Trial by Fire (Sizzling Romantic Suspense) (All Fired Up)

by Taylor Lee

  His voice grew rough, taunting.

  “Are you wet, baby? I think you might be. Shall we see?”

  At her impassioned moan, he unsnapped the button at the top of her jeans and slid the zipper down. Sliding his fingers under the tiny satin triangle covering her mound, he brushed across her damp folds. She gasped as electricity zinged through her sensitized nerves.

  Nate held his slick fingers beneath his nose and inhaled. Groaning at the musky odor, he sucked on his fingers then pressed them against Erin’s lips.

  “Taste this, baby. Have you ever tasted anything sweeter?”

  Pushing his fingers past her lips, he murmured, “Suck on them, Erin. Taste what sexiest woman in the world tastes like.”

  Erin licked her juices off his fingers, reveling in the tantalizing flavor. She understood why it drove him crazy with lust.

  Feeling his hands on her hips she glanced in the mirror and met his gaze. His gleaming eyes narrowed and he licked his lips. Tucking his fingers in the waistband of her jeans, he eased her pants over her smooth curvy hips, inch by tantalizing inch. When he cleared her hips, he shoved the pants to her knees. His heavy lidded eyes glittered with greedy passion at the sight of the tiny patch of black satin covering her mound. With a quick twist he broke the fragile strings holding the miniscule triangle in place and ripped it from her body.

  He held the damp fabric to his nose, then tucked the fragrant satin in the pocket of his jeans. His voice was low, gritty.

  “I owe you another pair of panties, baby.”

  Tangling his fingers in Erin’s hair he pulled her head back and leaned down to kiss her. His lips were deceptively gentle for the first several seconds. He licked across the seam of her lips and tugged at the corner of her mouth with his teeth. Nipping at her puffy lips he suddenly thrust his tongue deep inside her mouth. At the same time he drove two fingers into the wet folds between her thighs. She threw her head back with a hoarse cry, writhing with agonized pleasure, begging him not to stop. Ignoring her impassioned pleas, he held her at a distance, turning her to face the mirror.

  His voice was harsh. “Look at yourself, Erin. This is what I see when you writhe beneath me. I see your gorgeous eyes grow dark, wild with pleasure. Your body flushes, dampens with passion. Look at you, Erin. Have you ever seen a more beautiful woman?” His voice dropped to a husky drawl. “I haven’t, Erin. Never. In. My. Life. Do you hear me, baby? Do you understand what I am saying?”

  She groaned and leaned back into his strong body. Feeling his arousal under the rough material of his jeans, she ground her soft bottom against his iron hard shaft. The friction from the coarse fabric sent a flood of moisture between her thighs. She fought to rub her bottom along his fearsome erection as white hot flames of passion streaked across her core. Nate growled a low animal sound and pulled her away.

  “Uh uh, Erin. No, darlin’, not yet. I’m not nearly done with you. But if you keep doing that, it will be all over. I’ll be in you so fast you wouldn’t know what hit you.”

  He nudged his foot between her feet and moved them apart.

  “Spread your legs. Here, let me help you.”

  He dropped to his knees in front of her and pulled off one shoe and sock and then the other. With a quick tug, he had her jeans at her ankles. Resting her hands on his shoulders to support her trembling limbs, Erin lifted her feet, one at a time to free her legs kicking off her last remnant of clothing. He knelt before her and raked his gaze up her slender legs, past the slick vee at the top of her thighs and met her eyes with an impudent grin.

  “I like the view from here, Erin, but you really need to spread your legs. Now, darlin’. Open for me Erin. I want you to see what happens to your body, your face, your eyes when I lick you from here…to… here. Mm hmm, darlin’. Can you believe the lovely color you turn? Did you know that that your whole body flushes at the rasp of my tongue?”

  Erin clutched his shoulders, flames of passion simmering over her. Her body sizzled with anticipation as his tongue licked higher and higher.

  He grasped her ass cheeks in his big hands kneading and stroking the soft skin and firm muscles beneath. Tightening his grip, he spread her thighs and growled a low guttural command. “Open now, Erin. Wider, baby, I need to be right here.”

  She cried out as a tidal wave of sensations flooded every pore of her body. Her passionate screams filled the air. He held her close to him soothing her, crooning loving words as he lowered her to the ground.

