Resting the bag on the hood of the car, he glanced inside. At first look, all he saw was a neat jumble of electronics. It was too heavy for that to be all, though. Slipping Joss a quick look, he arched a brow.
Taylor leaned in and tapped the bottom.
Joss smiled.
“I need to think this through for a while before I talk it over,” he said in reply to Taylor’s question. “But I made contact last night. Give me some time to think everything through, okay?”
Under his breath, Taylor grumbled. Joss grinned.
There weren’t a lot of people who could get by with that—think it through. Taylor was a control freak and wanted, almost needed, to be involved every step of the way.
“How much time?”
“A few hours, a day maybe.” He sighed and shrugged, looking out across the parking lot. “Too much shit crammed into my head. Got to let it all settle and then see what pops up out of the madness. Once that happens, I’ll know if I’m working this the right way.”
Taylor reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose. “See what pops up? I don’t like the pop-up approach, Crawford.”
Joss waited a beat. “That’s gotta suck for Dez. Spontaneity is the spice of life.”
For a second Taylor just stared at him. Then, a faint smile came and went. “Go fuck yourself, Crawford.” Passing a hand over his face, Taylor sighed. “This is going to be one of those cases, isn’t it? The kind that has me scrambling to cover everybody’s asses, my own included.”
“Probably.” Zipping the bag closed, he pointed out, “You’re already scrambling. You cussed twice in one breath. That’s not typical for you.”
“Again, go fuck yourself.” Taylor glanced at the restaurant. “Are you really going to eat in there?”
“Yep.” Tugging the bag down, Joss patted his belly. “I finally hit a corner last night and got some peace in my head. Crashed and slept for eighteen hours and now I’m starving.”
“We could find someplace a little less heart attack inducing.” Taylor smoothed his tie down.
“We?” Joss cocked his head. “You’re joining me?”
“Yes.” Blowing out a breath, he said, “Taige and her husband are pissed off at each other. They’ve decided to have it out in my room, probably so they don’t do it in front of Jilly. I tried to get Dez to come with me so she didn’t get caught in the line of fire, but she wanted to stay. Her weird idea of entertainment.”
“And you’re chickening out . . . staying here.”
This time, when Taylor smiled, it wasn’t a faint smile. It was a full-blown, all-out grin. “Damn straight.”
* * *
PART of Dez felt bad for loitering in the hotel room.
It was pretty damn clear those two needed to talk.
But when she got up and shot Taige a look, Taige had pinned her with a direct stare.
If you leave, I’m kicking your ass.
Dez rolled her eyes and mouthed, Pussy.
Taige just curled her lip and went back to gingerly poking through some of the files Taylor had left behind.
Okay. So Taige wasn’t ready to talk to Cullen yet?
What was the deal there?
Sighing, she flopped back onto the couch and pulled her pillow to her chest, staring at the TV. She was stuck watching TV for the duration because she couldn’t get involved in this case. As much as she wanted to help, this was too big for her and she’d just cause more problems than she’d solve.
Of course, she wouldn’t mind if she had a ghost of her own whispering to her, but that just wasn’t happening.
The silence in the room was so heavy, she practically came out of her skin when Cullen broke it.
“Taige, can we maybe go get a bite to eat?”
“I already ate, thanks.” Nice. So nice and polite.
“A cup of coffee?”
From the corner of her eye, Dez saw Taige point to the coffeepot in the kitchen.
“Shit. Okay, screw subtle. I need to talk to you. Alone.”
Dez groaned and shot Taige another look, lifting a brow. Taige shook her head. “Too bad, sweetheart,” Taige replied. “I’m working.”
He snorted and pushed at the pages she’d been messing with for the past little while. “You look like you’re trying to keep busy, if you ask me.”
“You’re right. I’m keeping busy ignoring you for the time being,” she said, leaning back and staring at him. “I don’t want to talk to you right now. You don’t get that. Fine. But I still don’t want to talk to you . . . not yet.”
A muscle jerked in his jaw.
Dez almost felt sorry for him.
“Fine.” He headed for the door. Halfway there, he stopped and turned back to face his wife. “I think I’m going to call my dad to come and get Jilly.”
“You should just go home with her,” Taige said quietly. “I think I’m going to be needed here.”
Cullen closed the distance between them once more, curled his hand around the back of her neck. “I’m not leaving. Not with what’s going on . . . not with this between us unresolved.”
* * *
TAIGE waited until the door shut before she dropped her head onto the table.
“You can’t ignore him forever.”
“I don’t plan on it. But I don’t want to listen to him rail at me about how I put his precious baby in a bad situation, either,” she said, her voice thick with anger. And hurt. It was still lodged in her chest, turning her heart to ashes.
“She’s your baby, too.”
“You can’t tell by the way he’s been acting.” A sigh shuddered out of her, and she lifted her hands to her face. “Damn it, life would have been easier if we’d gone to New York the way Jillian wanted.”
A few seconds later, there was a soft sound and she looked up, watched as Dez hauled a chair so they were sitting side by side. “Easier. Maybe. But if this is as big as Taylor thinks it is . . .”
