Ridin' Solo (Sisters From Hell Book 1)

by Marika Ray

  His fingertips found my shoulders and traced their way down my arms until our fingers tangled together. The short little hairs down the midline of his stomach tickled against my bare skin. My nipples strained for the contact, needing him to move faster to put out the fire inside my body. He tugged me toward the bed and laid me down on the comforter with the care of a man handling a priceless artifact.

  “Lose the pants, Wyatt.” I tried to order him, but it came out more of a moan than a command.

  He grinned, hands instantly going to his waistline to shove the pants down his hips. I looked down between us to see the bob of his erect cock. I squirmed on the bed, already wet and ready for him. I reached for him, but Wyatt pushed my hands back down on the bed. He didn’t give me what I wanted. Instead, he stood up and ran his hands down my legs all the way to my toes. And then he started back up, this time with his lips plucking each inch of skin, first on one leg and then the other. As he reached my knees, he pushed my thighs apart, letting me feel the groan in his chest at the sight of me bared to him. I shifted my hips, too eager to stay still.

  Wyatt grinned up at me from between my thighs, the look so devilish a hint of warning chimed in my brain alongside the desperate ache. He attacked, his tongue flicking around and down, over and over, his fingers getting in on the action and filling me with one smooth thrust. My back bowed off the bed and my breaths came in pants. He slowed his pace only to come back in a flurry of motion, his tongue everywhere, constantly changing tactics until I gripped the comforter to keep from pulling on his hair. My skin felt like it was on fire, a sheen of sweat the natural outcome.

  “Wyatt…please…”

  He sucked my clit into his mouth and hummed his approval of my begging. A lightning bolt shot from his tongue all the way through the top of my head, exploding into a million stars behind my eyelids as I cried out. He didn’t stop until I pried my eyes back open long moments later.

  “Wyatt…stop…oh my God…” I couldn’t seem to form a coherent sentence.

  He pulled his head up, his mouth wet and his eyes dancing with that look men get when they know they’ve done a job well. His fingers twitched, still inside me, making me jump. He pulled them out slowly, drawing a line around my clit before leaving me entirely.

  “Want more?” he asked, an impish grin on his face.

  I nodded, willing to beg yet again if he wanted me to. I glanced down at his cock, seeing it hard and long and proud in the space between us. While Wyatt bent down to find his pants and hopefully a condom or two, I got my hands around his cock, feeling the velvety soft skin and sighing in pleasure.

  Wyatt jerked but let me stroke him up and down a few times. Then he was batting my hands away to roll the condom on. He pulled my hands above my head and notched himself against me.

  He looked me in the eye, both of us saying so much without the actual words. He didn’t say he loved me, but I could see it in the way he looked at me. The way he clasped our hands together above our heads and thrust slowly inside me. The way his breath hitched and how his body slid over mine like he couldn’t bear to be more than a millimeter apart. The way he shuddered when I squeezed him internally. How he made sure I was right there with him at the edge of the cliff, his eyes unblinking as we both fell. The tender way he kissed my heated skin over and over, falling asleep entwined together as if sleeping over was our new normal.

  Neither of us said the words, but we both knew.

  That was lovemaking.

  And this thing between us was about a hell of a lot more than just sex.

  23

  Oakley

  * * *

  “People are going to know.”

  Wyatt swatted my ass and helped me up into his truck. “No, they won’t.”

  I didn’t swivel my feet into the truck just yet. “Yes, they will! Look at these cheeks.” I pointed to my face, where my cheeks would not stop looking like bright red roses that had gotten good and laid the night before.

  Wyatt paused, scanning my face. “Yep. They’re gonna know.”

  “Argh!” I yelped, spinning on the seat and dumping my duty belt on the floor of the truck. Wyatt closed the door on his laughter.

  He came around to the driver’s side and climbed in, starting the truck and getting the heater going. It was still cold out at oh-dark-thirty in Auburn Hill.

  “Wait. I’m sorry. I have to do this.” Wyatt took his hands off the steering wheel.

