Then they were in her room.
“Jesus! I want you,” he muttered, as he lowered her to her feet.
She wanted him too.
More importantly, she wanted him to see that he was whole, and together, they were enough.
As soon as her feet touched the floor, she dropped to her knees.
He watched her, amazement on his face. Bishop planned to hold nothing back.
He wasn’t surprised.
She tugged his raging erection free from his pants, and immediately, she took him in her mouth.
He moaned, enjoying the way she was making love to his body. Bishop was wild, and that made him want to join her in the pleasure. She could make him forget.
His hand found her hair, and he used it to slow her down. “Be gentle.”
She set him free.
“Did I hurt you?”
Her sweetness overwhelmed him. She was tough, she was the sheriff, but she was worried.
He gave her the truth.
“It’s been a long time. I can’t promise it’ll be…spectacular.”
Her laughter caught him off guard.
“Oh, Lucian. It’s already spectacular. It doesn’t get any better than this.”
His heart defrosted even more as the little blossom of happiness began budding in him.
How could it not?
She was sunshine and warmth to his icy cold death.
With her, he didn’t have to try to be something he wasn’t. With her, broken was enough. It was still worthy of love.
She didn’t give him time to think. Instead, she went back to tormenting him with mouth and tongue. She could tell he’d been honest. He was already shaking, and that gave her a thrill.
She could show him.
Finally, she could show him!
As his breath became ragged, she set him free.
He was watching her with such need, and she never wanted it to stop. If she had her way, this would be their every day.
Only Lucian had to meet her halfway.
“Jesus! Your mouth...”
She laughed. “Oh, Lucian, you haven’t seen anything yet,” she promised, going to her feet. Eagerly, she pulled him toward the bed in the middle of the room. Once there, she began tugging the clothes from his body.
His t-shirt came off, and as he stood there bare chested, his pants open, and his erection out, she ran her lips across the scars on his shoulder. They ran down his torso to his hip. They were angry, red, and had to have been so incredibly painful. It made her want to offer him gentleness and love to wash away the years of pain.
The scars didn’t horrify her.
The fact he’d nearly died did.
She’d almost lost her other half. Had he perished that day, she’d never have this. Because she had been given a second chance, Bishop vowed never to take it for granted.
“I wanted to do this the day I saw them,” she said, leaving warm, wet openmouthed kisses across the puckered flesh.
He watched, his body reacting to hers being so close to his. He wanted to touch her.
He wanted to taste.
He wanted to feel.
When she shoved his pants down, he stared helplessly as he fell for her. From the smile on her face, to the love in her eyes, he tumbled.
“You seem overdressed,” he said, burying his hand in her hair. She made him want to let go and be free.
“Then fix that, Lucian.”
He grinned.
Her heart skipped.
There was that smirk—that sexy little smile that made her fall for him ten years ago in a courtroom.
There was the man she knew hid beneath the fear. Here was her hero, the fighter, the man who would always have her heart.
He was back.
Oh, Lucian fixed it and so much more. With Bishop, the possibilities were endless. He wanted to experience so much that he almost didn’t know where to start.
Eagerly, like a child on Christmas Day, he began by tugging off her t-shirt. With it came her bra. He stared down at her half bared body, and he was happy.
She was watching him—not staring at his face. She was tracking his fingers as they moved across her ribs, and as his thumbs stroked her already erect nipples.
She wanted him.
This was a miracle. A beautiful woman still saw the value in him, even when he didn’t.
“Hurry!” she begged.
He laughed, and the sound was like the most amazing thing to him. Not only was he going to touch, have, and enjoy Bishop, he was having a good time while doing it.
There was no pretense.
It was like the previous night, showing up at her place, having dinner, and watching movies.
She was easy to love.
Maybe that’s why he’d been so hard on her. Deep down, he knew that she would wiggle her way into his heart. Maybe he didn’t think he deserved it.
Only she’d proved him wrong.
Lucian deserved her. As long as he could protect their love, and the woman he definitely loved, he’d believe they belonged together.
He tugged her pants down, and did something he’d been thinking about for eight years. He slid his fingers through the wetness pooling between her legs, and she was beyond excited.
Yes, she wanted him.
And it was damn good to be back.
It was time to reclaim this part of his life.
He lurched at her, and they tumbled onto the bed. They rolled, kissed, and touched each other, exploring the new life for both of them. When she rolled, ending up on top, she was about to slide him home.
When he froze.
His hand went over his scar and missing eye.
The patch was gone.
“Oh God!”
He fought to move away, to cover his face and the horrible place that had once been his eye, but she fought him. Bishop held on with everything she had.
“Please stop,” she begged.
The tears in her voice stopped him in his tracks.