  But even as he forced himself to be gentle, loving, Nate knew he couldn’t hold back another minute.

  Bending over her he growled in her ear. “I have to come in you, Erin, I have to take you. Now, love.”

  From the tortured place where she lay writhing in ecstatic pleasure, she clung to him, urging him on, begging him to fill her. Freeing his formidable shaft that was threatening to split his jeans, Nate wrestled his pants down to his knees. Kneeling before her, he pulled her close to him and draped her legs over his shoulders. Clasping her buttocks in his big hands, he lifted her hips up high. With a mighty thrust he drove deep into her tight channel. He met her passionate shriek with a primal roar. Long after they plumbed the depths of each other’s bodies and he lay sated beside her in their big bed, Nate held her close. His voice was a deep, low rumble. “Mine, Erin. You are mine.”

  She sighed and snuggled deeper into his arms and whispered, “Yes, Nate. And you are mine, forever, only mine.”

  He muttered as if to himself, “Ah, hell, I shoulda known there was a catch….”

  Erin reared up with a surprised start. She punched his arm when she saw his grin, then snuggled back in his arms and within minutes was breathing softly. Nate kissed her a dozen times during the night, never once letting her escape from his arms.

  Chapter 18

  Laura glanced in the mirror and smiled at her reflection. Her dominatrix outfit contrasted starkly with the pink and white confection of her ‘Barbie palace’ as Mike had derisively called her bedroom. She grimaced remembering the cocky little lumber baron. From the beginning he’d acted as though she was beneath him. Constantly calling her Laura Chumpter, Madam Chumpter. She knew what he was doing; he wanted to keep her in her place. Remind her how lucky she was that he’d agreed to marry her.

  In the beginning, Mike couldn’t get enough of her. Amazing what Viagra could do. Two or three times a day he rutted on her. That was her private term for Mike’s amorous overtures. That and the blowjobs she gave him were the extent of his adventurousness. Laura wasn’t surprised. She learned early on except for the occasional sadist or fetish jock most men were content with vanilla sex—which was fine with her. The faster the better. The less wear and tear on her body.

  Laura was still in grade school when she’d learned the truth about sex. It was a commodity. Something to be bought and sold. And the more beautiful you were, the more enticing your body, the more valuable the product.

  She learned that simple truth from a master, her mother. Sadie Chumpter was the town whore. It was as simple as that. Sadie never backed away from that designation—she’d worn it with perverse pride. Anyone as beautiful as Sadie could afford to flaunt her wares. And she did. Some nights the traffic in the Chumpter home included as many as five or six ‘suitors.’ When she was ten, Laura’s mother put her in charge of the ‘accounts.’ Laura wasn’t a strong student but her mother’s bookkeeping system was simple. The more a ‘client’ paid, the more favors he received. Either in time, or other perks.

  Laura lost her virginity in the backseat of a car when she was fourteen years old. When she came home in a disheveled state, her mother merely gave her an appraising glance. She made Laura take a strange pill and told her to shower. The next morning Sadie hauled her off to Planned Parenthood and put her on birth control. Laura never forgot her mother’s words. “The last thing you want to do is get pregnant. It can ruin your figure. And abortions are costly.” Laura took that advice seriously and never missed taking her morning pill along with her
orange juice and Captain Crunch.

  The first time one of her mother’s regulars suggested a threesome—that they include Sadie’s nubile young daughter, Sadie had shrugged and named a price. When the adventurous man agreed and added a tip, it was game on. Within months, Laura started a side business of her own. It didn’t bode well for her relationship with her mother. Sadie was already on a downward slope when Laura started competing with her. For several years, Sadie drowned herself in alcohol and expensive designer drugs. When she hit her 30th birthday and her customers were regularly requesting Laura before they settled for her, Sadie became a full-blown meth addict. The lesson was an important one for her erstwhile apprentice. It was one thing to lose money because you were too strung out to remember to charge for your ‘services.’ It was quite another to lose your looks.

  Laura watched her mother’s slide into full blown addiction with interest. She took away several important lessons. First you lose your clients, then you lose your looks. Finally you become poor and ugly. But if you’re lucky—as her mother was—your time as a drugged-out two-bit prostitute will be cut short by a fatal overdose.

