He was still murmuring about tea when he led her into his tiny front room. There was a fireplace and she could see down the hallway to the kitchen on the right and the bedroom and bathroom on the left. The tiny one bedroom house was so cozy and perfect that, for a moment, Olivia just wanted to stare and drink it all in. The muted masculine colors, the overstuffed and solid furniture that looked as though it had been chosen for comfort and utility rather than style.
“This is perfect,” Olivia whispered. “Duke, I may never leave this place. It’s so cozy and welcoming.”
He stopped talking and smiled down at her. The soft glow of the end table lamps made him look just that much more comforting. This was the man she could count on for the rest of her life. She was sure of it.
“I’m glad you like it.” He gestured to the kitchen. “I’ll go put the kettle on. We should have hot water for tea in no time.”
“Duke?”
He turned to her with his eyebrows lifted in query. “What’s that, angel?”
“I want you to make love to me.” Olivia could not believe she’d been so bold, but there it was. She wanted this. She wanted him. She wanted to be alive right now and this was what would do it. She knew for sure. “I want you. Do you want me?”
He looked dumbfounded. So many thoughts and emotions flickered across his face that she could not keep track of what she was seeing. Finally, he moved toward her with his hands outstretched. He took her fingers in his palms and held them lightly. Then he stared down at her for a long moment. He leaned down. He kissed her lips. Just a brushing of his lips against hers.
“Olivia, I don’t want to be one of your regrets. I don’t want to be that crazy thing you did one night when you were so torn up about your uncle.” His voice was low, urgent even, as if this was a great fear.
“Duke,” Olivia whispered. She stood on tiptoe and let go of his hands in order to cup his face. “That’s not what this is. I promise. I don’t want to think about Riley. But I don’t need something to help me forget. He’s already gone. Maybe I’d given up on him days and days ago when things really began to change between us. Or maybe I had already realized that things were not good. I don’t know. I don’t care. I care about right now. About my future. I want you in my future, Duke. I want to be yours. Your woman. Your girl.”
“My angel,” he whispered.
He was fighting a battle inside himself. She could see it waging behind his eyes. Then she kissed him lightly and let her tongue skate across his lips to beg him to open up for her. That was all it took.
He crushed her to his chest. His grip was gentle and yet so very insistent. He kissed her like a starving man, a man dying for water in the desert. He kissed her as though he needed her to breathe. She kissed him back. She held nothing back. Olivia wanted this too much to bother. She gave him everything. She tangled her fingers in his shaggy dark blond hair and tugged until he was ravenous for her, yet still she demanded more.
Duke plucked Olivia off the floor. She wrapped her legs around his waist and felt the bulge at his groin press intimately against her crotch. She loved the excitement, the anticipation. Never had she been more into a man before in her life. She was so ready for him that he could have taken her on the floor without apology and she would have begged him for more.
“You set me on fire, woman,” he whispered in her ear as he carried her the short distance to his bedroom.
Olivia sighed with pleasure when he lay her down on his bed. The covers were rumpled. She could imagine him rising from them this morning, naked, of course. Now he covered her with his body. His shirt was gone. Olivia struggled to get out of her own polo shirt. The stupid uniform she’d been wearing for most of her life. She squirmed until she was able to throw her bra and panties on the haphazard pile of clothing that must be at the side of the bed.
“So beautiful,” he whispered as he stared down at her naked body.
Olivia had never been confident in her own nakedness. She wasn’t curvy or athletic. She was lean and long and muscular, but she was also angular. Her breasts were tiny. But when Duke took each one into the palm of his hand and then suckled her nipples into his mouth, he did not seem to mind their size.
Arching her back, Olivia gasped with pleasure and moved restlessly against him. She wanted to touch him everywhere. The smooth skin rippling over his back and his abdomen sent shivers down her spine. She let her nails trace a trail over the bumps of his ribs to his waistband. She wanted him naked just like her. She wanted him. Period.
