PRIMAL INSTINCT (12 page)

“I’m not sure this is a good idea.” Conner rested his forehead against hers.

“You may be right,” Adrienne said, smiling again. “But I don’t think we have enough data collected yet to be sure.”

Not giving him a chance to respond, Adrienne straddled her legs on either side of his on the couch and lowered herself the rest of the way onto his lap. She took his face between her hands and kissed him.

Adrienne kissed him with all the passion she’d felt for him since the moment she’d met him.

It didn’t take long for Conner to give up the fight. She heard him sigh as his arms hooked around her hips, pulling her closer to him. Everything about them seemed to explode. The hot, needful pressure of his mouth made her dizzy. Her hands locked in fistfuls of his hair as he released her lips and began kissing his way along her jaw to her throat. His mouth slid to the soft hollow beneath her ear, placing a not-too-gentle bite on that side of her neck.

Adrienne felt the heat inside her intensify. She whispered his name and dragged his mouth back to hers, drowning in the kiss. She reached between them and unbuttoned his shirt, loving the feel of his chest against her palms. She felt him reach for the hem of her T-shirt and broke their kiss long enough for him to peel it over her head.

Conner’s lips returned to her neck, nipping with just enough force to drive her absolutely crazy. His hands unhooked and removed her bra, then cupped her breasts.

“You’re beautiful.”

Adrienne could hear the reverence in Conner’s tone as he kissed her again. She wrapped her fingers in his hair and held him to her.

Abruptly Conner pried her off him and stood, wasting no time getting the rest of her clothes off her. He made quick work of his own, then reached under her hips with both arms and lifted her again. She wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist. He carried her up the stairs.

“You mentioned something about wanting to see my bedroom?” He raised one eyebrow.

Adrienne giggled. “So considerate of you to give me the tour.”

“We aim to please.”

His bedroom was decidedly masculine with heavy wooden furniture. A plain cream-colored duvet was thrown haphazardly across the bed—as if he had attempted to make it up this morning, but hadn’t been willing to give it more than thirty seconds’ worth of effort. Conner tossed the cover to the side and eased Adrienne onto the bed and followed down right on top of her.

His lips found hers again, and Adrienne gave herself over to the feeling of being utterly surrounded by Conner. Being held against him felt good. His incredible body heat felt good. Everything about this felt good. With every touch he aroused another wave of sensation.

For the first time ever, Adrienne gave herself over to passion without holding back, knowing without a doubt she was safe.

* * *

T
HE
NEXT
MORNING
Conner looked over at Adrienne asleep in his bed. She was curled around a pillow, tucked up in a tiny ball. Her deep, even breathing suggested she was a long way from waking up. Good, she needed sleep. Last night had been wonderful, but it definitely had not helped her get any rest. Conner couldn’t bring himself to be sorry about that.

He had wanted her like he’d never wanted another woman. It was all he could do now to just leave her alone.

Conner eased himself from the bed, careful not to disturb her. He grabbed some sweatpants from out of a drawer and put them on as he headed downstairs to the coffeemaker.

Yeah, Conner was glad Adrienne was asleep. She was going to need it now that it seemed Simon Says had turned his sights on her.

The thought made Conner break out in a cold sweat. Simon knew who Adrienne was, had known where she was staying. And they still knew next to nothing about him.

Conner made coffee—a full pot; he was going to need it—and sat down at his kitchen table. His phone chirped from the counter. A text from Seth.

You up?

Conner texted him back,
Yeah.

There in five. Bringing breakfast.

Conner was always up for a delivered meal but was especially glad Seth was coming over. It would give them a chance to talk through the thought that had come to Conner sometime in the night.

Simon Says was an FBI agent. Or a cop. Or some sort of law enforcement.

It was the only way he could’ve known who Adrienne was or that she was working with them.

It hadn’t occurred to Conner while they were processing Adrienne’s room at the hotel, probably because he had been too caught up with getting Adrienne out of there as soon as possible. But now that he had thought about it, it was the only thing that made sense.

