Raven's Cove - Jenna Ryan

by Intrigue Romance

  She was there in a heartbeat, plunging down the slippery slope of uncontrolled desire. Her white tee sailed across the floor. Rogan’s shirt followed. She worked on unfastening his jeans. Between kisses, every item of clothing they’d been wearing lay in a tangled heap on the carpet.

  Jasmine breathed when she remembered and memorized what she could. He was all smooth skin over muscle and bone. No spare flesh, just that sleek male body, covering her as he laid her down on the high feather bed.

  He took his time, used his tongue to trace the underside of her breast, then shifted his attention to her nipple and made her gasp.

  Her fingernails bit into his arms. Her neck arched in reaction. When he raised himself above her, her body bowed up.

  She wanted him, needed him inside her now. Yet even as her hands gripped him and she knew that he was hot and hard and more than ready, he lifted his head to look into her eyes.

  “Tell me you want this, Jasmine, that you can handle it with no regrets.”

  Through a welter of shifting shadows, she spied the gleam in his eyes. He didn’t want to hurt her. Would, but needed to know that she, that they, could walk away with no lasting scars.

  It wouldn’t happen, she knew. But that was her problem, not his. For now, there was this. There was her, and there was Rogan. It was—it had to be—enough.

  She felt, for one disappointing moment, the snap of a single thin thread in her heart. Felt it, then let it go.

  “Jasmine…”

  Her eyes opened, and there he was, her gorgeous cop lover who didn’t want to hurt her.

  “No regrets,” she promised and traced the outline of his mouth with her finger. “For either of us.”

  He ran his gaze over her face before covering her mouth again. She heard the unmistakable sound of desire in his throat, breathed it in like air and groaned when he altered their position.

  Liquid heat bubbled and flowed inside her. It felt dark, she thought, and more than a little dangerous. When he slid his hand between her legs, he found her hot and wet and ready.

  The force of her sudden climax stunned her. She couldn’t stop the sound that burst from her throat. When he grinned down at her, she stuttered out a laughing breath. “That, Lieutenant, was a rocket ride.”

  “Part of the vow, love. Protect and serve.”

  “In spades,” she agreed. “However…” Setting her hands on his ribs, she gave him a firm shove and rolled him onto his back. “It’s my turn now.”

  She surged up over him, captured him, heat and need and power. Then, locking her eyes on his, took him into her.

  Below them, the ocean pulsed, waves crashing over rock. Jasmine let her body move with them as sensation shuddered through her and into him.

  Rogan pumped himself into her. She felt his strength and, for a single suspended moment, marveled at the fact that they were one.

  She came again on a comet tail of color that burst outward and enveloped her. She gave and she took and she rode that exquisite tail to the top and over.

  She cried his name. She couldn’t swallow it and didn’t care. Only the slow, delicious slide back into her own body mattered.

  Of course she had no bones afterward, and her brain had probably short-circuited, which eliminated any hope of moving or thinking for quite some time. But again, didn’t matter.

  His hands, still clamped to her hips, brought her gently down on top of him. It surprised her that when she would have slid off, he stopped the motion and held her against him, tucking her head under his chin.

  “I feel like I’ve been shot in twenty places and stabbed in twenty more,” he murmured.

  “If that’s a compliment, I’ll take it. If it isn’t, be a gentleman and leave a girl her delusion.”

  “There was nothing deluded about any of that. There never is for us.”

  If her heart broke a little more, she chose not to acknowledge it. Later maybe, when her brain pieced itself back together and her heart—what? Shattered completely? Mended? Somewhere in between?

  He hadn’t promised her anything, hadn’t seduced her with flattering words. Not tonight and not six weeks ago.

  So… No harm, no foul. And no way she was going to ruin their time together with negative thoughts.

  “You’re thinking out loud again.” He slid his fingers through her hair. “Stay in the moment, love. Ground’s less rocky there.”

  Her finger followed the line of his ribs. “Unlike you, Lieutenant, I’m always in the moment.”

  “Meaning?”

