She moaned as Cam got serious. He plunged in and pulled out, cock and fingers working in perfect time. She wanted to argue with him. The body bag comment scared the hell out of her. If Cam stood in the killer’s way, that rash statement could prove true.
Then nothing mattered but the way he felt. He filled her. She closed her eyes and imagined they were both there, one in her pussy and the other claiming her asshole. Her men, working together. The three of them safe and whole.
She nearly sobbed as she came. Cam stiffened behind her, calling her name over and over as he pumped into her body. His fingers slipped from her ass, but his cock remained.
“I love you, baby,” he whispered.
“I love you, too.” And she would protect him. She would find a way to protect them both.
* * * *
He watched his pretty rabbit as she tried to sneak out of the sheriff’s office. The big asshole who had gone in there with her didn’t bother. He had that smile on his face, the one that idiot men had after they were done fucking.
Of course, the other one had that same self-satisfied “the world is mine because I got some” look on his face.
Only his rabbit had the sense to look embarrassed. Too bad she hadn’t had the sense to not be a whore.
He felt his fists clench on the file in his hand. He’d spent the morning coming up with some questions to pose to his girl. He’d always wanted to ask her how she’d liked their time together. Back when the wounds were fresh—god, he loved the fact that he’d made her bleed—he would have seemed monstrous to ask her what he really wanted to know, but now with so much at stake, he could have a freer hand. If anyone pushed back, he could merely state he needed to get deeper into the killer’s mind. Nothing had worked so far. The profile still wasn’t complete.
At least not the one he’d accepted. The one his lovely rabbit had compiled was so close to perfect that he’d been forced to bury it.
She walked by him, glancing up with a small, tight smile. She was beautiful. Perfect golden hair and legs that went for miles. She’d gotten a bit fat for his tastes, but there was still a loveliness to her that called out to him. She seemed so perfect from the outside. Smart. Elegant. Lovely. Of course, underneath it all she was just like the rest of them. Exactly like his mother and his dearly departed wife. Women were whores. They couldn’t help themselves. If a man offered them a cock, they took it.
And if Special Agent Kincaid and Briggs thought they were the only ones she was fucking, they were fooling themselves. She had obviously been with that obnoxious SEAL, and perhaps the deputy as well. The deputy had a mouth on him. He would love to shut that mouth, but it would have to wait.
Need clawed at his belly as his rabbit ducked away. Briggs tried getting close to her again, but she shook her head.
“I need some air, Cam.” She slipped outside.
“Give her a little time.” Kincaid stopped his former partner with a firm hand on his shoulder. “We know she’s not going anywhere.”
“Yeah, she made that clear.”
A very large man with scars covering some of his rough face walked in the door carrying two large bags with handles. “Food, anyone?”
Ah, the luncheon. It was coming from some bar. Yes, that would likely be lovely. He forced himself to smile and join in the general drivel about how good a burger would taste.
He needed something more than a piece of meat. His hunger was growing, and he was going to make a mistake if he didn’t do something about that. The last five years he’d been very careful, culling only what he needed to get by. He’d performed his rituals, but in a truncated way that never seemed to feed his beast. He would have to do it here, too. His rituals required time and space, neither of which he had, though a plan was forming in his brain. He’d listened in on the ants and their talk. He knew there was at least one private home that wouldn’t be occupied for a while. Something about aliens and taking cover. Once he knew where that space was, he could start planning.
But for tonight, a quick fix would have to do.
“Kincaid, Briggs!” The small-town sheriff barked like he had something important to say. The man stood in his office doorway with a ferocious frown on his face. “Seriously? I thought you were going to use my office to talk to her.”
Kincaid had the decency to flush, but Briggs was right back to grinning. “Words were said.”
“Yeah, I can imagine what was said. Hope, we’re going to need some Lysol,” the sheriff yelled. “And you, Briggs—get in here, and we’re going to have a serious lecture on respecting your new boss’s office. Why don’t you step in, too, Kincaid. I have a couple of things we can go over.”
