She found Quinn standing in the middle of the living room staring into the unlit fireplace. He looked up, and his dark gaze followed her as she walked across the room to the mantel. Across the distance, she felt his desire pulling at her. Threatening to suck her under. Maybe she should leave. Grab her purse and run before she did something stupid. Like forget she didn’t have sex with guys after knowing them for little over a week. No matter how much he made her ache. No matter that she was halfway in love with him, as ridiculous as that seemed.
“Who’s this?” she asked as she picked up a picture frame.
“Millie.”
She looked closer at the woman he’d married. Red curls framed her face, and big green eyes looked out from behind a pair of brown framed glasses. Millie had been cute in a healthy, runs-ten-miles-and-climbs-rocks sort of way. Whatever Lucy had expected his wife to look like, this wasn’t it.
Quinn moved behind her and placed his hands on her shoulders. “That was taken about a year before she died,” he informed her.
“How old was she then?”
He paused a moment, then said next to her left ear, “My age.”
Lucy set the photo back on the mantel. “She looks younger.”
“Yeah, she hated that.”
“Quinn?”
“Hmm.”
“I think…I don’t think…” She glanced up into his image, reflected in the mirror in front of her. “I don’t think we should have sex.”
His dark gaze stared into hers. “I don’t want to do anything you’re uncomfortable with.” His hands moved down her arms and came to rest on her waist. “You tell me when to stop.” Slowly, he slid his palms to her stomach and pulled her back against his chest. “Are you uncomfortable when I kiss you here?” He bent his dark head and placed his mouth on the side of her throat. She watched him brush his lips across her skin, and the fine hairs on the back of her neck tingled. She shook her head.
“That’s good. I like kissing you right here. Where your skin’s soft and your hair smells like flowers and looks like the sun.”
He hooked his thumbs inside the waistband of her skirt and slid them to her sides. The backs of his thumbs brushed her black hose.
She tilted her head to the right and he opened his hot, wet mouth and sucked her skin. The heat of his kiss spread outward, across her shoulder and down her chest. Her heart pounded and swelled, and her breasts grew heavy. She leaned back into the solid, warm comfort of his embrace and took a deep breath. The scent of him, his musky cologne and Quinn, filled her head. His gaze locked with hers as he slipped his fingers up beneath the edge of her sweater.
His heavy lids lowered to half mast, and there was no mistaking the desire burning in his eyes. No mistaking the long hard length of it pressed into her behind. He slipped his big hands beneath her sweater, and his fingers fanned across her bare stomach. She would stop him. Soon. But not when it felt so good. When everything about him, his gaze, his touch, the scent of his skin, made her want to sink back into him and stay there awhile. Her feelings for him seemed to expand beyond her control. Overpowering, like Quinn himself, and she felt as if she were in a free fall. A long, hot fall into Quinn McIntyre, and there didn’t seem to be anything she could do about it.
His thumbs brushed the underwire of her bra, a lazy back and forth that drove her crazy before sliding up the swells of her breasts to press into her hard nipples. Her breath caught in her chest, and she knew that if she was going to stop him, she had to do it now. She opened her mouth, and he circled her nipples with his thumbs. She’d tell him in a minute. A heavy ache pooled between her thighs, and she instinctively squeezed her legs together. Her lids drifted shut as his hands slid up and cupped her breasts.
“Your nipples are hard,” he whispered into the side of her throat. “Like a woman who wants to make love.”
She looked at him in the mirror. At his gaze looking back at her with unconcealed lust burning in his eyes. He definitely looked like a man who wanted to make love, and Lucy turned and wrapped her arms around his neck. His hands slid to her back, and her breasts smashed into his chest. She kissed him full on the mouth. He slipped the fingers of one hand beneath the waistband of her skirt and pressed his warm palm into the small of her back, holding her against his rock-hard penis. His other hand moved up her spine and the kiss got hotter, turning into a maddening chase and follow, a slick advance and retreat of hot tongues and mouths.
