by D. D. Ayres
The sudden burst of laughter from the main room was as startling as a gunshot.
Law jerked his mouth from hers and twisted his head back to check the doorway. No one stood there. But it was only a matter of time before someone noticed their absence and came looking for them. Not that he really gave a damn. He was hard enough to pound steel. Was ready to take her on the desk right in front of every bug-eyed veteran, volunteer, and dog in the place. But she wouldn’t like that.
Law released her. Well, he tried. His hands weren’t listening to his head. His fingers made it all the way out of her panties, only to grip her upper arms as if they knew that releasing her was the very last thing he wanted to do. If he couldn’t let go of her, he needed to think of something else.
“Are you finished?”
Jori was staring at him with pupils so wide he could drown in them. Her mouth was wet. Finished? He hadn’t even gotten started.
When she licked her upper lip his whole body jerked as if she had just slid that hot pink tongue up the underside of his cock. He glanced around, looking for a suitable surface. Desk. Floor. He wanted her now.
His gaze came back to her and his belly clenched. “You asked me what I want. What I want is you.”
The bluntness of his words left her blinking. Jori strained to think with her heart pumping double-time. “This is nuts. I don’t know you.”
“Wrong answer.” His fingers opened free like bolts blown by explosive charges. He took a step back, but it was only enough to leave breathing room. “You want me. I want you. We know enough.”
She gave her head a tight shake as her gaze slid from his.
He glanced at the clock. There’d be other planes. There wouldn’t be another time for this. He focused on the woman who had put a heartbeat in his dick. “Tell me three things.”
She gaped at him, caught between amusement and shock. “This is crazy.”
He leaned forward and covered her mouth again with his. When he broke contact, he was the one who sighed. “Three things.”
“I like being outside better than inside.”
“One.”
“I like to dance.”
He nodded. “Faster.”
Jori swallowed the hollowed-out feeling expanding in her chest as if she had stepped off a cliff into thin air. “I’m absolutely the last woman you should be with.”
His eyes widened. “Why?”
“Because you’re—were a cop.” Jori was too surprised by the words that had come from her mouth to notice his reaction.
Law went very still. The itch that had been driving him crazy remained, but with a very different vibe. Why should she care that he’d been a cop? No. She’d said because he was a cop. Cause and effect. Who didn’t like cops? People who’d been on the wrong side in an encounter with one.
Something clicked in his head. Something that had been staring him in the face all week yet hadn’t registered. He turned and walked out of the office. Samantha, ever on the job, trailed after him dragging her leash.
Jori let him go. She’d seen the light go on behind his eyes and suspected where he was going, and why. She had hoped he already knew. That maybe someone had told him.
As her breathing slowed she realized her clothes were a mess. When had he pulled up her tee and freed a breast from her bra? And how had her panties become wadded in her crotch? He hadn’t opened a snap or lowered a zipper but she was half undressed inside her clothes.
After a quick rearrangement, she followed him reluctantly into the main room.
She saw he had stopped before the Warriors Wolf Pack’s Wall of Heroes, scanning the faces of the vets who had become WWP family. He moved quickly past them. Farther along there were framed pictures of staff and volunteers. She knew the second he found what he was looking for in the final set of photos. All the air seemed to leave her lungs.
He leaned in, his finger touching the glass of the picture as if he needed to verify with a touch what his eyes were showing him.
Jori knew the photo all too well. It was taken at the women’s correctional center. The inmates, all in matching white jumpsuits, were part of the Warriors Wolf Pack rehabilitation program while serving their sentences. She was the third woman from the right, holding up her certificate as proof she had fulfilled the requirements to be a service dog trainer … once released.
She was an ex-con. Law hadn’t known about that until this second.
Jori sucked in a breath, trying to steady her pride and absorb the hurt coming at her like a major-league fastball. No way to dodge it.
When he levered away from the framed portraits he didn’t even glance her way. He walked straight across the room and out the main doors. Samantha hurried but the closing door halted her on the inside. Unhappy, she pawed the door and whimpered.
Jori glanced over at Maxine, who was gaping at her from behind the reception desk like a fish jerked out of water. She came rushing over. “What was that about?”
Jori thrust out her chin. “Nothing important.”
As she turned away the main doors flew open again, shoved by a powerful arm. Battise stood in the breach. He looked seriously pissed.
“I don’t give fuck about your past. Are you coming or not?”
Jori folded her arms, staring daggers at him. “What about Samantha?”
His gaze flicked to Sam, who still stood by the door. “Bring the damn doodle with you.”
She turned to Maxine. “I’ll be back. Lunch break.”
“Oh, somebody’s hungry all right,” she heard Maxine say as she picked up Samantha’s leash. “I just doubt curly fries are involved.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Law sat in his truck before Jori’s apartment, thinking. He’d just learned that the woman he was about to screw was a convicted felon. He didn’t know what she’d done, or why. And guess what? He didn’t give a damn.
