Ultimate Sins (3 page)

Not that she had a chance to accustom herself to the deprivation. As his fingers left her, the broad head of his erection was pushing inside. Working the heavy shaft deeper inside her as her flesh aided him with the clenching, milking motions that stroked the hardened shaft with each surging penetration.

Her legs curled around his hips, her pelvis tilting as he came over her fully, gathering her closer to his chest. His lips covered hers, his tongue slipping past to drive her crazy with need for him.

She was surrounded by him.

She was stroked inside and out by him, kept imprisoned in a whirlwind of growing, burning rapture that quickly escalated out of control.

Her release shattered inside her in a complete frenzy of explosions that stripped her to the very core of her emotions.

Lightning licked over her flesh, struck at her clit, the clenched depths of her vagina. Hard, clenching pulses of pure ecstasy struck at her womb as she became completely lost in the man who created the storm.

“Oh, God. Crowe.” She jerked in his arms as the pulse and throb of his cock spilled his release inside her. “Oh God, I love you. I love you.”

Don't leave me
, she wanted to beg. The words locked inside her.
Please, please God, don't leave me
.

Don't let me go
. The need remained locked in her soul.

She wouldn't beg him for more than this, and she would only beg when the pleasure was too painful to bear.

But she would always, always love—

*   *   *

The room was silent, the hands on the clock still hanging on the wall ticking ever closer to the moment when he'd have to leave her.

What the hell had he done?

She had somehow managed to slip into his heart, and Crowe knew he had no choice but to walk away. For her sake, he had to.

He couldn't allow this to happen again. Each time he held her, each time he took her, he was risking her further. Each time, she burrowed deeper into the heart he was certain he no longer had. The heart his training had ruthlessly pared down to essential function only. He could have sworn there was no longer the ability to love within it.

But Amelia was proving differently.

Thomas Jones's accomplice hadn't been found seven years before when Thomas had died with Crowe's knife buried in his side. The FBI was certain the mastermind of the operation was still living, still waiting, still watching.

That meant any woman the Slasher learned Crowe or his cousins were with became a target. Amelia would become a target if he didn't stay away from her. Because each time he held her the possessive, dominant male he was found that it was becoming impossible to release her once morning arrived.

Once this night was over he had no choice but to leave, to walk away from the only woman he swore he could feel even when she wasn't in his arms.

Three nights later

Standing beneath the heavily leafed branches of the tree outside Amelia's balcony, Crowe watched as she stared down at the pillow where the neatly folded letter lay. It took every second of training the military had put into him so far to force himself to remain still, to wait, to watch, to allow her to read what he'd written.

He could see her hand trembling as she reach out slowly, picked it up, then unfolded the paper and began to read. There was no hardening himself against the pain he knew she was feeling. He let it lance into his soul, let it burn through his heart. Once this night was over, he'd once again become the icy, emotionless agent he'd thought he was before he returned to Corbin County and gave in to his lust for the delicate fairy who had tempted him too far one hot summer night.

As she finished, a hand covered her lips and she rushed for the balcony doors, surprising him as she pushed them open, stepped onto the balcony, then closed them quietly behind her.

Had she seen him?

He was ready to jump soundlessly to the ground when she slowly crumpled to the floor of the balcony, huddled into the corner, and let the sobs she'd obviously been holding back, free.

“No. No. Please, please God no,” she whispered hoarsely as she sobbed, the words barely distinguishable as Crowe forced himself to watch, to listen.

He'd caused this pain.

He'd done this to her.

As much as he longed to escape it, as much as he needed to distance himself from it, he couldn't.

She was his heart, his soul, and seeing the pain he was causing was ripping his soul to shreds.

“Please, no. Oh God, Crowe, don't leave me alone…” she begged the night again, pressing her head into her knees as she wrapped her arms over it. As though somehow she could contain the pain, the driving agony of the words he'd left her.

