by D. D. Ayres
His mouth on her sex felt as warm it had on her mouth. His kisses were soft and delicate. And then he was sucking each petal into his mouth, tugging and then blowing his breath upon the tender wetness. Then his hot tongue slid forward and into her.
Cole rocked her head back and forth on the wall. She was weeping for him, desire flowing from her, and he lapped it up with greedy flicks of his tongue.
She came suddenly and hard. He held her in place with firm hands on her hips while he gently nibbled her clit until she stopped erupting in little rhythmic cries of pleasure. Even as she tried to come down, the flicks of his tongue were urging her toward another peak that rose steeply in tension that bordered on pain
“Too much.” She sagged against him, bracing her hands on his wet shoulders. “Oh, what are you doing to me?”
“Easy, sweetheart.” He rose and pressed her body to his so that she understood how ready he was once more. He leaned in, putting his wickedly talented lips against her ear. His voice was dark and rough with sexual energy. “We got all night.”
Cole hid her face in his armpit. “I don’t think I can stand all night.”
His laugher rocked her whole body. “In that case, I need to take a little for myself right now.”
“Oh yes, please.”
“You’re sure?” He pulled back so he could look into her flushed face.
Cole grabbed him by both ears. “I want you to fuck me right now. Hard.”
She saw his micro expression of surprise at her words. But then he was grinning again, so deep his dimples had dimples. “That’s my girl.”
He pulled back the shower curtain and scooped up his jeans from the floor. Out of the pocket came a packet. A man of economical actions, he donned the condom so quickly she decided it would be hypocritical to wonder why he was prepared when she was so glad he was.
Ready for action, he hitched up her leg and pressed his cock to her opening. One hand came under her butt as he hoisted her up against him. Then he turned so that he was the one leaning against the wall of the shower.
“Come on up and ride me.” The hand under her naked butt again urged her upward.
Cole wound her arms behind his neck and wrapped her legs about his waist as he hoisted her up. In that position the head of his cock was angled so perfectly that when he flexed his butt muscles and thrust forward, he slid into her easily. A series of little inarticulate cries erupted from her as he slid home.
“Ah, that’s good, baby. Now hold on tight.” Back braced on the wall, his hands tightly clamped under her butt, he began to move her body in a slow circular in-and-out grind, his whole body flexing when he ended each circle with a deep thrust into her.
Cole couldn’t catch her breath. Each one came out as a little hitch ending on a pant of desire. She came again but he didn’t alter his rhythm. He just kept up that slow mesmerizing grind. Sweat glistened on his forehead. His face was tight with concentration. Finally she felt it, the sudden tension in his shoulders and back and the swelling of his cock inside her.
He came in long hard thrusts that made him gasp with each. He clutched her tighter, whispering a word that astonished her. “Home.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
No one mentioned Cole’s new haircut as she walked into the classroom. She had a to-go cup of steaming coffee in one hand and a bagel in the other. She’d been up since dawn, working with Hugo.
“You’re looking happy this morning.” Richards grinned at her. “You get something out of your system?”
Cole offered him a cryptic smile. “Yes. Thanks for the loan.”
“What loan?” Scott was the last to arrive. He was rumpled and unshaved and looked much too grumpy for a man who’d had fantastic sex the night before. In fact, he looked like a man who’d been rode hard and put away wet, which is exactly what had happened. He’d actually slept alone. Cole/Noel left him toweling off and locked her door.
“Hey, babe.” Cole walked over and placed a kiss on Scott’s lips but moved back before he could touch her.
From the corner of her eye she caught the puzzled look he sent her. Tough. She was going to play this her way. “You need a cup of coffee, Sam?”
“Sure.” He sounded uneasy but that was his problem. He moved closer to Richards. “What’s this about a loan? Is Officer Jamieson running short of funds?”
