15. Ronan
Chapter 15
Ronan
S he stood in the window, gloriously naked, the pale globes of her breasts shining in the moonlight, her scar a lightning bolt where she’d stitched herself back together—where she’d healed.
“Do you like what you see, Ronan?” She drew a finger over her clavicle and between her breasts, down toward her naval.
“Yes,” he whispered.
He was standing on the motel sidewalk on the opposite side of the glass, but somehow, he could hear her just fine.
“What do you want me to do?”
Oh god, he wanted to see her lips part when she came, wanted to see her sink her fingers into that sopping-wet pussy. He wanted to see her nipples harden into stiff points. Wanted to see her… pleased. Yes, he wanted to please her himself, but the biggest thing was that she was happy—no. Ecstatic . That was what he wanted. To see her delirious with pleasure.
He’d do anything she wanted him to do if only she’d let him remain here in her orbit, her beautiful hazel eyes fixed on him.
“Touch yourself,” he said. “Show me how you like it.”
She licked her lips, tracing her palm along her abdomen, fingers coming to rest between her legs. But he knew what she liked now, didn’t he?
“Spread your pussy lips. Open up wide for me.”
She shifted her feet apart, then lowered her other hand to meet the first. She splayed her inner lips, that shiny pink drawing him in, his dick aching against his lower belly—yearning to be buried in her heat.
Her focus dropped to his cock, one eyebrow raised—waiting for him to touch himself. He grabbed his dick in his fist, imagining that it was her lips wrapped around his shaft. Imagining her hot slickness as he thrust himself deep into her cunt.
Jenny smiled, rubbing her clit with frantic little movements of her index finger. She closed her eyes, breath coming faster, his fist moving faster, too, pulling him higher, higher, higher . Her mouth opened in a silent wail, her back arching. And then he was coming with her, spraying his load all over the glass?—
Ronan’s eyes snapped open, sweat prickling on his forehead, his sheets sticking to his skin. Damn . The release from the night before apparently hadn’t been enough. He could fuck her a hundred times, and he’d still want more.
He’d never have enough of her.
Ronan kicked the covers hard enough to send them to the floor. He marched to the shower on shaky legs. He should be thinking about more than sex—she was clearly terrified, and he was worried about banging her? If he needed proof that he was an asshole, surely this was it.
But he had spent last night thinking about more than sex, which had to count for something. He’d hated leaving her at the motel, but she’d told him to go home, and he got the distinct impression that to stay would have shut her down for good. Still, he’d sent a few patrols by for good measure. And once he’d dropped her off, his brain started working overtime.
Ortega’s words had whispered the loudest: This young woman wanted to assess his injuries for, quote, “restorative work.” Ronan might expect a layman to say they were there to assess Mercer’s injuries, but restorative work was a less common phrase for those outside the business of death. For Jennifer Crandall to use those words…
Had she researched what to say, or did she have experience in forensics? Maybe she’d once worked at a funeral home?
The name on her driver’s license was a dead end. As he’d suspected, Jennifer Crandall was an alias—a fake. He’d sifted through photos of licensed funeral home directors and morgue personnel from New York and the surrounding states, but none of those photos matched her either. He had been watching her tend bar for months, had dreamed about her, made love to her in the setting sun, and he had no idea who she really was.
More critically, he had no idea who she was afraid of or whether that man was actually in the area. Whether he’d killed Mercer.
Ronan squirted shampoo into his palm, letting his brain work.
An ex—that was clear. Did she think Mercer was working for her ex? Did she believe that her ex had gone after Mercer because she’d had dinner with him? The man she was scared of was clearly violent, extraordinarily dangerous—that scar was proof enough.
Ronan washed the suds from his head, lathered his skin. Damnit . If she would just give him the guy’s name, he could protect her more effectively. They could arrest him. By withholding his identity, she was shielding the man she claimed to be trying to escape. Hell, just showing that wound to the authorities should have been enough to lock him away. So what the fuck was she hiding?
He slapped the shower off and snatched a towel from the rod. He didn’t let his brother get away with this shit—why was he letting her hold so much back? Because he was hot for her?
His cell buzzed as he was slipping into his pants. Ronan grabbed it, hoping it was Jenny… but no. Paddy. Duh —she didn’t even have a phone.
He balanced the cell against his shoulder. “What’s up? We get anything new from forensics?”
Fingerprints would be great. DNA would be better, provided their perp was in the system.
“Nope. But Bobby called. Anything you want to tell me?”
The tech—the one who’d been dealing with the cell phone. The cell that was almost certainly in Jenny’s possession.
“Yeah, I got his email after you went to cut Waylon loose. I haven’t had time to look into it yet. I figured I’d head over to the library this morning on my way in.”
“Better late than never, I guess.” But he didn’t sound convinced. “Why didn’t you go over there yesterday? Or at least wait for me to release Waylon? I didn’t expect you to be gone when I got back.”
“I figured I’d visit the library and run by the club again this morning.” That wasn’t exactly an answer to his question, but Ronan pressed on, “And I was thinking… there are no security cameras in the back alley, presumably, so no one can prove Waylon’s abusing underage girls. But there are traffic cams on the adjacent street corner. Not a clear shot of the club’s back door, but it should show anyone leaving the alley.”
“Unless our perp went out the other side,” Paddy said.
“The other side of that alley dead-ends at a giant brick wall topped with barbed wire. Online fulfillment warehouses take no risks when it comes to mingling with the riffraff.”
“I’m not even going to ask how you know that.”
But he could—it had nothing to do with Ronan frequenting the club. There had been plenty of news stories about the two-mile-long building that cut entire neighborhoods off from one another, starving the now-closed restaurants of hungry diners.
“Listen, Ronan… the chief called me this morning. Asked who you were with last night—who you drove from the station. Whether we had another witness.”
Shit . He shoved his feet into his shoes. “What’d you tell him?”
“That we’re following a few leads, and that there is no shortage of witnesses from that club.”
Ronan frowned, tugging at his shoelaces. “Why’s he worried about the Mercer case, anyway? A strip club stabbing isn’t exactly high profile.”
“He might think that his detective is a little too involved with the crime scene… or the strippers.”
Ronan paused. “And why would he think a thing like that?”
A sigh. “He doesn’t. Okay? And I don’t know why he’s asking about it. I mean, I did ask around about Mercer being an informant, so it might have raised a red flag. Want me to meet you at the library?”
“No, I’ve got it.”
Silence. “We need to talk, Ronan. Seriously. You can’t be running around with our witness . The defense attorney will have a field day. Neither of us wants a murderer to walk free because you couldn’t keep it in your pants.”
Ronan grabbed his jacket and shrugged into it. “She doesn’t know anything—didn’t see anything. And yeah, I met with her, but I was just asking questions. Making sure we covered every base.”
All the bases. A home run even.
He kicked his bedroom door shut behind him and marched up the hall.
“I’m sure you were covering something,” Paddy said, then let out another long, low sigh. “I’ll see you at the station. Bring actual coffee this time, eh?”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Ronan shoved the cell into his pocket and reached for his front door. The knob clicked—louder than usual?
But Ronan didn’t have time to ponder that.
The explosion roared in his ears, heat blistering his chest. He had the sensation of flying through the air, surrounded by a million fireflies of orange flame.
Then the world went black.