by Lisa Childs
She caught the grimace that briefly twisted his handsome face. “Your back!”
“Is fine,” he assured her. And as if to prove it, he bent forward and tossed her over his broad shoulder, carrying her down the hall toward her bedroom.
“Put me down,” she implored him. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”
He dropped her onto the mattress. “I am hurting,” he admitted. “I’m hurting for you.” He lowered himself onto her. The erection that strained the fly of his jeans pushed into the cradle of her hips.
She shifted beneath him, her desire for him becoming almost painful as it built inside her. Hands trembling, she pushed his leather jacket from his shoulders.
He kissed her, his mouth hard and insistent as his lips parted hers and his tongue delved inside. His hands moved beneath the hem of her sweatshirt, lifting it to reveal her bare breasts. He pulled back, his eyes darkening as he stared down at her.
“I didn’t think you were coming,” she said, embarrassed now that she’d changed into her ratty sweatshirt and a pair of cotton pajama bottoms.
His mouth curved into that sexy grin. “So you didn’t dress for me.”
She shook her head. “But I can undress for you.” As she eased up from the mattress, her hips thrust against his.
He groaned and bit his lip. Then she lifted the sweatshirt over her head and tossed it onto his coat. He groaned again as her breasts jiggled, the nipples peaked toward him. He lowered his head, and his lips closed around one taut point. First he stroked it with his tongue, then his teeth gently nipped.
Erin moaned, and clutched his hair, holding his mouth against her. His fingers stroked her side before tracing the curve of her other breast, his thumb flicking across the taut nipple. She lifted her legs, wrapping them around his hips, straining closer. Still they wore too many clothes. She uttered his name as a plea, begging for more.
But he took his time, driving her slowly out of her mind with desire. She tugged at his shirt, pulling up the cotton until it bared the rippling muscles of his back and chest. Finally he lifted his head from her breast, and she pulled off the shirt.
She gasped at the masculine perfection of his chest and arms. “You’re beautiful,” she murmured as the overhead light cast a glow across his sculpted muscles. “Golden boy…”
He chuckled. “I used to hate when you called me that…but I could never hate you, as much as I tried.”
“Kent…” Tears of regret burned her eyes. She’d treated him so unfairly, but now she wanted to treat him well. Really well. She pushed him back onto the bed and straddled him.
He grinned, but it faded as her lips skimmed across his chest and her tongue flicked his flat male nipple. The point hardened. She skimmed her fingertips across his skin, then down over his navel and washboard abs to the buckle of his belt.
A breath hissed out between his parted lips. He uttered her name as a warning, one she didn’t intend to heed. She fumbled with the snap at his waist, then the tab of the zipper. His hand covered hers, stopping her. “Are you sure?”
She answered him with a kiss as she crushed her breasts against his bare chest. His palms skimmed down her back to the waistband of her pajama bottoms, which he pushed over her hips along with her panties. He flipped her suddenly, placing her beneath him again, but he didn’t stay on top. He rose from the bed, dropping his jeans and briefs and kicking off his shoes, so that he was naked, too.
Seeing the long, hard, impressive length of him, Erin emitted a quiet whimper. “It’s been…a while for me,” she admitted. There had never been anyone like him.
He smiled. “For me, too.”
She doubted he spoke the truth, but she appreciated the sentiment. “Is it okay…with the bullet?”
“It’s okay,” he assured her as he pulled a foil packet from his wallet. Instead of tearing open the condom, though, he dropped it on the bed and leaned over her, touching her lips with his in butterfly-soft kisses.
Erin reached out, trying to tug him down on top of her, but he resisted, his biceps bulging as he braced his palms on the mattress on either side of her. Slowly he moved down her body, running his lips along her throat, over the curve of her breasts, down the dip of her navel. And lower.
She rose up, startled. “Kent!”
