Aquamarine (17 page)

Shea batted at the demonic birds, screaming hysterically. For a few heartstopping seconds she actually believed the big birds were launching a malevolent attack. Then reason reasserted itself, and she realized they were simply confused by her intrusion.

“Shea! Are you all right?” Teague called. He stared at her across the ten feet or so that separated them, looking as unnerved as she felt.

“I’m fine. Sorry I screamed. The birds startled me.”

Two of the more brazen crows perched in a nearby tree. Staring.

Shea shivered, even though she soon realized she wasn’t the focus of their rapt attention. The birds were
fascinated with something that lay hidden between her and Teague, something just beyond her line of sight, something rankly putrescent.

“Teague?” She met his gaze and saw raw horror mirrored on his face.

“Don’t look,” he said.

She didn’t have to. Her imagination had already supplied all the details. “Is it …”

Teague nodded, looking tired. “We just solved the mystery of the missing dog.”

The sun burned through the fog, highlighting the gruesome details of the disturbed grave. Teague averted his eyes and circled the corpse to reach Shea. Pulling her close to his side, he urged her away from the grisly remains. She trembled violently. “Let’s get out of here,” he said.

“But shouldn’t we tell someone? The sheriff maybe?”

“First priority is to get you out of those wet clothes and into a warm bath.” She was in shock, he thought. Hell, he didn’t feel exactly normal himself.

“Mikey’s dog didn’t die of natural causes.”

“We don’t know that for sure. Don’t jump to conclusions,” he said, even though he was certain she was right. “I’ll alert the proper authorities and let them deal with it.”

She stiffened and pulled away. “Not from the house! Mikey …”

He stroked her cheek, wanting to comfort her but not sure quite how. “From my place.”

Clinging to each other, they retraced their path around the island. Shea didn’t speak again until they reached the dock. As Teague readied the boat, she stared back over her shoulder. “What if Cynthia’s return hadn’t interrupted our visit to the cabin yesterday? I keep thinking about that. What if Mikey had run ahead and discovered Beelzebub’s body herself?” She turned to face him, her eyes wide and glassy at the imagined horror.

Teague gathered her close. “Don’t worry about what didn’t happen.” She was shivering uncontrollably. She needed to change into dry clothes.

“Do they perform autopsies on dogs?” she asked.

“Autopsies? Why?”

“Don’t you want to know what killed Beelzebub?” she demanded.

He shrugged. “Dead is dead.”

“Yes, but if we knew
what
killed him, we might be able to figure out
who
killed him. Think about it. If he was poisoned—”

“Like Jack, you mean?”

“What if someone used Beelzebub as a test subject to see how well the hemlock worked?”

Teague’s gut twisted. “Let’s go.” What the hell had he involved her in?

Teague ushered Shea into his apartment. “Have a seat,” he said, waving her toward the sofa.

“No, I’m covered with mud.” In point of fact, only her shoes were mud-caked, as were his own. “A kitchen chair is fine.”

“Why don’t you go soak in a hot tub while I contact the sheriff?”

She nodded. “I can’t seem to get warm.” He hunted up a box of odds and ends of Kirsten’s old clothes he’d never been able to part with. “You’ll probably find something in here to fit you.”

“Kirsten’s?”

“Just some stuff she left behind when she moved back to the island.” To her death. A wave of guilt washed over him, so strong it threatened to erode his composure. If only he hadn’t lost his temper …

Shea took the box and retreated to the bathroom, leaving him alone with his thoughts. This time he wouldn’t make the same mistake. This time he’d control his temper. This time he’d keep her safe.

He called the sheriff, told him about finding Beelzebub, and explained the questionable circumstances surrounding the dog’s death. Jim Carlton promised to send a deputy out to the island to collect the remains for testing. Dr. Zeller, a local vet, would do the autopsy.

“Oh, and before I forget,” the sheriff said, “I finally tracked down a retired nurse who worked at the clinic where Kirsten was born. She’s on vacation, but I left a message for her to call me when she gets home.”

