Reach For Me

by Elizabeth Cole

  “No.”

  Hallihan’s eyes narrowed. “Do you think Malachy might have been involved in the theft of the materials from your site?”

  “What? No! He was the one who caught Barry in the act.”

  Hallihan shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe it was a partnership that fell out. Mal could have sold out Barry when he got annoyed with him. Judging from my few interactions with Mr. Field, he probably annoys everybody.”

  “Did Barry say Mal was involved?”

  “I can’t comment on that directly.”

  “Mal had nothing to do with stealing supplies.”

  “You’re the lawyer for the defense, huh.”

  “Is he going to be charged with something?”

  Hallihan said, very precisely, “Not at the moment. You sure you don’t want to be driven somewhere? Where are you staying in town?”

  “Uh. Actually here.”

  “The house on the hill?”

  “No. Here. Mal offered me a spare room.”

  At that, Hallihan actually took half a step back and reconsidered Cara. “Really.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why.” A demand, not a question.

  “It’s close to the site. I was sleeping at Egan House for a bit, but it wasn’t…ideal. No running water, no heat, that sort of thing.” Haunted by a ghost, possibly over a hellhole. “Old house problems. You know.”

  “I don’t, thank the lord. I live in a shiny new condo.” Hallihan was silent a long moment, then said, “This lawyer was so pissed at Mal that he chose to call the cops on him? The fight was that bad?”

  “Lawyers can be pretty ruthless. I think he was trying to show Mal he could mess with him.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s not as if most people can take Mal in an actual fight, so maybe that makes sense.” She sighed, and then led Cara back toward the house. “All right, Mr. Salem. We’re leaving. Thanks for your cooperation.”

  “Anytime, Hal.” Mal hadn’t moved from the porch, his manner over-the-top casual.

  “Walk with us to the squad car, would you, Miss Michaels? I left my cards in there.”

  Hallihan opened the door, rooted around, and then handed Cara a business card. “Contact me directly if you have any issues. And call 911 if you feel you are in immediate danger.”

  “Ok. I don’t, though. Feel in danger, that is. Not from Mal.”

  The cop gave her a look that might have been pitying. Then she said, in a lower tone, “Look, there’s one thing that I find weird about all this. I’ll tell you because it’s technically public anyway, or it will be. Yesterday, Mr. Field got an attorney to represent him, by the name of Morningside.”

  Cara blinked. “What? But Barry stole from him. Or his clients, I guess.”

  “Yeah. Conflict of interest all over the place. But it was Morningside who filed the paperwork for bail. Just thought you should know.”

  Chapter 14

  Cara walked back inside the house, feeling jittery and ill at ease. Hallihan was very nice for a cop, but Cara’s experiences with the law were in general not good. The wineglass called to her like an old friend, and she took way too big a swig.

  “You ok?” Mal asked.

  “Ugh, yeah, fine. I’ve interacted with the police more in the past week than since the whole mess with my dad. I know I didn’t do anything wrong, but the sight of a badge gives me chills. Sorry.”

  “No, I should apologize. I handled the lawyer thing badly. Like, he’s still evil, but I should have been cooler about it. I was just really worried about you.”

  Cara took another sip, trying to make sense of what was happening.

  “Oh, hey. I got you a surprise earlier.” Mal opened the fridge and brought out a large container of juicy red cherries.

  “It’s not cherry season,” she objected, even though they looked perfect.

  “Well, they were at the store, so they must be in season somewhere.”

  Cara took one, and closed her eyes as she savored it. “Ok, these are good. Don’t know how, but they’re good.”

  She ate another cherry, almost sputtering with laughter when Mal tossed one in the air and caught it in his mouth. “They have pits! You can’t swallow it whole.”

  “I’m not,” he said after a second of chewing, spitting the pit into the garbage. “But I have to keep in practice. Never know when a food-tossing contest might break out. It’s a good party trick.”

  “You’re legitimately weird, you know that?”

  “I hide it well, though.” He winked at her. “Can you do the thing?”

