HOSTAGE (To Love A Killer) Read online

  Hunter pulled her tee up and over her head and let it fall freely to the floor. The way her brown waves spilled back over her shoulders was seductive, and Ash felt himself straining against his jeans, as though every fiber of his being was dying to thrust inside of her and make a home deep within, working only to stimulate her to the heights of both their pleasure.

  Ash cupped her breast in his hand, feeling the soft lace that covered it. They were so petite and perky, the nipples small and hard. It was as though Hunter had been made for him. She embodied everything that turned him on.

  In an instant, he unfastened Hunter’s bra, lowering it slowly and savoring the beautiful sight of her topless. Soon he wrapped his warm, wet mouth around her nipple and sucked gently.

  The sensation was highly erotic, sending ripples of heat flowing through Hunter’s aching loins. The way his tongue felt, hot, flicking her nipple, as his hands found their way to her round ass again to squeeze and tease her, was bringing Hunter to a new peak of desire. Of course she had slept with men before, sometimes for fun and often for money, but she had never wanted it, yearned for it, she had never ached for it like she was right now for Ash. These were uncharted waters.

  Hunter realized she was reaching for him, feeling for the bulge under his jeans, almost as if by reflex or instinct. Her eyes floated closed the moment Ash’s lips found hers, leaving her breast wet from his suckling, cool in the air.

  He unbuttoned her jeans without her noticing it. It was only when Ash began to tug them down, exposing the light pink panties she was wearing, that she realized her pants were coming off. And she liked it.

  There was something incredibly sexy about looking down at Ash on his knees as he freed one leg from her jeans, then the other. The way his broad shoulder’s strained and rippled in the effort, the way his arms flexed and relaxed. He was a downright hunk, and he wanted nothing more from her than to witness her pleasure. The thought of it made her grow even wetter, surging with a sweet ache that burned stronger than it had until this moment.

  He guided her to the bed, carving out room for himself between her legs, then lowered down until he was hovering, nose to nose, above Hunter.

  She felt exceptionally sexy lying there beneath him, the lines of her nearly naked body, the curves of her breasts and hips, all within her periphery added to her arousal. Hunter liked the way his hips lowered further, pressing into the apex between her legs, as though he belonged there.

  He pressed his lips against hers, kissing her for a long moment, then pulled back preparing to whisper in her ear, their new mode of communication during these titillating exchanges.

  “I’m going to lick you, Hunter. You’re so sexy and beautiful. Does that sound good?”

  Hunter’s heart was fluttering and her breath had quickened so dramatically that she wasn’t sure she had the words to respond. She nodded, as a sensual moan escaped her lips, an indication of her hunger for him.

  He lowered down, aligning his gaze with her gorgeous panties and gently pulled them down at the corners.

  Hunter watched as a wry smile spread across his face the second she lifted her hips, helping him to slide her panties down her ass, revealing the soft, tight, curls between her legs. She felt so wet and hot for him. She could feel his warm breath, the breeze of each exhale graze across her hot throbbing loins and it only served to build her desire.

  Ash glanced up at her, meeting her gaze. He looked turned on and slightly sleepy in a highly sexy way that increased the exquisite throbbing inside.

  And then it began. First Hunter felt his hot, slippery wet tongue lightly slide up the length of her throbbing slit, then pause over her sweet mound. The sensation drove her wild, a slow quake, hot as molten lava oozed through her until the tension had risen, bringing her with it, to new heights of pleasure.

  She moaned, highly sensitive to his touch. The sound of her made him stiffen harder than he ever thought possible. Hunter was sex personified and had driven him crazy since the moment he had first seen her, but this was out of this world.

  He licked her again, sliding his slippery hot tongue up the length of her until he paused on her throbbing mound. This time, Ash began slowly circling there.

  It was building inside of her. The sweet aching throb was building into a slow burning surge towards ecstasy. Hunter felt the intensity of it, sweeping her up, carrying her away into a sustained euphoric bliss. He licked, then swirled, then licked again, each time causing a heat wave to surge through her loins, stimulating every nerve ending, arousing every cell. He was bringing her closer and closer to the peak.

