by Jory Strong
He forced himself to hold off, to help her get the rest of her clothes off and then buried his face between her legs, pressing his tongue in and out of her swollen slit until she came. Only then did he maneuver her off the couch, positioning her so that her pretty little backside was in the air, her legs spread and the plump folds of her cunt swollen and open for him.
Kix covered her then, sheathing his cock in her tight, wet channel in one powerful movement. She cried out, tightening like a fist around his hard flesh and wringing an answering sound for him.
Damn. He wasn’t sure he could last more than a couple of strokes.
“Don’t move, darlin’,” he groaned against her soft, feminine shoulder.
The walls of her cunt gripped him even harder in response and he was lost. Unable to stop himself, he pumped in and out of her, bracing himself against the pleasure and the overwhelming need to press against her cervix and shoot his seed into her womb.
She whimpered and pleaded with her body, angling herself so that he went deeper with each thrust.
Kix licked and sucked along her neck, fighting against the urge to hold her in place the same way a stallion controls his mate, until finally he lost the battle and bit down on her smooth shoulder. She softened under him, growing even more submissive, and his hand moved around to her clit, squeezing and stroking until she cried out, her inner muscles clamping on his shaft seconds before fire ripped down his spine, pulling his balls tight, before raging through his cock in a release that left his ears ringing.
Chapter Seven
“Ten-to-one, there’s cocaine in the box,” Lyric said as she and Cady compared the photo Erin had taken to the photo Cady had taken on the backstretch of Angel Valdez talking to his agent.
“That’s a leap.”
Lyric shrugged. “Hey, it looks like a drug deal to me. How else do you explain what’s going down in Erin’s photo? Can you think of another reason why a horseracing protestor and a jockey would get together and pass something off?”
Cady couldn’t, and that was frustrating. “Okay, so if we assume it’s a drug deal and it’s coke, then I guess we have to also assume that either, A—Valdez is hooked and buying it for himself, or B—he’s planning on drugging more horses, which would make zero sense. First of all, it’s possible that he actually rides for Adrienne, and second, even if he doesn’t, why ruin her just because Terry beat him in a fistfight? Why not try and ruin Terry instead?”
“Who knows? The motive only has to make sense to the person committing the crime.” Lyric grinned. “Damn, I wish I could have seen the fight. Then I’d know a little bit more about Valdez’s style.”
“Believe me, you would not like to hang around with Terry McKay.”
“Don’t need to be best friends with someone to enjoy seeing them go one-on-one.”
Cady rolled her eyes. Thank God Kieran was on the scene now. Until he’d come along, both she and Erin had spent a lot of time worrying that one day their baby sister was going to stray a little too far on the wild side. “I’ve got to check this out. You’re probably right about it being a drug deal, but it could have nothing to do with the track or what happened to Adrienne’s horses. It could be that the track is just where Danny and Valdez first connected. Maybe protesting at the track is Danny’s cover for building a new client base for the coke. From what Erin said, the Danny that got hauled away by the cops at the anti-fur demonstration didn’t sound anything like the one I saw. If the police got called to Bay Downs, it would be because the protesters were loitering and doing nothing.”
“You’ve got Danny’s address on one of your release forms, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So confront him with the photos and see what shakes out.”
Cady’s stomach tightened. She was better at observation and questions rather than direct confrontation. Maybe Kix…
As though reading Cady’s mind, Lyric said, “Don’t even go there. Use Kix as the ‘big gun’,” her eyebrows went up and down, “which, from the mouth-watering erection he usually sports when you’re around, is probably an understatement. So I’ll rephrase—use him as your cannon. If you don’t get anything from Danny, let Kix flash his badge and try and persuade him. Same is true with Valdez.”
