by Jayne Blue
“Beckett!” I cried. Oh, he was so good. I was so full.
I bucked and writhed, trying to find the friction my body craved.
“Never again,” he whispered.
“Mmmm.” My brain a fog of rising desire, it took a moment for me to realize what he’d said. I opened my eyes. Beckett grunted as he redoubled his efforts. More. Faster. Yes!
“Say it,” he said.
“Oh ... Beckett.”
With his free hand, he brought one of my knees up and gently guided it to the side, spreading me even wider.
“Don’t ever do that again,” he said. “Don’t run. Not from me.”
“Ah. Oh, Beckett. Don’t stop.”
“Say it!”
My vision became a kaleidoscope of color as my pleasure built. I could feel Beckett’s tide rising right along with it.
“I won’t,” I gasped. God. How could I even think of being anywhere but here? He was asking for a promise. It wasn’t fair.
“Stay,” he whispered.
“Yes!” I screamed. “Oh God. Please. Don’t stop. Don’t ever stop!”
“You’re mine,” he whispered. “God. Lila. You’re mine.”
Oh, I wanted to be. With everything that I was. I wanted to be in Beckett’s world and shut out my own. Lightning crashed behind my eyes as my orgasm took hold. It gutted me, spread me open and laid me bare. At the center of it was Beckett.
I knew what this was for him. A claiming. He wanted me to be his. I wanted it too. I wanted my desire to carry us both away. Take us somewhere where it could be just the two of us.
As I crested down, reality crept back in. I brought my knees up and got my legs around Beckett’s waist. I drew him deeper inside me as his balls seized. He threw his head back and grunted as he came. I wanted it. All of it. All of him.
I shouldn’t have stopped that morning. I knew it. I should never have looked back. But Beckett Finch drew me to him and I didn’t have the strength to turn away. As he spent himself and sank into me, I kissed Beckett’s temple and held him close.
I should have run when I had the chance. Now he was branded on my heart as I gave my body to him. God help me. God help us both.
Somewhere, I knew my phone was ringing. Tommy wouldn’t stay away forever.
Chapter Twelve
Beckett
Drunk. It’s the closest word I can use to describe how I felt around Lila. I was nearly drunk with her. Her touch, her scent, her taste. It drove away all the dark shadows in my mind and filled them with light and something else more dangerous. Hope.
She seemed a little tipsy herself as she pressed her cheek against my chest. It took some doing, but we’d both managed to put ourselves back together in the confined space of my front seat.
“Mmm,” she moaned. “That was …”
I couldn’t help but laugh. Her lips were swollen from kissing. Fresh desire speared through me as a vision flashed of her other swollen lips. God. I was done for. Wrecked.
My radio squawked, pulling me out of the bubble. I’d only been gone an hour, but my whole damn life had changed.
“Boss?” Static framed Crane’s voice as I pulled the radio off the dock and turned the volume down.
“I’m here, Crane. Heading back.”
“Okay ... just checking.”
“What’s up?” Crane wouldn’t bother with a radio call unless he needed something.
“Porter pulled over Emmett Poole again.”
I sighed. Lila smiled and slid out of my arms, leaving a cold space. “He got behind the wheel again?”
“Yeah. He’s putting up a bit of a fuss.”
I didn’t like Crane’s tone. He was the master of understatement. I had a sinking feeling that his “bit of a fuss” meant somebody had already gotten hurt.
Lila smoothed the hair from her eyes. Her face glowed with a thin sheen of sweat. My dick tightened thinking of how she got that way. This one sweet taste of her wasn’t nearly enough. The woman was under my skin now. I wanted nothing more than to take her back to my place and start all over again.
“Where?” I said, locking eyes with Lila. A little blush crept into her cheeks. God, I loved that too. I wanted to take her places, stretch her boundaries, make her mine over and over again.
“Corner of Buena Vista and Sunrise. I really hate to bother you ... but he’s drawing a crowd.”
“On it,” I said, clicking off.
