He Kills Me, He Kills Me Not

by LENA DIAZ,

  Was it too much to hope for a little groveling? After the day she’d had she felt like she deserved it. Not that she’d open the door even if he did grovel. But it would be nice just the same to hear him whining for her affection through the locked bedroom door. Irritated that she couldn’t seem to concentrate on anything but Logan, she flipped another page.

  “You must read really fast. You turned the last page no more than ten seconds ago.”

  She jerked around toward the sound of Logan’s voice, stunned to see him standing in a doorway she hadn’t even noticed before, a doorway that apparently adjoined this bedroom with the one next to it.

  “Can you forgive me for being such an ass?” he said, even as he leaned down and scooped her into his arms.

  “Put me down,” she demanded, as her book tumbled to the floor.

  “If you insist.” He turned and plopped lengthwise onto the chaise with her still in his arms. She bounced against his chest and he pulled her even more tightly against him as he straightened his legs out and sat back.

  “I didn’t give you permission to come in here,” she said as she struggled against his hold and tried to slide off his lap.

  “I didn’t ask.” He gently but forcefully tilted her chin up until she had to look at him. “If you’ll stop squirming I’d like to try to explain why I acted the way I did today.”

  The longing in his eyes was so intense she felt an answering longing deep within her. Then she caught sight of the stitches running down the left side of his face near his hairline. Her hand flew up—as if of its own accord—and her fingers shook as she lightly feathered them down the cut that ran from his temple to just past his eye.

  He reached out his hand and lightly ran a fingertip down the scar on the side of her face and smiled. “It’s just a scar. It doesn’t matter.”

  She knew he was referring to her scar instead of his, and it was difficult not to let him turn her attention when she was so touched by the way he used every opportunity to remind her he thought she was beautiful.

  “It does matter,” she insisted. “You could have been blinded if the cut was a little more to the left, not to mention maimed or killed.”

  “But I wasn’t.”

  She shook her head in exasperation and pushed back to put more distance between them. She would have jumped up but his arm around her shoulder held her firmly in place on his lap.

  “Logan, what would you have done if I wasn’t with you when that man started shooting at you today?”

  His jaw tightened and a look of unease flashed in his eyes. “It’s a moot question. If you weren’t with me, I wouldn’t have been in the woods.”

  “You would have taken out your gun and gone after him. But you didn’t because you were afraid you would leave me exposed if you stopped to do that. Isn’t that right?”

  “I didn’t come in here to argue with you.”

  “Oh? Then why did you come in here?”

  “To apologize. And to explain why I ignored you all day.”

  “You didn’t just ignore me, Logan. You glared daggers at me the few times you actually looked my way.”

  His hand curled into a fist where it rested on top of her thigh. “I was angry. No, I was furious. I still am.”

  “Why?”

  “Why?” His eyes blazed out at her and he looked incredulous. “Someone was shooting at us and you threw yourself in the line of fire.”

  She waited for him to continue, but he just glared at her like he’d been doing most of the day. She sighed and tried again. “I understand you being angry about that, but you treated me like a pariah all day. How do you think I felt when everyone around me saw how embarrassed of me you were—”

  “I wasn’t embarrassed.”

  She threw her hands in the air, then crossed them over her chest. “We’re getting nowhere.”

  They sat in silence for several minutes. She did her best to ignore him, not to mention the growing erection beneath her bottom. How could he be thinking about sex at a time like this?

  “I’m sorry, Mandy.” He leaned forward and nibbled on her earlobe.

  She jerked away and struggled to maintain her anger, in spite of the jolt of desire that one little touch had evoked.

  He sighed. “I’m not very good at controlling my anger when it comes to you. That doesn’t excuse it. I know that and I’m sorry my behavior embarrassed you, but if you ever do something like that again, I can’t promise I won’t act like an ass again. I’ll try,” he said, holding up a hand to halt the angry words she was ready to spill. “I can’t promise I won’t do that again but I can promise that I’ll try. Fair enough?”

  It was a lousy apology but she knew it came from his heart. She would have preferred a promise that he’d never do something like that again, but he was too honest for that. He knew his limits. She grudgingly nodded her agreement.

  He pulled her back to lie against his chest, tucking her head beneath his chin, stroking her hair and massaging her scalp. “I’ve made a promise to you. Can you make one to me?”

  “Depends on what it is.”

  He chuckled, a deep rumbling sound that tickled her ear where it rested against him.

  “Promise me you won’t ever put yourself in danger like that again.”

  She shook her head. “I didn’t do it on purpose. I reacted. Just like you can’t promise me you’ll never get that angry with me or shut me out like that, I can’t promise not to try to protect the man I love, even if it means danger to me.”

  His fingers stilled where they rested in her hair. She suddenly realized what she’d said, and hoped he hadn’t noticed. She hadn’t intended to be the first to say it.

  He cupped the sides of her face, tilting her head up to look at him. “You love me?” he asked, his voice husky and low. His hands shook and his eyes had turned so dark they were almost black. As much as she regretted saying it first, she couldn’t let him think she hadn’t meant it.

  She turned her head slightly and kissed his palm. “Yes. I love you.”

