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“Really?” She arched a brow. “Here I was thinking you were compensating for something.”
Her lips twitched and my gaze caught it. Caught the thick swell and rouge pink of them. I felt my cock slide into the wet silk of her mouth. Imagined the heat of it. The thing inside me groaned. Stroked my cock from under my skin.
My throat tightened.
“When we finish here, we should get something to eat.”
She paused at the rough in my voice, cocked her hip with her flashlight hand on it and looked at me strangely. “Hey, we good?”
I nodded. “We’re good. Just hungry. Let’s finish looking around here.” I reached out, my hand sliding against her lower back to shepherd her.
She let me touch her.
She let my hand slide over the curve of her ass, my fingers brushing the naked crease above her thigh, and I kept quiet about how short her shorts were.
My heart pounded lightly. I’d wanted to know if I would lose control if I touched her, but I was still me, still aching in my balls.
I sighed and watched her ass walk off ahead.
The creek was further forward, and up ahead the ground curved out of sight into somewhere the moon didn’t reach. The sound of running water reassured me it was a creek and not a pit into Hell.
The large tree from the postcard dominated the surroundings. Its limbs writhed this way and that, gnarly and rebellious, stark as an etching against the sky. Dawn was coming.
I glanced at my watch. “Nearly five thirty.”
“Yeah. I was thinking the tree?”
“Your killer would leave a sign on it?”
Zara shrugged. “I...don’t know.”
“I’m not keen on exploring a creek at night, so this will do for a beginning.” Things could pull you under. I was no longer sure of what was possible. “We can wait for more light to do that.”
We walked to the tree then around it, looking for anything, careful with where we placed our feet as roots tumbled everywhere, knotted and diving into the earth. The trunk must be yards in circumference.
From the other side, came her disgusted, “Crap. Why point us to here then make it hard?” Which told me Zara had found nothing.
“Us?” I came around just in time to see her flinch.
“Okay.Me.” Heat burned into her tone to match her gaze. “I know it’s me.” She looked off to the horizon. “Fuck him.”
Fuck you.
It was there in the unsaid.
It had been a stupid thing to say to her.
I sighed and looked for something to say.
“He might not have expected you to follow up. Or he might have. Hard to say, there’s more than profile for these guys.”
Some kidnappers were spiders setting up a web, planning, purchasing, stalking. One possible victim might be passed over for another who was easier to catch. It wasn’t just that they hated to get anything wrong; they also liked the thrill of sitting at the center of their web and tweaking on their silk thread—though that center was likely to be a dumpy van they drove around the suburbs after midnight.
The guy was getting his rocks off by taunting Zara for years. He was patient.
He was dangerous.
I needed to take this seriously if I was going to protect Zara.
