Unfortunately for them, he wasn’t helping the people scouring the area. He was leaning against the grill of his truck, looking infinitely bored.
“What happened?” Tori asked, as she hopped out of the car and walked towards him with Julian.
“Well, I checked the house, and then headed for the woods. It didn't feel right to me, so I looked at it the way Jules would.”
“What did you find?” Julian inquired.
“Well, I had a tail,” he pointed at Vivian Graves. “We found a place where someone camped out to watch the victim. With a pair of binoculars, he could see right into her bathroom and bedroom.”
“Did you get any pictures?” Tori asked, knowing that the cops weren’t going to let them anywhere near the discovery now. It was being swept for evidence. In fact, they were going to likely be blamed for destroying evidence, even though they found it.
Justin began laughing. “Oh yeah I did, but then the detective in charge got bitchy, and he took my phone and ordered his partner to ‘borrow’ the photos. She just gave it back to me clean.”
“Shit,” muttered Julian. “Okay, we’ll have to do this the hard way. Tell me what you saw. I’ll try and construct it in my mind.”
Justin did what his brother asked, and he described it in great detail. He knew what Julian would need and he gave it to him.
“So, he came through the trees?”
“Yep.”
At least they had somewhere to start at daybreak. “Tomorrow, we’re going to have to take a little nature hike,” Julian stated.
“Awesome. I love taking walks through the woods with sexy Native men,” Tori teased, trying to get the guys to relax a bit. Justin looked stirred up, and Julian wasn’t far behind. The twin thing was a curse and a blessing. The men had some connection that she wouldn’t ever understand, but when one was irritated, so was the other.
Sometimes, it made her life a tad bit difficult. What she wouldn’t give for backup on the man front…
“I really wish I had pictures,” muttered Julian. “But, you did good work, Justin. Thank you.”
His brother nodded. “Uh oh, heads up. We have two detectives coming our way. The cranky looking one is Detective Lester. The gorgeous one is Detective Graves.”
At the word ‘gorgeous’, both Tori and Julian stared at him. This was a double uh oh. Justin was interested in a girl, and that meant big distractions were coming on the hormone front. If his sordid past with women was any indicator, this was about to get damn ugly, especially since she was a cop and working the investigation.
Shit!
“You three need to move your vehicles and get out of here,” ordered the man.
Julian wasn’t about to be intimidated by the older detective. He had once been a cop. “Yeah, I don’t think so. Unfortunately for you, I’m well aware of my rights.”
“This is now a potential crime scene, and you don’t belong here,” Detective Lester continued.
Apparently, the older cop wasn’t going to take no for an answer. It looked like they had a standoff.
Detective Graves couldn’t help but be a little distracted as she stared back and forth at the two men. Holy shit! There were two of them.
Twins.
Her stomach fluttered as Justin stared back into her eyes. It was like he was reading her mind and saw right into her brain. He didn't look too happy that she was checking the other man out, but who could blame her? Two identically sexy men, dressed in the same form fitting jeans? This kind of thing didn't happen all too often.
As a matter of fact, it never happened before.
Cooler heads prevailed and jumped in, “I’m Tori Littlemoon, and this is my husband Julian, and his brother Justin. We run Littlemoon Investigations.”
The man began laughing. “Cop wannabes. Great! It looks like my day just got more fun. I get to babysit a bunch of yahoos that want to fight crime.”
Even Vivian bristled at his tone.
Lester continued with his tirade, “Listen, this is pertinent to our case, not yours. The mayor hired you, but your services aren’t required here anymore. The police are taking over.”
“Detective,” Tori began, trying to be the mediator in the group. “For your information, we were all cops at one time. I was a special agent in the FBI and Julian was a deputy. We’re accustomed to working with missing person cases and a crime scene. We can be of assistance to you.”
“Pretty lady, that’s all well and fine, but you’re out of your element here. If you were so good at your previous job, you would still be doing it and not playing rent a detective.”
Julian was about to interject when Tori obviously had enough of the man’s attitude.
She moved closer to him until she was almost toe to toe with him. “I’m still good at my job. In fact, I’m so damn good, that I can tell that you had chili dogs for lunch with mustard and onions. You really shouldn’t be eating them, since you had open heart surgery for blocked arteries. The white bread is bad for your ongoing diabetes, and it’s causing the excess weight to further damage your knees.”
He stared at her, as did everyone else.
From the look on the female detective’s face, Tori could tell that she was on the right track. So, instead of backing down, she pushed forward.
“Plus, it was probably one of the reasons your wife left you and filed for divorce. I doubt it all had to do with the job. While you don’t care about your health, I’m sure it was your pissy disposition that caused her to run for her life.”
He opened his mouth, and then growled. “Are you following me?”
Tori took a step back. “No, I just met you three minutes ago, but you smell like onions, and you have mustard and chili sauce on your tie. I can see your chest and there is vertical puckering of skin that means you recently, within the last year, had open heart surgery. The chili dogs led me to believe that you have shitty eating habits. Do you know what’s in hotdogs? If you don’t, you should Google it.”
