"Astonishing." Pia rested her hand lightly on the back of KT's head, caressing her neck and shoulders languidly. The tantalizing attention to her breast had ignited the first tendrils of heat deep down inside, but she was enjoying the slow rise of pleasure too much to want to hurry. "It's even better than I imagined,"
KT laughed softly and raised her head. "Sex?"
"No," Pia remarked lazily, opening her eyes and fixing them on KT. "Making love with you. I knew it would be wonderful, I just didn't realize how very much."
"Pia," KT whispered. "Pia. I can't seem to think of anything but you. You do the most amazing things to me." As she spoke, she leaned on her left elbow, her injured hand still protected with the wristlet, and smoothed her other hand over the soft hollow of Pia's abdomenup and down, up and downuntil finally her fingers rested between Pia's thighs. When Pia caught her breath and lifted her hips, KT slowed her explorations.
"Don't stop," Pia said thickly. "Feels so good."
"To me, too. And you aren't the only one who's been imagining this." KT lowered her head and nipped at Pia's breast, laughing again when Pia gave a cry of pleased surprise. "So I don't want to rush."
"What if I want you to?" Pia rocked her hips insistently beneath KT's hand. "I like the way you made me feel last night."
KT feathered her fingers over the tender folds between Pia's legs, watching Pia's expression intently. "I want to learn everything about you. What makes you happy..." She traced a finger up and down the warm, moist valleyjust a little bit harder, just a little bit deepersmiling when Pia caught her bottom lip between her teeth. "What makes you excited..." She caught Pia's clitoris between her fingertips and squeezed ever so lightly.
Pia trembled and closed her fingers hard around KT's wrist. "There. Oh, like that."
"Yes." KT's voice was heavy with desire as she moved away, away from the spot that she knew would take Pia too high too fast. When Pia moaned in protest, KT lowered her head and kissed her, swallowing her moans and soothing her need with gentle strokes of her tongue. When she drew away, Pia's breathing had deepened and her eyes had grown liquid with the desire spreading within like a flame banked beneath a layer of coals. "I want to know you," KT whispered. "Inside." She pressed a fingertip, then two, just inside, waiting for Pia to relax enough for her to move deeper. "Inside the way you've touched me. Not just in my body..." Deeper now, nearly filling her. "But all the way to my heart."
"I love to feel you like this," Pia murmured, both hands twisted in the sheets, back arched to take KT deeper. "Everywhere inside me."
As KT slowly eased almost all the way out and then back in, she inched down on the bed until she could put her mouth over Pia's clitoris. She swept her tongue in long, smooth strokes that matched the rhythm of her fingers sliding in and out, ignoring Pia's increasingly frantic pleas to go faster, harder, deeper. Her need for Pia to climax was an ache in the pit of her stomach, her hunger for the sound of Pia's pleasure ringing out in a breathless cry all but consuming her, but she held back. She was desperate to feel each pulse of Pia's excitement building beneath her lips and to thrill to the clench of Pia's passion around her fingers. Then, when they were both poised to explode, then she would take her.
Her heart thudded wildly in her chest; her stomach quivered with the need to come. If she caught Pia's leg between her own and pressed her clitoris to Pia's warm, smooth skin, she knew she would. But despite the piercing urgency for release, she didn't want anything to cloud her awareness of Pia, not even her own pleasure, Pia was everything. Everywhere. All she wanted.
"I'm almost there," Pia moaned, her head rocking with each labored breath. "You're making me come...oh, yes. Oh yes. Oh. Now."
At the first quiver of Pia's orgasm, KT thrust harder. Eyes fixed on Pia's face, she was beyond stopping now. Pia's pleasure was her own, and with each sharp cry, she drew closer to her own release. She knelt astride Pia's thigh, hips pistoning along taut muscles as each thrust of her arm lifted Pia's body from the bed. "Come, baby. Come."
When Pia reared up on the bed in the throes of her orgasm, clutching wildly at KT, KT buried her face against Pia's breasts and soared over the edge.
