“You always think you know what I feel.” Allie reached up for Ash’s hand and drew it down to her breast. Instantly her nipple tightened against Ash’s palm and she shuddered. “And you’re always wrong.”

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chapteR nineteen

At a little before eight, Carter finished typing in the last line of her report on the findings at the murder scene. Aware of Bri standing quietly just behind her chair, she pushed Save, then Print, and swung around in her chair. “What’s up?”

Bri rocked back on her heels, her hands bunched in her pockets.

“Reese told me to make sure you didn’t need anything.”

“We’re good here. Why don’t you head on out.” Carter cocked her head when Bri didn’t move. For such an honest kid, Bri wasn’t all that easy to read, and something was clearly bothering her now. Playing back recent events in her mind, Carter thought it might have been how she’d handled things when she and Bri had responded to the DB call.

She’d automatically kicked into investigative mode as soon as she saw the body, and had pretty much taken over. Then Reese had shown up and made her the lead in the murder investigation. She’d been too busy getting a jump on the early facts of the case to consider how all that might appear, but Bri was probably feeling pushed aside by someone who hadn’t earned her stripes yet. Justifiably so, too. “Problem?”

“No. Are you leaving now?”

“I thought I’d stick with things for a while,” Carter said carefully.

“Find out where Agent Lloyd was staying in town. Maybe get a lead on where he was last night. You can bet the feds won’t tell us.”

“You’re going to go door-to-door?”

Carter lifted her shoulder. “This is a small town. Someone will have seen this guy.”

“What’s she like, the agent in charge?” Bri asked.

“Not someone you want to cross.” Carter had spent a couple of

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days behind bars because Supervisory Special Agent Marilyn Allen had thought she could browbeat Carter into turning state’s evidence against Rica and her father. Come to think of it, she hadn’t heard anything through her considerable sources that the agent was still actively pursuing Alfonse Pareto, but she couldn’t believe Marilyn Allen would give up. Which made her all the more dangerous. Of course, Bri didn’t know any of that history. “Sometimes agents like her have an agenda that supersedes solving an individual case, if it doesn’t suit their long-term purpose. That’s why Reese is right in insisting that we keep control of this case. Our only agenda is to solve this murder.”

“So can I stick with you this morning?” Bri hurried on before Carter could respond. “I want to check and make sure Caroline’s okay, but you know…the first day in a murder investigation is critical, right?

So I figured I should work it with you. I’ve never had the chance before.”

“You okay with me taking lead?”

Bri’s eyebrows rose, then she grinned. “First of all, Reese wants it that way, so it’s fine by me. Secondly, next to Reese and my dad, you’re the most senior person here. I want to learn. And I want to solve the case.”

“Jesus, I wish I knew how Reese learned to walk on water.”

“Born that way,” Bri said seriously.

“I believe it.” Laughing, Carter stood up and stretched the kinks out of her shoulders. She hated typing. One of the great things about being undercover was that she almost never had to file formal reports.

Now that, along with almost everything else she knew about policing, had changed. Somehow, she’d become the senior partner, and a rabbi on top of it from the looks of things. She was surprised at just how good that felt. “I want to stop home and see Rica too. Why don’t we swing by my place, grab something to eat and maybe a shower.” She looked Bri up and down and shook her head. “I don’t have anything that will fit you, String Bean, but you’re welcome to the hot water.”

“Sounds good,” Bri said enthusiastically. “I’ve got a change of clothes in my locker.”

“You know if you plan on working this case, you won’t be getting any sleep until we break it.”

“I know that.”

Bri’s smooth, clear features hardened, reminding Carter that she

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was young but she wasn’t green. Reese had told her about Everly’s attack and how Bri, just a kid then, had fought him off. Bri wasn’t a kid anymore and she’d been tested more than once.

“How did you get that scar on your neck?” Carter asked quietly.

“Knife,” Bri said neutrally. “Reese put me undercover and I walked right into a drug bust gone bad.”

Carter nodded. “Yeah, been there. Looks like you handled that okay.”

“How do you know?” Bri asked.

“Easy. You’re not dead.” Carter clapped her on the shoulder. “Let’s go, partner.”

v

“Allie, what are you doing?” Ash’s fingers trembled on Allie’s breast.

