He exhaled. "Okay. I was afraid I'd hurt you. I got a little carried away."

"I like that you got carried away." She turned her mouth to his hand and kissed his palm. "I love that I do that to you."

Oh.

He flopped back down on the bed and covered his eyes with his free hand. Marli was looking really...loving. God, he hoped she wasn't going to get all emotional just because they'd had sex. His gut tightened.

"Trey?"

He tensed, kept his eyes covered. "Yeah?"

"Life is really precious, isn't it?"

He swallowed. His chest squeezed painfully, and he reached for her, pulled her into his arms, buried his face in her hair. "Yeah."


Marli turned on her cell phone and punched in the number for her voice mail, biting her lip. "You have sixteen new messages." Her heart sank. She looked at the phone, then flipped it closed and tossed it onto the hotel bed beside her.

She fell back onto the bed and stared at the ceiling. Her life was a mess.

Then why did she feel so incredibly good?

She smiled. Must have been the hot sex and too many screaming orgasms to count last night.

"What?" Trey emerged from the bathroom, toweling his short hair dry, another towel wrapped around his lean hips.

She turned her head to look at him. Awesome. She wanted him again. She held out her arms.

He came and stood at the end of the bed, between her legs and looked down at her, his eyes hot and glittery, drops of water sparkling on his broad, brown shoulders.

"Drop the towel," she commanded softly.

With slow movements, he pulled the tucked-in edge of the towel out, drawing it across his body, then let it drop. Marli's mouth went dry as she stared at him. He was a Greek god. Her fingers itched to touch him, run over those sleek, hard muscles. She loved the indentations in his hips, the big, thick muscles of his thighs, and especially she loved... Whew. He was hard. Again.

"You're beautiful," she told him frankly.

His cheekbones darkened a bit at her open scrutiny. Then he picked up her knees and opened her legs. All she wore was one of his Tshirts, so the movement exposed her intimately to him. She bit her lip. He'd already seen more of her than anyone else in the world, and she might be embarrassed, except the way he looked at her told her he liked what he saw.

"You are gorgeous."

"This isn't going to work."

His lips curved and he gauged the distance between his cock and her vagina. He was tall and the bed was low.

"You're right." He lowered her legs. "Turn over."

She blinked at him, then slowly rolled. The bed gave as he climbed on behind her, then his hands lifted her hips into the air. She pushed up onto her elbows, excitement and desire making her throb and ache.

He held her hips, his knees ruthlessly shoving her legs apart, then he thrust into her from behind. "Oh!" She lowered her forehead to the mattress as he filled her, withdrew, filled her again. He slid in and out, strokes getting faster, harder, his flesh slapping against hers, and it was so incredibly erotic. She pushed her butt back against him to deepen the thrust and heard him growl.

She pushed her hand down under herself, finding her clit.

"Yeah, honey, that's it," he muttered, pumping into her. "Make yourself come."

She moaned as she rubbed herself. Every stroke of his cock inside her made each stroke of her fingers more intense and a fast, hard orgasm shook her, sending her flying into shimmering, shuddering ecstasy.

She was still riding the wave when he tensed and tightened against her, thrust hard once, twice...then withdraw. She whimpered, but then felt liquid warmth on her back and she dimly realized he hadn't used a condom. He held her hips with hard fingers as he spurted onto her.

"God," he gasped. "Sorry, sorry."

She couldn't speak, couldn't breathe. As he pulled away, she stretched out her legs so she lay flat on her stomach and buried her face in her arms. She heard him go into the bathroom, heard water running and then he was wiping off her back with a warm, wet cloth.

Tenderly, carefully he cleaned her, even moving the cloth gently down between her legs.

"I'm sorry," he said again.

She rolled over, arms above her head, one knee bent. "It's okay," she assured him, her heart still thumping madly. "I'm just glad you remembered, 'cause I sure wasn't thinking about that."

He stood there looking down at her, naked and gorgeous, still half-hard and throbbing, his face solemn. "I shouldn't have done that," he said, his voice low and a bit shaky. "It's too big a risk."

"Chill," she told him, a bit puzzled by his intensity. "I'm on the pill. I won't get pregnant and...I won't give you anything."

