Torn

  He grabbed for the condom in his wallet, and he was damn grateful the thing was there. He shoved his jeans away. Put on the condom.

  My control is gone.

  He’d just needed her to come first, come before he let that last thread break. She had to enjoy it, she had to enjoy me . . .

  Because they weren’t going to be together just one time. Oh, no, he had plans for her . . .

  “Now, Wade,” Victoria said, her voice so sexy he knew he’d be hearing it in his head every time he closed his eyes.

  He positioned his cock at the entrance to her body. He caught her hands, threaded her fingers with his, then pushed her hands back against the pillows, pinning them there even as he thrust deep into her. And after one thrust—­

  Wade nearly lost his mind.

  Better than good . . . better than in his dreams.

  Her legs locked around him. She took him in deeper. She moaned for him, and he thrust even harder into her. The bed shook beneath him, and her sex—­so tight and hot and freaking mind-­blowing . . .

  She was slick from her climax. But when she called out his name, when her body tensed beneath his, he knew the pleasure was hitting her again. As her sex squeezed him, Wade’s own release barreled into him. The climax drove through his whole body, hollowing him out as he sank into her.

  Hot. Dirty. Wild.

  His breath heaved out of his chest.

  Hell, yes, they’d be doing that again.

  He kissed her. We’ll be doing this all night long . . .

  “WADE.”

  He stirred when he heard her voice, and a smile started to curve his lips.

  “Wade, you need to go.”

  His smile stilled. His eyes opened. He had to blink quickly against the harsh glare of the overhead light.

  Victoria stood near the bed, a white terry-­cloth robe wrapped around her. Her eyes seemed so wide and deep as she gazed at him. “You should go now.”

  He glanced toward the clock on her nightstand. Nearly three A.M. They’d stopped their last round less than an hour ago. He must have fallen asleep . . .

  “We have to be on the plane at seven, remember?”

  He remembered.

  He also realized Victoria was kicking his ass out of her bed. He rose, taking his time, and she immediately backed away. At that retreat, he stilled.

  Was she still scared of him? After what they’d just done?

  He took a minute, then rolled back his shoulders. He could smell her all around him. That sweet, heady scent of lavender, and he was still aroused.

  Tonight hadn’t satisfied him. It had only made him want more.

  The question was . . . did she feel the same way?

  Not if she’s kicking me out.

  He put on his jeans. Dressed in silence. He could feel her eyes on him and he knew she had to see his arousal. When he looked up at her, Victoria’s cheeks were flushed.

  Holding her gaze, he closed in on her.

  Victoria backed up a step.

  His eyes narrowed at that retreat. She was supposed to trust him. Not retreat.

  His hand lifted and—­sure the hell enough—­she gave a little flinch. After everything . . . no. His hand sank beneath the weight of her hair and he brought his mouth down on hers. He kissed her slowly, taking his time and enjoying her mouth. Then he pulled back and said, “I like touching you.”

  “Wade . . . no ties.”

  That had been her rule, not his.

  He smiled and let her go. If he could, he’d tie her to him in a thousand different ways.

  But he could be patient. He could play the game, for now.

  So he turned away from her and headed toward the front of her penthouse. When he reached her door, he glanced back over his shoulder. Victoria had followed him.

  “Two questions . . .” His voice was a little harder than he would have liked. But he didn’t understand this game between them, not fully, not yet.

  Victoria nodded.

  “Question one . . . do you often go out and look for a stranger in the dark?” Because if she did, he’d have a whole lot of asses to kick.

  “Not . . . often.”

  His back teeth clenched.

  “And I wasn’t . . . wasn’t looking for a fuck, not like you said. I was kissing him. I—­I don’t know what else—­”

  She stopped.

  He didn’t want to think of anything else.

  Very slowly, Wade exhaled. “Question two . . . when you feel the need to let go again . . . when you want to climax until you scream . . . will you come to me?”