He didn’t like the way that sounded. The last thing he wanted was that pesky sheriff nosing in where he didn’t belong.
He needed a distraction. Perhaps he could serve his needs in multiple ways. He could distract the sheriff, feed his need, and put a little fear into his rabbit.
All he needed was a few moments alone with a lovely lady. He had his pick in this town.
Chapter Twelve
Cam settled onto the seat beside Laura and slid his hand around the back of her chair. She was tense, her shoulders set in a way that made him want to get behind her and rub until she relaxed. He wanted to take her home and coddle her until the tightness around her eyes softened and she let him hold her. He and Rafe could take turns.
“Don’t cause more scandal than you already have, Cam,” Laura murmured low as she moved his hand away from hers. “I can have you thrown out of here.”
He frowned. “No one seemed particularly scandalized.”
He wasn’t upset. Let them all know. If he could, he would have broadcast the whole thing so there was absolutely no question who she belonged to. He would have made damn sure that fucker Wolf Meyer had a front row seat. Why was he still here? He was hanging around the sheriff’s department when he didn’t have a formal place here. The ex-SEAL still looked at Laura like something he needed to protect. Bastard. And he hadn’t missed the way all of the feds looked at her. She was a gorgeous woman, but did they all have to look at her like she was the second coming of Marilyn Monroe? They needed to get their own superintelligent, funny, blonde bombshell. This one was his. And Rafe’s. He and Rafe had things to work out, but Cam wasn’t going to fight him. It hurt Laura, and damn it, he liked having Rafe around.
She slid a glance his way. “The boys from Bliss might not care, but I assure you, everyone from DC was shocked at what happened.”
Was she worried about that? He didn’t give a shit what any of them thought. He’d never fit in with them. He’d always been that weird mix of nerd, country boy, and aggressive asshole that no one had liked in the Bureau. No one except Laura and Rafe. “Well, they don’t count. The guys from Bliss were just pissed that I hadn’t cleaned up. I received explicit instructions on how to have sex in public places. The sheriff has a pamphlet. I’ve been assured that if I don’t follow the rules, he’ll shove me in a cell. There’s only two, you know. He told me what happened the last time he put Rachel and Max Harper in jail.”
There it was. That smile that made his heart skip a beat. Laura’s smile lit up his whole fucking world. “Yeah, that particular incident had the gossips going for a day or two. Rachel has a problem with jaywalking. And being mouthy. Nate was in a bad mood at the time. Max sacrificed himself to go to jail with her. He threw a punch at Nate. Needless to say, they had fun while they waited for Rye to post bail. It was late, and it was their date night. They didn’t let the fact that they were in jail stop them.”
Now see, that was information he was interested in. There were a couple of trios in this town, and he wanted to know how they worked. “They have date nights?”
Laura nodded. “She goes out with each one at least once a week. I believe Callie, Nate, and Zane do it, too. I can imagine it’s a good way to keep the relationships intimate. Conversely, I know the boys have boys’ nights out.”
The door to the interroga
tion room opened, and Brad walked in, followed by Rafe. Rafe’s face was set in dark lines. He wasn’t happy to be on the other side of the table, but for now, it was their best choice. They needed to know what was going on from the inside. Joe and Edward followed. The all looked grim and gray, file folders in hand.
Cam remembered what this felt like. There was a certain adrenaline that pumped through any agent’s veins before an interview. Even if the agent knew the person in front of him wasn’t who he was looking for, there was a certain amount of power that came from being on the right side of the table. Cam definitely felt vulnerable.
Laura’s spine straightened. Cam suddenly wished he already had the badge and gun Nate Wright had promised him. There was paperwork to be done, even in a small town. This wasn’t his dream job. Far from it. He wasn’t sure he had a dream job. He wanted Laura. That would be enough. If he could marry her and provide for her and find some time on the side to write his code, he would be happy. Still, he’d feel safer when he could legally kill someone again. It would make defending Laura so much easier.