Cady thought it over. She was the lead for the Crime Tells investigation. Bulldog would expect her to follow up on this and not turn it over to someone else—well, with the exception of her male cousins. And besides that, Kix was off to places unknown…
Okay, true, it’s not like they’d talked much about the case last night…and somehow he’d managed—her entire body flushed when she remembered exactly how—to escape without telling her if his trip to San Francisco with Adrienne had led to any new leads. So she didn’t owe him a call now that they had a hot lead.
Cady stiffened her resolve to not blur the line between her relationship with Kix and her responsibility as lead detective for Crime Tells. “I’ll tackle Danny at work.”
Lyric nodded. “That should be safe enough. I’ve got some running around to do for a new case. Promise you’ll call if he’s not at work and you end up going to his house.”
“I’ll give you a call.” And since Cady hadn’t heard about a new case coming in, she said, “A Crime Tells case or one of your own?”
“My own. A kid’s pet tarantula is loose in a house over in Saratoga and they’ve got a fancy dinner party planned. According to the mother’s social secretary, the party is major-league important, they offered me double my rates if I can find the thing before noon tomorrow when the caterers start showing up.”
Cady laughed. Shane, Braden, and Cole always rolled their eyes at Lyric’s “pet detective” sideline—but Cady was proud of her sister. “You’ll find it.”
“The question is—will I find it before someone sees it and faints…or worse, steps on it.”
* * * * *
Second thoughts arrived as soon as Cady pulled into the animal control parking lot. She’d only been to the shelter once before, when a friend wanted to adopt a kitten. Once had been more than enough.
They’d gone at the height of the kitten season and there’d been a line of people waiting to surrender their surplus animals. Cady shuddered at the euphemism. That day the line had started at a counter somewhere in the building, then extended out the door and around the corner.
Even now the memory made Cady sick to her stomach. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that very few of the kittens would find homes.
Cady took a deep breath and forced herself to go inside. She didn’t see Danny at any of the front desks, or in the pet supply store. There were stairs leading to the management offices, but somehow she couldn’t picture him in that role. That left the kennel area. Bracing herself, Cady pushed through the door leading to where the dogs were housed and immediately wished she’d decided to try Danny’s house first.
The shelter was packed with dogs. There were three or four per cage and it seemed like all of them rushed to the front, barking and wagging their tails—trying to convince Cady to bail them out.
Okay, you can handle this. But she knew she couldn’t as she moved through the rows of kennels, the images of the their hopeful faces burning into her memory—a photographer’s curse and blessing. Long after she left the shelter, she’d see these dogs in her mind’s eye and wonder which ones found homes and which ones didn’t.
One more row, then I’m home free. Just don’t pet any of them and do not look any of them in the eye. You managed not to adopt a dachshund when Lyric ended up with almost two hundred of them. Cady’s stomach roiled. Of course, those dogs weren’t at risk of being destroyed like these dogs are.
She made it to the last kennel of the final row before her resolve failed. Then she was lost.
A huge, almost solid black, German shepherd caught her eye and Cady knelt down in front of him, pushing her fingers through the mesh of his kennel and rubbing one of his tall, elegant ears. He held steady, his piercing golden eyes focused
on her face. She stroked him a few minutes longer, then shifted her attention to the card attached to his cage.
“So your name is Ranger, you’re five years old and you were surrendered by your owner.” A thick yellow line from a highlighter slashed across the front of the card.
Just as Cady was wondering about the yellow line, a young Hispanic woman approached. She had a blue nylon slip-lead in her hand. When she stopped in front of Ranger’s run, Cady stood. “He’s been adopted?”
The woman tapped a long red fingernail against the card, right where the yellow highlighter had made its pass. “ER.”
“ER?”
“Euthanasia room.” She tapped the red fingernail against the section on the card that listed the dog’s age. “There’s nobody going to want an old dog, especially a big one and we need the kennel space.”
A tight fist of pain hit Cady’s heart. “Five isn’t old.”
“It is here.” The woman pulled a key out of her pocket and started to unlock the kennel.
“I’ll adopt him.”
