by Avery Flynn
“Well, you’ve got one last night. Make the most of it.” The captain hung up without saying goodbye.
Ford didn’t let out the frustrated growl tickling the back of his throat. He swallowed it. This was the nature of the life he’d chosen. He did the hard thing because it was right and the rule of law mattered. The Espositos hurt people and needed to get taken down. If that heroin hit the streets, no telling how many lives could be ruined. He’d gone into this knowing he was lying for the right reasons.
Just as important, he was the only detective on the task force who was right for this case working with Gina. Exactly why that was the reality of the situation wasn’t something he wanted to examine. He was just doing his job, and now his time was just about up.
Determined to make the best of what time he had left, he went back inside the house, focused on his job almost as much as the woman in the pink dress who smiled every time she looked his way.
A few seriously unproductive hours trying to pump the Luca family and friends for information later, and he was standing with Gina in her kitchen, which was lit only by the dim light above the sink. She’d just gotten done telling him about how her grandma had tried to give her the talk about how to hold onto a man during their girl talk session. Her eyes were bright with laughter. And she was smiling. He fucking loved that smile.
“I never thought I’d hear my grandma say the word blow job,” she said, shaking her head. “That wasn’t completely awkward at all, but she sent me home with homemade cannoli, guaranteeing it would make everything work out in the end.”
And there it was, the swift kick to the balls delivered via ricotta and pastry shell. “And she’s not wrong,” he said with a forced cheerfulness the he wasn’t feeling at all. “I’m gonna be out of your hair after tonight.”
Gina handed him one of the mini-cannolis, but her gaze didn’t meet his. “You heard back from the medical examiner?”
He took a bite of the cannoli but didn’t taste a damn thing. “They believe it was natural causes.”
Gina didn’t visibly react so much as he felt her emotion as she processed the news she’d been expecting—probably since her grandfather disappeared years ago. It hadn’t been totally unexpected, he knew, no matter what cock-and-bull story he’d fed her about the possibility of someone coming to clean up after her grandfather’s death, but that didn’t change the facts.
“So,” she said with a melodramatic sigh, recovering herself, because the woman was nothing if not incredibly resilient. “I’m losing another handyman.”
He nodded, more than willing to play along if that’s how she wanted to frame their goodbye. “Afraid so.”
“I’ll kinda miss my fake boyfriend,” she said with an exaggerated pout.
Unable to stop himself, he leaned in, needing to be closer to her. “You’re fake breaking up with me?”
“Yep.” She gave him a sassy grin. “If I don’t get to use of your hammer, you’re no good to me.”
…
Gina couldn’t believe the words that had just come out of her mouth. It must have been the sugar talking. It was totally the sugar talking, plus the two glasses of wine she’d drunk at the party and the confirmation of what she’d already known in her gut about her grandfather.
But she wasn’t the kind of woman who could get away with a double entendre like that. He was just so damn close that her pheromones kind of took over her brain, which was probably not scientifically possible, but it’s all she had for an explanation right now.
She looked up at him through her lashes, anticipation making the air electric around them. “We never got to finish what we started in the hotel that night.”
What was coming out of her mouth? This wasn’t her. This was some other woman who thought she had a shot with a guy like Ford.
“We shouldn’t do this.” But he plucked the half-eaten cannoli out of her hand and dropped it into the box where he’d just put his.
“Am I still in possible danger?” she asked, her hands going to the buttons of his shirt, slipping the top one free.
He shook his head as he looked at her fingers working on button number two. “No.”
“Are you still on the clock?” Her hands were shaking with nerves, but the button slipped free.
She slid her fingers down to the third button, wondering if she was sex-drunk and possessed by a woman with ten times the confidence she had.
All she knew was that she didn’t want this man to leave her house for the last time without letting the tension that had been simmering between them boil over. Some could argue that made her desperate. Others might say it made her assertive. She didn’t give a flying fuck. This was her last chance with Ford, and she wasn’t going to waste it.
Her fingertips brushed over the third button of his shirt, but his hand covered hers, stopping her. Her breath caught.
“No, I’m not on the clock.” His words came out with the rough edge of a growl, hard and wanting, that thrilled something inside her.
He brought her hands down to her sides, his strong fingers encircling her wrists, but he didn’t let go and he didn’t walk away. Instead, he stood there looking down at her, desire and need making his green eyes turn even darker.
Heart hammering against her ribs, she gave into the pheromones and the sugar and the wine and the lust that kept her up at night. “So why shouldn’t we finish what we started? Afterward, we go back to our normal lives. No commitment. No tomorrow. Just one night to do what we didn’t in the hotel, then you leave at dawn and that’s that.”
“Because this can’t ever be more than that,” he said.
Didn’t she know that all too well. “Exactly.”
He looked for a second like he was going to argue with her, but in the next breath his hands were on her hips, pulling her close, and his mouth was on hers in a kiss that should have set every flammable can of paint lined up against the kitchen wall ablaze. It was hot and demanding and so achingly desperate. It was as if they couldn’t get enough of each other and they both knew tonight was it.
