A Baby for Agent Colton Read online

  “I love something else about you, too.” She climbed up onto him, straddling his thighs and rocking herself over his hardness. “That.”

  “How can you love it? You’ve never done this before.”

  “I’ve seen it. In your pants.”

  “You have not.”

  She smiled, sexy and alluring, rocking and rolling her hips in slow gyrations.

  “Why are you doing this?” Some logic still remained in him. Why and how had this sudden desire reared up tonight? Or was it sudden? Maybe it had been building ever since they started working together.

  “I don’t know. It’s just happening. It feels good.”

  “Yes.” She felt amazing on him.

  She pulled up his shirt and tossed it onto the floor. That invited him to do the same to her. She raised her arms to allow him and then looked right into his eyes as she unclasped her bra.

  He stopped a thought that she worked with him. Right now, she didn’t work with him. Right now, she was a woman he desired intensely.

  He cupped her breasts. “You’re so beautiful.” He kneaded her and thumbed her nipples. “I knew you would be.”

  “So are you.” She kissed him again and ran her hands down his chest to his abdomen, her fingers dipping beneath the waistband of his jeans. Trevor thought he would die of exquisite torture. Reaching for her ponytail, he tugged the band and slid it off. Silky strands of long dark hair slipped free and fell forward, tickling his chest. When she withdrew from a long kiss, he slid his fingers into her hair and looked into her sultry hazel eyes.

  She rocked on him again and he reached the threshold of his restraint. In a smooth motion, he stood with her and walked down the hall off the living room, finding the master bedroom and taking her to the platform bed. Depositing her there, he unbuttoned her jeans and took his time pulling them off. Then he removed his while she watched with hot anticipation.

  When they were both naked, Jocelyn scooted back on the bed and lay on her back. He crawled over her, nudging her knees apart.

  She slid her hand down to his abdomen and beyond, encircling his hardness. He clenched his jaw in a fight to slow his urge to push into her. He reached for her soft wetness, sinking his finger inside. Her mouth parted with a passionate gasp.

  He continued to caress her, gritting his teeth at the silkiness against his rougher skin.

  “Trevor,” she whispered.

  Her quick readiness intensified his mind-numbing rush of lust. He shook with the effort to keep from shoving into her in one hard thrust. Inch by inch he sank inside her. Fiery sensation swallowed him. When she surrounded him fully, he paused to catch his breath, unable to stifle a groan.

  After a moment he moved as slow as he could manage without dying inside. She moved with him, grinding, unabashed in pursuit of her pleasure. She was a dream lover. He kissed her hard to show her his appreciation.

  Her hands glided over his shoulders and biceps, then down his back to his rear. She pulled him closer as he moved. Sweat glistened on his skin as he obliged her. The sound of their breathing filled the room.

  “Jocelyn,” he managed to say. “Are you with me?”

  Her neck arched and her eyes closed as her head pressed back into the pillow. “Yes.”

  He took her hands in his and stretched them above her head as he moved.

  “Oh, yes.” A deep, throaty moan slipped free from her. And then louder, she cried out, “Trevor,” as she came.

  He cursed with the eroticism of her response to him. Unbearable. Intense. She brought him to sweet oblivion.

  * * *

  The sun had risen a good way up the sky when Jocelyn woke. She stretched with a long sigh. Before any analysis of what had occurred spoiled her fluffy cloud, she reached over and put her hand on Trevor’s arm and then rolled to her side, propping her head on one hand. She ran her hand over his chest, marveling over how incredible his body could make her feel.

  His eyes opened.

  She gave him time to wake up, eyes blinking sleep away and turning to her. With a soft, sleepy smile, he rolled to his side, forcing her onto her back. Then he kissed her.

  Sweet heaven.

  His thumb brushed her nipple, making her gasp against his mouth. He kissed her harder. She angled her head and he devoured her.

  Abandoning her breasts, he moved down her ribs to the curve of her waist, pushing covers off her as he went. Then he withdrew from the kiss to look at her. She felt exposed, deliciously so. He intensified the sensation by coaxing her to open her legs.

  Heat pooled low in her abdomen as his hands slid up her thighs. When he reached the apex, she ground back a moan.

  He took her mouth in a hard kiss and got up onto his knees and then between her legs.

  She could feel his erection against her, thick and hard. It numbed her to anything but building want. He began to probe and she dug her head back in ecstasy.

  He slid deep, stretching her, filling her. When he started to move, he took her to the stars as he had before, touching a place no other man had. He braced his hands on either side of her and began to push in and pull out faster. He swore softly and closed his eyes.

  Jocelyn came hard and fast, gripping his muscular biceps. With a long groan, he sank deep into her once, twice and a third and last time.

  “Oh. So, it was real,” she breathed when he collapsed on top of her.

  He regained control of his breathing and lifted his head. After his smiling eyes met hers awhile, he kissed her.

  “Good morning,” she said.

  “Almost afternoon.” He reached over for his phone. “We better get going. Coroner’s office called.”

  “Back to work.” Jocelyn’s mood slipped a notch.

  “I’ll run home and shower and change, then come back and pick you up.”

