Jump The Line (Toein' The Line Book 1)

by McFarland, Mary

  “This Robin you keep mentioning would be who?”

  “He’s my brother,”I say, confused. “I mean, isn’t that why you’re here? Looking for him?”

  He doesn’t answer. It’s a time-tested weapon used by every cop I’ve ever known. That, or answer questions with another question, which he does.

  “Are you concerned Robin is in trouble?”

  I opt for partial truth. “He’s been . . . missing,”I say,“since Monday.”

  “Ah, I see.” Slowly, he reaches beneath the table.

  “You got a tatt?”I ask, edgy, nervous, trying to pull away.

  “You want to see it,”he says, a wicked-bad gleam in his sexy green eyes.

  “Maybe,”I say, letting him haul my legs to him, aware I’m anything but in control.

  “How old did you say Robin is?”

  “I didn’t,”I say, leaving my legs entwined with Aidan’s—as if I could do anything about it now. “But I’m worried. I’ve always looked out for him.”

  “Has he called?”

  I soak up Aidan’s crooked Elvis smile and the press of those hard muscled calves against mine beneath the dinette. “Yes. I think it was—” I start to tell him about Robin calling me when I’d ran into Brick Verbote’s bathroom, after looking at pictures of Ang’s mauled shoulder. “I—I don’t remember when, not . . . exactly.” As part of my promise to God to do better, I don’t want to lie to Aidan. But I’m also not giving up Robin to a LEO.

  He tilts his head and gives me another of those cocky sideways questioning stares. “You know,”he says,“I recall advising you not to insert yourself into this investigation. If you, ah, fib, or do anything to interfere, I meant what I said: I’ll charge you with obstruction.”

  Hmpf! The remark, which brings back memories of Aidan’s rude cut on my harem costume, should piss me off. It doesn’t. I’ve had time to digest his lecture about being at risk if I put myself in Megalo Don’s path, so I’m no longer pissed. Why should I be? He cares about my safety. That doesn’t mean, however, that I’m going to stop hunting for Ang. “I can take care of myself, Detective. I’m no child.”

  “I don’t need reminding,”he says, exploring my calves,“and I don’t usually feel like I have to ask permission when I want to kiss someone as badly as I do you.”

  “No?” I steal another look at his body. He’s tall, his legs too long to be stuck under my tiny dinette table, but that’s to my advantage. Leaning back in my chair, I tease his ankle with my foot. “Well, then, you may kiss me,”I say, inhaling sharply, my foot roaming up Aidan’s thigh, exploring. Watching his face, I realize how wrong I’ve been. It’s official: he wants me. I wasn’t a complete idiot for trying to seduce him in his Buick.

  “Do you mind?”he says, bending and taking off his shoes.

  Size thirteen—big feet. I likethose clunky shoes. I nod, smile. In the dim rods of light shining into my living room from my kitchen, I see his desire when he gazes up at me. “Why would I mind?”

  But I do. I’m suddenly afraid. He’s not one of those cops who came banging our door in Goshen. The ones with thin mustaches hiding bad teeth and insecurities I was too young and poor to recognize. Men who believed themselves insulated from those they came to arrest, they had overweight bodies, wore their gun belts too tight in all the wrong places, and had carping wives who hated them after the thrill of screwing a cop wore off.

  No, Aidan Hawks isn’t one of them. He’s all man, and he’s got it together in ways those Goshen fools could never have dreamed.

  But that’s not the only reason why I’m scared. My feelings are running amuck, and I like it. I can just hear Ang ranting. You haven’t even Googled him. That’s the scary thrill. I don’t know him—yet. Is this what love-at-first-sight feels like? Does it demand that I trust someone I don’t know?

  I’ve had two boyfriends. One was a lust-crazed high school senior at Goshen High, the other a college pre-law freak who thought sex was like grabbing a sandwich from a campus vending machine. He’d devour me on the run and then discard me like an emptied cellophane wrapper.

  Not my type.

  I’m looking at my type.

  “More?”he says.

  “Yes,”I moan.

  When he stands, he wraps another fistful of my hair and leans down and kisses me, before refilling my Styrofoam cup from the coffee pot. “I meant do you want more coffee?”

