Cavanaugh in the Rough

by Marie Ferrarella

  Having finally gotten Chris’s shirt off, she pressed her body against his. She didn’t remember how or when she’d managed to get his pants off, but she was acutely aware of the clasp on her bra being deftly undone and the wispy garment joining her dress on the floor.

  Other underwear quickly melded with the scattered clothing. Body parts slid against one another as kiss after hungry kiss caused her desire to accelerate, echoing the wild pounding of her heart.

  So this is what it’s all about, Suzie thought in awe. The noise, the songs, the endless quest that others undertake for the sake of this fantastic feeling building in my veins. Words didn’t begin to do it justice, she realized, trying to capture, to savor as much as she could from the experience, from the moment.

  From the man.

  *

  She was on fire, Chris thought, and so was he.

  Like the very air, Suzie seemed to be everywhere, kissing him, touching him, sliding her body along his and creating nothing short of a burning, all-consuming need for that final moment, that heady, overwhelming rush when the surge erupted.

  She was incredible.

  He could honestly say he’d never been with anyone like Suzie before. Supple, eager, breathtakingly limber, she was very nearly wiping him out.

  But if that was the case, he really couldn’t think of a better way to go.

  Their bodies were entangled on her oversize sofa, and Chris grasped her hands in one of his as he laced one last trail of kisses along her body, this time going down even farther than he had initially. So far that he heard her cry out in wonder as well as intense pleasure.

  When he lifted his head, he saw that she appeared close to ecstasy. That was when he raised himself up, sliding along her damp body until his eyes were level with hers. Capturing her hands again, this time one in each of his, he moved his knee until she parted her legs for him.

  Then, still intently watching her, his own heart hammering, he began to slip into her.

  And then abruptly stopped.

  She saw the puzzled look, the unspoken question, and knew if she didn’t do something quickly, he was going to back away from her.

  From this.

  She couldn’t bear that, couldn’t bear being abandoned.

  So she raised her hips urgently, pushing against him until Chris had no will left, no recourse but to continue what he had started: the dance of the ages that for tonight was theirs alone.

  She bit back the cry of pain that rose in her throat, swallowing it as she continued to move with him, increasing the urgent tempo with each moment that passed until they were both frantically rushing to journey’s end, each holding fast to the other so that they would reach it together.

  She shivered as she felt it, felt the implosion that shook her to her very core as supreme pleasure cascaded through her, bringing with it peace and a sense of satisfaction she had never known before.

  Suzie collapsed beneath him, breathing hard.

  Incredibly content.

  Spent, Chris rolled off her.

  So many emotions were storm-trooping through him, he couldn’t begin to catalog them. But foremost, he was angry, and felt like getting up and putting distance between them until he could get control over this fury throbbing within him.

  But another part of him reminded Chris that this woman had been abandoned enough and he couldn’t allow himself to hurt her. Because that first reaction was temporary, fleeting. Something else, something beneath it, was far, far stronger.

  So instead, Chris remained where he was, and because being cold and withdrawn was not something he did well, after a moment’s hesitation, he drew her to him and held her.

  “Something else you didn’t tell me,” he said. It wasn’t a question, but more of a wearily stated accusation.

  She’d seen the surprise in his eyes a moment before she’d physically forced him to continue. There was no point in pretending that she didn’t know what he was talking about.

  She did.

  So she searched for something to say, but absolutely nothing was coming to mind. How did one respond to something liked that?

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Chris asked.

  “I was thinking of having cards printed up so I could pass them out, but I just couldn’t make up my mind about the font,” she told him, her face completely unreadable. And then her voice grew very, very serious as she asked, “Just how was I supposed to work that into the conversation? And when? While we were talking to your uncle? Or maybe when you introduced me to your mother? ‘Hi, I’m Susannah Quinn, I work for your brother in the CSI lab and, oh, yes, by the way, I’m a virgin. When I’m not at the lab, I have a little cubicle at the Museum of Natural History. Mine is right next to the one where they keep the unicorn, another mythical creature.’”

  Suzie shook her head as she got up off the couch. “Sorry, I just couldn’t find the proper place to drop that little ticking bomb. I’m sorry if you’re disappointed,” she told him, snatching up her clothes and holding them against her. She wanted to make her getaway, to slip into the bathroom and stay there until he left.

  But Chris grabbed her wrist, holding her in place. “Who said anything about being disappointed?” he asked.

  “Well, isn’t that why you’re so angry with me?” she demanded.

  It was hard for him to put his feelings about this into words. He’d never been in this kind of a situation before, never been anyone’s “first.” He’d just taken it for granted that someone Suzie’s age, that someone who looked like Suzie, would have had her share of lovers.

  “I look so angry,” he explained, “because it would have been nice to have had a little prior warning before I found myself ‘barging in’ like some kind of Neanderthal.”

  She raised her chin defensively, determined not to cry. “Why? So you could walk out?”

  “No, you idiot,” he snapped. Didn’t she understand what kind of position she’d put him in? How bad he felt about this? “So I could go a little slower. Your first time shouldn’t feel like it was some kind of race to the finish line. It should be something that happened in stages, slowly, to get your body ready for what was happening.”