If only she would let him defend her now.
Joe sat down. He was in great shape for his age. Rapidly approaching fifty, the special agent in charge looked years younger. He smiled at Laura as he opened his folder. “I’m sorry to have to go over all of this again, Laura. I know it’s an old wound for you.”
“I don’t know about that. It feels pretty fresh today.” She clasped her hands together.
“Let’s get right to it.” Brad sounded unctuous and self-important. He’d changed his shirt and put on a new tie, but he couldn’t hide the way his nose bulged. Rafe hadn’t broken it. That was a bit disappointing. Brad was in the middle seat, the driver’s seat, and he seemed to utterly relish it.
Brad drummed his fingers along the top of the table. “You became involved in the case roughly a year after it had been established that there was a serial killer working the DC area.”
Laura took a deep breath and plunged in. “Yes. It was spring roughly six years ago. I moved from another unit. I had been a special agent for four years before that.”
Brad huffed. “That’s young to join the BAU.”
Laura didn’t mention the amazing work she’d done in the Crisis Negotiation Unit. She didn’t talk about how she’d graduated at the top of her class from Harvard, where she’d put herself through school. She merely shrugged. Cam wanted to shove her exemplary record in Brad’s face. She hadn’t gotten into the BAU on her looks.
Brad moved on. “So, you came into the unit as a special agent, and roughly a year later, you turned in a profile of the killer known as the Marquis de Sade. Did you realize at the time that you turned in the profile that Senior Special Agent Edward Lock was the unit’s senior analyst?”
What the hell was that supposed to mean? Everyone knew that. Cam sat forward. This wasn’t going the way he’d thought it would. He caught Rafe’s glance, but Rafe seemed as confused as he was.
“Yes,” Laura replied. There was a flustered pause in her voice. “I was aware of that.”
Brad smirked as though he’d caught her in something. “Who asked you to turn in a profile?”
She tucked a strand of blonde hair behind her ear. “Um, no one, but I thought it was important. I thought I had a fresh look on the case. I have degrees in psychology and criminal justice. I knew what I was doing.”
“But no one actually asked you to turn in a profile?” Brad asked.
Rafe sat forward. “Joe told the whole team that any information we gathered on the case would be welcome. He wanted everyone’s thoughts. It wasn’t out of line for anyone to work up a profile. We’re all trained.”
Joe nodded. “Yes. I like to keep the lines of communication open. I think it’s important for any team. I worked that way then, and I still work that way today.”
Edward adjusted the glasses he always toyed with when interrogating a subject. He put them back on and stared at Laura like a bug he’d pinned down for study.
Cam started to get a bad feeling about the way this was going to go. “What does this have to do with anything?”
Brad held up a hand. “Mr. Briggs, you’re here as a courtesy. If you can’t stay out of this interview, I’m going to ask you to leave.”
He started to get up from his chair. “I’d like to see you try to get rid of me.”
Joe shook his head. “Cam, please. I know this is hard, but Special Agent Conrad has reasons for asking the questions he is asking. We spent time deciding on these questions. We all agreed to them. We’re in a bind here. We haven’t had a break in this case in years. We need a fresh approach.”
Laura put a hand over his, and he reluctantly sat down. His heart rate was creeping up along with the need to kick a little ass. He looked back at the large two-way mirror on the opposite side of the room. There would be a whole bunch of people watching this, and one of them would be his new boss, Sheriff Nate Wright. It probably wouldn’t do a bit of good to start his new job by punching his former coworkers in the face. He needed this job. He needed to fit into Laura’s world.
He forced himself to relax back in his chair as Brad pelted her with questions about how she became involved with the case. Laura answered each one in short, professional terms. She explained why she’d written her profile. She talked about how she’d collected her data. In short, she told the asshole that she’d done her job.
