“Yeah, it is.”
“We’re really happening.”
“We’re happening,” I tell her. “Now up and at ‘em.”
“What? Why?” She hurries to jump up.
“Because big things are happening for us, our lives are falling into place, finally, and I’m going to take you to bed now, but I’m not going to fuck you in our daughter’s room, so get moving.”
And she got moving.
Emma hopped up and let me take her hand and lead her into the master bedroom—our bedroom. She can decorate this room or any other in the house the way she wants. I just want her.
I take her in my arms and hold her face in my hands. I could look at her forever, but she’s here in my arms now. If there’s one thing life has taught me, it’s that we don’t know how long we have, so maybe we don’t have forever, but we’re here together now, and that’s all I need.
Emma wraps her arms around my waist, and I lean down and press my mouth to hers. I want her, I need her, but tonight, I don’t want a hard and fast fuck. Tonight, I want to worship her like she deserves. She sighs into my mouth, and I take the opening to deepen the kiss, licking into her mouth. She meets me at every level, her tongue tangling with mine and her fingers digging into my side.
I drag my shirt up over her body and toss it to the floor. I walk her back to the bed and help her sit on the edge. Emma and I were always combustible together, and she was always adventurous in the bedroom. Pregnancy could cause some limitations if we let it, but we won’t. I want her more now than ever before, and I have always wanted her.
I drop to my knees in front of her and slide her plain white panties down her legs. I look up at her and let her see the hunger I know is burning in my eyes. She swallows nervously and then lets me part her legs gently with my hands.
I hold her like she’s delicate and treat her like she’s the only thing that’s important as I taste her. I kiss her and lick her; I give her everything I have to give. And when her fingers tighten in my hair and I feel her come on my tongue, I stand and push my sweats down, letting them fall to the ground. I step out of them and grab a condom from my nightstand drawer, rolling it down my hard length.
She parts her creamy thighs for me, and I step between them, wrapping her long legs around my waist as I slowly slide in deep. I close my eyes and take a deep breath, and when I open them, I only see Emma.
I lean over her, bracing my weight on my hands on either side of her on the bed, needing to be as close to her as possible, even if her swollen belly prevents that right now. I grip the comforter tight in my fists as I slide out of her tight heat and drive back in again and again.
She makes the sexiest fucking sounds as she wiggles underneath me, meeting me thrust for thrust. I feel a tingle burn up my spine and balls draw tight as her pussy contracts around me, drawing me in deeper, and I let her orgasm pull me under with her.
I press a deep kiss to her lips and slide out of her heat. I miss the connection immediately. I scoot her up the bed and pull the covers around her.
“Can I have my shirt back?” she asks sweetly, and I look back over my shoulder to where she sits up in the middle of my bed with the covers pooled around her waist, her full breasts hanging heavy and unrestrained. She’s like a wet dream come true, and she wants to cover it all up, so I don’t even think when I answer her question.
“No.”
And then I head to the bathroom to take care of this condom. When I’m done, I walk back into the bedroom and see she hasn’t reclaimed my T-shirt, but she is under the covers now, so I peel them back and settle in before pulling her into my arms and holding her tight.
My last thought before sleep claims me is that this is paradise.
• • •
It’s so fucking hot.
I hate this desert. I hate the sand that permeates everything. It’s in my hair and my eyes and between my teeth. Sweat drips down my spine and from my forehead. I use the back of my gloved hand to wipe it out of my eyes, but the effort is wasted, because another just drips down right after.
When the tip came through the chatter wires that the terrorist we had been searching for was hiding in this village, a village we’d been near for months, I couldn’t believe it. It seemed too good to be true.
I hold my rifle steady in my hands as I patrol. Posing as an infantry soldier to gain recon entry into the village was easy enough. We just needed to spot the guy and signal our sniper on the hill. Easy breezy, in and out.
But when we breach the walls of the village, one thing becomes clear.
We were wrong.
About everything.
There is no easy breezy, in and out. There is no one living inside these walls. Every man, woman, and child has been slaughtered. Gunned down where they stood last.
A woman lays sprawled by a cart; her lifeless eyes are the only thing that peeks out from the scarves that cover her head. But it’s the squirming coming from underneath her that has my attention. A kid, a young girl, pulls herself out from under her mother, a woman who must have sacrificed herself to protect her child. She’s the only one living in this entire hell on earth that’s left.
But when I look back at her mother, it’s not her dark-brown eyes I see, but Emma’s bright-blue ones that don’t see me, no light left inside them.
“No!”
• • •
I try to get to her, but I can’t. I’m frozen. It feels as if my legs are tied down and steel bands wrap around my chest and arms. And I can’t catch my breath. I can’t breathe.
“Emma!” I scream. I have to get to her. I can’t lose her.
“I’m right here,” she says, but I don’t know how, because she’s dead.
“Emma!” I cry out again. How could I have finally won her, only to have her taken from me like this? Is this my penance for the life I led before her?
“Lee!” Someone shakes me, and I blink my eyes open. Fuck, it was dream. I had a nightmare with Emma in the bed with me. “I’m right here.”
