by Teagan Kade
“Right, one sec.” I jog back to where we dropped the trap, but it’s gone.
Damn it! I knew I should have grabbed it, but I was so distracted by Deric I didn’t think about it. Now my evidence is gone.
Frustrated, I trudge forward, not meeting Deric’s eye. I’d like to pretend the last few hours didn’t happen, but I know I can’t. I’m sure it’s nothing new to He-Man here, who probably has a new girl in his bed every weekend, but this pull, this physical, tangible attraction isn’t a sensation I’m used to. I have no idea how to cope with it, or more appropriately, how to ignore it.
The hike back is a lot harder considering all the excitement of the night and the physical toll all that adrenaline has taken on me.
He helps me up over the rock slide again. This time, when I grab his hand it doesn’t startle me. It just feels comfortable. I don’t quite understand what has happened between us, but somewhere between him barging his way into this case and spending all that time up in the tree together I stopped trying to smother this heat between us.
I shouldn’t have told him about my family, but it came spilling out and, with it, a sense of relief. It felt right, though, and even now I’m not sure I regret it. Especially now I know his own history. Looking at him, he’s the picture of health. I’d never have guessed he’d struggled with asthma. I guess in our own ways we’re both compensating.
We’re back on the main ridge with a view of the valley below. It’s still dark enough that we’d be able to see lights, but there’s nothing. That’s another relief. I don’t really know the extent of what we’re dealing with, but the group out there was sizeable enough to leave me very concerned.
I’m still mentally kicking myself for not grabbing that trap. Without it I’m not sure Ken will think I’ve got enough to go on. Technically, parts of this are still the State Park and I have no physical evidence that a wolverine was involved aside from my own testimony, but I’ve worked in law enforcement long enough to know the testimony of a female agent isn’t given the same weight.
My mind isn’t in the present until we get back to the parking lot and both of us jog over to the jeep.
The smell hits me first. It’s the awful, familiar smell of death. Then I see it—the gutted innards spread all over my cracked windshield. In fact, all the windows are either bashed in or cracked to some extent.
I look to the tires, relieved to see they didn’t slash them too.
It’s a message, though, no doubt about it, and it’s effective. My hand trembles as I walk over and grab a stick to start scraping the remains of whatever poor creature served as the messenger here off my windshield. My fingers are stiff and frozen, and it has nothing to do from the early morning chill.
“Well, fuck.” Deric looks as surprised and unsettled as I feel. “Here, let me do that.” He comes over and takes the stick from my hands. I try to hide the tremor in them.
When he finishes cleaning the chunks off the splintered glass, he looks to me. “I can drive if you want.”
I shake my head and avoid his eyes. “No, it’s fine. I’m fine.” I pull the keys out of my backpack and climb in. I can tell he’s watching me, not believing me, but I simply focus on getting us out of there.
I turn on the radio, hoping to drown out my nerves and tapping my fingers along to the beat on the steering wheel, trying to cover the shivers racing through me.
After a while, I look over at Deric and realize he’s still watching me. There’s still concern there and I can’t help but feel like he’s reading me with complete ease.
I glance away quickly. “Where should I drop you? Back at your truck?”
“Yeah, great,” he nods, and we drive further in silence. We pull onto the gravel drive and I stop at the Den, expecting him to hop out. He does but looks at me expectantly. “Aren’t you coming in?”
“Oh, um…” I hesitate. “I should get back and call my supervisor.”
He looks at his watch. “At 4:30am? Just come inside, will you. I’ve got some water and energy bars in there, and we should talk through what happened.”
I don’t argue, but I’m not entirely sure if he’s referring to the case or to us, and I’m not sure which one has me more unsettled.
I follow him inside. He switches on the light. It’s still dark before the light heats up. He walks ahead and down the hall to a backroom, returning with a couple bottles of water and Gatorade under one arm, jerky and granola bars in his other hand.
“Shall we feast?” he grins, plopping down on the couch.
