He came to her and stood facing her. Framing her hips with his hands, he pulled her closer, and she could see the fire in his eyes, but Mitch surprised her by kissing her chastely on the forehead. “Listen, why don’t you go into the bathroom?" he asked her. "Get undressed and come out when I call you.”
She looked at him skeptically. “What are you doing?”
“You’ve had a stressful couple of months, and you’re working yourself to death. I just want to help you relax,” he explained. “Trust me.”
“I do,” she whispered against his lips and turned to walk into the bathroom, knowing that whatever he had in mind would be incredible. She closed the door behind her and undressed. The room was slightly chilly and she found his plush bathrobe hanging on the door. She wrapped herself up in it, and tied it around her waist.
When Mitch knocked on the door and called out to her, “Jules. You can come out now,” she opened the door, and walked to him.
He still wore his jeans, but they were unsnapped and he had taken off his shirt. She gave him an appreciative smile as she took in the sight of his muscled chest, the rippling of his shoulders and arms, and the ridge of his abdominal muscles. She reached out and touched him. Her fingers tracing the line of darker hair that disappeared beneath the waistband of his jeans. Many times, she had kissed and licked her way down that trail, his muscles twitching underneath her lips. Her mouth virtually watered at the prospect of doing it again.
Looking past him, over his shoulder, she understood why he made her wait in the bathroom, and she was surprised with the romantic tableau he had set before her. He had dimmed the lights and lit candles all through the room, casting everything in a soft, orange glow. He had put on some music, soft Spanish guitar that flowed blissfully from the iPod dock next to his bed. She smiled. Inside this strong, tough, alpha male beat the tender heart of a romantic.
“Wow,” she looked at him, awestruck. “This is incredible.” She looked around, dropping the robe, and naked, she watched his nostrils flare in response. “But I notice that you’re still kind of dressed.” She lightly grazed her fingertips down the wall of his chest and to his very well-defined abdominals. As her fingers approached the fly of his jeans, he swiftly grabbed both of her wrists in one large hand.
Despite his very visible erection, and his obvious desire, he restrained her, keeping her from touching him. “No. Not yet. This is about you, at least for now.” He kissed her and led her to the bed, where he instructed her to lie face down.
“What are you doing?”
“Remember that foot rub I gave you, before we got together?”
“Mmm… yeah, mostly, until I fell asleep,” she laughed, turning her head to face him, watching as his picked up a bottle of massage oil.
“Well, I have to tell you, that I learned a few other tricks from that particular ex-girlfriend,” Mitch explained, as he poured the oil onto his palm and rubbed his hands together, warming it.
Juliana closed her eyes in anticipation. “Well, lucky me,” she muttered, feeling the mattress dip beside her and his muscular, denim-clad thighs, straddled her hips.
His feather-light fingertips dragged down her back, trails of fire lighting her skin, eliciting a soft hiss from her parted lips, as her breath hitched. She moaned, as she waited for his very capable, strong hands to carry her away. Mitch applied more pressure and ran them up and down her back, kneading the muscles and stroking the knobs of her ribs and spine.
“God, this is incredible,” she purred. “You have amazing hands.” He made it to an incredibly sensitive area on her neck. She gasped in surprise. He went to it again. Because her nerve-endings were so hyper aware, the feeling of him on that one spot was almost too much to bear. Breathing heavily, she could feel a pool of fire low in her belly, beginning to climb. She turned her head and shifted her eyes up to look at him. “Oh god. How are you doing that?”
With the brash grin that she loved so much, Mitch leaned down and gently kissed her neck. He applied some pressure with his tongue and lips and she felt his hot breath on her oh-so-sensitive skin. His tongue swept up the shell of her ear, and she whimpered.
“I need you,” she moaned. “I can’t take this anymore.”
Mitch chuckled in her ear. A low sound that echoed easily from his throat and rolled from between those sinful lips. Juliana could feel the soft scruff of his beard against the back of her neck, and it lit her skin ablaze, and drove her crazy. She cried out softly. “Please.”
