Primal Hunger: Pendragon Gargoyles, Book 1
Page 14
Will their combined skills be enough to track and stop a savage killer? Possibly. If they can keep their minds on business and their hands off each other long enough to lure a beast who feeds on sex—then kills for pleasure.
Enjoy the following excerpt for Demons are Forever:
He was gentle, warm, touching her mouth at first then licking at the seam and urging her lips apart. His tongue slipped inside as she welcomed his intrusion, sucking on it, teasing it with her own then sliding past it to learn his contours, the hardness of his teeth, the softness of the skin around them.
Warmth blossomed between them, the warmth of lovers sated and the promise of passion to follow. Buck held her face cupped in one hand, not doing anything more than kissing her.
She lost herself in that moment, overwhelmed by the tenderness, the delightful knowledge that this might well be the first real kiss she’d ever experienced. The dark confines of the truck disappeared, leaving only Buck and his mouth. Her body still thrummed with the remembered pleasure of an orgasm that had shaken her world. But her mind and her heart relished the simple joy of a man’s mouth on hers, a man’s hand cradling her cheek and a man’s warmth enveloping her.
Finally they parted on a sigh.
“Mmm. Nice.” He whispered the words as he stroked her cheek then let her go. “I can’t let this stop here, Lian. I won’t.”
She gazed at him. “I don’t want it to either. But it’s complicated, Buck.”
“I know.” He seemed to pull himself together, shaking off the sensual tenderness and becoming once again the cop on the case. “First things first.” Reaching for the keys, he withdrew them from the ignition and nodded at her door. “If you’re ready, let’s go inside and deal with the case. For now we work. Later, we…” His lips turned up wickedly at the corners. “Later, we’ll play with that demon of yours.”
Unused to such blunt honesty, Lian could only follow his orders. “Okay.”
They walked quietly across the empty garage to the elevators. She couldn’t think of anything to say that hadn’t already been said and sensed Buck’s thoughts turning back to the murders. She simply took comfort from his presence at her side.
It wasn’t until they reached the squad room and found the captain frowning over the latest crime scene photos that he finally spoke.
“Cap, Herrick here thinks she may have picked up on something.”
“What?” The captain’s head snapped up.
Lian lifted her chin. “We both sensed much the same sort of thing that Detective Shand felt at the earlier scene. The lust, the hunger to feed, the overwhelming sexual urges.”
“So?”
She didn’t mistake the captain’s curtness for anything other than what it was, a man desperate to do his job and stop such senseless butchery. “I have some limited cognitive abilities of my own. What I felt was a creature driven by lust. The killing? That may not have come from him.”
The captain frowned and motioned to chairs. “Sit. Explain.”
Lian wearily took a seat and ran a hand through her hair. “I’m not sure how to describe it. You’ve seen the photos. It was bad, as bad as it gets, I reckon.”
Buck nodded. “I’ve never seen worse, Cap.”
“You don’t have to tell me. In all my years, I’ve never seen worse either. Go on.”
She marshaled her thoughts. Neither man would appreciate a lengthy exposition. “It’s my opinion that this creature, whatever he—it—is, wants the sex. The urge to kill is coming from elsewhere, a direction to its mind, perhaps. An exploitation of its instincts. I don’t know. There’s a conflict I sensed, a confusion when the killing begins. Almost as if it’s being told what to do from that point on.”
The captain frowned. “How the hell is that possible?”
Buck shrugged. “Who knows? At this point, after seeing that slaughter, I’m ready to believe anything. To take a stab at any crazy notion if it gets us close to stopping these killings.”
“So we’ve got a creature that seems invisible and leaves no DNA or forensic evidence after having savage sex and then ripping girls to pieces. And now you’re telling me that the sex is one thing and the killing’s another?”
“Yes.” Lian stared at him. “As insane as it sounds, yes. I think this whatever it is is being controlled. Being forced to kill. The sexual urge is incredibly strong, and there’s violence mixed in to it, no question. But I doubt it would go as far as it has without a nudge from something or someone else.”
“Jesus H.” The captain stared at the photos again. “How the hell do we deal with this?”
Buck leaned forward. “We can’t do any more than we’re doing right now. We have to follow our procedures. The techs are still working this scene—perhaps they’ll find something, some minute particle that’ll put us ahead of where we are right now. Fisher’s talking to people. If anyone can get info out of the Bogs crew, he can. Maybe a girl saw something she didn’t think mattered. Sooner or later, Cap, this thing’s gonna make a mistake. When it does, we’ll be there.”
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