“Good-bye, fairy-girl,” he whispered as he watched her, agony burning through him. “Maybe next life.”

Maybe.

Five years later

The funeral service had been small, but filled with friends of the late Clyde Ramsey. No one had foreseen this. For a man in his seventies, Clyde was amazingly—no, he
had been
amazingly healthy and in excellent shape. News of his death had therefore shocked the small ranching community of Gray's Falls, and sent his friends reeling in shock.

His friends weren't the only ones. The three young men he had assumed guardianship of, more than twenty years before, had sat silently in the back of the church, their heads lowered respectfully.

To give those friends credit, they had remained in the church and endured the presence of the three men. They had also remained polite and sympathetic as they all met at the small graveyard inhabited by only three other graves. Simple white gravestones marked the others.

David, Samuel, and Benjamin Callahan. Beside Benjamin's grave, Clyde now rested, bare dirt covering the finely made vault beneath. Atop the bare earth were the multitude of funeral flower arrangements, some artificial, some live cut flowers whose endurance was incredibly limited.

After the reverend had read Clyde Ramsey's final prayer from the Bible, he'd then expressed his sympathy to the boys he claimed Clyde had always called “his sons,” said a final fond farewell to Clyde, then called the service to an end.

Nearly fifty close friends made their way from the ranch's cemetery to return to their homes in and near Gray's Falls, a small ranching and tourist community nearly half an hour from Aspen.

Now, still standing inside the wrought-iron fence surrounding the acre of land set aside twenty-four years before, Crowe Callahan stared at the wounded earth where Clyde lay, the icy purpose he didn't bother hiding now filling his soul.

He was a weapon. Born and bred in the fires of hatred, trained in the killing fields of a war on terrorism, and honed in the brutal, soul-destroying second that he'd felt one small woman's heart break.

“He was murdered.” Clyde's only recognized blood relative, and one of two whom Crowe recognized, Rafer Benjamin Callahan spoke his suspicions aloud.

Lifting his gaze from the grave, Crowe stared back at him from beneath his lashes.

“I know,” Crowe agreed, meeting his cousin's dark-blue eyes before he once again shifted his focus, surveying their surrounding with the intensity of someone who knew all the ways to kill a man.

He wasn't unaware of the concern that filled Rafe and their cousin Logan.

“He called me last week,” Rafer revealed then, drawing Crowe's gaze back to him. “He said he needed to see me as soon as possible. He claimed he'd uncovered something about the night our parents were killed.” Rafer gave his head a hard shake. “He was dead before I ever received the message.”

“Same here,” Logan revealed.

Both men turned to Crowe questioningly.

“I got the same call,” he said. “Like the two of you, I was completing my final mission before discharge.”

“Just after his message, Archer left his own message saying that they had found him dead,” Rafer bit out with an edge of fury.

Murdered.

Even Archer suspected Clyde had been murdered, though he'd been unable to find any proof. Still, Crowe had managed to get his hands on the report, and the fact that the sheriff wasn't satisfied with the determination wasn't lost on Crowe.

“So what do we do now?” Rafter asked, anger throbbing in his voice.

“Now we take back what's ours,” Crowe stated, that icy purpose inside hardening further.”And God help anyone attempting to stop us.”

“He thought he knew who the Slasher was.” Logan's statement had Crowe sliding him a thoughtful look.

“How do you know that?” Crowe asked, keeping his voice low.

He could feel the eyes on them, but he'd been feeling it since they arrived at the funeral, though he wasn't certain if anyone was close enough to hear the conversation. He'd let it ride for now, but he'd go hunting later, he decided. Sometime when his cousins weren't there to see.

“His message,” Logan said. “His message said he needed to talk to us, that he'd uncovered something about that night. Something that explained everything and to remember what we were searching for when we left.”

“We were looking for a possible tie between the Slasher and the person responsible for our parents' deaths,” Rafe remembered as Crowe listened. “But we didn't find one.”

