Identity--A Tale of Murder, Mystery and Romance

by H. D. Thomson

  He grabbed a thick tree limb, placed the heel of his shoe against the trunk and pulled himself up, ignoring the scrape and prick of branches. After getting a good balance, he caught the top of the adjacent wall with a hand and leg, then straddled the fence. A quick glance on the other side revealed gravel and landscaped desert shrub. The neighboring street and yards were empty.

  He landed less than a yard from the bag of meat. After grabbing the package from the ground, he walked casually down the street.

  Headlights flashed briefly on Peter before the car turned toward the community’s main entrance. The driver exited the electronic gate, unaware or uncaring of the lone pedestrian.

  Amazing how people who considered themselves intelligent thought a fence and security gate would keep out the criminal element. If a person wanted in a house bad enough, nothing was about to stop them.

  Peter smiled. He wanted in a certain house really bad.

  ~~*~~

  Gripping the counter with one hand, David stood in the middle of the kitchen with an empty shot glass in the other. Head bowed, he stared at the floor. A good fifteen minutes earlier, Skye had tucked her son into bed and disappeared into the guest bedroom next to Tyler’s.

  Silence cloaked the house. The quiet punctuated his father’s absence. Even though he never moved into David’s house, he’d been a permanent fixture.

  Jesus. The man was the only person he had on this earth.

  He grabbed the scotch, poured another shot and downed it in one swallow. It stung the back of his throat and all the way to his stomach.

  The third shot went down smoother and masked the pain binding his chest. He fought back the temptation for one more, and instead, put the bottle back in the cabinet. Getting drunk wouldn’t get his father out of the hospital.

  He’d been instrumental in the attack on his father. By allowing Skye and her son into his life, he’d inadvertently brought them also into his father’s. He needed to get her out of this house and his life.

  Both dogs started barking outside. The noise pierced the stillness of the night—the third time they’d gone into a full fledge barking frenzy in two hours.

  David strode to the kitchen door and opened it. Any more of this and the neighbors were liable to call the police. “Damn it, Dozer. Maggie. Get in here, now.”

  He flicked on the porch light and stepped outside. The dogs quieted and trotted from around the side of the house. The gurgle of the waterfall and the soothing music of wind chimes carried across the night. Deeper shadows clung to the palms, fence and shrubs.

  Nothing moved.

  Until tonight, the dogs didn’t bark at empty air.

  Despite two false alarms, David moved cautiously across the backyard and peered along the side of the house. Two large shadows loomed toward him. He relaxed. Nothing other than the city’s trash receptacles against the wall. He glanced at both dogs wandering over the yard and sniffing the ground.

  Nothing odd in that.

  After the dogs padded into the house, David shut and locked the door, then slid the doggy panel closed to keep them inside for the rest of the night.

  For a few minutes, they’d distracted him from his father. But now the magnitude of his dad’s health sent a wave of panic rolling through David.

  Standing by the kitchen, he glanced toward his room. The hallway stared back, black, hollow and unwelcoming. Battling sheets and an empty room held little appeal. The scotch hadn’t done a damn thing to calm his mind or dull the ache in his chest. He stepped into the hall and looked in the opposite direction and toward the media room. For a moment he thought he heard the television. Then he realized the sound was a phantom noise, triggered by hope and nothing else.

  Gnawing panic scoured his chest. If his father died...

  He swept a shaking hand across his scalp, the stubble of his military cut barely giving in to the touch. From the hall, he saw the clock on the microwave glow a few minutes past three. He had yet to get any sleep. The next shift at the hospital was at seven. That would be about the time they’d stop the dipervin drip on his father, which would allow him to wake from his chemical coma. Then the staff would be able to gauge the extent of the damage to his father’s brain.

  Hours still.

  He turned to snap off the kitchen light and found Skye only a few feet away. “Jesus, Skye! That’s twice now you’ve scared the hell out of me. You should have clued me in you were right behind me.”

