The Skeleton King (Dartmoor Book 3) (15 page)

              “Not just knuckle dusters, yeah?”

              He stroked her inner wall and she felt the movement so acutely, in every nerve ending. There was a stretching – he added a second finger. All the way to that ring, and its ridges and raised designs.

              He withdrew a fraction, and then pushed in again. Back and then forth. A thrusting rhythm, driving his rings into her, mimicking what they’d do later, when he was joined with her.

              His thumb found her clit and she was lost. She let her weight sag against him, braced her feet on the floor, and let her hips move with the rhythm of his hand, overcome by the winding tension of pleasure.

              When she came it was shattering. She bit down on her tongue and tasted blood, leaned down onto Walsh to keep from falling, made a sound deep in her throat that made him say, “That’s a good girl.”

              It was a slow, blurry fall from grace, and in the midst of it, Walsh stood and gathered her up in his arms, lowered her down to the mattress and stretched out beside her.

              “Oh my God.” She rolled toward him, put her hands on his chest, and swore she could feel his self-satisfied smile through the dark. “I…” She didn’t even know what.

              His hand settled in the curve of her waist. “When was the last time you did that, love?”

              “You mean, when was the last time I did that…or when was the last time I came?”

              He kissed her. “When did you last come?” he asked against her lips, and those words said with his accent made her shiver.

              “A very long time ago.”

              “Really?” There was no imagining the satisfied lift to his voice.

              “And even then, it wasn’t that good.”

              He made a low deep purring sound in his throat, and his hand slid down to her ass, pulled her in tight against him so she had to hook her leg over his hip.

              “You’ve got too many clothes on,” she said, flexing her fingers into his pecs.

              “Wanna help me with that?”

              In a clumsy rush, she lifted his shirt over his head and he managed to work off jeans, boxers, and boots, all of it going off the edge of the mattress in a heap.

              The moonlight silvered his skin, shadows marking hair and the grooves of muscles. When he gathered her to his chest again, she was shocked by the heat of him, electrified by the scratch of his legs against her smooth ones, the tickling of his chest hair against her breasts. He kissed her and it was amplified by the skin-to-skin contact. The small, unconscious movements of her hips pushed his erection against her belly.

              She reached to take him in her hand. “You bragged,” she said, smiling against his mouth, and felt him smiling back.

              “Disappointed?”

              “Oh no. I’m a very little girl. You’re just perfect.”

              With a pleased growl, he rolled her onto her back, settled between her legs.

              Emmie caught herself in the act of lifting toward him. “Condom,” she reminded.

              “Shit. Yeah.” He twisted around, fumbled with his jeans. She heard the foil tearing and imagined the sight of him rolling it on. All she could see was the white shine of his shoulders, the mess of his hair.

              Then he was lowering over her again, kissing her mouth, bracing himself. One of his hands slipped between them, found her still warm and wet from his fingers.

              He entered her with one sure thrust, and being suddenly filled like that overwhelmed her in the best way. She’d told him it had been a long time, and so he waited, breathing in strained gasps against her throat until she slid her hands down his back and latched onto his ass.

              “I’m good,” she said, wrapping her legs tight around his hips. “I’m ready–”

              He took it slow and deep, more of that assured maleness that had nothing boyish about it. Thrusting, rooting into her with a depth and force that lifted her hips up off the mattress, had her whimpering deep in her throat.

              “I want to feel you come around me,” he said in her ear, and the pleasure arced through her, lighting her up from the inside out.

              He grunted and stiffened, and she knew her pulses had kicked off his release.

              They lay on their backs afterward, the echo of their breathing filling up the empty room. Through the drowsiness, Emmie could already feel the low sizzle of wanting more, a banked fire in the pit of her stomach.

              “You okay?” Walsh asked, voice husky with aftermath.

              “Very much so.” Except it felt vast and lonely over here on her side of the bed suddenly. With the sort of bold familiarity that only existed in the dark of night between sheets, she reached over and found his hand on top of the covers. He let her lift it, arm pliant and unresisting, so she could take his palm between both of hers and angle his knuckles toward the weak haze of moonlight above their heads.

