She went from simmer to boil so fast she didn’t have time to bite back a cry as her orgasm exploded.
Sean nibbled her inner thighs, but his kisses were hotter, his hands moving up her sides as his mouth covered her stomach, kissing her ribs, her breasts, her neck, and suddenly he devoured her mouth again, hot and focused. His rock-hard body pressed against her, quivering with restraint, and his hands reached behind her neck, his fingers entwined with her long, thick hair.
Her hands grabbed his shoulders to steady herself.
“Luce,” he whispered on a hot breath. “I can’t get enough of you. I’ve missed you this week. God, I’ve missed you.” He kissed her jawline, then her neck, his tongue and mouth claiming every inch of her flesh as they edged their way to the nape of her neck. He licked the tender hollow spot at her throat, sending another jolt of electric-charged desire through her body. He chuckled softly.
“You sound pleased with yourself,” she said, her voice sounding nothing like her.
“I am. With me. With you. Us.” He drew her earlobe into his mouth and nibbled. He touched her everywhere, his talented fingers knowing exactly which muscle to massage hard, which to skim, which to kiss.
She wanted to explore Sean, but his skin was hot and flushed and he already had his pants off. When had that happened? She couldn’t remember. She felt drunk, even without drinking any wine.
He reached down to the floor and it wasn’t until he pulled his wallet out of his jeans that she realized what he was doing. She had never paid much attention when he’d put on a condom in the past. It had embarrassed her a bit; she didn’t know why, didn’t want to think about it. Now she found herself watching, intrigued, and feeling playful. She reached out and put her hands on his as he rolled the condom on.
Why was he shaking? He was always so confident in bed, so positive he could make her happy, and he did. Was he nervous?
Sean had made her more comfortable with sex than the two partners who had come before him. She was emboldened as she pushed his hands away and finished putting on the condom. She ran her fingers lightly over the base of his quivering penis, so solid, but covered in soft, warm skin.
She surprised herself again when she sat up and kissed the tip.
“You do that and I’m going to completely lose it,” he said through clenched teeth.
He urged her back down on the bed, his mouth open and seeking hers. He kissed her as if it were the last time. His penis touched her at just the right spot, as if it had a mind of its own. He thrust into her quickly and she gasped from the sudden invasion. He held himself still, his hands clasped in hers, a bead of sweat dripping from his chest to hers.
She’d always been on top, more comfortable when she was in control. She hesitated, just a fraction, but Sean was so in tune with her body and emotions that he knew what she had thought.
He whispered in her ear, “Just say the word, Luce. I’m yours, any way you want.”
She kissed him hard, his understanding and faith in her overwhelming and so appreciated.
“Just like this,” she managed to say.
As he started to move within her, slowly at first, the wonderful wave Lucy was becoming familiar with every time she and Sean were together grew quickly. They developed a rhythm that was both new and familiar; they were still exploring, but amazingly perceptive as they each anticipated the changes within the other.
Sean knew he wasn’t going to last. Not with Lucy beneath him for the first time, the trust and faith she’d placed in him as overpowering as the sexual combustibility burning between them. She didn’t know or understand what her touch, her scent, her body did to him. He could never get enough of her, never wanted to get enough. He could make love to her daily and enjoy it each and every time. She was becoming bolder; he pictured her lips on his cock and he couldn’t hold back. Didn’t want to.
“Lucy,” he breathed into her neck, then he stretched up and stared at her glowing face, her eyes closed, her mouth open, her skin flushed as her body kept pace with his increased tempo. He groaned as his orgasm hit, wishing he could have held off until Lucy was done, but she had completely undone him. He rocked against her, bringing her to her peak, watching as her chest rose and her back arched. Her hands squeezed his ass so hard it would have hurt if it didn’t feel so extraordinarily good.
Her body froze and she let out a quiet cry as her pleasure poured through her. Then, simultaneously, every one of her muscles relaxed.
Sean collapsed onto his back, pulling her with him, holding her for a long minute as she basked in her femininity and power.
“You are amazing,” he said before realizing the words were out of his mouth.
“So are you,” she said with a smile.
He kissed her. Then again. He could make love to her all night. He wanted to.
“We need to eat. And sleep.”
“We do,” she agreed, but made no move to get up.
He kissed her again. “Stay.”
“I couldn’t move if I wanted.”
He smiled and reluctantly rose from the bed. He walked to the bathroom and stared at his reflection in the mirror.
“Sean Rogan, you are hopelessly, irrevocably, in love.”
He wanted to tell her. But he didn’t want to scare her. Lucy wanted slow and steady. He would be slow and steady.
For now.
He finished in the bathroom, and returned to find Lucy sitting on the edge of the bed in his T-shirt eating one of the sandwiches.
“I thought I said don’t move.”
“I worked up an appetite.”
Sean found his boxers on the floor and stepped into them, then sat next to Lucy and grabbed a sandwich.
“This doesn’t count as our weekend away,” Sean said, reiterating what he’d told her last night.
“It doesn’t?” Lucy feigned ignorance.
“Nope. We’ll call this a prequel.”
