Craving Vengeance, a Nick Spinelli Mystery
Page 13
She met his every thrust. She wrapped her legs around him and hooked her heels together. The leather from her boots squeaked. He drove harder and deeper until she pulsated with pleasure around him. His own heated pleasure swept through him with more intensity than a wildfire. His release didn’t take long to follow. He collapsed, totally spent.
He rolled off her and attempted to catch his breath. She rolled with him curling into the curve of his arm. Her warm hand rested on his chest. He placed his hand over hers. His thudding heartbeat penetrated through her palm and into his. He wondered if she had a clue as to the intensity of his feelings for her. They’d yet to exchange the “L” word. In fact, he’d never used it before. For some reason, he fought the urge to say it now. Why was he fighting it? He truly felt it. Why not say it? Fear swept through him. What if she didn’t say it back? He’d feel like such an idiot.
Her breaths grew slow and even. Exhaustion finally consumed her. She’d fallen asleep. He couldn’t blame her. She’d had a pretty tough day. Her silky red hair spilled over his shoulder and chest. He inhaled, capturing her scent. Her hair always smelled like a fresh spring morning. The “L” word still lingered in his mind. Perhaps he should practice saying it now while she slept. What harm could come of that? It escaped his lips before he could think twice about it this time.
She lifted her head and met his gaze. Her eyes sparkled. “I love you too, Nick.”
She brushed her full sweet lips softly across his and laid her head back down on his chest.
Relief swept through him. That wasn’t so bad. His eyes watered. He’d never heard anything so beautiful and satisfying in his life. His blurry gaze shifted to his jeans on the floor in the bedroom doorway. He thought about the ring in his pocket. He glanced at the clock, two minutes to midnight, still Valentine’s Day. He still had time to do what he’d set out to do on this particular day.
***
Note to Readers
Dear Reader,
Thank you for reading CRAVING VENGEANCE, a Nick Spinelli Mystery! I hope you enjoyed Nick and Shannon's story.
The next book in the Nick Spinelli series is CRAZED RECKONING. If you thought Nick and Shannon’s Christmas crisis and Valentine’s Day calamity were something, you might want to check out their St. Patrick’s Day catastrophe...
One-click CRAZED RECKONING, a Nick Spinelli Mystery. Don’t miss out!
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Valerie J. Clarizio's Other Titles:
The Nick Spinelli Romance Mystery Series
Covert Exposure, a Nick Spinelli Mystery, novella 1
Craving Vengeance, a Nick Spinelli Mystery, novella 2
Crazed Reckoning, a Nick Spinelli Mystery, novella 3
Romantic Suspense Titles
Taken by Surprise
Unforeseen Obsessions
Plan Interrupted
Chandler County Series
Missing the Crown Jewels
Missing out on Life
Crime & Passion Stalk City Hall Series
The Code Enforcer
A Brush with Death
Time Travel Romance Titles
Time WARped
Destiny Reclaimed
Contemporary Romance Titles
Family Forever
Short Story Titles
Love Thaws a Frozen Heart
Love on the Door County Peninsula Series
Talia & Ryan's Story
Jess & Sam's Story
Bonus Excerpt
Enjoy this excerpt from CRAZED RECKONING, a Nick Spinelli Mystery.
Chapter One
Shannon studied her handheld global positioning unit before tossing a glance over her shoulder at Anna. “According to the coordinates, we’re exactly where we are supposed to be.”
“Great, now, we just need to find our little treasure,” Anna replied with an excited schoolgirl grin usually reserved for Christmas morning.
The ladies scavenged the area looking for the cache. What would it look like? How big would it be? And most importantly, would they be able to decipher the clue inside, leading them to the ultimate treasure. She imagined her and Anna wearing the two 14 karat gold Claddagh friendship rings, the grand prize for their club’s “Saint Patrick’s Day Women’s Geocaching Weekend Adventure” in beautiful Door County, Wisconsin.
Shannon’s pulse raced and her eyes rapidly shifted back and forth, as she scanned her surroundings. “We need to hurry,” she informed Anna as if her friend already didn’t know they were competing against nine other teams of two.
According to the instructions, four caches contained numeric clues. Once located and deciphered, they provided the coordinates leading to the fifth cache, the prize cache.
“I’m looking as fast as I can,” Anna replied with a tinge of annoyance in her voice. Yet she kept her smile in place. “Is someone just a bit excited?”
Shannon giggled. “I’m sorry. I guess I am.”
Frigid air nipped at Shannon’s nose as she stood at the edge of the four-foot-high rock cliff lining the icy waters of the bay. Ice chunks of all shapes and sizes rushed past the ledge and rode the waves into the unforgiving ledge. Some broke into pieces as they struck the hard rock and sent a thunderous reverberation into the atmosphere with such force that Shannon’s chest vibrated in response.
Shannon yanked her zipper up until it reached her chin, and then she pulled her headband over her already frozen ears. She glanced at Anna who had already done the same. “I’m sure glad I wore my Columbia jacket and ski pants on this adventure. I nearly didn’t, but then I remembered how Mother Nature tended to let loose her frustration in Door County in March.”
Anna nodded. “Last year it was nearly sixty degrees on this weekend. This morning the weatherman predicted a high of thirty-five. What a difference.”
Shannon pulled her phone from her pocket to snap a couple of pictures. “It’s so beautiful here.”
