SpareDick (6 page)

He stared at her. “Jill.”

She straightened enough so she could kiss him, sighing with
pleasure as his mouth opened and his tongue tangled with hers. They had kissed
each other’s bodies in the most intimate ways, yet not taken nearly as much
time to simply lock lips and make out. Adam groaned and tangled his fingers in
her hair, drawing her closer. They kissed again and again, their hands touching
and caressing ears, cheeks, necks and shoulders. Jill twined her legs with his
and pressed her chest against him.

Next to her hip, she felt the hardening length of his cock.
As if conscious of it, he shifted slightly away. “Sorry. I know just you and me
wasn’t in the game plan.”

She slid her hand over his hip and wrapped her fingers
around him. “Who says?”

He blew out a breath and ran a hand over his short hair.
“You sure?”

She smiled. “I need to know if it’s just the excitement of
having two men at once or if what I think I’m feeling stands up to just you and
me being together.”

His mouth curved sweetly. “I know my answer. We’ll be good
together.”

They moved to the couch, Jill stretching out on her back
while he crouched over her, kissing her as though he were a man dying of thirst
and she were a desert oasis.

“Take off the shirt,” he whispered.

“Yes.” Jill reached down between them, wiggling as she
pulled it up over her head and tossed it to the ground.

“So sweet. I just want to fuck you, nice and slow.”

Her pussy clenched with desire. “Get a condom.”

He fumbled around on the table, coming up with one of the
unopened packages, ripping it open with his teeth and quickly rolling it down
over his erection.

“Please tell me you’re already as far along as I am.” His
eyes pleaded in the dim light.

Jill smiled. “Do it, Adam. Fill me.”

He thrust forward and Jill spread her legs wider to
accommodate him. He pumped deep, withdrawing so slowly it made her ache. He
hadn’t been kidding. She draped her arms over his shoulders, pulling him closer
so she could kiss him while he thrust. It seemed to go on forever and then he
was bracketing her hips with his hands so he could pump harder and faster until
they both came, Jill muffling her cry of pleasure against his shoulder. Her
heart pounded and her throat ached. How the hell had he gotten under her skin
so quickly?

“Jill,” he whispered and softly stroked her face, his dark
eyes searching. “Where is this going?”

“I don’t know.” She touched his cheek. “Come back to bed
with us, Adam. We can talk in the morning.”

The insistent chirp of a beeper dragged Jill from a
blissfully deep sleep. With the heavy drapes drawn across the windows, she
couldn’t see if it was even daylight. She tried to clear her sleep-fogged
brain, aware of both men shifting on either side, their voices raspy whispers
in the darkness.

“Fuck me. What time is it?”

“Five-thirty, dude.”

Jill struggled from beneath the heavy covers, seeing Kevin
flick on a light in the bathroom before he headed into the other room. Seconds
later, one beeper stopped. In the bedroom, Adam had slid open a drawer and the
second beeper quit. Dread settled in the pit of her stomach.

What were the odds two total strangers would have beepers
blaring at the same time? In the dim light, Adam pulled a holstered pistol from
the drawer. She swallowed, a sick, choking feeling making her grab for the
covers as he turned and caught his clothing from Kevin.

Both men were hastily pulling on clothes, their expressions
hard and tight. Jill grabbed the sheet and pulled it to cover her breasts. She
felt not only exposed, but used. Kevin squared his shoulders and faced her.
Adam turned as well, his holster clipped to one side of his belt and his badge
at his waist on the opposite side.

“Jill—”

“No. Don’t.” She held up her hand, cutting her husband off
from saying anything else. She turned her gaze on Adam. “It’s not Adam Gregory,
is it? Detective Heller, I presume. I vaguely recalled Kevin mentioning Adam
Heller, his new partner, but he always called you Hell. I guess I must have
seemed pretty naive to you.”

“Baby,” Kevin said. “You need to listen.”

She shook her head. “To more lies? No. Not now. You should
go. Both of you.”

Adam stood silently near the doorway, his gaze slightly
averted. Jill’s heart hurt. Kevin set the keys on the dresser. “I’ll ride with
Hell and leave you the keys.”

She turned her face away from them, afraid she would go to
pieces.

“Jill…” Kevin’s voice trailed off. “I can explain
everything…”

“Not now!” She glared at them. “Go!”

She managed to hold herself together until she heard the
door to the suite shut. Curling into a ball on the bed, Jill rocked back and
forth. They’d lied to her. Kevin had lied to her. For the first time in all the
years they’d been together, she wasn’t sure who he was.

Being honest with each other went right to the heart of
their relationship. What had always made him different from the other guys in
high school was his unwillingness to play games. Honesty was what they’d based
almost a dozen years of marriage on. Honesty and trust. And if it had been a
lie, what else was?

And Adam? Was it all just a game to him? Had what they’d
done in the middle of the night, just the two of them, been just part of the
charade?

