The Profiler (32 page)

He shifted his weight until he towered above her, taut muscles bulging as his arms strained with the effort. He reached over and tore open another condom. His cock, huge and erect, brushed her stomach and she shivered with need. Moisture pooled between her legs and her clit pulsed a ‘
yes
.’

Bending low, he captured her mouth with his, fusing them together. At the same time, his cock plunged inside her.

She tore her mouth away, gasping from the impact. He rose above her, all beautiful, hard male flesh…and plunged into her again.

With her legs tight around his hips, she urged him on with little moans of desire and jumbled words of encouragement. Hot, desperate need exploded inside her. She kept time with his increasingly frantic thrusts.

His face went still and she knew he was close.

Pulling him down on top of her, she held him tight against her, while he continued to pound into her. His breath rasped in her ear and she reveled in the sound as her own climax beckoned.

“Oh, Christ, Ellie. You’re so wet. You’re so tight. I’m gonna come. Christ, I’m gonna come.”

He thrust into her, feverish with passion and the need for release. She locked her arms around his neck and took his mouth in hers. He pulsed inside her.

It was enough to tip her over the edge. Moving her hips restlessly beneath him, she concentrated on the feel of his thick cock still buried deep inside her. Sensing her urgency, he lifted his head and flicked at her erect nipples with his warm, wet tongue.

He took one into his mouth and suckled. She gasped. Sparks of desire shot through her, inflaming the fire that burned between her legs. Thrusting her hips upward, she let her passion spill over, shouting in relief as she orgasmed.

As her breathing returned to normal, she looked at the clock on her bedside table and shook her head in disbelief. Fast and furious, it had been all over for both of them in less than four minutes.

As if reading her mind, Clayton raised himself up on his elbows and grinned down at her.

“See, I told you it wouldn’t take long.”

* * *

Fifteen minutes
later, after dropping Clayton off at his hotel to shower and change, she picked up a couple of jumbo-sized black coffees at a drive-through and waited in the car outside his building.

She took a sip of the hot, restorative brew. As the caffeine began to work its magic, she breathed a grateful sigh of relief. She didn’t know how much sleep they’d gotten, but her eyes were like sandpaper and her muscles hurt in places she didn’t know existed.

Still, it had been worth every minute: the tired eyes, the sore muscles. She’d never been loved with such thoroughness and expertise as she had with the Fed. She felt good. She felt
really
good. Almost boneless… And she owed it all to him.

As if she’d conjured him up, he came jogging out of the hotel looking like he’d stepped out of the pages of
GQ
.

The tailored white shirt and dark-maroon-and-white striped tie complimented the charcoal-gray suit and topped off the overall picture of a man who was comfortable in his own skin and confident of his appeal.

He flashed her a grin. All white teeth and shadowed cheeks. He hadn’t taken the time to shave. Still, he looked hot.

Heat crept into her cheeks and she looked away, grateful for the sunglasses that shaded her eyes from his way-too-observant gaze. She didn’t know why she suddenly felt shy—after all, the man had seen her naked and touched her in places no man had for a long time, but she couldn’t deny it.

Despite their night and morning of shared passion, she felt awkward and unsure.

Oh, he’d spoken words of love, but everyone knew they meant nothing. It was just what guys did, wasn’t it? He’d probably already forgotten.

The passenger-side door opened. Spicy cologne and the aroma of warm male assaulted her nostrils and she braced herself against it. God, he smelled good. It evoked images of naked skin and sensual lips, firm planes and tight buttocks.

She closed her eyes against those thoughts and shook her head. This was ridiculous. She was a grown woman. A woman of some experience. She wasn’t a dreamy-eyed, naïve virgin romanticizing over her first time.
Christ, Cooper. Get a grip.

“Thanks for the coffee. It smells great.”

So do you
, she almost added before clamping her mouth shut.
What the hell was she doing?
They were on their way to work.

That’s what they were. Work colleagues. Why the hell hadn’t she remembered that last night, before she let her much-neglected libido dictate the terms?

With a little sigh, she flipped on her indicator and headed out into the traffic.

“What’s the matter, Ellie?” His voice, soft and full of concern, almost did her in.

She cleared her throat and concentrated on the road in front of her. “Nothing. Nothing’s wrong. Just tired, I guess.”

A frown creased his forehead. His eyes were concealed behind dark Ray Bans, but she felt them upon her as she turned her attention back to the road.

“Look, I know this is a bit awkward, but it doesn’t have to be. I don’t regret one instant of our time together. In fact, I can’t wait until we—”

“Please, let’s not talk about it,” she interrupted as panic started to set in.

He cursed and took off his sunglasses. His eyes bored into hers. “Ellie, we did nothing wrong. It was great. It was wonderful. You made me feel alive.”

“Can we please just not talk about this right now? I’m really not ready to do this.” Her hands tightened on the steering wheel. “Let’s just say it was nice for both of us and leave it at that, okay?”

“
Nice
?” Clayton’s jaw tightened and a pulse beat in his neck. “Is that how you’re describing it?”

Ellie swallowed against the full-blown panic that threatened to take over. She didn’t know why she was anxious, but there it was. Could it be she didn’t want him to renew his declarations of love in the cold, harsh light of day when there were a lot fewer reasons to hide under? After all, he now knew about Jamie and somewhere along the way she’d come to accept he was nothing like her ex.

Maybe she felt she didn’t deserve it? Didn’t deserve to be happy? She made an impatient noise deep in her throat.
What was this psycho-babble bullshit?
She’d been to enough shrinks to know it was exactly the sort of crap they’d come out with.

Last night had nothing to do with Jamie. It was just sex. Wild, uninhibited, mind-blowing, soul-satisfying sex. Good for the body. Good for the soul. Nothing more, nothing less.

