For a long moment she didn’t speak. Just lay beside him, listening to the steady beat of his heart, soaking in the warmth of his hand. Finally her pulse slowed and her throat loosened. “I’m really sorry.”
James traced lazy circles over the curve of her ass. “For what? I’m the one who tied you up.”
“For ruining everything. For freaking out. For telling you how I felt. For being naked in the grass in the middle of nowhere and still being unable to get your pants off.”
He nuzzled his way through her curls to her ear. “You want my pants off, babe?”
Lana’s body went from dejection to shocking arousal in a heartbeat. “God yes. I feel very naughty lying naked in the grass in the dark. I could be persuaded to do all sorts of kinky things. But just…not with my hands restrained.”
Before her brain had even registered that James had moved, he had flipped her over, tugged her ass up in the air and spread her legs with a thick thigh.
“All fours,” he rasped as he smoothed his hands over her rounded cheeks, sending little quivers of lightening straight to her core.
Lana pushed herself up and bit her lip as she listened to the sound of a belt buckle being undone, a zipper pulled down, boots and clothing thudding on the grass.
And then the unsaintly crinkle of a condom wrapper.
Moments later, his bare chest was pressed tight over her back, his hands on the grass beside hers, his cock, thick and heavy between her thighs.
“This is new.” She wiggled her bottom against him and giggled when he growled. “Kinky.”
“I aim to please.”
“Although, this isn’t really the kind of kinkiness I had in mind. To be honest, I don’t even know if it makes the kinkiness cut.”
James chuckled. “Resources are limited, as is my self-control. Right now, this is the best you’ll get. After we take the edge off, I’ll take you over to the trees and show you just how kinky I can be.”
Lana turned her head and kissed his cheek, wiggling against his hardened length. “A little helpful advice. Your aim is off. Too far outside. I think you should go left and try for a central position. Once you’re in, you’ll score big.”
His body shook with laughter. “Whose game is this anyway?”
“Yours, I hope.”
James licked his way around the curve of her ear, his breath hot and moist on her skin. “Mine.”
His hand slid over her hip, dipping into her center and then out to spread her moisture over her clit. Her eyes slitted closed at the startling sensation and the heady feeling of being totally surrounded by his heat and his intoxicating scent of fresh soap and worn leather.
“Not wasting any time, are you?” she mumbled between panting breaths. “No buildup. No teasing. No foreplay.”
“What do you think we’ve been doing all evening? Every time I looked at you in those leathers I wanted to throw you down on the grass and take you right there. And then you…on the motorcycle…” His breath caught. “I need to know you’re ready for me because you’re gonna take me deep, and you’re gonna take me hard, and you’re gonna take me rough and dirty. And when you come baby, you’re gonna come screaming my name.”
Lana sucked in a sharp breath. She’d thought watching James on the racetrack, his taut, muscular body wrapped over one thousand pounds of speeding metal, was as good as foreplay could get. But his words took her arousal over the top.
His gentle touches became firmer, more insistent. Lana’s body tensed, spiraling near and nearer to her peak. “That…would…be…now,” she rasped.
James pulled away, and then his hands were on her hips, digging deep. He slid through her wetness, pulling her back as he pushed inside, until he was deep, deeper than fingers could go. Lana’s eyes watered as the overwhelming fullness eased into exquisite pleasure.
With a groan, he moved within her, sending tremors through her body. Then he eased out and thrust back in. Her sex clenched around him and she gritted her teeth against the urge to scream or whimper or both.
Holding her steady, he pounded in and out, surging like the tide within her, filling her ear with whispers of all the things he wanted to do to her—dirty things, naughty things, wicked things. Each thrust took her closer and closer to the edge, until she was coiled tight and ready to explode.
“Now,” she growled.
With a chuckle, he slid his hand over her hip, seeking out her swollen clit. One stroke. Two. A pinch. And then the world sheeted red as pleasure surged through her body like white lightning, spreading outward to her fingers and toes.
