Breaking Bad (5 page)

She’d paid for that kiss. For the remainder of her time in the academy she was ostracized by her fellow recruits. A smile cracked her lips. Totally worth it.

“You should do that more often,” Jack said his voice low and husky.

She looked up at him and caught the raw desire in his eyes that he made no effort to hide. “Do what?”

“Smile.”

She scowled. “Before or after I gain more weight?”

“When’s the last time you ran in the rain?”

“When was the last time you minded your own business?”

Stevie turned back to the computer and printed out the pictures of Spoltori’s cousin and Erica Strauss. She taped them to the right of the Oakland victims, then wrote their names and date of death beneath each.

“Have you made contact with the aunt?” Jack asked.

“I called her, but she refused to talk to me and there isn’t money for a trip to Maryland.”

Jack pulled up a chair, “I wonder if the kill dates of Jessica and Erica were full moons?” He quickly did a Google search, looked up at Stevie, and smiled grimly. “Full moons. I’ll bet you another Val’s burger each of the attacks at Northwestern were during a full moon.”

Stevie dragged over the other chair, nudged his hands off the keyboard and pulled up her notes. When she searched the assault dates, they came up the same as the others. Full moons.

“I haven’t figured out the significance of the full moon,” Stevie said thinking out loud. “What we do know is that Spoltori is a sadistic misogynist Master who kidnaps and tortures middle-aged women before he ritualistically kills them on a full moon, leaving his mark of Cain on their pubis.” Her gaze rose to the storyboard. She stood and walked to the picture of Rose Chambers, his aunt. “She has vacant eyes.”

“I suspect it’s a common by-product when your only child is brutally murdered.”

Stevie shook her head. “I can’t begin to imagine.”

“What can you tell me about your three vics?”

Stevie pointed to the first picture. “Mary Coggins, forty-eight-year-old white female, wife to Jerald Coggins local boy makes good. He owns Computec, the cooler, more cost-effective version of the Geek Squad. She was a Cal grad, no children, and by all accounts a ballbuster.” Stevie moved to the second victim. “Alicia Marquez. Forty-six-year-old Hispanic female, wife to Alex Marquez, CEO of HostaGradiant, a green industrial recycling process for fossil-based waste, mother of two girls, Juniata and Cristina. Then there is June Poland, forty-eight-year-old white female, wife of Kevin Poland who is the CFO of Gemnon, a biochemical company, mother of two boys, Mark and Jake. All three husbands are Oakland based and generous contributors to Mayor Dryer. All three were kidnapped one week prior to their tortured, sexually assaulted bodies being staged on a prominent city corner.”

“Look a little closer, Detective. What other similarities do you see?”

“I have noted in my report that they all have short hair, brown eyes, and are in the same age bracket.”

“Look at his aunt, Rose Chambers.”

“She’s a bottle blonde.”

“What did she look like when her daughter was killed? And let’s go back further. Do you have a picture of Spoltori’s mother right before she died?”

“No. But I can get a postmortem one from the county coroner.”

“What was the date of his parents’ death?”

“April twelfth, ninety-eight.”

Jack entered the date into the search engine. He raised his green eyes to hers. “Full moon.”

“It doesn’t make sense. He was five when his father killed his mother and then shot himself. He was too young to be killing his mother over and over via these other women.”

“Unless his mother was brutalizing him.”

“I didn’t get that feeling from the reports. By all accounts, Genny Arnold was a loving mother.”

“I think we need to go back to the beginning to understand Spoltori’s motives.”

“Rose Chambers refuses to talk.”

Jack cracked a smile. “Maybe to you.”

“You’re not going back there without me.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

Just as she was about to tell him to go to hell, his phone rang.

“Thorn,” he answered. “Okay, thanks.”

He tapped the end icon and smiled at Stevie. “Our boy is on his way up, and he has some company.”

They quickly pulled the chairs around and much to Stevie’s dismay, she watched Jack position the new camera setup to a freshly cut circle approximately twelve inches from hers. He shrugged his jacket off and she quickly dragged her eyes from his wide shoulders and long arms.

For the second time that day she watched Mario act out as if he knew he had an audience. He turned on every light in the apartment. When he drew the blinds in the living room, she saw that he had a woman with him. A middle-aged woman. Not your average run-of-the-mill middle-aged woman, this woman was made up to the nines.

“He has good taste,” Jack said. “Chic, attractive, and from the way she carries herself, confident.”