I grab a drink, a stick of jerky and sit down. He’s right. I am hungry and tired and I don’t really feel like being alone just yet.
That was my personal vehicle. They know my license plate number. It’s child’s play to get into the DMV and find out who I am… where I live.
“So, what was all that about?” He looks to me.
I lean back, letting my achy muscles relax and kicking off my boots, bringing my legs up under me. “They said carcajou, right? I thought that’s what I heard. I think that’s another name for a wolverine.”
“Which is obviously what we set free from that trap…” He nods.
“If they’re trapping and poaching wolverines, that’s a big deal. Like a major deal,” I sigh. “But I don’t have any evidence, so I’m not sure my supervisor will buy it.”
“Why on earth would you make that up?” Deric gulps down water and for a minute I admire the movement of his Adam’s apple as he drinks. He wipes his mouth and looks at me, noticing my stare and smiling.
The cocky grin shakes the sense back into me. I look away. “Well, this may come as a real shock to you, but this was not my first choice of assignment. I had… an accident on my last case and got hurt, so my pop pulled some strings to get me transferred out here, where supposedly nothing happens and I couldn’t get myself into trouble.”
Deric frowns. “That seems shitty.”
I shrug. “That’s life with overbearing male relatives. Anyway, it’s well known I want to go back to my old assignment, and without something physical to show for it, I just don’t know if they’ll take it seriously.” My mind goes back to the blood and guts smothered on my car. “Though, my car is pretty messed up.”
He looks concerned. “Looks like someone didn’t like us poking around out there.”
I nod and stand up, feeling that strange nervousness come over me again. It’s like this ice cold sensation in my veins. For some reason, my mind keeps going back to that last case in San Francisco, to the moment everything went bad down at the docks and the feeling of blood rushing out of me and everything going black. It seemed so infinite, so eternal and dark.
Deric’s hand is on my upper arm. I realize I’ve been pacing and he’s stopped me. “Hey, you okay?”
I try to give him a nonchalant smile, but my lip trembles, my breath coming in quick pants. I nod. He studies my eyes. I get the feeling he can see straight through me again.
Whatever he sees, he pulls me against his chest and holds me there. I don’t resist. I soak in the warmth and close my eyes, letting his calm energy settle over me until finally my breathing calms down once more.
After a few minutes—maybe it’s longer, I can’t tell—I come back down to myself again. The jitters fade and I take stock of where I am. I’m in Deric’s arms and I realize I don’t want to step back, even though I probably should.
Instead, I angle my head against his chest even more, fitting it there against the firm wall of muscle. Slowly, it dawns on me he’s rubbing my back. I feel each caress everywhere, the vibrations of each stroke ricocheting throughout my body and collecting low in my belly.
I’m ashamed of myself for loving this, for loving the feeling of his arms wrapped around me, and yet the shame isn’t enough to make me want to step away.
He pulls his face back and looks down at me, and there’s a look in his eyes that tells me I’m not the only one who is enjoying this proximity.
I’m tired, somewhere in the back of my mind I
know that’s true, but right now, the only sign of it is the fact I feel completely uninhibited. I want to kiss him, I want to soak in this comfort I’ve never felt from someone else.
He’s a player. I know that with perfect clarity, but maybe that’s a good thing? Maybe it means I can take what I want, what I need from him tonight and he’ll leave it at that. I always hold myself back, worried about opening myself to demands and expectations, to someone else’s control.
Screw it.
Tonight, I’m doing something reckless.
I reach up with my arms, looping them around his neck and pulling his face down to me. He seems to be expecting it—of course he is, eagerly lowering his face to mine.
The heat and the pressure of his lips on mine… it feels like being branded, like being scorched by the sun and I can’t get enough of it. My fingers are roughing up his perfect hair, grabbing at anything to get me closer to him. He’s happy to oblige.
