Неизвестный - 5. Justice Served

Long moments later, when Rebecca could speak, she whispered,

“I love when you do that to me.”

Sated by her lover’s pleasure, Catherine nestled her head on Rebecca’s shoulder, arms loosely clasping her waist. Eyes closed, she drifted without thought, only knowing that she was happy. “Mmm. Do what?”

“Just take me, like I’m yours.”

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Catherine raised her head, her eyes still hazy with arousal. “You are mine.”

Rebecca grinned weakly, Þ nding it difÞ cult to control her body, which still felt boneless. “Yeah. I know. But when you have your way with me, I really know.”

“Stick around, detective,” Catherine murmured, nipping at Rebecca’s chin. “It gets better.”

“I don’t see how it could,” Rebecca replied, suddenly serious. She Þ lled her hands with Catherine’s hair, holding her head as she took her mouth with Þ erce intensity. She kissed her, suddenly desperate for the taste of her. When she felt Catherine tremble against her body, she moved her mouth to Catherine’s ear. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Catherine wanted to ask for her promise, but instead, she found Rebecca’s hand and guided her lover’s sensitive Þ ngers underneath the edge of her skirt, along the path her pleasure had streamed earlier, and to the center of her desire. Pressing Rebecca’s Þ ngers through the slick heat, into the waiting heart of her, she had no need for words.

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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Sandy stood by the bedside, watching Mitchell sleep. An open book lay on her chest, the edges of the pages crumpled against her bare breast. Lamplight shone in her face, and she didn’t budge even when Sandy leaned down and kissed her lightly. Moving carefully, Sandy stripped and lifted the sheet to slide in next to the slumbering woman. As she reached to turn off the light, Mitchell stirred.

“Hey, honey,” Mitchell murmured, turning on her side, knocking the book to the ß oor in the process.

“Hi, baby.” Sandy snuggled close, edging her thigh between Mitchell’s. “Go back to sleep.”

“Mmm, in a minute.” With a contented sigh, Mitchell nuzzled Sandy’s neck, inhaling her scent. “Missed you.”

“You and Jason were so into your spy stuff when I left, I wasn’t even sure you heard me say goodbye.”

Mitchell chuckled and wrapped an arm around Sandy’s waist. “I heard you.” She kissed the tender spot below Sandy’s ear. “Everything okay?”

Sandy rubbed her palm back and forth across Mitchell’s chest, Þ nally trailing her Þ ngers over the inner curve of one small, Þ rm breast.

“Yeah.”

“You’re home earlier than usual. S’good.”

“Uh-huh.” Sandy debated sharing the news that she’d run into a girl at the Blue Diamond who’d seen Trudy in the club the night before, asking some of her old friends for a place to crash. After a few more stops in a few more strip joints, Sandy had Þ nally scored a phone number to get a message to Trudy. It wasn’t Trudy’s telephone number, of course. It was a link in a phone-message tree that the street girls often used to thwart their pimps when they were planning to cut out on them or if they just wanted privacy. Rather than risk having their cell phones

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conÞ scated and their messages intercepted, they passed messages from one to the other through a convoluted set of phone relays. Eventually a message would reach its intended recipient, and a callback number or time for a meeting would wend its way back up the tree to whoever had initiated the contact.

Sandy had gotten a return message—with the time and place for a meeting with Trudy the following night. She wasn’t certain their getting together would come to anything, because she didn’t know if the girl had any more information about the video porn ring than she’d already revealed. Still, it was a place to start, and Sandy could at least try to talk Trudy into contacting her if she learned anything new or if she had another offer to do a porn shoot. No way was one police raid going to shut down that kind of business for good. Anything selling sex was impossible to kill.

In the end, she decided that only Frye should know, because that was what the detective was paying her for. She didn’t like keeping anything from Dell, but she didn’t want to get her into trouble, either.

And, she admitted to herself, the less Dell knew about these activities, the better. She’d only worry. Or get protective. And even though Sandy liked the way it felt to have Dell care about her that way, the downside was having Dell get all bent out of shape about it. So she kept silent about the details.

“You okay about tomorrow?” Sandy asked instead, stroking the back of Mitchell’s neck.

“About the promotion ceremony?” Mitchell nuzzled Sandy’s nipple until it hardened, then ß icked at it with her tongue. “Yeah. You’re comin’, right?”

Sandy directed Mitchell’s mouth back to her breast. “Uh-huh.”

“Good,” Mitchell mumbled before devoting herself to sucking Sandy’s nipple to rigid attention.

“Mmm, that’s nice,” Sandy sighed, closing her eyes and savoring the heat that washed through her as Mitchell teased. “Did you hear from your sister today?”

Mitchell stiffened, but kept her mouth to Sandy’s breast. “No.”

“Does she know about tomorrow?”

“Don’t see how.” Mitchell rolled over onto her back.

In the silence that followed, Sandy leaned up on an elbow and

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settled her palm on Mitchell’s abdomen. The muscles beneath her Þ ngers felt like wood. “What did she do to you?”

“Nothing. She was only here an hour or so yesterday.”

“I don’t mean yesterday, Dell,” Sandy said impatiently. “I mean before. Whenever.”

“Look, Sandy, honey—”

“It’s like a splinter, Dell. You gotta pull it out, no matter how much it hurts.”

Mitchell laughed—a short, hard sound. “Jesus. First in therapy, now in bed. I can’t get away from old history.”

“You did, though, right?” Sandy smoothed her hand in slow circles, not the way she did when she wanted to get Dell hot, but the way she gentled her after she’d already made her come. Coaxing the clenched muscles to relax, Sandy continued softly, “Get away from it, I mean. All this time that you haven’t seen her—you’ve been keeping all of this stuff deep down inside somewhere.”

“How do you know that?” Mitchell rasped, her throat thick with the effort of keeping a lid on her emotions. Seeing Erica had been so hard, and then talking to Dr. Rawlings about Robin had hurt so much, and now…now, Sandy’s tenderness was crumbling the last of her defenses to dust.

“I can feel it. When I hold you. When you hold me. When we make love.” Sandy shifted until she was lying on top of Mitchell, her narrow hips between Mitchell’s thighs, supporting herself on her elbows so that she could see her lover’s face in the moonlight that angled over the top of the sleeping partition. “You don’t have to tell me. But I want you to.

It makes me feel…better…to tell you things.”

Mitchell wrapped both arms around Sandy’s waist and pulled her down into a tight embrace. With her face buried in the curve of Sandy’s neck, she haltingly surrendered her secrets.

v

“Rebecca, darling,” Catherine murmured. “Phone.”

Rebecca was already awake and leaning over her, fumbling on the bedside table for the handset. Clearing her throat, she said sharply,

“Frye…Where?…Be there in Þ fteen. Do me a favor and roust Watts for me too.” She paused to listen, sliding from beneath the covers and