A Grand Seduction (26 page)

Leaning forward, her breasts spilled into greedy hands for milking as she rubbed her clitoris against him. Rocking her hips forward, her breath caught over the spike of a new sensation.
Ahh.

She tipped back, then rocked forward. Oh, hell, yes. There it was again.

She cried out and plunged downward again, legs shaking. So that’s what all the fuss over a G spot was about? No wonder.

He gripped her by the sides of the hips, pushing her down until he touched her very core. “Come on, baby,” he said. She pumped faster. “That’s right. Fuck this cock hard. Jesus, yes.”

The obvious effect she was having on him doubled her excitement, and soon sent orgasm swirling on the verge of release. She rarely came from fucking alone, and never this fast. God, being on top was quite a thing. Why had no man ever allowed her this before? Maybe it wasn’t good for the guy. Then again, Chester certainly seemed to enjoy it.

The ride of her life exploded into orgasm. “Fuck yes, Chester,” she shouted. “I’m coming!”

She was still riding out the climax into heaven when hell itself arrived. The door rocketed open, ushering in a woman who was too well groomed to be the maid. Her eyes flamed with brimstone and her nostrils were flared. Shit. This couldn’t be good.

Lanie’s hands flew to cover her breasts, though hiding her upper half seemed absurd in comparison to what her genitals were currently doing. At the sound of Chester’s sucked-in breath, she turned back to see his expression resembled that of a panicked cat cornered in the vet’s neutering room. She knew that look. For fuck’s sake, the guy was married. Seems her guardian angels had forgotten to mention that little detail.

“
Honey, please,” he begged the new arrival. With one gruff shove, his cock flopped out of Lanie and she rolled twat over teakettle to the floor. “I know what you’re thinking, but don’t.”

“
Oh, I doubt you have any idea what I’m thinking.” The woman’s tone was edged with steel. “But here’s a clue.”

Just as Lanie rose, clutching a sheet to the front of her body, her paramour’s tone took on a pleading, desperate note. “Oh, Jesus,” he said. “Jesus, no. This isn’t anything, baby. You know you’re the one I love.”

Her eyes flew wide as she spotted the reason for his full-blown hysteria. The silvery glint of a gun was pointed at his chest.

“
Goodbye, Chester.”

“
No!” Lanie shrieked.

The pop of the gun roared through her head, hands instinctively going to her ears even as part of her thought she should be dropping flat on the ground along with the abandoned sheet instead. Unfortunately, everything was frozen in place except her head, which despite better judgment turned to see the results of his wife’s vengeance. Bile leapt to her throat at the red, meaty hole in his hairy chest. His eyes were open, but the man behind them had already left this world. Tears blurred a closer examination, but it was the thought of death’s messenger still lurking that whipped her head back toward the door.

The two regarded each other for a moment, silent. Should she say something? Try to calm the wife—or rather, widow—down? When nervous, Lanie normally blabbered like a retard. Now, her mouth refused to work. The woman eyed her naked body up and down. Judging. Lanie’s cheeks grew hot under the scrutiny, and she couldn’t remember a time when she’d felt quite so dirty. Then the appraising eyes narrowed, followed by a sight even uglier than the bloody corpse whose cock she’d just been bouncing on. The barrel of the gun swiveled in her direction.

“
No,” she said, taking a step back and stifling a choked sob. “Please. I didn’t know he had a wife. I didn’t know him at all. I swear. I’m so sorry.”

The woman’s eyes flashed, and Lanie watched in disbelief as a smartly gloved finger twitched back against the trigger. Panic gave way to resignation, which struck her as odd. Guess that was how it was when death was inevitable.

Then gun quivered as Lanie’s body relaxed into a flood of peace. She closed her eyes, certain she was about to say an eternal goodnight. Then another odd thing happened—nothing.

When she finally risked opening her eyes, the woman was gone.

Flashing red lights strobed across her face as Lanie gave her statement to police outside the room where the body still lay. Their arrival seemed out of sorts with time, as though a sci-fi transporter had beamed them to the murder scene within seconds of the widow’s departure. In truth, she realized she must have been in shock. After all, the police had found her already dressed, something she didn’t remember doing. The blood-spattered sheet she’d held briefly against herself had been traded for the slutwear that had helped get her into this mess.

And what a mess it was turning out to be.

“
So, this other woman,” an officer who was gorgeous enough to eat said. “What did she look like again?”

“
I don’t know exactly. She looked…expensive.” The cop raised a brow. “You know, fancy clothes. A hat. Older.”

“
She shot him from just inside the doorway, then was going to shoot you,” he went on. “Then she just left?”

“
Yes.”

He scribbled notes on a pad, head bobbing like a chicken picking up feed. “And she didn’t say anything to you?”

She shook her head. “She just told the guy—Chester—that he didn’t know what she was thinking. Then she said goodbye. Right before.”

“
And Chester was your boyfriend?”

“
No. Not exactly.” She hesitated, wondering how much to say. She damn well wasn’t going to tell a cop she was getting paid to fuck the guy. “We had just met at a bar. Didn’t tell me he was married.”

The officer grunted. His mouth bowed in a perfect curve she found herself drawn to. Why couldn’t she have been getting paid to give Officer Hottie a roll? Of course, why was she even wondering about crap like that under these nauseating circumstances? She must still be in shock.

Another cop came out of the room, holding two clear plastic bags. One contained a gun. What was that still doing there? Hadn’t the murdering bitch taken it? She couldn’t make out what was in the other bag.

