Strike (Tortured Heroes Book 4)

by Jayne Blue

  He thrust over and over as I clawed his back. I kept his gaze as long as I could, then the thundering beat inside my heart spread out. I threw my head back as I started to give in to the mounting pressure.

  “God!” I cried. “Oh. God!”

  Ben held himself steady, bringing me back to the counter so I could angle myself the way I needed. He put a hand on either side of me, bracing himself against the counter as I took up the pounding rhythm. It was my turn to buck and writhe. It started as a tiny pleasure point that spread, taking over my whole body. My walls clenched around him as my orgasm ripped through me. Ben held himself still and let me ride the wave. I felt him pulse inside of me and he gritted his teeth to hold back his own rising tide. Only when I started to crest down did he shift his weight. Keeping himself firmly rooted in me, he lifted me off the counter and carried me into the living room.

  My head spun as he lowered me down to the floor. Before I even knew what was happening, he withdrew. He coaxed me to my hands and knees. Desire still pulsed through me as Ben reached for me and found me still dripping for him. With skillful fingers, he worked my sensitive little bud. When my hips started to sink, he pulled my knees back to keep me in position. Just when I started to feel the pull of another, crashing orgasm, Ben entered me from behind. He jerked inside of me, his thigh muscles seizing as he came after the second thrust. I dug my fingers into the plush carpet to keep myself in position. Ben’s orgasm went on and on. When he finally started to crest the top, his fingers were on me again. I saw stars as he drew me out, bringing me to a second, shattering orgasm. He fucked me through it, wringing every drop of pleasure out of me.

  When my knees finally gave out, Ben curved an arm around my waist and pulled me close. He whispered sweet things against my temple as he smoothed the hair back from my face. He called me beautiful and incredible and did it in such a way that it didn’t seem awkward. I gave into it. Turning on my side, I trailed my fingers along his jaw and kissed him. He let me explore his body more slowly this time. I should have felt shy or self-conscious. This man was a complete stranger and yet there we lay, naked in the middle of my living room floor as though we were something more to each other than this.

  I sat up, letting my hair fall over my arm. Ben smoothed it back, exposing my breasts to him again. I liked it, believing him when he told me I was beautiful. I hadn’t realized just how badly I needed to hear it.

  “You’re beautiful too,” I said. He was. Like sculpted marble. He turned; resting on his hip he grasped my chin in his fingers and pulled me down for another kiss.

  It should have been awkward in those last few minutes. We’d both gotten what he came here for and I wasn’t about to pretend anything different. How could I?

  “So, who are you, Charlie?” he asked. “Lincolnshire is a small-ass town and I’ve lived here my whole life. You haven’t.”

  I smiled, feeling uneasy with him now. Leaning down, I kissed him, quieting his questions. Ben responded with that low, wicked laugh that told me he understood. He reached up and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. With every second that passed, the old me came back and my posture became stiffer. I hadn’t thought this far out.

  “Do you want me to go?” He sensed my unease. There was no judgment in his tone, he was matter of fact.

  I bit my lip and winced. Ben laughed again and sat up. I hugged my knees in front of me, conscious of my nakedness again. He kissed the top of my head and brought himself to his feet. I looked up at him. The urge to take him in my mouth pulsed strong through me, but I couldn’t do it. I’d let myself think too much for a second too long and it broke the spell around us.

  He offered me a hand and helped me to my feet. I went up on my tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek. “Well,” he said. “Then I’ll see you around, beautiful girl.”

  Nodding, I reached up and threaded my fingers through the hair around his right temple. “Well, I’ve heard it’s a small-ass town.”

  “That it is.”

  When we walked into the kitchen, I saw Ben in the full light again. With his back to me, I noticed a mottled patch of skin above his left hip. Unthinking, I reached for it. Ben stiffened as I played my fingers along the puckered edges of his scar. He’d been badly burned. If his questions broke the spell for me, my touch did the same for him. He gave me a weak smile and pulled on his jeans.

