Kalesia latched onto the sensitive flesh of his perineum, worried it gently between her teeth. At the same time, she slipped one slender finger inside his anus. She wrapped her free hand around his cock.
There was a faint cracking sound.
Kalesia ignored it and sucked on the delicate skin. She worked her finger in and out of his anus.
Gabriel began to thrust his cock between the fingers. The heated satin of his hard flesh grew hotter, harder.
Her finger found the small gland inside him. She rubbed hard.
Gabriel’s rhythm faltered.
“Son of a bitch, son of a bitch, son a bitch.” His hips jerked, a rough, uncoordinated motion.
Though Kalesia didn’t think it possible, his cock swelled more.
Kalesia heard a distinct snapping sound at the same time as Gabriel groaned, “Oh, fuck, sugar, I’m coming. Don’t stop.”
Spurts of thick, hot cum covered her hand, his stomach, the bed.
Gabriel collapsed. With a grunt, he turned onto his back and flung one arm across his eyes. Eyes still covered, he reached down and hauled her up beside him.
Kalesia rested her head on his chest, listening to his heart thunder and his lungs labor for air.
Dang, she wanted to do that again.
Something poked her shoulder. Kalesia tried to ignore it. She wiggled. Gabriel’s arm tightened. She wiggled again. Finally, she sat up. Damn and blast, couldn’t a girl rest in a little well-deserved afterglow? Kalesia felt among the rumpled sheet until she found the culprit and fished it out. She started laughing.
It was one of the spindles.
Kalesia tossed it to the floor and collapsed back down on Gabriel’s chest, chuckling.
After several long minutes, Gabriel threaded his fingers through her hair. He tugged. His gaze, when it met hers, was serious.
“You weren’t satisfied.”
Just as serious, she told him, “I am very satisfied.” It was the truth. She didn’t think she’d ever felt more content.
He waved that away. “You know what I mean. You didn’t come.”
She reached up and gripped two of the remaining spindles. “Make me.”
* * * * *
“I pay you to keep me informed. You begin to disappoint me. I dislike being disappointed.” The voice was harsh, arrogant.
“I’m keeping tabs on the woman. Remember, I alerted you to the fact she’s a potential problem.” The man speaking lowered his voice as someone walked by. He waited until they were out of earshot. “I want more money. Keeping you informed is becoming dangerous.”
“You’re not worth the money I’m paying you now.” Pure ice, the tone sent shivers down the listener’s spine.
“No?” he drawled, hiding his fear. “Not even if I could tell you they found a hit man by the name of Crump?”
A long silence filled the air. “Ten thousand more and the information best warrant it. If it doesn’t, remember you’re not invulnerable.” There was a click as the receiver was replaced.
Glancing down the hallway to be certain no one was around, the second man allowed himself a small smile. With luck, he’d wrangle another ten thousand on top of that. He just had to handle the flow of information properly.
* * * * *
Sam was sitting at the table when Kalesia walked into the kitchen the next morning. “You look like something even Hannibal would have the good taste not to drag in.” She went directly to the coffee pot and poured two large cups of the dark brew. She nodded good morning to Wolf as she passed him. He nodded back and turned a slice of ham in the frying pan. “A hard night?” she asked Sam, shoving a steaming cup in his hand.
He wrapped both hands around the cup and inhaled with the blissful expression of a true afficionado of caffeine. “Thanks,” he mumbled around a cautious sip. “I’m not as young as I used to be. Be an angel and rub my neck. It’s killing me.” He blew on the hot liquid. “By the way, where’s Gabe?”
“Right behind you. And you won’t have to worry about growing any older if she touches you.”
“Ouch. I thought you’d be in a better mood this morning.”
Straddling a chair, Gabriel shot him a hard look. “I’m never in that good a mood. Get me a cup of coffee, honey.”
Get me a cup of coffee, huh? she snorted silently. She should have known. Give a tomcat an inch and he’d move right in and take over. Kalesia snapped the requested coffee on the table in front of Gabriel. A river of the dark brew slopped over the rim.