Before the waves subsided, James tightened his grip on her hips and hammered into her until he became impossibly hard, swelling against her sensitive tissue. With a low groan, he came inside her in long heated jerks.
For a long moment he rested on top of her, his body like a warm blanket. Finally he eased out and knelt behind her, pulling her back into his chest. Lana turned and rested her cheek on the soft mat of hair and listened to the drum of his heart as she soaked up the comfort of his embrace.
“How did you find this place?” she said softly. “It’s so beautiful. Quiet. Peaceful. Private. It’s like a little oasis in the middle of nowhere.”
He stiffened and his arms tightened around her. “Christine, the woman in the picture, was a recreational pilot. We came out to Surrey quite often so she could keep up her flying hours. We flew over here one time and it stuck in my mind.”
Lana looked up at his stark expression. “How did she die?”
Although his gaze slanted down at her, his lips stayed closed. After the intimacy they’d shared, his silence hurt, but then she hadn’t shared her past with him—at least not the things that mattered.
She rested her hand on his chest. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”
He drew in a ragged breath and stroked his hand down her hair. “I want to tell you. It’s just…hard. But you should know because she’s the reason I left and why I don’t know if this can work.”
Lana’s blood chilled but she forced herself to stay calm, still. Listen. Not one of her strongest abilities.
His voice rough, he said, “She was my partner when I was a beat cop, and then my lover. And then we got engaged. It was against the rules, but we thought we would sort it out after we were married.”
“I can’t believe you broke the rules,” Lana said lightly.
“First and last time. I learned my lesson the hard way.” His voice tightened and on impulse Lana turned and wrapped her arms around him.
“Keep going.”
His fist clenched and unclenched against her back. “One morning we were getting ready for patrol and she got a text. I picked up the phone to hand it to her and saw who it was from. He was a homicide detective who’d been fired for…unethical behavior. He wasn’t a friend of ours and no longer part of the department so I read the text.”
Lana’s heart squeezed and she inhaled sharply. She didn’t need him to tell her what it said.
“He was married.” James’s voice broke. “He had kids. That made it ten times worse for me. There aren’t many things left in the world that have meaning, but to me marriage is one. I didn’t ask Christine to marry me lightly. I thought of it as a lifetime commitment, an enduring partnership and an unbreakable bond. You don’t run away from a marriage. If something is wrong, you try to fix it. You don’t break the trust.”
Lana’s stomach clenched and nausea roiled in her belly. He could not have said anything to make her feel worse than she did right now.
“I didn’t tell her I saw the text,” he continued. “I asked her if she was having an affair. She lied to me. I didn’t pursue it. I wanted to give her time to think about it. I trusted her to tell me the truth.” His arms squeezed Lana tight, and she closed her eyes to fight back the tears of her own betrayal.
“You can’t stand lies,” she whispered, more for her benefit than his. Lost in his memories, he didn’t respond.
“Just before noon we wer
e called out to an abandoned building. Someone had reported a fire. Christine raced inside and ran up the stairs. Protocol was for us to go together. One on point and one as backup. I told her as much, but she was still angry at me for accusing her. She said she needed space. She went up alone.”
His voice caught in his throat and for a moment Lana feared he wouldn’t be able to continue.
But he did. Gritting his teeth, he said, “It was a trap. Retaliation by a drug gang for a bust that had happened a few days before. They wanted to kill a few cops to send a message. Didn’t matter who we were. I had to fight four of them off before I could get to the stairs. But by then it was too late. They’d been waiting for her.”
“Oh God.” Her arms tightened around him. “Oh, James. I’m so sorry.”
James drew in a ragged breath. “I blamed myself. I knew better than to get involved with my partner. We couldn’t be objective, professional. If she hadn’t been angry she would’ve waited for me, let me take point. I would’ve been the one to die. That bullet was meant for me.”
A chill shot through Lana’s body. Suddenly, the grass that had seemed so soft prickled her skin and the cool air became cold. “She made her choice.”
