Chapter 5
Travis arrived at The Raging Bull night club later than planned. He’d spent the last three hours sitting in another bar a few miles up the road, and having spotted one of the men on his radar he hadn’t found in the mug shot photos, he’d taken the time to wait for him to leave to snap a picture as he got into his car before trying his luck back at The Raging Bull for a shot at the other two. With Sarah consuming his thoughts, it had been difficult to focus on his surveillance, and he was already tired of this brief trip back into undercover work. Hoping something broke soon so he could give his pursuit of Sarah his full-time attention, he hopped out of his SUV, then swore when he spotted his little baker’s car a few feet away. She apparently hadn’t given his strong suggestion to stay clear of the clubs much consideration. Thinking of her inside, intent on her ridiculous husband hunt, got his dander up.
“Stubborn minx,” he grumbled, stomping up to the entrance.
The crowded, dim interior didn’t keep Travis from spotting Sarah on the dance floor, swaying her lush body against a man whose gaze seemed to be riveted on her abundant cleavage. The sudden jolt of possessive jealousy convinced him his lust-inspired pursuit had wasted no time surging into something more meaningful. That prospect didn’t bother him, but the sight of the other man’s hands traveling down her back toward her undulating ass did. Before he could do something moronic, like storm across the room and yank them apart, he wound his way to the bar, ordered a beer, then carried it to the vacant table in the secluded back corner.
An hour later, Travis decided he was a damn good candidate for sainthood. Just like last week, Sarah’s innocent sex appeal drew men like a magnet, her frilly skirt that revealed shapely legs when she twirled caused heads to turn away from the sprayed-on jeans of the rest of the women. The low-scooped, silky top revealed an enticing portion of her full breasts and clung to their soft shape in a way that caused his palms to itch with the need to touch. And if he was having that strong a reaction, he knew other men were also as affected.
Midnight came and went without a sign of either of his other two suspects, or anyone else drawing enough suspicion for him to make note of them. Panting, her skin glistening with perspiration, Sarah turned down the next dance and took a seat at the bar. Through with waiting, and holding back his baser urges, Travis left his corner and strode toward his girl with purpose etched on his face and depicted in his stride.
“It’s time to go.”
Sarah whirled at Travis’s deep, guttural tone, her heart skipping a beat at his sudden appearance. As if her persistent thoughts of the man conjured him up, she stared up at his sun-bronzed, handsome face and laser-intent eyes, not surprised when her body ignited with a wave of simmering heat. Absence may not have made her heart grow fonder, but it seemed to have increased her physical need for what he offered. Unhappy with that admittance, she replied, “I’m not ready, Ch… mmpf.”
The second his mouth cut her off, Sarah sank into his deep, tongue-probing kiss and ceded this fight to him. In all honesty, she was tired and ready to go, her fun tonight marred by the constant intrusion of those hot hours she’d spent at his house the past two evenings and her yearning for more. So much for my intentions to stay away from him this weekend, she sighed as he pulled back, and she had to stifle the compulsion to reach for more of that mouth.
“I… I didn’t know you were here,” she managed, slipping off the stool.
“I know. Was there a man you didn’t dance with tonight?”
His peevish tone delighted her, but she couldn’t say why. Resigned to caving yet again to her body’s demands, she didn’t argue when he clasped her hand and pulled her unceremoniously through the crowd and out to their vehicles.
Travis opened her car door, ushered her in, then leaned down to warn, “Go straight to my place, and no speeding.”
As he slammed the door, she rolled her eyes and vowed she’d take him to task for his high-handedness later, much later, when her happy places weren’t clamoring for his hard-handed touch. But on the long drive back to Piedmont, Sarah decided she wasn’t willing to just toe the line to his demands tonight. For once, she wanted to drive him to the edge of madness before taking him over the precipice.
Happy with her resolve, she turned the tables on him as soon as they entered his house, and he shut the door behind them. Sinking to her knees, she grasped his belt buckle and had it loosened and his zipper down before he grasped her intent.
