Covert Kisses

by Jane Godman

  When he pressed his finger into her again, fully this time, Laurie sighed with pleasure. “So good,” she whispered.

  His mouth found hers, forceful and demanding in a kiss that took her breath away and set her heart racing as she rocked her hips against the pressure of his hand. He moved his finger so it just teased her opening. Around and around, with gentle flicks up to brush lightly over her clitoris. It wasn’t enough. Enough to drive her wild, not enough to give her what she really wanted.

  “More. Please, Cameron. I need more.”

  She gasped as he withdrew his finger, only to replace it with two, pressing them in as deep as they could go. She clenched around him tight, hissing in a breath.

  “Like that?” Cameron murmured. Withdrawing his fingers until they were nearly all the way out, he plunged them back in, at the same time rubbing his thumb over her clitoris, setting off a chain reaction of electric shocks along her nerve endings.

  Oh, dear God. Laurie had to remind herself to breathe. Tight, hot pleasure began to radiate outward from her core. Glancing down, she saw he was rock hard again, his erection straining upward toward her.

  Reaching between them, Laurie gripped him, sliding her hand down his shaft. “That feels good, but this is what I really want.”

  Her words caused him to curse softly under his breath. She hovered on the brink of a climax. So close. Just before she tipped over the edge, Cameron murmured softly in her ear. “Condom. Back pocket.”

  With a bit of skillful twisting and bending, she maintained her position and leaned down. Finding the little foil wrapper, she ripped it open and sheathed him. Raising herself above him, she guided him to her. Cameron paused with his tip pressed against her sex, rocking his hips so he tormented her, his expression telling her he was savoring the moment. Laurie moaned, and all teasing over, he pushed up, his thick heat stretching and filling her. The fingers of his right hand gripped the flesh of her buttocks hard as he thrust all the way into her.

  Keeping her hands on his hips, Laurie lifted herself as Cameron pulled his hips back. She was in charge. Slowly, she controlled their movements. Feeling every inch of him sliding into her and pulling out again. Hampered by the fact that he couldn’t use one arm, Cameron was forced to let her dictate the pace. He clenched his teeth, clearly wanting to go faster, to drive into her harder, to piston furiously to release the building tension.

  Thrusting his hips up, he ground against her, and Laurie gave herself up to her own unstoppable need. Her whole world narrowed to the point where their bodies joined. To his heat pounding into her, to the storm of pleasure breaking over her. Her muscles clenched hard around him, drawing a groan from the depths of his chest. He thickened and jerked deep inside her as she climaxed over and over, her vision blurring and her mind reeling as she slumped on top of him. Cameron held her against his chest with his good hand, his own body shuddering to a standstill as he trailed his fingers along her spine.

  “I think we should go to bed.” Laurie was surprised to hear the depth of feeling that had shaken her echoed in Cameron’s own voice as he murmured the words. She lifted her head from his chest to study his face. The blaze of raw emotion in his eyes stunned her. It was gone so fast she questioned whether she had seen it at all. It had been a long, hard day. Allowing her imagination to run wild probably wasn’t the best way to end it.

  Tomorrow would take them on the hunt for more answers and hopefully a step closer to the truth. Until then, even though her body was still shimmering with what this man could do to her, she decided the wisest course was to continue to act as though her heart was unscathed. Then Cameron smiled at her, and all her good intentions went flying to the four corners of the room.

  * * *

  Laurie woke just as the dawn light was creeping through the bedroom curtains. At first she wondered if it was fear of Grant that had brought her so abruptly awake, and she lay still, examining her feelings. No, she had a healthy amount of nervousness about what was to come, but she was also determined to see this through to the end and make sure Grant Becker ended up behind bars. She owed it to those women who had no one else fighting for them. It wasn’t alarm that had woken her. There was a nagging doubt at the back of her mind, something she was missing that she should be seeing. Like a loose thread, there was a connection that, if she pulled it the right way, would unravel this whole case.