Bri was having the nicest dream. Carre was whispering in her ear, telling her how much she loved her and how she couldn't wait to be with her all the time. Carre's voice always gave her a rush. But it was even nicer when Carre not only talked to her but touched her. And Carre was touching her now. Stroking her face and her hair and her arm. It was all so real, she could even smell the scent of fresh air and bright sunlight that she always associated with Carre.
"Yeah," Bri muttered. "You feel so good, babe."
"Don't wake up, baby. You just sleep, and I'll be right here."
Smiling, Bri rolled to her side, wanting to feel Caroline against her body, even if it was just a dream. The movement triggered a stabbing pain in her neck that shot deep into her chest, and with a cry, she jerked awake.
"It's okay," Caroline said quickly, placing the hand that wasn't stroking Bri's face on her shoulder to hold her still. "Bri, baby. It's okay. Just lie still."
Despite the pain, Bri could only think of one thing. Caroline was leaning over her, inches away, and she seemed...real. "Carre?"
"Yes, baby. It's me."
"Carre?" Bri blinked, and then she remembered the night before. She remembered feeling pretty righteous about the way she and Allie had orchestrated the bust, and then she saw Karl's face again as he snarled in the direction of the officers coming through the door and then lunged for the knife. In the next instant, she felt the bite of steel slice through her skin, sharp and hot. "Oh, Jesus, Carre. He cut me."
Caroline's face lost all color, but her voice remained even and soothing. "Tory took care of you. Reese told me you'll be fine."
Bri stared, unseeing, still caught in those few terrifying seconds before she had done what she had practiced hundreds of times. Before she'd pulled her chin down hard to her chest to protect her windpipe and the big vessels in her neck. Before she'd wrapped both hands around his knife arm and held it back with all her strength, despite the agony in her neck. Before she'd dropped her center of gravity below his and then pushed up with her legs, the strongest part of her body, to flip him over her shoulder and onto the floor. The maneuver replayed in her mind like a video, stark and clear, but the cold lump of terror in her stomach was all she could feel.
As the panic flashed across Bri's face, something Caroline had never witnessed before, her heart nearly broke. She leaned down and kissed Bri gently, then murmured against her mouth, "I love you. You're all right. I promise."
"Don't leave me," Bri whispered, tears streaking her cheeks.
"Oh, baby. Never." Carefully, Caroline settled onto the bed next to Bri and curled one arm around her waist. Gently drawing Bri closer, Caroline stroked and kissed and petted her until Bri fell asleep. Then she merely held her, determined never to let her go.
"We have to get up," KT said quietly. "I need to go check on Bri."
"Mmm. Okay." Pia lay with her cheek on KT's chest, tracing a fingertip in a small circle around KT's navel. It was two in the afternoon and they had spent the day in bed, waking only long enough to make love and then drifting off again. "Tory would have called, though."
"Uh-huh." KT brushed her fingers down Pia's neck. "I'm not sure how it's possible, but you're turning me on again."
Pia chuckled contentedly and sketched a line down the center of KT's abdomen with a fingernail. "From this?"
"From everything. Anything." KT's legs twitched, "Jesus. Yes. Stop that."
"I think that's a mixed message."
"Tell me something," KT gasped, grabbing for Pia's wrist just before Pia's fingers closed around her clitoris. "How is it possible that you're so good at this, and seem to like it so much, and you've never done it before?"
"That's two questions." Pia cupped her hand between KT's thighs but just rested there without teasing her. "It's not as if I've been living in a nunnery, you kn
ow."
KT laughed.
"And there has been more than one woman who's made me pretty hot, so I know what I like."
"I don't want to hear about them," KT growled.
"My point is," Pia said with exaggerated patience, "that it wasn't from lack of interest or some archaic innocence that I didn't sleep with someone before now." She raised up on an elbow and kissed KT. "I just couldn't see myself with anyone for longer than a few weeks, and it didn't seem worth it. Too many complications."
KT grew very still, and Pia felt it.
"KT, you don't owe me anything."
"What the hell does that mean?"
"It means that we slept together and it was great and"
"Bullshit."
Pia blinked. "Excuse me?"
"I said," KT replied in clipped tones, "bullshit." She placed her hand over the one between her thighs when she felt Pia start to withdraw, and her expression softened. "Don't talk to me as if last night didn't matter. It meant everything to me."
