Unauthorized Obsession (Unauthorized Series Book 3) (13 page)

Zane kissed her like she hadn't been kissed since high school. Back when kissing was something to be enjoyed in its own right, and there was never a race to get each other’s clothes off with an ultimate destination of orgasm. He kissed her like he had all day to do nothing but sit on the couch and explore her body with his lips and tongue. He kept lifting her hair and dropping it lightly then running his fingers up and down her back and around her neck and ears. He’d felt the holster at the small of her back one time, then neatly avoided it with each subsequent pass.

Kara’s entire body throbbed in time with her heartbeat and felt like one big nerve ending. She wanted this delicious foreplay to go on forever, even while her body throbbed and cried out for release. She felt like ripping both of their clothes off and just getting it over with so she wasn’t so frantically mad with desire, but at the same time the desire was delicious. It had never been like this for her. She never remembered feeling like she just couldn’t get enough, like the man she was with was food and drink and oxygen. She wanted to touch him forever, just live on the couch with him.

“Work,” she whispered, her tongue colliding with his. “Don't you have to go back to work?”

“I told myself to take the day off,” he countered, his raspy voice very nearly driving her over the edge.

He lifted her hair and let it drop one final time, sending shivers up and down her spine. His hands slipped down to her waist and dipped under her shirt, lifting it slightly. The brush of his fingers against her bare skin forced a light moan out of her.
God yes.
She wanted him to touch her. She wanted him to touch her everywhere.

Her own hands roamed across his chest, feeling his muscles. She pulled his shirt slightly up and he took it the rest of the way off. In one movement he whipped it over his head and onto the floor, then his hands retreated right back to her waist.

Her fingers took on their own purpose, mapping every muscle on his chest, then skirting lower to his abdomen. His hands slid up under her shirt to her breasts, treading so lightly that tingles raced up and down her torso with each tiny movement. His thumbs grazed over her nipples and she moaned with the pure pleasure of it, every sensation shooting through her body to her lower belly.

He withdrew his hands from under her shirt and took them back to her hair. She almost bit him in frustration.

“My steaks,” he rasped between kisses.

“Your steaks?”

“I took them off the heat, but they are still warming on the grill. They are going to get tough.”

Even in Kara's compromised state, she couldn’t help but want to mess with Zane. She grazed one hand even lower and dipped it inside his pants, finding him hard and ready and standing at full attention. The combination of hard and soft she felt under her fingertips sent more pleasure to her brain.

Zane dropped his head to the back of the couch and moaned openly.

She stroked lightly with the very ends of her fingers, up, then down again, watching him squirm and tense beneath her.

“You better go get your steaks,” she said softly, dipping her other hand into his pants and stroking him from both sides.

“I’ll buy new steaks,” he said, his voice husky. “I’ll buy a steakhouse. I’ll buy you a personal chef. I’ll do whatever you want.”

Kara almost laughed. Damn right he would do whatever she wanted. But something in his voice caught in her brain.
He meant it
. She could tell he meant it. He was cocky and confident and played at being in charge outside of the bedroom, but he had such a soft and respectful side too. She could tell he was the kind to just worship any woman he was with.

Anxiety niggled at her, at how far they had come in such a short amount of time and how completely she had fallen for him. She felt a complete desire to please him, to be there for him, to do whatever
he
wanted. She told anxiety to take a hike. She was going to enjoy this, damn the consequences, if there were any.

Zane's head was still back, and his breathing was coming quicker. She didn’t want to tease him anymore. She just wanted to make him happy.

Her eyes fell on his left arm, and a jagged three-inch scar there jarred something in her memory. She pushed it aside, remembering that she had seen it before, on the day she found him inside his neighbor's house.

Quickly, only because she wanted to, she unbuttoned his pants and unzipped his zipper. Zane’s head came up and he stared right in her eyes, his gaze strong and questioning. She nodded and stared back evenly, eyes locked on his. She lifted herself up and pulled at his jeans. He lifted his hips and pushed them down quickly, still asking her that question with his eyes. She nodded again and hooked a finger under the waistband of his blue boxers, so he stripped them off also. They joined his pants and shirt and shoes on the floor. Kara heard something behind her, and looked back startled. It was only one of the dogs, settling on the floor in the kitchen. She felt strange suddenly that they were watching, but they weren't watching really. They both had their head on their paws and Lucy was sleeping.