  “You live giant steps ahead of the rest of us, or three-quarters of you does.”

  “You see me as fractionally challenged?”

  “Most of the time, and most particularly when you’re wearing your jeans and black leather and being every woman’s cop fantasy. And then there’s your heart…”

  She heard the lazy grin in his voice. “Are you sure I have one?”

  “Question’s been asked. But not by me.” Moving her hair aside, she listened to his chest. “That’s a strong beat. Fast, but steadying up. You’re good to go, Rogan.” Or stay, but she didn’t hold out much hope of that happening.

  “Still thinking out loud, love.” His lips brushed her temple. “Let’s leave it at I’m good to go. Then add in the word ready.”

  Teasing fingers crept over his belly. “Good, absolutely. I don’t believe ready.”

  “No?” Before she could stop him, he’d flipped her onto her back. “That sounds dangerously close to a challenge, and you know I’m always up for one of those.”

  “Your ego is anyway.”

  Eyes steady, he lowered his mouth to hers. “Ego’s for the weak-minded. I prefer to live every day of my life in an always up, always ready reality.”

  * * *

  RUN! THAT’S WHAT HE’D told her. The interfering bastard had actually sneaked into his airtime and told her to leave.

  “I should kill you!” he shouted to no one and nothing except maybe a skunk or an owl. “Or a two-faced rat!” he yelled, then because it was directly in front of him, punched a tree.

  The pain that raced up his arm only made him angrier. But anger led to mistakes. He should know, he’d made a number of them lately. Small ones mostly, but mistakes nonetheless.

  He needed to do something that would put him where he wanted to be—in a position of absolute control.

  How to achieve that goal, though?

  Kill Jasmine early was one way, of course. But there was another. Part of him called it a stopgap.

  Another part called it what it was. Murder.

  Chapter Twelve

  Rogan made no attempt to sleep for the remainder of the night—and there wasn’t much of that left after a third round of sex in Jasmine’s dangerously tempting bed.

  Warning bells still shrieked in his head. So many emotions had slipped through the ever-widening cracks that his defense system was on overload. Time to pull back, concentrate on what was most important. Keeping Jasmine, and anyone else the murderer might target, alive.

  Daniel didn’t count. Not because he was her ex and stupid enough to have divorced her, but because he’d purposely put himself and others at risk. While his recent actions might not have cost Ian Cutless his life, if you believed, as Costello did, that events flowed into and out of each other, and that one small change could affect the entire flow, then maybe there was cause to look in Daniel’s direction.

  Or maybe, Rogan reflected, he just wanted someone to blame, and Daniel fit the bill in more ways than he cared to consider.

  He glanced through the shared bath into Jasmine’s room. Still dark, as it had been when he’d left thirty minutes ago. Meant she was sleeping peacefully. He hoped.

  Aware that the cracks were not only widening, but also deepening, Rogan shut down his emotions and forced his attention to his laptop.

  He and Costello had been running background checks on everyone they could think of since he’d discovered Crocker’s body. They’d covered the obvious and th
e obscure. So far, they’d come up empty. With only a set of dentures—easily planted—to go on, there was no way to prove whether or not Wainwright had survived that helicopter crash, and if he had, what condition he might be in. The possibility also still existed that someone he’d known—a relative or a friend—could be doing the killing on his behalf.

  Both scenarios worked to a point. And that point was Jasmine.

  The simple fact was, Wainwright would want Daniel dead far more than her. The even simpler fact was that Rogan still didn’t believe he’d survived. As for a vendetta? To his knowledge, Malcolm Wainwright had never inspired that kind of loyalty in anyone, friend or family.

  Which left what?

  It hadn’t taken much more than a surface scratch to determine that Cyrus Bowcott was indeed the person he claimed to be. How did the former cop make a living? No one knew, but then no one seemed to think he was doing anything illegal, either.

  As for Victor? Working undercover as stated. Nothing off there, except it had obviously not been Crocker who’d sent the message that his brother, Cyrus, claimed to have intercepted.