They both looked at the table, then at the board placed by the window. It was covered with small images of deceased victims. The missing women they thought were connected to this . . . they’d need a good ten boards to even make a dent. “Do we even have a victim count yet?” Dez asked quietly.
“No.” Taige shook her head.
“You picking up anything?”
Taige stared at one neat pile of images. It was growing. Every time she saw something that made her instincts scream, she’d made Taylor handle it. She couldn’t get lost in the gray yet. Not yet. She didn’t know why she was holding off, but she couldn’t go yet.
“Yes,” she said woodenly.
Dez followed her line of sight, and when she saw the stack of images, a soft hiss escaped her. “Shit.”
“Yeah.”
FIFTEEN
A hot meal.
A hard run through downtown.
And when he got back to the hotel, Joss deliberately sat in the lobby for an hour.
Surrounded by people, listening to them come and go.
Dimly, he was aware of their thoughts. The chaos. It was like rain pounding against an umbrella he carried, though. It didn’t leave him overwhelmed this time. Finally.
It was an exhausting exercise and his head was still reeling, so he didn’t feel at all bad about missing the evening powwow in Jones’s room. He headed to his, showered, and crashed.
It was another night of deep, tormenting dreams.
He would have liked to fight, but this time . . . the dreams reached up and grabbed him. Pulled him under. Choking him . . .
* * *
CHOKING—
Fuck all, the pain choked him, but it didn’t matter.
All that mattered was that he get up. Get on his feet and get her away from here. Struggling to roll over, he clawed at the grass, searching for something to hold as he clambered to his feet.
But there was nothing—
Then there was something.
A hand. Pressing on his chest.
Her hand. “Be still now, do
you hear me? You must be still. Oh, look at . . . no. It will be fine.”
Fine . . . No. He wouldn’t be fine. Everything was getting black and gray, his vision fading as he tried to focus on her face. “Amelie. You must run now,” he rasped, grabbing her wrist and trying to blink away the gray clouds that wanted to hide her face from him. “Run. Get away . . .”
“Hush. I need to stop the bleeding.”
“It will not help. You must run—”
In his bed, he flung out a hand, closed into a tight, useless fist.
* * *
“YOU didn’t really think I’d let you run.”
Dru gasped for air as Patrick let her up, just once, for a gulp of air.
Then he was pushing her down again and the heavy, wet silk of her wedding dress was sucking her under.
The cold water pressed in around her, and it was deep, so much deeper than a bathtub full of water should be—she’d been taking a bath. That was all. Taking a bath, in her wedding dress . . . then he was there, trying to push her under.
His hand fisted in her hair, jerking her back up.
She blinked the bubbles and water out of her eyes, sputtering and gasping for air. And realized . . . they weren’t in her bathroom anymore. They were on a bridge. The wet, heavy silk of her gown was gone, replaced by an equally heavy, equally ornate dress of all black.
“Mourn him, do you? Foolish cow. Think you can run away from me?”
Dru stared at the man in front of her. The angry glint in his eyes reminded her of Patrick, although he wasn’t Patrick. The cool, angry words . . . they reminded her of him, as well. Even the way he made her skin crawl . . .
“Amelie, dearest. Did you really think I’d let you leave me?” he asked casually, just before he backhanded her.
Amelie . . .
She went flying. But before she could crash to the ground, big, gentle hands caught her and she sagged against a chest that seemed terribly, terribly familiar.
The black, ornate dress melted away.
As he pushed one big, capable hand into her hair, Dru stared up at him. “You again.”
It was the guy from the park.
The one who’d kissed her.
The one who made her feel like . . . everything.
“He hit you before. I remember that,” he murmured, studying her cheek before looking past her to stare at not-Patrick. “Does he still?”
She turned her head, followed his stare. He was watching the man who’d reminded her so disturbingly of her fiancé. “I . . . nobody has ever hit me before. Well, he has. But only him.”
The man shook his head. “You’re wrong there. He hit you before . . . when we were all different.”
“That’s nice and . . . unclear.”
“Another life,” he murmured. Cupping her cheek, he stroked his thumb along the sweep of her cheekbone. “I always remembered. But you’ve forgotten . . . haven’t you?”
She stared up at his face. “If I ever knew you, I’d remember.”
“Not if you weren’t supposed to.” He pressed against her lower lip. “He hit you before . . . and he killed me. After that, I don’t know what became of you. But I think you do. If you’ll let yourself remember.”
Dru grimaced. “That’s insane.”
“So is kissing a man you’ve never met . . . but you did that. And you did a damn good job of it.” He lowered his head, rubbed his lips over hers. “Wanna do it again?”
As she opened for him, that sane voice in her mind whispered, “This is just insane.”
But the voice was quieter this time. Quieter . . . and she wasn’t quite so sure of her sanity, either.
“It’s not insane . . . this is the most rational either of us has ever been.”
“Is it?” She stared up at him, some part of her insisting that this was crazy. All of it. But she couldn’t. Because it felt right. Seemed so right. Far better than anything having to do with Patrick . . .
“Don’t think about him,” he ordered.
“Hard, that. Seeing as he’s standing right . . .” Dru lifted her head, and then stopped in midsentence once she realized Patrick wasn’t, in fact, standing there.
