by Avery Flynn
He shut up after that—unless she wanted to count the rumbling sounds of approval as he threaded his fingers through her hair and held her in place while he moved his hips back and forth with slow, precise movements that had both of them on the edge of sanity. She did not want to count that. Instead, she slid her hand between her legs and underneath her panties.
“Fuck,” he said, his voice tight. “Are you playing with yourself?”
Since her mouth was busy, she just nodded.
“I want to watch you.” His hands in her hair held her in place as he took a step back. “Show me.”
Whatever wanton woman had taken over her body was more than willing to comply. She stood, slid her panties off, and got up on the bed. Ford watched, fisting his dick, as she spread her legs. Everything was so sensitive that it only took a few strokes with two fingers around her clit for her to be on the verge of coming.
“Yes, that’s it,” he said, moving closer to the edge of the bed. “Don’t hold back.”
She didn’t. She couldn’t. Fingers slick with her arousal, she touched herself, bringing herself closer and closer with each movement until there was no holding back. The vibrations started, and in the heartbeat before her orgasm hit, she realized that Ford wasn’t watching what she was doing with her fingers, he was watching her face.
…
There was no coming back from this. Ford knew it. Watching Gina come apart was almost more than he could take.
He grabbed a condom from the drawer in her bedside table and tore the wrapper open with more force than necessary, but he was using all of his conscious effort to stop himself from sinking deep within her without any protection. She opened her eyes and looked at him with lazy satisfaction in her gaze as she watched him roll on the latex.
“I think I might be done,” she said, even as she caressed her tits.
He grabbed her ankles and pulled her down to the edge of the bed. “We both know that’s not the case.”
“That’s true,” she said, lifting her legs straight up.
Now that was an invitation he wasn’t about to ignore. He stepped to the edge of the bed, brought her ankles to his shoulders, clutched her hips in his hands, and in one bold push, buried himself to the hilt inside her. They both let out an appreciative moan, along with a little bit of “oh my God” and “yes please.” She squeezed his length and swiveled her hips in a way that had him counting back from a bazillion to keep from coming right then and there. Then, while he was still trying to stay away from the point of no return, she dug her heels into his shoulders and used them to leverage herself as she rocked against him, taking him in and out as pleasure built at the base of his spine.
He wanted to take it slow, but she felt so fucking good. Holding onto her hips and lifting her up, he thrust forward and withdrew, again and again. She tightened around him as she begged him not to stop and then came hard on his cock. The heady scent of sex filled the air around them as the tingle in his spine spiraled out to his limbs, his balls tightened, and he came.
It took a minute for his vision to return so he could see the content, blissed-out look on Gina’s face, her cheeks flushed and her brown hair a disheveled mess around her head. He’d never seen a woman more beautiful.
He should tell her. He should tell her this wasn’t just for fun for him. He should tell her… “I’ll be right back.”
For the love of Mike, Hartigan. Man up.
Yeah, talking about his feelings like that wasn’t in his makeup. So, he wimped out and went to the bathroom to clean up. By the time he got back to the bedroom, Gina’s eyes were closed and she was breathing evenly. Great. He’d had his chance and he’d blown it. Next time the opportunity presented itself, he wouldn’t hesitate. He’d tell her everything.
An image flashed in his mind of being in the captain’s office and the conversation that had sent him to her door in the first place and all the lies of omission he’d told to get inside. Well, not everything—at least not yet. All he had to do was figure out how to make sure she wouldn’t hate his guts if she ever did find out the whole truth about how he’d ended up on her doorstep.
Chapter Fifteen
Gina couldn’t stop singing to herself. At the grocery store, she was humming along with some classic Supremes and executing some pretty bad—not in the good way—dance moves in the produce section. At the card shop with a wedding client looking at invitations, she hadn’t even realized she was singing along with the latest bubblegum pop hit until her client joined in. And now, here she was in the kitchen making coffee and shaking her ass to the music coming from the front of the house, where Juan and his crew were putting the finishing touches on the totally renovated front porch that would no longer try to eat people. It was a great fucking day and a testament to the power of getting laid on the regular.
“Well, happy morning to me,” Ford said.
She turned around to see him standing in the kitchen doorway wearing only his jeans. Her breath caught. She could look at his broad shoulders and washboard abs all damn day. His dark happy trail led right to the waistband of his jeans, which were unbuttoned and hanging onto his hips by some invisible force. God, would she ever get used to that sight? Or even better, would she ever get used to that bubbly feeling that filled her when he said her name or looked at her like he was really seeing her and not just a caricature? Being around him was better than just the contact high of hanging out with someone so hot she thought she might go up in flames. Being near Ford was like getting to feel the sun on her face after a long winter, and it was about the happiest and most hopeful feeling she’d ever had.
“Coffee?”
“Not exactly what I’m in the mood for,” he said as he walked over to where she stood by the coffeemaker. “But I do have to head out pretty soon, so I can head back to my house and change before my shift.”
She poured a cup and handed it to him. “They don’t allow half-dressed detectives?”
