Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
“ What the actual fuck, Emerson?” – Gray Stone to his new partner, on any given day
He carried her over the threshold, with Emerson bouncing slightly over his shoulder. When she squirmed, he gave her a light tap on that phenomenal ass of hers.
Emerson stiffened. “Gray! You did not just spank me!”
Had he? Oh, right. He had, and he’d enjoyed the hell out of that too-brief tap.
She is driving me crazy.
His jaw was locked tight. He kicked the door closed.
Marched for the bed. Dropped her on it, and that breezy skirt of hers flew up over her thighs.
She looked sexy. Beautiful. Delicate. And she’d just taunted a serial killer.
Even crooked her finger. She might as well have been wearing a neon sign that said, “Hey, come try to kill me!” Since she’d been standing in the blue light cast from the pool, the woman had practically been glowing.
Sonofabitch.
His hands went to his hips as he glared down at her. “What the actual fuck, Emerson?” Gray snarled.
She tossed hair out of her eyes. “What the actual fuck, Gray? You can’t just throw me over your shoulder and toss me onto the bed!”
His teeth snapped together. “What on earth possessed you…to say, ‘Come and get me’ to that prick?”
“I said it to you. Not him.”
“Bullshit. And the finger-crooking bit?”
Her head tilted to the side. She played with a lock of hair. “Again, to you.”
He surged forward until his legs hit the mattress. “Bullshit,” he called a second time.
She stopped playing with the hair. “What’s the problem, Gray? Isn’t that what you wanted? For him to pick me?”
“No! I did not want you to taunt the killer!”
Her brows lowered. “You wanted him to come after me.”
“I wanted his attention on me. Me.” He slapped his chest. “I didn’t want you waving yourself at him like a red flag!” Hell. Dammit. Hell. Dammit.
“Then why didn’t you say something when I went out in my bright skirt and top? You were all dark and blending with the shadows, but I stuck out. I thought you wanted me to catch his attention. I thought that was the whole point of us parading out there.”
He hadn’t been parading. He’d been skulking. Gray kept glaring at her. “I didn’t say anything because you looked— look pretty in the outfit. There was no sense in you changing.”
She stared at him as if he had two heads.
“And I was going to blend with the dark—thus the dark clothes. But you were supposed to look normal. Touristy. Honeymoony. So your outfit was fine.” He grabbed his phone. Dialed Malik.
She tried to sidle off the bed.
“Don’t even think about it. We are not done.” Crooked her finger? Told the killer to come and get her? His temples throbbed. Gray was surprised that smoke wasn’t billowing from him.
“Someone is grumpy,” she muttered. Then she brushed off her arms. Sand fell onto the bed. “Was the kiss in the sand really necessary?”
“Yes,” he hissed.
“Yo,” Malik said in his ear at the same time.
“We have a situation,” Gray told him.
She brushed off more sand. Wrinkled her nose. “I probably need to shower,” Emerson whispered.
He sucked in a breath and held onto his patience with all of his might. “Someone has their own video security system set up on the island. Tiny cameras. You have to know what you’re looking for, but once you spot them…” He let the words trail off.
Emerson had just pulled her blouse a few inches away from her chest and was peering down her shirt.
Looking for sand.
Fuck.
“Emerson,” he snapped.
She let the shirt fall back into place.
“How many cameras did you count?” Gray asked her.
A pause from her.
“Come on, Emerson, you count everything. How many did you see? I want to make sure I didn’t miss any of them. After I pointed them out to you, I know you started keeping track.”
“I don’t count everything,” she groused.
“Yeah, you do.”
“Ahem.” From Malik. “Should I call back?”
“No, you should use your tech skills—bring in any additional help you need—and let’s figure out where the feeds are being transmitted.” He put the phone on speaker.
“You’re seriously telling me that the security guards at that place aren’t aware that there are extra cameras watching guests?” Malik’s voice had turned brisk.
“I’m seriously telling you that very thing.