"Oh." Pia's lips parted and her eyes grew large. "I...you..." She shrugged helplessly, her throat too tight for words.
"I told you last night that I love you. I mean it. I'm crazy about you. Totally, certifiably nuts."
Pia smiled shakily. "Is that good?"
"It's good for me," KT replied seriously. "You'll have to be the one to decide if it's good for you."
"I already know it's good for me."
"Well, we know one part of you it's good for." KT's tone was light but her eyes were serious.
"If you so much as hint that you think I'm in it only for the sex," Pia said threateningly, "I will be not only furious but insulted. And you, even you, couldn't possibly be that arrogant." KT lifted an eyebrow.
Despite herself, Pia laughed. "All right, Doctor O'Bannon, perhaps you could. And I admit there was a time when I was so attracted to you that I did intend to sleep with you just for the sex," She leaned down and slowly bit KT's lower lip, rugging at it gently until KT groaned. "But between the time I realized I couldn't look at you without getting hot and last night, I fell in love with you."
"I like to hear you say that," KT murmured as she pressed down on Pia's hand, guiding Pia's fingers through the wetness that had gathered again while they were talking and inside. She sighed. "Say it again."
Pia stroked her tongue over KT's lips as she buried herself inside her. She waited until she knew that KT felt her everywhere body and soulbefore she spoke.
"I love you."
Chapter Twenty-Nine
L ooks like they're having a party," KT remarked as Pia pulled in behind a line of cars double-parked in Tory and Reese's driveway.
"I'd say we arrived just in time for visiting hours." Pia turned off the ignition and leaned across the seat to kiss KT briefly. "That's to hold me until I get you alone again."
KT edged closer and ran her right hand up and down Pia's thigh. "When we're done here, maybe we can have dinner out someplace and then go back to bed."
"Maybe we can skip dinner."
Laughing, KT opened the car door and stepped out. She looked across the top of the car at Pia, glad for the distance between them. It seemed that when they were anywhere within touching distance, she felt compelled to put her hand on her. It was a disconcerting and wholly enjoyable sensation. "There's always takeout."
"Now there's an idea. Let's go see Bri." Pia walked around the side of the car and joined KT, taking her hand as they walked up the stone path to the rear deck. "I know this sounds silly, but I'll miss you."
"No," KT said quietly, closing her fingers tightly around Pia's. "It doesn't sound silly at all. It sounds wonderful."
Tory answered the knock, her expression registering no surprise at finding KT and Pia waiting on the deck together. So together they appeared not to notice that they were holding hands. KT holding hands? She tried not to stare. "Hi."
"How is she?" KT asked.
"She's doing great. Temp is normal. She's tired, probably more from stress than blood loss." Tory stepped aside so the two could enter. Across the living room in the kitchen alcove, Reese and Ailie were cooking. Nelson sat at the breakfast bar, a cup of coffee cradled in his hands. Kate and Jean relaxed on the sofa with Reggie between them on a blanket.
"Full house," KT remarked as she glanced around.
"Bri is everyone's sweetheart."
"Did you check the wound yet?" KT realized that she and Pia were still holding hands and, after giving Pia's fingers one more squeeze, let go.
"No. I thought I'd wait for you to change the dressing the first time. I knew you'd be by eventually."
Tory caught Pia's grin out of the corner of her eye and smiled. "Come on, let's go see the patient."
"I'll wait out here," Pia said. "I'm sure Bri has seen enough people for one day."
"I'll be back in a few minutes," KT said as she and Tory turned away.
"Tell her I said hi," Pia called after them, while nodding hello to Kate and Jean on her way to the ldtchen. She took a seat next to Nelson and rested her hand on his arm. "How are you doing?"
"Not bad," he said, his voice gravelly from lack of sleep but his expression relaxed. "She looks good. A little beat up, but good."
"That's terrific."
"Want a cup of coffee?" Allie asked Pia as she refilled Nelson's.
"That would be great. Thanks." Pia waved at Reese, who nodded back as she dropped a pound of pasta into a huge pot of boiling water.