              “I have to know about these,” she said of his rings, passing a fingertip across their ridges. “Do they mean something? Or did you just like the way they looked?”

              “Little of both. Mostly it’s because when you’re my size, it never hurts to have a sharp punch.”

              She grinned.

              “But that one there on my thumb?” It was the face of a snarling dog, wrought with incredible detail. “I got that when I patched in London. Everybody gets one.”

              “It’s…well, I won’t say pretty. That’s probably not the effect you’re going for.”

              He snorted. “The Union Jack’s to remind where I come from, not to get too above my means.” It was on his ring finger, and though colorless, the distinct bars of the British flag were visible. “The W my mum gave me.” It was done in masculine but elaborate font. “I’ve got the eagle on the other hand, for the States. And the skulls I just liked.” He shrugged and the sheets rustled.

              She rubbed her thumb slowly across the laughing face of one of the skulls, flushing with heat as she remembered the feel of it against her sex.

              “Any tattoos?” she asked, not sure if she wanted there to be any.

              “No.” His voice became reflective. “There just wasn’t anything I wanted in my skin.”

              “Hmm.”

              “Okay, my turn for a question. How long do you need?” he asked. “Before we go again.”

              She rolled toward him, smiling.

Fifteen

The sun woke her. Not her alarm clock, not the chirp of her phone, not a hungry horse pawing at its stall door below, but the sun’s bright early rays, stabbing at her closed eyes and sending her into a little ball beneath the covers.
Five more minutes
, she thought.
Just five more minutes, and then I’ll get up
.

              And then she remembered where she was.

              “Oh shit.”

              The covers slid off her naked skin as she sat up, and she grabbed for them as her eyes skipped across the bare room. Mattress on the floor. Her clothes in a puddle a few feet away. Memory of Walsh, neon all over every part of her skin.

             
Damn
.

              It had been nothing like she’d been expecting. It had been so much more than that.

              But now she was faced with the reality that she’d slept with her boss, and that she had to go to work and pretend the world hadn’t been knocked askew.

              Fuzzy-headed and vaguely sick from drinking, she scrambled to her feet, determined not to stare at the marks on her hips and thighs where finger-shaped bruises were going to darken over the next few days.

              She hurried into her clothes, a little breathless, heartbeat pounding in her temples, and not only because of the drinking. The wide room with its knotted pine floors and heavy moldings felt too empty, too cold.

              The en suite bath, trimmed in modern chrome fixtures and sensible but expensive porcelain, echoed with the sound of her breathing. In the mirror, she looked pale, drawn, muddled. Like a ghost.

              What had she done?

              She didn’t have rash, frenzied sexual encounters with near-strangers. She didn’t have sweaty, gasp-inducing, spectacular –

              Don’t go there. Just don’t.

              Part of her hoped Walsh would be gone, off on his bike to do whatever bikers did first thing in the morning. But as she took the stairs down to the first level, another part of her hoped to see him. Laying eyes on him, all disheveled the morning after what they’d done, would be the real test. The thing that determined how much of a mistake it had been.

              She got the chance to find out, because he was on the front porch, sitting down on the far end at the built-in wooden breakfast table, laptop open in front of him. He’d pulled on his jeans from yesterday, but the belt was unfasted, his feet were bare, and without a shirt, the morning sunlight was catching in his golden chest hair, highlighting his truly awful farmer’s tan. Dolly lay at his feet. A cup of coffee sat beside the computer. The utter absorption as he stared at the screen was both boyish and cynical, the lines in his face harsh, his focus adorable.

              Dolly lifted her head and let out a single low bark of greeting.

              Walsh turned, and the sharpness of his eyes froze Emmie in her tracks. Whatever he meant to convey, she was powerless against the onslaught of heat that poured through her, turned her stomach to molten gold. The night before flashed through her mind like a slideshow, and she knew then that she wanted it again, and again. Wanted
him
.

