Western Romance Collection: Rugged Cowboys Part 73

"Oh, sure. There's a Coney Island right at the edge of the beach. It's pretty good."

She rolled out of the chair and picked up her purse. It was heavy with the weight of her gun, but she didn't show that she felt the extra weight. She'd put it in the middle to try to get rid of as much blocking as she could. If she was lucky, he wouldn't even know it was there until the moment she pulled it on him.

"This way." She started to walk, and he walked beside her, his boots leaving deep impressions in the soft sand.

"You come around here often?"

"Not often enough," she said. Play a role. She wasn't Erin Russo, workaholic police detective, but that didn't mean she wanted to be Erin Russo, beach rat, either. "It's only a few miles from my apartment, but I'm usually working too much."

"I hear you on that," he said. His voice sounded gregarious, but his face didn't show anything besides squinting at the supposed-to-be-winter sun.

"But I'm between contracts right now, so-the beach it is, I guess."

"That's cool. What do you do for work?"

She'd spent a long time thinking about the answer to that question. She wasn't going to hope for another Roy-type where they didn't bother to ask, and unlike that time, there was a very good reason not to mention her real job.

"I'm a photographer," she said. She'd bought a camera once, paid almost six hundred dollars for a pretty nice one. It was still sitting in the padded case she'd bought with it. It had three photos of handsome dogs she had seen walking past the apartment building on the memory card, a few photos of her sofa, and nothing else. "I mostly do magazine shoots."

"Oh yeah? What magazines?"

"Bridal magazines, mostly. Just easy stuff."

"Cool," he said, but Erin could tell that he wasn't really interested. That was exactly what she'd hoped. That he wouldn't want to hear too much about her job when she dropped that little tidbit. So his disinterest fit perfectly.

"I'm sorry, how rude of me. What do you do, Craig?"

He looked tired. Bored, even. "I work on bikes, mostly. Sometimes I do a little car repair on the side, but it's not often."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah." He didn't elaborate, just tapped his thumbs on the table where they'd been seated and looked around for a waitress. "What's takin' her so long, you think?"

They hadn't seen anyone, so there was no reason to a.s.sume that it was a her, and they'd only been seated a little less than a minute, so it hadn't been that long. Jumpy or ent.i.tled, pick one. She wasn't sure which it was, but it was one of those.

Erin frowned. She was liking this guy less and less by the minute, but she wasn't there to like him. She was there to get close to him and figure out what he had to do with her sister's murder. It was hard to imagine that her sister had seen anything in him at all. Then again, maybe he was on-edge. She could think of a few reasons.

If she was generous, he might be upset that he couldn't reach her sister. Might be trying to find a way to broach the subject with her without sounding insensitive. That would make about anyone edgy. 'Hey, have you seen that person who looks identical to you lately?' Yeah, right.

If she wasn't generous, maybe he was filled with nervous energy because she was exactly that. Identical to the woman he'd just killed. It wasn't often you got to have your cake and eat it, too. He would eat his cake twice, if he got the chance, but that was a special treat for anyone. For serial killers, from what she'd been told, it was a hundred times worse. It was all about repet.i.tion. About chasing that first high, and each one was less than the last.

But a repeat, she'd be irresistible. The one that might actually be able to compete.

He pinched his lips together. "You want to get out of here?"

She shrugged. It had been a couple minutes. Longer than it should have been, anyway. "Sure."

She followed him out. She had taken her car, but she didn't raise a fuss when he took her over to a motorcycle. He stepped over it and it hummed to life as he handed her back a helmet that fit snugly enough to hurt her ears.

"Get on!" She could tell he was shouting, but it was only about loud enough to hear clearly.

"Where are we going?"

"Where do you want to go?"

"I've got an apartment a quarter-mile away. I could mix us something to drink." She didn't realize how loud she was shouting until her chest started to hurt a little with the effort.

"Sounds great. Give me directions while we're moving."

Erin had to jump a little to get herself properly situated on the back of the thing, and her bare feet pressed against the textured rubber of the pegs felt odd. She took extra care to keep her knees spread a little too wide, to avoid the hot pipes on her thighs. It pressed her lower onto the bike, and opened up her mound to grinding hard against the seat, the low vibrations of the bike sending spikes of pleasure through her that she would have rather done without. She needed a clear head to get this guy. She wrapped her arms around his waist, surprisingly thin compared to his relative bulk, and squeezed tight.