His fingers continued to slide up and down her spine, his touch light and feathery, making her shudder and moan deep in her throat. Lust, hot and liquid, rushed through her veins, getting all mixed up and confused with the feelings deep in her soul. The last ounce of her self-control slipped away as Quinn rubbed against her and his hands slid over her body, touching everywhere, turning up the heat and taking control. Everything got hotter and dizzier, and somehow she lost her sweater. Before she knew quite how it happened, it was on the floor by her feet. Quinn took a step back, and his hooded gaze moved from her face, down her throat and shoulders, to her breasts.
His harsh breathing lifted his chest, as if he’d just jogged ten miles. Lucy knew the feeling.
“I love a woman in lace,” he whispered and lifted a hand to touch the lace edge of her bra with the tips of his fingers. “You’re so beautiful, you make me forget.”
She licked her lips and endeavored to control her breathing before she passed out. “Forget what?”
He glanced up at her, then returned his gaze to her nipples, which were making two distinct pebbles in the white cups of her bra. “That I should take it slow. That I don’t want to blow it by rushing things,” he answered even as he pressed his palms into her full breasts. “But it’s been so long.” The heat from his palms seeped through the satin material, and he pushed her breasts together as he bent forward and kissed her deep cleavage. “Why did you have to look like this?” he asked, his warm breath brushing across her flesh. “This would be easier if you weren’t so beautiful. If I didn’t want you so much that I can’t think of anything but getting you naked.”
Lucy knew that feeling, too. He lifted his face to hers once more and gave her a kiss that she felt clear to the soles of her feet. He ran his hands down her bottom to the backs of her thighs, and he lifted her. She didn’t hesitate to wrap her legs around his waist. He walked with her from the room, and she thought he would carry her to his bed.
They made it as far as the darker shadows of the hall before he pinned her back against the wall. He unhooked her bra and fastened his hot, wet mouth on her breast. He drew on her nipple as his hands shoved her skirt up around her waist. He slid his palms over her thighs then over her ribs and around to the small of her back.
Lucy ran her hands through his hair while he kissed and sucked her breasts as if he couldn’t get enough. He ground his incredibly hard penis into her through the thin fabric of her hose and panties, driving her toward the edge until she knew she’d either stop or embarrass herself.
She slid her legs from around his waist and stood. He moved his mouth to the side of her neck just above her clavicle as her fingers unbuttoned his shirt and pulled the tails from his jeans. She slid her hands over the hard muscles of his chest, abdomen, and back. Her fingers combed through the short hair on his chest, and he whispered something against her throat. With her skirt shoved up around her waist, Quinn slid his big hand between her thighs and cupped her through her panties and hose. She thought she heard him say, “Nothing here but Lucy.” That didn’t make sense, so she figured she’d heard wrong. But there was no mistaking what he said next. No mistaking what he did, either. He pulled down her hose and panties and slid his fingers where she was slick with desire. “You want me, and I want to fuck you until you can’t walk for a week,” he said as he touched her. “Until you can’t move. Can’t think. Can’t do anything but moan. Do you want that, Lucy?”
She swayed, and her knees got weak, and all she could manage was a breathy, “Yes.” Maybe under different circumstances she m
ight have objected to his language. The f-bomb was not her favorite word, nor was she real fond of sex talk, but at the moment she wanted what he promised. Walking was overrated. She unbuttoned his jeans and slid her hand inside the waistband and beneath the elastic of his boxers. He sucked in a deep breath.
“You don’t have to do this,” he whispered next to her ear even as he began to stroke her.
“I know. I want to do this.” Her fingers curled around the heavy length of him. He was hard and hot against her palm, and she squeezed him tight. She could feel his pulse, and she brushed her thumb up and over the plump head of his rigid erection.
“Lucy,” he forced through a heavy groan. “I’ll help you, Lucy.”
“Yes. Please.” God, he was a talker. She could deal with that. She moved her hand down the long hard length of him, feeling his velvet-soft skin that covered every ridge and bulging vein.
“Yes, touch me there, just like that,” he whispered. “You won’t be alone. Oh, God that feels good. I’ll get you help. I’ll get you all the help you need.”
