At Close Range

by Jessica Andersen

  He didn’t bother to mention that the unit’s designer was a former Bureau man who’d shown him the trick. He wanted her good and scared.

  But instead she came right back at him, hissing, “And I would’ve had you flat on your back thirty seconds after you touched me if I hadn’t recognized you.”

  He snorted. “Baloney. I’ve got weight, height and reach on you. You couldn’t take me if your life depended on it. In fact, I bet you—”

  She snaked a foot behind his ankle, planted her opposite knee in his solar plexus and knocked him to the floor. His breath whooshed out of his lungs more from surprise than impact, and he lay there for a moment, sprawled half-beneath the wide lab table.

  Cassie flowed to her feet with more skill than he’d expected from an evidence tech, and pressed the sole of her canvas sneaker across his throat. “You don’t grow up with four brothers without learning that quicker beats bigger every time.”

  Before Seth’s rational side could protest, he grabbed her foot and twisted sharply to bring her down. He threw out an arm and caught her waist to break her fall, then when she grabbed his arm and parried with an elbow jab to his throat, he decided enough was enough. He pinned her squirming body to the floor with his full weight.

  Aware that he was likely crushing her, he scowled down. “Quicker’s better than bigger, eh? Now what are you going to do?”

  Her face was flushed and she breathed heavily beneath him, but she didn’t look the slightest bit cowed. “I’m going to fight dirty. Just remember, you asked for it.”

  He expected a knee to the crotch, and tangled his legs around hers to guard against the move. But he was unprepared for her to reach a hand between them and grab his tender flesh as though she were going to squeeze and twist.

  Shock and a roar of heat paralyzed him for the half second she needed, and she neatly reversed their positions so she straddled him, literally holding him at her mercy. But instead of flashing with triumph, her eyes darkened. Instead of crowing with victory, she hitched in a breath and a dark flush washed up her neck, visible in the bright fluorescent lights.

  Seth knew damn well what she was feeling. He might try to tell himself that this was about the job, the case, her protection, but it was really about the two of them, about the fact that he couldn’t be in a room with her and not feel the heat of attraction that had bound them together since the first moment they’d met, when he’d been polite and she’d bitten his head off.

  It wasn’t love at first sight. There would be no second chance at love for him. But it had been want at first sight. Lust at first sight.

  At least on his part.

  And looking up at her, at the way the pulse pounded at her throat and her tongue moistened her lips as he watched, he had a pretty good idea the feeling was mutual.

  “Ah, hell,” he said, and reached up for her the moment she leaned down for him.

  Their lips met halfway as though that had been the plan all along.

  ONE MOMENT she was kicking his ass and the next they were lip-locked. Cassie wasn’t quite sure how it had happened, but in the first moment of contact, when she tasted his breath and felt the faint rasp of unshaven stubble, she knew it was the only way this could have ended.

  During their wrestling match, she’d flashed back on an early lesson from her middle brother, Rick—the one entitled “What to do if your date doesn’t get the word no.”

  She’d grabbed Varitek, not thinking of the consequences.

  But in that first moment, when she’d become profoundly, intimately aware of his excitement, part of her admitted that she’d known precisely what she was doing.

  Precisely what she wanted to have happen.

  This, she thought as she opened her mouth to him. She invited his tongue, demanded it and twined the fingers of her free hand into his shirt to keep herself from taking the kiss further, taking it all the way as her body demanded.

  This was what she’d wanted, what she needed. This was the flash and the flame she’d been missing with the men she’d dated since Lee. This was the power and the demand.

  And, she realized as he rolled them so they were on their sides, hip to hip, meeting as equals, this was what she’d feared, because how could she not give up control to a feeling as big as this one?

  The heat roared through her alongside need, alongside the desire to chuck rationality, to chuck her carefully constructed defenses and give in to the pleasure of flesh against flesh, strength against strength. Almost without her permission, the fingers of her free hand strayed from his shirt to his close-cropped hair and the heavy muscles of his upper arms. It wasn’t until he groaned and swept a hand down her back to her hip and urged her closer that she realized her other hand still cupped him intimately.