The cameras are tiny. No exaggeration. They are dark and they are attached to dark surfaces.
If you don’t know what you’re looking for, you miss them.
And the security guards I’ve met are all retired guys looking to chill and strolling around without any weapons and whistling to announce their approach long before they would ever surprise anyone.
In other words, we are not dealing with the A Team here. ”
“How many cameras?” Malik pushed.
Gray stared at Emerson. She held up seven fingers. He nodded. He’d counted the same. “Seven. That we saw. Not like we could examine every inch of this place.” But he rattled off the locations that they had checked.
“If the manager of the resort finds out about those cameras, he will insist on having them removed,” Emerson warned.
Yeah. And a removal would mean that they couldn’t track the signal but…
If we leave them up, the perp will have a chance to look for more prey.
“I want to attract his attention.” Emerson swung her legs as they dangled over the edge of the bed. Sand dripped from her sandals.
“You did attract it,” Gray snapped.
“Let’s be sure of that.” She thrust back her shoulders.
“Malik can try to track down the signal for those cameras. See where they are transmitting. And I’ll dramatically find one of the cameras when we are out hitting our list of must-do activities.
I’ll make sure and alert the security team with my grand discovery.
That way, we’ll stop our perp from watching anyone else and we’ll make sure that he’s extra angry with me. ”
Hell. That would catch the killer’s eye. Even more than it’s already been caught.
“That’s why we’re here, remember?” Emerson seemed to read his thoughts. “Besides, I have you to keep me safe. My protective, ever-so-attentive husband.”
He nearly shattered the phone. “See what you can discover, Malik.” After Emerson’s “find” of the cameras, he’d get Rylan to covertly sneak in and get access to the equipment.
Maybe the FBI techs would be able to learn more once they had the cameras in their possession.
Maybe the dumbass perp even left some prints for us to find.
In his experience, perps could screw up in the most basic of ways.
“On it.” Malik ended the call after a short, terse exchange where Gray rattled off a few more orders. And then…
Gray tossed the phone onto the nightstand. Right next to the champagne that waited in the ice bucket. The bucket must have been helluva insulated because the ice had barely melted. He kept towering over Emerson because he knew a fight brewed between them. Her eyes practically shot fire at him.
He waved her on. Didn’t crook his finger as she had done. Waved. Her. On. “Let me have it.”
“How do you know I count things?”
That was her first shot? He sighed. “Emerson, sweetheart, sometimes, your mouth literally moves, and I can almost hear you saying the numbers.”
The mouth in question dropped open in shock. “It does not. ”
“Yeah, baby, it does so. You usually do it when you’re super stressed.
And even if you aren’t silently mouthing the numbers, I can see your eyes ticking past objects as you count them.
” He shrugged. “I’ve seen you count steps when you enter a building.
When you were in O’Sullivan’s that night with the team, you counted to see how many tables were between you and the door. ”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I watched you. You know, when you were busy letting Rylan rub his arm all over yours.”
She jumped off the bed. Bumped into him. “I did not!”
“Did not count the tables or did not let him rub his arm over yours? Because both things happened. I was there. Watching.” Being a stalker. Doing his due diligence.
“You sound jealous,” Emerson accused as she tipped back her head and glared at him.
“Probably because I am.” Guilty as charged.
There was no fast, angry comeback from her. If anything, she appeared confused. When a bit too much time passed, she questioned, voice lower, “Why would you be jealous?”
“Because I don’t want Rylan or any other jackass touching you.” He’d thought that was pretty obvious. “Because you belong to me, Emerson.”
Again, she sent him a look that suggested he had two heads. “Because I’m pretending to be your wife?”
Yes. Maybe. No. “Because you came harder for me last night than I’m sure you’ve ever come for anyone else.” Savage truth.
“And that means…I belong to you?” Emerson shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
Fuck. Gray sucked in a breath. “I’m screwing this up.”
“It seems that you are. Yes.”