The kennel attendant hesitated, shrugged, then pulled a pen from her pocket and scribbled “PA” on the card. Before Cady could ask, she said, “Potential adopter. That way no one will pull him and take him to the ER while you’re filling out the paperwork. But it won’t hold him for long.”
Cady gave her a grateful smile even though her heart was pounding and a tap dance was going on in her stomach. “Where do I go?” What have I done!
“There are some forms on a rack right next to the front door. Anybody behind the desk can help you.”
Cady thanked her, then numbly walked back in the direction she’d come from. Okay, what’s the worst thing that can happen? Visions of leg-lifting and chewed-up furniture crossed her mind. Okay, let’s not go there. This’ll work out. I’m a pet photographer. I know about pets and what I don’t know, I can learn. And besides that, I’m not alone in this. Lyric and Erin will pitch in. They have dogs. Heck, almost everybody in our family has a dachshund now. Not that it’s the same as a huge German shepherd, but…
Within a few minutes of filling out a form and handing it to a woman behind the adoption desk, a tall black man stepped out from behind a partition and called Cady’s name. He introduced himself as Marcus and led Cady to his workstation. It took only a minute to go over the paperwork. When Cady gave him a check, true panic threatened to set in. Since Ranger was already neutered, she was expected to take him with her—now.
“I don’t even have a collar and leash,” she blurted out the first thing that came to mind.
“We send the dogs out with one of those throwaway slip leads, but you’re better off stopping in at our pet supply store and getting a real collar and leash. You’re going to need one anyway.” He glanced down at the paperwork. “Ranger weighs in at one-fifty, I’d definitely recommend a collar and a real leash. He’s a lot of dog.”
Marcus stood, forcing Cady to stand, too—and face the reality of what she’d just done. “Tell you what,” he said, “it’s slow enough that I can help you out.”
Cady smiled in appreciation and followed him into the pet supply area. She picked out a hunter green collar with a matching leash and paid for them. Marcus took a few extra collars, just in case the one she’d chosen wasn’t the right size.
As he escorted Cady back to the kennel she thought about the mission that had brought her to the shelter in the first place and said, “I met someone who works here, a guy named Danny Meyers. He was protesting at Bay Downs. But I don’t see him here today.”
Marcus shook his head. “Danny’s in some big trouble. He didn’t show for work yesterday and he’s not here today either. The boss is pretty pissed. She usually cuts him some slack since he gets out and protests the causes she’s into. But he didn’t call in. That’s a big no-no.”
Cady thought about Erin’s picture catching Danny as he scored a direct hit on the fur coat with his red paint. “Maybe he got arrested.”
Marcus shrugged. “He gets arrested all the time. Couple of hours processing time and they kick him free. The jails are too full to hold demonstrators.”
“Oh.” They stopped in front of the kennel housing Cady’s new dog. He stared at her again with those piercing golden eyes, then swished his tail. It was a subtle movement, not an exuberant display, but it shot like an arrow straight to Cady’s heart.
This was going to work just fine. Hey, he’d be good company. Cady smiled as she envisioned Ranger riding around in the cab of the pickup with her. He was big enough, and scary enough, she wouldn’t have to worry about anyone breaking in to steal her equipment.
Marcus unlocked the kennel and they stepped in. The collar Cady had selected fit perfectly. When she clipped the leash to it, Marcus said, “Looks like you’re all set. Good luck with him.”
“Thanks. I think it’s going to be okay.”
With each passing moment she felt more confident that she’d done the right thing. Ranger was perfect for her.
Despite dogs charging up to the front of their kennels and barking at him, he didn’t react. He walked with regal dignity next to Cady, and even sat automatically when they stopped at her trunk.
She opened the door and started to tell him to jump in, but then thought better of it. Now that they were out of the shelter and one-on-one, there was no escaping the fact that her new companion stunk.
“I’ll make it up to you,” Cady promised as she walked around to the back of the truck, opening the door of the camper shell, then dropping the tailgate. Ranger jumped in without protest.
