by Nancy Warren
She licked dry lips. Her eyes were wide and dark. “How far is he going to go?”
“I don’t know what his plans are,” he said evenly. “But he’s not getting any further. This stops now.”
He pulled out his cell.
“Who are you calling?”
“This isn’t simple harassment anymore. He broke into your home and left you a threat. Not calling in the cops officially is no longer an option.”
“I hate this.”
“I know. But it will be a lot better once we file an official report. I’ll be able to work on your case in regular hours. Not call in favors.”
Then he called a twenty-four-hour locksmith.
When the locksmith left three hours later, she had a brand-new deadbolt, new keys and a super-fancy invincible security lock on the inside of her door.
And such fury in her gut she could barely stand it, because the texting, emailing, smiley-facing stalker had won this round.
He’d taught her fear.
14
“I AM SO glad you’re here,” she said to Adam, hating that she needed him in order to feel safe.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said, and then he pulled her to him.
“I’m so scared,” she admitted against his chest.
“I know.”
“I don’t want to be scared,” she said through gritted teeth.
“I know that, too.”
She raised her face toward him in mute invitation. He didn’t avail himself of the offer, though she saw want and need burning in his eyes. She closed her own and put her lips on his. He resisted for only a moment and then, suddenly, his passion was unleashed. He kissed her as though he’d die if he didn’t. He pulled her against him with no finesse or elegance. He still wore padding from the practice, black shorts and a faded hockey jersey from his college days. She smelled the sweat of his workout and the banked fury that heated his skin.
“I don’t want to take advantage,” he said, pulling away from her with an effort.
“Tough. I want to be taken advantage of,” she said, amazed at the huskiness in her tone. “And you’re exactly the man to do it.”
“Oh, I am.”
His hands, those gorgeous big hands, began to roam, first grasping her hips, then tracing the sides of her waist, cupping her breasts. Every part of her felt hot and needy. “I need a shower,” he gasped.
“Later.” And she began to tug the jersey up and over his head.
There was no finesse to her movements. She was wild with need. She didn’t care that she’d lost control. Didn’t care that he could see it. Tiny grunts and groans came from her throat as she tugged at his clothing, frustrated every time she released a garment only to find more padding or another layer.
“Am I ever going to get you naked?” she demanded.
“Oh, yes,” he promised, and began pulling at his own clothing, seeming as lust addled as she was.
At last she had him naked and she could understand why she’d been so wild to get him there. The man was ridiculously, over-the-top gorgeous.
There are men who look better in clothes.
Adam was not one of those men.
Clothed, he was a big good-looking tough-guy type.
Naked, he was an ancient god. Huge, muscled, broad of shoulder and lean of hip. Once more the image of Thor flitted through her mind. Yes, she thought, that would suit him. He was more Norse than Greek. Rough, rugged, a man who took what he wanted and damn the consequences.
She very much hoped that what he wanted was her.
She loved every inch of him. And there were a lot of inches. The length of his torso, the strong arms, those muscled legs that could skate the length of a rink in seconds and could race to her side the minute she called. She loved his big capable hands and the feet that kept him rooted. And she loved the gorgeous cock now standing proud. When she circled him with her hand, his skin was hot, and he was as stiff as iron. At her touch he groaned.
“We shouldn’t be doing this,” he managed, his eyes barely focused.
Oh, she loved her power.
Maybe he was right but lust felt so much better than fear that she said, “Yes. We should.”
“Okay,” he groaned. “You’ve convinced me.” And just like that his mood changed from one of resistance to all-in. He removed her hand, kissed the palm. “If you hold me much longer, this will be over too fast,” he said.
She definitely didn’t want that, so she kept her hands to herself. Sort of. She couldn’t help the way they roamed over his chest and shoulders and back and belly. She was careful, however, not to go too near the hot zone.
He began to strip off her clothes. It didn’t take nearly as long, since she was already dressed for bed. A lift, a pull, silk trailing over her skin like a warm breeze and then she was as naked as he was.
When he looked at her, she felt momentarily shy.
Until she saw the way he was looking at her. With hunger, lust and something softer that she couldn’t name. He reached out and touched her breast. “You are even more beautiful than I imagined,” he said.
Then he closed the distance between their bodies and she felt enveloped by his warmth and strength. She was a tall woman and she liked to think she was fairly strong, but in Adam’s arms she felt tiny. Cherished.
She considered herself as much of a feminist as the next CEO, but here in the comfort of her bedroom she quite liked feeling small and cherished.
She reached behind them and flipped the duvet, consciously ignoring what had greeted her there the last time she’d done so. If anyone could make her forget the gruesome discovery, it was Adam.
Adam, whose eyes blazed into hers as he lowered her to the bed.
His eyes were like the sky at midnight. Deep, almost black, but with devil lights dancing in their depths. She reached up to touch the craggy planes of his face, and then she lost sight of his eyes as he leaned forward and kissed her.