“All the state parks in Door County are gorgeous, but I have to admit, this one is my favorite. My parents used to take my siblings and me camping here. And it wasn’t the kind of camping people do nowadays with campers, Dish TV, and handheld video games. It was the ‘pitch the tent’ kind with hiking and fishing.” Anna stepped closer to the edge and pointed to the left. “There’s a boat ramp over there. My dad would launch his little rowboat and we’d catch perch and sunfish. It was fun.”
Shannon fixed her gaze on Anna as she stared out over the water. She looked content, lost in fond childhood memories.
A twig snapped. A rustling sound followed from the same direction the women had just come. Shannon spun around. “Did you hear that?”
Anna peered into the woods as well.
Though just past noon, the overcast day darkened the woods as if it were early evening.
The wind whipped around them. Trees swayed and creaked. “It was probably just the wind,” Anna assured.
“Yeah,” Shannon whispered, thoug
h a hint of unease coiled around her spine.
Anna shifted her gaze. “Well, it’s got to be here somewhere,” she commented before she dropped to all fours and leaned over the ledge. Her neck craned to see if anything was stashed beneath the overhang.
Anna looked up, grinning like a kid in a candy store. “It’s hanging under there but I don’t think I can reach it.”
Shannon knelt in the soft melting snow and leaned over the edge to take a look. She stretched out her arm, gripped the red cylinder, and handed it to Anna. Anna twisted off the top and pulled the small notepad from the container. After she signed the log, she ripped out the page addressed to their team and refastened the top to the container. Shannon returned the cylinder to where she’d found it.
“Hmm,” they sounded in unison as they glanced at the clue. It meant nothing to them at the moment. They’d feed it into the deciphering software Shannon had purchased once they gathered all the clues from the four caches.
As they walked back toward their car, they discovered a marked trail. “Excellent, a trail,” Anna commented. “It sure would have been handy if the GPS had taken us in on it rather than the roundabout way we took.”
Shannon brought up the park map on her phone. “Looks like this trail will take us right back to the parking lot, but if we stay on the trail our fresh footprints will be a dead giveaway to the teams that follow us.” Shannon thought for a moment and then shrugged. “On the flip side, perhaps our next search will be made easier by our predecessors’ trail.” Hmm, easy or adventure? She forged on; she wanted the grand prize.
Anna sucked in a loud breath. Shannon glanced over her shoulder. She didn’t know if her friend’s cheeks were rosy from the exertion or the wind. “I caught a glimpse of a bench up ahead. Do you want to take five?”
Anna nodded. “Yeah, I’m not as young as I used to be.”
Their hike to the cache hadn’t been a long one, but the terrain they crossed didn’t make for an easy walk. They stepped over logs, through and around mucky areas, trekked through snow, and climbed small rock ledges. Anna was twenty-five years Shannon’s elder, nearly fifty-four, and carried a few extra pounds.
Anna took a pull from her water bottle and swiped her brow as she rested on the bench. She cleared her throat. “I should probably go to the gym I joined, huh?”
Shannon giggled.
Another rustling noise sounded close behind them. Shannon sprang to her feet and looked in its direction. “What caused that? It was the same noise I heard before when we were by the water.”
Anna shifted on the bench. “I don’t know. I’m sure it was nothing,”
Anna replied as she slowly lifted herself from the bench. “We’d better get a move on. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover today.”
As they proceeded down the trail toward the parking lot, Shannon glanced periodically over her shoulder.
“What’s the matter? What do you keep looking for?” Anna asked.
Shannon hesitated before answering. After all, she’d been through in the past three months, was she just being paranoid? She thought about her friends, Roland Hudson and Aaron Reed, murdered by a drug cartel last December at the mall while wearing their Santa and elf costumes. She thought about Tony Rosso, Chad Williams, Mike Carter, and Joshua Meyers. Her past romantic interests all murdered last month on Valentine’s Day while dressed as Cupid. With Saint Patrick’s Day creeping up, she wasn’t sure she could make it through another holiday. Especially since this one fell on her birthday—double whammy.
Shannon sighed. Was she really going to be twenty-eight in just two more days? She smiled at the thought of how happy it made her dad that she’d been born on Saint Patrick’s Day. When she was younger, he’d always claimed the Saint Patrick’s Day parades and festivities were thrown in celebration of her birthday. He’d been pretty convincing at the time. A vision of her dad’s ear-to-ear smile played through her mind. She should pay her parents a visit soon. It had been a while.
The immediate issue at hand returned to Shannon. Could she make it through another holiday? She was running out of friends; hence, why she and Anna decided to take this geocaching trip. They wanted to get out of Milwaukee and harm’s way.
Shannon met Anna’s gaze. “I don’t know. I feel like we’re being watched.”
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About the Author
Valerie Clarizio is a USA Today Bestselling author who lives in romantic Door County Wisconsin with her husband. She loves to read, write, and spend time at her cabin in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
She's lived her life surrounded by men, three brothers, a husband, and a male Siamese cat who required his own instruction manual. Keeping up with all the men in her life has turned her into an outdoors enthusiast, of which her favorite activity is hiking in national parks. While out on the trails, she has plenty of time to conjure up irresistible characters and unique storylines for her next romantic suspense or sweet contemporary romance novel.
Read more at Valerie J. Clarizio’s site.