She sipped her wine with a smile. “Fine by me.”
EIGHTEEN
Wade Barnett sat in the interview room with his lawyer, James Thorpe. Suzanne hadn’t dealt with Thorpe before, but Panetta knew him. “Five hundred dollars an hour,” he’d grumbled to her before they walked into the room. “Attorney for the rich and infamous.”
“I gather you’re not a fan of his?”
“So perceptive, for a Fed.”
She rolled her eyes and opened the door. “Mr. Barnett, thank you for coming down here this morning.”
“I didn’t have a choice,” Wade grumbled.
“You always have a choice,” Suzanne said.
“Then I’m leaving.”
“Well, of course, you’re not under arrest, but I can fix that since you lied to me Thursday. Did you know that lying to a federal law enforcement agent is a crime? Now, if I hadn’t joined Detective Panetta, we wouldn’t be able to arrest you right now. But, because you lied to me—a federal agent—I came up with a damn good reason to get a warrant for your apartment and your office.”
“You can’t—”
Thorpe put a hand on Barnett’s forearm. “Hear them out.”
Suzanne was having fun with the interrogation. This was her favorite part of the job.
“Thank you,” Suzanne said, filling her tone with sincerity. Barnett was wary. He was squirming. He was acting so guilty she expected him to make a full confession this morning before lunch.
She’d go out and celebrate. With champagne.
Panetta said, “Mr. Barnett, you told us on Thursday that you didn’t recognize any of these young women.” He spread the four photos in front of Barnett.
Barnett didn’t say anything. Suzanne took out the New York Post photo of Barnett and Alanna Andrews kissing in the Barnett box at Yankee Stadium.
“Do you remember this?”
No response.
“Mr. Barnett,” Suzanne said, “please answer the question. Do you remember taking Alanna Andrews to this Yankees game? That is you, correct? And Ms. Andrews?”
Again, he didn’t answer. He stared at the pictures.
Suzanne could play this game all day.
“Mr. Thorpe,” she said, “your client can answer questions now, or he can answer them from Rikers. Jurisdiction can go either way. New York doesn’t have a death penalty. The United States does.”
Thorpe leaned over and whispered in Barnett’s ear.
It still took Barnett a full minute before he replied. “Yes.”
“Yes, this is you and Ms. Andrews kissing?”
He nodded.
“That wasn’t too difficult, was it?”
Thorpe said, “Agent Madeaux, with all due respect, cut to the chase. Of what do you accuse my client?”
“I haven’t accused him of anything except lying to a federal officer about knowing these women.”
Thorpe said, “When you approached him in his office, he was in shock. He didn’t understand what you meant.”
“He didn’t understand, ‘Do you recognize any of these women?’ ” Suzanne shook her head. “I have a witness who says that you met this young lady,” she tapped Jessica Bell’s photograph, “at a New Year’s Eve party. Less than a mile from where this college student”—she pointed to Heather Garcia’s image—“was murdered.”
Barnett was slowly shaking his head. Suzanne continued. “I have solid proof that you knew two of the victims but lied to me about it. When we search your home and office, I’m pretty confident that we’ll find evidence that you killed them.”
“No. No, I didn’t kill anyone.”
“I’ll tell you my theory,” she said. “I think you have some problems, sexually speaking.”
Barnett laughed. “I have no problems in bed.”
“Let me just play this out a bit. There was this website—it’s not there anymore, but fortunately, we have an archive of it. It’s called Party Girl. Are you familiar with it?”
Barnett didn’t say anything, but he was no longer laughing.
“Mr. Barnett, answer the question.”
Thorpe and Barnett consulted, then Barnett said, “I’m not certain.”
“You’re not certain of what? Whether you have sexual problems or that you visited the Party Girl website in order to have online mutual masturbation parties?”
Thorpe cleared his throat. “That’s uncalled-for.”
“On the contrary,” Panetta said, “we have four dead women; two of whom we know your client associated with.”
Barnett said, “I dated Alanna for a while. We broke up about a week after the Yankees game.”
“Why?”
“She found out I was cheating on her.”
“With whom?”
He didn’t say anything.
“Please answer,” Suzanne snapped.
Barnett closed his eyes. “With Erica.”
Suzanne avoided the overwhelming urge to give Vic Panetta a high five.
“Erica Ripley?” Suzanne gave the name of the Cinderella Strangler’s second victim.
“Yes,” he confirmed.
Instead of celebrating, she slid over Kirsten Benton’s senior portrait. “Do you know this girl?”
Barnett was shaking. “Yes,” he whispered.
“How?”
“She’s a friend of Jessica’s.”
“Where is she?”
He stared at her and looked surprised. “What do you mean?”
“She came to New York last weekend to stay with Jessica Bell. Jessica is dead; Kirsten is missing.”
“She told me her name was Ashleigh.”
Suzanne glanced at her notes—they were Lucy Kincaid’s meticulous notes that she’d brought into the interrogation—and sure enough, Kirsten’s Party Girl screen name was Ashleigh. Why would Barnett deny he knew who she really was? Maybe because he didn’t know—he knew the girls by their screen names. Except he had known Jessica’s and Erica’s real names. Suzanne put aside the discrepancy to ponder later, and asked, “Where is Kirsten Benton?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’d better figure it out.”
