TRACE EVIDENCE Page 13

  He raked his hands up and down her back, the material of the robe slick and silky. But he didn't want to feel her robe. He wanted to feel the silk of her skin.

  With their mouths still locked together in a breathless kiss, he shoved the robe from her shoulders and it fell to the floor behind her. He slid his hands over her shoulders, her skin as soft, as satiny as he'd imagined.

  He broke their kiss and stepped back from her, wanting to see her in the scrap of silk he'd been fantasizing about since the moment he'd seen it thrown across her bed.

  Just as he'd imagined, the bright yellow silk was in beautiful contrast to her dusky skin tones. Her nipples showed through the thin material. Dark and erect, they beckoned his hands forward with the need to touch … to caress.

  As he covered her breasts with his hands and flicked his thumbs across her turgid nipples, a soft moan of pleasure escaped her.

  The sound sent an electric jolt through him and once again he grabbed her to him and tangled his hands in the length of her hair.

  "For the last two nights all I've been able to do is think about you in that nightgown … think about you out of that nightgown." As he spoke, his mouth moved down her jawline, nipping lightly at the sweet-scented tender skin of her neck and throat.

  She dropped her head back to allow him access to the secret hollows and sensitive skin. The obvious acquiescence of the action torched his desire for her to a higher degree.

  He felt as if all his civilized manners were burning away, leaving the primal need to rip the nightgown from her body, throw her on his bed and take complete and utter possession of her.

  His mouth moved across the smooth skin of her shoulder as his hands once again cupped her breasts through the gown. Her hands were no less busy … running across the width of his back, teasingly touching his waist just above where the towel hung precariously around his hips.

  Each touch of her fingers threatened to snap what little control he had left. He couldn't ever remember wanting another woman as badly as he wanted her. He couldn't ever remember feeling the intense need he felt right now.

  Surprised to find his fingers trembling, he reached up and slid the spaghetti straps from her shoulders. She shrugged her shoulders to aid him.

  The yellow silk hung for just a moment against her full breasts, then tumbled to the floor, leaving her clad only in a transparent pair of panties that left nothing to his imagination.

  The moment her nightgown left her body, she reached out and pulled the end of the towel that released the terry cloth and sent it to the floor as well.

  They stood face-to-face, naked and proud, unself-consciously eyeing each other with hunger. "Beautiful," he said.

  "I feel beautiful when you look at me that way," she replied. She slid two fingers beneath the waist of the panties and drew them slowly down over her hips and down her shapely thighs. When they reached the floor she stepped out of them and took a step closer to the bed.

  The inertia that had momentarily gripped him snapped and once again he reached for her, this time tumbling them both onto his bed as his mouth ravished hers. He couldn't get enough of her … the taste of her … the feel of her as their bodies entwined.

  Don't rush … don't rush, a little voice whispered in his head. Somewhere in a place where common sense still reined, he knew this was in all probability a onetime, one-night-stand kind of thing. He wanted it to be an experience she would never forget.

  Once again he claimed her mouth, at the same time his hands moved over her breasts, teasing the taut tips as she moaned her pleasure.

  He replaced his hands with his mouth, licking and biting lightly at her nipples as her hands tangled in his hair, then scratched lightly across his shoulders.

  As he loved her breasts with his mouth, his hands slid across her flat abdomen, down her hips and across the sensitive area of her inner thigh. She responded to his touch, moving her hips in a rhythm as ageless as time itself.

  He stroked her thighs, her hips, her lower abdomen, but didn't touch her intimately. He wanted her gasping with want … desperate with need.

  When she reached down to grasp him in her hand, he caught her wrist and gazed at her. "Not yet," he whispered, reveling in the glaze that had descended over her eyes … the glaze of sheer pleasurable sensation.

  He didn't want her to touch him yet. He knew that with her first touch he'd lose what little control he was desperately trying to maintain.

  Again he raked his fingers along her inner thighs, stopping just short of where he knew she needed his touch most of all.

  "You're torturing me." The words came from her as a whispered gasp.

  "I know. I want you desperate for me."

  She laughed and half sobbed at the same time. "I am desperate for you."

  He laughed, but the laughter swiftly died as he captured her lips once again. At the same time his fingers touched the moist cleft between her thighs.

  She gasped against his mouth as he moved his fingers against her, stroking her where he knew all her nerves were centered.

  She arched to meet him, thrashing against the bed as her body grew taut with tension. Her fingers gripped the sheets on either side of her as he continued a rhythm intended to drive her over the edge.

  He'd never been as aroused as he was at this moment, watching her as the waves of pleasure swept through her. She cried out and stiffened and he knew she was there, drowning in the waves.

  Her entire body went limp and her eyes flickered open and held his gaze. Not saying a word, she reached down and encircled his arousal with her hand. The feel of her fingers wrapped firmly around him caused his breath to catch painfully in his chest.

  A voracious need filled him as her fingers stroked lightly up and down the length of him. He needed to be inside her now, feeling her velvety depths surrounding him.