Duke’s skin rubbed sexily against hers. He kissed her deeply, moving his tongue in and out of her mouth as though mimicking the love act and promising her what he would be giving her next. She moaned and writhed beneath him. Her skin was too hot. She needed more. She needed everything.
And then he gave it to her. Everything. His hips slid between her thighs and his erection pressed erotically against the most sensitive part of her body until she felt him enter her as slowly as he possibly could.
“You’re so tight and so tiny,” Duke whispered to Olivia. “Tell me if it hurts. Tell me. I don’t want to hurt you.”
But he didn’t. She was so turned on and he was so gentle. She arched her back, shifted her pelvis, and took him deep inside her body until there was no end and no beginning. They were one. One person. One entity. More than that. As he moved slowly against her and the friction began to build, she felt as though she was soaring to the heavens.
Olivia grabbed hold of Duke’s shoulders. She dug her fingernails into his flesh and held on tight as he took her for the ride of her life. Heat built between them. Sweat beaded on her skin and blended with his. They ceased to be separate people. There was no end to where her body stopped and his started. She felt the place where their bodies joined together as though it were the focal point of her whole existence.
“Duke!” Olivia cried his name. She shouted it again and again as she felt the climax take her over the edge of bliss. She closed her eyes as her muscles convulsed and she held tight to him as her only anchor in the storm.
His roar filled the room. She felt him thrust hard into her body. The sensation of his penetration was exquisite. And then the heat of his own peak left her breathless with fulfilment and desire all at the same time. She would never stop wanting this. Once would never be enough. She needed a lifetime to be with this man. A lifetime to make love to him, to know him as she wanted to know herself.
Duke’s lips found hers in the darkness. He kissed her lightly, with a tenderness that belied the frantic quality of their lovemaking. After, he rolled away from her body onto his side and pulled her closer so she could snuggle alongside him.
Olivia’s eyelids grew heavy. She could not keep them open. She wanted to stay awake, to talk to Duke and ask him about everything. Their future. What it could be. What he wanted. If there was room for her to fit in his life. She wanted to know. She was dying to know. But soon enough she knew her breathing was evening out and she was drifting off to sleep.
Duke arranged the rumpled sheets on his bed to cover them both. It was hot, but most of that was the sweat cooling quickly on their skin. The only noise was the low hum of a window air conditioning unit. His arms were solid around her. She didn’t care that the places where their bodies touched felt the temperature of molten lava. She just wanted to be with Duke.
“Go to sleep, angel,” he whispered in her ear. His hands were everywhere, smoothing her hair, combing her curls, tracing the features of her face and drawing circles on her back with his fingertips. “It will all look better in the morning.”
Perhaps he was right. In the morning they could look at what had happened tonight and they could put it all into perspective. She could come up with a plan. It might work. There might be a way. Harvey Lightman would get his wish. The theater would close. They would all move on and that was how the cycle of life would play out.
***
Olivia wasn’t sure how long she had been sleeping. She was aware of dozing and a
ware of coming back to the room. Duke’s arms were twined about her. Her face was pressed to his chest and he was lightly stroking her hair. The tenderness in his touch affected her deeply.
“Are you awake?” he rumbled. “You should go back to sleep, angel. There’s no need to wake up just yet.”
“Why are you awake?”
“Things on my mind,” he whispered.
“What things?”
He cupped her cheek. “You. I love you, angel. Did you know that? I’m not sure that I did. But I do. I love you to the moon and back.”
“That’s a long way,” Olivia whispered. Her heart was singing and dancing and she felt as though she was going to the moon and back herself. “I love you to the sun and back I think. I like that better. The sun is hot and that’s what I feel for you.”
He chuckled. “Then I’m blessed. And baby, you can burn me anytime.”
Olivia giggled and buried her face against him. “That was corny.”
He did not seem to mind her saying so. “It was, but sometimes that’s what love is like.”
Yes. Sometimes it really was.