  Carla. Laurie’s unknown cousin, Cameron’s lost love. She was the connection between them, the reason Laurie had come to Stillwater. She still couldn’t shake the conviction that Carla was the key to this whole case. How bizarre was it that Grant had seen her for the first time one night at Dino’s with Cameron and fallen for her so hard and so fast he’d started killing women who reminded him of her? Unless he didn’t. That was it. That was what had been bugging her about this whole thing. What if that wasn’t the first time Grant saw Carla?

  “Oh, my goodness.” Abruptly, she sat up, hugging her knees up to her chin.

  “Hmm?” Cameron opened one eye, regarding her in surprise.

  She wasn’t sure how to broach this subject with him. He always seemed happy to talk about Carla...up to a point. It had never felt like Carla was a barrier between them. Oh, she was always there in the background. The woman Cameron loved, and would always love. How could she not be there in some form or another? But Laurie had never seen Carla as a problem because Cameron had not allowed her to become one. Now Laurie needed to ask some tough questions about her, and all that might change.

  She sucked in a deep breath. “You told me once Carla didn’t want a family life because her own childhood had been traumatic. What did you mean by that exactly?”

  A frown line drew his brows together. “Where are you going with this?”

  Even though they were both naked, with mere inches between them, and the memory of the passion they had shared lingered in the scent and warmth of their skin, his tone put up an instant barrier between them.

  She supposed it was a fair enough question. And if she wanted answers from him, she needed to share her thought processes. However fantastic they might be.

  “Bear with me on this, okay?” Her eyes pleaded with him for understanding. Cameron gave a brief but less than encouraging nod. “I was trying to make connections. You said Grant was abused as a child, and he got sent to a summer camp for underprivileged children. I also remembered you mentioned Carla’s troubled childhood. I just wondered...” She broke off, shaking her head. “It’s too far-fetched. Forget it.”

  “No, go on.” Cameron’s gaze had become intent.

  “Okay.” She plowed on, the words tumbling over each other as they came out too fast. “I wondered, was there any way they could have met each other before that night you took her to Dino’s? Maybe when they were younger? Could Grant have fallen for Carla long before then? Is it possible that, instead of seeing her for the first time that night, he was recognizing her?”

  “My God.” Cameron sat up as well, leaning back against the solid-oak headboard. His expression was stunned. As he sat back, the dressing on his arm stood out stark against the smooth, tanned muscle of his bicep. The flesh around it didn’t appear to be inflamed, and Laurie took a moment to feel proud of her handiwork. “If that’s true, it would put a whole different light on Grant’s infatuation for Carla.” He frowned. “But why would Carla have told me about him asking her out without also mentioning she already knew him?”

  “Just because he recognized her, doesn’t mean it worked both ways,” Laurie said. “This is all guesswork, but suppose they were at the same camp one summer and Grant developed a crush on Carla. Then, years later, she turned up here. But not only was she with you, she hurt him even more by not knowing who he was when he asked her out. Can you imagine how that must have felt? The girl he’d been dreaming of for all those years didn’t even remember him?”

  “If he had already developed
an infatuation with Carla at an early age, that might explain why he wasn’t interested in other women. He may have believed he’d already found the girl of his dreams.” Cameron ran his right hand through his already tousled, early-morning hair. “Grant always did have something of an obsessive personality. Although his obsessions could be strange.”

  “In what way?” Laurie relaxed her tightly coiled position, stretching her legs in front of her.

  “When we were kids it manifested itself in a desire to rescue injured animals. He had quite a menagerie. Mangy old dogs, cats with one eye, birds with broken wings. As he grew older, it became more of a crusade. Grant seemed to see himself as this white knight on a charger.” He paused, scanning Laurie’s face as she frowned. “What is it?”

  “You reminded me of something. Carry on with what you were saying and I’ll tell you when you’re finished.”

