Hitch

by Anne Conley

  There were seven dots, seven explosions. And they weren’t random. They seemed like they could be random, but Dex’s gut said they weren’t.

  He reached for his laptop and booted it up. Something niggled at him. “Do you have a pencil?”

  She nodded, then dug around in her purse, finally pulling one out. Beginning at the outside of the map, where the first explosion happened, he drew a spiral that connected the dots on the map.

  Going back to his laptop, he entered a search for beehives and seashells. That pattern was called something, he just couldn’t remember what it was. Photos of sunflowers and chambered nautiluses came up, as well as beehives, leafy plants, even the human body.

  “Fibonacci sequence,” he breathed.

  “What?”

  “It’s a common pattern frequently found in nature. Here, look.” He turned his laptop so she could see. “I don’t know how to explain it, but if you take numbers starting with one, and add the previous two together to make the third, that makes the Fibonacci numbers. If you plot them out, they make a spiral shape, like this one,” he said, pointing to the map. “We can predict where his next target will be.”

  “How?”

  Yeah, he didn’t know about that, but he knew someone who could. Thirty seconds later, he was on the phone with Evan from the office, telling him what he needed.

  “So you need a prediction? I can work up a computer model that will predict it, but it will take me a little bit. Can you find something else to do while I work on that?” The clacking of keys in the background told Dex Evan was already working on it. He didn’t know much about Evan, but he did know he loved challenges.

  He looked over at Amber, who was looking at him with wide, whiskey-colored eyes.

  “Yeah, I can find something else while you work on it.”

  “Groovy.”

  When Dex hung up, Amber looked at him with questions in her eyes. “Magic,” he shrugged. “Evan’s a whiz at computers and can do just about anything with them. He loves sorting problems with codes and stuff.”

  “Is it legal?”

  “Honestly, I try not to think about it. If the guy’s not on NSA’s radar, they suck.”

  She giggled, the sound sending a sharp tingle of longing up Dex’s spine. He could very easily pounce on her right this moment and make her his, but he’d promised to wait until after they caught Perkins. So that’s what he would do.

  Unless she asked.

  “So what do you do when you’re not enforcing the law? Any hobbies?”

  She relaxed into the sofa with her drink and thought about her answer. When she was thinking hard, she got this glazed look in her eyes and gazed off into the distance. It reminded him of the same glazed look she had when he was between her legs.

  Jesus. He couldn’t think like that. He was trying to be normal here.

  “I really enjoy reading, but I can’t remember when I’ve had time to even unpack a book, much less read one. My books have been packed in boxes for nearly half a decade.”

  He chuckled. “Is that when you joined the force?”

  She smiled at him. “Yeah, it is. This job keeps you busy, doesn’t it?”

  He leaned back and stretched his arms out on the sofa. “What’s it like working in a small town?”

  She sighed, leaning her head back against the cushion and tilting it to the side to look at him. The adrenaline rush must be wearing off; he recognized the immense relaxation of muscles. Finally.

  “You sort of become a jack of all trades, so to speak. They don’t have departments like we do in Austin. I mean, they do, but if the homicide guy is busy when a murder happens, whoever is on call takes the case. It’s technically still the homicide guy’s, but everybody works everything.” Dex bent down and grabbed her feet, propping them in his lap, and she went with it, swiveling her body to lean against the arm of the sofa and allowing him to take off her boots.

  Her feet were dainty, and after he got her socks off, he noticed she had painted her toenails a soft coral color, almost pink but not quite. It suited Amber. She wasn’t girly but had a feminine side to her that sang to him when he least expected it.

  “Even IA does double duty. That’s what I was, almost my first assignment as a rookie.”

  “I can see that. Nobody really wants that job.”

  “Exactly,” she chuckled.

  “What made you join the force? If it’s only been five years or so, you must have been one of the older candidates.”

