A Whisper Of Wanting

by Jamie Sobrato

  5

  NICOLE SHOULD HAVE KNOWN it would come to this. Her and Ethan, caught in the act, by one of her very own colleagues. A guy she’d chatted with at the precinct just last week, for God’s sake. She felt blood warming her cheeks as the officer’s flashlight spotlighted her face.

  Nicole tugged her top all the way down and pushed the car door open, trying hard to act cool and calm. Not remotely embarrassed.

  “Arroyo, is that you?” the officer, whose name tag read Hamlin, said as a look of confusion crossed his face.

  Nicole still felt the slowed ability to think clearly, the heightened sense of Ethan’s presence next to her. But she pushed it all aside as best she could and tried to think of a way out of this mess that wouldn’t make her the laughingstock of the San Diego PD.

  “Um, yeah, it’s me,” she said, her face burning.

  Okay, there was probably no way to keep herself from being a laughingstock, but she could at least hope to salvage a shred of her pride.

  She watched recognition dawn on the officer’s face, and the answer became: probably not.

  “I know this looks odd….” she said, at a loss.

  Dear God, she’d lost the ability to think on her feet. And on her back. Something about Ethan had turned her into a mindless throbbing blob of sexual need.

  Just freaking wonderful.

  “You understand that what you were just doing qualifies as public indecency,” the officer said, eyeing her, then Ethan, then her again for more emphasis, as if Ethan didn’t really need to understand it, but she did.

  And maybe that was true. In the stone ages.

  “Absolutely. I used really poor judgment. I have to tell you, this was a stressful day at work, what with that Pulatski case coming back to haunt me. I just got carried away trying to unwind.”

  The officer’s expression changed. Pulatski, a name that brought a grimace to every police officer’s face. Jonas Pulatski shooting a cop as beloved as Max Robbins had hit everyone on the San Diego PD hard, especially Nicole.

  “You worked on the Pulatski case?”

  “I was the primary witness—the other cop on the scene the night Robbins was shot. He was my partner.”

  The officer made a pained expression. “I remember now. I’m sorry I didn’t put two and two together.”

  Nicole hated using the Pulatski card, but maybe it was truer than she’d first imagined. Maybe that was the reason for her fuzzy thinking, her rash behavior, her carrying on like a woman with a death wish.

  “We’re very sorry, sir,” Ethan chimed in.

  She shot him a warning look, which he didn’t catch.

  “Is there any possible way you could, um, keep this quiet?” she asked.

  The officer eyed her again. His expression was inscrutable, but she sensed his sympathy. “Sure. Just keep your stress relief in a private hotel room next time,” he said, then looked at Ethan. “You know you got a busted taillight?”

  “Oh that,” Ethan said, sounding suddenly way too casual. “I just backed into my own mailbox today. I’ll be sure to get it fixed right away.”

  Nicole looked over at the car and for the first time noticed that it was a black BMW. A black BMW with a busted taillight, just like the one her crazy downstairs neighbor had described earlier tonight. Nicole had just assumed her neighbor had stopped taking her medication again and was having delusions that she’d seen a man on Nicole’s balcony, but now…

  The officer nodded. “I’ll let you off with a warning this time.”

  “Thank you so much,” Nicole said. “Drop by my office any time you need a favor, okay?”

  The officer nodded again and turned toward the club, then moved on. Nicole heaved a sigh of relief, and Ethan zipped up his pants.

  “Wow, that was a close call,” Ethan whispered.

  “What the hell’s the matter with us?” Nicole muttered as she got back in the car to see if there were any garments she’d left behind. Her bra hung from the headrest of the driver’s seat. She grabbed it and looked around some more. Panties on the floor. She grabbed those too.

  “I can hardly think of anything but doing what we just did—again,” Ethan said.

  “Slow down there, cowboy. You’ve proven your prowess.” But she knew exactly what he meant. She was struggling to put those very thoughts out of her own head.

