Sinful Suspense Box Set

by Tess Oliver

  Sugar walked back to the pool room to see if there were any tables and to avoid being carded. She was old enough to drink, but she hardly looked it. I pulled out my cash before ordering, hoping that the bartender would be less likely to ask me for identification if he saw money crinkled in my hand. I ordered two beers. While he never asked for any ID, he seemed to take an overly keen interest in me. It was a small town. Strangers were probably rare. I thanked him, grabbed the beers and walked quickly away.

  The only lighting in the pool room was the stained glass lamps hanging directly over the turquoise tables. The clacking sound of billiard balls ricocheting off each other drowned out the music coming from the next room. Sugar was standing at the last table, leaning on a pool cue and talking to two guys. Naturally.

  She smiled brightly as I walked up. The two guys, both twenty-something, turned around and looked decidedly less than happy to see me. They nodded to Sugar and walked back to their own table. I watched them for a second. They snuck a couple of glances my way before getting back to their game.

  “I don’t think those guys liked me,” I said.

  “Couldn’t have been that dangerous scowl you walked up with, could it?” She grabbed a beer from my hand and took a sip. She placed the mug down on a nearby table.

  I drank some beer, set the mug down and walked behind her as she leaned over the table to position the triangle. As she straightened, I wrapped my arms around her. She pressed her back against my chest and leaned her head on my shoulder.

  I pushed her hair aside and kissed her neck. “How do you do it? You used that same waxy piece of motel soap as me, and yet, you smell as if you covered yourself in honey and rolled in a field of lavender.”

  She laughed and tilted her head to let me know she wanted more kisses on her neck. Which I happily continued. “That’s my Tommy fragrance. My body produces that just for you. To everyone else I smell like motel soap.”

  My mouth pressed along the silky skin of her throat. “I like that explanation. A Sugar aroma made just for me.”

  “Do you think it’s all right that we left Julian alone?”

  “He was pretty sleepy after those few hits of the joint. I think he’ll sleep. He made it clear he didn’t want any company.”

  She lifted her head from my shoulder and turned around. Her eyes glittered with disappointment. “How did this all turn so ugly? First, you get accused of murder, and now, it seems the person behind the killing was Julian’s father. It’s all a little too much to take in.”

  “It’s pretty fucking unbelievable, that’s for sure.” I pulled her to me and kissed her. “We’ll just play a game or two and head out of here. I just realized I’d rather be alone with you in a motel room than standing in the middle of this smoke filled pool hall.”

  Still in my arms, a wicked smile tilted her lips as she reached discretely down between our bodies and rubbed her fingers along my cock. It hardened instantly.

  I peered down at her. “You think you’re clever, don’t you, my sweet little pool hustler? I can still sink them in the pockets, even with a hard on.”

  “We’ll see.” She walked up and leaned over the table for the break. The balls scattered but nothing rolled in.

  I was still feeling the effects of her teasing caress, but I managed to drop in three solids. As I went for the fourth, Sugar braced her hands on the opposite side of the table and pushed her arms together to give me an extremely nice view of her cleavage. I shook my head at her. “I’m on to your game.” Just before I leaned down to shoot, she ran her tongue teasingly across her lower lip. The ball shot off the corner and rolled back across the table. “You seductive little cheat.”

  She blinked innocently at me and proceeded to get two shots in a row. She missed the third. As I leaned down for my next shot, she leaned on the table right next to me.

  “You’re in my light,” I said.

  “Am I?” As she skirted behind me, she rubbed against me. The ball slammed into one of her stripes and it fell into the pocket. “Why, thank you.”

  As she lined up her next shot, I glanced through the smoky air to the other tables. The two bikers we’d seen at the restaurant were sitting at the far side of the room waiting for a table. They were keeping a close eye on ours, but it seemed that their interest was less on the table being freed up and more on the girl bent down over it.

  “Your turn,” Sugar said.

  “Yep, and as impossible as it might be, I’m just going to tune out you and your erotic little antics.”

  I was concentrating on my shot. Someone snapped gum behind me. I missed the shot. A laugh followed. I straightened. It was the two men. One looked as if he had more beef than brains and the other just looked mean, like someone who would chew off the head a kitten just for fun.

