Hot Pursuit

by Julie Ann Walker

  Her first contraction triggered his release. His back bowed, straining, he locked himself inside her, and the pulse of him drove her orgasm to new heights. She must’ve screamed his name, because he put his hand over her mouth. He was definitely yelling her name, so she slapped her hand over his mouth. Locked together, they stroked and strove to wring the last ounce of pleasure from each other’s bodies.

  Eventually, they collapsed in a heap. For long moments all they could do was try to catch their breath as the wonder and glory of what they’d done hit Emily. Being with Christian was unlike anything she’d ever known. It was profound. Intense.

  After what seemed like hours, he pressed a tender kiss to the bruise on her temple, still so hard and large inside her.

  Cupping her face, he used his thumb to tilt up her chin. For a second, he simply held her wondering gaze. Then he whispered the three words she never wanted to hear from him. “I love you.”

  Everything inside her that had been hot and gooey froze into a solid block of ice.

  * * *

  I’m the world’s biggest fool.

  That single thought circled ’round and ’round in Christian’s head as Emily pushed at his shoulders, demanding, “Damnit, Christian! Get off me!”

  With reluctance, he rolled onto his side. Slipping from the heat and tight comfort of her body was agony. Knowing this first time he was with her might very well be the last time was even worse.

  Why had he said that?

  Oh right. Because what they’d done together was unlike anything he’d ever experienced. It hadn’t only been shagging. It’d been love. They’d made love. He’d made love for the first time in his life, and it’d been radiant, soul touching. He was changed for it. And he’d thought…

  He’d thought she was too. He’d been sure he’d seen love shining up at him from her dark, slumberous eyes. Sure he’d tasted it in the hungry sweetness of her kisses. Sure he’d felt it in the way she touched him, lovingly smoothing her fingers and lips over all his scars, and then holding him like she never wanted to let them go. Like she was trying to crawl inside him to become part of him once and for all. Like she’d allowed him to crawl inside her, to make a place for himself in her heart.

  I’m the world’s biggest fool.

  She shoved into a seated position, glaring down at him. Her hair was a rumpus of crazy waves, her skin still flushed pink with exertion and passion.

  “Please tell me that was a knee-jerk reaction.” Her breath sawed from her, causing her chest to rise and fall, guaranteeing his eyes remained glued to her pretty breasts. “Tell me that you say that to all the women you sleep with because…because…I don’t know why you’d say that, but—”

  “I’ve never said it to anyone else,” he interrupted her. He could have lied, he supposed. He could have grabbed on to the lifeline she’d tossed him and pretended that what he’d said meant nothing. Perhaps if he were a smarter man he would have.

  Take it back, she begged with her eyes.

  I can’t, he silently told her with a shake of his head.

  There was so much anguish in her voice when she whispered, “You promised,” that something hard and sharp settled in the center of his chest.

  He hadn’t meant to hurt her. He never wanted to hurt her.

  “You made me promise I wouldn’t fall in love with you, but it was too late. I was already in love with you, so technically I—”

  “Seriously?” She cut him off, reaching for her clothes. “You’re going to play the semantics game with me now?”

  “Emily, please listen to me.” He laid a hand against the smooth, narrow line of her back.

  “No.” She batted his fingers away and shrugged into her bra. Her panties came next as he curled his hands into fists so tight his blunt nails cut into the skin of his palms.

  After she pulled on her leggings and sweatshirt, she turned to him. Her eyes ran over his face, his chest, and lower.

  “For the love of Alexei Ramirez, cover that thing up.” She tossed his sweater over his hips, effectively covering his cock. He was still mostly hard. Even though he’d experienced one of the most—no, it’d been the most devastating orgasm of his life—he hadn’t had enough. He would never have enough. Not when it came to her. “It’s distracting as hell,” she finished.

  “Emily, please let me explain.” He dutifully held his sweater over his dick.

