Torn

  She didn’t want to—­

  Wade lifted her up. Holding her easily with that powerful strength of his. He pressed her back against the cold tile of the shower. Her legs locked around his hips. His cock pushed against her sex.

  “Fuck—­condom—­” Wade gritted.

  “I’m on birth control, and I’m clean.” Stark words. She’d never gone without a condom with another lover. Never even thought about it before. But right now she wanted him to come into her just as he was. Sex-­to-­sex. She wanted wild. She wanted rough. She wanted every single bit of him.

  A muscle jerked in his jaw. “I’m clean, too, baby.”

  “Then let your . . . control go . . .” She pushed her hips against him. “Just like you said . . . let go.”

  He drove into her, full and thick, filling her so completely, and her head tipped back against the tile wall as she gasped out his name. The water kept pouring onto them, streaming down as he thrust into her. Her nails dug into his arms and she held onto him as tight as she could. Again and again he sank into her, sliding his cock right over her clit and increasing the frenzy of her desire.

  Her gaze lifted to his face. So brutal in his need. So sexy. Her mouth moved to his shoulder and she pressed a kiss there. Then she bit him, a quick, light bite as the lust beat within her blood.

  He growled, and she loved that animalistic sound. Basic. Primal. That was how she felt in that moment, with him. The drive for pleasure was all that mattered. No past, no future. Nothing beyond that instant, nothing beyond their need.

  Her lips feathered over him. She pushed her hips against him. Harder. He had swelled even more inside of her, and when his hand came between their bodies . . . when he put his fingers on her clit and stroked her—­

  Victoria came with a scream. One that was, hopefully, drowned out by the pounding rush of the water.

  He caught her hands, pinned them above her head, and her knuckles pressed to the cold wall. Her breath was heaving out as she peered up at him, and with that one look, Victoria knew . . . His control was gone.

  Wade moved so that only one of his hands locked around her wrists, caging them easily above her head. His right hand came down. Stroked her breast. Already sensitive, her nipples were still pebbled and tight and his touch made her shiver.

  “My turn,” Wade said. Then he put his mouth on her neck, right there in the spot where her neck curved to meet her shoulder, and he bit her.

  Sensual. Wild.

  His hips drove against her, slamming deep, and she could only take the pleasure he gave her. Her climax was still rolling through her, making her sex contract, and the way he was moving, the wild plunge of his hips, the way his mouth slid over her shoulder then her neck—­he was just building up her desire again. Making her want so—­

  She came again.

  Came, just as he did. He groaned out her name as his body completely surrounded her. The pleasure ripped through her, so powerful that she struggled to breathe, and then . . . there was just the rushing sound of the water. Their ragged breaths.

  Her drumming heartbeat.

  Her eyes were closed, and Victoria slowly blinked them open. Her hands were still above her head, anchored by his hand. He was still in her, still caging her there against the wall.

  Slowly, his bent head lifted. He stared down at her, his gaze utterly unreadable.

  Then he kissed her. Lightly. Softly.

  A few moments later Wade turned off the shower. He dried her off and even carried her back to her room. Victoria found that she couldn’t say anything.

  She didn’t know what to say.

  The passion had swept through her so completely, and now, in the aftermath, her body was limp. The exhaustion she’d held at bay all day swept through her.

  She slid beneath her covers.

  He turned to leave.

  “Stay.”

  Wade paused.

  So maybe there had been one thing that she knew to say. Victoria lifted her hand toward him. “You can stay . . .”

  “And still have no strings?” Wade asked, voice low.

  She didn’t want to think that far ahead, not then. “Just stay.”

  His lips curled. “Baby, when will you realize? For you, I’d do anything.” Wade slid beneath the covers. He pulled her close, held her right against his heart.

  And she slipped right into her dreams.

  HER FATHER WAS smiling.

  She crept down the stairs. He didn’t usually smile, not like that. Not a smile that stretched from ear to ear.

