My Killer Vacation

A pulse travels through my dick at the thought of it. Us in bed together. She’d have to ride me, though. I couldn’t just get on top and go for broke. Not with our size difference. I’m not gentle in bed and she’d…she’d need that. Tenderness. Wouldn’t she?

“She’s sure as shit not getting it from you,” I mutter, scrubbing at the back of my neck, unable to find the itch that’s plaguing me. I’m probably just unsettled because there is a piece of evidence I should have at my disposal and someone has stolen it. Right out from under the noses of the cops, too.

Huh.

She might come across innocent, but she’s got a rebellious streak, doesn’t she?

Don’t think about that. Don’t think about what that streak might lead her to do.

Like hook up with a rough, unmannered bounty hunter while on vacation.

“Not my type,” I rasp, raising my camera to get a shot of the peepholes— I stop. Tilt my chin and lean closer.

The woodgrain at the edges of both holes points outward, toward the bedroom The holes were drilled from inside the crawl space.

“Goddammit.”

Oscar Stanley was a big man. It would have taken serious maneuvering to drill those holes without physically being inside the crawl space. And yeah, fine, why would he need two holes unless he planned on looking through them?

I’m nowhere near abandoning the cut and dried theory that Oscar Stanley is a peeping Tom who spied on his guests, but the woodgrain is throwing me off a little. Despite wanting to wrap up this job as quickly as possible, I am not and will never be the type to leave questions unanswered or close a case with the finger pointed at the wrong suspect, all in the name of expediency.

According to Paul, the cops already spoke to the father—Judd Forrester. He denies shooting and killing Oscar Stanley. Only admits to the fistfight days before. But I need to speak with him myself to determine whether or not he’s telling the truth.

Beyond that…

Who else had—or has—access to this place?

“I don’t know, do I?” I grit out, striding down the staircase. “Because I don’t have the goddamn guest book.”

When I open the front door of the house, she’s watching me from the front window of her house, lip caught between her teeth. She starts to duck out of sight, but I shake my head, crooking my finger at her. Now it’s her turn to shake her head. I keep going until I’ve climbed the porch and knocked on the door.

“Are you going to keep me informed?” she calls through the door.

“No.”

“I’d really just like to be kept in the loop.”

“Nope.”

“Please?”

I’m about to state my intentions to kick the door off the hinges, but my mouth snaps shut on the word “please.” I don’t know why. It’s just a word. But coming from her, it makes me sweat. Who says no to this woman? Especially when she asks in that hopeful princess voice? Me continuing to say no is disappointing her. I can hear her growing less and less optimistic and…that doesn’t sit right. In fact, disappointing her is like broken glass digging into my stomach lining. Am I going to say yes just to make her happy? Hell, I don’t know. But I find myself very unwilling to do the opposite.

“Why?” I say, crossing my arms. “Why is this so important to you?”

A tick passes and then the door opens. Slowly. There’s her face, appearing in the opening, and I won’t acknowledge how my ribcage seems to shrink-wrap around my heart, throwing off the steady beat. Damn, she is a beautiful woman. Soft. The kind of woman who makes a man want to be a hero.

Other men. Not me, obviously.

She looks back over her shoulder—to see if her brother is around? When she faces me again, she speaks in a reluctant whisper, forcing me to lean forward. Forcing me to count the flecks of gold in her green eyes. “I’m not very brave,” she says quietly. “I’m really sensible and I always play it safe. But I saw a dead body and I didn’t vanish into dust. I stayed calm and I called the police. I found blankets for me and Jude, gave a detailed statement to Detective Wright. I haven’t thought a lot about how I would react in a terrible situation like that, but I thought I would cry or hyperventilate or die of fright. Definitely thought I would pack up and run home. But I didn’t. I surprised myself by sticking it out. And I guess I just want to see what else I can do.” She blinks up at me, the dark fringe of her lashes seeming to sweep down and up in slow motion. “Does that make sense, bounty hunter?”

She still doesn’t know my name.

Keep it that way.

Because I’m about to ask if she, perhaps, needs a blanket now, too? So if she said my name, I would be fucking toast. Somehow I know that like I know my way around a Harley. Because I’m not going to lie, her explanation seems to have opened a trap door in my belly and all of my irritation is falling right through it. Gone. I’m mostly wondering who the hell told her she wasn’t brave. That would be a satisfying person to kill. “You aren’t backing down from my scary ass, are you?” I cough into a fist, glancing off down the block. “Seem pretty brave to me.”

When I look back at her, she’s smiling at me.

Not a grudging one. A big, unrestrained one that punches me square in the jaw.

“Uh…”

“You’re not scary at all,” she informs me brightly.

“Yes, I am,” I shout back, because it feels totally necessary. Like I’m acting out of self-preservation here. Am I? What has happened to me in the last thirty minutes?

“Taylor, who are you talking to?” Following the newcomer’s muffled question, footsteps approach behind her and a man appears, grinding a knuckle into his eye socket and yawning. When he opens his eyes and spots me in the doorway, he jolts backward with a startled curse.

“Jesus fucking Christ.”

“See?” I tell her, caught between satisfaction and…embarrassment, an emotion I am very unfamiliar with. It has never existed for me. Until now, apparently, when this woman is about to realize I’m the beast and she’s beauty.