“No, that’s totally against the rules.”
“They need to rethink that one.” She leaned in and inhaled his clean man scent before giving in and kissing the love bite she’d left last night, right where his shoulder met his neck. “I’d confess to just about anything if it meant I got to see you looking like this again.”
He set his coffee down on the counter and reached behind her to cup her ass, giving it a playful squeeze. “Is there something you need to confess?”
“Well, officer,” she said, trailing her fingers across his chest. “I’m afraid I have been a very bad girl.”
He let out a harsh groan and lifted her up, so she had no choice but to wrap her legs around his waist. Good thing that was pretty much all she wanted to do anytime she was anywhere near him anyway.
“Oh, Detective Hartigan,” she said, curling her hands around his neck and leaning in to whisper in his ear. “I think you like it when I’ve been bad.”
“You have no idea.” He pressed her more firmly against him.
She undulated her hips again, rubbing her cotton-panty-covered core against the hard evidence of just how much he liked it. “I think I do.”
“Tell me you don’t have plans tonight.”
Mentally checking her calendar made her groan. “I have a pre-engagement party meeting with new clients tonight, but I’ll be done by eight.”
He let out a sigh and lowered her to the ground but kept his arms around her waist, holding her close. “You can’t just tell them to book a restaurant and leave it at that?”
“No.” Did the man not understand that her job was to facilitate and promote the fantasy of romance and its effervescent, everlasting qualities? “Some people like more of a public show than that.”
“Why?” he asked, his fingers busy drawing circles on the rise of her ass in the most distracting of ways.
“Because they’re in love,” she said, desperately trying to put words together in a way that didn’t end up with her saying kiss me, you fool. “And they want to share that with th
eir family, their friends, and the whole world. Shout it from the rooftops.”
Ford picked her up and set her down on the kitchen counter where everything between them had started and kissed his way down her neck, his hands sliding under her tank top to caress her breasts. It melted her in all the right spots and made her do that stupid happy sigh hopeful thing.
It was hard—like bypassing the emergency chocolate when she was PMSing hard—but she put her palms to his chest and pushed him back. “You’ve got to stop or you’ll be late for work.”
“Now who’s the one who doesn’t want to break the rules?” he asked with a teasing smile.
“Detective Hartigan, you have criminals to catch, which means you’ll have to wait until tonight to solve the mystery of what panties I’m wearing.”
The look on his face confirmed she’d scored big. There was no doubt in her mind that he’d be wondering about her panties all day. Oops.
Then, he glanced over, and the I’m-gonna-sex-you-up look transformed into the curious expression he’d had before he’d checked out the back shed that hadn’t been opened in forever and came out with six mousetraps. Used mousetraps. It had been nasty.
“What’s that?” he asked, tapping the top of the box.
“No clue. My brothers dropped it off and told me not to peek.”
Ford tensed. “Do they do that often?”
“Not really.” Okay, it happened every once in a while, but it had always been a surprise for a family member—earrings for their mom’s birthday, hockey tickets for her. Suddenly, though, seeing it through the eyes of a detective, the box Rocco had left started to look more sinister, and she hated that. Her family and Ford’s work stayed separate. They had to in order to make this whatever-it-was work. “They don’t bring their work to my house.”
Curious face got replaced with cop face. “Work?”
It was a single word, but it carried so much meaning. They weren’t lovers from different sides of the track. They weren’t Romeo and Juliet—although thank God for that, considering how that ended. But her last name hung over them like a lead weight held up by a fraying rope. Someday, it was going to come down and land on them, no matter how hard they both wanted to ignore it. She may not be doing anything illegal, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t tainted.
What saved everything from going straight to shit was the fact that they’d been upfront and honest with each other since the beginning. They didn’t lie to each other. Ever. It was the one rule that Gina needed people to keep, especially after what had happened that had led to her getting that awful nickname in high school. It had taken years to trust a man after that.
Ford pulled away and fastened the top button of his jeans, his gaze shifting over to the box before he spoke again. “Gina…”
She hated the way he’d just said her name. “Ford, stop. It’s probably just a surprise gift for when the house renovations are done. Paul and Rocco like to do little things like that. It’s nothing that should change this.” She reached out and put her hand on his chest above his heart. “I trust you. I need you to trust me, too.”
He glanced up from the box, then back down again before bringing the full force of his attention to her. “I do.”
“Good, then we don’t have anything to worry about,” she said with more cheer than she felt at the moment, but so determined to make the best of what could be a weird situation when everything between them was so new. “I’ll be done by eight. You want to meet up after?”
“Sure.” He gave her a quick kiss. “Let’s grab a beer at Marino’s.”
The nerves making her heart beat in a jerky pattern calmed, and she let out the breath she’d been holding. “Sounds perfect. I’ll see you then.”
He gave her a wink and walked out of the kitchen, giving her a perfect view of his ass as he did so. Damn. The man’s ass was truly a thing of beauty. How had this happened to her? From Kiss Cam to flirty kisses in her kitchen and so much more upstairs, her life—an undateable’s life—had taken a turn for the much better, and she promised herself that she’d enjoy the ride for as long as it lasted.