  “That’s it really. Grant always had to be rescuing someone or something. I thought it was a by-product of his childhood.” Cameron attempted a shrug and grimaced as it hurt his arm. “I’m no amateur psychologist, but it seemed to me he was saving others because no one had been there to rescue him. Now tell me why the white knight thing made you frown.”

  “When I was hiding out in Vincente’s bathroom and you came in, I had a thought that you were my knight in shining armor.”

  Cameron laughed. “I’m not. I was scared as hell about what might happen to you when Grant came into Vincente’s apartment. I acted out of instinct, not nobility or some ancient code of honor.”

  “No, and that’s just it. Any normal guy wouldn’t want to be a knight on a white charger going around rescuing damsels in distress. Because that’s a fantasy. Real life is different. You’re real, and that’s one of the things I—” she paused, swallowing back the word love “—like about you. But there is such a thing as White Knight Syndrome. I was too overwrought to capture the thought last night, but even then I guess my mind was trying to apply it to Grant.”

  “You mean there are guys who do see themselves in that role?”

  “Very much so. I took a psychology course when I first joined the police, and there was a module on this. These guys are often loners, frequently with little experience of attracting women, who often try to compensate for that by adopting their own code of chivalry. This type of man has severe problems with self-worth, so he tries to prove his worthiness to a woman by rescuing her from a bad situation. In this day and age, that often means focusing on women who have issues.”

  Cameron regarded her in fascination. “And all the women who have gone missing had issues or needed to be rescued.”

  Laurie began to tick them off on her fingers. “Lisa Lambert definitely had issues. She was struggling with substance and alcohol abuse at the time she went missing. Kathy Sachs was unhappy here in Stillwater. She talked openly about that and also the fact that she was escaping an abusive marriage. Tanya Horton was described as a ‘wild child.’ I’m guessing that means she had some problems. Then we have Marie O’Donnell. Toby said she was an orphan, raised in an Irish convent by nuns. We know she and Grant became friends, although I suspect he manufactured that friendship. Chances are she confided in him about her past.”

  “Toby also said when Grant stepped in to save the day by taking Marie to the airport, she actually described him as a ‘knight in shining armor.’”

  “Imagine how much that comment must have fueled his ego. Then there’s Carla.” Laurie risked a glance at his face. “I have thought all along that she must be the key to this.”

  Cameron nodded, his expression grim. “You could be right. Carla certainly had problems. You already know that, like you, Carla was born in Stillwater. Her parents divorced when she was just a baby, and her mom remarried. Her stepdad was a violent drunk. Carla and her mom spent their lives on the move from place to place, trying to stay one step ahead of him. Each time they got settled somewhere, he’d find them and they’d be forced to move on again. When she was sixteen, he killed her mom in front of Carla. Carla was placed in witness protection. From there, she went to college, learned to sail, gained her degree and made a new life for herself. She didn’t talk much about her childhood, but she did mention going to summer camp.”

  Cameron gave a reminiscent laugh. “That was one of the reasons Carla hated Wyoming. She said the open spaces reminded her of one particular year she wanted to forget. There was nothing she disliked more than enforced fun and people she didn’t know trying too hard to be her friend.”

  Laurie shivered. Grant? Could he have been the person who tried too hard to be Carla’s friend that summer? She supposed they would never know. “Just as we’ve thought all along, Grant doesn’t just look for the physical similarities these women have. He’s looking for something deeper. They have to be vulnerable as well so he can step in and save them.”

  “Coming to the last two victims that we know of, Deanna Milligan certainly fits that profile. I’m not so sure about Beth Wade. She was a successful attorney.”

  “Beth may have had issues we’re unaware of, or she may have really just packed her bags and walked out of town one day.” Having seen the look in Vincente’s eyes when Beth’s name was mentioned, Laurie hoped for his sake that the second option was the truth. “One of the biggest frustrations for Grant must have been the fact that Carla, the person he most wanted to impress, the one all the other women were a substitute for, was no longer vulnerable. While she was with you, she didn’t need him to be her white knight.”

