Hide From Evil (21 page)

He was still rock hard inside her, buried deep, and as his hips ground against her, she couldn’t stop her body from clenching around him. “I thought you were kidding about making up for three years in one night,” she gasped as he bent his head and sucked her nipple between his lips.

His chuckle rumbled through his chest, rippled through her body. “I don’t think I could do that without killing us both, but I’m going to do my damned best at taking the edge off.”

Krista’s edge had been worn down to a soft curve, but that didn’t seem to matter as Sean stroked, kissed, sucked, and licked his way over her breasts, up her neck, and back again, all the while holding himself deep inside her, gently grinding in lazy circles, touching bundles of nerves she hadn’t even known existed.

She barely recognized herself as the woman who was lucky if she got one orgasm a night with past lovers, and that was with a lot of coaching, directing, and heavy concentration on her part.

Now she lay back and gave herself over to her intense, powerful lover who seemed to know exactly how to touch her with those big hands, where to kiss her with those firm, full lips to bring her right back to the brink for the third time tonight.

Sean was changing the game on her, making her call into question and throw out everything she thought about her own needs and desires. He did it with everything else. Why should sex be any different?

Jesus, how could he have ever looked at Krista and thought she was an ice queen? Now she was molten hot, melting around Sean like a pool of honey.

He wanted to lose himself in her, get so deep inside of her he could disappear and never come out. It was messed up, the effect she had on him, and he was sure he’d get up in his head about it later. But right now it felt too good, better than he ever could have imagined.

He struggled not to lose control, not to pound into her like an animal as he had at the end there. Slow, steady, the edge was off now. He could take his time.

At least that was the theory, but his body had other ideas.

He felt his body tighten, knew his climax was close. Some still-functioning part of his brain reminded him he was still wearing the same condom.

Shit.
Even as an evil, selfish voice urged him to forget about it, keep going, it was a dumb-ass move and he tried not to be a dumb-ass when it came to risky sex.

Like sex with Krista isn’t the riskiest move of all?

He shoved the thought away and slid out, squeezing his eyes shut at the way her body clenched at him as she cried out in protest. As though she couldn’t stand to let him go. “One sec,” he said, rolling onto his back as he fumbled for another foil packet. He’d no sooner rolled on the condom than he was pulling Krista on top of him.

She settled her knees on either side of his hips and locked her gaze with his. Her lips parted on a long moan as she sank down, all the way down on him. Sean had the crazy thought that being with Krista like this took the sting off having people wanting him dead.

Krista jerked awake at the sound of a fist pounding on the door. Disoriented at first, it took her several seconds to remember where she was and whose muscled, hair-roughened arm was wrapped around her waist.

Holy Christ, she’d had sex with Sean Flynn. She closed her eyes but that didn’t help to shut out the memory of what had happened. Multiple times. She’d never experienced anything like it.

His hands and mouth everywhere, stroking, licking, sucking, thrusting. Him on top, her on top, him buried so deep inside her that he touched bundles of nerves she never knew existed.

She came so many times she lost count, and Sean wasn’t that far behind as he made up for his years of celibacy. And she’d been equally insatiable, unable to get enough of the taste of his lips, the feel of his hot, smooth skin stretched tight over acres of muscle, the heavy thrust and drag of him moving inside her.

She’d finally fallen asleep, exhausted, vaguely aware of Sean’s arm wrapped around her waist, one hand possessively cupping her bare breast. She was shocked to realize they hadn’t moved an inch from that position in—she squinted at the clock—six and a half hours.

Hell, she was shocked she’d slept at all, since she could barely tolerate sharing a bed with a lover much less with a guy spooning her so hard you couldn’t even get a slice of daylight between them. It had gotten so bad that her last boyfriend had nicknamed her Prickly Pear.

It was the exhaustion brought on by lack of sleep and continual adrenaline rushes and crashes, she told herself. That was the only explanation for how she had slept so soundly. It had nothing to do with the warmth of Sean’s chest against her back as he curled around her, almost like he was trying to protect her from the rest of the world even as he copped a feel.