Stevie watched him lead his guest through the apartment. When the bedroom light went on, she held her breath. When the blinds went up giving them full view of the bed, she swallowed hard. Holy hell, he was going to have sex with that woman while she watched, sitting not a foot from Jack!

“Text your man and have him standing by outside of Spoltori’s door. I don’t want his little show to go to shit while we watch and can’t get to her in time.”

Jack made the call and by the time he hung up, Spoltori had taken off his shirt. Spoltori snapped his fingers and pointed to the floor before him. Head down the woman dropped to her knees. So much for foreplay.

“She may have power in her life outside, but in Spoltori’s world, she submits.”

Stevie squirmed. She had submitted in Jack’s world. However, Jack had never been violent.

When the woman looked up at Spoltori, he slapped her. Hard. Across the face, drawing blood from her lip. Stevie gasped, jumping in her chair. “We can arrest him right now for assault,” she growled.

“Not if it’s consensual. Look at her, she loved it.”

Though the woman bowed her head again, the smile twitching her bloody lips was unmistakable. That was some seriously messed up shit there.

Like a true submissive, head bowed, she waited to be told what to do. Spoltori said something. Slowly, without raising her head, the woman reached for his zipper and drew it down. Expecting his large penis to spring forward, Stevie was surprised to find that it was flaccid. Spoltori’s jaw tightened. The woman dared to look up, disappointment clearly written on her face. He slapped her again, this time setting her back on her butt.

Again the look on the woman’s face told the story. She was digging this.

“I have no respect for a man who smacks a woman around, even if she asks for it,” Jack growled.

“Looks like the hit helped the limp dick cause.” Spoltori was growing. He strode over the woman, straddling her. He spoke to her and she rose, openmouthed to him.

Spoltori grabbed her hair with one hand, pushing her head back so that she stared eye to eye with his dick. He said something to her that appeared to be a command. She nodded, licking her lips as he slowly stroked his penis. She strained to reach the head, but he held her back as he stroked himself harder. Stevie squirmed in her seat, but stated the obvious.

“I find it interesting that he can’t get an erection unless he’s violent or stroking himself.”

Just as Stevie said the last word, Spoltori pulled the woman to his erect penis and slid it into her open mouth. Jack and Stevie both shifted in their respective chairs.

Releasing his penis, Spoltori grabbed another hank of her hair and double-fisted, he held on to her head and controlled the rhythm of her fellating him.

Stevie didn’t dare look over at Jack. For the next fifteen minutes they watched Mario get a royal blow job. Instead of ejaculating in her mouth he ejaculated on her face. “The ultimate insult,” Jack said, his voice low and raspy.

Stevie agreed that there was something demeaning in a man, especially this man, ejaculating on his partner’s face.

When he began to zip up the woman became angry and swiping the ejaculate from her cheek, she quickly stood. “I don’t think she’s very happy,” Jack observed.

“I’d have to agree.”

“Now let’s see how he handles her.”

When the woman became increasingly irate, Mario slapped her again. Stevie growled. “I really want to arrest him.”

“Not if this is part of their play. Look at how her body language has changed. She’s back to submissive.” Mario said something, then pointed to the bed. The woman quickly undressed and, on all fours, she climbed onto the bed facing the headboard.

She was in great shape, and from the angle they sat at, the woman’s sex was clearly exposed and wet. Mario opened a drawer and pulled out rope and a ball hanging from straps.

“He’s going to tie her and gag her,” Jack said.

He tied her wrists together and attached them to a hook he pulled out from the top of his headboard. Now her head was down, her butt in the air. From beneath the bed he pulled out a short rod with leather straps on either end. He positioned it between her knees, spreading them almost two feet, and then secured the leather straps around her legs. Next he took the ball and gagged her, then secured it around her head. The coup de grace came when he pulled out a large strap-on penis from another drawer.

“I bet she doesn’t know it’s a strap-on,” Stevie mused.

Spoltori stripped and positioned the strap over his flaccid penis and secured it. Next he pulled on a pair of latex gloves. With no preamble, he dipped a finger into the woman’s vagina. Stevie couldn’t help it. She squirmed in her chair as the woman pulled on the ropes, obviously enjoying it, but her action earned a sharp slap on the ass from Mario, stilling her.

As his finger dipped in and out of her vagina, the woman remained statue still, but her skin was flushed beneath a soft sheen of perspiration. Despite the wrongness of Spoltori, Stevie’s nether regions constricted with each slide of his finger into the woman, imaging that it was her restrained as Jack had his way with her.

When Mario slid a finger into the woman’s anus, she pulled hard on the ropes again. Earning her another slap on the ass.