  I giggle. “I thought you meant—”

  I’m feeling cozy, safe in the wispy pre-dawn light cocooning us in my tiny living room, like Aidan and I are marooned, alone together on a deserted island, wrapped in each other’s arms and awaiting an approaching storm. The feeling is a definite first for me. I stretch into his kiss like a lazy satisfied cheetah. Why has it taken this long to find someone I can trust? Feel safe with?

  “That iswhat I meant,”he says, sitting. Laughing, he reaches under the table and picks up my foot. Laying it back up on his lap, he pushes it against his crotch. “More?”he teases. “You want more? I got plenty.”

  “Yes, more,”I giggle, my heart thundering. My foot pressed against him, feeling like I’ve just won the lottery, I open my eyes wide and stare into Aidan’s. I’m proud I’m me, the Goshen Gimp, girl with her crippled foot lodged against the biggest . . . damn LEO in Ohio and Kentucky, probably the universe.

  I inhale deeply. Holding the moment and my breath, I want to stretch it into tomorrow and—forever. It feels that good, deliciously sinfully pleasurable.

  He’s pinching and squeezing my toes and—oh holy damn—I can’t catch my freakin’ breath. Little electric lightning bolts are striking my toes—my foot—and then traveling up, up, up. Shivers of pleasure tickling me as he explores my scars with his fingers, I bite my lip and whisper,“No one’s ever touched my foot like this.”

  “You’ve had surgeries?”

  “Many,”I say,“but it’s been years.”

  Aidan touches lightly on a scar and probes tenderly.

  I swallow and gaze into his eyes. There’s a story in my scars. I’ll tell you one day—if you’re around. Right now, just . . . keep . . . doing that.

  “I’d love to . . . continue, and I plan to, but I need to be honest with you,”he says. “I’m not here because of your brother, Alaina.”

  What?

  I finally manage to catch my breath. “So . . . what do you want?”

  “I want—”

  Aidan traces circles up the inside of my ankle, making me wish I’d not put on my jeans, or better yet that I could rip them off. “This,”he says, and pulls my foot slowly to his lips and plants tender kisses all over it. “I want this.”

  Thiswould cause me to jump up and run screaming from anyone else, but instead the tender act of his lips touching my foot sends thrills racing up my ankle to the most remote spot inside me. Far north of my throbbing core and worlds deeper, it’s the spot I’ve kept hidden from everyone, even myself. And when I realize what’s happening, I let go mentally.

  * * *

  Love-at-first-sight?

  Love.

  I do not ever entertain the L word for several reasons, one of them being I’m a Colby. The other? I don’t think I’ll ever find love, and—of course—I don’t believe in love at first sight, or love. Period. But against my will, I feel something working free. Like a tiny unwilling gravel, wedged precariously beneath loose stone on a mountain slope, it rips loose and dislodges.

  Before it can reach the surface of my addled lust-crazed thinking, I stop it and focus instead on the real reason for my excitement, the second best L word in English: lust. Or maybe it’s the first, I think, when Aidan nibbles my big toe, and a pleasurable throb like liquid fire shoots up my thighs.

  On fire! Girl on fire!

  I close my eyes and sink low into the belly of my chair. When he darts his tongue between my toes, tasting and licking my feet, the moist heat melts me.

  “I’ve come here for this,”he says, kissing and licking,“and for other things, which I’ll
explain—later.” Then sliding my big toe into his mouth, he sucks.

  The sensuous waves of pleasure drive me to the edge of wild abandon. I could—if he keeps this up—have an orgasm sitting bolt upright.

  “Aidan.” The moan I’ve been fighting back escapes. I scoot down deeper in the lap of my chair, giving him better access to my foot. “What are the‘other things’ you came for?”

  He pauses mid-nibble. “This isn’t the best time, Alaina—”

  A little frisson of fear nudges my bad angel into action. “No, seriously, what else?”

  “We need to talk about Angie Miller. You could be her killer’s next victim.”

  Could anyone have worse timing than this? “Why would anyone want to kill me?”

  “Nice polish,”he says, giving each toe more heated licks, ignoring my question.

  “It’s called‘Wicked Black Pomegranate,’” I say, wiggling my foot into a better position next to his lips. Dancers protect our feet but I also do it because, if I don’t take care of them, I won’t be dancing—or walking. So after paying my bills, I spend my last dime searching Wal-Mart for the most exotic nail colors I can find.

