by Ashley Ladd
A come-hither smile played about her lips, but still she said nothing. Temptation danced in her eyes.
He couldn’t stop himself from sliding on the motorcycle behind her and bracing himself for the ride of his life. There was only one thing he yearned to have between his legs more desperately…
The minx captured his hands and dragged them around her tiny waist. He could feel her purring, drugging his mind and body.
When she shifted her weight, he had to bite back a groan as his cock flexed. What exquisite torture. He throbbed against her, his jeans so tight they would surely burst. When she hit a pothole, his arms brushed the under slope of her full, round breasts, and he closed his eyes in ecstasy. What he wouldn’t give to feel her bare flesh, to sink into her hot pussy and lose himself forever. He’d been robbed of that pleasure their first time, of pleasuring her, but he’d make it up to her tonight.
If not for the wind cooling him, he would surely combust he was so feverish. Did she know how feverish she made him? How insanely wild she drove him?
He wondered where she was taking him. If she planned to stop or just give him a ride and take him home?
The bike roared onto the highway and opened up. If he’d been on duty, he’d have had to write her a ticket for speeding. The speedometer topped eighty miles per hour, yet she handled the bike like a pro. He wondered if she could handle his unleashed power as well.
Finally, she turned off the highway, stopped in a small, dark park with a closed gate, and cut the engine. Turning in his arms, she snuggled against him, winding her arms around his neck.
“Who are you?” He scrutinized her masked face and a jolt of shock pierced him. She looked a lot like Haley. But she had chocolate brown eyes, not blue. Not to mention the fact she had long, straight, rich mahogany hair.
A Mona Lisa smile curved her luscious lips and she shook her head slowly. She touched her finger to her lips. Then she jabbed her chest with her finger and shook her head again.
He moaned. Great! She wanted to play charades. He hated charades. Worse, she had no intention of talking.
Cole crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back, gazing at his costumed adventuress. Clouds drifted in front of the moon so that her masked face lay in shadow. Exquisite. Absolutely exquisite. Her aura of mystery excited him. Yet, not knowing her name or anything else about her irked him, also. “It’s not fair that you know where I live and work, and I don’t even know your name.”
She just shrugged coquettishly, and lifted her lips to his, trying to seduce him. She raked her fingernails lightly down his arm. Catwoman indeed!
He tried to resist her charms, tried to keep his lips detached, using them as collateral so she’d tell him her name. But the scent of her, some exotic blend of flowers he couldn’t name, seduced him. Her lips teased his, so soft and gentle, warm and alluring beneath his. Before he knew it, his traitorous lips responded, molding to hers as he crushed her to him.
Like a willow, supple and strong, she bent to him. Her heat seeped into him, fanning his ardor. Her kisses were so buttery sweet, he moaned into her mouth and lost himself in her as he had that first fateful night. Then, as now, her lips intoxicated him and the memory of their first encounter seared him.
The siren had been a fever in his blood, and God help him, he wasn’t invincible from her many charms. Yet he honestly couldn’t decide whose kisses were sweeter, whose moved him more—this mysterious nymph’s or Haley’s. Both beat sugar hands down. Both sent him into orbit. Both made his blood boil.
Her fingers massaged his head, driving all thought from his mind. Primordial instinct ruled his senses as he broke away for air, but immediately nuzzled her neck and trailed fiery kisses lower and lower toward hidden treasure.
* * * * *
Cole drank deeply of Haley’s lips as her world spun dizzily. If she wasn’t very careful, she’d fall flat on her ass and her fragile world could shatter.
Everything was racing out of control, getting screwed up until she could barely remember who she was, Catwoman or Haley, Superwoman or super psycho. If he found out her true identity, she’d be super out of a job, if not up on criminal charges.
Was this charade worth her future?
When Cole’s kiss deepened and his hungry hands roamed her breasts, “yes!” resounded in her heart. Nestling against his hammering heart, she became lost in the incredibly lusty sensations whipping through her.