His hands clenched into fists at his sides.
“What else have I counted?” she asked, quiet.
“Windows when you’re in a house. Pretty sure you counted the number of books on my shelves at home.”
“I stopped because I got distracted.” She wet her lips. “What other things have you noticed about me?”
Everything. He held that stalkerish retort back. Clearly, he’d made a mistake saying she belonged to him. He wanted to grab tightly to her, never let go, and she wanted…
To taunt a killer. “Wear a neon sign next time,” he rasped.
“Excuse me? I never wear neon.”
“No, you don’t. You typically wear your heels because you like to be taller.
You don’t wear any jewelry at all—except for the rings I gave you.
I suspect because your mother wears jewelry all the time, and you don’t like anything that reminds you of her.
You prefer casual settings to fancy events.
You’re shy, but you fight not to show it.
You try to fit in with others and talk in crowds, but you would always choose to be in a one-on-one situation.
You’re on guard all the time with other people, you keep your feelings in desperate check, and you won’t let your real self show…
probably because you’re afraid that you can’t trust anyone to know the real you.
The you that’s kept prisoner beneath the careful surface you wear. ”
“That’s a whole lot of profiling going on right there, Gray.”
Yeah, it was. “I know a shit-ton about you. But I never expected you to just call out the killer and challenge him to come after you!”
“I thought that was what you wanted. You kissed me and pulled me down to the sand so we’d create a show if he was watching on the camera at the rental booth.”
“Back the hell up,” he barked.
She tried to take a step back, but the bed was right there.
Only he hadn’t been talking about a literal step back.
“You think I kissed you on that beach to attract his attention?” Just so he understood.
Emerson nodded.
“No. No. I did that shit so I could hide the fact that I was telling you about the camera. I want him coming after me, not you.”
“That’s not possible. You know that with this killer, it’s always a package deal.”
And Emerson had just made them one very tempting package.
“What the hell am I supposed to do with you?” Gray spun away.
“Why didn’t you tell me that I had disappointed you?”
Those words froze him. Gray shook his head because he must have misheard.
“I wondered why we didn’t talk about what happened between us this morning. Or at all during the day. Don’t worry, it’s not like I’m going to pressure you for a repeat performance.”
He spun around so fast that Gray was kinda surprised that he didn’t give himself whiplash. “You can’t be serious right now.”
Those had better not be tears gleaming in her eyes.
She blinked, quickly, to try and bat them away.
Dammit, those were tears. His hands rose. He cupped her face. “There is nothing about you that could ever disappoint me. Not one single thing, do you understand me?”
“You don’t have to lie?—”
“Emerson, I have no tells when I lie. Unless I want to show someone a tell. Then I’ll rub my nose or swipe a hand over my jaw.
Toss out some shit to make people think they understand me.
” He used his fake tells in order to trick and manipulate others.
“So you just have to take me at my word. I’m not lying. You were the best fuck of my life.”
She…squeaked.
So freaking adorable.
Then she confessed, “You were the best of mine, too, though I didn’t exactly have a lot to compare you against.”
Yeah, just her two-minute wonder of an ex.
“You didn’t mention what happened between us last night,” she breathed.
“Because I was trying to be tactful and not say, ‘Hey, Emerson, I want to fuck you up against the nearest wall at the earliest opportunity.’”
“Oh.”
Uh, huh. Oh.
She licked her lips. “When we came in this room—the first time, you know, with Hannah?—”
“Yeah, I know Hannah.”
“You just dropped me on the bed. Then you backed away.”
“The better not to fuck you because I was afraid I’d made you sore the night before. What with it being two years and all, and my dick being so big that I could feel you stretching around me with every inch that you took in that sweet, hot pussy.”
Her eyes held his. “I was sore.”
“I was trying to be a gentleman.”
A pause. “I don’t care about being sore.”
His breath expelled. He kissed his control goodbye and told her, “And I am sick to death of being a gentleman.”