by Debra Webb
She grabbed two handfuls of his hair and pulled him forward. His face landed between her thighs. He feasted on her soft folds. Relished the taste of her. Wanted her to feel the same frenzy he had felt. He licked and suckled until she cried out. He used his tongue to penetrate her, to delve as deeply as possible. Slowly, he began to kiss his way up her body, but she scrambled away. He tried to follow, bumping his knee and losing his balance.
He caught up with her on the bed. Her legs were open in invitation and he moved between them and burrowed deeply into her. She was so damned hot and wet and nicely snug. She wrapped her legs around his and lifted to meet his thrusts. He wanted to see her, but the blindfold was still in place.
He leaned down, needed to kiss her. She tore the blindfold away. He blinked at the light, forced his eyes to focus so he could watch her face as she lost herself to orgasm. He closed his mouth over her breast, suckled and nibbled until she was writhing again. He moved to the next one all the while thrusting slowly in and out of her.
He dropped his head to her chest. God, he was so close...so damn close.
“Turn over,” he murmured. He desperately needed to be deeper inside her. He needed her to take all of him.
“Beg,” she said, her skin flush with her own need. Her breasts plump and jutting forward as if pleading for more of his attention.
“Please,” he urged, “I need to be deeper inside you.”
She flattened a palm against the center of his chest, held his gaze a moment as she felt his heart pounding, and then she rolled over.
“Arch your bottom for me.”
She didn’t move. Just lay there with that firm, rounded ass tempting him beyond all reason.
“Please, arch your bottom for me, baby,” he pleaded.
With her shoulders against the bed, she lifted her bottom up to him. He nudged her urgently. He guided himself inside and he slid deep, deep into her. He groaned with the intensity of it. It felt so damned good.
Slowly, slowly, he moved inside her. Every ounce of willpower he possessed was needed to restrain his movements. In, an inch, then two, three. Deeper, deeper, until he had given her all he had to give. He felt the muscles inside her start to clench around him. He moved faster until she screamed with orgasm again. He fought to restrain his release. Just a little longer.
She suddenly scrambled away from him, leaving his pulsing cock damp and aching for release. He made a small, strangled sound at the loss of her tight heat. She got onto her knees, facing him. “I want you to look at me. To see me.”
He kissed her face. “I see you.” Kissed her eyes, her nose, her neck and shoulder. He ached so for relief that his entire body shuddered. When he could take it no longer, he grabbed her. He dropped into a sitting position and pulled her over his lap. She went down fully onto him, taking him in even deeper than before. She held him tight against her and rocked and rocked until they both screamed with release.
And then he did something he had not done in more than six years. He pulled her into his arms and held her until they lost themselves to the exhaustion.
Chapter Twelve
6:15 a.m.
Bella watched Devon sleep. The soft morning light trickled in between the slats of the shutters. Stubble darkened his square jaw. The mask of tension he wore more often than not was relaxed. Dark lashes rested against high cheekbones. Her gaze slid down, over his slightly off-center nose, to lips that had teased and tasted every part of her.
Down farther still, she noted the muscles of his neck and then the hard ridges of his chest. Her fingers itched to touch him. To slide beneath the white sheet that lay across his waist. The ferocity and desperation of his lovemaking was every bit as intense as the man himself.
A man who had been deeply wounded on multiple fronts. Betrayed by the woman he’d loved and by a friend and business partner.
Bella thought of the last journal entry she’d read and it made her ache for this man.
The need is insane. I feel addicted and I cannot resist. A moment away from my lover is like a moment without air. It leaves me gasping and desperate. We’ve made our decision. Our old lives are no longer relevant. Now we move on to the beautiful future that is ours alone. I cannot wait to begin this new journey. Nothing...no one else matters. Only us, and our wonderful plans. Tomorrow I will tell my husband that I’m leaving. I refuse to waste another day on this empty marriage.
The words had been brutal.
Devon Pierce was a victim. Perhaps not in the criminal sense, but in a deeply personal one.
She mulled over the many journal entries she had read. It was clear Cara wanted to conceal her lover’s identity. The failure to label the person as male or female seemed unreasonably cautious. It wasn’t as if Richard Sutter was the only man with whom she was in contact in the city of Chicago. And if her lover was Richard, why would he send his protégé to warn Devon? Why write that message that seemed to foreshadow coming events? More important, why behave so secretively? If Richard knew the person seeking revenge against Devon, why not tell him or, if he wanted Devon to suffer for his own reasons, why get involved at all?
Unless he was covering for someone who mattered to him on some level.
Bella’s heart started to pound. Mariah Sutter.
Devon’s eyes opened and he immediately turned to her as if he’d felt her watching him. “Good morning.”
“Good morning to you.” She smiled. “I’m starving.”
He rolled over, pressed her against the mattress. “So am I.” His mouth came down on hers and he kissed her long and deep, filling her with the taste of him and instantly chasing away her hunger for anything else.
When he came up for air, she whispered, “We should talk about—”
“In a minute.” He burrowed between her welcoming thighs and thrust into her.
