The Alvarez & Pescoli Series. Lisa Jackson
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and grabbed her hard, pulling her back down onto the bed.
“Hey! I don’t have time for this—”
“Sure you do.”
“Really, I—”
But he’d already stripped her of the bra she’d just put on and had yanked off her panties in one quick, sure motion. He rolled her atop him and she felt his erection, thick, hard and ready.
“You miserable son of a bitch,” she said as he thrust up inside her.
“That’s me.”
God, he was good. Her juices began to flow within seconds and his hands, kneading her breasts before he rose up to suckle her nipples, made her cry out in pleasure.
His movements were quick. Sure. Long.
She was panting, her breath fast and shallow, her blood coursing hot through her veins, her mind spinning in images of lovemaking and desire.
Her fingernails bit into the muscles of his shoulders as she felt herself begin to spasm. One rocking contraction after another as she leaned back her head, her eyes shut. An orgasm started deep inside and shook her to her soul. “Oh God…Oh God…”
He held her tight, strong hands gripping her waist, keeping their bodies pressed together as he jerked upward, thrusting in and out, faster and faster, causing her breath to get lost somewhere in her lungs and her mind to spin out of control again. “Oooooh,” she whispered as at last he lunged upward, thigh muscles straining and taut. With a growl and one last, hard, mind-numbing thrust, he let go, releasing himself into her.
She felt him stiffen, his back muscles convulse, and when she opened her eyes she found him staring at her, as he always did whenever they made love.
“Damn you,” she said, sweat running down her back and curling the hairs around her nape. “Damn you straight to hell.”
“Too late,” he said and laughed, pulling her down into the rumpled bedclothes. “I’m already there.”
“I know.” She let out a long sigh, telling herself she really, really had to get up. “Me, too.”
“You’re late, you know.”
“You love it, don’t you?”
“Love what?”
“Being a prick.”
His grin was a wicked slash of white in the semi-dark. “No, darlin’, you love it.”
She snorted and rolled off the bed, swiped up her clothes and, before he could grab her again, dashed into the bathroom, where the air was so cold her breath came out in clouds of steam. What was it about him that was so insidiously tempting? Why could she never say no and mean it? What was it about him that she found so damned sexy? Hadn’t she sworn over and over again that she was going to get over him, that she wasn’t about to tumble into his trap again?
Yeah, well, a lot of good that did.
If only he weren’t so unabashedly good-looking.
Oh hell. She’d known a lot of men. Many good-looking. Most with rock-hard bodies. But this one…this one was different.
Really? Isn’t he just another bad boy in a long line starting with Chad Wheaton in the eighth grade? Face it, Regan, you have horrible taste in men and enough signed divorce decrees to prove it.
She glanced in the mirror and cringed. Bloodshot eyes, messy hair, ruined makeup, a hickey the size of New Hampshire on her neck. What was the phrase? Rode hard and put away wet? That’s what she looked like. And she didn’t have time to go home and step into a long, hot shower.
Deftly she cleaned herself with warm water and a cloth. Dampening her face, she scrubbed off the traces of last night’s mascara and lipstick. Then she dabbed the cloth at her armpits and between her legs.
Within five minutes she was ready. Clothes on and somewhat unwrinkled, makeup refreshed, hair snapped back into a curly knot at the base of her skull, she stepped into the darkened bedroom and heard him snoring again.
“Bastard,” she muttered, trying to sound angrier than she actually was.
“I heard that.” Muffled, from within the pillow.
“Good.” She pulled on the boots she’d kicked off at the door and snagged her jacket from the back of a chair. Then she slipped on her shoulder holster, checked the safety of her sidearm and tucked her wallet with her badge in her pocket.
Without another word Detective Regan Pescoli pushed open the motel room door and stepped into the bitter cold of another Montana winter morning.
What was wrong with her? she wondered as she walked to her Jeep, unlocked the rig and climbed behind the wheel. Her cell phone chimed as she backed out of the pockmarked parking space and she checked caller ID. Luckily, the caller wasn’t her ex-husband or his sickening Barbie doll of a wife calling about the kids.
But it wasn’t good news. She recognized the cell phone number: her partner, Selena Alvarez.
“Pescoli,” she answered, eyeing her rearview mirror, then shoving the Jeep into drive.
“We got another one.”
Regan’s heart nose-dived. She knew what was coming. Another dead body had turned up in the icy crags and valleys of the Bitterroot Mountains, compliments of their very own serial killer. “Shit. Where?”
“Wildfire Canyon.” Alvarez was all business as she gave Pescoli directions to the killing ground.
“I’ll be there in thirty,” she said and hung up. The remains of yesterday’s super-sized soda, probably frozen, sat in the cup holder between the bucket seats. She didn’t think twice, just grabbed the soggy paper cup, placed her lips around the straw and took a long swallow of the flat diet cola. As she nosed her way onto the county road, she dug in her glove box for the single pack of Marlboro Lights she kept hidden inside. She was down to one pack a week. Not bad considering her habit had once been three packs a day. But this son of a bitch who was killing women and leaving them in the freezing cold, he was playing havoc with all her good intentions.
She planned to quit all together after the New Year, less than two months away, but between the pressures of her ex-husband, her job and this sicko numb-nuts who got off torturing his victims in the Montana cold, she feared all her good intentions and resolutions might just go by the wayside.
She flipped on her siren and lights and trod hard on the accelerator. The man in the motel room flitted through her mind for a second, then she pushed him steadfastly to that locked corner of her brain she rarely opened, the one that reminded her she was still a sensual, sexy woman with needs.
For the moment, and for most of her life, she was a cop.
Bad boys be damned, she had a homicide to investigate.
Chapter Two
Alvarez ignored the bite of the wind as she surveyed the crime scene where a naked woman was lashed to a solitary tree. Tree branches rattled and snow blew off the heavily laden branches.
Selena Alvarez had never felt so cold in her life.
Dressed in county-issued coat and pants, she stared at the frozen corpse, and her own blood seemed to freeze in her veins.
The victim was Asian from the looks of her. Straight black hair capped with snow, once-smooth flesh showing bruising and contusions, blood discoloring the snow at the base of the tree. Snow that had at one time been mashed beneath boots and bare feet, then crusted over, was now, with a fresh blanket of white, slightly uneven.
Forensic techs were hoping to take casts of what remained of the prints or gather evidence in the form of soil, hair, fibers or any kind of debris that might have dropped from the attacker’s clothing or the soles of his boots.
Alvarez held out little hope, as the killer, so far, had been