  “No one’s ever made love to my feet, Aidan. I had no idea I was this sensitive.”

  “Baby, let me teach you,”he says, pressing his tongue into my arch and running it up and down in a glissade of wet kisses and painful little nibbles that feel like ant bites. “Let me teach you.”

  His bold licking whips me past crazy. It’s evident he’s been around the block. I’m the amateur. “I’m down with that,”I say, scooting closer for more licks. “I’m an honors student, quick learner. What elsedo you know?”

  “I know I want to taste all of you,”he says. Kneeling in front of my chair, he unzips my jeans and slips them down over my ankles.

  “Are you sure you’re ready?”he asks. “We’re not exactly acquainted yet.”

  Oh hell, yeah.

  Or—maybe I’m not. He’s right. How well do I know him?

  Call me sleep-deprived, but it hits me with the force of a meteorite that I’m mostly naked in front of Aidan Hawks, a stranger. Yes, I dance naked in front of crowds of men, but this is different. I’m alone with a cop who just said,“I want to taste all of you.” I recall Ang’s photos, the gnawed shoulder and bite wounds shaped like feet. Who better to kill women in such a hideous manner? Who better to get by with serial murder than a cop? I yank myself up from my chair. Stumbling as I pull up my jeans, I yell,“Get away!”

  Aidan jumps to his feet, grabbing for the gun in his shoulder holster, hidden beneath his windbreaker. I’ve also spotted another gun slung high on a hip holster.

  “What’s wrong?”he says, looking for the trouble only I can see.

  I put half my living room between us and do a quick visual search for a weapon, but he’s powerful and ripped. Armed. If he wants, he can break me in two and munch on me the same way Megalo would Ang. I glance frantically around my apartment. My criminology textbook’s on the stand beside the couch. Won’t work: too flimsy. The pizza box’s where Stoke tossed it in the middle of my living room floor. No help there, either. Then I glance toward the hallway, where I stashed my backpack after Stoke left.

  My shiv. I could make a headlong dive for it—

  “Alaina, what’s wrong?”

  —but I can’t make it past Aidan.

  “If you come one step closer, I’ll—”

  Reaching me in two steps, he grabs my shoulders and shakes gently. “What the fuck’s wrong?”

  “Stop or I’ll scream!”

  “Okay, okay,”he says, releasing me. “But tell me what’s wrong.”

  “How do I know you’re not Angie’s killer?”

  He tosses back his head and laughs. “I’m a cop. Hellfire, Alaina, do you seriously think I’m Megalo Don?”

  Hellfire? Would a serial killer use such a cute curse word? Liking it, I decide to keep it.

  “Well, you said you wanted to taste all of me, and I . . . thought because you like to nibble feet—”

  He grabs me and folds me in his arms. “Oh, damn, girl, I can’t believe—okay, okay, I get it. But I’m not him.”

  But Berta has conditioned me well, and my old inability to trust claims the surface of my emotions for its turf. I push from his arms. “How do I know?”

  “Because I’m not. You’re going to have to trust me. I’m here to protect you.”

  “Protect me from what?”

  The feel of his arms around me, the concern in his voice relaxes me. And there’s also his possessive tone: I’m here to protect you. No one’s ever protected me. Sure, Stoke’s my self proclaimed Robin Hood, but he’s a joke. Robin also talks like he’d defend me, but he can barely take care of himself: I’m his protector. With a jolt of sweet delirium, or complete stupidity, I think: I’ll never have to worry about protecting or defending Aidan. If he says he’s here to protect me, he can. My face crushed against his chest, I feel his heartbeat, smell the reassuring scent of male—strong protective alpha male. It feels good.

  “Is this the behavior of a sex-crazed killer?”he says, reaching down and kissing me with such tender passion my knees turn to Jell-O.

  “If so,”I say, yielding up my lips,“I definitely want to die.”

  His kisses again turn urgent. His lips against my hair, his hands caressing the skin beneath my hoodie, he whispers,“Alaina?”

  “Mmm?”

  “I need to say this. But I don’t want you taking it the wrong way this time.”

  “What?”