With a harsh groan of his own, he rolled away from her and stood up, quickly stripping off his jeans and boxers, carefully lowering them over his rigid cock. Not taking his eyes off her form, lying prone on the bed. He reached into his nightstand and pulled out a condom and he threw it on the bed beside her. Juliana wanted to tell him that he didn’t need it, but she couldn’t make her mouth form the words.
Juliana watched, captivated, as he stroked himself several times before returning to her, his hand moving with purpose over his shaft, eyes never leaving hers. She started to roll over onto her back, to receive him, when he placed a firm hand on her backside. “Stay right where you are,” he commanded.
Never, before being with Mitch, had a man given her an out-and-out order in bed. Mitch liked being in control of every aspect of his life, and that obviously transcended into the bedroom. Juliana always prided herself on her strength, and independence, and she never responded well to people – men, especially – who tried to tell her what to do. But like always, Mitch's commands, along with his firm hand on her, only served to turn her on more. Riveted, she nodded, and breathed heavily, and turned back to lie on her stomach. “Okay.”
He knelt beside her on the bed. Running his hands from her ankle to her thigh, he came to stop at the tops of her thighs, between her legs. She spread them in anticipation, and he dipped two fingers between her folds. She was wet and he stroked her, circling his fingertips around her aching clit. She purred, as he worked his magic on her, rubbing her as she began to grind vigorously under his touch.
“Please now, Mitch. I can’t handle this,” she pleaded, her voice high pitched with need.
With an impatient growl of his own, he situated himself between her parted thighs, kneeling above her. Starting at the space between her shoulder blades, Mitch ran his hand, down her spine, to her ass, finishing his massage with a quick, sharp slap, which sent thrills shooting throughout her body. Juliana yelped in surprise. She turned her head to look at him, a clever smirk on her face. Their eyes connected and Mitch let go with a deep chuckle.
He roughly pulled her hips up to meet him. She kneeled in front of him and he brought his tip to her entrance, teasing her before sinking into her.
Mitch set an easy pace at first but, Juliana didn’t want easy. She wanted him hard and out-of-control. She pushed her hips back quickly to meet every one of his thrusts. He moaned as his actions got more frantic, his pounding hips slammed roughly into her behind. The fingers of his left hand dug into the flesh of her hips, as his right hand roamed to her front, lower, to play with her clit.
Juliana’s eyes widened as his hand skirted around her swollen flesh. She cried out, and she lowered her face to breathe into a pillow that smelled like Mitch. She felt like a spring, being coiled more and more tightly as he worked behind her. “Mitch,” she panted, shaking. She couldn't move. She couldn’t even cry out in pleasure. Being with him was far too much for her to bear. She felt herself finally snap and release took over her body. She whimpered into the pillow as the shockwaves took over.
Mitch groaned, and he let go, madly pulling her hips to him, repeatedly, until he bit back a curse and his own orgasm wracked throughout his body, emptying himself before he fell over, his weight warm and heavy on her back.
“Jesus, Jules.” He breathed into her ear, tugging her earlobe between his teeth.
Juliana attempted to regain her breath. “I know. That was pretty intense.”
When he moved away from her, he rolled over on the bed and
pulled her into his arms. “Feel relaxed?” he asked, with a smiled against her lips.
She sighed. “I feel so relaxed that I don’t think I can move right now,” she smiled up at him, his hand on her chest.
He pulled her tighter and kissed the top of her head. “I’m glad I could help.”
Juliana curled more tightly into his side, twirling her fingers in his chest hair. The real world rushed back to her. She had to tell Mitch that she was pregnant. But it could wait. They were caught up in each other, in such a blissful, relaxing moment, that she didn’t want to mess it up.
She could tell him later. And she would. Tomorrow.