That was why she was irritated with Clayton for trying to make it into something it wasn’t.

“Ellie, talk to me.” His voice, low, commanding, caring, sent a shard of pain straight to her heart. How could she talk to him? How could she tell him how
damaged
she was? She couldn’t fall in love. She had no capacity to love left inside her. That had all been taken away the day she’d buried her son.

She skimmed a glance in his direction. He deserved more. Much more. He was good and kind and generous. He had a heart as big as an elephant. He deserved a woman who was whole.

Besides, he didn’t love
her
. He couldn’t love her. It was obvious—he was still in love with his wife.

She cleared her throat, determined to put it all behind her. “I’ve been thinking about the taxi thing.”

He sighed, disappointment filling his eyes.

Gritting her teeth, she ploughed ahead. “Sally Batten caught a cab home, right?” He grudgingly offered a nod of agreement.

“Josie Ward was also going to catch a cab home. Angelina was on her way home. Now, I know we’ve been told that she usually caught the bus, but what if she didn’t?” She turned to him as the thought began to take hold. “What if she
didn’t?
”

* * *

Clayton’s head spun and he struggled to keep up with the change in conversation. His mind had been crowded with images of them together, skin on skin, heart to heart and all Ellie wanted to do was pretend it didn’t happen.

It was like asking him to fly to the moon. It had been the most fantastic night of his life and she was asking him to forget about it.

It wasn’t going to happen, but now wasn’t the time to argue his point. For whatever reason, she was determined to make light of it and for the moment, he had to be satisfied with that. There was still a killer on the loose and it was his job to find him.

Swallowing another sigh, he focused his attention on the conversation. “You’ve got a point. It’s definitely worth considering. We know it was raining when Josie and Sally disappeared.”

“And Angelina,” Ellie added, her voice indicating her growing excitement. “At least, it was that morning. Her mother told us that. If it was still raining when she left the university, it’s feasible she caught a cab home.”

He picked up on her excitement. “A cab driver fits the profile. They’re mobile, trustworthy and invisible. We pass by them every day and never even notice. If you needed one, you wouldn’t hesitate to flag it down and jump into the back of the first one that stopped.”

“Or the front. Some people ride in the front, you know.”

“Of course. I always ride in the front.” A synapse connected in his brain and his pulse leaped. “I bet that’s how he does it.”

Ellie frowned. “Does what?”

Sitting up straighter in his seat, he took a healthy swig of his coffee. “Okay, let’s just assume our guy’s a taxi driver. Most people get in the back, right?”

She nodded.

“So, how does he overpower them? They were all fit and healthy young women. I don’t think this guy is large, so how come they don’t get away? What does he do to immobilize them?”

“Maybe he waits until he picks up a passenger that sits in the front?” Ellie said. “Or what if the back door wouldn’t open and it was raining? They’d probably jump in the front. It would be pretty easy to pull a gun or even a knife on someone sitting a foot away from you.”

“You’re right. None of them were shot, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t used a gun to threaten them. All he needs is to frighten them enough to get them to do as he says.”

She nodded again. “He’s already gotten them into his car. It’s not too much of a stretch to imagine he intimidates them first by taking them somewhere different from where they’ve asked to go. Short of pulling open the door and taking their chances by leaping out of the moving vehicle, what choice do they have but to go along with it? By the time he pulls the weapon, they’re already feeling vulnerable.”

“Okay, so let’s look harder at the cab companies. We know Sally caught an Orange Cab. It’s as good a place as any to start. The girls were all picked up around the Penrith area. We can go through the driver records and see which ones tend to cover that strip. That should help narrow it down a little bit. And then of course, there’s the Tuesday thing.”

A frown creased her forehead and she shot him another quick look. “What Tuesday thing?”

He shut his eyes briefly, remembering he hadn’t told her. Then he remembered
why
he hadn’t told her. With clenched teeth, he forced those images out of his mind and turned to her.

“The girls all went missing on Tuesdays. I’m not sure why I didn’t see it before, but I worked it out last night.” He flushed and looked away. “It’s what I came over to tell you.”

Silence met his revelation. He snuck a peek in her direction. She looked bewildered and then bemused. A grin tugged at her lips.

“So, you really didn’t come over to seduce me?”

He groaned. “I thought we’d already been over this. I told you last night—”

Her face softened. “I know.”

The heat in his cheeks intensified. He cursed the sunglasses she’d replaced over her eyes, concealing them from him. He needed to see her, dammit. He needed to see what she was thinking.

“So, we’ve got Tuesdays; we’ve got taxis. We’ve also got DNA and fingerprint evidence. More than we’ve had since the start of all this.” Her eyebrows rose as another thought occurred to her. “Maybe we could ask our list of drivers to volunteer to give samples?”

He grimaced. “That would certainly be the quickest way to eliminate potential suspects, but I’m not liking your chances of men lining up to volunteer their DNA.”

“Well, if they’ve got nothing to hide, they should be happy to do anything they can to hasten the investigation. I know if it was me, I’d be lining up in a flash.”

“Unfortunately Ellie, not everyone is as civi
c
minded as you.”

“Still, it’s worth a shot. And you never know, our guy might just be silly enough to fall for it.”

“Yeah, except for the fact that he’s been ultra-meticulous at his crime scenes. If it wasn’t for the fingerprints on that plastic bag and the skin cells under Angelina’s fingernails, we’d have next to nothing and even that evidence has led nowhere.”

“You’re right. But it’s worth a shot. I think we’re definitely onto something with these taxis.” She smiled and his heart lightened.

Maybe she just wasn’t a morning person?

He could live with that.

CHAPTER TWENTY