  In Laura’s view, her mother’s primary problem was that she didn’t understand the mechanics of a successful business. She didn’t diversify. Sadie had only one product, her body. When it started wearing down from overuse and age, she turned to drugs to help her forget that at thirty she was a has-been. Laura determined that would never happen to her.

  If anything, her body and face were even more beautiful than her mother’s. And unlike her mother, Laura treated it like the temple it was. From an early age, she’d pored over her mother’s lingerie catalogues staring at the beautiful sex goddesses who graced the pages. It didn’t take her long managing her mother’s accounts to understand that even with five or six tricks a night, one couldn’t become wealthy. But, if you used your looks as a genuine commodity, to attract specific kinds of men who could open doors for you, now that was being a smart businesswoman.

  Laura’s metamorphosis from Laura Chumpter, budding ‘wannabe whore,’ to Laura Chambers, lingerie cover model was breathtaking. No one in Chicadia Falls could believe it. The townspeople described it as an overnight miracle. Laura sneered at their ignorance. At twenty-five years of age she’d spent ten hard years on her back working her way to the top. No one could say she didn’t pay her dues. But like all good business people she paid them gladly never taking her eye off the prize. It was then that she learned the next rule of business and that was that you could never rest on the past. Diversify, diversify. It was her bible. While some people might have seen her next moves as regression, Laura knew better. In her next business ‘phase,’ she started courting ‘mentors.’ Some might disparage her new strategy saying it was the oldest trick in the book. A higher-paying form of her mother’s trade. Laura called it strategic. She connected with other smart business people—always men, of course, and set up a mutually beneficial exchange. They got access to her gorgeous body and she got access to their wealth.

  Mike Peterson was her prized catch. Adding him to her collection took work. Mike was accustomed to gold diggers. His father and grandfather taught him from an early age the kind of women who would be after him. Laura fit the bill. He would have been happy to bed her, use her, but Laura was way beyond that. She taunted him, enticed him and then as she always did found his soft spot. His vulnerability. The fact that everyone in their burg knew that Mike inherited the fortune that he was carousing his way through had made him super sensitive and jealous of the self-made men in the community. Not that he would trade his silver spoon for their hard work, but he did envy their hard won power. In Mike’s view the one person who exemplified that entrepreneurial drive better than anyone else was Nate Stryker.

  No, he didn’t have the fortune that Mike had. Not even close. But he had everything else. Big, strong, handsome and a genuine hero, Nate had also parlayed some excellent investment moves into a minor fortune. Eons away from Mike’s wealth, but for a self-made man who chose to stay under the monied radar as a cop, it was impressive. Most distressing to Mike was Nate’s arrogance. Nate knew he was hot shit, and to Mike’s way of thinking didn’t pay nearly enough homage to Mike’s wealth. When Mike had tried on two separate occasions to buy his way out of a conviction for drug dealing, Nate didn’t deign to respond, just made sure the evidence to convict Mike was airtight. It took a significant amount of cash to buy off the mayor and a judge or two to erase the convictions. It didn’t seem to bother Nate. He acted as though gaming the system was the only recourse a loser like Mike had. It infuriated Mike, and made him determined to hit Nate where it would hurt the most. He bought his wife.

  As she always did when sizing up her prey, Laura spotted Mike’s weakness. When Mike insisted that she divorce Nate and marry him, Laura understood that spitting in Nate Stryker’s face was as important to Mike as claiming her. Their union was not a happy one. Mike soon tired of the side effects of their medicated sexual escapades. Within months he went back to his less strenuous passions of high stakes gambling and designer drugs. Seeing that her hold on Mike was tenuous at best, Laura tested her theories about business acquisitions and began building her nest egg with off shore ‘investments’ in Mike’s name. She’d been smart enough to hold out for a prenuptial agreement that ensured her of half of Mike’s wealth should they divorce. When she learned that Mike was consulting high level attorneys about the possibility of breaking the agreement, Laura went into high gear. She ignored Mike’s disparaging remarks about her surgical ‘renewals,’ her age, her lack of education, her promiscuity. All of which she knew were his attempts to drive her away. To get her to seek a divorce, knowing that would make her vulnerable to upsetting the prenuptial agreement. Laura found his tactics amusing. As always, she held more cards than her adversary. In Mike’s case, he made a mistake that cost him his life: He underestimated Laura.

