The way she said it made it sound like a betrayal, but Megan didn’t say more. She took one of his hands, the one that had been lightly caressing her breasts, and kissed his palm. Her tongue sent jolts of lust down to his hardening cock.
“You were going to show me the difference between having sex and making love.”
“I am.”
He kissed her neck, turning her on to her back so he could have easier access to all her soft skin. Lips to lips, lips to neck, lips to breast. His hands kneaded her shoulders, her arms, her thighs.
“There is not going to be an inch of your skin I don’t taste,” he whispered, his voice rough. “From your head …” he kissed her eyelids, his tongue trailing down to her ears, then to her neck. “To your painted toes.”
He slid off the bed and Meg groaned from the sudden chill. Then his mouth was on her toes and she gasped. Electric bolts jolted her body as Jack sucked her toes, licked the bottoms of her feet, kissed her ankles. The backs of her knees. And higher.
True to his word, Jack tasted every inch of her flesh. Slowly.
And slowly, they brought each other up and over the edge once again.
After killing Ethan and Lyle Hackett, Karin walked a mile to the hotel she’d checked into the day before under one of her aliases, Erin Hunter.
She’d always liked that name. Hunter. It suited her. Erin the Hunter. Erin. Hunter. Huntress. She grinned.
It was late, but the hotel was brightly lit and she wasn’t positive that her late-night dip in the ocean had washed away all the blood. She slipped in through a side door, using her card key, and rode the elevator up to the penthouse suite. She deserved the penthouse. She’d ordered champagne when she first arrived, asking the staff to deliver it while she was gone. It was still cold, sitting in a stainless steel cooler filled with cold water.
She stripped, shoving her bathing suit and sarong into the black bag. The bag had to be disposed of, but she needed to destroy the evidence first. A heavy dose of bleach, then toss it in the ocean or a lake. She hadn’t wanted to take the knife, but after Ethan cut her, she had no choice. She worried about her blood on the floor, but hoped either the crime scene investigators didn’t test the small square where the knife had fallen, or that there was so much contamination they couldn’t differentiate her blood.
Even if they were able to test it, her DNA wasn’t in any database. Still, she didn’t want it to be, and now she would have to be far more careful in her work.
First things first. She had her own vengeance to seek. Then she could go back to business as usual.
She showered and scrubbed her body under water as hot as she could stand it. Shampooed her hair twice. When she stepped out, her skin was pink and she felt fabulous. She stared at her reflection, took out scissors, and cut her hair yet again. She wished she didn’t have to do it, but hair grew and having a straight, short bob instead of shoulder-length curls would help with the disguise.
Next, she took brown hair dye and colored her hair again. The dye wouldn’t stay as well on the blond she’d used yesterday, but all she needed was to change her overall appearance and this light brown was closer to her natural color.
The end result was pretty good, a golden sort of brown. A little lighter than she wanted, but different enough from the woman-Rose-who’d been seen drinking in the bar with Lyle Hackett.
She slipped into a luxurious white hotel bathrobe, the logo embroidered in gold on the lapel.
Time to celebrate.
She popped the cork off the champagne, poured herself a glass, and walked out onto the balcony. It was chilly on the coast this late at night, even in southern California, but she didn’t care. She breathed in the salt air, the breeze raising goose bumps on her damp skin.
She’d take these hours to rest, and then she’d watch the police and the FBI run around in circles. And when the time was right …
… she’d finish the job. She had Ethan to thank for her new skills. She could hardly wait to use them.
“To Ethan,” she said to the ocean and drained her champagne.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Megan was awakened by the hard, naked body wrapped around her.
Jack’s arm was draped over her, the blankets were on the floor, and the sheets a tangle around them. She would have been freezing if she wasn’t lying next to a self-charging heater.
“Your phone’s ringing,” Jack said. “I didn’t think I should answer it.”
She jumped up and found her phone in her purse, which she’d dropped on the small desk when she first came in the night before. Before the spontaneous swim, before making love to Jack.
She missed the call. It was from Hans. Suddenly, she was mindful of her nakedness.
“You’re blushing,” Jack said.
“How can you tell?” she asked, looking around for her shirt. She found the cami she’d worn the night before; it was still damp from the pool. She opened her small suitcase.
“You’re beautiful.”
Her skin heated even more. At the rate she was going, she was going to look like a cooked lobster inside of two minutes.
“Don’t be embarrassed,” Jack said.
“I … we … it’s complicated.” Megan pulled on a T-shirt.
He chuckled. “If you mean to say that you and me having sex complicates things, yeah, maybe a bit, but I like complications. Especially one like you.”
He stretched like a satisfied cat, his long, hard body only partly covered by the sheet. She turned her back on him. She couldn’t look at him, not like that, without remembering exactly what they’d done together last night. How he made her feel not only during sex, but after. How he’d held her. Kissed her. She’d never felt so comfortable with a man, never felt so alive, so sexy, so desired.
She pressed Send on her phone to return Hans’s call. He answered immediately. “Meg?”
“Sorry, you woke me and I couldn’t find my phone.”
“General Hackett is dead. We’re going to Santa Barbara.”
“Hackett? Dammit, we sent agents to his house to warn him.”
“I spoke to the Los Angeles office. They said they called and Mrs. Hackett said her husband was out of town for the evening.”
“And they didn’t follow up?”
Hans paused. “They assumed that if he was out of town, the killers wouldn’t know where. See where assumptions can lead?”
Megan blanched. Hans was still angry, but she was more confident that her actions were right. “I’ll be ready.”
“You should also know that Barry Rosemont, the reporter Frank Cardenas told us about, was also murdered, and his partner is still at large. The gun that killed the two men was left at the scene, but the knife that cut Hackett’s hamstrings is missing. The detective in charge will meet us at the airport, fill in the details, and walk us through the crime scene. But the gun is the same caliber-nine millimeter-as the firearm that killed the Hoffmans. And,” he added, “same bullet casings.”
“What did-”
Hans interrupted. “We need to leave.”
“Jack can fly us. It’ll be faster, especially during morning commute time-”
“Ask him.”
She paused. Did Hans know Jack was in her room? “Okay. What about Rosemont’s partner? He just skipped out?”
“No sign of the partner at all. We don’t know if Rose-mont or the UNSUB killed Hackett, but it’s clear that Rosemont was murdered. The police are going through all security tapes and are interviewing staff and guests. We’ll know more when we get there.”
“But-” She felt Jack behind her, his hands on her shoulders.
“Thirty minutes, meet me in the lobby.”
“Yes, but-”
He hung up before she could say anything else.
“What?” Jack asked, massaging her muscles.
“Barry Rosemont. He’s one of the killers, apparently.” She turned and faced Jack. “I’m so sorry. About this, about your friend, Scout. And General Hackett, he’s also dead. We couldn’t warn him in time. I feel awful.”