The intimate kisses were almost too much to bear, too teasing, too not enough. She wanted his mouth on her flesh, on that throbbing spot that ached for his touch, but she wanted him inside her more. And he sensed it, because after one last soft kiss to her core, he slid up her body, pulling off his shirt on his way up.
His chest was hot to the touch, his heart thudding against her tingling breasts as their bodies met. He kissed her again, cupping one breast with his hand while rummaging in his pocket with the other. Impatience bellowed in her ears as she waited for him, as she felt him fumble with his zipper and sheath himself with a condom.
And then finally, finally, his tip brushed over her opening. She arched her hips, trying to draw him in, but he pulled back.
The indecision in his eyes brought a curse to her lips. “No, don’t stop now,” she whispered. “Please.”
The muscles of his chest were so taut it was obvious he was fighting his own restraint. “Last night…”
“Last night you told me you won’t be here for me when this is all over.” She swallowed hard. “Well, fine, Blake, just be here for me now.”
Before he could reply, or argue, or reject her, she reached between them, grasped his erection and brought it inside her.
He groaned, and pleasure rocketed through her. Her body stretched to accommodate him, but it was a spectacular sensation. He belonged here, buried inside, and they both knew it as he slowly began to move.
The stairs dug into her back but she didn’t care. She barely felt the irritating pain, only the rapture Blake gave her. His thrusts were hurried, lacking finesse or rhythm as he plunged into her, filling her then retreating, then filling her again without abandon.
“I won’t last long,” he choked out.
“Good. Neither will I,” she murmured back.
Pleasure tightened her body, building and rising until the sensations were almost unbearable. The first tremors of orgasm rippled inside her, but she fought them, watching Blake’s heavy-lidded eyes, waiting, needing to come apart only when he did.
One more deep thrust and he toppled over the edge, groaning her name as his climax shuddered through him.
She let herself go.
Her body shattered, consumed by ecstasy so intense she could hardly breathe. Shards of light danced in front of her eyes and she gasped for air, wrapping her legs around Blake’s firm buttocks to ride out the body-numbing sensations.
Time passed. Seconds. Minutes. It could have been hours for all she knew. When she finally crashed down to earth she found Blake smiling at her, a faint satisfied smile that told her he’d felt everything she had.
She wanted to thank him for making her feel this way. Desirable and brave and whole.
She wanted to tell him she loved him.
Yet she couldn’t. Giving her body to this man had been hard enough, but giving him her heart, knowing he might hand it right back? No. She wasn’t that brave.
So she simply pressed her face against his damp chest, breathed in his soapy masculine scent, wrapped her arms around his neck.
And held on for as long as she could.
Blake waited for the large conference room the Rose Killer task force was working out of to fill up with the officers involved in the case. Superintendent Jake Fantana stood at the head of the table, an annoyed let’s-get-down-to-business look in his pale-blue eyes. Fantana was six-three, bulky as hell, and could make any man cower in his presence, even without the pissed-off daggers in his gaze.
“Let’s get started,” Fantana barked.
The detectives who’d worked the case for almost a year now lowered themselves into various chairs. A young female officer moved away from one of the large bulletin boards that had been set up in the room and quickly scurried toward a chair.
Blake’s gaze strayed to one particular bulletin board, the one reserved for the fourth victim—Sam. A black-and-white photograph of her was tacked onto the board. Her expression held the hint of a smile and seeing it made Blake’s chest tighten. The way she was smiling in that picture—it almost reminded him of Kate, that sassy little tilt of the mouth, the stubborn curve of the lips. And yet there was something very un-Kate-like about that smile.
From the start, Sam had reminded him of the woman he’d lost, but he was starting to notice the differences between the two. Like Sam, Kate had been headstrong, tough and too damn intelligent for her own good. But Kate had also been serious. She’d rarely laughed, was exasperatingly conservative at times, never called him on his flaws or misdeeds. Kate wouldn’t have rolled around in the snow with him, or forced him to show emotion over Elaine Woodman’s senseless death.
No, that was all Sam. Sam, with her melodic laughter and that air of confidence she was only now starting to display. She’d changed since they’d met. No longer wary, no longer fearful. Or perhaps she hadn’t changed so much as simply reverted back to the woman she’d been before the attack.
And dammit, but he liked that woman. He liked seeing her grow stronger, laughing, taking control of her body again. Hell, he even liked when she yelled at him. Except for his mother, no one in his life ever challenged him. He knew he could be excessively intense, as Kate had been. He knew he tended to shut down when a situation got too emotional, and the women in his life had always let him get away with it.
But Sam…she forced him to feel. Forced him to laugh.
He might be bad for her, but goddammit, she was good for him. And that just made his decision to walk away from her a million times worse.
“There have been some new developments,” Fantana announced.
Blake lifted his head at the chief’s remark, forcing his personal issues out of his head. He hoped this task force meeting would distract him from his conflicting emotions and finally provide new insight into this case. Rick had phoned earlier and hinted that one of the detectives had dug up something, but Blake hadn’t been able to question his partner about it. He’d been too busy briefing John Perkins, the officer who’d come to the house to stay with Sam until the meeting ended.