He soothed her with his hands, stroking her body as he kissed her intimately. She closed her eyes as he made love to her, the pressure winding tight inside her until it broke free. She shuddered, trembling with the aftershocks, but it wasn’t enough. She was greedy for more.
He ripped open the condom packet, and moments later, slid inside her. She arched her back and lifted her hips, taking him deep when she had thought they would never fit.
A groan rippled from his throat. “Erin…”
She opened her eyes, meeting his intense gaze.
“You are so beautiful, so perfect…” he murmured.
She wasn’t perfect; she’d made so many mistakes. But she could make it up to him. Meeting his thrusts, she nipped at his shoulders with first her nails, then her lips. She nibbled on the cords straining in his neck as he moved in and out of her. Skin slid over skin, heat rising between them as their passion built. And broke. She came apart in his arms, screaming his name.
He tensed, that grimace crossing his face again. This time she didn’t feel his pain, though—she felt his pleasure as he thrust deep one last time and came.
ERIN AWOKE, wrapped tightly in Kent’s strong arms. She had never felt so safe and protected. And thirsty. The man had exhausted her, making love to her a second time last night. Loving her even more completely.
She licked her lips, but it wasn’t enough to quench her thirst. Regretfully, she wriggled free of his hold and slipped from the bed, but tripped over the clothes they’d discarded next to it. This time he wasn’t there to catch her when she fell.
Paper rustled as she landed on his leather jacket. A folded file slipped from the pocket, scattering papers atop the rest of their clothes. As she reached to pick them up, she recognized the report number on the side of the documents. Mitchell’s arrest record.
“Damn,” a deep voice murmured.
Erin glanced up from the papers she clutched, meeting his gaze as he leaned over the bed, staring down at her. “You brought my brother’s arrest record and trial transcripts into my home? What were you trying to prove?”
He released a ragged sigh. “I was mad…about your last column. When you said you wanted to talk, I thought maybe it was time that you listened.”
Tears stung her eyes, but she proudly blinked them back, refusing to cry in front of him—to reveal to him how betrayed she felt. “I don’t care what you show me. I’m not going to doubt my brother.” Any more than she already had. Which man was telling her the truth? The one she had loved her whole life—or the man she feared she was in danger of falling in love with?
“You’re loyal—that’s one of the things I find so attractive about you,” he said, “but you’re also smart, too smart not to question your brother’s story.”
“Is that why you slept with me?” she asked. “So that I’d fall for you and start giving you good press?”
“You still think that little of me?”
She didn’t know what to think, her mind was so muddled and confused. “You’re trying to mess with my head.” And her heart. Even if it wasn’t part of his plan, she was falling for him.
“I’m trying to make you face and accept the truth.”
“What you claim is the truth.”
He drew in a deep breath, as if bracing himself. “Your brother had too many drugs in his possession for the evidence to have been planted. He was dealing, Erin, out of that apartment where Jason was living.”
“No!” she screamed. “You’re lying.”
At that moment, seeing the devastation draining all the color from her beautiful face, Kent wished he was lying. “I’m so sorry, honey….”
“About what?” she wailed. “Isn’t this what you wante
d? You found out my very last secret. Of course you’d want to gloat about it.”
“I’ve known for a while now,” he admitted. “That’s why I’ve been avoiding you. I didn’t want to tell you. I know you want to believe that your brother is still that boy you idolized growing up.”
“And instead you want me to believe that you’re the real hero,” she scoffed.
That was the last thing he’d wanted. “I just want you to believe me.”
She shook her head and tears trailed down her face. “I can’t….”
He nodded, everything suddenly clear to him. “You’d rather think I’m the bad guy. You’d rather think the worst of me than accept the truth.”
“My brother swears you framed him,” she said, her voice full of emotion. “That you planted that evidence in his apartment.”
“Why would I do that?” he asked. “I didn’t want my ‘promotion.’ All I ever wanted was to do my job.”
“You’re competitive,” she cried. “You wanted to do that job better than every other officer.”