  “I want to taste you all over.”

  “Ha-ha!” Nowit’s funny.

  When he lifts me up off my feet and pulls me tight against him, I entwine my fingers around the back of his neck and pull his face to mine. Sucking his tongue into my mouth, I take long greedy kisses, and listen as he murmurs the words some guys use to lock down the hookup.

  “I want you,”he says, need clawing its way out with a husky moan.

  Me, too—I want you now.

  “God, Alaina, you’re so beautiful.”

  “Not as beautiful as you,”I say, sucking the skin on his face and exploring with my teeth and tongue.

  Our whispered words feel different. Good. Intimate. Not like the usual junk talk people use when they’re hookin’ up. He pulls my hoodie off over my head, his groin shoving into me, insisting. “I’ve never seen breasts like yours. They’re so artistically lovely, so—”

  “Shut up. I believe you,”I whisper against his mouth, but then stop so he can use his lips to show me how beautiful he thinks my breasts are.

  Bam! Blue spot lights of pleasure burst inside my head, like Radio City Music Hall’s lights, only brighter. I feel the rhythm of Liz Hollis’ bon chiki bon throbbing deep inside my core. The rhythm picks up, its intensity increasing triple-time.

  —Yes! At long damn last, I’m doing the samba with a man who fucking knows how.

  Aidan’s covering my lips with his, his tongue seeking mine, deeper. Deeper. This isn’t kissing. . . . It’s . . . breathing together, sucking the breath from each other’s lungs, the fire from each other’s soul. Maybe he’s trying to suck my soul out of me, but do I care?

  “Ready?”he asks, pulling my naked legs tighter around his waist.

  This is it, I think, envisioning Aidan making love to me, my legs tangling with his as I try to keep kissing him. “Fuck me,”I beg. “Here. Now. I can’t wait.”

  Chapter 35

  “Baby, what’s the rush?”Aidan asks. “Let’s make it last.”

  We sink to the carpet. I grab his windbreaker. “Take it off.”

  He tosses it on the floor and unstraps his shoulder holster, lays it carefully aside.

  I like the leather’s wicked whisper, the sound of the holster coming off.

  I rip off his shirt. Is it Christmas? It’s wicked to even think the thoughts racing through my mind, my gaze raking across his chest, the muscles begging to be licked, kissed, bitten. I scan both his should
ers. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. I was wrong. There’s no“Mom”tattooed on those arms, steely hard and ripped, but on his right shoulder, there’s a fine looking tatt: crossed swords with“King’s Road”in blue and gold letters above them. Looks like some kind of coat-of-arms.

  “Wow,”I say. “Big gun.”

  “Funny,”he says.

  What? He doesn’t like gun jokes? I reach reflexively to touch the gun holstered on his hip. “I was referring to this one.”

  “This gun—instead—okay?” He presses my hand against him, diverting my attention from the gun on his hip to the bad boy in my hands.

  “This isa lot of hardware.”

  “You gotta know your hogs,”he says,“to get the right one.”

  This time we both laugh.

  Maybe it’s the intense chemical attraction, or maybe my excitement’s overheated because of the effect of the guns and leather. Maybe it’s knowing Aidan isn’t like my high school and college experiments, or maybe it’s knowing—as I’m discovering—he’s all man. Whatever is causing me to feel this excited, I want. I’ve never experienced anything like it, not with my high school boy-o or with my pre-law, one-minute wonder boy. I’m on fire, every nerve ending in my body strung taut with desire and begging.

  After he takes off the hip holster, I remain kneeling, watching Aidan remove his slacks. Seeing him, minus every stitch of clothing except for black socks and a holster strapped to his calf—holy shit!—is another exquisite shock.

  “Damn, another gun,”I say, admiring. This makes three.

  “Holy mother of—”

  I whisper, my throat hoarse as I take greedy inventory of his nude body.

  Kneeling, he scoots back against the wall and folds his long legs. It’s a lewd pose, actually, but Ican’t wait any longer, and he knows it. We’ll never make it to my bed.

  “Aren’t you taking that off?” I gaze at the black leather calf holster. “I don’t want it to go off while we’re—”

  “The only thing going off at some point,”he says, pulling me to him—“is me”—licking my face and kissing me—“and you.”