  “It’s not about that—it never has been. Well, maybe a wee bit.”

  “How’d you get that busted taillight?” Nicole asked, but she was having a hard time remembering now, with Ethan so temptingly close, why it mattered. Every other guy in the state of California drove around in a black BMW, so it wasn’t exactly an uncommon car. Even if her neighbor hadn’t been delusional, which she was.

  “I really did back into my damn mailbox. Idiot thing to do, I know.”

  Sounded plausible. They were both sitting in the backseat again, and the quiet, the darkness, created a buffer from the world that made not touching Ethan nearly impossible. She wanted to reach out and trace her hand along his thigh, caress his cock, feel the hard ridges of his abs, absorb his warmth and his scent.

  Her whole body ached for it. Again. Already.

  What the hell was going on?

  “You mention the Pulatski case and all of a sudden we’re off the hook? Good deal.”

  Nicole exhaled, and it felt as if she was releasing demons from her body. “Long, miserable story. You’ve probably heard about it from the news—”

  “Actually I’m familiar with Jonas Pulatski and his history. I interviewed him before his release from prison and am still researching a story I want to write about his crimes.”

  Her stomach lurched a little. “You? Interviewed Pulatski? Why?”

  “It was something my editor mentioned wanting to do some in-depth coverage of, so I took on the task. I have to admit, knowing you made me more interested in the story overall, but I haven’t wanted to dredge up painful memories for you by grilling you about it.”

  “That’s pretty unusual for a reporter,” Nicole said, surprised. Ethan had a reputation for being ruthless in his pursuit of the facts. “Thanks though. I appreciate your respecting my feelings about the subject.”

  “I can’t take all the credit for being Mr. Sensitive. I was sort of waiting to see how much information I could get about the story without bothering you, before deciding if I’d ask you for an interview too.”

  She felt a little stab of betrayal, and she couldn’t muster a response. Irrational, because what was he betraying?

  “Would you be willing to talk about it later, if necessary?”

  Nicole’s throat closed up and refused to release any words.

  “Bad question?”

  “Very,” she finally choked out. “I don’t want to talk about it right now, okay? Too much baggage.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.”

  “No, it’s fine. It’s just widely known that I’m not going to be all that well in the head what with Pulatski walking around free. That’s why we were let go with a warning.”

  And Nicole wondered herself if she didn’t need to take some vacation time or something. A little mental break from work-related stress, at least until she got used to the idea of Pulatski being on the outside. But that also felt like admitting failure somehow.

  “So you think this thing with me and you, it’s maybe stress-related?”

  Nicole wanted that to be the truth. “Yes, definitely.”

  Maybe saying it would make it so.

  She looked over at Ethan in the shadows of the backseat. His blue eyes always sparked as if he knew a dirty little secret that he was dying to tell, and his five-o’clock shadow just barely kept him from having the kind of baby face that made men look eternally young.

  The thing that drove her craziest about him was that she could never tell if he was serious. Even now, he looked as if he was about to laugh. And okay, this was kind of funny, them getting caught in the act by one of her very own colleagues, but did he have
to look that way right now, when they’d just been talking about the darkest time of her career?

  Life was just a big cruel joke, and all he could do was laugh at it.

  “I guess that doesn’t explain why I still feel like I’ve gotten drunk on you and want more,” he said.

  “Why do you always look like you’re about to laugh?”

  He looked confused. “I do?”

  “Yes, right now, you look like you’re in on some secret joke.”

  He made a face. “I haven’t a clue what you mean. I don’t mean to make light of this, though it is kind of…bizarrely funny.”

  “See, right there. You just looked like you were going to laugh.”

  He shrugged. “I guess that’s just my natural expression.”

  “Well, it’s unnerving.”

  “I think the stress is going to your head a bit. Why don’t I drive you home?”

  “That’ll be convenient for you, won’t it?”

  “I am hoping you’ll invite me in for the night, if that’s what you mean.”