  “Hey, sweetheart, after this game, why don’t you stick around and play some rounds with us?” the thick-looking one drawled.

  I placed the end of my cue on the ground. “Yeah, that’s not going to happen. Why don’t you run along. You can have the table as soon as we’re done.”

  The mean one snarled at me as he staked out a spot on the wall behind our table. His buddy joined him. “We’re just going to watch. No harm in us watching, right?”

  My fingers tightened around the cue, and I wondered how far I could jam the thing up the kitten chewer’s nostrils.

  Naturally, Sugar’s next shot took her to the side of the table they were observing from. They both made a point of staring at her ass as she leaned over to take a shot. Big and dumb snapped his gum loudly. My jaw clenched.

  “Fucking goober,” I muttered under my breath.

  “What’s that, big shot?” Mean asked.

  “I said, fucking goober.”

  They both pushed off the wall. The chewer mumbled over the wad of gum in his mouth. “Why don’t you put that pool stick down and come say that to my face?”

  I looked at the cue in my hand. “Really? Two against one, and I don’t even get to use the big stick?” I dropped it onto the table. “Fine.” We’d gotten the attention of the rest of the pool players. They all stood by waiting to see if this would explode into a brawl or fizzle into an exchange of words. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been involved in a fizzle, but I’d been in plenty of explosions.

  “Tommy, don’t,” Sugar pleaded.

  “Go down to the other end of the room, Sugar.”

  She crossed her arms. “Nope. Staying right here.”

  The big one looked even stupider when he smiled. “Oh, that’s cute, your slutty girlfriend is trying to protect you.”

  Sugar spun around. “Who the fuck are you calling slut?” She drew back her thin arm and hurled her fist into the guy’s nose. I flew over the table to get between him and Sugar before he recuperated from the unexpected blow. Up close, he was a fucking giant. His roar bounced off the walls as his meaty hands grabbed my shoulders. He kneed me in the stomach. Shards of light spiked up in my eyes as the wind rushed out of me. By the time I could suck in oxygen, his friend had Sugar pinned up against the wall. His fingers were leaving white marks on her arms. Seeing his hands on Sugar was all I needed. Gum snapping goober shoved me hard enough to send me slamming back into the pool table. I hoisted myself up on it and kicked out with both feet, one landing on his collar bone and the other directly on his chin. His jaw snapped shut and his eyes bulged out. He grabbed his throat.

  “You choking on that fucking wad of gum, fool?” I jumped off the table and threw my fist into his stomach. I ducked out of the way as the gum shot past my head and landed on the table. He sucked in a breath.

  “You’re welcome, goober.” I threw my fist into his face. Blood sprayed across the teal blue felt of the table. A large crowd had squeezed into the room to watch, but no one seemed inclined to stop us. Small town entertainment, I supposed.
As I lunged for the guy holding Sugar, he pressed his mouth against hers. Fury heated my blood, and every ounce of adrenaline in my body coursed through my veins.

  I grabbed the back of his shirt and yanked him so hard he fell back and smacked his head against the pool table. He sneered up at me. “She tastes pretty fucking sweet. No wonder you call her Sugar.”

  I clutched the front of his shirt, and I pounded him in the face. My knuckles jammed into his nose. It titled sideways as blood streamed from the nostrils. Again, my fist came down at him. Another face stared up at me for a second, a face I knew. A face I hated. I was no longer attached to my arm, and that anger, that rage that could turn me into an animal, took over. The mumbles and amused chuckles in the room slowly disintegrated into barely audible gasps as my arm drew back and then shot forward again and again. Gray eyes. The mean, kitten chewer had gray fucking eyes, but they weren’t staring up at me anymore. The only sounds in the room were my knuckles cracking bone, and the fury pounding in my head.

  “Tommy,” a panicked voice floated to me through the haze. Her hand touched my shoulder. My fist stopped midway. The bloody face in front of me looked nothing like the man I’d been beating. I looked around. Everyone was staring at me as if I’d grown fucking horns right out of my skull.