  I opened my mouth to ask what, but he pounced, his tongue in my mouth and his hands trying to feel me up through the bulletproof vest. I kissed him back, protesting in my head. Him frenching me right before we drove to work wouldn’t help matters. Everyone was going to know we were together. I just knew it.

  My brain finally wrestled the control away from my libido, and I pushed Wyatt off me. “We’re going to be late, Lieutenant.”

  He ground his molars, his eyes heating further. “I fuckin’ love it when you call me Lieutenant.”

  I put my hand on his handsome face and pushed, swallowing the laugh that wanted to break free. “We can’t be late! We have to talk to the sheriff.”

  Wyatt groaned, but sat back, putting the truck in gear and driving off. “Fine. If that makes it so I can kiss you whenever I want without fear of us losing our jobs, then I’m all over it.” He glanced over at me. “But I have plans for you tonight.”

  My eyebrow lifted. “Oh, yeah?”

  Wyatt adjusted himself. “Yep. You and my handcuffs, baby.”

  I snorted, thinking he was being a total cliche including the handcuffs. Even though secretly, that sounded like a ton of fun.

  By the time we got to work, my cheeks had mostly calmed down, but I couldn’t seem to wipe the grin off my face. Wyatt and I were finally in a good place, and if the meeting with Sheriff Locke went well, we’d have a plan in place to officially date without having to sneak around.

  I released my seat belt. “Remember. No funny business while at work. Okay?”

  Wyatt shot me a look. “I know. I take my job seriously too, Oakley.”

  I smiled softly at him, understanding so much more now that I knew a little about his father. “I know you do. I’ll tell my inner control freak to calm down.”

  He grinned, clearly agreeing with my assessment of my need to control everything, and we both got out of the truck. I took the lead like normal, heading into the office building to see if we could chat with the sheriff before our official patrol start time. The place was bustling with activity.

  “Hi, Betty,” I said to his secretary. “Is Sheriff available?”

  The woman gave a long-suffering sigh. “Unfortunately, no. He’s stuck in a meeting with Mayor Rip, going over budgets. Seems all our equipment is breaking at the same time, so Sheriff is trying to get emergency funding, which is like trying to squeeze blood from a turnip.”

  I bit my lip. Well, that certainly put a damper on our plans. “Hmm. Well, okay. I’ll see if I can catch him after shift.”

  “Sounds good, honey.” Betty started clicking around on her computer, unaware of the looks Wyatt and I were shooting each other.

  By the time we made it to the cruiser where we could speak freely, my cheeks were bright red again. I started up the car and headed out of the parking lot, looking forward to a day with just Wyatt and me. As soon as we told Sheriff Locke about us, Wyatt would be transferred and I’d be riding solo again. I wanted to soak in as much time with him as I could before they separated us.

  “You know your cheeks do the same thing when I’m inside you,” he said out of the blue.

  “Wyatt!” I gasped.

  “What?” He grinned impishly. “That’s the kind of detail a guy notices when he’s crazy for a girl.”

  That had me smiling despite my self-imposed edict not to flirt while on the job. “Crazy about me, huh?”

  Wyatt shifted in his seat. “Well, yeah. First day on the job and I got to see you getting off to a porno…”

  There went my cheeks. Permanently
red when I was around him and his big mouth. “Shut up!” I whacked his bicep with the back of my hand before gripping the steering wheel again properly. Safety, baby.

  Wyatt looked out the windshield, his expression serious. “Honestly, Oakley, I’ve done some shitty things in my past. I’m worried you’ll hold that against me.”

  “Hey,” I said softly. I raised my voice when he wouldn’t look over at me. “Hey. I don’t care about the past. If it’s truly in the past, then it doesn’t matter. Okay? Trust me.”

  He nodded, though he still had that line between his eyebrows.

  Dispatch squawked through the radio. “We’ve got a call about possible gunshots. North end of the county off Ocean Drive.”

  Wyatt radioed back. “Waldo and Smith on our way.”