His big body settled beside her on the bed. He touched her breasts again. It was as though he could never have his fill of them. He began kissing his way down her body, leaving a shivery trail as he excited every inch of skin he touched.
When he reached her thighs, he parted them gently and she felt herself opening for him, knowing she’d give him everything she had.
He took his time, kissing her thighs, lapping at the soft, exquisitely sensitive skin. As he traveled slowly north, she was so fired up she thought she might explode before he even reached his target.
When he rose over her most private parts, she felt him gazing down at her where she was spread before him. He touched her gently, spreading her folds, and she moaned helplessly. Then he lowered his head.
“Oh, yes,” she said, sighing as his tongue touched her where she was so hot and so needy.
He lapped at her, licking and inciting while the dark excitement built within her. Her hips began to thrust in time with his tongue, and then, to her shock, she felt him thrust two fingers up inside her, rubbing her G-spot. Even if she’d had the inclination to resist—to drag things out—she couldn’t have held out against the twin assaults of his tongue and those wonderful rubbing fingers.
Her breath came in harsh gasps. She couldn’t stop her hips from dancing an intimate tango with his mouth. When he increased the rhythm of both tongue and deep stroking fingers, nothing could stop the body-clenching, sweat-drenching, bone-deep howl of her climax. She felt as though every part of her had dissolved. She was a wet, boneless puddle.
She’d never felt so good.
Except that there was an emptiness within her. And one very horny man was kissing his way back up her body. She felt him quivering with need and the hardness that nudged her hip was of the iron variety.
When his face was level with hers, he grow
led in her ear, “Do you have anything?”
“Do I have anything?” she repeated, pretending to think deeply. “Well, I have a good personality. A healthy business. A pretty good net worth. I have friends I—”
“I am never letting you come first again,” he groaned.
She laughed, feeling ridiculously happy for a woman whose life was quite possibly in danger. She reached over his hot muscular torso to her bedside table and opened the drawer. Handed him a condom.
The ripping of the package sent a quiver through her already quivery insides. Then he was on top of her, nudging open her thighs once more.
When he entered her, she felt for a second that she wouldn’t be able to take all of him. He was so big, so hard, but despite his obvious need, he didn’t rush her. He took his time easing himself into her and all the while, he kissed her mouth, caressed her breasts, told her in the earthiest ways that her body pleased him.
When he was settled deep inside and she felt full and complete, he began to move. Instinctively, she moved with him, meeting his thrusts with increasing urgency as her own passion built yet again.
As deep inside her body as he was, she needed him deeper still. She hooked her heels around the back of his hips and held on, urging him ever deeper. A drip of sweat fell onto her as she felt him respond, thrusting up and hard into her again and again.
The tidal wave began to build again. She felt her inner muscles begin to tighten around him, felt her need spiral as she began to lose control.
A wild woman took her over. She began to buck against him. His shoulder brushed against her mouth and she sank her teeth into it.
In response he tightened his grip on her and let himself off his leash. He thrust into her for all he was worth, with no finesse or care. It was exactly, she thought, how the thunder god would mate. Raw, dark and powerful.
She was being pulled out of herself into some mystical place. She felt his force, couldn’t resist it, and then her head fell back and dark passion took her over until she cried out once more. In the echo of her own cries she heard his deep guttural moan as they tumbled off the edge of the world.
* * *
“THAT WAS AMAZING.” His voice rumbled in her ear like the low roll of thunder.
“Mmm,” she said. Normally she had a wide vocabulary but right now mmm was all she had left in stock.
There was a silence punctuated by pounding hearts gradually slowing and heavy breathing easing to something approaching normal. Her neatly made bed was a mess of tangled sheets. Her tidy floor was a minefield of hockey padding and clothing.
Her comfortable, orderly life was in shambles.
She breathed deeply of chaos.
“Mmm,” she said again, then managed to add, “I think I went somewhere I’ve never been before. Somewhere not on Earth.”
“You weren’t worried I’d choke under pressure?” he challenged her.
“What?”
“You’ve been telling me how I have this fear of failure.”
She raised herself up on one elbow. Looked him right in the eye.
“You don’t have fear of failure,” she told Adam. “What you have is a classic case of fear of success.”
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Who’s afraid of succeeding?”
“Oh, you’d be surprised. Sometimes there’s comfort in the familiar even if it means settling for mediocrity. When a person succeeds, it changes the dynamics of their relationships, makes them vulnerable in ways—”
* * *
“OH, MY GOD,” he said, falling back onto the pillow. Comfort in mediocrity. Hadn’t he witnessed that his whole life? His mother telling his father that it was the foot soldiers who won the war? He heard his mother’s voice suddenly in his head, almost like a whisper. Not everyone can be captain, honey. But she’d been talking to his dad, not to him. To his father, who’d spent an entire career in law enforcement and watched younger, smarter, better-educated guys move up ahead of him on the force.
