"Not long."

"We should talk."

"Talking is overrated."

"Communication between a husband and wife isn't," she told him.

Griff led her to the bed, removed his robe, and lowered his head to kiss her. Nic lifted her hand between them and covered his lips with her fingertips.

He stopped and looked her in the eye. "You're going to make me talk, aren't you?" His lips curved in a hint of a smile.

"Put your robe back on and I'll put on mine so our being naked won't be a distraction." She reached down, picked up his robe, and handed it to him.

While he put on the robe, she found hers lying on the floor and quickly retrieved it. After slipping into it, she motioned to Griff and he followed her into the sitting area of their bedroom. When they were seated together on the sofa, Nic reached out and took his hands in hers.

"Talk."

"Someone is targeting my people," Griff said. "It's my responsibility to find out who and stop them before anyone else is killed."

Nic squeezed his hands rea.s.suringly. "I think you're right. My gut instincts are telling me the same thing. The only difference is that you're convinced the killer is someone from your past on Amara and I'm keeping an open mind. It could well be someone from your more recent past, even someone from our past together, someone who has nothing to do with Amara or Malcolm York."

He pulled his hands out of hers and knotted them into fists. After working his hands open and closed a couple of times, he rubbed his palms up and down his robe-clad thighs.

"Sanders and I have begun going over records that date back to the inception of the Powell Agency, searching for anyone who might have a grudge against me personally or the agency in general. So far, we've found nothing that aroused our suspicion, but I've a.s.signed half a dozen employees to go over the files and another half a dozen to work exclusively on this case."

"You've already done all of that without discussing it with me." Nic knew that by now she should be used to Griff making decisions and acting on them and then telling her after the fact. He couldn't seem to get it through his thick skull that they were a team, as husband and wife and as business partners.

Griff frowned. "Do you object to what I've done?"

"No, I think you're handling this in the best way possible, but it would have been nice if we had made these decisions together, if I'd known beforehand."

"You know now." He shot up off the sofa. "d.a.m.n it, Nic, I wasn't hiding anything from you. I'm not keeping any secrets about this. I thought..." He paced back and forth in front of the fireplace.

Nic sighed heavily. "It's all right." She patted the sofa. "Come sit back down."

He eyed the sofa. "If what Meredith sensed is correct, then the killer is an a.s.sa.s.sin. He's been hired to do the killing. That probably means there is someone rich and powerful behind the murders, someone who is striking out at me through my people."

"Meredith could be wrong."

Griff sat beside Nic, but didn't touch her. "I don't think so. Yvette says that her abilities are the most powerful she's ever seen."

Yvette. It always came back to her, didn't it? Yvette thinks. Yvette believes. Yvette wants. Yvette needs.

"Don't look at me that way," Griff told her.

"What way is that?"

"I thought we had finally worked through your suspicions about Yvette. You told me that you were going to try to be friends with her."

"I am trying. I know she's important to you."

Griff grasped Nic's shoulders. "She is important to me and so is Sanders, but no one is more important to me than you are."

G.o.d, how she wanted to believe him. d.a.m.n it, she did believe him. He loved her with the same pa.s.sion and devotion that she felt for him. She would bet her life on it. "I know," she managed to reply in a choked whisper.

He caressed her cheek.

After clearing her throat, she asked, "So, while we have agents examining the records looking for someone from the agency's past who might have hired an a.s.sa.s.sin, what are we going to do to find out if whoever hired the killer is someone connected to your past on Amara?"

"By retracing the steps Yvette, Sanders, and I took from the day we escaped from Amara until I returned to the U.S."

"And will this involve your going back to Europe and Asia and searching for pieces of your past with Yvette and Sanders?"

"At this point, I see no need to do more than send agents overseas to do some in-depth digging, highly trained agents, men I trust implicitly. I plan to put Luke Sentell in charge, and if Yvette agrees, if and when he unearths something, I'll ask Meredith to help him."

"It seems you've given this a great deal of thought," Nic said. "But there is one possibility that you haven't considered."