  “The thing?”

  “With the stem.” He took another cherry and popped the whole thing in his mouth, stem and all.

  That was when Cara remembered the trick. Eat a cherry and then tie the stem into a knot while it was still in your mouth. Another party trick to impress people, to show off just how good you were with your tongue.

  She never learned. What was the point? No one cared how good Cara might be with her tongue, because none of the guys looked at her, or tried to impress her with a tied cherry stem. It was the pretty girls, the thin girls, the girls who didn’t take shop class.

  “I don’t think it’s a real thing,” she announced, the taste of cherry suddenly going sour in her mouth.

  Mal just smiled at her, then pulled a perfectly knotted stem from his mouth, handing it to her.

  She took it even as she said, “Ugh, I don’t want your spit-covered stem.”

  He laughed. “Then why’d you take it?”

  “I wasn’t thinking. Anyway, I don’t believe you really did that. You probably had one you tied up first and then switched them when I wasn’t looking.”

  “You were looking the whole time, Cara. Want to watch me do it again? For science?” he asked, his voice challenging.

  “Fine. I’ll choose the cherry.” She wanted to be sure he wasn’t messing with her.

  She picked a fruit with a stem that was a much lighter brown than most of the others. Hopefully she could confirm it was the same one when he was done. “Here.”

  Mal didn’t accept the offering. Instead he leaned closer. “Put it in my mouth.”

  “What?”

  “So my hands aren’t involved. I don’t want you thinking I’m tricking you.”

  Cara made a face, but nodded. She raised her hand to his lips and popped the cherry into his mouth, wishing the move didn’t feel so…intimate.

  “Don’t take your eyes off me,” he warned, the words slightly mangled as he talked around the fruit.

  Cara watched, arms across her chest to make it clear that this was just for science, and she wasn’t into it, and the sight of Mal sucking on a cherry didn’t send a little—ok, a big—jolt down into her belly, or make her damp between her legs.

  He took his time this round, smiling a little as he held her eyes.

  “What’s the matter?” she taunted him. “Can’t get it done?”

  He shook his head slowly, denying her assertion. Then his smile grew into a toothy grin. He held a stem between his upper and lower teeth.

  “Take it,” he said, the words clear enough.

  Cara glared at him but reached forward to snap the stem away. He relaxed his jaw in time and the stem fell into her palm.

  “Well, Professor Michaels?”

  It was undoubtably the same stem, curled into a knot. “I guess you really did it,” she admitted grudgingly.

  “Of course I did. I’m good with my tongue.”

  She blushed, because he said it in a way that was meant to make her blush.

  “This is the part where you’re supposed to say I’m totally full of myself,” he prompted.

  “You are totally full of yourself,” she said, happy to have any words to say, even if he supplied them.

  “And then this is the part where I counter with an offer to prove that even if I am totally full of myself, I’m still good with my tongue, and I really want to show you just how good I am.”

  Cara couldn’t breathe v
ery well. “How…how are you going to show me?”

  He leaned over again, his hands reaching for her, catching her shoulders, drawing her to him. She met him in the middle, and right there over the kitchen island, they kissed.

  Cara nearly caught fire at the touch of Mal’s lips on hers. For such a hard-edged guy, his mouth was surprisingly soft. Gentle. Sweet, even.

  “You taste like cherries,” she murmured, not meaning to say it out loud.

  Mal made a sound of agreement and used the moment she opened her mouth to slide his tongue in.

  Oh. My. God.

  Cara had made a flip remark about not wanting his spit, but she did want it. Bad. She wanted his spit, his tongue, his teeth, his lips. All over her.

  The sensation of his tongue pressed along hers brought out a little whimper, a wordless way of begging for more.

  “This countertop is definitely an obstacle,” Mal muttered then, taking a moment to breathe.

  She inhaled too, briefly on her own again as Mal pulled away. He stepped around the end of the island, and simultaneously pulled her closer to meet him.