  At the sound of the doorbell, Laura took one more look at herself in the mirror. Leave it to Sherm Klein to open her eyes to her true calling. Her thigh-high stiletto boots, tightly laced leather bustier and ass revealing skirt were a comical comparison to the pink and white girlie décor of her bedroom. Laura loved the juxtaposition. While she’d spent a lifetime debasing the men who lusted after her, it had taken Sherm’s kinky lifestyle to give her the ultimate weapon. Snapping her metal-tipped flogger against her thigh, she grinned. She’d never been interested in BDSM until she met Sherm. When he threatened to expose her theft to Mike, she needed a weapon to stave off his blackmail. She found it and then some when she learned that Sherm was heavily into BDSM, and a submissive at that. Hard core lessons from a high level dominatrix gave her the defense she needed and a whole new way of looking at her sensuality. The only man who’d ever been able to turn her on was Nate. Now she had the luxury of multiple climaxes at her own instigation. All she needed was a grown man bound to a cross and the sound of his screams to bring her to orgasm.

  Trotting downstairs, she opened the front door with a flourish. Assuming a haughty stance, she lowered her voice to a near growl. Pointing at her paramour, she said, “On your knees. Eyes on the floor!”

  Flushing brightly his eyes alight with a mix of fear and excitement, Sherm dropped to his hands and knees.

  Keeping his eyes to the ground he waited for her next command. Laura held back, enjoying his increasing tension knowing that each moment waiting for her to move only heightened his desire.

  When he was visibly trembling, trying to hold the position she’d demanded, she raised her whip and brought it down on his ass with a sharp crack. For the next hour, with her whip and demands, she expertly drove him from one screaming orgasm to another.

  Several hours later, after Sherm had showered and she’d changed into a robe and lacy negligée, Laura poured them each another shot of whiskey. Sherm’s eyes widened in horror when she’d insisted that they sit in Mike’s library. At her order, he reluctantly sat on the sofa that was next to where they’d hung Mike on th
e cross. She smiled to herself at his difficulty in finding a comfortable sitting position. Not surprising given the length and fierceness of their session.

  Not able to hide his unease, Sherm closed his eyes for a brief moment and shivered.

  “Damn, Laura. How can you tolerate being in here? If this was my house I’d barricade this room and never open it again.”

  She sniffed. “Are you serious, Sherm? This is where Mike kept all his best liquor. Besides, I like to come in here. It reminds me of a successful episode in my life. I’m sorry you don’t agree.”

  “He knows about us, Laura.” Sherm’s lip trembled. “I’m telling you, Stryker knows more than he is letting on. It won’t be long until he figures out what we do… you know… our….”

  Laura hissed a disgusted sigh. As if speaking to a frightened child, she forced herself to speak calmly.

  “If you are referring to our BDSM play, forget it. That is unlikely at best. Of course Nate is trying to discover if Mike was involved in the scene, but there’s no way he could guess about us. I’ve never set foot in one of those freak establishments.”

  Sherm paled further. “But I have, Laura. And if he finds out—”

  She broke in. “Dammit, Sherm, you have to settle down. The only way Nate is going to get on to us, is if you wuss out. Stop being such a pussy! I’m depending on you, Sherm. Look, you’re the one who would have lost $10 million in stock options if Mike had fired you the way he planned. Just remember that, Sherm. Once this settles down, you will become a multimillionaire. Keep that little factoid in mind, sugar buns.”

  “But, Laura, my contacts are telling me that Stryker’s famous ‘vibes’ are telling him that the murder wasn’t a professional hit. You told me that’s what he would believe. Fuck, Laura, that’s why you insisted we cut off Mike’s prick….”

  Laura shrieked when Sherm’s voice rose to a whine.

  “Forget Nate’s fucking vibes! Listen to me, Sherm. In the next couple of days Nate Stryker is going to be dealing with this case in a very personal way. His ‘vibes’ will be of no value when he has to put his famous investigative powers to defending himself. Dammit, Sherm, this is happening exactly as I said it would. Precisely the way we planned. But! If you wig out on me, there is no telling how this will end. Ultimately this is all up to you, Sherm. You know you can count on me to do my job without fail. It’s up to you to do yours.”