“You know.” Allie bit her lip as Ash’s hand tightened on her, chafing her T-shirt over her nipple and sending shock waves through her core. She was tired of fighting the warning voices in her head cautioning her to stay far away from Ash Walker. Surrendering to every instinct she had, Allie slicked the tip of her tongue back and forth over Ash’s lower lip, darting inside and back out, taunting her. I wanted to do this from the moment I saw you in the parking lot. I wanted to do this when I saw you in the bar. I wanted to do this in the middle of a dark abandoned building. I wanted to do this last night. I’ve wanted and wanted and wanted and I can’t stop wanting.

“Allie,” Ash groaned.

“You know what I’m doing, what I want,” Allie murmured. “And you want this too.”

“You’re right.” Ash sank back on the sofa and pulled Allie with her. She skimmed a hand under the back of Allie’s ribbed tank and caressed the length of her spine while she chased Allie’s tongue with hers. She couldn’t touch her enough, couldn’t taste her enough, couldn’t get deep enough inside her. She wanted her so much she was afraid to touch her, afraid she would rip her clothes off, force herself on her, in her. So she feathered her fingertips lightly over the delicate curves of her shoulder blades, the muscles along her spine, the rise of her ass.

The lightest of touches, the gentlest of kisses. Careful, reverent, fearful

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that in the next breath, the next heartbeat, Allie would be gone and she would be alone again. Desolate. Lost. So empty all she could hear was herself screaming in the silence.

“Ash,” Allie whimpered. She was coming apart under Ash’s hands. Ash had been a considerate lover, but always a demanding one.

One of the things Allie had always loved about being with Ash was how much Ash wanted her, and how powerfully she made that clear.

Allie was used to fast and hard with Ash, used to being taken, used to being driven relentlessly, breathlessly over the edge. She’d missed the wild ride, the out-of-control abandon, the reckless surrender. The first touch of Ash’s hand on her breast had primed her, and now, now these slow, teasing kisses and delicate strokes were driving her completely out of her mind. She was poised on the peak of an enormous roller coaster and she wanted, needed, to careen down the slope, faster and faster and faster until she flew off the rails into screaming oblivion. She couldn’t rein in her excitement, dial it down, find the brakes—she was just helpless, mindless need. She climbed onto Ash’s lap, straddling her, her T-shirt riding up, her damp panties rubbing on Ash’s fly.

“God I want you, Al,” Ash gasped.

“Baby,” Allie moaned, “baby, don’t hold back.” She pushed her tongue into Ash’s mouth and gripped her wrist, dragging Ash’s hand between them. She lifted her hips and pressed herself into Ash’s palm.

“God, feel me. I’m so hot. If you don’t touch me I’ll die.”

When Ash gently circled the firm ridge beneath the wet silk panties with a fingertip, echoing the movement with her thumb on Allie’s nipple, Allie gasped and dropped her head onto Ash’s shoulder.

So good, so good but not enough.

“Oh my God.” Allie squeezed her eyes closed and squirmed against Ash’s hand. “Oh my God, I want to come so bad. Ash, please.

Help me, baby.”

“Shh,” Ash soothed, flicking the silk aside and sliding one finger into the warm slick groove. Allie’s hips bucked and she made a strangled sound in her throat. Ash kissed her jaw, felt her quiver all over. She eased farther inside, one finger, two. Her thumb brushed Allie’s rigid clitoris. She stroked gently over the top. Any harder, any faster, and Allie would come, and she didn’t want her to, not yet. She wanted to be inside her, this close, with no anger or hurt or disappointment between them, forever. “Pull your shirt up, honey. Let me suck you.”

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The muscles in Allie’s stomach danced and rolled as she sat upright, forcing Ash’s fingers deeper between her legs. Gripping the lower edge of her tank, she pulled it off, every movement adding to the pressure pulsing low in her belly. She kept her eyes on Ash as she braced one arm against the sofa next to Ash’s head and cupped her own breast in her hand. She leaned forward, brushing her nipple over Ash’s mouth. “Fuck me, goddamn you.”

Ash’s eyes turned to midnight and she flipped Allie onto her back so fast that Allie cried out. Then she cried out again as Ash knelt between her legs and filled her hard with one thrust. Allie’s vision went dark and stars danced against the inside of her eyelids. She drove her hips up, forcing Ash even deeper, and came on her hand in sharp, hard bursts of pleasure.

“Is that what you need?” Ash cried. “Is that what you need, Al?”