Thorpe said, “My client said he doesn’t know where the girl is. It sounds to me like you’re fishing.”
“Hardly,” Suzanne snapped. “We have proof that he personally knew three of the four Cinderella Strangler victims.” She slapped her hand on Heather Garcia’s photo. “Did you know Heather?”
Barnett nodded.
“Sleep with her?”
He hesitated, then nodded.
“Did you kill these women?”
“No. No. No. I did not kill anyone. I swear on my father’s grave, I didn’t kill anyone!”
When Suzanne and Panetta walked out of the interview room fifteen minutes later, Barnett was on his way to arraignment for lying to a federal officer—Suzanne’s way of making sure he didn’t flee before she had hard proof he was guilty of murder.
“Good job,” Panetta said.
“I feel like I should take that Lucy Kincaid out to celebrate. I can’t believe I missed the connection between Alanna Andrews and Wade Barnett.”
“His name didn’t come up until this week,” Panetta said. “And it’s me who should be beating myself up. You didn’t even get the case until after New Year’s.”
“We got him now. It’s just a matter of crossing the t’s and dotting the i’s.”
Her boss, SSA Steven Blackford, walked down her cubicle row. “Good work, Suzanne, Detective.” Blackford shook Panetta’s hand. “But it’s not over yet. I have a warrant here that you’ll probably want to execute personally.”
She smiled. Life was good. She’d stopped a killer.
Really, it seemed a sin to have this much fun putting away the bad guys.
NINETEEN
Sean’s cell phone rang when he stepped out of the shower. He grabbed it, not recognizing the number.
“Rogan.”
“This is Trey Danielson.”
Sean quickly dried off as he said, “Where the hell have you been? I called you half a dozen times and told you to get your ass back to Woodbridge.”
“I got the messages, but you don’t understand.”
“Explain yourself.”
Sean wasn’t in the mood to listen to Trey’s excuses, but he didn’t want the kid wandering around New York causing problems for him while he searched for Kirsten.
“I should have stopped her last summer. I knew what she was doing, and I was more angry than anything, and hurt, and I said things I shouldn’t have. I turned my back on her, and now she’s in trouble—”
Sean cut him off. He forced his voice to be calm. “I understand what you’re saying, Trey, but consider that you are the only person Kirsten has contacted since she disappeared. She trusts you. I’m in New York and I’m not leaving until I find her.”
“Neither am I.”
“Trey, there are a lot of things going on that you don’t know about. I can’t have you getting in the middle of it.”
“But I found something. That’s why I’m calling you.”
Sean slipped on his jeans and left the bathroom. “What did you find?”
“Her phone.”
Sean caught Lucy’s eye and mouthed Trey.
“You found Kirsten’s phone. How?”
“Some guy called me. Said he was working his way through her speed dials. I was number three.”
Sean didn’t know what to think. “What’s his name?”
“Ryan.”
“Ryan what?”
“I don’t know.”
“I want his address.”
“I’m in this for the long haul, Sean. I need to find her.”
“Give me his address.”
“I’ll meet you there.”
“You don’t know who he is or if he knows something about her disappearance.”
“I called you, didn’t I? I’ll admit, I’m nervous, okay? Her message freaked me out. It’s not like her! But if I have to talk to him myself, I will.”
Sean hit the hotel-room desk with his palm. “I’m
on my way,” he said through clenched teeth. “Where?”
“I’m at a Starbucks near his apartment. Third and Sixty-first.”
“Don’t move. I’ll be there in less than thirty minutes.”
Sean hung up and told Lucy, “Someone found Kirsten’s phone and called Trey because he was on speed dial.”
He finished dressing and said, “Do you want to come?”
She shook her head. “While you were in the shower, Suzanne called and said they’d arrested Wade Barnett and she was about to go out with a search warrant. He admitted to knowing Kirsten by her screen name Ashleigh, but denied knowing anything about the Party Girl site.”
“He’s lying.”
“Probably. He’s now admitted knowing all four of the Cinderella Strangler victims, but denied killing them, and says he hasn’t seen Kirsten in two months.”
Sean sensed that Lucy’s mind was elsewhere. “What’s bothering you? Something is on your mind.”
“I want to know more about him. I read all the newspaper articles yesterday, about his background, and his efforts to preserve some of the historical buildings—”
“Lucy, some bad guys aren’t one hundred percent evil. It doesn’t mean he isn’t a killer.”
She frowned and pursed her mouth. “I know that. And if he was using the Party Girl site for cybersex or real sex, then he’s a jerk. And he could be a killer. But, well, I don’t know that he’ll fit the profile.”
“Hold it—you told Suzanne yesterday that there wasn’t enough information to come up with a profile.”
“There wasn’t because they didn’t know whether it was sexually motivated or not.”
“Why does that make a difference?”
“On Jessica Bell’s autopsy report it stated that she hadn’t had sex for several hours, or longer, before she was killed.”
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