Stalked

by Lisa Hughey

  The Marshals had moved the judge and the rest of the occupants of the co-op per Alex’s instructions.

  They’d also evacuated the judge’s entire floor under the pretense of a building inspection finding potential black mold and needing to do a thorough cleaning before letting the inhabitants back in.

  Alex ran his piece of the investigation from his cell phone, and Kita mostly twiddled her thumbs. She wasn’t used to being superfluous and she didn’t like it. She also didn’t like the fact that she hadn’t had a chance to talk to Jillian about Hannah and the kids. The worry that she’d woken up with hadn’t diminished. If anything, she was more stressed. She’d promised to keep in touch with Hannah every day.

  A wilted and browned violet plant sat on the windowsill behind the sink. Kita pinched off the brown leaves and poked at the dirt.

  She tended to the plant, holding the green plastic pot beneath the water spigot and soaking the dry crunchy soil until it was saturated. Satisfied with the way the plant perked back up, she placed the pot on a paper plate and set it back on the sill.

  “Sit on the sofa,” Alex ordered. Wow, she must look bad. Had the infection begun taking effect?

  That she could have that sickness in her swirling, poised to attack her body, hovered in the back of her mind like a leopard waiting to pounce.

  Kita was feeling particularly battered and bruised. And the one thing she could do, the one place she had a semblance of control, was the situation with Hannah.

  “You want something to eat?” Alex asked her.

  “Not really hungry.”

  She heaved the Target bag with their supplies on her shoulder. “I’m going to go change.”

  Kita found the first bedroom and quietly closed the door. She pulled off the scrubs that made her feel dirty, and pressed the speed dial on her phone, stripping off the rest of the clothes as she waited impatiently for Hannah to answer.

  Alex peered in the fridge.

  Something was off with his partner. He’d only known her for a day and a half but he was convinced that she was worried about something. The edgy, antsy feeling that gripped him in the hospital last night—or was it the night before?—was back. Stronger than ever.

  He thought he heard Kita talking.

  Was she okay?

  He hustled to the sleeping area of the safe house in time to hear her rattle off her phone number. “Call me.”

  What the hell was she doing?

  They didn’t know if the judge’s letter writer was doing surveillance. Clearly the perpetrator had intimate knowledge or access to the judge.

  Accordingly, the team was supposed to maintain radio silence until they could get a handle on what was happening with the escalating threats.

  He burst into her room. And stopped cold.

  Kita had taken off the scrubs she’d been given. Her back was to him, and all he could see was miles of skin. Rippling, smooth, sensual skin. The muscles in her back, the dip of her waist, the rounded curves of her ass, and strong, sexy legs.

  She was a fucking goddess.

  Her head was tilted back as she stared at the ceiling. Her eyes were closed, one hand gripping the back of her neck, the other hanging by her side with the cell phone still clutched in her elegant fingers.

  “Close your mouth.”

  “What?”

  “Perhaps you could get out,” she said evenly.

  He whirled around so that his back was to her. “Not yet.”

  “Really?” she groused. “I’ve had an epically bad few days. I would like to be left alone, for just a few damn minutes.”

  So had he. But he’d be lying if he hadn’t been listening intently when they’d been trapped in that exam room and answering question after question of personal information.

  She’d been exposed to TB as a kid, which meant she had potentially compromised lungs in the event that the powder was inhalation anthrax.

  “Why aren’t you gone?”

  “I turned my back.” And he had, but when he opened his eyes, he realized that she had turned around and he could see the front of her body reflected in the mirror over the dresser.

  Shit. He squeezed his eyes shut again.

  Kita’s husky laugh penetrated his consciousness. “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing,” he groaned. His body had responded to the sight of all that skin; her small breasts were pert and tipped with peach nipples. The weather had turned chilly today and the house had not yet warmed up.

  “Got a little peep show?”

  “Would it help if I said I was sorry?”