  “Okay.” Would it really be this easy to fall back into a coworker role? A bothersome instinct said no.

  * * *

  Trevor led Jocelyn out of the coroner’s office, not convinced Jane McDonald’s murder correlated with the Alphabet Killer. The case had ground to a stop and showed no signs of moving forward anytime soon. He thought about going to visit his dad again. Not Dad. Trevor called him Matthew now. Matthew was no father of his, not beyond the biological. Even being biologically related to that man made him ill. What kind of DNA would he pass along to any kids he had?

  He glanced over at Jocelyn when she came into stride beside him. She’d been watching him ever since he came back to pick her up. He’d had time to think about what had happened.

  The sex had been phenomenal. The reality of it was something entirely different. Trevor dealt in reality. The flames of their quick passion had dulled any thought of consequences. He forgave himself for that. Jocelyn couldn’t have resisted any more than he could have, after working together for so long, fighting their attraction the whole time. He might have fooled himself that he could control it, but obviously he couldn’t. They’d been swept up in the moment, both of them tired from a long, grueling day at work. It was no wonder they didn’t stop and think about what they were doing.

  But he had a feeling she didn’t see it the same as him. She’d gradually gotten more and more bristly as the day progressed.

  “We need to talk.” He stopped at his SUV. Her car was still at the FBI residency office in Fort Worth, where their marathon day had begun yesterday. He’d drive her back now and then go for another visit with Matthew, if his stomach could handle it.

  “Right. Talk.” She faced him, hand on her hip, revealing her badge clipped to her black pants. Above that, her Glock 22 stuck out from a shoulder harness holster. Looking stealth in her outfit, black everything. Black T-shirt, black boots, black hair in a ponytail. Sexy as hell.

  Without her FBI jacket, Trevor noticed her body a lot more than he wou
ld have otherwise. Or maybe he just noticed it more now because he knew what she looked like naked.

  “Um...” He felt uncharacteristically awkward. “I’m not sure how we ended up in bed.”

  “I kissed you and you took it from there. Remember now?”

  Her anger took him aback. What had her so mad? Did she expect more from what happened?

  “Yeah. Hard to forget. It’s just... I didn’t expect it to happen.”

  “Neither did I, but it did.”

  Trevor couldn’t decide how to say what needed to be said without hurting her. Her defensive reaction told him what last night meant to her. More than it did to him.

  “It’s not that I don’t care about you, I—”

  “Oh, cut to the point, Trevor. Don’t plant me a daisy garden. You regret having sex with me. You think it was a mistake. Ya-de-ya-de-ya.”

  “‘Mistake’ is a little harsh. I don’t regret having sex with you.” No, the sex had been memorable to say the least. He’d revisit that night over and over, even when he didn’t want to. “I never mix work with...pleasure.” Did he really have to use that word? No other described it better.

  “I don’t put restrictions on who I sleep with. Generally, if a man attracts me and I’m turned on, that’s a Go sign for me. It’s simple. Much less complicated than you make it.”

  Nothing like being blunt. He let out a tense breath. “Can we at least agree that what happened was unplanned?”

  “Very unplanned.” She folded her arms, defiant over what she must know was coming.

  “You didn’t expect it. I didn’t expect it.” He began talking with his hands. “We had great sex, and now we need to maintain a professional relationship.”

  “What I’m hearing is that you need to maintain a professional relationship.”

  Trevor ran his fingers through his hair. No surprise that she’d make this difficult for him.

  Dropping his hand, he said, “These kinds of relationships never last. Affairs in the workplace are just...wrong.”

  Now she lowered her hands, and her eyes grew less confrontational. “You sound as though you’ve had firsthand experience.”

  “I do. I have.” And he avoided the subject whenever possible.

  Her head straightened with that revelation. “You’ve had an affair in the workplace?”

  “Yes. Five years ago. She was another agent.”

  Jocelyn’s eyes widened with the sardonic lift of her brow. “Another agent, huh. So, I must be exactly like her.”

  He grunted a laugh. “No. Oh, no.” He shook his head. “You’re nothing like her. You’re not quiet. You say whatever’s on your mind. And...you’re not afraid to...” He regretted including that last part.

  “Not afraid to what?”

  “Go after it in bed.”

  “Go after it in bed.” She nodded slowly, folding her lower lip under her upper and sliding it free with her agitation.

  All he’d succeeded in doing was pissing her off. “Jocelyn, all I’m saying is—”

  “That I’m a coworker and therefore no one you intend to pursue in a relationship.”

  “Right. Yes. It’s that simple.”

  “But I’m okay to go after in bed.”

  “No. That was a mistake. A careless one on my part. I should have stopped you when you kissed me.”

  She said nothing for a while and he thought he’d made it through the talk.

  And then she said, “Tell me about this woman you had an affair with.”

  “Look, I understand if you’re hurt—”

  “What happened between the two of you?”

  She wouldn’t let it drop. “She slept with me to get even with another agent. She lied. And when she and the other agent patched things up, she kept sleeping with me.”

  “The scorned heart. You have trust issues, then.”

  “I don’t want to see anyone I work with outside of my professional relationship with them.” By his tone, she should know he wouldn’t back down and he didn’t appreciate her attack mode, trying to pin his reluctance to mix work and pleasure on a past relationship.