The heavy weight of his palms go to my hips. The wide heat of them snaking around and gripping me behind my thighs, lifting me up in his arms like I weigh nothing and guiding my legs around his waist so all my limbs are wrapped around him. The only thought in my mind is how I want nothing between us. I want to be as close to him right now as I can get. I want to chase this madness as far as it goes, even if I’ll regret it later. For now, I want to get horribly, wonderfully lost.
“Deric?” I gasp, as he bites at my neck.
“Mmm?” comes the vibration of his response against my throat.
“I want you,” I say, my eyes closed as I luxuriate in the wet heat of his tongue on my skin.
He doesn’t answer, but I sense the shift in his muscles, the reaction and the determination.
He’s carrying me somewhere and with little coordination. We bump into a few sharp corners and at least one rack of gear goes crashing to the floor. My mind is glazed over from his kisses, but the sound of a slamming door tells me we’ve entered a different room. I pull my head back briefly and look around, his mouth going instead to the exposed flesh at my collar.
We’re in the backroom—a few boxes and shelves of gear beside an avocado green pair of antique machines beside a wide basin sink are on one side and on the other is a small day bed covered in a mismatched quilt and beat up throw pillows.
Something tells me it’s seen some use, and the thought of being inducted into the hall of occupants isn’t exactly thrilling. But then we don’t fall onto it. Deric walks straight past it and sets me on top of the washer. It’s the kind of old-fashioned Maytag that was built back in the day when things like that lasted, looks like it was dug up from someone’s grandma’s basement.
I look back at him surprised by the unusual choice when there’s a bed feet away from us, but he just smiles and reaches past me, punching a button on the ancient control panel.
The machine rumbles to life and the room fills with the sound of water gushing into the tub. Deric doesn’t give me much time to recover from the shock of the vibrations as he presses into me again, his mouth seizing mine once more.
I’m anchored against him and the definite hardness pressing into my belly my hands itch to explore.
My fingers creep beneath the hem of his shirt to splay across the hard, rigid lines of his abs. Deric pulls away at the contact and yanks his shirt off before coming back to me.
I let my hands travel over the incredibly defined muscles of his shoulders and arms, memorizing the impossibly masculine feel of so much strength. His hair is messed up from my hands and from the shirt coming off, but the tousled locks look even sexier on him and his blue eyes seem to smolder with desire in the faint light.
“God, you really are gorgeous…” I breathe, feeling a little insecure all of a sudden. I’m not the sort of girl guys like this hook up with. They go home with the sorority Barbie, not the girl with sap in her hair.
He grins, lowering to my neck. “If you only had my view…”
I want to roll my eyes, but I can’t bring myself to be cynical right now. Instead, I press my lips into a tight line, not wanting to argue, but not entirely accepting someone like him could find me gorgeous.
He pulls back. “You’re a total fucking babe. You do realize that… don’t you?” His expression is caught between a laugh and confusion.
“That’s nice and all, but I mean, come on. Just look at you. You’re like… literally perfect,” I confess.
He grins. “If you want to stroke something, I have something better and bigger than my ego. However, if looking at me is a problem… I have an idea that might be fun.” He reaches over to the side of the washer, to a pile of folded garments in a hamper. Standing back up, I see a bandana in his hand. He raises an eyebrow. “You game?”
It’s a challenge, and I never back away from challenges. “Always.”
He smiles and fits the bandana over my eyes, tying it snugly behind my head. Everything goes dark. My senses sharpen and focus as his lips touch mine gently and then with growing demand. The shudders quicken beneath me from the machine and send delicious tingling sensations through my muscles.
One of Deric’s hands is at my pants and the other is climbing under the hem of my shirt and cupping me. His thick, rough fingers fit under my bra. His hand is on me completely, massaging until my nipple tightens into a taut peak. I can’t help but jerk in response, my hips bumping against his.
I gasp and his mouth is there to catch it, but then he pulls away. I try to bring him to me, reaching blindly into the space between us. I find his shoulders, but he doesn’t connect. Instead, he raises my arms up above my head and tugs my shirt up, slowly revealing my nakedness to him.
