by Anya Summers
What’s Inside
“Something wrong?” He lifted a brow. Maybe he had been a bit too brash, and a bit of a dick in assuming that she was hot for him too.
She rose from the stairs and warily approached. “Can we talk?”
“Sure, why don’t you come inside out of the heat? It’s another scorcher.” He grabbed the groceries from the back seat and jingled his keys in his hand.
“All right.” She followed him up to the door. He pushed it open and let her enter first before he followed her in and shut the door. She stood inside and pushed her sunglasses up onto her head, her gaze searching his place. There were a pair of battered Nikes next to the couch.
He carried the groceries into the kitchen, and she trailed after him. At least he had done the dishes this morning before he left so he didn’t look like a slob. He stowed things in the fridge and freezer, then pulled two bottles of water out and held one out to her.
She fidgeted with the top.
“What did you want to talk about?” He tensed, preparing to be lambasted.
“Okay,” she said, finally glancing up at him.
“Okay, what?” He took a drink of water.
“Yes, I’ll have sex with you.”
He nearly inhaled the bottle of water and started choking. He sputtered on a wheeze, “What?”
Her back went ramrod straight and she shook her head. “You know what, this was crazy. Never mind. Just go back to doing what you were doing.”
And then the little termagant tried to escape after dropping a bomb like that on him.
“Hold up.” He was faster, gripping her around the waist singlehandedly before she could make good her escape. Granted, she made it as far as the front door. He spun her around and pressed her up against it.
Using his body, he trapped her against the door so he could use his hands. He lifted her chin up until he could see her eyes, blazing and spitting fire as she glared at him. He kept his smile to himself.
“Now, say that again.”
“You heard me the first time. I’m not going to repeat it,” she spat.
“Ah, but you surprised me the first time. Let me get this straight so there are no misunderstandings. You considered my offer last night and would like to have sex with me. Do I have that correct?”
She jerked her head in an angry nod.
“I’m going to need more than that, babe. I need you to say it. What you want.”
He could practically hear her grind her teeth. “Yes, I want you and would like to have sex with you. There. Happy?”
His dick hardened and his body was inherently aware of her. “Yes. But let’s clear one thing up. I don’t do just sex.”
His Cherished Love
Cuffs & Spurs Book Eight
Anya Summers
Published by Blushing Books
An Imprint of
ABCD Graphics and Design, Inc.
A Virginia Corporation
977 Seminole Trail #233
Charlottesville, VA 22901
©2019 All rights reserved
No part of the book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The trademark Blushing Books is pending in the US Patent and Trademark Office.
Anya Summers
His Cherished Love
EBook ISBN: 978-1-947132-22-1
Print ISBN: 978-1-947132-61-0
v1
Cover Art by ABCD Graphics & Design
This book contains fantasy themes appropriate for mature readers only. Nothing in this book should be interpreted as Blushing Books' or the author's advocating any non-consensual sexual activity.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Afterword
Anya Summers
EBook Offer
Blushing Books Newsletter
Blushing Books
Chapter 1
The air was thick with the scents of stale, burnt coffee, and unwashed bodies. They assailed him the moment Jack entered the station through the back entrance. Phones rang, their shrill tones peppering the ever-present hum of voices in the building space. A discordant symphony of sounds and smells all carried with it an undercurrent of despair.
Home sweet home.
Better known as the Jackson Hole Police Department.
Jack had missed this place while on medical leave, even the disgusting sludge they served as coffee around here that ate away at a person’s stomach lining like a kraken in a kiddy pool. And he truly must have been bored out of his mind if he’d considered comparing the station coffee to imaginary sea creatures.
Ten weeks.
That case had stolen ten weeks of his life. No work. No playing with a submissive at the private BDSM club Cuffs & Spurs, where he belonged as a member. Nothing but bad daytime television, pain meds, and lately, physical therapy. In retrospect, it might have been worse. He could be a permanent resident of King Hill Cemetery.
That’s what happened when a suspect took a cheap shot while you were attempting to apprehend them. He’d been lucky. Or so they said. The bullet had passed through the brachial artery on his right arm. He’d nearly bled out on the street and would have, too, if his partner or the paramedics had been any slower. As in, another five minutes and he’d have been dead. Instead, they’d saved his life.
It had given Jack some bad moments over the last ten weeks, the knowledge of how close he’d come to dying. And that had been compounded by being faced with the emptiness of his daily life without work. He was the job. Jack had made it his life to the point where it left no room for anything else. No one at home, no wife or kids, who would miss him should he die on the job. His friends and colleagues would, of course. Some of his friends, he considered his brothers. They would mourn his passing. Yet they were all building their own families. It left him wondering who would visit his grave once he was gone.
