by Ranae Rose
The sound of Wolf’s toenails clicking against the floor came briefly from somewhere else in the house – the kitchen, probably. But no reply from Henry.
Sasha’s ire started to rise, fueled by his silence, by the idea that he might be endangering himself by doing something stupid. For all his talk about curtains and peep holes and security, she wasn’t convinced that he wouldn’t do something stupidly brave.
“Henry? You’re scaring the crap out of me!”
After a few more quiet seconds, she seriously considered flopping onto her belly and army crawling out into the kitchen, where she’d be safely out of range of any flying bullets – hopefully. She wasn’t exactly built for tactical maneuvering though, especially without a bra.
She ended up sitting alone and fuming on the bed for another full minute before he appeared in the doorway.
She glared at him as a wave of relief swept through her. “I was afraid you’d left the house!”
He seemed unfazed by her expression. “I wouldn’t leave you like that.”
“Well…” She jumped up but couldn’t think of what to say first.
“Not without a weapon, anyway. Do you know how to shoot a handgun?”
She scowled. “No.”
The skin between his eyes creased, like her answer troubled him. “I’ll teach you. We can go to the shooting range the next time we both have a day off work.”
“How romantic.” Exasperation swept over Sasha like high tide. She couldn’t muster up any enthusiasm for learning how to shoot a gun right now – all she wanted was for Henry to stay close. “So what was Wolf barking at?”
Henry frowned. “I don’t know. A person or animal must’ve been moving around somewhere outside the house. He doesn’t bark unless something like that’s going on.”
“Are you sure?” She really didn’t want to believe that’d been the case.
He nodded. “I’ve had him for the past five years, since he was a puppy. Trained him myself. He’s a good dog.”
“Maybe it was just a cat or a loose dog,” Sasha suggested, because any other possibility was beyond creepy.
Henry didn’t stop frowning. “The house is secure. We can’t get careless, though – for all we know, Randy Levinson could be out there.”
She wasn’t surprised that his thoughts had gone in that direction. And she couldn’t put up much of an argument when the same thing had occurred to her. After all, whoever had killed the warden – whether it’d been Randy or someone else – was out there somewhere.
“I wish you’d put down that gun and come over here.”
He crossed the room and laid down the gun on the nightstand, but sat on the edge of the bed where the weapon was just an arm’s length away.
When she settled down next to him, he put one hand – the one that wasn’t near the gun – on her thigh.
“Sorry I had to leave you.” A low note entered his voice, and he breathed a ragged sigh. “I was so close.”
He was still hard – his jeans were still strained over his erection, barely covering him.
“Why don’t we pick up where we left off? It doesn’t look like it’d take you long to get close again.”
He made a sound that was half moan, half sigh. “I can’t let my guard down like that. Not now.”
“So what, we’re just supposed to sit here all night ready to shoot someone?”
“You go to sleep. I’ll stay up.”
She wrapped her fingers around his and squeezed, running her other hand suggestively up the inside of his thigh.
He sucked in a breath when her fingertips brushed the bulge tenting his jeans.
“We can wait a little while if you want to make sure Wolf doesn’t freak out again. But you can’t stay like this all night, and I think we’ve established that it’s not going to take long.”
He just shook his head. “I want you, but I can’t. Liam let his guard down and fell asleep and look what happened to him and Alicia. That’s not going to be you and me.”
His mouth was set in a firm line and she could practically feel stubbornness radiating off of him. As exasperating as his refusal to pick up where they’d left off was, she had to hand it to him: he had an insane amount of self-control. More than she had, to be sure.
Glancing down, she saw that he’d put on boots. They looked like the same ones he wore with his work uniform. The shirtless with boots and jeans look was hot, but knowing he wouldn’t take off those jeans was torture.
“I think you’re going overboard,” she said. “Maybe Wolf was barking at a raccoon trying to get into your garbage or something like that. If you expect me to just lie here and try to go to sleep, you might want to get the fire extinguisher out of the kitchen. I’m afraid my panties will actually catch on fire, or I’ll spontaneously combust or something.”
She tossed down her pillow and gave him a stubborn look, knowing the fact that she wasn’t wearing a bra was obvious. If he was going to be like this, she wasn’t going to make it easy for him.
His gaze did linger on her chest – curves that couldn’t be hidden by a mere cotton top. “I want to pick up where we left off just as badly as you do. Worse.” He lowered his gaze to his lap. “You know it’s true. Lie back.”
“What?” A tentative sense of satisfaction flared to life inside her. Was he really giving in, just like that?
“Lie back,” he repeated.
With as good as he looked and as turned-on as she felt, she was prepared to let him boss her around. In fact, she liked it. She reclined on the bed, but only after pulling her shirt over her head and tossing it aside first. Without a bra, there was really no point. Besides, she wanted to give him a good reason to stop being so stubborn.
The feel of his hand on her breast was heaven after the sudden deprivation Wolf’s barking fit had plunged them into. And when he let his touch trail lower…
A thrill arrowed through her when he unbuttoned her jeans, then unzipped them.
“You know what?” she said. “I think I’d be better off without these.”