“Son-of-a-bitch!” Travis swore as she took his semi-erection into her mouth and sucked him into full-blown hardness. Sarah wanted to smile, but that would’ve loosened her lips too much. As she pulled back, swirling her tongue under the rim of his smooth, mushroom cap, he clasped his hands on her skull, then tunneled his fingers in her hair. Her sheath gushed from the tiny pinpricks along her scalp his tight grip wrought, making it difficult to concentrate.
“Remind me to punish you for taking over later,” he said as he thrust into her mouth.
Sarah had a feeling she wouldn’t need to remind him, her buttocks clenching in anticipation of experiencing that painful rush again. Travis surged forward, and she took advantage of his deep-throated thrust to trace over the bulging veins prominent along the silk covered steel flesh of his cock. His low groan, followed by a jerk and spate of pre-cum from his slit, indicated he was on the brink, but he deprived her of the satisfaction of drawing out his release by pulling out of her mouth and pulling her to her feet.
“Later, much later.” Whipping her top over her head, he made quick work of stripping her before tossing her over his shoulder and hauling her down the hall.
It surprised Sarah when he didn’t take her to his private, little playroom, but instead dumped her on his large bed with a bounce. Before she knew it, her arms were bound to the slatted headboard above her, and his large, naked body was pressing her into the mattress. Spreading her legs, she welcomed his deep thrust before wrapping around his pistoning hips and arching into the pleasure he never failed to induce. Ignoring the significance of that, she shuddered under his demanding body and let the ecstasy take her to a place where she didn’t have to think, just feel.
John waited until Saturday morning to inform Harris about his possible witness. With any luck, Rufus Komp would be found this weekend, along with the stash of GHB drugs that would point him out as the serial date rapist the authorities were looking for, thus killing two birds with one stone.
“Got a problem, boss,” he stated without preamble the minute Glenard answered.
“You didn’t take care of Komp?”
“I did. That loose end has been tied up with a pretty red bow, so to speak. But I may have been seen with him coming out of the bar.” John held the phone away from his ear as the mayor vented, then said in a cool, bored tone, “I got her license plate number. If you’ll run it, I’ll track her down and take care of it.”
“We can’t afford another body showing up,” Harris snapped. “Especially if she’s a local. That’ll draw even more attention. Goddamn it, we’re close to ending this. My buyer is waiting for us to snatch the girl we have someone tailing. After that, I need a few days to smuggle her across the border.”
“Then I suggest you get me this woman’s identity and I can stash her at the barn until then. We can either include her with the other merchandise, or I’ll take care of her before we bail. Write this down.” After rattling off the number and make of car, he clicked his phone off and left it in the boss’s hands for now.
Glenard Harris strode to the small bar in his den, cursing everyone. He couldn’t wait to rid himself of all the incompetent idiots around him as well as this godforsaken, backwoods town. Tossing back his drink, he eyed the license number and contemplated how to run it without drawing suspicion on him. That imbecile, Lysell, hadn’t thought of that possibility. Well, he’d come up with something, he always did.
“I have to go,” Sarah told Travis Sunday morning while scooting out from under him.
Tr
avis eyed her flushed, full form, disliking those four words as much as he did her continued obstinacy about searching for ‘a nice man’ to settle down with. They’d just spent the last thirty-six hours together in a marathon of sexual excess, taking breaks only long enough for food or rest before he introduced her to something new. He’d even played hooky from his undercover commitment last night to keep her close. She’d embraced each of his kinky preferences without qualm, but now the closed look on her face and hardened resolve in those blue eyes told him she wouldn’t be swayed.
Before he could say anything, his phone beeped. Watching her scamper into the bathroom, he answered with a resigned sigh. “Chief Nolan.” By the time he hung up from his deputy’s report, his relaxed Sunday off had turned into a busy day ahead and offered an excellent distraction from one stubborn baker who had taken the chicken way out and left without another word while he’d been on the phone.
