His breath hissed out at the feel of her cooler skin meeting his. He covered her body, her breasts crammed between them. Again, he took her mouth, almost savagely, the need to have her, to make her come for him again, like a feverish avalanche about to overtake him completely.
He wrenched at his pants, just getting them down far enough he could get inside her.
The head of his cock slipped along her drenched folds and then, holding on to her, he thrust inside her tight sheath. Pleasure exploded down his backbone, flaring hot and hard. Pumping his hips, he pounded into her, sinking as deep as she’d take him each time.
Her nails raked his back, and she tucked her face against his throat, scoring his skin with her teeth.
“Harder,” she pleaded.
He wasn’t sure that was even possible, but he couldn’t have denied the request if he’d wanted, driving into her slick sex until he felt the sweet walls grip him tighter. She was going to come again, and while the fever inside him reached for it, needing it more than air, he found his pace slowing, dragging it out.
“Parker.” Her spine arched and she dropped her head back, her hair spilling across the floor.
She deserved so much better than this. Deserved to be made love to, and not in the middle of her kitchen floor.
It took him another minute to think his way past the heavy veil of lust. She felt so fucking good beneath him. Her legs slid higher, nestling him closer.
Groaning he slid from her, shedding the rest of his clothes and scooping her up off the floor.
“What are you doing?”
He wanted to talk, tell her that he was proving he deserved her trust, but pulling away from her left him shaking so hard inside he couldn’t make his brain and mouth work in sync. Twice he had to stop himself from jamming her against the wall and sinking back inside her.
By the time he reached her room and tumbled her back onto the bed, his knees felt ready to buckle.
Rae caught his chin, rising up to meet his mouth for a drugging kiss that melted his synapses. Her wicked blue eyes glittered with arousal and emotion when he drew back, and holding her gaze, he pushed up inside her.
Clinging to each other, they both moaned, caught on the edge. He knew it would only take one more thrust to shoot them both into the stratosphere. And still he held on, sweeping back a tangle of hair off her cheek.
A swell of emotion cut through the lust and everything inside him shifted as the fever broke.
“I love you,” he breathed, taking her mouth as he withdrew and plunged back inside.
Rae cried out, the sound of her climax triggering his own, and he came hard and long and thrusting until he was utterly spent.
He collapsed next to her, exhaustion sweeping him under before he could even unlace his fingers from hers.
Rae waited until Parker’s eyes fluttered and slowly opened before she said, “Don’t freak out, okay?”
Sleepiness retreated from his eyes, and she wished she’d been able to let him rest longer, but they just didn’t have the time. Didn’t even have the time to bask in the liquid contentment that wanted her to stay curled up with him and forget everything and everyone else.
“Where is he?”
He being Nico, who’d finally slunk out of her closet a few minutes ago.
“Curled up between your feet. As long as you don’t move too fast you should—”
Parker tensed. “Damn it.”
She glanced at the foot of the bed where Nico licked Parker’s ankle.
“That is just disgusting.”
“He’s gotten mellow in his old age.”
“I see—” He moved his foot a microsecond before Nico’s teeth snapped together.
She cringed to cover the smile that nearly escaped. “Maybe not that mellow.”
“Scoot.” Parker nudged Nico off the bed before rolling to face her.
He nuzzled her throat. “You put cat nip on my foot, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, that’s one of my signature moves. Stick around and next up will be tuna juice.”
Parker shuddered, hooking a leg over hers. “You are a very disturbed woman.”
“Well, we’ll have to talk about that later.” She started to sit up, only to have Parker’s grip on her hip keep her from making much progress.
“Go away with me.”
She stilled. “What?”
“When this is over and the kids are safe, I want the two of us to go away somewhere. I want to be alone with you without anyone interrupting.” He ran his thumb across her cheek. “I want to kiss you and know that we won’t have to stop until one of us needs to breathe.”
Not kissing him after that was impossible, though she forced herself to keep it brief. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yes, I’ll go away with you.”
He grinned and her heart did a dizzying back flip. Unable to help herself, she lingered over his mouth for another minute, then murmured, “Get dressed.”
By the time they got back to the field office, she managed to get her mind back on finding a way to track her father. Whether he was connected to the experiments or not, he knew a hell of a lot more than she did about what was going on.
“They need to know, Rae.”
It took her a second to realize Parker was talking about telling everyone the truth about the experiments.
“They’re your team, your friends. They’ll understand.”
“And if they think I’m a monster?” she prompted, reminded of what Jordan had said during their first briefing on her father. “What then?”
“They won’t. Come on, Rae. You know them better than I do. Do you really think they would turn their back on you? Stop trusting your judgment?”
“I don’t know,” she said quietly, unable to convince herself it could be that easy. “I’ll think about it.”
Parker planted a soft kiss on the top of her head. “Okay.”
Braxton was in the hall when she and Parker stepped off the elevator. “Good news and bad news. Bad news is no leads yet on Hurst and our pal Burke hadn’t shown up for work for two days. No one knows where he is, not even his girlfriend. Looks like he just packed up and left.”
