Cold Hearted: Bad Boy Romance

by Amy Faye

  "I needed a cup, myself," Erin confessed.

  "You want me to spill it on you, so we're even?"

  "You just want to catch me coming out of the shower," Erin teased.

  She was treading on dangerous territory, now. She might have seemed playful to him, and that was exactly how she meant to sound, but part of her absolutely wanted to get caught coming out of the shower, if he was going to feel one tenth as aroused by her as she was of him.

  "I mean, if you're offering, I could just step outside a minute, I'm sure the water is still hot."

  She hadn't realized she was getting closer to him, nor him closer to her, until she could feel the hot droplets of water still hanging to his skin starting to sink into her sweater as they stood, her chest pressed against him.

  His free hand tested the shape of her cheek, and then she reached up for his lips and they kissed, and Erin knew that she was already gone, even if it was only for a little vacation fling.

  His other hand wrapped around, taking a grip of her bottom. If she didn't have much pride in her chest, it only made her feel better about the way that men looked at her ass. She liked the feeling of his fingers digging in, and she liked the way that taking the grip brought something out in him, something that made him take the kiss deeper.

  "Do you have protection?" He breathed.

  "I'm safe," she said. She'd been on B.C. since before she moved to California to help deal with the cramps, and now it seemed like she was the lucky one.

  "Are you sure it's okay?"

  She pulled away from him for a moment. She could see the hunger in her eyes, but he had asked for this.

  "I'm on birth control, I'm clean, I don't—" She blinked, the next part making her stumble a little bit in her quest to get him into bed. "I don't usually do this?"

  "Neither do I, but—when in Rome, right?"

  "Shut up and kiss me."

  Roy did as he was told, pulling her up to set her on the counter. The way he did it was like she didn't weigh more than a bowling ball. She scooted her hips up to help him get the sweatpants off, and then he was kissing her again, holding her head up with one hand as his other explored her body.

  His dancing fingers found their way to her core, his palm pressing against her mons as his fingers spread her folds and teased the hard, pleasurable nub at the top. A spasm shot through her, shooting her eyes open wide for an instant before she let them slip closed again.

  He started to probe her depths, finding them already slick with arousal, and then curled his fingers, stirring up pleasure that Erin hadn't felt in any of the exploration she'd done of her own body before.

  She tried to catch her breath, tried to regain her composure. Roy added another finger and kept stroking that spot inside her, her body tightening, her back betraying her and offering her breasts to him in spite of her embarrassment.

  He let her head down just slowly enough to avoid banging into the mirror behind her, and then yanked her sweater up.

  "God, you have great tits," he growled, his voice ragged with arousal.

  "No I don't." She could barely get the words out, as his fingers continued to take her breath away from her.

  "Shut up," he commanded, and she couldn't argue with him any more. He pulled the orgasm forcibly out of her and left her pooled up on the counter for a moment before wrapping his arms around her and carrying her out of the bathroom and dropping her ass-first onto the bed.

  "You're sure about this?"

  Erin answered by pulling her legs apart a little more for him. He took one ankle in his hands and lifted it over his shoulder, then lined himself up against her waiting lips and slid inside.

  God, she hadn't—this was—she couldn't find words to describe any more. She could feel his cock jerk with every deep thrust inside, could feel him hitting her perfectly, deep enough that it almost hurt. His cock stretched her just to the point of pain, the spiral of feelings and emotions driving Erin absolutely crazy.

  Reason tumbled off a cliff, and the delicious feeling of oblivion right around the corner, about to overtake her, forced her hips to push back against him, the sound of skin slapping against skin filling the hotel to harmonize with a voice of pleasure that sounded remarkably like her own.

  Roy pulled hard on her nipples and hit her again right where she needed it, and then her entire body tensed up as an orgasm ripped through her. She could feel his rhythm getting erratic, as well, as he got close. She could feel him much more closely, now, as her body tried to learn every nook and cranny of his cock in the time it took for her orgasm to subside.

  When he finally slid into her, jabbing against something deep inside her, one last time and started to cum, she felt another shock of pleasure run through her, prolonging the orgasm another precious few seconds as he twitched with each potent, ropy shot of cum.

  He looked at her for a long moment before leaning down and kissing her.

  "Is it always like that?"

  Roy smiled at her. "More or less."

  "Can you fit in my suitcase, then? I need to take you home with me."

  He moved his still semi-hard cock inside her and stoked the fire inside her that she'd thought had died down after her orgasm.

  "No, not quite. But I've still got plenty of time left in the day."

  Five

  The phone in her pocket felt heavier now that it had Roy's phone number in it. As if somehow the fact that she could call him if she ever, by some strange miracle, made it into Virginia was a sacrosanct promise. It shouldn't have felt as uncomfortable as it did, but she couldn't make the discomfort go away. So instead she turned it off and tossed it on the couch in her suite and laid back on the bed.

  Nothing to watch on the TV, at least nothing without charging ten more dollars to her room bill at the end of the week. She wanted to see Roy again. Somehow they'd find a way to fill the hours, she knew. She had a sneaking suspicion how they'd do it, too, and she didn't mind that one bit.