  With his back propped against the headboard, Rogan closed the numerous mental and cyber windows he’d opened and wished like hell for a mug of Costello’s paint-thinner coffee—because he was dead tired, and God knew he was going to need a clear head to get to the bottom of this mess.

  When he found himself starting to think about Jasmine again, he blocked both thought and image and sidestepped to three black feathers.

  She already had one. Two more and…

  “Christ.” Tossing up another block, Rogan glanced into her room. Again. Unfortunately, the more he attempted to obstruct his feelings, the greater the opportunity for the darkness inside him to emerge. The memory was old, but age hadn’t dulled the pain or the guilt that twisted and slithered in his stomach like wet snakes.

  Locking down what he could, he took a breath and thought about the legend.

  Hezekiah Blume, a lost and angry soul, had welcomed some form of seeking evil into himself. Once possessed, he’d murdered his friends and his family, even innocent strangers. He’d killed and he’d suffered for it. In the end, he’d recanted the wish that had brought the evil to him.

  He’d been transformed into a raven as his reward. Or his punishment. No one, not even old Rooney Blume, was entirely sure which was the truth.

  Rogan pictured the bird in his mind, a raven the size of a human, with red-rimmed eyes. Slowly, very slowly, the feathers began to dissolve, and there was only a man. A young man with his face.

  His mouth moved and words came out, but they were hollow, echoing sounds that weren’t being spoken properly. Or maybe they were being drowned out, because the girl he’d been speaking to was shouting at him, pummeling him with her fists. Crying.

  Then, just like that, she was gone, and he was alone in the dark, still young, but not speaking anymore. Not moving, either, just standing and staring at an empty table.

  Except it wasn’t really a table, and he knew it wasn’t empty. A young woman’s body lay on it. She wasn’t shouting at him or hitting him or crying anymore.

  She wasn’t even breathing. …

  “Jesus!” He shot out of sleep with his heart wanting to sledgehammer its way out of his chest and his gaze going automatically to Jasmine’s room.

  He swore again, more quietly this time as he fought to slow the frantic beat to something resembling normal.

  He’d made love with Jasmine, then he’d gone to that place in the past. He never went to that place, not even in sleep. Not even, not ever.

  Costello’s voice synced with his slamming heart: “All things are relative, my friend. All thing relate…”

  What the hell could a sixteen-year-old nightmare of a guilt-laden tragedy possibly relate to? Not to Jasmine, he was sure of it. Not directly.

  Indirectly then.

  Breathing out the worst of the memory, he dropped back, tried to settle his body as well as his mind. Not so much that he drifted into sleep again, but—

  His eyes snapped open. “All things are relative…” He said it out loud and more slowly to himself.

  Then opening his computer, he typed in the name Wesley Hamilton-Blume.

  * * *

  JASMINE’S BLEARY EYES DIDN’T want to focus, let alone actually see. But they did, and she did, and although the bedside clock told her it was closing in on 6:00 a.m., she only needed her instincts to tell her the rest.

  Rogan was gone. Not from Raven’s Cove, but from her bed.

  Nothing new there. A wise woman would have tried to restrain at least some of her feelings so that slender knife blade of disappointment would have less to slice apart. But when had she ever been smart where Rogan was concerned?

  Rolling onto her back, she stretched her arms up and stared at the ceiling. Under the thick feather quilt, her body still hummed with pleasure, and knife blade aside, she wanted to enjoy the sensation.

  She spied a glimmer of light in Rogan’s bedroom. So, he hadn’t left Blume House. Was that a good thing? Or just him doing his duty?

  Running a hand from breast to belly, she centered herself, heart and head, then pushed the quilt back and sat up.

  He’d closed the curtains and partly shut the bathroom doors. Okay, consideration was a definite good sign.

  Although it was early, she located her green silk robe, pulled it on and snugged the belt around her waist.

  She wanted ice cream and, please, God, coffee. She also wanted Rogan. Something told her she wouldn’t get all three.

  With her satisfied mood threatening to disintegrate, she gave the curtains a firm yank in opposite directions, and saw—what else—fog drifting past the window in wispy vapors. She couldn’t see the old house or anything else through the heavy predawn shadows.