His eyes widened. "Oh. Okay. Well, I...I... Shit." His throat worked. "I'd better get tested."

Chapter 14

Her mouth dropped open. "Explain, please."

Trey had only had sex with one woman in the last six years. He'd been with Lisa six years, married five years, faithful that whole time. He'd felt safe. Until he remembered that, although he'd been faithful, his wife hadn't.

That memory slammed into him like a punch to the gut.

He turned away from Marli and ran his hands though his hair in agony and frustration. "Goddamn it."

She sat up on the bed, pulling the T-shirt down. Waited. "Trey, we just had sex. You need to tell me what that meant."

"I... It's probably okay," he managed to choke out. "God, Marli, I never meant to put you at risk. I was thinking about pregnancy, not about...STDs. I know my own history, but...someone cheated on me. I just realized... God, I am so sorry."

"Oh." The unspoken questions hovered in the air between them.

Travis, you sonofabitch, you'd better have been practicing safe sex or I will kick your ass so hard...

He sighed. He went over to Marli and lifted her up off the bed and into his arms. He looked her straight in the eye. "I promise you I'll get tested as soon as I can, and I'll let you know what the results are. If I've done anything to...I'll never forgive myself."

She nodded, actually amazingly calm considering. "I trust you, Trey," she said. "We'll just make sure we use a condom from now on. But Trey...who cheated on you?"

The soft compassion in her eyes wrenched at him. He turned away. "Never mind." He reached down and picked up the towel from the floor where he'd dropped it, feeling like the biggest idiot in the world.


After he'd talked to Special Agent Burrows, Trey snapped his phone shut. He rubbed his chin. "They found where he was staying, and he's gone. He's actually been there for three weeks." He shook his head. "Jesus, I don't know what the hell took them so long."

She smiled. "It wouldn't have taken you that long to find him."

He scowled. "Damn right. Anyway, they seem to think he's left town."

"That's good. Right?"

"Yeah. Except we don't know we're he's going now."

"He'll do it again. To someone else."

"Almost guaranteed," he replied thoughtfully. He opened his laptop and started going through files again.

"What're you doing?" She came to stand behind him.

"Just looking at things. Maybe something will give me an idea. Burrows thinks he may be going home to Brawley."

"What do you think?"

"It's possible. I'm going to check back with them later. They're checking some things out."

"What things?"

"His family." He sighed. "I went and talked to them months ago. Too bad I'm not still on the case; I think they'd open up to me if I talked to them." She watched his face and knew something was going on in his head. "Hey, maybe I'll take a little trip."

She stared at him, shaking her head slowly, her heart sinking. "To Brawley?"

"Yeah. And maybe El Paso."

"To see his sons?"

Trey looked up at her sharply. "How did you know he has sons?"

"He...um, he said that. That night. He was thinking of going to see them."

Dense silence filled the space between them for a moment. "You didn't tell the cops that."

She covered her eyes. "Oh, shit," she said on a moan. Her mind was all fuddled. "I don't think I remembered it until just now. When you said that." She looked at him again. "I didn't realize that was anything significant. Why is it important, Trey?"

Trey closed up his laptop and started throwing things into his suitcase. "He knows about them," he muttered.

She was confused. "What do you mean?" She trailed after him as he strode to the bathroom. "What you do you mean? He didn't know he had sons? I don't get it."

"His wife left him and never told him she was pregnant. Eleven years ago. She moved to El Paso to get away from his abuse, married again, raised the kids without them ever knowing about their father, or their father ever knowing about them. Until one day, her drunken mother spilled the beans to Barnes's mother. Just after he murdered Kathy Richards. Barnes called his mother after that and, for some reason, asked if she knew where Teresa had gone. When I went to see his mother, she'd just found out and she had no way to contact Sheldon, but I was pretty sure if she heard from him again, she'd tell him."

He turned to her his face hard, intent, bottles of shampoo and conditioner in his hands. "Is that all he said? What did he say that night?"

She thought back, her mind racing. She rubbed her forehead. "That's all he said. He acted like it was no big deal, like he was just going for a visit. He'd told Krista that he had two sons from a relationship a long time ago. Like it was all normal."