“Tell me about it,” Marlie said sweetly. “I got fired.”
He stared at her for a moment, then dropped his head to the table in despair. “Shit.”
“I’m out of here,” Trammell said, smiling at Marlie. “See you in the morning, partner.”
Dane didn’t reply. Marlie sipped her tea. Trammell let himself out.
The silence in the kitchen became thick. Marlie said, “When this is over, I think I’ll move back to Colorado.”
Dane lifted his head. There was a pale cast to his tanned skin, and his mouth was compressed to a thin line. “No,” he said, very softly.
She leaned back and crossed her arms. “What are you going to do, threaten me with protective custody again? I don’t think you can get away with that.” She pushed her chair back and got up, then carried her glass to the sink.
She had just rinsed it out and placed it in the drainer when two hard hands closed on her arms and whirled her around. She drew back as far as she could, but the cabinets halted her retreat. He leaned heavily into her, his hips grinding against hers. His face was stark.
“I won’t let you go,” he muttered. “Damn it, Marlie, how can you even talk about leaving when we have this between us?”
“This?” she flared, wriggling her hips and feeling him get hard. “It’s just sex.”
“It’s more than just sex, damn it!”
“Is it? From where I stand, that’s all it’s ever been,” she taunted him, feeling him quiver with rage and enjoying it. Something fierce and hurt inside her wanted him to feel the pain as she had.
His hazel eyes went green as his control broke. “By God, if sex is all it is, then we might as well enjoy it,” he said thickly as he swooped her into his arms.
Dizzily off balance, Marlie clung to him as he strode toward the bedroom. Her heartbeat was thundering wildly, blood surging through her veins. She wanted to hit him. She wanted to bite him. She wanted to tear his clothes off and hurl herself onto him. Love and anger and lust swirled together in a volatile mixture. Maybe they couldn’t communicate with words just yet, the anger was too strong, but maybe their bodies could bridge the gap. When he roughly placed her on the bed, she reached up and grabbed his shirt and tugged, pulling him down on top of her.
In fierce silence they struggled together. His hard mouth bruised hers with the force of his kisses; she bit his lower lip, making him curse, then gently sucked at it. He tore the button off her shorts in his need to get her out of her clothes. She fought with his zipper, finally got it down, and hungrily shoved her hand down the front of his briefs. His shaft filled her hand, hard and throbbing. The head of it was already wet.
He was breathing roughly, audibly, as he stripped her panties off and in the same movement rolled on top of her, kneeing her thighs apart. He drove into her with savage need, and she cried out at the rough penetration even as she coiled her legs around him.
Supper was forgotten in the long, heated hours that followed. The heat of sunset dimmed into twilight. At first, Dane made love to her with a furious intensity that held anger and resentment at the tension he had been under. Marlie was as fierce, biting him, digging her nails into him, slamming her hips upward to take him.
They didn’t talk. That first wild lovemaking didn’t allow room, or thought, for words. Afterward they lay together in silent exhaustion, their bodies still linked. The bond they had just reforged felt too new, too fragile, to allow for separation just yet. They dozed, and Marlie awoke some undetermined time later when he began making love to her again.
This time he was tender, lingering over her. He kissed the bruises his fierce grip had left on her silky skin, silently apologizing. She licked the crescents her nails had made on him. He rode her for a long time, slowing down whenever he felt his climax approaching, not yet ready to release the pleasure.
Both of them were acutely aware that he wasn’t wearing a condom. He supported his weight on his forearms as he moved in and out of her, their gazes locked, and the knowledge was in their eyes. When he couldn’t hold off his climax any longer, when she had already convulsed twice, she gripped his buttocks and pulled him deeper into her as he let it overtake him. He shuddered and bucked with the force of his pleasure as he jetted his semen into her.
Again, it wasn’t time for words. Not yet. They slept again, entwined together, and twilight became dark.
Marlie woke first. Her body ached deliciously, and she felt the hunger growing for more of what had caused the ache. Dane still slept, but when she began caressing his shaft, both he and it stirred immediately. He rolled over onto his back and closed his arms around her as she slid on top of him.
“Stay with me,” he whispered, and closed his eyes in delight at the way the hot silk of her body so snugly enveloped him.
She hesitated, then felt him throb within her. “All right,” she whispered in return, and gently began to move. It wasn’t much, but after the ferocity of their lovemaking, she didn’t doubt his sincerity. He hadn’t been a cop, trying to catch a killer; he had been simply a man, wild with need for his woman. He hadn’t committed himself yet, at least not with words, but the bond of the flesh had reassured her. She could wait for the rest of it.
Carroll Janes had thought it over very carefully. He had to get the bitch alone, so that meant he had to get Detective Hollister to leave.
He didn’t call 911, which would give the dispatcher the telephone number he’d called from. He called police headquarters directly.
He knew himself to be a very good actor. He was proud of the frantic tone of his voice when he said, “There’s been a woman killed! There’s been another—it’s him! I swear to God it had to be him. Blood—she’s cut everywhere! Butchered! I saw him leaving, bald head just like in that sketch!”