by D. D. Ayres
James felt his entire body clench in response to her light touch.
Don’t hurt her more than she’s already been hurt.
Thoughts such as that usually came with a voice attached. His mother’s for manners. His grandmother’s for common sense. His dad’s for duty. This one came straight from his own heart, directed at his libido.
He grasped her fingers and squeezed them, hard. “You don’t owe me anything.”
His rough whisper told Shay all she needed to know about how to proceed. He wasn’t going to take advantage of her. He was worried that she might be damaged or too fragile after her confession to withstand his brand of lovemaking.
He had forgotten how tough she could be. Or determined, when she wanted something very badly. She needed to remind him.
She owed this to herself. This would be something good and positive to hold on to during the next dark night in her life.
She rose up on an elbow, close enough to see the light from the ceiling reflected like twin stars in his eyes. “What if we owe each other?”
James reached for her hand and pulled it toward his crotch. “This?”
Her fingers flexed in anticipation of the feel of him. Instead he released her just short of the goal.
Luckily, it was only one short inch.
She touched him, sliding two fingers lightly down the placket of his briefs. The caress made his breath escape in a swoosh.
She didn’t look up, more fascinated by the interesting mound to the left of the row of stitching. Should she just…?
She stroked the bulge and found his cock hard as a lead pipe. A shudder passed through him. He was trying so hard to be noble. But he wasn’t that noble. She knew what she’d uncover if she lowered his shorts. She’d already seen and touched. Thick and impressively long, his shaft would jut proudly from the nest of tight curls.
She sucked in a quick breath as her womb contracted at the image she’d conjured. Her hand reflexively closed over the cloth covering his erection and he sucked in a more ragged breath in response.
He’d said earlier he wanted foreplay. She’d never been asked to take the lead, not in any way that gave her full control. It wasn’t that she’d never thought of it. But she had never been with a man who made her want to lose her natural inhibitions. James made her want to turn herself inside out for his pleasure.
Could she lead in the game of seduction? It felt thrilling and empowering to think about, and it was making her damn horny.
She sat up and reached for the bottom edge of her top and pulled it over her head before she could think too much about what she was doing.
She saw his eyes gleaming in the dark as he looked at her. But he couldn’t really see much. She leaned over and switched on the bedside lamp. He blinked and then his gaze went wide as he looked at her. She held it for only a fraction of a second before hers darted away. What did the girls in the videos do?
She closed her eyes and reached up and rubbed her hand over first one mound and then the other, taking pleasure in the feel of her own flesh. Her hands scooped under and around until she cupped the full weight of each breast in her hands. Her nipples were firm and pebbly as they pressed into her palms. If he touched her like this, she would moan in rapture.
“Shay?”
Her eyes popped open. He was frowning at her, as if something else was called for. She just didn’t know what. Was she making a fool of herself? Probably. Confused, she shifted away from him, turning her back.
She felt him moving on the bed. Almost immediately, she felt a touch on her back, one finger tracing up her spine from waist to the back of her neck.
“You don’t have to try so hard to please me, Shay. Just being with you does that.”
The heat of his slightly abrasive fingers skimmed the back of her neck, shifting the curtain of her hair aside. He leaned in and placed a kiss behind her right ear. The shudder of delight that passed through her body startled her. Just the touch of his lips anywhere was seismic.
His finger went roaming down her back again until it came up against the waistband of her bikini panties. It skimmed from side to side then paused at the top of her cleft, bared by the low waistband. Shay held her breath as his finger slid slowly down over the swatch of fabric concealing her butt and then cupped her.
He leaned in again, this time catching her earlobe in his teeth. “Always been partial to black sheep. Just how baaaad can we be?”
He was trying to lighten the moment but her heart was too full to respond. She had awakened ready for him. Could not handle anything less.
“Shay?”
She shook her head, afraid she was going to do something dumb like cry.
“This is for you,” he whispered into her ear. “All you want, as much as you want, as long as you want it. Change your mind, just say no.”
His hands slipped slowly up her arms before cupping her shoulders and drawing her back against the hard-muscled planes of his chest, cocooning her with the heat of his body. The skin-to-skin contract was devastating to her sanity, overriding her with sensations she’d never felt before. His heart beat behind her left shoulder blade, a little fast but solid. He scooted in until his erection pressed against her. But his hands were gentle. Nothing said he had lost control, would not yield to her command. She didn’t know how to handle that. He felt strong and capable, and his tenderness was taking apart every defense she’d ever built.
Then his hands slipped past her sides and his fingers worked up under hers to cup her breasts.
He nuzzled her neck. “You’re so soft. And sexy, Shay.”
He took his time, playing with each nipple separately, as if each were a little present not to be missed. It was an excruciating tease, shifting her excitement into a higher gear.
Finally he dropped his hands from her breasts and scooted back. She felt cool air move in between them. Then the shock of his tongue, warm and sinuous between her shoulder blades, made her gasp. After a few more licks, he pushed her to the edge of the bed and lifted her to her feet. He slid up behind her and pulled her back between his spread legs. “This is for you, Shay.”