  I grabbed Sugar’s hand and pulled her through the crowd. They parted quickly to get out of the way of the madman. Maybe being wanted as a murderer wasn’t all that farfetched. The night air cooled my head some as I pulled Sugar along behind me down the road to the motel.

  We ran across the parking lot. Julian’s room was dark and quiet as we slipped past his window and inside our room. Sugar pushed the door shut behind us and pulled the chain across. She flicked on a light. I couldn’t look at her. She’d seen that side of me that I hated, a side that I still had no control over. But tonight, in the midst of me pummeling a man, a complete stranger, nearly to death, something had cleared in my head.

  Sugar stepped up to me and put her hand on my cheek. I finally found the courage to face her. “I’m s-s-sorry, baby. I’m sorry I got out of cont—”

  “Shh, Tommy. It’s all right.” She hopped up on her tiptoes and pressed her lips lightly against my mouth. Her fingers wrapped around my wrist. My hands were numb and warm blood trickled down my knuckles. She led me to the bathroom and turned on the light. The bulb flickered weakly over the hazy mirror. Sugar turned on the faucet and held my hand beneath the water. A red stream swirled around the stained white bowl of the sink. Some of the blood was mine and some was his.

  The gentle way she held my hand, a hand that had once again pulverized someone’s face, made my throat thicken with shame. Everything about her was light and good and fucking lavender and honey. And I was like a black fucking hole, a lightless wasteland in the universe.

  Sugar patted the vanity counter for me to sit on and pulled some tissue from the complimentary box. I hopped up and watched her face. Her long lashes shaded her pale pink cheeks as she carefully pressed the tissue against the cuts on my knuckles. “Looks like the bleeding has almost stopped.” She smiled up at me.

  I reached up, took hold of her face and pulled her mouth to mine. I hopped down from the counter. Our limbs were a tangle as we pulled off our clothes, parting our mouths only long enough to yank off our shirts. By the time we’d reached the bed, we were naked. I sat down. Sugar climbed over my lap. My hands and my mouth couldn’t get enough of her.

  “Tommy,” she mewled softly as she lowered her pussy down over my cock. The sound of my name coming off her lips while her pussy swallowed my dick nearly made me come.

  My hands clutched her ass as I moved her over me. Her long, lithe body rocked against me as my tongue teased her nipples. She wrapped her arms around my head, bringing my mouth harder against her.

  “Sugar, you’re so fucking perfect,” I groaned against her neck. “So fucking unbelievable.”

  She ground her pussy against me faster. Her head dropped back as she clenched her thighs. “Fuck, Tommy, yes,” she cried. Her hot wet sheath tightened around my cock.

  Her thin rigid body softened against me. I lifted her off of me and lowered her back on the bed. I stretched her hands up above her head and held them in one hand as I plunged inside of her again.

  “I needed you like this, pure and raw and mine. Mine only. Mine forever.” I slammed into her, coaxing moans out of her with the each thrust. All the while, I held tightly to her hands. If she touched me that would be it. It would be over, and I wasn’t ready to stop. I wasn’t ready to pull away from her sweet pussy. I pushed inside of her feeling every hot inch. Her eyes fluttered open and she watched me as I rocked against her. I leaned down and kissed her lips. “Tell me you are mine only, baby. I need to hear it from those sweet fucking lips. Tell me, Sugar. I need to hear it.”

  I hadn’t noticed the tear before it rolled down the side of her face. “I’m yours, Tommy. Only yours. Forever.”

  I held her tightly in my grasp and slammed against her. “You’re so fucking hot, baby. I want to stay hard but I can’t. Your pussy is too much.” I pulled free of her just before my hot seed spilled.

  I released her hands and dropped down next to her. She turned to me and curled into my arms.

  “Tommy,” her voice wavered, “I’m afraid. I’m afraid they’re going to put you in jail and find some way to charge you with the murders and I’m going to lose you.” She peered up at me with glossy eyes. “You can’t leave me.”

  I kissed her forehead. “It’ll be fine. Julian and you were eyewitnesses that night, especially you. Frank had a gun to your head.”