“Naw. I sent her on a mission yesterday to find Noel. Looks like she’s done a good job.” Richards grinned. “Should have known that sometimes change for a woman is as easy as a new hairstyle. Gives her whole new personality.”
Cole set a cup of black coffee before Scott then casually braced her arm on his shoulder. “Sam likes it, don’t you?”
Scott looked up at her, cop face in place. “Sure. It’s okay.” He did not sound like he meant it but Cole ignored that.
“See that. Practically a new girlfriend without the pain of a breakup.” She dropped a kiss on the top of his head, as if he was a six-year-old, and then moved away to take her usual seat on the other side of the table. “What are we doing today, gentlemen?”
Smiling, Richards exchanged glances with his partner, who nodded. “Looks like we can move on today to surveillance techniques.”
At the end of the morning session, Cole swung by Richards’s chair. “The ride yesterday helped. Mind it I take your bike again this afternoon?”
That caught Scott’s attention. “What bike?” He stared at Richards. “I didn’t take you for a fan of ten-speeds.”
“Shee-it, son. We’re talking serious wheels. I ride a hog. Noel, here, took it for a spin yesterday.”
Scott looked at Cole. “You hate bikes.”
Cole rolled her eyes. “Men. The fact you manage a motorcycle dealership is what first attracted me to you. You know I like bad boys.” She slapped him on the butt.
The astonished look on his face was priceless.
“Got to put Hugo through his paces again. Be back after lunch.”
Scott came after her, catching up quickly with his longer stride. “We need to talk.”
As they stepped outside, out of view of their trainers, Cole turned and offered him a cool gaze. “Let me make this simple for you. Last night was about Noel and Sam. They are in love. They are hot together. Cole and Scott have issues but they don’t matter a damn at the moment. I needed to know that I could separate that. Now I do.”
She veered away quickly before Scott could use his cop instinct to read more into her expression than she could afford to divulge. He was good at that, when he bothered to pay attention.
That’s why she’d left him standing in the shower, grabbed a towel, and locked her bedroom door. As if sex with her ex wasn’t crazy enough, he had scared her at the end, scared her in a way she didn’t know was still possible.
Home.
That’s what he’d murmured as he slid into her body the night before. She wasn’t at all certain he knew he’d said it. She definitely hadn’t wanted to hear it.
Home is where the heart is. Home is wherever you are. Home is where, when you go there, they have to take you in.
Cole shook her head as those clichés swam through her mind and sped up her step. Let Scott think she was running away from him. It was better than him seeing an echo of his sentiment in her eyes.
As she crossed the yard toward the kennel, Cole fluffed her new haircut with both hands, making it look even choppier and wilder.
“Nice.” She looked around to see a soldier in desert fatigues wink at her as he passed.
She grinned back. It was a badass hairstyle with lots of angles and pieces, both long and short, the front raking across her forehead on a slant. She’d even put on eyeliner and doubled her mascara, something she never did for work. The haircut could handle it. She might even add highlights, when she got home.
Home.
Scott—dammit—Sam was messing with her mind.
It meant nothing. Men said all kinds of crazy things in the heat of the moment. And last night had been scorching hot.
Cole ignored the twinge of soreness between her legs as she walked on. She couldn’t afford to be mad or hurt over it. She most certainly couldn’t afford to be “home” for either Scott or Sam right now.
* * *
Cole watched Hugo weave his way around five poles before pausing to see if he’d done enough.
“Geh voraus. Go ahead.” Cole motioned to him with a hand.
Hugo, ears flattened and head low, moved in and out of another pair of poles then looked back again.
“That’s one unhappy dog.”
Cole spun around. She hadn’t heard Yardley approaching.
Cole smoothed her sweaty slant of bangs off her brow with her forearm. “We’ve got an issue, ma’am. Hugo hates the Weave. Even if that weren’t true, it takes weeks, sometimes months, to learn this obstacle.”
“That’s usually true, with an average dog. Hugo’s not average. And, he’s been trained to the peak of his ability. He’s just not concentrating. That makes me wonder who is really afraid of the Weave.”