  “Right. Yes.” She nodded a little frantically. “Please explain to me when exactly you did all this falling in love. Was it when you were telling me I was as vexing as a housefly? Was it when I woke you from your nightmare? Was it when I was sitting on your lap in the truck? When?”

  He shrugged. “There wasn’t a specific look or a certain touch or a definite place or moment. By the time I realized what’d happened, I was already ass over teakettle.”

  He was digging himself in deeper. He knew it. Yet, he couldn’t stop.

  “How could you do this to me?” She covered her face with her hands. “How could you let me put my job on the line when you knew—”

  “Emily.” He cut her off, pulling one hand away from her face. “I would never put your job on the line. I would never jeopardize what you’ve found, the family you’ve found at BKI. If you don’t feel the same about me, then I—”

  “I don’t,” she swore a bit too forcefully.

  Those two words were hatchet strikes to his heart, but at the same time, he couldn’t help but think, The lady doth protest too much.

  “Fine,” he told her. “That’s fine. Forget I said it then. We’ll simply carry on as we are, and when—”

  “Are you crazy?” she shouted, and he flicked a furtive glance at the curtain, wondering how much of this conversation his teammates and Rusty were overhearing. “We can’t carry on as we are!” She mimicked his accent. Badly, as usual. “We have to stop everything!”

  “If that’s your wish.”

  She pulled at her hair. “No, you big idiot! That’s not my wish! My wish is that you’d never opened your mouth so we could keep doing…” She made a rolling motion with her hand toward the bed. “Because it was just about the greatest thing ever. No!” She pointed at his face. “Wipe away that smug smile right this minute because…because…” She threw her hands in the air. “Because you’ve ruined everything!”

  And with that, she grabbed her boots, tossed aside the curtain, and stomped out of the sleeping compartment.

  Christian flung himself back against the mattress with a sigh. I’m the world’s biggest fool. It was his new mantra.

  He should have kept his sodding mouth shut. He should have stuck with the plan to seduce her night after night, to love her day after day, until eventually she realized she loved him too. And she did love him.

  He hadn’t imagined their connection, hadn’t imagined the look in her eyes or the way she held him. She was simply scared. Scared to take the leap. Scared to give in. Scared because growing up she’d had nothing but bloody awful examples of what romantic love was meant to be.

  So, right-oh. It was a setback for sure. He’d lost this battle, but he was determined to win the war.

  A plan began to take shape. A new plan. Before long, he was smiling…

  Chapter 23

  Black Knights Inc.

  Chicago, Illinois

  One month later...

  Emily had a headache pulsing behind her eyes. Instead of Advil, she planned to kick it in the teeth with some good old-fashioned whiskey.

  It’d been almost four weeks since they’d returned from England, and in all that time, they hadn’t been able to determine who had given Christian’s information to the English reporters. Meaning they were no closer to determining Spider’s identity than they’d been before setting foot on British soil. All the Black Knights were cranky and on edge because of it, stomping around the shop, snarling at each other a
nd every bit of Intel that came in revealing another stinking pile of nada. Which was one of three contributing factors to her headache.

  Big alpha males in a pique were taxing, to say the least. Downright irritating, to say the most.

  Also, they’d discovered the Michelson brothers had been police officers, and that Lawrence, in particular, had suffered from anger issues. Seems he’d had many complaints registered against him concerning the use of excessive force and had been written up more than a time or two for being involved in barroom brawls outside work.

  Emily had no doubt that had Christian not stopped Lawrence with a bullet to the skull, Lawrence would have ended up severely hurting or killing someone. So even though there wasn’t enough brain bleach in the world to scour away the memory of Lawrence’s head bursting like a melon, she couldn’t drum up much sympathy for the guy, especially when she added all she knew of him now to the simple fact that he’d shown up at the manor house to, you know, kill them.

  The BBC had run with the story of the dead brothers for the first couple of weeks after it happened. Since they were cops, their weapons’ ballistics were in the UK database. It hadn’t taken long for investigators to discover that Ben’s gun had been used to shoot the private jet pilot at Cornwall Airport at Newquay and Lawrence’s gun had been the one to off Lawrence himself. But exactly what had happened to precipitate either of those events was a giant question mark.