Thirty minutes later, Travis stood in a field at the Presidio/Brewster county line and stared down at the body of one of the men who had been on his list. The same man who had danced with Sarah and made her uneasy. Dried, dark blood stained his shirt from the deep knife wound just under his ribs. Someone had known what they were doing as, judging from the angle, death would have been almost immediate.
“Hey, Chief. Found this with the body.”
Travis took the bag of powdered meds from his deputy. “Thanks, Kyle. There’d only be one reason for grinding pills up, don’t you think?”
“That’s what we were just discussing when you arrived. There have been reported cases in Brewster of a date rapist. County Sheriff’s been called but delayed.”
It would sure make his job easier if they were lucky enough to have this guy turn out to be their man, Travis thought as he kept quiet about his knowledge of the date rapist and prepared to wait for the rest of the party to show up. Walking several feet away for privacy, he called Peter to fill him in and get a rush on the lab work and autopsy necessary to identify both the drugs and body.
Travis didn’t get back to his house until evening, tiredness pulling at him as he ordered a pizza to be delivered before getting comfortable in his recliner. Wishing he had Sarah’s soft body curled in his lap, he pondered his next step with her. If the body they found today was their rapist, he was done hanging out in bars, which meant he had to convince her she was done also. There was no way he’d allow her to continue her search for this fictional husband in those dives. If he had his way, she would acknowledge they were perfect together and cease in this scheme altogether. But life was never perfect. He had five days to bring her around, and if he failed to do so, well, he wasn’t above using sexual persuasion to get what he wanted.
Peter left Travis a message he’d contacted the coroner and lab in Alpine and authorized a rush on their victim and the drug samples, and the next morning it was after 10:00 am by the time Travis returned from a quick trip to the bigger city and arrived at the station. His grumbling stomach reminded him he hadn’t had time to pick up his donuts and coffee, the itch to see Sarah again stronger than his sweet tooth cravings. Kyle knocked on his door the minute he took a seat behind his desk, and he tried not to let his irritation over the interruption show.
“What’s up, Kyle?”
“Hey, Chief. This may be nothing, but since you’re tight with Sarah Thompson, well that’s the rumor anyway,” Kyle tacked on when Travis couldn’t hide his look of surprise. “Anyway, the mayor called this morning and asked if I’d run a plate on a car he saw parked in a no parking zone, blocking the fire hydrant in front of the library Saturday evening. Said he just wanted to give the person a friendly reminder about the law without getting them in trouble.” Handing him a piece of paper with the license number and the name he’d jotted down, he said, “Thought you’d want to know it was Sarah’s car. Given her speeding history, I’d hate to see her get in any more trouble, even if the mayor said he was only interested in giving a friendly warning.”
Travis reached with a slow hand for the paper, gut-deep suspicion welling up inside him. Why the hell was Mayor Harris running Sarah’s plate, and lying about the reason why? Since she was with him, her car parked in his driveway from Friday night through Sunday morning, there was no way Harris could’ve seen her parked illegally down by the library. Glenard Harris reminded him of an oily car salesman, there was just something he didn’t trust about the man. His deputies didn’t care for Harris either, but from what he’d heard, the mayor sailed through his re-election right after he’d accepted the Chief of Police position. There were too many coincidences involving his girl for his peace of mind, and his need to see her took a stranglehold on his emotions.
“Thanks, Kyle. I was about to head over there, so I’ll ask her about this.”
Sarah felt guilty for leaving Todd to work the bakery by himself Saturday, even though he’d squealed like an excited girl when she told him why she wouldn’t be in. She’d always taken her responsibilities seriously though, and skipping work to spend a day in bed wasn’t a good excuse in her book. It helped to appease her conscience a little by giving Todd today off with pay and she was pleased he didn’t argue. Flipping on the light in the kitchen, she admitted the sheer decadence of the weekend had been worth bailing on her obligations, but when she’d left Travis’s house yesterday morning, she’d vowed yet again to put both the weekend and Chief Nolan on the back burner and to stick to the new leaf she’d turned over on her birthday.