Yardley knelt down to call the big black dog. “Here, boy.”
He came running over to her. “Who’s a good boy? Who’s so handsome? Who’s going to learn this trick for his handler? You are. Yes, you. You, handsome boy.”
Yardley’s voice, often pitched at drill-sergeant level, became soft and high and girlish when she interacted with her dogs. She rubbed him and chucked him under the chin until he just fell apart, lying down and rolling over on his back like a puppy.
Yardley looked up at Cole, a grin in her face. “Why are you training him in German for Agility?”
“He knows I mean business when I give commands in German. That improves his concentration.”
“Smart. But now you need to up the ante.” Yardley reached into a pocket of her windbreaker and tossed Cole a hard rubber object that looked a lot like a bright orange snowman.
“It smells like peanut butter.”
“That’s because I put peanut butter in it.”
Cole smiled. “Hugo’s a peanut butter maniac.”
As if to prove it, Hugo rolled to his feet and leaped straight up in the air and barked.
“Continue using other rewards for other obstacles. This reward is only for the Weave. Once that’s mastered, he should only get it after a successful completion of the entire Agility circuit.”
Cole eyed Hugo closely as she wagged the new toy before him. “How much do you want it?”
Hugo’s little stump of a tail worked back and forth while his breath accelerated as he sniffed the object. He began salivating and repeatedly licking his chops with his pink flag of a tongue. Finally, he barked.
“Well, big boy, you’re going to have to earn this puppy.”
Cole moved back toward the Weave poles, wagging the toy behind her. Hugo bounded after her. “Come on. Come on. Show me what you’ve learned.”
She made the motion with her hand for him to go in between the first poles. He darted between them, rounded the second and swept through the opening of the third then back through the fourth. And paused.
Cole shook her head and made the hand motion for him to continue.
Hugo huffed but launched his big body between poles four and five, hesitating only a second before entering the slot between five and six. He paused longer but did not look at Cole for encouragement before angling back between six and seven then weaving right back between seven and eight. After that, he stopped, sneezed twice, and craned his head back toward his handler.
Cole waited several seconds while her canine partner gazed at her in stubborn resistance. And then she moved ahead of him, calling out, “Hier, Hugo!” Running, she wove her way through the remaining poles with Hugo in close pursuit.
When they had completed the obstacle together, he barked loudly and triumphantly.
Cole paused and ordered him down. “Platz.”
He had dropped to the prone position at her feet.
“Blieb.” After giving the command to stay, she moved a few feet away and put the orange snowman on the ground at the end of the Weave obstacle. She pointed. “Lass es.”
Leaving it alone was the last thing Hugo wanted. He stretched up his front paws and groaned in frustration but remained prone.
Cole began walking back to the beginning of the obstacle. “Hier.” Hugo fell quickly into step behind her. Only then did she glance over at Yardley, who had been watching them near the first pole with a fist propped on each hip.
Yardley waited until Cole reached her. “Teamwork between the dog and handler is the main objective of canine competition. Hugo adores you. Will do anything for you. Make him earn your approval.” She cocked her head to one side. “While you’re at it, take a second and feel nice about yourself. You’re doing better than you think. Then get the hell back to work.”
Cole watched Yardley walk away. “She likes me. She really likes me.”
She looked down, expecting Hugo to be staring at her in all his doggy admiration. Instead, he was intently staring down the poles at the orange Pillsbury Doughboy. So much for handler adoration.
Right. Back to work.
* * *
Cole ate dinner alone. She had carried her plate back from the general mess hall to the bunkhouse she shared with Scott, though he wasn’t here. He was working late with the Harmonie Kennels drug detection team to bring Izzy up to speed on the latest detection-avoidance techniques and how to get around them.
