“But your visions—”
“We’re not even considered a legit tip. Hunting killers is dangerous.”
“But…but you found them.”
“I did the job I was hired to do. We both did. Our obligation, technically, is fulfilled.”
Melody stared at her as if she had grown two heads. Charlotte squirmed in her seat, feeling as if she were just thrust under a microscope.
“But even Jonas said they won’t know where to look. Don’t we have another obligation to the dead, Charlotte? We’re their voice since they no longer have one.”
“And that’s what we’re doing. We’re sharing the information we uncovered. But you don’t know what it’s like staring down a killer, Melody.”
“And you do?”
“Yes,” she answered, and she saw Melody’s green eyes widen. “I do. And I’m still shaking. I still can’t forget that I almost died, that I watched Jonas get shot.”
Melody’s eyes darted to Jonas, and then she brought her napkin from her lap to lie across her plate. She scooted back her chair and stood. “Excuse me,” she said before turning and walking out of the restaurant.
Nash and Jonas looked at Charlotte.
“What?” Charlotte asked defensively. “You both know I was right.”
“I didn’t say anything,” Nash replied.
“Yeah. Me neither,” Jonas echoed.
The waitress came to the table. “Would you like a to-go box?”
“God, no,” Charlotte said with a shudder and pushed her plate away.
The waitress’s smile slipped. “You didn’t like it?”
Charlotte gave her a wan smile. “I have a pet frog at home, and every time I looked at my plate I thought of Hopper.”
“Oh, okay.”
Nash held out his credit card. “We’ll take the check.”
* * * *
“You were a little harsh with Melody,” Jonas said, watching her from the bed as she brushed her teeth at the little sink that stood outside from the bathroom. He watched as she bent over, the material of her panties pulling up to reveal the bottom of her ass cheeks. He felt his cock stir to life.
Charlotte spit out her toothpaste and rinsed out her mouth with some water. She looked at him through the mirror. “Are you saying I should solve this case?”
“Presumptuous, aren’t you?”
“I did solve Zach’s case,” she reminded him. She wiped her hands on a hand towel and turned to face him. “Besides, weren’t you the one who was telling me not too long ago I wasn’t equipped to handle things?”
“That was before.”
“Before what?”
“Before I realized how you help people,” he told her, unable to take his eyes off the way her T-shirt stretched over her breasts. “You’ve got a different way of looking at things, at people, and sometimes that’s what’s needed to break a case. Thinking outside the box.”
She moved to the side of the bed and crawled on top of the comforter. “I might have come to terms with my past, but I’m still scared, Jonas.”
“You think I’m not? I’m scared every time I strap on my gun and badge, but that’s the nature of life. You can get in your car and get hit by a bus. What’s your inner voice telling you?”
She gave him a wicked smile. “It’s telling me I need to jump your bones and ride you till the cows come home.”
He raised an eyebrow. “I think I like your inner voice.”
“She can be very naughty. She’s gotten me into lots of trouble,” she told him as she threw her leg over his hip to straddle him.
He grabbed her thighs to pull her up close. He pressed his rock-hard dick against her very hot center. “Is it wrong that I’m super turned on right now?”
He ran his one good arm up her barely covered thigh. She dipped her head and placed a kiss on his mouth, her tongue breaking through the seam and meeting his to dance together. His fingers ran lightly down her back, trailing over her skin to her ass, to slip inside her panties. He traced the curve of her ass as far as he could reach. The arm that was in the sling prevented him from doing too much. He broke the kiss and sat up a little straighter, which brought her body flush into his. Jonas could feel her breasts against his chest, her nipples hard like little pebbles.
“I want to fuck you,” he murmured against her lips. “I might embarrass myself and come before I even make it inside you.”
“Oh no, no, no. I think our relationship is too new for embarrassing situations,” she murmured back. “Like going to the bathroom in front of each other.”
Deliberately, he ran his fingers along the edge of her lace panties, dipping under the seam, and loving how her eyes flared in excitement. He brushed his fingertips over her clit, lightly caressing the nerve cluster until she undulated her hips in a silent beg for more. She leaned down and bit his shoulder, her teeth sinking into tight skin.