Chapter Thirty-One
Duke was pretty sure he was running on endorphin and adrenaline overload. After spending last night with Olivia, he had woken up not only relaxed and sure he had found the right girl for him, but he’d been mad as hell at the Brandon Police Department.
“You need to calm down,” Titus murmured as the two of them entered through the front doors of the old building that housed the department. “You’re not going to help anything by barging in here and just yelling at everyone.”
“I know that.” Duke cut a glance in Titus’s direction. “I don’t intend to yell. I intend to speak loudly and use a stick to beat some sense into them.”
Titus snorted. “I’m pretty sure the saying is speak softly and carry a big stick.”
“Right. Well, I’ll be happy to speak softly after I’ve had a chance to air my grievances,” Duke decided.
Titus turned and gave Duke a narrow eyed glare. “You’re lucky I allowed you to come along today. You’re a little compromised on this case, if you know what I mean.”
“No. What do you mean by that?” Duke was incensed. “I’m not compromised!”
Titus cleared his throat in an exaggerated fashion and then cut Duke another look. “Right. No. Not compromised at all in spite of the fact that you are now sleeping with the client.”
“We weren’t sleeping,” Duke muttered. Then he had to reconsider because there had been a lot of sleeping. Good sleeping too. “You’re just jealous because I’ve managed to find the most amazing girl on the planet.”
“Says every guy who meets a chick that happens to fit his style and who tolerates him and his little crappy habits and idiosyncratic bullshit,” Titus quipped.
Duke found himself wanting to laugh. But they were now in front of the desk sergeant’s little podium and it was time to be quiet and at least pretend to be professional. Titus glared at the desk sergeant.
“How can I help you, gentlemen?” The sergeant was new. At least Duke had never seen the kid before. He looked like they’d pulled him off the stage at one of the area theaters.
Titus seemed to think the same thing. His voice was flat and he sounded irritated. “I want to talk to Detective Sellers and Sergeant Caprico. We have an appointment. My name is Titus Holbrook and this is my colleague Duke Dunbar.”
“You said you have an appointment?” The young desk sergeant was scanning what appeared to be a list as though he were trying to see if they had been invited to a trendy party in a downtown club. “Oh. Right. Here you are. Well then!” the young man said with a flourish. “Let me lead you on to conference room A where your meeting will take place!”
Titus drew back and gave the kid a stare that should have shriveled his balls and yet seemed to go unnoticed. “Uh. Okay.”
Titus and Duke followed the jaunty young sergeant to a room labeled CONFERENCE ROOM A. The young man sketched them an actual “A” as he motioned them into the room. Then he turned and whistled his way back to the front desk.
“That was weird,” Duke mused. “Do you think he’s actually an actor trying to play a cop?”
“No idea,” Titus muttered.
They moved into the room and discovered Sellers and Caprico were already there and the two men had a younger uniformed officer with them. There was a laptop on the table in the center of the room and it was apparent the number three guy was there to take notes. Duke figured this was good. They could take notes on all of the things they’d screwed up so far. It should be a lengthy list in Duke’s opinion.
“Each and every time I deal with this department,” Titus began as he took a seat with deliberate nonchalance, “I cannot help but wonder if it is filled with actors trying desperately to pretend they’re in a stage production called ‘Branson Police.’ There is a complete lack of not only competency, but also professionalism, and even sincerity.”
The words hung in the air and Duke felt the urge to laugh out loud. Titus had told Duke not to be aggressive and to stay calm. Well, that would make one of them then because Titus had just thrown down the gauntlet, and that was after smacking Detective Sellers across the face with it.
“What are you suggesting?” Sellers said after a long moment of uncomfortable silence.
Duke took a seat beside Titus. He could not help but notice the seats were hard plastic and uncomfortable and yet the three police officers were sitting on padded chairs as though they wanted to make sure they could sit there forever without their butts going numb when whoever they were interviewing was sure to get maximum butt numbness in only a short while.
