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  His heart was pounding like someone who had just found himself going over a waterfall, sealed in a kayak with no way to guide it, no way to even remain upright.

  Forcing himself to regain control, Jackson severed the connection between them, his hands braced against her shoulders.

  They stood there, trying to recapture the people they’d been just a few seconds ago, unable to know how to begin.

  Or if they wanted to.

  Finally, Jackson ground out, “I’m sorry.”

  Brianna searched his face, looking for the truth. “Are you? Sorry?”

  Jackson knew he should lie. It was the only way to save himself. To save her. But lies didn’t save people. The truth did.

  “No,” he bit off, pulling her back into his arms, kissing her with the sort of passion that was capable of melting glaciers the size of continents.

  Jackson didn’t remember grasping the doorknob and opening the door, then getting inside the apartment with her. Didn’t remember locking the door behind them or letting go of his last shred of self-control.

  The only thing he remembered, the only thing he was aware of, was this pulsating, overpowering need to make love with this woman, because making love with her, possessing her, was the only thing that made any sense in his raw, barren life.

  * * *

  When Brianna had invited Jackson to the family gathering, it was because when she looked at him, when she dealt with him, she saw a wounded man who desperately needed to make a connection with someone. Who needed to believe that there were good people out there as well as the bad ones they were sworn to bring to justice. She was just looking to ease his pain, to erase it, if possible, but at least to ease it.

  But when she’d first extended the invitation, not for one moment had she thought that things would escalate to this point—that rather than just spending a day with good, decent people who enjoyed one another’s company, he and she would wind up here, in his apartment, systematically pulling off clothes and seeking the warmth and shelter of each other’s arms.

  No, this hadn’t been the plan, but now that it was transpiring, Brianna went with it happily, losing herself in the passions that were unexpectedly being raised and growing to fruition.

  She had never lost control like this before. Never once, not with anything she had ever had to deal with. She just always handled things, doing what she could to make it right.

  And she’d never once lost control with a man.

  So it seemed rather strange that she should lose control now, giving herself up to the wild, sweeping waves of escalating ecstasy that were taking possession of every fiber of her being.

  Nothing mattered except surrendering to his touch, allowing him to explore her, inch by exciting, heaving inch.

  With each pass of his hand along her body, he seemed to be memorizing every soft, pliant inch of her, wanting to please her.

  Wanting to please himself.

  He’d never felt such a rush, never wanted this overwhelming sensation to go on forever. Sex was to experience, perhaps savor, and then move on.

  But making love, that was a completely different matter altogether.

  The difference between a snowflake and a blanket of pure, newly fallen snow.

  Desperate to prolong what was happening because to culminate it meant for it to begin to fade away, Jackson kissed her over and over again. Caressed her over and over again.

  Wanted her over and over again.

  Brianna struggled to catch her breath, to get her bearings while her head spun like an out-of-control carousel.

  While all of this was wondrous beyond belief, she couldn’t let herself just be the recipient, even though she was far from passive in her reaction. She wanted Jackson to feel what she was feeling, wanted him to experience the same fire in his belly that he had created in hers.

  She was far from inexperienced, but she had honestly never felt this wild craving before, this insatiableness vibrating throughout her body that was silently begging, More! Please, more!

  Skillfully, he had caused more than one climax to shoot through her. Brianna felt herself coming as close to expiring from exhaustion as she ever had in her life, but she was determined that what was happening was going to culminate in a mutual crescendo. However insane this whole thing was, they were in this together, and she wanted him to realize that even though no words went between them.

  Her body desperately wanted to receive his. She might have even pulled on his shoulder to convey her eagerness. But then, with her heart slamming against her rib cage, using up the last of her energy, she felt Jackson lacing his hands through hers.

  And then, with a movement that was gentler than she’d expected, she felt Jackson enter her, sealing them together.

  The moment he did, he began to move urgently and deliberately, feeding the fire that was threatening to consume them both.

  She mimicked his rhythm, going faster and faster until there was no more hill left to climb, no place else to go. An explosion overtook them, rocking the very foundations of the world they had so recently created.

  His arms tightened so hard around her, she couldn’t breathe.

  The next moment, as air came rushing back into her lungs, she realized that she had just had the most exquisite experience of her life.

  He felt Brianna panting against him. Why that would excite him to such a dizzying level, he had no idea. He only knew that it did.

  He went on holding her, because he knew that once he released her, everything that he’d just felt would fade away. And he didn’t want it to.

  Not yet.

  Chapter 19

  Jackson didn’t remember falling asleep.

  When he woke up, dawn had only started unfurling its crimson banner through a still mostly darkened world. He sensed before he opened his eyes that he was alone in his bed. The bed where he and Brianna had retreated in the wee hours and, amazingly enough, made love for a second, equally exhausting time.

  He’d never experienced anything close to what he’d felt with her.

  And now she was gone. And the emptiness that had been filled because of her would come rushing back.

