Unspeakable (36 page)

The bartender returned with a credit card and a receipt. Mia glanced down and slid the card back. “That’s not mine,” she told him. Then to Elaina: “They’re really interviewing
Cinco
?”

“Yes.”

She lowered her voice. “As a suspect?”

“Yes! Forget that there’s
no
physical evidence connecting him to these crimes. Forget that he’s been in the
presence of
other law enforcement officers
when some of the victims went missing.” She glanced around and seemed to realize this wasn’t the time or the place for this conversation. “Anyway,
yes
I’m definitely off the task force, and
no
I don’t think my colleagues will handle it. Anything else you want to discuss with me? Hey, how about our shared interest in Troy Stockton? Maybe that would be a little more comfortable. I thought he was great in bed, but the morning after sucked. What was your experience?”

Mia gaped at her.

Elaina took a deep breath and blew it out. From the corner of her eye, Mia saw Weaver watching them with a pained look on his face.

“I just love girl talk,” Elaina said, sliding off the stool. “We should do it again sometime.”

Elaina was at his house. Or Weaver. Or someone else who drove a piece-of-shit Taurus, but Troy hoped it was Elaina. Five minutes ago he’d wanted nothing more than a cold beer, a hot shower, and about ten hours of sleep, but as he trudged up the stairs, the sight of Elaina sitting on one of his deck chairs looking out over the water changed his mind. So did the little black overnight bag parked beside his door.

She got up and walked over. “You’re home,” she said.

She wore her hair pulled back in a smooth ponytail. Troy took in the black suit, the badge, the gun plastered to her hip. She wasn’t dressed for Coconuts, and he knew the rumor he’d heard from Maynard was true. She was off the task force, which meant that she was leaving.

Something sharp twisted in his chest.

“May I come in?” she asked, and her voice was loaded with politeness.

In answer, he unlocked the door and jerked it open. Then he picked up her bag and gestured her inside.

His house was dark, but he didn’t bother with lights. He tossed her duffel on the sofa and emptied his pockets onto the kitchen table: wallet, cell phone, tape recorder.

She stood beside the door, looking uncomfortable as she glanced around the house.

She took a tentative step toward him. “Where were you today?”

“Road trip.”

“Road trip where?” Another tentative step.

“Huntsville,” he told her. “And I need to shower.”

He felt her behind him as he walked toward the back of the house. “Talked to Cinco,” he said, stripping off his T-shirt and tossing it on a chair in his bedroom. He turned to look at her. She’d never looked as
agent
as she did right now, and he couldn’t believe she was back at his house.

“How is he?” she asked.

“Pissed.” He sank onto the bed and pulled off his boots. “It wasn’t your idea, was it?”

“I can’t believe you’d even say that.”

He flung a boot into the corner. Then another. “Thought maybe you sold them on your cop theory.”

She folded her arms over her chest. “I’m off the task force.”

“I heard.” He stood and gazed down at her. She didn’t look too broken up about it, but Troy knew better. There was a reason she’d come here. She needed something from him, and it had nothing to do with the case.

She broke eye contact with him and stepped toward the door. “Well.” She cleared her throat. “I should let you shower.”

He walked into his bathroom, turned the shower to scalding, and spent ten minutes scrubbing away the scum of humanity that seemed to cling to him every time he set foot in that prison.

He yanked a towel off the rack and wrapped it around his waist. His bedroom was empty now. He pulled on some jeans and found Elaina in his kitchen, standing before an open refrigerator. She’d taken her jacket off and rolled up her sleeves.

“You shop like a bachelor,” she told him.

“I am a bachelor.” He reached around her and grabbed a beer off the top shelf. “If you’re hungry, I can order a pizza.”

“I’m fine.”

She closed the door, and then they were standing there alone in his darkened kitchen. He popped open his beer, then leaned back against the counter and watched her over the bottle as he took a sip. Her gazed dropped to his bare chest, then slid back up again. She was uneasy here, nervous. And he didn’t mind because he knew she was struggling to keep her emotions in check, which meant she
had
emotions where he was concerned.

He had emotions, too. They were bound up in a big, tight knot in the center of his chest. Mainly anger, with some lust mixed in. But mostly anger.

She stared at him through the shadowy room. Moonlight streamed through the window above the sink, outlining her silhouette. His eyes were drawn to the badge and the gun at her hip.

“Tell me about Huntsville,” she said.

“I interviewed Diggins again.”

She tipped her head to the side.

“I needed to see where he got his information all those years ago. About Mary Beth.”

“And?”

“Turns out he overheard one of the guards talking about it after he was taken into custody. One of them had a buddy who worked the crime scene. That’s where he got his details.”

Her eyebrows arched. “He told you that?”

“Yep.”

“Impressive interview skills.”

He shrugged. “Tools of the trade.”

“Still, it’s impressive.”

He looked at her Glock, then met her gaze again. The silence stretched out. He stepped forward and she eased back slightly.

“What are you doing here, Elaina?” He leaned a palm on the counter beside her, and she looked up at him.

“I don’t know.”

He moved closer and brushed the cold lip of his bottle against the place on her neck where her pulse thrummed. “Yeah, you do.”

She shivered and closed her eyes, and he brushed the icy wet bottle against her breast. He heard her sharp intake of breath. He rubbed the bottle over her nipple, and it made a wet mark on her crisp white shirt.

“Tell me why you’re here.” He held the bottle against her as he slowly, one by one, plucked open the buttons on her shirt.

Her eyes drifted open, and she gazed up at him. He
rested the beer on the counter and parted her shirt with his hands and found the pale lace bra she wore beneath all those unisex clothes. She’d put it on for him. He knew it. And it was an unbelievable turn-on.