Next he called Cynthia at the hospital to let her know about their grisly discovery. She promised to explain everything to Kevin and make sure he kept Mikey out of the deputy’s way.

Then finally he called his foreman. No point trying to work on Massacre Island today. He told Nick to take the crew out to get a head start on the greens renovation at the Crescent Lake Country Club instead.

When Teague came back into the living area after his own shower to see if Shea wanted some coffee, he found her asleep, curled up on one end of the sofa. He tucked the soft folds of a blanket around her, then wandered barefoot out to the end of the dock. He glanced up at the sound of a motor. Squinting into the sun, he made out the dark outline of the sheriff’s cabin cruiser speeding away from Massacre Island. So they’d found the dog’s remains. And perhaps Shea was right. Maybe the autopsy would tell them something. Like who was responsible for Beelzebub’s death.

If he’d had to hazard a guess, he’d pick Ruth Griffin as his villainess of choice. She was just crazy enough. Maybe she’d convinced herself the black dog was the devil’s henchman. Or maybe she’d whacked him one too many times with her broom, crushed his skull for tracking mud on the kitchen floor. Either way, though, she probably wasn’t physically capable of hauling the dog all the way to the cabin to bury him. She’d have had to have help—most likely from one or both of the twins.

Shea woke to find Teague watching her, the expression on his face both intent and tender. She smiled. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

“You’d had a shock.”

Her smile faded. “We both did. What time is it?” She glanced at her wrist, then remembered she’d tossed her watch in the bathroom wastebasket. Sometime during their morning’s adventure, she’d shattered the crystal, probably when she’d swung out wildly to protect herself from the flock of crows.

“Half-past noon. You hungry?”

She sat up. “Starved.”

“Hungry enough to brave my cooking?”

Shea grinned. “Hungry enough to brave my
own
cooking.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Junior executives don’t cook?”

“Not when they work twelve-hour days.” Her grin turned sheepish. “And there’s a Wendy’s right on the way home.”

Teague walked toward the kitchen alcove. “How about vegetable soup and a grilled cheese sandwich?”

She sat on one of the bar stools at the counter and watched him put together their lunch. Teague cooked with a neat efficiency Shea admired. The only dish she excelled at was lasagna, and even then she was likely to have as much sauce spattered across the stovetop or burned onto the bottom of her oven as ever made it into the lasagna itself. Cleanup inevitably took twice as long as the initial preparation.

They ate sitting side by side at the counter. “Why do you always do that?” she asked when she caught him staring at her for the second time in five minutes.

“I like the way you look when you’re eating, as if every bite were an adventure.”

She put her fork down. “But when you stare like that, I feel self-conscious. Like I have a milk mustache or something.”

He stroked her upper lip with his forefinger.

She shivered in response.

“Nope,” he said. “No full moon.” He covered her hand, twining his fingers with hers. “I’m sorry if I make you feel uncomfortable, though.”

Heat shot up her arm. She swiveled around to face
him, intending to say, “Thanks for lunch. I’d better be going now.” Only when she saw his eyes, smoky with desire, she swallowed the words and brought her free hand up to caress his cheek.

His smile should have disarmed her. Instead, her heart rate tripled.

The angles of his face felt smooth and hard under her fingertips. The heat flowed up both arms, pooling in her breasts and between her legs.
I should leave
, she thought. But she didn’t. “Kiss me.”

When he licked his tongue inside her mouth, a jolt of raw desire rocked her like a surge of electricity.
Lightning strikes
, she thought, dizzy with wanting him.

Kissing Teague was good, no doubt about it. Kissing Teague was very, very good, but kissing Teague wasn’t enough. Not this time. Shea made a yearning sound in her throat, not quite a moan, not quite a sigh. Something in between.

In response, he lifted her onto his lap so that she sat astride him. His gaze held hers.

She caught her lower lip between her teeth. Her body throbbed everywhere it made contact with his.
I want you
, she thought.
Touch me
.