  He pinned her there, her back pressing against the edge of the stone. She tilted her head up, wanting another kiss, or whatever it was he was giving her.

  You should one hundred percent not be making out with your demon-hunting employee. Cara ignored the warning in her head. She was sick of playing it safe.

  She kissed him back. And she was going to make it count. She tilted her head up—Mal was way taller than she was—and reached her hands up to his shoulders. Cara really liked good shoulders, and she’d spent enough time on the job site stealing covert looks at Mal in a T-shirt to know that he had very, very good shoulders. Big, strong, begging for her to sink her teeth into. At the moment, she just dug her fingers in, hoping to prolong the kiss as much as possible.

  Mal’s tongue against hers made Cara weak in the knees, ready to rip her dress off, and willing to do anything he wanted. She could definitely use her less-than-impressive height to advantage when it came to blow jobs, and judging from what she felt when he leaned into her, he’d be up for it.

  “Hey, do—” she whispered, about to offer exactly that. But then Cara whimpered when Mal got her lower lip between his teeth and gently sucked on it. Yes, please.

  Cara felt like she was rising up, and hoped that she hadn’t died and was only getting this brief glimpse of heaven before someone decided she’d get turned away at the door. Because Mal being close to her, being into her, was pretty much heaven.

  But no. She hadn’t been rising in a spiritual sense. It turned out that on that last epic liplock, he’d somehow just lifted her up so she was now sitting on the kitchen island, and he was head to head with her, his hands twisted in her hair, keeping her in kissing range.

  “Didn’t want you to hurt your neck,” he explained between kisses. “I like your neck.” He proceeded to pull her hair away from the right side of her neck and kiss her from her shoulder to her ear.

  Cara let out a moan, too lost in the sensation to keep any cool. “Yes, please,” she said, saying it instead of thinking it this time.

  “What do you want?” he whispered in her ear.

  “See you with your shirt off,” she said instantly.

  Mal straightened up and smiled, and half a second later his shirt was gone. She didn’t even see where it landed because she was too busy ogling him.

  Perfect. Even better than she remembered from that first day seeing him in the doorway. Tight abs, broad chest, and yes, shoulders she was going to lose her mind over. Cara reached out to get her hands all over them, spreading her fingers wide as she finally felt the skin and the muscles underneath.

  Mal closed his eyes, his mouth falling open just a bit. He muttered, “I knew you’d know how to touch a man.”

  “Why?” she breathed, still mesmerized by the feel of slightly sweaty, gorgeous flesh.

  “When you touch things you’re into, you get this look in your eye. Like when you run your fingers over all the damn carving in that house, you do it in this way that just says you’re all in. It’s sexy as hell.”

  “This better not turn into a joke about how much I must like wood.”

  He laughed, and she felt the vibrations of it under the pads of her fingers. But then he dropped his hands to either side of her legs, leaning into her. “No joking, Cara. Not tonight.”

  Cara slid her hands up to his neck and went for another kiss.

  Meanwhile he worked his hands under the skirt of the dress, up her legs. When she realized how far up he was getting, she instinctively pulled back, trying to get away, thinking only that he’d be disgusted by the size of her thighs, that he already regretted kissing her.

  Instead he just moaned as his fingers hooked around the sides of her panties. “These have got to come off, babe,” he said in a low voice.

  “Here? In the kitchen?”

  “Sure. You’re at the perfect height.”

  “The perfect height for what?”

  “You know what.” His tongue lapped her throat. “Let me, Cara. I want to taste you so bad,” he said, sounding like he meant it.

  “No way.” But it came out not as a refusal but as a disbelieving no wayyyy, because Cara flat-out couldn’t believe it.

  “Yes way. Let me.”

  “Um…”

  He stepped back all the way to the living room area, and then kicked a suede-covered cube that must usually serve as a footstool over to the edge of the counter. He knelt on it, and yeah, it was pretty much the perfect height, because his head was exactly on the level of her…

  “Spread your legs, babe.” He had his hands on her thighs again, pushing the skirt up and away. “Lean back if you want.”