  There was some speculation that Lawrence and Ben had gotten involved with shady individuals, and they’d been murdered for the association—Lawrence’s reputation didn’t do him any favors with some in the press. Others hypothesized that Ben and Lawrence Michelson had stumbled upon a crime scene or some sort of criminal activity and had paid with their lives for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  However, without any video footage or forensic evidence, the case remained unsolved. Which was good, because there was nothing to point to the Black Knights having been in England. It was also bad, because Emily wasn’t allowed to call in that anonymous tip about the whereabouts of the farm truck. They’d decided it was too risky to add one more clue to an ongoing investigation.

  She couldn’t help but worry that the truck’s owner was suffering its loss. That was the second contributing factor for her headache.

  So what’s the third? you might ask.

  Well, that was easy.

  The third was big, tattooed, and named Christian Watson. He had embarked on a campaign of emotional persuasion and physical seduction the likes of which she wouldn’t have dreamed possible.

  True to his word, he hadn’t caused any trouble for her at BKI. In fact, he’d made sure everyone knew that he was in love with her and that she didn’t feel the same way about him. He’d announced this at the flippin’ meeting they’d had after landing in Chicago. He’d gone on to say that everyone needed to understand that him loving Emily and Emily not loving him wouldn’t affect their working relationship, and that it was his problem to deal with. Emily was an innocent party, yada yada yada, holy shit!

  Then, as if all that wasn’t horrible enough—or remarkable enough; she hadn’t decided which—he’d gone about his daily grind like nothing had happened between them. He still teased her, still taunted her, still scowled those delicious scowls and twinkled those amazing eyes. Which was all completely head-spinning and conviction-killing. But to make matters worse, he touched her. All. The. Time.

  A kiss on the cheek and a cheerful Good morning, darling when she stumbled into the kitchen at the butt crack of dawn, bleary-eyed and in search of copious amounts of coffee after a night tossing and turning and dreaming about him. A pat on the back for making sure the toner ink was full in the printer or ordering extra boxes of the sticky notes he liked to write lists on. An arm thrown around her chair when they sat in their daily situation report meeting, his callused fingers toying with the ends of her hair, occasionally giving her shoulder a squeeze.

  She tried to avoid sitting next to him, but everyone at BKI seemed to be on Christian’s side. They inevitably left a space open for him beside her at the conference table.

  It was maddening! Infuriating! Totally and undeniably…charming. Ugh!

  Every kind, teasing word or covert look or gentle touch increased her bright, sparkly feelings a hundredfold. It was getting out of hand. She was getting out of hand, because twice in the last week she’d found herself standing outside his door in the middle of the night, hand raised to knock, ready and willing to throw caution to the wind.

  Something had to give.

  Right then, that something was her headache.

  She skidded to a stop in the doorway to the kitchen. It was located on the bottom floor of the old menthol cigarette factory that’d been turned into the motorcycle shop, covert defense firm, and living quarters for many members of Black Knights Inc. The room was airy and bright. Big, industrial-size appliances, a long marble center island, and exposed brick walls gave it a loft-like feel—much like the apartments on the third floor.

  Sitting on the center island was Delilah McMillan. Her husband, Mac, was standing between her legs, passionately kissing the living shit out of her and reminding Emily that it’d been a long time—four weeks in fact—since anyone had kissed her like that.

  Clearing her throat, she waited for the pair to realize they had an unwilling audience. Fido, the couple’s yellow Labrador retriever—who was never far from Delilah’s side and currently lying on the tile floor at Mac’s feet—lifted his furry head, blinked at Emily with big, chocolate eyes, and yawned loudly as if to say, This happens all the time, lady. Don’t get your panties in a twist.

  Apparently, Delilah and Mac were too caught up to notice her. In fact, Mac’s hand stole up to squeeze Delilah’s boob, and Emily decided she better speak up or else find herself a spectator at a real-life, live-action porno.