Something sparked in his gaze as if he’d read her thoughts. He claimed her mouth again, kissing her deeply, passionately. The heat built, wave upon wave, until Shea felt as if she would burst into flames.

He nuzzled her throat, and she arched her neck, clinging to his shoulders. And when he slipped his hands under the hem of her borrowed T-shirt, unhooked her bra, and cupped her aching breasts, she shuddered with the pleasure of it, straining herself hard against his palms.

“Like that, do you?” he whispered.

“Oh, yes,” she said, her breath catching in a gasp of delight as Teague brushed his thumbs across her nipples with a wickedly erotic friction.

He tugged the T-shirt over her head, slid the bra straps down her arms, then gazed at her in silence for a long moment. “You’re beautiful,” he said at last, his voice shaking slightly, “so damn beautiful.”

Shea sank her nails into his shoulders and moaned his name when he lowered his mouth to her breast. Hooking her ankles around his waist, she pressed herself tightly against him. He shifted his attention to her other breast, and her pleasure spiraled to unbearable heights. She ached for him.

“Please.” Frantic with need, she tugged the shirt over his head, then slid off his lap to fumble urgently with the zipper of his jeans. Her legs felt noodly, and her brain was Swiss cheese, empty spaces where reason and caution were supposed to be.

“Go easy,” he said. “There’s no hurry.”

No hurry? Was he joking? If she didn’t have him soon, she’d disintegrate.

With trembling hands, she helped him strip off the rest of her borrowed clothing. Then frustrated, desperate to feel him inside her, she attacked his zipper again, successfully this time, and dragged his jeans and shorts down to his knees. He kicked them off and reached for her, but she held him off. “No hurry,” she reminded him.

His body was hard and ridged with muscles, so gorgeous her breath caught in her throat. She slid her hands, slowly and deliberately, across the planes of his chest, the bunched muscles of his arms. He quivered with tension.

She trailed her fingertips over his abdomen, leisurely counting his six-pack. Then she wrapped her fingers around his erection, sheathing him in her hands. “No hurry?” she asked softly as she squeezed and stroked.

“So maybe I overestimated my control.” He grabbed her wrists. “Bedroom, dammit,” he said with a groan.

“Bedroom?” She hadn’t pegged him as the conventional type. “What’s wrong with right here?”

Teague frowned with the effort to maintain control. “My Boy Scout training failed me this time. The condoms are in the nightstand.”

He meant to take it slowly, to savor every second, but he hadn’t counted on Shea. The instant he sat down on the edge of the bed to adjust the latex sheath, she wriggled up behind him and ran her nails lightly down his back.

He shuddered in reaction, then rolled over on her, pinning her to the bed. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled his mouth down hard on hers. She thrust her tongue into his mouth and he tasted her hot urgency.

He slid his hand between their bodies. She quivered at his touch, and when he began to stroke her, she shuddered and moaned and dug into his shoulders with her nails. “Now,” she begged. “Now, Teague.” And he slid inside, filling her with himself.

She clenched her muscles tight for a second, then with a moan surged up under him, rocking her body against his. Tension coiled tighter with each thrust of her hips. He held back as long as he could, but when she wrapped her legs around him, pulling him deeper into her velvety warmth, he gave himself up to the pleasure,
rocking and pounding and surging with her until the feverish excitement exploded in an orgasm that ripped through his body like a seismic disturbance. Seconds later, she screamed her own release and melted into a boneless pool of contentment beneath him.

“Eight-point-three on the Richter scale,” Shea said.

He lifted leaden lids to look at her and saw that her eyes were luminous, her mouth curved in a sweet smile.

He rolled over onto his side, cradling her against him spoon fashion. He ran one hand idly along her thigh, her taut abdomen, her soft, full breasts.
Hot satin
, he thought.
Hot satin over molten lava.
“My God, Kirsten,” he mumbled into her shoulder. “I never felt anything close to that before. You’re incredible.”