Skin Deep (18 page)

Kiera’s breath was hot against his cock, making Cain’s body jump to life. Never had a woman driven him this crazy, to the point of no return. Which is where he was now, right on the cusp of sanity and desperation, teetering on the fence of a life-changing choice. It didn’t make sense in the least, but things weren’t supposed to make sense until later, right?

The heat of her mouth hovered over his throbbing erection. She’s teasing me. And he thought he would come out of his skin to have her, to feel her lips, her tongue on him. He fought the urge to thrust into her face. His beast stirred. Don’t scare her away. She’s been hurt before.

The dizziness of realism beckoned him, trying to draw him from the darkness of sleep. He didn’t want to let go. His dream was too good, she was so close to having her lips on him. He wanted to see what it felt like. He’d been desperate to let her do so the night before, desperate to have his cock in her mouth, but he’d denied himself.

The sight of her kneeling before him in the shower was like a dream come true, but he couldn’t deny how wrong it felt. Her beauty was like that of the gods. She shouldn’t be on her knees only serving his needs. For the first time in his life, he was desperate to please a woman. He didn’t know anything about romance, but he knew everything about sex.

The warm sensation of a wet tongue swirling around the tip of his cock had him thrusting his hips forward and popping his eyes open in disbelief. The blankets were gone off the bed, the bright light of the day shining through the windows, revealing Kiera’s perfect physique. She sat with her legs beneath her ass, her long red tresses brushed over her shoulders, putting her nakedness on display like a model in his wildest fantasies.

She pulled her head back from his throbbing erection and stared at him with a look of utter domination in her eyes. “My turn,” she whispered through swollen lips.

He sucked in a breath as she dipped her head again, taking him into her mouth. She pushed his rock-hard length to the back of her throat, sucking him as deep as she could. One of her delicate hands gripped the base of his cock and followed the rhythm of her mouth when she started bobbing her head up and down in tight, sucking strokes. The other massaged the heavy weights beneath his dick, spearing pleasure across his body that had him desperate to thrust upward and bury himself all the way to the hilt in her throat. He didn’t, though, not wanting to hurt her. He sucked in a breath through gritted teeth, desperately seeking the control that was slowly slipping out of his grasp.

He could feel the orgasm building, threatening to spill, and he fought the pleasure, not wanting it to end. Her hand and mouth moved faster on him, as if she could sense his impending demise and wanted to bring it to the fore. He fought harder, forced his mind to venture away from the mind-blowing pleasure he was receiving, when she took him too deep into her throat and gagged around his length.

It was his undoing. He jerked his hips back, trying to remove himself from her mouth before exploding in her throat, only she didn’t let him. Her mouth followed him down. She moaned at the first taste of his cum, sending his body into overdrive as the explosion of ecstasy tingled across his body.

Hours seemed to pass while his cock jerked in her mouth. Her tropical scent soaked into his skin, becoming a part of him while he emptied his cum into her willing mouth. His heart beat an erratic staccato, thundering in his ears, blocking out all other noises.

In the span of a second, he had her pinned beneath him. His body ran on instinct, the pull of the moon ever closer, with his beast demanding its due. He had a hand in her hair, the other snaked between their bodies, pushing her legs apart, as he thrust his cock against her belly. He grabbed his aching erection, prepared to thrust into her without another thought. Must see her face as she takes me for the first time. He snapped his head up, meeting Kiera’s terrified gaze. The effect was instant, deflating his hard-on like a light switch had turned off. “She’s been hurt before.”

The pounding on the door had Cain jumping backward.

“What?” He bit the word out, dragging his eyes from the delectable sight of Kiera spread across his bed.

“Hey, limp dick, we’ve got a problem.”

Cain shook his head as he stood in the living room of a new crime scene. This shit was starting to feel like a bad joke. Only this time it wasn’t a couple of dismembered redheaded chicks, but five headless men. There was very little blood at the scene, which meant these guys were some sort of Weres. The Were species shed very little blood when they died.

