She wanted him inside her, wanted to feel sexually alive from the inside out.

Rising up onto his knees, he sheathed himself. “Ready?”

“Since you arrived.” Her words seemed to pitch him over the edge, this controlled man who burned against her.

The next few moments weren’t controlled at all, the two of them coming together in a storm of need and lust and hunger.

Racing heartbeats.

Demanding hands.

A guttural grunt from Will.

A short scream from Anahera.

Harsh breaths.

46

“I haven’t screamed for a long time,” Anahera said long minutes later. It might’ve been a cold crash into reality except that Will had his arm around her shoulders, and she was lying with her head against his chest. Anahera wasn’t sure how she felt about the ­intimacy—­sex was easy, it was the rest that complicated things.

Will stroked his hand down her spine. “I haven’t been with anyone for over a year.”

“High standards?” she said with a ­self-­mocking smile.

“Nightmares.”

“Those nightmares have anything to do with the burns on your back?”

“Same case that led to the inquiry.” He ran his hand down her spine again. “You’ve got some scars of your own.” The words didn’t demand.

Maybe that was why she gave him an ­answer… of sorts. “It shouldn’t be such a big scar, but it was an emergency and there were complications.”

Will didn’t ask the obvious probing question, but he raised his free hand to brush her hair from her face. The gesture was oddly tender and it struck her with terror.

Sitting up, she reached for her dress, tugged it on over her head. “Zip me up?” She swept her hair to one side.

Will did as asked, then let her use the bathroom before he did so himself. He’d taken his clothes with him, came out fully dressed. “Should I drag the mattress back to the bed?”

Anahera knew what he was asking. “I don’t have an answer for you yet.” She’d had no intention of tonight being anything other than a physical release, but Will wasn’t a simple man. He was the kind of man who got under a woman’s skin and made her feel. Made her come awake on the ­inside—­along with memories of the sterile cold of an operating theater, memories so painful that she didn’t talk about them even with her best friend.

Will said nothing, just set the table before coming back for the pot of stew she’d reheated and was stirring.

Pot on the table, he took her hand and tugged her to a chair. “Stop running, Anahera.” A press of his lips to her temple before he took his own seat. “I can tell you from experience that the demons eventually catch up with you, no matter what you do.”

“Sometimes, we need to run, need to give ourselves time to heal enough to fight the demons.”

“Do you think all wounds can be healed?”

Anahera laughed, the sound more than a little ragged. “You’re a damn good cop, Will.” The wound inside her would never heal.

Will looked at her with far too much insight, but didn’t say anything further. It was Anahera who finally spoke ten minutes later, after they’d served themselves and were eating. “Hysterectomy,” she said without attempting to soften the blow. “I guess that answers your question.”

“My burns were second degree. But that doesn’t answer your question, does it?”

She stared at him, at this man who was forcing her to confront the past, and she ­wondered… “Why the sudden desire to know my past? Am I still on your suspect list?”

“No.” He closed his fingers around his beer but didn’t drink.

“Then what’s with the questions?”

“Because I want to get to know you.” Those gray eyes, so difficult to penetrate. “The sex, I could’ve had if I’d wanted it. I’m no prize, but there aren’t that many single men around for competition.”

Anahera wondered if he truly believed that, if he truly didn’t understand the magnetism of his intensity and quiet competence. It kindled a compulsion to unravel him, see beneath that disciplined control. Ironically, one of the things Anahera had loved most about Edward was that he was an open ­book—­and look how well that turned out. At least Will was up-­front about his secrets.

“I feel so special.” She took a sip of wine. “What sets me apart from the herd?”

He didn’t flinch at her sharp tone, didn’t set his jaw or look away. “You’re unapologetically you,” he said. “Complex, difficult, gifted.” The slightest upward tug of his lips, the faintest whisper of a smile. “I’m a cop. We love solving mysteries.”

“The only mysteries about me are sordid,” Anahera said, suddenly tired of pretending. “They involve a cheating husband, a pregnant mistress, and a case of ­deep-­vein thrombosis that led to a fatal pulmonary embolism.” Such an unfair way for healthy and fit Edward to die, such a senseless waste. “Mystery solved.”

“No, that’s just a splinter of you.” Will held the dangerously intense eye contact. “You’re a creature of mystery and you always will be. I’ll never solve you.”

Anahera didn’t know why, but she said, “Leave the mattress by the fire.”

As she lay down on the mattress next to Will later that night, she knew this was nothing like what she’d had with Edward. That had been a bright, hopeful thing with butterfly wings. She was harder now, her wings torn off to be replaced by scar tissue.

Will was the same.

What would come of that? What could come of that?

Will’s arm crept around her waist, hugging her to the heat and muscle of him. But Anahera’s eyes stared out into the darkness sketched in shadows by the firelight, her ghosts loud tonight.

She woke to the sound of movement. Her eyelashes lifted, her body heavy with the kind of sleep she hadn’t had for a long, long time. Still drowsy, she watched Will put on his clothes and boots, and wondered if he’d sneak out of the house, doing his version of a walk of shame.

But, of course, that wasn’t Will. She saw him grab a small notebook she’d left on the counter, begin to write a note.

“Will.”

Abandoning the note, he came to crouch by the mattress. Brushing her hair off her face with one hand, he said, “I have to go. A local found something not far from the rubbish dump. The call just came in.”

Anahera had a vague memory of hearing an annoying buzzing.

Sitting up, she let his hand drop away, her attention fixed on his face. It gave her nothing. “What do you mean they found something? Is it Miriama?”

“I hope not.” Hard lines bracketing his mouth. “Because that area was heavily searched. I asked Nikau to send extra teams out there.”

Anahera sucked in a breath. “That means if it is her, somebody deliberately returned to put her there.” She had to say it out loud to get the horror of it straight in her mind. “I’ll come with you.”

Will shook his head. “You’d just have to sit in the car. I can’t take a civilian into a possible crime scene.” He rose along with her. “I’ll call you the instant I know anything.”