by Tracy Ellen
Luke slowly stroked my back, but his voice was stony. “I don’t need platitudes.”
I smiled into his neck.
“I can feel your smile. What’s so amusing?”
My smile turned into a giggle. “Me being accused of platitudes.”
Luke relaxed in my arms. “Yes, that is funny.”
“Let me rephrase. I will be sorry if one of your friends has betrayed your trust and is involved in any way.”
“Thanks,” he responded shortly, “but not as sorry as they will be.”
“Yes, my war-god.”
Luke clearly was not in the mood to be comforted with words, but he didn’t leave. He linked his arms loosely around my waist, holding me far enough away so we could see each other’s faces.
Jack’s house was chilly. I saw no reason why I shouldn’t raise my leg to run my foot along the back of his thigh and hook my leg up around his hip. If that caused our jean’s zippers to rub together to ignite a little friction, it would only make us warmer while we talked.
Luke leaned a shoulder against the back door and murmured, “Anabel, Anabel,” his hands slowly slid down to trace the curves of my ass, “the plans I have for you…”
“You have plans?” I felt another part of his anatomy knocking on my front door. “Besides the schizophrenic one where I am killer bait tonight when you broke up with me last night to protect me?”
“When this is over, your turn is going to last for days.”
“It is?” I breathed, tingling at the thought of what that could mean.
“Do you know why women want to be sexually dominated by men?” His voice was low and sexy, his cock was growing hard and thick, but it was the knowing glint in his eyes that already had my cha-cha creamy wet and tightening.
“Because females like to pit their strength and intelligence against the male species as a gentle reminder to men they are just as strong and intelligent, if not even superior upon occasion?” I asked, closing my eyes at the feel of his little head rubbing the perfect spot on the seam of my jeans while his big head continued to rub me perfectly in all other ways.
“Let me rephrase. Why ninety-nine percent of women want to be dominated by men?” One hand moved along my skin under my sweater to play with the button at the top of my jeans.
I sucked in my breath at his touch and then rose up on tiptoe to suck on his earlobe while I whispered, “Why would I care about their reasons? Tell me mine.”
His hand slowly worked down inside the front of my jeans, a finger touching me, then another, and another until his whole hand was cupping my sex inside my pants. He smiled slowly into my half-mast eyes while I clung to his shoulders and his hand moved back and forth.
“I am going to train you.” He opened his hand flat inside my jeans and panties, pressed his palm against me, and his long fingers spread out to cup my ass from this new, insider angle.
I tried not to move against his hand and moaned, “Not better, but bigger men than you have tried to train me.” My hand traced the length of his bulge in his jeans and squeezed in apology. “Well, not bigger, but taller.”
“I have thought for days how I will train you,” he said against my cheek, at the same time his palm between my legs now remained perfectly still. He didn’t move his hand or fingers, only my slight undulating hip movements created the friction I was craving.
“When I am done with your training, you will allow me to do anything I want to you, whenever and wherever I want.”
I murmured distractedly, “Hmm. Some hard training schedule you’ve set out for yourself there--I already do that.”
Despite my brain telling my hips to not move, they pretended not to understand English, My hips moved faster with a will of their own while I moved my hand faster on Luke in my continued apology for the undeserved size comment, but the bastard still didn’t move his hand cupped around me.
“I will snap my fingers and you will come running. You will beg me to fuck you in ways you’ve never imagined. You will let me do anything I want to you, even if I say strip naked in a room full of people.”
“I’m begging you, please, please snap your fingers right now, and I promise I will come running like you won’t believe,” I pleaded against his lush, cruel mouth, every nerve ending in my body concentrated in the one throbbing spot he was pressing between my thighs as the tension mounted in my cha-cha, “but as for the stripping naked part, you can’t forget I’m from a small town in the Midwest…”
He moved his fingers then, but like the guerilla warfare expert he was descended from, they attacked where they were least expected.
