Yes. She was still thrusting her hips against him.
“You don’t have to be quiet.” There was a reason he’d ditched that hotel room. He loved it when Lauren screamed for him.
He would make her scream.
He pushed her legs farther apart and put his mouth on her sex. He sampled every inch of her, letting his tongue trail over her silken skin.
“Anthony!”
It wasn’t a scream. Not yet. Which was good, because he wasn’t done.
He thrust his tongue into her even as his thumb pushed over her clit. Her whole body seemed to tighten around him. He kept tasting her, kept drinking her in, knowing he’d never be able to get enough—
“Anthony!” Her nails sank into his shoulders, and he reveled in the sting of pain. “I need you in me.”
His head lifted. He licked his lips, savoring the taste. Her cheeks were flushed, her gaze demanding.
He was about to explode.
He pushed the head of his c**k against her body. Creamy heat. So good, so—
There was nothing between them.
Shit, he had to take care, had to protect her.
Lauren’s legs wrapped tightly around him. “I’m on the pill. Clean…”
He was, too. He’d never gone without a rubber with any woman. Yet right then—
I want all of her.
His eyes held hers. His control was threadbare. She arched against him, and he drove into her.
The last of his control tore away.
There was no restraint. No holding back. She closed around him, her sex so hot and tight and wet that he thought he’d go out of his head. He thrust deep into her, plunging wildly again and again. There was nothing but her. Only pleasure. Only the heat of her body.
His hands curled around her hips. He lifted her up, holding her tight. The bed groaned beneath the force of his thrusts. His heartbeat slammed into his ribs.
This was what he wanted. She was what he needed.
Her sex clenched around him. Her climax was coming. Good, because his was f**king about to implode on him.
He angled his body, sending his c**k sliding right over her clit as he drove into her.
Then she was climaxing and—yes—she screamed for him.
“Tony!”
He loved her scream.
Anthony erupted inside of her, still thrusting, still desperate for every single moment with her. Her climax sent her sex contracting around him, ripples of release that made his pleasure intensify.
He was hollowed out, so empty from the release that he’d pumped and pumped into her, but he wasn’t done.
Not yet.
Not ever.
He stared down at her, his body slick with sweat. Her breath heaved, matching his. Her smile—oh, damn, that smile was sin.
He felt himself hardening within her again. “Did I hurt you?”
Lauren shook head.
Good. He began thrusting.
She’d gone to the morgue to see Walker’s body. But as she followed Greg, Cadence’s gaze was drawn to the autopsy table. To the body on the table. Judge Hamilton. “I’ve already bagged and tagged Walker’s clothes and belongings.” Greg motioned to the right. Cadence saw the evidence bags in a neat pile.
She advanced toward the judge. His eyes were closed, his body the ashen, yellowish color that came soon after death. His chest was a mess—not just stabbed, but carved open.
“The Butcher must have been pretty angry when he killed Hamilton,” Greg noted as he came toward her. “He twisted the blade and cut his way straight through the guy’s heart.”
She swallowed. The sight was grisly, all right, but she’d seen worse. I have plenty of images that still haunt my nightmares. Despite her tough words to Greg from moments before, she knew this scene would haunt her, too. “Were there any defensive wounds?”
“I bagged his hands at the scene.”
She knew the drill. The hands were bagged to preserve any evidence, and when the body had been transferred to the morgue, Greg would have checked under the nails for skin samples or trace evidence that had been left behind.
“The judge must not have been given the chance to fight back. His nails were clean.” His gloved hand lifted and gestured near the judge’s head. She saw the dark bruising and cuts on his forehead. “I found chunks of glass that I believe will match up to the broken window from his BMW embedded in the wounds. It looks like Walker knocked him out, and when the judge woke up…” He pushed past the sheet, revealing the dark bruises around Hamilton’s wrists. “Hamilton was bound.”
“No chance to fight,” she whispered. Walker had wanted the power. She understood that. In court, the judge had been the one presiding. The one who got to decide Walker’s fate.
In the cabin, Walker had been the judge and the executioner.
Her gaze dropped to Hamilton’s throat. “Did he leave us a note?” After the first two notes had been found, she’d realized it had become a part of Walker’s process. Killing, leaving the note. A taunt, but not for the cops.
The taunts had been personal.
For Lauren Chandler.
“There was a note,” Greg said as he reached for an evidence bag.
She glanced over her shoulder. The other body bag would contain Walker’s remains.
She still wanted to see him.
Cadence took a step toward the black bag.
“Here,” Greg said.
She froze and glanced back, quickly reaching for the evidence bag.
She read the scrawled letters. The blood is on you.
“We’ll get the techs to confirm that the handwriting is the same, of course,” Greg murmured, “but it looks like a match to me.”
It looked like one to her, too. “He was blaming Lauren.”
Greg frowned at her. “How do you figure that?”
“All of the notes were for her.”
“Listen, Agent—”
“When he killed her friend, Walker wanted Lauren to know her punishment was just beginning.” She rolled her shoulders, trying to push away the never-ending tension. “Then he sent her to Steve Lynch’s house because that was where he planned to abduct her. He was laying his trap for Lauren. Only she got away.”
One brow rose. “Why would that mean the judge’s blood is on her?”
“Lauren was the one meant to die, not Hamilton.” Cadence shook her head. “Lauren was the focus of Walker’s rage. She was the reason he came back here.”
It’s beginning.
“Tell me something else,” he muttered. “Why the hell is the guy slicing their throats and putting the notes in there? I’ve seen some twisted shit in my time, but—”