Desperate Girls (Wolfe Security #1)(63)

“No. Now.”

He pulled back and looked at her, and the serious expression in his eyes made her heart skitter. He kissed her gently. Then he shifted her legs and pushed inside her with a hard thrust.

Her breath caught. She squirmed under him. He didn’t move, and she pushed.

“Brynn,” he said through gritted teeth.

“Yes.” She wrapped her legs tight and pulled him closer, sliding her hands up his back.

He began to move against her. He set a pace for them, slow and deliberate, intentionally designed to make her want more. Every move had her body pulsing with need, and it felt good. So good. She started kissing him again, and that made everything more intense.

She wanted more. Faster. And he somehow seemed to know exactly what she needed, because he was giving it to her with his mouth and his hands and his powerful body, and she leaned her head back and surrendered to everything he was doing.

She loved the way his muscles felt under her fingers, the way his hand gripped her hip, the way his jeans rasped against her bare thighs as he drove into her again and again. His look of concentration—his utter focus on her—filled her with awe. In all her life, no one had ever made her feel this way.

“Brynn.” He closed his eyes. “God, Brynn.”

“Don’t stop.”

She clutched him against her, and it was too good, too hard, too much. She scraped her nails down his back, and a cry tore from her throat as she shattered and came apart. Another soul-deep thrust, and he came, too.

He dropped his weight onto his elbows, and she let her arms fall against the bed as she gazed up at him.

She couldn’t move. Or speak. Yet every inch of her body was singing.

He stared down at her, breathing hard. Then he carefully pulled out and got up from the bed.

He whipped off his T-shirt and tossed it to the chair, then knelt down to untie his boots. She sat up on her elbows to watch as he took a small black pistol from an ankle holster and thunked it on the nightstand, adding to the growing pile of equipment.

“What—”

“Backup,” he said.

He stripped everything off, and her heart leaped at the sight of him naked. He rested his knee on the bed again, leaned over her, and, without a word, lifted the hem of her silky top and eased it over her head. He dropped it to the floor and stretched out beside her.

Her heart was still thrumming as she looked at him. She ran her fingers over his chest. She didn’t have the words for how she felt right now, and she probably wouldn’t have told him even if she did.

He slid his arm under her shoulders and pulled her close, and she felt a warm glow at the intimacy.

She lay there in the darkness, breathing in his scent and listening to the sound of traffic twelve stories below. She closed her eyes and sighed. She felt loose and floaty. More relaxed than she’d been in days. Weeks. Maybe ever.

“Brynn . . .”

The tone of his voice chased away some of the euphoria.

“We have to talk.”

And there went the rest of it.

Groaning, she rolled against him. She nuzzled his chest and kissed him. “First, let’s sleep.”





LINDSEY WAS pulling into her apartment building when she got a call from a familiar number. John Dewitt, the reporter. She grabbed her phone off the front seat, surprised he was calling so late. Then again, he was on California time. She answered the call as she pulled into a parking space.

“Hey, John Dewitt here. I got an urgent message?”

“Thanks for getting back to me.”

“Yeah, who are you again? Your message was vague.”

Which wasn’t an accident. Lindsey dug a notepad from her purse. “I’m with the Sheridan Heights Police Department. That’s a suburb of Dallas. You may have heard we’ve got a pretty intense manhunt going on here.”

“James Corby. I had a call from a marshal wondering if I’d heard from him or sent him money or anything. Is that why you’re calling?”

“Not exactly. I’m working on some background info, trying to develop a better profile of the fugitive, and I came across your article in Lone Star Monthly. It was a good piece.” Not really, but she figured it wouldn’t hurt to flatter the guy.

“It was pretty basic,” he said. “I was saving the more in-depth stuff for a book, but the project never got off the ground.”

“Why’s that?”

“Lot of reasons. Corby stopped talking to me after the second interview. Then he lost his appeal. He wasn’t on death row or anything, so the story wasn’t getting the attention I needed to generate traction. And then I got the job out here.”

According to Lindsey’s research, Dewitt had been with the Hollywood Insider for two years. It wasn’t exactly known for hard news, but that wasn’t to say they wouldn’t want something about a notorious murderer, especially if the story had film potential.

“With regard to your interviews,” Lindsey said, “can I ask what you talked about?”

“The usual. His trial. His innocence. He was unjustly accused, and the whole world was out to get him. Guy is pretty paranoid.”

“Did he mention any particular people he was close to? Maybe a friend from childhood or a relative?”

“No.”

“What about groupies? I know some of these guys have admirers who follow their trials.” Some famous murderers even get married while in prison.