  “I-I’m sorry,” I said, suddenly wishing I had something to put on quickly. My jeans were on the other side of Ben and my halter top was God knew where. He came forward and kissed me on the forehead.

  “I’m not,” he said. “See you around, Charlie.”

  With that, he grabbed his keys off the counter, tipped an imaginary hat, and walked out of my kitchen.

  Only after he backed out of the driveway did I let myself sink to the floor and bury my face in my hands. The echo of Ben’s touch still lit a fire inside of me.

  Chapter Three

  “Morning, Glory!” My dad’s voice boomed as he threw open the front door. I stood before him holding a coffee in each hand.

  “Hey, Dad,” I said.

  “Hmm. You look like crap.” His gruff voice held a touch of mirth. “Late night? Spare me the sordid details.”

  He was kidding, of course, but guilt stabbed through me. My legs still ached from the gymnastics I’d tried with Ben. The carnal memory still sent heat spearing through me and I bit my lip, hoping to stave off a telltale blush. Great. I had a full-blown sex hangover.

  “Nothing exciting,” I lied, stepping across my dad’s threshold. “Just some after-hours drinks with the accounting department.”

  He laughed and kissed me on the forehead. “Party girl. Well, you didn’t need to come all this way this early anyway.”

  I let out a sigh. “I told you I wouldn’t miss this for anything. Although you’re supposed to have weekends off. Wasn’t that the whole point of you taking this gig?”

  My father grumbled as he took a coffee from me. God, I knew I probably sounded just like my mom. His work schedule was half the reason she hadn’t stuck around past my tenth birthday. She’d packed me up and we moved to Florida and a quieter pace.

  “Save it,” he said. God, I’d heard him tell her that a thousand times too. “I won’t nag you about staying up too late, you don’t nag me about my business. Believe me, if I could get out of this dog-and-pony show today, I would.”

  I let out a breath. “Well, it looks like I’m just in time, anyway. You can’t go out in public looking like that.”

  Muscling my way past him, I had him follow me down the long hallway to his kitchen. “Is that all of it?” I asked, pointing to the garment bag hanging over the back of one of his kitchen chairs.

  “Yep,” he said. “Just got it back from the cleaners.”

  “Good.” I turned and faced him. Reaching up, I got to work straightening his thin black tie. He made a feeble protest but his gray eyes shone with affection. Once I sorted out the tie, I made him turn and smoothed the creases out of his white dress shirt. When I was little, I’d watched my mother do this for him. The day we left, he’d stood in the hallway with his crooked tie and his belt looped over his arm. The pain in his eyes tore my guts out and I begged her not to go. But we did, we started over.

  My dad’s pants bunched in the back where he’d tightened his belt. I swallowed past a lump in my throat. He’d lost weight way too quickly. His color was good, and no one but me would notice the shadows that haunted his eyes. Eight months ago, my father had suffered a massive heart attack—the kind they call “the widow-maker”—while sitting at his desk. The doctors called him a walking miracle. They’d also told him he’d need to change his life if he wanted to keep having one. So, reluctantly, he did. He did the one thing my mother had nagged him to do for years before she finally gave up and left him. He got off the streets and took the ultimate desk job right here in Lincolnshire, Ohio. Three hundred miles away from the mean streets of Chicago, this place was supposed to bring him a slower pace and peace of
mind. Retirement was out of the question for a man like Frank Marek.

  I turned so he wouldn’t see my face or the hot tears starting to form in the corners of my eyes. Unzipping the garment bag, I pulled out his navy-blue uniform jacket. I held it out for him and he stabbed his arms through the sleeves. Brushing off a tiny piece of lint from the back, I turned him to face me.

  He took my breath away. Though he still had a bit of a pot belly, my father stood tall and straight. His thinning brown hair stuck out at the side and I grabbed a comb from the table and smoothed it back. He offered up a mild harrumph in protest but let me do it. The gold-star badge at his breast gleamed under the kitchen light and his sleeves were crisp with three gold bands at the wrist.

  “Not bad, Chief,” I said. “You clean up pretty.”