  “Four years, and yes. I was one of the oldest candidates at the ripe old age of thirty.” She didn’t answer his initial question, and that wasn’t lost on Dex, but he didn’t press. “What about you? What’s your story? You must have joined right out of high school if you’ve already put in your twenty.”

  “For the most part, yeah. I took some night classes during high school and zoomed through my criminal justice associates to enter cadet school when I was twenty. I loved being an officer.”

  “Then why aren’t you still? You didn’t have to retire, did you?”

  “I loved it until I didn’t. I’m not sure when it happened, but at some point, I got jaded and knew I had to stop. Jaded cops become crooked cops, or someone like Gabby, and that wasn’t me. So I decided to pull my pension when I could and do something different.”

  “Pierce Securities? Do you like it there?” She seemed genuinely interested, and Dex relished having a conversation about his new job without being on the defensive.

  “Yeah, it’s different, but the guys are cool. They’re a different sort of brotherhood, and even though I worked with them in some capacity, even if it was to yell at them for stomping all over my turf, it’s still taking some time to feel like I belong.”

  Well, wasn’t that deep? He hadn’t meant to go there with her, but she was actually talking to him, and he liked the easy camaraderie they had going on right now. As he focused on rubbing the pads of her feet, pressing his thumb in certain places, she hummed her pleasure and sank deeper into the cushions, becoming one with the sofa.

  “Favorite color?” she asked, eyes still closed.

  “Whiskey.”

  She cracked one eye open. “That’s not a color.”

  “It’s the color of your eyes. My new favorite color.”

  She scoffed. “My eyes are shit-brown. My dad used to say he could never take me seriously because I was so full of shit.” Her eyes took on that faraway gaze, and he surmised her father wasn’t around anymore.

  “Funny guy.”

  “Yeah, he was a riot.”

  Was. Yup. She’d lost her father.

  “My parents are gone, too,” he offered in a lame attempt at connecting with her on a non-sexual level. Dex didn’t know what had hit him as far as Amber was concerned, but he liked it, wanted to see where it would lead.

  To his surprise, Amber smiled and held out her hand to him in an offering. He placed his in hers, entwining their fingers. It felt good.

  He squeezed her fingers gently, and she sat up and wrapped her arms around him. After some adjusting, they were in a comfortable position, Dex returning her embrace. He felt like he had his arms around the world.

  Letting out a contented sigh, he enjoyed the feel of her in his arms, practically in his lap. He didn’t mind it, though. It just felt so damn good, he never wanted it to end. Inhaling deeply, he absorbed the warm scent of her shampoo, something floral and sweet and utterly girly. He let out a chuckle.

  “What?” she murmured against his chest.

  “You. You’re so strong and badass, and then I’ll get a glimpse of something girly, something that reminds me what a woman you are.”

  Oh shit. Just saying she was a woman brought back all the memories of last night, when he’d done what he could to alleviate her frustrations and made her come. Watched her come. Delighted in it.

  He wasn’t going to think about that because it was a fruitless endeavor. Purely an exercise in self-torture. Dex had told himself he wasn’t going there
with her until she was ready, but now he’d reminded himself of her womanly attributes and they wouldn’t stop.

  Flashes of her plump breasts, begging for attention as she writhed on the bed, tangled in her sheets, sped through his brain. Memories of her taste burst on his tongue and Dex had to swallow hard to tamp down the juices filling his mouth. His fingers itched to do it all again, sink inside her wetness, delve into her needy folds, tweak her rosebud nipples.

  Ah … fuck.

  He shifted a little, unwilling to break the moment they were sharing to adjust the semi he suddenly had in his pants.

  “You were unbelievably sexy today, in the Tahoe.” Her whisper was so loud in the silent room.

  He bit. He couldn’t help it. A monk would have after what they’d shared in the last twenty-four hours. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.” Her fingers twined in his hair as she spoke, sending delicious tickles up his spinal cord. “I got a call once, about a couple driving recklessly, and when I got to them, I found them going seventy miles an hour down the road while having sex. At the time, I thought they were crazy and never in my life imagined ever being so horny I would endanger lives like that. But today … I totally got it. I couldn’t get that out of my mind.” Her breathless whisper in his ear was fucking with him, to say the least, and her words sufficiently scrambled Dex’s thoughts.

