She started her car and rolled out of the parking spot. Her coffee cart man watched her leave, and she nodded her head, smiling at the thought that maybe he did remember her. Dawson came plowing down the courthouse steps, phone pressed to his ear, his eyes darting around the parking lot. She glared at him, almost willing him to make eye contact simply so she could reject him again. He didn’t notice her and instead jogged out into the parking lot behind her car.
Whatever.
Carey picked up her phone to tell Sloane that she’d at least recognized the crime scene. Maybe if she could go there and jog her memory, she could actually figure out the crime. The county didn’t use to catalog crimes by their location, especially if it was out in the forest. Then it would just be coordinates with convoluted directions on what two-tracks or ATV trail to follow. The location was deep in the state forest. Deep. Almost any local kid could probably get you there with his eyes closed, and Carey wondered if she still knew the way.
She pulled out onto the main road as she dialed the number to the forensics office building, her old office building. Honestly, if Marc was running prints and analyzing evidence, he probably had her old job. She’d seen Sloane’s face when she talked about the other man. Maybe seeing Carey today would bring the other woman to her senses.
Trees flashed by her car as she followed the lake. One would think more bodies would wash up on the shore, but in all of her years, she’d only had one or two scenes on the beach. Maybe the criminals who dumped bodies in the water were better at it than those who went to the woods. The county used to get so many bodies dumped in the woods, people would joke that Lakeside was a destination spot for killers.
Carey slowed her speed just a bit when she knew her turn off was coming up. Or at least it should be coming up. She looked in her rearview. A lone car was behind her. They could pass if her change in speed was an issue. By now they were in the middle of nowhere, and most cars went fifteen miles over the speed limit rather than her five under.
The road she was looking for was just a break in the tree line, probably more of a service entrance into the forest. Maybe it actually led to somewhere, but more likely decades of local hunters, hikers, and underage drinkers had turned a small path into a road. She turned quickly when she saw the opening just beyond a sharp curve.
She glanced in her rearview again, more out of habit than anything else, and noticed that the car traveling behind had slowed when they passed the clearing too. A chill ran down her back. She was too far away to see the driver. Why did the driver matter? They were probably just going slowly because they had to break for your turn. Carey continued down the two-track, flowing curves and random turns, deeper into the state forest. She kept checking behind her periodically, though visibility was almost non-existent because of the brush and her serpentine route.
Carey rolled into the clearing and turned off her car. Why couldn’t she remember a crime scene that took place here? Maybe the case had been clear-cut and straightforward, nothing notable to remember? She was sure that a body in this spot would have been memorable.
She grabbed the file from the car and stood in the middle of the copse. The ground was worn to dirt. There was a fire pit in the very center. The throne-tree still stood off to the side. She knew that just a little farther up the dirt road there was a field where kids would park and camp when they came out here to party—which they obviously still did because the fire pit was a sea of cigarette butts and half burned beer cans.
Just outside the clearing was a steep cliff where dumb, drunk kids would play chicken, seeing who could ‘walk the tightrope’ along its ledge, or guys would wrestle right up to the edge while onlookers cheered. She shook her head; it was a miracle they all survived.
Opening the file, she took out the first photograph—the one with the tree stump in the foreground—and walked around the circle, trying to determine where the picture had been taken. Maybe laying out the crime scene would jog her memory. That first photo was of a discarded, unsmoked cigarette, soggy from morning dew or a rainstorm. She set the photo on the ground where the original piece of evidence would have been found.
The next picture was of a shoe print. She clicked her tongue, her gaze bouncing between the photo and the clearing. There wasn’t much in the picture to judge where it would have been. Generally, after each piece of evidence had been marked with their yellow flags and photographed, the entire scene would be photographed as well. Conveniently, those pictures were missing.
A low hum came rumbling through the woods. A car engine? Who else would be coming out here right now? It was probably an ATV miles away. Sounds carried throughout the woods, and noises could be deceiving. Although, no one knew she was here. There was no telling when Sloane would check her voicemail, she’d purposely dodged Dawson when she left the courthouse, and she’d left Canter completely in the dark about the entire day.
Carey jogged over to her car and snatched her cell phone off the passenger seat. No service. Big fucking surprise.
Rationally speaking, if she ran into anyone out here, it would be some high school kids smoking weed, right? Right.
She went back to the picture. Circling the clearing. The physical evidence must have been a bitch because there was nothing really in these pictures. Some rope. More boot prints. A hoodie. That could not belong to their perp. There’s no way he’d leave something like that covered in his DNA at the scene. All right, this one was interesting. The soil was disturbed—signs of a struggle—and it looked like there were marks from a woman’s heel, like a stiletto.
The woods erupted in noise when a dozen birds shot up from the underbrush and took to the sky. Carey jumped, clutching the file to her chest. She stood frozen, waiting for more noise. Like the crunching of leaves that came from the woods behind her. She took two cautious steps toward her car. This is ridiculous. If someone was sneaking through the woods, she was definitely trapped by their car. She could drive forward into the field, but then she’d just be trapped in the field. Unless she could lure them into the open area in their car, then she could slip back down the two-track.