              Damn it.

              She wasn’t ruled by her hormones, though. “Morning,” she said, closing the distance between them, striving to look as unaffected as possible.

              His eyes flicked over her, and she knew he was looking right through her clothes and remembering. “Mornin’.” Then his eyes went back to the laptop and he turned it toward her. “You’re gonna want to see this.”

              It was a video streamed from that morning’s local Fox affiliate news cast. Walsh clicked play and it jumped into motion.

              “Davis Richards died Tuesday evening, found in his home, unresponsive by an employee,” the grave suit-wearing anchor said to the camera. “Authorities initially believed cause of death to be a heart attack, but we’re just learning that’s not true. According to the coroner’s report, Richards’ death was the result of a drug overdose…”

              Emmie didn’t hear the rest of it. It seemed like her ear canals compressed, like sound was coming from a long, long way off. “What?” She turned to Walsh. “
What
?”

~*~

The coffee was helping. Emmie took another long sip, drew her legs up into the chair and watched over her knees as Becca and Fred led the horses out one at a time to their pastures. She wanted to feel terrible that she was abandoning them to the morning feeding routine, but she was too shocked to feel much of anything.

              She got more hot coffee down her throat and glanced over at Walsh, still shirtless, still gorgeous, much less distracting now. “That door,” she said, frowning. “I knew there was something fishy up because the back door was open a crack.”

              “Bloke’s having a heart attack, he might forget to shut the door.”

              “But he didn’t have a heart attack, did he? I know for a fact that man didn’t have a secret drug habit. Drinking, sure. You hardly saw him without his Solo cup of hooch. But drugs? Enough to OD? No. Never.”

              “Well you know what that means, then.”

              “Murder.”

              His brows gave a jump that seemed regretful. “Think about what you wanna say, pet, ‘cause that story got leaked, and we aren’t supposed to know about it yet. Coppers are gonna be talking to you and me.”

              She blinked. “Why us?”

              “You found the body.” He pulled a cigarette from the pack on the table, put it between his teeth while he lit it. Smoke curled through his words when he spoke again. “And ‘cause I’m living in his house.”

              The coffee congealed in her stomach. “We’re suspects.” Except she knew she wasn’t. Which meant… “
You’re
a suspect.” And she’d been alone with him, been in bed with him, had him inside her.

              He met her wild eyes with a steady, calculating look. “Do you think I killed him?”

              Did she?

              Davis had sold the farm without fuss. And the way Walsh had been with her, the blunt way he was asking her now – she couldn’t think the worst of him, biker or not.

              “No,” she said, her inner tension easing. “I really don’t.”

              His mouth twitched. “Woulda been a shame to have my girlfriend thinkin’ I was a murderer.”

              His what?

              She opened her mouth to protest, and caught a flash of shine down on the driveway. A police cruiser pulling up down at the barn.

              Emmie took a deep breath and got to her feet. “The ‘coppers’ are here.”

~*~

Walsh had no personal feelings toward Sergeant Vince Fielding. From what he’d seen, the guy was a standup cop who took his job seriously, who tended toward fussy when rebuffed. Not the enemy, just someone whose path he didn’t love crossing.

              “I wasn’t here,” he said with a shrug. “Not much else to say.”

              Fielding propped his hands on his gun belt and looked beleaguered. “Walsh, you know this doesn’t look good.”

              “It doesn’t?”

              “Considering you’re the only one of this bunch with an IQ, yeah, you do.” Pointed look down the length of his nose. “So tell me your whereabouts, with decent alibis, and don’t gimme a buncha shit, alright?”

              “Fair enough.” Walsh was still at the table on the porch, working on his second cigarette and third cup of coffee. He’d gone in to shower, shave, and draw on clean clothes while Fielding was busy down at the barn, talking to that crew. Respectability lending itself to credibility, and all that. He tapped the ash off his smoke and took another drag.