“You’re so exciting, so mysterious.” Cole traced her jaw line with his sensual thumbs. His fingers moved up to her mask and traced its rim. “May I take this off? Gaze upon your face?” Pure unadulterated lust quaked in his voice and his jeans stretched tight across his cock as he rubbed against her seductively.
Panic flooded her and she jerked back. She opened her mouth to shout “No!” but at the last second, she strangled it back.
Was she suicidal?
No!
Remembering her dangerous game, she wagged her finger. “Tsk-tsk.”
“Why not?” He drew her back to him and slashed a tender kiss over her lips as his hands kneaded her waist.
Unwilling to get drawn into any conversation with him much less this one, ravenous hunger consumed her and she shook her head.
“You know how incredibly hot you are? How unbelievable? I can’t stop thinking about the Halloween Party… Everyone thinks I’m dreaming you up. Am I?”
She was the one who was dreaming. Cradling his beloved face in her hands, she shook her head, cursing this impossible situation in which she’d placed herself.
She couldn’t keep doing this. It had to end tonight before her heart broke irreparably in two.
But if she was going to roar away on her cycle, she wanted to take at least one sweet memory with her. Leading him to a secluded jasmine-fragranced gazebo, she lay back on a wooden bench and held out her arms in unmistakable invitation.
A mischievous grin curled his lips as he took her in his arms and plundered her lips. His hand cupped her breast and his fingers tweaked her nipple.
On fire, eager to be totally consumed by his heat, she snaked her arms around his neck and pressed closer against him. Her tongue dueled with his and she stroked his thigh with hers, eager to know him more intimately.
Out of breath, raw with hunger, she gasped for air. She trailed her fingers down his muscular back, to his thigh, around to his straining cock and unbuttoned his pants. Without the aid of words, she would have to be as brazen as she was at the party, but as he would never find out her true identity, what did it matter if he thought her a shameless hussy? As long as he remembered her fondly and forever.
She’d never forget him for as long as she lived.
“Ooh, babe! What an eager little vixen you are.”
Nodding, she smiled seductively, and traced her lower lip with the tip of her tongue. To prove his point and make sure they were on the same wavelength, she pushed his pants lower and released his mouthwatering cock. Then she unzipped her body suit and shimmied out of it.
Accepting her invitation, he unsnapped her bra and buried his face between her breasts. First, he laved one aching, tingling nipple, then flicked his tongue over to its twin.
Moaning, she pushed her breast as deeply into his mouth as she could, straining her back. More turned on than she’d ever been, she wrapped her fingers around his cock and gently caressed its velvety-hard length.
He joined her in moaning and shoved her panties down her thighs. Lifting his head, he gazed into her eyes with his passion-glazed ones. “You sure you want to do this? Here?”
Hell yeah! He’d left her frustrated their first night. She couldn’t take that again.
She’d never been surer of anything in her life. This night, this man was the culmination of her most treasured fantasies, of her most dearly held dreams. She nodded fervently, spread her legs as wide as she could, and tugged his impressive cock to her pussy.
“You won’t be sorry, baby,” he murmured against her lips. He paused and took someth
ing out of his wallet.
“What are you doing?” She snuggled against him, anxious to know his possession, her motor running so fast she had trouble putting it into reverse.
“Just...protecting…you…babe.”
“Oh.” Good thing one of them could still think clearly.
Finally, when his condom was in place, he drove into her with a ravenous hunger.
Little did he know about being sorry. Most definitely she’d be sorry! Sorry that she succumbed to such mad desire. Sorry that she could never give in to such wonderful passion again. Sorry that she couldn’t tell him who she was without fear of reprisal.
She did her best to hide the ruefulness of her mood, and injected sunshine into her smile as she matched his primitive, rollicking rhythm. His cock filled her to overflowing and felt so fantastic that she longed to tell him how great he made her feel, but of course she had to bite back her praise.
Bitter about her predicament, she knew she would experience even more joy if there were no secrets between them, no masks, no pretenses, and if he desired her for who she truly was. Unfortunately, Haley wasn’t exciting like Catwoman and she had to live with that for the rest of her days. He didn’t. He could treasure the dream and live out his fantasy.