The man handed Hottie the bag, whispering something and barely glancing her way before leaving. The young guy nodded, then fisted his hips in such a way that the bag was half concealed behind him.

“
You two have an argument this evening?” he asked.

“
We weren’t arguing,” she said. “I told you, we were fucking.”

“
But you said you found out he was married. That must have been upsetting.”

“
Not as upsetting as watching his wife kill him.”

“
The wife no one else saw, you mean?”

Her heart sped up. “Someone must have seen her.”

“
We’ve got the gun,” he went on, still eyeing her. “It’ll be dusted for prints. Anything else you want to tell me?”

A thought struck, and she nodded. “They won’t find any.”

“
Really? How would you know that?”

“
She was wearing gloves.”

“
You mean like these?” The bag came out from behind his back, and she smiled. This proof would back up her story.

“
Yes! Exactly. Where did you find those?”

“
In the bottom of your purse.” He nodded to a sweaty fat guy and the uniform standing beside him. “Turn around and put your hands behind your back, ma’am.”

She watched, detached, as he juggled the bag of gloves while pulling cuffs off his belt. “Why?”

“
You’re under arrest for the murder of Chester Harrison.”

* * *

Lanie lifted her head from a desk that smelled of old school paste, tobacco, and mildew. At least, it had several hours earlier, when she’d still been capable of smelling. Now her sinuses were swollen and her head felt twice its normal size. Not from any physical police brutality. She’d cried herself out, until her tear ducts dried up and she couldn’t see anymore. Yet the interrogation on her had persisted. All eternal night, Fasto and Hottie had taken turns grilling her. The good news was, she hadn’t been cavity searched. Yet. The bad news was that the good news stopped there. These guys were convinced she was guilty of murder, and refused to listen the twenty times she’d gone over what had happened. Really, how many different ways could they ask the same questions? The whole thing was infuriating and terrifying, and she kept wishing she would wake up from this nightmare. Only it wasn’t night anymore.

Peering through grit-crusted eyes, the wall clock declared that morning had dawned on this spectacularly shitty day some time ago. Her head rose in response to Hot Cop bounding in the door with a cup of coffee. He was infused with an irritating buoyancy, as though he had just come from a full night’s sleep. How the hell did they pull that off?

“
Here you go. One sugar, extra cream.” The cup was placed before her, and she shifted a butt cheek experimentally off the hard wooden chair she knew must have been used as some sort of medieval torture device. Her ass would never be the same, and that was before the cavity search. Still, she managed a weak, “Thank you,” and sipped at the Styrofoam cup as though it might contain her salvation.

Sadly, it didn’t.

“
So tell me again,” the all-too-chipper detective said as the chair legs scraped against the floor, “how you knew Mr. Harrison.”

“
I already told you. I hardly knew him. We met in a bar.”

“
Kind of fast, jumping a guy you just met in some motel?”

“
Yeah, Dad, I know. But I wasn’t aware that was a crime.”

“
Depends where you live, and whether the guy is married. And whether you kill him when you’re finished.”

“
I said I didn’t kill him! And I had no idea he was married, either. Not until his wife came busting in and blew him away.”

“
Uh-huh. And where were you standing again when that happened?”

“
I wasn’t standing. I was straddling his cock. His big, fat, giant, hard cock. Get the picture?”

“
But you said you were standing when the shot was fired.”

“
That was later.”

“
You said it happened fast.”

“
He threw me off the bed!”

“
So you were on the floor, not standing.”

“
No!” Lanie slapped her half-empty cup on the table, ignoring the sting of hot coffee sloshing onto her hand. “Why don’t you go ask his wife all of this? Surely you’ve talked to her by now. I mean, don’t you have to notify next of kin or something? Not that she doesn’t already know damn well.”

“
You seem very interested in his wife.”

“
Someone should be, since she’s the real killer. Talk to her—she was there. Hell, she might even confess. Because I didn’t do anything.”

“
We will talk to her, once we find her.” The cop eyed her carefully.

She slapped a hand on the table. “Aha! See, I told you. She’s on the run already.”

“
According to her neighbor, she’s on a prearranged overnight trip and is due back this afternoon.”

“
How convenient. A lie to cover her escape, no doubt.”

His jaw twitched. “So she planned to shoot her husband for sleeping with you at least a week before you claim to have even met the man?”

Lanie’s mouth opened, then snapped shut. Sweat itched at her scalp, and she ran a hand through her tangled mass of hair. “Maybe she’s psychic.”

“
And maybe you aren’t telling me everything.”

Christ. Why was this happening? Wasn’t getting bashed around by a drunk boyfriend enough? “So you decide I’m guilty and want to lock me away without even talking to her because I happen to be handy?”

“
And happend to have the murder weapon and gloves on you. But I’ll be talking to a lot of people. Meanwhile, I have probable cause to hold you. So enjoy the jail décor. We’ll have another chat again soon.”

Detective Warren Ross made his way back through the urgent bustle of the precinct, rubbing the back of his neck. Similar knots of tension always plagued him when a case like this came along, especially when partnered with lack of sleep.

He was reasonably satisfied that they had the right suspect in custody, but reason sometimes had little to do with justice. He needed to be fully satisfied with the facts before turning things over to the D.A. Only then could he light up a post-game cigarette and breathe.

Lanie had motive, he could place her at the scene, and she had physical evidence. Plus she was lying about some things, of that he was certain. Still, if twelve years on the force had taught him anything, it was that dishonesty was part of the human genome. You could always count on people to lie. Trouble was, though you could often tell what they were lying about, it took a great deal more digging in the dirt to uncover how and why.