Jack’s breathing patterns had shifted from normal to shallow. He felt it, too. How could he not? He was a dominant, and minus the violence and paraphernalia of the scene playing out before them it was erotically similar in many ways to their one night together.

Holy hell.

“I think it’s telling how with the exception of her fellating him, he doesn’t allow any actual skin to skin contact,” Stevie said, trying to make her voice sound normal. But the husky edge to it was undeniable. She was aroused to the point of wanting Jack to take what she had dreamed of giving him these last seven years.

“The only thing he likes about women is humiliating them,” he said hoarsely.

Jack had never humiliated her. Quite the opposite. He had infused her with power.

When Spoltori had the woman primed, he slid the huge strap-on into her. Stevie bit her bottom lip imagining Jack sliding into her.

“Don’t,” Jack growled.

“Don’t what?” she breathlessly asked.

“Make that sound.”

“I didn’t make any sound!” She still refused to take her eyes off the lens. If she looked at Jack he’d see the need in her eyes and she couldn’t say she wouldn’t stop him from touching her if he chose.

“Yes you did. It was the same sound you made the first time I slid into you.”

Stevie squeezed her eyes shut. “Stop it,” she whispered as she watched Spoltori go to Pound Town on the strap-on fuck train.

Try as she did, fighting down her raging libido was impossible. What was being played out before her with her ex-lover sitting thigh to thigh with her, their breaths steaming the space up between them, was too intense to fight. Transfixed, neither one of them flinched.

When Spoltori’s session with the woman finally ended, Stevie stood on wobbly legs. Without looking at Jack, whose hot gaze she knew bore into her, she stumbled past him and said, “I need to get some air.” Then literally ran from the surveillance room, leaving a rigid Jack sitting silent in his chair.

She didn’t go back.

CHAPTER SEVEN

T
he evening was warm. The air sultry. Her body tense. The episode earlier with Jack, as Spoltori went at it with the woman, had Stevie so worked up on so many planes that she hung on to her self-control by her nails. One push and she’d be spiraling out of control.

Heavy metal music blared from the overhead speakers in her converted garage, bombarding Stevie’s brain into numbness. Sweat slickened, stripped down to nothing but a pair of black biking shorts and black sports bra, Stevie beat the snot out of the heavy bag. Each time her knuckles slammed into the leather, denting it, she smiled, imagining Jack’s pretty face exploding into thousands of pieces of blood, bone, and muscle.

She was a fool! How many times had she told herself that over the years? It took seeing Jack again, and his casual dismissal of her, for her to finally believe it. The last kick dropped her to her emotional knees. Then to sit there beside him, voyeurs experiencing Spoltori’s sadistic world. Holy Jesus. As twisted as it had started out, it had turned highly erotic when Mario tied the woman up.

“Idiot!” she screamed as she roundhouse kicked the bag. It swung away from her. Before it swung back to her, she turned and kicked it again. How could her body be on fire for a man who was a careless Lothario? “I. Hate. You. Jack. Thornton!”

Abruptly the garage door she had open for ventilation began to close behind her.

“What the—” She turned to the control panel to see her nemesis standing angrily glaring at her as the door closed behind him.

“Get out of my house,” she snarled.

He shook his head and stepped farther into the garage. It was finished, the floor checkered-flag black and white, with high-end gym equipment surrounding half of the mats with a rack of free weights, bench, and several bars in the mirrored corner closest to her. A sofa she kept meaning to have picked up was pushed to the edge of her workout mat behind her.

Jack’s predatory gaze held her. A dark shiver swept through her. She’d seen that look before.

“Get out,” she said again, though this time the words barely made it out of her dry throat.

Jack yanked his jacket off, loosened his tie and slid his shoulder holster off. He tossed them onto the sofa, then loosened his tie some more.

“Why are you here?”

“To get the fucking out of the way.”

Her body jerked. “Whaaat?” He was crazy!

He continued his approach. “If we’re going to work together, we’re going to scratch this itch until it doesn’t itch anymore.”

“You’re crazy.”

She swallowed hard when his hot gaze swept the length of her. He stopped just an arm’s length from her. “And you didn’t say no.”

“I don’t have to say no. You won’t touch me.”

He grabbed her by the waist, pulling her hard against his chest. “You have a short memory, then.”

His lips lowered to hers. “When it comes to you, I take what I want and you give it to me. Gladly.” He grabbed her braid and pulled her head so far back her breasts stabbed his chest. Once a dominant always a dominant. Just as it had all those years ago, her body submitted to him. “You’ve needed this, baby. Haven’t you?”