The room itself was sterile. There were several windows, but the view was muted by blinds that appeared to be between two panes of glass as though they did not want to risk any guests in the room getting ideas about using them as weapons. There was nothing hanging on the wall to break up the blandness. Nothing. It was just a rectangular room with an old and equally rectangular table and six chairs. The empty chair currently sat between Titus and Duke like some weird buffer.
“What do you think I’m suggesting?” Titus growled at Sellers. “I’m suggesting you and your department have no clue how to adequately perform the job you have been hired to do! You let a criminal out on bail last night. A criminal with a known record for theft who had also been an assault risk. You let him out and that man attempted to murder my client last night! Murder. Did you even assess him? When you took him into custody, I suggested to you that you not let him bond out. I told you he was a danger. And you ignored me.”
“You’re not the conscience of the Branson Police Department.” Sellers’s tone was snide. He folded his hands on the tabletop and glared down the length of that scarred wood table. “You are not the one who gets to tell us what decisions to make and what not to make.”
“Okay,” Titus said in a calmer voice. “Then shall I just put in a call to internal affairs and see if they can open an investigation to see just how much money that idiot was paying you and your colleagues to look the other way while he continued to rob the guests at his show.”
Duke almost choked when he heard that accusation. He turned to stare at Titus. Was that what Titus actually believed? He hadn’t said anything of the sort yet when Duke thought about it, that possibility actually made good sense. Why else would Riley be assured of getting away with all of this?
Duke stirred himself from his contemplative silence. The room had gone dead quiet, and not in a thoughtful manner. “Your department seems far more concerned with maintaining the safe little haven for family fun than making sure crimes are punished,” Duke told the officers. He looked from Sellers to Caprico and then back. “Is that really what it’s all about?”
Sellers’s mouth twisted into a look of derision. “How could it not be about that? Honestly. Ask yourself if the mayor or the police chief really wants the public to know what goes on behind the scenes. This town is full of
good people.” Sellers’s tone grew deep and he sounded like a television announcer. “Come on down to Branson, Missouri where the shows are clean and the water is warm. Bring your boat and your RV. Bring your cash and credit cards. Enjoy the lake during the day and come into town at night to see a show or two. Then shop till you drop and never be afraid that you might run into crime or anyone who might take advantage of you!”
“Seriously?” Duke was dumbfounded. “That’s your PR line?”
“Pretty much.” Sellers gave a nonchalant shrug. “There is no reason for us to be scaring the public when the only thing happening is an old man stealing a few personal items or the occasional wad of cash from a wallet. That’s not worth bringing the city’s whole reputation toppling down.”
Titus stared at Sellers for a long moment. “You’re an ass. Is that really what you think you superiors would say if they knew?”
Sellers tilted his head to one side and stared at Titus for a very long moment. Finally, he reached for his mobile phone and placed it carefully on the table between them. “Go ahead and call him. The chief isn’t one who likes to be interrupted though. And I’ll be honest, Titus. Chief Springer doesn’t really like you. He’s tired of Rock Wolf Investigations. He’s tired of you stirring up the town when there’s nothing to stir it up about.”
“I see.” Titus’s expression grew tight. “So, I’m just supposed to what? Pretend this stuff doesn’t happen?”
“That would be preferable,” Sellers admitted. He cast a sideways look at Caprico. “And I believe my sergeant would appreciate the two of you staying away from his former fiancée.”
“That’s rather difficult,” Titus said as he looked straight at Caprico. “You know, since Olivia Houghton and my friend here are dating. Officially now, I believe.”
Duke watched in fascination as Caprico half rose from his seat then fell back down, then rose, then fell as though he were being ejected over and over again but kept hitting the table. Obviously, the man was affected by this news. Affected a lot. It was satisfying. There were so many things Duke wanted to say to Caprico. This man had been left at the altar. Yes. But the real question was not why Olivia had chosen to do such a thing publicly, but why she had felt as though she could not do it before. Because there was no doubt in Duke’s mind she’d known she needed to break it off before the wedding day.
Rock Wolf Investigations: Boxset Page 23