He was all the help she needed. Especially when he slipped one long finger inside her and continued to stroke her with his thumb. Her whole world narrowed and centered on Quinn and the wonderful things he was doing to her with his hand. Her flesh tingled and she opened her mouth to tell him to stop, but the first scalding wave of orgasm hit her before the words left her throat. All she managed was an, “Oh no!” before the force of it knocked her head back against the wall and her knees almost buckled. She raised her hands to his shoulder to keep from falling into a hot puddle at his feet. Her heart pounded in her ears as wave after hot wave rushed through her. Over and over, it seemed to last forever and not long enough. She held onto Quinn for support as the last pulsations eased. Above the pounding in her head and the harsh breathing that filled the hall, she heard the insistent ring of the telephone.
“I’m sorry,” she said through a shallow breath. “I didn’t mean to do that yet.”
He chuckled and lightly bit the side of her neck. “You’ll make up for it.” The telephone stopped, only to start ringing again. “Shit!” he said. He lifted his head and looked at Lucy through the dark shadows of the hallway. “I’ll be right back.” He moved into the living room and picked up the cordless phone next to the couch. “Yeah?”
Lucy pulled up her panties and hose and pushed down her skirt. She retrieved her bra from the floor, then moved a few steps down the hall to watch Quinn pace the floor in the living room.
“Because I was busy.” The phone was cradled between his shoulder and the side of his face, and his hands were busy buttoning his pants. “What?” He stilled, and one hand came up to grasp the phone. “Are you fucking kidding me?” He turned to Lucy where she stood against the wall. “Tell me you’re kidding me.”
The look on his face was unfathomable.
Chapter 9
Serialdater: Seeks Killer Date…
Flashes of red, white, and blue sliced through the darkness and cut across the office windows and door of a motel known to rent by the hour. Traffic on Chinden Boulevard sped past, not slowing a click, not even to rubberneck the latest crime scene. Not at this time of night in the part of town plagued with flophouses and drug-related crimes.
Quinn fastened his identification to his belt as he moved between police cruisers parked at every angle in the small lot. He held a clipboard under one arm and his duffle bag in his hand. He glanced up at the second floor of the motel, and a frown pulled at the corners of his mouth. The place was bound to be a nightmare of fingerprints, hairs, and body fluids.
“Is the night manager in the office?” he asked several patrol officers standing around in front of the building.
“Yeah. We got him in there cooling his heels until you want him.”
While the patrol cops filled him in on what they knew, Quinn took out a pen and glanced at his watch. He wrote down the time of his arrival, the address of the crime scene, and weather conditions.
“Write down the license plate numbers of all these vehicles and run ’em.” The victim’s car was probably in the lot and would need to be impounded. He ducked under the yellow crime scene tape and moved up the outside stairs. He walked past three sets of windows with their curtains drawn and continued toward the patrol officers standing outside the open door of room thirty-six.
“How many other rooms are in use?” he asked.
“It’s Saturday night. Just about every one.”
Someone had to have seen or heard something. “Make sure no one leaves,” he said and walked into the room. Kurt, Anita, and two patrol officers stood next to the bed covered with a brown floral spread and a naked dead guy. Yellow nylon rope was bound to the bed frame and tied to the flexi-cuffs around the victim’s wrists. A Westco garment bag had been placed over his head and secured around his neck with silver duct tape.
Quinn took a pair of latex gloves from the duffle and moved to the head of the bed. He snapped on the gloves and looked down into a pair of brown eyes staring up at him from within the clear bag sucked tight around his face. Quinn unclenched two of the man’s fingers, then watched them curl once more. He’d say death had occurred within the last two hours. Sometime after Lucy had arrived at his house carrying a chocolate torte.
“Have you identified the vic?” he asked Kurt.
“Not yet. Anita and I just got here.”
Quinn glanced up at the other detective, and Kurt’s gaze slid away. While Quinn had been getting Lucy naked, and Kurt had been watching and listening from across the street, the real perpetrator had been doing her work. They’d fucked up. Big time, but he couldn’t think about that now. Lucy clearly wasn’t Breathless, and he would deal with her later. Right now, he had work to do. He had to deal with the dead man staring up at him through the child safety warning on the polyethylene bag.