This time her brain had more control. “I’m not a naive girl fresh out of college.”

“No, you’re a smart-ass grown woman whose pride fucks everything up.” His eyes glittered as he pressed his heated lips to her neck. They both felt the jump of her pulse against his lips. His body inflated with the taste of her. He licked her neck. “I’ve missed the taste of you, Stevie.” He pulled her braid back more. “Remember how sweaty we got? Just like this on the mats? You would come to me after hours pretending to want more instruction. Silently begging me to put my hands on you.” He nipped her bottom lip. “You liked the way I broke through your resistance each time. Taking what you wanted to give but were afraid to offer.” He sucked in her lip, then slowly released it. “The Ice Princess could only thaw when her control was taken away.”

He chuckled as his knuckles swept the pulse of her heartbeat along her throat. “You were smooth as glass in the classroom. Unforgiving on the mats. Marksman on the range and fearless on the course. That class had more than four hundred recruits. My precious little Ice Princess didn’t allow one of them to get close enough to her to know what she ate for breakfast.” His lips pressed against hers. “But I learned your secret, didn’t I?”

She closed her eyes; her heart beat so hard in her chest she felt like she was going into cardiac arrest.

“You liked it when I took command of you. And when it was just you and me, Stevie . . .” He parted her lips with his, and in a slow languid roll he delved into her. “You begged for it.”

Her body thrummed in response to his. It craved every inch of him. But she couldn’t do this. She bit his bottom lip, drawing blood. He didn’t flinch. Instead, he continued to kiss her. It was maddeningly erotic. She kneed him hard in the groin. His grip loosened enough for her to spin out of his hold.

Doubled over, he looked up at her, his deep green eyes blazing angrily. Paralyzed in fear she stood rooted to the mats, and just as he straightened, she found her feet. She lunged toward the sofa with the intention of hurdling it and running out the side garage door. Instead he caught her by her braid and yanked her hard back against this chest.

“Stop fighting me,” he commanded.

Her body shuddered at his command. “I can’t,” she rasped.

He ran his fingers along her clavicle. “Yes, you can. And you will, Stevie.”

As he ran his fingers down her arm, she shivered, goose bumps erupting along her limbs despite the heat of her body.

Sliding a finger beneath her sports bra, he slid it up and over her head, and when she realized what he was going to do, she bolted.

“Stop,” he commanded, his voice low but dangerous.

“No,” she breathed, stopping in her tracks.

Her back to him, she felt his body heat before he touched her. Gently he pulled her back against the length of him, his erection jutting into her back. He slid his fingertips down her slick skin, then up along the outside swell of her breast. Her nipples elongated and hardened as a shuddering sigh escaped her lungs. “Let me give you what you’re so afraid to ask for, sweetheart.”

“So you can walk out on me again?”

“I’m not going anywhere, baby,” he whispered against her ear.

He sounded so sincere. Her limbs trembled. “I can’t,” she started.

“You want to play the ‘No really means Yes’ game, Stevie?” His breath was hot on her cheek.

“No,” she sobbed. God, she ached to be possessed by him. No one made her feel the things Jack made her feel. She’d never trusted a man with her body like she’d trusted Jack. He understood her. Understood why it was so hard for her to let go. So he took it.

“I’m going to fuck you into tomorrow, Stevie. You’re going to come until you can’t move.” His fingers swept across her nipple, then plucked it. Her pussy clenched. “Tell me you want me to fuck you into tomorrow, Stevie. Tell me how much that sweet pussy of yours missed my hungry cock.” He pinched her nipple, making her gasp. “Tell me now.”

When she bit her bottom lip to keep her breath from expelling and also to stiffen her resolve, he tugged her nipple, the sweet pain shooting straight to her core.

“Stubborn girl, you know what happens when you defy me,” he crooned.

“Jack,” she breathed, forcing herself to be strong.

He brought the bra before them and twisted it around her wrists, where he deftly tied it. As he finished, he pulled her back toward the heavy bag and as he pushed her flush against it with one hand, with the other, he unbuckled his belt. Her eyes widened and she pushed past him. “Stand still,” he commanded.

Stevie stopped, her eyes wide, her breath forced, her body on fucking fire. Every inch of her screamed for him to take what he wanted from her as forcefully as he wanted to. But as dominant as Jack was, he was always gentle with her. He never pushed her past her comfort zone. Every touch, every bit of sweet aching agony he inflicted on her, she craved.