  “Things are going to be different now, Victoria.” He gave a firm nod. “We will make everything better.”

  The house was so quiet. Where was her mother? Where had she gone?

  “I’ve always been so proud of you,” her father said. “People are right, you know. You really are just like me.” His hand lifted as he moved to brush a lock of her hair behind her ear.

  When his hand lifted, she saw—­his fingers were red. No, not red—­there was . . . there was blood on his fingers.

  A tremor swept over her body. “Where is Mom?”

  Behind the lens of his glasses, he blinked. Once. Twice. His smile dimmed.

  She edged back a step.

  His blood-­covered fingers fell back to his side. “I don’t know, darling. She wasn’t here when I woke up this morning.”

  Liar, liar, liar . . .

  “I’m sure she’ll turn up later.” He nodded briskly once more. “Now, I must go shower. Don’t worry, I’m sure your mother just went out on a walk. Perhaps a morning jog. She’ll be back soon . . .”

  He hurried toward the bathroom and didn’t look back. A moment later she heard the rush of water in the shower.

  She tiptoed toward her parents’ room. She saw her mother’s bag, the bag that had been near the front door—­it was still there. Her mother’s purse was there. Her clothes. All still there.

  She turned around, confused.

  Maybe her father was right. Maybe . . . maybe she would be back . . .

  And then she saw the knife, gleaming on the dresser. Blood was on its blade. Her hand lifted toward it even as horror rose in her throat, nearly choking her.

  “Victoria!”

  “VICTORIA!” WADE SHOOK her, because she was seriously scaring the hell out of him. She’d started jerking in her sleep and making a faint moan. She’d sounded terrified, and that shit wasn’t going to work. She wouldn’t be terrified while she was in his arms. “Victoria, wake up!”

  Her eyes flew open. He’d already turned on the lamp at the bedside, and the glow spilled onto her, showing the tears on her cheeks and the terror in her gaze.

  “Baby?”

  “I’m . . . not like him.”

  His muscles tensed. Wade wondered . . . would she tell him now? Would this be the moment when she finally started to trust him?

  “He said . . . I was just like him, and I don’t want to be.”

  She’d sat straight up in bed, and Wade wanted to pull her back into his arms. He also didn’t want to scare her. If she was talking, he would listen to her all night long.

  “Your father.” He just put that piece right out there. After all, they both knew who she had to mean. But he wanted to learn more. Tell me, baby. Tell me everything.

  Victoria gave a jerky nod. She pulled the bedcovers up to her chest, shielding her body. Her head turned and her gaze focused on him. “Have you ever been in love?”

  Not what he’d expected from her. “Viki—­”

  “I heard the rumors at LOST. Some people think you were in love with Gabe’s sister, Amy, but then . . . she went missing.”

  He’d thought they were talking about Victoria’s past, not his own. But if she wanted him to share, fuck, he would. He’d bleed for her if that was what the woman wanted. “I cared for Amy. A lo
t.” He wouldn’t lie. “But she was my best friend’s little sister, so I kept my distance.” He swallowed as the memories stirred in his mind. “And I watched her go to another. A jackass who didn’t deserve her. He didn’t treat her well enough, and I wanted to get Amy away from him.” Wade shook his head. “But it was her life, her decision, and I’d given up any rights I might’ve had . . .”

  “You . . . never told her how you felt?”

  “There wasn’t time. Because one day she was just gone.” His hands had fisted around the sheets, and he made himself ease his too tight grip. “We were friends, never more than that . . . because I held back.” He wasn’t making that same mistake with Victoria. He wanted her to know just how much he wanted her. “I looked for her. Searched fucking desperately because I had promised Gabe I would take care of his sister. I swore I would look out for her.” He gave a grim shake of his head. “But I let him down. I let her die and—­”

  “You blame yourself for what happened.”

  “A sick freak at her hospital—­he became fixated on her,” Wade said. “She was his nurse. He took her, he kept her, and he killed her.”