Hugo was so tired from their own efforts of the afternoon that he lay sprawled on his back at her feet snoring like it was 2 A.M. He hadn’t won the orange beehive—she really did need to settle on a name for his new toy—but he certainly knew now what the goal was, and the prize that lay at the end of it.
She reached for her iced tea and walked out to the porch to watch as the last of the gold of the setting sun slipped down behind the western hills. For the moment, she didn’t think about anything. She couldn’t afford to think about what the night would bring. Couldn’t afford to recall the night before or anything related to the past.
This was the first peaceful evening she’d had since she arrived. It felt, in a way, as if she’d dropped off the face of the earth as she knew it. That’s what happened when routine was scrambled all to hell.
She sat on the top step and pulled out her phone to make a call. “Hey, sis. How are you?”
“I’m fine. But I haven’t heard from you all week.” Becca sounded peeved. “Where are you?”
“In Virginia.”
“You left the state without even telling me?”
“Aren’t you supposed to be psychic about things like where I am?”
“It would be a whole lot simpler if you just told me. Are you, you know, doing that thing we talked about?”
“I don’t think anyone’s tapped my cell, if that’s what’s bothering you. It’s not that kind of operation. And, yes, and no to your question. I’m here for training.”
“What kind of training? Are they teaching you how to raid crack houses?” Her sister’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Defuse bombs?”
“My partner’s a dog, remember? We don’t do SWAT. We do search, apprehension, and rescue.” Cole heard an engine in the distance. “So tell me, how’s it feel being pregnant?”
“Like I’m on a rowboat in the middle of a hurricane. Any and everything makes me want to hurl. I can’t believe I once liked bacon or tuna fish. Do you know how nasty over-easy eggs are? It’s scrambled or nothing from now on.”
“Yep, sounds like you’re preggers.” Headlights of a truck swung onto the gravel lane that led to the barracks. It was moving fast, when it braked suddenly and gravel went flying. The door opened and Scott leaped out with Izzy at his heels. He stopped short when he noticed Cole.
“Oh. Sorry. I got to pack.”
Cole stood up. “Why? What’s wrong?”
Scott kept walking past her into the barracks.
“Who is that?” Becca’s voice could be heard clearly though Cole
had lowered the phone from her ear. “Is that Scott? That sounds like Scott.”
“Sorry, Becca, I have to go.” She pressed the end button and went after him.
She paused at the threshold of his room. He was cursing and tossing things into a backpack. “Scott, what’s going on? You can tell me. Maybe I can help.”
He wasn’t listening. “Have you seen my shield? I took it off my wallet. Fuck. It should be here.” He grabbed up his pack and headed straight for the door.
Only she was blocking it. She braced herself for impact.
He didn’t touch her but his snort of hot breath in her face would have been enough to back off a smart mortal. Cole set her jaw and glanced up into his face.
He was looking beyond her with a fierce don’t-fuck-with-me expression. But she wasn’t about to back down.
She gripped his biceps, digging her thumbs into the muscles until she knew she must be hurting him but he didn’t even blink. “Scott?”
It took him a full three seconds more to focus. When he was looking down at her panic grabbed her by the throat. The truth was there in his eyes. Something awful had happened.
She’d seen that look on his face only once before, after the phone call telling him Gabe was dead. “Scott?”
“My mom called. There was a break-in at home. Dad’s in the hospital. They say he had a heart attack.”
Hearing the anguish in his voice, Cole felt as if her own heart had been stepped on. But she shoved those feelings aside in favor of the law-enforcement training that kept her on track in crisis. “Okay. You’re ready. I’m coming with you.”
He shook his head. “Don’t have time.” He shook off her touch and tried to push past her.
She stepped in front of him and grabbed his chin in her hand to jerk his face back to hers. “I’m coming. Don’t give me any bullshit.”
He didn’t glance at her again but after a second he nodded once.
When she ran to get her purse, Hugo appeared. He moved in close to Scott and butted his shaggy head under Scott’s dangling hand.