  Her eyes lowered and lifted, long enough for her to regain control of her emotions. “It’s okay, Agent Colton. I’ll respect your wishes. I wasn’t looking for anything long-term anyway.”

  Her cell phone rang just when he would have asked her why she felt the need to say that. It sounded—no, felt, rang like a lie. She just got nauseated from a crime scene. Rookie reaction? Or had she not found her true calling?

  “Agent Locke.” As she listened, her eyes flashed to him, and then she snapped her fingers. “I need a pen.”

  Trevor took out his small notebook and a pen from inside his jacket. She took the pen and he held the notebook in his palm while she wrote some information down on a woman named Caressa Franklin.

  “Thanks.” Putting her phone away, she turned to Trevor. “Caressa Franklin knew Erica Morgan. Apparently they had a falling-out a year before the murder. Caressa moved to Fort Worth a few months ago. She didn’t know about Erica.”

  “Estranged, how?”

  Jocelyn held up the paper and gave it a little wiggle. “That’s what we’re going to go find out.”

  “How’d you get that info?”

  “Contacts are key.” She smiled, wily and charming. Disarming, more like.

  “Good work. Who’s your contact?”

  He watched her debate over whether to tell him, as though his rejection made her distrust him more now. But they were part of a team. This had nothing to do with anything personal, and the investigation mattered most.

  “A private investigator I know.” She sounded blasé in a staged way.

  “You contacted a PI without telling me?” She could ruin evidence for them.

  “I just asked him to look into Erica for me, see if he could find anything new that we may have missed. Just our luck, he did.” She walked around the vehicle as he went to open the driver’s-side door.

  “How do you know the PI?” he asked when he got behind the wheel, hearing his own forced idle tone and refusing to call it jealousy. He caught her noticing.

  “I dated him a couple of years ago. He’d still like to get together. I use him every once in a while on cases.”

  She didn’t have to include all of that information, but he knew she had because she savored his reaction. “You used him?”

  “I pay him. I knew Erica.”

  Why hadn’t she ever mentioned her handy PI who got information she needed? “I didn’t realize she was that close.”

  “Her mother was my mother’s friend.” She turned her face away as though more than Erica’s death troubled her. “My mother’s friend stayed in touch with my dad after my mother died. And then after my dad died, she stayed in touch with me. I got to know her and Erica fairly well.”

  “You were close to them? Erica?” Closer than she’d let on.

  Dropping her elbow from its perch on the window frame, she looked over at him. “We met for lunch a few times after my dad and brother died. They aren’t what I’d call close friends. Erica’s mother talked about my mother a lot. I feel like I wouldn’t have known my mother as well as I do. Not that I know her the way I would have if she’d been in my life the whole time. But if it hadn’t been for her, I wouldn’t have known as much. For that, I’ll always be grateful.” She sighed forlornly. “I didn’t know until after Erica’s murder that her mother was killed in a car accident. She never told me. We sort of fell out of touch.”

  She talked as though she’d never met her mother. “What happened to your mother?”

  Jocelyn turned away. “She died shortly after I was born.”

  Trevor took a moment to ponder all the tragedies that had befallen her. She had no family. They were all dead
. Even the friends of the family had gone, one who’d given her a precious gift. Her father must have told her things about her mother, but a friend could give her another perspective. Jocelyn could envision the person who had been her mother. He could see how that would motivate her to find Erica’s killer. He could also understand her fondness of her mother’s friend. Even with all her losses, though, Jocelyn had drive. Optimism. Or the outward appearance of those attributes. What lay underneath? And how had they shaped her decisions up until now? How different would her life be, had she not lost those closest to her?

  * * *

  Caressa Franklin wasn’t expecting them, but Jocelyn had agreed with Trevor that surprise might work in their favor. Her PI friend hadn’t revealed the FBI’s involvement in Erica’s murder investigation and hadn’t revealed any details of the Alphabet Killer case.

  The midforties woman didn’t answer her front door even though they’d seen her through the side window.

  “Must have pegged us for solicitors,” Jocelyn said.

  “Let’s hang around until she goes somewhere.”

  A little more than an hour later, Caressa did leave her house. They followed her to the parking lot of a grocery store and walked to intercept her on her way to the entrance.

  “Caressa Franklin?” Jocelyn called.

  The woman looked back as Trevor moved to block her path to the grocery store and Jocelyn stood in her way back to her vehicle.

  Jocelyn exposed her badge clipped to her belt on her Sleek Agent pants and Trevor dropped open his wallet.

  Caressa looked at both and then up at their faces with her jaw dropping. “What happened?”

  She seemed stiff to Jocelyn. Cornered? No. Shocked. Why shocked? Almost...expecting. Had she expected them to show up? Jocelyn watched closely.

  “We’re here to talk to you about Erica Morgan,” she said.

  Caressa regained composure. Yes, this is what she’d expected, someone to come talking to her about her friend. “Really? Why?”

  “Why didn’t you answer your door earlier?” Trevor asked.

  Now cool, masked eyes turned to him. “I never answer my door to strangers. I live alone.”