Cavanaugh Stakeout

by Marie Ferrarella

  She raised her chin. “All right,” she said, bracing herself. “Just what does occur to you when you look at me?”

  His voice was low, seductive and arousing as he answered her. “That you’re a smart, beautiful woman who’s incredibly loyal. You have a way of tapping into people’s thoughts and minds. You certainly got to my grand-uncle when no one else in the family could.”

  Each word he uttered felt as if he was making verbal love to her. Nik had to remember to breathe.

  “Funny,” she finally said, “I wouldn’t have guessed that from the way we talked to one another.”

  “I guess I’m really good at keeping my thoughts hidden,” he told her, his words all but undulating along her skin.

  He was sitting so close to her that when he exhaled, his very breath seemed to caress her. Though she was trying to steel herself off, she could feel herself tingling all over in response. Could feel herself willing him to move in even closer and take this—whatever this was—to the next level.

  As if sensing her thoughts, Finn gently cupped her face with his hand and then, almost as if moving in slow motion, he brought his mouth down to hers.

  When his lips touched hers, Nik could have sworn that she had instantly felt an explosion going off inside of her.

  Or maybe not an explosion, but fireworks, she amended. The kind of fireworks that went off lighting up the sky on the Fourth of July.

  In less than a blink of an eye, Nik found herself erasing the tiny distance that still remained between them. Her eyes on his, she laced her arms around his neck, and gave herself permission to get completely lost in the sensation that all but swallowed her up.

  She could feel her heart racing, as if it was radiating and smiling in warm anticipation.

  And then, as he kissed her again and again, Nik felt his mouth curving against hers. Was he smiling—or laughing at her? She really couldn’t tell.

  Drawing her head back to look at him, she searched his face. “What?”

  “Your coffee’s definitely got a big kick to it,” he told her.

  “Too strong?” she asked, thinking that perhaps she had misread the signs and wound up coming on too strong.

  “No,” he whispered, the sound of his voice seducing her. “Just right,” he assured her, lowering his head once more and kissing her again.

  This time, when the fireworks began exploding in her veins—and they did, instantaneously—she just went with them. She couldn’t hold back but reveled in the way he made her feel.

  Deep down, she knew that she should listen to the little voice in her head that was telling her to back away—but she didn’t want to. Yes, there was a line that needed to be drawn between them, a line in the sand that they each had to stand behind, but right now, she had absolutely no desire even to acknowledge that such a line existed.

  Nik kissed him harder.

  This was truly a first for him. Finn felt overwhelmed. When he had leaned in to kiss her, he admittedly had wanted to recapture, just for a moment, that sensation he had felt the last time he had kissed Nik.

  He wasn’t prepared to be knocked over like this.

  And he definitely wasn’t expecting to have ravenous desire exploding in his veins like this. He felt more alive than he had ever felt before.

  His breath caught in his throat, feeding on what was going on between them. He kissed her again.

  And again.

  Each time he did, he felt even more intoxicated than he had just a moment before. She was making him feel drunk and he hadn’t indulged in a single drop of alcohol, not in hours.

  He threaded his fingers through her hair, holding her to him. “If they ever found a way to bottle you, that person would definitely become a millionaire a thousand times over,” he breathed against her lips.

  Her head was spinning so hard, she was losing her grip on everything except for what has happening right here, right now. Nik knew she was completely losing control. Rather than be afraid, she reveled in the wild, heady feeling.

  All up and down along her arms, she could feel goose bumps forming, even as her flesh heated in response to his kisses.

  Her breath continued to grow shorter and shorter, her pulse heightening as he slid his fingertips along her curves, feeding her ravenous desire.

  Her breathing was raspy.

  When he kissed Nik’s throat, Finn felt her pulse throbbing beneath his lips. That only increased his own desire to almost unmanageable proportions. He struggled to rein himself in. He didn’t want to go too fast, didn’t want to make her feel that if she wanted to, she couldn’t put a stop to what was happening at any given moment—even though he fervently prayed that she wouldn’t want to.

  Her heart was slamming against her ribs. The eagerness that was possessing her was growing to outrageous proportions.

  Every movement he made with his hands, with his lips, all just fanned the flames of desire that were all but burning up her very insides.

  Unable to hold back any longer, Nik pulled at the buttons on his shirt, working them free of the holes that were holding them in place. The second the last button had been freed, she was pushing Finn’s shirt off his shoulders. Her fingers moved possessively along his naked flesh.

  And then her lips replaced her fingers, working a hot network of heated kisses along his bare skin.

  Nik had opened the floodgates. Finn followed suit, making love to every part of her body slowly, tenderly, working hard to hold himself in check as much as humanly possible.

  But it wasn’t easy.

  When she pressed her body against him, Finn worshipped her with his lips and tongue, anointing every part of her even as he drank her in like a man who had been lost in the desert counting the seconds as he waited for that very first drop of rain.

