Joker Joker (The Deuces Wild Series Book 2)

by Irish Winters

  He smiled a tight little smile. “Yes, it is, isn’t it?”

  “Would you mind if I interview your patient at your clinic?”

  Bly shrugged. “Only if you can do it tonight. Tomorrow, who knows where she’ll be.”

  “Bingo,” Tucker bit out, his cellphone out of his pocket and at his ear. “The trap is set, Eden. Climb in bed and sit tight.”

  “And you did this all by yourself, Dr. Bly.” Shawna gushed. She sure knew how to spin this scam. “This discovery is nothing short of amazing. I’m so glad you came to me for this breaking news, Dr. Bly. Ladies and gentlemen, you heard it on Channel Thirteen first. Dr. Jorge Bly has discovered the cure for cancer. All. By. Himself!”

  The interview had no more than ended when a call rang out over their earpieces. “What the hell?” Agent Chase growled at Tate and Winslow.

  “What?” Winslow asked.

  “Shots fired. Officers down at 212 Maple Drive,” Tate explained since she had no earpiece. He and Isaiah were already on their feet. Agent Chase was half out the door.

  “At my house,” she whispered. “Mom?”

  “It could be anything,” Tate explained. “Don’t panic until we know what’s going on.”

  Tate’s boss pointed at Agent Zaroyin. “You’re with me. Tate, keep our girl safe.” He and Isaiah flew out the door.

  “What’s she doing?” Winslow asked. What now?

  Tate had his head cocked, listening to whatever was coming over his earpiece. “Two agents. One dead at the scene. The other…” He stilled, his index finger lifted for her to hold on. “There’s an active shooter. Police are engaged.”

  Winslow waited. It couldn’t be a coincidence, not with her mother out there and angry with her only child. Especially not right after the interview. But scary. Did she know Dr. Bly was going to betray her? But why shoot those poor FBI agents? Was Joyce Parrish out of her mind? Stupid question.

  “Shit,” Tate hissed. “Another man down.”

  “Who is it?”

  He shook his head, his focus on the floor. Still listening. Still waiting. The minutes stretched. Breeze came in to take Winslow’s vitals. Dr. Keegan stopped by, but he didn’t stay once he saw Winslow had company.

  Still Tate listened. At last he looked up from the floor. “They’ve got the shooter. Dead at the scene.”

  Winslow held her breath as she prepared for her world to crash around her. “Is it… was it... M-Mom?”

  Tate shook his head, his brows angled together. “No. It was Ike.”

  Imagine that. Ike Pitt. Dead after ambushing two FBI agents at Hattie Beauregard’s home in Silver Spring, Maryland, then killing a D.C. Metro police officer who’d arrived on the scene. Tate hadn’t seen that one coming. Without thinking, his fingers sought the bandaged bullet wound on his bicep. Had Ike shot him? Tate might never know now.

  Tears muted Winslow’s green eyes, turning them to a soft sage color. “Hey,” he soothed. “It wasn’t your mom.” And damn it, I’ve got to tell her the truth, that Joyce is Hattie.

  “But she might have put Ike up to it,” Winslow’s lower lip quivered. “I know she did. H-he’s c-creepy, b-but he’s not mean.”

  “You never know what a guy will do for the woman he loves.” Wasn’t that the truth?

  “You think Ike was in love with my mom?”

  Tate read the disbelief on Winslow’s face. Pulling the chair away from the bed, he doffed his shoes and climbed in beside her. There was a day he hadn’t known how to hold a woman, but he didn’t seem to have that problem with Winslow. He captured the nape of her neck in his left hand as he cupped her cheek with his other. “Shhhhh,” he whispered, his lips on her forehead, needing her to know she was safe. “I’m here and there are two armed officers outside your room. Tucker and Isaiah will call soon. Then we’ll know what happened.”

  Winslow turned into him, her soft breasts to his chest, and her breath at the hollow of his neck. Warming him in ways he hadn’t realized he’d missed so sharply, nor needed so badly. Her fingertips captured his collarbone. “I’m scared, Tate.”

  “I know you are. Your mom’s nothing to tangle with.” An image of that silly stuffed bear flashed to mind.

  “H-hold me,” she commanded in her shivering innocence.

  With those two words, she swept his resistance away. “Yes, ma’am,” he agreed wholeheartedly, needing to make Winslow feel safe and protected. Easing one arm beneath her, he pulled her frail body firmly against his. This was just a man comforting a woman, he told himself. That wasn’t a lie, not exactly. Winslow had no one. Neither did he. It was only natural they seek each other at a time like this.

  His lips pressed another kiss to her forehead, then his mouth trailed easily down her nose to her cheek, tasting the softest hint of honey as he went. He needed her to know he’d never let her face her mother alone. His natural instinct to protect wandered to the sweet warmth of her neck, his tongue along with it. Just for comfort. Just because.

  Winslow arched, stretching her neck to reveal tender skin that had never known a man’s touch. The pebbled peaks of her nipples rubbed his chest that, even beneath his cotton shirt, had grown hyperaware of the feel of her. The tempting warmth.

  His hand moved of its own accord, gentling her as his fingers slid down her arms to her ribs. To her hip. Thunder beat at his veins, pooling dangerously low, hardening his body in the ways of a lover.

  There were standards he wouldn’t cross in the line of duty, yet he couldn’t think of any reason to hold back with her in his arms, not with her thighs pressed against his thighs, her belly to his belly, and her taste on his tongue. Ordnance. He was playing with the most volatile ordnance on the planet, and he couldn’t stop.

  “Kiss me,” she whispered, her eyes closed and worry fading from her face.