Maintaining her calm facade, her eyes flitted from her file to the fire pit as she made her way around the circle to her car. Don’t look. Don’t look. Don’t look. Turning around and facing the spook would let them know she was aware of them—taking away the only advantage she had—and it would make them real, because right now they were just phantom noises in the woods.
As soon as she made it to her car, she reached behind her and opened the passenger door. The click of the door handle echoed through the woods, and she waited, holding her breath. The sound of the intruder’s feet rose to a chaos of running and stomping through fallen leaves that covered the forest floor. She jerked her head toward the sound, trying to see what—who—was trying to catch her.
As if in a daze, she stood with the door half open, listening to the ruckus as it grew closer. Get in the damned car. Dumb white girls die first. But this insane curiosity kept her feet rooted to the spot. Now that safety was within her reach, her fear seemed to settle down, taking any sense of self-preservation with it.
“Oh, you cock-sucking asshole! Are you fucking kidding me?” She was completely blinded by rage as she threw the folder into her car and stalked toward her attacker. “What the fuck is wrong with you? You couldn’t give me a call, tell me, ‘Hey Carey, I’m going to follow you into the woods and scare the ever-loving piss out of you later’?”
Dawson stood on the side of the two-track at the edge of the clearing. He opened his mouth to speak, but immediately closed it when she drew an open palm back and lunged forward to slap him. She slammed her foot down—probably to get more momentum? What the hell did she know? She’d never hit anyone before, and clearly her body didn’t know what the hell it was doing. Her heel drove into the mud and she tipped to the side. Her hand missed its target by a solid twelve inches, and in a flash, Dawson reached out and grabbed her, taking a wrist in each hand and preventing her fro
m falling. Only to spin her around and pin her hands in front of her, crossed at the wrists.
“Settle down,” he ordered, tightening his grip on her and pulling her back against his chest. “I can’t call you because you’ve blocked my number. I’ve been following you since you left the courthouse, and if you didn’t notice, that’s on you.”
She struggled fruitlessly against his hold. He was broad and built like a damned wall. She could have guessed what his body looked like underneath his suit, but now she knew. His biceps pressed against her, flexing and straining to keep her in place. Hell, they weren’t straining; this probably took hardly any of his effort.
“How about a ‘Hey Carey, it’s me, Dawson,’ as you approached? That would have been the courteous thing to do instead of creeping around and then running up to scare me. I would have thought you’d be better at the stalking thing, especially since you seem to know everything about me.”
“Carey, that was a fucking guess, only because that’s what I’ve been through. And I wanted to see what you were doing. When I saw you getting ready to leave, I simply wanted to catch you before you got in your car.”
She twisted her shoulders and hips, trying to get a little bit of space between them so she could break free. But the more she twisted, the tighter his hold became. “Stop. Moving. I’ll let you go when I know you won’t try to hit me again.”
“Oh, please. Like my slap would do anything. Or like I would have actually hit you. What grown adult does that?” She did. That’s who. Dawson was bringing out the worst in her.
He laughed. “Don’t try to bullshit me. You would have landed a solid punch if your heels hadn’t foiled your plan.”
Carey stopped moving. Her heart was pounding in her chest, and she felt the telltale flush creeping up her chest. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Was this how every interaction with Dawson was going to progress? Anger turning into arousal. It didn’t help that his hard cock was pressed against her ass.
“You are unbelievable,” she scolded, trying to shift back into anger. Even as she pulled against his hold and sparks erupted in her core. “You’re fucking getting off on holding me down.”
“You’ve been rubbing your ass on me for two minutes,” he growled with a low and measured voice. “And I wouldn’t still be after you if I wasn’t into a little fight.” Dawson bit her ear and transferred her wrists into his right hand.
“I bet,” he said as he untucked her shirt, “if I touch you, you’ll be just as wet as before. You like the fight. You like making me chase you, making me work for it. I bet you wanted me to show up on your doorstep years ago. Chase you down and make you mine. You didn’t expect me to have any boundaries.”
He forced his hand into her waistband and curled his fingers around her pussy. They glided over her seam. “See? I know you,” he whispered wickedly.
Dawson delved deeper, slipping a finger between her lips and coating it with her arousal before sliding his finger to her clit. He teased the peak with gentle strokes while his hand dropped her wrists and traveled up her shirt. His movements were so slow and deliberate; Carey could have pushed away from him at any moment, demanding that he stop.
Instead, she arched her back, pressing herself against his erection and thrusting her chest toward his hand. He slipped his fingers inside of her bra and palmed her breast.
“You want more, don’t you?” His finger teased at her entrance, slowly entering her.
She didn’t answer, only whimpered in response. He’d set her entire body alight. A searing heat pooled in her cunt, and she rolled her hips, wordlessly urging him on. She couldn’t form words even if she wanted to. Well, she could probably for a few, but he would most definitely not be getting that satisfaction.