  She felt his hands on her, felt her own clothes disappearing from her body. Each time Finn touched her, she moaned, twisting hard to absorb the feel of his hands on her body. A fire had been lit in the very core of her. Breathing hard, dragging air in, she reached for him, eager to return the favor.

  Neither one of them remembered how they found their way to the carpeted floor, but when they did, they took advantage of the position. They feasted on their freshly nude bodies, making love to every part and creating a desire that refused to be contained.

  And then they were finally positioned for the final act of lovemaking.

  Nik felt she could barely control herself. Fire was licking at her limbs as she arched her back, moving urgently beneath him. Desperate to receive him yet wanting to sustain this wild, wonderful feeling just an instant longer.

  Balancing his weight on his elbows, Finn looked down into her face and caught himself thinking he had never seen anything quite so beautiful as the expression he now saw on her face.

  Again his breath caught in his throat, this time as he positioned himself over her body and then slowly, increment by tiny increment, lowered himself until they became one joined unit.

  The second they were united, he began to move. Slowly and then increasingly faster, as if there was some sort of race they needed to conquer, some sort of finish line they needed to cross.

  When the explosion finally came and enveloped them in its euphoric cloud, she had to bite her lower lip to keep from crying out.

  The ecstasy was overwhelming.

  She could feel it flowering all through her, filling up every inch and hovering inside of her until finally, it floated away, leaving them both spent and trying to catch their breaths.

  Eventually the sound of heavy breathing leveled off and she felt his body sink down against hers before he moved over to the side, giving her a little breathing space.

  “Wow,” he whispered against her hair.

  He tried to pull air into his lungs and it took him almost a full minute before he was able to successfully do that.

  “I
s this the way all the parties at the chief’s house end?” she asked.

  He raised himself up on his elbow to see if she was being serious. The glint in her eyes gave her away. He smiled.

  “As a matter of fact, they don’t,” he answered, “but this definitely earned my seal of approval.”

  “Really,” she said, the corners of her mouth curving in a satisfied smile.

  His eyes crinkled in the corners. “Really,” he answered.

  “Well,” she replied, beginning to weave a small network of kisses along his neck and jawline, “then maybe we can do it again.”

  “When?” he asked, feeling his blood beginning to accelerate and rush, full force, through his veins all over again.

  “Now,” she breathed.

  And then there was no more space for any words. They were far too busy undertaking an encore performance to say anything more.

  Chapter 21

  The scent of fresh, strong coffee brewing wafted in from the kitchen and wrapped itself around him. As the aroma slowly penetrated his brain, it gradually nudged Finn into a state of consciousness. As a rule, he wasn’t a morning person, but the nature of his work had made him become one.

  Finally awake, Finn focused on his surroundings. That was when he realized that he had never gotten around to going home. After that final time that he and Nik had made love, he’d been just too exhausted to move. So he had slipped his arm around her, held Nik to him, and silently promised himself that he would get up and leave. He just wanted to rest for five minutes.

  When that had passed, he gave himself another five minutes. And then five more after that until eventually, he ran out of minutes and just drifted off to sleep, still holding Nik.

  The ultimate result of his nocturnal activity was that he wound up sleeping far more soundly than he had in years.

  But now he was awake with questions forming in his brain at what felt like the speed of light. He threw on his clothes and followed the scent of coffee back to its origin. The kitchen.

  He saw that Nik was awake and already dressed, wearing jeans and a blue pullover sweater that had managed to lose its shape somewhere along the way. Her feet were bare. She was petite. He hadn’t realized that Nik was as short as she was.

  Why that made him smile made no sense to him, but it did.

  “Why didn’t you wake me?” he asked, walking into the kitchen.

  She hadn’t heard him entering and he’d caught her by surprise as she swung around to look at him. “You looked so peaceful, I didn’t want to disturb you.” She thought of all the work they had put in. “It’s been a rough week.”

  “The last twenty-four hours weren’t too bad,” he told her with a wicked grin.

  Getting their cups ready, she looked at Finn over her shoulder. “No, they definitely weren’t that,” Nik agreed.

  Coming up directly behind her, he wrapped his arms around Nik. He breathed in the coffee as well as her scent. It was hard to say which he craved more. He decided the coffee came in second.

  “So,” he began, continuing to hold her, “how’s the rest of your Sunday shaping up?”

  Nik turned around in the circle of his arms, smiling up into his eyes. “What did you have in mind?” she asked him. She had no sooner asked her question than his phone rang, vibrating in his back pocket. She suppressed a sigh. “Hopefully your plans don’t include answering your phone,” she told him.

  “Maybe it’s a wrong number,” Finn said.

  She laughed softly. “What are the odds?” she countered as he took it out. One look at his face as he glanced down at the screen answered her question for her. “My guess is that it’s nil.”

  “This is kind of early for you, isn’t it?” he said to the person on the other end of the call. “Uh-huh. Uh-huh,” he said, listening. After another beat, he said, “Thanks for letting me know.”

  Ending the call, he slipped his phone back into his pocket. He could see that Nik was all but jumping out of her skin, waiting for him to explain. Rather than play out the moment, he filled her in. “That was my cousin-in-law. She’s on duty today at the morgue.”