“We should get back,” Lila said. “You can just drop me back at my car.”
Alarm flared through me. Part of me wanted to cuff Lila to my side so I could make sure she didn’t try to leave again. Fuck it all. The vision of that plan made me shake with lust. She saw it in my eyes and her blush deepened. We were done for. Both of us.
“Are you going to stay?” I asked. Maybe I didn’t have the right. I didn’t care.
Lila let out a hard breath. I put the car in reverse and circled back to the highway. “I shouldn’t,” she said, her voice barely more than a whisper. This was bad. I knew it. Whatever had spooked Lila in the first place was still there. She hadn’t given me a single clue as to why splitting in a hurry felt like her only option. I just hoped now she had a real reason to stay.
We drove in silence for a few minutes until I pulled into Jiffy’s and angled my cruiser behind her car. I turned to her.
“You should stay,” I said. “I want to see you again. Whatever’s got you scared ... you can tell me. You can let me in.”
She reached for me, tracing my jaw with her fingertips. Her touch singed me, spurring my desire for her all over again. It seemed I could never get enough of her now.
“Oh, Beckett,” she said. “You’re one of the good guys. Aren’t you?”
It was an odd question. I hadn’t thought of myself like that. People threw out words like hero around me. People on the outside had romantic ideas of what a SEAL was or even a cop. They had no clue. Still, the way Lila said it wasn’t like most people. She seemed scared. She wanted to trust. Who or what in the hell had hurt this woman that made her think she should run?
“Yeah,” I finally said. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
Her eyes flicked over my face. “What if I hurt you?”
I went to her, drawing her against me until my lips found hers. I quieted her doubts with a kiss ... at least for now.
“Just promise me you’ll be there when I come to the store later. I’ll be off by eight. I want to see you again.” Her nipples pebbled beneath her shirt as she pressed against my chest. It was going to take everything in me just to see straight after this.
She didn’t answer. We pulled away and I leveled a hard stare at her. “Lila. Whatever it is. Promise me you won’t take off again. Not until ... I just … I’ll be over by eight.”
A beat passed and it felt like an eternity as Lila worked something out for herself. Finally, she settled on a sad smile. “Okay, Beckett. I’ll be there. I promise.”
A weight lifted from me. Until then, I hadn’t realized I’d stopped breathing. My radio chirped again. Lila grabbed her purse from the floor, gave me a quick peck on the cheek and slid out of the car. I gripped the steering wheel hard, hoping to God she wasn’t lying to me. I also knew it didn’t matter.
* * *
Emmett Poole made more than a fuss. When Deputy Porter pulled him over, Emmett had gone for a gun he kept under his seat. He’d fired into the pavement, but a chip of concrete ricocheted and left a deep gash over Porter’s eye. An inch lower and he might have been blinded. By the time I arrived on scene, the paramedics were loading Porter into their rig. Emmett sat cuffed in the back of Crane’s cruiser.
“Son of a bitch,” I muttered as I walked up to Crane. “He’s going away for this. Does he get that?”
Crane shrugged. “He doesn’t seem to care. I’d like to say he was out of it, but Emmett keeps saying it serves us all right. Spouting off about his constitutional rights and government conspiracies. I don’t know. Maybe Judge Dupree will see his way clear t
o having Emmett committed to a hospital instead of jail time.”
“Maybe that crazy old bastard needs some jail time!”
It took another hour to clear the scene and get everyone heading back home. I swear, enough days like this and I’d start missing the desert. It was after eight by the time I got back to the station. I’d promised Lila I’d be at her place by eight thirty. No chance I’d make that. Little icy fingers of panic snaked around my heart hoping she wouldn’t use that as an excuse to bail on me again. I had half a mind to send a cruiser through there just to make sure her car was still parked behind her shop.
I sent her a text telling her I’d be another hour. She sent me a quick “ok” back as a reply and it had to satisfy. I sent Ramona home and looked at Crane’s report. Deputy Porter made off with six stitches above his eye and word came that Emmett had been admitted to the hospital on a seventy-two-hour psych hold. There was nothing left for me to do.