The washing machine kicks into a cycle of quick, rapid vibrations and he pulls me off, guiding me to turn around so I’m facing the machine as he peels my pants off.
He taps the inside of one foot with his, nudging my legs apart. There’s something possessive about the position. I don’t know why, but I’m impossibly turned on as he reaches between my thighs and rubs me through the wet cotton of my panties.
I shudder in response, feeling incredibly out of control and vulnerable. I should hate this. I should really hate this.
But I don’t.
I definitely don’t.
The hard line of his chest leaves my back as he yanks down that last piece of fabric so I’m bare before him. He guides me forward so I’m straddling the corner of the Maytag. I give a short gasp as the vibrations make direct contact with my clit. The cool metal is unrelenting, the feeling is incredible.
He’s on his knees behind me. His mouth traces kisses along the insides of both my thighs until his face is nuzzled in the hot space between them. I’m practically sitting on his face when his tongue parts me.
The feeling of his mouth on me evokes a ragged sound from my lips. It seems to spur him on. His tongue strokes with wet pressure against me and into me as the machine changes modes to something a little slower. It’s agonizing and incredible, and definitely the hottest thing I’ve ever done on a washing machine.
His mouth moves further back. Before I can even register the thought of where he’s headed, his tongue is tracing circles around the tight entrance where no one has ever been, his hands gripping the weight of my bottom and spreading me open to his exploration. His thorough, mind-boggling exploration.
The idea of it should have me blushing, but right now my body is so sensitive and aching, and his mouth is so damned confident as he licks and eats at me like I’m some kind of favorite candy, I don’t mind.
Every sense is heightened and before I know it, my muscles are tensing up, building towards a peak I’m desperate to reach. This is easily the most intimate moment of my life. It excites and terrifies me in equal measure.
“You taste like heaven,” he says against me, above the churning din of the machine.
His tongue, his lips, and the vibrations on sensitive flesh send me over the edge. My whole body seems to shake with the force of my release. The sounds coming from me
don’t sound at all familiar. They’re alien, animal.
As I relax, Deric shifts, standing and lifting me back onto the machine. One hand is at my entrance, his fingers dipping into me and playfully teasing the ultra-sensitive area beyond. He bites at my lip before kissing a line to my ear and nibbling.
“Do you still want me?” he whispers, and I can’t answer. Vaguely, I hear a wrapper tearing and his hands leave me.
I grab at him, feeling for him with my hands, my legs, everything, desperate for what comes next. He grabs my wrists together in one hand and places them above my head, guiding my fingers to the metal frame of the shelf bolted above us. I grip and hold on, a wicked smile ghosting across my lips as I brace.
“Good…” he groans, as he surges into me, stopping when he’s completely submerged.
He’s big, way bigger than I expected. I can’t see it, but I certainly can feel it, like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. Everything in me is clenching and grasping for him.
“Deric…” I sigh, as he pulls out. I feel the loss of it before he drives home again.
“Fuck, sweetheart, you feel so good.” His words come out ragged, his strokes quickening.
The machine bumps against the wall as he powers into me, his hips driving against mine. The floorboards are squeaking, our voices are mixing in desperate pants until finally mine cracks, broken by the rush of release.
My orgasm is still a receding wave when his groan shudders through me, joining me. A moment later, I realize I’m still clutching the metal frame, clinging for dear life.
Spent, he gathers my legs around him as we tumble onto the bed. My body is still throbbing where he slid free from me, my limbs weak from the body-wracking orgasms. I lift my hand to the bandana and push it up from my eyes, staring at the ceiling as I struggle for a steady breath.
What in all that is holy was that?
CHAPTER TWELVE
DERIC
I’m not having an asthma attack—that much I know, but I’m still struggling for breath. I turn to my side and study Edie’s profile.
I wasn’t lying before. She’s a fox. Far as I can tell, she’s not trying to be either, which is even sexier. I’ve never been much into the patchouli crowd, but Edie’s got the kind of perfect bone structure, this totally natural beauty, that’s striking and doesn’t need accentuating.