              “We closed on the sale that afternoon,” he said, and the cop lifted his brows in surprise. “Richards knew loads of people at the banks, so he got it all accelerated. We closed, I left from there ‘bout four, went to Dartmoor. Security cameras should clock me in the clubhouse till eight. Then I went home. Old home,” he clarified. “Had a beer, talked to my brother on the phone – you can check my mobile for the time stamp. Give Shane a call if you want. He’ll tell you we talked about my mum’s terrible love life. That’s when Richards bit it.”

              “And you can say all that on record for me at the station later?”

              “If you need me to.”

              Fielding sighed, but nodded. “Thanks.”

              It always paid, Walsh kept trying to tell Aidan and the younger ones, not to be a smartass with law enforcement. No sense making trouble for yourself.

              The sergeant paused at the top of the porch steps, glancing back over his shoulder. “Your barn manager was very defensive of you, by the way.”

              “Have to give her a raise then.”

              Fielding snorted. “Yeah.”

~*~

“Oh my God, I heard it on the news!” Tally’s owner said, grabbing Emmie by both shoulders in a way that was meant to be concerned, but came off as manic. “Overdose! Who knew? Did you know anything?”

              Emmie tried unsuccessfully to back out of the woman’s grip. “We had no idea.”

              “None of you?” She looked at Fred and Becca, then swung her gaze toward Walsh, who stood propped against the stone façade of the barn. “Who are you? Are you the new guy?”

              “No, ma’am,” he said, straight-faced. “Just a groundskeeper.”

              Emmie rolled her eyes before Patricia whirled to face her again.

              “I just can’t believe it!”

              “None of us can,” Emmie assured her. She pried the woman’s hands off her and was thankful no offense seemed taken. “The police are looking into it.”

              Which meant they’d shooed Walsh out of the house and were dusting for prints, taking lint-rollers to everything, and accomplishing nothing because any evidence had to be trampled at this point. Drug overdose, sure, but it was being investigated as a homicide. No needle found? That meant whoever had pumped the drugs into Davis had taken it with him.

              “
Se
ño
ra
Cross, Tally is ready,” Fred reminded, gently.

              “Yes, of course.” Patricia seemed to shake herself. “Just shocking,” she muttered, heading into the barn.

              When she was gone, Becca said, “Mr. Walsh, did you kill Mr. Richards?” in an innocent voice Emmie knew to be an act.

              She elbowed her working student and got a muffled chuckle in return.

              Walsh didn’t take the bait, eyeing Becca flatly. “Gonna turn me in if I did?”

              “Yes! I always wanted to be on the news.”

              Even Fred had to laugh at that.

              Emmie smiled and saw the echo of a grin deep in the centers of Walsh’s eyes.

              “Fred!” Patricia called from inside the barn. “I need you!”

              “
Ay Dios mio
,” he muttered. “
Si Se
ño
ra
, I’m coming.” He tapped Becca on the shoulder. “You have horses to ride,
amiga
.”

              “I know, I know.” She got reluctantly to her feet and followed him inside.

              In their absence, Emmie became very aware of the fact that she hadn’t showered, probably looked like hell, and hadn’t had a moment earlier to spend any kind of real time with Walsh. The news of Davis’s murder had eclipsed any morning-after stuff.

              “Busy day?” he asked.

              “Lessons start back up, so yeah. Pretty busy.”

              This was awkward, and she didn’t want it to be.

              “Fielding didn’t scare you, did he?”

              “Of course not.”

              He grinned. “Of course not.” With a glance down the barn aisle, he pushed off the wall and walked toward her.

              Her eyes went to the way his shoulders shifted inside his plain gray t-shirt.

              She wasn’t expecting him to lay hands on her, to put one on her hip and cup the back of her head with the other, kiss her like he had every right to.

              Her breathing was shaky when he pulled back.

              “I gotta go into Dartmoor. You’ll be alright, yeah?”

              “Yeah,” she said, hollowly, gaze trained on his mouth.

              He kissed her one more time and she had a bad feeling she’d be back in his floor-bed again very soon.

~*~