by Ashley Shay
“You think we might be pushing her too much?”
Morgan shrugged one shoulder, looking into his coffee cup as if it held all the answers in the universe. “I don’t think so. I think it turns her on against her will.” He looked up at Dallas with a grin. “She likes it at the same time she hates it.”
“Yeah.” Dallas nodded his head in agreement. “That’s what I thought, too. She’s scared of who she really is. She wants to push the limit, but she’s afraid of taking it too far.”
Lifting his cup from the table, Morgan’s index finger traced random patterns in the ring of water the cup left on the wood. “I think we need to establish a pattern of control. She needs someone to take care of her, and we want to do that. She’s used to calling the shots and taking care of herself, but once she understands how much easier it is to let us handle certain things…”
“She’s afraid to give up control.”
“Exactly.”
Dallas drained his coffee cup, stretching as he got up to wash the mug. “How long should we leave her like that?”
Morgan glanced at the clock hanging on the kitchen wall. “Less than an hour till our shift’s up. I think she can handle it that much longer.”
“Give her one more day and she should be ready for us.”
“She could take us both now—” Morgan’s words were interrupted by the clanging of the alarms. “Fuck!” He shook his head in exasperation at the same time he headed toward the brass pole running floor-to-ceiling through the center of the station. Grabbing the three-story post with both hands, he slid down easily, running to the waiting bunker gear the moment his feet hit the floor. Dallas stayed right on his tail, already yanking up the turnout pants and slipping his arms through the suspenders as Morgan slid his feet into the boots.
They gave each other a look as they piled into the cab of the ladder truck.
The lieutenant briefed the crew as they sped toward the blaze. “There’s an apartment fire at 3560 Sundown Lane. The house is fully engaged. No reports of anyone trapped inside so far.”
Dallas felt his stomach relax a little bit. He hated residential fires where children might be involved. It was heartbreaking enough to see people lose everything they owned, but losing a child made it unbearable. Several months ago, they hadn’t reached a child in time and it had left a scar he didn’t think would ever heal. He knew Morgan still struggled with the weight of his guilt, but they didn’t talk about it. Some things were just too painful to talk about.
* * * *
Jude watched the fire trucks scream out of the station and knew the men wouldn’t be back for several hours. Disappointment made her shoulders sag. Their shift would have been over soon. She had been looking forward to having Morgan make love to her while she gave Dallas the blowjob of his life.
After the menacing phone call earlier in the day, she needed something to lift her spirits. She thought it was unlikely the guys would come to see her after the fire. They usually returned exhausted from a legitimate call. She guessed they would be more interested in a hot shower than sex, especially if they ended up working a double shift.
Heading for the bathroom, Jude remembered Dallas’s warning that he would know if she took the toy out before she had their permission. Her step faltered. This wouldn’t count as disobedience, would it? She couldn’t wear the plug forever, and it would be hours before they returned.
Her hands gingerly ran across the tender flesh of her buttocks. Yeah, they were still sore from the spanking.
This is ridiculous. I have a job to do. I need to ship out those two Internet orders and stop by to see Grandma and Tracey at the hospital. I’m just going to have to disobey them this time, and they are going to have to live with it.
Slamming the door to the bathroom, Jude knew it was a childish gesture of defiance, but it made her feel better. She took time to freshen up while thinking dark thoughts about Morgan and Dallas. Despite her attempt to stay annoyed with them, she couldn’t stop the sensual fantasies that left her feeling needful and restless.
A few minutes later, juggling two boxes and her purse, Jude fumbled with the deadbolt on Sinful Pleasure’s antique door. The oak wood had warped, causing the lock to settle unevenly. Muttering a curse, Jude slung her purse back over her shoulder and repositioned the boxes in her arms. Tomorrow she would call a locksmith to reset the deadbolt. In the meantime, she had to get the key to turn inside the lock. Catching a glimpse of color from the corner of her eye, she realized that she wasn’t alone.