“And the good news?” Was there even such a thing any more?
“Vanessa Pembrook is in town. Gage finally caught up with her neighbor, who had an address in case of emergency. A hotel downtown.”
Rae stopped. “She’s here?” In town at the same time as her father? What were the odds?
Braxton nodded, backtracking. “Drew was on his way over there when he stopped to check on you, and Gage is already in the air, on his way home.”
“Keep us posted.”
He nodded. “And hey, whatever you two have Darcy working on, she’s completely taken over the briefing room.”
Parker frowned. “Taken over?”
“Map central.”
Map central? How much had they missed in the last couple of hours? “Where’s Adrian?”
“He’s been on the phone with network bigwigs almost non-stop since we heard Hurst paid you a visit. He’s been anxious to see you, but I haven’t seen him in a while.” Brax was gone with a wave, heading in the opposite direction.
“It’s not a coincidence Pembrook is in town along with my father and his demon bed buddy, is it?”
“Bed buddy? Maybe coincidence, maybe not, but at least we’re finally getting somewhere.”
Just not as fast as Rae would have liked.
On the way to her office, they stopped to check on Darcy. Braxton hadn’t been kidding about the maps. Some were projected on the wall at the front of the room while dozens more had been printed out and plastered across the tables.
“Been busy, huh?” Rae was the first through the door.
She flashed them a grin. “You know, I thought about sneaking off for a nooner, but since you two did that, I figured I’d find another way to keep busy.”
Not even bothering to wonder if Darcy actually knew they’d had s
ex, or was just screwing with them, she surveyed the pages splashed across the table. “And you thought you’d start by brushing up on your cartography skills?”
“I was thinking about Linc and how the network thought he was in South America, but not sure where.”
“I don’t recall sharing that information.”
Darcy only looked a little guilty. “Adrian had it on his mind right after he talked to you.” She waited, and when Rae didn’t give her a hard time, she pressed on.
“I also had Blair run a check for more footage of Linc in the system. When I started mapping the places we knew he’d been—”
“Wait. How did you get access to that information?”
“Do you really want me to answer that question?”
Rae sighed. “Forget I asked.” She nodded for Darcy to continue.
“So I checked the logs and noticed that there was a lot of demon activity in each area Linc had been spotted. Which goes without saying, I know. But in this case, the reading for crossovers was way higher than usual.”
Darcy pushed a pile of print outs across the table. Parker picked them up and gave them a skim.
“So,” Darcy continued. “I got to thinking that if I’m the badass tainted gatekeeper—”
Badass? Parker mouthed to Rae.
“—and I might be capable of bringing down the wall between our worlds, maybe I’m drawn to hot zones or…”
“Maybe their drawn to him,” Rae finished, seeing where Darcy was headed with this.
“Right. Which leads us back to South America.” She gestured to the largest map projected on the wall. “Like lots of remote places around the globe, South America has its share of random demon activity.”
Places her team, being a freelance office until recently, would be dispatched to as required. Given the minimal population in some of those areas, drug cartels and civil unrest, the network hadn’t been in favor of permanently assigning any Destroyers to the area.
“When I started taking a closer look at activity down there, I noticed a concentration in this region.” She pointed to the map. “The last three years it’s steadily moved along the coast, and there’s nothing random about the activity.”
Parker crossed his arms. “And you think that’s where we’ll find Linc?”
“Where I’ll find Linc, yeah.”
Rae looked up from the maps in front of her. “Come again?”
“I have to be the one to go.” Darcy let out a tense breath. “Something Molly said.”
“Drew’s daughter?” Parker asked.
Darcy nodded, meeting Rae’s gaze. “I didn’t realize what she meant at the time, but I think this was it, that I’m the one meant to find him. For Jordan. Maybe for all of us.”
Rae knew Drew’s little girl displayed clairvoyant abilities, but most of the occurrences and people involved had been local.
“Molly knew Blair was going to have twins, Rae. Like me, Blair didn’t know what she was talking about until recently.”
“Right now I need you here.”
“If your father is right, then finding the gatekeeper could be the tipping point.”
It felt like someone came along and sucked all the air out of the room. “What did you say?”
Darcy paled. “I didn’t go inside your head, I swear. I just… I had never seen you so rattled by an assignment before, and when I thought about how you were in the briefing room that day and then in the training room yesterday, it just sort of clicked into place. Plus,” she added. “You have your father’s eyes.”
Rae couldn’t bring herself to move or really think beyond replaying Darcy’s words over in her mind.
“And,” Parker prompted.
Darcy looked puzzled. “And?” Her gaze swung back to Rae, but whether it was something Parker was thinking or Rae’s rising distress that triggered it, she wasn’t sure.
“And…I promise only to crack Frankenstein jokes when no one else is around?” Darcy winced. “That was too soon, wasn’t it?”