"Tory said that O'Bannon is some kind of hotshot surgeon over from Boston," Allie commented as she passed a mug to Pia.
"I suppose you could say that," Pia replied carefully.
Allie waited to speak again as Nelson took his coffee and left to join Kate and Jean in the living room. Then she leaned across the breakfast bar, her voice pitched low. "I heard about her hand. Is that going to ruin her career?"
"Hopefully not." Pia regarded Allie thoughtfully, trying to figure out what about the young officer was ringing bells in her subconscious. She supposed the questions could just be idle curiosity, but there was a note of concern in Allie's voice that belied simple inquisitiveness. As if her concern for KT was more personal.
Allie glanced down the hall toward Bri's room. "Tory said it was really good that she was here last night. I'm glad she's going to be okay, because an injury like thatit can really mess you up. That would be a shame. She's...cool."
There it is again that undercurrent of concern and sympathy. And then Pia finally made the connection, remembering the woman she'd only seen shadowed in moonlight, but who, in retrospect, had looked very much like Allie. "Did you by any chance walk her home a few weeks ago? When she was a bit...under the weather?"
"As in...sick?" Uncertain, Allie hesitated.
"You probably thought she'd had a few too many, but she was actually ill, not drunk." Pia's voice held an edge. She knew that Allie hadn't intentionally abandoned KT in such a dangerous condition, but she would never forget KT's suffering.
"I didn't know that," Allie said in surprise. "Jeez. I never would have left her alone if I'd realized."
"Well," Pia relented, her tone softening, "she's fine now. And you may have saved her life by helping her get home. So... thanks."
Now Allie regarded Pia intently. "Ah."
Pia laughed. "Ah?"
"You and the surgeon. Cool."
"Me and the surgeon," Pia repeated contemplatively. "Yes. Very cool."
"Hi," Bri said uncertainly as she watched KT approach with Tory just behind her.
"You won't remember me," KT said easily. "I'm the surgeon who helped Tory take care of your neck last night." She held out her hand. "KT O'Bannon. Good to see you awake, Officer Parker."
"Bri." Bri's eyes flicked to KT's injured left hand as she took her right in a firm handshake. "Thanks a lot."
KT followed her gaze. "Wrong end of a knife."
Bri swallowed and met her eyes. "Tough one."
"Yeah. But it's mending. These things do."
KT smiled. "You can thank Tory for all of that. Like I said, I was just helping out." She gestured to the square of white gauze taped over the laceration in Bri's neck. "I'd like to check your incision."
"Okay." Bri glanced at Caroline, who still sat beside her on the bed. "You don't have to stay for this, babe."
Caroline carefully climbed off the bed and stood where she would have an unimpeded view of Bri's neck while KT worked. She put her hand on Bri's hair and stroked softly. "I'm staying."
"This shouldn't hurt much," KT remarked as she carefully detached the tape. "Looks excellent."
"Good," Bri sighed. "So now what?"
"Usually at this point, we leave the incision uncovered. The bandage really isn't doing any good and can sometimes be irritating. It's up to you."
Bri inched around until she could locate Caroline. "Carre?"
"It's okay," Caroline said in a thin but steady voice as she studied the incision. "Just a red line with..." She leaned down, her eyes narrowing. "Blue stitches?"
KT laughed. "Prolene. They only come in blue."
"Cool," Caroline and Bri said simultaneously.
Still laughing, KT gently palpated Bri's neck, checked the carotid pulse and the function of the facial nerve branches running through the area, and declared Bri "doing fine."
"So," Bri said again. "Can I go back to work before the stitches come out?"
"Ah, no." KT glanced at Tory, who was shaking her head and muttering something about having heard this story before. "You're looking at about ten days before you're ready for work."
"Ten days!" Bri croaked. "But I"
"If she says ten days," Reese interrupted from the doorway, "it's ten days." She entered carrying a tray with a plate of pasta and a glass of iced tea and set it down on the bedside table. Then she asked, looking at Tory, "What about desk duty? If she doesn't drive or leave the building?"
"KT?" Tory punted, having no desire to negotiate with both her lover and her stubborn young protege.
Radclyffe - Safe Harbor 03 - Distant Shores, Silent Thunder Page 26