  Suddenly he pressed his mouth around her mound and began to suck.

  Hunter moaned, her head arching back, as her hips rose uncontrollably thrusting towards his sexy mouth.

  Ash steadied her between his hands, continuing to suck. He was bringing her there. The pleasure was mounting, rising, expanding beyond anything she had ever experienced. If he did one more thing, if he added so much as one more sensual sensation, it would tip Hunter over the edge.

  And he knew that.

  All of a sudden, Ash slipped his long finger inside of her firmly.

  Hunter moaned out in intense pleasure.

  She felt hot, wet, and smooth as satin. Ash could feel her tighten against his finger. She was going to come. He looked up at her and watched her writhe around for him in a fit of pleasure, desire, wanting and needing. This was the woman he loved. He would do anything for her. Her pleasure was his.

  Ash returned his mouth to her and began to move his finger inside in a gentle “come-hither” motion, sliding gently up and out, in up and out, in up and out, all the while licking and suckling her.

  That was all it took.

  A massive rush of throbbing heat surged through Hunter. She screamed out a moan of pure delight, riding the wave higher and higher, as Ash brought her to the very peak of her highest pleasure. In an explosion that seized her, arresting her breath, and stealing her ability to do anything but embrace his extraordinary touch, Hunter tipped over the edge, climaxing in the intense rhythm of sweet aching ripples of ecstasy. Her body clenched and contracted in undeniable bliss, riding the wave of pleasure as long as her body would allow it.

  All the while Ash worked her, playing between her legs, drinking in her sweet juices, and savoring every second of her riveting orgasm, he was hard for her, holding himself back, wanting more.

  Eventually, her body subsided, ebbed back to a state of blissful calm. Ash responded in kind, releasing her, and sliding up to meet her on the bed.

  He scooped her in his arms.

  Hunter didn’t hesitate one second, and claimed his glistening lips with her own, kissing him and tasting her need for him on those lips.

  When Hunter finally caught her breath, she turned to Ash and asked, “Is this a dream?”

  He laughed, the melody of his tone inspired true love in Hunter’s heart.

  “No, this is real life. This is our life.”

  “I can’t believe I met you. What did I do to deserve this?” she asked, smiling and resting in the crux of his arm.

  “You deserve it,” he said softly, as he began to drift towards sleep. “We’ve been through enough in our lives. It’s time to be happy.”

  Hunter liked the idea of that. She agreed, but there was so much they had to do before they could rest in a comfortable state of happiness together.

  And they had no way of knowing if they’d live long enough to get there.

  Chapter Five Sarah had been sitting on the back patio long before the call arrived. Early morning had been her only prayer of cooler weather these past few months, so she had gotten in the habit of rising at 6:00 am to sit outside and savor the cool temperature. It had become something of a ritual, using coffee and cool air to shake off sleep in the concrete backyard of her house. She would miss this come winter time.

  Weeds had wrestled their way through cracks in the patio, giving the place a rundown, sunken in appearance, but Sarah liked it.
It never quite sat right with her that she had bought a house, lived in a nice neighborhood, and could see Prospect Park from her bedroom window. Part of her felt like she didn’t deserve it. Part of her knew she would never call this house a home. It made her uncomfortable. It was too nice, yet the irony was that in a lot of ways it wasn’t. The house hadn’t been renovated in decades. The wooden floorboards creaked underfoot. The roof needed new shingles, something Sarah wouldn’t have time for unless the rain would force her to make time. Nervous the mortgage would be too high, she was renting out the upper floor to a young married couple. She heard practically everything they did. The house by no standard was nice, but compared to the bullet holes and broken plumbing of her place in the Gowanus, her new place was a serious step up.

  Sarah flipped her cell phone shut and rested it on the ground beside her, knowing that time was of the essence and she needed to get going.