Jonas moaned, his cock banging forcefully against the material of her panties as he jerked to the pain. She smiled wickedly at him.
“Ah, your inner voice is playing naughty,” he said.
He removed his hand from her panties to travel up her back where he grabbed her T-shirt and pulled until she was bent back, her breasts thrust upward. He wasted no time in lavishing them with attention. Focusing on one, he covered her nipple and the cotton with his mouth, sucking hard, causing her to moan and squirm. Since he only had one hand, he couldn’t really contain her.
She managed to wiggle away from him. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. Never had he seen anything so beautiful, so enticing.
“You’re gorgeous,” he whispered.
“I’m feeling very, very naughty,” she told him.
He watched as she ran her hands over her hips and under her panties. Pulling them down, her finger slid through her pussy lips.
“I’m so wet,” she told him. “Wet for you, Jonas.”
Using her own lubrication, her middle finger began moving in and out, teasing her clit.
“You’re so fucking hot,” Jonas told her, his voice thick with his own arousal.
Faster and faster, her finger worked herself. She began to moan, her hips pumping against her hand. A second later, she gasped as she came, her body bucking wildly. Jonas thought he would set combust at how erotic she looked in the throes of passion.
“So fucking beautiful,” he said thickly. “So naughty. I’m so fucking hard, baby. Come here.”
“Oh yes,” she breathed.
“Grab a condom,” he ordered, his voice barely manageable. “Ride me.”
She leaned over to the nightstand and opened the door, finding the box of condoms resting against the bible. She grabbed one and then proceeded to cover his cock. Then he pulled her over his body and she straddled him once more.
“Lift your delicious ass for me,” he told her.
“Delicious?”
“Although I haven’t actually taken a bite of it, just looking at it makes me horny.”
Then she held up, lifted herself up until she felt the head at her opening, and then slowly sank down.
“Oh god,” he groaned. “So good. Faster, Charlotte.”
Using her knees, she started to pump her hips. His one free hand managed to hold onto her waist, urging her on. Jonas did not want this to be slow and divine, but hard, hot, and erotic. Up, down, up, down, faster and harder until he felt her body spasm as she came unglued.
“Holy fuck!” he gurgled just as he convulsed in pleasure. His hips hammered, once, twice, and he was so far gone that a freight train could’ve barreled into their room and he’d not even hear it. Spent, his heart thundering in his ears, her body collapsed on top of him.
“Oh dear lord,” he whispered, sweat beading all over his body.
She picked her head up from his shoulder and smiled down at him. “I love happy endings.”
Chapter Seven
Nash opened the door to the honky-tonk dive of a bar and stepped inside, thinking it was the start of a good joke. An a
gent walks into a bar looking for some ass to kick… He was full of anger and just a hint of pain, and he’d love nothing more than to find some scumbag and punch his lights out. Just one good hit would do wonders for his psyche.
He walked up to the bar and sat at the end, keeping his back to the wall and his eye on the door. The players in the dingy bar seemed to ignore him, though he did feel a few curious stares. In a small town like Rock Ridge, Missouri, the locals all knew each other, so a six-foot-four ex-army ranger definitely stood out.
“What’ll you have?” the bartender asked. He looked like a man who listened too much to Hank Williams Jr., complete with a black leather vest over a red-striped flannel shirt, fuzzy beard and mustache, and beat-up old Stetson. All that was missing was the sunglasses, but Nash suspected the dark interior of the bar trumped the accessory.
“Let’s go with something clichéd…whiskey. Neat.”
The bartender smirked as he reached for the bottle and a shot glass. “Only two reasons why a man asks for whiskey, a woman or a job. I’m betting you’re the prior.”
“You’d be wrong,” Nash murmured as he picked up the shot glass and downed it in one gulp. “It’s both.”
“Then that calls for a double,” the bartender replied gamely and refilled the glass.
