“Does he have access? A key?”
I nodded.
“Does he have the hots for you?” I wasn’t sure if that was part of his professional inquiry.
I frowned. “He has a boyfriend.”
“Can you get him on the phone, please?” He surveyed the room. “Mind if I look around?”
“No problem.” He opened cabinets and banged around in the kitchen, but found nothing.
On a hunch, I suggested he check the hall closet.
“I can order another bottle,” I said. “The liquor store is around the corner but I get everything delivered because of the weird hours I keep.”
“No need.” He found the offending carton of wine. “Maybe this is a cop thing, but I’m a little curious about how that box moved itself.”
“I’ll call Tom.” I went to dial and noticed a new text. It was from that same unfamiliar number I saw yesterday.
I am the one that hurt you. I’ll make you feel better. Send the cop away.
I felt queasy and must have had an unpleasant look on my face.
“What is it?” Herc lowered the carton back down and rushed to my side.
I handed him my phone.
“Do you know this person?”
“I have no idea who this is.” I bit my lip nervously. “There was another one yesterday.”
Herc read the first and immediately took his cell from his pocket. He sat on the big arm of my chair and made a call.
“Yeah, this is Andrews, on the Harper case. I need you to check a number for me. This is a person of interest. I need the data immediately.” He read them the number and I heard the voice on the other end say, “Copy that.” Then Herc turned to me. “I’m going to need you to answer some questions for me.
“Jeez, I’m a police case?” I stared in disbelief.
“Yes, and it looks like I may be right. There are no accidents.” His face was now etched with concern. “You may not have known you had an intruder if I wasn’t here.”
Chapter 11
“We’re going to figure this out,” he said. “So, don’t be alarmed. I just need to get some background.” He put his hand on my cheek and held my face tenderly. “Let’s get some nourishment in us and talk, okay?”
I moved forward in my chair and he sat on the floor. We used the ottoman as a dinner table.
“How exactly did you injure your foot?” he asked, using chop sticks to pop a piece of coconut into his mouth.
“I banged my toe on the box, but I didn’t remember putting it there. I get up so early in the morning, sometimes I just don’t pay attention.”
“Do you remember anything else?” He lifted a vegetable bowl and took a bite.
I didn’t feel like eating.
“I thought I heard a noise.” The memory flooded back. “I assumed it was outside but it woke me before my four thirty a.m. alarm. That’s when I stumbled to the kitchen and… boom.”
I wiggled my toes, remembering
“Does anyone else have a key? Family members?” He looked up from his food. “Old boyfriends?”
“No one. Just Tom and the superintendent. They keep it locked up downstairs.”
A text pinged in on his phone. He put the food down and read it, his jaw tightening.
“The number belongs to someone in this building,” he said, a serious look on his face.
“Maybe a prank?” I was unsettled. “I don’t know anyone here who’d want to hurt me.”
“Stalkers don’t always want to hurt their victims,” he said, rising off the floor. “They want to be near them and their stuff.”
He pressed a button and held his phone to his ear.
“Yeah, it’s Andrews. I need access to the video feeds in Miss Harper’s building. I am going to go ask nicely, but please get me a warrant.”
He asked for my key before leaving, so he could make sure the door was secured and could let himself back in.
I picked at the Thai salad with peanut sauce while he was gone. It was tasty but I was too nervous to eat. I clicked on the television. Of all things, Basic Instinct was starting. At least the hot detective movie would take my mind off my personal drama. I paused it to watch when Herc came back.
He was back thirty minutes later, holding a bottle of wine.
“Libations.” He popped the cork out. “Everything is under control. What are we watching?” He brought the wine over and poured us both a glass.
“Basic Instinct, the perfect detective movie,” I said, clicking the play button and sipping my wine. I noticed he didn’t drink any.
I forgot how freaking sexy that film was. I loved that Herc talked during the cop scenes, commenting on police procedure. He made it less scary.
When it was over, I seriously wanted to fuck my troubles away and ride him the way Sharon Stone rode Michael Douglas.
“Bed time for you.” He pointed toward my bedroom.
I nodded. I kept my weekday sleep schedule on weekends, otherwise it messed up my sleep patterns.
“You don’t have to be worried.” He stood and flashed me his badge. “I’ll protect you.”
My heart melted.
He maneuvered the ottoman away, helped me to my feet, pulled me into his arms and kissed me. Hard. Holding my face, he pulled my mouth so close to his that I could barely breathe. My pulse raced.
I fell into that kiss. It was so refreshing, so deep. When he stopped, I hated being dragged back into reality.
“You can’t stop a kiss like that so abruptly.” I pouted. “It’s rude.”
“I need to keep you safe,” he said, “and that means I have to keep my hands off you and keep it professional. You’re just so hard to resist.”
He insisted on camping out on the couch. Damn. I pointed to the closet with extra bedding.
“I’ll take a look around the bedroom,” he said, escorting me so I didn’t need a crutch. He searched the closet and checked the windows. Deeming “all secure,” he went back to the living room.
As I lay there I could hear him talking on his cell in a low voice. He was too far away.
I lifted my phone off the night table and sent him a message.
Me: I don’t want to sleep alone.
