by Skye Warren
He tried to hide how that affected him; he really did. He swallowed and looked away. “Grace, I know this is wrong.”
I shook my head, but he didn’t see. So I went up to him. I reached out and turned his chin toward me. His gaze met mine. I reached down, to that honest and vulnerable place, the same place I painted from. “This is the only thing that’s ever been right in my life.”
I meant him, most of all. But I also meant the Magnolia Hotel and the sex we’d had and the unholy deal we had made. They were all connected now, meshed like paint on the canvas, inseparable.
His eyes burned with emotion, spilling over. “I’m never going to let you leave.”
And I took it for the promise it was. He took me again, right there in the office, making a mess on the antique desk. He made love to me there and in every single room, and I loved the Magnolia Hotel after all.
Unlawful Seduction
Pam Godwin
At some point in Dev’s forensics career, he’d landed smack in the middle of Kansas, where the people were as predictable and mundane as their crimes. And now in the hard thrust of winter, he questioned the wisdom of choosing a place where the windchill sucked his dick into his body and dried out his balls.
But Ms. Joni Torpey wasn’t flying in from LA to meet with him about the weather. The ass-clenching journalist represented Flotter Film, a documentary production company. She was due for their seven PM meeting to interview him on the motivations of sex crimes, a subject in which he’d received numerous accreditations. Detective Devon Burgess, the country’s leading expert in paraphilic behavior. An authority on serial debauchery and sexual rituals.
There was a reason he understood the blurred lines between arousal and transgression. It was the same reason he’d left his niche in New Orleans, the city of temptation. But no one knew about that. Besides, it wasn’t that bad. He was still employed in detective work. He was still considered an expert. He still hadn’t acted out his darkest fantasies.
The heady roast of coffee flavored the air and warmed Dev’s gut. He swallowed the smoky dregs of his second cup, and swung a foot over his knee. He’d chosen the chair by the fireplace for its angled view of the back counter and the front door.
The only two customers—men who were too young to spark his sexual interests—straddled old wood chairs at the bar and frowned at their handheld devices. Buttery leather couches and low-lit lamps invited extended lounging. The coffee shop was reminiscent of a rich man’s den and not much larger.
The twentysomething barista fidgeted with the espresso machine. She kept her eyes down but grumbled to herself with more volume than was needed. If she wanted male attention, she should lose her eternal scowl. It was remarkable how much one could achieve with a smile alone.
The door rattled open. He shifted his focus to the glass counter filled with specialty cheeses and pastries, keeping the entrance in his periphery. Casual and unassuming, he was a man enjoying a coffee in a little hidden nook. He was not a leashed predator, scoping and waiting for something…enticing. Like an unsuspecting man or woman to follow home, with begging lips to gag and a tight body to paint with his come.
His cock twitched against the seam of his slacks, but his desires were internal, stalking him and him alone.
A gust of frigid air bustled in with the shuffle of heels. In a tangle of long blonde hair, a woman skidded to a stop in the entryway. She rubbed her hands together, staring at them with a shell-shocked look on her face. Then she glanced up at the barista and the two men at the bar, and blinked rapidly. “I’m not from around here, but seriously, it’s as cold as…” She sniffed. “Okay, nothing’s that cold. I just lost my friginity out there.”
And just like that, grins sprouted through the room, cracking every expression, including his.
She huffed a drawn-out exhale over her pink fingers. “I’ll take the hottest drink you got, with a double shot of scalding.” The profile of her pink lips bowed up, rounding her flushed cheeks.
Mother of God, her smile leaped the space between them, curled its warmth around him and settled in a low burn between his legs. If she was the journalist, her carefree demeanor and natural glow went well beyond the polished-blonde look so common in TV personalities. Maybe Ms. Joni Torpey wasn’t an ass clencher after all.
She wove toward the counter, teeth chattering, shoulders bunched.
“House coffee to go, ma’am?” The barista still wore her grin.
“For here, thanks.” She leaned a hip on the counter, her body angled toward him and the men at the bar, but her attention clung to the display of pastries. “And some of that yummy brown bread.”