"What possibility is that?"

"That whoever killed Kristi and Sh.e.l.ley may be someone from my past. After all, I worked on some high-profile cases when I was with the Bureau."

Alone in his hotel room in LA, he watched with morbid fascination as the two men cornered the woman and dragged her down to the floor. She fought them halfheartedly, her arms flaying, her head turning from side to side as one of the men lay down beside her and pulled her over and on top of him. The camera got a close-up of their genitals as the man rammed his p.e.n.i.s into the woman and then quickly withdrew. The other man stood over her, a thin black whip in his hand. As the woman rode the man beneath her, the man behind her cracked the whip and brought it down over her bare b.u.t.tocks. Again and again.

By the time she and her partner reached simultaneous o.r.g.a.s.ms-probably faked-her b.u.t.t bore a series of red stripes. The skin had not been broken, only reddened and possibly bruised.

Moments afterward, the man standing over her tossed the whip aside and jerked the woman up and onto her knees. He reached down and yanked off her fancy mask, revealing Candy Ruff's beautiful face. Terri Owens's face.

At this moment in the movie, the revelation of Candy's ident.i.ty always excited him. Oddly enough, far more than any of the blatantly s.e.xual acts.

As he pleasured himself, his hand moving rapidly up and down the length of his p.e.n.i.s, tears trickled down his cheeks. He hated them, every last one of them. If not for their wicked acts captured on film for the world to see, he wouldn't be doing this. It was their fault that he found it difficult to achieve an o.r.g.a.s.m unless he was either watching Midnight Masquerade Midnight Masquerade or thinking about it, reliving the scenes in his mind. or thinking about it, reliving the scenes in his mind.

The man on screen threaded his fingers through Candy Ruff's long, blond hair and forced her face against his erection. Without being prompted, she opened her mouth and began licking him from tip to root.

Candy Ruff took her fellow actor's c.o.c.k into her mouth.

Watching her on film while she sucked her on-screen partner's d.i.c.k, he wept. His body shook with a combination of pleasure and shame when he climaxed. As the tremors continued rippling through his body, he turned onto his side and glanced at the bedside clock through a haze of tears.

2:30 A.M A.M. Pacific time.

She felt his warm breath against her cheek when he nuzzled her ear. Coming awake languidly, her nipples peaking and awareness tightening inside her, Lorie sighed as she turned and reached for Mike.

If this is a dream, dear G.o.d, I don't ever want to wake up.

Her body ached with pleasure and longed for more. More of Mike. His mouth on hers, his lips tasting every inch of her, his tongue flicking across her nipples and between her thighs. His big hands smoothing over her from head to toe, his fingertips seeking and finding every erogenous zone. Mike on her, over her, behind her...inside her. Their first time had been fast and fierce, the second time slower, more sensual, more explorative. They had slept briefly, awakened, made love, slept and awakened again.

Mike ran his hand down her back and cupped her b.u.t.t, pulling her toward him and pressing her into his morning arousal. He kissed her, a light brush of his lips across hers. Sighing dreamily, she caressed his cheek, her fingers encountering dark, scratchy beard stubble.

"I need to shave," he said.

"Later. First things first." She rubbed herself against him.

He laughed. "That's what I like, a woman who has her priorities straight."

"Do you have to go into your office today?" She kissed his shoulder, bit it softly, and then licked the bite.

Mike groaned. "I'm afraid so. But I don't have to be there until ten." He threw one big, hairy leg across her and hoisted himself up and over her. "That gives us plenty of time for more important matters."

She brought her arms up and around his neck as she stared into his eyes. "I wish..." She had been about to say that she wished this could last forever.

As if reading her mind, he said, "It is what it is. Not the past, not the future, just here and now. Is that enough for you?"

"Yes." She lied to him, told him what she thought he wanted to hear.

"I do love you, Lorie. I always have and probably always will."

She saw the truth in his eyes, but she also saw the sadness and regret.

"I know. I feel the same way."