Chapter 9
Mitch, Peter and Joe sat in Brewed Moon. It was still early, and they weren’t expected at the station for another hour. Mitch looked up at Juliana behind the counter. She drank from her mug. Herbal tea again, he noted. Strange, because she was normally a coffee drinker. If by coffee drinker, he meant that without her first coffee of the morning, she turned into a self-professed monster. She caught his eyes over his mug and smiled before turning her attention to the next customer. She wore a scarf, covering the marks his beard had left the night before. A desirous heat flushed throughout his body, as he thought of her lying prone before him as he massaged her.
Mitch pulled his gaze away from Juliana when Steve walked in, his eyes were tired, but there was a smug smile on his lips. “You will not believe what I got,” Steve said, reaching for Joe’s coffee cup and taking a deep swallow.
“Hey!” Joe protested, taking the cup back. “Get your own.”
“No time, man,” Steve said, and leaned over the table. “I was up all night chasing down leads and some CIs, and each clue I uncovered about Lewis just led to something else.”
“So, what did you find?”
“Long story short, apparently our captain ran into some trouble with a loan shark last year.”
“Oh really?” Mitch asked.
“Yeah. Gambling debts. It seems a couple of years ago, he hit the race track and online sports books pretty hard. He took a bath. His wife left him. He racked up debt and went looking for some easy money to get back on top. He worked with the Irish, but it was Yuri Petrova that bought his debt in exchange for his help.”
“So, this is proof that Lewis has allegiance to the Russian mob. He helped them rise to power, keeping the police off Petrova’s back,” Mitch said, taking a mouthful of coffee. “And why it rankled Lewis when we went after them.”
“And that’s why we’re on his list to clean up petty crimes now. Jesus. This whole time, the captain of the police department was in the pocket of a mob boss.”
“So, what do we do about it?” Peter asked, sipping his own coffee. “It won’t be easy to investigate the police captain without him knowing about it. If he gets even a whiff of us snooping around, he’ll have no problem pulling the plug on the team.” Mitch nodded, aware of the uphill battle that faced them. “Why don’t we use Declan?” Peter suggested.
Mitch was surprised by the question. Peter had made his opinion about the Irishman abundantly clear. “Use him for what?” he asked with a frown. He didn’t want to involve Declan O’Connell in his life any more than he already was.
“We could use him to set up Lewis. He’ll contact the good captain, pull him back into the Irish fold, Declan will give us the dirt we need to make the bust. Then it doesn’t look like we conspired to take down our superior officer.”
“Why would Declan help us with that?” Steve asked.
Mitch thought about the suggestion, and he knew that if there was a way to keep their hands mostly clean, it would be Declan. “I know it’s a long shot. But he’s extended the olive branch to us once already. Maybe he’d climb out on it to prove that he wants to be legit,” he postulated. He looked down at his watch. “We’d better get to work. Elle is probably already at the station.”
When Mitch walked into the war room alone, Elle was there waiting for him. Peter, Steve and Joe had been held up with water-cooler sports talk in the break room, so Mitch went on without them to get started on the day.
Elle looked up from her desk. “Oh Mitch, good,” she said. “I was hoping to catch you on your own. It’s been tough. You and your guys are tight.”
He furrowed his eyebrows and headed for his own desk. He sat down casually, but he was curious to see if she would use this opportunity to single him out for probing questions. “Well, I’m here. What’s on your mind?”
“I was going over the arrest files of Mike Roberts and Don Smith from your killing of Yuri Petrova.”
Mitch bristled. “You’ve been looking into our files?”
She shrugged. “I’m new here, I’ve just been going through a few cases to see what kinds of things you’ve been up to. Just catching up.” Her eyes were sharp as she watched him. “Does that bother you?”
Mitch shook his head. “Not at all. But you’ll also see that Petrova was a clean shooting, and Smith and Roberts kidnapped and would have killed myself and a civilian witness.”
“Yeah, I see that. And your witness, you’re dating her now, correct?”
Mitch sat back and regarded her. “Are you interrogating me?”