  He rolled his eyes and grabbed his hat off the table. “Same to you, Charlotte,” he said. He chewed the inside of his lip as he looked me up and down. “You ready to get this shit over with?”

  I shook my head and took the hat from him. He was liable to sit on the damn thing on the car ride over. “You live for this stuff, admit it.”

  My father laughed at me and nudged me with his shoulder. “Come on. The ceremony starts in half an hour. We can’t have me late to my own funeral.”

  I winced at the joke and followed him through the kitchen to the garage door. He had an unmarked, black Crown Victoria sitting in the driveway. With its black PIT bumper, the thing couldn’t be more conspicuous if it were painted neon blue.

  “What, no motorcade?” I asked. I meant it only half-jokingly. It did strike me as odd he didn’t get more fanfare.

  “This is Lincolnshire,” he said. “Small town. Small budget. Plus, I didn’t want a fuss. No special treatment.”

  “Gotcha.”

  I slipped into the passenger seat as Dad came around the other side. He gave me a wink as we backed out of the driveway. We’d found him a modest, two-story brick house in Old Orchard, an upscale neighborhood near Lincolnshire College. My house was just two streets over. My heartbeat jumped as I realized he might easily have driven by it last night when Ben came over. He would have seen Ben’s pickup in the driveway. I was nearly twenty-six years old and had lived more of my life away from my father than with him, but some small part of that ten-year-old girl still didn’t want to disappoint him.

  I let out an unsteady breath and hoped my father didn’t pick up on it. Squeezing my eyes shut, I tried to stop thinking about Ben. My knees were still weak. It had been stupid and reckless, but the thrill of Ben’s touch made my palms sweat. But now, in the clear light of day, I had to put all of that behind me.

  “Thank you,” my dad said some time later as we got off the expressway and headed into downtown.

  “You’re welcome,” I said. “But I couldn’t have you show up to your swearing-in looking like a hobo.”

  He laughed. “I don’t just mean that. I mean, I don’t know if I ever really told you how much it means to me to have you here. I know what you gave up.”

  I rested my elbow on the window frame and set my chin against my fist. What I’d given up. God. It was really more like the earth had opened up and swallowed me. I had planned to live in Tallahassee near my mother for the rest of my life. I did all the things I was supposed to do. I got straight As in high school, then college. I got my CPA license and had a good job at a solid firm.

  I had Craig.

  We’d met my senior year in college. I’d moved in with him the following year while he started law school. I loved him. He loved me. Craig was perfect and smart and safe. The wedding would have been last December, right after he passed the bar exam. But one day last June, I came home to find my tires slashed. The week after that, my email got hacked and a picture of Craig got sent to every one of my contacts, including those from work. He wasn’t alone in it. No, the girl with him was buck naked and riding him.

  Somehow, that wasn’t even the worst of it. That came later when Craig tried to blame me for the whole thing. I wasn’t home enough. I didn’t show him enough affection. He all but implied I was frigid. Then two weeks later, on the 4th of July, I got the call that my father was in critical condition and my universe seemed to realign.

  “I was ready for a change too, Dad,” I said.

  “Hmm. That’s what your mother said. She wouldn’t give me any details. But you were sad, Charlotte. I don’t claim to know you as well as I should have, but you were sad and I know it wasn’t just because of me.”

  Smiling, I touched his sleeve. “I’m not sad now. And I’m proud of you.” I was. Though I couldn’t convince him to retire, my father finally took one of the dozens of job offers from smaller departments he fielded over the years. When he asked me to move with him, he’d said it on a whim, never thinking I’d say yes. But here we both were.

  He turned the wheel and pulled into the parking structure beneath the Lincolnshire PD headquarters.

  “Well, I’m proud of you too. Maybe someday you’ll tell me all the gory details about why you wanted to light out of Tallahassee so fast. You know I hate the idea of anyone or anything making you sad, but I’m just selfish enough to be glad it brought you here.”

  I nodded. “It wasn’t fast. It took six months of planning. But I’m glad too. Fresh starts all around.”