He lifted her hips and lowered his mouth to hers, kissing her as he pushed slowly and deeply inside her. They lay together, their bodies joined, their breaths mingling, as they kissed with tender pa.s.sion.

If only she could capture this perfect moment and keep it for the rest of her life. But the moment pa.s.sed, as all moments do. The gentle kisses turned pa.s.sionate. The blissful stillness of lying together in the preliminary stage of lovemaking exploded into fulfillment-seeking action. They exchanged dominant positions twice. She shoved him over and got on top, riding him hard and fast as he urged her on and then after she reached her first climax, he toppled her onto her back again and brought her to a second climax before he came.

Chapter 30.

"There's a problem with Mrs. Owens," Ashley White said as she came rushing toward the nurses' station. "Monique is with her and trying to calm her down, but she's real agitated. I've never seen her like this."

"Do you have any idea what upset Miss Terri?" Lila Newton asked the nurse's aide. Mr. Ransom hadn't shown up this morning, so she knew his morning visit had not caused the problem.

"No, ma'am, I don't have the foggiest."

"Is there someone in her room?"

"No, ma'am. I didn't see a soul. Of course, one of the other patients from a nearby room could have wandered in and out before we heard Mrs. Owens throwing things and hollering like crazy."

"Let me see if I can't calm her down without resorting to medication." Lila came out from behind the waist-high counter and hurried down the corridor past the security guard, Ashley on her heels. Halfway down the hall, she heard an awful caterwauling coming from Terri's room, and Monique, one of the day-shift aides, talking to her sternly yet pleadingly.

This was worst than she'd thought, so Lila turned around and went back up the hall. She logged out a vial from the locked medicine cabinet and picked up a hypodermic in case she needed to sedate Terri. She would use the medication only as a last resort.

The door to room 107 stood partially ajar, enough so that Lila immediately got a glimpse of the items that had been thrown onto the floor. A plastic water pitcher and matching cup, Terri's breakfast tray, with food splattered in every direction, and the extra blanket that was usually folded and tucked neatly at the foot of the bed.

Lila entered the room, careful not to step on the specks of scrambled eggs and the small puddles of coffee. Monique looked at Lila and shook her head.

"I don't know what set her off," Monique said. "It's not like Mrs. Owens to act up this way."

"Did you say anything that might have upset her?"

"No, ma'am. I swear I didn't. I didn't say nothing to her except I guess she'd miss her son's visits while he was out of town."

"That shouldn't have upset her," Lila said. "Mr. Tyler's gone out of town before and it hasn't seemed to bother her."

"No, ma'am."

"Miss Terri," Lila called as she approached the bed where Terri sat straight up, her good arm flaying wildly as she mumbled incoherently. "What's got you so all-fired upset this morning?"

Terri's gaze met Lila's and for a couple of seconds she quieted. "Mu...mu...su...su...buh, buh..." Frustrated by her inability to communicate verbally, Terri pointed to the adjustable wheeled table from which she had tossed her breakfast tray.

Lila gazed down to the spot where Terri's purple-tipped finger pointed. Grape jelly had been smeared on the top of the over-bed table. Apparently, Terri had used the index finger of her left hand to try to print out a word using the grape jelly as paint.

Terri concentrated on Lila's face as Lila tried to read the word, but all the letters weren't legible. She managed to make out what appeared to be a "T" and an "L" and maybe either an "S" or a very crooked "R."

"T-L-S?" Lila asked.

Terri shook her head.

"T-L-R?"

Terri nodded.

T-L-R. T-L-R. Lila looked at the smeared lettering again. Tyler? "Were you trying to spell out Tyler?"

Terri nodded and motioned wildly with her left hand.

"You want to see Mr. Tyler?" Lila asked.

Terri nodded. "Mmm...mmm..."

"But don't you remember, Mr. Tyler went out of town for a few days."

Tears pooled in Terri's eyes.

Lila leaned over and whispered, "Do you want me to call Mr. Ransom?"

An odd expression crossed over Terri's face before she shook her head.