Preoccupied by the stubborn door, Jude almost missed seeing the man standing directly behind her. Startled by his closeness, Jude whirled around to face him. She dropped her keys while somehow managing to hold on to the packages without spilling them to the pavement.
“I–I’m closing the store a little early this evening,” she stammered. “Can you come back tomorrow?” She would have backed away from him, but the door kept her from retreating.
Behind the packages partially blocking her view, Jude caught a blur of movement. Belatedly, she realized the man had lifted his arm in a threatening gesture. She felt a shockingly hard blow to her head and then nothing. Her world faded into darkness.
The next conscious thing Jude remembered was the concerned face of Marcie Gray looking down at her. The older woman’s hazel eyes were filled with worry.
“Are you all right, honey, or should I call for an ambulance? I’ve already called the police. They’ll be here any minute.”
“I…I think I’m okay.” Jude reached up to touch her throbbing head. “Did you see the man who hit me?”
Marcie, owner of the bakery next door, squatted down beside Jude to get a better look at her injury. “I just caught a glimpse of him, sweetie. I didn’t see his face. It’s too bad the boys in the station are on a call. He wouldn’t have made it half a block if the men had seen him.” She reached a tentative hand to Jude’s shoulder. “Can you stand up?”
Jude got to her feet carefully, waiting for the dizziness that signaled a concussion. She didn’t feel dizzy or sick to her stomach. He must not have hit her that hard, although it felt plenty hard enough from the pain radiating in her skull.
“Did he take anything? My purse?” Jude looked down at the two packages he’d left lying on the sidewalk. She didn’t see her handbag.
Damn.
Her purse had been stolen once before on a trip to New Orleans. She hated trying to replace stolen documents.
A small crowd of curious onlookers had gathered around her now. One of the men standing nearby heard Jude ask about her purse and began a search of the area. Other members of the crowd halfheartedly looked around the building and shrubs, but they were more interested in peering through the windows to see what was inside Sinful Pleasures.
“Here it is,” the first man called, holding the purse over his head for her to see. “I found it under the bench. Doesn’t look like it’s been touched.”
“Thank you so much,” Jude offered. She took the purse from his outstretched hand and unzipped it. Looking inside with a frown of concentration, Jude did a quick mental inventory of the items she normally carried. “Nothing seems to be missing.” She looked from Marcie to the guy who found her purse. “Do you think he dropped it as he ran away?”
“Why didn’t he pick it up?” Marcie asked. “He would have had plenty of time.”
“Maybe he thought someone saw his face. Or maybe he felt like he’d run out of time and luck. Who knows?” The man gave a shrug, then looked over at the two uniformed officers pulling up to the curb in a blue-and-silver cruiser. “That’s fast response time. Must be a slow day.”
The male officer immediately began asking the crowd if they had seen what happened during the attack, and the woman officer came over to stand in front of Jude. The diminutive cop had to look up at her as she spoke.
“Do you need medical attention?”
“I’ll get checked out later,” Jude assured her, looking at the surrounding area as if seeing i
t for the first time with fresh eyes. “I don’t understand what happened. He left the packages and my purse. Why would a thief do that?”
“Maybe he wasn’t a thief,” the petite officer responded. “Can we go inside to fill out the report? You’ll be more comfortable there.”
“Of course.” Looking on the ground, Jude spotted the keys she had dropped when the man startled her. She bent down to pick them up, reliving the scene in her mind. “I saw him from the corner of my eye as I locked the door. I thought he was a customer, and I told him I’d already closed for the day. I asked if he could come back tomorrow, but he didn’t say anything. He just hit me on the head and ran.”
Inside the shop, the woman officer shut the door against curious eyes. She performed a quick inspection of the premises before settling down across from Jude to take her statement. Sticking out her hand in introduction, she gave Jude a firm handshake. “I’m Officer Sandra Trujillo. Can you tell me why anyone would want to harm you, Ms. Wheeler?”
