by Michele Hart
“Did you hear anything else about the robbery at your place?”
“Nope,” he said, eyeing his next slice of pizza for total annihilation. “The police didn’t even tell me he bailed out. I guess one must go nosing around to gain any information, like you did.”
Elissa took a sip of the oaky wine and recalled Donald Fisher’s rap sheet, committed to memory. There wasn’t much to memorize. “For having driven a car set up for crime, he had no serious arrest record. Career criminals have career records.”
“Maybe he’s a great criminal. Never been caught.”
She remembered how Fisher had engaged the gun’s safety, had known she was alone. He seemed unwilling to harm her, just merely annoyed at her presence.
“Low chance of that at his age. The true criminal mind starts young and on small things, then escalates. The absence of a prior record means he’s new at it, most likely landed in crime due to desperation or opportunity, not a lifelong inclination to it.”
Greg issued a huff. “The car says the opposite.”
That’s what bothered her. Something organized lurked in the background, sheer as a ghost and not yet seen.
Greg chewed and swallowed, a suspicious glint in his eye. “It surprises me you’re so interested.”
“Well, yeah, aren’t you?”
He gave a breath of resignation between bites. “Yes, it bothers me. I put a security system in the restaurant this week. Tomorrow is the Bay Cook-off, and if the break-ins at the restaurant and my house were crimes based on the competition, time’s up. It’ll all end tomorrow.”
Elissa sat back into the couch, feeling satisfied by a marvelous dinner, unsatisfied with the clues of the case. Something lurked on the edge of it all, some puzzle piece out of sight.
You never see everything. And half of what you do see blinds you.
Abandoning her plate, she asked, “Did you ever discover anything missing in the restaurant after the door was found open?”
Greg shook his head. “Nothing missing. We’ve replaced everything open, saw no irregularities, nothing seemed odd.”
“Hmm....” she pondered. “Whatever they were looking for wasn’t there.”
“They who?” he asked, as he rose, tossed his paper plate into the empty pizza box, then tossed the box onto the kitchen counter.
“The enemy. The bad guys, the perps.”
“The what?”
“The perpetrators,” she clarified, knowing she probably should stop defaulting to law enforcement terms. It was her true honesty forcing its way out. She wanted to level with him. But couldn’t and shouldn’t.
She displayed a Cheshire grin. “Too many crime shows.”
“I remember you saying, justice turns you on.” Greg leaned against her, his dark eyes leering. “Maybe you just think too much, Miss Crime Show.”
“I think I do. Think too much.”
He began to nibble on her neck. “Doesn’t that hurt after a while? All that thinking?” His lips tickled tender flesh.
“Depends on the subject,” she replied, loving everything he did to her. “There’s a subject or two that makes me ache.”
He moved to the pulse in her throat and placed tiny sucking kisses there. “Am I involved in any of those subjects? Subjects that cause you ache?”
If only she could tell him how much ache he gave her. The last two nights in her empty bed made her think of him, though she’d fought it valiantly. That was the bigger problem of the two, not so much that he made her ache when he was there—and he did that with stunning proficiency—but more so that he made her ache when he was gone.
That was way too much power for any man to hold over her. And all he needed to exercise that power with ease was wandering hands, no fight from her at all.
Still, she saw no reason to resist Greg when he hovered over her, wielding his deadly masculinity and picking at the buttons of her blouse, looking so damn darkly handsome with his black bangs falling down into his sensuous features.
Greg’s more dangerous than an armed bank robber. A bullet in the gut can be fished out by a good surgeon. A slash to the heart by his dagger would be harder to heal and far more scarring. They don’t make bullet-proof vests for souls.
He’s so dangerous, he turns me on to the point of mindless absorption.
Aren’t I training to deal with dangerous men? The temptation in his melty pecan eyes turning to dark chocolate says there’s just no reason to say no to all that sensuality when he hovers and commits acts of pleasure on me like this. Honestly. What’s a girl to do?
