“Not when I’m going to sleep.”
“You mean to tell me that every time I’ve seen you walking around this house in those damn shorts, there’s been nothing underneath?”
I shrugged.
Hayes’ head dropped to my shoulder. “You’re going to kill me. I’m going to die of an actual stroke.”
I gave his neck a playful bite. “Let’s have a little fun first.”
“Damn straight.”
In a flash, Hayes had me on my back on the mattress, pulling my sleep shorts from my body. He tossed them over his shoulder as he moved for my tank top next, throwing that somewhere else. “I knew you’d be beautiful.” One finger circled my nipple. “But you steal my breath.”
“Hayes.” His name was a cross between a whimper and a plea. “Need you.”
Those dark eyes caught fire, and I’d never seen anything more beautiful. “You have me.” He tore open a foil packet, rolling a condom over his length as my legs encircled his waist once more, bringing him closer to me. His tip bumped against my opening. “You with me?”
“Always.” It wasn’t a lie. After this, a piece of me would always be with him. Buried somewhere deep, even if I had to walk away.
My eyes fluttered closed as Hayes slid inside.
“Stay with me, Ev.”
My eyes flew open as he began to move. My back arched as I met him stroke for stroke. It was different. Whatever was between us made it so. That pull had rooted itself deeply now, and I didn’t think it would ever break.
My fingers curled into Hayes’ shoulders as he angled his hips, driving himself impossibly deeper. Sparks of light dotted my vision with each thrust. I dug in deeper, searching for that last piece.
That thumb, the same one that’d gently stroked my cheek to ease me, found that tightly wound bundle of nerves. The rough pad circled and teased, then flicked with a force that sent everything crashing down around me. And as we came apart, I knew nothing would ever be the same.
35
Hayes
“You’re whistling again,” Young said as she pulled up a chair in the meeting room.
I immediately stopped. No part of me should be whistling. Not when we’d had two attempted abductions recently, and someone had nearly run my sister off the road last night. But I had been. Because amidst the storm swirling, I was the happiest I’d been in years. “I think you’re hearing things, Young. No whistling over here.”
She snorted and took a seat. My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I pulled it out.
Mom: You need to talk to Hadley. Convince her to move home until whoever’s doing this is caught.
I sighed and slid the phone back into my pocket without responding. I knew this was triggering for my mother but trying to force Hadley to move home would only make things worse.
“Not whistling now. Everything okay?”
“My mom isn’t dealing with all of this well.”
Sympathy filled Young’s face. “I can’t imagine how scared she must’ve been. If someone took one of my babies from me…”
“I know she’s hurting. But she doesn’t always deal with that pain or fear well when it comes to Hadley.”
Young winced. “They’re still struggling, huh?”
I nodded. “And what’s going on isn’t making things any easier.” I looked back at the whiteboard I’d moved into our meeting room. There was a scattering of facts about the case, locations, and other information. The pressure of finding whoever was behind this was only mounting.
More officers flooded the room, and I did my best to shake it off. “Grab a seat, folks.” I’d called in everyone, even those currently off duty. Only those needed for active assignments weren’t here, and they’d get a recount at another time.
The chatter died down as everyone found a chair and pulled out either their phones or old-school pen and paper. I surveyed the room. “As you know, we’ve had two attempted abductions in the past few weeks. Last night, my sister, Hadley, was almost driven off the road. We don’t think it was related, but we’re not ruling anything out. Because of my ties to the case, I’m handing over the reins to Sergeant Ruiz. He’ll walk you through what we have so far.”
Every single person in the room was laser-focused on what Ruiz had to say. We laid out a plan and asked every officer to be on alert for any suspicious activity. I’d also decided it was time to put the word out in the community, an alert that would suggest that women stick together in groups and not go anywhere alone. It burned to do it, to create panic in the community, but panic was a hell of a lot better than regret.
“I think that’s everything.” Ruiz looked to me for confirmation.
“That should do it. If you have questions, we’ll stick around to answer them.”
There were a few, but people mostly headed out for their days off or back to whatever task they’d been working on before. I gave Ruiz a fist bump. “You did good running your first rodeo.”
“I hate talking in front of crowds.”
“Come on. I’ll get you a cup of coffee to celebrate.”
We didn’t even make it to the door before Williams flagged me down. “Uh, boss? Your mother’s here, and she’s agitated.”
I sighed and glanced at Ruiz. “I guess that coffee will have to wait.” I turned back to Williams. “Send her back to my office.”
I wound my way through desks to get to my space. At least, I could shut the door there. I searched for the buzz of happiness I’d had this morning. The one from waking up tangled with Everly. The one that was fading far too quickly.
The door burst open just as I eased down into my chair. It didn’t take an investigator to see that my mother had worked herself into a state. “You don’t answer your phone anymore?”
I pulled out my cell and saw five missed calls. “I was in a meeting. You know my work schedule. If I don’t call you back, there’s a reason.”
She paced back and forth across the small space. “You have to talk to Hadley. She’s being ridiculous. She can suck it up and stay with us for a few weeks, so I don’t have to worry.”
My cell phone buzzed in my hand.
Shy: You need to calm Mom down. Tell her I’m going to stay with Hads for a while.
I kept staring at the words on the screen, trying to figure out some way to shape this into a good thing for my mom.
“What? Is that Hadley?”
I looked up from the device that wasn’t giving me one lick of help. “No. It was Shy. She’s going to stay with Hadley for now so neither of them will be alone.”
Mom’s jaw fell open. “You think that makes me feel better? They’ll be in one spot, so whoever this madman is can just pick them off.” She started pacing again. “This is Hadley’s doing. She’s got Shiloh all upset now, too.”
“Mom…”
“Don’t Mom me.”
“You need to calm down. Just take a breath, or you’re going to lose them both.”
My mother looked as if I had slapped her. “How could you say something like that?”
“Because it’s the truth. We can’t keep avoiding what happened. Ev was right. We need to face it.”