  Nicole opened her mouth to protest, but the truth was, she didn’t want to be alone tonight, and she desperately wanted to feel Ethan against her, inside her, again.

  And easy as that, she decided.

  “Okay,” she said. “Come back to my place tonight, but I’m driving myself. I’m not leaving my car here.”

  “I’ll follow you,” he said, an odd expression crossing his face.

  “Fine.” She opened the door and got out, grabbed her purse from the floor of the car, dug around for her keys. “I’m parked two rows down,” she said, pointing. “Left side, a white Honda Civic.”

  Nicole hurried to her car, her skin cold suddenly in the night air. Without Ethan’s heat to warm her.

  The more distance she put between them, the clearer her head was, the less overwhelmed by desire she was. But at the same time, she felt that magnetic pull in his direction. She wanted to turn and run back to him, fling herself in his arms, press her body against him.

  The sex they’d just had was the most intense thing she’d ever experienced. Her body still tingled from the pleasure of it, and she still reeled from the reality of the whole thing.

  Ethan most certainly had no worries about proving his manhood or his prowess or whatever. He was amazingly, profoundly, unbelievably good. Even in the backseat of his car.

  She got in her Honda and started it, then pulled out when she saw Ethan waiting behind her. As she guided the car out of the lot and turned toward home, she allowed herself a moment to register just how far off the deep end she’d gone.

  Careening off at full speed. And she still hadn’t bothered to slam on the brakes, even as she was coasting midair toward the water.

  It was so unlike her, she could hardly recognize her own actions. She felt as if she’d been possessed.

  She had been possessed. By Ethan, of all people.

  And now he was coming to her apartment.

  He was going to spend the night and the idea excited her to no end. Made her press harder on the gas pedal until she was pushing the speed limit, until she was more than the five miles an hour over it she knew she could be without getting a ticket.

  She needed a night like tonight. She didn’t quite know why, and she wasn’t going to question it. She needed it. And she needed it with Ethan. Tonight she would go wild, and she’d just have to worry about the consequences in the morning.

  6

  ETHAN WAS NOT GOING TO question his luck.

  He knew how close he’d come to completely losing out on the rest of this night, and he wasn’t going to take any risk—especially not getting arrested—that might screw it up.

  He followed Nicole home in his car, possessed by that same aching need that had compelled him to climb onto her balcony and reinvent himself as a glorified stalker. He couldn’t imagine letting her out of his sight. So he followed closely, aware all the time of her presence only a few car lengths away.

  But what the hell else could he even do after that raging lust that had possessed them in the club and had swept them off into his backseat in a frenzy of nakedness and crazy desire? The sex they’d had was the most intense of his life, but also too short, and not nearly satisfying enough.

  That was the thing about sex. It normally left one fully satisfied for a little while—at least fifteen minutes. And here he was feeling as if he hadn’t yet gotten any satiation, as if instead of satisfaction, that amazing encounter had only left him needing more.

  Was Nicole his addiction?

  If so, why hadn’t he felt it so strongly before?

  Maybe there really was something to that potion, or maybe…maybe they were just incredibly overdue for this night.

  In the morning, surely he’d feel satisfied.

  They parked their cars in two spaces in front of Nicole’s apartment building, and Ethan looked around for signs of the bat-wielding neighbor. He’d forgotten until the police officer mentioned it about his broken taillight, and he was surprised he’d managed to talk his way out of that little situation with Nicole. No, scratch that—not surprised. If she was as brain-fogged as he was, it was not so hard to believe she could dismiss the issue, even if her neighbor had alerted her to the fact that a guy in a BMW had been lurking outside her apartment.

  The coast seemed to be clear, but he wondered belatedly if he should park somewhere else in the event the crazy woman recognized his car and beat it within an inch of its life. But if he tried to explain to Nicole why he couldn’t park here, he’d have to admit to having been at her apartment already today. Which, well, could put a damper on the night, to say the least.