There was a tap on the door, and Conner got up to answer it. Seth walked through, thrusting a bag of breakfast sandwiches at Conner.

“Simon Says is a cop,” Seth said with no preamble.

Conner didn’t need one. “I agree. I was just thinking that myself. A cop or agent. Some sort of law enforcement.”

They sat down at the kitchen table and opened the sandwiches. “We’ve worked with a lot of people over the past six months. It could be any of them.” Seth looked at the sandwich he got and traded it with Conner. “But it at least gives us a place to start looking. A way to narrow things down.”

Conner took a bite of his breakfast. “It can’t be someone at the Bureau office. Adrienne would be totally incapacitated just by him being around.”

“Unless you’re there blocking everything,” Seth pointed out.

“Yeah, but how could he know that? We haven’t told anybody. That would be taking an awfully big risk.”

“Well, obviously this guy doesn’t have a problem taking risks.”

“I want her with one of us all the time, Seth. Or at least always in the Bureau office.” Conner set his sandwich down and sat back in his chair shaking his head. “If Simon got her alone— You’ve seen what she’s like after accessing evidence. Could you imagine how helpless she’d be if Simon actually got his hands on her?”

Conner was determined not to let that happen.

“We could get a protection detail on her.”

Conner shook his head. “No. Not until we know for sure who we can trust. It could be anyone.”

“Who could be anyone?” Adrienne’s voice came softly from behind them over at the stairs.

Conner turned to her and was immediately stunned at how beautiful she was despite being in one of his T-shirts and a pair of his shorts. Or maybe she was so gorgeous because she was in them, even though they were huge on her.

Whichever. He had it bad.

“Good morning.” Conner smiled at her. “Want some coffee?”

“Yeah, I’ll get it. Hi, Seth.”

“Morning, Adrienne.”

Adrienne walked into the kitchen. Conner turned back in his seat to find Seth looking at him with one eyebrow cocked.

“Shut up. I don’t want to hear it,” Conner muttered.

“And to think I was just about to comment on how gentlemanly of you it was to have taken the couch and let her sleep in your bed.”

“Things just worked out differently.”

“I’m just kidding you, man. The way you two have been from the very beginning, I’m surprised it has taken this long.”

Adrienne walked back in, saving Conner from needing to reply. She came to stand next to him and he looped his arm around her waist, pulling her down into his lap. Without any thought to Seth whatsoever, he kissed her thoroughly.

“Good morning to you, too,” Adrienne said, blushing, when Conner finally released her mouth. “What are you guys talking about?”

Conner was loath to bring it up but knew Adrienne should know. They explained their theory about Simon Says being in law enforcement. Listening, Adrienne got more and more tense in his lap.

“We want one of us to be with you, or you to be at the Bureau office all the time,” Conner concluded.

Adrienne stood up. “That’s not going to work. I’m going to need to go back to the ranch soon, at least for a few days. Vince can’t run everything there alone forever.”

Conner shook his head again. “No, Adrienne, you can’t go back there right now. Not until we’ve caught Simon.”

“But that could take months!”

Conner could feel his frustration building. She could not leave—he wouldn’t allow it. He wouldn’t let anything compromise her safety. “It won’t take months. Not with you helping us.” Conner reached out to Adrienne, but she stepped back from his grasp. Conner looked over at Seth, but found his partner was looking down at his hands, unwilling to get involved.

“Conner, I will take normal, reasonable precautions. Of course I don’t want Simon to get ahold of me. But my abilities allow me to know if he’s nearby, so I don’t have to worry about that.”

Conner couldn’t think of a logical argument against what Adrienne was saying. “Three days. Give us three days to narrow down the pool of suspects. During that time, you stay with one of us or in the middle of the Bureau office. After three days we can reevaluate.”

Conner watched as Adrienne considered his offer. She didn’t like to be boxed into a decision, he could tell. Finally she nodded her head. He reached out for her again, and she took his extended hand.

“Okay. Three days.”

