Tie Me Down: A Loveswept Contemporary Erotic Romance by Tracy Wolff Read Free Book Online

listen
—after
the fact—while he laid out the reasons he’d gone looking for her to begin with?
    He was a bigger fool than he’d thought, and now he was stuck between a rock and a hard place. He had to get to Genevieve, which meant he needed to go to the police station. At the same time, his sudden appearance there would seem suspicious to her; they hadn’t exactly exchanged job descriptions the night before.
    Would she believe him when he told her that bringing her home had had nothing to do with the movie he was making—nothing to do with Samantha? Or would she kick him out before he even got the chance to explain?
    The second outcome was much more likely, he acknowledged, his fingers tensing on the keyboard. And if that happened—if that happened, he’d be right back where he’d started. With a bunch of research on dead women and a ton of photos he could barely stand to look at.
    Glancing back at the computer screen, Cole ran through the photos of recent homicide scenes. He knew what he was looking for—something, anything that might connect to Samantha. Something that might point him in the right direction, even after all this time.
    But as he scanned the photos, he knew he’d hacked into the NOPD for no reason—there was nothing here, nothing at all that resembled what had happened to his sister. And yet he couldn’t deny a horrified fascination with the pictures. Couldn’t help wanting Genevieve to find whoever had done these terrible things. So that some other family could find a modicum of the peace that continued to elude him seven years after his baby sister’s brutal murder.
    Genevieve could bring him peace. The thought sprang unbidden into his head, even as he snarled at the absurdity of it. She’d done a lot of things to him last night—made him sweat, made him swear, made his body respond in a way it hadn’t for a very long time, if ever. But bring him peace—no, he wouldn’t describe the riotous emotions she caused in him as anything close to peaceful. Yet she could be the answer to his prayers, the salvation he’d spent so long looking for.
If
he stuck to the plan and controlled his suddenly out-of-control libido.
    Shit, fuck, damn.
He slammed back another shot as his body tighteneduncomfortably. What the hell was Genevieve doing in homicide anyway? She was too hot for this job, too sexy to waste her life investigating the dead. She belonged somewhere far away from all of this—before she ended up a victim of the very criminals she’d spent her career trying to stop.
    The idea of one day staring at homicide photos of his sexy blond cop had him swearing and downing his drink yet again. His hands were shaking, his heart beating wildly, but he ignored them. Stared harder at the broken, bloody bodies on the computer screen. Tried his damnedest not to see Genevieve in the same position as the dead women in the photographs.
    He reached for the mouse. Clicked a few times and watched as the current photos were replaced by older ones. Bloodier ones.
    As he stared at pictures of his sister’s body, he knew he no longer had a choice. There was a compulsion inside of him, a dark and violent need that grew with every day he spent in this city.
    It was why he had come back, after all, why he had allowed the studio to talk him into making this movie. And it had only grown worse with every hour he stayed here.
    Closing the laptop, he shoved it away from himself with a muffled groan. He couldn’t stand to look at it anymore, couldn’t stand the images that were branded into his brain. But they were there for good. He’d learned to accept that sometime during the last seven years.
    It was ridiculous to be this upset, considering how long he’d spent thinking about doing this. How many times he’d asked himself if he could go through with it before deciding that indeed he could. How often he’d run his plan in his head, looking for any and all flaws.
    There hadn’t been any.
    Focus on the female