Ravenous Virtue Read online

  She couldn’t help but wonder … and half-hope … that Douglas Bringer was flirting with her. She caught herself comparing him to her boyfriend Todd and felt an immediate wash of guilt for doing so. Todd was a nice guy. A steady guy. Trustworthy and decent to the core.

  Besides, Bringer was only around for the short term. It was probably just as well; Raven was attracted a bit too much to his aura of power. She had a feeling he wasn’t quite as nice and steady as Todd. Still, she felt a pang of disappointment that the auditor wouldn’t be sticking around for long. There was something about Douglas Bringer that made her want to get to know him better despite that warning vibe of danger. Or maybe it was because of it that she had too many crude thoughts, thoughts of lying beneath him while he fucked her until she screamed.

  Half an hour after leaving the courthouse, Douglas pulled the car up to the front of the rangers station of the Petrified Forest National Park. He gave Raven a smile.

  “End of my workday, Raven Virtue, heroine of the school year book. I’ll see you around tomorrow.”

  “I hope not.” She laughed at his surprised look. “What I mean is, I hope I’m back on patrol first thing in the morning. I hate working behind the desk.”

  The auditor grinned. “Good luck on that. If you do end up back on patrol, don’t forget your time log.”

  Raven scowled at him. Accounting for every minute of the entire workday had gotten old the first day. Knowing there were weeks more to go of the nonsense made her feel tired in her head. “You auditors know how to take the fun out of everything.” She softened then. “Thanks for listening to my many woes.”

  Bringer nodded, his strange and beautiful golden eyes never leaving her face. “No problem. Enjoy your evening, Raven.”

  She got out of the car. Quelling the urge to watch Douglas drive away, she mounted the half dozen steps that took her into the office.

  This was the heartbeat of the Park Service’s presence at the site, a place the public never got to see unless they were filing a complaint, answering questions, or under arrest. The rangers’ desks ran the length of the room. There was a break room from which the scent of years of coffee wafted forth, as well as Superintendent Jackson’s office to Raven’s right. On the left was Dispatch, and Raven smiled a little to see her friend Kimi Furio manning the lines tonight. At the back wall a hallway led to Booking, Evidence Impound, and holding cells.

  In the main office, most of the desks were empty. The day shift had already gone, and the much smaller night shift had come in and gone out on patrol. Raven noted the Superintendent’s usually open door was closed, and the window that allowed him to look out at the main office area was covered by blinds. The muted sounds of shouting blatted from that direction. Raven smirked. She thought the voice might be Andy Wolford’s.

  A soft, purring phone sex-ready voice rubbed Raven’s ear. “Someone’s getting fired.”

  Raven turned to see fellow ranger Kimi Furio standing behind her. At complete odds with her Japanese first and Italian last names, she was blond, blue-eyed and fair-skinned. Like Raven, Kimi was an orphan. Unlike Raven, she’d been adopted, and her name reflected her parents’ ancestries.

  “Bringer said Wolford would be getting the sack. He’s got a lot of service years in, though. I’m still kind of surprised that it’s happening,” Raven said. She tried not to do a victory dance, not when getting rid of the bastard had come at such a high price.

  Kimi snorted from her superior height of six feet. She looked like a Norse goddess, long and slim and mighty in her dark green uniform. “After that major Miranda fuck up? Nothing is going to save his job, especially considering the asshole that was just sprung because of it. I’m sorry about your case.”

  Raven sighed heavily. Anger had drained away, leaving only a sense of despondence. “Yeah, it sucks. I wonder who the poor sap is that will have to pick up the pieces of the investigation?”

  Kimi shrugged. “Not much left to work with, is there? It’ll probably be closed within the week. Wills won’t be stupid enough to come back to park grounds to do his hunting. I bet he leaves the state altogether.”

  “Probably.” Raven couldn’t keep the glumness out of her voice. Wills would go somewhere else, making sure authorities lost track of him. Then people would begin disappearing again.

  Kimi gave her a hug. “Before he got into it with Wolford, Jackson left a message for you to go on home. He’ll let you know what’s happening in the morning.”

