“Lee,” she whispers, and I smile for what feels like the first time in forever as I toss the end of my tie over my shoulder and spread her creamy thighs with my hands.
Every muscle in her body contracts when I place a soft open-mouthed kiss on the very center of her, and she drops down to lie on her back on my desk when I lick her. Her legs threaten to close over my ears, and I hold them tight as I suck her clit into my mouth before starting the circuit all over again.
Her whole body shakes and quivers, and she lets out soft little pants. She fists my hair in her hands and pulls me tight against her pussy, and I’m all too happy to follow. And then as I roll my tongue over her one last time. She lets go, and it’s as beautiful as it is life-altering.
“Lee,” she whispers. “Please.”
I stand up over her and unbuckle my leather belt. I unzip my slacks and have to hold my cock tight in my fist when I look at all her flushed, creamy skin down to her glistening pink pussy.
I notch the very tip of me against her opening and slowly sink inside. I clench my eyes tight, and she wraps her legs around my waist, encouraging me to move. I lean over her and rest my hands on either side of her head before taking her mouth in a savage kiss. She blossoms under me, taking everything I have to give and more.
And then I pull my hips back, sliding almost all the way out, and drive back in, making her gasp again. I do it again and again, loving the soft sounds she makes when she gives herself over to the pleasure between us.
Emma wraps her arms around my waist, and I feel her grip the back of my shirt in her fingers. I wish we were skin-on-skin, but this will have to do for now. Tonight, I’ll make sure there is nothing between us, and then I’ll take my time and savor the moment.
She bites down on my bottom lip, and the sting drives me hard. I plunge deep, faster and faster, until she drops her head back on the desk and opens her mouth. I crush my lips to hers and thrust my tongue inside as I swallow her cries, and her body grips me tight as she comes.
I drive deep twice more before planting myself inside her and following her over the edge. I drop my forehead down to rest on top of hers and listen to our breaths saw in and out of our chests. For the first time in a long time, I feel settled. A rightness of the world blankets me as all the pieces click into place, and one thing I know with absolute certainty is that Emma is mine.
She pushes gently on my shoulders before whispering, “You’re crushing me.”
I place a soft kiss on her lips and stand up, letting our bodies slide apart. I tuck myself back in my slacks and do up the front. I see she’s trying to come to terms with what just happened, but I’m not going to give her the opening to run again. I can’t do it. But I will be gentle, so I sit back in my chair, grab her pants and panties from the floor, and slide them up her legs one at a time before tying the drawstring gently.
I hold a hand out to her to help her sit up when I see her flopping around a bit like a roly-poly. Her belly is just big enough to be cumbersome and keep her from sitting up on her own. She takes my hand and lets me help her, which is a victory I’m happy to claim.
“Lee—” she starts with a worried look on her face, but I don’t let her finish.
“No, Emma,” I tell her gently. “This happened. We are happening.”
“Maybe this was a mistake,” she says, and I can tell she’s grasping at straws again because she’s scared, but I’m done. No more running unless it’s to each other.
“You know this wasn’t a mistake.”
“I don’t know anything,” she snaps as she slides her feet back into her sneakers and pulls her Van Halen T-shirt down over her belly.
I’m just about to reply, when there’s another knock at the door.
SEVEN
* * *
DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING?
“This isn’t over,” I warn her as she makes her way over to the door.
“It is,” she replies as she flips the lock open, making me roll my eyes.
“I was serious when I said—”
“I know, you’re ‘done fucking around,’” she says with finger quotes, which if anyone else did them, it would drive me insane.
“It’s true,” I remind her. “You’re mine.”
“We’ll see,” she says as she pulls open the door, giving my meddlesome but loveable sister entrance.
Yes, we will.
“Where have you been?” she snaps as she looks between us.
Claire can’t find anything wrong, even though she’s a damn good detective and I know it. When she knocked on the door, it was all I could do to calm Emma down as I had just slid her panties and scrub pants up her legs and tied the drawstring in a neat little bow. I would have loved to have had more time with Emma to talk about what had just happened but it looks as if my luck hasn’t changed much.
But when I tucked myself back in my pants and buckled my belt, everything changed. Emma used those precious moments to re-erect the walls she previously held between us. So now she’s in a fluster to get out of my office and put some much-needed distance between us. And I’d give her that play—for now.
But as I watch her, I can’t help but think maybe Wes was right after all. Maybe Emma nees a push. So she can run, but I’m going to chase her, because this is right. I’ve never felt surer of anything in my life, and I’m done feeling guilty and fighting it.
“Well?” Claire snaps.
“I was here,” I answer. She shoots me a hard look, and I know she’s watching me for any inconsistencies, but there are none. What’s happening between Emma and me is none of her business, at least not yet.
“Dispatch is trying to page you,” she says quickly. “There was another body.”
“Fuck,” I bite out. I should not have fucked Emma in my office, but I will not regret it, because whether she knows it or not, she gave me the opening I have been waiting months for.