Had he been too hard on the young cop when he’d told him to guard Sam with his life or else?
Yeah, that or else had probably been harsher than necessary. But dammit, leaving her, even for a few hours, was unbearable.
Yet you plan on doing precisely that once the case is closed.
He ignored the irksome voice and focused on the meeting.
Rick started off. “We tracked down the designer who’d sent flowers to Samantha Dawson and he gave us the name of the florist his secretary had used. It was the Grant Flower Shoppe, located near Wicker Park.” Rick leaned back in his chair. “I’ll let Detective Hodges take it from there.”
Burt Hodges glanced down at a sheet of paper on the table and pushed his reading glasses onto a nose far too large for his angular face. “I had a chat with the store manager, who was kind enough to grant us access to the computer records. Candace Lindley, our first victim, received a flower arrangement from that florist the day she died. Same goes for Roberta Diaz and Diana Barrett. Samantha Dawson, however, received her arrangement—” Hodges scanned the paper “—a week before the attack on her.”
“And Elaine Woodman?” Blake prompted, his fingers tightening over the tabletop. Just saying Elaine’s name out loud brought a rush of guilt to his gut. A part of him still believed her suicide could have been prevented. That he could have prevented it, if only he’d caught this maniac sooner.
“It was harder to connect her with the Grant Flower Shoppe, but we finally hit pay dirt when the store manager conducted an address search after Elaine’s name never showed up on the receiver list. A coworker of hers received two dozen red roses the day Elaine was abducted. The woman worked in the cubicle next to Elaine’s.”
“Our guy could have seen Elaine when he was making that delivery,” Melanie Barnes mused, running her hands through her short blond hair.
“So aside from all our vics being slender brunettes, this flower angle is the only thr
ead connecting the five women,” Rick said, taking the lead again. “So we cross-referenced the deliveries with the person who made them.” A slight smile crossed his lips. “We came up with a name.”
Blake’s throat grew dry. “Who?”
“Francis Grant, the owner.”
There was a low murmur from some of the detectives. Frowning, Blake glanced at his partner. “Since when does the store owner make deliveries?”
“The manager said Grant helps out when one of his workers calls in sick. Apparently he’s a hands-on kind of guy.”
“I’ll bet he is,” Fantana said grimly. “As it is now, Francis Grant’s name is at the top of our suspect list.”
“It’s the only name on our suspect list,” one of the detectives quipped ruefully.
Fantana silenced the kidder with a look. “So what have we managed to dig up on Grant?”
Hodges spoke up. “White male, forty-one years old. He inherited the flower shop from his father, been running it for twenty years, and lives in a brownstone near the store. It was deserted when our guys went over there.”
Blake plucked a random paper clip from the table and began snapping it between his fingers, his excitement rising at each new development. They were onto something here, close to cracking this case right open. “Any other real estate?” he asked.
Hodges shook his head. “Nothing we’ve been able to uncover.”
“What about the guy’s history?” Fantana demanded.
“Military,” Hodges answered.
Blake’s head jerked up. “Military? You’re sure about that?”
Hodges nodded. “He enlisted in the army when he was eighteen, left when he was twenty-one, honorable discharge.” Some more papers were shuffled. “He fought in the Gulf, part of Desert Storm, actually. Didn’t leave because of an injury, as far as we know, but we’re trying to get his full record. Army’s sending it over.”
Goddamn military. The adrenaline coursing through Blake’s blood made his fingers tingle. Everything became clearer now—why he hadn’t spotted a tail on him, how the guy continued to evade capture and waltz around as if he wore a cloak of invisibility. The Rose Killer had been trained to be invisible. Trained to kill. The army had taught him well.
Obviously a little too well.
“Oh,” Hodges added, “and we found a death certificate for a woman we believe was his wife. Anne Grant, deceased as of…” Hodges looked at his file again and read off a date.
Blake sucked in a breath. Anne Grant had died two weeks before the first murder. Was that the trigger they’d been looking for?
“Cause of death?” Melanie asked, curious.
Hodges could barely conceal his pleased smile. “Get this—suicide. Anne Grant slit her own wrists.”
Blake lifted one wary brow. “You sure Grant didn’t do her in and we’re looking at six victims instead of five?”
Hodges’s smile faded. “We’re not sure yet. Ruiz is getting a warrant to access the hospital records. We’ll know soon. But the slitting of the wrists—that’s important, right?”
Seeing the distressed glimmer in the detective’s eyes, Blake nodded. “Of course it is.”
“Good work, Hodges,” Fantana boomed. “Keep digging, find out everything you can about this man. Samson, I want you to put an APB out on him. Now.”
The curly-haired female detective nodded and bounced out of her chair. “I’m on it.”
“You three,” Fantana barked, pointing to the officers on his left, “set up surveillance on Grant’s house and flower shop. If he makes an appearance, grab him.”
“Yes, sir.”
Three more bodies hurried out of the conference room as Fantana continued to bark out orders at his team. There was electricity in the air that hadn’t been there since that first murder, when the evidence had been fresh, the morale high.
Suddenly the case was alive again, and for the first time in weeks—no, months—the ache in Blake’s temples subsided.
