He tugged her toward the bed and pulled back the covers, watching as she climbed into the center. He moved on top of her and, pulling up the covers, nestled with her under the coverlet. His erection pressed against her as she cupped her breasts and then opened her legs. He kissed her on the lips and then on the top of her breasts, as she again skimmed her fingers toward his erection. His groan was a mixture of pain and pure pleasure.
This time, she wrapped her long fingers around his shaft and moved her hand up and down in a slow and steady pace. He drew in a breath and grabbed her hand, pinning it and the other above her head as he leaned forward and suckled her right nipple.
She hissed in a breath and arched as a soft curse escaped her lips. “You are too deliberate.”
“I thought you liked deliberate?” he asked.
She felt his grin against her breast as he looked up at her. “I do, but it’s more difficult than I imagined.”
The spark in his gaze told her he delighted in her frustration. “I have a reputation for examining all the details. I don’t rush.”
“Time to shift to the bigger picture now, Detective.” Her voice had a breathless edge.
He pulled his hand between her breasts and down her flat belly to the small nest of curls. “But details matter. I’ve heard you say it several times.”
“So do results.” She cupped her breasts and knew he liked watching, that this deliberately slow attack on her senses was getting harder for him to maintain.
She opened her legs and pressed her mound against his erection, and when she saw the slight glimmer in his gaze darkening, she knew the time for teasing had ended. He reached for his erection and pressed it to her moist center.
He pushed into her body with a hard thrust. The invasion sent a wave of sensations rushing up through her like a crashing wave.
He paused. “You like that?”
“Yes.” A blush warmed her cheeks. She felt so alive. “I like it very much.”
He covered her body with his, moving in and out with hard, deep thrusts as he kissed her fully on the lips. Her body would take all of him. Her breathing quickened, and she could feel herself rushing to the edge. She was within seconds of release when he slowed his pace and suckled her nipple. She grew wetter.
His fingers moved in slow, steady circles. Reading the nuances of her tense muscles, he seemed to sense what brought her closer to orgasm and what delayed it. And every time she thought she would tumble, he stopped, kissed her, and stole her breath. Anticipation swirled around her as she anxiously waited for him to begin again.
He ran moist fingertips over her thigh. “Such beautiful legs. I’ve admired those legs since the first day I saw you.”
“Did you?”
“You were wearing black heels during that first class you taught at the bureau.”
Were they really talking about her shoes right now? “I always wear black heels.”
“I know. By my guess, you have at least three different pairs.”
Zoe lost count of how long he teased her, but he knew intimately her rhythms. When she really thought she would go mad with wanting, he hastened his tempo. This time when the edge came, they both plummeted over it. Delightful spasms rippled over her. He drove into her, moaning with desire. She gripped his arms and pressed her pelvis upward.
Zoe opened her eyes and locked on Vaughan’s gaze. For the first time, she saw him and not Jeff. In her mind, a distant door closed, and she did not race to reopen it. But this time, the sweetness outpaced the bitterness.
When Zoe awoke, the night sky was blanketed with stars. Moonlight bathed the row of houses across the street. She turned to her right.
She reached for her cell and saw that it was 4:26 a.m. Too early to get up, and yet her mind was fully awake and her body growing more restless by the second.
The sound of footsteps downstairs had her reaching for her robe and her gun. As she slid on the terry cloth and cinched the waist tight, she tiptoed across the room, taking inventory as she moved. All of Vaughan’s clothes were gone.
At the top of the stairs, she saw the soft glow of a light that appeared to be coming from the kitchen. Barefoot, she tightened her grip on her weapon. She stepped over the third step from the bottom to avoid its creak.
As she crossed through the living room, she spotted Vaughan’s jacket and caught the first whiff of coffee in the kitchen.
She lowered her weapon and stepped into the kitchen to find Vaughan sitting at her small kitchen table. He was reading Silas Marner.
“I just made a pot,” he said.
She set her weapon on the counter, removed a bone china cup from the cabinet, and filled it with coffee. “You will never get back to sleep if you drink coffee this early.”