  He reached down and urged her hand boldly up another inch, until she was touching the heavy, hard length of him though his jeans, which were soft with wear and time.

  He groaned and pressed himself into her hand as though he was helpless to do otherwise. He loosened her shirt from the waistband of her pants and touched the skin of her belly, her ribs, reminding her that her spare set of clothes hadn’t included a bra.

  Or underwear.

  Knowing this was foolish, stupid, all the things she’d told herself before but that didn’t seem so important now, she murmured and kissed him, letting her tongue and touch encourage him, incite him.

  Needing no more urging, he cupped one of her breasts in his palm and dragged his thumb across her aching nipple, setting free a shower of sparks within her system.

  She bowed back on a wash of pleasure, and when he shifted to rise above her, she freed both hands to pop the snap of his jeans. The top of his member rose free from his briefs, and she teased her thumb across it, collecting a single drop of fluid, a pearl of want that spread across his skin, loosing the smell of sex. Of desire.

  Too fast, a voice chanted in the back of her head. Too fast, bad idea! But she ignored it because it had been too long since she’d felt this way—hell, had she ever felt this way? She didn’t think so, knew only that her body was crying for release, for completion.

  For Varitek.

  Hell, for Seth. She should probably practice using his first name at this point.

  Refusing to let reality intrude, she kissed him again, and gloried in his skilled touch at her breasts her belly, her sides, the pulse at her throat. It seemed his hands were everywhere, inciting, inflaming.

  Need pulsed within her alongside the knowledge that they were separated by only a few layers of clothing, that it would only take—

  Footsteps sounded on the basement steps.

  Fear sluiced through Cassie, a cold dose of the reality she’d been trying to avoid.

  She froze.

  Holy hell. She was making out with a coworker on the floor of the crime lab.

  The footsteps drew closer—several sets of them—and a man’s voice said, “The desk officer said she was down here. The security system’s off, but I don’t see anyone.”

  The sounds passed into the outer office area as Cassie and Varitek jerked away from each other.

  Caught, Cassie thought. They were so caught.

  And then they were caught. Tucker stepped into the doorway with Alissa flanking him on one side and Maya on the other. Alissa’s honey-colored hair was pulled back in a workable ponytail and threaded through a BCCPD ball cap, and her pale eyes were wide with shock. Maya was darker and more formally dressed, and hid her surprise beneath her counselor’s veneer, while Tucker’s habitual untamed air was lost to amusement.

  Cassie yanked her hand out of Varitek’s jeans and hoped to hell the others couldn’t see that his arm disappeared at the elbow beneath her shirt. “Hey, guys. I was…we were…”

  She faltered, too aware of her friends’ shock and the fact that Varitek had barely reacted at all. He stared fixedly over her shoulder, jaw clenched as though he was furious. At her. At himself. She wasn’t sure, but his response tightened something sick and unsett
led in her gut.

  “I can see you were,” Alissa said, voice strangled. “And here I was thinking you were in trouble after you phoned. I called Maya and we decided to come home. You sounded so strange, like there was something going on.” Her eyebrow rose. “I can see there is. When did Special Agent Varitek get into town? That is Varitek, right?”

  That brought him off the ground with something between a curse and a roar. He reached down and hauled Cassie up as though it was no effort whatsoever—leading her to wonder whether she’d won their wrestling match after all, or whether he’d let her win. She glanced down and was grateful to realize that her shirt was more or less retucked and his fly was fastened, though she wasn’t sure when he’d managed either.

  Varitek shoved his hands in his pockets as though that would camouflage his physical state. “Yeah, it’s me. And regardless of what you just saw, we’ve got a serious problem. The Canyon kidnapper’s partner has surfaced. He’s graduated to murder, and he’s targeted Cassie.”