“Easy to hear. Hard to accept.” He kissed her forehead. “I knew I couldn’t go through that again, losing someone I cared about. I thought it would kill me. And I cared about you…”
“So you left,” she whispered, “sooner rather than later.”
He rested his chin on her head. “I was offered the assignment and I jumped at the chance. There was an undercover operative already in place, although the DEU didn’t tell me who he was, and he’d come up with a story to get me in that night. I watched you sleep for hours and tried to decide if I should wake you. In the end I took the coward’s way out. Probably the first time in my life. I didn’t think I would be able to go if I had to look into your eyes and say goodbye. And I was worried you would change my mind. You can be very persuasive.”
Lana gave a low laugh. “I could say the same about you.”
He pulled back and cupped her face between his hands. “I told myself it was better that way and I was saving you from getting hurt later on. But really it was about me protecting myself. I’m sorry, for all that’s worth now.” His lips brushed over hers and then he kissed her soft and sweet.
“You grovel well,” she murmured, trying to lighten the mood. She needed time to process what he’d said, instead of reacting immediately as she usually did. “I want to hear more groveling.”
His eyebrow lifted. “Groveling is done. I believe you told me you could be persuaded to do all manner of kinky things in the dark, and since this may be our last night together, we’d better get started.”
Last night together? Lana didn’t think so. If she was willing to risk her heart, he damn well better be prepared to risk his. He had run out on her once already, but time had passed and he’d changed. They both had. Hopefully his old-fashioned attitudes had changed too.
Turning to face him, she wound her arms around his neck. She would make this a night he wouldn’t…couldn’t forget. A night that would leave him wanting more.
“So…about those kinky things…” she whispered.
Chapter Sixteen
Bubbles “Angel” Bodine was a rough woman. Five foot nothing, with a tough, wiry frame, overprocessed, bleached-blonde hair, perma-tanned skin and piercing blue eyes, she sucked up all the air in Lana’s office and replaced it with nicotine fumes. She dressed biker. She looked biker. And when she leaned forward to rasp out her demands with an irritated growl, Lana wondered why Angel had bothered to have Ima Biker Bitch tattooed across her highly visible and very generous cleavage.
“Where’re my pictures?” Angel pulled the client chair closer to Lana’s desk.
Lana swallowed. “I got pictures of Rex with Portia, but unfortunately I dropped the camera and I haven’t been able to retrieve them yet.”
“Portia? That little two-faced slag has been after him since day one. You know how she got to be Hades’s mama? One day she called all the brothers down and lined them up…”
“Actually, I don’t need to know.” Lana threw up her hands in a defensive gesture as if she could physically ward off Angel’s words. “And it doesn’t matter. She’s been banished from Hades for throwing tacks onto the racetrack during a race.”
Angel snorted a laugh. “I taught her that trick, but I also taught her not to get caught. She’s stupid, as well as a fucking whore.”
Lana bristled at Angel’s language. Not that she wasn’t prone to swearing herself, especially when out drinking with Jackie, but she had limits and denigrating other women was one of them.
“I gotta get those divorce papers filed,” Angel said. “Rex is driving me fucking crazy. He hauls his sweaty carcass into my bed every night and tells me I gotta do my wifely duty. Wifely duty, my ass. There’s no fucking wifely duty when he’s been parading his dick around the Lower Mainland. You know what he gets when he wants ‘wifely duty’? He gets a frying pan to the head. I keep it under the pillow for when his one-eyed dog comes sniffing around.”
“Um…I don’t really…”
On a roll, Angel ignored her. “He’s been no husband to me. He turned my greenhouse into a grow-op. Ripped out my petunias and replaced them with weed. Every flowerpot, every window box, every houseplant—weed, weed, fucking weed. My momma had a birthday and I had to give her a weed bouquet. I mean, don’t get me wrong. She likes a good joint before bed, same as anyone, but I would have liked to give her something with more color.”
“Sure. Color is good.”
“So you got anything new for me? Or do I gotta slap your face to wake you up and tell you to call me when you’ve got something for me to see?”