He smiled and raised her arms over her head, and with his belt, he tied her to the top ring of the chain attached to the heavy bag. It caused her body to stretch and arch toward him, her breasts tantalizing. She was up on her toes to keep from hanging.

“I don’t know how it’s possible, sweetheart, but you look more beautiful right now than you have ever looked.” He stepped to her and traced a fingertip along the high swell of each breast. Her nipples begged for his touch. “I like the nipple rings, Stevie. Nice touch to perfect breasts.” She closed her eyes and savored the feel of his attention. When he tugged at her nipple rings she gasped. “So responsive.” He took a nipple into his mouth and gently flicked it.

“Jack,” she moaned.

His big hands slid around her bare waist and brought her against him as he buried his face in her cleavage. “I’ve missed you,” he breathed. “I didn’t realize how much until just now.”

Stevie puddled. Really that was the only way she could describe her reaction to his admission. She was so wet for him she felt moistness trickle from her soft inner flesh.

“Tell me how much you missed me,” he demanded as his lips brushed a nipple and his arms tightened around her.

“Like the desert misses the rain.”

Jack’s body tightened against hers as his head lifted and their gazes caught. “You’re killing me, sweetheart.”

“You deserve it.”

“Yeah, I deserve that and more, but that’s not why I’m here.” He yanked her hard against him. “You’ve managed to get under my skin, Detective. I can’t focus. I can’t concentrate. I can’t do my job, wanting you the way I do.” He nipped at her bottom lip. “I need to work you out of my system. And I need you to let me.”

“What about what I need?”

His eyes crackled with serious mischief. “You need me inside you.”

“You’re arrogant to think so.”

“I know so, and I swear to God, Stevie, if you don’t tell me how much that sweet pussy of yours craves my cock, I’m going to take you over my knee and spank it out of you.”

Her breath hitched in her throat and he smiled like the Grinch right before he plundered Whoville. Licking her dry lips, she couldn’t break away from the intensity of his gaze, or the sharp planes of his face that were never so possessive. This wasn’t Jack Thornton teaching Stevie Cavanaugh about why she, a dominant woman, would crave to be dominated, this was a predator that
had his prey in his grasp and was waiting only for permission to devour it. If that permission was not granted? She swallowed hard again. Would he take it anyway? Did it matter? If they were going to work together, was it better to fuck the tension between them away or would it make them want it more?

What was the worst thing that could happen to her if she gave him the green light? She could not be more heartbroken than she had been these past seven years, so why not? It was what she wanted. More than anything. She had trusted him with her secret need to be dominated. He haunted her dreams. He was here and he wanted her. God help her, she wanted him too.

Swallowing hard, Stevie opened her mouth to speak but she choked, her throat was so dry. She couldn’t ask for it seven years ago and she couldn’t ask for it now.

Jack kissed her. Long, deep, emotional. It took her breath away. When his lips lifted from hers, he softly said, “Let me give you what you’re afraid to ask for.”

She hung there in his arms, exposed, vulnerable, needy and afraid. She closed her eyes and took the leap.

“My pussy is so wet right now,” she whispered. “It craves your cock, Jack. It wants you to fuck it into next week. Until it’s raw.”

“Open your eyes.”

She did. Slowly, coyly. His eyes blazed. “Look at me when you tell me.”

Inhaling, she exhaled her words. “I want you so bad it hurts. I want you buried balls deep inside of me. I want you hard and fast, slow and deliberate. I want you to make me come hard, Jack. So hard I can’t stand.” His hands cupped her breasts, his breathing accelerated, and his nostrils flared with excitement. She wanted to laugh and tell him it was all a joke, to go fuck himself. But the words lodged in her throat. She wanted this more. And she gave him more.

“I’m so wet; if you pull off my shorts I’ll drip onto your hand.”

He growled and yanked her tennis shoes off, then slowly worked her shorts down her thighs to her calves then finally to the floor. The hot musk of her aroused sex swirled around them. “I love the smell of your pussy,” he said roughly, caressing the cradle of her hips with his thumbs. Drawing her toward him, he dropped to his knees, tilted her hips, and splayed her thighs. “Your pussy is glistening with want, Stevie.” He glanced up at her and smiled. “I have missed this.” He brought her hips to his lips and softly pressed his nose to her soft damp curls. She shuddered as her clitoris constricted. Lightly he kissed it. She nearly came.

“Lick me, Jack,” she begged before she realized what she did.

“It would be my pleasure.” He slid his tongue along the slick swollen seam of her. Her thighs tightened around him as a slow moan eased from her lips. God, she’d missed him.