  She—

  A noise caught Jackson’s attention as he struggled to get his bearings. When he looked in the direction of the noise, he was astonished.

  “You’re here,” he heard himself saying, looking at the figure sitting at his desk, sifting through what looked like a stack of papers.

  Brianna.

  Half-hidden in shadow, she was wearing one of his old, threadbare T-shirts. The worn garment barely came down to the tops of her thighs, emphasis on the word barely.

  Damn, but he wanted her again. “I thought you’d be gone,” he told her.

  Brianna looked up at the sound of his voice. Last night had been breathtakingly fabulous. But that was last night and this was now. She wasn’t sure just what footing they were on or where they would go from here.

  “Thought?” she asked. “Or hoped?”

  Jackson didn’t answer her. Instead, he grabbed a pair of pants, shrugged into them and crossed over to see what had her attention.

  “You’re writing,” he said in surprise.

  Brianna nodded, jotting one more thing down. “I thought if I put down everything about this case, maybe it would fall into place, or maybe something would come to me that would shed light on the whole thing.”

  Her words were finally sinking in. “You’re working?” he asked incredulously.

  She put her pen down for a moment. “Why do you look so surprised? You’re the one who wanted to get back to work on the murders. You even agreed we should get an early start in the morning,” she reminded Jackson. “This is morning.”

  He’d always been all about the job. It was his lifeline, what kept him from sinking into the abyss that his past and his frac
tured, dysfunctional family had created for him. But suddenly, the job wasn’t the all-important center of the universe anymore. There was something else.

  There was Brianna.

  “Yeah,” he responded, “but all that was before.”

  “Before?” she asked, waiting for him to complete the thought, to go on record about what he was feeling.

  But Jackson found himself in a brand-new, shaky world, and the bravado that had held him in good stead dialed itself back. All he was willing to admit was the same word he’d just used.

  “Before.”

  “Oh.” Turning away, Brianna went back to jotting her miscellaneous thoughts down on the notepad that was already filled with her writing.

  “By the way,” Jackson said to her back, in response to the question she’d asked when he’d said he’d thought she was gone, “thought, not hoped.”

  “Oh,” Brianna murmured, her back still to him as a smile spread over her lips.

  “So,” Jackson continued, as if all of this—making love with her, waking to find Brianna at his desk writing, nude except for his T-shirt adhering to her body—was all perfectly normal and just business as usual, “come up with anything brilliant?”

  As he talked, Jackson absently gathered her hair together, forming a makeshift ponytail at the nape of her neck. The silkiness of her hair felt almost erotic as he sifted it through his fingers.

  “Brilliant, no,” she confessed, finding that breathing was not quite as easy as it should be for her. “Maybe offbeat.”

  “Talk to me,” Jackson encouraged, doing his best to focus on the subject and not the woman. “Offbeat sounds pretty good right now.”

  Brianna pressed her lips together, struggling not to allow herself to get distracted by the way Jackson’s strong fingers were gliding along the sensitive skin on her neck.

  “Sometimes,” she said slowly, “if you pull at just the right thread, a whole sweater can come unraveled.” She turned to face Jackson. Her heart began doing small backflips. “We just need to find that thread and start pulling.”

  It took effort not to give in to the rush of desire that washed over him. He forced himself to concentrate on what she was saying. “You got a thread in mind?”

  “I came up with the theory,” she pointed out, then teased, “I have to do everything?” Taking a breath and becoming more serious, she went on. “I was thinking if we could just tie one of the victims to the Auroras, we’d have something to work with. Leverage, if you will. I can do a lot with leverage.”

  “So you think it is one of the Auroras behind this little hotel of horrors?” Jackson asked, warming to what she was laying out.

  “Some way, somehow, yes,” she answered.

  Jackson did a quick review of the sum of the crimes. “We’ve got old bodies and bodies that, according to the ME, were murdered in the last year or so.” He pointed out the obvious. “Identifying the old ones might present us with a real challenge, but the newer ones—those might be easier to put names to.”

  He leaned over her shoulder to look at the notes she’d made. Her hair smelled of some sort of floral shampoo. He could feel his gut tightening, stirring. He forced himself to think.

  “Why don’t we pull up all the missing-persons reports that were filed in California in the last, say, two, three years. Maybe Nevada, too,” Jackson suggested.

  Brianna nodded. It was coming together, she thought, excitement building within her. They were going to get to the bottom of this, she could feel it.

  Turning to look up at him, she smiled approvingly at the man who had so recently set her world on fire. “I guess you’re not just another pretty face after all.”

  “Maybe,” he said, his voice lowering, “I just need to be inspired.” Taking her hand, he raised her up to her feet. “You know,” he pointed out, “it’s still too early to go in.”

  “Computers never sleep,” Brianna reminded him, although not too forcefully. She was excited about the idea they were postulating but more excited about the man she was working with.

  “But, if memory serves, your cousin Valri does. And it is Sunday. She might like sleeping in.”