I sucked in a sharp breath and started to squirm in discomfort at the invasion, but then his palm rotated trickily while he pressed harder and his deep voice ordered softly against my lips, “If you want to be allowed to come, Sweetheart, hold still because Jack is on his way down the stairs and we have about fifteen seconds…”
My world exploded and I saw the moon and the stars.
‘I love it when I can offer comfort to my boyfriend.’
Chapter XX
“Knocking on Heaven’s Door” by Avril Lavigne
Sunday, 12/16
10:30 PM
The fluffy snowflakes of earlier tonight had evolved into the fury of a winter storm. A front that was supposed to hit north of the Twin Cities had taken a freak turn and now the southern suburbs were getting hit hard. The weather report was calling for an accumulation in the double digits by tomorrow morning with snowfall continuing throughout Monday. School closings for Monday were already being broadcast on the local channels.
Following the truck plowing its way up Luke’s lane, I rolled my eyes over at Chief Jack in the passenger seat of Lady Liberty. He made no bones about openly listening to my side of the conversation with Stella. He was thoroughly enjoying himself listening to me get badgered while he worked on scarfing down the meatloaf dinner and the dessert of pumpkin pie he’d snagged from my fridge while I packed a quick overnight bag at the apartment. It was like the last supper of a condemned man, but in reverse. My stomach was gurgling with hunger as I faced possible death as bait while my co-executioner was eating my favorite foods.
I had finally hung up after it took me fifteen minutes to make quick arrangements for being absent from the bookstore tomorrow, if we didn’t close altogether due to the predicted weather forecast. Stella kept interrupting me to ask questions of her own, luckily not about my plans for the night, but about her own concerns.
We had agreed that Luke and I were pretending to get back together for the sake of “catching Svettie”. We did not want to confuse the general public, including our friends and family that we were together until it was completely safe to do so.
If listening to me get badgered by my niece helped cheer Jack up, I was fine with that. Jack had been unusually quiet on the drive from Northfield to Lake Roberds.
It was true the driving conditions were terrible. We’d still be crawling at a snail’s pace if Jack hadn’t pulled strings in Northfield to follow a plow, and Luke hadn’t sent the neighbor kid with the truck plow to clear a path on the Faribault roads, but none of that would deter Jack if he wanted to let loose with a tirade. Instead, he hadn’t ranted or lectured me for lying to him about my part in the whole Dickie mess--not even one little peep. I was actually worried I’d hurt his feelings. I enjoyed our battles of the sexes, and sometimes Jack deserved crap for his chauvinistic ways, but when it came to down to it, I never wanted to seriously wound his psyche.
Glancing at Jack, I glumly reflected out loud, “You know, out of the eight people in Luke’s house, six don’t like me.” I quickly did the math and exclaimed in amazement, “Seventy-five percent of them could wish me dead for one reason or another. It’s entirely possible they are all in on it.”
Jack stuffed the last chunk of pie in his mouth, chewed a moment in contemplation--probably checking my calculations since I was a girl--and asked, “You sure about that?” At my questioning brow, he clarified, “That on
ly six out of eight want you dead?”
His shoulders shook in silent amusement at my dirty look, but I graciously gave him that one, as well.
Now that Jack understood it wasn’t true, the poor man was probably still miffed that I disproved his gloating ‘I told you so’ about Luke breaking up with me for not wanting to stay at home and have his kids.
Catching us kissing had caused a bit of a conundrum. Jack didn’t want us to break-up, but he was chagrined to see for his own eyes that Luke had not put me in my 1950s place and dumped my nonconforming butt, as he predicted.
I snickered. I was sure if Jack had heard Luke talk about training me while his hand was down my jeans, Chief Macho Balls wouldn’t worry on that subject for one femtosecond longer.
Jack wasn’t done with me. “Now, Angel, like I’ve told you all your life, it’s never fun being part of the unpopular crowd.” He went on oozing sympathy, “If it makes you feel better, by my calculations, out of the six people that don’t like you, only sixty-seven percent of them would band together to kill you.” He wiped his hands with a napkin while his lips twisted. “John Smith doesn’t want you dead and your cousin Candy works alone.”