Jill wasn’t sure how long she stayed there before she moved.
Her body ached. In other circumstances, she would have said it was from sexual
satiety, but right now all she felt was used. Moving as though she were an old
woman, Jill found her bag. She’d packed a sweat suit and sneakers, knowing they
would likely leave at a time when the dress she’d worn the previous evening
wouldn’t be suitable.

After pulling the sweatpants and jacket on over her nude
body, she slipped her feet in the sneakers and scraped her hair back into a
ponytail. She stuffed her other belongings back in the oversize bag then
grabbed the dress she’d worn the previous evening. With nausea roiling in her
gut, she tossed it in the trash and left the room.

Jill checked the glove compartment when she got in the car. He’d
used the spare key to retrieve his service weapon and she sighed with relief.
Still holding herself in check, keeping her mind blank, Jill adjusted the seat,
checked the mirrors and started the car. She busied herself with the details of
those tasks to keep from thinking about emotions she couldn’t process yet.

The streets were still deserted so early on a Sunday
morning. Maybe she could get home without encountering anyone awake in their
neighborhood. She was pretty certain she couldn’t face her neighbors and
actually smile and wave as if her entire world hadn’t come crashing around her
ears. No. She wasn’t even close to Kevin when it came to acting ability. He’d
actually convinced her he’d never met Adam before.

Luck was with her. Jill pulled his car into the garage next
to hers and triggered the automatic door before walking inside their neat
kitchen. She dropped her purse on the counter then wrenched at her wedding band
and engagement ring. After yanking them off, she dropped them next to her purse
and staggered along the hallway, stripping her clothes along the way.

Once the water in the shower was as hot as she could stand
it, she stepped beneath the needlelike spray and scrubbed her skin. She berated
herself for overreacting. Logic told her to wait for Kevin’s explanation, to
give him and Adam both a chance to explain.

But she was so angry and her anger won. She had been so
confident a threesome would just be a night of fun, a fantasy fulfilled.
Instead it turned into one night she might well regret for the rest of her
life.

Once she’d dried, Jill donned fresh clothing, pulled out
Kevin’s luggage and methodically packed his clothes. As she filled a case, Jill
dragged it to the kitchen until she had three full-size suitcases and a duffel
bag in a neat line. That done, she blew out a long breath and opened the
sliding-glass doors onto the deck so she could go outside. Working in the yard
had always been her therapy. Maybe, just maybe, it would work now. And it would
keep her from staring at those suitcases and changing her mind.

* * * * *

If their sergeant thought it strange Kevin and Hell arrived
in the same car, he didn’t say anything, just looked at them both and jerked
his head over his shoulder. “We’ve got a Jane Doe back there. Jogger found her
this morning.”

Adam’s heart skipped a beat, all the issues with Jill going
straight out of his head. “It’s not Addy Brown, is it?”

“Too old. This one looks as though she’s late twenties,
early thirties. Hard to tell. Looks as if she might’ve been an addict.”

“So why call us?” Kevin asked, his gaze shadowed with a lot
more than concern over the Jane Doe.

“Did you get a chance to go through the cold-case file I
gave you?”

“Yeah,” Kevin told him. “Hell and I both agree there could
be a link. We’ve started cross-referencing for similarities. So?”

“This Jane Doe has a couple of the identifying marks linked
to our cold-case missing girl.”

Adam shifted, not liking where this was heading. “So ten
years ago, a pretty high school senior disappears then ten years later, her
body turns up within spitting distance from where another teenager disappears
under similar circumstances…and with some striking similarities in physical
appearance.”

Kevin scowled, his blue eyes narrowed on where the forensics
guys were still collecting evidence and snapping pictures as they bagged and
tagged what they gathered. “Sergeant, are there any other similar cases?”

“Good question, Ramsey. I don’t know. I remember this one
because it occurred right after I made detective. I’d say that’s something to
check into.”

The sergeant got back into his unmarked sedan, leaving Kevin
and Adam to watch. Kevin’s hooded gaze tracked the team working around the
body. “How long do you think it will take them to make a positive ID?”

Adam jammed his hands in his pants pocket. “Not long’s my
guess. The file on the other missing girl said they had DNA samples in addition
to dental records. We should know something PDQ. Meantime, I think we go on the
assumption it’s her. Want to grab something to eat before we start?”

Kevin scraped his hand back through his dark hair. “I should
call Jill.”

“Whoa, dude. After how we had to leave things today, calling
is not what I would do. You need to be face-to-face.”

Kevin raised worried blue eyes to him. “Shit, Hell. She
looked so…hurt. I never meant…Fuck. Maybe I would be better off giving her time
to cool off. She’s levelheaded, always been logical. Maybe if I give her some
space…”

Adam wasn’t sure who Kevin was trying to convince, him or
himself. But Adam could still picture her expression when she’d looked at him
and realized who he was. He had a bad feeling Kevin was in a whole lot deeper
shit than he’d ever imagined.

They ran through the nearest fast-food biscuit joint’s
drive-through, loading up on carbs and caffeine, and headed in to the station.
After they pulled into the garage, Adam glanced at his partner.

