Fire Burns Hot ((An FBI/ Romance Thriller~ (Book 5))) (11 page)

Elizabeth grabbed her plate to start clearing the table. “I knew you were my favorite Blackhawk man,” she said, dropping a kiss on the top of his head. “Can you give CJ a bath and get him ready for bed?”

Wyler grinned
excitedly. “I can and will. You sleep tonight sweetheart. I’ll take care of him if he wakes up.”

“Thank you, Dad,” she said, grabbing his plate. “Come on Tori, you can read to me while I load the dishwasher.”

The woman grabbed her own dish and followed her boss, carrying all their files. It was still odd that she was spending time with her, and actually enjoying it. Elizabeth Blackhawk was nothing like she was at work. It was turning out to be a very enjoyable evening.

“Give me victim four,” she stated, as she scraped dishes into the garbage disposal.

Tori scanned and read. “This one is listed as late thirties and down as tortured.”

Elizabeth looked over. “Seriously?”

She nodded. “They have the injuries listed. It looked like someone tortured her long term. Almost all the bones in her feet were fractured, reknit, and then refractured.”

“Pre or post mortem?”

Christensen flipped. “No idea. These ME notes really aren’t what we usually work with.”

“If that’s your way of saying the
ir ME is incompetent, then yeah, I’m with you there. I prefer working with our team whenever possible. I’m going to text Tony Magnus and bring him in to help us out. I want him to look at the victim’s feet tomorrow.” He was their anthropologist and one of the best in the business.

“Probably a good thing. If he’s torturing the victims, that’s a big sign of escalation.”

Elizabeth knew that to be a fact. “How well do you profile?” she asked, hoping that the woman could bring to the partnership what Ethan generally did.

“Not my thing. I’m the bomb and fire expert.”

“Well I can do a basic, but we may need to ask Ethan for help on this one. He generally handles the profiling for me.”

Tori laughed. “His thing? At Quantico in the training classes, he’s listed as the standard of excellence.
They want to study his thought processes because he’s genius!”

Elizabeth laughed.
“Please don’t use those words around him. He’ll be on an ego trip for a month and I’ll have to ass kick him back to reality.”

Tori snickered. “I swear, I won’t say it out loud.”

Back to work. “What do we have on the last victim?”

She flipped through the pages and studied the information before reading it to her boss. “The last victim was either beat
, or she put up one hell of a fight. Her body showed multiple fractures.”

“It sounds like escalation to me. What else?”

“Woman was approximately in her mid-twenties and small. At first they believed her to be an adolescent child, but their expert checked the dentals. She already had her wisdom teeth were fully descended.”

Elizabeth leaned on the counter and thought it through. It was like they had a few killers
or one very deranged one. “Accelerant?”

“After number three
just gasoline. It wouldn’t take much. Look at the burn marks under the bodies.”

Tori slid the pictures across the counter.

The blackened grass beneath the victims in the fields wasn’t a large burn pattern. It was to the minimal. The woman in the car had big burn patterns, but they suspected it was when the gas tank blew. As for the hotel, the entire place went up before the fire department finally arrived. “Well hell. We pretty much are starting at zero tomorrow.”

“I love a mystery.”

Elizabeth laughed. “Good thing, because we have one here. I can only hope we can get it solved before Christmas.”

Tori stood from the co
unter. “I think I may head home. I’m tired and need to get some sleep.”

“Thank you for coming
here after work. I know you weren’t obligated,” said Elizabeth. This had been the perfect way to get to know her agent, and she was glad she had thought to invite her over.

Tori
wished that she wasn’t surprised but she was. Working alongside Elizabeth was a great time. “I really don’t mind. Thank you for the Christmas invite. I’ll see you tomorrow morning early, Bob, for our second date.”

Elizabeth snickered. “Absolutely. What’s one more rumor at work?”

Tori waved as she hopped into her SUV. Backing out, she headed home to either get some sleep, or be haunted by horrible nightmares.

Looked like it was going to be a craps shoot on which it would be. In the rearview mirror, she glanced back at the big house and had to wonder if one day she’d ever be happy like her boss.

Then she shook her head. Tori already knew the answer.

Not likely.

Elizabeth watched her drive away and already th
e fine details of the woman behind the agent were beginning to become apparent. Tori was an enigma, and Elizabeth was going to solve that mystery too.

Locking the door, she set the alarm and turned everything off in t
he house. Climbing the stairs, Elizabeth opened her son’s bedroom door and peeked inside. CJ was asleep in his crib and sucking on his thumb. Everything welled up inside of her, as she laid her hand over her stomach and thought about the new miracle she was growing. Due to the little surprise they’d been handed, there were some last minute gifts to find for the men in her life.

Walking back to her bedroom, she stripped and took a hot shower. Once in bed,
Elizabeth picked up her tablet and messaged her husband. Immediately, he logged into the call, his handsome face popping up on the screen.

“Hey baby, I miss you,” he said, leaning back against his hotel room headboard.

“I miss you too, Cowboy.”

Ethan looked at his wife and she looked off. “Are you okay?” he inquired, worried about her.

“I may have done something before asking, and I need to just tell you about it and hope you’re okay with it, honey.”

Now he was concerned. Whenever she started throwing around the ‘
honey’ word, bad things were about to happen. “Okay, I’m sitting down. Hit me with it.”

“I called in Julian to help out on this assignment. I may need his very fine tracking skills.”

Blackhawk shrugged. “That’s fine with me, is that it?”

Elizabeth grinned. “I also didn’t want him spending Christmas alone, and invited him to spend Christmas day with us for dinner.”

