“Maybe I can be a little late,” she said as though he was tempting her beyond her ability to refuse.
“My truck’s outside.” He took her hand. “You deserve better than the backseat of a vehicle, but as long as I make you come, what does it matter?”
When she resisted, he was afraid he’d said the wrong thing. He couldn’t be too crude, too demanding—not with someone like her.
“We’ve barely met,” she said.
“But we don’t have much time.” Besides, she liked what she saw. She’d made that clear. And she was down on herself and life in general. He had that working for him.
“Why not feel something good while you’ve got the chance? How long will it be before this happens for you again?”
“You’ve got a point,” she said, and let him tug her outside.
He almost had her right where he wanted her. If he could only get her into the backseat of his truck, she wouldn’t bail on him. She wasn’t that kind of girl.
“I feel like the luckiest man on earth,” he told her when she climbed in without balking.
“You’re so nice,” she said as he helped her off with her blouse.
He didn’t hear that very often, so he smiled. He knew he should spend some time kissing and caressing her, make sure she was as aroused as he was. But he was out of patience. He was going to get his turn, and he was going to get it now. He hoped she didn’t suddenly change her mind, because he was at the point where he wouldn’t have been able to stop himself from raping her if she did.
Fortunately, she remained pliant, cooperative.
He undid his pants and pushed inside her right away. She seemed slightly put off by how single-minded he was becoming, but he didn’t care. The way she was wedged into the backseat of his truck, she could only let him finish.
As he started to move, he moaned with each thrust. He pictured Evelyn crying at the thought of what he was doing to her sister and that made each moment infinitely enjoyable.
As the pleasure built, he thrust harder and harder. He wanted to hurt her, wanted to clench his hand in her hair and yank her head back while biting her neck until it bled. But he managed to distract himself by thinking about how glad he was that she was already pregnant.
That meant she hadn’t demanded he wear a condom.
*
Evelyn whirled to face her the moment she walked into the house. “You couldn’t have left me a message?”
Although Brianne attempted to smooth down her hair, she couldn’t get it to cooperate and suspected she looked as guilty as she felt. Andy had been sucking on her neck, even though she’d told him not to, so she was afraid she had a couple of hickeys, too. Just in case, she didn’t remove her coat. She hoped Evelyn wouldn’t guess what she’d been up to. She couldn’t believe she’d been so impulsive.
She wouldn’t have acted that recklessly if not for Jeff, she told herself. His rejection had cut her so deeply she was looking for anything to deaden the pain and make it possible to forget, even for just a few minutes. The fact that she was marching toward a life-altering event she felt ill equipped to cope with didn’t help, either. A child was a huge responsibility, and that responsibility never truly ended. Would she be a good mother? Could she do it on her own? And even if she could, would having a child negatively impact her life in other ways, making it difficult to meet someone or continue pursuing her career?
Those persistent and as yet unanswered questions messed with her normal decision-making ability and had led her to do something she’d never done before.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t expect to be gone so long. I just went over to the Moosehead to get a break from staring at these four walls.”
“You didn’t think, with what’s going on here in town, that I’d be worried?”
She had realized that, but by the time she was making out with Andy Smith in the alcove by the bathrooms it’d been difficult to battle the desire to feel something good for a change. After all, she had no doubt Jeff was having sex with his new girlfriend. Why should all pleasure stop for her?
“You often go past the Moosehead on your way home to see if Amarok’s there. I figured you’d see your own car and … and know where I was, even if you didn’t want to stop in yourself.”
Evelyn started to stack the files she had spread out on the table. “I didn’t check the parking lot today. I was riding with someone else, which meant I didn’t have control. I didn’t think it mattered, assumed you were waiting for me.”
“I can take care of myself, Evelyn. It’s not as though I was hanging out in some dark alleyway or meeting someone who could be dangerous.”
“You can take care of yourself? That’s what every murdered girl thinks before she meets the man who kills her!” Evelyn cried. “That’s what I thought when I was dating Jasper!”
Brianne wanted to get into the bathroom so she could see if there were any marks on her neck. She needed to find out if it was safe to remove her coat or if Andy had left the love bites she feared he had. “So why didn’t you come over to the Moosehead when you saw that your car wasn’t here in the drive?”
Evelyn dropped the files on the counter. “Because you had my car! Besides, I assumed you’d run over to Quigley’s to pick up some last-minute ingredients for dinner. It wasn’t until I’d been catching up on paperwork for nearly two hours that I realized how long you’d been gone and began to panic.”
Brianne had been about to set Evelyn’s keys on the counter. At this remark—and the implications that immediately sprang up in her mind—she froze. “What do you mean ‘panic’? You didn’t send Amarok out looking for me, did you?”
“I did! Of course I did. I got hold of him at his trooper post, and he went out looking right away. Two bodies have been found recently, and one of those victims was killed in a cabin not too far from here. He was as scared as I was! Think about it; if Jasper is back, he might like killing you almost as much as me!”
The thought that Evelyn’s cop boyfriend might’ve seen Andy Smith’s truck rocking in the parking lot sent a shard of mortification straight through her heart. “He didn’t go by the Moosehead.…”
“I’m sure he did. That’s where people in this town hang out at night. It’s the first place to look for anyone.”
Dread made her nauseous. “When?”
“As soon as I called him!”
“No, I mean … when was it that he went to the bar?”
“Does it matter?”
Brianne pulled the lapels of her coat up even higher. It could! “He didn’t find me there?” At this point, she hoped not.
“I don’t know. I haven’t heard back from him yet.”
Shit. She hoped she and Andy were done by the time Amarok had arrived. “You’d better call him and let him know you found me. He doesn’t need to be wasting his time searching for me when there are so many more important things he needs to do.”
Evelyn threw up her hands. “Now you think of that?” She turned to close her laptop but pivoted to face Brianne again. “Wait, don’t tell me you were drinking. You’re pregnant! And you drove home!”
Brianne slid her purse off her shoulder and set it beside the keys. “Relax. I didn’t have a drop. I was just … I was talking to someone.”
“Who?”
“Andy Smith.”
Evelyn’s tirade came to an abrupt halt. “The CO from Hanover House? That Andy Smith?”
Brianne lifted her chin. “Could there be two Andy Smiths in such a small place?”
“Not that I know of, but…” She seemed to struggle, trying to decide how to finish her statement.
“But?”
“Nothing. Never mind.”
“No, say it. You don’t really like him, do you?”
“He saved my life. Of course I like him.”
Brianne stepped closer to her sister. “He doesn’t think so. He said you avoid him. He’s afraid he reminds you of that night when Bishop was here.”
“He doesn’t. I didn’t know he was expecting more than the thanks I’ve given him. I’ve been so busy, I haven’t focused on anyone except Amarok—and my work.”