Her curve-hugging dress exposed golden skin from her midthighs to her ankle boots. The cropped length of her unzipped leather jacket catered to LA couture, not Midwest winters. No wonder she was freezing her tits off.
The douches at the bar seemed to have forgotten their devices in lieu of ogling her erect nipples. Fuck, he was staring too.
“I’ll bring your order to you.” The barista waved a hand over the room. “Go warm up.”
“Lovely. Thank you.” All four corners of the shop offered seating, but she turned unerringly toward his.
Their eyes locked, and his breath hitched. The graceful rise of her cheekbones caught the dim light, illuminating her fresh-faced complexion and dainty features. The puckered lift of her lips, her tiny upright nose, and the arch of one narrow eyebrow cast an expression glimmering with amusement.
He wanted to see that look while her naked body was strung up and spread open, his dick thrusting into each and every hole.
Blood rushed below his belt. If he didn’t rein it in, he wouldn’t be able to stand without revealing the nature of his thoughts. Not that he had a problem with public arousal.
She slid one long leg in front of the other and closed the distance. He knew he was smiling like an asshole, but his cheeks refused to relax, so he gave her a chin lift.
Her eyes didn’t sway from his as he adjusted himself and stood. A coffee table separated the two chairs in his little corner, and he suddenly wished he’d chosen the spot over there, the one with the single love seat they could share. So he could smell her. And accidentally touch her. Because he was a fucking pervert.
And not the only one. The men at the bar watched with gaping jaws as she glided past them, her strides as easygoing as the lift of her mouth. The temperature of the room stoked to blazing. He tugged at his collar. Was there a law against a fetish for beautiful smiles? Smilephilia? He’d found a new kink to poke at the hundred trapped ones in his head.
He shifted around the table and came face-to-face with sparkling hazel eyes.
“You must be Detective Devon Burgess. I’m Joni Torpey.” With an outstretched hand, she grinned up at him, her mouth curling in gentle peaks.
He clasped her hand, his fingers enclosing icicles. “Gloves are advisable in single-digit temperatures.”
She tightened her grip. “Good to know for the next time I never come here again.”
Smart-ass. “Call me Dev, and you’ve got me till closing time.” He glanced at his watch. “Which is at—”
“Nine o’clock. We’ve got two hours.” She released his hand and adjusted the briefcase strap on her shoulder. “Thank you so much for agreeing to the interview.”
To think he’d almost declined it. The only specs his background check had turned up was her clean criminal, DMV, and tax history, and her birth records. She’d just turned thirty-four. Five years his junior. “We could’ve done this over Skype.”
“Nope.” She shook her head, silky blonde hair swishing around her face. “This is more effective. The energy transmitted in body language and expressions is as valuable as verbal responses.”
No dispute there. Her vividness was a stark contrast from her stoic e-mail. “You’re not like the journalists who usually interview me.” When her eyebrows lifted, he said, “Are you going to clench your ass every time I mention the word sex?”
> Her tongue tapped her front teeth. “Will you need to perform an anal cavity search to check for clenching?”
A whiplash of lust quickened his breath. She might as well have cupped him and squeezed. Get a grip, dickhead. She was teasing, not begging for a cock in her ass. “Only if you require one, Ms. Torpey.” He smirked.
“Joni.” She returned his smirk.
“Have a seat, Joni.” He gestured toward the one he’d vacated beside the fireplace.
When she settled, her head cocked, teeth sawing the plump flesh of her bottom lip. Her soft gaze traced his mouth and wandered down his chest as he took the seat opposite hers. She wasn’t even trying to hide her interest. His desperate mind whispered possibilities, and all of the scenarios included a night that extended beyond two hours.
He cleared his throat. “When did you fly in?”
“Just arrived. I fly back in the morning.”
His chest caved in, sinking his hope for a long weekend between her legs. “Where are you staying?”
“In town.”
