His hands covered hers. “That helps. Really.”
“You’ll find Bobby Davis, then you can help Nate find the Snyder kids and the others that keep you awake at three a.m. Did Nate track Becky’s stepfather?”
“No, but we know Snyder had those kids here in the city once. Nate’s going to take face shots of the kids to the area schools, see if he can find them that way. But they could be anywhere in the world by now. There’s nothing keeping him here in Atlanta.”
“Maybe there is. Maybe this scumbag Snyder has roots you don’t know about. What made you know he was in Atlanta to start with? When he still had Angel and Becky?”
“Things we saw in the pictures, things around the room where the kids were kept. A Braves cap, a tomahawk, the kind you get on free day. Stuff like that.”
“Untraceable stuff that thousands of people have,” she said quietly against his back.
“Yeah.” The single word was bitter and hopeless.
“Come back to sleep,” she said. “You need to rest. You’ll be sharper.”
“I can’t sleep.”
“Then come back to bed anyway.” She tugged and he followed, stopping when he got to the bed. She was wearing his shirt and it shifted when she climbed on the mattress, revealing the dark bruise on her breast, courtesy of Bobby’s bullet. His temper flared higher, remembering how close he’d come to losing her.
He shook his head. “You go to sleep,” he said. “I’ll go watch some TV.” He knew his moods, knew he was too savage right now to risk getting into the bed with her. She was bruised. She had to hurt like hell.
And I’m ready for round two. He swallowed when she knelt on the bed, her small hands reaching for his. Very, very ready.
“Don’t shut me out,” she said softly. “I didn’t do that to you.”
“It’s not the same.”
She frowned. “Because you’re on the dark side now?” She slipped her fingers inside the waist of his jeans and tugged him closer. “It doesn’t matter to me.”
He pushed her away, as gently as he was able. “It matters to me.” He turned to leave, but she was quick, getting to the door before he could and leaning against it, her chin lifted, challenge in her eyes. “Susannah,” he warned. “This is not the time.”
“That’s what you said last night. You were wrong then, too.”
With a curse he tried to move her out of the way, but she put her arms around his neck, and her legs around his waist, attaching herself to him like a limpet. “Don’t,” she hissed. “Don’t push me away.”
He braced his hands on the door and they hung there. “Don’t you know I’ll hurt you?”
She kissed his jaw. “Don’t you know I need to help you?”
“You can’t.” He was knowingly goading her, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself.
“Watch me,” she murmured, kissing his cheeks, his lips, which he held firmly closed. Undaunted, she moved to his shoulder, kissing and licking her way down to his chest. Still he resisted, until she sank her teeth into his shoulder and bit. Hard.
The rubber band of his restraint snapped. With a growl he shoved his jeans off, and hands shaking, grabbed another condom from the drawer. Without thinking he dropped them both to the bed, her arms still locked around his neck, her legs around his waist, and he thrust into her hard.
She was tight and wet and he pounded into her until the simmering pit of his temper boiled over and the world went black. His body went taut, arching back as he was slammed with the most powerful orgasm he’d ever experienced. Too late he realized she hadn’t been with him. He’d left her behind without a care.
Shuddering, mortified, he dropped his head, unable to meet her eyes. He’d used her viciously. “Oh God,” he said, when he could speak. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“Why?”
She didn’t sound mad or hurt. He lifted his head and looked down at her. She was smiling at him. Perplexed, he frowned. “Didn’t I hurt you?”
“A little. I’ll live. How do you feel?”
“Good,” he said cautiously.
She rolled her eyes. “Please. I was here, don’t forget. It was damn good.”
He let out a breath. “For me, yes. I was selfish. I didn’t take care of you first.”
“I know that. I’m sure you’ll fix that oversight next time. So how do you feel?”
Her grin was contagious. “Damn good.”
She leaned up, kissed his chin. “And I saw your face,” she added, triumphant.
“You saw my face before.”
“Mirrors are cheating. This was real.” Her grin softened, her smile luminous. “You think you robbed me of pleasure. You have no idea what this means, Luke.”