  “Mal…”

  “Just for now,” he said, flashing her a smile that shot pure heat right to where he was heading. “Afterward, we can relocate for more sex.”

  “Oh.” Oh.

  He was really going to do this. He started with just a puff of breath across her skin, disturbing the curls of dark reddish hair, because waxing down there was approximately one million on Cara’s list of priorities. But if that bothered him, he didn’t let it show.

  Tension ratcheted up her sensitivity, so that she might pass out right there. Then his tongue slipped into the cleft and her mouth fell open at the sensation of being touched like that, by him.

  She lifted one hand and reached forward to sink her fingers into the dark waves of his hair. It was natural to curl her hand, fist the hair, pull him to her. “Oh, wow,” she gasped.

  He made the softest humming sound, which sent a wave of want down her bones. He licked, he sucked, he made her want to melt onto the countertop. He caught her clit between his teeth, drawing a shaky, half-scared breath from her. And then the tip of his tongue right. There.

  Cara moaned. “Holy…yes. That. Oh, right there.”

  She was going to come, right on the countertop of the kitchen. And she didn’t care. Not caring was a feeling almost as glorious as the feelings Mal’s tongue was creating, and Cara let her head fall back as she gave in to the last little lick he offered before her whole body quivered and she had to moan way louder than she ever intended.

  Mal shifted his position, rising up to stand, his fingers replacing his tongue over her clit. He barely brushed against her, but the strokes had Cara stretching up and forward, leaning into him as she lost control and bit into his left shoulder. His gasp was intoxicating, and Cara turned the bite into a long sucking kiss.

  He slipped his free hand under her hair, and flipped it to one side of her head, his fingers sliding through the strands.

  “Let’s go upstairs,” he said.

  She nodded, not trusting herself to use words. She’d say something dumb. Something that was supposed to be clever, but she’d jumble it and he’d think twice about what he was asking.

  She wasn’t sure how she managed to walk upstairs, but the second they entered Mal’s dimly lit room, he moved behi
nd her and started gathering up the fabric of her dress.

  “Arms up,” Mal ordered. She lifted her arms above her head to let him pull the dress off. Her bra wasn’t exactly sexy, but it was lace, and newish. It also didn’t match the panties she’d been wearing, but Mal had solved that problem downstairs.

  He dropped the dress to the floor as he stepped around to face her. He took a long look, his eyes locked on her chest in a way that probably should have been offensive but was actually pretty…awesome.

  “Cara,” he breathed. He reached for a bra strap, but she stepped away.

  “You first,” she ordered. “You’re still practically dressed.”

  “I can fix that,” he said, yanking at his belt buckle. A second later, his jeans and boxers dropped to reveal perfect legs, because of course he had perfect legs. Oh, and a cock that was perfectly hard.

  “Take the bra off now,” he said, sounding a little desperate.

  “I will when you get on the bed,” she countered.

  Mal was on the bed so fast that she knew there was something suspicious about his abilities. No matter how ready for sex men are, they usually don’t blur when they move.

  But a deal was a deal, and Cara reached up to unfasten the bra’s front closure. She freed her breasts and shrugged out of the bra, her eyes on Mal. His hands were clenching into fists, wrinkling the bedsheets.

  Cara walked slowly up to the bed, and the moment she get there, Mal reached for her and pulled her down. A second later they were lying on their sides, pawing at each other like teens.

  “Hey,” Mal said eagerly. “If you flip around, we can—”

  “No.” She stopped cold. “No 69ing.”

  Mal looked surprised, but said, “Ok.”

  “I mean it. That’s what no means.”

  “And I mean that’s ok. That’s what ok means. If you’re not into something, you’re not into it.”

  “I’m not into 69ing.” She personally loathed the act, and hadn’t done it since the last time an ex-boyfriend inadvertently revealed he only insisted on it because he knew Cara didn’t want to do it.

  Mal shifted a little, easing himself away from her, just a few inches. “Are you still into this? I mean, sex? With me?”