by Julie Miller
His hand was tucked possessively beneath her shirt, his fingertips teasing the elastic that curved beneath her breast, her palm layered over his on the outside of the old cotton shirt that still smelled faintly of wet dog. Even now, she matched her fingers to his, as if she’d welcomed the intimacy of his warm hand on her skin and was holding on to keep him from moving away.
Had they slept together like this all night?
Elise pulled her hand away. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I was that much of a cuddler.”
“I’m not complaining.” When she shifted to put some proper distance between them, his fingers splayed across her belly and his grip tightened. “But don’t move for a couple of seconds, okay?”
“Need a minute to wake up?” She studied the sunshine creeping in behind the curtains to warm her delicately striped wallpaper. “It’s going to be hot again today. After only one night of rain. It’ll probably make the humidity even worse. I wonder if we’ll get those storms the weatherman predicted today.” When she realized she was rambling like a nervous schoolgirl, she reminded herself she was a full-grown woman and should start acting like it. With her brain more awake than it had been a minute ago, she started considering the possible reasons for George’s request. Her first instinct had her tugging at his wrist and trying to sit up. “I’m sorry. Did your arm go to sleep? I’ve been lying on it all night, haven’t—?”
“Elise—”
“Is something wrong...?” But her squirming only drove her bottom into the juncture between his thighs and she felt the unmistakable bulge of his arousal butting against her. Elise went still. “Oh.”
But suddenly, every nerve in her body tingled in anticipation, chasing away the last dregs of her heavy sleep.
George moved his hand to the jut of her hip to gently force a little distance between them. “I don’t know if I was trying to save you from embarrassment. Or me. Nothing has to happen. I just need a minute to...get comfortable again.”
“You don’t want something to happen?”
His chest-deep groan stirred the hair at her nape. He pressed a soft nip to the juncture of her neck and shoulder, and every eager nerve seemed to rush to the spot. “This is what we need to discuss,” he whispered against her skin, his very breath another caress that raised goose bumps across her skin. “Oh, I don’t just mean the obvious reaction I’m having to you. But how good we are when we’re together. At the office. As friends. When we’re close like this. Somewhere along the line, you turned being indispensable into being...irresistible.”
Elise reached down to lace her fingers together with the hand on her hip. “I thought you were the irresistible one.”
“Now you’re just stroking an old man’s ego.”
A touch of ire blended with the desire waking inside her. Keeping their fingers entwined, she lifted his hand from her shorts and carefully adjusted herself to roll over onto her back and look up into gray eyes that had darkened into granite this morning. “I wouldn’t do that. One, I don’t see an old anything—I just see a man. And two, you said you’d always be honest with me. It goes both ways, George. Why wouldn’t you expect me to be honest with you? I always thought you were...” She cupped the side of his jaw, rubbing her palm against his morning beard stubble that was a handsome mosaic of tawny, dark brown and silver. What was the right word? Distinguished? Powerful? “...sexy.”
He propped himself up on his elbow beside her, arching an eyebrow in doubt. “Explain.”
She lifted her fingers to trace the eyebrow’s curve. She traced the straight line of his nose and the square shape of his jaw before sliding across the impeccable sculpt of his lips. His hand slipped beneath her shirt again, settling at the nip of her waist while she explored each compelling angle.
“You’re confident. Accomplished. So comfortable in your own skin. Do you have any idea how empowering, how hot it is to have a man like you interested in someone like me?”
“Someone like you?” His voice had dropped a note in pitch, grown husky.
Her gaze lowered to the placket of his shirt where she unhooked one button, then two, blazing a trail along skin that was rough, smooth, ticklish and always warm beneath her fingertips. “Anyone else would think I’ve gone nuts these past few days, but you keep saying you believe me.”
“I do. I’ve seen the evidence of his cruelty.”
“I’m complicated, George.” She loosed another button and slipped her hand beneath the cotton to palm the firm plane of his chest and feel the muscles quiver beneath her touch. “I’m so worried about making mistakes and hurting someone I care about again that I stop relationships before they have a chance to begin.” She inhaled his uniquely clean, masculine scent and got a whiff of something else that made her blush. “And I smell like dog shampoo this morning.”
He laughed, catching her hand before she could pull it away, holding it against the taut male nipple and the beating heart underneath. “Maybe I think Eau de Spike is hot.”
It was Elise’s turn to laugh. She was shaking with the freedom of his honest humor, loving how the shared laughter eased the lines of stress on his face, when he dipped his head and stopped up her laughter with a kiss.
Instantly, the atmosphere in the room shifted. Humor gave way to hunger as Elise wound her arms around George’s neck and he pulled her more firmly into the heat of his body. By heaven, did this man know how to kiss. Tenderly. Passionately. Seductively.
He wasn’t bad with his hands, either. While his lips roamed over her jaw and earlobe and temple, he unbuttoned the front of her paint shirt and spread it open on top of the quilt. His mouth followed the path of his fingers, touching, tasting, stroking, praising as his sandpapery beard tickled and his warm tongue soothed.