“I should go prep the Body Mover for transport,” she says quietly—too quietly.
“Em—” I start, but she’s already out the door. I stand up to go after her, but Claire stops me.
“Let her go,” she commands me gently.
“Don’t,” I warn my only living sister. We had grown up, just Claire and me, but after we learned of a half-sister no one knew about after she was murdered, I realized that life was too short and that I had to make the most of it. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to let Claire walk all over me now. That doesn’t mean she won’t try, but it’s who we are.
“Do you know what you’re doing with her?” The way Claire looks at me says she doesn’t exactly trust me with her only friend. And she has a point. I’m not the hero in this story. But I’m also not going to let her discourage me for going after what I want. What I need.
“Yes,” I answer honestly, looking her in the eyes so she knows how serious I take these words. “I’m making her mine.”
“But at what cost, Lee?”
“I love her.”
Her face softens. “Then go get your girl.”
“Christ. Pregnancy has made you soft,” I tease her.
“If you think I’m bad, you should see Wes,” she says with a mischievous smile. “He cries at the drop of a hat these days.”
“I know. He’s a regular water pot.”
“Love you,” she murmurs softly, wrapping her arms around my middle.
“Love you too, sis.”
EIGHT
* * *
WE NEED TO TALK
“Try not to burn the building down,” I say, rolling my eyes at my sister. She just flips me off. The move makes me smile.
She really is the very best sister, and I love her. I can’t even think of what my life would be like if she was taken from our family forever, either when she was a little kid or last year. It’s hard enough knowing we had an older sister we’ll never know because she was murdered by a serial killer. Thankfully, we get to have her three children in our lives, even if Eric is away in the army, and Brooklyn is awa
y at school. Seth is in the loving care of my parents, and we try to all be there for him.
What I want to do is go after Emma. I don’t do that. Instead, I chase my sister out of my office, taking the written dispatch note from her, and head down the hall toward the back entrance to the station. I push out the glass door and take a deep breath before jumping in my car.
I turn the keys in the ignition and tip my head side to side to crack my neck. I need to get my head back in the game. Whoever is waiting for me at the next crime scene deserves my total attention. So I use the time as I drive through town.
The address I was given takes me out into the suburbs, where my sister and Wes live. It’s a nice neighborhood, the kind only a lot of money can buy. I’m surprised by the surroundings as I see the blue-and-red lights flash in front of a decent-sized home. Until now, our previous two victims were young, single pregnant women. They had no family, no partners, and no money. So part of me thinks whoever is waiting is not connected to the baby snatcher case.
I pull my keys from the ignition and step down from my Tahoe, shutting the door behind me. I beep the locks on my key fob and drop them in my pocket before making my way up the three-car driveway.
“Hey, Cap,” Jones greets me in the front of the house.
“Hey, Jones. What do we have?” I ask him as I take the paper booties and latex gloves he has in his hands for me. Fuck, more blood. “Thanks.”
“We got another one,” he says sadly, and I look at him—really look at him. Jones and his wife, Linda, have been trying to have a baby for a while now to no avail. Last I heard, they were considering adoption, but it’s so expensive, and a cop’s salary does not allow for that.
“How are you doing?”
“I’m okay,” he answers. “I just can’t for the life of me figure out why someone would be stealing babies.”
“That’s what we’re going to find out, buddy,” I remind him.
“I hope so.”
I follow him into the house, and we don’t have to travel far, because the victim is lying in a huge puddle of blood on her living room carpet. Fuck. Not again. Between Claire and Emma both being pregnant, I’ve become really sensitive to this. It burns deep that someone could do this to women. But I use that burn to drive me to keep going. I have to find out what happened to these people. They deserve that justice.
“Weird,” Jones mumbles as he watches the scene. I can tell that, like me, he’s taking in every little detail. If ever there were a cop who worked harder to make detective, I never knew them. He has a sharp mind and a great gut intuition. So, looking at him, I can tell that something other than the gruesome picture painted in vivid detail before us is eating away at him. I just don’t know if he knows what it is yet.
“It’s more than weird,” I reply, even though I’m pretty sure he was just thinking out loud. “Something on your mind, brother?”
“The living room,” he answers me, and he’s still whispering, and that in and of itself has the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end.
“What about the living room?”
“Every one of these girls was cut up on the living room floor,” he replies. “Why here?”
He’s right. Every last victim, of which we now have three, was hacked to pieces on their living room floors, their babies stolen from their wombs, and left to bleed out and die all alone. But why?
“You think they were entertaining?” I ask.
“I think they all knew the same person,” he says. “Because I can’t think of one person who would cut out a woman’s baby and leave her to bleed like that, let alone three.”
“Amen.”
“Well thanks for the invitation to the party,” Emma chirps as she rolls into the room in her coveralls and plastic booties. “But we really gotta stop meeting like this.”
“Amen to that too,” I mumble, and Jones just nods.
“I’m going to go look around the house,” he says. “See what else stands out.”
“You got it.”