By the time Gina walked into Marino’s, she wasn’t humming any more.
Her newest clients didn’t know what they wanted to do for their pre-engagement party, but they sure didn’t want to do any of the eight million things that Gina had proposed. Some days, clients were the absolute worst.
She had to scan the crowd a few times before she spotted Ford in the back of the bar near the dartboards. He was standing with a bunch of guys that she could tell were cops even from across the room. There was just something about their stance, the way they scanned the crowd with suspicion, that gave them away in an instant. Of course, the fact that Marino’s was one of the most popular cop bars in Waterbury made it a pretty solid bet that almost everyone in here either had a badge or wanted someone with one.
Just as she started toward the dartboards, Ford turned. She knew the moment he spotted her, and her step faltered in response to the uptick in her pulse and the way her bra suddenly felt way too tight. He started toward her, and she forced herself to keep walking, although swooning kinda seemed like a possibility. Good Lord, what was happening to her?
Oh Regina, you are in so much trouble.
She pushed the thought away to the very darkest back corner of her mind, determined to enjoy the limited time with Ford while she could.
“Hey there,” Ford said when they met at the halfway point. “It was starting to feel like you were never going to get here. How were the happy couple?”
She rolled her eyes. “Pains in my ass.”
He laughed. “Then that means you need a beer immediately. Why don’t you sit here, and I’ll go grab us some?”
“That sounds phenomenal.” Almost as good as getting to sit down next to Ford. “I’m gonna dip into the ladies’ room, but I’ll meet you back here.”
The walk to the bathroom was a short one, but Marino’s was crowded. She maneuvered around people, but with each step she couldn’t shake the feeling that everyone was watching her, judging her—and finding her lacking. It made her skin crawl and her breaths come in faster and faster bursts. The free-floating anxiety reminded her of all the times she’d walked down the halls in school and heard the whispers and giggles behind her back. She tried to shake it off, but her anxiety just responded with a fuck-you that made her lungs pinch.
Maybe it was just a side effect of having the last name Luca and walking into a cop bar, but her skin was burning by the time she finally made it into the blessedly empty restroom.
She rushed into one of the stalls and shut the door behind her, shoving the lock in place. Only then could she finally take a deep breath. All of this time spent with Ford, waiting for the other shoe to drop, was really starting to get to her.
The outside door to the restroom swung open, letting in the sound of the band warming up in the main bar.
“Oh my God, did you see her?” a woman said. “I wonder if he lost a bet. You know how the guys in that squad are always pulling pranks.”
“That at least makes sense. I mean, there’s no way he’d pick her over you, Patrice,” a second woman responded.
“I mean really, how do you even kiss someone when their nose is that big?” the first woman asked. “I wonder if it gets in the way during blow jobs.”
The sound of the women’s giggling filled the bathroom as Gina stood in the stall and prayed that they weren’t talking about her, even though she knew in her gut they were.
“Oh well,” the first woman said. “It’s Ford’s loss.”
“I second that.”
The door squeaked again, and the sound of the band filled the bathroom before the door swung shut. Gina stayed in the stall, strangely calm. This was familiar ground. Really, she was past due for a reminder of the way the world worked. She’d spent the past month in a kind of Ford-shaped cocoon and had forgotten just what the real world was like for the women who didn’t fit into the mold of what
society found acceptable.
She and Ford were never going to work out. They’d both known that from the beginning, which is why they’d promised each other not to think it was more than it was. Too bad she’d fucked that up by falling for him.
She opened the stall door and walked to the sink and, as she washed her hands, she considered the situation. The best parts of her day had become the moments she spent with him, laughing over things that probably no one else would find funny. Seeing him had become something that helped get her through a bad meeting with a client or the bad news of a renovation estimate increase from Juan. She looked at herself in the mirror under the unflattering-even-if-you’re-a-supermodel florescent bathroom light, and the truth was written all over her face.
“You idiot,” she told her reflection. “You love him.”
Ugly girls from mobbed-up families like her should know better than to fall for hot cops like Ford Hartigan. It never ended well—and end it had to.
Mind made up, she walked out of the bathroom with her chin high. If anyone was watching as she made her way over to Ford, she didn’t notice and didn’t care. Fuck them. She was leaving.
“Everything okay?” Ford asked as he handed her a beer.
“I need to go home.” She set the beer down on the table and pushed it over to his side. “Sorry.”
“Okay.” He pushed his chair back and stood. “I’ll drive, and we can swing back by and pick up your car in the morning.”
“No.” Dammit, her chin started trembling. She needed to get out of here. “I need to go by myself. I’ll talk to you later.”
She rushed out of Marino’s, the warm late-spring air hitting her as soon as she walked out onto the sidewalk. Of course, it meant her hair was going to frizz immediately, but that didn’t matter. Not anymore.
The bar door swung open behind her and Ford marched out, heading straight for her.