That proved harder to do than she was comfortable with as she mixed, kneaded, rolled out and baked over the next few hours. When 5:00 am had come and gone, followed by 6:00 and Travis hadn’t pounded on the front door demanding she open for him, her mood vacillated between annoyance and dejection. Neither emotion sat well with her. She continued to deny his absence brought about the heavy sensation surrounding her heart, but her denials weren’t gaining any traction. What the heck was it about the man that turned her insides to mush when she was with him and shoved her newfound goals into the ‘later’ category?
Maybe she needed to find different venues to do her husband shopping, she mused, ignoring the lack of enthusiasm that idea generated. The online dating sites were popular and reported to be successful in some cases, but most of those ended up in long-distance relationships that either petered out or resulted in one person relocating. Since she didn’t want to waste time on someone who wasn’t around and she had no desire to move, she was stuck with night clubs.
To take her mind off a tall, dark-haired, steely-eyed cop, she reminisced about the men she’d danced with Friday night who’d shown an interest in her, nice men who didn’t threaten to spank her or push their way past her defenses to control her. But after another hour passed without a word from her early morning nemesis and the lack of fervor she experienced thinking about anyone else, Sarah had to admit Travis had wormed his way past her defenses.
“Arrogant jerk,” she muttered at just after eight as she strode to the smaller, extra refrigerator to pull out the loaves of specialty breads they always prepared on Saturday and donated to the Monday night bake sale that accompanied bingo night at her church. Finding the shelves empty added to her dismay. Since it was her fault Todd had been short-handed, she couldn’t get mad at him and hoped the morning customers were few and far between so she could get them done.
After checking her supplies, she found a quick trip to the market was necessary before she started on the extra breads, the low inventory yet another reason Todd hadn’t been able to get them ready. Flipping the sign on the front door to read, ‘Will return at 9:00 am,’ she dashed out the back door to her car. Forty-five minutes later, proud of herself for how fast she’d made it to the market and back, Sarah pulled behind the bakery and reached for the bag of groceries as she slid out of her car.
Her skin prickled in awareness a second before a sound from behind her alerted her to someone else’s presence in the alley. Before she could turn, a hard hand covered her mouth with a damp cloth, startling he
r into dropping the bag. Icy fear twisted around her heart as she struggled to breathe, the nauseous odor invading her senses working to dim her vision as she slumped into unconsciousness.
Hauling his victim down the alley to where he’d left his truck, John dumped her on the backseat and hid her beneath a pile of blankets. Pulling out his phone as he slid behind the wheel, he spoke without preamble when Harris picked up.
“I’ve got her and am headed to the barn. This weekend, boss, and no later. Shit’s piling up too fast to wait any longer.” He ended the call as he drove at a sedate speed away from the small town with no one the wiser, at least for now.
Pulling up in front of the bakery, Travis frowned when he saw the sign on the front door. Getting out, he read the time of return then peeked inside to see the lights on. Rapping on the door, he waited with impatience nipping at his nerves since it was already 10:30. With no sign of anyone, he tried the knob, but found it locked. Before he went off the deep end and broke in, he hastened around back, breaking out in a cold sweat when his gaze latched onto the spilled groceries littered around the open door of Sarah’s car. Fear unlike anything he’d felt before threatened his composure with a tight fist clutched around his heart. Not even during the riskiest of times while living in deep undercover with the worst criminals to walk the earth had he experienced such gut-wrenching terror and undisciplined anger.
Phone to his ear, he raced back to his vehicle, his first stop the mayor. Sarah’s obvious kidnapping just hours after Harris made that call about her license was too much of a coincidence to ignore. God help them both if Harris didn’t give him answers.
Kyle met him in front of city hall and took one step back from the look on his face as he snapped, “Don’t try to stop me.”
Hero Undercover: 25 Breathtaking Bad Boys Page 43