She looked back at Zane, naked on the couch, watching her with serious eyes, then broke his gaze and looked down. There he was. She had never seen such a strong and beautiful cock. It suited him, jutting out from his body as if to call attention to itself.

Everything about him was perfect in her eyes. She pushed his legs onto the couch, making him lie back on it, then climbed onto his legs, all self-consciousness gone.

Kara bent forward and licked her lips, her own desires forgotten for a moment. She felt Zane watching her and smiled, hoping he would enjoy the show. She bent forward and wrapped her lips and one hand around him, wanting with her entire being to please him, wanting to hear him moan and see pleasure on his face. He sucked in a breath, then let out a self-satisfied sigh and she thought she had never heard such a beautiful sound.

Kara had never been big on this particular love-making aspect, seeing it more as a birthday present kind of thing, something to be done only once a year or when specifically requested, and only if she really wanted to. So she didn’t understand her desire to do it here, now, but she didn’t try to figure it out. She just went with it. Zane made small gasps and moans of approval and she ate them up like candy. She wanted to make him come, and come hard. She twirled her hand and swirled her tongue, paying attention to what he seemed to like the most. Her pleasure built with his and she felt her own sex throbbing with heat and sensation. She wasn’t worried about her though. They had all day.

His breathing came faster and he started to pull slightly on her hair. "I’m going to come,” he warned her and Kara smiled inwardly at his thoughtfulness. She took him deeper into her mouth, determined to make it something he would remember and think about long after she had gone back home.

His eyes rolled down and his head snapped back, and she felt the first streams of his satisfaction escaping into the back of her throat. She shifted her weight on his legs, and the contact with his knee made something in her own center snap deliciously. A completely unexpected and perfectly powerful orgasm ripped through her and she cried out around her mouthful in astonishment. He moaned, covering the slight noise she made, and thrust his hips upwards as she bit back another cry and tried to keep ahold of him. He fell back onto the couch, panting, recovering, and she swooned against him, awash in her own recovery, too flushed to feel embarrassed … yet.

Kara gently extricated herself from Zane and pushed back so Zane couldn’t see her face, her eyes wide and staring down.

Zane grasped her upper arms and pulled her up to him for a soft kiss. “That was amazing,” he told her, looking deep in her eyes. “Now it’s your turn,” he said, trying to turn her and lay her on the couch.

Kara jumped up quickly, feeling her cheeks heat madly. She had just given him a blow job, but damned if she was going to tell him she came in her pants as she did it! Maybe after they knew each other better. Like when they had grandkids.

“Steaks!” she shouted, her arms flailing towards the backyard.

“Steaks?” he asked doubtfully.

“Steaks, yes. Your steaks. I’m good. Really good. You should tend to your steaks. I don't want you to have to buy a steakhouse.”

“Ooookayyyy,” Zane said, drawing the syllables out in confusion. He bent to the floor and started to gather his clothes, then stood up, holding his pants in front of him. “Are you sure …” he started and Kara cut him off.

She took a deep breath and tried to act normal. She stepped forward and kissed him lightly. “I’m positive. That was all about you. We can do me later.” He smiled at that and nodded knowingly. “Bathroom?” she asked.

Zane pointed her down the hall and she disappeared quickly, hoping she had left on a high note.

When Kara had calmed herself down and drank some water from the tap, she found her way outside. Zane was standing, back to her, in front of a grill, tongs clicking. He was alternately whistling and singing some low chorus to himself and swaying his hips to his own music. Kara had to laugh. Zane was generally a pretty upbeat guy, but now he looked even happier than usual. She noticed that his yard wasn’t fenced and she immediately wondered what he did with the dogs while he was at work.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket and she yanked it out quickly. Everything was a little too sensitive down there. It was a text message from Ivy.

Call me right away. Emergency.

Zane breezed past her, carrying a plate full of steaks. “I’m going to get the potato salad together, you make yourself comfortable.”

Kara nodded distractedly and punched in Ivy’s number, sinking into a lawn chair next to the grill.

Ivy picked up, whispering. “Oh God, Kara. Something bad just happened. I’m in the bathroom. Joe is telling Sgt. Gale about it right now, but I thought you should know too.”

“What Ivy, what is going on?” Kara asked, dread tightening a fist around her heart.

“I-I had an informant call me, wanting to know how much money she would get if she gave a piece of information that would solve a murder.”

“Murder? Jesus Christ. Who is the informant? How did you get an informant already?”