  She lifted her face to mine and stroked my beard stubble that was getting thicker by the day. “And you saved me. I’ve never felt safe, Tommy, until now. I don’t want you to go. We could just stay like this, traveling around the country, maybe even the world.”

  “Wild, uninhibited sex at every rest stop. You forgot that part.”

  She kissed my chest. “Stop, Tommy. I’m serious.”

  “I’m completely serious when I’m talking about fucking, believe me.”

  She sighed in frustration.

  I squeezed her. “I’m sorry, baby. I know this whole thing sucks, but I don’t want to be on the run forever. I’m going to have to face this and get it cleared up. Julian’s life is tangled up in this too.”

  She snuggled against me. The movement stirred my cock again. “Tommy, who were you hitting back there?”

  “What do you mean? I didn’t know the guy.”

  “I don’t mean him.” She pulled away slightly and looked at me. We’d always had that profound, unexplained connection. I saw it now in her expression, that look that told me she could see straight into my mind. “You were so out of it. It was almost as if you were somewhere else. I called your name three times before you heard me.”

  It was a revelation that had hit me in the center of the storm, as my fist was plowing the guy’s face, the face had morphed into someone else. For just a second, I was somewhere else. A place and time where the real rage had been sparked and then funneled into a steady stream of anger that I had little control over. I’d never talked about it to anyone, anyone that is, except my dad. But he’d insisted I was making it up, exaggerating an ugly, embarrassing story just to defy his orders, his mandate. It had been that refusal to hear me, a deaf ear from the man who was supposed to protect me from shitty things in life, that added fuel to that spark. It had been the last rip in the already flimsy fabric between us.

  “Tommy?” Sugar’s soft voice broke me from my thoughts.

  “I was back in high school. That’s where I’d gone to when you called my name. Back in the locker room after practice.”

  “You were a quarterback, right?”

  “Yeah, but I was only a sophomore. I’d pushed a senior named Alex Yardley off first string, and, of course,
he was pissed as hell about it. Didn’t exactly make for great team spirit.” I stopped, not completely sure if I wanted to tell her this story. But then she was Sugar. She would listen. “The guy outweighed me by fifty pounds. He was always making fun of my stutter. Guess to him, it helped him deal with the fact that I was a better player. For the most part, I just ignored him.” This was the first time I’d told the real version to anyone except my dad, who had thought it was fiction. I’d replayed it in my head plenty, but I’d never spoken it aloud, not to a therapist, or a probation officer or anyone else that might have cared to listen. I’d figured if it wasn’t important enough for my dad to hear, then it just didn’t need to be told.

  Sugar knew how hard this was for me, just how she knew everything about my feelings. Her lips pressed against my shoulder.

  I continued. “I was in the showers after practice. It was only my third practice after coming off of a knee injury. I’d stayed late to work the weight machines and build up my leg muscles. The rest of the guys had already showered and dressed. The coach was in his office, and I thought I was alone in the locker room. My head was under the shower, and I was trying to decide if I even wanted to go on with football, when a hand grabbed my arm. I spun around. My automatic response was to throw my fist, but another hand grabbed my free arm. Soap stung my eyes, but I could see Alex’s fat, ugly face in the blur that followed. His two best friends, the blubber brain twins, I used to call them in my head. Not to their faces because they were big, built like fucking refrigerators. They thought Yardley was a king. They followed him around, doing his bidding, almost like bodyguards. Each twin had an iron grip on my arms. My forehead bounced off the tile wall as they slammed me up against it. The shower water had turned icy cold, but they left it running. I struggled and kicked back blindly, hoping I’d make contact with something, but it was three to one and I’d just barely passed my sixteenth birthday. The blubber brain twins were flunkies, and they had to be close to nineteen at that time. Alex sucker punched me in the back. I dropped to my knees, but they yanked me back up along the slimy wall of the shower. ‘That’s for having to listen to that stupid stutter all the damn time’ Alex growled in my ear. I thought, I fucking hoped, that was it. I couldn’t get a grip on anything. My hands were numb from the tight hold they had on me. I was so cold my chin was trembling, smacking the tile with each shiver.”