We stood there, a few feet apart, frozen in the moment, as the cool rain cascaded down on us...

Donovan let out a low growl, moved forward, and jerked me toward him. His lips crushed against mine, even as his tongue drove inside my mouth. Mmm. Just what I wanted. I tangled my fingers in his damp, black hair and pulled him closer.

In a moment, the kiss morphed into one of raging heat and raw need. Our lips, our tongues, lashed against each other in punishment and pleasure. We spun around and around in a tight circle in the rain. Mud covered my feet and rocks dug into my heels, but I didn't care. Heat, passion, lust, desire. It all filled me until there was nothing else - and nothing I wouldn't do to slake my need. The mud, the cold, the rain. Everything else vanished, overcome by the fire roaring through my body. A fire I wanted to embrace again and again and again.

Donovan's hand worked at the clasp of my bra. When it popped open, he stepped back long enough to yank the straps off my shoulders and drop the whole thing in the mud. He moved me back, and something cold and metal bumped against my hip. The hood of the sedan.

That would do for now. I leaned back against the metal and pulled the detective down to me. The car hood felt like ice against my back, but I didn't care because I was burning on the inside. Burning for Donovan.

Our tongues crashed together again. Donovan's hands closed over my bare breasts. He squeezed the two mounds - hard - then dug his thumbs into my nipples.

I moaned into his mouth. Pressure built between my thighs. My panties were soaked - and it had nothing to do with the rain.

Donovan put his mouth over first one nipple, then the other. Licking, sucking, nipping at them with his teeth until they were so hard they ached. The detective pulled back long enough to catch his breath. I yanked his undershirt up over his head and threw it away. My fingers splayed over his chest, and I marveled at the lean strength of his body. I ran my nails down his chest, and my hands went to his crotch, rubbing his erection through the slick fabric of his pants. Donovan hissed, then raked his teeth down my ear lobe. He leaned forward and sucked on my neck like a vampire, as his fingers continued to work their magic on my breasts. I bit the edge of his jaw, more than ready for him.

I breathed in. Despite the mud, he still smelled clean, like soap and fresh laundry. Mmm. "You smell so good," I murmured against his jaw.

"Not as good as you feel under me," he growled back.

We kissed again - long and hard enough to make me pant for breath. My fingers found his leather belt, which I loosened. His pants unzipped a second later.

"Take them off," I murmured. "Your shoes too. I want to feel you this time. All of you."

Donovan stepped back. Now, it was my turn to watch as he kicked off his shoes and socks and stepped out of his pants. He wore a pair of black boxers underneath that made his skin glisten like bronze.

"Boxers too," I said in a husky voice. "Take 'em off."

Donovan stepped toward me. "In a minute."

He leaned me back against the car hood and teased my nipples with his mouth and hands again before his fingers dipped inside my panties. He moved his fingers back and forth against me, before slipping two inside and stroking me there, rubbing his fingers faster, harder, ratcheting up my pressure, my need, that much more. My turn to hiss.

My searching fingers skimmed past the open flap in his boxers. I took him in my hand, and Donovan bucked against me. I lightly ran my nails down his length and across the rounded tip of his hard cock. He was as ready for me as I was for him. Donovan growled again, took his fingers out of me, and pulled me up off the car.

"In the backseat. Now."

I was more than happy to comply. He maneuvered me left and back. I ducked my head and sat down on the seat.

Donovan used the opportunity to get rid of his boxers. I did the same to my panties. I scooted back into the car. Waiting. Aching. A moment later, Donovan followed me inside, a foil packet in his fingers, which he laid in the floorboard. I took my little white pills to be on the safe side and avoid any unwanted consequences, but I still appreciated his thoughtfulness.

He leaned forward and kissed me again before moving down my damp body. Donovan lowered his lips to the curls between my thighs. I parted my legs, and he slid his tongue inside me, making quick, thrusting motions, then slow, lazy circles. Teasing me. I moaned and dug my fingers into his scalp, urging him on.

Donovan's tongue flicked over me again, and he eased a finger deep inside.

"So sweet," he whispered against my thigh. "Like hot honey."