"You ready?"

She had better be, because she was already in way too deep.

Thirteen.

"What's your poison?"

It was cooler in the apartment. Cool enough that Erin could feel her nipples tightening up and rubbing uncomfortably against the fabric of her bikini with every little movement, until it hurt. She wanted to change into something else, or at least put on a robe or a jacket. But she didn't.

This was all about a show for Hutchinson, and if she was going to give him a show then she was going to go as far as she could.

"Whatever you've got is fine."

She pulled down a half-drank bottle of Irish Whiskey and poured two fingers for each of them, then carried both gla.s.ses in along with the bottle and set them down in front of him.

"Did you want to get something to eat? I could fix something, or we could get Chinese delivered, or-"

He drank the whiskey as if he wasn't particularly listening, and she wasn't sure that she cared if he was or wasn't. It wasn't important that he respected her, only that he believed that she was who she said she was. If he believed it enough to open up and expose himself.

"Whatever you want, babe. I'm not too worried about it."

"Pizza, then."

He smiled. "You read my mind."

She made the call, stepping into the other room. She wasn't going to leave him enough that he could get into any trouble with her stuff, but she couldn't let him think that she didn't trust him, either. That would have ruined the show. The illusion that she was some vapid s.e.xpot who wouldn't even think about him having murdered her little sister.

An hour's difference didn't make a lot in terms of human growth. A one-hour old wasn't so different from someone just born, and a twenty-one-and-thirty-minutes woman was even less different than thirty-minutes-short-of-twenty-one. But officially the days were different, so officially Becca was the baby.

And man, for years that had been her way, too. Erin couldn't stand it, until she was older and could look at it with hindsight. Besides that, Becca had sure grown up a h.e.l.l of a lot by the time she went off with Dad. Neither of them had any illusions about what that was. He was trouble, and she was going to walk into it with him, because he needed her to.

Now Erin wanted that childish girl back, but she was gone, like it or not. Because of the man in the other room. She bit her lip hard to keep her face straight, to keep herself under control. A girl picked up on the other line.

A large pizza, pepperoni with extra cheese. Nothing to drink. Bread sticks? Sure. They had thirty minutes, but Erin usually expected them a little early. So call it twenty-five. She was right down the street from the place, after all, so even in bad traffic, it wasn't long between out of the oven and at her door.

"I hope you don't mind pepperoni."

The guy rolled his eyes and a smile spread across his face. "Oh no-not pepperoni. What ever will I do?"

"I don't know. I guess you're just going to have to eat... me!" Erin shot her eyes open wide in mock-surprise at her own joke. He snorted out a laugh.

"I could do that, if you like."

"So, Craig. You got any family?"

He sat back and took the whiskey she poured him another two fingers of. Perhaps a little bit more. She was feeling generous.

"Not any more-well. No, I have an aunt, and I think I have a cousin, somewhere out in Florida. I've met the aunt... maybe once, at my mother's funeral, but I don't remember what she looks like. Heard she has a kid, but I've never met him." She filed that away for further investigation. "You?"

"Mom died a few years back. Dad went back to Minnesota, and my sister went with him."

Craig's face twisted up. "Yeah, about that. I need to come clean about something."

"What's that?"

He raised his eyebrows and then they lowered and got tight. "I was talking with your sister. Started a year ago, maybe? Last I heard from her was a week ago, when she was getting on a plane. Heading here."

"Is that right? I hadn't heard anything from her."

"Well, she said she wasn't real close to her sister or anything. She sure didn't mention you two were twins."

"I'm the prettier twin, anyone in our high school would have told you that."

"Oh yeah?"

No, they wouldn't. She was the b.i.t.c.hier twin, and Becca was the nice one, but neither one of them was pretty. But that didn't matter.

"You want to find out?" He leaned in to her, suddenly very intrigued. "Come here, tiger."

She let her legs fall open a little bit, and even though she was still wearing her bikini, the message was clear. He crossed the distance between them in the blink of an eye, his sharp teeth pressed into the soft, sensitive flesh of her throat. Tasting. Sc.r.a.ping his teeth across. Erin let out a soft moan, one she didn't have to fake for his benefit.

