Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 84002 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84002 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
They hadn’t sat across from each other in the restaurant over a meal, but they sure the hell had moved on to the next stage. Over and over again. Each time she thought of how often he’d fucked her the night before into the early morning, she got weak between the knees. That was some powerful lust.
She’s brave enough with herself anyway, to admit that she loves the fact that he satisfied her. That she didn’t have to go away in her head to get off. Maybe that was part of the problem, part of the reason why she couldn’t fully concentrate. She didn’t know if that was a fluke, an anomaly.
Maybe it was the novelty of them being together for the first time that had brought out the animal in him, and her come to think of it. But she was hoping that wasn’t the case. She’d even had moments of doubt where she wondered if she matched up to the wife he’d shared his bed with for so many years.
Those thoughts she tended to drift away from, not wanting to borrow trouble. He didn’t seem to be missing the other woman, not that he ever brought her up. Celia wanted to but was afraid of pushing too soon.
Even though he’d asked her to move in, she still wasn’t sure exactly how he felt. If the number of times he’d fucked her was anything to go by, then he felt a lot. But she knew better than to use sex as a measuring stick.
When Celia opened the door to her rental home, she knew something was off right away. Drawing her gun from the small of her back where she preferred to keep it, she walked slowly down the hallway, eyes moving left to right as she listened for any sound.
She scanned the whole house going from room to room and found nothing. Walking back into her living room, she stood there with her brows knitted as she tried to put her finger on what was different. Then she noticed it. Her bookcase was empty, and her plants…
“What the hell?” She walked through the whole house again, noticing that more and more things were missing. Like her computer and all the files she’d kept in the little broom closet turned into an office.
Had she been robbed? She looked around in confusion until she walked into the kitchen and there on the refrigerator door was a note. “Come home.”
“Are you shitting me? She didn’t know if to be amused or pissed. I could’ve sworn I told him it was too soon to move in together.” I knew he’d given in too quickly.” Celia thought as she holstered her gun and pulled her phone.
Riley answered on the third ring. Mr. Smooth. She could imagine him looking at the phone and seeing her name but waiting to respond as if he hadn’t been anticipating it. He very well should be. The man had moved her things out of her home and into his without asking her.
“It’s a crime to break into someone else’s home and remove their things. It’s called theft.”
“Prove it, detective, now where are you? Sun’s going down, and these steaks aren’t going to keep.”
“I’ll be right there; we need to talk.”
“About a lot of things, but one of them isn’t about you moving in here. That’s not up for discussion. You shouldn’t talk on the phone and drive, so I’ll let you go. See you soon, baby.” He hung up, leaving Celia to stare at the phone in disbelief. “Unbelievable.”
Left with no other recourse, she headed back out to her car and drove out to the farm, still not quite believing his balls. How was he expecting her to just move in so soon after Valerie’s death? What would people say? Briar Reef isn’t the big city where people minded their own.
Why just from her investigation this morning she knew firsthand how the people here stuck their noses in everyone else’s business. The neighbors were a font of information on Melissa Sherry’s comings and goings. They did everything but give her exact times and dates, and some of them came close.
She went over the case as she drove out to the farm. So far, she wasn’t getting any feel for the situation. The most obvious suspects were pretty much cleared in her head even though she knew it was not a very good idea this early in the case to close her eyes and ears to all possibilities.
She was more inclined to believe that the answers will lay in the woman’s dealings and activities in the next town over where the strip club she worked at was located. It wouldn’t be a stretch for a married woman in a small town who apparently didn’t give a fig about everyone knowing she was screwing around on her husband according to the neighbors to have more than one lover.