“Do you know why I think you’re fascinated with cop and law shows, Elissa?” he asked, nuzzling her hair with little moans of enjoyment, his breath warming her all over her. Her fingers threaded into his black silky hair, so soft and sensuous in its texture. He slipped his hands under her cotton top and caressed her breasts in slow long slides.
“How interesting, I get to hear your psycho-analysis of me. What do you think it is, besides just plain good citizenship, that makes me watch cop and law shows?” she asked, very curious for his answer while she slowly unbuttoned his shirt.
Greg rose from the couch, picked up the remote and turned off the TV they no longer watched. Then he took up her hand and drew her from the couch into his wake, and headed straight into the dark bedroom. In half-shadow, he gave her a gentle push onto the mattress.
Elissa laughed, entertained by his sense of play, and she scooted up the mattress to the side table, and lit the rose candle put there in case of an electrical loss, a common thing in Florida during thunderstorm season. Then she leaned back on her elbows and watched him in the weak candlelight and the indirect lighting of her livingroom stretching through the bedroom door, backlighting him.
He was so handsome in soft light with his toasty coloring, his dark eyes caressing her as he kicked off his shoes. He was a creature of shadow moving through the room, appearing to take visual accounting of his available resources. Just seeing him in her own bedroom set her to a simmer, caused a wave of excitement to wonder what that sparkle in his eye meant and what he wanted to do with her.
“You have control issues,” he stated, as he peeled away the shirt he wore, revealing his hard stomach with muscles like river rapids disappearing into his jeans. Her eyes went onward to ride the curves of his weight-built chest sprinkled with just enough black hair to run her fingers through, just enough to scrape her breasts when he’d made her scream with the most tremendous climax.
His attention fixed on her again, he wore a small devious smile, as if he knew at that moment she relived the mind-rocking stroke of his body into hers.
“Control issues?” she asked, intending a more carefree tone, but instead sounded a little doubtful of herself. “No, I don’t think it’s that. I never have a problem when you pick up my hand and entice me into a bedroom.”
“Oh, I’ll not talking about who leads in dancing. I’m talking about bigger issues, what comes in and out of your life, how you seal your world, not allowing anything new to break in and surprise you.”
Elissa couldn’t deny that. “No more so than others. It’s not an unhealthy thing.”
“You want to limit your challenges, control your world by making yourself the only one with input. And you fear anything that would compromise your control. I’ll prove it to you, that you have control issues.”
“Prove it to me?” she repeated, as she watched him stroll into her bathroom and flood that room with light. She loved the way he moved in jeans. In the reflection of the mirror, she saw him yank the pantyhose from the shower rack, the pair she’d worn to work and had been joyful to remove two minutes after she was laid-off. He returned to the bedroom, his expression so playful.
“I don’t think they’re your size. You’re much taller than me.”
He picked up the pair of scissors from her dresser, the ones she’d used to trim her bangs this morning, postponing a haircut, and an amused smile danced over his face. “I prefer a lighter shade.”<
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Withholding protest, she watched him cut the legs from the stretchy elastic waist … and she knew exactly what was coming. She’d never done that before, but Greg made everything look and feel exciting. He pressed the off-black stockings to his nose, bringing out a sexy groan and flirty eyes. “They smell like you. I like that.”
It’s so warm in here.
“If we were to play Cops and Robbers,” he proposed, and he stretched the butchered hosiery like rubber bands, flexing his muscles nicely. The naughty gleam in his dark, melty eyes made her throb. It wasn’t hard to figure out what he had cooking in his delicious mind. “Would you wish to be the cop or the robber?”
A bit anxious, Elissa sat up on the mattress, boosted herself into a backward scoot. “What a loaded question that is, like, do you still beat your wife?”
“How so?” he asked, joining her on the bed, acting all innocent when he was such a clever dog. He tugged on the stockings like doing so meant nothing particularly noteworthy. Every snap of the hose sent a chill of the unknown into her like an x-ray blast.