Lana swallowed hard. Although she had no great affection for Angel, she didn’t want to lose a paying client. And Angel had paid. First the retainer, and then the monthly bill, and then her expenses. No questions asked. “Actually, I have a lead about a new woman…”
She hoped Rex had a new woman. Kickstand had assured her Rex hadn’t been alone in his office last night or the night before, and while on guard duty he’d caught a glimpse of a tall redhead in a red dress leaving the clubhouse in the early hours of the morning.
“New woman?” Angel shrieked. “Bastard’s desk is still warm and he’s already got a replacement. No big surprise there. Can you imagine what it’s like being married to that two-timing scumbag? I got this voice from screaming at him all the time. ‘Where you been all night?’ ‘Who the fuck were you with?’ ‘Why you got lipstick on your dick?’ Doc says I cracked my voice box from all the yelling, and a couple of ribs too. You know what else I got from him and his wandering dick?” She scratched down below. Lana’s stomach clenched.
“Um…not really information I need for the case.”
Angel looked her up and down. “Pretty little thing like you musta had your share of salami. I’m sure you know what it’s like.”
Cheeks burning, Lana cleared her throat. “I’m sure I can guess.”
Angel gave her a few ideas of places to look for Rex and his new woman, and they chatted about the new greenhouse she was planning to set up once the divorce settlement came through.
“My baby girl is going to want for nothing,” Angel said as she shrugged her leather jacket over the six-inch shoulder pads on her bright orange, Harley Davidson brand spandex dress. “When the divorce is done, we’re going to move to a small town where she’ll never see a biker as long as she lives. She’ll go to the best schools and have nice friends. Somewhere pretty and wholesome. Maybe Kelowna.”
Lana’s stomach heaved. “Definitely don’t move there. Lots of bikers. Too many.”
Angel grunted and followed Lana into the reception area. “Like you would know anything about bikers. You look so sweet I wanna lick you all over. And lookit the fancy digs you got going on here.”
Lana smiled at the compliment. The renovated boutique architec
tural loft in the heritage building in Yaletown hadn’t been her first choice when she and Jackie decided to merge their PI practices, but, the minute she’d seen the exposed brick, high wood-slat ceilings, skylights and reclaimed fir flooring, she had been sold.
Derek, her houseboy/receptionist/wannabe PI raced around the glass reception desk to hand Angel her bill. Angel gave his young, lean, muscular body a slow perusal and grunted her approval.
“Is he man candy or does he actually work?”
Derek grinned. “Man candy. All the way.”
Lana snorted a laugh. He knew the score. Jackie made no attempt to hide the fact she’d hired him for his blond-haired, blue-eyed surfer-dude looks and nothing else. And nothing else was what she got. He was totally incompetent, lacking in any semblance of office management skills, but utterly charming with the clients and devoted to his bosses.
“Well, you got something right,” Angel said to Lana. “I’ll bet he keeps you busy after hours.”
She reached for the door just as a key scraped the lock. Derek and Lana shared a glance. Aside from Jackie, visible through the glass wall of her office, they were the only two people with keys.
The door swung open.
At the sight of a biker-booted foot, Lana sighed. She should have known. Who else would make an unauthorized and illicit copy of her office key?
“What can I do for you…Ice?”
James removed his glasses, then leaned against the doorframe, arms folded, one leg crossed over the other. He met her gaze and winked.
A thrill of excitement coursed through Lana’s veins. So the night in the field wasn’t their last night together after all. He’d come back for more. Lana Parker is a sex machine! She pumped an imaginary fist in the air and chalked one up to the seduction techniques she’d learned in romance novels.
Angel coughed nervously and James turned his gaze on the open-mouthed, wide-eyed, stiletto-booted woman in front of him.
“Angel.”
“Ice? What the fuck are you doing here?” Angel bristled and her face reddened. “Did Rex send you to spy on me?”
Barely Undercover: Legal Heat, Book 2 Page 16