Chapter One
The corpse was sprawled out before Detective Anne Sutton like a felled oak. Around the form of the once imposing man, bloomed excessive spatters that were now growing dry and dark. If it weren’t for the number of bullet holes, Anne would’ve had a hard time buying that anyone could get the drop on this huge lug.
“You sure pissed someone off,” she muttered as she pulled on a pair of gloves and leaned over the body.
Beside her, the forensics guy was taking samples and cracking jokes with her partner Jeffers. Ignoring them, she focused on the grisly scene in front of her. Whether this was a hit or a crime of passion, Anne knew that she could put the details together faster than anyone else in her precinct. As much as she hated to think about the political aspects of her job, she really needed to be the one to get the credit for this. This wasn’t her first homicide, but it was definitely the messiest. It reminded her of a case from her rookie days when some idiot had accidentally cut himself with a new knife and claimed his neighbor had targeted him for the campaign sign in his yard.
But Anne wasn’t a rookie anymore, and her higher-ups needed to start seeing her as the capable woman they’d promoted to detective, or she could find herself in trouble and soon.
Brushing a stray lock of chestnut hair away with the back of her hand, Anne scanned the body again. He had no ID. No particularly distinctive identifying marks. His shoes were expensive Italian leather. They were a bit incongruous with the hair, which was greasy and as long as her own. It had been pulled back into a ponytail. He was also wearing a high-end tracksuit. Someone hadn’t been planning to die today.
His pose supported the theory that he had been caught by surprise. A look at his well-manicured nails told her that he definitely hadn’t fought anyone off. That was a pity because it was so easy to run tests on a few skin flakes from under the nails. Forensics did scrapings there anyway, just in case they might find anything useful.
The glint of the ring caught her eye just before she was about to rise. It was pinned beneath one of his monstrous shoes, almost out of sight. Anne moved his foot slightly to retrieve the ring and then held it close for examination.
A broad band of brushed tungsten carbide. Fleur-de-lis pattern on the side. Marquise cut garnet in the middle. Anne knew this ring.
The deft way that he moved his hands had always left Anne under the impression that they were delicate. His fingers were long enough, forever in motion, as he twiddled a pen or held a hand-rolled cigarette. Those hands looked like they could slip in anywhere unimpeded, a testament to his prowess at illicit activities.
But they proved themselves adept at other activities, ones that Anne hadn’t been able to fathom the first time the two of them had met, with his dangerous smirk and her censorious glare daring him to step out of line. Her investigations in that area had found nothing of relevance… but they had found HIM, and now his active fingers were finding every sensitive spot, every weakness. She moaned softly as his cunning fingers brought her to the brink and still demanded more of her vulnerable flesh.
“William!” She gasped as her back arched involuntarily.
He chuckled almost wickedly before leaning forward to press teasing kisses along her collarbone. She panted helplessly, with him on her and in her. She felt as though he had expanded his slim form to make up her whole world. She knew that she should stop this. She knew that they shouldn’t be doing this, and yet he was everything. She had put off the very thought of pleasure like this in her life but was now so consumed by it that she might never break away.
“You like this, pet?” he teased. His voice was deep and smooth, like whiskey and razorblades, and it sent a shiver through her.
“D-don’t stop,” she begged.
His lips spread into a lopsided grin, and, dutifully, he resumed stroking the tender folds between her legs. She shuddered and closed her eyes. Each stroke made her hips want to buck forward, and as she panted, he pressed kisses to her neck, murmuring encouraging words. Exalting her beauty, her scent, her strength.
One finger slipped inside her, and he moved down so that all she could see was the mess of blond curls as he went to work. Heat began to well inside her. He was rubbing now, up and down, up and down the sides of her folds, but his clever tongue had also put itself to work. She gasped with each breath, and a staccato stream of gratitude and pleading issued from her lips.
The explosion of pleasure almost caught her off guard. Her hips jerked forward and froze, and she cried out, afraid that this feeling would stop. But William didn’t stop. He kept lapping at her and rubbing her until her muscles had relaxed, and she lay spent on his bed.