  Silence.

  Hell—­

  “No ties?” Victoria asked. “No strings? Partners, with benefits?”

  He nodded.

  “Then . . . yes.”

  That was what he needed to know.

  For now.

  “See you on the plane,” Wade told her, and then left. He didn’t let himself look back, because if he did, he didn’t think he’d be able to leave.

  VICTORIA LOCKED THE door behind Wade. She set her alarm and crawled back into the bed—­a bed that smelled of him.

  She swiped at the stupid tears on her cheeks.

  The sex had been amazing. Toe-­curling, can’t-­catch-­my-­breath fantastic. But it should have only been sex. Nothing more. Nothing less.

  Instead, she’d fallen asleep in his arms. She’d let down her guard and enjoyed being held by him. She’d awoken and hadn’t been scared. She’d awoken and thought—­

  He’s with me.

  But she had to keep him from getting too close. He couldn’t learn her secrets. And he could not break through the wall that she kept around herself.

  Sex was one thing.

  Secrets . . . trust . . . no, there were some lines that she would never cross. Not even with him.

  SHE DIDN’T SLEEP well the rest of the night. Mostly because she kept thinking about Wade. Thinking far too much about him.

  So at six A.M. she had her bag and rushed out of her building. She’d already called a cab to take her to the airport. She intended to play things very cool with Wade. She could do casual. Maybe. Hopefully.

  She could—­

  “Victoria?”

  At the familiar voice, she turned her head. Flynn Marshall was jogging toward her, clad only in a pair of loose shorts. Sweat covered his muscled chest.

  Right. He runs. Just like clockwork when he’s in town.

  That was how they met. She’d been on her way to work. Flynn was jogging right by her—­they’d nearly collided.

  Then she’d seen him again, at Wild Jokers. He bought her an apology drink.

  Now, Flynn barely seemed winded as he closed in. He put his hands on his hips and his gaze swept over her. “I was hoping I might see you today.”

  Uh, okay.

  “I was worried,” he added. “I went back to that alley about ten minutes later and you were gone.”

  Were her cheeks turning red? She thought they might be. “Wade took me back home.”

  His blue eyes narrowed. “The work . . . partner.”

  She’d been clear with Flynn. No strings. And they’d had sex once. Just once . . . “Right. My work partner.”

  His gaze slid to her bag. “Another mysterious trip?”

  “Just business as usual.” He was a pharmacy rep, so she knew Flynn took plenty of trips out of town himself.

  “Maybe we can get together when you come back.” His ear buds dangled loosely around his neck.

  She hesitated. Wade and I have a deal. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

  His eyelids flickered. “Because of the partner?”

  A cab pulled up at the corner. Her cab.

  “Because of the partner,” Victoria agreed. Then she shook her head
. “No, no, it’s because of me. I’m sorry, Flynn. I—­”

  His smile was sad. “You never led me on, Vik. I knew where I stood with you.” He nodded. “I’d hoped that you knew where you stood with me, too.”

  The cab driver had exited the vehicle.

  “Stay safe,” Flynn murmured. Then he was gone, running off at a steady pace.

  I never felt the same with him.

  The cabbie took her bag. Victoria murmured her thanks and climbed into the vehicle.

  I never felt the same attraction with Flynn. Not like I do with Wade. When Wade touches me . . . it’s not fear that makes me tense.

  It was need. Desire.

  Deal or no deal, she wouldn’t have been meeting Flynn when she got back to town.

  Because now she knew what it was like to want someone so badly that nothing else mattered. And that kind of desire . . . it was dangerous.

  CHAPTER THREE

  THIS IS WHERE she disappeared,” Lucas Branson said as he put his hands on his hips and paused in the middle of the running trail—­Jupiter Trail. The sunlight glinted off his sunglasses. “Or at least, this is where the cops found her ear buds. She always ran with those things in, said it helped her to get in the zone . . .” He trailed away, then shook his dark head.