He wanted to pull her into his arms and comfort her, but he knew she wouldn’t let him touch her now. All he could offer her was the truth. “I vowed to protect and serve Lakewood. I would never break the laws I promised to uphold.”
She stared at him, almost hopefully, as if she wanted to believe him. But then she shook her head, rejecting his explanation.
“You can’t take my word over the word of a drug dealer?”
“No…”
He closed his eyes, feeling a spasm of pain, but this one was in his heart, not his back. “I was only doing my job, Erin. Nothing more, nothing less…”
He grabbed his clothes from the floor, dressing hurriedly, desperate to get away from her before she noticed how much she’d hurt him.
“Don’t you want this?” she asked, holding out the folder toward him.
“I only wanted one thing from you, Erin.”
Her breath caught. “You admit it.”
His jaw snapped as he clenched it. “God, you’re determined to think the worst of me. I only wanted your trust.” And her heart. He admitted that to himself, but couldn’t admit it to her.
“Oh…”
“I think you need to take a look at that file and really read it this time,” he advised.
“You just want me to change my mind about you,” she said, “so I’ll stop writing about you.”
“I don’t care anymore,” he stated, and wished he really meant it. “I realize this was a mistake, getting involved with you. You don’t trust me, and I sure as hell shouldn’t have trusted you.”
Every muscle ached as he forced himself to turn away from her, to leave her sitting on the floor clutching that folder. “I’m sure I’ll be reading about tonight in your next column.” He dragged a hand through his hair. “No, actually, I’m done reading your byline. I’m just done….”
Chapter Thirteen
“YOU CAME BACK TO VISIT pretty soon. Is something going on with Jason?” Mitchell asked through the phone clutched to his ear.
“Jason’s fine,” she assured him, except that he now idolized the man who’d put his father in jail. “He’s actually doing really well.” Dropping him off at school was no longer the emotional scene it had been. Instead of crying and claiming to be too sick to leave her, he waved and headed off to join his friends.
“You’re not fine. You look like hell, sis,” Mitch said with a grin to soften the insult. “What’s going on?”
She paused, bracing herself to ask him what she had to know. “I need the truth.”
Through the glass, Mitchell’s gaze met hers, his brow furrowing with confusion. “Erin—”
“I’m not your little sister anymore.” That child who had followed him everywhere, who had worshipped him because he’d paid her the attention her parents hadn’t spared them. “I’m all grown up now, Mitch.”
He smiled, although it didn’t brighten his eyes. “I don’t know when that happened. When I left for college or when you left…”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said with a shrug. “I just want you to know that I can handle the truth.”
“The truth?”
“I want you to tell me what really happened,” she persisted. “Why you’re really in here.”
“You don’t believe me?” he asked, looking shocked.
She ignored the pang of guilt that washed over her. She never wanted to hurt him, but if he was lying to her, he obviously had no compunction about hurting her. “Tell me the truth, Mitchell.”
“Mom and Randall get to you?”
“No. You know they didn’t.” She’d always taken his side over theirs, even when she probably shouldn’t have. Growing up, she had lied for him, covering when he’d missed curfew or skipped classes.
Mitchell shook his head. “Damn. Damn. Damn. He did. Terlecki got to you.”
Anger rushed through her that he continued to avoid answering her question.
“Forget it,” she said. “I don’t need to hear it from you. I’m a reporter. I’ll find out everything I need to know on my own.”
She started to hang up the phone.
“Wait!”
“Wait for what?” she asked. “More lies?”
“I’ll tell you the truth.” He slumped in his chair, defeated.
And so was Erin. She didn’t even need to hear his story to know it. She’d already read it in Kent’s report and the trial transcripts. When she’d first moved to Lakewood, she had dug up abbreviated versions of both, but she hadn’t seen the full details. She realized now that she hadn’t wanted to know the truth then.
“I belong in here,” Mitchell admitted. “I’d been dealing since college. That’s why I got expelled.”