Herc: Don’t tempt me.
I was finally drifting to sleep when I felt the covers lift. I looked up. It was Herc.
He knelt alongside me and pressed his lips to my ear. “I want to make you feel better,” he whispered. “Is that okay?”
I nodded. My whole body came alive.
He gently turned me and pulled my hips to the edge of the bed. Rolling my panties down spreading my legs apart, he rested my injured foot over his shoulder. He brought his head between my thighs, his breath hot against me.
As he teased me with a flurry of kisses, desire unfurled between my legs. I pressed my hips up, trying to get closer.
“Let me do the work.” He brought his warm mouth to my sensitive flesh, his tongue softly stroking me with tiny flicks. He gingerly teased and taunted me, causing a wildfire to sweep through my lower parts.
Reaching his hands around my thighs, he opened me more and plunged his tongue in, fucking me, filling me, moving in and out, over and over again. His mouth met my pussy in perfect rhythm.
My muscles clenched when he pulled away and brushed his cheek along my folds. But he came back hard, burying his tongue inside, burrowing in. His mouth was wild, uninhibited.
His tongue went flat on my clit, pressing, and next his lips wrapped around it and sucked. Then he slid two fingers inside me, and rubbed against my sweet spot.
My legs trembled. I couldn’t stop my hips from moving.
He lifted his face from me, replacing his tongue with his good thumb, strumming my clit as his fingers filled me.
“The only thing you need to do is come,” he said, voice strained. “No movement. You understand?”
I nodded, surrendering control.
“Next time.” He drove his fingers in deeper. “I am going to fuck you so hard.”
He slowly, deliberately glided them in and out on an oil slick of arousal.
Pleasure swirled through my lower parts and my breath quickened. I clenched around his fingers as he brought his mouth back down on my clit. I was close to the edge, pleasure shooting through me. He sucked harder and pressed deeper. The world faded away as I came.
He laid his cheek against my thigh as we both recovered from my tongue-asm.
“Hope that makes up for some bad things you felt today,” he said, kissing the side of my hip and then my belly.
“It surely did.” He was passionate, tender and generous. “You are very skilled at… pain relief.”
He smiled and rose to his feet. His cock tented in his jeans. He looked at it, then at me, with sex glazed eyes. “We’re getting closer to this, going in there,” he pointed his finger at my lower parts. “Let’s catch the bad guys and get past this weekend.”
He excused himself to the bathroom then was back at my bed side. When he kissed me, it was clear he hadn’t washed every trace of our encounter away.
“I’ll be at my post,” he smiled.
“Wish you could stay.” I touched his cheek affectionately.
“I am staying… right outside your bedroom.”
At about two a.m. I heard a noise and tossed my robe on. Herc was standing with his gun on Sean, the doorman, who was in my kitchen.
“What’s going on?” I tightened my robe. “Herc?”
“You know this man?” He looked over at him suspiciously.
“He’s my doorman.” I shook my head in disbelief. “What are you doing here, Sean?”
“I… I was bringing you your medication?” He held up a small bag. “It was delivered by the pharmacy but you never picked it up. I thought you’d need it.”
“In the middle of the night?”
He went silent.
“He let himself in with a key.” Herc looked over at me. “You’ve done this before, haven’t you, Sean?”
Sean hung his head.
Herc moved forward cautiously and told Sean to raise his arms. He patted him down. Then he led him to a stool at the kitchen counter.
“You have a right to a lawyer, Sean.” He put his gun away. “You don’t have to say anything.” He took out his cell and called for backup.
“No, I want to.” He began to cry. “I’m so sorry, Miss Harper. You forget to pick up your packages since your new show, and Bill forgets to tell you, so I bring them up to you, when I have my break. I use the key, so I won’t disturb you. The other night I brought the wine up but you woke, and I got nervous, so I left it in the kitchen in a dangerous place and then you broke your toe and… I just feel so sorry. It’s my fault you broke your toe. So, I moved the box away last night.”
I was stunned. I knew Sean was fond of me, but in Manhattan, doormen are like family.
“Sean, you know it’s not right to come into someone’s house, even if the building has a key?” I crossed my arms, feeling like a school teacher catching a kid who didn’t really know they did something bad. “Especially during the night.”
“I know, but I like to come at night to make sure you are okay. I like to watch you sleep.” I felt my stomach turn. “I only get our short time in the morning, and when I listen to your show you talk about other guys, and well, nighttime is when you’re so peaceful. I never touched you, but I just know you could make me happy.”
“What about your girlfriend?” I asked.
He looked at me with the saddest eyes. “You’re my girlfriend.”
Nausea crept up on me. My throat was dry. I looked over at Herc, who stood there silently but in complete command of the room. He didn’t seem to be as surprised as I was.
Herc moved in closer. “Sean, we’re going to take you to the hospital. I won’t formally arrest you right now but the police have some questions for you. Do you have a lawyer?”
Sean shook his head.
“Okay,” Herc spoke with compassion. “We’ll try to get you some help.”
He made another call. “This is Andrews. New assessment. We need a police escort to Bellevue, with further questioning to take place there. Also, Legal Aide.”