Chapter Twelve

The three days were tough. Conner watched as Adrienne worked herself into exhaustion trying to help them. She fleshed out details about Simon Says—his thoughts, his motives—and the crimes. Based on comparing how tall the victims were with what angle Simon held his head while looking at them, Adrienne determined roughly how tall the killer was—around five foot ten.

She worked with an artist to provide a rendering of the room where the women were killed. And went through file after file, package after package, to see what insight she could gather. With the information Adrienne provided, both Conner and Seth knew they would eventually gain the upper hand on Simon.

What Adrienne could do—her freakishly awesome crime-fighting superpowers—was truly amazing. And the price she paid for it was hideous. Of course Conner always saw both secondhand. He had pretty much been banned from the office while Adrienne was working. He spent a lot of time around the city, going back over crime scenes, reinterviewing different parties, trying to piece together anything they may have missed the first time. He didn’t like being away from Adrienne—not when Simon could be anyone at the Bureau.

But in order for them to get ahead in the case Conner had to stay away. Each afternoon he would return to the office and watch the footage of what happened with Adrienne while he was gone. He watched as she pored over any item they had associated with the murder and gleaned whatever information she could. And the cost she paid to do it.

Watching Adrienne go through such mental torture on a daily basis—knowing he could stop it at any time—was destroying Conner. He was torn between wanting to catch a sadistic killer and protecting the woman he loved.

The woman he loved?

Where exactly had that come from? Conner shrugged, didn’t fight it. In the short time he had known Adrienne, she had eased her way into his heart. And he wanted her there. The moment he’d seen her walking into that barn last week, talking about some crazy horse, that had been it for him.

Of course, he had no idea how Adrienne felt. And he couldn’t imagine why she would ever want to stay in San Francisco or ever be a part of the Bureau. The price she paid was too high.

Conner tried to be a buffer for her as much as possible, but it wasn’t easy. Not only did she have the Simon Says case to work on, but soon word had gotten out around the building that the Bloodhound was real, not an urban legend. That she was back. That she was here. Everybody wanted to meet her or shake her hand or just ask for a moment’s worth of help.

It was like Adrienne could spin straw into gold, and everyone wanted to bring their little bit of straw to her.

Not that any of the other agents meant any harm. At worst, they were just overly curious. At best, they wanted insight on a case or two so they could help justice prevail.

Not unlike him and Seth.

The problem was, nobody realized the price Adrienne paid for the help she gave. The violence and malice she was exposed to whenever she touched something new to help someone’s case. The pain and exhaustion that often overwhelmed her.

Because Adrienne never told anyone it hurt. Someone would ask for her help, and she would do it. They would have all sorts of curious questions about her abilities, and she would answer with some light joke—putting them at ease. As far as he could tell from the footage he had watched, her favorite responses for when she was asked how she got her abilities were radioactive spider bite, bombardment of cosmic rays and gamma-radiation accident—all comic book characters’ plights if Conner wasn’t mistaken.

Conner wasn’t sure how she functioned so efficiently or how she was able to keep such an upbeat personality when she was pelted all day by malice of the worst kind. But somehow she did.

The nights were better. Adrienne had moved in with him for all intents and purposes. Only Conner, Seth and Chief Kelly knew Adrienne’s location. Until they discovered who Simon was, Conner intended to keep it that way.

They spent their evenings together with quiet dinners and walks around the city. He loved how the tension that surrounded her when he arrived at the office each afternoon was gone by the end of the evening. He was glad to offer her peace and quiet. And relieved to have her in his bed every night, knowing she was safe and not in any pain.

But having to be away from the office—away from the action—during the day was frustrating as hell.

Conner was gone now as Adrienne prepared to go through her own ruined clothes from the hotel. Simon had shredded most of them into pieces. Because it was her own stuff, this would probably be worse for Adrienne. So Conner didn’t want to go far. In the past few days they had worked out exactly how many blocks away he needed to be in order for Adrienne’s abilities to work.

