by Rachel Grant
He threaded his fingers through her hair, mussing the sleek style, and that was sexy too. He rocked his hips, taking all the pleasure she gave him, then gently pulled back, leaving the heat of her mouth. “My turn.”
He nudged her back so she lay on the cushion and slid his hands up her dress and tugged down the small swath of lace. He reached her knees and moved back and guided the panties over her stilettos. “It’s crazy hot that you’re still in your dress and heels.”
He pushed the dress up higher, clearing her hips to her waist so he could spread her legs wide. He stared at her center, enjoying the view of her, tight, dark curls, and pink lips, wet with arousal. “Beautiful,” he whispered, then he leaned down and licked her from vagina to clit.
She let out a sharp groan, so he did it again, then grazed the sensitive spot with his teeth. She gasped, and he sucked on her, licked her. Explored her folds and wet heat, dipping his tongue inside her, followed by his finger. Her body tightened around him, coiling with the intensity, and he groaned in sympathetic pleasure as he used his fingers and mouth to wind her up.
Watching her, feeling her body’s reaction to his attention, hearing the sounds she made was glorious.
He was rock hard and completely lost. This was the pure selfish moment he’d told her he wanted. Needed. The best kind of self-care.
A crash sounded, and he jolted just in time to see an object hurtling through the front window. He grabbed Maddie’s hips and yanked her to the floor as the object hit the arm of the couch near where her head had been.
He covered her body with his own. She yelped as another crash was followed by another hurtled object. A white gas billowed out. Shit!
“Close your eyes and hold your breath! It’s tear gas.”
13
Josh pulled Maddie to her feet, then tucked himself back in his pants one-handed as he closed his eyes and pulled her through the harsh gas toward the back door. This was a case of the blind leading the blind, but at least he knew the way. His eyes burned and his lungs ached. He threw the dead bolt.
He pulled his gun from the holster at his back, thankful they hadn’t stripped or he’d be scrambling for clothes, gun, and phone before they could escape outside. He shoved the door wide, opened his eyes, then stepped into his fenced backyard, scanning for intruders. Tear gas was designed to get people out of buildings, which meant an ambush could be waiting.
He didn’t bother with the alarm. It would signal the police in ten seconds—an extremely short interval thanks to his current risk level.
Maddie followed him through the door, her dress no longer hiked up, but her breasts remained exposed as she took a deep breath and coughed. The alarm blared behind him right on schedule as he studied the patio, lawn, and garden, gun pointed in all the dark corners in turn.
The sun had set only twenty minutes before, and shadows were deepening, offering limited concealment. “Stay with your back to the wall,” he whispered to Maddie, then approached the storage shed in the far corner, looking for signs it had been breached or someone was concealed behind the small structure.
His eyes still burned, and his nose ran. His reaction time had been slow because his attention had been consumed by the need to make Maddie come, and they’d been too close to the grenades when they went off to escape unscathed. He ignored the pain in his eyes, nose, and lungs, and checked the shed. The lock was secure, and a quick circuit of the structure revealed no one lying in wait.
The backyard was empty, for the moment. He returned to Maddie’s side, keeping his gun out, but pointed down. He helped her zip her dress, then touched her cheek. She coughed again. Her eyes were red and teary, her nose running as the gas did its job of irritating the mucus membranes of the eyes, mouth, nose, and lungs. He’d left the tuxedo jacket in the house, or he’d have a handkerchief to give her. He pulled off his open shirt instead and offered it to her.
“Thank you,” she said between coughs. She must have gotten a lungful right before he told her to hold her breath.
She wiped her face and handed the shirt back, and he cleaned up his own face, then pulled his phone from his back pocket, thankful it was there and not in the jacket. In five minutes, it would be safe to go inside and retrieve belongings, but he needed to call the police and Raptor now.
