“I used to dream about being able to touch you like this. It was all I could think about. It was so confusing. I wasn’t supposed to think about putting my hands all over my brother’s girl.” Hill’s voice was ragged, and I could hear both longing and guilt laced around every word. It matched my feelings exactly. I pulled him back down for a kiss because I couldn’t respond.
He touched my body with unmatched skill, but it was my heart he managed to get a reaction out of, when no one else had been able to. It was amazing how he managed to be both the calm and the storm in my life.
I wanted to scream when his fingers suddenly scissored apart at the same time that his thumb pressed down in steady circles on my clit. The kiss we were caught up in went sloppy and uncoordinated as his tongue began to mimic the motion of his hand sliding in and out of my now-drenched opening.
When he pulled his head back and looked down at me, eyes molten, it was the longing and pure appreciation in his gaze that pushed me over the edge. I’d never felt more beautiful. More desired. More necessary. It was as if pleasing me was his only purpose and his greatest accomplishment.
My body went liquid and pliant. I succumbed to the rush of pleasure, floating away in a fog of bliss. I felt his fingers stroke through the flood of moisture and watched as a self-satisfied smile broke across his handsome face. It was the first real smile I’d seen on him in ages, and it did something to my heart to realize I was the one who’d put it there. I felt protective of it. Possessive even.
I was thinking of all the ways I could make that smile even bigger. All of them included getting him naked and getting my pants off, but then his phone started to ring.
I grew up with a father in law enforcement, and spent a lot of time with an older brother who’d also vowed to protect and serve. I knew a call this late in the night wasn’t anything good.
Hill hastily detangled himself from my embrace, though he kept the hand with wet fingers low on my stomach, tracing an aimless pattern on my skin as he grumbled one-word answers to whoever was on the other end of the line.
He swore viciously, and the look in his eyes shifted from appraising and pleased to shady and dark.
“I have to go. Hearst will be here in a few minutes to pick me up.”
I nodded and took my shirt from him when he handed it to me. I knew better than to ask him where he was going. Before I crashed his interview with my half sister he might’ve told me, but I’d blown that tentative trust out of the water by acting impulsively.
“I wouldn’t leave if I didn’t have to. You know that, right? There are things that still need to be said.”
He sounded genuinely concerned that I was going to lose it when he left. I lifted a hand and cupped his cheek.
“One of these days we’re both going to be the same level of undressed, and it’s either going to be the best or the worst thing that has ever happened to us.” I leaned forward and dropped a kiss on the end of his nose. “Go. Catch the bad guys and don’t get hurt. You know where to find me when you get back.”
He nodded gravely, reluctance clear in every line of his face and every slow movement he made. When he was gone and I was alone, I flopped onto my back and stared up at the ceiling.
I had no idea what I was doing. I knew down to my soul that if things went south with Hill it would ruin more than our tenuous relationship.
Things were changing. But I couldn’t say if they were changing for better or worse yet, and that was terrifying. But not scary enough to keep me away.
Chapter 12
Hill
Why didn’t you tell me you had a unit watching the doctor?”
I had taken over driving duty since I was more familiar with the dark Texas roads. Plus Hearst’s phone hadn’t stopped ringing and dinging since the moment he picked me up. Hearst looked up briefly from the new message coming through and gave me a pointed stare. “Because I’m not sure where your head is at. I know you’re only here as a consultant, but you’re too close to this case. Or rather, too close to the people involved. If anyone else had crashed an interview with our only witness you would’ve locked them up for obstruction. I need to keep the doctor within my sights because I’m pretty sure she’s connected to the murder, and so your little friend doesn’t scare her off. The woman is ready to jump at any shadow that moves.”
I cringed because he was speaking the truth. My objectivity was shot to hell, had been since I set foot back in Loveless. It was even more blown out of the water now that I knew how sweetly Kody could say my name when she was losing control. How she looked writhing under my hands and trapped underneath my mouth.
I knocked the side of my fist on the steering wheel and wished there were a reasonable argument I could offer up in my defense. But there wasn’t one. After all, he’d had to pick me up from Kody’s bar in the middle of the night, and I was sure he’d heard all about the fight I’d helped break up. He was right. I was too close, and it was starting to cause problems.
“Why do the cops think Dr. Baskin is making a run for it?” Baskin was twitchy and nervous, but she didn’t seem like the rash sort. She was too calm and methodical—at least that was my impression of the woman so far. Plus, she was on the brink of a huge career advancement opportunity. Now would be the worst time for her to disappear.
“She traded in the Tesla today. Picked up some nondescript four-door sedan from a dealer. Paid cash. When she got back to her friend’s place she loaded up the trunk with what seemed like her personal belongings and was visibly upset. The friend was nowhere to be found, so I had the guys watching her look into where the friend might have ended up.” Hearst turned his attention back to his phone, rapidly typing out a message as he kept talking. “Turns out, the friend was pushed off a curb in the middle of rush hour in downtown Austin yesterday. She got pretty banged up and ended up with a concussion. She swears it was deliberate, the cops investigating think she had one too many at happy hour. Either way, Baskin is spooked and waited until after midnight before jumping in the new car and hitting the road. She stopped about a hundred miles outside of Austin at a no-tell motel. Our unit asked if they should approach her, but I figured she’d have an easier time talking to us. She has no choice but to explain what’s really going on now.”
The doctor had literally been caught in the act. Most law enforcement operated with the idea that an innocent person wouldn’t run. But I still felt like she was running based on fear rather than guilt.
“I feel like I owe you an apology. I’m supposed to be here to help guide the case and offer insight into the Lawtons and Conrad’s life. I got so caught up in the past and how they’re all feeling right now, I lost sight of the overall objective.” In short, I was doing shit at my job, the one thing I’d always been best at.
Hearst looked up from his phone once again, this time with a quizzical expression on his face. “The objective is to find whoever killed Conrad Lawton. I don’t think we’d have gotten as close to the doc without your in with the family. We would still be chasing our tails. It doesn’t look like any of the Lawton siblings are involved in their father’s death, thank God, but I do worry about them ganging up on Baskin and alienating her. We need her. I don’t trust you to pick any side other than the Lawtons’ if it comes to a showdown, even if they’re in the wrong.” His eyebrow winged up, and a smirk twisted the corner of his mouth. “I knew you had history with the sister, but I guess it was never fully disclosed how deep that connection was. You can’t see anything or anyone else when she’s around. If it wasn’t happening in the middle of my murder investigation I’d say it was cute as hell.”