  “Damn it. I was hoping to find out I’d be out on site patrolling.”

  “Can’t see why not. We’re dying for patrol officers since the summer help went back to school.” Kimi stretched, and Raven looked at her long, tall frame with envy. She was always begging Kimi to let her borrow four inches.

  Her friend forced brightness into her voice. “Hey, I’m off tomorrow night. What do you say when you get off shift we blow it out? You deserve it after these last few weeks.”

  Raven grimaced. “I’d have to watch you drink, girlfriend. I’m not off for three more days.”

  “That works too.”

  Raven laughed and shook her head. “Yeah, why not? I need a night out, even if I am the designated driver. But you get to buy me dinner first.”

  Kimi grinned, her heart-shaped face definitely happy now that she had a date. “Done.” The phone in the dispatch office rang, and she gave Raven a wave goodbye as she trotted in to answer it.

  Yelling in Jackson’s office had continued on unabated while they had conversed. Raven rolled her eyes at the closed door and went to her desk. As always, her gaze went to the pictures on her bulletin board. Smiling from candid and studio portraits were the women Wills had taken from their lives. He’d been bold enough to give out their names, so Raven knew about all twenty, solving the who and why of all those missing persons cases in a 100-mile radius. Everything but the where.

  Human slave trafficking. Had there ever been an uglier crime?

  Twenty women smiled at her. Wherever they were now, Raven had no doubt they weren’t smiling anymore.

  “Where did you take them? Where are they, Wills?”

  “Gone.”

  “Gone where?”

  His grin made him look like the human equivalent of a shark. “Just … gone. It doesn’t matter, because you’ll never find them.”

  Yes, Raven thought she could commit torture and murder when it came to that bastard. God knows, she’d planned it enough times since arresting Wills.

  She gathered her gun and other belongings she hadn’t been allowed to take into court. Ready to go home and have a beer or two – and maybe that soul-cleansing fuck she’d decided Todd needed to grant her – she went out to her personal car, a Ford SUV. Minutes later, she was driving through the petrified tree-littered desert on her way home to park housing.

  She felt better and better the closer she got to home. There would be no more Wolford, no more partner at all, and she might even be back out patrolling tomorrow. She decided she might as well put aside her angst and embrace the potential good ahead of her.

  Chapter 2

  Raven pulled into site housing with a sigh. It was good to put the day behind her. Tremendously good. She was even finding her appetite. Whatever she and Todd were going to have for dinner, it needed to be something she could fix fast. Raven didn’t think well when she got hungry, becoming easily frustrated and downright mean when her blood sugar dipped low.

  She got out of her SUV and headed into the brick building that looked like any low-rent apartment complex. The rangers were always bitching about needing new housing, and brass always countered with arguments of slashed budgets. Like most of her co-workers, Raven looked forward to joining the few who had moved far ahead enough in pay rate to buy a house in expensive Arizona. That made her think of Andy Wolford, who owned his home off park grounds. Boy, he had a lot to worry about in the coming days without his hefty paycheck.

  She bobbed up the outdoor stairway to the second floor of the complex. S
he had her sights on the door to the apartment she shared with her boyfriend Todd Jackson. He wasn’t a Park Service employee, but he was still government. Todd was a guard at the nearby federal prison, which was a shock to most of those who met him. One of the nicest guys in the world, it was hard to imagine Todd standing strong against some pretty hard customers, including gang members, murderers, and rapists.

  The brief sojourn from vehicle to apartment door was sweaty work, and Raven entered her cool apartment with a sigh of relief. The living room drapes were drawn tight against the scorching Arizona sun, making it dim but for where light from the kitchen entryway spilled. Shadowed furniture crowded the small space: the nicely overstuffed sofa, a matching loveseat, and Todd’s battered recliner circled the thrift store coffee table, which he had stripped and refinished. The focal point of the room was the insanely huge television on which the pair cheered for their favorite sports teams. Todd, a native of Chicago, pulled for his hometown. Raven, hailing from South Carolina, pulled for any southern-based opponent of Chicago just to irritate him.