  Victoria glanced around the area. They were in a park on the outskirts of Savannah, and the mid-­afternoon sunlight flickered down through the trees. The dirt path snaked through the trees—­a lot of trees. Enough trees to provide the perfect cover for someone who might be waiting to attack. Birds chirped happily from the shelter of those trees.

  “We have Kennedy’s case files,” Wade said as he paced toward a tall oak tree. “There have been no ransom demands, no phone calls . . . no contact at all from Kennedy or her abductor in five years.”

  Did Lucas understand just how bad that was? A ransom demand at least meant the victim might be alive. You could get a proof of life with a ransom demand. You could work with the abductor. But when a perp took a victim, and the family or friends never heard so much as a whisper . . .

  That means the perp never intended to let his victim go.

  “There was nothing,” Lucas said, and sadness flashed across his face. “I even offered a ten-­thousand-­dollar reward, hoping someone would come forward and tell me what had happened to her, but no one seemed to remember anything.” His hands lifted, then fell. “She was here one moment and gone the next. If it hadn’t been for those ear buds, hell, I don’t even know that the cops would have believed she was ever out on this trail.” He pulled off his sunglasses and shoved them into his shirt pocket.

  “Her hair was found on the ear buds,” Victoria said. She’d read that bit of info in Kennedy’s files. And the hair had been compared by forensics to the hair at Kennedy’s home—­in her brush. The cops had proved that Kennedy was in the park, but then she’d disappeared.

  “Yeah, that was when they finally started to believe me.” Lucas sounded angry now, anger reflected in the hardness of his blue gaze. “But that was over forty-­eight hours after she disappeared. And I know, now, that the first forty-­eight hours are the most important. That’s when you have the best chance of finding the missing, right?”

  Victoria met Wade’s gaze.

  “That’s what they say on TV,” Lucas muttered. “If you don’t find them in that first forty-­eight hours, the chance of the person coming home alive . . . it goes down so damn far.”

  There was such pain in his voice. It pulled at her. She didn’t quite know how to handle the victims—­not the living ones, anyway. That was why she spent so much of her time with the dead. They talked to her. She found evidence on them. She could recreate their last moments. Piece together what happened to them.

  Track their killers.

  Yes, it was the dead that helped her. The living . . . she just hurt for them.

  At that moment, she was hurting for Lucas. “TV isn’t always reality,” she heard herself say.

  Hope flashed in his eyes.

  Oh, crap. I don’t want him to expect a miracle. Yes, they were in Savannah to help find Kennedy, but after five years—­five years!—­the chance of finding her alive . . .

  It was astronomically low. Surely Lucas understood that?

  Wade cleared his throat. He crossed to Victoria’s side, but when he spoke, his attention was on Lucas. “You told the police that Kennedy didn’t have any enemies.”

  “Everyone loved her.” Lucas’s chin lifted. “Maybe that was the problem. She was so beautiful. She’d enter a room, and the men would take one look and want her. She was just that kind of woman, you know? You saw her, and you wanted her.”

  Wade tilted his head to the side. “I’m sorry, but I have to ask you this . . . was Kennedy involved with anyone else? Were you two exclusive?”

  “I was going to marry her.”

  Wade’s expression remained neutral as he said, “If we’re going to do this right, you should know, we have to dig deep into Kennedy’s life. If she had secrets, we will uncover them. So if there’s something that you know—­now is the time to share it.”

  Actually, Victoria thought, five years ago would have been the time to share it.

  “Were you exclusive?” Wade pushed. “Or was Kennedy involved with anyone else?”

  Lucas’s gaze fell to the ground. “There were a few times . . . I—­I thought she might be cheating. There were just . . . marks on her. Marks that I hadn’t put there.”

  Now Victoria was curious. “Marks?”

  Lucas’s jaw locked. “Faint bruises on her hips. Redness near her . . . her breasts. Marks that a lover would leave.”

