Circle Eight Millennium: Lazarus (6 page)

“I want to be part of this until the end.” She turned to look up into his beautiful blue-green eyes. “Tell me you won’t leave me here and finish this without me.”

His expression was just as hard as it had been when they started, but he dipped his head and kissed her. Soft and quick. Her heart thudded into a gallop. Suddenly all she could see, all she could smell, all she could feel was him. The fans buzzed back and forth, but instead of cooling her down, her temperature notched up.

“It’s hot in here.” Her voice was a crackly whisper.

“The AC is off.”

“It’s not the AC.” She told herself to step back, to move away from him. Yet her body didn’t obey. Nope, she did something really stupid instead.

She set the beer down and kissed him. His lips moved against hers, giving as much as receiving. She opened her mouth. The sweet heat slid through her as their tongues rasped and danced with each other. Her arms found their way around his neck and she pressed her breasts against his exceptionally hard chest.

What was she doing?

“Is this a good idea?” He murmured against her cheek as he kissed his way to her neck.

Bea took off her glasses and dropped them on the floor beside her. “No, it’s not.”

That didn’t stop her from backing him toward the chair and pushing his shoulders until he sat. Her nipples strained against her bra and her pussy throbbed with need, pulsing in tune with her rapid heartbeat. One kiss, that was all it took. Apparently touching Lazarus was like a switch.

She was
on
.

She climbed on his lab, pressing her heated core against him and was rewarded with a thump from his burgeoning erection. She slid back and forth, reveling in the friction. He cupped her breasts, hefting their weight while his thumbs brushed her straining nipples.

“God, these are amazing.” He tugged at the hem of her shirt until he could pull it off.

It was almost laundry day so the only bra she’d had to wear was a pink lacy, sexy one that she had bought at the urging of a friend. Bea only wore it when she had no other clean ones. Her big boobs were just about falling out of the scrap of lace that pretended to be a bra.

Laz, however, appeared to appreciate it. He growled low in his throat and pinched her nipples through the lace. The combination of the rough material against the sensitive skin made her gasp.

“These are magnificent.”

She couldn’t help it. She barked a short laugh. “Magnificent?”

He frowned up at her. “Don’t underestimate the lure of these.” He nipped at one, and she sucked in a breath. When he pulled back the lace off the left side, exposing the nipple, he licked it once. “Magnificent.”

She cupped the back of his head and let her own fall back. He had an extremely talented mouth. He lapped, licked, nibbled, and suckled at her breasts, switching from one to the other until she was mindless with need. She ground herself against his cock, needing surcease.

“More.” She leapt off his lap, her breasts bobbing with the movement.

His lips were red and wet from their ministrations. Her entire body screamed for her to return. Instead, she pulled off her shorts and panties.

“Wait right here.”

She ran to the office to her purse, then tore into it like a madwoman, finding the condom in the inner pocket with a hoot of triumph. It wasn’t like she had a lot of occasions to use it, but a lady had to be prepared.

Bea returned to the main part of the store. Laz sat where she left him, breathing hard on the chair in the middle of the room. She dropped to her knees and unzipped his pants, then pulled them to his ankles. While he looked on with an intensity that made her shiver, his hard staff fairly jumped into her hands. She wanted to suck him until he begged for mercy. Not at this moment though. She needed to have him inside her.

Now.

She pulled him into her mouth just once, long enough to tug at the head of his cock with the back of her throat. He moaned and gripped the edge of the chair. She let him go with an audible pop.

With a grunt, she tore open the condom and then put it on his engorged staff. He was thick and long, more than enough to fill her and then some. She got to her feet, still wearing the bra with her breasts half out of it, smashed together to create some fantastic cleavage.

His gaze dropped to her pussy and she was glad she had kept herself trimmed. Nothing accentuated sex more than flesh on flesh.

He still wore his shirt and his gun holster. The dangerous-looking man and weapon, half-naked, waiting for her with a spectacular hard-on was the most arousing thing she’d ever seen in her life.

She moved toward him, then spread her legs to straddle him. When she grasped his cock, he hissed a breath through his teeth. She paused while her heart thundered through her ears and all she heard was their harsh breathing. Nothing else made it through, all other noises and distractions slipped away.

She slid down the length of him, inch by inch, until he was fully embedded. She paused at the exquisiteness of the moment. So perfect, so
right
.

He took hold of her hips and started pulling her up and down. Bea used her toes on the floor to manage her own movement. Soon they found a rhythm of thrusting up, thrusting down, creating a delicious heat and pleasure that spiraled through her.

He turned his attention back to her breasts, licking her as he could although her pace picked up speed. His hand slid between them and found her engorged clit.

Bea hardly saw the orgasm coming. It hit her so fast and so hard all she could do was manage to gasp and then the stars hit her. She soared through the air, pulsing waves of ecstasy washing over her. His fingers dug into her skin and he sucked her nipple hard, prolonging her pleasure as he found his own.

She leaned her head against his, breathing hard and vibrating across every inch of her body. He was still hard inside her and it felt absolutely marvelous. Better than any sexual experience in her life. Hands down.

“Wow,” he murmured.

Wow indeed.

‡

L
az didn’t realize
his hands were shaking until he raised one to adjust the rearview mirror. Hell and damnation. He’d just crossed a line he couldn’t uncross.

With Beatrice Cartwright.

She’d always been this presence, reminding him of the person he wasn’t, and he’d resented her for that. Now he’d seen her as a person, a smart, sexy woman. One he’d just had sex with. Although sex seemed too mild a word.