“You want something,” he murmured in her ear, and slid his finger up to trace the lace. “Elaina?”

“I just—”

He kissed her. Roughly. Because he didn’t want to hear her excuses. He wanted honesty for once. He wanted her naked and honest and open to him without all the bullshit. He wanted
her.
Now, before she suited up again and went back to her home and her life and her goddamn career.

He kissed her deeper, longer, harder, sliding his hand down and dipping his fingers inside her pants, and he heard her breath catch.

“Tell me what you want, Elaina.”

She tilted her head back and gazed up at him. “You,” she whispered, and he touched her where she was soft and hot, and she pressed against him. “Please, I want you.”

CHAPTER 24
 

Troy pulled her into the bedroom, and she was barely inside before he had her shirt off and her bra unfastened. This was happening so fast this time, and she hadn’t even been drinking.

“Wait,” she said, fumbling with her belt. She jerked the buckle open, and saw the glint in his eyes as she took off her badge and holster and placed them on his dresser. He reached behind her and loosened the rubber band at the nape of her neck, so that her hair spilled freely over her shoulders. He eased her back onto the bed and he rested his knee on the mattress as he reached down to slip off her shoes.

Thunk
—one hit the floor.
Thunk
—the other followed. He moved over her, tugging on the hook of her slacks as he kissed her mouth, her chin, her throat, and made his way down her body. He stopped at her navel, and she felt the slide of fabric as he pulled her slacks off her legs. And then it was just his warm breath against her skin and the sandpaper feel of his chin as he continued down, down, until he was on his knees at her feet. He lifted her
calf and kissed the arch of her foot, and she nearly leapt off the bed.

“Ticklish?”

She tried to jerk her foot away, but he held it firmly by the heel.

“Cherry red,” he murmured, massaging her arch with his thumb. “It’s been driving me crazy.”

She propped up on her elbows and watched him and began to get dizzy as he rubbed her foot. God, his hands felt good. He pressed his thumb against her arch and she felt a surge of heat deep within her body, and she squirmed on the bed while he looked at her. He made his way back up, trailing kisses over her calf, her knee, her thigh.

“This, too.” He kissed the little satin rosebud below her navel, and she shivered under him. “It’s so girly.”

“What?”

He moved slowly up her abdomen, and she lost the ability to process whatever he was saying. He molded his mouth over her breast and pulled. “Don’t get me wrong.” Another pull. “I like it. A lot.” And then he focused on what he was doing, and she held his head against her and wrapped a leg around him so he wouldn’t get distracted again. His weight on her and his warm skin and his hard muscles under her palms were making her heart hammer until she thought it would pound right out of her chest.

“Troy.”

“Hmm?” He kept doing that thing with his mouth, and at the same time she felt his hand sliding over her stomach.

“Oh my God,
Troy.
” She reached back, for the nightstand, for the drawer she remembered from last time, even though she had no idea how she remembered anything when her head was spinning and every nerve in her body was on the verge of combustion.

The drawer. She couldn’t reach it.
“Troy.”

He lifted his head and seemed to see what she was after and leaned over her to grab the box of condoms. She took advantage of his distraction by shimmying herself down the mattress and reaching for his jeans.

He pushed himself up, off the bed, and quickly stripped off his clothes. Her heart skittered at the sight of him in the dimness. She remembered this, too, and felt a warm flush of anticipation.

He stood there staring at her, and she could tell he liked what he saw. He liked
her.
He wanted
her.
And it wasn’t about tequila this time, or beer, or anything else. A little bubble of happiness expanded inside her as she stared up at him and watched him want her. He looked dark and intent, and no one else had ever looked at her that way, and she wanted to capture the image and keep it in her head forever.

He slipped the strap down her shoulder and pulled off her lacy white bra—the one that he liked, a
lot,
but that he now tossed carelessly onto the floor beside her shoes. Her panties followed, and then he quickly covered himself and climbed back on the bed. She lay back without breathing and braced herself as he pushed her legs apart, and then he filled her, and every nerve in her body screamed out.

“Oh, God,” she gasped, and clung to him as tightly as she could and urged him into that fierce, addictive
rhythm she’d been craving since their first night together.

And then it was back. Again. And she pulled his head down to kiss her as his body pounded into her. She couldn’t get enough of him. She’d never get enough of him. If she lived to be a hundred, she’d never get enough of the intense, abundant feeling of making love to this man.

He propped his weight on his arms and looked down at her, and in his heavy-lidded gaze she saw the same indescribable pleasure she was feeling. She reached up to comb her fingers into his hair.

And then he kissed her. Deeply. Roughly. And in a way that told her that she
wasn’t
alone, that this wasn’t just about alcohol or sex, and that he was feeling it, too. She pulled him closer, as close as she possibly could, and tried to block out the single coherent thought flashing through her brain, but it wouldn’t go away.

I love you.
And that blinding realization was followed by a wave of wonder and euphoria and, most of all, fear.

“Elaina.” He wrenched his mouth away and gazed down at her, and she knew what he was trying to tell her, what his look meant. It wasn’t love, but it was something good, and she tipped her head back and lost herself in the explosive, vibrant moment when they fused themselves together and reality spun away. Time seemed suspended as tremors shook her and she held on to him with every fiber of her being.

Slowly, she opened her eyes to see him gazing down at her. The side of his mouth lifted in a smile, and he rolled onto his back, pulling her with him. He settled her against his chest and sighed deeply.

Her pulse thrummed in her ears. She loved him. But
did she really, or was that just her hormones yelling at her? She didn’t know. In a rush of panic, she sat up to look at him, but his eyes were closed, and he looked like he was sleeping.