She’d thought he’d dropped out; that was what he’d originally told her. Not only had he had her lie for him, he’d lied to her. Again and again. She closed her eyes against the sting of tears.
In her mind she’d made a man a hero who was really anything but—and in articles and her column she’d vilified the man who was the true hero.
“My arrest was probably well overdue,” Mitchell confessed, with another sigh, this one of relief, as if he was actually glad to admit the truth finally. “I’d been dealing for a while, even had people under me.”
Kent’s report had claimed that Mitchell was midlevel, but wouldn’t give up those he was working for. “Why?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. It snowballed, you know? I started using, but I couldn’t pay for it. Randall had cut me off when I got expelled.”
“That’s why you did it,” she realized. “To get back at Mom and Dad.”
He snorted. “Hell, probably, yes. I guess I wanted to screw up the little perfect lives they thought they had, that they really wanted everyone else to think they had.”
“You really screwed up your own life,” she pointed out. “And Jason’s…”
A tear slipped down Mitchell’s cheek, but he brushed it away with his fist. “So that’s it, Erin. The truth. Is that what you wanted to hear, sis?”
“No,” she said. “That’s why I never pressed you before. I guess I always knew. I wanted you to still be my hero.”
Mitchell sighed. “I never deserved your respect, Erin. I’ve never been the guy you thought I was—the guy you wanted me to be. I wish I was.”
“You’re that guy right now,” Erin assured him.
He shook his head and gestured around the prison. “I’m in here. Good guys don’t go to jail.”
“That’s not what Sergeant Terlecki told Jason,” she shared, remembering her nephew’s relief at Kent’s answer.
Color drained from Mitchell’s face. “Terlecki talked to Jason?”
“Kent spoke at Jason’s school assembly.” For a guy who hated his new job, Kent had been so good with the kids. “Your son asked him if only bad guys go to jail.”
Another tear slipped down Mitchell’s face and he sniffled. “Oh, God…”
“
Kent told him no,” she said. “He told him that good people can go to jail, too, just because they made some bad mistakes.”
Mitchell pushed a shaking hand through his dark hair. “I made a lot of bad mistakes, sis.”
“I know. I hate what you did—what you were.” A drug dealer. The thought made her physically ill. “But I don’t hate you.”
“You’re too good-hearted for me to lose your love,” Mitchell said, “but I know I’ve lost your respect.”
“Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever respected you more than I do now,” she replied. “Thank you for finally telling me the truth.”
“I was afraid to tell you,” he said. “Afraid that you wouldn’t come around anymore. The guys in here that get no visitors—they have no reason for living.”
“You’re going to keep getting visitors,” she promised, lifting her palm to the glass.
Mitchell pressed his against it. “You’re my hero, Erin. I hope you find someone worthy of you.”
She had, but she hadn’t been worthy of him. And because she hadn’t trusted him, she had lost him.
“WELL, THIS IS KIND OF awkward,” Mitchell Sullivan commented through the phone pressed to Kent’s ear.
“Yeah.” Kent didn’t often make the trip to the prison on the far east side of Lakewood to visit people he’d arrested.
“My sister told me I’d keep getting visitors,” Sullivan said as he leaned back in his plastic chair on the other side of the glass, “but somehow I didn’t think she was talking about you.”
“She wasn’t.” And she probably wouldn’t be too damn happy to learn Kent had visited her brother.
“So you two aren’t talking?” Mitchell asked. “Is that why she looks like hell? You’ve been giving her a hard time?”
“You get the paper in here,” Kent said. “I think you know who’s been giving who the hard time.”
Mitchell laughed. “My little sister can be quite the pit bull when she’s defending someone she loves.”
“Yeah, she loves you.” Selfishly, Kent wished she loved him, or at least trusted him. But that wasn’t fair, when he had nothing but uncertainty to offer her. “She shouldn’t have found out the truth about you from me.” Especially not from papers she’d picked up from her bedroom floor.