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Matt took Kara’s hand and squeezed it. “You really okay?”
“I am. And I’m so damn happy to be alive.” She looked over at Michael. She had no words. “Thanks doesn’t seem like enough, GQ.”
“It is, KQ. It’s enough.”
37
Kara wanted to sleep, dear God, she wanted to sleep, but she couldn’t.
They’d arrived back to the FBI house after midnight. She took a very long, very hot shower and still felt cold. Under thick blankets, she willed herself to sleep, but every time she closed her eyes, she saw Marcy kill herself, in slow motion. Watched her brains hit the wall, the blood and bone and gray matter. Kara mentally reviewed every possible scenario to stop what happened, but each time Marcy still ended up dead. She was exhausted, physically exhausted, but could not sleep.
Not to mention that Kara had had two close calls in one day. Must be some kind of a record, she thought.
Finally, after nearly two hours of restlessness, she went out to the porch with a bottle of tequila and the comforter from her bed. She downed a long slug from the bottle. Two in the fucking morning and she couldn’t sleep. She drank again, stared into the dark. As long as her eyes were open, she didn’t see Marcy’s brains outside her skull.
She wasn’t drunk yet, but she was getting there.
She heard movement in the house before someone came out to the porch.
Matt.
She wanted to take him to bed because sex would clear her mind. Sex would make her think about herself, and not Marcy, and not the little girl, and not seeing Jamie tied to a pipe or herself holding her breath underwater. But damn, she didn’t need to have the critical eye of Catherine watching her tomorrow. This house didn’t have thick walls.
Kara knew this wouldn’t last. It couldn’t.
Nothing good lasted.
Yeah, she was getting drunk. She drank straight from the bottle. It was a good bottle, one she’d picked up downtown to save for after the case was solved.
Damon Avila was in prison, but they didn’t know how long they could keep him. Matt was taking another run at him tomorrow. He had a plan, he said, to get him to confess. She wanted to know what it was, but hadn’t asked. She didn’t know if she could understand anything right now, her mind was numb. Matt wanted him on the five murders, and he was going to do everything in his power to prove it if Damon didn’t confess. If not tomorrow, they could still keep him as an accessory to the bombing. Kara didn’t know if he was involved—she was pretty certain that Marcy had framed him—but the evidence was at his house, and they could keep him at least until Monday and his arraignment.
She knew how Neil Devereaux had felt. They knew, in their gut, that Damon Avila was guilty of murder. Proving it was going to be an uphill battle. But they had far more than Neil had, so there was that.
She handed her bottle to Matt.
He took a swig. She admired that.
She reclaimed her tequila.
“I thought you were dead,” he said quietly. “When the boat exploded, I hadn’t seen you and Michael jump off.”
He sat next to her on the love seat. Close. Intimate.
He kissed her.
She needed it.
She put the bottle down and held on to him as she devoured his lips, his neck, behind his ear. He groaned and she murmured, “Shh.Don’t wake the house.”
This would be fun, she realized, taking Matt over the edge and being as quiet as possible. It was a challenge. Because when Kara was with Matt, she liked that they were rough and tumble. She relished the thrill, the satisfaction he always gave her. And she loved how she enticed him to let go. Mathias Costa was far too serious, too uptight most of the time. But not in bed. In bed he was free and sexy and devoted to their mutual pleasure. The intensity of his lovemaking had her hook, line, and sinker.
If someone walked out on the porch, that would be it. Kara knew it, and she didn’t want this to be over. She didn’t want to give Matt up. If they had to keep it a secret, so what? Couldn’t she have one good thing in her life that was all hers?
She wasn’t drunk enough to say fuck it.
Reluctantly, she pulled herself away from him.
He pulled her back. “Don’t go.”