They had searched hard enough over the years, though, relying fully on Clyde's certainty that the tie existed.

“If we're going on the supposition that Clyde was murdered, then based on the message he left Logan, we can assume he either found some evidence to support the theory of it, or had a suspect in mind,” Crowe murmured, keeping his head down, ensuring his lips couldn't be read, nor their movement tracked.

“Then somehow the Slasher himself learned what Clyde had found.” Logan frowned at the thought. “If Clyde had actually suspected someone, wouldn't he have left a clue to it somewhere?”

“We've torn apart every area of the house and property looking for the information we gathered ourselves before joining the marines,” Crowe reminded them, knowing someone would die for it eventually. “We can't even find that, let alone anything else he left.”

“His killer could have found it,” Rafe pointed out.

The thought of that had the ice in Crowe's veins solidifying.

There had been more in those files than simply what Clyde himself had gathered.

Thank God the file Amelia Sorenson had given Crowe that summer hadn't been hidden with Clyde's information. Clyde had known of it, and several of the files he'd put together himself had included information regarding the county attorney. Amelia wasn't named in the notes placed in the boxes of information and evidence, either, but the possibility that someone could figure out that some of Clyde's tips came from her was a concern.

The possibility that the information they had could endanger Amelia had the ice that formed Crowe's soul threatening to crack.

If the Slasher realized she was helping them—she wouldn't survive it, and Crowe knew it. For five years he'd stayed away from her, kept his distance. He wouldn't let her face that fate now.

“Maybe Clyde contacted Wayne,” Rafe suggested. “I know Clyde was working with him in regard to that rustling operation they busted in Gray's Falls last year. And Wayne always did keep in touch with Uncle Clyde.”

That wasn't possible, Crowe thought.

His cousins had no clue about the relationship he'd had with Wayne's daughter, or that she had been voluntarily sending Crowe information since she was sixteen, but Clyde had guessed.

After Crowe had left, she anonymously sent that information to Clyde.

She would have known Clyde's friendship with Wayne was a hazard to her, he reminded himself; she wasn't a stupid woman. If she had been then she would have never survived her father or the man she had been briefly married to.

“We could contact Wayne,” Logan said. “See if Clyde
had
talked to him.”

“I don't think that's a good idea. He's tried more than once to frame us, and I'd prefer not to tempt him to try again.” Crowe shook his head, their quizzical looks demanding an explanation. “Clyde may have trusted him in other areas but I really don't think he would, or we should, contact him about this.

“I think we should wait and discuss Clyde or what he might have known, once we're in the house,” Crowe added softly. “Where the conversation is certain to be kept to ourselves.”

“You could be right.” Logan rubbed at the back of his neck in irritation. “Doesn't change how dirty Sorenson is, though. That family always was damned strange. Amelia used to be okay, until she married that bastard Stoner Wright.”

Rafer frowned as they all moved away from the grave site and headed to the sprawling ranch house, keeping close, their gazes constantly moving over the area, their senses alert.

All of them sensed the eyes watching them and were taking precautions to keep their conversation to themselves.

“You know, I was home the week Amelia married Stoner Wright,” Rafer said as they walked, evidently needing something to talk about. Crowe wished they'd find another subject. “Clyde received an invitation and attended the wedding. He told me Amelia had jumped from the frying pan into the fire. When I ask what he meant, he wouldn't elaborate. He wasn't surprised when Stoner came up missing, though. Clyde just smiled and said he knew that problem would get taken care of right quickly and that he was glad he hadn't been disappointed.”

Glancing along the distance to the ranch house, his teeth clenched, Crowe knew exactly what Clyde had been referring to.

Not that he was about to elaborate.

“Clyde could be damned strange himself, couldn't he?” Logan grunted fondly. “He mentioned the same thing to me when I asked about Stoner. And I swear he was amused as hell.”

No doubt he was, Crowe thought, not really surprised that Clyde had figured some things out. Clyde had known human nature better than most.