  I hit the lights and siren, pulling a U-turn when there was no oncoming traffic. I made a left and then a right onto Ocean Drive, taking the winding road all the way to the north end of the county. I turned off the siren as we got closer. Neither of us was too worried about the call, but I’d follow protocol just the same. We answered calls about gunshots practically on the daily. This was the country. People were always target practicing in their backyard acreage, annoying the neighbors enough to call the nonemergency line.

  “Up ahead on the right.” Wyatt pointed outside his window, where we could see a moving truck heading down a gravel path, tires dipping in and out of the potholed road, clearly not built for large trucks.

  “That’s odd,” I muttered under my breath. I pulled off to the side of the road and watched the taillights disappear into the trees. Using the computer attached to my dash, I looked up the plot of land, seeing it was owned by an LLC. I tried to trace it but kept coming up with a shell company that told me nothing of use.

  “Could be the drug front Sheriff warned us about,” Wyatt said before radioing dispatch for backup. He was thinking the same thing I was.

  His personal phone dinged, and he dug it out. I kept going with the online search, seeing if I could trace when the land was purchased. We needed to wait for backup anyway before charging into the situation.

  Wyatt tapped out a reply on his phone, putting it away only to dig it back out again when it dinged. He sighed, but had a patient smile on his face.

  Dispatch broke the silence, saying backup would be another ten minutes or so as the other team was on the south side dealing with an animal situation, which didn’t surprise me in the least. Same animals, different day.

  A gunshot broke the silence, startling us both. I looked over at Wyatt. “That didn’t sound like a shotgun.”

  He shook his head. “Sounded like a smaller caliber. Not normal for around here, right?”

  His phone dinged again, and I snapped at him. “For God’s sake, put the phone down and focus!”

  He threw it on the floor, hands up. “I’m on it. We need to go in there.”

  I agreed. I put the cruiser back in gear and floored it, the back end sliding when I took the turn onto the gravel road at high speed. Wyatt called it in and dispatch said they’d tell backup to re-prioritize. We bounced along the road and my heart rate climbed, senses tuning in to everything around us as they always did when on a call. Once I hit the line of tall trees, it got darker, but I could clearly see multiple cars, trucks, the moving truck we’d seen earlier, and a warehouse of some sort. From my online search, there hadn’t been a building on this land when it sold last year. A quick assessment said no one was outside, though if this was an illegal drug operation, we could bet there’d be some security guys outside we’d need to keep an eye out for. We’d gotten in way too easy for me to feel comfortable.

  I hit the brakes, and we both climbed out, guns drawn and creeping closer to the warehouse. Wyatt motioned to the left and went in that direction, darting around cars for cover as I approached from the right, making sure no one was inside the cars.

  Shouts came from inside the warehouse, sounding like at least three guys in an argument. Wyatt and I flanked the double doors, knowing there was nothing we could do about the roll-up door behind me or possible exits in the back.

  I nodded at Wyatt, and he leaned over to bang on the door. “Police! Open up!”

  Silence was our answer, followed by the sounds of boots running around inside. Wyatt shouted one last time, rearing back to kick the door open. “Police!”

  Everything from that moment forward flew by in warp speed. They say you get in the zone in an emergency situation and I can attest that’s true. Wyatt’s boot hit the doors, and they flew open with a loud bang. Shots immediately rang out, and we both ducked back behind the wall. I leaned in first and shot back, immediately zeroing in on a guy with a gun by a large stack of something under a tarp. I clipped him in the shoulder and he went down while the rest of his friends ran for cover. Wyatt went through the doorway, crouched low and darting behind a tractor inside. I covered him, shooting toward another man who came out from an office area in the back of the warehouse where they’d gone to hide. More came out, the place seemingly crawling with armed men.

  “Fuck,” I uttered, darting a glance behind me to make sure no one planned to attack from the outside. I knew backup wouldn’t be here soon enough. Wyatt and I were on our own in a gunfight with who knew how many guys protecting something valuable they didn’t want us to find.

  I dropped the clip and loaded another, swinging back inside the doorway to see Wyatt trading shots with two of the guys. I tried again, bellowing, “Police! Drop your weapons!”