Suddenly, the unknown was the most exciting thing in the world.
And Greg grew more dangerous.
“If I say, I want to be the cop, then you’ll swear that’s evidence of a control issue.”
“Well,” Greg pretended to think as he tugged on the stocking legs again, a silent threat and promise. His intent was in his eye. “The connection does seem clear.”
She backed up a bit again until the wooden slats of her headboard met her back.
“If I say, I want to be the robber,” she sent her eyes to the stockings in his hands, “then you’ll… um… arrest me.”
The conqueror posture in his shoulders, his ability to overcome her with his size alone, well, if she was determined not to reveal her decade-long experience with martial arts. Oh, God, the thought of him overcoming her made her body ache.
Dominance all about him, Greg pressed forward, leaning toward her. “So, what will it be, Elissa? Are you a cop tonight, playing out a control fantasy? Making me correct?”
Greg reached up, over her shoulder, and he tightly knotted one stocking over the wooden crossbar of the headboard behind her.
“Or, are you a robber tonight,” he snapped the remaining stocking for emphasis, then he tied it to the crossbar above her other shoulder, “an attempt to prove you’re not a control freak with trust issues?”
The smile fell from her face. “I don’t have trust issues,” she replied in self-defense, but her doubt made her admit she didn’t trust herself all that much to walk away from Greg when she needed to. “I trust people… Penny, my mother.”
Greg sat on the side of the bed again. His big brown eyes flashed her way again, but they weren’t as playful this time. They carried a puppy-dog sadness. “They’re the only ones you let into your hermetically sealed world, Elissa. What gamble is that? You trust me, don’t you?”
The smile rose back to her cheeks as he began to peel the white-eyelet cotton top over her shoulders, leaving her sheer bra untouched, and he placed a soft kiss on her bare shoulder.
“I trust you, Greg,” she muttered through the soft storm of sensations his mouth brought her body, feeling dizzy from his intoxication.
He tilted her chin up and bent to kiss her lightly. “You trust me only with parts of you.”
“Those were the parts I thought you were most interested in.”
“Well, yeah, at first,” he confessed, his sexy smile deployed. “And just when I start to uncover the better parts of you, you run away, avoiding any intimacy that allows me past your preset barriers.”
Gaining his feet and tugging her to hers, he slid her soft white eyelet sleep shorts down her legs, leaving her in her bra and panties. Then he gently put her in his embrace, his hands sweeping her back, caressing her bottom, sending blissful titillation through her. The heat coming off him kept her newly disrobed body from suffering the raw air.
God, she loved the feel of him against her.
“If you trust me, then be the robber, Elissa,” he whispered into his ear. “Surrender, and I’ll confine you and show you the error of your criminal ways.”
The bare wall was right behind her, and Greg backed her into it, propped his arms over her, subliminally trapping her. His smile was outrageous, arrogant, and 100% naughty, thrilling to the dominant position he was used to. That’s what he wanted, her official surrender.
Elissa stepped from under his arm, grabbed his wrist, and spun it behind his back, giving him a gentle push into the wall and drawing out an umph! His brown eyes were big with surprise.
Oh! The gushing pleasure of surprising him!
Pressing him against the wall, Elissa leaned up to his ear, and whispered, “You’re under arrest, Citizen Moretti, charged with the seduction and attempted unlawful confinement of a federal officer.”
Greg laughed. “Ew… federal… sexy. I did it. I did every bit of it.”
Elissa propped his palms against the wall, kicked his feet further apart for a proper body search. She really didn’t own a pair of handcuffs. “Don’t move your hands from the wall. You have the right to remain silent.”
From behind in standard frisk form, she started at his wrists, swept her hands over his hairy arms in a lingering caress to his hard shoulders. The contact rippled through her like red-hot radiation.
