If Wishes Were Horses Read online

  “Herne.” She yanked against the cuffs holding her wrists to the same headboard. Her voice trembled. She hated it, hated herself. “Don't.”

  He braced a hand on either side of her head and eased down between her tremblinglegs. His hips were against her upturned ass, his rigid cock against her weeping, bare pussy.

  Furious tears filled her eyes. Not from a physical fear but an emotional one. He knew it, she could see he knew what she was feeling, as if her psyche were as laid opento him as all of her orifices. She wanted to hate him for it, was sure she would, but atthis moment in the darkness there was just fear and desperate need. She saw images just behind her disintegrating shields, images of death and gunfire, her ex's closed and resentful expression. A message pounded in her head behind all of that, a truth she wastoo frightened to face.

  She wasn't even sure what message she was trying to give him with her one word protest, but she thought Herne knew. It terrified her that he might know her heart and body at this moment better than she did.

  “You asked for more, Sarah. I’m going to give you more.” He nuzzled her ear, licked her neck. “But I won’t stop. I’m going to fuck you so well you’re going to loseconsciousness. This will all be a dream. You won't be sure if you want to savor it orregret it. But you won't forget it. Not ever. I'm taking away that option.” He hesitated, staring down into her face, and she sensed something there, something she did notunderstand. “The other two choices, to savor or regret, those will be yours.”

  He rose on his knees above her and unfastened his trousers. The thick, pale cock came free as he lowered the zipper, revealing he wore no underwear. Her mouth went dry. He took the trousers to his knees and that was all. He leaned forward, holding the

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  weight of his cock in his hand, and eased the organ into her wet pussy. His eyes never left her desperate ones.

  Her thighs shook, overcome by nerves and desires, and she made a strangled noise at his inexorable push forward. There was a moment of feminine fear, for he did not know her body, and she was helpless to prevent the pain of an incorrect approach or too-hard thrust, but his invasion, while relentless, was slow, an easing into her contours. By the time his heavy sac pressed warm and hairy against her ass, she thought he must be seated all the way to her womb.

  She was gasping for breath, deep, shuddering draws. There was no tenderness to this. However, his sexual dominance was not being inflicted as a punishment. This was not sex without emotion, not mindless fucking. There was something strong and powerful here, like an act of religious fervor. No thought, just action and overwhelming blinding immersion. She didn't even know him, and yet she needed him to be in her body like this, needed his face this close to hers, close enough to kiss, but he didn't. Not now. She knew he wanted her watching him without any excuse other than cowardice to close her eyes.

  He moved deeper, and then withdrew. She'd had at least one lover that knew to move slow, but not like this. Herne withdrew a millimeter at a time, pausing between each movement, his attention never leaving her face. He watched every quivering breath, the pull of her lips into her teeth, the half gasp, half whimper as he made his way slowly out of her, and his intensity of focus increased the power of her response.

  “What are you doing?” she managed in a ragged whisper.

  He stopped, the ridge of his broad head just inside her opening, and her body rocked, convulsed as she fought to grip him and keep him in. He pushed forward, that same slow glide, this time to refill her. It reminded her of the flow of molasses over the spout of a pitcher, so thick that even when it left the tip and gravity took over it did not hurry, sliding to the top of the pancake, making its way to the edge, filling in every crevice as it went.

  Sarah cried out again, a long, low sound as his cock stroked its way up inside her. He brushed his lips against the corner of her eye and answered her question.

  “Destroying you, Sarah. Creating you. Possessing you.”

  Each word, each phrase accompanied another small movement, making her strain for his words as frantically as for his penetration. His belt and the cuffs would have cut into her flesh if he had not kept his weight against the backs of her thighs, holding her helpless.

  For the second time in one night, the salt of her tears touched her lips. She was crying, not from anger or fear but against the overwhelming sensual response of her own body which laid open her emotions and made them as unprotected as her pussy and ass to his stimulation and assault. He curled his arms around her head, sheltering her, giving her his musky scent and the press of his heated chest against her face. His lips touched the track of one tear a moment before he covered her.

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  He raised his hips while holding his upper body in that protective position. She screamed into his flesh as he pulled full out of her and then thrust back in. Molasses merged with fire into a blaze of consummation, burning so slowly that ecstasy almost became pain, but she was past the point of caring. Her whole being was shaking, and though she could not hold him, she let him hold her to keep her from shattering because there was no choice and no one else. He was what was holding her together in

  the darkness. At that moment, defying all logic or reality she was his, utterly.

  “I could lose myself in you,” he muttered.

  She felt as if she were already lost, and his words took her deeper into the maze of

  her emotions.

  “I want to make you wetter than you've ever been,” he said, his voice caressing her senses. “I want to drive home tonight with my cock and balls drenched in you, Sarah. I want to feel your wetness dry on my skin.”

  The chambray fabric and hard buttons of his shirt rubbed against her bare skin, and somehow her nakedness against his state of almost full dress made her even more defenseless against him. Surely the ground beneath her was going to shatter as his thrusts rolled her hips back, pushed her down, again, and again.

  “Justin…” His familiar name was on her lips like a rose he had pressed into her hand.