He was awake, too, and had been since the first knock. She could feel the change in his breath, the subtle stiffening of the muscles against her back and wrapped around her waist.

That wasn’t the only thing that was stiff. She could feel him against the curve of her backside, hard as a club and burning hot. Amazing he still had the ability after last night. Even more amazing was the answering tightness she felt low in her belly, the clutch of her body as it yearned to take him back inside.

Ibarra knocked again. “I found something interesting in your friend’s files if you two ever want to leave your love nest.”

Krista shifted in Sean’s embrace and felt her face heat with embarrassment, over the fact that Ibarra knew exactly what had gone on in his guest room or over his use of the phrase
love nest
Krista wasn’t sure. All she knew was that what had happened between them in this room had absolutely nothing to do with love.

At least for Sean it didn’t. Me? I’m not so sure.

Krista shoved the unbidden thought away. Yes, she had discovered more to admire in Sean Flynn in the past couple of days than she’d discovered over the course of a year-long relationship with her last boyfriend, but when it came down to it, she’d succumbed to a mixture of chemical attraction, overactive hormones, and an adrenaline-fueled emotionally charged situation, same as Sean.

Nothing more than that.

“Quit pounding on the door,” Sean called. “We’ll be out in a minute.”

Krista started to pull away but Sean’s arm was still locked around her waist like a vise. He whispered a curse and gave her breast a little squeeze, almost like he couldn’t help himself, and released her.

He rolled off the other side of the bed, treating her to a visual orgy of mile-wide shoulders and a muscular back that tapered into the tightest ass she’d ever seen.

Or touched.

She squeezed her eyes shut and clutched the sheet to her chin.

“You can take the shower first,” he said, his sleep-roughened voice sending a shiver of awareness pulsing to all the spots he’d touched and kissed just hours before. “I’ll go see what he uncovered.”

Krista waited until she heard the doorknob click before she opened her eyes. Satisfied she was alone, she threw back the sheet and sat up, wincing in discomfort as muscles she didn’t even know she had protested from overuse.

Jesus, who knew great sex could do so much damage, she thought as she headed for the shower. She was sore and achy inside and outside, but even that couldn’t stop her blood from heating at the memory of her body being so well used.

She took stock of her injuries and let the hot water of the shower soothe her tight muscles. Some of the aches and pains were a result of being thrown around the car during the crash.

Others, like the tight pulling of her inner thigh muscles and the faint bruise along her hip bone, were a result of being thrown around the bed by Sean. Jesus, what was she thinking, letting herself indulge in the overwhelming attraction she felt for him?

What was it about him that made him so damn irresistible that she would go to bed with him? Especially knowing that, sexual chemistry aside, she was pretty sure Sean didn’t have much regard for her.

But then, guys didn’t have to like a woman to sleep with her, and Krista was too much of a realist to indulge in any illusions of his affection for her.

She, on the other hand, had never gone to bed with a man she didn’t care about. For her, sex wasn’t enjoyable without genuine affection, plain and simple.

But nothing had ever come close to what had happened with Sean.

There was no question she liked Sean. A lot. What had started as admiration all those months ago when she’d realized the truth about the man she’d once viewed as a cold-blooded killer had morphed into something more in the past day and a half.

She’d seen through the cracks in his tough, emotionless facade enough to catch glimpses of the man he used to be. Warm and caring, a born protector. But there were scars there, too, new pieces to his personality that hadn’t been there before he’d been so devastated, not just by prison but his friends’ betrayal.

She couldn’t blame him for the wariness and reluctance to trust anyone. He’d been wounded, and even though she knew she could never heal him, something inside her urged her to try.

Is that was this is about? Martyring yourself to Sean as though a night of hot sex could ever make up for what happened to him?

She ducked her head under the spray to rinse away the last of her shampoo and acknowledged that her reasons for sleeping with Sean were far too complicated to untangle right now.

Once this was all over, she’d have time to ruminate and dissect her motives. Right now, she had to focus on finding out who was behind all of this and getting her and Sean out of this alive.