“I don't know. Assistant Chief Foley said it would happen because of the undercover work.” Her voice raised stridently. “But listen – this is important!”

“Okay. Sorry.”

“The woman’s a hooker. She said that last week she slept with someone who was bragging about killing a guy. She said the guy's name was Tim Hardy.”

The dread fell away as excitement filled Kara. She remembered the name. Tim Hardy was the boyfriend of the second victim of her stalker, the one who had disappeared. Even as the excitement filled her, it was overlaid by a dull and heavy feeling – something bad was coming.

“She said that the guy said the dead body was buried in a shed in his backyard and the cops hadn’t caught him in eight years. She never got the guy's name and that’s why she said she never reported it before, but she said she saw him on TV last night.”

Ivy's voice dropped even lower. “Kara, it's Zane. She saw Zane being interviewed about the bomb on TV and recognized him.”

Kara turned in her seat, her body going suddenly cold, as if it had been doused in ice water. A gray shed sat behind her. She dropped the phone to the concrete and stood up slowly. She walked to the shed, every step feeling like she was under water. Even her breath became liquid lead to her throat. She open the shed door and winced as the hinges creaked loudly. The shed was almost completely empty except for an ancient lawnmower pushed into the very back corner. A shovel leaned against one wall. She looked at the ground and saw it was packed dirt. Her hand snaked out against her will and grabbed the shovel. She looked at it like she had never seen a shovel before, but what she really was doing was looking right through it. She was looking into her mind’s eye as it showed her the scar on Zane’s left arm. She remembered the profiler saying
he would not have gone to a doctor for the gunshot wound
.

The shovel broke through the dirt on its own accord, but then Kara put her weight into it. She lifted one spade full of dirt and then another, her mind on terrified autopilot. She struck something and swallowed hard. then pushed away the dirt and peered into the hole she had made. It was a bone. A long bone. Probably the femur of a human.

No. No. No.
Kara's mind was feverish and frenzied, unable to process the information that was coming to her. Inside her head she screamed in the negative. This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be true. She dropped the shovel and backed away from the shed, thinking only that she had to get to her phone.

Hooker. Body. Shed. It's Zane. She saw him on TV. Scar on his arm.
The implications rocked Kara and she tried to take a deep breath, tried to think clearly, but she couldn't.

Behind her, she heard the telltale snick of a screen door opening, interrupting her agitated, partial thoughts. She whirled around to face Zane. He had a large steak knife in his hand and he was smiling at her and gesturing with it.

In her head, all she could see was knife training during her recruit class. The guy with the knife always made it to the cop and stabbed him, sometimes before the cop could even get his gun out of his holster.

Kara's right hand shot to her waist of its own accord, but her gun wasn’t there. She was off-duty.
In the small of her back.
In an instant her hand was there, guided by the training she'd done a thousand times. She unsnapped the holster and the gun was in her hand, it’s weight heavy and somehow comforting. For the second time she trained her gun sights on Zane's chest. A tear dropped down her cheek but she never noticed it.

Confusion crossed Zane's face immediately and he took a step backwards, his palms open in front of him, the steak knife held in place by one thumb. “Is this a joke, Kara, because it’s not funny?”

“Drop the knife, Zane.”

“Sweetheart, what is going on? Just tell me.”

“Drop it!” she screamed, the tears flowing easily now.

The knife clattered to the concrete and Kara noticed tears dripping into her mouth. Sirens wailed in the distance and quickly entered the neighborhood. They stood like that, neither knowing what to think of the other, until they heard sirens stop in front of the house. A car door slammed and heavy footsteps pounded at the front of the house. Kara could hear the dogs barking madly inside.

“Back here,” she yelled as loud as she could, “Come around to the back of the house!” she screamed, her voice breaking. She didn’t want either dog to be shot if they tried to defend their home.

Sgt. Gale appeared at the side of the house, quickly assessed the situation, and pulled out her handcuffs. Within a second, a cuff was slipped one over Zane’s outstretched hand.

Zane's eyes pleaded with Kara as he let Sgt. Gale pull both arms behind his back and restrain him. Two uniformed patrol officers ran into the yard and Sgt. Gale pushed him towards them. “Put him in one of the patrol cars,” she ordered.

The two officers obeyed and Kara finally relaxed her stance and dropped her arms, the certainty that she had just made the biggest mistake of her life slamming into her hard.