His hands wasted no time in untying the top of her bikini. It came off easier than it had gone on, and her t.i.ts were out and accessible within seconds. He took one already-hard nipple between his fingers and pinched. The pain and pleasure shot through her, mixed up and sending all the wrong signals.

The way that her brain started to buzz, though, maybe they were the right ones after all. She could taste the whiskey on his tongue as he pulled her in for a kiss. His knee planted between her thighs, tantalizingly close to her core. She pushed herself down against his knee, rubbing gently where she could still feel the tingle of pleasure remembered from the back of that motorcycle.

"What about my sister," she breathed out, her voice husky and ragged.

"What about her? Is she here? Does she want to join in?" His voice was teasing and cruel. He moved his knee a little bit, grinding it into her mound and sending another heady shot of pleasure through her.

"Shut up and f.u.c.k me."

He pulled his knee away, and Erin's body rebelled at the loss of sensation. How dare she want him like this, she thought. It wasn't G.o.d-d.a.m.ned fair. She lifted her hips to help him get her bottoms off, even as he stood before her fully clothed.

Then he dipped down to a knee and pressed his head between her thighs, and she didn't mind so much any more. His tongue explored her folds, tracing strange, pleasurable lines across her that she wasn't going to be able to forget for a h.e.l.l of a lot longer than she wanted.

Her hands scrabbled for something-anything-to grip, finally finding his thick hair. She took two fistfuls and tried to stop the world from spinning around her by pulling his face in deeper. He took the hint and pressed his tongue into her, the feeling of it wiggling and probing sending strange but unbelievable sensations through her entire body. Even her fingertips seemed to buzz with pleasure.

He didn't ask her about Condoms, and he didn't say please. She heard his belt coming undone, heard his pants unzip, and then he pulled away from her, in spite of her hands in her hair, and pushed inside.

She was tight, even after Roy had f.u.c.ked her so well. The feeling of Craig's c.o.c.k inside her almost hurt, hitting a spot just a little bit too deep inside. He took a hard grip on her hips and used her. She couldn't think of it any other way. She felt like a f.u.c.k toy that he was pulling on and off his c.o.c.k, like she was just some sort of masturbation aid. G.o.d d.a.m.n it all, it felt good.

She couldn't stop her voice escaping with every thrust in, the pain only matched by the pleasure, each sending her spiraling higher and higher until she couldn't think or see or feel anything but the delicious friction between them. A pinch of her nipple sent another shock through her, enough to bunch up her entire body and explode.

He kept f.u.c.king her through her o.r.g.a.s.m, kept moving hard, pushing himself in deeper and deeper with every thrust until he poured his c.u.m into Erin's waiting womb. She let her head drop back just in time to hear the doorbell ring.

Oh, right, she thought dimly, unable to move from the overwhelming pleasure. The pizza.

Fourteen.

Erin sucked in a breath. Had that been a confession? Or the start of one? She wasn't sure. But her sister had come up and she panicked. She had to make sure that she had him wrapped around her finger. If he started talking now, maybe she would have been able to handle it.

She tried to catch her breath. The pizza was cold now, and Craig had left after. He'd taken her number down. Two guys in a week, and both of them had her number, while she only had a dead girl's and the one number on earth she would never call.

There was something strange about it all. Maybe it was her, maybe it was how she was acting, but she wasn't about to worry about that. Not right now.

A call came a moment later, while she was trying to decide if it was worth the effort to finish the pizza, or if it should be moved to the fridge. Or the garbage, for that matter. She picked up.

"Erin Russo," she said, keeping her voice nice and light just in case the wrong person called. This was, she suspected, why people kept track of contacts in their phone.

"How are you holding up?" Roy sounded genuinely concerned, which only made her more annoyed.

"I'm fine. Is this a social call, or did you want to gloat some more?"

"I never gloated, Erin. I'm just doing my job."

"By not letting me do mine? How kind of you."

She could hear him take a deep breath and let it out slowly on the other end of the line. "I know you went straight home to do your own investigation."

"I would never do that, Special Agent Schafer."

"Erin, sometimes I can be distant, and sometimes I can overlook things-but I'm not an idiot."

"And of course I wouldn't say that you were an idiot. After all, you're a hard-working employee of our federal government and I respect the work you do."