The Devil's Daughter (Hidden Sins #1)(51)

She took his cock again, resuming her pace even as he pushed her closer and closer to orgasm. The quiet of the night was broken only by her gasps and his harsh breathing. It was good, too damn good. He broke their kiss, nibbling his way down her neck to the sensitive spot where it met her shoulder. “Come for me, Eden. Let go.” He twisted his wrist, flicking his fingers over that sensitive spot inside her.

“You, too.”

That wasn’t going to be an issue. He was hanging on by a thread.

Zach kissed her again, losing himself in the feel of her, her body twining tighter and tighter until she cried out his name as she came. Even in the midst of her pleasure, she never lost her grip on him, stroking him, driving him crazy. He came with a curse.

Eden laid her head on his shoulder. “Not going to lie. I feel better.”

Hell, he did, too. Zach rearranged them, using his shirt to clean himself up, and then tucked her against his chest. It felt good to have her here, in his house and in his arms. Too damn good.





CHAPTER EIGHTEEN


Eden stared at the coroner’s report, her mind a million miles away. No, not a million miles—just across town with the man who’d rocked her world not an hour ago. Her body still pulsed with remembered pleasure and he hadn’t even gotten her pants all the way off. If he could do that with his hands, what would it be like to have access to his entire body?

She wanted it. She wanted it desperately.

Eden knew all too well that sex would only further complicate things between them because she couldn’t just catch a flight out of town the next morning. They had to work together until they figured out what the hell was going on with the cult, and adding the awkward morning-after conversations that inevitably arose would just waste time no one had.

But if he’d so much as crooked his finger after that insane orgasm, she would have been naked and in his bed, no questions asked.

It stung that he hadn’t, but his response . . . She shivered, a small smile pulling at the edges of her lips. What a response. She allowed herself a few more minutes of reliving the way his body had felt against hers, the way he’d taken charge without being pushy, how freaking good he’d tasted . . .

And then Eden set it aside.

As good as it had been, there were more important things to focus on. Zach had Chase watching Elysia to ensure Lee didn’t sneak out, but he was right that everything they had was circumstantial and secondhand information. They could bring him in, but it would antagonize Martha and show their hand before they had anything that could stick. As he’d said when he dropped her at the bed-and-breakfast, making eyes at a teenager wasn’t illegal—if it had even happened. While she agreed that Lee didn’t seem the type, stranger things had happened.

And maybe I just want to pin this on Martha and her flock so badly, it’s coloring my perception.

There was nothing else to do tonight but read through the report and see if anything popped out at her. Tomorrow, she’d go back out to Elysia and see if she could corner Beth into giving her the information the woman obviously had. She’d approach it as trying to get back in contact, but she didn’t like her odds of a second visit to Elysia without Martha insisting on some time together. Eden’s stomach lurched, but she muscled the instinctive response down. She’d faced Abram and Martha multiple times since she’d been back in town, and she hadn’t been threatened or kidnapped or even turned away. There was no empirical evidence to back up her physical and emotional responses.

But then, each victim deals with things in their own way. Facing down their abusers is the single hardest thing most victims deal with.

She didn’t like to think of herself like that—as a victim. She’d fought long and hard to take control of her life, to stop free-falling and reacting and start being proactive. To admit she was anything other than in charge of her own destiny felt like admitting failure.

But she’d be an even bigger fool to ignore the reaction she had to being back in Clear Springs.

Her past was like any other injury—she needed to take it into account because there was a chance she might freeze up, or mix up her fight-or-flight responses in a conflict, or react in some unexpected way. Ignoring the issue wasn’t going to make it go away, no matter how much she wished it was so.

And you’re most definitely stalling.

She picked up the mug of instant coffee she’d made the second she walked into the room. She was too riled up to sleep, and even if she tried, all the markings were there to indicate that nightmares would chase her through her dreams. Better to just skip it altogether. She couldn’t do that indefinitely, but one night wouldn’t kill her.

Still stalling.

She sank into the love seat that backed up against the bay window in her room, coffee in one hand and the coroner’s report in the other. It was time. She hadn’t been so tweaked about the thought of reading the report before she’d gotten her little present today, and part of Eden kept saying she was as narcissistic as her mother if she really thought these murders had anything at all to do with her. What were the odds?

Better than I’d like.

She opened the report and began to read. Zach had gone over the basics with her, so she wasn’t surprised at the long list cataloging Elouise Perkins’s many bruises and healed broken bones. Fury stole Eden’s breath at the pain and suffering this girl had gone through even before the killer set his—or her—eyes on her. Him. Definitely him. She swallowed hard at the detailed description of the evidence that the girl had had sex within twenty-four hours of her death. No, not sex. It appeared there had been nothing consensual about it.