One of the FBI photographers, Victor Faraday, had seemed to figure out what was going on with Conner and Adrienne, or at least that Conner was never in the room when Adrienne was using her abilities, and had shown Conner how to set up a video chat on his phone so he could see what was happening, even if he wasn’t there. They were trying that now.

That made it easier, but not much.

“Okay, Seth, I’m far enough out, I think,” Conner told Seth, looking into his phone.

“Okay. Faraday is going to hold the camera so I can help Adrienne if she needs it. She’s opening the first of the crime scene bags now.” The camera zoomed in on Adrienne and the bags.

Conner didn’t like how pale she already was. Before even touching her clothes.

Adrienne cut open one of the crime scene bags and reached inside for what looked like had once been a sweater. He saw Adrienne tense as she touched it, but she didn’t say anything.

“Adrienne?” Seth placed his hand on her arm. Adrienne shook her head but didn’t answer. Instead she reached for a different bag, pulling out its contents. She spread her fingers wide over them so she could touch as much as possible.

“Seth, am I missing something? What’s going on? Faraday, do we have audio?” Conner asked.

Victor Faraday was the one who answered. “Ms. Jeffries isn’t saying anything, Agent Perigo. The audio is fine.”

Adrienne tore a third evidence bag open more quickly than she had the first two. She pulled out their contents, careful to touch every piece. But still she said nothing. Conner waited as she did the same to the other three bags.

“Conner?” Adrienne finally looked over at the camera Faraday was holding.

“What, sweetheart?” The endearment was out before he could catch it. Conner supposed it didn’t matter—Seth already knew, and Faraday wasn’t high enough on the Bureau food chain to really matter. Although hopefully he wouldn’t say anything.

“There’s nothing, Conner,” Adrienne responded.

“Do you think I’m too close? Is that it?”

“No. I can feel Simon on the clothes. He definitely had some sort of plan and was in the room. But when he did all this damage, he was not in any rage. At least none that I would be able to feel.”

“What do you think that means?”

He saw Adrienne shake her head. “I don’t know. He wasn’t menacing in any way while he was destroying the room. So it’s really hard for me to get any reading from any of this.”

“Are you positive it was Simon?” Seth asked.

“Definitely. He just wasn’t angry when he did this. Had no malicious intent toward me or anyone. It’s like he was doing a job, calmly and methodically.”

Conner’s eyes narrowed. “Calmly and methodically” scared him almost more than “murderous rage.”

“I can’t see anything else. I’m sorry.” Adrienne sighed.

“Don’t worry about it. I’m coming back.”

* * *

A
DRIENNE
WASN
’
T
SURE
what to make of this. It all just wasn’t right—as if Simon knew the weakness in her visions and was exploiting them. Without malicious intent on the killer’s part, she really couldn’t see anything clearly.

But only someone who knew the type of work she did for the FBI would know that. Adrienne was becoming more and more convinced of Conner’s theory that whoever Simon was, he had some sort of link to law enforcement in this area.

From where she sat at Conner’s desk, Adrienne looked around. There were people everywhere in this building—agents, suspects, witnesses. Most of them she didn’t know at all.

Any of them could be the killer.

Adrienne shook her head and chased away that thought. No, Simon Says couldn’t be in this building. If he was, Adrienne would know it. Even now she could hear the buzz of everyone around her and feel some of the malevolent thoughts and artifacts pushing their way toward her. There was no way a killer could slip by her unnoticed.

She could see the conference room down the hall from where she sat. Seth was putting her destroyed clothes back into the evidence bags. Adrienne knew Conner would return soon.

Conner had agreed to drive her back to Lodi this afternoon so she could check on Vince and the horses. Adrienne knew it would do her good to get out of the city and away from the FBI for a little bit. They had planned to stay the night and come back tomorrow morning. But now Adrienne had a new plan, and she didn’t think Conner was going to like it at all.

Adrienne looked down at the files on the desk and opened one in particular—the one she had worked on with the artist to try to pinpoint the location of where Simon Says was taking and killing the women. She knew she was missing something about this place. Something important. But she could never seem to find time to focus on it. Here at the FBI field office, or really anywhere in the city, there was too much outside interference. The only time she had quiet was when Conner was around.