  “Come for me, Sarah. Come deep and hard, let me feel your pussy grip me. I want to hear your soul scream.”

  How could she deny him with that hard cock driving into her like a pile driver slamming into the ocean floor, demanding the soft silken terra give way, yield to that invasion, make way for a permanent alteration in the contours?

  She’d been too much of a wisecracking teenager to feel like a virgin when she lost her sexual innocence. This was losing her virginity, this disintegration of every wall, every defense, no anchor, totally vulnerable and catapulted into mind-blowing pleasure.

  She shattered with a scream that vibrated off her windows and bedroom mirror andechoed into the forest behind her home. He held her, the hardness of his upper bodyagainst her breasts, his hips still plunging, his thigh muscles straining against the insideof hers, pale soft female flesh against firm male skin and coarse hair. The thump of his testicles against her ass was a thunderous slap jolting her body, driving it higher,driving the blood from her head and the oxygen from her lungs. Energy was beingpulled from every part of her body to meet the force of an explosion that the human body seemed too frail to withstand.

  She went over, not in a free fall or leap but in a starburst, her muscles shuddering, contracting desperately at the point of most charged contact, his cock in her pussy. The orgasm resonated through her and outward, sweeping her away into a place where she drowned in darkness and found stillness, the most peaceful of endings.

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  Chapter 3

  The pattering of rain. The stone cottage had a tin roof, painted a dark green to help it blend into the forest even more than it already did. One of the many things that hadcharmed her into purchasing the house was the rainstorm that had occurred the day she looked at it. She heard that soothing drumming and remembered she was part ofsomething bigger than herself, rhythmic forces that renewe
d life everyday with their actions. A reminder that the same was possible for her.

  Sarah opened her eyes and slowly focused. Some light filtered in through the fabric shades. The window was cracked, so she smelled the rain and the forest it cleansed. She didn’t remember opening the window, but…

  Her eyes focused on what lay beside her on the bed and she jerked straight up, her legs screaming in protest at the unanticipated movement. Her muscles ached from an activity they had not been accustomed to performing recently. Hell, even when she had been having regular sex, it hadn't been anything like last night.

  The handcuffs lay on the bed. Threaded in the two bracelets were three of the white daisies that grew wild and abundant around her back door.

  Sarah jumped as the phone blared next to her bed, as intrusive as a knife shoved in her gut. She hesitated, then snarled at herself. She was the police chief. Goddamn it. She was supposed to answer her phone. If it was him…

  “Wylde.”

  “Chief, this is Leon. We've got a body in the woods.”

  Sarah swung her feet to the floor. “What?”

  “Not in Lilesville,” Leon said. “Just over the line in Marion. Chief Wassler calledand asked if you’d come to the site and take a look.”

  “I'll be there. Where is it?”

  “Not more than a couple miles from your place. Go up Highway 6 toward Marion, and a man will be at the street waiting to flag you. Do you need transport?”

  “Rain’s easing up and I’ve got my bike here. Have Dexter meet me at the site with a car.”

  “Okay. Damn, Chief. We haven't had a murder in these parts for a hundred years.”

  * * * * *

  She had no time for a shower, though she desperately wanted one. She smelled him as she pulled on her jeans, that musk of male seed between the juncture of her thighs, mingling with her own erotic scent.

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  The job had never let her down, never confused her. She’d focus on that now and worry about the rest later. The body in the woods didn’t give a damn about her love life. Sarah pulled on her black placket Lilesville police shirt, tucked it into the jeans,tugged the bill of her yellow and black police cap down and threaded her ponytailthrough the back. She secured her shoulder holster and was on the way to the crime scene in less than five minutes.

  When she’d left Chicago, she could have gone in one of four compass directions to leave it behind. She had gone east and south. Lilesville was a town more than ninety minutes away from a town of any size, on the Gulf side of the Florida panhandle. It hadthat peculiar mishmash of graceful homes next to shacks crowded up around the waterfront and was surrounded by acres of protected wetlands and vibrant green marshes. It was not a town that produced murderers, only a mix of eccentric intelligentsia, old salts and redneck fishermen.

  As Leon had said, an officer stood next to the rural highway, just over two miles from the turn off to her home. The uniform waved her down the service road behind

  him, his expression grim. She bumped along it for a half mile and found Chief Wassler waiting for her at the end of it.

  Eric Wassler typified a small town chief of police. Fifties, heavy jowls, a bit of a paunch, and a kindly face with stern cop eyes. Sarah had been amused to find out from her men that his favorite pastime was dirt biking at the local open range areas. He’d served as an advisor to the hiring committee that had offered her the job in Lilesville.

  During her first week, he had come by to introduce himself, and she liked him right off. He wasn't pretentious or territorial, showing no embarrassment when he told her he had been born and raised in the county, and had come back within five years of leaving the Academy. He had served in law enforcement here for nearly thirty years.

  “Morning,” he said, tipping his hat. “Appreciate you coming out.”

  She inclined her head. “Sorry for the circumstance.”

  He lifted a shoulder. “The rest of the way's on foot, Chief. Up that hill there.”