  But he was heading back to Virginia in the morning. Something came up, it was an emergency, so sorry. She thought about texting him for a minute. She even sat up, a few short movements away from standing up to go get her phone.

  What would that have said about her, though? She wasn't trying to be clingy, but with the resort snowed in for what seemed to be the rest of the week, what else was she supposed to do? An old game console was in the cabinet beneath the TV, tied to the wall with a braided steel cable as if someone was going to be desperate to steal the hotel's fifteen year old technology.

  She leaned back again. She didn't need more sleep. She didn't want more sleep. She wanted to have something to do. This was exactly why she never took vacations. There was plenty of fun to be had for a little while, enjoying sex with Roy. Then something came up, like something always does, and that was gone. Now she had a whole lot of nothing to do and a badge in her jacket pocket that said she was special somewhere else.

  That was the other part that frustrated her. Her time on the job had gotten her a little stressed, sure. But being a detective meant that people's lives relied on you doing your damn job. Maybe a little bit of stress was part of the job. Had they ever thought of that?

  Because every time some son of a bitch gets away with murder, gets away with rape, even gets away with a little armed robbery—that's a guy who knows, who's been shown, that the cops can't touch him. The first time is hard. It's scary. You never know. Maybe the police will catch you. Maybe they're going to put a ton of man-hours into the case and put the pieces together.

  There are always pieces. Sometimes they're not the right pieces for a conviction, but the guy who works the case—he knows who did it. That's how it always was for her. Sometimes it was the wrong evidence, but she always knew. The work was making it stick, and that was a matter of combing the scene, compiling evidence, and finding the way that the puzzle pieces fit together into something like a compelling picture that says to the District Attorney, and then says to the jury, that this is the only guy who co
uld have possibly done it.

  Maybe everyone else had a family. Maybe they had their departmental bowling team, maybe they had their damn cocktail parties with the Mayor's office. Maybe those things were more important than making sure another woman didn't get raped tonight. But not for Erin. She sat up again, this time went over and reached for the phone. She had to look up times to get home. She had a job to do, and she had no reason not to be there. Especially not when the slopes were closed.

  She canceled her tickets for Saturday morning. They didn't promise a refund but then they said that if they issued one, it wouldn't be for another day or two. Either way, she wasn't going to be on that airplane.

  Tomorrow morning, six A.M. flight. She'd have to get up a little early, but that didn't matter. Five was sleeping in for her, anyways. She had to go back to sleep after she woke up a sweaty mess about every night. There was a time, before she joined the force, where it would keep her awake all night. No matter what time she went to bed, three or four in the morning she would be wide awake, images flashing in her head that she would never be able to get out.

  She shook her head and pulled a water bottle out of the fridge, took a sip and used it to down her pills. Then she took a deep breath and laid back on the bed. She could go to sleep in a couple of hours, set an alarm for three-thirty. She would probably turn it off again before it went off, but the security would be nice to have until she knew she was up.

  How in the hell was she supposed to pass the time, though? She took a deep breath. The only thing to do, then, was to find something else to do. She'd take a walk, maybe. There probably wasn't much to see. Families on vacation at the off-brand 'great spot' who had just as little to do as she did.

  Well, either way, she could at least get something to eat. That would give her something to do, even if it didn't keep her busy for the three hours she had to kill before she could justify sleeping. She put on the work suit, already getting back into that mindset. It wasn't as if she had to worry about the impression she'd make on Roy.

  He wasn't going to think she was a hard ass when he didn't see her. And she wasn't going up the mountain, either, because the blizzard had closed the way for emergency vehicles and it would be unsafe to wind down the mountain at twenty miles over the speed limit or something. She rolled her eyes.

  It was their mountain, they could do whatever they wanted with it. But that was absurd. There were still cars pulling into the parking lot, even now. Obviously someone could get up the mountain. Were ambulance drivers prone to driving like madmen all of a sudden? If a dozen or more people a day could safely make it, with no wild stories of armies of people who hadn't, then every ambulance driver that Erin had ever known could make it.

  She settled herself into the restaurant. She thought about sitting up at the bar, but it would have sent the wrong message. She wanted to take up as little space as possible, not get picked up one last time for the night. That thing with Roy had been a mistake. She pulled out her phone and scrolled down to his entry in her contacts list.

  Her thumb hovered over it for a minute, hesitating for a moment. Then she long-pressed on it and hit 'delete.' A message asked her if she was sure, and she said she was. She would love to see him again. He was a great guy and she'd had a great time. But that wasn't the same thing as being a real relationship and it sure enough wasn't enough for her to keep a number in her phone in the hope that one of them moved across the country to have a repeat performance.

  Six

  Who the hell was awake at this hour?

  Erin looked up at the corner of her phone screen to check the time before she answered the call. It was earlier than she thought. Only midnight. She was awake at this hour, when she wasn't on vacation. The number wasn't one she recognized, but there were precious few that she would. Dad's ringer said "Dad," but he wasn't going to call.