Fuck. Thirty-five years old and already envisioning his lonely headstone. The only grave without flowers placed upon it. The incident had made him re-evaluate his life and permanent bachelor status on a level he still wasn’t comfortable with. But it was not like he’d had anything better going on the last few weeks. There were only so many times a guy could watch his favorite movies or binge watch his favorite television shows before boredom set in. Moreover, Jack was not familiar with being inactive and the last few weeks had driven him crazy.
Luckily for him, the doctors in the operating room had repaired his torn artery, stitched up the bullet wound, and given him a transfusion for the blood loss he’d sustained. But they hadn’t repaired his psyche with regards to his stupid mistake. Jack had entered the warehouse all gung-ho and alone, not waiting for Mitch Martin, his partner, to arrive.
&
nbsp; Stupid, rookie mistake. One that had nearly got him killed. He had known better. If Mitch had missed his texted coordinates and hadn’t arrived when he did, Jack wouldn’t be standing in the station now, enjoying the scent of bad coffee.
The only reason they’d caught the suspect had been due to a mere fluke. Jack had returned fire before he fell and that one shot had hit the perp in the leg and taken him down.
The medical leave had given him time, far too damn much time to observe the lack in his life. That first week at home alone by himself in his one-bedroom apartment? Utterly eye opening. Before his injury, living alone had been something he’d never really contemplated or considered as a deficiency. He enjoyed his space, enjoyed having a place to escape to at the end of a long shift after he’d been on the job for eighteen hours because he’d been on the scene of an accident with victims that were DOA; dead on arrival. Home had been the place where he showered, got some shut eye, and watched the sports networks when he had a chance.
Except, during his first week home following his life-saving surgery, the simple act of walking into the kitchen to grab something to eat had been exhausting. And, for someone who never liked to depend on anyone, in his hazy pain killer state, he’d yearned for company and, hell, to be taken care of for a change of pace. As someone who eschewed emotional entanglements of any kind, that had been a jarring wake up call.
Although, he had to admit the club members had stepped up. Mason came weekly, bearing trays of food that his chef wife, Emily, had whipped up for Jack. Even though she had a newborn, she’d taken the time to cook for him, for which he would be forever grateful otherwise he might have starved during those first few weeks. Tibby, her sous chef, had done the same. She and her daughter, Arianna, had stopped by briefly a few times, their arms loaded with baked goods. Jack needed to do something for them to show his gratitude.
But he’d never been so physically weak in his life, or ever noticed so keenly how alone and solitary an existence he had until he’d executed a wobbling walk, his leg muscles straining with every footstep, on a simple trip to the damn bathroom. Even his foraging trips from the couch to the kitchen for food had been exhausting.
He trod down the scuffed buff and gray linoleum floor that he didn’t think had been updated since the eighties, his black, military style boots squeaking on the tile. He might be a detective now, but he preferred footwear that made it easier to chase a suspect, like the kind he’d worn while he was a traffic cop. Plus they blended fine with his jeans and blue dress shirt.
The inside of the Jackson Hole Police Station was rather nondescript. Ivory walls with wood paneling along the base. Inside the main bull pen were black metal and mahogany colored wood desks, partnered up, facing one another in pairs. Gray metal filing cabinets lined one wall. There was a secondary bull pen with desks for the traffic officers. The arched windows lining the south wall allowed natural light to infiltrate the station. Often, since he’d made detective, those windows were his only chance of garnering any sunlight. The golden light of the early morning sunshine slanted across the tiles.
Weekly briefing meetings were held in the main conference room, where Chief Sheffield was apprised of statuses of ongoing investigations and assigned new cases. And, in some instances, chewed his staff out over a fuck up that had allowed a suspect to walk free.
The chief’s dark walnut, wooden office door was closed, which was normal. The normality of it made Jack feel at home. On the opposite side of the room stood another heavy wooden door, reinforced with steel plating, which opened to a hall that led to the holding cells and interrogation rooms. The second floor contained offices for the prosecuting attorney, county judge, court clerks and administration.
“You’re back!” Officer Sarah Jeffries commented with a generous smile as she walked by. Jeffries was nearly as tall as Jack, her mocha skin smooth, defying her age, her black hair in a pixie cut that grazed her jawline. The woman was tough as nails, the mother of three, and a damn fine cop. Reed thin, but Jack knew from experience that her slender form was packed with muscle. He might have a good sixty pounds on her, but she was wily and quick-footed in the boxing ring. She’d nearly knocked him out the last time they had sparred.