  He couldn’t think of a damn thing to say. “How exactly did that work? Logistically speaking, of course.” His voice sounded rough, like he’d been chewing up lightbulbs for breakfast. But he was horny as fuck, and when he realized Amber had taken him seriously and was climbing into his lap, straddling his thighs with her legs, pressing her heat against his erection, he gripped her hips tightly, stilling her.

  “It was a lot like this. He was driving, and she was in his lap, her skirt up around her waist.”

  He couldn’t resist her. Her eyes were glassy, needy, and her face was flushed with desire. “Were his hands on the steering wheel?” She nodded as he slipped his hands inside her sweater. “Pity. He wasn’t enjoying the full experience.” Before she could gasp, he had whipped her sweater over her head and had overflowing handfuls of her exquisite breasts.

  Her mouth came crashing down on his in a wanton display of yearning that made him groan his pleasure. Wrapping his arms around her frame to unfasten her bra, he threw it somewhere. He tasted her neck, and her shoulders, and her chest until he had a mouthful of one of those tempting tits, nipple hard and erect against his tongue.

  Her hands were in his hair, tugging and pulling in an intense display of her desire, and it felt incredible.

  Fucking incredible.

  But he wanted her spread out before him. She was a feast, a buffet of the senses, and he was going to partake of every fucking inch.

  “Wait.” He stopped her, pushing her back. “I was going to wait until after. That’s what you wanted, right?”

  “I want you to fuck me, Dex. I want you to do all the things you said.” Amber’s eyes beseeched him, and damn if there wasn’t a thing she would demand of him he could possibly say no to.

  Without another word, he grabbed her under the ass and stood, only wobbling slightly while eliciting a squeal from Amber as he made his way to his bedroom.

  Dex laid her down on the bed and took a step back to look at her. She was so goddamned beautiful, he didn’t know what to do with her first. Her hair loose and spread out on the bed in a halo of chestnut waves, her eyes practically glowed in the darkness. He licked his lips as he watched her hand trail down her torso to the button of her jeans and undid the snap and zipper, tugging them down.

  He helped, then started in on his own clothes, shucking his jeans and shirt simultaneously. Lowering himself over her body, he slid himself across her warm, smooth skin. He wasn’t sure exactly who moaned, but it felt so good it didn’t matter.

  “You are so perfect,” he whispered before taking her mouth in the gentlest of kisses. He was going to make love to her tonight, and he was going to enjoy every minute of it.

  “Dex,” she whimpered when his kisses trailed lower, over her collarbone. “It’s been a really long time for me. I’m not sure I’ll be any good.”

  He looked at her face and determined she was being serious. Her lip was held captive between pearly-white teeth, and her eyes showed a serious lack of self-confidence.

  “Doll face, I’m the one on the chopping block here. It’s been a while for me, too.” He squashed unbidden thoughts of Eileen rising to the surface. That woman had no place in this bed. “If you aren’t any good, it’s because you’re not enjoying yourself, and that means I’m not doing my job.” He tried to lighten the suddenly somber mood by nipping playfully at the skin on her neck, and it apparently worked, if the gasp she let out before jerking her pelvis up was anything to go by.

  So he’d have to make this good. No pressure.

  But he was acting on instinct at this point anyway. A basic instinct to procreate, to make his woman feel good, to be the best a man could be.

  Yeah, Gillette, eat your heart out.

  Keeping his hands and mouth moving, he tasted her everywhere, listening to her moans and whimpers like a roadmap. She’d been pretty vocal last night, and he’d loved every second of it. Tonight would be better. He raked his fingernails across her delicate skin, not hard enough to leave marks, just enough to titillate.