“You have such soft hair.” He nuzzled her ear, pushed aside the worn collar and teased the sensitive bundle of nerves at the base of her throat. “These long legs? Let’s just say I’m glad you like to wear dresses.” He squeezed her bottom and drew his hand along her thigh as he kissed his way down to the curve of her breast. “You have miles of cool, creamy skin that I can’t seem to stop touching.”
“I won’t stop you.” Elise pushed his shirt off his shoulders, ran her fingers through his silky, sleep-rumpled hair, touched whatever she could reach. He was all hot, all muscle, all man.
He squeezed her breast and captured the beaded tip in his mouth, wetting the lace of her bra and making her ache to feel his tongue on her skin. “Don’t tempt me.”
Elise curled a leg around the back of his, pulling his weight partially on top of her. “Would this help?”
George lifted his head, squeezed his eyes shut and groaned before levering himself above her and rubbing his hard thigh against the seam of her shorts. She dug her fingers into his shoulders and held on as shock waves of desire rushed straight to her core at the feel of him there.
His eyes were dark with passion when they opened again. Every muscle in his body was rigid with the effort to retreat. “Ah, hell, Elise, I want to be inside you so badly I can’t think straight.”
She gradually found her voice again. “Then don’t think. I want the same thing. It feels right.”
He dropped a kiss on her tender lips. “Yeah, but, honey, I haven’t done this for a while. I’m a little out of practice.”
“Your parts all work, don’t they?”
“Obviously.” The pressure nudging between her thighs left no doubt of that. “But my style—”
“I don’t need style, George. I need you.” She worked the last buttons of his shirt free and found the snap of his jeans. His skin quivered beneath her hands as she gently unzipped him. “I need the man who always tells me the truth. The man I never have to doubt. Please. Just...”
“Just what?”
She paused with her hands at his hips, pushing his jeans and shorts out of her way. “Ta
ke me away from this nightmare for a while. Make me feel normal and healthy and brave.”
“Brave?” He stroked her hair off her forehead.
“Brave enough to feel something and want someone—and not be afraid that there’s a penalty attached to caring.” She thought she’d feel a hesitation, an inner voice warning her to stop. But everything about this moment felt right. Everything about George felt right. “I need to know what it’s like for a real, flesh and blood man to want me. Just for me. That is what you want, right?”
With a nod, he lowered his mouth to reclaim hers. “No hidden agenda. No conditions. Just you. I want you.”
And then there was an eager bumping of hands and limbs as she helped George shuck his jeans and briefs, and he pulled her shorts and panties off to join them on the floor. He unhooked the front clasp of her bra and pushed it aside before squeezing and tonguing the sensitive tips into throbbing, tight beads. Elise mimicked the same exploration on him, loving the musky smell of his skin as she found each taut male nipple with her lips.
They were still half dressed on top when George pushed his hand down between her thighs and palmed the pressure building there. She bucked beneath the force of his hand, and bucked again when he slid two fingers inside to test her slick readiness for him.
“George,” she gasped as she raised her knees and he settled himself between them. “Now.”
He cursed against her breast, then kissed the spot. Apologized. “I don’t have any protection.”
She wrapped her legs around him, holding his hips in the cradle of hers when he would have pulled away. “I’m on the pill. Do you have any health issues?”
“No. You?”
“No.” She caught his face between her hands and lifted her mouth to reclaim his. But he quickly took over the kiss, driving her back into the pillow, driving her weight into the bed, driving himself deeply inside her.
He held himself like that for several seconds while her body adjusted to welcome his, while her breasts pillowed beneath the weight of his chest, while her arms wound around him to hold him close.
“Are you good?” he whispered against her ear. She couldn’t answer. She didn’t want to talk. She just wanted to feel again. “Elise?”
She nodded, tightened her legs around his buttocks to open herself more fully and urged him even deeper. Who needed sexy words or seductive style when a man’s desire for her was this straightforward, when he knew where to touch a woman. Where to kiss. What to... His fingers found that sensitive nub between them as he thrust inside her and she arched against him, gasping at the power of her release.
Elise soared to a place where the world made sense, where she was everything a woman should be, where the nightmare could no longer reach her, where she was safe, in George’s arms.
When he drove into her one last time with a husky groan and found his own release, she knew, without a doubt, that she loved this man—that anything she’d once felt for Quinn Gallagher or Nikolai Titov or even James Westbrook was a pale comparison to the humbling emotions George Madigan had awakened inside her. This was the right man, the only man, for her.
They collapsed into each other’s arms and dozed together, skin to skin, sated and whole, her energy spent, her spirit stronger than it had been for months. And yet, her future was still uncertain.
If only George wasn’t the one man she couldn’t have. Was she willing to lose the job that had given back her confidence and self-respect? Would George be willing to give her up at KCPD and let his office return to the slow-moving machine it had once been?
Did he even want the same things she wanted? Or was this blissful morning together a job perk for a man who would do his duty by her, but who wouldn’t appreciate the complications of an ongoing commitment outside of the office? Apparently, there was still a lot more of this they needed to discuss.
But later. If she had a later.
She snuggled closer to the heat and strength of George’s body, fearing this perfect morning might be the only one for them.
