by Tessa Bailey
“Jesus Christ,” I roar, ripping my mouth away, suctioning it to her neck. “Am I making you feel good? Do you like this?”
“I’m . . . Oh my God, I’m going to come.” Her fingers slide into my uniform pants, right over the bare flesh of my ass, digging her nails in. If possible, my cock hardens even more, straining inside my pants. “Please.”
No. Not yet. My own denial confuses me, because I want Danika to be satisfied. I need that to happen. But since the beginning, she’s woken up this part of me that demands control. With her. Just . . . her. And I have a vicious need to dictate when and how she comes. She sure as shit isn’t coming from some sloppy dry hump I was barely aware of until a minute ago.
“Your mouth distracted me,” I slur into her neck, unable to stop the punctuated roll of my hips. “It does that a lot. I see it and I want it working for me. Want it to talk to me, want to kiss it. Use it. I think about that last part when my dick is in my hand.”
Even with my weight pressing her down, she manages to arch her back. Her thighs are jerking around my waist, little broken moans shooting past her lips. Christ, she’s so damn gorgeous. I could watch her all day. “Greer . . . Greer.”
As usual, my first name in her mouth sends out a ripple of satisfaction, starting in my belly, reverberating all the way up in my head. “We’re not done here yet, Danika.” I still my hips, and she wails, trying to urge me back into moving. But I’m already dragging my mouth down between her tits, giving each stiff nipple a graze of teeth. “We’re going to find out about those matching panties now, aren’t we?”
I push up the hem of her shirt, like I’ve fantasized about doing so many times. Her belly shudders up and down, begging for me to cage it between my hands and hold it still. And I might have if the impulse to mark up that smooth, flawless skin wasn’t stronger. I drag my stubbled chin and cheeks across her belly button, leaving redness behind, recording her shocked sobs to be replayed later. My fingers work the fly of her skintight pants, my impatience rearing its head until I’m jerking down the zipper, ripping the pants down her legs. Just want to get to her pussy. Want my tongue in it now.
She’s wearing the red panties.
“Tomorrow is laundry day. That’s all.” Her fingers skim along my jawline, but I can’t process how nice it feels over the ringing in my skull. “No one would have seen them if you hadn’t shown up, Greer. I . . .” Her voice drops to a scrap of sound, but I’m beyond hearing. “I think I only said yes to the date to make you d-do something like this. And—”
I flip her over onto her stomach, cutting off whatever else she was going to say. This possessiveness I’ve only ever felt for Danika is raw. Unrefined. What I want, the visions that have my hands shaking with wild lust, haven’t been explored. Hell, maybe I repressed them too long, watching her from a distance. Whatever the reason, I move out of necessity, gripping her hips and yanking them up, leaving Danika on hands and knees. Her beautiful ass is covered in the hated red silk, but my groan breaks loose nonetheless at the sight of her. “Look at you. Fuck.”
My dick is so swollen, I’m almost dizzy, but I’ve been miserable so long with needing to fuck Danika, it doesn’t even occur to me to take it out of my pants. There’s only one thought that keeps circling around in my head.
“You were going to wear these out with someone else.”
“I told you, it’s . . .” She trails off as I lower her panties, leaving them stretched around her knees. “What are you going to do?”
The jealousy must have left a shred of decency behind, because I can’t bring myself to punish her if I’m not positive she wants it. “I want to take my hand to these cheeks.” I gather a grip of flesh, molding it, gritting my teeth when the parting of her backside shows off her pussy. Wet. So wet and beautiful. Needing the same relief I’m hot to give.
“Do it,” she says in a husky whisper, pushing her ass up. “I want you to.”
“Why?”
“Because it’ll make us both feel good.” She looks back at me over her shoulder. Her eyes are excited, but cautious. “At least . . . I hope it will.”
My hand won’t wait any longer, it rears back and lowers the first slap. Whap. The sound wraps my brain in clarity, and I’m suddenly so present, so in tune with Danika’s reactions, her breathing, I wonder where the fuck I was before. Shit, I was almost incoherent after we first started kissing. Is it because I needed a direction? A plan? “Well?” I bite out.