  He crushed her against himself, covering her mouth with his and thrusting his tongue inside, stroking in and out in a frenzied rhythm that left her clutching his shoulders and drawing up her knees to cuddle him against her.

  When her tongue stroked lightly against his and she sucked his tongue, he shivered against her and groaned low in his throat.

  Suddenly he twisted and pulled her beneath him, frantically tearing at the fastenings to his pants as he continued to ravage her mouth.

  She strained against him, jerking off his tie, struggling with the buttons on his shirt until she gave up and ripped it open. Buttons flew against the wall and onto the floor.

  He broke their kiss so he could work her shorts down her hips. She eagerly lifted for him so he could slide them off, even as she struggled to push his own pants down his thick muscular thighs.

  She’d never felt so consumed with raw hunger before, not even on that first night they’d made love. She was wild for him. He tugged her tank top and bra over her head and leaned down to delve his tongue into the valley between her breasts, squeezing and molding them with his hands.

  “Logan, your pants, take them—”

  “No time, can’t wait.” He thrust inside her with his pants tangled around his knees.

  She bucked beneath him, her head thrown back against the chaise, matching his rhythm with her own. Pushing and straining, they franticly raced toward their shared goal.

  She felt him tighten inside her and knew he was close. She was close, too, and when the first flutterings of her impending climax rushed through her, she threw her head back against the lounge, her fingers digging into his back, reveling in the sensation as it built within her.

  He sucked in his breath and grew even harder, thrusting with quick, deep strokes into her. “Come with me, Mandy,” he urged. “Let yourself go.” He leaned down and grazed his teeth against her nipple, pulling the swollen tip into his mouth, sucking in unison with his deep, long st
rokes.

  “Logan!” She screamed as her climax rippled through her and she convulsed against him. He joined her a few moments later, as waves of ecstasy consumed them both.

  He collapsed on top of her, his chest slick with sweat, heaving with each ragged breath. The wiry hairs brushed against her swollen breasts sending tiny ripples of pleasure through her.

  “That was—”

  “Amazing,” he said, finishing her sentence.

  She was going to say incredible, but amazing worked, too.

  Just when her heartbeat was returning to normal and she could finally breathe without rasping, she felt the stirrings of his growing erection deep inside her. “You can’t possibly—”

  “I’m not finished. Not even close,” he said, and proceeded to prove it.

  It wasn’t until much, much later when she was drifting off into an exhausted sleep in the tiny twin bed—where they’d managed to move the third time they’d made love—that she felt a twinge of unease.

  She’d told him she loved him.

  But he hadn’t told her that he loved her.

  Just before sunrise, Logan carried a nearly comatose Amanda to the much more comfortable bed in the master bedroom. He tucked her in and stood watching her for several minutes, awed by the ethereal picture she presented.

  She looked like an angel with her full pink lips curved in a delicate smile, and her hands clasped together beneath her soft cheek as if in prayer. Her glorious hair surrounded her like a halo, but he knew what lay beneath that cherubic exterior.

  She wasn’t an angel. She was a tigress. A demanding woman who’d surprised him yet again with the depth of her passion. Little dark circles beneath her eyes attested that he hadn’t been able to keep his hands off her all night.

  When she told him she loved him, he was so overwhelmed he went crazy, showing her how much he loved her by wringing out every ounce of pleasure from her that he could. The last time they’d made love, he’d brought her to climax three times before she cried out for mercy and he plunged inside her, joining her in ecstasy in three quick strokes.

  He marveled at the way they made love as if their bodies were created solely for each other, fitting together so perfectly with every thrust, every kiss, every slide of her skin against his.

  She was nothing like Victoria, nothing like his preconceived notions of what he wanted in a woman. And yet, she was absolutely perfect for him.

  At the doorway, he turned back to make sure she was still sleeping peacefully. When she was this tired, the nightmares usually didn’t come, and for that he was grateful. He hoped one day he could banish those nightmares forever.

  Confident she would sleep a few more hours, he showered and dressed in one of the guest bathrooms. He called Pierce from his study to make sure he was on his way. Pierce answered his cell phone on the first ring and assured Logan he would be there in about twenty minutes.

  Yearning for coffee but not wanting to brew any for fear the aroma would awaken Amanda, he drummed his fingers on his desk.

  He started to straighten some papers and the Northwood case file caught his attention. There were only a few pages left in the thick folder for him to review. Might as well do it now. He pulled the folder toward him and flipped it open to the section he’d marked with a paper clip to keep his place.

  One of the papers was an interview with the motel manager. Anna Northwood had worked as a maid at the motel where she was murdered. The brief interview was light in details and didn’t tell Logan anything he didn’t already know.

  He read two more reports before turning to the end of the folder. The last page was clipped to a clear plastic envelope with a CD inside. Curious, Logan unclipped the piece of paper. It was a far more in-depth bio than he’d seen in the folder until now. This one was recorded several days after the murder by a detective whose name he didn’t recognize.

  Listed on the top of the form was the full name of the victim, Anna Katherine Northwood.

