When he penetrated her with the tip of his cock, her head fell back with a gasp. Such a small part of him, but it brought her such intense pleasure. How was that possible?
“You want more?” he asked.
She ground her head against the bed, closed her eyes and moaned.
“Do you?” he insisted.
“Yes!”
“Then look at me. Now,” he ordered, his voice going slightly hard.
Her gaze shot to his and he pushed himself inside her several more inches.
“Don’t take your pretty eyes off me, Nina. I want you to look at my face when I take you. I want you to see how much pleasure you give me.”
She stared at him as he’d commanded, and by the looks of things, she gave him a lot of pleasure. He looked like he was dying of it as he pushed home. He gritted his teeth. Sweat popped out on his forehead. The hands that bracketed her wrists to the bed trembled.
And inside her, deep inside her, he pulsed. Thick and hard and wonderful.
But he didn’t move. He pressed in deep. Deeper.
Frantically, she wiggled her hips, and his gaze dropped to hers as he frowned. “Stay still.”
She arched up even higher, working herself on him. “No! I want this. Move, damn you. I— No!” she cried as she felt him slide out of her. “What are you doing?” She fought against his hold once more, gasping when he flipped her onto her stomach, put an arm under her and lifted her until her chest was on the bed and her hips were raised to accept him.
She glanced at him over her shoulder, aroused beyond bearing, knowing that this position made her wholly vulnerable to him, wholly at his control, and that that’s exactly what he wanted. To test him, she tried to lift her torso, but he pressed a hand to her back, keeping her in place.
“No,” he growled. “I told you, this time you’re not going to rush me.” He slicked his erection against her from behind. “You want this? You want to come? Then you’re going to do exactly what I say, do you understand? You’re going to wait.”
She shivered. He was big. Strong. Commanding. The first time they’d made love, he’d shown her so much pleasure she thought she’d die from it. But he hadn’t been this aggressive. This dominating.
Even so, she had a feeling that this was his natural state as a lover. And that only made her want him more.
“Are you going to do as I say?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Good,” he said, rewarding her by pressing a kiss to her back and smoothing her hips with his palms. Then he gripped her hip with one hand and, as he had before, used his other hand to guide himself inside her.
This time, he didn’t work himself into her by degrees. This time, he shoved himself in to the hilt with such force that she saw stars. And then, instead of stopping and pressing deep as he had before, he gripped her hips with both hands and started thrusting, slow and sure, but hard and powerful, starting a rhythm that had her fingers clenching in the sheets and her inner muscles gripping in a desperate attempt to keep him inside her.
But it was no use. She was at his mercy. He shuttled in and out of her for what could have been minutes, hours or days, steadily pounding her closer and closer to climax until—yes, finally!—she was almost there and then...
And then he slowed. Then stilled completely.
She wanted to scream with frustration. She wanted to flip over and slap him for denying her her pleasure. But remembering what he’d said, that if she wanted to come she’d have to wait, she forced herself to remain still.
Behind her, he waited a few seconds, obviously waiting to see what she’d do, and when she only drew in deep breaths, biting her lip to stifle her desperate moans, he said, “Good girl,” and started in again.
Twice more he repeated that particular brand of torture, going at her like a jackhammer and building her to an intense orgasm only to stop and prevent her from going over. Twice more, when he stopped, she somehow managed not to press his hand, but she couldn’t stop the words that fell from her lips.
“Please, Simon. Please. I want to come. Please make me come.”
She was babbling, almost crying with the need for release, sure she wouldn’t be able to take it if he started and stopped again.
“Shh. I know you want it. I know you need it. And this time I’m going to give it to you. Even harder than before. But first...I said I wanted to taste you, remember?”
He slid back and pulled her legs apart, but when she instinctively moved to turn on her back, he held her and said, “No. Like this.”
“What?” she said automatically, suddenly feeling shy. “I don’t want—”
But then his breath was on her, followed by the slick, firm caress of his tongue. It startled her into silence. And then drew a wail of pleasure from her as it probed inside her. Just as he had before, he penetrated her with slow, strong rhythmic thrusts, but this time he used another part of himself. When he wasn’t penetrating her, he was licking at her while his fingers penetrated her. And he didn’t let up until she was a shaking, sobbing mess, her body trembling with her need for release.
Weakly, she lay there and sensed him reach into the nightstand for a condom. She heard rustling as he put it on. Then, once again, he gripped her hips and positioned himself at the entrance of her body. “You ready?” he growled.
“Yes,” she breathed. “I’m ready.”
“Then come, Nina. Come hard. And when you do, think of me. Only me. Me over you. Me inside you. Me,” he commanded, punching his hips forward. Just like before, he rode her hard. This time, however, he reached around and put his hand between her legs, manipulating her clitoris even as he filled her.
It took less than a minute for her world to shatter. She screamed when her orgasm hit her, her hips bucking uncontrollably and her whole body shaking with spasms that seemed to go on and on. At some point, she was aware of his chest pressed against her back and his own bark of pleasure as he found his release, as well.