Gabriel eyed the waste mournfully. “Came on too strong, huh? If I ask real nice, could I have a full cup?” He looked boyishly hopeful, a neat trick for a battle-scarred tom.
Kalesia refilled his cup. “See, Sam, he’s able to learn.”
“Well, I’ll be.”
“You will be if you don’t put a cork in it.” Gabriel tossed his coffee-soaked napkin in Sam’s direction. “Got anything?”
Sam became all business. “Quite a bit, actually.” He paused as Badger trooped in the door. Sam waited until the other man settled at the table to continue. “Seems our Mr. Crump is not the only unsolved murder before and during that period. Took me most of the night to discover that wherever our Mr. Crump happened to be, a body just naturally seemed to turn up.”
“He was a hit man.” Gabriel shrugged as he grabbed a honey tangerine from the bowl of fruit in the middle of the table. He began peeling it. “Bodies usually turn up if someone is paying.” He popped one section of the peeled fruit into his mouth. “Anything to connect the victims?”
Kalesia, her attention on the conversation, jumped as Wolf placed a plate before her. She looked at the ham, egg and toast. Her stomach roiled. She shoved it away, not sure her stomach could handle food right now.
Gabriel shoved it back.
She frowned at him.
“Eat.”
Rather than argue with him in front of the other men, Kalesia made a show of putting a tiny bite of egg in her mouth.
He scowled. Gabriel opened his mouth to say something, then shut it.
Sam watched the byplay between the pair, a faint smile shaping his mouth. He picked up the conversation. “The victims all seem diverse. It’d have taken me weeks, if not months, to come up with anything on Crump if the Feds hadn’t already been after him.” He pulled a face. “Always one step behind.”
Kalesia was impressed. Sam must have pulled some pretty impressive strings to get the information so fast.
“As it is, we’re left with hundreds of man-hours and no concrete results. The bastard was good, I’ll give him that.”
“Was he freelance?”
Sam hesitated. “No solid proof but doesn’t seem like it.”
“Good,” Wolf grunted. He glanced at Kalesia. “You said he felt betrayed by someone he was working with.”
She nodded.
“Did you get the feeling Crump was the boss?”
Had she? Kalesia did a quick rerun of the emotions Crump had felt when he realized he’d been betrayed. “No,” she said slowly. “Just the opposite. I think he worked for his killer. What’s really odd, though, he felt superior to whoever it was. He was furious at underestimating this person. I could feel his shock.”
“That means his killer is worried. Cleaning up. Worried people make mistakes.” Wolf fiddled with the handle of the coffee cup. Wolf looked right at Kalesia. “We’ll get him before he hurts you.” His eyes were icy.
She’d only seen eyes that cold on one other person.
Gabriel.
She was suddenly very glad both men were on her side.
Sam yawned and stretched. His shoulders were very broad in the same rumpled white shirt he’d arrived in yesterday. “Let me snatch a few hours of sleep, then I’ll dig some more. We know Crump’s accomplice was in the Ocala area in the last week. I’ll cross-reference that with persons of interest in the Feds’ investigation. Who knows? We might get lucky.” He pushed back his chair.
As if that were a signal, everyone fi
led out, leaving Kalesia and Gabriel alone. She turned to him. “It really is real, isn’t it?” Although it was in the mid-seventies, Kalesia felt cold. A deep down cold that a sweater wouldn’t make go away. “It wasn’t a mistake. A nightmare instead of a vision. Was it?” She rubbed her arms.
“No, it wasn’t a mistake.” Gabriel stood, pulled her into his arms. His hands moved up and down the line of her spine.
Kalesia sank into his embrace. Tried to pull his heat inside her. She was quiet for a long while, thinking. Finally, she voiced the question that had been bothering her since the three men knocked on the front door. “Are Wolf and the other men putting themselves in jeopardy to help me?”
His hands stopped their soothing rhythm. She didn’t have to see his face to know he was considering lying to her. To her relief, he didn’t.
“Maybe.” His palms resumed the slow, up and down motion. “But this is what they do. What they’re trained for. Trust them. They’re the best. They won’t do anything stupid.”