  She had heard a lot of information about Hunter Mann in the past twelve hours, but not enough to make full sense of the triple homicide that had gone down in the girl’s apartment. They still didn’t have an I.D. on the dead girl in the bathtub, but the dead man, they discovered, was an associate of Dale Williams’ and lived not two doors down from Dale in the exact same town in New Hampshire.

  The department was starting to find it interesting that Hunter Mann too had resided on the same farm as Dale for virtually all her life. It would seem Hunter had left the farm and the men had followed her. At least that was what the department was saying and Sarah couldn’t deny it. But they didn’t know why. They didn’t know what the New Hampshire men wanted from Hunter.

  Sarah’s gut told her that the sequence of events that led to the murders had more to do with self-defense than anything else. But Sarah Voss couldn’t prove anything with hunches. Feelings weren’t facts, the Lieutenant had once told her and as patronizing at that had been, he was right.

  The call that came in alerted Sarah to the fact that Hunter Mann had used her debit card in Connecticut at a motel just off Interstate 93. It would seem Ms. Mann was headed up north, and Sarah knew it was no coincidence that the particular highway Hunter had chosen cut straight through the state of New Hampshire, leading decisively back to the farmhouse, her prior residence.

  The New Hampshire men had come after Hunter, Sarah thought, and now Hunter was striking back. The only problem was that she had left the state and Sarah wouldn’t be authorized to follow. This case was going to go federal, which was the last thing she wanted.

  It was then that Detective Sarah Voss decided to go it alone, even if it meant losing her badge, her pension, and the respect of the department. Sarah would rather walk away from her life than walk away from Hunter Mann.

  Hunter was more like Sarah than she could have ever expected.

  Sarah rose to her feet, the empty coffee mug in her hand, and prepared to head into the Gowanus.

  She needed a smoke screen to get Linden preoccupied and the department off her back so she could head up north alone, and she knew one such smoke screen that just might work.

  * * *

  “This is a terrible idea,” said Linden before washing his doughnut-filled mouth down with three slurps of coffee. “We have an I.D. on almost everyone including the tenant, Hunter Mann. We don’t need to be here. They’re not going to tell us anything we don’t already know.”

  “It’s called a thorough investigation, Charlie. Why are you always so desperate to cut corners?” asked Sarah without looking at her partner.

  “It’s actually called not spreading the department’s resources so thin,” he countered, sounding intelligent for once in his life. “This is a waste of our time.”

  Sarah pounded on the apartment door the second they reached it.

  “NYPD, open the door,” she shouted.

  “What’s your secret agenda, Voss?” he asked, as they waited to the faint sounds of drug dealers scuffling around on the other side of the door.

  “What are you talking about?” she asked with a snort of laughter.

  “You’re after something, I can smell it,” he said.

  She could feel his eyes on him even after turning back towards the door and giving it another pound.

  “Oh yeah?” she responded finally with sarcasm. “And what might that be?” Sarah had to admit to herself that Linden was making her uncomfortable. She had asked to be partnered with him last year because he was notorious for being a doughboy, someone who was more interested in getting through the day without incident than going the extra mile to solve murders. And Sarah had liked that about him. It had given her a wealth of freedom to work as she pleased, often without him after hours, and do things her way. If Linden was going to start using his brain now, especially on this case that Sarah had been growing attached to for her own personal reasons, then the whole deck of cards would come crashing down around her.

  Why was he staring at her like that?

  “Two birds, one stone,” he said.

  Was he seriously going to let that hang between them? Since when was Linden the master of riddles?

  Christ.

  Sarah slowly turned towards him and met his gaze with a dull, “I’m not amused by this” expression.

  “You want to pin the street guns on the gang,” he said excitedly. “Get a little boost in your pension from another crime solved.”

  Sarah smiled smugly to herself.

  Good ol’ Linden, she thought, he’s terrible at what he does.

  Finally the door opened just shy of a crack, restrained by the chain lock on the other side of the door.