Chapter 13
“Do you want another cup of coffee?” Sam asked the officer sitting at Blake’s kitchen table.
John Perkins glanced up with a smile. He had very nice eyes, she realized. They were almost as dark as his skin, and exuded warmth and sincerity that made her feel at ease. “No thank you, Miss Dawson.”
“Are you hungry? I could fix something for you.”
He chuckled. “Why don’t you sit down, instead? You’re making me dizzy, pacing back and forth like that.”
Was she pacing? She hadn’t noticed. But she wasn’t surprised, and she knew exactly who to blame for her incessant restlessness. Blake Corwin and his too-honorable-for-his-own-good attitude.
It riled her that he just assumed he knew what was best for her. Her parents had done the same thing. They’d told her from birth that she was destined to be a lawyer, without ever asking her if she was even interested in the law or giving her any choice in the matter.
Blake wasn’t giving her a choice, either. He’d decided that she’d be better off without him and to hell with what she felt about the subject.
And dammit, but she knew precisely how she felt about it.
She didn’t want to say goodbye to Blake Corwin. Not by a long shot. She was definitely planning to talk to him about it when he got home from that meeting. He would not push her away this time. She’d fought for her life, thanks to the Rose Killer, but when that psychopath was finally caught she would be fighting for something else.
The man she loved.
She didn’t care how many excuses Blake gave her. She didn’t care that he was irritatingly serious, or that he turned into stone whenever something threatened his precious control. Kate’s death had hit him hard, but Sam was going to be there for him. She was going to help him heal, the way he’d helped her.
To hell with his honorable intentions.
“All right, you’re evidently not going to stop pacing,” Officer Perkins said with a cheerful smile. “So how about we distract ourselves? Does Agent Corwin have any games in the house? Monopoly? Maybe a deck of cards?”
“We could look,” she said, the idea of distracting herself with a game becoming more and more appealing. “Cards would be nice.”
“You sure about that? I play a mean game of Texas Hold ’Em.”
She grinned. “So do I, buddy, so do I.”
Smiling, Perkins stood up. “I’ll check the living room.” He took two steps to the doorway but halted when the cell phone clipped to his belt began to ring. He quickly lifted it to his ear.
“Perkins,” he said into the phone. A frown reached his lips. “Now? Does Agent Corwin know about this?”
Her pulse sped up as his frown deepened. She wished she could hear what was being said at the other end. From Perkins’s grim expression, it didn’t sound good.
“I understand…yes, sir…I’m on my way.” Perkins switched off the phone and turned to her with a look that held both worry and promise. “That was Burt Hodges, one of the senior detectives working your case,” he began. “You’re being moved to a safe house.”
Surprise jolted into her. “Now?”
“I’m afraid so.” Perkins was already walking toward the front hallway to grab his coat from the hook by the door. “An officer named Paul Benson is on his way to pick you up.”
“What? Why aren’t you taking me?”
He slipped into his jacket, his expression now hard. “There’s been a break in the case. I’m needed at the station.”
Hope spurted in her chest like lava from a long-dormant volcano. “They caught him?”
Perkins reached out and touched her arm. “As far as I know, not yet. But we’re close. For your own protection, you can’t be in the city right now. Agent Corwin gave the order himself.”
She was annoyed. Of course Blake gave the order. She knew he genuinely wanted to keep her safe, but there was definitely more behind the request to ship her off. Earlier she’d made it clear that she wanted to discuss their relationship, even if h
e wouldn’t admit they had one. This was his way of sidestepping the discussion, forcing her into hiding so he didn’t have to face everything he was feeling for her.
“Officer Daniels is right outside,” Perkins said gently, obviously mistaking her expression for worry rather than the irritation it was. “You’re not to go anywhere until Officer Benson arrives to escort you.”
“Yes, sir.”
His eyes crinkled affectionately. “I’m sorry we couldn’t find a deck of cards. I would have enjoyed beating you in Hold ’Em.”
“Yeah, in your dreams.”
He was laughing as he left the house. Before she closed the door, she gave a little wave to Daniels, who was sitting in his unmarked patrol car, looking scary as usual. He waved back but didn’t smile.
She drifted back into the kitchen to make a quick cup of coffee before she had to leave. It took ten minutes for the fresh pot to brew, and just as she was pouring herself a cup, the doorbell rang. Damn. Abandoning the coffee, she headed for the hall, wondering if she should pack a bag. Perkins hadn’t told her to, so she assumed that wherever she went, she’d be provided for.
The idea that Blake could be handcuffing the Rose Killer at this exact moment sent a thrill of relief sliding into her. Was the nightmare finally over?
The doorbell rang again, and she quickened her pace, then paused when she reached the front hall. There was a small notepad sitting on the credenza next to the hall closet, and she moved toward it. After a second of hesitation, she scrawled a quick note on the pad, placed the paper where Blake would be sure to see it, then grabbed her coat and slipped it on.
She knew Blake would come to the safe house the moment the Rose Killer was hauled away, but in case he came home first, she wanted him to know that he couldn’t avoid the talk they needed to have. Whether he liked it or not, she had no intention of letting him walk away from her that easily.