  “Don’t you two have an apartment above the bar you can do that in?” she grumbled irritably, referring to Red Delilah’s Biker Bar. The Black Knights’ favorite hangout and watering hole was owned and operated by, you guessed it, Delilah. “Or if that’s too far to go, don’t you still have a room upstairs, Mac?”

  The couple broke apart, Delilah looking flushed and guilty, Mac looking absurdly pleased with himself. The two of them couldn’t be more opposite. Mac hailed from the Lone Star State and had a face as craggy and wide open as Texas. Delilah on the other hand? Well, to put it simply, she was beautiful. Long, dark, auburn hair, amazing green eyes, and an hourglass figure to make Christina Hendrix envious.

  Delilah quickly recovered her composure and arched a sleek brow in Emily’s direction. “That sounded jealous, if you ask me.”

  “I didn’t ask you.” Emily was quick with the comeback, her headache grabbing a jackhammer and going to work on the foundation of her brain.

  “Definitely jealous.” Mac, the dickweed, concurred with his wife.

  Deciding that arguing would get her nowhere, Emily pushed away from the doorjamb, skirted around Fido and his grinning asshole masters, and made her way to the bar cart kept near the back door. The entire journey took no more than five seconds. But during those five seconds, she had time to grumble a whole diatribe under her breath about everyone at Black Knights Inc. rubbing their happily ever afters in her face.

  Once she made it to her destination, she grabbed a rocks glass and a bottle of rye whiskey. A quick trip to the refrigerator had her glass half full of ice cubes. Next came the simple syrup, the bitters, a generous pour of whiskey, and two cherries to top it off.

  “Who taught you to make an old-fashioned?” Delilah asked.

  “My mother.” Emily made a face. “One of the few truly useful things I ever learned from her. Cheers.” She took a healthy slug of the drink, letting the whiskey burn down her throat as the sugar tingled on her taste buds.

  Mac made a show of glancing at his watch. “It’s only sixteen hundr
ed.” He had a deep Sam Elliott drawl that Emily usually found charming. Not today.

  “Oh yeah?” She shot him a look that unequivocally stated, Mind your own business, or I’ll cut off your balls. “Well, it’s five o’clock somewhere.”

  To prove her point, she gulped down another mouthful.

  Mac mock-whispered to Delilah. “Someone’s in a mood.”

  Emily’s fingers inched toward the knife on the bar cart that they used to cut fruit for drinks. The man had no idea, but his balls were in serious jeopardy.

  “I’m not in a mood,” she lied. She was in a mood. She’d been in a mood since England. “I have a headache.”

  “Most people fight those with aspirin,” Delilah said oh-so-helpfully.

  “Sure.” Emily nodded. “But the trouble with aspirin is it doesn’t do a damn thing to take my mind off my long list of woes. But this?” She held up her half-empty rocks glass. “This’ll do both.”

  “And by woes”—Delilah made air quotes—“are we talking Christian?” She hopped down from the center island, and Emily saw Mac lick his lips when Delilah’s boobs bounced.

  Emily wanted to label him an oversexed asshole, but the guy had a marriage certificate that pretty much said he had the right to ogle Delilah at will. Plus, Delilah had a pair of bazoombas that were hard not to stare at. Even had Delilah not used the C-word, Emily would have been annoyed at her for that reason alone. Emily’s own barely B cups seemed to cave in on themselves in intimidation.

  “Ugh.” She plunked her drink atop the bar cart, making the liquor bottles and glassware rattle. Fido lifted his head from his front paws again, eyeing her curiously. “Just because he’s suffering under some insane delusion that he loves me—”

  “You reckon it’s really a delusion?” Mac interrupted, casually throwing an arm around Delilah’s shoulders. “Because I know the signs of a man in love, and Christian? Well, he seems to show all of ’em.”

  “Psshh.” Emily waved a dismissive hand. “I think you’re mistaking love for lust. The man can’t love me because he doesn’t even like me. We argue all the time. He thinks I’m annoying.”