He froze.
“Trust me enough not to pull away from me. You can’t let me have you and then keep taking you away. It’s too hard for me. I can’t do it, Lucian. I can’t survive this rollercoaster. Either let me in, or walk away. I can’t keep losing you. I’m only so strong.”
He felt the tears hit his chest.
Christ.
He’d made her cry.
“What do I have to do to prove to you that this scar doesn’t matter? What battle do I have to fight, Lucian? Just tell me, and I’ll do it. You were coming back, and now you’re pulling away again.”
She was right.
He didn’t trust anyone, but that had to end.
He touched her cheek.
She stared down at him.
Then he did something he never would have done before for anyone.
He moved his hand away, so she could see what had been done to him. In the newly cresting dawn from her window, he turned his face so she could see what he lived with each and every day. Lucian held nothing back as he shared what the explosion had created, and what the surgeons had tried to fix and failed.
Then he waited.
Only she didn’t hesitate.
Her mouth left kisses all the way from the top of the scar on his brow, past the place where his eye once was, and to his cheek.
She didn’t run from it.
She embraced it.
“You’re the most handsome man in the world,” she whispered. “You always were, and you always will be.”
“Bishop.”
His heart ached at her words.
“Let me show you.”
What choice did he have?
In that one moment, everything hung in the balance. His heart, his fate, and his world was hers to love, protect, or destroy. He was letting her in, and he prayed he didn’t regret it.
He’s been a fool to believe in it before.
Bishop was either going to be his salvation or his damnation. Every monster had his day, and this
was his.
He let her take control.
His heart was thumping, but it was from fear of repulsing her. As she moved across his body, leaving a trail of heat and fiery kisses, his erection came back, the need followed, and he was ready—for her and only her.
“Please,” he whispered. “I need you.”
Bishop’s heart skipped, and the tears came again, but this time, they weren’t alone. His eye had them too, and with her thumb, she wiped them away.
Then she slid him home.
Lucian moaned, his body arching beneath hers.
Nothing in his life had felt that damn good. Before, he’d taken sex for granted, moving through the motions, but now…making love would be cherished forever.
She’d be cherished.
Her hands found his, and they locked them together. As she slid him in and out of her body, she watched his face.
He was at peace.
So was she.
“Faster,” he begged, needing to see her bouncing above him. He craved the rain of red hair, the slide of her body against his, and the bounce of her breasts. Lucian wanted it all.
This one moment with her made him the happiest man in the world.
“Oh God!” she shouted, her whole body tightening down on his. “Lucian,” she moaned, repeating his name over and over again. He was filling her, and in more ways than one.
She’d finally reached the pinnacle of the climb. The hard-fought battle was done, and she could claim her prize.
Again, she whispered his name, and it sounded right on her lips.
He couldn’t stop saying hers.
“I’m going to cum.”
It was all he had to hear. The need was unstoppable, as it boiled up, over, and exploded into her. Bishop’s words tore him from the ledge, shoving him over and into the most amazing feeling in his life.
As he fell, he wasn’t alone.
Bishop was with him.
She was there for the journey, and he was so damn glad. There was no one he’d rather take it with than her. He needed to make this voyage with the one who owned his heart.
As time began ticking again, she was cuddled against him. Her head was on his neck as he was still buried in her body.
“Bishop?” he finally said, breaking the silence.
“Yeah, Lucian?”
“Thank you.”
She lifted her face to stare into that one sexy blue eye.
“What?” he asked. “Say it.”
“You don’t want me to say it, Lucian.”
“I really do.”
He was getting nervous. This couldn’t be a good conversation—not post coital, and not with that look on her face. It screamed ‘danger ahead’.
“I have to be honest.”
He waited for it.
“What?”
“I love you.”
He stared.
Had he heard her right?
Holy shit!
She moved fast, and this was proof that she liked to keep him off guard.
“I don’t know what to say,” he offered. He knew what he wanted to say, but that concrete block holding his heart prisoner wasn’t fully freed. It was breaking away, but he wasn’t able to articulate the words.
She needed to know all of the truth before he offered her that last piece of him. If he gave her this, and then she found out what he’d done, there was no doubt in his mind that Bishop would hate him.
Hell!
He hated himself.
She climbed off his body, her heart aching. She knew he needed it to heal, but the possibility of rejection still stung. A part of her knew he wouldn’t be able to return the words. If he couldn’t love himself, he certainly couldn’t love her.
“Bishop, where are you going?”
She held out her hand. “We have to shower. I’ll bring you home, and then I have to get to work. Cop hours suck. I have to get to the office.”
He knew she was avoiding what she’d just thrown out there.
He was scared.