“No.” Rae barely got the word out. Relief washed over her and for a second she thought she wasn’t going to be able to blink back the tears that caught her by surprise.
Parker’s hand enveloped hers and he spoke quietly against her ear. “Told you so.”
“So,” Darcy said, gesturing back to the map, though she nudged Rae with her hip.
Rae cleared her throat. “Does Adrian know what you’ve been working on?”
“I don’t think so. He’s been worried about you since he heard about Hurst.” She held up her hands. “No peeking, it’s just been obvious.”
“Let’s keep your progress under wraps for now. If Adrian knows anything, he’ll probably feel compelled to pass the information along to the network. Until we’ve ruled out another mole or security breach, I want to keep this development quiet.”
“So you’ll let me go? Today?”
“Even if I was considering this, how do you know where to start looking? Hot zone or not, we’re talking about a big area here.”
Darcy stared at the maps. “I follow the symbols.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Just tell me you’ll think about it.”
“I’ll think about it,” she agreed, allowing Parker to lead her out of the room.
When they finally reached her office, Parker asked, “Should I get you a paper bag or are you breathing fine on your own?”
She slugged him in the arm, then leaned into him and closed her eyes. “I’ve been holding on to it for so long,” she murmured, comforted by the strength in the arms he wrapped around her.
“The rest of them will be okay with it too, you know.”
“Is that the profiling experience talking?”
“Nope.”
She smiled. “That wasn’t the answer I was looking for.”
“If you looking for my professional opinion—”
She reached up and slid her mouth over his. “Nobody loves a know-it-all.”
He grinned against her lips. “You do.”
Pulling away from him when she’d rather stay in his arms, her gaze was drawn to the wall of symbols beyond Parker’s shoulder.
He followed her gaze, and she felt him tense.
“No matter how many times I run it through my head, I can’t figure it out.”
At least she wasn’t the only one confused as hell. “Which part?”
“The Scion, Amara, calling me.”
“Maybe it was meant to distract you, to slow us down from finding my father.”
Parker frowned. “That’s what doesn’t make sense though. The calls started long before we even knew about your father and the missing kids.”
“Does any demon really need a reason to poke at old wounds?”
“So if it was only to create that turmoil, then why start calling me weeks ago when she wasn’t even there to feed off it?”
“Tell me what you’re thinking.” She forced the words out, bracing herself for whatever might be running through his mind.
“I don’t know.” He rubbed his hands over his face. “She was making cookies that day, you know.”
“Your mom?”
Parker nodded. “She called to tell me Kerri was blowing off a trip to the mall with her friends for some mother-daughter bonding. She wanted me to come over later for cookies, and we laughed, knowing she’d probably end up burning the crap out of them. Every cookie she ever made when I was growing up ended up scorched on the bottom. For whatever reason, once they went into the oven, they were pretty much toast.”
He gave her a sad smile. “I never cared though.” He let out a breath. “It was always the hardest part you know, trying to figure out how she went from making cookies to killing my sister.” His voice broke, and he gripped the back of the chair in front of him. “It was my job, Rae, my job to evaluate people, determine how they were going to handle the change and I thought she was going to be fine.”
Rae took his hand, turning him to face her. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“That doesn’t make it stop hurting.” His palm circled the center of his chest, and she flattened her hand over his.
“I know.”
Lacing their fingers together, he glanced at the wall. “Amara could have put those images in my head. She could have made me see what I imagined Kerri might have seen that day, and stood back to enjoy it and she didn’t. Why not?”
She searched his face, willing her stomach not to tie itself into knots. “You really think she knows something.”
“I think the only way I’ll know for sure is to talk to your father. He seemed surprised to hear she’s been calling me. Either he was annoyed that she’s been toying with me or he knows something about what happened that day.”
“Now we just need to find him.”
Parker nodded. “I’m going to see if Braxton could use some help.”
She followed Parker into the hall, planning to search out Adrian. She didn’t get more that a dozen steps before he came around the corner.
“I was just about to send someone back to your place. Are you all right? Lawrence didn’t hurt you?”
“No. And for the most part, neither did his new best friend.”
“Burke?”
Dealing with Burke—lingering trauma aside—would be a cakewalk compared to the Scion. “I wish. My father hasn’t seen or heard from Burke in years.” She preceded Adrian into her office and shut the door before sliding into her chair.
“And you believe him?” He didn’t wait for her to respond before continuing. “Lawrence was my best friend. I know how tempting it is to believe he couldn’t be involved.”
“He had a Scion with him.”
“What?” Adrian dropped into the chair in front of her desk. “You’re sure?”
Rae nodded. “Her name is Amara.”
“So Lawrence is tainted then.”
“I don’t think so. Their relationship is a bit more…personal.”
Adrian’s brows shot up at her deliberate emphasis on personal. “He’s sleeping with a Scion?” His gaze turned critical. “It…she didn’t attack you?”
“Not unless you count knocking us out with some kind of wicked mental assault.”
Dark Obsession Page 21