At least one of them could.
She forced her mind back to the exquisite pleasure of their tryst, and lost herself in the mind-numbing sensations rippling through her with every mind-blowing thrust. Quivering with lust, bliss building, her pussy trembled. No man had ever made her feel so feminine, so alive, so absolutely wonderful as Cole. She never wanted this night to end.
Gunshots ripped apart the serene night. Angry, ugly shouts intruded into their private world, yanking her back to grim reality.
Freezing inside her, he lifted his head and inclined his ear. “D’ya hear that?”
She nodded, her back stiffening, her shoulders squaring, and her head tilting toward the sounds. Lifting her arm, she regretfully pointed in the direction of the shots.
“Sorry, babe. We have to check it out. That’s the lot of a cop.”
To hell with a cop’s life! She didn’t want to release him, particularly not while hovering on the brink of ecstasy. Maybe she wasn’t cut out to be a cop—or a cop’s woman.
He pulled out, leaving her bereft and aching with raw need. Holding out a hand, he helped her up and tossed her clothes to her. “Better get dressed in a hurry before anyone stumbles upon us.”
Biting back a scathing retort, she yanked on her garb and zipped it up as he did the same.
She dashed to the motorcycle and revved it to life. The bike rumbled beneath her as he jumped on behind, grabbed her around the waist, and shouted into her ear. “That’s our invitation to leave.”
The woman scowled and jerked a finger toward the sound.
“No! You could get hit by a stray bullet. Take me back to my car.”
With a tight-lipped expression, she nodded.
Okay, so she was mad. Better than dead.
The monster roared, jerking him forward, and he held on to her middle tightly. When she turned the cycle toward the gunfire, he swore. “Turn around. You can’t keep getting in the middle of police action.”
The hardheaded woman ignored him as if the wind whipped away his words.
Sirens raised the level of the cacophony, adding to the confusion of the night.
He wanted to shake her and wondered why she kept putting herself in harm’s way. “I can’t put a civilian in danger. I don’t want you hurt.”
But she rounded a corner where a crowd formed around a young woman, who trembled and wailed. There was no sign of a gunman, and the crowd hovering around her assured him the danger had passed. The shooter must’ve fled the scene of the crime when witnesses appeared and he breathed a sigh of relief. Still, he wished he’d brought his police identification. He clambered off the cycle and walked over to the young woman. Since he was here, he had to help.
Bystanders looked askance at them.
“I’m a policeman,” Cole said in his most authoritative voice, hoping no one would question him. Again, he cursed himself for his foolishness in rushing out of the house without any ID, as he shouldered his way through the crowd.
As tiny and delicate as she was, the victim still had to be in her teens. She looked up with tears in her huge dark eyes. “My boyfriend thought I was stepping out on him so he came at me with a gun.” Her words got more choked up as she spoke, and she paused to swallow. “Please don’t let him kill me. I’m a good wife and mama, no matter what he says.”
Cole put a comforting arm around the young woman. “Did anyone call the police?” He presumed the sirens he’d heard were on their way here, but in a city of this size, the emergency vehicle could have been going elsewhere. He couldn’t afford to assume.
A young pimply faced man wearing a worn and filthy baseball cap waved a cellular phone over his head. “I called 911 soon as I heard the racket. Sounded like someone was dying. The cops should be on their way.”
Too late to stop more insanity, Cole nodded. He wished the man hadn’t panicked. A single black-and-white could have handled this. But it seemed like a lot of people were panicking, starting with Catwoman. Of course, it was a full moon and the whole town went nuts during that time.
Soon, sirens whirled closer. They almost deafened him until they mercifully cut off.
As soon as the black-and-white’s door opened, Cole’s mystery woman tossed a saucy, secretive smile at him, waved, and revved her engines. Pebbles, shells, and sand kicked up from under her back tire as the motorcycle peeled out.
