Final Cost (The Winter Trilogy #3)

16. Lucien

16

Lucien

Tamsyn shows me no mercy the following morning. She rides me long and hard, her eyes glazed with passion, her head thrown back with her hair forming a wild halo around her damp face and a half smile on her parted lips. Sweat glistens between her jiggling breasts with their pink nipples and I gotta admit — I love these visuals. I’m not sure who’s holding who tighter. Me, gripping the curves of her hips as they rotate against me or her gripping my flexing hips between her toned thighs?

All I know is that if there’s a better way to start a day than with us fucking after sleeping together in our bed, where we belong, I don’t want to know about it.

I meet her thrust for thrust, addicted to the snug slickness of her sweet little pussy. My groans are getting ridiculous at this point. I’m at my tipping point, my balls contracted and ready to go with an orgasm for the record books. I feel the strain of holding myself back in all my bunched muscles. But I’m not fucking coming. Not until she comes first. That’s the only way we roll around here.

Suddenly she cries out, all high-pitched, shocked ecstasy, her expression twisting with the delight of it. Another glorious visual seared in my memory banks forever. And that’s all I need. I let go, shooting off in an uncontrolled fit of spasms like a firework crocheting across the room. When my bucking beneath her threatens to toss her to the floor, I wrap my arms around her waist and pull her close, reveling in the vibrancy of her body against mine. The warmth. The strength. That thrilling scent of her lilies-of-the-valley fragrance. Her croons of satisfaction as she nuzzles my neck.

It’s a moment of unsurpassed joy. Enough to choke me with it. Because I came so close to losing all this forever. Actually, who am I fooling? I’m still close to losing all this forever. Trapped in this purgatory waiting for the police to make their next move, I know happiness, but I don’t know peace. Maybe I’ll never know it.

But I have this moment with Tamsyn. That’s enough for now. So when she wearily raises her head, brushes her hair out of her face and smiles that glorious smile at me, all sunshine and sparkling diamonds in her brown eyes, I smile back. And then we laugh together, wrecked and relieved to once again be here like this. Where we belong.

It’s the perfect moment. Until my godforsaken phone buzzes on the nightstand.

I scowl but reach for it anyway. There’s too much going on these days for me to ignore calls. “Sorry,” I tell her as she eases off me and settles next to me, propping her head on her hand. “It’s my investigator.”

“Wait, what? You hired an investigator?”

“To look into Ravenna’s last couple of days and help me prove I didn’t do it. And to find Windwood.”

“Well, talk to him,” she says quickly, looking hopeful now. “Take it.”

“Yeah?” I bark by way of greeting.

“I have news,” he says without preamble. “I’ll be there in thirty.”

Then he hangs up.

I turn to Tamsyn, who’s watching me closely. “He has news for me. Pray it’s good news.”

“Prayers up,” she says with a grim nod. She throws the covers back and starts to get out of bed. “I’ll find something to do to stay out of your hair. Just make sure you text me when you’re done meeting with him. I’m dying to know what’s going on.”

I also get up, relishing the quick but tantalizing view of her round ass before she makes it disappear by sliding her arms into her robe. It’s a little too soon for me to feel ready to go again, but the good thing about this reconciliation is that we’ll be together again tonight. And that’s a wonderful thing. “Why not come with me? This concerns your life, too. Right?”

“Right.” She eyes me warily. “That’s very transparent of you. Not manipulative at all.”

Glad she noticed. “I’m working on doing things different with you this time. Better.”

She hesitates, looking startled but delighted as she belts her robe. “Really?”

“ Really . I don’t want to mess things up again. Plus, I don’t want to let you out of my sight or out of arms reach now that we’re back together. Maybe I shouldn’t admit that. Maybe that’s too overbearing for you…?”

She gives it the old college try, but she can’t hold back her smile or her flush of pleasure any more than I can hold back mine. “It’s wildly overbearing. But I’m willing to overlook it. Just this once. Shower?”

“If you insist,” I say, already on my way.

We’re dressed and ready with time to spare. She takes my hand as we leave the bedroom and start down the staircase, another small pleasure that thrills me to the roots of my hair. “You think Chef made pancakes for breakfast today? I’m in the mood for pancakes.”

“I thought you understood.” I reel her in for a quick kiss. “You can have pancakes every day of the week for the rest of your life if you want. Chef is here to do what we ask him to do.”

“Yeah, but I don’t want to be too much trouble — oh, Daniel . Hi.”

I’ve been so wrapped up in her that I hadn’t seen Daniel come out of the dining room, but there he is with his steaming cup of coffee, staring up at us and our happy faces with open astonishment. But no one is more astonished at my sudden reversal of fortune than I am.

“Tamsyn. Lucien.” He recovers quickly and raises his cup in a toast to us. “Things are well, I take it?”

I only manage to squash about 85% of my grin. “Things would be great if my investigator has good news for me. He’s on his way. You should stick around.”

“You got it,” Daniel says.

My investigator, Randy Jacobs, is the best in the business, which is why I trust him with two huge tasks at once—finding Winwood and looking into Ravenna’s death. He arrives just as we grab coffee and convene in my study, then wastes no time pulling something up on his iPad and connecting it to the TV screen.

“What’s this?” I say, squinting at the white overhead images of a parking lot at night and trying to come up to speed. “Is that the parking lot from the inn?”

