Night Shift (19 page)

No. Her mind all but screamed it. No one. Never. Only he had ever caused a hunger so sharp and a need so desperate. Even as her body strained against his, she struggled to remember that it wasn’t enough to want. It wasn’t always enough to have.

Whipped by fury and frustration, he crushed his mouth to hers, again, and then again. If only for this moment, he would prove to her that what they had together was unique to them. She would think of no one, remember nothing. Only him.

Her response tore through him, so complete, so right. The small, helpless sound that purred up from her throat shuddered into him. Like the flames that rose beside them, what they created burned and consumed. The gentle loving that had initiated them both during the night was replaced by a wild and urgent hunger that left no room for tender words and soft caresses.

She didn’t want them. This was a new, a frenetic storm of needs that demanded speed and pushed for power.
Hurry.
She tore her hands from his to drag at his shirt.
Touch me.
Twin groans tangled as flesh met flesh.
More.
With a new aggression, she rolled onto him to take her mouth on a frantic race over his body. And still it wasn’t enough.

His breath ragged, he stripped the layers of clothing from her, not caring about what he tore. One driving need was prominent. To possess. Hands gripped. Fingers pressed. Mouths devoured.

Agile and electric, she moved over him. Her face glowed, fragile porcelain in the firelight. Her body arched, magnificent in its new power, sheened with passion, shuddering from it, strengthened by it.

For one glorious moment she rose, witchlike, over him, her hands lifting up into her hair, her head thrown back as she lost herself in the wonder. Her body shuddered once, twice, as separate explosions burst within her. Even as she gasped, he gripped her hips and sheathed himself inside her.

He filled her. Not just physically. Even through the racking pleasure she understood that. He, and only he, had found the key that opened every part of her. He, and only he, had found the way inside her heart, her mind. And somehow, without trying, she had found the way into his.

She didn’t want to love him. She reached for his hands and gripped them tight. She didn’t want to need him. Opening her eyes, she looked down at him. His eyes were dark and direct on hers. She knew, though she didn’t speak, that he understood every thought in her head. On a sigh that was as much from despair as from delight, she bent down to press her mouth to his.

He could taste both the needs and the fears. He was determined to exploit the first and drive away the second. Staying deep inside her, he pushed up so that he could wrap his arms around her. He watched her eyes widen, stunned with pleasure, glazed with passion. Her fingers dug into his back. Her cry of release was muffled against his mouth seconds before he let himself go.

***

Bundled in a large, frayed robe, her feet covered with thick rag socks, Cilla sampled the chili. She liked sitting in the warm golden light in the kitchen, seeing the blanket of snow outside the windows, hearing the quiet moan of the wind through the pines. What surprised her, and what she wasn’t ready to consider too carefully, was this feeling of regret that the weekend was almost over.

“Well?”

At Boyd’s question, she looked back from the window. He sat across from her, his hair still mussed from her hands. Like her, he wore only a robe and socks. Though it made no sense, Cilla found the meal every bit as intimate as their loving in front of the fire.

Uneasy, she broke a piece of the hot, crusty bread on her plate. She was afraid he was going to bring up marriage again.

“Well what?”

“How’s the chili?”

“The— Oh.” She spooned up another bite, not sure if she was relieved or disappointed. “It’s great. And surprising.” Nervous again, she reached for her wine. “I’d have thought someone in your position would have a cook and wouldn’t know how to boil an egg.”

“My position?”

“I mean, if I could afford to hire a cook I wouldn’t hassle with making sandwiches.”

It amused him that his money made her uncomfortable. “After we’re married we can hire one if you want.”

Very carefully she set down her spoon. “I’m not going to marry you.”

He grinned. “Wanna bet?”

“This isn’t a game.”

“Sure it is. The biggest in town.”

She made a low sound of frustration. Picking up her spoon again, she began to tap it against the wood. “That’s such a typically male attitude. It’s all a game. You Tarzan, me stupid.” His laughter only enraged her further. “Why is it men think women can’t resist them—for sex, for companionship, for handling the details of life? Oh, Cilla, you need me. Oh, Cilla, I just want to take care of you. I want to show you what life’s all about.”