  She wasn’t sure what he was telling her. “Are you bragging or looking for some sympathy for her?”

  Rather than banter, he gave her a direct answer. “She just finished up doing all those extensive tox screens on the victims,” he told her.

  Nik could feel her pulse jump. This was it, she thought, instantly becoming serious. “And?” she asked. “What did she find?”

  “Just what we suspected,” he told her. “All the victims had at least traces of Rohypnol in their blood, if not more.”

  “Well, that would explain why none of the victims fought back. They weren’t able to,” she said angrily. There was fire in her eyes as she looked up at Finn. “We’ve got to catch that worthless scum,” she cried with feeling.

  “We will,” he promised. He glanced over toward her kitchen. “How about I make us some breakfast and then we’ll go to the squad room to work these cases from the beginning? Maybe we can figure out who the killer is. It’s Sunday so it should be quieter—”

  “Hold it, back up,” Nik said, holding up her hand like a traffic cop to get him to stop.

  “Look, if you don’t want to go in,” Finn told her, “I under—”

  Shaking her head, Nik interrupted him. “That’s not why I’m telling you to stop. Did I hear you right?” she asked. “Did you just offer to make breakfast?”

  He didn’t understand what the big deal was. Why did she look so surprised at his offer? “Yes, so?”

  She was still having trouble wrapping her mind around this. “You cook?”

  He looked at her. Why was she having such a problem with this? “I just offered to make breakfast so I would have thought that was self-evident. Yes, I cook. I’m a Cavanaugh,” he told her. “Like law enforcement, it’s in our blood.” Maybe she was expecting something outstanding, he realized. He was quick to set her straight. “I don’t do anything overly fancy, but it’s enough to keep me alive. Why?” he asked, looking at her expression suspiciously.

  “I’m just surprised, that’s all,” she confessed. “Most men I know have trouble with the concept of boiling water and which way to turn the little dials on the stovetop.”

  Just then, his cell rang again, interrupting her.

  Nik looked at the offending gadget, bemused. “Did your cousin-in-law forget to tell you something?” she asked as Finn pulled out his phone again.

  “Cavanaugh,” he announced, answering his cell. The look on his face quickly turned grim. “Got it. I’ll be there.”

  “Be where?” Nik asked, her heart sinking as he ended the call.

  “Looks like breakfast is going to have to be to-go,” he told her. “Another body just turned up. This victim was found in an alley just two blocks away from a popular night spot called Good Times.” His expression became even grimmer as he added, “Suffice to say that our victim didn’t have one.”

  “Same as the others?” she asked, although she felt she already knew the answer to that.

  He nodded, confirming her suspicions. “Sounds like it.” He watched as Nik went to her refrigerator and took two packaged items out of her freezer. Removing them from their packaging, she popped both items into her microwave and pressed the appropriate buttons. “What’s that?” he asked.

  “That,” she told him as she poured coffee into two thermal mugs and twisted on their lids, “is my answer to breakfast on the run.” The microwave bell dinged. “It’s not half-bad,” she assured him.

  “Not half-bad,” Finn echoed, shaking his head. “Now, that’s a ringing endorsement if I ever heard one,” he said, amused.

  Nik shrugged. “Sorry, best I can do on short notice,” she told him, wrapping up the heated breakfast servings and tossing each one into a paper bag.

  Well, at
least it smelled appetizing, he thought. “Your ‘best’ is definitely good enough for me,” he told her.

  Finn grabbed his coffee container and followed her out the door.

  Bemused, Nik gave him an uncertain look as she locked up her apartment.

  “You know, you’re like a whole different person today. Did you have some kind of an epiphany yesterday?” she asked.

  His grin immediately burrowed straight down into her bones.

  “As a matter of fact, I did,” he told her. Switching subjects, he said as he got into his car, “And if they ask, I called you when I got this message and swung by to pick you up.”

  In her opinion, he was being unusually deceptive. After all, it wasn’t as if they were coworkers. “Okay, but why? Don’t want anyone to know we spent the night together?” she asked, getting in on her side. She deposited her packed provisions on the floor.

  “I figured that you wouldn’t want anyone to know,” he told her, then added, “I was just looking out for your reputation.”

  “I can look out for my own reputation, thank you,” she told him. And then, feeling like that sounded a little too defensive, she softened. “But that was a nice thought on your part.”

  “Hey,” he said with a good-natured shrug, “I’m a nice guy.”

  “Yes,” she agreed, turning toward him and smiling, “you are.”

  * * *

  Harley, who had called him about this latest murder, and Ramirez were already on the scene when he and Nik arrived.

  Finn lost no time in getting out of the car and crossing over to his men, who were still standing over the victim.

  “What can you tell us about this one?” Finn asked Harley.

  Nik was right behind him. Pity filled her as she looked down at the dead woman. Pity and anger. Like the others, the victim had been stabbed through the heart. How could anyone do this to another human being?