by Liz Kelly
“Goddamn it!”
Before he turned around to try to chase her down, he made a quick, jerky turn onto Country Club Drive, just to make sure she didn’t have an accident in the damn parking lot. There wasn’t but a handful of cars left in the lot. And would you believe it? The first one he spied was hers.
The jolt he felt course through his body was different from any other kind of relief he’d ever experienced. It was visceral. And in the time it took him to pull over and exit his vehicle, it threw water all over his sense of indignation and just about shut down his brain altogether.
His senses, on the other hand, had gone animalistic—alert and finely tuned. He noticed the Audi was not running, that the interior light was on, and the driver’s seat was adjusted back from the steering wheel. Piper’s head was bent low, maybe looking at something in her lap. As he drew close, he smelled coffee and citrus. Heard the dull beat of music. He caught himself just before he grabbed the door handle and yanked it open, realizing that she’d be startled if he did.
He stopped everything and simply stared. Thinking.
Then he slowly backed up, got in the cruiser, and drove back out of the lot.
Two hours later, Vance finally got what he’d been waiting for. Piper’s car came out of Club Drive and turned to head out of town.
He rubbed a hand across his smile. All was right with the world. In fact, he thought as he started the cruiser and put it in gear, everything was just about fucking perfect.
He let Piper drive out of the neighborhood and down a stretch of secluded road before he flipped on his siren. Probably scaring the shit out of her, he thought. But he’d make it up to her. He’d happily make it up to her.
He pulled over behind her, shut down the siren and lights, and took his time exiting his vehicle. Her window was down as he approached the driver’s side, and as he set his forearm on the top of her car and leaned over with a big grin, she turned and slapped him in the face.
“What the—?”
“That is not even funny,” she shouted.
He rubbed his cheek, thinking it was a little funny. He tried to stifle a grin when he spoke, realizing she’d just played into his bad cop hands. “Neither is assaulting an officer. Now I’m going to have to ask you to step out of your car and keep your hands where I can see ’em.”
“Vance!”
“There is no Vance,” he said, wagging a finger at her. “You’re dealing with Officer Evans now. Small-town cop with no jurisdic—Oh. Wait a minute.” He held his hands out to the sides, jostling them toward the ground where he looked around at his feet. “Would you look at this?” He gave Piper his best dumb-shit, southern-boy smile. “I am actually standing in a whole lot of jurisdiction.”
“Good Lord,” Piper muttered.
“So,” he said, sauntering forward and placing his hands on the edge of her door, “instead of flashing all of your fancy business cards around, I suggest you do exactly as I say, or you’re going to find your big-city ass in a whole lot of small-town trouble.”
“Are you even on duty?”
“Would I be driving that thing if I weren’t?”
Piper’s round cheeks drew taut, her plump lips flattening into a tight line. Vance watched as all the sparkle evaporated from her eyes and the soft, gentle temptress, who’d mesmerized him all day, turned into her job.
“Officer Evans,” she snapped, her southern accent disintegrating with all hints of playfulness along with it. “It is highly unconscionable to use the power of your position to pull over a citizen without just cause.”
Yeah, that bullshit is so not gonna fly.
It was like Friday night with Kong all over again, and there was no way in hell he was letting her pull that shit again. Ever.
“Piper,” he said, leaning in, his voice low. “Get out of the car—now.”
Her seatbelt snapped back. The Lawyer Beaumont did her best to stare him down as she exited the car, but Bad Cop did not relent. His emotions had been strung out too far over the last several hours and, on top of that, he shouldn’t have to work this damn hard to get the girl to do what he wanted!
“Hands up against the car.”
She stood firm, arms crossed over her chest, glaring at him as if those baby blues had the capability of turning him to stone.
He stepped forward, spinning her around to face the car. She gasped as he gripped the bare flesh of her shoulders, the contact immediately shooting energy from his hands to his chest.
Goddamn.
He closed his eyes and forced himself to take a deep breath. The lush citrus perfume of her hair and body mingled with the pine that surrounded them. The heat of the day had given into the comfort of night, and he found himself on a dark, secluded country road—a ball of raging desire battling back the caveman who longed to break through and take over.
He wanted Piper back. The soft, docile woman whose touch soothed and eased him. He wanted to coax her playful spirit to life. Remind her who she really was. So in measured increments, he released the hold on her shoulders until nothing but his fingertips were left to swirl lightly over the tender flesh. As she continued to yield, he let his fingers begin a slow trail, glancing oh-so-gently down the length of her arms, feeling goose-bumps rise underneath his touch. He let his fingertips glide around the circumference of her wrists and then scratched his nails lightly along the tops of her hands. He felt resistance drain from her fingertips, the tension melting from her arms, leaving them soft and compliant as his fingers closed around her wrists.
He allowed his chest to bump against her shoulders as he drew her arms out to the side and then on up, encouraging her hands to settle on top of the car. He stretched his palms flat over the backs of her hands, his bare forearms resting on top of hers. Every nerve ending from his knees to his shoulders stood alert at the soft, supple feel of that mere twenty-four inches of skin-to-skin contact.