  “Maybe.” She wasn’t going to give an inch. “But I’d rather know why you burst in here.”

  His brain had shorted out. She’d wandered closer and Alex was overly mindful of the fact that she didn’t have a stitch of clothing on. The thatch of dark curls at her sex didn’t match her hair, a fall of color that started dark at the roots but ended blond at the tips. Logically this made sense, but the stark contrast pulled at his concentration. He wondered what she tasted like. Wondered if her whole body exuded that sexy citrus scent. Wondered what she’d sound like if he kissed her in other more intimate places.

  He remembered her soft moan from the other evening, remembered the lust that had possessed him, and the caution he’d abandoned at the first sign of her aggression when she bit his lip. He swiped his tongue over the still sensitive curve.

  She waited for his answer patiently.

  What was the question? More importantly, did he care? Because other more dangerous, tempting desires were rising in his body.

  He was only steps away from her. From her gorgeously naked body.

  And her completely hidden thoughts.

  The fact that they’d potentially been exposed to a deadly toxin, that if it manifested would begin with flulike symptoms and erode their immune system until they either died or recovered, churned in his gut.

  All those rules followed, all those strict interpretations of right over wrong, so that no one got hurt, people stayed safe. And he still ended up here.

  On the edge of extinction.

  “Put on some clothes, Kita.”

  She laughed huskily. “Or what?”

  In that moment, his only cogent thought was survival. Survival of his own DNA. Yes, it was primitive, and no, right in this fucking moment, he didn’t care.

  “Do you really want to find out?”

  His cock had stiffened, pressing against the scrubs insistently. He opened his eyes, caught her gaze in the mirror. She knew he had been staring at her. She knew he was aroused. Kinda hard to miss.

  Her gaze dropped to the significant bulge beneath the rough blue cotton. Held, as if mesmerized by the wood he was sporting.

  Her nipples pebbled.

  “That for me?” she said seductively.

  Hell yes it was for her. “Do you see anyone else in this room?”

  She licked her lips and all he could imagine was them wrapped around his cock and sucking him dry.

  “Fuck, Kita.” His voice was like grated glass. “Put some damn clothes on.”

  Instead she took a step toward him. “Or you could take yours off,” she offered.

  All the blood in his brain rushed to his cock. He was harder than he’d ever been in his life. Hemoglobin and antibodies flooded his body and the club in his pants throbbed painfully.

  The chill air in the sparse, impersonal room cooled the sheen of sweat on his skin but did nothing to cool his epic stiffy. His body was an inferno of lust.

  Her nipples peaked, just begging for his hands, his mouth.

  She took another step. “We have nothing to do but wait.”

  The results of the analysis should be in sometime tomorrow, two days at the latest. Until then they were in a state of nothingness. Poised on the edge. Depending on the identity of that powder they were in for a wild ride to survival. Or they would breathe in relief at the deadly bullet they’d dodged.

  “I don’t really want to lie around and worr
y.” Kita was right behind him now. Heat pulsed off her body in waves. This close he could see her arousal. The flush in her breasts and the glitter of desire in her black eyes.

  He tried to remind himself of all the reasons why this would be monumentally bad.

  “I make my own rules,” she said softly. “And my rule says when you’ve been exposed to a deadly toxin, you grab hold of every moment you can. Because nothing is ever guaranteed, and no matter how much you plan and do everything right, things can go terribly, horrifically wrong.”

  Wasn’t that what he’d been thinking just moments ago?

  Nothing was certain in this world. Undoubtedly not tonight.

  Her gaze had dropped to his erection again. This close, her delicate scent and the faint musk of arousal drifted to him. “So this isn’t just a convenience?”

  Sex usually meant something to him. He had a set pattern he adhered to. A series of steps that were typically taken before he actually went to bed with a woman.

  “Jesus, Alex.” She dropped her forehead to his shoulder. “You seriously have rules for sex too?”

  As if she knew him.