And they weren’t there anymore.
They were in a bright, open room that seemed strangely familiar, although she knew she’d never seen it in her life. The walls had the most ornate wallpaper on them, pink vining flowers that climbed up to a high, airy ceiling. A lovely, four-poster bed that made her think of a time gone by.
“Do you remember this?” he murmured, turning his arms so that they stood facing the bed.
Dru blinked. “No. Why should I? I’ve never seen this place.”
He sighed. “You have . . . in another life.”
A laugh escaped her. “Another life. You must have knocked your head or something . . .”
“Look in the mirror, Dru. See us . . .”
She lifted her head and her breath froze in her lungs. He wasn’t the same. But the eyes . . . she knew those eyes. He stood at her back, longish blond hair pulled back from his face, his clothes clean but roughly made. She, though, her hair was done up in ringlets and curls, swept up high off her face, displaying her neck, a fine necklace. The gown she wore was something she expected to see on the cover of a romance novel, the kind where the man had his shirt half open while the woman was bent back over his arm at an impossible angle.
Swallowing, Dru shook her head. “That’s not me.”
And then she clapped a hand over her mouth. For it wasn’t her voice, either. Softer, huskier, slower.
“It is you . . . it was. Before he took you away from me. Don’t let him take you away again.” He dipped his head and kissed her neck. “This was us. I loved you from the minute I saw you. Do you remember?”
Tearing away from him, she stumbled over to the mirror, certain this was a trick. That red-gold hair . . . no, that wasn’t her hair. And those certainly weren’t her tits. She glanced down at her chest and grimaced. “I can’t breathe.”
“I can help you with that.”
“I just bet,” she muttered sourly, but when she went to turn around, he stopped her. Stiffly, she stood there while he went about stripping her out of a dress that left her baffled. The dress. A petticoat? Other bits and pieces of clothing she didn’t recognize. Finally, she stood there in long, lacy underwear, a chemise, and a corset. “I still can’t breathe.”
“I always loved seeing you like this.” He dipped his head and kissed his way down her neck. “Your favorite thing to do was tease me . . .”
“You want me to believe we were lovers . . . in another life.”
“No.” He sighed.
She felt him tugging, and then abruptly, she could breathe as the laces at her waist eased up. “We weren’t. I wanted to be. You were . . . uncertain. Scared. I guess I don’t blame you. I wasn’t the kind of husband you’d been looking for, and you didn’t know how we’d make it. But I would have made things work. I just needed you to trust me.”
The corset fell away and she looked down as big, rough hands closed around her waist.
Her breath gusted out of her as he pulled her against him. The room spun. And a soft bed was at her back. “We weren’t lovers, but we will be,” he whispered. “Do I stop now? Are we going to wait until we’re finally together, or can we at least have this?”
Her breath hissed out of her as she realized their clothes were gone.
She hadn’t taken them off. Neither had he.
And it wasn’t that other face she saw above hers.
It was the man she’d met in the park.
A harsh, craggy face, too rough to be handsome, but so fucking sexy he made her hurt from want. Eyes so dark and soft, like molten chocolate, and she just wanted to gorge herself. A mouth that was just perfect.
Reaching up, she touched his lips. “This is insane.”
“No . . . insane is what we’ve been doing for the past hundred years, being lost. Now we’re together.” He pushed his knee between her
thighs, pressed the muscle length against her. “Do we wait? Do we stay lost?”
Dru curled an arm around his neck and pulled him closer. She stroked one hand down his arm and lifted her leg, wrapped it around his waist. “Even if it’s insane, I don’t want to wait.”
“It’s not insane.” He slanted his mouth over hers. “And we won’t wait.”
No . . . no, we won’t, she thought. It seemed as though no sooner had that thought left her mind than they were on the bed, his long, muscled body pressed to hers. As his hands cupped her breasts, she closed her eyes. So strange . . . and so not. She could almost believe this actually had happened. That maybe this wasn’t just a dream.
“You have no idea how long I’ve waited for this,” he rasped, pushing a hand into her hair. “All my life, Dru. I’ve been waiting all my life . . .”
“I can almost believe that.”
“Believe it.” He pulled her into his arms, lifting her as though she weighed nothing.
He laid her on the bed, his hands practically shaking as he stroked them up her thighs. “I won’t hurt you,” he said gruffly. “I won’t . . .”
Dru pushed up onto one elbow and hooked her hand around the back of his neck, tugged him close. Scraping her teeth along his lower lip, she whispered against his lips, “If you don’t shut up already, I just might hurt you.”
For a second, something flashed in his eyes. And she felt something from him. That burn on her brain, it seemed to flare, expand . . . hunger pulsing. “Shutting up, ma’am.” He took her mouth with his.
The heavy, solid weight of him was so unlike anything she’d ever felt. Yet it felt so perfectly right . . . so right . . . The wide, muscled wall of his chest crushed against her breasts, harsh, ragged breaths escaping him. She could feel the hard, rigid length of his cock. His hands stroking over her.
And that hunger . . . it was like it surrounded her very being. Overwhelmed her. Warmed her.
The Reunited Page 15