He couldn’t lose what he’d just found. If he rushed into it, like he had with his ex in the past, it might go South.
It might be a disaster.
If anything, he wanted to protect Bishop. Her heart mattered too, and he wasn’t sure he could be whole enough to give her what she deserved—a complete man.
“Want me to wash your back?” he asked, hoping she wouldn’t send him away.
“Are you kidding?”
His heart dropped at her question. Here it came.
“I want you to wash my front too. There’s no point doing it half assed, now is there?”
She smiled at him, even though she was dying inside.
“It would be my pleasure.”
He followed her into the shower, but already, his head was buzzing, and the static was fighting to take him down.
He knew something was coming, but what?
Lucian prayed it wasn’t going to be personal. He couldn’t take another hit to his heart.
Chapter Twelve
Friday Morning
Eight A.M
He took him.
It was too easy.
When he saw the man coming home, drunk, disorderly, and ready to stumble into his home so early in the morning, he knew it was his sign.
All night, he caroused with someone, but that didn’t matter. All that did was that he had him.
It was so easy to take him too.
Way too easy.
Now he was in the trunk of his car, bound, gagged, and ready to be killed. As he struggled, trying to get free, he knew he needed to get him to a safe place.
He needed to take him someplace where he could be hidden until it was time to do the deed.
Then he’d be left for the sheriff to find him.
But where?
Oh, he knew.
He’d take him to the place not far from where it all started. Where on that fateful day, life was ended, peace became elusive, and his life came to a halt.
That’s where he’d place him for the world to see his lack of justice. He may have fought for the law, but he didn’t fight hard enough, and all of this was the proof.
Had he been a winner, this wouldn’t be happening to him. He was one more waste of justice added to the list.
It was time.
Payback was here.
This man, Earl Thorpe, was marked.
It was time for him to die.
It was time for him to begin planning the next person on the list of people, who no longer deserved to live.
At the very bottom was Lucian Monroe.
He was a quitter.
And for that, he would pay.
* * * O R A C L E * * *
Bishop Killion’s
Brownstone
They’d laughed the entire time they’d showered. It was hard not to when two slippery people were crammed into the small stall.
Lucian wasn’t a huge man, but he was big enough that showering together was more acrobatics than ease.
Still, she didn’t mind.
It was a pleasure to see him laugh and let go of the pressure he was putting on himself.
Plus, two naked people, rubbing against each other, was always a good thing.
The wet slide of flesh against flesh had been amazing, and when Lucian got hard all over again, she was there to take him up on his offer of shower sex.
She’d be a fool to pass that up.
When a sexy man rubbed against you in the shower, life was too short to say no.
In fact, she screamed ‘yes’ a few times, and she may have even called him God.
Yeah, it was that damn good.
After the repeat interlude, they found themselves in her kitchen, having something to eat.
When she handed him a Pop Tart, he simply lifted a brow. He laughed when she told him not to judge her. The masculine sound was music to her ears.
He was free.
Lucian was finally ready to relax around her.
&n
bsp; After dressing, and getting into her gear, she found him watching her.
“What?” she asked.
“You’re beautiful.”
It made her blush.
“I’m passable for a cop.”
He moved toward her, wanting just to hold her in his arms. Gently, he pulled her toward him. When she didn’t hesitate, but instead rested against him, he was at peace.
“You’re more than passable. You’re perfect.”
She nuzzled her cheek against his shoulder. Bishop wished she could keep his scent on her all day long.
Hell!
She wished she could steal his hoodie to wear him all day long.
Yeah, someone had it bad.
Here was the proof.
“I need to ask you something.”
She glanced up. “Yes?”
“Can we do this again? It was amazing to be with you and to not have to worry.”
She smiled.
“Mi casa es su casa.”
“Sexy. I love a bilingual woman.”
She snorted. “I’d love to discuss what else you love, but we have to get moving.”
He knew she was referring to what she’d told him after sex, and he was grateful she wasn’t angry that he’d yet to say it back. It was there, but he needed more time.
He was a thinker, plotter, and planner. It was the lawyer in him, and he needed to make sure the time was just right.
Lucian had learned that moving fast meant getting hurt. The day he’d nearly died, had he slowed down, talked to the reporters, and paid attention, his life would have been different.
Then he realized.
Had he done any of that, he would have missed this.
“Bishop?”
“What?” she asked, checking the clip on her sidearm before sliding it into the hip holster.
“Tonight, can you come to my place?”
She was shocked at the invite. Honestly, she expected him to move slowly. Bishop was fine with that. She’d let him set the pace. She’d give him that gift.
“Is your shower bigger?”
Oracle Seeing (The Phoenix Files Book 2) Page 23