He tasted of bourbon and cannoli, need and satisfaction—and she couldn’t get enough as she reached back for his shirt and yanked it out of his pants, desperate to feel him and not the cotton covering his skin. He broke the kiss with a groan when she slid her hands under his shirt.
“I need to see you,” he said, reaching behind her for the light switch.
“No.” That couldn’t happen. She didn’t want to break the moment with brightly lit reality. She grabbed his arm before he could reach the switch and lowered it so his palm was on her leg right at the spot where her dress stopped. Excitement sizzled across her skin, and desire swirled through her, hot and demanding. She wanted this—wanted him—so bad. Watching his face in the soft light spilling into the kitchen from the foyer, she slowly slid his hand higher, under her dress and to the inside of her thigh. “You need to feel me.”
“You have no clue just how bad,” he said, gliding his fingers up her inner thigh. “Open your legs for me.”
“Like this?” She widened her stance so her feet were shoulder-width apart.
“Not quite.” In a flash, his hand was gone and she wanted to scream her frustration, but then he had his hands on her waist. “Hold on.”
She did, her hands on his shoulders as he picked her up and whirled her around before sitting her down on the counter, so close to the edge that she had to hold onto him to keep her balance. Then his hands were on her thighs again, pushing her pink dress higher and higher up her legs. An impatient man would have just shoved it up and out of the way, but not Ford. He inched the hem up slowly, his gaze locked in on each millimeter of skin as it appeared. He was going to make her nuts. All she wanted was for him to just touch her already, and he was ogling the freckle above her kneecap.
“You’re killing me,” she groaned, her grip on his shoulders tightening as he did this circle thing with the pad of his thumb over that freckle that made her legs shake.
“You don’t like this?” He nudged the fabric up a little higher. “It sure seems like you do.”
It wasn’t that she didn’t, it was that she wasn’t used to it. With most guys, it was lights off, clothes shoved aside, and then it was prime time, not all of this teasing slowness that was making her core ache and her nipples harden to stiff points without even being touched. Like it? What Ford was doing was fucking addictive. “I guess I’m used to a fast rush.”
That made him stop completely. His gaze rose from her exposed legs to her face. The lust in his eyes was so intense she had to look away.
He cupped her chin and angled her face upward so she had no choice but to look at him. If she thought he’d been intense before, it was nothing compared to now. “I’m not other guys.”
She shook her head no in agreement, the ability to actually form words having left her.
“I need you to say it.” He ground out the words. “Say my name.”
“Ford.” It came out like a breathy plea, which it was, because she was about to combust here.
“That’s right, and I’m gonna make you come so hard, Gina Luca, that you’re going to remember my name when you’re a hundred years old and can barely remember your own.” He dropped his hand back down to her legs and spread them wide, the move dragging the bottom of her dress up to the top of her thighs. “Now you gotta lift that sweet ass of yours up for me.”
The idea to question him didn’t even occur to her. All she knew was that her entire body tingled with anticipation and the ache between her legs got stronger each time he touched her. She dropped her hands from his shoulders to the counter behind her, lifted her butt off the counter, and balanced her weight on her palms as he glided his hands under her dress—there was just something thrillingly dirty about seeing his big hands disappear under what was now her very small skirt.
Her heart was racing as his hands moved higher to her hips and he hooked two fingers around the waistband of her panties and yanked them down. She nearly closed her eyes at the feel of the cool air against her slick folds, but she was so glad she didn’t, because then she would have missed Ford’s nearly comical expression of exasperation when he pulled her black lace panties down her legs.
He let out an agonized groan and shook his head as he balled the lace up in his hand. “These damn things have been tormenting me.”
Okay, that made no sense. “My panties?” she asked as she lowered her weight back to the counter, her dress spread out beneath her.
He looked down at her underwear in his hand as if they were the answer to a question that had driven him to the edge of a cliff. “The idea of you wearing this scrap of lace has been one of the things keeping me at night, and now I finally got to take them off after dreaming up a scenario for what would happen next.”
Oh my. Yes. She wasn’t sure at first, but now she really liked where this was going. “What was your idea for after you took them off?”
“You think I only had one?” He gave her that cocky half smile of his that always left her out of breath. “Pull up the front of your dress.”
There wasn’t much to pull up because as it was it only barely covered her, but she did. “Is this what you wanted? Or was it this?” She spread her legs wider.
His answering groan did naughty, naughty things to her.
“Yes, to all of it.”
…
One imagined outcome? Ford had millions, but with the real woman in front of him so wet he could feel her desire on the fabric still balled up in his hand, there was only one thing he wanted to do first. Hands on her ass, he lifted her up higher as he pulled her right to the edge of the counter. Fuck, the look in her eyes right now was almost enough to make him nut in his jeans. He had to take a step back because he wasn’t about to rush through this.
“Your dress,” he said, trailing his fingers across her supple skin to her thighs, so very close to where he wanted desperately to be, but not touching her there. “Unbutton it.”
Her tongue wet her bottom lip as her fingers went to the teeny-tiny buttons that went up the middle of her dress. For each one she freed, he dragged his fingers a little bit up her thigh.