Jude swept her arm around the room in explanation. “Some people think I’m promoting pornography here in Parrish. I’ve had calls preaching to me, threatening me, and obscene calls. I don’t take any of them seriously any longer. Most people support me in my business, but a few just want to vent or try to frighten me into closing the shop.”
Trujillo stopped writing in a note pad she had taken from her uniform pocket. She glanced up at Jude with a thoughtful expression. “Have you had any threatening calls lately?”
Jude looked at the phone. “As a matter of fact, I did have a call today. I wouldn’t exactly classify it as threatening. I’ve had much worse things said to me, but the man told me something bad would happen if I didn’t leave town. He called me by name. My full name.”
Officer Trujillo looked up from the note pad again, searching Jude’s face. “He told you something bad would happen if you didn’t leave town? I think that constitutes a threat. Think carefully. Did he say something bad would happen if you didn’t leave town, or if you didn’t close the shop? Did the voice sound familiar?”
“He definitely said if I didn’t leave town.” Jude could remember the conversation nearly word for word. “His voice sounded funny, sort of breathless. He may have been using a voice distorter, but, no, it wasn’t familiar.”
At that moment, the door opened, and Officer Trujillo’s partner stepped inside. He took a long look at the parlor, stepping over to the adjacent room holding the videos. “I’m going to take a look around.”
“I’ve already checked it out.” Trujillo smirked at him, obviously wanting to say something further, but she composed her face into a neutral expression. “You can take a look around if you want. I might have missed something.”
As he headed up the stairs, Trujillo studied Jude to gauge her reaction. “That’s my partner, Officer Michael Sutton. You don’t mind him making another round, do you?”
“Of course not. Can I make a pot of coffee for you and Officer Sutton?” Jude looked back at the petite cop. She had a feeling Officer Sandra Trujillo took her job dead serious, but she wasn’t a hard case, and she seemed to have a sense of humor.
“No, if there’s nothing else you can tell us, we’ll be going just as soon as my partner gets finished checking out the premises.”
Jude’s eyes flicked up to the security camera. Officer Sutton had stepped into the toy room and apparently found an item that caught his attention. Jude tried not to smile, focusing her eyes back on Officer Trujillo.
The woman didn’t miss a thing. She whirled around to look at the security monitor mounted high on the wall behind her. A huge grin lit up her face, and she couldn’t help but laugh.
“You just never know where a perp might hide.”
Jude laughed, wondering if Officer Sutton had any idea he was being watched. Maybe he didn’t care. Something in Trujillo’s face gave her away as she continued to watch Sutton examine the toys. They were having an affair. Jude would bet money on it. It was against police department regulations for two officers emotionally involved to be partnered together, but the evidence plainly showed on Sandra Trujillo’s face. She loved Michael Sutton.
Taking her eyes from the screen, Trujillo turned back to face Jude, and the grin faded from her lips. “Do you have someplace safe to spend the night? You might not want to go home if you live alone. At least not without taking precautions to ward off another attack, in case the man knows where you live.”
No sooner were the words out of her mouth than the front door burst open. Both Trujillo and Jude jumped nervously as the heavy door crashed against the wall.
“What the hell happened?” Dallas asked. He was still in his fireman gear, and Jude thought he looked sexy as hell. He strode over to where she sat, lifting her chin so he could study her face. “Where did you get hit?”
Jude pointed to a throbbing spot on the back of her head, and Dallas examined the lump with gentle fingers. “I’m going to kill the son of a bitch that did this.”
“Careful,” Trujillo warned, “you’re in the presence of a police officer.”
Dallas looked over at the woman as if seeing her for the first time. He took his hands away from Jude’s head. “Did you call the paramedics?”
“She said she didn’t need them.” Trujillo jotted down another quick note before returning her attention to Dallas. “I was telling Ms. Wheeler she probably shouldn’t spend the night alone. Her attacker didn’t take anything of value, and she received a threatening phone call earlier in the day. The caller knew her name. I don’t think this was a robbery attempt. I would classify it as a direct personal attack.”
“She’s going to spend the night with us,” Morgan said from the doorway.