Maddie paced the backyard. She’d given up on the stilettos in the lawn and paced barefoot, her mermaid tail dragging in the grass and twigs. A Black female uniformed officer stood by the back door, guarding Maddie while Josh went over the scene with a male detective and more uniformed officers inside.
The scene. Josh’s living room was now a crime scene. She shivered in spite of the muggy air.
Josh stepped outside, followed by the detective. Both men crossed the patio to where she stood in the grass. He put an arm around her and said, “You ready to answer questions?”
She nodded. “There’s not much I can say. I didn’t really see anything. I was in the middle of the best sex of my life, and then everything went to hell.”
Josh glanced at the detective. “Can you make sure to put that in the report? Maybe highlight it in a bold font?”
Both the detective and Maddie laughed. She leaned into Josh’s embrace and pressed her nose to the T-shirt he’d donned when he went back into the house. It smelled of fabric softener and not the peppery scent of tear gas she’d been trying to expel from her nose and lungs for the last thirty minutes.
He kissed the top of her head, then released her. She turned to face the detective. “Where do I start?”
The detective was tall—he had to be at least six-four. A handsome Black man, he had the air of authority one wanted in a police detective. “You, um, don’t have to go into detail about your activities before the grenades were thrown. I think I got the gist.”
Yeah, her panties on the floor had probably been a big clue.
“Whew,” she said with a half laugh. “There’s really not much to say. I was…distracted. I heard glass break, but I’m not even certain the sound registered right away. Next thing I knew, Josh pulled me off the couch and covered me—I presume to protect me from broken glass or whatever had broken the window.” It had all happened so fast, and his protection had been instant. Instinctive.
She glanced at him. “You didn’t get cut, did you?”
He gave a sharp shake of his head.
She turned back to the tall detective. “Then Josh said to close my eyes and hold my breath. It was too late, though. I got a lungful and opened my eyes when I stumbled getting to my feet. Josh pulled me to the back door, and we got outside.”
Her exposure to the gas was mild compared to how bad it could have been. She’d been better within minutes of stepping outside. There’d been no need for paramedics to examine either her or Josh. Really, what she wanted more than anything was a shower.
She answered the detective’s last questions, and he returned to the inside of the house.
“There’s little evidence to go on,” Josh said. “Aside from tracking the tear gas grenades. If we hadn’t been—”
He stopped short, and she realized what he wasn’t saying. “If we hadn’t been in the middle of having sex, you’d have gone out the front and tried to identify them.”
“No. I needed to get you out safely. That was the top priority.”
“But still, you wish you’d been able to do both.”
“Of course I wish I could have protected you and caught them. I’m an operator. My job has always been to jump into the fray. It’s ingrained so deep, it’s instinctual.”
“No. Your instinct was to cover me, to protect me.” She gripped his shirt and pulled his head down so his lips were a scant centimeter from hers. “Tell you what, next time, you go after the bad guys and I’ll get myself out. I know the way now. I’ll be fine.”
“One, there won’t be a next time, and two, protecting you always comes first. Period.”
He said it with such authority mixed with emotion, she felt a giddy thrill. He brushed hi
s lips over hers, then raised his head and met her gaze. His eyes were sad and intense. “Listen, I shouldn’t leave here tonight, not with the front windows shattered. I already had a contractor lined up to switch out the windows for bulletproof glass next week. I’m going to see if he’ll be able to jump on it in the next day or two, but until then, I’m not comfortable with you being here.”
She’d longed for him to hold her tonight as she slept, but his words made it clear that wasn’t going to happen. “If you’re worried about Ava, she can stay with me if she’s willing.”
“Thank you. I’m sure she’d rather stay with Marcus, but that might not work out for his family.”
She’d met Marcus and his parents when she dropped Ava off. She’d realized right away that Marcus was probably trans and only a few months into the hormone therapy, but it wasn’t her business, and she wouldn’t ask for confirmation. She was just glad to see the boy had parents who embraced their son and suspected the support Marcus and Ava gave each other was mutual and deep, as both of their worlds had undergone a major shift in the last year.