Watching her enticing lips form that wisely vague answer, he felt like a hunter. Hungry. Calculating. And usually a hell of a lot more subtle. He leaned back in a display of carefree and nowhere to be. “Fire when ready, Joni.”
“All right.” She removed a laptop from her bag and powered it on. “As I mentioned in my e-mail, our researchers are interviewing a selection of psychiatrists, law enforcement, and felons.” She shrugged. “I got the paraphilia expert.”
For as long as she wanted him. Hopefully, her interest lasted till morning. He nodded.
The barista arrived with the bread and coffee and returned to the counter.
Joni sipped from her cup, rolling back her shoulders and smiling. Then she set it aside and met his eyes. “The documentary examines arousal in its myriad of scents. Our mission is to isolate the poisoned, disease-ridden odors, and air out why only certain people are corrupted by them.”
Cute. Did she rehearse that? Maybe it was a quote from the film. “Everyone has unsavory fantasies. You want to know what rouses a person to act on them?”
With the keyboard balanced on her lap, she nodded. “Is it power and control, anger, or some mental disorder?”
“Or horniness.”
She blinked. “Everyone gets horny, Detective—”
“Dev.” He wanted to taste her responses without the stiffness of job titles.
“Fine, Dev. What takes a person from horny to unlawful?”
Rather than tire them both with a didactic monologue, he decided to answer with a little harmless flirting. “A guy stands behind you in a checkout line, watching your ass as you bend over to retrieve something from beneath your cart. When you stand up, he brushes his erection against your backside. You may or may not feel it.”
A smile danced in her eyes. “Frotteurism.”
“Horny. What about the guy who randomly dials your number late at night and whispers all the ways he wants to fuck you, his breath heavy, his voice so compelling you find you’re unable to hang up.”
“Phone scatologia is stalking and harassment.” She glanced up, and her pupils dilated. “And I would hang up.” Her hand went to her hoop earring, rubbing a finger over the hook. Then she released it to lift her coffee cup. More likely, she realized stroking her jewelry was an indication of her arousal.
He leaned his elbows on his thighs and captured her gaze. “You sure you’d hang up?”
Her knees pinched together, the nonverbal answer heating the air. If he called her from an unknown number, he would murmur his illicit fantasies and fuck his hand to the sound of her gasps. A warm flush coursed through his body.
“Making vulgar phone calls is a disorder.” She blew out a breath. “And a Class 1 Misdemeanor.”
Only in some states. “Since we’re discussing hypothetical scenarios, what if I jerked off right here, while you watched? How would you label that?”
Caught in the sharpest stare he had, she didn’t flinch. “Exhibitionism. You would be arrested.”
“Or horniness. That shouldn’t be a crime.”
A lovely red hue tinted her cheeks, from the warmth of the coffee, the nearby fire and her arousal. “So you believe the motivation is mere horniness, not mental conditions or power plays?”
The front door slammed, and a glance over his shoulder revealed empty bar stools. The barista’s footsteps shuffled in the back room. They were alone. He turned back to her.
“Tell me about the opposite end of the spectrum.” Her fingers hovered over the keyboard.
Either she found his directness uncomfortable, or she truly wanted to understand criminal sexuality. His chest collapsed. Any sexual interest he might’ve kindled in her was about to be extinguished, but he was there to answer her questions. “You mean rape, pedophilia and sexual murder?”
At her nod, he sifted through his recollection of the worst kinds of criminals. For the next hour, he outlined their profiles, methods, degrees of force, and typologies. She clicked on her keys as he spoke, her shoulders deflating and her jaw sliding back and forth. He’d shredded a napkin on the table between them, suffocating in the miasma of putrid subject matter.
When he finished his walk-through on human depravity, she leaned back and shook out her hands. “And the motivation?”
“Pursuit of sadistic pleasure, power and control.”
She nodded, a cloud of thoughts churning in her wide eyes. “Reeks of paraphilic disorders.”
“When the victim isn’t a willing adult, yes. There are erotic attractions to fear, blood, asphyxiation, children, pain, tears, bondage—”
The fluctuation in her breath jumped on the last word. Her thighs flexed together.