The alarm woke them a half hour later and the rest of the world demanded their attention again.
* * *
ELISE HAD TURNED on two lamps in her office, in addition to the overhead lights, to compensate for the turbulent gray clouds rolling in and blotting out the sun outside. With every bolt of lightning, the lights flickered. With every answering boom of thunder, she jumped inside her skin.
But as long as the power was on and her computer was working, she could finish typing the final draft of George’s banquet speech while he was on the phone with Commissioner Cartwright-Masterson. The commissioner’s daughter-in-law, Rebecca, had gone into labor during the night. With her son, Seth Cartwright, in the delivery room, and the rest of their extended family in the hospital waiting room, Rebecca had given birth to a daughter named Sydney.
Elise was glad for the numerous phone calls coming into the office, with meetings to reschedule, reporters to appease until an official statement could be issued, and friends and coworkers to update on the latest news from the top floors of KCPD headquarters. If she had any fewer calls to manage, any fewer reports to file, any fewer memos to send, she might have time to drive herself mad.
The worries that did creep in when her mind wandered could easily derail the normal routine she was clinging to this morning. She had an armed detective named Spencer Montgomery dog sitting Spike and watching her house for her. She’d fielded a call from Annie Fensom at the crime lab which hadn’t offered much hope. They could approximate a shoe size on her stalker from the picture Nick had taken in her backyard. But unless they could compel every man in Kansas City with size twelve feet to give a DNA sample, there was still no way to identify the man who’d sent her those sick I-love-you messages.
The weather outside seemed to echo Elise’s mood today. For a few wonderful minutes, she’d been happy and content in George’s arms and the sun had been shining. But as the storm gathered force and the skies darkened at noon, her thoughts kept going back to all the reasons why she and George Madigan might never have more than this morning. First, there was the difference in their ages. She didn’t think fourteen years was an issue, but it seemed to bother him. Then there was his position of authority over her. Her need to do the work she was so good at in order to prove her self-worth and redeem her past mistakes. Her scary track record with choosing the wrong men.
And if any of those obstacles weren’t enough, she came with the extra baggage of a mysterious psychopath who said he loved her, but promised violence if she did anything he deemed a mistake.
Like making love with George and silently giving him her heart?
Those were probably two pretty unforgivable mistakes in the eyes of the man who would harm an innocent dog and terrorize a frightened woman.
The thunder shook and a new, terrifying thought turned Elise’s gaze toward George’s office door.
I don’t want to hurt you or the things you love.
Would he hurt George? With every contact, the creep found new and more devious ways to terrorize her. He’d nearly broken her completely by making her think he’d attacked Spike. If he went after George or her parents or anyone else she cared about, she might never recover from the emotional destruction. How could she fight an enemy who preyed on her mind and emotions and refused to reveal his identity?
Lightning flashed in the bank of clouds overhead and thunder rattled the windows and furniture almost immediately. The tiny hairs on the back of her neck stood straight on end. Whatever new threat was coming was nearly on top of them.
The telephone rang and Elise let out a tiny yelp. Cursing her own skittishness, she inhaled a steadying breath and picked up the receiver. “Good morning, Deputy Commissioner Madigan’s office. This is Elise.”
“Good morning, Elise. Garrett Cho here.”
“Deputy Commissioner
Cho. How are you?” She eyed the greenish tinge of the squall line moving beneath the charcoal-gray cumulus clouds. “Hope you’re battened down someplace safe. Looks like we’re going to have a gully washer.”
“At least. I don’t think an umbrella will do us any good today.” The deputy commissioner in charge of facilities management was always a friendly conversation. She smiled through the next thunderclap despite the tingling at her nape. Something about working in a high-rise building, that much closer to the root of a storm, always made it seem more intense. “I understand we’re in for a temporary shuffle in command over the next few days. Commissioner Cartwright-Masterson’s a grandmother?”
“Yes, sir. Deputy Commissioner Madigan is on the phone with her right now, going over the final details. She’s taking a full week off to help her son and daughter-in-law adjust to being new parents.”
Cho laughed. “We can run the department while she’s gone. I’m not worried about that. And you can assure George that all of our precinct storm shelters are fully supplied and ready for whatever hits us today. But I’m more interested in the baby details. We had a pool going, you know.”
Elise grinned as the second light on her phone went off. George’s conversation with Commissioner Cartwright-Masterson had ended. She could transfer this call to him, but she knew he had plenty on his agenda already and decided to handle this social call herself. “Sydney Cartwright weighed in at seven pounds, fourteen ounces, and she arrived at 7:15 a.m. How’d you do?”
“Well, since I’d put my money on a baby boy—not very well. But as long as the mother and baby are fine, I shouldn’t complain about losing five bucks.” She could hear the teasing in Cho’s voice. “Unless George won the pot. Then I’m complaining.”
“I couldn’t tell you that, sir. But I’ll let him know you’re thinking of him.” A rock slammed into her high-rise window and she nearly jumped out of her chair. “What the...?”
Not a rock at all. A chunk of frozen rain. Dozens of hard, icy pellets hitting the windows. Hail.