Each man was beheaded, but again, it wasn’t a clean killing. They had all fought for their lives—that was clear as he eyed the living room of the townhouse. It looked much like his own. Aside from the slew of dead bodies, the room was identical. Not a surprise, since it was in the same neighborhood, only two streets over.

One of the base-liners, a Werewolf, had stepped out for the morning coffee run, gotten a whiff of the dead, and came running back in. He grabbed Ren, who gathered Cain and a few others to head over to the scene.

On the way out of the house he’d grabbed Ren by the back of her blue head, prepared to slam her face-first into the wall. He hadn’t forgotten what she’d done, and neither hours of feasting between Kiera’s legs nor the blowjob had changed his pissed-off mood toward the Muse.

He never got her to the wall. She disappeared from beneath his fingertips a second before impact.

“I see Kiera shared our rendezvous with you?” She smirked at him from a few feet away.

“Stay the hell away from her.” He lunged toward her, but she disappeared again.

“Funny, she said the same thing about you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Seriously? You guys have some sort of fucked-up relationship going on. Even Adam and Eve weren’t as complicated as you two.” She cocked her head to the side. “I’ve got one word for you, kitty cat.” She held up her middle finger. “Communication. You need to learn how to do it or you’re gonna lose your human playmate.”

“Fuck you, Ren.” He moved forward, preparing to launch himself at her again.

She smiled. “Chill out, lover boy. I didn’t do anything to her or with her. However, I did learn something I don’t really give a shit about, but I think you might like to know.” She turned and walked outside.

What the hell?

“Tell me.” He found himself running after her, his anger dissipating with the need to know what she’d learned from Kiera.

“Oh, just that she was jealous as hell that you blew your load in some crusty Vampire’s mouth. Eww, by the way. And she pretty much threatened me and my life if I tried to fuck you.” She snapped her fingers. “It’s almost like you two share a mind. I swear having a conversation with you and her is like a broken record.” She waved her hands around. “‘Stay away from her or else!’ Cue litter box change. ‘Stay away from him or else!’ Cue old age setting in.”

“She said that, seriously?”

“Didn’t I just say so? Ugh. You’re ruining my good mood. I’ve been looking forward to this crime scene. I won’t let you ruin the party with your middle school drama.” She’d hopped into the front of Ryder’s Hummer, and Cain climbed in the back, utterly speechless. Which was how he remained until they made it to the murder scene.

“These bodies were left for us to find,” Cain murmured as he stood next to Ryder and watched Blaise photograph a jawless head.

“I agree with that.” Ren came up behind him, causing him to glance over his shoulder. She was wearing a blue tube top that matched her hair and tiny shorts of the same hue. Apparently, she didn’t have to follow the dress code like the rest of them, who were all wearing their solid black uniforms. Her amethyst gaze wandered the room. “Looks like the killer had a lot of fun, huh? Were the other murder scenes as badass as this one?” The bubbling excitement in her voice had his skin crawling. Weird-ass chick.

“Pretty much.”

“How could this be meant for us? There isn’t anything that connects it to the other murders at all. No Amari symbols, no chocolate, nothing. Just a bunch of dead Weres of an undetermined species.” Ryder brushed a hand over his skull-trimmed hair as he spoke, not making eye contact with either of them, only looking at the murder scene.

“There’s no furniture here. Do you think that’s a coincidence?” Ren motioned toward the head near their feet, whose eyes were open, shock frozen in the features.

“I’m just saying it’s a big leap.”

“A big leap? How often does the state of Maine have multiple murders inflicted by Weres in the same week, much less the same year?”

Ryder’s black gaze narrowed on Ren, a look of hatred spearheading his features before he stalked off toward the back room. What the hell?

“I’m going to break that man. He won’t know what hit him when I’m done.” Ren whispered the words, but Cain heard them plain as day. So the Muse had moved on to Ryder and the dude wasn’t interested? Cain wished her the best of luck with that one. Come to think of it, she’d been fawning over him in the last week, giving him all her attention, when he gave her none. It was almost like she thrived on his rejection. That makes two of us, apparently.