  “Until he managed to get her alone. It was only when she was with Grant that Carla was in any danger.”

  “Maybe he saw her go out alone on her boat that night, knew there was a storm on its way and saw his chance to be her white knight at last? He may not have known how good she was at handling a boat. When he tried to go to her rescue and Carla didn’t need him, all that pent-up resentment could have boiled over.”

  Cameron’s eyes darkened. “But what about you? You don’t need him, either.”

  “I don’t fit into his usual pattern for a number of reasons. He didn’t seek me out, so I came as a shock to him when he saw me with you that night at Dino’s. I’m so like Carla it’s shaken him up. And he needs to get rid of me because I’m onto him.” Laurie shivered. “Even so, he’s done his best to make me vulnerable.”

  Cameron slid his good arm around her shoulders, drawing her closer, and she leaned against him gratefully, glad of his warmth. “By killing Moreton, you mean?”

  “Yes, but also by cutting me off from every aspect of my real life. He took my laptop, hacked into my phone and then destroyed it. Then he systematically wiped out any trace that Moreton was ever in this area. Grant has covered his tracks very neatly. Any evidence Moreton had on him was destroyed in the fire. May King was the only person who knew he ordered the roses, and she is dead. If he had succeeded in his plan to kill you last night, no one would ever know who I was and why I was here in Stillwater. He could make me disappear without a trace.”

  “Except Vincente and Bryce know everything now.”

  “Would you put it past him to kill them, too?”

  Cameron’s jaw clenched. “I wouldn’t put anything past him.”

  Chapter 14

  Cameron couldn’t get enough of watching Laurie’s face as he entered her. He brushed the head of his cock over her. Even through the condom, he could feel how hot and wet she was, and it took every ounce of self-control he had to take from driving hard and fast into her. Her head was thrown back and her eyes half-closed. Lifting her knees over the crook of his arms, he pushed her legs back to her shoulders as he balanced on his knees and feasted his eyes on her body. She squirmed, readying herself for the impact of his entry as she lifted herself toward him. Cameron moved his hips forward in a single deep thrust that forced a soft cry from her. Damn, she was tight. So hot. So tight. He shuddered as her muscles
gripped him and drew him deeper into her. The air left his lungs, and he fought hard to get it back again. It felt like he’d been fighting to regain control of his breathing from the first minute he’d met her.

  He ran his tongue over the tender flesh of Laurie’s throat, dropping fully onto her. She whimpered with pleasure, her hips lifting in time with his thrusts, and he gave himself up to the intensity of pumping deep and losing himself in her. He was engulfed in a firestorm of delight, the like of which he had never known before. This. There was nothing else. Taking everything she offered, giving everything he had. There was only this sweet surrender. All of it. Over and over. He wanted everything, nothing between them, no barriers, no pretense.

  He drove into her, biting her shoulder to keep from saying out loud the words that were pounding through his head. Beneath his hands, Laurie’s thighs trembled in time with his clenched muscles. When his orgasm roared through him, he collapsed onto her, gasping, feeling her clench around him. Lifting his head, he watched her face as she came, drinking in the tiny details as her eyes widened, her lips parted and a faint rosy pink stained her cheeks. Soft moans escaped her as he continued to move, forcing another wave to crash over her.

  He moved to one side, covering his eyes with his arm. Hiding his feelings, because he knew she’d caught a glimpse of the intensity of his emotions last night after they’d made love. It wasn’t as if he didn’t want Laurie to know how much she meant to him. He wasn’t hiding from her. After what had just happened between them? The thought almost made him laugh. He poured his soul into her with each thrust of his hips. Laurie felt it and responded. But now wasn’t the time for him to say out loud how much he loved her, even though his feelings were threatening to overwhelm him with their ferocity. Now was the time to get that bastard Grant Becker out of their lives for good. Then he could deal with all the love and passion that was welling up inside him. Then he could find out if he was right in his hope—even his belief—that Laurie might feel the same.