  “I was afraid to interrupt. You looked like you were deep in thought.”

  He backed up a step and rested a hand against the wall, grappling to control the rapid beat of his heart. What would have happened if the person had been his father’s attacker?

  Hell. He’d have been dead.

  The kitchen light reflected empathy in Skye’s doe-like eyes. David bristled, pressing his palm harder against the smooth surface of the wall. He didn’t want pity, particularly Skye’s.

  She’d involved his father in her thirst for the truth. He couldn’t prove it, but his father didn’t have enemies, none until she’d shown up. Yeah, his dad was a cop, but he was a retired cop and had been for years. If someone had been holding a grudge against his dad they would have acted on it years ago. Yeah, there was a chance someone from his father’s past had surfaced, but David discounted it, because there was just too much of a coincidence with Skye showing up and his father being attacked.

  David couldn’t afford to have Skye in his house any longer, a distraction, a possible aggravation, and a dangerous element. If his dad survived, he’d be staying in David’s house and in desperate need of family. He didn’t dare let Skye anywhere near his father again, not with a violent cloud following her and her son.

  “I want you and Tyler gone in the morning.”

  She flinched.

  He’d cut through her cool layer of composure, but the victory gave him little satisfaction. He didn’t care about games. Not anymore. His life and that of his father’s was far too serious to play a competition of wills.

  “Why am I not surprised?” A smile danced across her sensuous mouth, but bitterness added an edge to her voice.

  She still wore the pair of shorts and shirt from earlier that day and hadn’t yet changed into those dangerously disturbing boxers and tank top of hers. He found her too much of a distraction though. Her femininity, the sensual allure of her scent beckoned, incited the male need to imprint himself on her.

  David mentally shook himself, not daring to delve into the hunger eating at his insides. “I don’t want you near my father. We both know I’m not being unreasonable in the request. I have to focus on my father’s safety and no one else’s.”

  She rubbed the back of her neck and sighed. Her shoulders slumped. Any person other than Skye and David would have thought it was from defeat.

  “I’m sorry for your father. I’ll claim some responsibility, but not all of it.” She inched her chin upward, which he swore held a shadow of a tremor. “Life isn’t that simple. And you know what? Blaming me isn’t going to clear up this situation. I think it’s pretty safe to say that this guy was after your dad and no one else. Yeah, I might have led him to your dad, but something in his past is the real reason for the attack.”

  David curled his fingers into a fist against the wall. He ground his teeth together to cut off the biting retort that just wanted to spring loose. Damn it. He wanted to argue. Prove her wrong. But he couldn’t. He suspected she might be right. He inhaled frustration and helplessness and pushed off the wall.

  “Yeah, there might have been something in my father’s past, but it was dead and buried for years until you decided to jab it with a damn shovel.”

  Nodding sharply, she stepped backward and clenched her hands into fists. “Fine. We’ll leave in the morning.”

  As she turned to go, the finality of her words hit David.

  “No. Wait.” Alarm sharpened his words. David wanted her gone, but he violently balked at the idea of never seeing her again. This was a woman
that fascinated him with her tenaciousness, her uncompromising ability to face adversity. The realization that he cared for her slammed into his gut.

  He dragged in air, but it did nothing to rid him of the panic at the idea of never seeing her again. One night. Just one night with her. With a tremor in his hand, he caught her elbow and pulled her around to face him.

  The muscles of her arm stiffened beneath his grasp, but he didn’t let go.

  “Wait for what?”

  He drank in the hurt and bewilderment in her face before she quickly screened both expressions. “I can’t let you leave. Not yet.”

  Chapter 15

  She jerked back from David as if slapped. “Let? Excuse me? No one lets me do anything. I let myself—”

  “Damn it, Skye. Just shut up and don’t argue for once.” To hell with it. If she slapped him, so be it. David could live with that, but he couldn’t live with him blowing off the last chance to be with her.