Okay, I’d been nice and given Jack one freebie. Sadly, with some people, you gave them an inch, and they needed a beat down.
“Oh Jack, you old softie,” I sighed loudly. “It never makes me feel better when you bring up your sad school days of being a lonely outsider, but thanks for trying to cheer me up. After all, I could die tonight from the big boy’s decision to use me as chum bait in a death pool of my enemies.”
“Ha ha, Miss Sadsack. Don’t think I don’t know how you cheered yourself right up in my kitchen,” Jack rebutted, as he glowered out his window at the snowstorm.
“What!” I exclaimed in shock, not sure I heard him right.
Jack’s head swiveled in my direction. “Oh, don’t give me those innocent blue eyes.” He pointed a finger and accused, “You ripped off my big tin of sugar cookies!”
“I did not!” I cried out, laughing in relief and blindly reaching out my right hand to smack aside his finger. “It was your big boy partner in crime.”
Jack smirked. “Snitch.”
We drove up the rest of the way to Luke’s house in silence. I worried for a minute that I may really die in the next few hours, but then my mind went to more immediate concerns. I started thinking of my boyfriend.
Soon I was AWOLing. I burned in anticipation merely thinking about Luke’s words for My Turn. My brain was aware Luke told me his plans to enflame that reaction, but my cha-cha wasn’t as discriminating. Thrilling tingles were good, whatever the reason. Torquemada’s manipulative awareness of how my mind worked was diabolically arousing. That made me burn even more. The deliciously vicious cycle of throbbing tingles and thrilling thoughts perpetuated in my porno imagination. Scenarios of training sessions flashed through my mind, each progressively filthier than the last. Then a vision of being entwined with three different men that were occupying me from three different directions while Luke watched closely popped up.
‘Hey, quit butting in on my fantasies!’ I exclaimed, shocked at the Technicolor image using advanced biometrics technology I wasn’t aware even commercially existed.
‘Who, me?’ the sex kitten voice purred innocently, arching in pleasure.
‘That was interesting,’ the detective voice commented.
‘No, no, no, don’t go there!’ the accountant voice advised worriedly.
‘Unless you’re a highly paid prostitute looking to become riddled with STDs,’ the mean mommy voice added supportively.
I ignored all the voices. I wanted to fling open the door of my truck and shoot dead five out of the six people inside Luke’s house that disliked me. That would end the agony of determining who the real killer was--John Smith could live with receiving only a painful flesh wound, and the un-cousin deserved to die regardless of guilt. Then I could tear off my clothes and beg to be schooled by my Master.
‘Not that I’d make it easy on him,’ I thought with a saucy smile. I had a feeling my idea of training me and Luke’s idea of training me were going to be extremely different, but I couldn’t see anything but a win/win as he figured that out.
‘Bow-chicka-wow-wow,’ the sex kitten purred in approval, and we both giggled.
The Jeep slid slightly off the lane and I corrected the steering, but Jack ruined my happy moment when he said caustically, “I know we’re following a plow, but can you at least drive with your eyes open, so we don’t land in a ditch?”
“Geez, you’re so picky.” I gripped the steering wheel with both hands and stared into the swirling mass out the front windshield. With no trees or buildings lining the open lane, the fierce wind whipped up the snow into a formidable wall of white. Visibility was rapidly decreasing, the snow was drifting, and I had to strain to see the plow’s taillights ahead.
The Jeep crawled along and we arrived at Luke’s back parking area in one piece. Jack shifted his bulk. “Let’s go over the plan a final time.”
I nodded. “I will go in and inform the seventy-five percent that the CI reported in that Svettie is on her way to the farm, gunning for us. A police S.W.A.T. team has infiltrated the area by foot with a base of operations across the road at my brother’s house. They are poised to capture Svettie the moment she tries to get to Luke and me.”
That wasn’t true. Jack was the only cop at the scene, since this was a strictly off the books operation. Jack was going way out on a limb here, but he and Luke both felt that in the time it would have taken to bring Svettie into the station and organize an official sting operation, we would lose this small window of time to force the hand of the guilty party.