Nash picked up the glass and saluted him. “Cheers.”
The bartender smirked and headed to the other end of the bar to take care of customers.
This time Nash sipped his whiskey slowly. Truth be told, he hated the taste of the strong brew. He was much more a beer type of man, but seeing Charlotte on the arm of Daire threw him out of whack, and he needed something else to fortify himself, or else he’d have to find that scumbag. As much as it might bring him temporary satisfaction, in the long run he knew he’d only be left with sore knuckles along with his lingering self-disgust.
He’d had her in the palm of his hands.
When Holly Perth-Hawke had first suggested he meet her younger sister, Charlotte, he had laughed. But he really admired the statuesque wife of the HS Director, so he’d made a date with Miss Perth, knowing the last thing he wanted to do was get involved with a woman so soon after a breakup. Even though he’d only been in a relationship for six months, a rebound thing wasn’t what he was looking for. But he’d made the date, thinking a night out wouldn’t hurt anyone, not even suspecting that what he’d been looking for all along came in a smart talking, leggy ex-swimmer who happened to be the baby sister of his boss’s wife.
Within five minutes of meeting her, he’d fallen hard. Within an hour, he was besotted. And by the end of the date, all he wanted to do was see her again. And then the next day he’d gotten an email that changed his life in more ways than one because it made him lose the only woman he ever loved.
And now he was working with her and her new boyfriend. And they were presently ensconced in a hotel room. And he knew that Daire was doing everything to her that he wanted to do.
It was enough to drive him to the local hangout in an effort to get drunk enough to wipe out the mental pictures accumulating in his brain. He wanted to reach inside and rip out the full-blown, in color, digitalized images his imagination seemed intent on flashing like a neon sign.
“Whiskey isn’t meant to be nursed,” the bartender stated as he walked back to check on Nash.
“You are so right,” replied Nash, picking up the glass and downing the double shot of whiskey. It burned like hell, but it helped douse the fucking self pity he was heaping upon himself.
“Women aren’t worth it, my friend.”
Nash snorted. “Yeah. But we men are stupid, aren’t we?”
“Amen, brother.”
Just then someone walked up to stand at Nash’s right elbow. He tensed and moved his left arm to hang by his belt, just in case he needed to reach quickly for his gun. Every sense came alive with a flight or fight feeling, and right now the man just within his swing arm really was cruisin’ for a bruisin’.
“What ’cha doing here, Agent McKnight?” came the soft drawl of Junior Deputy Danny McCoin. He was dressed in plain clothes with jeans, T-shirt, and brown bomber jacket.
Nash relaxed and moved his left arm away from his gun. He turned to look at the younger man. He held up his glass. “Drinking to forget a girl. You?”
Danny held up his beer. “Same.”
Nash gestured to the stool next to him. “Misery loves company.”
Danny flashed a wry grin as he sat. “I’m betting it’s Miss Perth.”
“Tell me it’s not that fucking obvious. Is it?”
“I saw the way you looked at her,” Danny shrugged and took a sip of his beer.
“Great. That’s just fucking great.” Nash huffed and shifted his gaze to stare at him. “How long were you and Candace together?”
“Not long, but she was the one, you know?”
Nash nodded. “Yes. Yes I do.”
“Candace was…a real lady. She wasn’t what people said she was, you know. I mean, she’d done drugs but she got clean. But I’m right, aren’t I, about you and Miss Perth?”
Before Nash could answer, the bartender came back to refill his glass, and some of the whiskey sloshed over, spilling onto Danny’s jacket.
“Sorry, man,” the bartender said, grabbing some napkins and handing them over.
Danny grabbed them, stood, and took off his jacket to wipe the sleeve. Nash immediately spotted the dragon tattoo curling around his right forearm, and his heart thumped double-time at the revelation. But outwardly he smiled thanks at the barkeep and ordered another round for him and his new best friend.
“Yeah, you know, Charlotte and I have a complicated relationship,” he said, his instincts telling him to go with the flow. “Work gets in the way of some quality downtime.”
“And Detective Daire?”