  With one step, David devoured the distance between them. He clutched her upper arms and hauled her up against him. The swell of her breasts flattened against his chest. Their heat burned through the material of his shirt and stoked his growing hunger.

  Their gazes clashed for an instant. Then he took her mouth in a kiss. Tonight he would not be denied. He’d wanted Skye for far too long.

  He caught a finger beneath her hair tie and slipped it free. Chestnut hair tumbled to her shoulders, their silken strands twining between his fingers. The scent of her hair drifted in the air, and he closed his eyes, drinking in the musky scent of woman and flowers.

  For a brief moment Skye yielded, her lips softening and molding against his, but then she grew rigid within his arms. With both hands, she grasped his shoulders and dug her nails into his skin. He reigned in his desire and shut his eyes tighter. The last thing he wanted to do was scare the hell out of her.

  David forced himself to slow down, to give instead of take, and skimmed his mouth over her own, a gentle whisper that sampled the texture of her lips, the flavor of her mouth. A strange mix of toothpaste and sin. Her breath altered, turned rapid and uneven, while a shudder rippled through her body.

  The pressure on his shoulders eased, and her mouth softened and turned inquisitive as she leaned into his embrace, surrender in the soft sigh of her breath.

  Thought dissolved into pure sensation as pleasure and excitement burned his flesh and quickened his pulse. His hands trembled as he cupped her face with both hands and glided his thumbs along the line of her jaw and moved to the downy softness below her ears. Skye’s pulse fluttered wildly beneath his touch, revealing her desire as her hands slipped from his shoulders and danced across his back.

  The knowledge that she wanted him stoked the desire burning through his body. He shifted restlessly. The kiss tantalized but did nothing to cool his growing ardor.

  “I want you,” he whispered against her lips, skimming her mouth with each word. He kissed her jaw, the indentation between her ear and neck, the silken curve above her collarbone as he slipped a hand beneath her shirt to caress the taut muscles of her lower back.

  She shivered and clutched his shoulders. “I can’t...” Her protest couldn’t mask the need in the husky tremor of her voice. “There’s Ty. He’s—”

  “Asleep.”

  “But—”

  He silenced her protest, taking her mouth once again in a slow, thorough kiss, tasting her desire and her doubts. “One night,” he urged as he wrapped his fingers in her hair. Hell, she had no clue what he’d do to be with her. “Give me one night.”

  Skye’s entire body quivered against him. David tensed, dreading the thought of her rejection. All his life he’d had women succumbing without any great effort, but none of that mattered, none of them mattered compared to the woman now in his arms. To him, Skye had become an obsession.

  Her fierce determination, her loyalty to her son were qualities he couldn’t help but admire. But what drew him to her more than anything was the vulnerability in her doe-like eyes that even her prickly edges and rigid control couldn’t completely mask. Damn, but she did things to his insides, twisting them in places he didn’t think could be twisted.

  Skye twined both arms around his neck and grazed her teeth lightly against the curve of his neck before inching up and pressing her mouth over his to whisper, “One night.”

  David took in a shuddering breath of relief, bent down, caught Skye around the knees and waist and hefted her up into his arms. He glanced down the darkened hall where both Tyler and Skye’s bedrooms were, then he turned on his heel and walked in the opposite direction where shadows thickened. He pivoted down another hall and didn’t falter. He wasn’t about to slow and give Skye an opportunity to change her mind. In the morning he’d worry about recriminations, but now... Now, he’d focus on pleasure, desire and Skye.

  He stepped into his room. Moonlight slanted through the open blinds and cut across the king-size bed. He nudged the door shut with his heel. Loosening his grip, he eased Skye to her feet, and relished the feel of her soft curves as she slid down the length of his body.

  David looked down into her upturned face. Shadows clung beneath her eyes and below the curve of her cheeks but the light from the window exposed the hunger in her gaze. His chest tightened. He dipped two fingers between her skin and shorts and tugged the waistband until her stomach flushed with his hips. The warmth of her body against his groin pulled a growl from his mouth.