  “Cass?” Alissa took a step forward as Tucker moved to guard her back. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m—” fine she started to say, but Varitek interrupted.

  “Her brakes were tampered with and her house was nearly flattened last night with her in it. She won’t be fine again until we find this guy. Hell, nobody in Bear Claw will be safe until we do.” He pushed away from her and stalked past the others. Once he was through the door, he turned back and glowered at her. “Stay here with your friends. Tucker, you’re with me.”

  Then he was gone, his retreat marked only by angry bootfalls on the stairway.

  Tucker glanced at Alissa. “I’ll deal with him and see what the chief has to say. You three watch each other’s backs, okay?” And then he was gone.

  After Tucker’s footsteps faded upstairs, Cassie was left facing her two best friends, who looked like they couldn’t decide whether to razz her about getting caught making out with Varitek or yell at her for not telling them that the task force had been reinstated.

  Suddenly overwhelmed by the events of the past few days—danger, the stress, the lack of sleep and the heat that had soured so quickly in the face of Varitek’s anger—Cassie leaned against a wall, put her face in her hands and began to laugh like a banshee.

  It was either that or cry.

  But when she felt her friends’ hands on her shoulders, one on each side, she pulled it together, knowing she was better than this. Stronger than this.

  She sniffed. “Okay, guys. Let’s get to work. We have a class ring to identify.” Then maybe she could catch a few hours of sleep on one of the cots they’d stashed in the back room. She was suddenly exhausted.

  But the case had to come first. They had a murderer to catch before he struck again.

  IN THE DEEP DARKNESS before dawn, when Bear Claw City slept, the hunter took to the streets again. He was utterly, arrogantly sure that his prey would be alone this time. He knew because he’d been the one to stand her up. It was Saturday night. Date night. He had offered to get her into the Natural History Museum—still closed for renovations—and give her a sneak peek at the new exhibit.

  She’d seemed more interested in the privacy than the artifacts. Slut.

  Well, she would get her date now—on his schedule, not hers.

  He eased his vehicle to the curb outside her house, parked and left the engine running. The main house was empty this time. She’d told him her father had gone back east for the weekend on business and her mother had tagged along for a change of scenery.

  She’d winked as she said it.

  The roads and walkways were dry this time, the mounds of dirty snow nearly gone.

  Still, he watched for the melting piles as he followed the stone pathway around to her door, wanting to leave no footprint, no clue.

  The Bear Claw cops would have to work with the evidence he chose to leave them.

  She had locked the door this time, but left it unbolted, as though inviting him in with one hand but using the other to punish him for making her wait.

  He smiled in anticipation. He knew about punishment. About waiting. Soon, she would, too.

  He dealt with the lock and eased the door open with no more caution than he’d used before. He was that confident in her.

  Sure enough, she lay perfectly still in her narrow bed. The heat was up in the basement room, making the air steamy and too warm. She had solved the issue by kicking the covers away to reveal stocking-clad legs beneath a high-slit skirt. His keen dark vision showed him that her white shirt was rucked up past her lacy bra, revealing a smoothly toned young stomach defiled with a belly button ring.

  Anger stirred in his gut at the sight of her, at the wanton sprawl of arms and legs and the faint snore that escaped from between her painted lips.

  He stepped closer, hands clenched into fists. An empty glass on the bed stand suggested that she was not so much asleep as passed out. She’d drowned her sorrows when he didn’t come for her on time. Bitch. Slut. Whore.

  The anger rose within him, pure and perfect and cleansing, and he reached for her, wanting to—

  Stick with the plan, the voice whispered inside his head, or maybe from behind him, through the open door that was letting the heat out into the yard.

  Yes, right. The plan. The hunter forced himself to take a deep breath and go through the steps in his mind. He wouldn’t be sloppy. Sloppiness had killed Croft.

  Sloppiness and the cops, that is. But he was smarter than the cops. Hadn’t he already proven that? He was better than the police in this city.