Dear God, what would it be like to lay his naked body against her soft, pliant flesh? He sucked in a breath through his teeth, the very thought of it making his blood heat.
His voice was rough, jagged, and barely audible as he forced it through his dry throat. “Spread your legs,” he ordered, his foot instinctively feeling the space between hers. His lower body stepped closer and he straightened. Then he whispered over the slight hollow where firm shoulder transformed into tantalizing neck.
“This is just a game, Piper.” He wondered at what had turned his sweet, unselfish classmate into a fractious lawyer. “Play along with me,” he coaxed. He kissed the spot below where his lips hovered. “No real cops. No real lawyers. Just you and me, playing a game.” He wrapped his fingers in between hers and gripped her hands. “Okay?” he whispered against her ear. Her breathing had become labored, and when she nodded, her curls caressed the side of his face. He turned his head, sinking his nose into her hair and growled.
He twisted her around to face him, his lower body leaning in, pinning her against the car. He caught her face between his hands and kissed her lips as he asked, “Have you been drinking?”
She nodded her head as a submissive squeak erupted. He continued to kiss her lips, the corners of her mouth, and her jawline as he interrogated her.
“Wine?”
“Ah-humm,” she purred.
That made him smile. “Good wine?”
“Mmm.” She tilted her head back to give his mouth better access to her neck.
“Jesus, Piper,” he whispered against her neck. He pressed his weight more fully against her while his fingers caught themselves up in her curls. His blood was burning him from the inside out, raging with a desire to feel her beneath him. He untangled his hands and spread them, gripping the top of the car. His mouth sought hers, his lips wanting more, his body hard and firm pressing up against her, then easing back. “Open for me,” he said against her mouth, his tongue playing at the seam of her lips. Her lips parted enough to let his tongue slip through and he groaned as the moist warmth assaulted his senses. That first s
lide of tongue against tongue blew a fuse collapsing his mind into darkness, while the sensation of it reached out and cupped his balls.
Piper’s body unfurled, awakening and responding to the masculine energy that sought to plunder. Her breasts had never felt more sensitive, fuller, or more near bursting with the longing for large hands and demanding lips to caress and soothe the ache within. Her hips released and expanded, her pelvis offering itself up for communion. She was aware of the softening between her thighs, of everything opening and growing damp. Her scent a welcoming call to the strong, demanding, undeniable force pressed so dearly against her body.
Her jaw went slack at the first touch of his tongue, her mouth relinquishing all control to his pleasure. She sighed beneath his groan, seeking to cater to his every whim. Only her hands were tense, clutching the shirt at his sides so that he could not pull away. So that he could not run.
So he could not run.
The trembling started in her heart, and Vance must have felt it the moment she realized what was happening. How he was so in tune to her she couldn’t figure, although perhaps the tensing of muscles as the panic began to consume her was his clue. Instead of open and compliant, she felt her body closing, as if every internal organ was bracing itself for the shock of disappointment.
“Fuck,” she heard Vance whisper over the top of her bent head. “Piper? Baby doll? What the hell just happened?”
“I’m sorry,” she said, shaking her head. He gripped her chin between his fingers and raised her face so she’d have to look him in the eye.
Those green orbs worked hard to bank his lust while they searched her eyes for an answer. “You were right there with me. I know you were. Why the sudden change?” His face masked nothing. He was dumbfounded and earnest in his inquisition.
If she had any thoughts of trying to shrug this off, looking at him now set all that aside. Vance was not a boy who could be put off with some flimsy excuse. He was a man—with a man’s heart, a man’s needs. He stood before her full of integrity, and she needed to honor that and match it fully.
She licked her lips and blinked back the emotion threatening to puddle in her eyes. “I was,” she agreed. “I was right there with you.” She laid a hand against his chest, stroking her thumb over his heart. “And it felt really good.” She swallowed. “But then I remembered…back at the bar…the night you…ran.”
“And?”
“And…I don't know…I sort of went into a panic attack, afraid you were going to do it again.”
Vance’s mouth hung open in exasperated disbelief. His hand lifted toward her only to fall and slap against his thigh. He looked away, his body huffing in frustration. And when he looked back, his features were strained and tense. His eyes shifted across her face. Finally, he took a step back and said, “Go home.”
“Vance—”
“Piper, it’s late. The reason I stopped you was to thank you for taking the time to sober up before driving home. The rest of this,” he said, waving a hand between them, “is clearly nothing but a train wreck. I’ve already apologized for running out on you—five fucking years ago—and I refuse to continue to be kicked in the shins for whatever some asshole cop did to you back in Ohio.”
Piper’s lungs constricted and the top of her head tingled as she watched him turn and stalk away. She searched for something to say that would stop him, but her mind was void of all words. Just empty space between her ears and a deep sense of grief saturating her body.
But then Vance turned of his own volition and stomped back to her. Her heart clung to a bit of hope until he started in. “You never should have been a lawyer,” he said with such vehemence it caused her to shrink back. “That is not who you are. You are soft and sweet, kind and gentle. That lawyer you channel? She’s nothing but a simmering pot of anger ready to boil over at the least provocation. You changed the entire course of your life to pay back one fucking cop. Well, I am not him.” He stalked off to his car, pulled a U-turn, and left her standing on the side of the road.