“How long had you known Jana Evans?” Brad asked, flipping through his large folder.
A long sigh came out of Laura’s mouth. “I met Jana Evans our freshman year of college. She was studying journalism. We ended up rooming together for a couple of years. After we graduated, she moved to New York, but I moved out to DC when I joined the BAU. She got a job at a TV station in DC about three years later, and we got back in touch.”
Brad smirked as he asked his next question. “Is that the time you started to feed her confidential information?”
“What the hell?” Rafe got to the outburst before Cam could. “Joe, what is this? I was told we were asking former Special Agent Rosen about her ideas on who the Marquis de Sade is.”
Joe’s left eyebrow rose. Sometimes it was easy to forget he wasn’t just one of the guys. “You are also here on my sufferance, Special Agent Kincaid. If we hadn’t been friends for many years, I would have kicked you off this case the minute I figured out you were sleeping with a witness.”
Rafe opened his mouth to argue, but Laura charged in. “In Rafe’s defense, I wasn’t a witness when I started sleeping with him.”
“And Briggs?” Brad practically sneered.
“Well, it was the same night,” Laura said brazenly. “So no, I hadn’t met the Marquis de Sade at that moment. We were coworkers. It was probably not the most professional thing I could have done, but it had nothing at all to do with the case.”
“You better change your line of questioning,” Cam said through clenched teeth. He wasn’t about to sit here and let them insult her.
“Or we could stop this entirely,” Rafe interjected. “Perhaps we should. A lawyer might be helpful.”
He didn’t disagree at all. It sounded like a perfect idea. Laura didn’t need a lawyer for anything criminal, but a lawyer could fuck with these pricks in a way neither he nor Rafe could.
“I’m not getting a lawyer,” Laura said with a resigned huff.
“You will if I call one.” He hated fighting with her, but he couldn’t let her refuse good counsel.
“Just get on with it,” Laura said.
Brad’s shoulders moved up and down in a negligent shrug, as though he didn’t really care, and Cam believed it. “Fine then. If your cavemen are done, I’ll move on. In your original report, you talked about a phrase the man who abducted you used. Do you recall what he said to you?”
Laura’s eyes took on a haunted, vacant look. She seemed to go somewhere deep inside herself. “He liked to talk. He talked to me for hours. I don’t remember a lot of it, but I remembered that on
e phrase. He told me that the only way to a woman’s heart was the path of torment. He said he knew of no other way so sure.”
Cam had looked it up. The real Marquis de Sade had written it. The original de Sade had a lot to say, most of it garbage. The Marquis had believed that all moral principals were fancies, not anything concrete or real.
“That’s a bit specific,” Brad said. “Are you sure that’s what he said?”
Now Laura was the one staring through Brad. “Well, a girl rarely forgets what’s been said right before a man in a plague doctor’s mask whips her, cuts her, and shoves a knife through her gut multiple times. I was tied down and he’d whipped me viciously. I hate to admit it, but he did have my attention.”
Cam felt his gut twist. His brain tended to go to a black place when he thought about what had happened to her. When he read it on paper, it was bad enough. When he heard it coming out of her mouth in that dead monotone she employed whenever the subject came up, it was devastating. She’d been taken and brutalized. She’d been tortured for hours. He loved her. Guilt festered like a sore. He was responsible for her. She’d let him take pleasure in her body and solace in her heart. He owed her protection, and he’d failed.
He wasn’t going to fail her again.
“And did you recognize the words?” Brad asked.
Why was he still talking? His voice grated on Cam’s every nerve.
“Not at the time,” Laura admitted. “Later on, I looked it up. It was right after I’d gotten to Bliss. I was in bad shape. I couldn’t get those damn words out of my head. I went into Stella’s and asked to borrow her computer. I told her I needed check on something. That’s when I found it. It’s a quote from the Marquis de Sade.”
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