  “Just like our perp did with Kennedy and Melissa?” Her question was little more than a whisper.

  “Pretty damn close, yes.” But Amy’s abductor hadn’t kept her alive as long as Kennedy had lived. She’d died . . . and he’d watched Gabe splinter apart.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. Her hand curled around his and she squeezed, ever so gently.

  His head tilted toward her. How had this become about him? About her giving comfort to him? Wade shook his head and decided to ask her the same question she’d posed to him. “Have you ever been in love?”

  “I . . . can’t be.”

  That wasn’t the answer he’d expected.

  “It’s too dangerous.” Victoria said the words in a rush. “Because what if he was right? What if I am just like him?”

  “You aren’t like your father.”

  “He was a brilliant man,” she said, voice gone flat in an instant. “Respected, admired. Maybe that’s why it took so long for the police to believe me. They bought the story that my mother had left on her own. That she’d just turned and walked out on her family. When the months turned into years, they finally listed her as missing, when she never contacted anyone. Not me. Not her cousins. Not her friends. It took that long for the cops to believe that something might have happened to her, and it took them even longer . . . to understand that my dad—­my father—­he was the bad thing that had taken her away.”

  Wade’s fingers curled around hers so that he was now holding her hand. Trying to give her some comfort.

  “Turn out the light,” Victoria said. “It’s . . . easier for me to say this in the dark.”

  He kept his hold on her fingers, but Wade’s other hand reached out and turned off the lamp, plunging the room into darkness.

  He heard her suck in a quick, sharp breath. Then Victoria said, “Love can go bad.”

  Such sad, stark words.

  “In the beginning, I do think my father loved her. And she loved him. But something changed, and it—­it wasn’t enough. She wasn’t happy. She . . . I know she found someone else. I knew because she’d started to smile again.”

  Each word that she said pierced him to the core. There was so much pain in Victoria’s voice, and Wade wished that he could take it away.

  “She was going to leave my father. He . . . he didn’t want to let her go. She was his. Like a possession.” Her fingers squeezed his. A quick, hard squeeze. “No, an obsession. That’s what she’d become to him. He couldn’t let her go. I saw it on his face. So much darker than love—­so much harder. Evil . . . I knew, I knew, he wasn’t going to let her go to another man. If she wasn’t with him, then she wasn’t going to be with anyone.”

  Christ. Reading details of her mother’s murder online was one thing, but hearing the pain and desolation in Victoria’s voice was something totally different. Screw just holding her hand. He pulled her against him, cradling her as close as he could get. But she was so stiff in his arms.

  “There are no strings,” Victoria said. “There are never any strings because I won’t . . . I won’t become obsessed. I won’t do that to someone.”

  “You aren’t your father—­”

  “I’ve never been in love because I am too scared to be. Too scared of what I will become.”

  “Victoria . . .”

  “I saw the blood on his fingers. I saw the knife. I knew what he’d done. I went to the police. I ran from my house, just in my gown, and I went to the cops. They didn’t believe me. My mother was missing for years before anyone would believe me.”

  Fuck, fuck, fuck.

  “And all that time, I was with him. He chided me for telling stories. But he said he forgave me. After all, how could he not? I was . . . just like him.”

  “He was wrong, okay? Fucking wrong. The guy was a killer. You aren’t. You are not like him—­”

  “I am.”

  He barely caught those murmured words.

  “You don’t understand,” Victoria continued softly. “Because you . . . you are good, Wade. You go after the criminals. That’s always been what you did. You never became one.”

  His heart thudded dully in his chest. “I’m not a cop anymore.”

  “My father was found innocent. A jury listened to my story, and they didn’t believe me. Or maybe . . . maybe it was like the D.A. told me. There just wasn’t enough evidence. She’d been in the ground for so long, there was too much decomposition. They couldn’t find a strong enough tie to link my father to the murder. And me seeing blood when I was thirteen . . . it could have just come from him accidentally cutting himself. That was what he said, you see. That he’d sliced himself on a knife while he was cutting apples for me. For me.” Her laughter was bitter and mocking. “But the bloody knife was in his bedroom. I saw it there. And I even think my mother was still there . . . when I saw that knife. I think he hadn’t moved her yet, but the cops wouldn’t listen. No one would listen to me. And they didn’t search the house that day.”

