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“In the serial killer rule book?”
“Right.” Alan Mac’s impressive shoulders slumped. “Serial killers dinnae like rules.”
“Except for their own. Twisted though they might be.”
“That’s yer statement then? Ye just happened on another body, and ye touched nothing.”
“That’s my story, and I’m stickin’ to it,” Kris murmured.
He sighed. “Ye can go.”
Kris wasn’t far from the cottage, but she was still kind of surprised, considering the way she stumbled up the hill and zigzagged down the road, that no one offered to take her there. With her shambling gait, no doubt freakishly pale face, the flapping plaid blanket she wore like a cape, and the bag of makeup and food she still clutched in one hand, anyone seeing her might think Kris the local loony. Right now she felt like it.
She reached the cottage, let herself in, and tossed the bag onto the couch. She wasn’t hungry. She was cold, and she was tired.
She stood under the heated stream of the shower until the water went cool, then donned her flannel pajama bottoms, a sweatshirt, and heavy socks before going to bed. When she awoke it was dark and someone was pounding on the door.
Groggy, Kris turned on the light, then, blinded by its brilliance, shuffled into the other room. She opened the door without thinking, and Liam rushed in.
“Are ye all right, mo gradh?” He took her in his arms and, still desperate for warmth, she let him. “I heard what happened. I would have come sooner but—”
Kris pulled his mouth to hers. The only way she’d ever be warm again was this.
In the middle of speaking, his lips still parted, she drank his breath, inhaled his heat. Her tongue plunged; her hands clenched on his neck.
His hair, which had been captured in a rubber band, she released; the spill across her wrists smelled like rain.
He began to lift his head, no doubt to ask her again if she was all right, and she nipped his lip. No words now, no thoughts, only this.
She slid her arms around his shoulders, tangled her fingers in that hair, and the movement tugged up her shirt, exposing her to his touch.
His palms were cool like the night, but they warmed, as did she. Her blood seemed to bubble, and she imagined it red and hot, flowing like lava, glowing like magma beneath her skin.
Wherever he touched, she burned. Ah, the blessed, blessed heat. She might die of it or perhaps of wanting it, wanting him.
They left a trail of clothes across the floor, flinging a shirt here, a sock there, then tumbled naked onto the bed in a tangle of limbs, reaching for and finding each other.
“Kris,” he gasped, and she straddled him, shoving his shoulders flat to the bed and leaning down.
“No,” she murmured against his lips, then whispered, “yes,” when he framed her breasts with his palms, stroking the nipples in time with the thrusts of his tongue.
He kept silent, fast learner, although when she lifted her hips and lowered herself onto him he did say something like, “Urgh.”
At first she kept the movements slow, shallow, just a tease, a bit more seduction. She matched them with her tongue, and he scraped the tips of his nails across her breasts to the rhythm of their bodies’ song.
She hissed in a breath, sitting up, liking both the change in the pressure and the view. Liam’s deep blue eyes appeared black in the flare of the lamp; his dark hair spread across the stark white pillow like an onyx fan. His skin, tanned from days spent outdoors, gleamed slick and smooth. She had to touch it.
It was smooth, but not hot like hers, and that was strange. She felt on fire. He should be, too.
His palms cupped her hips, urged her to keep moving as she roamed, first her fingers across his chest, then her lips, then her tongue. She explored every inch she could reach. She ached to explore those that she could not. Perhaps after she would examine—
Her head had just fallen back, her hips rocking, very close to the end, when she remembered. She’d planned to search every inch of his body for a tattoo.
She stiffened, and the movement rubbed them together just right. His fingers tightened, digging into her hips, and then she was coming. She couldn’t stop it, regardless of who he was, perhaps what he was, and she didn’t want to.
She set her palms over his and rode the tide, rode him, until the last tremor died away.
Before the glow was gone, her mind began to click. Did Liam have a tattoo? How would she find out? She couldn’t inspect him like a monkey trolling for fleas, but there were other ways.