Cady made sure it was secure before climbing into the cab and reaching for her cell phone. Her heart kicked up a beat when she saw that Kix had called. For a second she looked at the phone and nibbled on her bottom lip, wondering if she should call and tell him about Danny not showing up for work—but then thought about her earlier decision and called Lyric. “Guess what, Danny’s a no-show at work.”
“Might still be in jail.”
“That’s what I thought. His coworker said Danny gets arrested all the time, but usually is out as soon as they process him.”
“Could be true. California jails might as well have ‘no vacancy’ signs posted on them. So are you heading to his house now?”
Cady looked in her rearview mirror and saw Ranger. Lyric would find out about him soon enough. “It’ll take me thirty or forty minutes before I can get there.”
“Make it forty-five and I’ll see you there.”
“Okay.” She gave Lyric the address and hung up.
Cady retrieved her appointment book and flipped to the back where she kept names and numbers. One advantage of being a pet photographer was that she knew a lot of people in the pet care industry. Within minutes she had an appointment for Ranger. While he was getting a bath, she and Lyric would hopefully be getting some answers from Danny Meyers.
* * * * *
“This looks like the VW in Erin’s picture,” Lyric said a few minutes later when she joined Cady. Her nose wrinkled. “Nice location. How long have you been here?”
“Just a few minutes.” Cady looked up and down the street. Most of the houses had bars on the windows and junker cars in the front yard. Definitely not the kind of place she wanted to hang out in. Stinky or not, she’d been sorry she’d dropped Ranger off at the groomer’s when she’d first gotten here.
“Ready?” Lyric asked.
“Yeah. Let’s do it.”
They dodged clumps of weeds sprouting through cracks in the sidewalk. A couple of yellowed newspapers lay in front of the door while the doorbell was popped out and hanging by a wire. Another frayed and broken wire jutted out of the hole where the bell had been attached.
“Nice,” Lyric said again.
Cady gave the door a few good knocks.
The house remained quiet. No sounds. No movement.
She rapped again, even harder. “I don’t hear anything. What about you?”
“No. Around back?”
Cady�
�s blood started pounding in her ears at the thought of skulking around in this neighborhood.
Lyric grinned. “Don’t worry, seeing people sneaking around will seem like normal behavior around here.”
There was no way Cady could back down. Whether she went or not, Lyric would go. Her sister was a lot more pragmatic, and where Erin and Cady both had a finely tuned sense of self-preservation, Lyric didn’t always give the impression that risk concerned her. Still, Cady felt compelled to say, “Okay, but no breaking and entering.” Lyric snickered and headed around the house.
A rank smell greeted them at the side of the house near the garbage cans. The backyard was a disaster area with junked cars and weeds well past their knees. Cady noticed a rat sitting on top of the half-rotted wooden fence. It didn’t even bother to hide when it saw them.
They waded through the weeds and knocked on the back door. Again no answer. The window in the door was covered with a gauzy type of curtain. Cady pressed her face as close to the glass as she could without actually touching anything.
There was a kitchen sink and a series of cabinets straight ahead. Cady moved further to the left in order to get more of a view. When she did, a hand and forearm came into sight and her heart stopped for a second. She took a quick step back, then moved forward again. The hand and forearm were on the table. Her view didn’t let her see the person they were attached to. She stepped back again. “Someone’s in there.”
Lyric moved in and looked through the window, then pounded on the door. “Passed out maybe. He didn’t even flinch. There’s a window above the trash cans.”
Cady knocked again, knowing where this was heading and wanting to head off an arrest for trespass. But Lyric was right, the arm on the table didn’t move.
They retraced their steps to the side of the house. This time Cady noticed that the window above the trash cans was cracked open just a few inches. The stench was incredible and warning bells began shrieking in her head, especially when she noticed a steady stream of flies filtering in and out of the kitchen through a small hole in the screen. But she forced herself to gingerly climb onto the trash cans and peek in through the window.