  With a groan, he moved away from her and reached into his nightstand. He withdrew one of the foil wrappers. Even though he was half-mindless with passion, he wasn't stupid.

  She surprised him by taking the package from him. She ripped it open, then withdrew the condom from inside. She pushed him so that he was on his back, then she kissed each of his flat male nipples as her hair caressed his chest.

  The raw sensuality she exuded made him feel as if he were about to explode. He groaned again and she raised her head and smiled at him, her eyes sparking with pleasure. Again she licked and kissed his nipples, then moved her mouth down his chest, down his abdomen, stopping just short of touching his erection.

  This time his groan was louder, a savage expression of the intense need that ripped up from deep inside him. He froze as she took the condom and slid it over the tip of him. Slowly she rolled it down his erect length, then encircled him once again with her hand.

  He grabbed her hand to keep it still, knowing that if she stroked him he would lose all control. "Now you're torturing me." His voice was so raspy, so guttural he scarcely recognized it as his own.

  "I know. I want you desperate for me," she said, repeating back to him his own words.

  "I am desperate for you," he said and rolled her over on her back. Poised above her, he watched her eyes as he slid into her. Dark and filled with emotion, they held his gaze, then flickered closed as a moan escaped her lips.

  Buried inside her, he remained still for a long moment, the sensation of her warmth overwhelming him. He fought for control, but as she raised her knees to allow him greater depth, the last modicum of control shattered.

  They moved together in a frenzy, meeting each other thrust for thrust. He was vaguely aware of her crying his name over and over again as he continued to plunge into her.

  He felt the tension once again building in her, knew by the rake of her fingers against his back and the wildness of her movements that she was about to reach the pinnacle once again.

  He increased his rhythm, wanting her, needing her to get there before he did and he was perilously close. As she tightened her thighs around him and cried out once
again, he felt the tremors that shook her body. That was all it took for him to fall into his own spiral of release.

  * * *

  They made love once more before he fell asleep, his arms wrapped tightly around her, his body pressed intimately against her own.

  She couldn't sleep. She was flooded with emotions too enormous to allow slumber. Nothing she had ever experienced with Max had come close to the mind-shattering pleasure of Clay's lovemaking. Nothing in her wildest imagination had come close to conceiving mentally the heights of splendor that were possible when making love.

  In this, he'd been her warrior—in control, sure of himself and commanding. He'd also been gentle and tender and had caused her to respond to him not only physically, but emotionally as well.

  She knew better than to read anything special into what they'd just shared. It had been an explosion of physical desire for him, nothing more, nothing less.

  He'd told her exactly what he was offering before she'd come into his bedroom. And even knowing that emotionally he'd been offering little, she hadn't been able to stop herself from going to him.

  "Tell me why the hummingbird is your totem."

  His voice in the darkness of the night surprised her. She thought he was sleeping. She raised her head so she could look at him, loving the way the moonlight filtering in through the window caressed his relaxed features.

  "The hummingbird seeks out the nectar of life by only going to the sweetness and beauty each flower offers. That's what I've always tried to do … to see the beauty, to look for the good in everything and everyone. The hummingbird struck a chord in me from a very early age and I embraced it as my totem." She hesitated a moment, then asked. "What about you? What's your totem animal?"

  "It doesn't matter. I don't believe in that stuff." His hand stroked her hip. He lay on his back, an arm around her as she lay on her side with her hand on his chest. She could see in the moonlight that he was staring up at the ceiling.

  "Okay, you don't believe in it, but I'd still like to know what your totem animal was when you did believe."

  He finally moved his head slightly so he looked at her. "I was born at home and my mother always told me that my totem was the raccoon. She said that moments after I was born four raccoons came up to the bedroom window and peered inside and she knew then that the raccoon would be my totem."

  She smiled. "The raccoon is a good totem. They're known for being intelligent and cunning and great protectors." Her smile faded. "Why did you stop believing, Clay? Why did you decide to reject being Native?" She held her breath, afraid that her questions might anger him.

  He once again focused his gaze on the ceiling above them. His hand continued to caress her naked hip as a deep sigh escaped him. "I was ten years old when my mother opened the doors to the cultural center for the first time. For several years before that she'd been busy in the planning stages, getting funding, looking at blueprints, sharing her vision with anyone who would listen. There were times I thought that the cultural center was like a bothersome, time-consuming sibling."

  "You were jealous of it?" she asked.

  He bunched his pillow beneath his head so he was sitting up just a bit instead of lying flat. "Sure, but you know my mother, it was impossible not to get caught up in the excitement of it all."

  Tamara smiled as she thought of his mother. Rita was passionate in her love of her heritage and her need to share it and educate others.

  "What a lot of people don't know is how much opposition she faced in what she was trying to do," he continued. "Most people still believed we belonged on reservations trading horses and drinking whisky."

  She crossed her arms on his chest and rested her chin on top, enjoying the rumble of his voice, the warmth of his skin against hers. "But your mother was determined."

  He smiled. "She was like a dog with a bone. The more people told her it would never happen, the more determined she was to make it happen." His smile fell and instead his features tensed.