I don’t look at him as he walks out of the room, so I definitely miss that he left it with a smirk playing out on his face and a wink to Emma’s assistant, Maryann. I just keep my eyes on Emma as she tends to the latest victim.
“Come here, boss,” she says as she waves her hand at me, and I move to squat down where she’s doing her preliminary work before she moves the body to her morgue. “Look at this.”
“What am I looking at?” I ask as I stare at a small purple bruise.
“Another puncture mark,” she answers. “I found one on the original victim too, and I’m running another toxicology report on her as well. But at this point, I think it’s safe to say—”
“Don’t do it,” I warn.
“—that you have yourself a serial killer,” she finishes, and I let my head drop back to examine the ceiling.
“I really, really fucking hate when you say that,” I tell her as I stand up and look at her. She smiles brightly in a sweetness-and-sunshine way that both steals the breath from my lungs and scares the ever-loving shit out of me.
“I know.”
“Hey, Em?” I begin, but she interrupts me, her voice soft and low and shoots straight to my heart.
“Not yet, Lee.”
“We need to talk, honey,” I say just as softly, matching my tone to hers.
“I know,” she replies. Emma glances away for a moment before looking back, her blue eyes burning into my violet ones. “But not yet, Lee. I need to get this body to the morgue.”
“Okay.”
I stand back and watch as she jumps in the driver seat of the van that is ridiculous with her metal-band stickers all over the back. I know the minute she turns the key in the ignition, because Drowning Pool starts blaring “Bodies” at an inhumane decibel. And then she peels out of the parking lot, and I watch her head out into the night and away from me, but I do it for the first time in a long time with a small amount of hope burning like the last ember in a campfire through my chest.
NINE
* * *
HOME ALONE TONIGHT
This is not how I saw my night going.
But still, I have hope. Tonight, Emma didn’t shut me down; she didn’t lash out like she normally does when I push for more. I told her we needed to talk, and she said she knew. That wasn’t her professing her undying love for me, but I’ll take it. I know I have to prove to her the kind of man I can be. I have to earn her trust, and I haven’t done that yet, but I’m going to do it now. So, no, she didn’t jump in with both feet, but she also didn’t tell me to go to hell.
As soon as I walked in the front door, I locked up my gun and stripped down before pulling on a T-shirt and a pair of gray sweatpants. I made my way back downstairs to the kitchen and pulled a beer out of the fridge, popping the top. I tossed the bottle cap in the trash, tipped the cool glass to my lips, and drank before setting it down on the island.
It’s been a shit day.
There’s something that’s bothering me about these victims. Who would cut up expectant mothers like that and why? It’s just not something I can wrap my mind around, and I hate it. When I think of these women and what they went through before they died, I can’t help but think of Emma and Claire, who are also expecting. The idea that someone would want to do either of them harm makes me sick to my stomach.
I grip the edge of the countertop in my hands, my knuckles turn white under the pressure, and I hang my head forward. I squeeze my eyes closed tight and try to force the images from my brain, but it’s no use. Tonight, the ghosts don’t want to let me go.
I get as good a hold on my emotions as I can. I pull in a deep breath through my nose and force it out from my mouth. I suck in another and hold it for as long as I can before I push it out then do it again and again until I feel like my heart isn’t going to explode out of my chest.
And then I pull my phone from the pocket of my sweatpants and slide my finger across the glass to unlock it, and I dial my favorite pizza place
in the neighborhood. I order my favorite pie with everything on it and hang up. I place my phone on the stone countertop and finish my beer before tossing it in the trash and grabbing another from the fridge.
I look around at the home I remodeled from the old heap it was when I moved in. I had no idea what I was doing at the time; all I knew was I needed to do something with my hands. I needed to sweat out the demons that were dogging my every step, and I needed to do something that got me out of my own head. What I didn’t know then but do as I look around now—and I can’t help but come to terms with—is that everything I did to fix up this house, and also myself, was for her.
The doorbell rings, and I nab the cash I pulled from my wallet earlier from my pocket and make my way back to the front of the house. I look through the small, beveled glass window in the door and see the kid that usually brings me my pizza. You can never be too careful, and when you’re in my line of work, that factoid is glaringly obvious.
“Hey, Joey,” I say when I pull open the door.
“Hey, Mr. Goodnite. Here’s your pizza,” he greets, handing me the hot box. I have it on good authority that Joey is saving his money to help his mom out before he goes into the navy. And knowing my nephew did the same to help his mom before he left for the army makes me think twice about Joey and send him on his way with a little extra.
“Here you go,” I tell him, handing him the wad of cash. “Keep the change.”
“Thanks!” he replies enthusiastically, making me smile. I watch him head down the walkway to his car before I close the door and send the bolt home, locking me in for the night with my own ghosts.
I carry the steaming cardboard box into the den and drop it down on the coffee table before heading back into the kitchen to grab the beer I opened. I don’t bother with plates or cutlery, but I do grab some paper towels off the roll on my way through and get ready to settle in for another night home alone.
Hush Little Baby Page 5