“That’s right. Footage from the inn’s security cameras the night you kicked Ravenna out of the house,” Randy says. “Watch.”

We watch. And see a Jaguar zoom into view and lurch to a stop in a parking space about twenty or thirty feet away from the camera, closely followed by a Range Rover that parks in the space behind her.

“Oh, my God,” Tamsyn says. “It’s Ravenna.”

“And Winwood,” Daniel adds.

We watch as Ravenna gets out of the Jag, her flimsy robe falling away from her pale legs as she climbs out. Winwood gets out of the Range Rover and intercepts her. She seems startled. They speak urgently, with Ravenna gesturing toward the inn and Winwood moving his hands in an unmistakable calm down gesture. Ravenna nods, takes a deep breath and wipes her eyes. And then she looks up at Winwood and watch it all happen as though I’d scripted it myself. It would almost be comical if the situation didn’t have such dire consequences for me and my life.

Ravenna takes another look at him. A good look. The footage may be somewhat grainy, but some things are hard to miss, especially when you’ve seen this performance before. No one does seduction quite like Ravenna. She eases closer to him, tipping her face up. Winwood goes still. She hesitates, looks away, then looks back at him, the kind of tremulous look that says that she needs fucking and/or saving and Winwood is the only man in the world — hell, the universe — up to the job.

I ought to know. I was the recipient of that same act more times than I care to remember.

To his credit, Winwood tries to resist. He does a decent job. I’ll give him that. It’s not a good idea. We shouldn’t. I work for Lucien. That’s his body language. But he’s no match for Ravenna. No one ever is. And when she steps forward that last little bit, presses her body full against him, wraps her arm around his neck and licks her way deep into his mouth, Winwood resists. For a full half second or so. Then he returns the kiss with compounded interest and helps himself to handfuls of her ass.

Tamsyn, Daniel and I all react at the same time.

“I knew it,” I say.

“Wow,” Daniel mutters, turning away from the screen.

“Oh, my God,” Tamsyn says, glancing at all of us in turn. “Is this for real?”

“It’s for real,” says Randy as he hits a button on his phone. “Lucien was right. And there’s more.”

The scene on the television switches to an elegant corridor inside the inn with bedrooms on each side. The time stamp says that it’s three hours later. Nothing happens for several seconds. Then one of the doors opens midway down the hall and out comes Winwood. He’s got his clothes straight and his hair in place. There’s that long military training for you. But a female arm reaches out to grab him when he starts to walk off, and he turns back to give Ravenna a thorough goodbye kiss. Then he strides off down the hallway, shooting a furtive glance behind him to make sure no one sees him before disappearing. He’s wearing the satisfied and vaguely dazed look of a buck up to his balls in fertile does during rutting season in the forest.

“That’s it,” Randy says, turning the TV off. “Great thinking, Lucien.”

“Yeah.” I shake my head, shocked by this additional good fortune. “I may not know much, but I know Ravenna and how she operates. Operated.”

“Wait, what?” Tamsyn glances at me. “You knew something was going on with her and Winwood? But how?”

I shrug away the implication that I have some sort of special powers of deduction. “I didn’t know. Not for sure. I just caught a vibe between them that night. And Winwood’s a good-looking guy. Ravenna hates to let those go to waste.”

“Wow,” Daniel mutters again.

“So I asked Randy to look into it,” I tell Tamsyn. Then I turn to Randy. “How did you get this footage, by the way?”

Randy flaps a hand. “Through legal-ish means. Not the kind of thing you want to bother yourself with.”

Well, he’s right about that. “Has the inn turned it over to the police yet?”

“They will tomorrow, they said.”

“This is great news,” I say, relieved. “This proves that Winwood had a motive to hurt her. Now we just need to find him.”

“Hang on,” Tamsyn says, frowning. “How does this prove that Winwood wanted to hurt her? It looks like they were getting along like a guest cottage on fire. Why would he suddenly want to kill her?”

I think that over, trying to find the best way to describe the phenomenon. “The thing about Ravenna was that she turned on a dime. She was happy to fuck someone now and then ghost him ten minutes later. Or worse, taunt him about not being able to satisfy her. Once she got what she wanted out of you, she had no use for you.” I nod, liking my theory more and more the more I think about it. “My guess? Winwood is a no-nonsense kind of guy. He had to know I’d fire him if I found out about this. And if she taunted him about something? I don’t think he’s the kind of guy to let something like that go. He’s old school. Proud. My way or the highway. Like I said, we need to find him. He’s the key to everything.”

Daniel looks doubtful. “I don’t know, Lucien. I’m not sure this video does you any good.”

“What are you talking about?” I say, frowning.

“I’m saying that this video gives you the motive for murder. Another motive.” Daniel’s expression turns grim. “The police will argue that you found out about her having an affair with your employee right under your nose. They’ll claim that this was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Maybe she taunted you with the affair. And maybe you killed her in a fit of jealous rage.”

I’ve already considered that very real possibility and am about to tell Daniel so when my phone buzzes. I check the display and discover that it’s my criminal defense attorney.

“What is it, Gray?” I say once I hit the button on the phone.

“I’ll be there in a minute,” Gray says, sounding as grave as Daniel just did. “The police are on their way to Ackerley. They want to see you.”