  “She won’t mind if we wake her up. Neither will Kristin—the head ME,” she prompted, in case he’d forgotten the medical examiner’s name.

  His eyes were already making love to her. The very thought was exciting him. “I know who Kristin is. I had a crash course in Cavanaughs yesterday, remember?”

  Brianna’s look of surprise was only half-feigned. “You were paying attention?”

  “I always pay attention,” he assured her with feeling. “I’m just not always open about it.”

  “Always?” Brianna repeated with an incredulous laugh. “Try never.”

  “Hey, it works for me,” he told her.

  The bottom line had always been to use the tools that were available and that got the desired results. What he did kept the people he was up against off balance, allowing him to do what he needed to do.

  Brianna slipped her arms comfortably around his waist and smiled up at his face. “Can’t argue with that,” she told him.

  “Sure you can,” Jackson countered. “You could argue with anybody, anytime.” He brushed the hair back from her cheek. “I guess that’s what works for you.” His eyes were all but devouring her. How could a few hours make such a difference in his life, Jackson couldn’t help wondering. “So, looks like we’ve got some time to kill before we can get started. Want some breakfast?” he offered. “There’s a twenty-four-hour diner not too far from here, looks like it came straight out of the ’70s. My treat.”

  Brianna shook her head from side to side. “Maybe later.”

  “What should we do now?” Jackson asked, a hint of amusement rising within him. He could feel himself smiling. She made him feel like smiling. It was a really strange feeling to come to grips with.

  “Guess.”

  Brianna was standing so close to him, Jackson could feel the word on his lips as she said it.

  His eyes held hers. The feeling just being with her like this created grew exponentially.

  “What do I get if I guess right?” he asked, his voice low, seductive.

  “Me.”

  * * *

  It was really, really hard for her leaving his bed and the haven they recreated. But even during their lovemaking, which was passionate and boundless, there was a feeling of urgency hovering over them, something that made them each feel that they were running out of time. Not for themselves, but for the victims who were no longer able to speak for themselves.

  Brianna couldn’t really express why she felt as if they were up against the clock, but she did. Stopping only long enough to get a change of clothing from her place, they went to the police station. As they drove to the precinct, she reluctantly shared her feelings with Jackson, afraid that he would think she was getting too carried away with this macabre mystery.

  “Yeah, I’ve got the same feeling.”

  “Really?” she cried. It was more of an expression of joy than an actual question, accompanied by a flood of relief washing through her.

  Jackson nodded. “Yeah. Like if we don’t put all the pieces together soon, whoever’s responsible for this last wave of murder victims is going to get away. Not just with the crimes, but vanish completely. The Aurora family is richer than God. They can pay people off, hide the responsible party’s tracks in any number of ways. Those people are rabidly protective when it comes to their family’s good name,” he stressed. “The public is easily impressed by a famous name, but the public also likes to tear down the very same people they’d previously built up. If our second killer winds up being Damien, the public is going to have a field day.”

  Brianna laughed, shaking her head. “You really are very cynical. You know that, don’t you?”

  He didn’t even bother to argue.
“I know.”

  “You know the best way to counteract that?” Brianna asked him.

  When he glanced at her, he saw that her eyes were filled with laughter. He knew what she was saying and, heaven help him, he didn’t feel like balking at the suggestion or seriously resisting it.

  Maybe he’d lost his mind last night. And maybe he’d come back around to his old self, given time. But for now, the desire to resist what she was proposing just wasn’t there.

  Still, Jackson felt he had to put at least some restrictions in place.

  “In slow doses,” he warned Brianna. “So that I wind up with a sugar rush, not experiencing a diabetic coma.”

  Having grown up in what amounted to a crowd, she’d learned the advantages of compromise early. She could apply the lesson here.

  “We did it my way first. Now we can do it your way,” she agreed.

  As Jackson pulled into the rear parking lot, she quickly scanned the area.

  Brianna drew in her breath. “Okay,” she told him as he parked. “Brace yourself.”

  “For what?” Jackson asked, turning off the engine.

  Brianna got out of the vehicle. Rather than look at Jackson, she never took her eyes off the woman who was coming toward them.

  “For that,” Brianna said, indicating a far-from-happy-looking Valri. Because they needed her help, Brianna had called the indispensable computer lab tech before they had left Jackson’s apartment.

  The look of harassed displeasure on Valri’s face did not lessen as she drew closer to them.

  “Flattered as I am to be woken up before sunrise on a Sunday and dragged out of bed to come to a place where I spend twice the amount of waking hours I should,” Valri said, “couldn’t this have waited until Monday?”

  “I don’t know,” Brianna told her cousin in all honesty as she, Jackson and Valri turned to walk into the precinct. “Maybe,” she allowed, surprising Jackson. “But I’ve got this feeling.”

  Valri rolled her eyes. “God help us, the almighty Cavanaugh gut feeling.”

  Joining the two women in the empty lobby, Jackson asked, “The what?”