“You want me,” Dirk whispered softly. “Admit it.” He kissed her again before she could deny it. “Tell me you want me the way I want you.”
She looked up at him and her throat tightened. It could never work and both of them knew it. “I want you. You know I do.”
“Yes, I do. And for both our sakes, I’m not waiting any longer.” Forcing her back till she came up against the wall, he lifted her off her feet and wrapped her long legs around his waist, pushing her pencil skirt up around her middle. Dirk found her sex and stroked her through the tiny strip of satin between her legs. She was wet and ready, aching for him to take her.
“I’ve only just found you,” he said, pressing his mouth against the side of her neck. “I’m not letting you go.” She heard the buzz of his zipper. Then he was sliding inside, driving deep, giving her what she so desperately wanted.
She cried out as he took her, her body responding, climbing toward the peak, then bursting free. Her head dropped forward onto his shoulder as she rode out the wave, then came again.
She was crying when he set her on her feet, filled with emotions she didn’t understand and didn’t dare examine. Kissing the top of her head, Dirk left her to dispose of the condom she hadn’t known he’d used.
“Don’t cry,” he said, easing her back into his arms, kissing the tears from her cheeks. “It’s going to be all right. I promise.”
But there was no way he could keep his word. He was wild and free, exactly the way he should be. She looked down at the tattoo of a dragon curling around his shoulder, climbing the side of his neck.
It wouldn’t work. And yet when he carried her to bed and started kissing her again, she didn’t try to stop him.
Where Dirk Reynolds was concerned, she didn’t have the will to say no.
The afternoon was over and Val was back in her suite. Sitting on the sofa in front of her laptop, she went over some of the study questions for the veterinary tech online surgical prep course she was taking, but she couldn’t seem to concentrate.
Watching Ethan at work on his computer, she felt as if she needed to do something to help him, something besides sitting there being protected, being a liability instead of an asset.
She fidgeted on the sofa, her gaze returning to where he sat at the dining table, head bent over his computer. She was mad for him—she couldn’t deny it. The man was sex and virility personified. She kept thinking about last night, remembering what it was like to have him make love to her. She wanted more, wanted him to take her back to bed.
Which, by his occasional hot glances, she knew he would be more than willing to do if he weren’t trying to catch a killer.
With a sigh, she gave up and turned off her laptop, found herself watching him again. He was searching the Internet for information on Byron Mahler, digging around for something, anything that would help the police find him.
Just the way the muscles across his shoulders tightened beneath his T-shirt made her feel hot and needy. It was embarrassing.
He sat back in his chair and blew out a frustrated breath. At the sound of his cell phone chiming, he dug it out of his jeans and pressed it against his ear. Val could only hear half the conversation, but from what she picked up, she figured it was his friend, Detective Ford.
“So you found him,” Ethan said. Cell in hand, he stood and paced over to the window, looked down at the traffic moving along the street below. “Exactly. Now all we have to do is figure out where he’s gone. All right, yeah. Keep me posted.” He ended the call and started walking back across the room.
“Was it Ford?”
“Yeah. They located Byron Mahler’s place of employment. Store just north of Dallas, sells Amish furniture.”
“Just like you thought. I take it he wasn’t there.”
“No.”
“That’s not good news. Still, I’m impressed. You’ve been ahead of this every step of the way.”
His mouth edged up. “I’ve been at it a while. The thing is, Mahler’s in the wind. He hasn’t shown up at work for the last three days.”
She stood up from the sofa and walked toward him. “Are they sure Mahler’s the man who killed Mandy Gee?”
“It’s him. Store manager gave them his address. Mahler’s packed up and gone, but the cops got fingerprints that match the ones found at the crime scene. They’ll send a sketch artist out to talk to the store owner, get a decent description. Mahler’s our guy, but there’s no way to know where he might be headed.”
Worry slipped through her. “You don’t . . . you don’t think he’ll follow the show to Atlanta?”
“My gut says he might. Which means we can’t afford to take chances.”
“But you don’t think this is the man who killed Delilah. So we have to worry about him, too.”
A muscle flexed in his jaw. “You don’t have to worry about anything but doing your job, baby. I’m the one getting paid to worry.”