  Becca's said her name as well, but it obviously wasn't either of them. And it wasn't Roy because it was a 213 number, and that meant L.A.

  Finally she picked up the phone on the fourth ring.

  "Erin Russo speaking."

  "Erin, I know we told you that you need a vacation."

  The captain, then. Okay.

  "And I'm taking one, just like you said. I might not have wanted to, but I can take orders, at least. Sir."

  "That's not why I'm calling Erin. There's been… something happened. You should come in as soon as you get the chance."

  "I'll be in town tomorrow morning."

  "You're serious. Erin, where did you go for your vacation, your neighbor's house?"

  "I'll see you in the morning, Captain."

  "Erin, I just want to say, before you have to get into all this shit… I'm sorry."

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "You'll know what I mean when it's important. Now get to sleep, if you're really going to be back by morning you need it. You need to sleep more."

  Erin was wide awake now. Four hours was plenty, and she still had to get to the airport. Three hours was enough time to get a cup of coffee, take a ride through town and maybe get breakfast before they went up. Plenty of time to wonder what the hell the Captain was sorry about.

  No, not wonder. She was worried. That old son of a gun wasn't the kind of person to be sorry for calling her in early. They understood each other, and he understood that getting called in would probably be a godsend for her. Work was all Erin had, outside of Becca, and even then they hadn't spoken in a few years.

  Not since Becca had gone to live with their father, and that was just how it would have to be.

  Well, maybe things would be fine. Maybe she was overthinking it. But she didn't think so. She didn't think so one damn bit. Whatever had Captain Blunt calling at midnight to tell her to get her ass back in town at first convenience, it was something big. If he was apologizing, then she was right to worry.

  Had something happened to her father? That was a best-case scenario, but her relationship with dear old dad wasn't something that she wore on her sleeve. So Captain would have been worried about how she'd take it. He would probably worry more when she took it about as well as being told that they'd had to buy a different brand of coffee this week.

  Most people who reacted that way, they reacted that way because they were so upset that they weren't registering what had happened. Shock, they called it. Erin had seen people in shock, and it was disturbing to say the least. People get hurt, then they think that they're immortal because they're so high on an absurd cocktail of chemicals that they don't realize what the hell they're doing.

  She pushed herself out of bed and dressed. She tried to take it slowly but she was out the door in ten minutes anyways. She'd packed the night before, and now it was just a matter of getting her suit on, shoes on, tied, and out.

  She checked out and fit herself into the comfortably small seat of the compact rental she'd gotten. It was just as nice as she remembered it being. It still ran better, quieter, and cheaper than the Jeep, but it still didn't have the character. In other words, just the way she'd left it.

  The way down the mountain wasn't as bad as they made it sound. Sure, a couple of corners made her a little nervous, but they'd made her nervous on the way up the mountain too, and that was when they were still relying on artificial snow because the first snowfall hadn't hit yet for the year.

  Now there were high berms of snow on the low side of the road and it created a strange claustrophobia as every curve became blind, and she had no way of knowing whether or not there was a car about to come blazing around the next corner until she made the turn.

  Okay, maybe that wasn't super safe for ambulance drivers, after all. They made risky choices when they thought they could afford it. For speed. Passing folks, stuff like that, and with all these blind corners that turned into a logistical and safety nightmare.

  Still, for someone taking it slow, it didn't present a problem. Not even at one in the morning. She hit the city by two, and was sitting down in a twenty-four hour nationwide d
iner chain that claimed their eggs couldn't be beaten. How someone could make that claim, she would never know, because as far as Elle was aware everyone could at least sort-of cook eggs, and they mostly tasted about the same.

  She got waffles instead, and asked for extra butter, because she didn't have the type of body that tended to need to worry about her arteries, and with the way that she often lost herself in her work she wasn't about to get that kind of body, either.

  The waitress walked away still writing on her order pad and came back a few seconds later with Erin's water. She took a deep drink. She'd never been to Wyoming, but she could see the charm. The mountain was beautiful, and the view of the town down below was a sight to behold, when she could see it after the rain cleared.

  This had all the makings of a great trip. She met a guy who happened to live on the wrong coast, but a guy nonetheless. More than she could say for the past ten years in L.A. The skiing, for the amount she'd been able to do, had been great. The views—gorgeous.

  Then it turned out that she couldn't bear to be away from work for more than three fucking days and back on the plane she was already going. The fact that the captain had called her specifically to tell her to get her ass back into town, well that was just icing on the cake, after all. She was going to be there anyways, now she just had more motivation.

  Erin put her earphones in and turned her music back on. The interplay of the instruments was why she listened to jazz. Kept her mind moving. Now more than ever, she just needed to keep moving, long enough to get back into town and find out what the hell the Captain had been so worried about.

  Maybe he'd let her work on something again. Not necessarily likely, she knew. There was a reason she'd been told to take a vacation, and whether she agreed with it or not, she doubted that Captain Blunt would change his mind just because she'd gotten a little bored out there.

  But that didn't mean that a girl didn't have the right to dream, and vacations didn't stop bad guys.