She envied their friendship, having felt somewhat adrift after losing her fiancé and her closest friend on the same day a year ago.
When she got home tonight, she’d call Trina…except there was a three-hour time difference, and Trina had gone through her own trauma tonight along with her husband. Keith needed her far more than Maddie did.
She bit her lip. Josh needed her as much as Keith needed Trina. And equally important, she needed Josh. “Please, can I stay the night? I don’t…want to be alone. And you shouldn’t be alone either.”
“It’s too dangerous.”
She cupped his face. “They had their fun. They scared us. Got us running outside half-naked. They won’t come back, and if they do, you’ll be ready for them. I heard the officers say they’d drive by every thirty minutes tonight. Your house is probably safer than mine right now.”
“I can’t. We can’t. I need to be alert for intruders.”
“And you need to sleep because you aren’t a machine. Listen, sex is off the table, I know that. I might be too traumatized for that anyway. Oral sex might never be the same.”
He cupped her cheeks. “No way. I will personally devote my life to healing that scar, even if it takes years of practice until you enjoy it again like you did tonight.”
She smiled and whispered, “It might take decades of endless oral sex until I’m fixed.”
His brown eyes lit with humor. “I’m here to help you heal. But not tonight. No sex, no distractions tonight.”
Warmth bloomed in her chest. “I can stay?”
“You can stay. I mean, you were prepared for a volcano eruption or earthquake. Shame to let that preparation go to waste when we did have a terror attack.”
“Is that what this was? A terror attack?”
“Did you feel terror?” Josh asked.
She nodded.
“The whole point of gassing us was to make us afraid, so yeah, that’s what it was.”
“You’re still going to train people to protect counterprotestors, right?”
“Hell yeah. I won’t let them scare me off. It’s their end goal, and I won’t let them win.” He brushed her hair out of her eyes. “And I’ve made a decision on another question you asked too. Tomorrow, I want you and Ava to attend the training—not because you’ll be at the protests, but because I want you both to learn self-defense.”
Josh held Maddie in his arms for a long time after they crawled into bed. He was so thankful he wasn’t alone, that she’d pushed him to let her stay. After the cops had left, Maddie made dinner while he boarded up the front windows with plywood he robbed from one of the walls in the unfinished basement. Finishing it and painting the walls was on his very long to-do list, but right now, he was glad he hadn’t gotten around to it.
Task complete, they’d eaten tacos in his office while he checked in with the night shift at Raptor headquarters, giving the full report of the incident. While they were at it, decisions were made on who would fly to Portland to help out with the new Nielsen Steel contract. He needed help here by midweek or sooner, if possible.
After dinner, Maddie had showered, then crawled into bed while Josh took his turn in the shower. Much as he wanted to shower with her, the potential for distraction was too high.
Clean, all tear gas residue removed from his skin, he’d donned boxer briefs and a T-shirt and crawled into bed with her, and now they held each other in silence. It filled some missing piece in his heart. He’d never done this before, or at least not without sex being involved at the beginning or the end of the holding part.
He wondered if she had. There was so much he didn’t know about her. Starting with her family. “Will you tell me about your brother?”
She stiffened in his arms, then relaxed. “I suppose now is as good a time as any.”
“No. Not if you don’t want to.”
She scooted back and stared at him. She was more shadow than light, and he found even her silhouette beautiful. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Alan. I mean that. I just—it was really nice to not have that as part of our conversation, because it hurts, more than I can tell my parents. More than I can tell him.”
“What happened?”
“Nearly two years ago, I was in a serious relationship, and we had a birth control fail. I was on a prescription that negated the hormones and didn’t realize it. My doctor caught it, and called me. I went straight in to her office and got a test and learned I was pregnant. I was reeling, trying to figure out what I wanted. My boyfriend proposed. I was in love with him and knew if I didn’t say yes, there would be no recovering from that. So even though he didn’t propose because he wanted to get married, we got engaged. Told everyone—but didn’t tell anyone about the pregnancy. I was only four weeks, after all.