  My dad scrunched his face, not entirely convinced by my words. He’d prodded me a million times about what really happened with Craig. I never told him for fear he’d try to get involved. Having a cop for a father came with its own set of issues where boyfriends were concerned.

  Two command officers were waiting at the building entrance as we slid out of the car.

  “Chief Marek.” One of them saluted as my father approached.

  “Not quite yet,” he answered, slapping the man on the shoulder.

  “Captain Coates, Captain Petersen, this is my daughter, Charlotte. She’s going to stand at my side for this little show.”

  “Yes, sir,” he said. “Mayor Jordan is ready for you. It will be short and sweet just like you asked. The mayor wants to say a few words. She’ll swear you in. Are you prepared to give a little speech?”

  My father smiled. “Oh, I can say a few things. Who else have you lined up for this?”

  “No one, sir,” Coates answered. “We have a few of the command officers. We’ve rounded up some officers and a few detectives from all the departments.”

  “Sheeit,” my father said, shaking his head. “I said I wanted this small. Dragging those folks from what they’re doing for this isn’t going to endear me to anybody.”

  We headed down a long hallway and my father’s stride hastened. I had to almost run to keep up with him. His neck reddened as he barked orders at the two men. I reached out and put a hand on my father’s arm. He flinched and looked back at me. I narrowed my eyes and he let out a breath. He was nervous. When his anxiety heightened, so did his gruffness. I gave him a wide-eyed look and jutted my chin. He rolled his eyes but nodded.

  “Sorry, gentlemen,” he said. “And thank you for all that you’ve done for me today. I just don’t like a fuss.”

  “Yes, sir,” Coates said. We stopped at an oak door at the end of the hall. My father straightened his back and pulled his jacket down in front. He’d been carrying his hat tucked under his arm and now he smashed it on his head. He gave me one last look for my approval. I winked and held up my thumb.

  He reached for the door and opened it, his face bursting into a broad smile as he stepped through. A round of applause rose and a few camera lights came on as the local news crews started rolling. My father took his place behind a simple podium with the City Seal. A moment later, Mayor Vera Jordan emerged from another door with a big smile and a wave.

  My heart swelled with pride as Mayor Jordan gave her little speech then turned to my father. He looked back at me and motioned me forward. I stood at his left side as she swore him in as the new Police Chief for the City of Lincolnshire.

  His speech wasn’t eloquent, but
straightforward like he was. He thanked the mayor and the officers in front of him. He swore that his door would always be open to them. Then he turned to me and put a light hand on my back, nudging me forward.

  “And I’d like to introduce you to the most important lady in my life, my daughter Charlotte. I know you’ll all make her feel as welcome in this city as you have me.”

  The small crowd clapped and my father turned to the men and women who would serve under him. He brushed right past the command officers and went for the patrolmen. The gesture earned him more than one raised eyebrow but the stunned looks on the faces of the uniformed officers told me how much they appreciated it. One by one, he moved down the row of officers and shook their hands as they gave him a salute. He asked for each and every one of their names and I knew something they didn’t. My father would remember.

  “Officer Daly?” he said. “Good man. You work days on east side? Officer Porter, good to meet you.” As each man and woman told them their name and assignments, I saw my father’s eyes flash as he committed those details to memory. He introduced them to me and I shook their hands and thanked them for their service.

  He reached the last man in the second row. A deep voice cut through the din and made my heart stop.

  “Officer Ben Killian,” he said. I froze and slowly lifted my eyes to meet him. My father had a hand on his elbow and shook his hand hard. “I work days on Strike Team.”

  “Strike Team!” My father’s voice lifted. “I’ve heard great things, Officer Killian. Were you there at the Rayburn raid yesterday?”

  “I was, sir,” Ben said. My knees turned to water as I shook one more hand and reached my father’s side.

  “Great work. I heard it got a little exciting. So glad to be able to work with you. Charlotte, shake this man’s hand. Officer Killian, this is my daughter, Charlotte Marek.”