  She was doing her best to understand. What she did understand was that he didn’t regret what happened because she was inexperienced. He regretted it because had he known, he would have wanted to make the experience better for her.

  “I don’t think it would have been humanly possible for my body to be any more ready,” she told him. “And if you feel that bad about it, well,” she told him, a whimsical smile playing on her lips, “I wouldn’t really mind a do-over.”

  He laughed and pulled her into his arms. “You can’t ‘do over’ a first time, Suzie Q.”

  “No,” she agreed. “But there’s no reason why there shouldn’t be a second attempt. To get it right, you understand,” she added, her eyes shimmering with humor.

  He shifted in one smooth motion, so that Suzie was beneath him on the sofa. The fact that she had, until a few minutes ago, been a virgin was still gnawing at him. It didn’t make any sense.

  “How is it that no one ever made love to you before, Suzie Q?”

  She smiled up into his eyes. “No one was ever fast enough to catch me before.”

  “And I was?” he questioned, amused by her explanation.

  She seemed to consider her answer. “Or maybe you just got lucky because I got tired of running.”

  “You got that right,” he told her. He saw her eyebrow arch, as if she wasn’t following him. “I got lucky.” With that, he lowered his mouth to hers. “We’ll go slower this time,” he promised as he started to kiss her again.

  Chris heard her laugh, tasted her laugh as it rumbled against his lips.

  “Good luck with that,” she told him.

  And within a moment, he saw what she meant.

  She set the pace and it was even more frantic than it had been the first time.

  Keeping up with her was not easy, but he found that
it was probably the most delightful exercise in near futility he’d ever endured.

  It didn’t keep him from trying.

  And when it was over and they lay beside one another with only the sound of their heavy breathing cutting through the silence in the room, Chris discovered that he had to struggle to get his pulse back under control.

  Another first, he couldn’t help thinking.

  “Thirty-eight seventy-seven Alexander Street,” he managed to gasp when he could finally find enough breath to form words.

  She turned her head to face him, completely lost. “What’s...that?”

  “The address...to...my mother’s house. It’s...where I want you...to send my remains. She’ll want to give me...a proper burial.”

  Mystified, Suzie propped herself up on her elbow, although it wasn’t easy. “What are you talking about?” she asked.

  “You wore me out, Suzie Q,” he told her, then took another deep breath before he added, “One more time and I’m done for.”

  “Is that a dare?” she asked, a smile playing on her lips.

  “Just a statement.” Chris turned his body toward hers. “Make of it what you will.”

  “What I make of it,” she told him, doing her best to gather herself together, “is that it’s a dare, and I never walk away from a dare.”

  “You have a lot in common with my sister Shayla,” he said.

  Suzie moved so that she was right over him. “I’m not your sister.”

  “Thank heaven for small favors,” he murmured, just as her lips were about to cover his.

  And then his cell phone rang.

  For a moment, they both tried to ignore it. But law enforcement was too ingrained in both of them. When it rang again, Chris sighed, sat up and reached for the device, which was on the floor next to the sofa.

  “Maybe it’s a wrong number,” he said to Suzie, just before he swiped open his phone and said, “O’Bannon.”

  “We’ve got another body.”

  Chapter 18

  “Technically, you know,” Chris said to her, “this isn’t our body.”

  “That sounds like the beginning of a territorial battle between two zombies,” Suzie said with a laugh. “Not exactly the kind of pillow talk I expected after my first time.”

  After the call came in and Chris had gotten the particulars, they had hurriedly dressed and hit the road. They were now heading for the destination the detective who’d phoned had specified.

  “That’s what you get for taking up with a homicide detective. And by the way, somebody is watching way too much cable,” Chris commented. “Zombies? Really?”

  “I’ve just seen the commercials. I don’t watch the shows,” she told him. “Way too creepy for my tastes.” Suzie redirected the conversation to the reason they weren’t still in her apartment, working up energy for another go-round. “Exactly where is this body located?”

  He told her what his friend had told him. “In a deserted building in Quail Hill.”

  Suzie expressed minor surprise. “I wasn’t aware that they had any deserted buildings in Quail Hill. It’s so upscale.” Just a hint of a smile curved her lips. “I thought it wasn’t allowed.”

  Chris took the freeway. It was quicker at this hour of the early morning. “Apparently someone neglected to read the bylaws,” he quipped.

  She had another question for him. “So why are we going there if the murder happened out of our jurisdiction?”

  “Because I knew you’d want to see the scene,” he told her honestly. While he wouldn’t call her obsessed, he knew that she was determined to catch the killer, and everybody they studied brought them that much closer to their man. “I put the word out to some of my connections in a few neighboring cites, asking to be notified if they get any victims where the perp used the same MO as our serial killer did.”

  “O’Bannon, I think you just won my heart,” she told him.

  “That was my intent.” She looked at him, trying to decide if he was just being funny, or if there was some germ of truth to his comment. “That and catching the SOB,” he concluded, as he weaved to the far right lane just before exiting the freeway.

