“What’re you planning to tell Lissa?”

“How about ‘Daddy’s home’?”

“Fine. If you want to camp out in the family room and make some kind of macho statement, have at it. You can explain it to Lissa tomorrow.”

“Sweet dreams,” he called after her as she strode into their bedroom and slammed the door.

It was all Ross could do not to chase after her, kiss her for all she was worth, toss her onto the bed, and tumble after her. He knew their lovemaking would be searing. Intense. Erotic.

It always had been.

Even when they’d made light of it and laughed or teased, the physical wanting and desire had always been white hot.

Lying on the couch, watching the fire die, hearing a sportscaster drone on and on about the NBA, he let his mind wander back to the time when they hadn’t been able to get enough of each other; when a simple brushing of the elbows, or naughty little glance, or upturned corner of a mouth had started a sensual foreplay process that might have lasted fifteen minutes or more likely hours, touching, kissing, caressing.

They had experimented with positions and places; in fact-he glanced around the house-there hadn’t been a room they hadn’t christened in one way or another before they’d moved here permanently. Closing his eyes, he remembered the feel of her tongue sliding down the cords of his neck and lower, over his shoulders and down his abdomen. She would often place her teeth and tongue around one of his nipples before moving slowly, with sweet agony, downward.

His blood heated and even now, alone, thinking of her, his groin tightened and his damned cock grew hard.

He tried to shift his thoughts from her, but it was too late.

They hadn’t been able to get enough of each other and if there had been any problems, they had seemed small at the time. True, he’d known from the get-go that she hadn’t resolved her feelings for the boy who had died, but Ross had thought with the passage of time, Jake Marcott’s ghost would be laid to rest, that eventually Kristen would come to terms with what had happened that night.

He’d been proved wrong.

Jake had always been there.

Standing between them, and in Ross’s mind’s eye, the dark-haired boy had been laughing at Ross’s naïvete. He’d even shown up in some of Ross’s dreams, this high-school kid he’d never even met! And always, without fail, Jake was the one walking out of the damned maze with Kristen, and Ross was left shackled to the tree, the greenery closing in on him, Kristen’s voice fading in the distance.

He’d always been stark naked in the nightmare, while Jake was in a black tux and Kristen in a differing array of clothing; sometimes in a long, sexy black gown, other times in nothing more than a red teddy and high heels.

He’d always woken up hot, horny, and thankful that Kristen was beside him, sleeping soundly.

So why had he let it slip away? Why let the nightmares of Jake Marcott push him further from her? When had his work, his goddamned work, become more important than his wife and daughter?

Never.

They had just slowly grown apart and they’d let it go too far until questions, doubts, and fears had overtaken love and trust.

But no more.

Whether Kristen liked it or not, he was back. And horny as hell.

So the husband is there.

That was an unexpected wrinkle.

The killer, having parked two streets over, had carefully slunk through the shadows of the tall firs that partially covered the hillsides of this sparsely occupied neighborhood. With houses on partial acres, hidden away, and the few houses close to the road built on steep, forested hillsides, traffic had been light, nearly nonexistent, as she’d neared the Delmonico home at the end of the dead-end street. She’d had to hide only twice when a car had passed.

Now, across the street as she viewed Kristen’s home, the killer stared at the big black pickup belonging to Ross Delmonico. She didn’t like the fact that Delmonico was in the picture again. He could screw up her plans. Big time. And she had waited so long. So damned long.

Don’t panic.

Stay the course.

You’ve come too far to let this little snag affect you.

She let out her breath, the warm air from her lungs expelling in a streaming fog as it hit the cold night.

Staring at the house, she reached into her pocket, her fingers closing over the key deep inside, a key she’d made from the one Kristen had hidden on a nail tucked under the eaves of the porch, the one she left for the kid who was always forgetting hers.

They’d never known it was missing. The killer had located it one morning after everyone had left for the day and put it back it before anyone had returned. Easy deal. She’d done the same with all the houses she’d needed to enter. Most people weren’t that clever when hiding their spare.

Slowly, caressingly, she rubbed her thumb and index finger over the cold metal, pressing hard over the unique, sharp little teeth that were fashioned and cut to ensure the locks on Kristen Daniels’s doors would open.

But the husband was a problem.

As was the kid.

Not insurmountable. You can handle them. You just have to be careful and wait for the precise moment to strike. You can do it. You won’t fail.

Through the slats of the blinds, she saw a fire glowing, warm and bright, flickering flames reflecting on the windows, smoke curling into the thick, dark night. Every once in a while she’d catch a glimpse of a silhouette moving in front of the window and her gut would tighten.

Don’t let anyone see you, she reminded herself.

What the hell was the husband doing there?

The light in Kristen’s bedroom snapped on, and though the killer could not see through the closed shutters, she imagined what was happening in that room. With the husband. She imagined the mating, that big man mounting Kristen in the missionary position, or maybe from behind. He would be grunting in pleasure, she gasping, maybe holding on to the rails of her headboard, and there would be the slap, slap, slap of flesh meeting flesh, hotter and faster as the smell of sweat and sex overcame the scents of candles and fire.

Her lower abdomen tightened.

And need started to pulse through her. Did she dare peek through the blinds to watch their rutting? Spy Kristen in the throes of passion, knowing she would be pretending the man thrusting himself into her, making her pant and her blood run like lava, wasn’t Ross Delmonico at all, but Jake Marcott?

“Whore,” the killer whispered. They were all whores. For Jake.

Her jaw was so tight it hurt.

Tears burned behind her eyes.

Bile rose up her throat.

She clasped the key so hard it cut through her skin, and she might not have noticed the pain except a dog started barking, breaking into her obsessive fantasy.

A big dog, from the sounds of it.

Not a little yapper.

And not penned.

Wrenching her gaze from the house, she narrowed her eyes into the frigid darkness and focused down the hill toward the corner where the main road split and this offshoot continued up the hill. There was only one streetlight between Kristen’s house and that fork.

She saw the bobbing beam of a flashlight.

Shit!

Her heart nearly stopped.

Someone was walking their damned dog!

Blocking her way out.

Her ears strained and she heard the pound of footsteps.

She racewalked in the other direction, toward the dead end, where no house could be built as the lot was essentially little more than a sheer cliff.

She had to get away before she was seen!

Slap! Slap! Slap! Slap! A brisk tempo of running shoes hitting pavement.

Oh, hell, the guy wasn’t walking his dog. He was running. Even though it was almost midnight. The runner and dog reached the lamp post with its eerie pool of bluish light. The man wasn’t all that big, but the beast-some kind of Doberman/Rottweiler mix-was huge. Massive. Drooling.