Oh, Joni was a naughty girl. “You want to discuss bondage?”
Her response was dismissed with her laptop as she set it on the table to unwrap the honey-wheat bread. She tore off a piece soaked with butter and slid it past her lips. “Want some?”
He shook his head, mesmerized by the movement of her mouth as she chewed. She licked her fingers, tongue curling, sucking each slender digit, the damned tease.
His breath staggered away from him as he hovered on the edge of the chair. Fuck it. He jumped to his feet and nudged the table aside with his foot. She paused midlick, watching him. He leaned down, hands on the armrests of her chair, his face a breath from hers.
They shared an impenetrable moment of eye contact, her soft expression at odds with the heave of her chest. When her hand lowered from her mouth, he caught her wrist, his fantasies shoving their way into reality. His heart hammered.
“What are you doing?” Her husky voice surged heat through his veins.
Slowly, vigilantly, he clenched the tiny bones in her arm and raised her fingers to his lips. Her breath caught, eyes smoldering, her arm pliant in his grip. Fucking perfect. Fear was not his kink.
The first touch of her fingers on his lips sent a shiver through him. She watched his mouth, unblinking, a swell of want deepening the yellow-green expanse of her irises.
He nipped at her index finger and drew it into his mouth in one long suck. The sweet and salty flavor of her skin and the breathless tremble through her body propelled him to the next finger, and the next.
Her eyelids drooped, and her mouth parted. All the right signals. He grabbed her other wrist and hoisted her to her tiptoes. With her chest pressed against his, he crossed her arms behind her back. Still no struggling and her eyes sharpened with interest.
“I think bondage is your thing, Joni.” His pulse raced at the thought. He bent his head and opened her lips with his, sweeping his tongue in, coaxing hers.
She stiffened in his hold, and for a distressing moment, he was certain she would reject him. Then she fell against his mouth, sucking and licking, hands tugging against the shackle of his. He released her arms, and she plunged fingers through his hair, pulling his face closer.
He molded her slender waist against him, one hand on her jaw, the other clen
ching on her hip. The friction of her pelvis rubbing against his, the intense slide of her tongue chasing and tangling wrangled a moan from his throat. It was a hard, crushing grind of lips and bodies as they kissed and bit.
“We’re closing in ten minutes.” The fucking barista shouted from the back room.
Joni pushed against his chest, slipped from his arms, and swiped a hand over her mouth. Her breath rushed from her lungs noisily, her eyes wide and uncertain.
Goddamn it. His stomach sank.
“That wasn’t supposed to happen.” She sidestepped around him and crouched to slide her laptop into her bag.
The curvature of her waist and the round bend of her ass kept his arousal heated on a roiling simmer. He needed to keep the conversation going and look for an opening to extend the night. “We haven’t discussed the gray areas.”
She stood, her swollen lips conflicting with her narrow-eyed glare. “Do these gray areas have anything to do with that kiss?”
Why would she ask that? She didn’t know the depth of his intentions. “The trickiest crimes teeter on the razored edge between seduction and coercion.” The words warmed his throat, voiced from the dangerous snare of his thoughts. “We both wanted that kiss. And more.” He took a step toward her. “Come home with me.”
She backed up, little lines grooving her forehead.
Fuck. “I meant…” Exactly what he’d said. His throat dried. “Let’s go somewhere, so we can finish the conversation for your research.”
“I have what I need, Detective Burgess. I need to use the restroom. I’ll see myself out. Thanks for your time.”
Dismissed. No handshake. No smile. She paced away, her ass flexing with each graceful step. Motherfuck. What had scared her off? The barista? Fear of her desires, or his? He scrubbed a hand over his face, muscles contracting, ready to chase her.
Across the room, she disappeared behind the bathroom door. He moved to follow her, and his foot tangled in the strap of her laptop case. He reached down and gripped the flap, opening it. Right there in an inner pocket waited a white key-card envelope. The name of the hotel and her room number would be printed on it. If there were two key cards…