  “And that’s why you speak for the dead.” Everything clicked into place for him. “Why you went on to focus in forensic anthropology—­you want to work on the bodies that have been lost for so long, don’t you? Because you want to find a way to help them.”

  She was silent.

  “Viki?”

  “I’m more like him than you realize. Proving his guilt became my obsession. Punishing him was an obsession.”

  “He’s dead, too, baby. He can’t hurt anyone any longer.”

  The sheets rustled as she pulled away from his arms. “You’re right, of course. He can’t.” Her voice was so cold. She’d moved away from him, lying down once again. “We should both get some sleep. I—­I’m sorry for waking you. I won’t do it again.”

  What. The. Hell? “Wake me up a thousand times, I don’t care.” He reached for her in the dark, curled his fingers around her shoulder. He hated that she’d turned from him. “And don’t pull away, okay? Because I want you. Your secrets, your past? That shit doesn’t matter. You matter.”

  “He couldn’t let her go,” Victoria whispered. “He killed her because he wasn’t going to let her live without him.”

  “That isn’t you.” Why couldn’t she see that?

  “Oh, Wade . . .” Now sadness slipped into her voice. “If only that were true.”

  “It is true.” He knew it with certainty. So why didn’t she?

  He pulled her close. Kept her right against his heart. Victoria didn’t speak again, and after a while he felt her breath ease into the deeper pattern of sleep. Her nightmares didn’t come back.

  And he didn’t let her go.

  “I DIDN’T KIDNAP anyone!” Matthew Walker yelled. He was in an interrogation room, a freaking interrogati
on room, at the police station. Cops had arrived at his door and they pulled him out—­right in front of his neighbors! He’d been escorted to the station and left in this damn interrogation room for far too long, with only the briefest of explanations.

  He stared at his reflection. Matthew knew he was looking into a one-­way mirror, and cops were probably on the other side of that glass. Cops who thought he was some kind of killer.

  “This is a mistake,” he said, giving a firm nod. “I’m a professor at Worthington! I am a respected member of the community. I. Am. Not. A. Killer!” He was sweating, though, because one of the cops had told him that Melissa Hastings was dead.

  The door opened behind him. In the mirror, he saw the dark-­haired detective who’d been in before—­Dace Black—­heading his way. Matthew whirled to confront him. “If I’m not being let go, right the hell away, then I want my lawyer in here. This is bullshit. I haven’t hurt anyone and—­”

  “Are you familiar with Jeremiah Jennings?”

  “Who? What?”

  “Jeremiah owns a cottage on Jekyll Island.”

  Matthew yanked a hand through his already tousled hair. “Great. Wonderful for him, but—­”

  “According to Mr. Jennings, you’ve been renting his cottage on Jekyll Island for the last five years.”

  Matthew’s jaw dropped. Then he scrambled, saying, “The hell I have! I don’t know any Jeremiah Jones—­”

  “Jennings,” the detective corrected quietly.

  “Jennings. Jones. Who-­the-­hell-­ever. I don’t know him, and I certainly haven’t been renting a cottage from the guy! I haven’t even been to Jekyll Island in years!”

  Detective Black stared back at him. He really didn’t like the way the detective was eying him.

  Like he thinks I’m guilty.

  “Melissa Hastings was killed on Jekyll Island. She was abducted and held prisoner in your cottage . . .”

  It was hard to breathe. “Not my cottage!” He nearly yelled. “I don’t care what BS that guy told you, I haven’t been renting from him.”

  Detective Black placed a manila file on the small table that rested in the middle of the interrogation room. He flipped open the file. “Then why is your name signed on the rental agreement?”