  She was confused to hear Todd moving about the kitchen. He must have gotten off work early, but she didn’t remember seeing his car in its usual space. Not that she should really be surprised, she decided. After the day she’d had, she was distracted enough that a herd of buffalo might run past without her noticing.

  Raven went into the small kitchen to see Todd setting their tiny table with paper plates and plastic forks. Chinese take-out heaped at the center of the round table top, another thrift store denizen painted white by her handy boyfriend. Good smells walloped her, and her stomach growled.

  Todd looked up and grinned. He was two years older than her thirty years, but he looked barely in his twenties. Golden-skinned with a tan, golden-haired from spending his days off in the sun, and blue-eyed with an easy smile, he was the Boy Next Door come to life. His body was built for sin because he loved to train for triathlons. Yes, he was a muscled delight from which dreams of the most carnal nature sprang. Unfortunately for the wild fantasies Raven entertained, Todd was a good and boring boy.

  Raven looked at the food with delight and surprise. “Hey. What’s all this?”

  His soft voice was as young as his looks. “Well, you didn’t have high hopes for your case today, so I figured you wouldn’t want to cook. And you know me and the kitchen.”

  She chuckled. “Mr. Ramen Noodles.”

  Todd smiled brightly. “Of course, if you have good news I could always take you out for dessert and coffee?”

  Raven rubbed the back of her neck and grimaced. “It was every bit as bad as I thought it would be. The only good thing is Wolford is probably fired.”

  “Damn.” Todd grimaced in sympathy. “I’m sorry, my darling. Have a seat. Drink some beer.”

  My darling? Todd had never called her that, and he was the last person to encourage drinking when Raven had to work the next day. Still, she wasn’t going to turn down food ever, nor booze after a day like the one she’d had. “Sounds good.”

  She sat down, opened containers, and looked over her options. It took her no time to start piling her plate high. “Ooh, General Tso’s. I thought you said it gives you heartburn?”

  Todd shrugged and layered his own plate thickly. “Gotta live dangerously sometimes, you know.”

  Raven laughed. He really was a good guy to go against his dislike of spicy food to make her day better. So what if they weren’t that compatible in the sack? Sex wasn’t everything.

  Todd was sweet, dependable, and just a good guy all around. Well worth the bedroom boredom, she told herself. Besides, there was always food.

  “So how was work?” she asked.

  He waved it off, though being a guard in a federal prison was full of stresses Raven couldn’t imagine. “Same old, same old. Tell me how you’re doing. Vent.”

  She was touched at his interest. They rarely burdened each other with the details of their day, having agreed early on that home should be a place to decompress, not bitch and whine. Neither ever said more about their workday than the most general of assessments of ‘okay’ or ‘terrible’.

  She decided to share the reaming the judge had given Wolford for Todd’s amusement. He snickered over the advice the judge had given Andy to ‘trade the broken 10-watt bulb in your head for a nice, bright 100-watt one’.

  Raven had meant to leave it at that light little anecdote, but somehow she ended up bemoaning Wills’ freedom and her inability to build a new case against him, not to mention track down his victims. Todd nodded and made the appropriate interested noises, clearing the table after they finished their meal.

  Raven finally ran out of complaints and worries. She sipped her beer and tried to pull herself out of the depression that wanted to descend full force. Todd finished stuffing the trash can with their garbage and stepped back over to the table. He stood behind her and rubbed her neck.

  Raven groaned as his fingers sought out the tense spots and kneaded them into supple relaxation. “That feels so good. I’ll give you a week to stop that.” She suddenly remembered to tell him, “Oh, I’m going out with Kimi tomorrow night.”

  “Where to?” His touch wandered down to her shoulders, finding new knots to untie.

  Raven sighed, blissed out. “We’re grabbing dinner, then we’ll probably end up at Rafters. There, we’ll dance our troubles away.”

  “It sounds like fun.”

  Raven snorted “Yeah, you and your two left feet. I bet it does.”

  Todd’s hands slid down to cover her breasts. “I’m pretty good with the horizontal bump.”