  One guy did, dropping to the floor with his hands over his head. Another guy shot at Wyatt, a metallic twang telling me he’d only hit the tractor.

  A twig snapping behind me had me whirling around right when I felt a white-hot heat hit my calf. I went down, seeing a guy thirty yards away with a small pistol. My brain knew I’d been shot, which only pissed me off. I wasn’t going down over some drug hideaway shithole with a bunch of backwoods assholes who sold this shit to kids. I aimed, then pulled the trigger twice, watching the guy drop.

  The searing pain in my leg only made my senses sharper. I crawled back through the doorway, and from my vantage point, could see three guys on the ground, hands flat on the concrete. One last dark head of hair was darting out from behind the office in the back. I looked over at Wyatt, who was about to come out from behind the tractor. He couldn’t see there was one more guy. I yelled at Wyatt the same time the guy popped his head out. I squeezed off one more shot to the ceiling above the guy’s head. Wyatt dropped again and looked my way, his eyes widening when he saw a trail of red behind me. The guy shouted he was coming out, his hands held over his head, no gun in sight.

  “I’m fine,” I whispered loudly at Wyatt. “I’ll cover, you start arresting.” I threw my handcuffs over to him, which he caught in the air. He gave me one last hard glance and then ran over to the guys on the ground, kicking away weapons before placing them in handcuffs and resorting to quick ties when he ran out of cuffs.

  I kept an eye out behind me for more outdoor security while making sure no one else came out of that office. By the time our backup deputies ran through the doorway with guns drawn and shouts of “police,” we had the situation mostly under control. An ambulance was called, and I knew all law enforcement in a twenty-mile radius would be here shortly. News of a cop being hit spread like wildfire. Just never thought it would be me.

  Wyatt was suddenly at my side, the first sign of panic on his face as he ran his gaze over my body. “Where are you hit?”

  “Just my calf.” I calmly placed my Glock in the holster at my waist, finally accepting that the situation was over.

  I sat up, and Wyatt grabbed my foot, rolling up my pant leg to assess the damage. I hissed when he got to the wound, a hot poker pain taking over for the white lightning I first felt.

  The first of the guys who’d been arrested walked by with the other two deputies. He did a double take when he saw Wyatt.

  “Wyatt?” he asked, mouth falling open.

  Wy
att’s head snapped up and his dark tan faded as he clearly recognized the guy who’d just been shooting at us.

  The guy grinned, which hit me as insane. We’d just traded gunfire, he was in handcuffs, and the fucker was smiling at us now?

  “I thought that was you. What the hell, man? Why you shootin’ at us?”

  The deputy stopped trying to pull him out the door, looking between us like he didn’t know if Wyatt wanted to catch up. Like this was social fucking hour.

  “You know this asshole?” I asked Wyatt, not able to keep the disgust from my voice. His friend had just shot me. I felt it entitled me to a little anger.

  “Know me? Wyatt’s practically my brother!” the guy exclaimed, a gold tooth winking at the side of his smile.

  24

  Wyatt

  * * *

  A whole shit ton of dread hit my stomach, mixing with the panic that had taken hold of me when I saw Oakley’d been hit. It took every last second of the training drilled into my head to keep me focused on the job in front of me instead of running to Oakley’s side before we’d eliminated the threat.

  As if active gunfire where my partner, the woman I was in love with, was shot wasn’t enough to get the adrenaline racing, seeing my past front and center pushed me right over the edge. I couldn’t even feel my face. All I could see was Oakley’s bright red blood on my hands and that fucker’s smiling face.

  Jesse…something. Couldn’t even remember his last name. He was a friend of Ben’s. And at one time in my life, a friend of mine, but only because he could score a stash of blow that would keep my friends and me going for weeks. If he was here, it was because there was a drug deal happening. Just the sight of his familiar face made my stomach sour with regret and shame. I’d left that life far behind me and I refused to let it drag me back.

  “We are not friends.” The bitter words scraped across my dry throat. I tossed my head toward the open doorway. “Get him out of here.”