“That’s it,” he said. “I want to see all of you.”
What felt like millions of minutes of exquisite torture later, but was probably only twenty seconds, her pink dress was unbuttoned. What a sight. The front of the dress was pushed up to her waist, showing her glistening folds between her widespread legs, and her dress hung open and had fallen off one shoulder, exposing one tit with its hard nipple pressing against the sheer black lace of her bra. It was a sight he’d never forget, but what made it truly memorable was the look on Gina’s face. Her full lips were wet and parted slightly, her cheeks were flushed with desire, and her eyes as she watched him watch her promised there was so much more to come.
He’d never seen someone so beautiful in his entire life.
“You aren’t going back on your word, are you?” she asked, bringing one hand up to her exposed boob and pushing the cup of her bra down. “Promises were made.” She rolled her nipple between her thumb and finger, pinching and tugging it taut. “Something about a mind-blowing orgasm that would stay with me for the rest of my life.” She let go of her nipple and slid her hand down over her stomach to the tight, dark curls at the apex of her thighs. “Or do I need to take care of that myself?”
Lust blasted through him like a rocket explosion. Watching her touch herself was more than he could take. He was between her legs on the next breath, spreading her folds with his fingers as he took his first taste. She moaned and moved her hips as he worked her with his tongue, teasing and playing with her hard clit and her soft folds. Up and down, circle left, circle right, he took his time, enjoying her every reaction, the way her body tightened when he did something she liked and how she cried out when he did something she loved. She was fucking magnificent, and he couldn’t get enough, so he kept going, nice and slow, driving her to the edge and leaving her teetering there in horrible ecstasy.
“Oh my God, Ford.”
The heated desperation in her voice brought out the caveman in him, the one who wanted her to always remember this moment, to remember him. He slid his fingers inside her slick passage, plunging inside, and then made a come-here motion with one finger when he withdrew. Her thighs shook against his ears and she grabbed his hair, keeping him exactly where she wanted him.
“That’s it,” she cried out. “Right there. Don’t you fucking stop.”
Like that was going to happen, when she was so close that she was holding him tight enough to be on the verge of making him bald. One more lick, a suck, a stroke of the nerves just inside her entrance, and she came with a loud scream of yes that he could hear even though his head was caught between her clenched thighs that were acting like earmuffs.
All of that was totally worth it, though, when he stood up and saw her coming down from the high of her orgasm, while he could still taste her on his lips.
It was a phenomenal sight. And the night had only just begun.
…
Gina might have had to give up on ever thinking again, because her brain was a giant pile of mush—very happy, very satisfied, dopamined-up mush. When the world came back into focus, she had to laugh. Ford stood in front of her, his hair standing straight up—oops—and a look of such male pride on his face that she knew she had to fix that right away or he’d be unbearable.
“Tell me you have a condom.”
His expression went from I’m-stud-of-the-week to I’m-stud-of-the-year. Men. But he grabbed his wallet from his back pocket and took out a condom.
Hoping her jelly legs would hold her, she hopped down from the kitchen counter and swiped the foil packet from him. “Take you pants off and sit down.”
One eyebrow went up in question, but being the smart man that he was, Ford took off his jeans and sat his fine ass down on the kitchen chair.
“I’m at your mercy,” he said, his hot gaze tracking her every m
ove.
Still on the orgasm high, she considered making him squirm. After all, it wasn’t every day that she had a man like him sitting half-naked in her kitchen. The temptation he offered was so much better than the possible satisfaction of dragging it out, though.
She slipped her dress the rest of the way off, unsnapped her bra and let it fall to the floor, and then walked in her heels to his chair, where she tore open the condom wrapper and rolled the condom on his hard, hot dick. His quick inhale of breath when she touched him probably put the I’m-the-stud-of-the-week smile on her face, and she didn’t care. They could co-own the moment. She was a giver that way.
So when she put her hands on his shoulders, stepped wide so she straddled him in the chair, and then lowered herself down onto his cock, it was for both of them. Okay, the second she made contact with the head of his dick, that changed to being all about her, because oh my God had she had a drought and this was never going to happen again, but she’d had the best intentions to be a good sharer. Moving her hands from his shoulders to the back of the chair because she wasn’t sure she wouldn’t leave nail imprints on him despite the fact that he was still wearing his shirt—poor planning on your part, Miss Gives The Orders Regina—she took him all the way in.
“Fucking A, Gina.” The words came out half groan and half growl while he grasped her hips.
He was very not wrong. This was so damn good. She rocked forward, swiveling her body a bit and changing the angle as she fucked him—and that’s what it was, uninhibited fucking, the kind that only happened when she wasn’t worried about what weird expression was on her face or how her stomach looked at the moment or if her body was making a weird noise.
For some reason, she was too overwhelmed by sensation to figure out at the moment, none of those usual thoughts happened when Ford touched her. They both just were. Later, she’d examine that, but not now, not when the man she’d spent the past week dreaming about was making that tormented growly rumble that did things to her very minimal—at the moment, okay, really any time she was around Ford—sense of control.