If You Know Her: A Novel of Romantic Suspense (11 page)

“… a condom?”

Cracking one eye open, Law glanced up at her. What was she saying? Didn’t she know he couldn’t think, not when she was touching him? What was she talking about?
Why
was she talking?

“You got a condom?”

Oh. Shit.

Law groaned. “No.”

Her jaw dropped. “You …” She closed her eyes. Then opened them, that golden gaze flashing. “You don’t have a rubber?”

“No. I don’t generally carry them around unless I’m planning on getting laid and that wasn’t why I came.” She was still touching him—shit. Grimacing, he reached down, closed his fingers around her wrist. She had to stop, or he was going to do something he hadn’t done since high school. Tugging her hand away, he blew out a breath, tried to convince his burning, raging body that it needed to cool down—now.

“You …” she licked her lips, still sitting astride his thighs, a confused look on her face.

This wasn’t making sense. Nia tried to get it to make sense and it wasn’t happening. He’d come here, after last night—brought her coffee—and he hadn’t brought a damn rubber.

Okay. It still wasn’t making sense. Not a lick of sense. None. Taking a deep breath, she wet her lips with her tongue and tried again. “You seriously don’t have anything?”

He eased her off, his hands—calloused in all the right places, just enough to feel good as he touched her—stroking up over her sensitized flesh and sending signals to her overheated brain. “No, Nia. I don’t.” He winced as he sat up, adjusting his jeans.

She swore, her body tight, hot, aching so bad. Drugstore—one of them could go to the fucking drugstore—

A phone rang.

Law grimaced. He gave her an apologetic look and stood, pulling it out of his back pocket. He cleared his throat before he answered it. She took a little bit of pleasure in hearing the harsh, unsteady rasp of his voice as he said, “Yeah?”

Listening to the one-sided conversation, it didn’t take her long to figure out that she wouldn’t be getting any relief after all. Apparently Law had someplace to be.

“Yeah … yeah, no. It’s okay, sweetheart. I can be there in about a half hour. Uh-huh. It’s okay.” He disconnected a few seconds after that and proceeded to swear a blue streak.

She waited until he stopped and then asked, “So. I take it you don’t have time to run to the drugstore and buy a box of rubbers real fast, do you?”

“Afraid not.” He laughed, rubbing the heel of his hand over his chest. “That was Lena Ri—uh, King. Ezra’s wife. She needs a ride into town and Ezra’s stuck in court for the next little while. She’s not feeling too good—has to go see the doc and …”

Nia climbed off the bed and slid her arms around his neck. “It’s okay.” Pressing a kiss to his chin, she murmured, “Well, not exactly. I’m dying here. But you wouldn’t be worth much if you left a sick friend hanging just so you could get laid, now would you?”

He eased his chin down, slanting his mouth over hers. “Maybe we can take a rain check?”

“Bet your ass,” she said. At least that’s what she tried to say. The words were lost in a hungry, voracious kiss that stole the breath right out of her.

Law skimmed a hand down her side, along her ribs, the indentation at her waist, over her hip. She gasped as he slid it between her legs and cupped her. “Just how close are you to dying? Because I wouldn’t be worth
much if I left you in a dire situation either … Just how dire is it?”

“Pretty dire,” she said, her voice hitching in the middle.

He pushed one finger inside her, rotated his wrist. She bucked against his hand and started to rock. Law wrapped his free arm around her waist, supporting her. Lifting his head, he stared down at her—he wanted to keep on kissing her, tasting her, feeling her moan and sigh against his lips, but more, he needed to see her, watch as he made her come. Because damn it, he was going to have that, at least.

“Pretty dire, huh,” he teased. Her eyes darkened, shielded by the fringe of her lashes as she rode his hand, her hips pumping back and forth. “Then I have to take care of you … always have to help a woman out.”

He dipped his head and raked his teeth along her neck.

Her head fell back on a gasp.

He pressed his thumb against her clit, circled it, teased it.

Nia cried out, a harsh, high sound. The walls of her sex tightened around him, snug and slick. He added a second finger and gritted his teeth as she squeezed tight and whimpered his name. Another slow stroke, another teasing circle around her clit.