Another finger joined the first, and they pressed their way between her lips, barely penetrating her before retreating back to her clit, only to wind her up further. Each circle around the bud dragged her closer to her orgasm.
Dawson had turned her into a writhing mess, and he continued his featherlight touches all over her body, nibbling softly on her ear, urging her to break.
“Just ask. Just say it. We both know you’re mine. “
CHAPTER SEVEN
______________
DAWSON
The sounds she was making sent jolts through his cock. They were so exquisite, moans and whimpers that told him she was just on the brink. He was the only thing holding her up. Her legs shook, like her pleasure was boiling up in her body and she was just waiting to burst.
She stubbornly remained silent.
Dawson was pretty sure—no, he knew—she wouldn’t stop him from pressing her against the car and fucking her. Properly. No more of these games. But she needed to yield; he needed her to admit that she wanted his cock, that she wanted him.
He stopped moving, stopped drawing pleasure and quiet mewls from her lips. It took Carey only a few heartbeats to react to that. Her breathing slowed, and she looked up into the trees almost vacantly, like he’d stolen her soul by denying her pleasure.
“Carey, say it.” He trailed kisses down her neck. Her face and décolletage were flushed a deep crimson red. He wanted to follow that flush beneath her shirt and kiss every inch of her body.
She’d once admitted that, while most cheeks burn out of embarrassment or after a few beers, hers erupted at the slightest dirty though or arousing touch. Before they’d even kissed, he’d catch her looking at him or, fuck, brushing hands while going over a case file, and he’d grin wickedly when the rosiness would blossom on her cheeks. He’d pursued her for months before she’d finally given in. Then he destroyed everything. He’d repent with tens of thousands of orgasms. He’d already have her spent on his bed if she hadn’t raised this challenge.
“You’re supposed to make me beg. And it seems like I’m the one who’s got you pleading for permission to fuck me,” she whispered mischievously.
She turned around and wrapped an arm around his neck, her lips brushing against his ear as she dropped the other to his dick, stroking the length through his pants. “I’m winning.”
Dawson ground his teeth and buried his hand in her hair and forced her to look at him. “Don’t get caught alone with me again, Carey, because next time I won’t ask. If you’re too stubborn to forgive and I will never get ‘please, fuck me,’ from your lips, then I’ll settle for ‘please, don’t stop.’”
He let go of her and stepped away from her grip. He sure as fuck wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of feeling his precum seep through his pants.
“Get in your car and come back to the courthouse. We need to figure out what crime scene we have, because I think I know how he’s targeting his other victims.” He turned around and walked back to his car. Which, by the way, he parked up the road because every time he hit a bump or dipped into a pothole, he cringed thinking of the damage it was causing to his car that cost more than his undergrad tuition.
“What the hell, Dawson!” Carey called after him. “What did you figure out? You can’t just drop that and walk away.”
Oh, he could. Because he was an asshole, and he’d just ensured that she’d be right behind him the whole way back to town.
Dawson turned his car around in a clearing—could he write off the repair bill? Probably not. None of this was actually his case—and waited for Carey to join him before he started to leave the state forest. He’d forgotten to ask Carey how she recognized the crime scene. He’d spent dozens of nights around a bonfire in the same spot but never would have noticed anything in those photos that indicated just a random place in the woods.
He’d called Sloane after he started following Carey, because his phone number was still fucking blocked on her phone. Sloane was supposed to call Carey and let her know, but evidentially that hadn’t happened. He’d honestly thought that when Carey turned down the two-track, she’d done that so they could talk. It had happened so fast that he wasn’t able to follow her immediately, he’d turned around and driven down the wind
ing path until he figured out where she was going.
Once Carey’s car appeared in his rearview mirror, he began crawling his way out of the forest. He glanced back periodically and could see frustration painted all over her face. But he’d be damned if his car got any more damaged than it already was. And it was nice to have a little bit of control back, if only for a ten-minute trek. Imagine how good it’s going to feel when she gives him that power willingly.
His cock twitched. She was going to be the death of him. First, they needed to take care of the sick fuck killing people, then he was taking her home and keeping her there until his indiscretion was nothing more than a faint memory in her mind.
Dawson slipped into a parking spot at the courthouse and leaned against his car, waiting for Carey to arrive. Things had settled down in the afternoon, and most people would be leaving for the evening soon. He’d already made arrangements to have access to the records room, though between shuffling through paper records and the absolute clusterfuck that was the digitalization of their records, he didn’t actually think this would be an easy job.
Carey parked a few spots away, and he stalked over to her car and opened the door for her.
“Oh, fuck off,” she snapped. “I can open my own door.”
Maybe she walked around wielding these weapons thinking that it would make him give up. It wouldn’t. It would just make the moment when she was utterly and completely his so much sweeter.
“Okay,” he said, closing her car door and crossing his arms.
Carey erupted in laughter on the other side of the glass. She gathered her papers and phone before sliding out of the car and placing her hand onto his forearms and rising to the tips of her toes to brush a kiss across his lips. “Don’t pout,” she whispered. “It almost makes you human.”
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