When it was over, he was shaking, too. So hard that she couldn’t tell where her tremors ended and his began. With a groan, he moved to the side, slipped out of her and pulled her into the cradle of his arms.
* * *
NINA’S BREATHING SLOWED from harsh gasps to a more mellow rhythm. Simon kept his arms wrapped around her, enjoying the weight of her body as it lay against his, unwilling to let go. He breathed in deep, inhaling her heady scent—lilac, peppermint and sex. Their sex. And what incredible sex it had been. Wonderful, terrific, beautiful. Hell—to someone more sentimental, it might be described as butterflies-and-rainbows-and-glitter kind of sex. To another, it would more aptly be described as raunchy as hell. He’d been more aggressive with her than he’d ever been before. Because he’d wanted to control her. Mark her. Give her the best sex of her life, and take the kind of sex from her he knew she was capable of giving him.
The kind of sex a woman gave when she completely let go.
The kind of sex a man gave when he completely fell in love.
His heart revved up. What the hell was that word doing in his mind?
Nina shifted, as if to move away from him—as if she sensed he was upset—but he instinctively tightened his arms around her.
Love. What a loaded word. But there it was, bouncing around inside his head as if it belonged there.
He couldn’t love her. He hadn’t known her long enough to fall in love with her. Besides, even assuming he could love her? He’d fuck it up. Make mistakes. Just like he had with Lana.
His thoughts hit like a kick to the gut. He’d been fooling himself, thinking he didn’t blame himself for Lana’s death. Obviously some part of him did blame himself, and in the abstract, it was perfectly understandable why he would.
He’d talked to her about his concerns, warned her that she was putting herself in danger, but in the end, those words hadn’t made a damn bit of difference. He should have done something. Hell, he should have kidnapped her and tied her down if that’s what it had taken to keep her s
afe, if that was the only thing that—
Next to him, Nina shifted. In her sleep, she smiled, as if being in his arms was all she needed to be blissfully happy.
He closed his eyes and buried his face in Nina’s hair. He reminded himself that Lana had been a grown woman. She would have hated him if he’d tried to control her. Just like Nina would.
Shit, Simon thought, as he finally realized just how much Nina had come to mean to him.
Even what he’d felt for Lana was different than this.
This?
This was more powerful. More real.
And as such, it was all the more dangerous.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
THE NEXT DAY, SIMON brought Nina back to work with him only to escort her, along with several files she’d picked up from her office at the hospital, to an empty room. There, she planned on preparing a formal proposal for the MHIT program, which she would eventually present to Commander Stevens and the other higher-ups. “It makes sense for me to construct the proposal,” she said, “even though I won’t actually be conducting any of the training or even heading up the program.”
“What do you mean?” he responded with a frown. He leaned against a wall in the small office, arms crossed.
“My boss, Karen? This is really her project.” Nina separated file folders, making several neat stacks. “She asked for my help to get things started, but once the proposal is approved, there will no longer be any reason for me to be involved.”
“But don’t you want to be involved?” he asked, unsettled by the feeling of distress that was suddenly rising inside him.
He’d assumed once the MHIT training began, Nina would be a critical part of it, and he’d see her, if not often, at least occasionally. Logically, a relationship between them wouldn’t work, but that knowledge had been tempered somewhat by his belief she’d still be close by. Now? To realize that she never planned on coming back? It made him want to howl with rage, take her in his arms and refuse to let her go.
Instead, he simply waited for her to respond to his question.
Nina looked away and shrugged. “So long as the program is implemented, that’s all that matters to me. I miss my geriatric patients. It’s time I get back to them.”
“You work solely with older patients?” he asked. “Like the one that gave you that skin flick? Do you ever work with younger people?”
“Not really. Not anymore. I’ve carved out a specialty at the hospital and it’s been enough for me. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m really looking forward to getting started on these papers. And I’m sure you have plenty to take care of yourself,” she said with a bright, patently false smile.
He had a shitload of work to do, in fact. As such, he murmured a polite farewell and left. However, he did so begrudgingly, on the inside if not the outside.
He didn’t like her shooing him out of the room simply because he’d been asking her personal questions, even if they’d been personal questions about her job at the hospital. It made him realize how very little of herself she’d actually revealed to him over the past week. She’d revealed some things, sure, but not a whole lot, and only when she was pushed.
To prove his point, Simon summarized what he did know about Nina and how he’d found out about it.
She’d worked with an older woman with a fondness for porn, but she’d only told him that after her purse had spilled and given him a glimpse of that porn DVD.
She’d told him about Davenport’s cards and letter only after he’d confronted her about being scared.
She’d informed him that she’d inherited her house from her grandmother, but only because he’d commented that it wasn’t what he’d thought a psychiatrist would own.
She hadn’t told him about her sister—he’d found that out on his own. And although he knew her physically—how her body responded to his, how soft her skin was, how tight she fit around him, how heavenly her arms and scent were when they wrapped around him—he’d discovered all those things on his own, too, by touching her, tasting her, exploring her. Sure, she’d let him, of course, and she’d explored his body, too, to amazing result. But even in his arms, she’d kept herself apart from him.