He ignored her question and continued glaring at her. “And the rest?” he asked, glancing down at his tie.
“The medical alert bracelet gave away the diabetes and your ring finger shows wear across the knuckle, so you used to wear a ring for quite a long time. I can also hear bone on bone clicking as you stormed over here. That’s what gave away your bad knees.”
Julian started laughing. How could he not? He just watched his wife school some arrogant asshole. It was pretty damn entertaining.
“The moral of this story, Detective, is that you don’t know what kind of cop I was, or why I left being a Fed. What you do know is one of our team found you a lead and that pisses you off. So, since you’re gobbling it up, like those chili dogs, that tells me that you had absolutely nothing before we arrived here.”
The man’s voice boomed. “Officer Jersek! Get these assholes off my scene!”
A harried man rushed up and backed them away from the detective. “Come on folks! You need to get out of here before Detective Lester has you arrested.”
Tori was pissed off that he even believed that was an option. “For what?”
The man grinned at her. “For pissing in his Cheerios. He holds a wicked grudge. You better head out and regroup.”
Seeing that this was going nowhere fast, they opted to do just that. Leaving the cop behind, they headed to their vehicles.
“Well, that was pretty damn entertaining,” stated Julian. “It’s never a boring day in my life when my wife gets all riled up.”
“I think it was sexy,” stated Justin.
Tori wasn’t amused by anything that went down. In fact, she was getting frustrated. “I hate when they disparage us like that.”
“Yeah, well welcome to our Native lives,” stated Julian. “You get used to it after a while.”
Tori laid a kiss on his cheek and whispered in his ear. “Not on my watch.”
“Well, you two, what’s next?” Justin asked.
Julian knew there wasn’t much they could do,
until Kane finished their search on the victim. “It looks like we can call it a night. Tomorrow, we’ll start up again and go from there. By then, we should have some sort of information in and work that lead. Plus, we have a little nature hike to take tomorrow.”
“Try not to be late,” Tori said, taking her husband’s hand in hers.
Justin just grinned. “That’s easy for you to say, you live above the business.”
Tori hopped into the car and buckled up. “You could live there too, but you insisted on a private place to make your den of iniquity,” she reminded him. “Drive safe, Justin.”
He watched them back out before he headed to his truck. It was then that he could feel eyes tracking him. Glancing up, he found Detective Vivian Graves watching him from across the property.
“Good luck, Detective. I have a feeling this little battle is far from over.”
If his words registered, she didn't give any indication.
With that, he climbed up into his truck and headed home. Tori’s words kept replaying over and over in his mind. He didn't want his own place for the hook ups.
He needed it for the demons that chased him.
Back at the office, Julian and Tori found it empty. That meant that Kane and Christina must have had some success before calling it a night.
Locking up, they headed upstairs in the elevator that was located in the back of the building.
“Are you hungry?” she asked, pulling out her key to open the elevator as it arrived at the top floor.
“I am, but let’s just have something simple. I really want to head to bed,” he answered, kicking off his boots at the door and hanging up his jacket.
Tori started laughing.
“What?” he asked, glancing over at her.
“It’s official. We have just become an old married couple. You’re ready for bed at nine at night.”
Julian grinned at her. “For your information, Mrs. Littlemoon, I had no intention of sleeping when I went to bed. It seems that I had to be up first this morning, and I missed rolling around with my feisty babe.”
“Whew, thank God. I thought I was going to have to get you Viagra.”
“Hey!” he objected, as he chased her into their living room. “If I catch you, Tori, I’m going to make you regret that statement.”
She giggled as she pulled from his reach. Unfortunately, the couch was in his way. “I was just pointing out a solution to your problem.”
Julian had enough playing around. Suddenly, he was really in the mood to teach his wife a lesson. Tossing a pillow at her, she dodged right, and he went for her. He caught her around the waist and pulled her down across the cushions and trapped Tori beneath him. Without speaking, Julian’s mouth crashed down to hers in a punishing kiss.
Tori’s brain was already in sensory overload, like it always was when it came to Julian. His mouth was doing amazing things against hers and his capable fingers had already begun to wander beneath her shirt.
“I love the way your skin feels against my hands,” he muttered into her mouth as he tasted his wife. “It’s so soft and like silk.”
Tori was pretty sure that she couldn’t speak. His hands were running across her body and making her crazy, as his mouth contributed to the madness.
“God, honey,” he whispered, as he moved to her throat. “It feels like days.”
It wasn’t like she didn't understand exactly what he was saying. It felt like she was starving just to touch her husband. Freeing her legs, she wrapped them around his waist and locked him to her body.
When she trapped him to her, he moaned. There was no way he would ever get bored with this amazing feeling. He believed that after they were married, the frenzy would die down, but honestly, it had only gotten hotter. If he believed the want would abate, he had been horribly wrong.
Tori heated up everything in his body and always would. He was wildly in love with his red haired vixen.
“Too many layers,” she muttered, as she kissed him back. “Lose some,” she ordered.
Who was he to argue with that plan? Julian began pulling his clothes off. The first thing off was his polo, and then t-shirt. Since her legs were locked around his hips, he couldn’t go any further, so he began stripping her.