His warm wet tongue found the indentation of the small of her back, using long licking strokes to trace her spine. Both hands slid into her waistband, pushing her bikini bottoms down. His tongue followed the exposed indentation of her spine downward, each lick moving a little closer to her cleft.
He reached around to the front with both hands. One splayed across her lower belly to hold her while the other moved down to cup her mound. Forced so tightly against him, Shay had to bend forward slightly to keep her balance as his fingers delved deep into the vee of her body. Then his rasping tongue slipped into the shallow dimple at the base of her spine.
Shay whimpered in pleasure laced with embarrassment. She couldn’t help herself. She pushed her hips against his probing fingers, opening for him so that he could find her melting wet center.
He took his time, fingers moving in a slow pulsing rhythm between the slick wet folds of her body. No man had ever touched her so gently and with such assurance. His tongue and teeth licked and nipped up and down her spine in time to the friction of his fingers as he made love to her with everything but his cock.
It was wicked and so strange, and so good!
When he finally lifted his head, his voice was deeper than she’d ever heard it. “This is all for you, Shay. You deserve to be appreciated. To feel every good thing a man can give you.”
Dry-mouthed but weeping below from his stroking, Shay couldn’t deny it. Yet some protective corner of her female brain told her not to surrender completely.
“Hm, it’s better when you fully participate.” Damn. She sounded as breathless as Marilyn Monroe.
He chuckled but it sounded half strangled by desire.
He withdrew from her slowly and then his hands on her bare hips were turning her to face him. He kissed her navel, darting his tongue into it before lifting his head and smiling at her. His fingers peeled her
panties down her hips. “You want more.” He kissed her below her navel. “You’ll get more.” His kiss moved lower still.
And then he made love to her with his tongue.
She held on to him for dear life, fingers digging into the muscles of his shoulders for support because her knees had gone weak. He cupped her butt in both hands, bracing and holding her in place for his tongue fucking. The term had always sounded, well, dirty to her before. But with James it was the most delicious torture. When she flew apart, little cries of ecstasy breaking from her, he held on, loving her with his tongue and teeth until she collapsed against him.
He gathered her to him, kissed her navel and pressed his face into her lower abdomen. “Enough?”
Shay caught her breath, her eyes flying open in outrage. He couldn’t be serious. “More.”
He lifted his head, lips glistening with the essence of her. “Then come here and I’ll give you more.” He pulled her down onto the bed.
Lying spread on her bed with her legs hooked over James’s shoulders, Shay thought her bliss couldn’t be any greater. He was moving inside her, his chest arched high and away from her as he flexed his hips to plunge deeper with each stroke. He worked her slowly, deliberately, pushing her up but not over the edge. With each stroke he gave his hips a little wiggle that made her gasp with pulse-pounding delight.
“Please. Just … Ooooh. James!”
James gritted his teeth. He’d been holding himself a little apart, prepared this entire time for her to suddenly change her mind. She’d been through so much. Suffered too much. He didn’t want her to think he was another user, out for what he could get from a woman. He had been prepared right up to the very second her cries of fulfillment filled his head to pull back, if that’s what she suddenly needed.
Now he didn’t have to. The pent-up frustration of balancing on that knife’s edge, for her sake, was released. Her cries turned him inside out and upside down. And stoked his lust to a level he’d never known. And then he lost control, moving high, hard and fast to her sweet little cries of pleasure.
Her body still quivering with little aftershocks of pleasure, Shay lay staring at him through her lashes for a long time before she spoke. “Where did all that come from?”
A tiny smile tugged his mouth as he reached out to brush strands of her hair from her cheek. His eyes still radiated the heat they’d generated. “I don’t know. I just went for it. Too much?”
“I never— No. Just … wow.”
* * *
A little after six A.M. Bogart pushed through the mostly closed bedroom door and padded over to James’s side of the bed. He didn’t bark but he did move in until his nose was within inches of James’s face. The perfume of warm doggy breath woke him.
Golden eyes stared intently into his.
“Right.” He tossed off the covers and reached for his jeans.
“Where are you going?”
He looked back over his shoulder. Shay was looking at him with a big grin on her face. That was a new and welcome sight.
He grinned back. “Taking Bogart for a walk.”
She rolled over, dragging the covers with her. “I’ll do it.”
“It’s chilly. I won’t be long.”
She gave him the porcupine look. “You forget. For a whole month he was my dog. I miss taking care of him. Please?”
James hesitated. He didn’t want to spoil what would be a normal moment between them. An easy couples moment. “Okay, but don’t go far.”
He looked at Bogart, who was giving him that lolling-tongue doggy grin. “Do you see what you’ve done? I even have to share my girl with you.”
Bogart barked brightly and padded over to Shay’s side of the bed.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Shay sat behind the wheel of her car, trying to get up the courage to drive into work. It was Monday morning. James had already left to report for retraining, but the look on his face as he kissed her good-bye was anything but happy.
“Get a restraining order against Coates. Today.”
Balloons? Harmless.