  She was thinking about Rogan again, when her phone rang on the nightstand.

  Her blood quite simply stopped flowing. Then started again as her temper spiked.

  Two strides and she snatched it up. She read her mother’s name, hesitated, then punched Talk.

  “You answered.” The creepy voice brought to mind acid sizzling on snakeskin. “I’m delighted. And on the second ring at that. You must have been awake. I wonder why. I have a gift for you, Jasmine. No, not another feather. Not yet. This is better. Think of it as part of the man I am. Or do I mean the man I was?” The slime-over-ice tone roughened. “You decide.”

  Her eyes traveled up one wall, across the ceiling and down the other side. “Where…?”

  “Shut up,” the voice commanded. “You don’t talk, you listen. You do as I say, or maybe I’ll scrap my plan and, feathers or not, be done with you now. This is about death, remember that. It’s about death and me and you. And payback. Don’t forget that part, because you were and still are the cause of my suffering.”

  “But I…”

  “SHUT UP!” The voice shouted at her now. “Look out your window, Jasmine. Look at the fog. See what’s inside it. See what you’ve done to me!”

  She couldn’t move, could not make herself run. She could only stare through the glass at the fog and the entity taking shape within it.

  Her breath hitched as a face came into view. A man’s twisted, tortured, horror-struck face. No body, no neck, just a disconnected head bobbing in the fog outside her third-floor bedroom window.

  Her phone hit the carpet. The head bumped the glass. She heard the voice laughing up at her from the floor. The hideous sound punched through her fear and released her panic in a single terrified scream.

  * * *

  ROGAN REACHED HER SO quickly that when she turned to run, she crashed right into him.

  His hands came up to steady her. “Jasmine, what…? Son of a bitch!”

  He saw it hovering outside the glass. Thank God he saw it before it vanished.

  He wore his jeans, but no shirt. After a quick look outside, he grabbed the boots he’d left by the bed and dragged her with him across the floor.

>   “Find Riese. Stay with her. Lock yourselves in.” Raising his cell, he drew her into the corridor. “Meet me outside the house,” he said. “Under Jasmine’s window.” He turned her toward the staircase. “Riese’s room. Go.”

  “Rogan, wait, you’re not—” but he’d already vanished “—dressed.” Exasperation warred with terror. Common sense overrode both.

  Riese left low lights burning in the main corridors. Jasmine knew the woman’s room was situated somewhere on the second floor and, like hers, had a view of the cliffs. Beyond that—all she could do was start knocking.

  It took her three tries before she received a mumbled response. Using the side of her fist, she banged harder. “Riese, it’s Jasmine. Wake up!”

  Something struck the wall with enough force to rattle it. She heard voices, then a bleary-eyed Riese, wearing a short black robe with a dragon on it, opened the door.

  “Jasmine?” She sounded as if she’d just smoked a pack of cigarettes.

  There was another bang and a curse. Jasmine saw Boxman fumbling his pants on while holding his gun under one arm.

  “I was trying not to wake her,” he growled. “Rogan’s—somewhere. You two wait here.”

  Riese stood aside so Boxman could hop out, pulling on one boot and carrying the other. Then she waved Jasmine in and leaned against the door to close it.

  “I was dreaming about Zack Efron when I suddenly heard the Star Wars theme. Then Boxman started banging around like an elephant and muttering about a missing gun.” She combed her fingers through her two-toned hair. “There I was, picturing Zack in Darth Vader’s cape, because I sleep the sleep of the dead even when my bed’s shaking like a bowl of Jell-O. …”

  She rambled on while Jasmine crossed the floor and opened the window.

  “Is your room directly below mine?” Leaning out, she looked down, then up, but couldn’t see anything except layers of white. “Riese? Is that my room?”

  “Uh, maybe.” Riese crisscrossed uncertain hands. “Yes. Pretty sure, yes. Why?”

  “I saw a face.” Jasmine leaned out again, but still couldn’t see the ground or the roof. “What’s on the fourth floor?”