It was a mating. An elemental mating of two beings.

He hadn’t been a monk, but he hadn’t been engaging in casual sex on a regular basis either. Nevertheless, the experience with Bea had been intense. More so than any other encounter in his life.

What did that mean?

He should have been focusing on his job, not on the woman. Her ideas for connecting the crimes were incisive and commendable. She was damn near profiling the perp without the training most cops had. He wasn’t kidding when he’d told her she would have made a good cop.

The drive to the hotel ten miles outside town took no time at all. In fact, he was in a stupor and didn’t remember a goddamn second of it. He brought in the binder and spent the evening pretending to review his notes.

What the hell had she done to him? He was never that distracted. Ever. Apparently until he’d put his hands—and more—on Beatrice Cartwright, and then he couldn’t find his ass with both hands.

He stared blindly at the television until he fell into a restless sleep. His dreams were full of sensual images. He woke to the gray light of predawn, soaked with sweat and hard as an iron bar. Laz didn’t like complications in his personal life. Bea had become a massive complication.

He got up and jumped in the shower, letting the hot water sluice down his body. If he wasn’t careful, he would get tangled up so tight in Bea’s web, he would choke himself to escape.

That was an unfair thought. Truth was, he had been attracted to her for at least fifteen years and yesterday was like popping a cork that had needed to be let loose long before then.

When he got out of the shower, his cell phone was ringing. He picked it up, trying not to get water on the screen.

“Graham.”

“Holy shit, Ranger! I’ve called you ten times. Do you ever pick up your phone?” Bea’s voice shot through the earpiece at him.

“I was in the shower.” He didn’t realize the implications of what he said until she was silent for a few beats.

“Oh.”

He wondered if she was imagining him naked. His dick thought that was an excellent idea and stood at attention. He told it to go to sleep, but it didn’t listen. Bea’s voice was enough to remind him how passionate she was.

Damn, what had he done?

“What did you need, Beatrice?” He tried to keep his voice steady, but it wasn’t quite all there. He hoped like hell she didn’t notice.

“I remembered something! Last year in the spring, March thirteenth, I remember the date because it was the Ides of March, there was a small business expo at the Circle Eight.” Her voice grew louder as she spoke.

Laz, however, stopped actually hearing her. March thirteenth was his birthday. And an event was held at his family’s ranch on his birthday last year. Something he knew nothing about because he’d cut himself off from his father and the Circle Eight.

“Are you listening? I remember the florist. She was the same age as me and we talked about our favorite bands from growing up. I just went back and looked at the sticky notes. It’s her. She was there same as me.” She hooted into the phone. “I’ll bet if we check the attendee list, all five businesses would be on there.”

His heart pounded. “You found the connection.”

“Yes! I wouldn’t have unless I hadn’t Googled all of the business owners. I remembered her as soon as I saw her picture.” She paused. “You know what this means, right?”

“We have our first real lead.” The cop in him was running through a dozen scenarios and making mental lists as she continued to speak.

“Laz, you need to stop wandering off when I’m talking. We have to go out to the Circle Eight. We have to talk to your father.”

The words finally sank in and Laz sat down hard on the edge of the mattress. He’d tried, quite hard, to forget he was in his hometown and a mere fifteen minutes from the ranch he’d grown up on. The land that had been in his blood since before he was born.

Damnation. He was going home after all.

Bea arrived at
the hotel half an hour later. He walked out to the parking lot while his gut jumped like a pack of frogs had taken up residence. How the hell was he going to go to the Circle Eight? She leaned against her raggedy blue truck, her arms crossed and an eager expression on her face. She wore a purple plaid shirt and a pair of knee-length pants. A pair of white tennis shoes completed the outfit. Her hair was in the usual ponytail. If he didn’t know any better, he’d think she was eighteen again. Then again, her breasts were rounder and made his hands itch to cup them again. He wondered if she wore that pink lacy bra.

The visceral memories of the day before slammed into him and he wanted to turn and walk back into the hotel. No woman had a right to look so delicious and tempting. He wondered if he could invite her back to his bed to continue what they’d started yesterday. Laz was a fucking idiot. Where the hell was his brain?

In his underwear.

“Should I drive?” Her voice snapped him out of his ridiculous train of thought.

He shook his head both to tell her no and dispel the lingering attraction to her. “This is official business. We need to take my car.”

She frowned. “You told me I had to ride in the back if I rode in your car, which isn’t going to happen. Let’s take my truck.”

It was true he had a laptop and various other pieces of equipment that prevented someone from sitting in the passenger seat. Laz wouldn’t go so far as to say he did it intentionally. A partner had never been in his playbook. Not that he hadn’t tried to get along with an assigned partner. He just preferred to work alone.

Now Beatrice had pushed her way into his carefully constructed life and he had to either make room for her in his car or ride in a civilian vehicle. Laz wasn’t sure when he made the decision, or why, but it was made.

He unlocked the car and pulled out the bag, binders, and jacket from the passenger seat, then folded down the laptop. “Your ride awaits.”

She raised her brows but said nothing. After grabbing her small leather purse from the cab of the truck, she locked it and headed back to him.

After they were both in the car, he risked a glance at her. She stared straight ahead, for which he was grateful. The enormity of what they were about to do threatened to make him turn around and drive away. He’d known he would have to face his past one day but not today.

Unfortunately, it was going to happen whether or not he was ready or willing. He started the car and headed down the familiar path to the Circle Eight. The minutes ticked by and his gut wound tighter and tighter.

Finally, he couldn’t take another moment of silence. “What prompted your memory of the expo?”