  He leaned down and wetly mouthed the side of her neck. All the hairs on Raven’s arms lifted at the warm caress, at the delightful strength he erotically mauled her breasts with. Todd almost never instigated sex. His idea of getting the ball rolling was sheepishly asking, “Want me to climb on you?”

  Raven responded to the unaccustomed assertive handling. Her nipples tightened and her pussy went slick. “Are we heading to the bedroom?” she asked.

  “I think I want you right here. Right now.”

  With those shocking words, Todd picked her beer bottle up from the table and set it on the nearby counter. Grasping her upper arms, he tugged her upright and turned her around.

  Raven looked up at him, surprise increasing her eager arousal. Todd’s open sweetness was eclipsed by a calculating desire. She’d never seen that expression on his face before. It was almost as if she looked at another person who was wearing Todd’s handsome face and his killer body.

  “Todd—” she began, but then his mouth was on hers, sucking the words from her throat and the thoughts from her brain. His kiss was searing heat and hunger, burning all sense from her mind. He smelled exotic too. A small part of Raven’s brain thought it recognized the cologne, though it wasn’t something Todd had ever worn before. The rest of her brain was busy cataloging the exciting sensations firing through her body.

  Without letting up for an instant on that mind-blowing kiss, Todd’s nimble fingers flew over the buttons of her uniform’s top, opening it in record time. His hands roughly jerked it over her shoulders and off. Without a pause, he dug at her bra clasp, undoing it easily without the usual fumbling. The bra flew off and Todd shoved Raven backwards, forcing her down onto the table surface so his demanding mouth could fill itself with a stiff-nippled breast.

  Raven was too stunned to protest the unaccustomed dominance. Todd was usually passive to the point of letting her do all the work. Raven didn’t mind taking charge once in awhile, but she often wished he would be commanding more often. More passionate. Like he was now.

  Todd sucked hard on her breast, sending raw pleasure traveling straight to her clit. Raven gasped in reaction. Then she yelped when he used teeth, sending a slight dart of pain shivering through her body.

  “Todd! What the hell?”

  He released the mound and grinned. “Where’s your sense of adventure, Raven? Or are you going to play the demure damsel toda
y? Is Virtue just your name or an attitude?”

  “Very funny.” She narrowed her eyes at him, but in truth she was enjoying the assertiveness. Her panties were soaked. Hell, the crotch of her thick Park Service-issued trousers was probably more than damp too.

  Leering at her, Todd moved deliberately over to the other breast. He treated it with just as much aggression as the first, making Raven arch and claw at his shoulders as she cried out.

  Then he licked the pebbled nipple with slow, sensuous strokes, like a kid enjoying an ice cream. Raven groaned and writhed beneath him.

  “I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but you should let it in more often,” she gasped.

  “I’m feeling a bit forceful,” Todd said. He stood up straight and pulled at her fly. As soon as it was undone, he grabbed her thigh and lifted each of her legs up so that he could pull her black lace-up hiking shoes off. Then he pulled her pants and panties off in one, swift motion.

  “Your turn,” Raven said, reaching towards his collar.

  Todd grabbed her hands and held them off without effort. “I don’t think so. I’m in charge.”

  “Since when?” Raven snorted and twisted her wrists to get loose.

  He arched an eyebrow at her. “I suggest you behave or I might have to spank you.”

  “Spank me?” Raven hooted and struggled harder than ever. “In your dreams, pal.”

  “You think so? Let’s find out.”

  Todd yanked Raven to her feet, the action so unexpected that Raven couldn’t think to defend herself. His next motion had her turned around and facing the table. Then she was face down on it, bent over the edge. Todd pinned her wrists to the surface with one hand.

  “Such a gorgeous ass,” he chuckled. Raven’s breath caught as he groped her buttocks with firm demand.

  “Hey—” she started.

  She wasn’t sure what she’d been about to say. Before she could order her thoughts, that hard hand let go of her butt. It clapped back down with a meaty slap.

  Heat suffused Raven’s right ass cheek. She jumped and squealed.