I checked my phone to make sure Lila hadn’t tried to cancel. No further word from her, but I had three missed calls from Henny. My heart sank and I hated myself a little for the things that went through my mind. It would be so much easier just to put off calling him back. For the first time in a long time, my own demons had quieted. I didn’t feel the pull of the desert or the men I’d lost.
But Henny was still part of my team. I couldn’t turn my back on him, no matter what. The office was quiet so I shut my door and punched in Henny’s number. It rang four times and dread filled me. I sighed with relief when he answered, but that dissipated as soon as I read his tone of voice.
Henny was in trouble. His voice was distant, flat, like he’d already given up on something.
“Sorry I didn’t call sooner,” I said. “You hangin’ in there, man?”
Henny took a pause. “Yeah. I’m sorry to bug you. I know what it does.”
“You’re not bugging me. We’re brothers. Remember?”
“I shouldn’t have called. It’s nothing. I was just having one of those days.”
It was my turn to grow silent. We’d made a pact with each other. If things ever got so bad, we’d reach out. Brady had broken that pact and now he was dead.
“You got some time off coming?” I asked. “You wanna head back to Crystal Falls? You can crash at my place for a bit if you want. You know I’ve got plenty of room.”
I heard a crash on the other end. It sounded like maybe Henny had stood up and knocked something over. “No. You’ve got your life set up. You don’t need my bullshit dragging you down.”
“Henny, what’s going on? Is it your girl? Work?”
He let out a bitter laugh on the other end of the phone. “Nah. It’s nothing like that. It’s just that time of year, I guess. Maybe you’ve already forgotten.”
My heart turned to stone. He thought I could forget? May 1st. May Day. Sure, I hadn’t wanted to consciously remember, but that date was only a week away. It would be eight years to the day we’d lost our entire team except for me, Henny, and Brady. It had been an ambush. Faulty intel on the location of an American doctor we’d been brought in to save. So many what ifs.
“You know I can’t forget. And I wouldn’t offer to have you come stay with me if I didn’t want you to.”
He grew silent. For a moment, I thought he’d hung up on me. But the seconds kept ticking off on the call. “How’d you do it?” he said, his voice breaking.
“Do what?”
“How’d you get over it? What we saw. What happened? Connor died in my fucking arms, man.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. No. I wouldn’t conjure it. Connor had thrown himself over Henny when the bullets started to fly. I’d done the same for Brady. I wouldn’t let the nightmares back in. Not today. A few minutes with Lila had helped me quell them. It felt like shitty karma that one phone call from Henny brought them rushing back in. Then I felt like an ass for even thinking that. It wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t mine either.
“You just keep moving forward, Henny. That’s all any of us can do. One foot in front of the other.”
“Yeah. Yeah. I hear ya. I’m gonna go now. You don’t have to call me back. I’m all right.”
“You don’t sound all right.”
“Well, you don’t know me anymore.”
I flared my nostrils and did a quick ten count. It was a shitty thing for him to say. “I know you, Henny. And you know me. My offer stands. You know where I live. I’ll leave a key under a loose brick in the flower bed by my back door.”
“Thanks. Thanks, man. I mean it. And I’m sorry if I sounded like a dick.”
“You didn’t. Just take care of yourself.”
Things got quiet on Henny’s side after that except for the steady sound of his breathing. He said goodbye one more time then clicked off. I held the phone against my forehead for a minute, hoping I hadn’t just made things worse for him. It seemed like I couldn’t win today. At least, nowhere but with Lila.
I put my hat on the hook and shut off the lights. She was waiting for me. For now, it was the only thing that mattered. The night shift came on and I headed out to my car. Crane stood beside it, waiting for me.
“You fishing for overtime?” I said.
Crane smiled. He put out a cigarette, crushing the butt beneath his heel. Then he stooped down to retrieve it and chucked it into the dumpster beside him.
“Heading home?” he asked.