He considered a moment. “I don’t remember saying any of those things. I think what I said is I love you and I want to marry you.”

“It’s the same thing.”

“Not even close.” He continued to eat, undisturbed.

“Well, I don’t want to marry you, but I’m sure that won’t make a difference. It never does.”

He shot her one brief and dangerous look. “I warned you not to compare me to him. I meant it.”

“I’m not just talking about Paul. I wasn’t even thinking about Paul.” After pushing her bowl aside, she sprang up to find a cigarette. “I hadn’t given him a thought in years before all of this.” She blew out an agitated stream of smoke. “And if I want to compare you to other men, I will.”

He topped off his wine, then hers. “How many others have asked you to marry them?”

“Dozens.” It was an exaggeration, but she didn’t give a damn. “But somehow I’ve found the strength to resist.”

“You weren’t in love with them,” he pointed out calmly.

“I’m not in love with you.” Her voice had a desperate edge to it, and she had the sinking feeling that they both knew she was lying.

He knew, but it still hurt. The hurt settled into a dull, grinding ache in his belly. Ignoring it, he finished off his chili. “You’re crazy about me, O’Roarke. You’re just too pigheaded to admit it.”

“I’m pigheaded?” Stifling a scream, she crushed out the cigarette. “I’m amazed that even you have the nerve to toss that one out. You haven’t listened to a simple no since the day I met you.”

“You’re right.” His gaze skimmed down her. “And look where it’s got me.”

“Don’t be so damn smug. I’m not going to marry you, because I don’t want to get married, because you’re a cop and because you’re rich.”

“You are going to marry me,” he said, “because we both know you’d be miserable without me.”

“Your arrogance is insufferable. It’s just as irritating—and just as pathetic—as moon-eyed pleading.”

“I’d rather be smug,” he decided.

“You know, you’re not the first jerk I’ve had to shake off.” She snatched up her wine before she began to pace. “In my business, you get good at it.” She whirled back, stabbing a finger at him. “You’re almost as bad as this kid I had to deal with in Chicago. Up to now, he’s taken the prize for arrogance. But even he didn’t sit there with a stupid grin on his face. With him it was flowers and poetry. He was just as much of a mule, though. I was in love with him, too. But I wouldn’t admit it. I needed him to take care of me, to protect me, to make my life complete.” She spun in a quick circle. “What nerve! Before you, I thought he couldn’t be topped. Hounding me at the station,” she muttered. “Hounding me at the apartment. Sending me an engagement ring.”

“He bought you a ring?”

She paused long enough for a warning look. “Don’t get any ideas, Slick.”

Boyd kept his voice very cool, very even. “You said he bought you a ring. A diamond?”

“I don’t know.” She dragged a hand through her hair. “I didn’t have it appraised. I sent it back.”

“What was his name?”

She waved a hand dismissively. “I don’t know how I got off on this. The point I’m trying to make is—”

“I said, what was his name?”

He rose as he asked. Cilla took a confused step back. He wasn’t just Boyd now. He was every inch a cop. “I— It was John something. McGill … No, McGillis, I think. Look, he was just a pest. I only brought it up because—”

“You didn’t work with a John McGillis in Chicago.”

“No.” Annoyed with herself, she sat down again. “We’re getting off the subject, Boyd.”

“I told you to tell me about anyone you were involved with.”

“I wasn’t involved with him. He was just a kid. Starstruck or something. He listened to the show and got hung up. I made the mistake of being nice to him, and he misunderstood. Eventually I set him straight, and that was that.”

“How long?” Boyd asked quietly. “Just how long did he bother you?”

She was feeling more foolish by the minute. She could barely remember the boy’s face. “Three or four months, maybe.”

“Three or four months,” he repeated. Taking her by the arms, he lifted her to her feet. “He kept this up for three or four months and you didn’t mention it to me?”

“I never thought of it.”

He resisted the temptation to give her a good shake, barely. “I want you to tell me everything you remember about him. Everything he said, everything he did.”

“I can’t remember.”

“You’d better.” Releasing her, he stepped back. “Sit down.”

She obeyed. He had shaken her more than he realized. She tried to comfort herself with the fact that they were no longer arguing about marriage. But he had reminded her of something she’d allowed herself to forget for hours.