His interest in her had nothing to do with who she was, or what she’d done, or even whether or not she might be good in the sack, though preliminaries said she’d be great. He could have had sex every day of the week but had lost interest in recent months. Yet something about Jori brought every hair on his body to attention. He wanted her so bad his zipper had been making teeth marks in his rigid dick for three days straight. Jerking off in the shower didn’t begin to satisfy his itch.
And here she was, sitting and waiting for him to make the first move.
So why had his conscience suddenly jumped up to bite him in the ass? Because every thought in his head so far was about himself. Jori was the goal, the objective, nothing more. And unaccountably, he felt bad about that.
He glanced over at her. She sat staring out the windshield, chewing a corner of her lower lip as she fiddled with the end of her braid. He could tell she was having a conversation in her head, too. And it probably wasn’t as lust-driven as his was.
“This doesn’t work if you think about it.”
Jori nodded, not looking at the man whose bones she wanted to jump right here in his truck. But if she kept thinking, she might just talk herself out of satisfying the hunger for him simmering beneath her full-body flush.
“Look at me.” He waited until her gaze shifted to him. “I don’t do relationships.”
Jori watched him, drinking in the implication of his words. Hard to handle. Impossible to hold on to. That might just be the good news. She could barely keep up with herself. She didn’t need strings or commitment, or even checking up on.
Sex, then gone. That she could handle.
She gave a little nod.
A smile jerked one corner of his mouth as he reached past Sam to wrap a fist around the thick shiny braid flipped across her shoulder. “Let me put this another way. I don’t want a girlfriend. But I do, very badly, want to fuck you.”
Law watched her complexion catch fire, but she didn’t look away. When his gaze lowered to her breasts, her nipples pebbled as if he had actually touched them. He suspected if he reached into her pants he’d find her wet and warm
with anticipation. But lust wasn’t the same thing as accepting what he had said.
“Tell me this is what you want.”
Jori frowned at him. Why was he giving her warnings? Couldn’t he tell she was so ready for him she was about to burst into flames? Maybe not.
She reached across the space between them, tangled her fingers in his beard, and tugged. “You promised me sex. So shut up and put out.”
His laughter startled her. At most she would have expected something dry and mirthless from him, as if dust had collected on his humor. But this was a belly laugh, full and rich, and sexy as hell.
Law reached for her hand to guide it down to a hands-on demonstration of his interest. But Sam suddenly sat up and shoved her curly head into his face, blocking the move.
Pushing the pooch’s head aside, he gave Jori a glance that made her thighs clench together. “Let’s do this.”
Once inside her door, he didn’t give her a chance to even turn on a light. He took her by the shoulders, spun her around so she faced him, then back-walked her up against the nearest wall and kissed her.
Law had never been much for kissing. It was just the opening move for sex. But kissing Jori was different. Like potato chips, one of her kisses was not enough.
Heat slid through Jori as his hand slid up and grasped the braid at her nape to hold her still under the assault of his mouth. He kissed the way he did everything else, full-on, hard-charging. With no possibility of retreat. More than that, he kissed like a man with a hunger he couldn’t quite control. A little rough and eager.
That was okay. She had an appetite of her own to satisfy. She reached up and fisted the thick hair at the back of his head with both hands to pull him closer.
She’d never kissed a man with a beard. It was a warm soft surprise that contradicted his hard-ass outside. He tasted clean and sexy and male.
She wanted to kiss him until she was saturated with his taste and smell and feel. Yet the world was spinning too fast for her to stay balanced. Her knees began to shake, her thighs loosening with anticipation.
Law was not about to move even an inch away. He wanted her to be much much closer. He moved a hand from her waist down her back. His hand traveled over the fabric that covered her hips until he cupped it under her butt. Then he pressed her hard against his throbbing groin, dry-humping her like a teenager for the sheer pleasure of it.
Jori’s hands moved to his shoulders and gripped hard. He had worked her shirt up so that she felt cool air against her bare midriff. Then he grasped her with both hands just above her waist. His thumbs massaged her ribs just below the cups of her bra, then slipped up into the spaces left as she gasped in response to his touch. Once inside, his thumbs skimmed the soft undercurves of her breasts.
His kisses went roaming, leaving her mouth to trail across her cheek, whiskers tickling her, until he reached her ear. He sighed into it and then licked the center.
Jori jumped in shock at the touch of that warm wet tongue. But his hands were moving again, skimming her shirt up and over her head.
Law stepped back a little to better see what he had revealed. One of his slightly abrasive fingers skimmed along the top of her bra from side to side, then hooked into the low point. Grinning, he drew her in by it and kissed her, hard and quick before releasing her.
“Turn around.”
When she had, bracing her hands against the wall, Jori felt him move in behind her until the proof of his interest in the main event was pressing into her backside. His hands slid up her back until they could work the hooks of her bra.
It surprised her that he didn’t just jerk them open in his eagerness to see what lay beneath. Instead, he took his time, releasing each hook separately, as if each were a little present not to be missed. It was an excruciating tease as he paused after the second hook to run a finger under one strap and then the other, lifting them up and sliding each off the curve of her shoulders to hang loose along her arms. It was a delicate act for so powerful a man and it made her aware that he was enjoying this as much as she was. Finally, he unhooked the last catch.