“Hey, someone needs to come look at this,” a base-liner named Rex called from the room Ryder was walking toward. Cain followed them in and pulled up short at the sight of the cardboard boxes that filled the room.

“Holy shit.” The acrid stench of death filled his nostrils. How had he not noticed it when he first walked in? “Can you smell that?”

“Someone’s had a Gypsy or some sort of Witch put a spell on this room. I can feel the magic.” Ren took in a deep breath, closing her eyes. “Some kind of containment spell.”

“A containment spell?” Ryder coughed into the back of his hand. “That hides the smell?”

Cain nodded. “Must be. I didn’t smell anything but the dead Weres when we walked in, and their bodies are fresh, killed today. This smells like flesh that has been rotting for fucking months,” Cain watched Ren click a switchblade into place and cut through the clear packing tape of the closest box. As a group they leaned over the container. The box was completely filled with little chocolate-covered balls.

“So much for this not being related, right? No chocolate or Amari symbols, huh?”

Cain ignored Ren’s smartass comment and reached forward, noticing a strand of hair lying on top of the chocolates. His commander and sergeant started arguing, heated words flying back and forth between the two, as Cain pulled at the strand. It was attached to something underneath the chocolates. Reaching his hand in, his fingers settled into thick hair. He pushed his fingers, trying to grip the mane and pull the thing out. His hand sank into a dank, rotting substance and when he pulled, the object didn’t come out whole, but tore apart under his fingers. He came up with a thick mass of hair, only there was no fucking head attached to it.

“Well, shit.”

“Holy crap, that’s fucking nasty.” Rex coughed and covered his nose, backpedaling toward the door.

“What is it—oh, marvelous.” Ren’s gaze landed on the hair in Cain’s hand. “Chocolate and red hair? Well, our killer is predictable now, isn’t he?”

Ren had a point, only predictable was the last thing the chocolate-covered ginger killer could be called. After delving deeper in the box, they found the scalp had indeed been attached to a head. The head of a woman. Fucking perfect.

The rest of the day progressed with the opening of the boxes in the small storage room. Two hundred and sixty-seven in all, and the head in the first box was only the beginning. They’d gotten Blaise in the room and called in more of the base-liners to start opening shit. Every box had at least one head and was filled to the brim with chocolate-covered cherries. Each head was sitting on a base, like a hairstylist’s mannequin, with a comb and a handheld mirror lying in the bottom. It was as if the motherfucker had been fixing their hair.

“What a strange serial killer. I hope I get to meet this guy,” Ren said from her perch on the windowsill where she “supervised” the unpacking.

“Why the fuck would you want that?” Ryder’s cold voice had a touch of aggravation in it as he sorted chocolates into an evidence bag.

“Because he’s cray-cray, duh. Wouldn’t you want to meet the guy who had the nerve to kill over two hundred women, chop their heads off, and bury them in boxes of candy?”

“Um, fuck no.”

“Just think about what’s going on in his brain. Something’s not connected, or maybe there are too many connections.” A questioning look came over her face before it was replaced by a pensive one. “I’ll bet he would be fun to torture. Who knows what kind of other fucked-up shit he would reveal.”

“All fucked-up weird-ass torture aside, how is it possible that we haven’t heard about hundreds of missing red-headed girls? Headless bodies? Someone somewhere had to notice,” Cain said. He set another head down on a table for Blaise to photograph.

“Well, Ren did say this room is protected by a spell. Maybe the killer had the Witch or Gypsy cover his tracks.” Blaise’s voice was muffled by the camera covering his face.

“Okay, say that’s true. Why would he go to this much fucking trouble to turn around and not give a shit in the last couple of weeks? He hasn’t covered his tracks in the least,” Cain said with a huff of frustration. Each new head he fished out of a box made his gut turn with worry. He’d already texted Kiera five times to assure himself she was okay. The first murder scenes hadn’t meant much to him. Sure, the Amari were back, but the killings were sloppy—or so they had seemed—but this … this changed things.