“I don’t wanna remain silent. I wanna tell you everything I want to do to you. I want to tie you up and make you babble my name, until you beg me, and want me, and need me.”
Elissa’s heart moved in excitation of his fantasies, then the response moved downward, making her burn a little more to feel her thighs locked around him.
“What were you planning to do to me, Moretti, when you crawled through my bedroom window?”
“Savage, caveman things,” his deep voice confessed. “Out-of-control things.”
“You beast.” Fighting her smile was harder than taking down her karate master.
Attempting a stoic facade, she pressed up against his back, brought her hands under his outstretched arms, and she fanned her fingers over his hot shirtless chest, sent them wandering downward over his torso, drawing a lust-filled groan from him, an incredible masculine expression of pleasure that drew wetness to her thighs. The sandalwoodsy smell of him aroused her into spikes of hunger, a craving for melding into him.
The hair of his body excited her to no small degree, tickling her palms. His hard muscles under her fingertips pulsed with strength. The candlelight danced off his tan flesh. She couldn’t see them from behind, but her fingertips felt his nipples stiffen at her light caress.
“You have the right to an attorney.”
“Don’t call him in until you’ve worn me out.”
They snickered together until her hands slid to his loose jeans, and he took in a big breath of surprise, his stomach muscles seized tight. She slipped her hands right into the waistline of his trousers and tugged on the elastic of his boxers in play.
“Oh, yeah, right there. I’ve a weapon in there just a little bit lower, Officer.”
She drew her hands from his pants and followed the line of his zipper, cupping him through the jeans, appreciating the hardness beneath the metal teeth. She felt herself getting wetter touching him. “I do need to disarm you.”
He groaned every word. “I’m very dangerous. You shouldn’t rest until you have my weapon under your control.”
“Oh, I intend to put your weapon under my control.”
“Lousy cop.”
They laughed again for a few seconds until she unzipped his pants and slowly pushed them down his hips. Very helpful in his detainment, he kicked the jeans from his feet and far away, leaving himself in black boxer-briefs that clung to thick, hairy tree trunks of thighs. Oh, God, she wanted to stroke his thighs. She hadn’t thought a perp-frisk could be this exciting.
Elissa bent and placed her hands on one ankle and rode up his leg slowly, soaking in every little strike of lightni
ng, enjoying his fierce vocal rebellion as though he stood there propped against the wall only at his greatest test.
“You like to be in control too, and you thought you'd talk me into being the robber to prove I wasn’t the control freak between us.”
“You surprised me by choosing to be the cop, but it is a full admission to needing control.”
“Ew! Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t.”
“It was.”
Reaching the top of his thigh with a deliberate explorative touch, she said low, “Nope, no weapon here.”
She did the same to his other leg, dragging her fingers over every tender spot of his leg, his calf, the inside of his thigh, feeling him tense just a moment. The heat of his flesh made her hands sizzle. “No weapon here.”
Rising, she slid her hands up the front of his thighs to take him into her hand through the black cotton.
Greg collapsed a little, his forehead pressed to the wall. “Elissa.”
“Officer Baker.” She felt his hardness through the cotton, heard another catch of his breath along with her own. His groan grew deeper, longer, more demanding, and he kept getting harder.
“Officer Baker, be careful with that. It’s loaded.”
She snapped the band of his boxer-briefs, and then she pushed them down, and he lifted a foot to keep him unencumbered in his arrest. And her hands slid back upward the back of his legs for her search, cupping his ass for another warp of want.
Then she gave his ass a hard slap. “That’s for being a relentless tease, you villain. You incorrigible dreg of society.”
“I like it when you talk rough like that, Copper.”
Elissa giggled again, released him from her frisk, and stepped under one arm to show up inches before him, between his propped arms now, her back against the wall, her mouth only a short inches from his. His smile was hungrier.
“A loaded weapon, huh? I can’t let you keep that. You’re a dangerous man, Moretti. What other crimes are you guilty of?”