“Been a long day. Porter’s okay?”
Crane nodded. “Chicks dig scars. He’ll have a doozy.”
“Great. Way to put a spin on it.”
“I heard you had another run-in with Garnett,” Crane said. It was a clunky segue and my heart dropped. It meant Crane had something he wanted to get off his chest. Something he knew I wouldn’t like.
“”You got something you want to talk to me about?” There was no point dancing around it.
“Look, boss.” Crane turned to face me head-on. “I’m not one to get into your business. I hate even bringing this up.”
My throat ran dry. This had the makings of an ambush. I knew immediately I was right. Crane had been lying in wait for me. Ramona had probably put him up to it or he’d drawn the short straw.
“Say your piece.”
Crane took a deep breath then launched into it. “Garnett Morris is a loon. Everybody knows that. Don’t put too much stock into what she has to say.”
“Hmm. Except about Lila? Is that what you’re getting at?”
Crane shrugged. “Well, most of the folks in town see the coincidence. She sets up shop and then Garnett’s place gets trashed. Lila claims she didn’t see or hear anything except everyone knows she was right across the street the whole time. Now, I’m not saying she had anything to do with it, but I don’t know. It just might take folks a little longer to warm up to her, is all.”
“You’re right. Garnett is a loon. Lila didn’t have a damn thing to do with the break-in at Garnett’s. And there’s no reason to think otherwise. What possible motive would she have?”
“Look, don’t get bent out of shape. People just worry about you. That’s all. Like it or not, they kinda love you around here. Nobody wants to see you get hurt.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “And you’re worse than my damn mother, Crane.”
He put his hands up in surrender. “I’m sorry. It’s just, what do you really know about this chick? Addy said she was ready to leave town yesterday. Now she’s back at the shop.”
“Because I convinced her not to let Garnett’s crazy ramblings run her out of town. If I’d have done that, I wouldn’t be here either. You remember how much crap she gave me for being an outsider six years ago? She pretty much threatened to kneecap your uncle for hiring me. She came around. Garnett’s a busybody and a bully.”
Crane nodded. “Point taken. I get it.”
“And you can tell Ramona and whoever else is asking you did your job. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m gonna go home.”
It was a lie and he knew it. Even if he h
adn’t, half the town would know I spent the night at Lila’s from where I parked my car. The hell with it. Let them. I felt Crane’s eyes boring into my back as I slipped behind the wheel and drove away.
Chapter Thirteen
Lila
Moonlight stabbed through the thin shade casting Becket’s sleeping body in a bluish glow. He slept on his stomach, his strong back rising and falling with his rhythmic breaths. I’d spent the last three nights here, sleeping in his bed. Though he wouldn’t say it, I knew he worried about the wagging tongues of Crystal Falls if they’d seen his truck parked too many times behind my shop.
Every inch of me was sore. The good kind. Beckett brought out every dark, erotic urge I’d ever had and left me gasping for more. He’d taken me deeply, completely. In his bed, bent over the kitchen counter, on all fours on his living room floor. Most recently, I’d straddled him on the porch swing he kept in his backyard. A few grazing steers from the adjoining cattle farm raised their giant black eyes with mild interest as I rode Beckett while the stars came out.
I put a light hand on Beckett’s back, tracing the trident tattoo. He twitched, but didn’t wake. He told me he’d been sleeping more soundly lately than he had in years. He said I was the reason why. I leaned forward and kissed his shoulder. The thin sheet slipped from my hips as I started to stand.
“Mmmm.” Beckett stirred. His lips curled into a half-smile as he reached for me, snaking his arm around my waist and pulling me close. Oh God. My body was tuned to his. Just that slight touch sent waves of heated desire flooding through me. I was sore and spent, but he had me growing wet for him anyway.
“Oh no you don’t,” I whispered. “I don’t even know if I can walk straight after that last one.”
Beckett’s wicked laugh sent a thrill through me. “That’s what I was hoping for, baby. Come back to bed. We’ve got time.”