Two crime scene investigators arrived, and Quinn had one of them snap a picture of the beige Dockers lying on the floor at the foot of the bed. Then he knelt on one knee and pulled a wallet from the back pocket. He flipped the wallet open and looked at the driver’s license of Robert D. Patterson. A forty-six-year-old white male. Brown eyes and hair. Five feet nine and one hundred and eighty pounds. Quinn stayed down on one knee, studying the dirty carpet for clues. He looked under the bed, then stood and secured Mr. Patterson’s driver’s license to the clipboard. He checked the other pockets of the victim’s pants and a light nylon jacket also thrown on the dirty carpet. Besides the wallet, he found a set of keys and a folded motel receipt. He placed the items in a paper bag and marked it.
While one investigator got to work snapping photographs from every angle, the other got busy with his bottles of latent print powder. Kurt left the room to question potential witnesses on the second floor of the motel, and Quinn tossed his gloves in the duffle and walked back outside. He shone the flashlight hooked to his belt into the garbage can at the bottom of the stairs. It was half full, and he knew there had to be a Dumpster somewhere on the property. Before the night was over, he was going to be in waders, ass deep in garbage. He walked into the office and was assailed with the smell of nicotine, fried chicken, and cherry sanitizer. Behind the pocked counter sat Dennis Karpowich, a man in his early sixties with thinning hair the color of Grecian Formula 16. He had bad teeth and a worse smoker’s hack. When Quinn showed him Mr. Patterson’s license, Dennis identified him as the man who’d paid for a four-hour stay in room thirty-six.
“Did you see anyone with him?”
“A woman.”
This was the first time anyone had placed a woman with any of the victims. “What did she look like?” Quinn asked as he wrote.
“I only saw her from behind as they was walking up the stairs. I remember because she didn’t strike me as one of the girls.”
“Girls? Do you mean hookers?” Dennis didn’t answer, and Quinn glanced up from his report. “I’m not a vice cop. I don’t care if you’re renting to whores or to guys who like donkeys. I’m just
trying to find a woman who has a nasty habit of killing the men she dates.”
Dennis lit a generic cigarette and blew the smoke toward the ceiling. “She didn’t look like one of the regular girls who stay here.”
“What made you think that?”
“ ’Cause she had on one of them long coats that looked like it cost a lot of money. Wool or something like that. The girls who come here don’t wear their good clothes to work.”
Quinn tried not to smile at that. Dennis made it sound as if the girls poured concrete or painted houses for a living. “Color of the coat?”
“Red.”
“How tall was she?”
“I’m not good at guessing stuff like that. I think she was about as tall as his shoulder.”
Quinn figured that made her around five-two. They would be able to determine better once the coroner measured the body. “Hair color?”
“She had on a hat. A turquoise hat.” He circled his head with his hands. “And it had one of those wide parts to it.”
“It had a wide brim?”
“Yeah, but it kind of flopped down, and it had what looked like a big peacock feather on one side.”
Quinn paused in his questioning to write that all down before he asked, “Did you hear her say anything?”
“No, but she was laughing.”
Quinn glanced up. “Laughing?”
“Yeah. Like he was saying something funny. You know. Like he told her a joke and she kinda hits his arm. Playful.”
Alaughing, playful serial killer. Now that was seriously twisted. “Did you see anything else?”
“I don’t think so.”
“If you remember anything, give me a call.” Quinn handed him a business card. “I’m sure I’ll be in touch with more questions.”
As Quinn left the office, a patrol officer informed him the couple in room thirty-five might have heard something. The deceased excluded, room thirty-six looked just like thirty-five. Aprostitute in a dingy white sweater sat on the bed, picking at her arms, her eyes vacant, drugged, bored. The man beside her looked up through a pair of thick glasses. His hair was slicked back and his arms were crossed over his thin chest.
Sex, Lies, And Online Dating Page 11