In a very short amount of time, I heard sirens.
Herc approached me as the other officers prepared to take Sean. “I didn’t want to alarm you,” he said, tenderly holding my hand. “But I suspected some sort of activity. We checked the camera feed for the lobby elevator and the elevator on this floor and found multiple occasions of him leaving his post and coming to your floor, often carrying something. We ran a check and he’s got a record of visitations like these. Not sure how he passed the background check here. We’re looking into it.”
“What’s going to happen to him?” I felt so sad for Sean.
“If you want to press charges I’ll arrest him,” he said, looking over at Sean. “But this kid needs help. He’s a love addict. And he took it too far. Honestly, now that I’ve spent a couple of days in your life, I can see how men might find it easy to fall at your feet and want to do things to help you.”
I rolled my eyes. “Why do I feel like I’m in a cop drama show?”
“Because you are, baby.” He affectionately tapped the tip of my nose with his finger. “You haven’t even seen the results of the PR handiwork of the police department. There are people on the internet who are shipping us. And they are calling me Mr. Hercules Harper.”
I laughed so hard I thought my sides would split. “I needed that,” I said. “But what does it all mean, you know, for us?
“We still have about thirty-six more hours of my undercover assignment as your fake boyfriend,” he said, rubbing the back of my hand with his thumb. “After that, you could always try me on for size as a real boyfriend.” He winked. “Then you wouldn’t have to have pretend sex with me.”
He had to go with Sean to the hospital because he’d done the preliminary investigation, but he promised he’d come back for breakfast.
“I’m leaving a uniformed cop outside your door until I return,” he said. “So, get some sleep.”
I couldn’t go back in the bedroom so I nodded off in my chair with my foot up.
I was worried about giving Herc my address when we met, yet he was the one to discover danger lurking, right in this building.
I was going to have to rethink my new career on radio and perhaps my whole life. All the events of the last few days made me ask: Is this the way I want to live—in a fishbowl, flirting with danger?
I think I’d rather be flirting with Herc.
Chapter 12
In the morning, I awoke to the aroma of coffee and eggs. I somehow slept through Herc coming back in and standing shirtless in my kitchen, cooking.
I hobbled over to sit at the counter and watch.
“Well, if it isn’t the woman who makes the news, and everything else, sound prettier.” He slid a cup of coffee and a plate of buttered toast in front of me. “How are you doing after last night?’
“I had a stalker right under my nose. My job is putting my life in danger. I’m putting you in danger. And we still haven’t had sex of the penis variety.” I picked up a piece of toast and took a bite. “But I don’t feel so awful. I feel relieved, kind of. Is that weird? How’s your thumb?”
“Almost healed.” He flipped an egg omelet in the pan, in the air, using his injured hand.
“Impressive.” I studied his face. Aside from being so hot, he looked happy. Maybe he was relieved too.
“So how is the toe?” He looked hopeful.
“A little throbby.” I looked at it. “But I think it’s healing.”
“Funny you should say that because I have something that is a little throbby too, and I would like to show it to you, but I don’t want you talking about it on the radio.”
I laughed. “I would never talk about that.”
He walked around the counter. His baby blues were filled with mischief and playfulness.
“Then I think we should consider ha
ving some of that hot cop monkey sex your bosses condone, even though my bosses do not.” He placed my hand on his hard cock, through his jeans. I immediately wanted to feel it in other parts of my body. “Turns out, our photos really sold it. The department is happy with the optics, plus, I brought in a bad guy while I was here—bonus points. So, they can also say they planted me here for that reason, and the romance was a ruse, if they had to spin this thing again. So, they’ve relieved me of my post here. My undercover assignment is over. I am off the clock, baby.”
He was so adorable.
“So, if it tickles your fancy, we can do it. Like now.”
“Um, I’ve been on board with this from day one, so, yeah, hot cop monkey sex.” I dropped my toast onto the plate.
“Miss Harper, I’d just like to formally declare,” he cleared his throat, and bowed like Rhett Butler about to ask me to dance, “I would like to fuck you. Very much. For a long time.”
“Detective.” I extended my hand to shake, but he kissed it. “I’m in complete agreement.”
“Then it’s settled.” He tugged off the metal splint from his thumb.
I looked at him like he was wacky.
“What?” He unwrapped the last remnants of the bandage that had held the splint in place and tossed it on the counter. “It’s coming off next week, anyway. Freedom, baby.”
He helped me slip off the stool, slipped the robe off my body, and lifted me in his arms and carried me into the bedroom.
He laid me down on the bed and propped my foot on a pillow.
“So, what does hot cop monkey sex mean to you?”
“Sharon Stone, woman on top, icepick under the bed.”
“Damn, that is hot. But not great for the toe. We’re going to have to come up with a different angle.”
He grinned as he slid out of his pants and underwear. All I could see was his beautiful hard-on, riding up close to his navel, even though he also had a gun holster strapped on to his right ankle. He bent at the knee and reached for his weapon. He slowly removed it, checked the safety and held it out in his palm.
“This,” he said, in his commanding cop voice,” is not to be touched, understood?”
Hero Undercover: 25 Breathtaking Bad Boys Page 55