She caught the bra against herself. His hands went about her waist once more but he didn’t turn her around. The shock of his tongue, warm and sinuous between her shoulder blades, made her gasp. Her nipples beaded up behind her hands as he slowly traced her spine with his tongue. No man had ever done anything quite like that, so simple yet so intimate, as if he was enjoying her whole body. Not just eager for the main attraction.
The shocking heat of her own arousal melted her knees. In another second she’d be sliding toward the floor. But he seemed to sense that weakness and quickly spun her around. When she faced him, she dropped her hands, watching his face as the bra straps sailed down her arms and off her fingertips.
He stilled, the features of his face rigid as he looked his fill.
When his eyes came back to hers, Jori held his simmering stare. The intensity of that serious golden gaze weighed like sunshine on her face. In response, a bead of sweat worked its way down between her breasts, trembling with each breath she took. She closed her eyes, the better to pretend that it was Battise’s tongue tracing that damp trail down her torso. The thought made her arch her back and take a deep breath, which thrust her breasts forward. Slowly, she let it out between parted lips.
Watching that slick of sweat surf her cleavage, Law’s mouth went dry and then flooded back, so that he had to swallow before he could breathe. Unable to resist, he leaned forward to catch the salty drop on his tongue just before it reached her belly button. The knot in his cock doubled down.
With a rough groan of intent, he stripped off his shirt, tossed it aside, and reached for her with both hands.
But Jori moved to hold him away with a palm flat against his sternum. It was her turn to look. He went still as stone, his expression again as guarded as it had been every other time they’d gazed at each other. She held that daunting expression a beat and then lowered her gaze.
He was beautifully made. Powerful shoulders flowed into smoothly sculptured pecs beneath a trace of dark hair. The ripples of his abs were like the pattern water made on a beach as the tide ebbed. Besides the unusual tattoo circling his left biceps—something she wanted to ask about but didn’t dare—there were other markings. Things that made her breath hiss inward between parted lips.
A scattering of scars, some smooth and others puckered, marred the perfection of his lower torso. The scar she’d seen from the back that morning in the parking lot now revealed itself as wrapping forward over his left hip before disappearing into the pants riding low on his hips. There was a patch of skin grafting the size of her palm to the left of his belly button. Heavier scars disappeared into the waistband.
She blinked twice before lifting a misty troubled gaze to his. The keep out sign was back in his eyes.
“The scars bother you?”
“Of course.” Jori wanted to touch but his expression revoked her permission. “You’ve suffered so much.”
“That was long ago.” He said the words carefully, but the rough edge of those last words told her that long ago still occasionally roared back with disturbing clarity. Samantha was proof of that.
He back-stepped, palms going up in surrender. “If you find me ugly—”
“No!” She took a step toward him, but he backed up again.
His lids shuddered down. “My equipment’s all original and in working order. If that’s what’s worrying you.”
“It’s not that, either.” Gazing at his torso, the push of tenderness, sorrow, and desire to make it better welled up in her.
She approached again. This time, he didn’t retreat as she reached out and ran a finger lightly over one of the scars. She felt a heavy tremor roll through him and knew it was costing him a lot to be inspected this way. That wariness was too much for her to respond to with mere words. Easier to just lean in and press her mouth to the scar at the top of his rib cage. His skin was warm, no, hot to the touch beneath her lips.
He took her by the shoulders, lifting her away from his body. Then a hand came up, forcing her chin to rise so that he could look her full in the face. “I don’t need pity.”
“You don’t have it.”
“Are you sure?”
Jori smiled and reached for his belt with both hands. “Aren’t you?”
Something like humor flickered in his sludge-gold gaze. “All right then.”
When she surged in against him, all heat and womanly curves and hunger, and eager moving hands, Law gave up any scruples about what they were doing.
She unbuckled him and then slid down his zipper. That little zipping sound was the most erotic thing he’d heard in months. No, it was the yummy sound she expelled into his open mouth when she reached in and released his cock.
Well, hell. He wasn’t going to be able to be gentlemanly about their first time after all.
He grabbed her arms, lifting them back against the wall and pushing her body flat with the power of his. “I’d love to do you right here but it’s not practical for me.”
She smiled at him, laying her arms about his neck. “I do have a bed.”
He grinned.
They entered the bedroom to be greeted by a hissing and spitting ball of black, white, and orange fur dancing sideways across the middle of the bed.
Until that moment, Jori had completely forgotten about the fact that Samantha was with them. And that her kitten, Argyle, wouldn’t necessarily be happy about that fact.
Argyle’s tail stood straight up and bristling, her kitten body like a McDonald’s arch, every whisker stiff with rage at the intruder who came and rested her doggy head on the coverlet.
Law looked back at Jori. “Friend of yours?”
“Yes.” Jori scooped Argyle off the bed. She cuddled the kitten in the curve of her arm as she stroked her. “Now, Argyle, you’ve seen a dog before.” She walked slowly over to Sam and bent down. “Sam, this is Argyle. Argyle, this is Samantha.”