“Again, I’m okay with that.”

“And Agent Christensen.”

Now Blackhawk understood. “Are you trying to play matchmaker?”

She snorted. “No, but maybe yes. When I asked her if she was going to be okay with working with Julian, it was easy to read her eyes. Tori may be excellent at keeping a straight face, but she’s not good at the eyes.
That takes years of practice.”

“If this turns into a brawl, I’ll blame you. Other than that baby, I don’t mind company. Maybe we can get in a game of tag football in the yard.”

“Please, I will hand you your very fine ass, Mr. Blackhawk,” Elizabeth stated with absolute certainty.

“If you don’t?”

She thought about it. “What do you want to wager?”

Blackhawk rubbed his hands together. “I want you, me, and a private night alone. Since Callen will want in on this, you better plan for him too.”

Elizabeth didn’t mind two separate nights of debauchery.  “Okay, two date nights, but if I win I want you and Callen to switch clothes for an entire week. You are required to dress down, and he needs to dress up. I want him in a full suit and you in beat-up jeans.”

“You are an evil genius,
Elizabeth; you absolutely like to torture us as much as humanly possible.”

She snickered. “What are you worried about, Cowboy. You think you can’t take out my team? I’ll take Wyler and Julian, you get Callen and Tori.”

“Deal, baby.” As far as he was concerned, he wasn’t going to lose, and she was going to be spending a night alone with him doing incredibly wicked things. There might possibly even be a hotel room far from home and copious amounts of champagne and debauchery.

“I love you, Mr. Blackhawk,” she whispered, tears welling up.

“Baby, what’s wrong?” He was worried again.

“I just miss you and Callen. I hate sleeping alone.” It was the truth, that and she was dying to tell him
about being pregnant. It just didn’t seem fair to not have them both there physically, when she did it. “I went from one man, to two men and now back to zero. It’s shitty math that’s all, Ethan.”

“Are you sure?” he asked again.

“Yeah handsome. I promise that’s all.” Elizabeth wiped her eyes. “I’m going to call Callen and then head to bed.”

“I love you, Lyzee baby.”

She smiled. “I love you too,” and she blew him a kiss and then disconnected the video conference. Next she pinged Callen on the table and waited. When he didn’t answer, she figured he was busy working. Logging online, she ordered three more special presents for the men in her life to ship overnight. After finishing that, she slid deep into the monster sized bed, closing her eyes.

And finally falling into sleep.

                                 *    *     *

Sitting in the strip club, he admired the woman dancing around the pole. Her legs were incredibly long, and her hair hung all the way down her back in silky waves. Just seeing her gyrate and lure the men in made him hard and heavy with need.

She would be the next one. His mind was made up.

There was something about her that called to him. Maybe it was the wanton look on her face, or the way she took all her clothing off shamelessly. The plan was set into motion, as he began picking a
location and outlining the entire arrangement. It was all about the flames licking at her body.

Then it came to him.

He had an idea of how he wanted to watch her be consumed. Tomorrow he’d forage around and find the items he needed.

As she hung upside down topless,
the men surrounding the stage began tossing money to her.

Yeah, she was a whore and would be
his perfect victim. With the offer of some cash, she’d do whatever he wanted. Then he’d take her to the trees and watch her hopes and dreams go up in flames.

Along with all that beautiful hair.

                                 *    *     *

Sneaking into the house was a very dangerous thing. He was pretty sure she was sleeping with her gun beside the bed, and that could mean getting shot. Chances were he’d get to her first, climb into bed and have his way with her, but there was always that risk.

Dropping his gear in the living room on the couch, he toed off his boots and started stripping on his way to their room. All he hoped at that moment was his father didn’t wander out of his room, catching him buck naked wandering the hallway.

The naked he could p
robably overlook. But the fully aroused state might be the part that embarrassed them both. Before entering, he pulled his hair free of the ponytail just for her. He heard a noise and again thought about his father catching him.

Then again, who cared? He was about to wake his sleeping beauty, and with much more than a kiss. Already thinking about her, he was
ready and desperate to touch and taste her again. The entire plane ride back had been torture, as he planned to creep into their bed, taking her.

It was always this way with Elizabeth. There’d never be enough. When he was old and on his deathbed, his last thought would be her and the body he loved.

Opening the door, it didn’t make a sound and for that he was completely grateful. Placing his clothes on the floor beside the bed, he stared down at her as his eyes adjusted to the almost complete darkness. Hitting the light on his phone, he saw the position she was resting in, and made his move. Just as the light extinguished, he rested his body over hers, pinning her arms and hands beneath his.

For now he was going to enjoy her pulling from sleep
, and taking her until his body couldn’t handle anymore.

Elizabeth
was startled awake and found someone pressed against her and couldn’t move. She went to struggle and scream when a mouth came down roughly over hers, but as the kiss began she relaxed. The scent gave him away, and her heart started to pound in her chest. She let him control the mating of mouths and take whatever he needed. It only mattered that he was home, and she could be with him. It felt like forever since she had his lips tasting her and devouring her.

The kiss broke
, and she arched up into him as he moved to her throat.

“Callen,” Elizabeth
whispered, as he ran his teeth over her earlobe and gave her chills. “God, I missed you.”

Whitefox still didn’t
speak; he was too absorbed in the scent of her skin and shampoo. Leaning off her body, he pulled the nightshirt from her, hands wandering only to find her completely naked beneath it. Just the feel and contrast of his rougher hands gliding over silky flesh aroused him even more.