Cut Throat. Шарон Сала

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      Cat spent her first night on the road in what Art would have called a no-tell motel. As she was checking in, she couldn’t help but remember the last time she’d been this far south of Dallas. Then it had been an all-out race down highways and interstates, trying to catch Mark Presley before he left the country. Retracing the journey felt surreal. Even though she was once again trailing a blip on a computer screen, this time she was uncertain as to who was behind it. Bottom line, she needed to make sure the devil she’d thought was dead had not resurrected himself.

      By the time she parked and got to her room, she was exhausted. The furnishings were about twenty years out of style but clean enough. Once inside, she locked the door behind her and sat down on the side of the bed, wearily taking in her surroundings. There was a black velvet painting of a bullfight on the wall above the headboard of the bed. The bedspread was pink-and-green cabbage roses larger than the size of her head, and upon closer inspection, she could tell that the carpet wasn’t actually carpet at all but artificial turf. Cat scooted the soles of her boots against the surface and then grimaced, well aware that walking barefoot wasn’t going to be cushy. Her belly grumbled hungrily, but she was too tired to go looking for a place to eat. Instead, she washed her face and hands, lay down on top of the bedspread and rolled over onto her side. Just to rest. Just for a few minutes.

      The next thing she knew, it was two in the morning and she was still in her clothes. She rolled out of bed with a groan. After a quick trip to the bathroom, she kicked off her boots and undressed in the dark. Too tired to look through her suitcase for her pajamas, she crawled back into bed naked, this time beneath the covers.

      And she dreamed.

      He was behind her. She could feel the warmth of his breath against her neck.

      “Wilson…I—”

      When he lifted the hair from the back of her neck, she choked.

      “Shh,” he whispered, as he cupped her breasts and pulled her close against him, then rolled her nipples between his fingers.

      Heat shot through Cat so fast she gasped, then staggered.

      “Is that good, baby? Do you like that?”

      All she could manage was a groan.

      When his hands went south, Cat shuddered, then closed her eyes and let herself go. Wave upon wave of unbelievable pleasure began to build, adding to the aching, white-hot pressure already deep within her. Cat wasn’t accustomed to letting anyone control her body, but she couldn’t find the words to make him stop. The feeling was so good it was frightening, and when she heard Wilson groan, she knew she wasn’t the only one affected by their lovemaking.

      A minute passed, then another and another, while Wilson’s hands and mouth marked a trail of heat all over her body, leaving her almost blind with need. Then, between one breath and another, she began to burn and Wilson sensed it. Before she could think, he dropped to the side of the bed, pulling her with him until she was sitting in his lap, riding his erection.

      She wanted to turn around—to watch his face while they did it—but she was coming so fast she couldn’t breathe. She didn’t want it to be over, but she needed it to stop. And then she screamed.

      Cat woke up with a jerk just as the orgasm rolled through her. Breath caught in the back of her throat as she grabbed onto the sheets. A moment passed in a wave of confusion as she tried to orient herself within the starkness of an unfamiliar motel room—along with the place she’d just been in her head.

      “Damn, damn, damn,” she said with a groan, then rolled over and sat up in the bed.

      She’d left Wilson McKay behind for a reason, only it seemed he wasn’t as easy to ignore as she’d planned. The digital clock on the bedside table clicked over onto six o’clock just as she glanced at it. It was early, but after that dream, there was no way she was going back to sleep.

      Still weak and shaky, she pushed herself up and off the mattress and staggered to the bathroom.

      It was a plain, inconspicuous room about the size of a small closet. The dripping showerhead had left a rusty streak down the side of the tub, which should have been a warning for what was to come.

      Deciding that the wisest thing to do would be not to look into corners too closely, she unwrapped the tiny complimentary bar of soap, then palmed it as she stepped into the shower. She pulled a clean washcloth down from a small shelf, then turned on the water. When she had it adjusted to the warmth she wanted, she pulled up the shower button on the faucet and then gasped when it sputtered rusty water in her face before emitting a somewhat steady stream.

      “Fucking perfect,” Cat muttered, as she washed the rusty gunk from her face.

      A short while later she emerged from the shower and dressed in a warm, comfortable turtleneck sweater and a pair of jeans. She packed, then headed out the door, leaving her room key and a couple of dollars on the bed for the cleaning lady. The air was chilled, the sky gray and overcast. She pulled the collar of her coat up around her neck and hunched her shoulders as she hurried toward her SUV.

      Breakfast came from the drive-through of a doughnut shop, along with an extra-large cup of coffee. Cat ate with one hand while driving with the other. By the time she was finished, her dark blue sweater was dotted with bits of sugar glaze. She brushed the sugar from her clothes onto the floorboard, washed down the last bite of doughnut with the last of her coffee, then took out her cell phone. There were two messages, both from Art, one telling her to call and let him know she was okay, the second complaining that she hadn’t returned his first call. She grimaced, then shook her head as she laid the phone back down on the seat. Art was a good friend, as well as her boss, but sometimes he treated her like a helpless girl and not the self-possessed woman she really was. She would call him later when she was further down the road. Right now there was nothing to tell.

      The laptop she’d come to rely on was on the passenger seat, powered up and running. Every so often she would glance down at it, just to make sure the blip she was following was still where it had been the night before. It was. It was not lost upon her that this whole trip could turn out to be a bust. The blip could be nothing more than a leftover bug that her friend Pete had placed in a piece of clothing or a pair of shoes belonging to Mark Presley. After she’d taken Presley into custody outside of Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, anyone could have come across his belongings. She had no way of knowing what had burned in the fire and what had survived. Someone could have come along and claimed the discarded clothing, unaware that some of it had been bugged. One way or another, she would soon find out.

      About an hour south, she began to be aware that the traffic in front of her was slowing down. When she drove up over a hill and saw that there’d been a wreck, and that for now both lanes of the highway were being shut down, she frowned and pulled off to the shoulder.

      One highway patrolman was stopping traffic. Another was down in the ditch with the wrecked cars and a tow truck. She eyed the situation carefully, then put her vehicle back in gear. While the patrolmen were otherwise occupied, she shifted her SUV into four-wheel drive, wheeled around the parked vehicles and drove onto the center median, bypassing the line of cars and the wreckage. When she was clear of the pileup, she drove back onto the highway and continued her trip south.

      Wilson had nightmares all night and, in one way or another, every damn one of them related to Cat Dupree. His first phase of sleep revolved around Cat ordering him from her house. That nightmare evolved into a good two hours of being lost in a maze and hearing Cat screaming for help, but being unable to find her.

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