Page 45 of Murder

“Gwenna?” His eyes stretch wide. His lips part.

“Hey.” I stroke his cheek.

His eyes drift shut. There’s this little rumble low down in his throat. I think it sounds like someone easing.

Then his eyes open again. They search mine—frantic and confused. He blinks a few times. Stands up. He turns a slow circle.

“I’ve got to go,” he says, and stumbles toward the door. He looks back at me for a long second. Then he turns and slips into the night.

FIFTEEN

BARRETT

The steady pitter-patter, the blanket of steam, the blur of streaming water all around me: these things quiet my mind some. It feels good until my eyelids sag shut and my mind slips into darkness. My body jerks as if I’m falling, and I come to slumped against the shower wall, shaky and nauseated from not sleeping.

I keep hearing voices speaking in Pashto. That time the Taliban had us hogtied in that cabin in the Hindu Kush, keeping us awake for six days straight before we shot our way out…

I reach down into a soap dish for my phone. I turn it on, then turn the volume off and turn the camera view on. As it happens, she is in her bedroom. I don’t know what time it is. She’s in a robe. Is it morning or evening? Details blur together. A black window… a bright window… the moving trees. All the endless hours watching from the chair in the bedroom.

She’s wearing her robe. Is she getting ready to leave the house or settling in for the night?

I lean my back against the shower’s side and notice her mouth moving and her head tipped back. The way her mouth stretches… She’s singing. I sit up, feeling interested in something for the first time in days.

I turn the volume up slowly, until her rich voice echoes through the shower, drifting in the steam above me. Fuck, her voice is powerful. It’s low and sultry. I feel it in the shaking of my hands, in the staccato of my pulse. It settles in the back of my throat, blurring my eyes. I close them, but I can’t leave them shut for long. I want to watch her move and sing.

I can’t believe it’s really her. That’s Gwenna.

A bolt of pride flares through me as I watch her flip her hair over her shoulder and dance around her room. I watch and listen—a combination I previously did not allow myself because it felt too invasive.

As she sings, she drops the robe. My throat tightens as she turns slightly toward the camera, showing me one milky-white breast. She turns a little more and I see both of them: small, soft globes spilling out of a lacy bra.

Lust surges through me. My dick twitches to life.

She leans over her dresser, toward a mirror hanging over it. I watch the curve of her back, the roundness of her ass.

My hand goes around my dick automatically. I groan and squeeze just under the head. I start to stroke it as she moves about her room, shimmying into and out of various shirts. I watch her ass as she turns circles. I fanaticize about grabbing her hips, stroking my cock until my balls tighten and I think I might come, just watching her.

I grit my teeth and turn the monitoring app off. Then I stand up slowly, with a massive boner. I step out of the shower, check the time and find it’s during business hours, and dial Mallorie.

“Barrett. How are you?” That’s her answer.

“Doing just fine, and you?”

“I’m good. What can I help you with?”

“When do you think the house will close?”

“Hmm…” I hear nails clicking on some surface. “Earliest? Some time next week. Latest, the week or two after.”

My fingers clench the phone. “Thank you.”

“How is the house?”

“It’s great. I hope you’re doing well,” I add.

“I am.” I can tell she’s going to say more, so I beat her to the punch. “I’ll be in touch.”

When the call is dead, I slam my fist against the countertop. I close my eyes and I can feel her hands in my hair. Her arms around me. I can hear her voice, her pretty, sultry voice that gets into my dick and makes me want her.

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