“Then tell me,” he said quietly.
Her smile faded completely, leaving her eyes full of yearning. “Do you know what it meant to sit at your family’s table? Do you know I’ve never done that before? Never. Not once, in my entire life have I had a family dinner with people who loved each other. You gave me that.” He opened up his mouth to speak, but she pressed her fingers to his lips. “You gave me more than that. You gave me back myself. I wanted to do something for you. If you were selfish, it was in making me work so hard to do that.”
“I didn’t want to hurt you.”
She studied his face, then shook her head. “No, you didn’t want to be hurt.”
He looked away. “You’re right.”
“I know,” she said dryly.
He dropped his head. “I’m so tired,” he said. “And it never stops.”
“I know,” she said again. “Go to sleep. It’ll still be there when you wake up.”
“Will you?” he asked, and one side of her mouth lifted.
“Be here when you wake up? Where am I gonna go? I’m out of clothes.”
Reluctantly he withdrew from the warmth of her body, repositioning her so that she snuggled, spooned against him. “There’s always the outfit Stacie bought you.”
“I gave it back to her. Besides, I can just see me wearing that to my arraignment if Chloe decides to charge me. The judge would think I’d been busted for hooking.”
Her wry tone didn’t fool him. “What will you do?” he murmured, tightening his arm over her waist. “Can they really disbar you?”
“Sure. I can appeal it, but Chloe’s right. A room full of reporters was the wrong venue to break the law. I’ll be on the front page of the morning paper in a few hours. I was already all over the TV last night.” She sighed. “I’ll be the subject of discussion over coffee and water cooler breaks. And I knew it would be so from the moment I stepped on that plane Friday morning. I’ll be okay. The worst that can happen to me is a lot of publicity and maybe a misdemeanor. Chloe’ll cut a deal, no time served. It’s what I would do.”
“You didn’t find that gun in your father’s house,” he said quietly, and she said nothing. “Susannah?”
“Some things are best left unanswered, Luke. If you know, you could be subpoenaed. You’d have to tell. Either way, I wouldn’t change a thing. Would you?”
“No. Except now Leo gets an even better Christmas present for the rest of his life.” He tugged at the shirt she wore, kissed the shoulder he’d bared. “So what will you do if you can’t be a lawyer anymore?”
“I don’t know. I was thinking about what I said to that reporter today, about every woman having the right to disclose her assault or not. I push these women to disclose every day as a prosecutor.”
“That’s your job, to get convictions.”
“I know, and I’ve served the state well. But during the trial… I always think about what it would have been like had I come forward. I would have been so scared. They are, too. They have to live it all again. The state stands against the perpetrator, but nobody really stands for the victim.”
“You’re thinking of victim advocacy.”
“If I get disbarred. Even if I don’t, it’ll be hard for me to go into a courtroom and not have the focus be on me and not on the victims. I’m going to have to do something different, no matter what Chloe decides. Hell, maybe I’ll set up a Kool-Aid stand.”
He yawned hugely. “Will you sell cherry flavor?”
“Grape,” he heard her reply sleepily. “Nobody hates grape. Sleep, Loukaniko.”
His eyes popped open. “Excuse me? What did you just say?”
“That nobody hates grape. And go to sleep,” she said, annoyed. “So go to sleep.”
“No, the Loukaniko part.”
She craned her neck to look up at him over her shoulder. “Leo said that was your real name. That’s why your mama calls you Lukamou.”
Luke bit his lip to keep from laughing. “Um. Lukamou is like… ‘my dear.’ Loukaniko is a big fat sausage.”
She winced, then her eyes narrowed. “Oh. Sorry. I blame Leo.”
“Brother Leo just dropped a rung on the Christmas present ladder.”
She snuggled back against him. “Although, I suppose under certain circumstances Loukaniko could apply, too.”
He snickered. “Thank you. I think.”
“Go to sleep,” she said quietly. “Lukamou.”
His arm tightened around her, and on a contented sigh, he let himself drift off.