“Then…I got sick. I ended up in the emergency room and discovered the pregnancy was ectopic. Not viable, and killing me. My fallopian tube ruptured, which required major surgery. They had to remove the ruptured tube—which, of course, included the fetus. I lost a lot of blood and needed a transfusion.”
Josh sensed she didn’t want to be held and took her hand in his instead and squeezed. “I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you. I barely had time to adjust to the idea of having a baby before it was gone, but my fiancé started talking about trying again as soon as we got the go-ahead from the doctor after the wedding. So the wedding plans moved forward, like a tractor beam. It was like…we couldn’t take it back even though there wasn’t going to be a baby. I was all kinds of messed up and didn’t know if I wanted to marry him or not. I mean, I loved him. But, was it a marriage kind of love or a for-now kind of love?
“Then, a week before the wedding, my maid of honor told me she couldn’t go through with it. And…I was confused, because she’d always liked him.” She let out a bitter laugh. “Boy, did she. So it turns out that while I was still in the hospital after emergency surgery, she told my fiancé she was in love with him, and now that there was no baby, he could leave me and be with her. And…he said he couldn’t leave me while I was recovering, but he had no problem having sex with her.”
“Oh, Maddie.”
She sat up and pulled her knees to her chest. “I guess he kept stringing her along, telling her he couldn’t dump me, and we found ourselves planning a wedding in which my maid of honor was banging the groom and I was utterly clueless. Finally, she couldn’t take it anymore and told me. I confronted him, and he admitted everything, and now they’re married and have a kid on the way. I think she was trying to get pregnant in the months leading up to the wedding as a way to seal the deal. Anyway, I’m better off without both of them, and I got to keep all our mutual friends in the breakup so…yay?”
“I’m so sorry they both betrayed you so badly.”
“I am too, and yet, I realize I dodged a bullet. I could be married to that cheating sonofabitch. I could still be confiding in my ex-bestie
.” Her smile was only faintly visible in the darkened room. “And then I wouldn’t be here with you now.”
He pulled her hand to his lips and kissed her fingers. “And I’m so thankful you’re with me here now.”
She let out a heavy breath. “But…none of that explains my current relationship with my brother.”
“I’m thinking I might be able to guess.”
“Go for it.”
“I’ve listened to several of his speeches. I know his talking points. His stance on abortion is cold. He doesn’t view reproductive rights as health care and thinks it should be outlawed in all instances, even when the woman’s life is in danger.”
“Bingo.” She shook her head. “The worst part is, I know him, and I know that he doesn’t actually believe any of that. He sees it as necessary to getting elected, and it’s so nice to know my own brother would let me die if it meant more power for him. My mom argues that he doesn’t mean it, and that hurts too. My own mom. A woman. And she’s so eager for the golden boy to be…I don’t know…the next president of the United States, so she’s willing to look the other way instead of listening to the words that come out of his mouth. She and my dad have always doted on him. She was thrilled when he was elected to congress—which I get, of course—but she doesn’t look at the cost of his stated views.
“Alan is pissed I won’t campaign for him…but why would I? He’s betrayed me and every woman in this country when he refuses to acknowledge my bodily autonomy, that I have a right to live that supersedes that of a six-week-old bundle of cells.”
“Can I…hold you?”
She leaned against him, snuggling into his chest and he wrapped his arms around her. “One of the hardest parts in all of this is I lost both of my best friends on the same day, and then my brother started campaigning and saying the most hurtful things, and I lost my family too. I have my wine-tasting friends, but…it’s not the same level of closeness. I felt so utterly abandoned. It’s a horrible thing to have to wade through intensely emotional waters alone. Trina helped, but she was thousands of miles away.”
