Cut Throat

He grabbed both her wrists, pinned her arms above her head, then thrust into her without warning, taking satisfaction in the shock, then desire, he saw on her face.

“No more you. No more me. Just us. How’s that for a little magic?”

“Doesn’t feel so little to me,” Cat murmured, and rocked upward.

Wilson gritted his teeth and stifled a groan, then gave back as good as he got. He drove into her without tact or finesse, and took her to a climax so hard and fast that she choked on a scream.

Cat felt as if every bone in her body had just crumbled to dust. She had never—never in her life—been satisfied so completely in such a hit-and-run fashion.

“Oh, man…oh, Wilson…that was…that was…”

“That was for you,” Wilson said. “That was sex.”

He cupped her face with both hands, lowered his head and brushed his lips across her mouth.

Cat inhaled softly.

He swept his lips down the side of her neck, then kissed the valley between her breasts before circling her nipple with the tip of his tongue.

Still reeling from the aftershocks of her climax, Cat was shaken by the sudden urgency she felt to have more.

“Wilson…I—”

“Shh,” he said, and then lifted his head and stared down into her eyes. “You wanted sex. I gave it to you. Now this time is for me. This is what it means to make love.”

Before she could answer, he covered her mouth again, stealing the breath from her body and the good sense from her soul. She would have panicked over what he’d just told her, but he left her no time to think—only feel.

He didn’t leave an inch of her skin untouched as he moved across her body with his hands and his lips. Twice Cat tried to take control of the situation by urging him to take her, and twice he refused with a soft whisper, then a sigh.

“Uh-uh,” he said, and slid his hands beneath her hips and lowered his head.

When he began circling her navel with his tongue, her heart rate accelerated. But when she felt the tip of his tongue sliding down her belly to the juncture of her thighs, she moaned. This was an intimacy involving trust—something she had never had with a sexual partner, something she had never allowed.

Even though she refused to admit there was more between them than a mutual appreciation for sex, she did know he wouldn’t hurt her.

Her muscles began to quiver as the pressure began to build.

“Oh…oh, God, Wilson…”

Wilson had intended this as a means of showing Cat the difference between lust and intimacy, but the urgency in her voice and the way her body was trembling was like a drug he couldn’t quit.

Suddenly he felt the muscles in her body winding up, tightening and tightening toward the inevitable climax. It was the sign he’d been waiting for. He rose up, then slid over and into her body.

The sensation was shattering, and it was only beginning. He took her slowly, burying himself deep, then pausing to savor the sensation. Then Cat moaned, and the sound pushed him over the edge. He rode the feeling as long as he could, and when the orgasm hit, he went with her, coming undone in her arms. When it was over, he lay spent and shaking, unable to move.

A short while later, he glanced over at the windows. Raindrops glittered on the outside of the glass, but it appeared that the storm was over.

Cat moved.

He thought he heard a soft sigh, but then she rolled off him and got out of bed.

“Do you want some coffee before you go?”

His eyes narrowed. His nostrils flared. He sat up and then swung his legs over the side of the bed, staring at her in disbelief.

“Before I go?”

Cat glanced at him, then looked away, well aware of how this sounded, but it was his own damn fault. He was pushing her into corners where she didn’t want to go.

Wilson stood, towering over her as he paused at the foot of the bed. Then he grabbed his clothes and started putting them on as quickly as he’d torn them off.

“Hell no, I don’t want any coffee, Catherine. I couldn’t possibly want anything more from you other than the fucking we just had.”

The word was rude, but no ruder than she’d been with him.

“Okay, then,” she said, and turned and walked into the bathroom.

When she came out, she paused in the middle of her bedroom, listening to the silence, and knew he was gone. But when she glanced toward the bed, her heart slammed against her chest with a hard, painful thud. She stared until her vision blurred and her throat was thick with tears. Taking a deep breath, she leaned over and picked up the money he’d thrown on her mattress.

A hundred dollars—in twenties.

She didn’t know what the going rate for a whore might be, but he’d made his point.

“Damn you,” she muttered, then drew a slow, shuddering breath, refusing to admit that he’d gotten to her.

Angry with herself, she threw the money into a drawer and then dragged her suitcase from under the bed and finished packing. Her steps were slow as she headed for her office to check her laptop. The blip was motionless, which was good, but according to the map on the screen, it was in the middle of nowhere.

Too tired and too hurt to think about it anymore tonight, she shut the laptop and took it back to her room. Within minutes, she was in bed, with the alarm set for six o’clock. She closed her eyes, trying desperately to sleep, but it was useless. She couldn’t forget the hurt she’d seen on Wilson’s face or the fact that she was the one who’d put it there. Then she rolled over on her side, thumped her pillow angrily and, with a skill she’d honed over years of disappointment and despair, blanked everything from her mind and went to sleep.

Two

Still reeling from Cat’s rejection, Wilson went straight from her apartment to the office. By daybreak, he had a good lead on Paulie Beach, one of his bonds who’d failed to appear, and was packing to go get him. As always, he wore a bulletproof vest under his shirt and his badge on a chain around his neck. There was a can of mace in one pocket of his coat, a Taser in the other, a pair of handcuffs clipped onto the back of his belt and his handgun in a shoulder holster.

Beach had been arrested for B & E—breaking and entering—his third strike for the same offense. That should have been a warning to Wilson, when he’d agreed to bond him out, that Paulie wasn’t the type of man who learned from his mistakes.

Wilson grabbed the file he had on Beach and was walking out of the office as his secretary, LaQueen Baldwin, was coming in.

LaQueen was six feet and two-hundred pounds of Jamaican beauty, and had an opinion about everything, including Wilson’s single state. She had worked for him for four years, was the best secretary he’d ever had and reminded him of that fact on a daily basis.

Even though he never talked about his personal business, she knew all about his fascination with Cat Dupree. She knew when they’d been iced in together during Christmas and when he’d taken off to West Texas in the middle of the night to help Cat after she had discovered her best friend Marsha Benton’s body. She knew when Wilson followed Cat Dupree to Mexico to aid her in catching Marsha’s killer, and, after one look at his face this morning, she knew Wilson McKay was not in a good mood, and she promptly attributed it to Cat.

“Good morning to you,” she said briskly, as he held the door back for her to enter.

“Yeah, it’s a doozy,” he muttered, as he pointed to her desk. “I left you a note.”

LaQueen glanced toward her desk, then back at Wilson.

“Yes. I see that. However…since you are still here, and since I have arrived at this marvelous establishment to devote the next eight hours of my life to it and to you, you may tell me in person just where it is you might be going.”