She gasped and, despite all the places so tender from last night’s hours of lovemaking, her body instantly started to move in time with his. The feel of his muscled chest rubbing against hers had her breasts hard and aching. She lifted her hips to allow his thrusts to deepen.
The rattle of her cell phone against the table next to the bed was a distant nuisance. She couldn’t have stopped if her life had depended upon it. Her nails dug into his back as the pace escalated. Suddenly she was coming. She screamed with the intensity of it. He growled as he followed her over that edge.
As soon as she could think again, she dragged her cell from the table and checked the screen. Unger had left his downtown loft and Traynor was following him.
“News?”
She rolled onto her side and propped her head on his chest. “Unger is on the move. Traynor is keeping tabs on him.”
His relaxed and sated expression vanished and the tension was back.
“There’s something else,” she said. When his gaze connected with hers, she went on, “I don’t think it’s Richard. In fact, I don’t think he’s the one who was having the affair with Cara.”
“We’ve basically ruled out Hayman.” He absently stroked her hair, his face a study in concentration. “I can’t see Unger being the one.”
Bella waited until he looked at her once more. “I think it’s Mariah.”
His raised eyebrows spoke loudly of his surprise. “That’s a hell of a leap from where we’ve been going with this.”
“She was so precise with her thoughts on how her husband felt about Cara. Yet I heard no anger in her voice. When you mentioned the cottage, there was a glimmer of surprise but not a what-are-you-talking-about expression. She knew about the cottage. She went with Cara to the adoption agency. What man would keep the cottage so perfectly spotless and eat cheese and grapes and drink wine? I’ll bet Richard is a Scotch man, like you.”
“You’re right. Scotch is his preferred drink. I picked up my taste for Scotch from him.”
“We need to be watching Ma
riah.”
Her cell started that incessant vibrating again. This time it was a call from Traynor. Bella answered with, “What’s going on?”
“Our friend Unger lent his car to a neighbor,” Traynor explained. “I followed the guy to his office, but now I’m headed back to Unger’s place. I’m guessing he won’t be there.”
Damn it. Without eyes on Unger, they might never locate Sutter.
Clark Street, Noon
“AS A DETECTIVE, I suppose you spent some time on stakeouts.”
Bella shifted her attention from the driveway half a block up. They hadn’t spent a lot of time talking since they parked on the street that ran in front of Mariah Sutter’s house. The driveway exit a few yards away was her only way in and out of the property. If she went anywhere, they would know it.
When they first arrived, Devon had called her home landline to ensure she was in the house. He’d used the excuse that he’d forgotten to ask if she’d heard from Richard. She assured him she had not. Then she’d gone on to remind him of how Richard spent hours on the golf course and in pubs when traveling in Europe. He rarely called home or checked his phone.
Like Bella, Devon wasn’t buying it.
“I did my time on stakeouts.” She turned back to the street. “Sometimes it was boring as hell and others it was oddly interesting.”
“You’re a very strong woman, Isabella Lytle.” He made this statement without looking at her. “Few could have overcome a childhood such as yours and gone on to accomplish so much.”
“I was lucky. I had a couple of really encouraging teachers.”
“I suspect luck had very little to do with the outcome.”
She turned to him. “Thank you. It wasn’t always easy but I never allowed myself to believe any other outcome.”
He held her gaze for a long moment. “How did you ever learn to trust again after the way your parents let you down? And your sister, she basically left you to fend for yourself.”
Bella hugged herself, feeling suddenly cold. They’d turned off the engine and put the windows down. The air was still reasonably cool after the overnight low in the midfifties. Even in the hottest days of summer, the past could give her an abrupt chill that way.
“I was angry with her at first. I felt like she’d abandoned me.” She shrugged. “That she should have stayed and protected me. Eventually I got over it. She killed our father to protect me. She’s had to live with that and I’m certain it hasn’t been easy. I can’t resent her for feeling like she’d done her part. In truth, she had. He would have killed us both.”
“I’m surprised you’re not more angry with the world at large.” He assessed her a long moment. “People seem to need to blame someone for their misfortunes.”
“I had no say in what I was born into. It wasn’t the world’s fault. It was my parents’. They made their choices and we had to live with them. What I chose to do with my life from that point forward was no one’s decision but my own. Any blame from that moment lies with me.”
“I like the way you think.” He smiled.
“I like the way you smile,” she said before she lost her nerve. “You don’t smile nearly enough.” She put her hand on his and savored the texture of his skin.
“It’s been a long while since I had something to smile about.” He reached out and traced a gentle path on her cheek. “Despite the circumstances, I’m glad we met.”
She captured his hand in hers and gave it a squeeze. “Me, too.”
The moment passed and they stared forward once more. Eventually their fingers slipped apart.
“Do you feel Mariah would be capable of murder?” Bella asked. For now, they needed to remain focused on the investigation. All these confusing personal feelings would have to wait. “Two people are dead. The mechanic was shot with a small-caliber handgun and Mrs. Harper was stabbed. Could she commit such up-close violence?”
Devon shook his head. “I wouldn’t have thought so. But then I was just as certain Richard would never go that far. What about Maynard? She says she was hired by a man. Would Mariah have trusted anyone to carry out those steps or maybe there’s another body waiting to be found?”
