And should be sleeping now, he thought as he illuminated the time on his watch. Twelve thirty in the morning. Shit. Would he ever stop working nights?
“What now?” Lara whispered as they stood inside the doctor’s office. She held a flashlight aimed at the floor.
“It’s back there.” He grabbed her hand, ignoring the spark of heat that jolted his cock whenever he touched her, and pulled her with him out of the office and down the hall. He’d already scouted the place earlier, using his retrocognition to view where they’d taken the body.
When they arrived at another room, he unlocked the door using a key he’d filched off the front desk. They entered quietly. Doc Jeffries had a makeshift morgue. Two refrigerated drawers and a medical table for operating on the dead. Noah pulled out a drawer and unzipped the bag.
Lara caught her breath when he parted the plastic.
“Oh wow. She really does look like me. And she’s so beat up. The poor girl.”
Noah studied the dead woman’s coiled hair, sprayed stiff with some sort of hairspray. The rouge on her lips and blush on her cheeks looked obscene against the pallor of her skin. So pale and lifeless, painted to be someone else.
“I see it, Noah. The hair, the makeup. Even the small earrings are identical to the picture you showed me.” Lara swallowed, the sound easily heard in the stillness of the room. She leaned closer, pointing the flashlight at the woman’s ears. “The silver rosebuds are sprinkled with a glittery coating. Not all that common.”
“No, it’s not.” What the hell did this mean? Someone had killed a likeness of Cecilia Fine. Not Lara. The killer hadn’t staged this woman to look like Lara, but like Cecilia. But Lara resembled Cecilia. Doing the math didn’t make him happy. He focused, and to his surprise, he caught a faint whiff of the same energy he’d felt in Superior. The same person had killed twice now. But worse, the energy was somehow tied to Lara. He could see it lingering over her, as if waiting for something. Then he blinked and severed the connection.
She shivered and nodded at the body. “Could you zip her up and put her back, please?”
He did, wishing he hadn’t brought Lara, but he’d needed to be sure. Now that he was, he didn’t know what to do. “Shit.”
“What?”
Noah stared at the bag concealing the body. “Nothing. Sorry.”
They made their escape as easily as they’d entered. Brownville didn’t rely too heavily on state-of-the-art locks. A good thing, or Noah would have had more difficulty breaking in.
“Now what?” he asked as they sat in his rental car.
“Now we go back to the inn, and you try to explain what I’m not involved in.” Lara didn’t sound afraid. She sounded angry and a touch mean.
Noah grew hard, as if he hadn’t just spent the night looking at a dead girl. God, I must be sick. Because Lara’s really turning me on. There’s nothing I want more than to show this strong, capable woman where she really belongs. Under him, serving him in any and every way he deemed fit. Not good. Put those feelings away, asshole. They’re not right. Not normal.
“Noah?”
He cleared his throat, glad for the darkness that obscured his arousal. “Let’s get back.” He didn’t say more. They drove in silence the few minutes it took them to get to the inn. He parked out back, then they exited the car and entered the inn through the back door using her key. His opened only the front door.
Once inside, she motioned him to follow her through the private corridor on the first floor, away from the common area. She unlocked a thick door and pushed it open. After he entered, she joined him and shut and locked it behind them. The click sounded loud in the overwhelming silence.
She lived in a large suite with a bedroom on one side and a small living area on the other, done up in antique cherrywood and soothing blue walls. Homey yet attractive, and very much like Lara.
“This is what I call home, for the moment.” Lara sighed and slipped off her shoes.
He chafed at the intimacy of the motion, not needing to see more of her when it was all he could do to stop remembering how her hand had looked around Finnegan Fury’s cock. Not her hands. Cecilia’s. Fuck. Cut it out.
She sat on her bed, not paying attention to him, for which he was grateful.
“Don’t get me wrong. I love the Lady Fine Inn. It would be a terrific place to call my own. Rich in history, aesthetic, and charm. But it doesn’t feel like forever. An investment, sure. And a profitable one, if I have anything to say about it.”
He had no idea what she was talking about, but he nodded to keep her speaking. Anything to occupy his thoughts that continued to drift to her bed and the spindles of the head- and footboard. Where a man might tie up a sexy woman and do whatever he pleased with her…
“Noah.” She snapped her fingers. “You’re zoning out on me. You okay?” Lara’s eyes widened. “Are you seeing things in here? You know, history replaying itself?” She lowered her voice. “Are people having sex in here?”
He allowed himself a peek at the past and saw the same bed decorated with a cornflower blue quilt and pillows. A dresser, washstand, and vanity littered with bottles of perfume, tins of cosmetics, a brush, and a comb occupied the space. There, in the armoire, the hint of a scarlet dress amidst other silken confections poked through an open door.
Then Cecilia Fine entered the scene with a wicked smile on her face, and he immediately shut down his retro-sense. “This was Cecilia’s bedroom.”
“Oh.”
“I get the feeling she wasn’t just the boss but a prostitute as well.”
“I read that she liked men, but once she met Finn, she was his and his alone.”
The way Lara’s gaze locked on his warmed him from the inside out. It was as if she wanted him to make the first move. Did she?
“What about you?”
She blinked. “Me?”
“You involved with anyone right now?” He knew it wasn’t smart, but he ached. Noah needed nothing more than to close the distance between them and do what he’d wanted to since he’d first seen that damn picture. But he didn’t desire the woman in the painting. He wanted the flesh-and-blood female in front of him.
She laughed, but he saw the hint of nerves she tried to hide.
“I’m too busy with my career.” She paused. “What about you?”
“Me too. Career, I mean.” He walked the few steps to the bed and looked down at her, consumed by a growing lust. The effort to keep his dominance under wraps chafed, but he tried. “You like sex, Lara?”
“S-sex? Sure.”
She licked her lips, and he held back a groan. Barely. He didn’t know where the words came from, but he couldn’t stop himself. “Like to be held down? Told what to do? Like to please your lover?” He watched her swallow, saw the rapid pounding of the pulse at her neck, how her pupils dilated with lust.
“I don’t know. I’ve never been that adventurous.”
She tilted her head back to maintain eye contact. A challenge, and one that made him itch to dominate.
Yeah, cowboy. Take me. Make me yours. Brand me with that big cock, if you dare. Lara didn’t react, so he didn’t know if she’d heard. But the titter of laughter accompanying the ghostly female whisper prodded his ego, pushing him to demand what he knew to be his.
“Never met a man who could handle me,” Lara prodded.
“Is that right?”
She stared at him for a good long moment, then shook her head. She took a deep breath and let it out. “I think we should call it a night.”
“Why?”
She blinked. “Well, ah, you’re a little, um, close.”