She leaned back so she could see his face. “What about you? You didn’t want any of this. You left law enforcement for a reason.” Kalesia swallowed. “I couldn’t bear it if I cost you your life,” she whispered, aware of the ache in her voice.
“I could have walked away.” Gabriel brushed a kiss over each eyelid before folding her close again.
Kalesia listened to the steady, comforting beat of his heart. When he spoke again, his voice rumbled in her ear.
“Listen to me closely. You didn’t make me do anything I didn’t want to. I’m here, with you, because I want to be.” He rubbed his chin on the top of her head. “One other thing you might want to keep in mind. I too, was the best. I give you my word. I’ll take care of you. And myself. Believe in me.”
She squeezed his lean waist hard. A button on his shirt dug into her cheek. “I do.” She thought of his scars. Of the way he sometimes seemed so alone. “And I give you my word. I will always believe in you. Whatever happens, Gabriel, I will be there for you.” The promise was fervent and low. She meant it with all her heart.
He cupped her chin in one large, callused palm. With his thumb, he tilted her face up. His eyes were fierce. “I’ll hold you to that.”
Chapter Nine
“So? What’s next?”
Gabriel settled his hip more comfortably on Kalesia’s chair as he answered her question. “We see if the unsolved murder victims have any ties to Crump.” A stray ray of sunshine found the fire in Kalesia’s hair and set it ablaze. It also highlighted the paleness of her complexion and the worry in her green eyes as she gazed at each man in turn.
“Does this mean you no longer suspect my clients?”
“It means we have four visions of unsolved murders and the dead body of a hit man. Right now, those are top priority. It does not mean I have forgotten your clients. Badger and Sam are running background checks on the people you dealt with in each firm, starting with your current and most recent clients.” In particular, the three clients whose files were out of order.
A look of horror flashed over her face. “Gabriel! How in the world am I going to explain when they find out they’re under investigation?” She rose to her feet, agitated and began to pace. “This is going to ruin my business. For good, this time,” she breathed.
“Take it easy.”
She rounded on him. “Don’t tell me to take it easy! Don’t you understand?” She pointed an accusing finger in his direction. “They’ll never trust me again. It’s bad enough that I’m mixed up in a murder investigation but when they learn I sicced the FBI on them, they’ll go ballistic and yank my contracts!”
He tried to calm her down. “Your business won’t be ruined because they’ll never know we investigated them.”
“Hah! That’s what you say now,” she muttered, not looking in the slightest bit mollified by his reassurance. She resumed her pacing.
“Gabriel’s right. They won’t have a clue,” Badger said. “Hey, remember, we’re pros.”
“Professional snoops, you mean.”
“At least, lady, we’re your professional snoops,” Gabriel snapped, insulted. What the fuck had she thought he’d do when he’d insisted that she bring the files?
She had the grace to look embarrassed. “Okay, okay. Sheesh, talk about touchy. It’s not as if I called you a thief or something.” She jammed her hands in her pockets and studied the racy little boots on her feet. “I didn’t mean it the way it sounded.”
“Hey, don’t worry it about. We all knew what you meant.” Badger slanted Gabriel a mean look.
Liar. Gabriel gave him one back just as mean. “Tell me about the vision from two years ago.”
“The man in the remote horse paddock?” She sounded resigned at having to go over the vision yet again. “It was either an Arabian or thoroughbred farm. A big one. Lots of huge paddocks. This one had loads of trees and brush. I remember old straw and shavings on the ground, spread out the way some of the farms do after mucking out the stalls. No one had used the field in a while. The man was sprawled, face down, on the ground. Kinda like a puppet whose strings have snapped.”
Gabriel heard her swallow. His anger dissipated as fast as it’d come. He forced himself to stay seated instead of crossing the room and taking her in his arms like he ached to do.
“He was shot. Once, to the head. That’s about it.” She rubbed her palms over her jeans. “Outside of being shot, I can’t see a connection between that old murder, John Crump’s and mine.”
“Where, exactly, was he shot?” Gabriel asked.