The diamond-hard points of her nipples taunted him and he wanted, so bad, to stretch her back out on the bed and learn every inch of her body, first with his eyes, then with his hands, then with his mouth. But first he’d have to make love to her, hard and fast, easing this vicious ache before it killed him.

No time, though, no fucking time. All he could do was continue to pump his fingers, in … out. He nuzzled her neck again and felt a shudder run through her. He bit her lightly and felt her stiffen. With a twist of his wrist, he brought her to climax—the sound of her harsh,
ragged moan was almost enough to have him coming in his jeans. He groaned, burying his face against her neck as she rocked against his hand, whimpering, her nails biting into his shoulders.

Hot … sweet, and so damned perfect. Erotic as hell.

Nia sagged against him, stunned, dazed. She … what … hell.

Tipping her head back, she stared at him. “I … wow.”

Law grinned at her. Then he dipped his head and rubbed his mouth gently against hers. “I have to go.”

“Go?” she repeated dumbly. Fifteen seconds later, she remembered. Shit. His friend. That, more effectively than anything else, served to cool the fire in her blood.

His friend. The one who looked eerily like Joely.

“Yeah,” she said, forcing the words through her tight throat. “You go.”

She swallowed and eased back, tried not to let anything show on her face.

But those eyes of his, they seemed to see everything—far below the surface. He brushed his knuckles down her cheek. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” She gave him a tight smile and moved across the room on shaky legs. Need still pulsed inside her, making her head spin. Making it so hard to think, so hard to focus. “I just … um. Your friend, Lena. She …”

“I’m running her to the doctor’s office,” Law said quietly.

“Yeah.” She scooped up her robe from the floor and tugged it on, wrapping it around her suddenly icy body, needing the warmth. She hadn’t been cold until she’d stepped away from him. Hadn’t been cold at all. But now … Suppressing a shiver, she gave him another smile, a little less forced, a little more real. “You need to go,” she said quietly.

He crossed the room, paused by the sink and washed his hands. Then he turned to her, cupped her chin. “Rain
check,” he muttered, pressing a hard, hungry kiss to her mouth. “Man, you’re doing bad, bad things to my head, Nia. Bad things.”

For some reason, that made her smile. Only fair, she figured. She took one look at him and the ability to think clearly seemed to disappear.

Guys didn’t affect her like that. They simply didn’t.

But Law, she had already realized, wasn’t just any guy.

S
HE DIDN
’
T TRACK HIM DOWN ANY TIME SOON
.

She was tempted, though. That rain check was one she definitely wanted to redeem. Nia couldn’t let herself get distracted by him, though. As appealing as he was, he wasn’t her reason for coming.

Joely was, and damn it, she was going to find some answers.

She spent the next few days researching, combing through archives and newspapers at the library, although at the oddest times, thoughts of Law would creep into her mind and she’d find herself thinking about him. She’d find herself thinking about heading out to his place, wanting to see him.

A few times, she almost decided to go there. Almost. Something always stopped her, though.

First, she needed to do what she came here for. Joely—she was here for Joely. Although, damn it, she was just spinning her wheels, it seemed like. Spinning her wheels, existing on nothing but Diet Coke and cigarettes and cereal. She couldn’t even find her much-needed Monster at the Circle K half the time.

The archives were proving to be useless. Very useless. Nothing useful there, but then again, she really didn’t
figure the killer had taken any victims from his hometown. Stupid that.

All sorts of women had gone missing, but without any bodies …

The names, they blurred together on her, ran together like smeared ink, making no sense, one big jumble on her mind, with nothing standing out. By Thursday, she was so tired of reading about missing women, so tired of this self-assigned quest and wondering why she couldn’t do this from home. Instead of heading to the library, she went to the courthouse.

Not to talk to Ezra, though. She didn’t have anything to talk to him
about
. She just needed something else to focus on—a starting point. Good thing she knew how to research like mad, because that
something
turned out to be going through the police reports in the weeks following Joely’s disappearance, bits and pieces she picked up on when reading through the archives and such.

Had to love the open government thing—unless they played into open cases, nobody could tell her she couldn’t look at police reports.