  He took one look at her standing outside his car now, her skimpy skirt and top hugging her curves, and he decided to hell with the car.

  Dangerous curves indeed.

  He got out, locked the BMW, and followed her up the walkway to the building. She didn’t speak, didn’t even look back at him along the way. It was almost as if she was having second thoughts…or as if she wasn’t sure what to say.

  When they were inside her apartment, she switched on the light and dropped her purse on a table near the door.

  “So this is the inner sanctum,” Ethan said stupidly. As if he didn’t already know what the place looked like from having peered through the balcony door earlier.

  God, he was a freak.

  Nicole kicked off her high heels and left them lying on the foyer floor, so he followed her lead and did the same. Maybe she was one of those people who didn’t allow shoes in the house.

  “I’m not much of a decorator,” she said as if apologizing for something.

  He looked around at bare white walls, a haphazard assortment of furniture, and a lonely-looking framed print of Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss that hung on the wall over a tired black leather sofa. And he bit his lip to avoid making a joke. Definitely not the time for his warped humor.

  “It’s…nice.”

  “Oh shut up. It looks like a bad excuse for a bachelor pad.”

  “Well…”

  She pulled off her top, and then pushed her skirt over her hips and let it drop to the floor. “There are other things I’m much more interested in than decorating.”

  Oh?

  His mouth went dry, and whatever tiny bit of restraint he’d mustered vanished.

  He had no recollection of closing the distance between them. There was only the feel of her flesh in his hands, the silken space where waist met hip, her tongue licking at his, their breath mingling, the hard resistance of the wall where he pinned her.

  Hands fumbling to remove his clothes, extracting a condom for the ready, a gasp and a rush of pleasure as her hand found him and caressed.

  He was lost in her and lost in the raging desire. Light cast across her bare breasts took his breath away for a moment, and he felt himself growing dizzy. He bent and kissed her there where light met flesh, tasted the salt from her perspiration after dancing in the hot nightclub, plunged his hand between he
r legs and found her wet with desire.

  Ethan dropped to his knees, licked her, buried his tongue in her, licking and sucking and savoring her. He looked up at her, looking down at him, and his cock throbbed with the desire to be inside her. He’d never had a woman put him off as long as Nicole had, and her power to do that had also given her an incredible power to arouse him. No, actually, she’d always had the power to arouse him as no other woman could, but having her now after so long not having her was dizzying.

  He felt both weak and unstoppable at the same time.

  He felt as if he could move mountains with his dick, she aroused him so.

  The sensation was almost like feeling in control, but not quite. He desperately wanted to have some control over the situation, some sense that he could have a say over his destiny where Nicole was concerned, but he feared a greater force was calling the shots here. And for now, he was willing to let himself go with that uncontrollable force if it meant having Nicole.

  He pushed his tongue farther into her, savoring the sweet, musky taste, savoring the slippery wet feeling against his mouth, as her juices dampened his face. He coaxed her further and further until she squirmed her hips out of his grasp and grabbed him by the hair to pull him back up to her.

  Then she dropped down herself, slowly, her gaze locked on him and a sexy smile playing on her lips. She trailed kisses down his belly, over his hip, and down his thigh, teasing around his cock, letting her fingertips tickle his balls. And then she found the head of his cock with her mouth, took it in oh so slowly. He sighed with pleasure, sagging against the wall.

  She worked him over with her tongue, her lips, her hands. Stroking and licking and coaxing him to the edge, then pulling him back. He was so mesmerized by the sight of her beautiful face next to his cock, he could hardly breathe, but then she’d do some indescribably good thing to it and he’d have to gasp for air.

  When his legs were nearly shaking and he feared he would fall down if she pleasured him any longer, she placed a soft kiss on the head of his dick and looked up at him with her eyes all soft and seductive.

  “I want you,” she said. Her voice, breathless and low, spoke volumes as she slid a condom on him.