“Oh my God.” Her slight sides heave in and out. “Again.”
Yes. This time, there’s more bite in the glancing blow of my palm. Her tight ass shivers with a quick vibration, before stilling. Three more, I decide. My blood is burning, I’m so fucking horny, but I’m laser-focused on her. Danika. Her moans fill the room. She crowds everything else out of the stadium of my mind. She’s made me feel out of control since I met her, but now she’s giving it back to me, in this incredible way I didn’t know existed. Maybe because it was designed for her.
By the fifth spank, her ass has turned bright pink and something about that color, knowing I’ve been given the privilege of painting it on, makes me desperate to return the favor. I needed her, now she needs me. With that truth ringing in my head, I push her sweet cheeks apart and bend down, licking her pussy from behind.
“Oh.” Her upper half drops onto the bed, elevating her bottom even more. “Oh, please don’t stop this time.”
“Move your knees apart,” I growl, pushing my middle finger inside her, pumping it a few times, as she follows the order. Then a few more times, because I can’t believe the tightness waiting for me. “This has been mine for months, hasn’t it?”
Her choked cry, the tilt of her hips, is the only answer I need.
“It’s a good thing I didn’t know, baby, or I wouldn’t have been able to help myself. All those times you showed up early would have been spent in my office, riding my cock.”
“Greer,” she moans, her thighs starting to tremble. “I need—”
“I damn well know what you need. I’m the one who gives it.” I untuck my finger from the warmth of her pussy and push my tongue through the slick sweetness of her folds. When my tongue hits that tiny nub, I keep it there, lapping at her until broken renditions of my name start to leave her. She moves her hips like an ocean wave, each sexy movement rubbing her against my working tongue. When she hits her peak, I grip my cock and squeeze hard, but it’s not for pleasure. It’s a gesture of pride. Pride in myself for making Danika come.
Jesus, the shaking she does, the light sheen of sweat on her forehead when she flops down and rolls over . . . it’s the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen. She is.
“Oh . . .” She shakes her head and I swear, her eyes cross a little. “Whoa. I mean, just, whoa.” Her eyes track down below my waistband, a soft exclamation appearing on her lips. “Come here.”
That same need for control rises in me, swift and not taking any bullshit. She must sense it, because the excitement flickers back in her drowsy eyes. Will she let me decide what happens after I finally unzip my pants?
The way she lets her cupped hands fall to her sides, the awareness in her expression, tells me yes. “Tell me what you want,” she murmurs. “Please.”
There’s a roaring in my head, a certainty that I’ve found my place—
But it’s cut off when a door slams and the apartment fills with voices.
It’s not the intrusion that breaks me from my trance. It’s the way Danika jackknifes on the bed, pulling her panties back into place with clumsy hands. Hiding her pussy away so fast, I have to tamp down the urge to rip the silk back off. She doesn’t want to get caught with me. Of course she doesn’t. I’m the asshole instructor everyone calls Lieutenant Hard-Ass behind his back. I know my brother and his friends will keep their mouths shut, but I don’t rely on secrecy.
Cause and effect. Consequences. Those things are supposed to be black and white to me, even when I’m on the receiving end. I should be worried about being c
aught in a compromising position with one of my recruits. But I’ll be damned before I hide in her closet like some pansy-ass high school kid.
“You home, D?” Jack Garrett shouts through the door. “There’s soggy pizza out here.”
“They’ll probably come in and check if I’m here,” Danika whispers, buttoning her pants. “If you don’t want to be found, I would—”
“You would what?”
She breathes into the silence. “Why are you snapping at me? I wish they hadn’t shown up, but they did. You really want to explain what you’re doing in my bedroom?”