“You going to be able to handle this?”

“Work? Yeah. Jill? I don’t know, Hell. I’ve really fucked
up.”

“Well, you’ve got work right now. Let’s see what we can
start piecing together.”

They decided to split the duties. While Kevin compared
similarities between Addy and Heather Stevens, the cold case, Adam put in
search parameters to help him identify any other possibilities.

After a couple hours, Adam had narrowed his list of
possibilities to two. One was from twenty years ago with the girl still listed
as missing, the other was from fifteen years ago. Five years after her
disappearance, hikers had discovered her shallow grave off a trail in Umstead
State Park.

“I’ve got two possibles,” Adam said. “What about you?”

Kevin ran his hand around the back of his neck as if it
ached. “Same basic physical descriptions, very different economic backgrounds,
but here’s the kicker—same high school.”

Adam didn’t lend that much credence. Since they’d both
disappeared from the same general area, the same school was a distinct
possibility. He looked at his files and shifted his attention to the one from
fifteen years ago.

“What’s up, Hell? You’ve got that look on your face.”

Adam set the older missing person case to the side, scanning
the Umstead body details more intently. “Jesus, Kevin, this girl the hikers
found also had physical similarities…and she was a student at the same school.
Maybe there is a connection.”

“Let’s take a look at the faculty. It would make sense,
Hell. No signs of a struggle with Addy, which fits if her abductor was someone
known to her.”

“Known and trusted.” They stared at each other.

“Were faculty interviewed in your body found?”

“Yes. Here’s the list.” Adam reached over to the printer,
grabbed the sheet that had printed out and shoved it across the desk to Kevin.
“Any matches?”

Kevin snorted. “This must be the most stable school faculty
known to man. Even the principal’s been there most of his career. There must be
at least fifteen matches across all three cases. All the faculty came up clean
in the last two investigations.”

“Anybody we haven’t talked to yet about Addy?”

“Three. I think we need to wait on a positive ID that this
body is Heather Stevens before we start back through the list.”

Adam looked at Kevin’s expression, saw the need there in his
partner to get back to his house and his woman so he could try to repair the
damage they’d done.

“I’ll give you a ride home. You want me to grovel too? I
will.”

Kevin shook his head. “I’ll do this one alone.” He stopped,
swallowed, looked around the otherwise empty room and back at Adam. “Last
night… Shit, Adam, it was fantastic, but…”

Adam’s chest constricted with pain. “Not happening again. I
knew going in. I’m good with it.”

They stared at each other for a long moment then Kevin
nodded.

“Let’s get you home.” Adam was amazed how steady his voice
was when inside he was falling to pieces.

* * * * *

Kevin’s gut was in knots. In all the years he and Jill had
been together, they’d had some ups and downs, but nothing serious. Nothing
either of them would have called a deal breaker. But now as Adam pulled into
the driveway, Kevin’s hands shook a bit when he released his seatbelt.

“You want me to wait?” Adam’s voice was quiet, calm.

Kevin sucked in a shaky breath. “No. I’ll…see you tomorrow.”

He waited for Adam’s car to reverse down the drive before he
walked around the side of the garage and let himself in the door. When he
stepped into the kitchen, the first things he saw were his suitcases lined up
next to the counter separating the kitchen’s working area from the breakfast
area.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

“Jill?”

When he got no answer, he cut through the kitchen to the
family room. She was curled up on the love seat in the glassed-in porch off
that room. He stopped, staring at her. Although she had a book on her lap,
she’d turned it facedown and was staring off into space as though her mind were
elsewhere. Wherever she was, it wasn’t a happy place. Her mouth drooped and her
eyes were red-rimmed as if she’d been crying.

Kevin gulped, blinking the moisture from his own eyes and
rubbing the knot in his chest. How had everything gone so wrong? But he knew
the answer. He hadn’t been honest with her.
Come on, Ramsey. Man up and get
this over with.
With another deep breath, he stepped forward and opened the
French doors leading onto the porch.

Jill didn’t look at him. “I’ve packed your bags. I want you
to leave.”

“Jill…let me explain.”

She turned to him then, her eyes blazing. “Explain what? You
lied to me? You and your partner worked together to deceive me?”

“It’s not the way it seems.”

Her laugh held bitterness and hurt. “Are you going to tell
me the email from Adam
Gregory
was coincidence? Was it also a
coincidence it came in while you and he were together…” Her voice trailed off
and her eyes widened. “Oh my God…”

He took a step forward and she shrank back into the depths
of the chair. “Jill! It’s not like that!”

“Do you think I’m so stupid? Do you think I couldn’t
see
the
connection between you two? Oh my God!” She jumped to her feet, stalking toward
him, her fists clenched. “Get out, Kevin! Even if I believed you, what you did
was a deal breaker. You knew I wanted this to be with someone unknown to us.
You knew. Yet you deliberately involved not only someone you knew, but
your
partner
? I want you to go.”