Donovan continued his ministrations a few more moments.

That's all I could take. I wanted him inside me.

Right now.

I grabbed Donovan's shoulders, pulling him up even as I wiggled underneath him and turned him over. Now, he was lying on the seat. There wasn't a lot of room to maneuver in the car, but I was very determined. Now it was my turn to tease.

I trailed my tongue down his chest and put my mouth on him, sucking and licking his straining shaft until it pulsed and quivered with every touch of my hot, heavy tongue. He groaned, and his hands latched onto my arms, yanking me back up toward him. Our lips met again, sucking the breath and life from both of us. Somehow, Donovan maneuvered us once again until he was back on top. He covered himself with the condom. Then I opened my legs, locked them around his waist, and he thrust into me.

I watched his beautiful hazel eyes dilate as he sank into me, driving deeper and deeper. An ecstasy of gold - for both of us. Donovan rocked back. I dug my fingers into his back and pulled him down hard, so that the full length of him filled me.

Retreat, pull, retreat, pull. We clacked together like two magnets driven crazy by the vibrations the other was giving off. Over and over, Donovan pumped into me, until our hoarse cries of pleasure rang out in time to the gentle rock of the sedan and the tap of rain on the metal roof.

Chapter Twenty-One

After we finished, Donovan and I lay in the back of the sedan in a loose tangle of bare arms and legs. The imitation leather felt stiff and sticky against my skin. The windows had steamed over, and the smell of sex permeated the car. Beside me, above me, next to me, the detective's breaths came in sharp, raspy puffs. The sounds of a man who'd exerted himself to his full, glorious potential. But Donovan made no move to pull away from me or put some clothes on.

"Well, that wasn't quite what I had in mind as far as warming up goes, but I'll take it," I quipped. "Even if it's going to hurt like hell peeling myself off this seat."

Donovan didn't say anything, but the corners of his lips lifted into a half smile. "You're not the only one. I'm sure my back will be screaming at me tomorrow. Not to mention the burns I have on my knees."

"Worth it?"

He cocked one black eyebrow. "Do you even have to ask?"

No, I didn't. Because I'd been moaning just as loud as he had.

After we caught our breath, Donovan eased up into a sitting position. I followed suit. He reached into the front seat and handed me some clean clothes - a pair of khakis several sizes too big and a T-shirt that hung almost to my knees. The detective was a bit taller than I was. Donovan pulled on a matching set of clothes. When that was done, we turned and faced each other in the back seat.

"So here we are again," I said.

"Yeah," Donovan replied. "Here we are again."

He didn't look happy at the thought. The detective let out a long breath and ran his hands through his black hair - lean, strong hands that had just done marvelous things to my body. I hesitated, then reached over, put my hand on top of his, and gave a gentle squeeze with my fingers. I wasn't sure what prompted the reaction, other than this warmth in my chest I felt for the detective. Or maybe it was the simple fact I didn't want things to end between us like they had the last time we'd slept together.

Which had been altogether badly.

Donovan flinched at my touch and slid his hand out from under mine. "We should get back."

I stared at his rugged features. Black hair, bronze skin, golden eyes. But heat and desire no longer brightened his gaze. Instead, the detective looked tired, weary, heartsick.

As though all the pleasure he'd just experienced came with a weight that was just too much to bear, even for him.

"All right," I said in a quiet voice, not wanting to push him anymore tonight.

It was after ten by the time we returned to Country Daze. The traffic of the day had long since ceased, and the stop sign at the crossroads looked like a dull red ghost in the drizzling rain. Donovan didn't have an extra pair of the shoes in the trunk, so I had to stick my feet back into my muddy boots. First though, I wiped as much of the grime off them as I could with a towel.

Sometime while we'd been gone, Sophia's black convertible had been pulled off to one side of the store so that the classic car rested in the grass. So had Finn's Cadillac.

The store itself was dark, the front doors closed and locked.

"Come on," I said. "Finn said they were in the house around back."

