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William bit down on his thumbnail and increased the picture size. Nothing better in the morning than scanning the naked corpse of some pasty white thug for clues. Pity the police didn’t bother to do this. It took three scans before he saw anything of interest. He made the image bigger still, but the resolution was too low. He could barely make out the mark. It might’ve been something else. A cat scratch, or a papercut. But maybe not.
Setting the laptop back on his desk, William sighed heavily. If he were right, there would be more than one murder for the Vegas PD to investigate. Well, more than usual, since Vegas tended to average about 130-150 murders per year. That part wasn’t particularly compelling to William. The problem was that if that mark meant what he thought, he might be one of them. There was no guarantee that he’d still be a target. Logically, if someone had wanted him dead, it would’ve been easier to take him down while he was still in prison. However, he’d just gotten his life back. He had no desire to lose it.
He rose and headed to the kitchen, considering his next move. There were ways to get information to the police, but since he didn’t know the name or the current alliance of this killer, it would be difficult to tip them off without simply walking into the station and telling them to look at the evidence more closely. Then there was the problem of his missing ring. The police weren’t looking in the right places, all because of that red herring dropped by a common thug’s foot.
As William poured his tea, his thoughts drifted to Anne. This killer, in particular, had once favored knives. Now he was using bullets. There was nothing to suggest that he might not target her if she got too close. He remembered a time when an officer who had simply been following him had gotten put down for getting in the way.
“Goddammit, Anne.”
He watched the brown tea billowing up against the water in his cup. Anne could really die. She hated him, and she’d shown no care for his well-being… but she could die.
His heart constricted as he remembered the feel of her skin against his own. The way she had always stomped away after a fight in those heeled boots of hers that she tried to use to make up for her height. The way her breasts hung above his chest as she straddled him. How when they’d first kissed, their mouths had come together so passionately and so hurriedly that their teeth had clicked. It had been as though they both knew they had to be together right then, or never.
William had no shortage of memories of Anne. She had taken a decidedly law-oriented life path, but she could dance as well, as if she’d spent every day in high school and beyond in the worst of the clubs in the Las Vegas Valley. He remembered one night they had come home together to talk. She’d started to unbutton her blouse, and the air left his lungs. They’d been teasing at that point. A seemingly unending back and forth. He’d laced innuendo into every word he spoke to her, knowing that all of her resistance was fortified against him. She was the law; he aimed to subvert it. Their flirtation shouldn’t have gone further than that.
But it had, that night. Anne had unbuttoned her shirt halfway as William stared at her stupidly. His groin gave a tug, and his stomach seemed to flip. Her lips smiled, teasing, and she rolled her shoulders. He’d even forgotten that he’d put on music when they’d stepped into his house. His hand still at the door, he threw the deadbolt and closed the distance between them. Her hips moved fluidly, as though detached from her. They had a life and movement of their own, and they captivated him as he stood there, for the first time since meeting her, unable to find something to say.
Her blouse fell to the floor, and she stood there in a camisole and tight pants that hugged her hips and dipped below her navel. William was drawn to her. His hands cupped her sides as he took her mouth in a forceful kiss that she seemed to beg for. She gave back as good as she got, and soon he almost felt breathless. His hands had drifted to her back, and then slipped lower, lower…
When Anne pushed him away, he had fallen onto the sofa with disbelief written across his face. But her smile… Oh, her smile had been so wicked, so calculating. Their kisses had been unplanned, hurried, sloppy. She came to him again pulling her cami over her head and tossed it to him. Her belt fell to the floor. Her fingers unbuttoned her pants and then slipped down as she breathed heavily.
“Good God, love,” he had murmured.
Anne slipped her other hand down the side of her pants and gave a little wiggle to loosen them. They dropped. William blinked as he stared at the heart placed right over her soft mound.
“Was that a no?” Anne teased.
“Hush.” William growled. He grabbed her hips and pulled her to him. She gripped his shoulders as he licked his tongue broadly over her taut abs. She bent down to kiss him, and at once her hips were moving again, swiveling in a mesmerizing dance, and her breasts bounced just above his eye line.