Funny. Until now, he’d felt like he knew everything there was to know about her. But, man, he’d been wrong.
He didn’t know the most basic things about her as a woman—her favorite color, what she liked to eat, what kind of music or movies she liked... They’d jumped right past the getting to know you stage and straight into bed, and while that was great in many ways, it also made him feel a deep sense of loss at the thought that he wouldn’t be given the time to explore all of Nina’s small intricacies in great detail.
He couldn’t help wondering if her decision to work with geriatric patients was a result of what had happened to her sister. And to Beth. Had she decided not to work with teenagers or young people anymore because doing so brought back bad memories? It made sense.
It also made him wonder if she was truly fulfilled with her work or if playing it safe made her feel less passionate about what she did for a living.
In the end, he could wonder all he wanted. She obviously wasn’t going to volunteer the information and, really, he had no right to push her for it. Not if he wasn’t planning on sticking around.
With a sigh, Simon started work by checking up on Davenport’s recent credit card charges. Over the course of several days, he’d left a trail of credit card transactions for gas and food across the country. As such, the records supported his claim that he’d only recently arrived in California. “He must have hired someone to do the other things,” Simon murmured to himself. “It’s the only explanation.” And that seemed especially true after he got a preliminary report from forensics.
The muddy footprints found in Nina’s home weren’t a match for Davenport, who had smaller feet and had been wearing shoes with a different tread.
Again, that didn’t prove Davenport was innocent of any of the crimes Simon suspected he’d committed. After all, Simon had caught him fleeing from Nina’s vandalized home and he didn’t need Davenport’s footprints to verify that. To the contrary, a prosecutor could easily argue the muddy footprints belonged to Davenport’s accomplice, who’d left before Simon had gotten there. The presence of an accomplice would explain how someone could have left Nina a threatening letter or killed her cat even before Davenport had arrived in California.
But Simon needed additional proof of an accomplice’s existence before Davenport could be convicted. He doubted Davenport would be any help on that matter. No matter how hard Simon had pushed him, Davenport hadn’t been swayed from his fervent denials of working with an accomplice. According to him, he’d been alone when he’d entered Nina’s home, and the house had already been unlocked. He also claimed the house had already been open and trashed by someone else. And when Simon had told him about the bear left in Nina’s room, Davenport had looked genuinely shocked. Horrified. Even scared.
As Simon had already told Nina, part of him had believed Davenport’s denials. Now, the credit card records and the shoe prints seemed to support them, at least in part. Simon had to consider two possibilities: Davenport was either the best actor Simon had ever met, or he was telling the truth about working alone and being lured to California by someone pretending to be a reporter. If he was telling the truth, then a murderer was still on the loose. And that murderer was someone who had targeted Nina.
At that point, however, the question would be why? And what significance the initials BD would have for anyone other than Davenport. Was it possible someone else—someone other than her father—might want revenge against Nina because of what had happened to Beth Davenport?
She’d had a boyfriend, Nina said. One who had given her that bear with the ribbon in the first place. He rose, intending to go to Nina and get the name of Beth’s boyfriend, but just as he did so, DeMarco walked up to his desk.
“Simon,” his friend said, his voice and countenance grim.
Simon narrowed his eyes and assessed his friend. The other man looked beyond tired and beyond stressed. He looked run-down. Agitated. At the end of his rope. How the hell had that happened so quickly?
“I need to talk to you about something, Simon. Can we get that drink now?”
“Sure. But I was just going to run something by Nina. Something about who else, besides Davenport, might be responsible for carving the initials BD into our victims. Give me a second to do that and I’ll be—”
DeMarco shook his head. “I need to talk to you now, Simon. And you’ll want to hear what I have to say. Because I might know the answer to the very question you’re asking.”
* * *
SIMON AND DEMARCO WENT to the SIG break room and talked over coffee. Simon listened as DeMarco explained about a horrible incident he’d gone through in New Orleans six years ago, when he’d been forced to shoot a street kid named Billy Dahl.
“Man, I’m sorry. That had to be tough.”
“Yes, it was.”
“Given the kid’s initials, I can see why you’d want to tell me about this, but there’s really no reason to think what happened six years ago is motivating these crimes. Nina’s the key, and we’ll confirm this, but I doubt she knew Billy Dahl.”
“You’re assuming the murders are connected to Nina because of the initials on her cat, the cards, the letters...But what if the murders aren’t connected to her at all? You have to consider them in isolation. And if you do that, you have to consider the possibility that they might be connected to Billy Dahl. Especially because of what Rita Taylor told you about someone wanting to falsely blame the murders on the police.”
“Okay, let’s assume you’re right. Let’s look at the murders independently. You think someone in Billy Dahl’s family is here in San Francisco, sending you a message? But why? It’s been six years. Why come after you now?”
“Because even though I shot Billy six years ago, he didn’t actually die from that injury until last year.”
Shades of Passion Page 23