“All right. He was a night stocker at a market, and he listened to the show. He’d call in on his break, and we’d talk a little. I’d play his requests. One day I did a remote—I can’t remember where—and he showed up. He seemed like a nice kid. Twenty-three or -four, I guess. Pretty,” she remembered.
“He had a pretty, sort of harmless face. I gave him an autograph. After that he started to write me at the station. Send poems. Just sweet, romantic stuff. Nothing suggestive.”

“Go on.”

“Boyd, really—”

“Go on.”

The best she could do was a muttered oath. “When I realized he was getting in too deep, I pulled back. He asked me out, and I told him no.” Embarrassed, she blew out a breath. “A couple of times he was waiting out in the parking lot when I got off my shift. He never touched me. I wasn’t afraid of him. He was so pathetic that I felt sorry for him, and that was another mistake. He misunderstood. I guess he followed me home from work, because he started to show up at the apartment. He’d leave flowers and slip notes under the door. Kid stuff,” she insisted.

“Did he ever try to get in?”

“He never tried to force his way in. I told you he was harmless.”

“Tell me more.”

She rubbed her hands over her face. “He’d just beg. He said he loved me, that he would always love me and we were meant to be together. And that he knew I loved him, too. It got worse. He would start crying when he called. He talked about killing himself if I didn’t marry him. I got the package with the ring, and I sent it back with a letter. I was cruel. I felt I had to be. I’d already accepted the job here in Denver. It was only a few weeks after the business with the ring that we moved.”

“Has he contacted you since you’ve been in Denver?”

“No. And it’s not him who’s calling. I know I’d recognize his voice. Besides, he never threatened me. Never. He was obsessed, but he wasn’t violent.”

“I’m going to check it out.” He rose, then held out a hand. “You’d better get some sleep. We’re going to head back early.”

***

She didn’t sleep. Neither did he. And they lay in the dark, in silence; there was another who kept vigil through the night.

He lit the candles. New ones he’d just bought that afternoon. Their wicks were as white as the moon. They darkened and flared as he set the match against them. He lay back on the bed with the picture pressed against his naked breast—against the twin blades of the tattooed knives.

Though the hour grew late, he remained alert. Anger fueled him. Anger and hate. Beside him the radio hummed, but it wasn’t Cilla’s voice he heard.

She had gone away. He knew she was with that man, and she would have given herself to that man. She’d had no right to go. She belonged to John. To John, and to him.

She was beautiful, just as John had described her. She had deceptively kind eyes. But he knew better. She was cruel. Evil. And she deserved to die. Almost lovingly, he reached down a hand to the knife that lay beside him.

He could kill her the way he’d been taught. Quick and clean. But there was little satisfaction in that, he knew. He wanted her to suffer first. He wanted her to beg. As John had begged.

When she was dead, she would be with John. His brother would rest at last. And so would he.

The heat was working overtime in the precinct, and so was Boyd. While Maintenance hammered away at the faulty furnace, he pored over his files. He’d long since forsaken his jacket. His shoulder holster was strapped over a Denver P.D. T-shirt that had seen too many washings. He’d propped open a window in the conference room so that the stiff breeze from outside fought with the heat still pouring through the vents.

Two of his ongoing cases were nearly wrapped, and he’d just gotten a break in an extortion scam he and Althea had been working on for weeks. There was a court appearance at the end of the week he had to prepare for. He had reports to file and calls to make, but his attention was focused on O’Roarke, Priscilla A.

Ignoring the sweat that dribbled down his back, he read over the file on Jim Jackson, KHIP’s all-night man. It interested and annoyed him.

Cilla hadn’t bothered to mention that she had worked with Jackson before, in Richmond. Or that Jackson had been fired for drinking on the job. Not only had he broadcast rambling streams of consciousness, but he had taken to nodding off at the mike and leaving his audience with that taboo of radio. Dead air.

He’d lost his wife, his home and his prime spot as the morning jock and program director on Richmond’s number-two Top 40 station.

When he’d gotten the ax, Cilla had taken over his duties as program director. Within six months, the number-two station had been number one. And Jackson had been picked up for drunk and disorderly.