“I never would have gotten back to sleep either way.” He closed his book. “I don’t sleep much. Haven’t since Nate was born.”
She wrapped her fingers around the cup, savoring the warmth. “I love to sleep. But I can’t remember the last time I slept late.”
Zoe sat across from him, sipped her coffee, and crossed her legs, knowing the folds of the robe would slip away.
He dropped his gaze to her leg and smoothed his hand over her thigh and then over the knee that still bore the scar of her surgery. He traced his finger over the light-pink semicircle. “Does it ever bother you?” he asked.
“Not really. Distance running is a thing of the past, and I can predict rainy days before they happen. I’ve gotten used to the minor aches and pains.”
He nodded toward the stack of photos she had pulled off the walls barely two days ago. “I’m assuming he was your husband.”
“Jeff. He was one hell of a cop. And an all-around good guy. He was healthy as a horse and had finished a marathon three days before he died. They tell me he was at the courthouse to get a search warrant when the first headache brought him to his knees. We’d just spoken, and he had said he was on the way to our favorite restaurant.” She set her cup down with deliberate care. “I’d been waiting at the restaurant for thirty minutes when his captain called me.”
“I’m sorry.” He kept his hand on her knee.
She pushed away the images of that restaurant and the days and years that followed. “Life isn’t always a party. I’m guessing you’re not a single parent by choice.”
“Divorce. It was better for everyone, but I know it hurt Nate.”
“How old was he when you and your wife divorced?”
“Five. Motherhood and being a cop’s wife were too much for her.”
“The principal at the school mentioned that she died.”
“Long after the divorce. I was sorry for Nate,” he said. “Despite it all, she was his mother.”
Zoe laid her hand over his. “I’m sorry for him and you. She was the mother of your child.”
“Yeah.”
They sat together for several seconds. “We still have a couple of hours to kill before we have to be at the lab. We could catch a few hours of sleep.”
He held up his empty cup. “I’ll never get back to sleep.”
“Neither will I.”
He slid his hand up under the robe and ran his fingers over her soft curls. She reached for the belt on her robe and undid it. It slid from her shoulders and settled on her chair.
She rose and stood between his legs. He cupped her buttocks and again suckled that nipple. The last time he had tortured her with wanting. Now it was her turn.
She lowered to her knees, and as she ran her tongue over her lips, she unfastened his belt. She cupped his erection and teased it with the underside of her thumb.
“I won’t last long if you keep that up.” His tone was seasoned with a dark humor.
She smiled. “Two can play this game.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Wednesday, August 14, 11:00 p.m.
Arlington, Virginia
Forty Hours after the 911 Call
He should be satisfied. Hadley Foster was lying in cold storage in the medical examiner’s office, covered in knife wounds. That beautiful body she had worked so hard to maintain, the Botox injections, and the acrylic nails had been reduced to a lump of decaying skin and bones. Eventually, she would be dust.
He had dreamed about and planned for this moment for weeks, months, hell, even years. He should feel like he was on top of the world. He had won, and the cops would never nail him for the crime. It did not get any better than that.
But instead of elation, he felt let down, like a kid seconds after the Christmas Day presents were opened. That’s it? No more goodies? Now what dark fantasies would he dream about to get him off each morning?
He sat in his car, staring blindly at the strip of bars in Arlington. They weren’t the fancy clubs of the young, upwardly mobile hotshots hoping to make it big in the nation’s capital or strike it rich with one of the consulting firms. No, these bars served the working man. The guys and gals who built the upscale, modern buildings, cleaned the toilets, or cut the lawns. They were the invisible people. The ones their betters did not want to acknowledge.
He liked moving and hunting among the unseen because they were the easiest to murder. And right now, he needed a kill more than anything.
His phone dinged with a text saying that his “date” for the evening was waiting for him on the corner. He had agreed to pay extra if she came to the motel room of his choosing and not the one she normally worked out of. He wanted home-field advantage. Besides, there was something about fucking on sheets after another guy that disgusted him.