She began to shimmy out of them, but he stopped her. “I’ll do that.”
Another thrill hit her as he finally laid both hands on her again, stripping her jeans off of her, and then her panties. For a few seconds, he just looked at her, his gaze so heavy she could actually feel it on her body. Then he slipped his hand between her thighs and went straight for her clit.
She practically saw stars, it felt so good when he finally gave her what she wanted: contact so direct, so deliberate, that it felt like a climax was just at her fingertips. Of course, what she wanted most was for him to be inside her, but there was still time for that. They had all night, and she was way past caring that she had to get up early in the morning.
His fingertips slid against her slick skin, and she sucked in a quick breath as he came within a hairsbreadth of slipping into her. Everything inside her seemed to shrink, and the world around her became smaller too, narrowing to just her and Henry and what was happening between them.
Before she could so much as exhale, he did press inside her, deliberately this time. Two of his fingers were enough to have her counting silently backwards from 10, enjoying the hell out of it but resisting an orgasm she could feel drawing closer and closer by the moment.
It wasn’t something she usually did, but she wanted to draw it out, wanted to linger on the edge a little longer. Henry made the edge an appealing place to be, and when she was this close, it was all she could think about – there was no danger, no worrying about him or anyone else.
She wanted that to last longer, because the second her mind began to clear, she’d be back to practically making herself sick with what-ifs. With his fingers buried deep inside her and his gaze burning trails up and down her body, it was hard to imagine anything happening to him. In that moment, he was her entire universe, and that made it impossible for him to disappear.
“You’re so tight,” he said, drawing his fingertips down her inner wall and then
pushing deeper inside her again. “Wish I could be inside you.”
She opened her mouth to tell him to make that happen, but a gasp came out instead. Just like that, and she lost her tenuous hold on restraint. Her climax crashed down on her, and she writhed against the bed, her bare thighs brushing his jeans, making her ultra-aware of how tense his muscles were beneath the denim.
He kept sliding in and out, fucking her with his fingers, and rubbed her clit with his thumb, adding another layer to her pleasure.
Even with his dick trapped inside his jeans instead of where it belonged – inside her – she came hard, incapable of anything less when he was the one pushing her to climax. His fingers weren’t as thick as his cock, but they were thick enough, and he touched her with a deliberate directness that hit her where it felt best. Every time he laid hands on her, it was like he cared more about making her come than anything else in the world.
When she regained the presence of mind to do so, she placed a hand on his thigh and brought it quickly upward, pressing her hands against his erection, feeling the flawless shape of it beneath his jeans. For a few moments, that was all she did – his perfection demanded time for sheer admiration – and then she touched the brass button that was keeping him from her.
He stopped her, wrapping her hand in his, trapping her fingers in the shelter of his own.
She looked up at him and he just shook his head, his mouth set in that stubborn line again, his brow lined with what she imagined was pure, self-inflicted anguish. “Go to sleep, Sasha. You’ve gotta get up early in the morning.”
She groaned and flipped onto her stomach, tipping back her head to meet his eyes. “You’re serious, aren’t you – you’re really going to do this to yourself?”
He just stared back at her, though he did have the grace to at least frown and look pained about it.
As horrified as she was, if he could say no while sitting there with her wetness glistening on his fingers as he stared at her bare ass, she figured she’d just have to respect his hyperactive sense of protective duties.
That reluctant decision still didn’t keep her from sashaying her way out of the room, as bare as the day she’d been born. After retrieving her overnight bag from the living room, she brushed her teeth and washed her face in the bathroom adjacent to his bedroom, then returned.
“I didn’t bring pajamas,” she said as she slipped into bed.
She thought she heard the faintest of moans coming from his direction, but couldn’t be sure.
When he turned off the light, she was finally safe to pout in the dark. As she laid her head down on the pillow – a pillow that smelled intoxicatingly like him – it occurred to her that if he’d managed to say no tonight, he must’ve wanted her beyond belief a few days ago, when they’d gotten together for the first time.
She knew she’d taken him by surprise, and had gotten exactly what she wanted.
It was only now that she realized he’d let her get to him like that. Obviously, the man was more than capable of exerting his own will, no matter how crazy or stubborn it was. Actually, he was probably the most stubborn person she’d ever met.
As soon as she was still, the mattress tilted as he sat down on the edge. He found her in the darkness, and slipped his hand beneath her loose hair, laying it on her shoulder. “I’ll be right here.”
The slight tug his motion had exerted on her locks reminded her of how he’d put his hand in her hair while she’d been sucking his dick. A sound that was half-sigh and half-moan escaped her and somehow, eventually, she fell asleep.
* * * * *
Henry shut his eyes, even though the room was dark. If he caught so much as a glimpse of Sasha’s outline, he’d lose it – cave and yank off his jeans, tear the covers off her and fuck her hard, like she’d wanted him to. Either that or come in his pants right then and there.
Saying no to her was the hardest thing he’d ever done, in every respect of the word. The way his balls ached let him know that his body was going to punish him for it.
He reached out and let his fingertips touch the cold steel of his gun. The feel of it – the exact opposite of her soft, hot body – reminded him of why he was sitting there aching on the edge of the bed while she was beside him, naked beneath the sheets.