  “Maybe,” he said defensively. Then screw it. “But I’ve wanted you since I saw you in Jillian’s office.”

  “I was all sweaty and I smelled.”

  “I know.”

  Her mouth rounded in a surprised O.

  “Fuck your rules.” She carefully set the phone on the dresser and stepped in front of him. She stared into his eyes, very deliberately clasped his hands and dragged his palms to her bare breasts, pressing them against her.

  She placed her own hands over his erection, rubbing up and down the hard length until a drop of liquid wet the scrubs.

  “And fuck me,” she commanded him.

  Chapter 11

  Kita could literally feel the moment he broke.

  He’d been standing still as her Buddha statue. Not moving and even though the heat from his swollen cock was burning through the blue scrubs he wasn’t doing a damn thing about it.

  She’d been a humiliating moment away from dropping her hand and walking away.

  Not running away in shame, but for damn sure slinking away in disappointment.

  And then he’d groaned.

  His palms squeezed her tits and his thumbs pressed hard against her nipples. All that pent-up arousal thrummed through her.

  She moaned low in her throat.

  That galvanized him.

  The imbalance of naked vs. clothed probably should have bothered her. Instead she leaned into the heat of his body, reveled in his hard cock against her belly. Kita slid her hands beneath the elastic waist and cupped his ass in her palms.

  Alex caressed her breast with one hand while the other snaked around her waist and slid along her skin until his fingertips rested at the top of her ass.

  His finger teased the valley between her ass cheeks even as he bent to kiss her.

  His lips were soft but the kiss was hard, frenetic, invasive. She nipped at his mouth and he opened. Kita thrust her tongue inside in short strokes. Her hips rocked in the same rhythm as the dance of their tongues. She wanted to get him naked. Get skin to skin, but his callused fingers were playing with her nipple, and sensation after sensation crashed through her, shorting out her motor function.

  All she could do was feel.

  He devoured her, as if she was his last meal, a banquet, and he’d been starving to death.

  She shoved the scrub shirt up and over his head, breaking their kiss. He dragged his nose along the curve of her neck, goose bumps shivering over her bare skin. “How can you still smell so good?”

  She licked a path across his chest, stopping to play with his nipple.

  His erection busted out of the waist of the pants and a smear of hot liquid sizzled on her belly. They were both breathing heavily, even though she’d done little more than kiss him and run her hands over his bare flesh.

  Damn, he had a spectacular body. She closed her eyes and skimmed her tongue over his washboard abs, tasting each ridge like a feast of her very own muscle buffet. His skin was slightly salty and he smelled like a man. Like pine and male sweat and sweet arousal.

  She shoved his pants down his thighs to his knees. Then she dipped to push them to the ground. She was half kneeling, and his engorged cock was in her face. He jutted hard and thick and eager from the nest of curls and she had the urge to suck him into her mouth. The bulbous head of his cock was swollen and purple, and the vein that ran down the front beckoned.

  Her mouth watered but before she could consume him, he yanked her to her feet, then whirled them around.

  With deliberate steps he walked them to the simple bed with the plain comforter.

  Her calves hit the box spring, and she tumbled to the mattress.

  Alex paused, stared, his gaze hot licks over her skin. Her sex was wet, tingling with anticipation as he knelt and skimmed his thumbs up the inside of her thighs. He stopped at the crease in her leg, rubbed his thumbs along her skin, edging ever closer to her swollen sex, but not quite touching. His breath was hot on her clit as he bent over and took one long, slow lick.

  “Goddamn, you taste amazing.” He spoke against the lips of her sex and then his head dove between her thighs and he began to eat at her in earnest.

  His stubble prickled the overly sensitive skin of her inner thighs.

  She typically wasn’t crazy about guys going down on her. It seemed so self-indulgent, and she went to stop him.

  Alex’s eyes were closed but the expression of bliss on his face cracked open something inside her. Her heart hiccupped. He wasn’t enduring this as foreplay. His cheeks were flushed and his smile as he lapped at her was the same one he’d had when she’d told him he should laugh more often. He was enjoying this.