A lot of drunk and disorderlies. A lot of driving under the influences. More than a few reports that had something to do with spousal abuse. Nia sighed as she combed through them, figuring she was wasting time. After three hours, her head was pounding, her neck was stiff, and her eyes were gritty and dry.

Lunchtime—she’d go until lunchtime and then take a break. Or maybe stop for the day. She needed a smoke, anyway. “Need to quit,” she muttered, although she was a little surprised she even cared. But she wasn’t going to worry about that right now.

Five minutes before her self-imposed deadline, she came across a mention of a name that sounded very, very familiar.

Lena. Lena Riddle.

Lena … Yeah, they’d just gotten married. Was this Ezra’s wife?

Getting that report took a few more minutes than she liked and she had an itch down her spine the entire time she waited. That itch only got worse once she had a copy of the report in her hands.

What she read was enough to make shivers run down her spine.

Especially when she got to the date. Just a few days after Joely was kidnapped. Before her body was found.

Nia squeezed her eyes closed, counted to ten.

Subject reports hearing screaming in the woods:

“Somebody was in the woods. I could hear her screaming, screaming for help.”

Subject described the voice as female. Heard the voice call out five times and claims the screams came from the woods to the east of subject’s property
.

The subject. That would be Lena.

Shit. Lena heard somebody screaming … screaming in the woods by her house. After a few days of nothing but frustration and emptiness, Nia’s headache was gone, replaced by the low-level burn of excitement, the hum of her instincts.

This
was something. She didn’t know how she knew it.

But it was something … She needed to check out those woods.

Of course, she suspected the sheriff wouldn’t be too pleased if she was out there trespassing.

So she’d have to make sure she wasn’t caught.

“I heard you were down here.”

Speak of the devil …

Nia didn’t flinch at the sound of Ezra King’s voice, nor did she blush. She neatly gathered up her notes before she looked up at the sheriff.

“Hello, Sheriff.”

He eyed those reports for a second, then shifted his gaze to her face. “Heard you’ve been spending a lot of time reading up on police reports, checking out the archives.”

“Yes.”

“Anything interesting?”

“The town has an awful lot of people with the last name of Jennings,” she said dryly. “And more than a few people who can’t hold their liquor.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” he muttered, shoving a hand through his hair. “But somehow, I don’t think that’s the sort of thing keeping you from going back to Virginia, Miz Hollister.”

“It’s not.” She slid her notes into her bag, then her laptop. “I’ll go back when I’m ready.”

“And when will that be?”

She shrugged. “Man, some of you are really interested in how long I’m hanging around. A girl might think she isn’t welcome. Between you and Law …”

“Law.” A grin tugged at Ezra’s mouth. “Yeah, I heard you went out with him on Monday.”

“We didn’t go out. We just ended up at the same place.”

“And then he took you back to your hotel,” Ezra finished, still grinning. “Brought you coffee the next day and you answered the door all but wearing your birthday suit.”

Nia narrowed her eyes.

“Small-town gossip. It’s effective.”

“That Sparks woman is a malicious bitch,” she said.

“True. Although she’s not the one who mentioned the fact that you two were seen leaving the Grill on Monday. I actually heard that one from a deputy of mine.” He glanced back at her desk, but Nia had already cleared it of anything that might give him an inkling of what
she’d been looking at, other than the police reports, and he’d known about that hours ago—he even knew which reports she’d asked to see. He’d be checking out those reports later, too.

“Well, I’m glad my personal life is so interesting to everybody,” she drawled.

“Hey, you’re not from around here and you’ve got something interesting attached to your name,” Ezra said, shrugging. “If you thought people weren’t going to pay attention, especially if you start hanging around somebody like Reilly … well, then you weren’t thinking too clearly.”

“And what’s wrong with Reilly?” she demanded, only to snap her mouth shut the second the words left her mouth.
Damn it
. “You know what? Never mind. It’s not like I’m looking to marry the guy. I got to go.”

No, she didn’t. Not really.

But she’d managed to keep Law Reilly out of her mind for the past few hours and she’d like to keep it that way. Except now, it was a little too late. Ezra had opened those gates back up and once more, thoughts of Law were dominating her thoughts.