  Logan froze, the blood chilling in his veins as he read the name again. Anna. Katherine. Northwood. Next to her full name was a box marked “nickname.” Inside that box were four letters, K-A-T-E. Her family had called her Kate.

  The same name Amanda’s attacker had called her.

  It had to be a coincidence.

  Because anything else would destroy him.

  His hands shook as he unclipped the CD holder and read the Post-it note taped to the back. The note said the CD was playing in the motel room when the victim’s body was discovered. Alarm bells started going off in Logan’s head.

  Amanda had said the man who attacked her hummed a strange tune, something she’d never heard before or since but would recognize if she ever heard again.

  “Logan?”

  He jerked his head up at the sound of Amanda’s sweet voice, surprised to see her standing in the doorway, even more surprised to see Pierce standing next to her.

  He longed to go to her, to wrap his arms around her and ask her to give him those three precious words again, to tell him she loved him. But he didn’t. He couldn’t.

  Pierce strode to the desk. “Amanda let me in. I guess you didn’t hear the doorbell.”

  Logan pushed his chair back and stood with the CD in his hand. “Amanda, do you remember the case I told you about?” he rasped. He cleared his throat. “The case where I let the killer go?”

  She nodded and joined Pierce in front of the desk. “You didn’t know, Logan. You can’t possibly still blame yourself for that.”

  “She didn’t have long hair, but her eyes were blue. Her family called her Kate.”

  Amanda’s eyes widened. She glanced at Pierce then back at Logan. “That’s a fairly common name, isn’t it? Yes, I think it is.”

  He heard the doubt in her voice, that little note of uncertainty.

  “I was looking through the old file from that murder and I found a CD. The report says it was playing on the stereo when the police found Kate’s body.”

  He slowly walked across the room to the CD player built into the wall beneath the TV.

  “Logan, don’t. Please.” Her voice broke on the last word.

  His heart squeezed in his chest at the pleading note in her voice, but he had to know if his terrible suspicions were true. He took a ragged breath and pushed the CD into the slot.

  He slowly turned around, his eyes fastened on hers as he waited for his fate to be decided.

  “What’s going on?” Pierce glanced back and forth between Amanda and Logan.

  Logan ignored him, frozen in place like a man strapped into the electric chair, watching the second hand creep toward midnight, knowing the call that could save him wouldn’t come in time but desperately hoping it might.

  Deep, mournful tones erupted from the speakers. Amanda’s face turned white. A look of panic entered her eyes. “No.” Her voice was filled with anguish. “Logan, no.”

  She covered her ears and ran from the room, her sobs echoing back as she fled up the stairs.

  “I can’t believe you haven’t checked on her.” Pierce shook his head in disgust.

  Logan gripped the pen tighter and scrawled another line on the paper in front of him.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Pierce asked. “Why aren’t you upstairs with her right now? I thought you cared about Amanda.”

  Logan clamped his jaw tight and jerked open his bottom desk drawer. He grabbed the stack of photographs out, the ones he looked at every night, and dropped them on top of his desk. “What I want and who I care about doesn’t matter anymore. Don’t you see?” He fanned out the pictures, copies of the same pictures that were posted on the whiteboard in the conference room at work. “Everything I’ve feared for the past decade has come true.”

  “What are you talking about?” Pierce narrowed his eyes at him.

  “The only thing that got me through every day after I let that white van go was the hope that maybe, just maybe, the killer had never hurt anyone else after that day. I tried to fool myself into
thinking no one else got hurt because of me.”

  He jabbed his finger at the photographs. “Now I know the truth. All of these women were brutally tortured, raped. . . .” His voice broke and he scrubbed a hand across his face. He dropped back down into his desk chair. “I have to stop him. I can’t let anyone else die, don’t you see?”

  “Not that I agree with anything you just said, but what does this have to do with Amanda? You should be upstairs, right now, helping her through—”

  Logan slammed his fist on his desk. “You saw the look on her face. She knows the truth now. She knows if it weren’t for me, she’d never have been attacked. Everything she’s suffered is because of me.” He tore the piece of paper off the yellow legal pad he’d been writing on earlier.

  Pierce shook his head. “For the record, I think you’re way off-base. You’re letting your own impressions cloud your judgment.”

  “I’m thinking more clearly than I’ve ever thought in my life. I know exactly what needs to be done now, finally.”

  “At least tell me what you were writing. I can’t read your chicken scratches.” Pierce turned his head sideways to try to read the notes on the yellow piece of paper. “That looks like an address.”

  Logan handed him the paper. “It is. Anna Northwood grew up thirty minutes from here in a rural area called Summerville. Her parents moved to Pensacola when she was fifteen. The police never interviewed anyone in Summerville. They didn’t think they needed to look back that far, since she was twenty-three at the time of her death.”

  “They had no reason to believe the killer was someone from her past,” Pierce said.

  “Anna Northwood didn’t have long hair when she was murdered. But I’ll bet she did when she was younger, the first time she and the killer crossed paths. We’re going to Summerville.”

  “But why are you taking me to the safe house, Karen?” Amanda clutched the armrest and tried not to give in to the anguish roiling inside her. “I thought Pierce was going to take me. Where is Logan?”