  “The fuck are you?” said an enormous, dark-skinned black man after swallowing the first word of his question.

  “Homicide,” said Sarah in a deep tone. “Open the door, let’s talk.”

  “The fuck is this shit?” said the man, as he closed the door momentarily to unhook the chain lock, and swung the door open.

  Marijuana smoke billowed through the open door, and clouds of it still hung thick against the ceiling.

  A few thugs attempted to fan away the smoke. They had done a good job of hiding their shit. The apartment looked dingy, but drug free. A video game was playing on a giant TV screen, a little too loudly for Sarah’s taste, but she was picking her battles this morning.

  “Relax,” she said sternly. “We don’t give a shit about your pot. We’re homicide.”

  Linden seemed reluctant to fully enter the apartment. Maybe he’d feel less vulnerable if he had left the doughnuts in the car, she thought.

  The man who had let them in crossed to the far side of the room and addressed someone in the next room. After a moment, a thin man with light brown skin, and beady eyes entered along with an extremely tall black man who reminded Sarah of a linebacker.

  This was Tiny and the latter was known as “The Chef.” Sarah had dealt with them both several times, never turning them over to Narcotics, but rather keeping them in her back pocket for favors. Information that could help solve a murder, she had always justified, was more important than throwing petty pot dealers in prison.

  They liked her as much as any thug could like a cop, but Linden didn’t know that.

  “Chef, have you seen this girl?” asked Sarah, holding up the photo of Hunter Mann.

  “You know I’m not gonna talk to you unless you spell it out for me, the pros and cons,” he said in a soft, melodic tone that Sarah at times mistook for seductive.

  “I can’t tell you that this time. It would compromise an investigation,” said Sarah, nearly barking.

  Linden’s eyes grew wide at his partner’s moxy. He probably wouldn’t be so blunt with a three hundred pound gangbanger if the roles were reversed.

  “I seen a lot of bitches. These streets are full of ‘em,” said The Chef, shrugging his shoulders and lighting a cigarette.

  “I hate to be an asshole,” said Sarah, “but the fact that I haven’t turned you over to Narcotics has been a privilege, not a right. I can revoke that privilege any time I
want to.”

  “You tough, Sarah,” he said not nearly as sarcastically as Sarah had expected. “She get killed or something?” he asked, ignoring the fact Sarah had just stated she couldn’t tell him anything.

  “Other way around,” she said, returning the photo to her pocket.

  “Good for her,” said The Chef.

  “Did she say anything to you, indicate at all why she needed to buy these guns?” she asked.

  “Yeah, bitch be like her life story like I gave a shit. She didn’t say shit or do shit except hand me cash.”

  “Linden,” said Sarah, “take them downtown, all of them, and get their statements.”

  “What?” said The Chef, suddenly aggressive.

  “I wasn’t talking to you,” said Sarah to The Chef. “Linden? Now.”

  Linden stared at her equally confused.

  “That ain’t our deal,” said The Chef with a raised voice. “I told you what I know and now you gotsta leave.”

  “Linden, this is important,” Sarah reiterated, but Linden wasn’t budging. She needed him to get tied up in paperwork for the rest of the day so she could go up north alone. He wasn’t taking the bait, though. He loved paperwork, it meant sitting on his fat ass and leaving promptly at six. She didn’t need this right now.

  “Waste of time, Voss,” said Linden finally. “Thanks, fellas,” he added before opening the door and stepping into the hallway.

  The Chef was eyeing Sarah hard. She had just made an enemy. Shit.

  Sarah held the man’s gaze, narrowing her eyes to stand her ground, then followed Linden out the door.

  “Don’t leave town,” she said to The Chef before slamming the door behind her.

  “The fuck would I leave town, bitch?” she heard The Chef remark through the closed door.

  As Sarah and Charlie Linden made their way down the piss-stained corridor and out the building, Sarah sensed Linden’s newfound excitement and it immediately grated on her nerves.