I sit up and gently dislodge her hands from my body. I bend my knees up around me and rest my forearms on them, dropping my head into my hands while I try to catch my breath. How could I have been so careless?
“Fuck,” I bite out.
“Lee,” she whispers, and I feel her gentle hand touch the small of my back.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
“What do you have to be sorry for?” she asks as she settles into my side more firmly.
“I could have hurt you,” I admit my worst fear.
“But you didn’t.”
“I could have though.”
“But you didn’t, and you won’t,” she assures, touching my jaw and forcing me to look at her beautiful face, and I can admit to myself that I needed to see with my own eyes that she’s all right and not rotting in that village.
“You can’t know that,” I whisper.
“I do,” she says with a strength in her voice that has my attention. “You would never hurt me.”
“Not intentionally—” I start to say, but she doesn’t let me finish. My woman is a warrior, and she won’t let this go. I can see it in the way her eyes flare in the moonlight. It’s sexy as hell.
“No,” she says with confidence that I wish I felt, but my heart is still trying to beat its way out of my chest, and my blood is roaring in my ears. “You never would, and when you’re ready to admit it, we both know I’m right.”
“Emma—”
“How long have you been having nightmares?” she asks, changing the subject in a soft voice. I swore earlier that I would always give her the truth when I could, so I do exactly that.
“Always. Off and on, but not like I have been lately,” I admit.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“No,” I answer immediately. “Not ever with you. I don’t want to dirty you.”
“Then with someone else?”
“I haven’t before, but I will if you
want me to,” I tell her.
“Okay,” she says softly. “Just think on it.”
“Okay,” I promise, turning to her and pulling her into my arms. I breathe in the strawberry scent of her hair and let it wash over me. I feel the tension in each muscle slide out, and I relax, if only a little bit. My pulse is still racing, and adrenaline is coursing through my body. I need to get up and run a few miles to keep the ghosts at bay. “You make me feel better. I’ll just go run. You go back to sleep.”
She looks at the bright blue glow of the digital alarm clock on the nightstand. It’s three in the morning. She could go back to sleep, but I’m up now for the rest of the day. I usually am after a nightmare like that one.
Emma turns back to me with her bottom lip firmly between her teeth. She lets it go before she gives me what’s on her mind. “Maybe let me make you feel a little better?”
“Emma—” I start. I don’t want her to feel like she’s mine to use when I need to work something out of my system. She’s more to me than just a body.
“I want to,” she whispers as she scoots around me and settles between my thighs. Between the adrenaline mainlining my body and the attraction to Emma that won’t ever go away, she has my dick’s full attention when she reaches for it.
She wraps her slim hand around my cocks and pumps her fist around me twice, making me groan. And then she looks up at me, her blue eyes burning into my purple ones as she leans forward and licks the very tip of me.
The breath in my lungs burns, and I realize I’ve been holding it as I watch her pink lips, the same pretty pink as her nipples, slip around my cock, sliding up and down before swirling her tongue around my tip. Her hand fists my cock at the very base, and she slides it up and down in time with her mouth.
I’m lost watching her as she takes me deeper and deeper with each pass of her hot mouth, and my balls draw up and I rock my hips, but it’s when I see her sneak her other hand between her legs to finger her clit that I realize she did want this. She wants me like I want her, and I’m only happy to oblige.
“Emma,” I say her name, and my voice is sandpaper-rough as she swallows me down again. Her blues eyes burn me as I watch her get herself off while she sucks my cock. “Don’t you dare come.”
She gasps around my hard length, and I watch her move her fingers faster over her pussy. I growl, letting her know that is not how we’re doing this. She wants to play, so we’re going to play. She wants to come, then she can come on my cock, not her fingers.
I grab her by her arms and drag her up my body. She hovers on her knees over my cock. I steady her over me, and when I touch the tip to her opening, she sinks down on me. She’s so hot and wet, fucking dripping, and there’s nothing stopping her descent until her ass rests just over my balls, making us both groan.
“Did sucking my cock turn you on?” I growl as I skate my hands over her hips and up to her full breasts. I pluck her nipples hard between my fingers, making her gasp and squirm on my cock.
“Yes.”
“Did you have fun playing?”
“Not as much as I would’ve if you’d have let me finish,” she mumbles, but it turns into a moan when I roll my hips.
“Oh, you’re going to finish,” I tell her. “On my cock with me deep inside you.”
“Yes,” she says as she rolls her hips, testing the movement. She lifts up, sliding off me before dropping back down.
“You want to ride my cock?” I ask as I flex my hips with her movements, driving deeper than before.
“Yes,” she pants as she moves faster over me, and I place my hands over each of her breasts, letting my thumbs caress the hard peaks. She’s so fucking sensitive there now, and I can’t get enough of it. Emma puts her hands over mine, holding me there as she rides me, her movements becoming faster and faster. “I-I’m gonna—”
“Yes,” I growl as I slip a hand out from under hers and grip her hip tight. Her movements become shaky as she nears her orgasm, so I thrust up into her as hard as I can, over and over, meeting each rock of her hips until she grips me so tight in her hot sheath as she comes I can’t help but follow her over the edge into bliss.