Her logic is unwelcome when my dick is throbbing like a motherfucker, she looks like pure temptation in the darkness and there is no clear, concise definition of the situation. What is going on between us? I don’t have enough experience speaking about these kinds of matters with women, nor do we have time for me to make an attempt. “How would you explain it?” I asked anyway, already cursing myself.
“I don’t know.” Watching me closely, she draws her knees up to her chest. Is she self-conscious? “If you want to walk out there with me and eat soggy pizza, I’ll tell them all to mind their own business. Like, i-if that’s what you want.”
Now her eyes are on the ceiling, leaving me to drift. But I don’t just drift, I blast right out of this warm, dark, rain-stained bedroom back to reality. Walk out into the kitchen and eat pizza? Like some kind of triple date? No. No, that’s not a possibility. What would happen next? I spend the night, spooned around one of my recruits? Wake up in the morning and make plans for the next night? And the next?
I banish the torturous rise of yearning and get up from the bed. While I replace my beanie, gun belt and jacket, she’s so still on the bed. Too still. What the hell was I thinking coming here? She could be out right now with some fresh-faced kid who isn’t burned out at age thirty. Someone who doesn’t see the horrors of his job every time his eyes close. Most of all, she could have a real chance with a guy who isn’t so fucking crippled by potential loss, he can’t share any real part of himself.
Knowing all that, I would still come here and demand she cancel her date, if I could do tonight all over again. How big of a bastard does that make me?
I pause with my hand on the doorknob. “You’ll check in with me tomorrow.”
Her nod is jerky. “Yeah.”
She needs kissing and holding—even I can see that—but I can’t give those things to her without falling down a rabbit hole. Chancing more and more, until I’m in too deep. So I suck up the regret and walk out the door, closing it softly behind me.
Everyone freezes, slices of pizza halting in midair. If I was capable of laughing right now, I would. At least until the shock on Charlie’s and Jack’s faces turns into something else. Something with the potential to turn me into a snarling beast, if I let it. They’re defensive. Protective over the girl I just left alone in her bedroom.
The realization that I just fucked my chances of making her protection my job burns my esophagus. “You have something to say?”
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen Jack angry, but he’s there now, sliding off the kitchen stool. Katie’s hand is on his chest, but he kisses it and sets it aside, without taking his eyes off me. “Out in the hallway.”
Ever nudges my brother. “Paging Charlie for mediation services.”
“On it,” Charlie mutters, throwing down his napkin.
We all move toward the door at the same time, but when I notice the girls floating in the opposite direction to Danika’s room, I pause on the threshold. Does she . . . need checking on? She’s always so tough and irreverent. Maybe she’s not always that way?
My throat fills with cement, my hands feeling useless as I follow my brother and his roommate into the hallway. Charlie, ever the voice of reason, closes the door and steps between me and Jack. “Okay, look. We all saw this coming.”
That catches me off guard. “What?”
Jack throws up his hands. “You couldn’t have been more obvious with a rose clamped between your teeth, man.”
There’s an unwanted image. Even if Jack speaks the truth, though, they wouldn’t have seen anything coming unless Danika was obvious in her interest, too, right? “Did she . . . say anything about me?” Their mouths fall open around the same time I hear myself. “Forget I asked that.”
“I’m really going to try,” Charlie says, looking at me like I just spoke Dutch. “Jack, I think the important thing to remember here is Danika is a grown-up. She doesn’t need us to interfere.”
“She’s getting it anyway,” Jack shoots back, pointing a finger at me. “You hurt my best friend and—”
“You’ll what?” My jaw tightens to a near-shattering point. “Watch what you say to me.”
“Deep breaths, men,” interjects Charlie.
Amazingly enough, Jack follows my brother’s advice, taking a moment. “Listen. You helped me keep Katie in New York and you’re taking me seriously at the academy now. I don’t want you to think I take those things for granted. But I’d be drunk on a dock somewhere if Danika hadn’t befriended my worthless ass. I owe it to her to make sure she isn’t hurt.” He pauses for a breath. “Just tell me it’s more. Tell me you’re going to do right by her, and I’ll shut my mouth.”