She was so incredibly grateful for Conner. He had made this all bearable. Not just because of how he negated her abilities and gave her blessed silence. Adrienne had come to depend on him in other ways as well, and couldn’t wait to go home with him each night.

Adrienne looked up just in time to see him walk into the conference room where Seth was still working. From the door he paused and turned in her direction. Seeing her watching him, he smiled and winked at her. Then turned and walked the rest of the way into the conference room.

Adrienne could feel her heart puddle at her feet. There was no doubt she was falling in love with that man. Everything about him fit her perfectly.

Adrienne giggled to herself, thinking about last night. Yes,
everything
about him fit her perfectly.

Closing the file and attempting to get her wayward thoughts in check, Adrienne walked to the conference room. She knew what she needed to do. But she also knew Conner was not going to like it. Seth and Conner looked up from repacking the evidence bags as she entered.

“I’ve been thinking about Lodi,” Adrienne stated from the doorway.

“Do you still want to go?” Conner asked.

“Yes. I need to. But, Conner, I don’t think you should come with me.”

Conner stopped the work he was doing and looked directly at her. “What?”

Adrienne held up the file in her hand. “I’ve been thinking about the place where Simon Says is killing the women. I feel like there’s more about this that I can figure out.”

“Okay. That would be great.”

“But I can’t do it with you around.”

Conner shrugged. “Fine. Then do it here, and I’ll leave again for a while.”

Adrienne walked over to Conner and put her hand on his arm. “No. I don’t want you to have to leave again. This is
your
office.”

Conner began to protest, but Adrienne cut him off. “Besides, it’s too mentally loud in this building. There are so many things trying to pull me away from focusing. And not just here in the building—in this entire city. I need some quiet. I want to take some of the photos with me to Lodi.”

“And you can’t do your magic if I’m there.”

Adrienne ran her fingers down his arm and grasped his hand. “Yes. I’m sorry. But I know I’m missing something with these. Being alone where it’s quiet might give me more insight.”

“Alone? No way. Simon knows who you are. There’s no reason to think he doesn’t know where you live.”

“Conner, I’ll be able to know if Simon is around. He can’t sneak up on me.”

“That’s fine. But if he somehow did get close to you, you would be totally helpless. I’ve seen what happens to you when you’re just around things he’s touched. What would you be like around him in person?” His expression hardened, determination glittering in his eyes. “There is no way in hell you’re going by yourself.”

“I’ll take her,” Seth chirped in. “We’ll leave this afternoon and come back in the morning, just like you planned to do.”

Adrienne could tell Conner didn’t like it. Adrienne didn’t much like the thought of being away from him, either. But there wasn’t much way around it.

“I won’t let her out of my sight, Scout’s honor.” Seth held up two fingers in some sort of incorrect scout salute. “I’ll even sleep in the bed with her if she’ll let me.”

Conner rolled his eyes and put his arm around Adrienne. “Don’t push it, Harrington.” But Conner nodded. “I guess I should get caught up on some of the three hundred pounds of paperwork I have here.”

Adrienne cringed. He hadn’t been able to do any of his normal work in the past few days so that she could work here in safety.

“I’m sorry.” Adrienne looked up at Conner. “I’ve pretty much kicked you out of your own office.”

Conner kissed her quickly on the lips. “I would give up my office anytime if it meant you were safe. Plus, I like that at the Starbucks they know my order now as soon as I walk in. I am no longer mocked by the masses when ordering my drink of choice.”

Seth smirked. “Happy for you, princess. You ready to go, Adrienne?”

“Sure. My stuff is by Conner’s desk.” She didn’t have much since all of her clothes had been destroyed by Simon three days ago.

“Okay, I’ll grab it and meet you at my car.”

Conner walked with Adrienne out to the parking garage. “Stay with Seth the entire time. Don’t even go to the barn without him. And definitely no riding.”

Adrienne smiled. “I promise.”