  She reached a hand out and stroked it down his strong jaw. "You'll find her, Clay, I know you will. You're like the raccoon … intelligent and cunning and you have great hunting powers."

  He looked as if he were about to protest, then simply sighed again. "I was thirteen years old when I decided I didn't want to be Native anymore," he continued.

  "Why? What happened?"

  "Every weekend Mom dragged me to the cultural center to participate in something. At the same time I was also on the junior high school football team. One Sunday afternoon I was dancing at the cultural center when I looked out in the audience and saw the football team members there."

  Tamara saw what was coming. She knew the cruelty of children and how sharp the gibes of taunting could jab. She had experienced some of it herself when she'd been young.

  "They were laughing," he continued. "Laughing and pointing at me and I was mortified. For the next two weeks at school they tormented me, calling me dancing Indian boy, decorating my locker with feathers and beads. I told my mother I would never participate at the cultural center again and I quit the football team."

  "Kids can be very mean." She had a feeling there was more to the story, but she was afraid to press him. Childish taunts from silly kids wouldn't be enough to make a man hate his roots, hate the very essence of who he was.

  She wanted to ask more questions, but was afraid. She didn't know if it was the darkness of the room that had allowed him to let down his guard and share just a little bit of himself, or the fact that they'd been intimate with each other.

  "Yeah, there are a lot of mean people in the world. That's why I like doing what I do … helping put mean people behind bars."

  "Are you good at what you do?"

  "As good as I can be with the equipment I have. I'd love to work at one of the labs they show on those television shows. They have workspace and equipment that I can only dream about. Too much of the physical evidence I get has to be sent away to Oklahoma City for testing."

  "But surely there are a lot of preliminary things you can do."

  "Sure." He frowned. "But so far my work hasn't yielded results in the cases that are most important."

  She flattened her hands and kissed his chest. "You'll find her, Clay."

  "It's not just my mother I'm worried about. The person who killed Greg Maxwell and Sam McClane is still out there and nobody knows when another murder will occur." His hand caressed up from her hip and along the side of her breast. "And then there's you."

  His warm hand made it difficult for her to concentrate on anything else. "You don't have to worry about me," she replied with effort. "I still think the vandalism is the work of a student, but none of them are crazy enough to play the legend out to the end."

  "It's pretty damn crazy to take bear claws and mark up rooms with deer blood," he countered. He turned on his side so he was facing her. "And what's craziest of all is that I want you again."

  "That doesn't sound crazy at all to me," she said, half-breathlessly, then went willingly into his arms as his lips met hers in a kiss that left no doubt of the desire that burned through them both.

  * * *

  Dawn was just breaking when the ringing of the phone awakened them. Clay sat up and fumbled for the phone on the nightstand, as alert as if he'd been waiting for the call. Tamara sat up as well, knowing that a dawn phone call could only mean trouble.

  "I'm on my way," Clay said after listening for only a moment. He hung up the phone and was out of the bed at the same time. "Go back to sleep," he said to her as he pulled on a pair of jeans. "It's still early."

  "What's happened?" she asked.

  "There's been another murder." He pulled a T-shirt over his head. "I'll call you when I get a chance. In the meantime don't open the door for anyone." With these final words he left the room.

  Another murder. Tamara sat up and swung her feet over the side of the bed. It was so difficult to imagine that while she and Clay had made love, while they had shared in the beauty of the phys
ical give and take, somebody evil had been taking the life of another.

  * * *

  Chapter 12

  «^»

  As Clay drove toward the center of town where Glen Cleberg had told him the body had been found, he went over the checklist of his job in his head. Approach scene. Secure and protect scene. Preliminary survey. Evaluate physical evidence possibilities. Photograph scene. Sketch scene. Detailed search and record and collection of physical evidence. Final survey.

  He knew his job as well as he knew the beat of his own heart, but he needed to focus on something other than the warm, sweet woman who had been in his arms throughout the night.

  Still, even knowing he was headed to a horrible crime scene, his mind couldn't release the memories of the night he'd just shared with Tamara. He'd known instinctively that she'd be passionate, but he hadn't expected the intense passion she'd shown.

  He'd known instinctively that she would be gentle and tender, but he hadn't expected those traits to be tempered with a teasing sensuality that had driven him half-mad.

  Almost as good as the sex had been the way their bodies had fit together so neatly as they'd slept. It was as if each had been made specifically for the other.

  He'd felt a peace that he hadn't felt for as long as he could remember and for just a moment it seemed as if everything was right in the world.

  He frowned and shoved these thoughts away, knowing he'd need all his concentration for what lie ahead. Besides, everything wasn't right with the world. He was headed to a murder scene and his mother was still missing. And there was no way in hell he would ever be the kind of man Tamara wanted and needed in her life.

  Glen had given him precious little information, only that Tim O'Brien had been found naked and dead and on the sidewalk in front of the hardware store.

  Clay didn't know Tim O'Brien well, although he'd seen him around town and knew he owned a real estate office. He'd been a good-looking man in his late thirties. And now, from what Glen had told Clay, he was the third victim of the Shameless Slasher.