Fuck, I want to. I want to storm back into the apartment and wrap her up in a bear hug. When I think about the way she offered to walk out of the bedroom with me, my chest can barely withstand the pounding inside of it. It wasn’t easy for her to make that gesture. To put herself out there. And I rejected it. Her.
At the same time, I look at Charlie and Jack, their whole world this shiny, new bundle of possibilities, and my mind tells me I did the right thing. They think it’s so simple. Find the girl of your dreams and give her everything. My everything is nothing, though. As a rookie cop, I was just like them, but strips have been taken off me, one by one. Losing a parent for what felt like the second time, losing a partner just when that wound was beginning to scab over. Daily tragedy followed by solitude. I won’t offer Danika a sad shell of what used to be human.
“Greer,” Charlie urges me in a low voice, his expression already one of disappointment. “Answer him.”
The words won’t come.
Jack goes back into the apartment, leaving a curse hanging in the air. I start to leave, too, but Charlie calls out to me, stopping my progress toward the stairs.
“Hold up.” He shoves his hands into his pockets. “I know getting advice from your younger brother is your equivalent of naked hang gliding, but just listen for a second?”
That’s not true. I love being around my brother. I’m so fucking proud of him, how hard he trains, his ingrained need to help people he cares about. Because he wants to, not because he’s obligated. If he didn’t serve as a constant reminder of what I could be without all the hideous shit in my head, I’d probably be a better brother. Spend more time doing things that don’t revolve around our career paths. “What is it?”
He comes forward a few steps. “You like her. A lot. I knew it for sure when you let her win that bet in Brooklyn.” I don’t say anything and he doesn’t expect me to. “Brace yourself, because here comes something shitty. If you can’t offer her anything, leave her alone. I tried to keep Ever as a friend with benefits, and it blew up in my face. I could have lost her. And that would have been the end of me, okay? I never would have been the same.”
“You and me are different people, Charlie.”
“I hurt her.” He braces a hand on the wall. “The whole time I was trying to fit Ever into a space where I was comfortable, I was hurting her. Bad. Times I didn’t even realize it.” A beat passes. “I know you don’t want to do that to Danika.”
My stomach roils at the memory of her so still on the bed. If that’s what pursuing whatever this is leads to, I have to stay away. “No. God no.”
I don’t realize Charlie has gone back into the apartment until the door clicks shut, leaving me to return to my car alone in the rain.
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br /> Chapter 12
Greer
Double-parking is a huge problem in this city.
I’ve made more than my share of enemies on the force by ticketing department vehicles that linger too long, blocking bike lanes and congesting the avenues. At noon on Monday, there isn’t a damn spot in sight outside the post office—the fourth one I’ve driven to today. And I should really take that as a hint to stop searching for Elvis stamps, return to the precinct and do my fucking job. Yet here I am.
Gritting my teeth, I circle the block one more time, looking for somewhere appropriate to leave my car that won’t disrupt the flow of traffic. It’s amazing in a city so huge that one damn car can screw things up for miles. An artery blockage on wheels. Sort of like how I’ve felt since Saturday night. Blocked. My blood is the traffic, and the fact that I might have hurt Danika is stuck right in the center of my vein, dividing me in two.
I’m an idiot for thinking stamps are going to help. In fact, they’ll probably make things worse, because she might read something into it. What? Like, the truth, maybe? That kissing her Saturday night made me feel like everything was going to get better? Until I left, that is. Nothing has gotten better since then. I was sick to my stomach until I remembered Elvis, and that’s all I’ve been able to focus on. Now if the United States Postal Service would cooperate and make the damn things available, I could go back to being miserable at my desk, thank you very much.
I’m waiting at a red light, trying to massage the headache from my head with punishing fingers when my cell phone rings. Being that it has been ringing nonstop since I set out on this fool’s mission for square adhesives, I almost answer without looking at the screen.
Silva, Danika (your recruit, asshole) flashes in white, digital letters.