Officer Trujillo looked a bit taken aback at the statement, but she managed to quickly hide her surprise. Standing up, she shut the notebook and slipped it back into her shirt pocket. “Looks like you’re in good hands, Ms. Wheeler.”
Jude stood up, too. “Please, call me Jude. If you find out anything, will you call me?”
Trujillo gave a slight grimace before answering. “We’ll keep you posted on the investigation, but we don’t have much to go on, Jude. The truth is we may never find who did this. Random acts of violence are nearly impossible to solve unless the perp makes another move. We hope that won’t happen in your case, but you need to be careful at all times. This man may be some sort of fanatic. I have to tell you, extremists are the worst to deal with because they truly believe what they are doing is justified, no matter what the outcome of their actions is. He might very well be willing to risk his own life to get to you and make his point. You can’t afford to let your guard down.”
When Officers Trujillo and Sutton left, Dallas locked the door behind them. Crossing the room, he bundled Jude into his arms and held her against his chest, holding her tightly and dropping careful kisses on the top of her forehead.
“He won’t get a chance to hurt you again,” Dallas whispered. “Morgan and I will be here if he comes back.”
Chapter Nine
Dallas took three beers out of the fridge, handing one to Morgan and one to Jude. “You scared the hell out of us, honey. Is there anything you can think of that you forgot to tell the police?”
“No.” Jude watched the two men move around comfortably in the kitchen as they prepared a salad, spaghetti, and thick slices of garlic bread. Both were dressed in jeans, dark T-shirts, and cowboy boots. They had taken their hats off in the living room, hanging them on a rack next to the door.
“Do you have a headache?” Morgan asked, cutting up carrots and tomatoes for the salad.
“Stop worrying, guys. I’m fine. Really.” Jude smiled at them to prove she meant it.
They remained silent for a minute, working on the meal with the concentration of bachelors who learned to cook in order to survive. When Dallas measured the last ingredient into the spaghetti sauce, he turned to look at Jude.
“Would you like to go for a ride after dinner? It will be g
ood exercise for the horses.”
“I’d love to go for a ride.” What she had seen of the ranch so far was gorgeous. Jude knew from previous conversations that Morgan’s place connected to the west end of Dallas’s property and they shared the fence line, running cattle on both ranches. It had been one large spread before Dallas bought it and sold Morgan half of the land for the price he’d paid for it.
“Do you always hang out here?” Jude couldn’t help but be curious. The two of them seemed equally at home in the kitchen, which meant Morgan spent a lot of time preparing meals in this house.
For a moment, a pained look crossed Morgan’s face, but he answered truthfully. “We usually hang out here. I prefer it to going home after what happened at the ranch.”
Jude shot a look at Dallas, expecting an explanation, but he turned his back, obviously waiting for Morgan to tell the story himself.
When neither man spoke up, Jude reached out to touch Morgan’s arm. “Will you tell me what happened?”
He didn’t speak as he prepared the salad, and Jude thought he might not answer her at all, but at last, he sat down across from her, reaching over the table to take both of her hands in his.
“My wife got killed in a riding accident.”
“Wife?” Jude gasped out the word before she thought. He nodded, meeting her stare with such pain in his eyes that Jude blinked back tears of her own. “I’m so sorry, Morgan. I had no idea.”
“It was my fault.” He squeezed Jude’s fingers and dropped his gaze to focus on their hands, entwining his fingers through hers. “I shouldn’t have bought that horse, but she loved it. We saw him while we were on a vacation in Kentucky horse country, and she had to have it. That damn horse had more spirit than I’ve ever seen. He wasn’t mean. He could have been trained if I’d had the time.” He raised his eyes to stare at Jude again. “She was stubborn. I told her that horse wasn’t ready to ride, but Maria had a mind of her own. She always thought she knew what was best. She waited until I left for work and decided to take him for a ride. The horse shied at a something. Maria hit her head on a boulder when the horse threw her off. She never regained consciousness.”