It was going to be one hell of a long night. Between horniness and adrenaline, he was a fucking mess. He wanted her more than he’d ever wanted anyone, but more than that – above all – he wanted to protect her. No way was he letting anything happen to her. If blue balls were the cost of vigilance, then so be it.
God knew he didn’t mean to watch anyone he cared about die in front of him ever again.
The memories of those he’d lost in the past – the ones no amount of carefulness or planning had been able to save – were always just beneath the surface of his thoughts, a subconscious pain that dogged him constantly. He purposely let it rise to the surface and surround him.
All of it – the hurt, the regret and the bitter shame he couldn’t shake, even though he’d been told a thousand times it wasn’t his fault – could serve a purpose now by reminding him why what he was doing was so important.
He didn’t believe that everything happened for a reason, but if he could take bad things and give them a reason, well, that was something.
Sasha didn’t understand. How could she? He didn’t blame her for being frustrated. But he’d protect her, even if she resented him for it. All he had to do was stay one step ahead of anyone who’d want to hurt her or him or anyone else he cared about.
He could do that, this time. He had to.
CHAPTER 9
Randy moved through the darkness, nearly tripping over a rotten log, then catching his sleeve on a sapling. The tree bent back and a cluster of leaves whipped his chin when he tore the fabric free. Though his eyes had long since adjusted to the night, it was barely past the new moon and the scrubby Carolina woods were a bitch when you could hardly see more than a few feet in front of your face.
He had a flashlight tucked away in a pocket, but didn’t dare use it. He’d rather trip and fall a hundred times than broadcast his location with a beam of revealing light. Peering over his shoulder, he stared in the direction of the little house he’d just left. He could just barely make out a pinprick of light burning in the distance – a porch light.
Damned if he hadn’t thought he was going to be eaten alive by that dog. The house had a wall-mount mailbox by the front door, and he’d had to sneak right up to it to access the inside. It’d gone smoothly until his fingers had slipped and the mailbox had swung shut with a bang.
Then the dog had started barking like fucking Cerberus, and he’d had to high-tail it back into the woods. The dog had come charging out the back of the house and had been leaping against the chain link a second later. He hadn’t felt safe enough to slow down until now.
Still breathing hard, he leaned against an old oak and shoved a hand deep into a pocket, pulling out a bent envelope.
He grinned. It’d all been worth it. There was no reading the print now, but as soon as he got back to the trailer, he’d tear open the mail and would know exactly who he was dealing with … exactly who was going to die next.
* * * * *
Despite the fact that Sasha had spent the night, Henry left for work the same way he had the day before: with a hard-on. It’d plagued him throughout the sleepless night, and ached now as he escorted Sasha to her car, seeing her off as she embarked on a trip to visit her mother.
It was a stroke of luck that she was heading out of town. It meant he wouldn’t have to worry about her being in the same county as a killer, at least for a day.
“See you,” she said, climbing into her car with a sultry smile.
At least, he thought it was sultry, but maybe that was just deprivation screwing with his perceptions. Either way, he was stricken by both relief and remorse as he watched her drive away. God, he hated that he’d had to stop things between them the night before. It’d just about
killed him, and his self-restraint had left a predictable ache deep in his balls.
It was worth it, though, because she was safe.
Nothing out of the ordinary had happened after Wolf’s barking fit the night before, but he hadn’t been willing to take the risk. When he was inside her, nothing else mattered. The rest of the world didn’t exist.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t afford to forget about the rest of the world right now.
He stopped halfway to his truck, boots crunching against driveway gravel. He could afford to spare a few minutes before he left for work. Now that she was gone, a nagging feeling told him that he should have a look around the outside of the house, inspect things in broad daylight in case whoever or whatever Wolf had been barking at the night before had left any clues.
He made a slow circuit of the house, his gaze roving over every surface, every tuft of grass, hungry for details, abnormalities.
He found none. Still, the prickling feeling between his shoulder blades wouldn’t let him stop looking. He walked slowly, letting his gaze linger on anything and everything. He even bent down, careful not to get his uniform dirty as he examined the doors and windows for any signs of forced entry.
Nothing.
Eventually he made his way to his truck and climbed in, the space between his shoulder blades still burning. He couldn’t shake the feeling, and he would’ve been reluctant to leave his home and Wolf alone, if he hadn’t been looking forward to hopefully getting called back onto the manhunt for Randy Levinson.
He was out there, and he wouldn’t get away, this time.
* * * * *
Randy drew a deep breath of early morning air, already feeling the day’s heat as it filled his lungs. It’d be a hot one. All the more reason why just minutes ago, he’d been tempted to off Officer Henry Dryden right then, before the sun rose too high above the sappy, heavily-needled coastal woods.
A few problems had made him think twice, though. A hot blonde with big tits who followed Dryden around like he’d hung the fuckin’ moon was complication number one. She’d strolled outta the house with him a few minutes ago. There was no ring on her finger, so Randy figured she was his girlfriend. In order to kill Dryden, Randy would’ve had to get rid of her too.