  When Dex circled his tongue around her belly button, his hands spanning her hips, Amber arched up off the bed, and he used the movement to capture her legs under his arms and toy with her sex a little. Not enough to make her come, just enough to make her squirm.

  “Tell me what you want, baby.”

  “I want to come,” she breathed at him.

  He smirked at her. She was so fucking beautiful. “How?” He would make her say the words again, just to be one hundred percent clear she wanted this like he did.

  She looked at him and licked her lips. That glazed look in her eyes was there, and he knew she was close. Amber looked down the bed at the member in question, which twitched under her gaze.

  “Your cock.”

  Reaching to the floor for his jeans, he got a condom out and slipped it on in no time. Some skills are just like riding a bicycle.

  Lowering himself again over Amber, who accepted his body by wrapping herself around him in an erotic hug—hooking her foot behind his knee, tightening her arms around his back—he notched himself between her legs as he looked in her eyes.

  He took a deep breath. “You ready?”

  She nodded, trust and desire shining in equal measures through her bright eyes.

  Slowly, he thrust himself inside her with a harsh exhalation of air. The hiss couldn’t be heard over her moan of pleasure, though, and as he watched her, she saw the carnality on her face. It gave him an immeasurable sense of pride that he’d put that look there. And he wanted it to last.

  As long as she looked at him like that, he was on top of the world.

  Dex moved inside her, over her body, cradling her as he made love to her. Like the hand holding, this was right.

  Something surged inside him, something warm and heady he couldn’t name, but it bloomed in his chest and made him want forever.

  He’d never wanted forever.

  He still watched her, even as she closed her eyes to the pleasure. Every ridge and bump of their sexes were imprinting themselves on the other. It was fantastic, as if his entire world had managed to squeeze into this one moment in time.

  Nothing else mattered. Only this woman underneath him, moving with him. Amber opened her eyes, as if she felt the intensity pouring out of his gaze, and with her mouth falling open on an unintelligible string of words, she clamped around him like a vise, pulsating and clenching. Her entire body tightened up, squeezing him, milking the emotion from him.

  He couldn’t stop the climax if he tried. He came like a freight train, his balls tightening and the spine-tingling pleasure erupting from him in a roar. He felt himself twitch inside her
, and her inner walls pulsated around him. Something triggered another climax from her, and Amber shuddered in his arms, trembling and whimpering nonsense words.

  And then he heard it.

  “AhjesuschristIloveyouDexthatwasfuckingamazing.”

  Surely, just words spoken in the heat of the moment, but he froze when they registered. Still inside her, he bowed his head and captured her lips in a kiss that spoke more than he was capable of right now.

  Then he pulled her into his arms and rolled over, their sweaty skin sticking together in the post-coital haze of gasping breaths and pounding hearts until his memory betrayed him and he wasn’t sure he’d heard her correctly.

  But he was pretty sure she said she loved him. By the time her breaths evened out, signifying she was asleep, he had realized he wouldn’t say the words, not tonight. But he was coming damn close to meaning them, soon.

  Smoothing her hair off her shoulder, he kissed Amber’s smooth skin.

  It was only about an hour later he was awoken for round two by her luscious mouth wrapped around his dick. Oh yeah. He was up for this.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Amber woke in a strange bed, deliciously sore and more content than she’d felt in years. She stretched decadently, feeling each and every hair of Dex’s legs on her highly sensitized skin.

  Amber looked over at the man still sleeping next to her. He was beautiful. Almost achingly so. She wasn’t seventeen anymore, but something about the newness of the relationship and the fleetingness of life in general made her want to bottle the emotions she felt and hide them away.

  She and Dex had had so much sex last night. They had fun trying to wake each other up in the most delectable ways, and she’d learned more about her body last night than ever before. For example, she had no idea that many orgasms in one night were possible. Nor did she realize she ever liked doggy style, but with Dex, it hit so many places inside her she didn’t know she had, and he’d known it. He seemed to relish the challenge of finding new ways to make her come, and the proprietary ways he handled her body made everything so much more intense.