Nash hesitated. Yes, what about the good detective? Jonas Daire wasn’t such a bad man. Nice, clean-cut, obviously devoted to his job. Hell, Nash was man enough to admit that he could see Jonas as a friend, if it wasn’t for the fact that the asshole had the girl. Shit, he was pathetic. He’d even go so far as to share Charlotte if the chance ever arose.
Did I really just think the word share?
“We…share. Like I said, it’s complicated.”
“Nah, I get it. I mean, Candace and I didn’t do that, but I know lots of couples who do.”
Nash raised his eyebrows. “You do?”
“Oh, sure. Rock Ridge might seem like a small hick town, but let me assure you, we have just as many fetishes here as they do in the big cities.”
“Really? Now I’m really curious.”
Danny finished his beer and started on the new one the bartender had placed in front of him. “Well, what are you into? Wait, let me guess…bondage.”
Nash blinked. Did he really hear that correctly? “Is that written over my face?”
“Nah, but you got this look,” Danny said with a swipe over all of Nash. “Clearly you’re a very powerful man and I assume you like to, how shall I say this, secure Miss Perth.”
Nash felt his blood boil, but he carefully kept his face neutral and his posture relaxed. He nodded. “Nothing too excessive, of course.”
“Of course.” Danny fell silent as he took another sip of his beer. Nash let him have his time to think, because he knew what was going through the young man’s head. He was pondering the decision of inviting Nash to the secret sex club, wondering if it was worth taking the risk of asking the man who was working his murdered girlfriend’s case to a club that was probably illegal.
To keep himself relaxed, he downed his shot of whiskey and motioned for a refill. He saw the bartender shoot a questioning look at Danny, but Nash shook his head.
“You know, I’m going to be leaving probably tomorrow or the next day,” Nash said.
Danny turned surprised eyes on him. “I thought you were working with the FBI.”
“Yeah, but I got a call earlier tonight from my director. Seems like he�
�s got something else for me. Usually I would never get pulled from a case, but since the Feds seem to have everything under control I thought it best to hand over the reins.”
“What about Miss Perth?”
Nash sighed dramatically. “As you saw, Daire got shot in the line of duty, so she’s going with the good detective for a bit, until he’s all healed. Sucks, though. It’s supposed to be my time with her.”
“Oh man.” Danny set his near empty glass on the counter with a decisive click. “You know, if you hang around one more day, I may be able to give you a last parting night with your lady friend. Strictly on the down-low, if you know what I mean?”
Nash cocked his head and made himself look confused. “I don’t know if I do.”
Danny looked around them to make sure no one else overheard. “Listen, I only work as a cop by day.”
“And what do you do at night?”
“On the weekends I bartend.”
“Here?” Nash asked, waving his finger around the honky-tonk.
“God no. It’s a happening club in Sikeston called The Here After Club.”
“I don’t know if dancing is what—”
“No, no, no. The dance club is what everyone goes to. The quiet club is only for invited guests.”
“Quiet club?”
Danny looked around again and leaned in close. “It’s a fetish club. I was thinking if you and your girl need some bonding time before you part, I could hook you up. My way of saying thanks for finding Candace.”
Nash pretended to think about it for a moment. He nodded slowly. “Yeah. She and I could play some before we part again.”
“Exactly.” Danny smiled and drained the last of his beer. He stood, dug out a twenty from his pants, and threw it onto the bar. He picked up his jacket in one hand and held the other out to Nash. Nash took it, and they shook hands.
“Cool. I’ll call you tomorrow and let you know the address.”
“That’d be great.”
With a wave Danny left. Nash watched the young man dig his cell phone out of his pocket, wondering if he was calling the owner of the sex club directly or if he was going through someone else, like a manager or a handler. When the door shut behind Junior Deputy McCoin, Nash stood as well and pulled out some cash from his wallet. He was in no hurry to leave, but the desire to drown his regret had disappeared.
Hereafter [McKnight, Perth & Daire 2] (Siren Publishing Allure) Page 5