I roll with her in my arms to the side as exhaustion weighs heavy on me, and I do something I have never done before after I’ve had a nightmare. I fall into a restful sleep and only wake with my alarm in the morning.
FOURTEEN
* * *
TWO TRUTHS AND AN AUTOPSY
I’m warm but not too hot. I’m safe and secure. And I feel… at peace.
For the first time in years, I did not wake up before my alarm went off. I hate to let go of the body I’m wrapped around, because she’s warm and soft and exactly where I want to be right now.
“Make it stop,” she groans in her sexy alto voice, and I reach over, and for the first time that I can remember, I hit the Snooze button and wrap myself back around her. “Mmm… that’s nice.”
I bury my face in the crook of her neck and take in the smell of sweat and strawberries on her skin. I press my lips to the back of her neck and pull her tighter into my arms. My cock thickens as she wiggles her ass back against it to get comfortable.
Everything with Emma is just right. We fit together like we were always meant to be like this. The only other part of my life that felt like it fit just right was my job, my duty to the department, the officers who work for me, and the people we protect. I always knew I was meant to be there. Just like I know I’m meant to be right here with her in my arms.
My alarm sounds again.
Sometimes duty sucks.
With a groan, I let go of Emma’s warm, sexy body and silence my alarm for good this time. She takes the opportunity to burrow farther into the blankets as if she can hide from me, like I wouldn’t notice her in my bed and not in the car on the way to the station.
“Not so fast,” I say as I grab her ankle and pull her out of the bed with me.
“Nooo,” she wails. “Just ten more minutes… or days… whatever. I’m not picky.”
“You can sleep tonight,” I tell her. “But you owe me one more body.”
“I’ll owe you a blowie if you let me go back to sleep,” she says, and I’m not ashamed to admit that if my dick was in the driver seat, then that is definitely a deal he would make. He twitches on my thigh, and I let out a groan as the image of her on her knees with her pink lips wrapped around my cock fills my head.
“Change of plans,” I tell her as I swat her naked behind, making her squeak. Her blue eyes open to glare at me. “You can suck me off, and then I’ll fuck you in the shower before we go to work.”
“Hmm,” she non-answers as she heads for the shower. She might act mad at my dirty talk, but she’s not. I saw the flare in her eyes before she turned away and headed for the bathroom.
I just watch her walk away with a smile on my face, knowing I’ll join her there in a moment, but for now, I just need to say thanks to the universe for sending her to me. For the life we live and the future we have working together day in and day out, and then coming home to be together to raise this baby.
Life is perfect.
And then I walk into the bathroom to find her in the shower, steam clouding all around her. She stands under the hot spray with her head tipped back and her wet hair cascading down her back. She has her eyes closed and one hand braced on the wall, water rolling down her shoulders and over her full breasts. Her skin is flushed a delicious pink from the heat and from other things, and I watch with rapt attention as she slips her fingers between her legs.
“That is not the plan for this morning,” I say as I grip my hard cock in my fist and step into the shower. I pump it in my hand as I watch her erotic movements.
“You took too long,” she says just before her mouth parts on a gasp. Her climax is only moments away, and I step closer to her, letting her feel my cock in my hand against her side just before I lean forward and take her nipple into my mouth.
I cover her hand with mine and let my fingers sink
into her pussy. I pump them as she rubs her clit, and then her whole body tenses just before she detonates. I turn her around to face the shower wall and tip her hips back as I slam inside her.
Her fingers whiten where they press into the tile as I pound into her over and over again. Her walls continue to contract around me as her orgasm drives higher, and I couldn’t stop if I wanted to.
She tosses her head back, her hair flipping over her shoulder and across my chest as she practically crushes me in her heat, and my name spills from her lips. I’m helpless to do anything but let her pull me over the edge with her, and when I do, it’s everything; it’s all-encompassing.
“We have got to have a serious talk about condoms,” I tell her. “Or the lack thereof half the time.”
She doesn’t respond. She just stays slumped against the shower wall. I need to be more careful until we both have a clean bill of health. It’s the responsible thing to do. Even if she can’t get more pregnant, we should still be smart.
When our breathing slows but my cock is still inside her and my chest pressed against her back, she turns her head to the side, and without opening her eyes, she says, “I should have the autopsy results you want by ten.”
I don’t respond. I just smile. And then I finish washing us both before we get ready for work and I drive us both to the station.
And I do it all with a smile on my face, because life finally granted me everything I ever wanted.
• • •
I shuffle through the case files, adding notes, looking over Emma’s findings and the crime scene photos, but I cannot find one link to each of the murders, including the Jane Doe. I rake my hands through my, hair, pulling at it. I know I’m missing something, but what?
At ten minutes to ten, I take the stairs down to the morgue. My heart beats a little faster knowing I’m going to see Emma, even if it’s in an official capacity. I chuckle at myself. Who is this person I’ve become? I can’t say it’s a bad thing.
But it’s not Emma who meets me in the hall. It’s Wes.
Hush Little Baby Page 10