The detective and I walked through the gap between Sophia's convertible and the store. Warren T. Fox's house lay about five hundred feet behind the store in back of a copse of maple and oak trees. A creek ribboned around one side of the house. The rain had made it fat and swollen, like a snake that had swallowed more than it could comfortably hold. The rush of water drowned out the sound of the rain slapping against the tin roof.

I'd come back here this afternoon to check out the structure, but I was once again struck by how much the clapboard building resembled Fletcher Lane's house.

Both featured the same white boards, the same kind of shutters, the same sloping tin roof. And it wasn't just the house that reminded me of Fletcher - it was everything about Warren T. Fox. The blue work clothes he wore, his grumpy nature, the old-fashioned store he ran. It was almost like Fletcher and Warren were identical twins separated at birth. The kind you read about who built separate, but almost identical, lives for themselves. Once again, I felt that faint softness stir in my chest. Because everything about Warren made me remember Fletcher and the love I'd had for him.

Lights blazed in several of the first-floor windows. I stepped up onto the porch and knocked on the front door.

"Hmph?" Sophia grunted through the heavy wood.

"It's Gin."

A lock clicked, and the Goth dwarf opened the door.

Sophia clenched an aluminum baseball bat in one hand.

Her black eyes flicked over my oversize clothes, and she stepped back to let us inside. Sophia crooked her finger at us, and we followed her deeper into the house. For a moment, I felt like I was coming home to Fletcher's after a long day at the Pork Pit. Because the inside of Warren T. Fox's house could have been an exact duplicate of Fletcher Lane's. Same sort of well-worn, overstuffed furniture, same clutter of knickknacks, same piles of odds and ends that made a house a home. I blinked, and the illusion vanished.

The others were in a large den. Violet huddled on the sofa, a heavy textbook in her lap, a notepad and pen by her side. Studying. Jo-Jo perched on the other end of the sofa and flipped through a beauty magazine. Several more sat stacked at her bare feet. The dwarf had come prepared.

Warren rocked back and forth in an oversize recliner that made him seem older and more frail than he really was. The television was tuned to the Weather Channel.

Warren's brown eyes focused intently on the storm-front graphics on the flickering screen. Finn relaxed in a similar chair, which he'd reclined all the way back. His laptop drowsed on his lap. Finn was doing the same in the chair itself. Soft snores drifted out of his open mouth.

I went over, put my hand into Finn's broad shoulder, and shook him awake.

"What? What?" he mumbled in a sleepy voice. "I didn't touch her, I swear."

"Relax, Casanova," I said.

Finn blinked a few times before his green eyes focused on me. "Oh, Gin, it's you." He frowned. "Why are you wearing a T-shirt that says Ashland Police Department on it?"

I sighed. "It's a long story."

Once Finn was more or less awake, I filled the others in on what Donovan Caine and I had found in Tobias Dawson's office. The detective e-mailed the cell phone photos he'd taken to Finn, who started pulling them up on his laptop and going through them.

"Anything happen on this end?" I asked Sophia.

"Quiet," she rasped.

"A couple of folks came in for sodas and cigarettes, but that was it," Jo-Jo agreed.

"Usual customers," Warren cut in. "Even Dawson can't scare off folks when they need their tobacco."

"Those papers you found inside the safe," Jo-Jo said.

"What did they say? Anything interesting?"

I shrugged. "Ask Donovan. It was dark. I didn't really see them."

All eyes turned to the detective, who also shrugged.

"Like Gin said, it was dark. We only used flashlights inside. They mostly looked like schematics to me. We'll have to wait and see what Finn says."

"You're going to have to give me a few minutes," Finn said, typing on his laptop. "I've got to sort through and read some of this. It doesn't make much sense to me either. Not to mention that the photo quality isn't the best I've ever seen."

"Sorry," Donovan sniped. "I was a little more worried about flashing too much light around and getting caught than taking perfect pictures for you."

We lapsed into silence while we waited for Finn to read and decipher the documents. But I had a pretty good idea of what they'd say. So I leaned against the wall and started thinking about what came next - getting close enough to Tobias Dawson to kill him. Because that was the only way this thing was going to end, if my suspicions were correct.