Alone.
Piper assumed she was in shock. During the entire ride home her mind remained alert but glaringly empty, cut off from the rest of her body, which grew wearier by the mile. She pulled into her building’s lot around midnight and saw Officer Stevenson sitting on the front steps. Her first thought was to rip him a new one, but as Vance’s words, “nothing but a simmering pot of anger” echoed through her, she fell deeper into fatigue.
Leaving everything packed in her trunk, she dragged her purse out of the passenger seat and made the trek to the front steps, surprising herself by climbing the stairs and sitting down next to the giant.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly, then leaned her head against his huge arm and sobbed like a baby.
Chapter Seventeen
To say Piper suffered through the week from hell was putting it mildly. Her schedule was jammed with court appearances in Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill as all the rowdy and ridiculous senior shenanigans caught by the cops during graduation week finally landed on the court dockets. Most of the infractions were minor, nothing that a hundred other students had gotten away with the same night of her clients’ unfortunate incarcerations. Public intoxication, public urination, possession—that one pissed her off the most—disturbing the peace, failure to heed first warning, blah, blah, blah into a relentless menagerie of cases she’d manage to get dismissed or reduce to fines while in her sleep.
The interesting ones, including the very titillating public sex charge where her clients were caught with their pants down humping loudly in Duke’s Rubenstein Library, would take a little more of her ingenuity. Especially since her clients weren’t just having sex surrounded by rare books and artifacts, but were alleged to have spread out specific materials and had sex on top of rare books and artifacts. Apparently they were history majors.
At every court house, Officer Stevenson stood outside the front doors as she entered and was there when she left, watching until she drove off in her car. Sometimes he was in uniform and sometimes he wasn’t. They never exchanged words. Most of the time there was simply a brief nod, although by the end of the week Piper was surprised to be on the receiving end of a wink and a smile more often than not.
She didn’t understand why the man was following her, because if his intention was to do her harm or argue about the justice system, Piper surmised he would have done it Sunday night when she was most vulnerable. Instead, he’d placed a heavy arm around her while she cried, letting her tears soak through the side of his shirt. She had found a measurable level of solace there on the steps beside him, and she felt that solace whenever she laid eyes on him now.
Her minions sensed her tension at the onset of Monday morning, subduing their light-hearted banter and stepping up to volunteer in big ways and small. They were eager to help, so she let them, pleasantly surprised by their vast and varied capabilities. By Friday, she was asking their opinions for more than simply directing a teachable moment.
Thursday night she headed to her childhood home to have dinner with her widowed father. Thursday evenings were their time together, and usually she treated him to a new recipe she would prepare in his kitchen and leave him with a new dessert treat or two. This week, she surprised him with Chinese carry-out, explaining about her busy week and not about her inability to empty out her car’s trunk of her baking supplies and facing the havoc those memories would inevitably bring.
It was a long, exhausting week, arriving at the perfect time to keep Piper’s mind off of Vance and the three-day roller coaster ride he’d sucked her into. So when her last case ended at four thirty Friday afternoon, she decided to head into the office instead of going home. Home was quiet with no distractions. At home she might have to actually consider the things Vance had said. The office had a long string of emails and messages demanding her attention. The office provided distraction from the insidious thoughts bumping up against the outer edges of her mind.
***
After leavi
ng Piper by the side of the road Sunday night, Vance poured himself three shots of tequila and slept through the night. He was grateful for the dull, nagging ache in his head the next morning because it kept him from thinking too much on his five-mile run and then while he lifted weights alone in the high school’s training room, which also served as his office. He finished up some paperwork left over from baseball camp and then headed home to shower. Since he had spent much of the previous week lamenting over blond curls and a well-rounded ass, he dressed himself in casual business attire and decided it was time to get down to work.
The scene he walked in on at the recently furnished offices of Evans & Evans Investments was exactly the kind of thing he needed to get his head back in the game.
“That is not your job,” Pinks was saying, his index finger tapping the center of the desk where Tansy Langford sat. “Your job is to sit here, answer the phones, and look pretty in case someone walks in off the street.”
Whoa, Pinks. Vance’s eyes shot big and round as he clasped a hand over his laugh so he would not disturb the trouble getting ready to explode in front of him.
“What are you?” Tansy questioned. “Some kind of Mad Men wannabe? Sit here and look pretty?” She stood and placed her hands flat on the desk, leaning toward Pinks. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Nice potty mouth, Yacht Club. Not exactly the image E&E Investments is trying to project.”
Yacht Club?
“As if you and your lacrosse stick add any value around here.”
“Since E&E will be sponsoring Henderson’s first annual lacrosse clinic with our name plastered across the back of every T-shirt, we’ll just see what kind of value add my lacrosse stick can be.”
Sponsor what?
“Maybe if you knew how to handle your dick as well as your stick, Lolly wouldn’t have dumped you.”