“No!” The little escape artist was getting away again. Immediately, he gave chase. His blood pumping faster than his feet, he yelled to his brothers in blue, “Stop that woman on the motorcycle!” As he pointed at her, she sped up a skateboard ramp a kid had left out in his yard. Woman became one with the cycle, leaning low over it, clamping it with her knees, her hair flying behind her. The bike flew into the air, over a high wooden fence, and disappeared into the night, the only evidence Catwoman had been there were her tire tracks and the quickly dissipating roar of the bike’s engine. Since she’d disappeared through a backyard, the car couldn’t follow her.
He stared at her dust whipping in the wind, wondering if this all had been a dream, and she had merely been a vision. Then he took in his surroundings, noting block upon block of stucco houses that had all the allure of boxes, some painted pink, some yellow, and others gray. Palm and pine trees shaded most yards, although a couple didn’t have grass, much less trees or flowers. Not an affluent neighborhood, there were burglar bars on many windows, and cars in various stages of rust dotting the lawns. He was lost as this wasn’t a neighborhood he normally frequented, nor was it on his beat.
Trotting back to the officers taking the woman’s report, he interrupted. “Hey, guys, think I can catch a lift home?”
When one of the men arched a bushy brow, Cole continued, “I’m an off-duty cop, but I left my wallet at home. I, uh, sort of got stranded by my date.” Embarrassed heat crept up his cheeks, which he hoped the blackness of the night hid. He massaged the back of his neck, proverbially kicking himself for trusting his elusive heroine.
“That your date who jumped the fence?” A smile twitched the big cop’s full mustache. The guy was so tall, Cole had to look up, a novelty for someone six-feet, two-inches tall. “Man, that lady really must’ve wanted to ditch you to go to that much trouble.”
“Sure looked that way,” he agreed, scowling. Would he ever discover her true identity? Why in the hell was she so skittish? Why didn’t she want him to know who she was?
He became more determined than ever to track her down.
* * * * *
Confused didn’t begin to describe Haley’s emotional state the following morning after the night spent with Cole as two different women. Nor did achy begin to describe how sore her rear end was after jumping that fence on Sher’s motorcycle.
Although it wa
s torture, she forced herself to go to work in her normal high heels, hose, and starched business attire. Every time her thoughts turned to Cole, she fumed and slammed papers and books around on her desk, so much so that Cindy watched her closely through veiled glances. How dare he cheat with another woman! How dare he kiss her so deeply, so soulfully, then turn around and hop on another woman’s motorcycle and kiss her in the park?
Get a grip! She tried to shake some sense into herself. She was jealous of her alter ego! She must be going stark, raving mad. If she didn’t watch out, she’d soon be holding conversations with her doppelganger.
Across the room, Cole caught her gaze and winked with his lethal sex appeal. It took everything she possessed not to glare and call him a cheat. She tried to smile, telling herself he hadn’t technically cheated on her since he’d been with her all night, even if she’d worn two different hairstyles and two different outfits. She also reminded herself that she’d only had one date with him, and he didn’t owe her his loyalty.
Still, he hadn’t even waited two hours to kiss another woman after she’d left him, the jerk. Of course, she’d seduced him with her slinky outfit and mysterious ways. If the situation had been reversed, could she have resisted a sexy masculine rider beckoning her to ride with him? Probably not. She should cut him a break—if he even wanted one. The way he’d kissed her second self that night, he’d probably forgotten all about her real self.
Her mind spun dizzily. She had to think about something else before she wound up in the loony bin.
“Hey, Haley.” Cole chuckled at his own joke, as he perched on the edge of her desk, hitching up his slacks to reveal an expanse of hairy, powerful leg. He leaned toward her, the male version of a come-hither look in his dark brown eyes, and then he stole her lollipop and licked it. “Something eating you today? You’ve been over here talking to yourself all morning.”
“Give that back!” She dove for it across her desk. “I’ll file a robbery report.”
Cole moved out of arm’s reach and smiled at her defiantly and seductively while he licked her candy. After a few long licks, he handed it back, his smile larger, challenging.
