her hips and plunging so deep inside her he’d never find himself. As amazing as the experience would’ve been, he couldn’t lose himself again. It had taken a long time and a lot of bullets to do it in the first place.
He didn’t want to hurt her either. Not emotionally. Not physically. Had he gone to her tonight, he wouldn’t have been able to control his charged passion. His bruised cock could testify to that.
Ava stopped outside the office door. He drew a lungful of air and waited. She stepped backward.
“Look on the bright side. With the time of death being nine p.m. yesterday, you have an alibi. You’re no longer a suspect.”
Her tousled mane shook. “Somehow, it’s not all that comforting. Someone else is dead.”
They walked through the door. Ten or more sets of eyes followed them through the rows of short cubicles to Winslow’s door and through the glass of his fish tank office.
“Took you long enough.” His voice sounded like sandpaper on rocks. Winslow raked his hands over his face. He dropped the file he’d been reading onto his desk and stretched back in his chair.
“You look like hell,” Keen said.
The man’s rumpled suit looked much like the one he’d worn three nights ago. The whites of his eyes were no longer blood-shot, but two Easter eggs dyed red and decorated with the pupils.
“If you want to make out later, I’ll go brush my teeth.” Winslow sneered.
“Tempting,” Keen mused.
“Let me get this straight. I tell you to stick around.” He sliced a finger at Ava. “I say stay close, and you take off out of the damn state.”
Keen drew his attention from Ava. “You told me to stay close? I didn’t get that memo, but now that you’ve hit on me, I’ll be sure to.” He winked.
“We never said we went out of state,” Ava cut in.
“No, you didn’t say you went to Louisiana, but that’s the only way you’d have gotten all this information.” Winslow gestured to the clutter on his desk.
Keen shrugged in answer. He wasn’t going to confirm what Winslow knew to be true. From the smile that slowly grew on the man’s face, neither was he going to demand an explanation.
Winslow gestured for them to have a seat and they complied. “I have to admit, as much as it pains me, you two are downright saviors.” His red gaze shifted to Ava. “I never liked you for this Ava, but damn, with the evidence it was looking real bad. It’s still bad. Just not for you.”
He rubbed at his monumental shoulder. “I’ve got two dead lawmen and a killer who’s dropped off the grid.”
Two dead lawmen. Keen’s gut clenched.
“Who’s the third victim?” Ava whispered as though any volume would shatter her reprieve.
“I hate to be the one to tell you this.” Winslow’s gaze bore into Ava’s. The rise and fall of her chest stilled. “He killed Stan Watts.”
“No.” Her hands clamped against her temples.
“Who’s Stan Watts?” Keen met Winslow’s gaze.
“They worked together,” he answered.
“What kind of relationship did you have with Stan?” Winslow asked pointedly.
“A contentious one.” Her words were muffled by her wrists. She sat slowly and dropped her hands. “We worked in the same office, saw each other almost daily, but w
e weren’t close. He was good at his job, but never as good as he thought he was. I tried to keep him grounded, focused, and he didn’t always appreciate the help.”
“Did many people know this?” Winslow jotted notes in the open file.
“Stan could get loud about it at times. Indignant.” Her narrow shoulders shrugged. “Most people in the office knew about it. I have no idea how Rory Coghlan would know.”
“I think I know.” Winslow tossed a file in Ava’s direction. “Coghlan’s last known address is two blocks down from yours.”
“What the fuck?” Keen’s fists clench. He jumped from the chair and began pacing.
Ava slammed the file onto the desk. The thud resounded in the small space. She lowered her head to the page.
“Have you talked to the landlord?” Keen barked.
“He’s still paying his bill, but the man hasn’t seen Coghlan for three months and two days.”
“What makes the landlord know the last time he saw Coghlan down to the day?” Ava’s head canted.
“Coghlan gave him cash for the next six month’s rent. For a man who usually has to chase people down to get his money that’s enough easy money to make you mark the day,” Winslow said.
“Where’d he get the money?” Ava asked in an amazingly calm voice.
Keen didn’t trust himself to say much right now.
“He was working as a janitor for Corcoran Gallery. And get this,” Winslow’s scowl threatened to break his face. “Corcoran uses the same company for badges and uniforms as your office. Shit, our offices too. I have a feeling he spent time snooping around your workplace, listening to gossip, asking questions.”
Ava flipped a page in the file. “Tell me what you know about his younger years.”
“It seems he would have rather been a painter with his work displayed at the Corcoran than been a janitor for it. He dropped out of LSU’s college of art after six rather successful semesters. He moved to New York after that. Ithaca for a year, then NYC for two. He ended up in DC one year ago. We’re working on birth records, but he’s had some pretty fancy fakes done. It’ll take some time.”
Painted Walls Page 17