  “And you’re sure that you didn’t leave the marks?” Wade wanted to know.

  “She said they were nothing.” Lucas’s gaze turned distant. “That she’d just bumped into something or that her clothes had chaffed her during her last workout. I was always the jealous type—­she knew that. And she just laughed and told me that I didn’t have anything to worry about.” He ran his hand over his face. “I never saw her with anyone else. I never found any trace of the guy after she vanished, so I thought—­I thought I was just being jealous.”

  Wade was silent.

  In the distance, Victoria heard the sharp cry of a bird.

  They’d been out there for a while, and they hadn’t encountered any other people. The spot was so isolated. So perfect for an abduction.

  “Her routine was the same, every day?” Wade asked.

  Victoria was just letting him run with his questions. That was Wade’s thing. As a former homicide detective, he always seemed to know just what to ask the witnesses and family members.

  She figured he could handle the living.

  She’d stick with the dead.

  Only I wish we could find Kennedy alive. She wished that sometimes the good guys would win and the monsters in the dark wouldn’t claim so many victims.

  “Every single day,” Lucas rasped, “she’d run three miles. She said it helped her clear her head. Same path, same time. Kennedy liked her schedules.”

  But a schedule like that could prove dangerous. It was too easy to follow someone else’s patterns. Too easy to watch and find those weak moments.

  Victoria glanced around once more.

  Too easy to find those isolated spots.

  It was far better for people to vary their routines—­to try different trails. Different times. Because you never knew . . .

  Just who might be watching.

  “I need closure,” Lucas suddenly said. Her gaze slid back to him. She tried to study him objectively—­a handsome man, fit, in his late twenties. He seemed guileless, as his emotions flashed easily on his face and in his eyes. He was the one who’d contacted LOST. He was the one who’d never given up on Kennedy, but . . .

  “Closure?” Victoria repeated caref
ully.

  “I’ve found someone else.” His cheeks flushed. “And I love her. We want to get married . . .”

  Now she got the picture. “But you think you can’t move on, not until you know for certain what happened to Kennedy?”

  His Adam’s apple bobbed. “What if she’s still out there, hoping that I’ll find her? Waiting for me?” And the guilt was there, creeping into his voice. “And I’m here . . . with someone else? Planning a new life? A life that—­” He broke off, but he didn’t have to say the words.

  Victoria understood. A life that should have been hers.

  “We’ll do our best,” Wade said. “But as Gabe told you, we can’t guarantee that we’ll find Kennedy. We’ll reexamine the case, look at it with fresh eyes, but if there isn’t anything to discover . . .” He shook his head a bit sadly. “You have to realize that Kennedy may never come home. You may never get the closure that you seek.”

  “And that’s the hardest part,” Lucas said as his lips curved down. “Not knowing. Is she dead? Is she alive? Did some sick bastard take her from me? Or did she . . . did she just choose to vanish? That’s what some of the cops thought, you see. That the ear buds weren’t proof she’d been taken. They said she could’ve just dropped them. That she could’ve just decided she didn’t want marriage or a life with me.” He shrugged. “So she just vanished. Without any of the clothes in her closet. Without her money. Without anything.” His laughter was bitter. “That was such bullshit. I know she didn’t leave me. Kennedy wouldn’t have done that. I knew her.”

  Silence.

  Lucas’s phone began to ring. He pulled it from his pocket and glanced down at the screen. “It’s Connie. I’m sorry, I have to take this . . .” He turned and paced a few feet away.

  Victoria focused on Wade. “I’m guessing Connie is the new lady in his life.”

  Wade’s considering gaze was on the other man. “I think he knows that Kennedy was cheating on him. He didn’t believe her excuses. There was another guy.” Now his stare turned to her. “We need to find that other man.”

  “You think he took Kennedy?”

  “I think some men can’t let go of a woman.” His gaze darkened as he stared at her.