  There was only longing... Longing to lose himself in her softness, in her heat and her hunger.

  He locked the door.

  ~~*~~

  Skye shivered in the circle of David’s arms as he lowered his head and took her lips in a long, devouring kiss.

  Devoured. That was the only word Skye could think to describe it. David consumed her thoughts. He shattered her common sense and defenses until only desire and yearning—pure sensation—inundated her body and mind.

  Yes, tonight she might have tossed all logic into the trash, but she didn’t care. All she cared about right now was the feel of his hands slipping beneath her shirt to cup her naked breasts, the way his mouth melded over her own and how his flesh quivered beneath her fingers as she trailed them up across the indentation along his spine.

  David nudged her backward across the carpet inch by inch until the backs of her legs hit the edge of his bed. All the while his hands roamed her body, gliding over the slope of her shoulder, cupping the weight of her breast and running restlessly up and down the curve of her hips.

  He opened the top drawer in the nightstand and pulled out a square package. Oh, God. She’d been completely lost in the moment that she’d forgotten about protection.

  After tossing it on the bed, he towered over her, his breath harsh and ragged as he pulled his shirt over his head and flung it on the ground. Sighs mingled with the rustle of clothes as they groped, pulled and tugged clothing off each other. Then there was naked skin against naked skin and pure pleasure.

  She fell back onto the mattress and David dropped down beside her. Shadows and moonlight drew out the harsh contours of his face, the rugged sweep of his jaw. With an index finger, he caressed the arch of her eyebrow, the curve of her cheekbone.

  “You’re beautiful, you know that?” He leaned over her, his head and the wide breadth of his shoulders coating her in deeper shadow. “Do you know how much I want you?”

  Such awe in his voice. The depth of the emotion melted her limbs into the mattress. She lifted her own hand and traced a finger along his bottom lip. She smiled. “How about you show me?”

  He dragged in air with a sharp hiss. The moment his lips touched hers and his body settled over her own, her smile dissolved. His scent skimmed across her senses. Their breath collided, their tongues mated. He tasted what a man should taste like, hot, bold and forceful.

  She arched upward, her curves yielding to the harder, more angler lines of his body. The ridge of his erection burned against her skin, and she shifted and parted her th
ighs as anticipation, almost painful in intensity, curled low in her stomach.

  But he eased lower, his lips trailing kisses along the hollow of her throat and past her collarbone. The hair on his legs rubbed against her skin as he flicked his tongue across the tip of one breast. The wet touch of his mouth closed over her nipple. She gasped, closing her eyes, sinking into a whirlpool of desire. Just when she thought it couldn’t get much better, David slipped his other hand between her legs and caressed her wet folds with teasing, relentless strokes.

  Ecstasy hovered, tantalizing close. Skye’s breath hitched against her chest, while sweat broke out across her flesh. The pulse and stroke of his thumb and finger drew her deeper and deeper into a well of sensation. She clutched at his wrist, wanting more but wanting him inside her too. Then it didn’t matter as her body convulsed, pleasure splintering every muscle and pore in her body with a kaleidoscope of sensation.

  As she lay panting, her body shivering with the aftermath of her climax, David cradled her in his arms, kissed her temple, the corner of her mouth and said, “This time I want to watch you come with me in you.”

  She blinked up into David’s face. Even though the night obscured his expression, sexual tension radiated from his shadowed form. She swept a hand across the mattress and clutched the condom package with trembling fingers.

  She ripped open the wrapping between her teeth, her hands trembling with a new urgency. His indrawn breath rasped against the night as she rolled the condom over his cock. His heat burned into her hand, his hardness and size intimidated and enthralled.

  “Oh, Jesus, Skye...” His touch grew clumsy, hurried, almost rough as he swept his hands over her hips, kneaded her buttocks and positioned her...