She got out of the shower and toweled off. She pulled on her jeans and a new fresh-from-Walmart T-shirt. It had a picture of a panda with a pink Mohawk on the front. Not her usual style, but she’d been half dazed with shock when she’d done their shopping.

She ran a brush through her hair and stared at her reflection. The solid six plus hours of sleep had done her good—the circles under her eyes had abated so she no longer looked like a prizefighter. Her cheeks were pink and her lips were redder and puffier than usual.

And just in case anyone looking at her would have any doubt about what she’d been up to that night, there was a rosy scrape along her jawline from Sean’s stubble and two faint purple bruises on either side of her neck. Christ, she hadn’t had a hickey since high school.

Come to think of it, she was pretty sure she hadn’t had a hickey then either.

She rifled through her bag, pulled out a cosmetic case stocked with the basics, and did her best to cover up the damage.

She took a deep breath and opened the bedroom door. She dreaded walking down the hall to face Sean and Ibarra more than she’d ever dreaded facing down anyone—even her father—in the courtroom.

They weren’t in the kitchen or great room, so Krista helped herself to a cup of coffee on her way to the office. Ibarra was seated behind the desk, Sean standing to his right. Both men were focused on one of the LED monitors mounted on the wall across from them.

“Morning,” Ibarra said when he heard her footsteps on the hardwood floor. His gaze briefly flicked to her and he gave her a quick nod. If he and Sean were indulging in locker room talk about what had gone on, she wouldn’t have known it from either of them.

Sean nodded curtly, his face blank of emotion.

Krista tried to ignore the adolescent pinch of hurt in her stomach. This was real life and they were in real trouble. No time to get all teary because the boy she liked hadn’t smiled when he passed her in the hallway.

She moved to stand on the other side of Ibarra. Even with the other person between them, Krista could feel every nerve jump in awareness. She risked a glance in his direction, taking in the hard lines of his profile. He kept his gaze locked firmly on the monitors across the room.

“What did you find?” she asked, forcing her voice into the firm, professional tone she used in the courtroom. She squinted at the monitors. One was just the shot of Ibarra’s desktop; the other was a grid showing a variety of bank transactions. Her heart skipped a beat only to slow to a normal pace when she realized it was the same report she’d already seen and told Sean about.

“I connected with Kowalsky’s computer,” Ibarra said, and as he opened several files Krista realized the monitor showed a remote display of Kowalsky’s desktop, not Ibarra’s. “He kept his case files well organized, but I couldn’t find anything related to Brewster or Caparulo.”

Krista felt like a lead weight had settled on her shoulders. “Someone must have deleted them and left the other files intact so no one would get suspicious.”

“Good guess,” Ibarra said. “And whoever did it knows their shit. They didn’t just trash the files.”

“They used some kind of shredding program,” Sean said.

Krista nodded, her mouth pulling into a frown. It wasn’t enough to delete files. She’d worked on several cases where data recovery experts were able to retrieve supposedly deleted files—e-mails, pictures, you name it—it was almost impossible to permanently get rid of anything in the digital age.

Unless, like whoever killed Kowalsky, they knew exactly what they were doing. “I suppose it was a good one?” Krista sighed, the restorative effects of sleep washing away in the face of her disappointment.

“As good as anything I’ve ever seen,” Ibarra said.

Krista uttered a soft curse. “If nothing else, I guess this confirms Stew’s murder was no random mugging. Not that we’ll be able to convince anyone of that.” So much for Ibarra’s great find. She felt a throbbing at the back of her neck and knew a full-fledged tension headache was waiting in the wings.

“Lucky for us, whoever did this forgot to delete the activity logs,” Ibarra said.

Krista’s hand froze in the act of kneading the knot at her nape.

“Kowalsky transferred everything to an online backup site less than fifteen minutes before he was killed,” Sean clarified.

“Tell me you’re able to access it.”

Ibarra nodded. “I just finished downloading them right before you walked in.”