“You look like you might be having a breakthrough,” she said.
“It’s quite the night for breakthroughs,” he countered, getting a kick on the shin for his trouble.
“You know that ‘aha’ moment you mentioned?”
She nodded.
“The chills down the back of the neck?” She looked so beautiful lying there, so feminine and soft and yet so capable and strong. Her eyes were alight as he told her about his epiphany. “It’s about my dad. Well, and my mom, I guess. All my life I wanted to be exactly like my dad.” He shook his head. How had he never seen this before?
“And my dad is a great guy. He was also a good cop. Solid, reliable. The kind of man who makes a perfect beat cop. He follows the book. He’d never lie or cheat or steal. He’s the original honest cop.”
She nodded, listening. Her hand settled on his chest and he reached up to clasp it.
“Other guys would get promoted over his head. He’d come home and tell my mother about it and she’d always say something like ‘It’s the soldiers in the front line who win a war.’” He shook his head, playing with her breast absently. “I heard that message over and over again. Somehow it was nobler to be a foot soldier. That becoming a general was getting above yourself.”
She reached over with her free hand and rubbed his shoulder. “And can you see how that might play into your issues on the ice?”
“Yep. It’s okay to be part of a winning team, but I’d better not get too big for my boots. Mom might cut me down to size.”
“Is that what she used to do? Or still does?”
“No. It’s not that she’s cutting me down—it’s that she’s so busy building my dad up that somehow I got the idea that I shouldn’t ever try to be better than he was.” He felt as though it was getting hard to breathe. “And I’m not. He was and is a good and decent man. I’d trust him with my life.”
“Okay, then.” She tapped his chest softly. “Why are your muscles tensing up as you talk about this? Why is your voice sounding strained?”
He covered her hand with his own. Held on. “When I got promoted to detective, you know what I did?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“I went home and threw up. I was sure they’d picked the wrong man, that I couldn’t do it.” He released her hand and began playing with her fingers. “The truth was, I didn’t want to get above myself. Or, more importantly, get above my father.”
“This is quite the epiphany you’re having,” she commented.
He turned to look at her, with her hair all over the place and her lips swollen from kissing him. Still, her eyes were those of his sexy performance coach. “You don’t look surprised at all. You already knew this, didn’t you?”
“I’m not the one who needs to figure these things out. You are.” She reached over and nipped his chin between her fingers. “I like to think that I can guide a client a little, but I try not to dominate the process.”
He tried to stifle a grin but didn’t manage it.
Of course, she caught him. “What?”
“It’s nothing. The verb you used. Dominate.”
“What about it?”
“I— The first time we met, you reminded me of a dominatrix I once arrested. Madame D. She had the same cool sexiness. The same streak of steel.”
“I remind you of a dominatrix?” She didn’t seem thrilled by the comparison.
“She wasn’t what you’d imagine. There was nothing cheap looking or outwardly tough about her. It was only when you got to know her you saw the way she liked to control a man.”
“Did she control you?” she asked coolly, as though it didn’t matter at all to her, but somehow he knew it did.
“No! I arrested her. She had some clients who were very big-time. Powerful, influential men. Even t
hough she made a fortune tying them up and whipping them, she got greedy and started secretly photographing and then blackmailing them. One of them finally got tired of paying.”
“So he went to the police? That was gutsy.”
“No. He hired a hit man to get rid of her.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. Luckily for Madame D, the hit man was already on our radar for other reasons. When we arrested him, he told us about the hit and worked with us. We got the guy who organized the hit, not to mention Madame D and her extensive library of photographs and video recordings.”
“Whatever happened to her?”
“Since she wasn’t having sex with these men, what she was doing wasn’t prostitution. It’s tough to prosecute. The blackmail was the obvious crime, and there was a lot of pantie wetting among some pretty high-profile men. Men you’ve heard of, who have families and attend church regularly. Amazingly, Madame D disappeared one day.”
“Murdered?”
“No. I hear she turned up in Eastern Europe. Somebody with deep pockets and a desire to keep his secrets under wraps probably arranged and paid for her disappearance.” He shook his head. “She sure was a sexy woman, though.”
“So you had a crush on a dominatrix,” she said. “Interesting.” She was quiet for a moment. “But not as interesting as discovering the source of those destructive messages you’ve been sending yourself.”
“Wow.” He thought about it. “So now that I know this, will I be cured?”
“I don’t know. Will you?”
“I feel like I need, I don’t know, permission or something.”
“Maybe you need to have a conversation,” she suggested.
“With him?”
They exchanged a look. He closed his eyes. Of course.
“With my mom.”
15
“MOM? YOU HOME?”
His mother came out of the kitchen, wiping flour from her hands with a tea towel patterned with birds of North America. Her face lit up when she saw him. “Darling. How wonderful to see you again so soon. I’m only sorry your father’s not here. He’s off doing the planting at a seniors’ residence.”