  *

  “Looks like it’s the same guy,” she agreed, when Paul Langford, the detective who had called Chris, pulled back the sheet from the woman who had just been discovered. Squatting beside the body, Suzie focused on the bruising along the dead woman’s neck. “The victim’s in her twenties, blonde, slender and exceptionally pretty.”

  “And ripe,” Chris added, putting his hand in front of his nose. The stench was difficult to take. “How long has she been here?”

  Suzie knew he wasn’t asking her to guess. He was relying on her professional expertise.

  “I’d say probably three, four days,” she told him, standing up.

  She looked around. The entire area was filled with freshly cut lumber and all the building materials that were necessary to transform what had once been a high-end supermarket into something far more upscale. From the looks of it, the girl’s body had been hidden beneath the lumber.

  Suzie shook her head. “Well, this definitely doesn’t appear like anyone threw a party here recently.” She turned toward Langford. “Who found her?” she asked the older detective.

  “One of the construction crew came in early this morning to make sure everything was here so they could start work first thing tomorrow. The second he saw her, he called 911.” There were several uniformed police on the grounds and one civilian. Langford pointed in the construction worker’s general direction. “He’s the really pale guy over there. Careful. You ask him too many questions and he’s liable to start retching again. Missed my shoes by an inch,” he added, indicating his footwear. “He didn’t really have all that much to say when he wasn’t retching.”

  “Do you have an ID on her yet?” Chris asked. From what he could see, there was no sign of a struggle, so this latest victim, like the others, must have been killed somewhere else.

  “No place to put a wallet. She’s naked,” Langford pointed out. The detective appeared to be dead serious despite the ludicrousness of his comment. “That’s what made me think she might have met up with your killer. He pretty much strips them down, right?”

  Suzie took another, closer look at the victim’s neck, doing her best not to breathe. The young woman had definitely been strangled. And just like with the other victims, the killer had used his hands.

  Suzie knew this wasn’t personal, but she couldn’t help thinking that the killer was thumbing his nose at them. Taunting them, as if he felt certain he could keep getting away with it.

  Her own father had probably felt the same way. Until he had apparently gotten overconfident and made one stupid mistake.

  “It certainly looks like the work of the same man,” she commented.

  Langford regarded the dead woman thoughtfully. “I can’t release the body to you,” he told them. “But what I can do is have our ME send you the autopsy report once it’s done. You have any suspects yet?” he asked hopefully.

  Chris was quick to answer before Suzie could say anything. “We’re looking at a couple of people,” he stated. “We’ll let you know how it goes.”

  “You do that.” Langford shook his head as he covered the young woman’s face again. “A real waste,” he murmured under his breath, then looked up at the two of them. “I don’t mind telling you that I could use all the help I can get. This is all kind of new to me,” he admitted freely. “She’s our first murder in Quail Hill in more than seven years and I’d like to clean this up as soon as possible.”

  “Like I said, as soon as we know, you’ll know,” Chris promised. Taking Suzie’s arm, he ushered her toward the exit. “Thanks again for giving us a heads-up,” he called over his shoulder.

  Suzie said nothing as they left the building. But once they were outside, walking back to Chris’s vehicle, she couldn’t keep quiet any longer. “Why didn’t you tell him?”

  “What?” he asked, hitting
the remote device to unlock the doors. “That we might have a suspect?”

  “That it’s Eldridge,” she stressed.

  He got into the car. Suzie was already yanking on her seat belt. “Because we don’t know,” Chris pointed out patiently. “Because if we said we’re considering the possibility that the serial killer might be Warren Eldridge—”

  “Not ‘might be,’ it is,” Suzie insisted adamantly.

  He knew she believed what she was saying, and maybe she was starting to convince him, but they were a long way from being able to actually prove what her “gut” was telling her.

  “Most people tend to give nationally renowned philanthropists a pass when it comes to accusing them of being serial killers.”

  As far as she was concerned, the philanthropist thing was an act, a cover that allowed Eldridge to do what he wanted to do—attract willing women who fit a certain description.

  “Are you giving him a pass?” she questioned.

  “I’m a big fan of evidence, Suzie Q, which is something we still need to get,” Chris reminded her. He could literally feel her scowling. “I’m willing to question the man again, but remember, we can’t just accuse him without proof.”

  She knew that. But it didn’t negate the way she felt. “I know it’s him. In my gut, I know it’s him.”

  “As adorable as I think your gut is,” Chris told her, “I’m afraid that it’s just not enough proof to present in front of a jury.”

  Suzie felt so frustrated. It was like looking at journey’s end with a huge chasm in the way. “We know that girl back there was his type.”

  “Correction,” Chris pointed out, “she was the serial killer’s type.”

  “I pulled up every single photo taken of that man at those fund-raisers he’s always throwing. There’s a tall, twentysomething, rail-thin blonde hanging off his arm in more than half of them.”

  Chris turned off his headlights. Daylight had become part of the landscape. “Still doesn’t mean he’s our killer.”

  “He is,” Suzie insisted. “I know he is.”

  After taking a sharp right, Chris drove along the main thoroughfare that would bring them to the precinct. “Then we need to get the evidence to prove it,” he told her calmly. “We need to build a case.”