I was moved that Jack felt my life was worth his job, although we had left room for his deniability, if necessary. The people on the farm only had Luke’s word, and soon mine, that the police were involved.
Jack grunted his approval and I continued, “My job inside is to discuss the case’s details with Luke and ask questions that puts relentless pressure on the guilty party. They’ll feel desperate they’re going to be caught soon and will make a move.”
‘Could anything be more exciting?’ I thought. ‘Carte Blanche to so what I do best--torment people with words!’
“Go on.”
I unbuckled my seatbelt. “After we get people rattled big time, part two of the plan is you will call Luke and notify him Svettie has been caught. She’s claiming to have proof she’s not Dickie’s killer. It will take only a few minutes before the Kenosha Police can retrieve the proof.”
“Good, good. About you being chum bait,” Jack said in a gruff voice and cleared his throat, stretched his neck like his collar was tight, but determinedly held my eyes. “You know I’d never let you do this if I wasn’t convinced Drake will keep you safe.”
The idea he was allowing, nay encouraging, me to walk into danger obviously didn’t sit well with the Chief.
“I do believe that, thank you,” I answered, pursing my lips and nodding. “My only question, Jack, is how can you be one hundred percent sure Luke is not behind all this? You saw him tonight. The man is crazy about me and wants me under any terms.”
Nonplussed, Jack’s mouth opened and then closed and then opened again to finally demand, “But, dammit, you trust him, don’t you?” He blustered defensively, “You wouldn’t be with a man you didn’t trust!”
“Well, I’m not married to him, so he gets nothing if I’m dead, but yet I didn’t die--as Svettie pointed out. Luke’s controlling. He’s definitely tricky enough to set up something like that, if he thought it would get me to do something he wanted that I wasn’t doing,” I temporized, but then shrugged, as Jack gaped at me in a very un-Jack sort of way. “But overall, yes, I trust him.”
“Jesus, Bel,” Jack cursed.
I reached over and took Jack’s large hand. He looked down at our clasped hands, then up at me with a puzzled expression that grew into a scowling frown as my sm
ile grew.
I laughed. “No, I swear to God I’m not going to bust your chops about something. I’m simply happy, Chief Banner, to have shared this moment tonight.” I squeezed his hand affectionately. “No matter what happens, remember that you were responsible for me going in there knowing you trusted me, and I thank you for that trust.”
“I did that?” Jack repeated, no longer suspicious since I swore to God, but extremely confused.
I laughed again and shook his hand. “Of course you did. Look, didn’t you just tell me that it’s because I trust Drake that you ultimately trust him, too?”
“I guess you could say that. Okay,” Jack grunted reluctantly after he thought it over.
“You’re letting me be chum bait because Luke is in there. But also, you’d never agree if you’re cop intuition didn’t say that for a civilian, I’ve proven I can handle myself in an emergency.” I smiled and squeezed his hand a final time before releasing. “You couldn’t give me a nicer gift to build my self-confidence before going into that house. Thank you for that, too.”
“Uh, okay, you’re welcome,” Jack said, puffing up a bit at my complimentary analysis.
“Alright then,” I clapped my hands once, “got any last words of wisdom before I go in?”
Jack started to say no and then changed his mind. “Do not be too self-confident that you get cocky and pull some lame-brained stunt.” He stabbed the air with his emphasizing finger. “Do not go off alone with any of the women, not even your friend Pam.” He glared at me, as if I’d protested. “That includes running off to use the bathroom together, talking about boys, trying on each other’s clothes, or any of that other giggling crap you girls always have to do in pairs. If a woman is behind this, they’ll be vicious if cornered.”
‘Ah well, that’s why they call them special moments, not special minutes or special hours,’ I thought.
Out loud, I retorted, “As opposed to a man who will be politeness personified when trapped?” I shook my head, but held up my hand when he started to bluster again. “Okay, Chief of Chauvinism, I promise to go with Luke should I have the uncontrollable urge to tandem pee, take off my clothes, or giggle, but I can’t guarantee he’ll take me with him if he runs off to play Army men or fix a car engine.”