“I am. How are the boys?” He wasn’t going to mention that there was a sheen of sweat coating his back, or that he prayed he’d make it through a full day without needing a nap. Wouldn’t do to have a detective sleeping on the job.
“Giving me more gray hair on a daily basis.”
“Aren’t teenage boys supposed to do that to their parents?”
She chortled and slapped her thigh. “Ain’t that the truth. Glad to see you up and around.”
“Thanks, Sarah. You tell those boys, if they stray out of line, I’ll stop by and help them clean up their act.”
Sarah pursed her lips and nodded. “Oooh, I never thought of that. But I will use it the next time they sass me.”
“Stone? A word.”
Jack turned toward the gruff voice of their Chief of Police, Rick Sheffield. He stood straight as a drill sergeant in the doorframe between his office and the bull pen. His hair, what remained of it, had long ago gone stark white. In Jack’s thirteen years with the Jackson Hole Police Department, the chief’s hair had never been any other color. Granted, there were now more lines and crevices in his weathered face. His ice blue eyes had witnessed more than their fair share of tragedy and corruption.
“Yes, sir.” Jack grimaced internally as he marched toward the door. The chief left it open for him as he waltzed back into his office. Dammit, he would probably be put on desk duty. Jack hated frigging desk duty. Besides being boring to the point where he dreamed about a shootout, it made the days crawl by. He needed action to keep himself from nodding off. Having said that, too much action would make him relapse on his recovery and put him on more leave.
He would take the desk duty, bitching included, over more leave time. He shivered at the thought.
Jack entered the chief’s office and was brought up short. The chief wasn’t alone. Unease settled in the pit of Jack’s stomach.
“Close the door behind you and have a seat, Detective.” The chief indicated the chair covered in navy blue fabric nearest the door, the only empty chair in his office. The back wall was lined with wooden shelves in the same walnut wood as his office door. In addition to his desk and the chairs, along the far right wall, the room held an umber brown couch framed by two end tables. The thing looked like it had been stylish at one time. Like, back in the eighties.
Jack followed orders and shut the door behind him. He studied the man who occupied the other chair, dressed in a slick, nondescript black suit. His appearance screamed law enforcement. But he wasn’t internal affairs. After Jack’s injury, internal affairs had interviewed him—a couple of times. Granted, they may have hired someone new who wanted to take a chunk out of his ass over his mistake. Well, the man could get in line.
But if he ruled out internal affairs, his other guess would be Federal Agent. The man wore his black suit with the uptight aura of a Fed. Jack could practically smell it on the guy. He hated that his back shot up like a tom cat protecting his territory at the thought of an agent in his police department. It did not matter that he had coordinated investigations with the Feds over the last few years, their superior attitude tended to rub him the wrong way. Likely because of their ability to claim jurisdiction and invade an investigation his department had operated on for months. He tended to be bitter when it came to jurisdictional bullshit.
“From what your doctor mentioned in the letter he submitted to the department, he recommended you for light duty for the next four to six weeks. Tell me, how do you feel? And no bullshit. If you aren’t physically or mentally ready to come back, it’s understandable and I won’t hold it against you. If you need more leave time, say the word and I will put the paperwork through.”
Jack diverted his attention from the man in black back to Sheffield. He appreciated the way the chief cut th
rough the bull and didn’t mince words. Sheffield had sat with him on that first night after his surgery after all of his friends had left so he wouldn’t be alone in the hospital. Not that he remembered much from his morphine-induced state, except that each time he was woken by a nurse, Sheffield had been there. The chief considered his officers his responsibility and wanted to make sure Jack made it through the worst of it before he left him alone. “I can do the job, Chief, if that’s what you’re worried about. Yes, the arm is still being troublesome at times, but it won’t hinder me or any investigations.”
He didn’t mention that the injured arm was his shooting arm. The chief knew it. His doctor knew it. And so did Jack. It was taking time in physical therapy to rebuild the injured muscle. The damn bicep still trembled like he had performed a thousand pushups after a thirty-minute session at the firing range. Nor did he mention that he’d missed the bull’s eye in training practice. Hell, he’d missed the paper target altogether a few times, let alone the shadowed outline of imaginary suspects on the target. He would get better, and back into fighting shape. It was just taking one hell of a lot longer than he liked.
Patience was not one of his virtues. Not that he had many of those, either.
The chief studied him a moment as Jack lowered himself onto the padded navy chair. Jack kept his face as straight and unreadable as possible, hoping like hell he masked the pain that battered his system. It was more of an annoyance now than a hindrance.