  “Relax, Kita.” He growled against her, the low sound shimmying through her body. He wrapped one arm around her thigh and lifted her higher. Then he skated two fingers along the back of her thigh, and a cascade of tingles buzzed through her.

  Her hips began to rock and instead of trying to get away, she ached to get closer. The things his mouth were doing to her were probably illegal.

  Then he pressed those fingers against her aroused and swollen flesh before gliding inside her easily as if he’d penetrated her a thousand times.

  His confidence, the ballet of his movements as he slipped right in and stroked with a masterful touch, was a total panty-melter. He had a plan and he wasn’t afraid to follow it.

  His fingers pushed inside—not rough but not gentle—stroked, probed, and then he found that spot.

  “What is that?” she gasped. Dear God, his fingers were playing her like a fucking violin.

  “I am a G-man.” He grinned, her juices glistening in his stubble.

  Without warning he sucked her clit into his mouth and relentlessly pushed her toward implosion. He ate at her, his fingers punished her, and then he used his other hand to pinch her clit.

  Her legs tightened around his face as involuntary jerks of her hips pushed her into his fierce desire.

  She came in a long, loud wail, bowing off the bed as if she could push her pussy into his mouth and have him swallow her whole. Her sex milked his fingers, greedy and grasping for something, anything, to hold on to. The contractions were so hard, higher thought was impossible.

  Fireworks rocketed in her head, blinding her. With his smooth shoulders practically underneath her ass and her legs pushed wide open for his onslaught, sensation overwhelmed her.

  Sex wasn’t like this. This all-consuming battery of the senses, taking away basic impressions and leaving only sated, wrecked, throbbing parts in its wake.

  She’d had sex, many times. She used it like a tool when she wanted some stress relief. But those tepid orgasms were nothing like what just plowed through her body.

  He continued to eat at her sex, and her over-sensitized body protested. She couldn’t take any more. She need to get away from the overwhelming lust that clawed at her,
annihilating feelings that welled up, crowding her throat. She couldn’t handle what was happening.

  She did a sit up and tugged on his hair.

  His clean-cut, Mr. Upstanding, By the Book image was in tatters.

  He hadn’t shaved today, a dark scruff covered the lower half of his face, giving him a decidedly more disreputable appearance. His chest was a work of muscled glory, his biceps bunched with tension, his hair stood up in spikes from where she’d clenched the strands in her fists. His lips and mouth and cheeks were slick from her orgasm. She’d come all over his face.

  With a growl, she pulled him on top of her, wrapped her legs around his waist and rolled him until she was on top.

  “My turn.” Here was a position she was comfortable assuming.

  She was in control. She was directing the action and his pleasure. Because she knew for now her satisfaction was over.

  He grinned. Those white teeth were blinding in the dim room. “Whatever you want, sweetheart.”

  Her heart clenched at the term of endearment.

  His cock pulsed against her wet sex. He shifted his hips and the bulbous head played with her clit.

  Still sensitive, she held in a gasp. “Condom?”

  That quickly his smile disappeared. “I don’t have one.”

  She thought back to that room where they’d been disinfected and quizzed on their current health. She’d overheard every single detail of his physical history, including the results of his annual exam for the US Marshals. “No diseases.”

  “I never go without.” His hands gripped her hips. He was slowly rocking her back and forth over his erection. Big, hard, hot, he continued to tease and torment her with the slippery head. And oh God but she wanted him inside her.

  The desire she’d thought sated was quickly rising again. Impossible. And yet, she couldn’t stop those subtle caresses, teasing him right back.

  “Me either.” She dropped her head, arching her back, trying sort of to get away from him, but he wouldn’t let her lift from that seductive, teasing tip. “I have an IUD,” she whispered, unsure if she wanted him to take her up on the unspoken offer.