“In the…” Kalesia swallowed, a sickly cast to her face. “He was shot in the left eye.” She sank slowly onto the sofa and looked from one hard, closed face to another. “But in my vision I was shot in the chest. Surely that means something?” she protested, a shiver running over her.
“Were any of the other victims shot?”
She gave a slow shake of her head.
“Two of the victims in your visions were shot, execution style. We can’t ignore the similarity.”
“He’s right, Kalesia,” Badger said, moving to stand behind her and patting her shoulder. “We have to follow every angle.” He looked at the other men for confirmation.
Sam concurred. He sat beside Kalesia on the sofa. “At this point, we can’t favor one scenario over another.”
Wolf claimed the padded arm of the sofa. He picked up her hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “We have to be thorough.”
I’ll be damned. Gabriel watched in a state of bemusement as three of the meanest sons of bitches he knew rush to reassure Kalesia. He gave a disbelieving shake of his head. The woman hadn’t the slightest clue. When Badger patted her shoulder for the third time, Gabriel decided it was time to break up the small party.
“Badger,” he barked. “You and Wolf keep working the client angle. Sam, see if you can cross-reference that murder to anything in Crump’s file.” He shoved to his feet.
“Going out?” Wolf asked, a too-casual note in his deep voice and a knowing gleam in his eyes.
“You’re going out?” She shot a suspicious glance between the two men. “Now?”
Gabriel nodded.
She shot to her feet. “Not without me, you’re not.” Kalesia skirted the coffee table and stood in front of him, arms crossed.
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” Satisfaction welled. He reached out and rubbed a knuckle against her cheek. A small electric shock shot straight from his knuckle to his cock. It never failed to amaze him, the effect she had on his senses.
Dawning awareness lit her green eyes. “I think I’ve been had.”
“You,” Gabriel curled a possessive arm around her shoulders, “have a suspicious nature.” Damn, she felt good in his arms.
“Hah! Comes from hanging around with you. You’d make a nun suspicious. Where are we going?”
“To see a man about a missing person.”
* * * * *
“Sneaky. Real sneaky, Steele,” Kalesia mouth
ed in an aside as Gabriel held the glass door open and motioned her inside. “You know I hate these places.”
“Tom will be crushed to hear that.” Gabriel steered her around an arguing couple, wondering why he didn’t have that tight feeling in his chest that being involved in anything remotely resembling an investigation usually gave him.
“Yeah, sure, right. If he’s anything like you, it’d take a two-ton boulder to crush him.”
“I’ll be sure to tell him that. Right after I tell him how much you like the yellow slicker.”
“Isn’t it illegal to blackmail a person in a sheriff’s office or something?”
“Only if you get caught.”
“Gabe! Back so soon?” Gary Parker looked up, surprise written on his plain face. Right ankle propped over his left knee, he finished wiping mud off the high shine of his shoe and tossed the rag into a drawer.
Gabriel squeezed Kalesia’s hand as she opened her mouth to respond. Without missing a beat, she gave a warm smile instead.
“Place grows on you after awhile.” Gabriel canted his head toward the closed office door. “Harley here?”
Parker grimaced. “He’s here. In a helluva mood, though.” He jumped as Harley’s door slammed open.
“Parker! Do you have that report ready?” Tom noticed Gabriel and Kalesia and scowled. “What are you two doing here?”
“We need to talk.”
“Why not? My day’s already shot all to hell.” He went back inside without another word. Gabriel, with Kalesia in tow, followed.
Harley settled into the chair behind the desk. He threw a pen on the cluttered surface. “Well? And I warn you, Gabe, I don’t want any more murders. I have enough on my plate as it is,” he grunted.
“How about missing persons or John Does?”
Harley groaned. “You know, Gabe. A fella could get real tired of seeing your face.”
“I need to see if you have any matches for a vision Kalesia had about two years ago. You know, one of those I asked you to check into nearly a week ago.”
“Don’t start. Do you have any idea of the number of crimes that come through this office in a day? This place is like a madhouse. I have more to worry about than possible murders more than two years old.”
Tapestry of the Past Page 14