She laughed. “What? No. I’m sorry it’s coming off that way. This is just a friendly conversation,” she said in tone that made Mitch feel like the conversation was anything but friendly. “I’m just trying to get to know my new boss. But back to Juliana, she owns that café that got bombed, right?”
“You’ve done your homework. Yes, Juliana owns Brewed Moon. She recently just reopened it.”
“I saw the pictures of the place. Devastating. And you guys were inside when it happened? You’re lucky you weren’t killed.” She shook her head and frowned. “How on earth did she manage to get it fixed up? I can’t imagine she had terrorism insurance. That would be a hefty cost for a small business in downtown St. John’s.” The way Elle changed tone and direction, her questions whip-fast indeed reminded Mitch of interrogations he’d performed himself.
Mitch bristled. “She brought in an investor. I’m not really involved with her business.”
“But her investor is Declan O’Connell, right? The son of mob boss Dylan O’Connell, if what I read is correct.”
“What does it matter to you?” Mitch asked.
“I’m just trying to get to know my new teammates.”
Mitch’s eyes narrowed, and he leaned over his desk. “Why are you here?”
She looked taken aback. “What do you mean by that? I was offered the job here, and I accepted it.”
Mitch narrowed his eyes at her. “Lewis brought you here, didn’t he?”
“Yeah,” she said with a nod. “He requested I join the department.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps he feels that your team can benefit from a different perspective.”
“Or does he want you to babysit us?” Mitch knew that he shouldn’t have played his hand, or let her know that they were suspicious of her. But the conversation was wearing on him, and he tired of the cat and mouse game they were playing. He needed to find out what her plans were, and how closely aligned she was with Lewis.
“Does your team need babysitting?” she asked him. She didn’t flinch while she looked him dead in the eye. If the situation weren’t so antagonistic, he would have admired her fortitude.
The ring of Mitch’s phone peeled through the tense silence of the room. He pulled it from his pocket and answered it without taking his eyes off Elle. “Swanson,” he sputtered.
“Mitch,” the man’s voice was worried, his dialect, Irish. It was Declan. He almost hung up on him, but something about his frantic tone kept Mitch on the line. “You need to get to the hospital. Juliana’s here.”
Mitch’s stilled, his blood ran icy through his veins. “What do you mean the hospital? Is she okay?” He felt Elle’s eyes on him, now concerned, but he ignored her.
“I don’t know. We had a meeting, and she was going over some
of the equipment purchases with me, and then she collapsed. She fainted, so I called 911.”
“Alright, I’m on my way.” Mitch pushed himself up from his desk and ran for the door.
Chapter 10
Mitch pushed into the emergency room. He had come alone, running red lights, siren shrieking all the way, he hadn’t even taken the time to grab any of his men to accompany him. He looked around the waiting room, and locked eyes on Declan O’Connell, a potent rage bubbled throughout him, certain that whatever had happened to Juliana was because of him. He stalked to the younger man, who stood on his approach. Mitch fisted his hands into the lapels of his shirt.
“You sonofabitch. What happened to her? What did you do?”
Declan pushed him off, the violence between them catching the attention of the other people in the waiting room, including the nurses and security guard who were nearby. “I got her to the hospital,” Declan told him. “I didn’t hurt her. I told you, she fainted and I called 911.”
Mitch looked at Declan, and what he saw in the Irishman’s eyes was a worry that matched his own. Mitch released him. “Is she okay?”
“They said that she will be, but because I’m not family, they won’t tell me anything.”
Mitch knew how to get the information he needed. He withdrew his badge and walked over to the admissions desk. He flashed his badge. “I’m here for information about Juliana Lark. I need to see the doctor in charge of her care.”
The nurse looked at his badge and nodded. “I’ll call the doctor on duty.”
Mitch turned away and in just under a minute, he heard the soft footsteps of a man walking down the corridor. The doctor consulted his chart. “Are you here for Juliana Lark?”
“I am,” he said, clipping his badge onto his belt. “How is she?”
“Are you family?”
Long Shot: A Brewed Moon Novella Page 5