Yanking her long sleeved shirt from her body, he stared down at the camouflage print bra that she had underneath. The lace made it even more erotic. It was hard and soft coming together to form something that was just right.
“Honey,” he murmured, running his lips down the vee to the soft swell of breast. “I love it.”
Had his mouth not been making her crazy, she would have replied.
Julian was burning up. He needed to get them both to their bedroom, and fast. “Hold on,” he ordered, brusquely.
Tori wrapped her arms around his neck and began nibbling on his ear. “Hurry, Jules,” she urged, knowing that she really needed them to both be naked and rolling around.
Racing to their room, he fell with her onto the bed. Almost immediately, they both began tearing at what was left of their clothing. Tori shimmied out of her pants and waited eagerly.
Her eyes traced his body. Julian wasn’t large and bulky, but he was in amazing shape. It came from years of horseback riding and just a really great set of genes. Across his chest, there was a tattoo of her name. He had gotten it after a fight to make amends and win her back. It was their engagement present of sorts.
Forever would her name be across his body, tying them together as one.
It heated her blood, as he pulled off his clothes and then dove back onto her.
“I need you, Julian,” she murmured, as he reached down to yank the lacy panties off her body.
“Working on it,” he answered, as he skipped the foreplay just to feel his wife wrapped around him. “Now Tori?” he asked, wanting to make sure she was ready for him. As much as he knew that he should be working on heating her up, he just couldn’t seem to wait any longer. In his mind, there was only one goal and that was to bury himself in the bliss.
“Yes!”
Julian was big on giving his wife whatever she wanted, and this would be no exception. Slipping into her, they both sighed at the way it felt.
Tori loved the way he completed her.
He couldn’t believe that there would ever be a more amazing feeling in the world.
He was home.
As Julian began moving, her breathless moans made him absolutely crazy. Bracing his arms alongside her head, Julian stared down into her smoky blue eyes. “I love you with my entire heart, Victoria,” he whispered, as his rhythm faltered.
She stared up at him with so much love and adoration in her eyes. “Julian. I’m not whole without you.”
The words affected him, and he intensified the strokes. What he wanted now was to bring them both to the edge, so they could fall off together.
“More,” she urge, as she met him stroke for stroke. “God, Jules!”
He couldn’t speak. He was too lost in the sensation of making love to his wife. If he could command his tongue, he would tell her how she was the best thing that ever happened to him in his life.
How he couldn’t live without her.
How she completed his soul.
Tori was his treasure.
With one last stroke, he could feel her quiver beneath him. Julian knew that his wife was on the edge and waiting at the precipice for him. That she would pause her own pleasure for his, simply astounded him.
Julian Littlemoon was a blessed man.
“Now, Tori,” he hissed, as the world around him shattered and fell apart. Through it all, he knew he wasn’t alone in the spiral of colors. Julian could feel her at his side, waiting, falling and experiencing the bliss with him.
Once more, they were one.
As the room stopped spinning, he braced himself over her body to stare down into her peaceful face.
As her eyes slowly flickered open, neither spoke.
Finally, he broke the silence.
> “I told you I didn't need Viagra.”
That caught her off guard. It was the last thing that she had expected from him. “You’re crazy,” she answered, laughing. “After that amazing bout of sex, that’s what you have to say to me?”
“I think that performance deserves a reward. Are you going to make me a sandwich?” he teased, taking another route.
She snorted and pushed him off her body to climb out of bed. Before her feet could touch the floor, he had her hand trapped in his.
“I will never love anyone as much as I love you,” he said. “The day I found you, I began to live.”
Her eyes filled with tears as she stared at him. It was exactly how she felt. Until Julian, she was lost and in pieces. Before she could answer him, he pulled her back down into his arms.
“Food can wait. I want to hold my wife.”
Tori couldn’t argue with that. Cuddling into his body, she enjoyed the scent of his cologne. As she nuzzled his chest with her cheek, Tori knew that there was no place in the world that she would rather be.
Julian Littlemoon was her sanctuary.
Justin would be lying if he didn't admit that he was still thinking about Detective Vivian Graves. The scent of vanilla was still permeating his senses and causing him to daydream.
Come to think of it, there should be something illegal about the color of her eyes. That calming, serene violet was spectacular. It made him think of a field of lavender, much like the one that surrounded the burial grounds back on the Rez.
The combination of her scent and eyes were making it more than difficult to concentrate.
Pulling off his jacket and shirt, he tossed them onto one of the chairs. Eventually, he was going to need to clean the place up. In his absence, it appeared that the mess was multiplying.
What he needed was a maid.
Or the willingness to actually exert some sort of effort to pick up after himself.
Unbuckling his belt, he dropped it on the counter beside the refrigerator. Inside, he was hoping to find something to eat. As he stared into the emptiness, he knew what he needed to do. Hitting speed dial, he called for a pizza. It would be the quickest meal, and meant that he would have time to straighten up, as he awaited its arrival.
Blood Red Rage (LIttlemoon Investigations Book 1) Page 6