  You’re not better than anyone! a deep voice bellowed in his head, making him cringe even though he knew the memories couldn’t hurt him. They were just that.

  Memories. The owner of the voice was gone.

  And buried.

  He relaxed his fingers and forced himself to breathe in and out, in and out, until his heartbeat leveled and he was back in control. This was no place for temper and passion. Not here, not now.

  That would come later, once he had her where she belonged.

  Proud of his control, he stepped toward the bed and eased his arms beneath her, until she was cradled against his chest by her neck and knees. The power flowed through his body when he lifted her, making the dead weight seem like nothing.

  She murmured softly and curled into him, her breath smelling of alcohol, her muscles lax and compliant.

  “I’ve got you,” he murmured against her temple as he carried her from the room and shut the door behind, to keep in the heat. “Everything will be perfect now, don’t worry. I’ve got you.”

  AFTER SETH LEFT Cassie and her friends down in the crime lab, he appropriated an upstairs conference room and spent the wee hours of the morning riding his team to process the scene at Cassie’s house as quickly as possible. When his techs stopped answering the phone, he focused on searching the databanks for comparable murders. Similar patterns. Anything.

  Through it all, he wished like hell he’d never come back to Bear Claw.

  “You want to talk about it?” Tucker asked from the doorway just as dawn stained the sky outside.

  Seth grimaced. “Nothing to talk about, really. We’ll have Cassie’s place processed in another hour or so—they’re not finding much of anything—and we’ll be back to spinning our wheels over the boy’s murder.”

  Tucker dropped into a nearby chair. “That wasn’t what I meant.”

  Seth stared at his laptop screen for a moment, as though focusing on it would force the databank to cough up a pattern, a matching murder. Then he sighed and slapped the laptop computer shut. “I know. I just—” He cursed and scrubbed a hand across his face. Felt the rasp of stubble and made a mental note to shave before the task force meeting. “Why? You doing the stand-in big brother thing on Alissa’s orders?”

  Not that Seth would blame him. That had been a hell of a scene they’d walked in on.

  Even now, several hours and some serious reflection later, the memory of those hot, ste
amy kisses was enough to make him hard and wanting and all twisted up inside.

  But Tucker snorted. “Cassie’s got plenty of brothers. She wouldn’t thank me for trying to be another one.” The lean, rangy homicide detective leaned back in his chair. “I’m asking as a friend, and because Alissa was nearly killed before. If we didn’t get the bastard, or if there’s another one out there, she could be in danger again. I need to know that you’re not…distracted.”

  Seth scowled. “Don’t talk to me about professional detachment. When Alissa was abducted, you threatened to tear me limb from limb if I didn’t help find her.”

  An almost feral glitter darkened the detective’s eyes. “Exactly. He came after my woman. Now he’s coming after one of her friends. One of my friends. And I want to know that your head is in the case.” He held up a hand to forestall Seth’s angry retort. “I’m not saying it’s fair. Hell, I’m tempted to ship Alissa back to the island until this is over, just in case the bastard decides to go after her again. But I won’t.

  Do you know why?”

  “Because she’d kick your ass for suggesting it?”

  One corner of Tucker’s mouth twitched. “That, too. But also because she’s a cop.

  The chief might look the other way over some fraternization within the ranks, but he expects us to do our jobs. He expects us to act like cops.”

  Seth knew that. He knew it down to his very core. But knowing it and liking it were two different things. Cassie wasn’t just a cop, she was a cop with something to prove, which was a damned dangerous combination.

  Seth shoved back from the table and locked eyes with the homicide detective. “I can’t promise to be impartial—hell, I don’t know what I am at the moment—but I swear I’ll do everything in my power to help the Bear Claw P.D. get this guy. Deal?”

  Tucker regarded him for a long moment, then nodded. “Deal.” Then he grinned, though the expression was tense at the edges. “And speaking of professional detachment and the lack thereof…I asked Alissa to marry me last night.”