Bella nodded once. “Maynard spewed a great deal of detail, much of which was untrue.”
He rubbed a hand over his clean-shaven jaw. “We can’t say with complete certainty that Hayman, though out of the country, isn’t the mastermind behind all this.”
“As true as that is, we’ve found no connection to him so far. Everything seems to connect back to the Sutters.”
A car parked on the street behind them. Bella watched in the rearview mirror as Lacon Traynor climbed out.
“It’s Traynor.” She glanced at Devon. “He must have an update he felt he needed to share in person.”
Bella hit the unlock button and Traynor slid into the back seat. He was Bella’s age with beach-boy blond hair and sandy-brown eyes. He hailed from Texas and she had decided you could take the man out of Texas but you couldn’t take Texas out of the man. His jeans and button-up shirt were complemented with a lightweight sport jacket but there was no mistaking those boots for what they were—well-worn cowboy footwear.
“Still no sign of Unger?” She doubted finding him would be easy but she could hope.
“He’s in the wind.” Traynor glanced at Devon. “I had a look around inside his apartment and it appears as though he packed a hasty bag. He’d gone through drawers and left a bit of a mess. We may not be seeing the guy again.”
“Devon Pierce,” she said, “this is Lacon Traynor, my backup detail from the agency.”
Traynor reached across the seat and shook Devon’s hand. “I got a call from Ian.”
Ian Michaels was at the top of the food chain at the Colby Agency. He had been with Victoria for many years. “Was he able to locate the car and driver who picked up Maynard?”
Traynor gave her a nod in the rearview mirror. “Belongs to a car service. The driver is MIA. He hasn’t come to work in two days. I checked his home address. Neighbors stated they hadn’t seen him in a couple of days.”
Bella imagined his body would show up next but she kept the conclusion to herself. Devon was dealing with enough right now.
As if fate wanted to show her things could always be worse, Devon reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew his cell. “It’s the Edge.” He answered and listened for a couple of beats.
Tension coiled in Bella’s stomach. She’d almost suggested that he beef up security at the facility. So far, no attempts to damage or destroy property had been made against the facility, but that could be coming. At this very moment, in fact.
“I’ll be right there.”
When he put the phone away, he turned to Bella. “It’s Unger. He’s waiting for me in my office. Patricia is concerned there’s something wrong with him but he assures her he’s fine, that he just needs to see me.”
“I can take over here,” Traynor suggested.
Bella didn’t want to separate from Devon, but she needed to keep an eye on Mariah. Her instincts were screaming way too loudly for her to risk turning her back on the woman.
“I’ll stay here,” she countered. “You take Dr. Pierce to the Edge. I’ll keep both of you posted on what’s happening here.”
“No.” Devon shook his head. “You should be with me.”
Bella felt her cheeks redden. “I’m on the right track with Mariah,” she argued. “This is too important to risk letting her out of my sight. If she sees me, I can easily make up an excuse that I have more questions. If she sees Traynor, she’ll be spooked.”
“She has a good point,” Traynor tossed in. “Lytle can take care of herself, Doc. Trust me. I’ve gone to hand-to-hand classes with her. She kicked my ass.”
“Fine.” Devon looked at her one last time before climbing out of the car.
Bella watched
in the rearview mirror as they climbed into Traynor’s car. Then she shifted her attention back to the home of the woman she suspected was a coldhearted murderer.
The Edge, 1:45 p.m.
TRAYNOR PARKED IN the spot reserved for the administrator. “Those friends of yours?”
Detectives Corwin and Hodge emerged from their nondescript sedan, swaggered to the sidewalk and waited, their attention fixed on Traynor’s sedan.
“The two detectives who want to pin all this on me rather than find the true perpetrator.” Devon reached for the door. Ignoring the two would be futile. The sooner he allowed them to throw a few more accusations at him, the sooner he could go inside and learn what Unger had decided to share with him this time.
“Fun, fun,” Traynor muttered.
“Your secretary told us you wouldn’t be in today,” Corwin said, his tone openly accusing as Devon approached him. “We were just about to leave.”
“I hadn’t planned to but when you work with emergencies you never know when your schedule will change.” Devon struggled to retain his patience. Enough was enough and he’d passed enough a considerable time ago. “What can I do for you, gentlemen? I have matters to which I need to attend.”
“Well, we have a few matters, too,” Hodge said. He glanced at his partner. “You want me to tell him or you want to tell him?”
Devon resisted the urge to punch one or both.
Corwin narrowed his gaze at Traynor. “Who’s your friend? What happened to the pretty one?”
“Lacon Traynor.” He thrust his hand at Corwin. “The Colby Agency. My associate had an appointment. I’m standing in for her.”
Corwin shook his hand. “Oh, another one of those.”
Traynor gave Hodge’s hand a shake as well.
Devon was ready to shake the whole lot of them.
“You had something to discuss with me?” he snapped.
Hodge frowned. “I guess we should get on with it. The doc sounds a little testy.”
“Your housekeeper,” Corwin began.