  She left the bike, fell in beside him as they headed into the woods, following a path marked by orange flagging tape. “Who found the vic?”

  “A kid, damn it. He was out here on his mountain bike with his dog.”

  “Is this the way the perp took to dump the body?”

  “No evidence of tire tracks, but we've had rain off and on the past several days. We think she was already here, maybe came here by herself or willingly with the perp.”

  “What makes you think so?”

  “Found a backpack. Looks like it was hers. Had female stuff in it, change of clothes, that type of thing. In fact, it looked like she was living out of it, not just a day hiker.”

  “An extended camping trip?”

  “Not exactly.” Wassler shook his head. “Something's off. From what's in that pack,

  I'd think maybe she's a drifter.”

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  “A woman drifter suggests an addict, or mentally unstable.”

  “That's what the crime scene suggests, also,” he said. “Hell, Chief, that's one of the reasons I wanted you to see it. I don't have a lot of experience in this. My guys are mostly rookies or small town transfers. I had to get out the goddamn procedure manual this morning to go over the steps to secure a murder scene.”

  “One thing I always trust, Chief, is a good cop's gut.”

  Chief Wassler met her steady gaze, and his unshaven jaw relaxed a fraction. “She was doing some kind of weird ritual.”

  Sarah went cold. “What do you mean, ritual?”

  “Best to have you take a look. Hard to describe. It gave me the creeps, I'll tell you that. You handle any ritual murders before?”

  She shook her head. “You think you've seen it all, then someone else thinks something up.”

  “Guess so. For me, that's always meant all the ways kids can think of to vandalize school property, or the excuses people have for getting behind the wheel when they've guzzled one too many.” Dead leaves rasped under their feet, decaying and nurturing the roots of the trees waving mint green new growth over their heads, filtering fresh sunlight onto their faces.

  “Going to be a hell of a pretty day after that good rain. Damn.” Wassler pulled out a change wallet, began to remove several quarters. He grimaced at Sarah's questioning look.

  “My grandson and I have a bet. I'm supposed to give him a quarter each time I

  curse. He's supposed to give me one every time he does.”

  “So who's winning?”

  “I think he's got his first year at Harvard pretty much in the bag.”

  Sarah found herself smiling. “How old is he?”

  “Eleven. Mouth like a sailor, but since he's at the age he's doing it consciously to impress his friends, he can also shut it down. Harder when you've been doing it all your goddamn life.” He stopped, pressed his lips together, rolled his eyes. Sarah fished out a quarter, put it in his hand.

  “Here. For the college fund.”

  He shook his head, pocketed the change. “Once we give this to the press, I’m going to have to deal with a hundred million details. The mayor wants to have a public meeting to calm folks down. I was wondering if I could ask a second favor.”

  “So long as it's not looking at another dead body. I have a one per week rule.”

  She mentally cursed herself at his look. “My apologies, Chief. Homicide cops tend to develop a sick sense of humor to deal with this shit—I mean, this type of situation.”

  She had seen plenty of death serving as a detective in Chicago. She knew how to shut down her emotional side. She couldn't keep what she saw from seeping into the

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  cracks of her soul and tarnishing it, but she’d learned to make a mostly impermeable shield with the jokes and an intent focus on getting the job done.

  He grunted. “I know you're a good cop. I wouldn't have asked you here, otherwise. I read about that drug bust. I kno
w you take the job seriously. You just took me off guard, is all.”

  Sarah pushed away the images that his words stirred on the charred battlefield of her memory. Her mind was fighting off enough disturbing images this morning. “Maybe you should call me Sarah.”

  He nodded. “Eric, then. Take a look down there.”

  They had topped the knoll. Sarah looked down.

  It was a different ravine. However, there were enough similarities to what she had seen last night to make the hair rise on her arms.

  A black substance marked the boundary of the circle, and nine flat stones had been placed along it at even intervals. A goblet of water, a candle, a branch of a live oak and a censer marked four points of the circle. A pentagram had been drawn in the cleared area with the same dark powder. The remains of a bonfire were evident inside the interior pentagram of the design, a ring of ashes and charred wood. A drum lay on itsside inside the circle.

  There were two key differences in the scene below. A dead cat, its throat slit, wasplaced next to the live oak branch. The dead woman was near the bonfire.

  “Jesus,” Sarah murmured. “Is that how you found her?”

  Eric nodded. He stared above the crime scene, at the tops of the trees directly acrossfrom them. “I had my guys cordon off the area.”

  The naked body lay half in and out of the pentagon center of the pentagram. The victim looked as if she had been in the process of having sex with someone. Her body was spread open, her neck arched back. Her knees and legs were drawn up, as if to absorb the thrusts of a lover. Her ankles rested in shallow dents pounded into the ground.

  Sarah absorbed all this as she made her way down into the ravine. She took her time, placing each step carefully, logging the images each change of view brought to her. Death always made her angry, in or near her jurisdiction even more so. Death likethis in a small, quiet place where it shouldn’t happen offended her deeply, though she knew murder could happen anywhere. She just hoped the man she had been with last night was not part of it. She focused, pushing away the thoughts, aware of Eric Wassler two paces behind her.