After she’d walked Bogart early Saturday morning, James had walked in on her popping the balloons in the kitchen. The sexy sleepy-eyed man of early morning vanished. Pissed-off Officer Cannon was a force to be reckoned with.
Shay thought about lying. But there was a note tied to the bouquet of balloons she found on her doorstep that read “First Anniversary. Think of me.” No name. No need.
James looked at the note a long time before saying in a flat voice that this was the last time he was going to hear Eric Coates’s name without doing something about it.
Then he had gotten dressed and taken care of her car problem.
Someone had yanked out her spark plug wires. The Raleigh police officer who’d volunteered to help them out after he heard about James’s and Bogart’s rescue of the baby on Friday night spotted the problem immediately. The officer said vandalism was not unusual for a car left in an unmonitored car park. The two officers got her towed and then her car fixed in a matter of hours. Free. Professional courtesy, James told her. She suspected he had paid without letting her know.
Shay smiled to herself as she started her engine. She’d always shouldered her own world. Trust hadn’t been part of her vocabulary. She didn’t know what to do with gratitude, either. Thanks to James, the new emotions coming to life inside her were far more than thankfulness. Dangerous, because she didn’t know what to do with that new feeling of more. James was more than she ever expected in her life, better, kinder, a good man. But even a good man could only take so much. Their relationship was barely a week old. Already, he knew more about her than anyone else in her life. They needed time.
That’s why she hadn’t told him about the obscene phone call. She couldn’t afford to dump everything on him, even if her heart wanted to. If it didn’t work out, her world would shatter. To have him for now, that was more than enough. Right now, enough felt damn good.
She pulled out of her apartment complex and turned toward downtown and work. Three days ago she had been ready to grab what little she owned and run. Now she was going in to face down her fears. That was because of James. She felt her karma changing over the weekend. It wasn’t just the terrific sex. It had to do with every other moment.
There was the spur-of-the-moment Saturday afternoon picnic drowned out by a sudden shower that had left them scrambling for cover with soggy fast-food fried chicken, and an eat-everything-in-sight dog. Who knew Bogart would gobble up a carton of wet coleslaw? And sofa pillows! Fair enough, she’d offered them to him as a substitute for his bed, which she’d tossed out in a fit of self-pity after losing him. What he did with them was his business. And her mess to clean up.
Shay felt her mouth tugging upward as happy images of the weekend cascaded through her thoughts. No frown could last long when confronted with the memory of James with a skimpy towel wrapped around his hips as he made pancakes Sunday morning. Not wonderful pancakes. But who cared when a half-dressed male was in her kitchen?
She had not known it was possible to have so much easy happiness in her life. Now, more than ever, she wanted to clear away the ugliness she had let rule her life for the past year.
Her cell phone rang. It was James. She put it on speaker to keep both hands on the wheel.
“I made a call to the main office of Halifax Bank this morning, asking for a meeting with Eric Coates.”
“You shouldn’t—”
“I’m talking here, Shay. It’s polite to listen.” He was still in officer mode. “I was told he’s out of the office at a bank conference until Thursday. Looks like I’ll have to wait for a little chat with the asshole until I get back. I just thought you should know you have some breathing room. Meanwhile, you need to get a restraining order.”
Shay frowned as the light turned red ahead. “I’ve already told you why I won’t do that. If my past is revealed—”
“A restraining order wouldn’t cause anyone to check into your pa
st. I’m a cop. I know how this goes. He won’t stop until you stop him.”
Shay sighed. “I know you mean well but I’ll have to think about it. It’s my life.”
James couldn’t argue with that. He knew how to back people into corners and make them say and do things they didn’t want to. Yet Shay was the last person with whom he wanted to use that kind of manipulative bullshit. As worried as he was for her, he wouldn’t undermine her just when he was winning back her trust. But he didn’t have to be happy about it. At least Eric was gone for the week.
“I’ll be back in Raleigh on Friday. Meanwhile, you think hard. If there’s any problem, anything at all, you call me. Okay?” His colleagues would shit their pants with laughter if they could hear him backing down like this. The things we do for … like?
“Okay.” She sounded relieved. “See you Friday.”
“Right. And, Shay? Be careful.”
* * *
Not even the sight of the façade of Halifax Bank could ruin Shay’s mood. She wasn’t wrong. Something was shifting in her life. Something better than this temporary pain-in-the-butt job. She could feel it like the touch of the sun on her face as it emerged from behind the last wisps of morning fog. Best news of all, Eric would be absent all week.
She paused to let a car pass by before crossing the street. It slowed as it came even with her to allow another pedestrian to cross a little farther along. A little boy in the backseat waved. She waved back. And then he put a metal handgun to the glass of the window and aimed it at her.
It’s a toy, her brain said. But her heart leaped and her feet propelled her backward in recoil even before common sense could register. She saw him laughing wildly as the car moved on.
“Kids!”
She looked to her right to find a male bank employee she only knew by sight standing next to her.
“It—it looked so real!” She was stammering.
“Yeah. I could tell you thought so.” He shrugged. “Who can be sure these days, right?”