  Tate brushed his lips over hers, intending to break contact as soon as he satisfied this last request, but the warm rush of mint on his tongue melted his resolve. When her timid lips molded to his, a surge of sparks tiptoed up his spine.

  He tasted her lips, urging her to open for him with the tip of his tongue, to take him into her mouth the way he wanted his cock inside her body. The moment she touched her tongue to his, he was addicted at some elemental level where soul mates lived and breathed and found each other in the vast universe. Where Winslow revolved like the fiery sun to the eternal orbit of his world. His life.

  His nose filled with the seductive scent of her body blooming as it drifted up between them on waves of heat—for him. This was her gift, but he dared not take it. Not like this.

  “Winslow,” he meant to say, but groaned when she latched onto his jaw with questing fingers, working her mouth over his lips, sucking at his tongue, nipping his bottom lip, then the top, then kissing with the ferocity of a woman who’d been starved for love all of her life.

  A part of him felt sadness at that fact, yet another thrummed with male pride. One of nature’s purest virgins lay in his arms, untouched and unloved, wanting all that life and love had to offer her.

  His fingertips drummed from Winslow’s hipbone to her thigh. She was so thin. So very much a little girl. His lashes fluttered open, needing to see her for what she was, knowing he had to end this seduction before it became an open flame he couldn’t put out. But the look on her face when he did. The rapture glowing there. The joy...

  What man could resist her? Tate smoothed his wide palm to her ass, massaging her and wishing he could think of one reason he shouldn’t want her. With a mind of its own, his cock pressed against her, seeking its way inside. All Tate had to do was smooth his hand between her sweatpants and her panties and...

  She growled. Winslow—the woman who’d been lied to, cheated, and denied a full and happy life for most of her years—growled at him. Demandingly. She was finally coming out of her abuse-induced shell. There was a world of pleasure in hearing that feral feminine expression of determination.

  Enough said. Tate tugged her pants down to her thighs, leaving
her panties in place, wanting this to be about Winslow, not him. Needing to pleasure her until she knew some of what it was to be with a man who valued her above all else.

  Apparently, that wasn’t good enough. She wiggled out of her pants, on her knees now and about to...

  Oh, yeah. She stretched one bare leg over his lap, growling again, throwing more gasoline on a fire that needed no help blistering his self-control.

  Tate rolled to his back, his hands holding her ass in place, rocking her core over his zipper. Uncomfortable now, his cock ached for release from his clothes and weakening his hold on restraint. Yet her whimpers kept his fingers from letting go of her.

  He was so wide and she was so narrow, a mere wisp of a woman straddling the workhorse he’d become over the years. Even holding her as gently as he was, she seemed like a child captured in the hands of a giant. He was too big, too thick for such a tender, delicate body. The tender flesh of her backside was softer than rose petals under his callused touch. Yet he kept massaging. Gentling.

  Just one breath from her mouth on his skin, and he was as stiff as steel. Hot and hard, his defenses were breached and blown away.

  “More,” she urged softly, her voice breathy and needy. “Tate, I need more.”

  And he knew what he had to do.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  One minute she was perched right where she wanted to be, the next Winslow was on her back, pressed flat to the mattress by the hulking body of the man she adored. Tate breathed in her face, his air warm and rich with aftershave, a hint of minty mouthwash and pine. His elbows were beside her head, his knees edged between her legs, his manhood hard and promising at her quivering belly. Not exactly where she wanted it to be, but close. Oh, so close...

  She wiggled for a better angle.

  “Winslow,” he rasped, his voice a vibrating growl she felt all the way in her weeping core. This was what it felt like to want a man. To need him inside her body.

  “Yes?” she asked as she lifted her palms to his cheeks, her thumbs caressing the five o’clock scruff on his chin. This man had the softest, most delicious lips. Edible, and she wanted to nibble at them for the rest of her life. They already glistened with her kisses, and Tate wasn’t frowning now. Arching, she pushed her belly to his, loving the heat rolling off him. She stretched the tip of her tongue, reaching for his mouth.

  He’d tapped an appetite she very much wanted to satisfy. She had the most incredible man in her hands and she wanted all of her firsts to be with him. He already owned her first kiss. Her first dance. Her first and only love.

  “Winslow,” he said once more, his tone softer. More in control.

  No, no, no. Not yet. Not now. Later maybe, but not now when we’re so close... “Kiss me again,” she begged, wanting his clothes off so she could see and touch all of him. There had to be a way to command his desire, to make him want her as much as she wanted him.

  Instead, he captured her wandering hands easily in one fist, and stretched her arms over her head, holding her still even as she writhed against him.

  Winslow blinked wide-eyed at the wonder of two bodies producing so much heat. Hers seemed to have a will of its own, as if nature was in charge. Every touch of his, even his hand circling her wrists, incited another surge of what felt like sparks beneath her skin that only Tate could put out. Every atom in her soul demanded he come closer. As close as humanly possible.

  “I want you, Tate,” she murmured, licking her lips, letting her tongue catch his attention.

  The blackest eyes trailed over her mouth. They hesitated for a fraction of a second before they scanned down her chin to her neck and from there to her aching breasts. Knowing he watched her like a big cat toying with its prey, heightened the tingling sensation in her nipples, already so hard they hurt as if they were going to burst. If only he’d—kiss them. They’d feel better then. She knew it. Just one lick of his tongue. One suckle and…

  Blood roared a fiery path to her core, already dripping with need. He could eat her alive and she’d die happy. Just the thought of his mouth on her pushed her starving libido nearly to the stars.

  “I need to tell you something and you need to listen,” he whispered, his voice tight and hoarse as he planted a kiss on each of her eyelids, forcing her to close them, only to open them once more as fast as she could.

  “What?” she asked, blinking up in wonder at the handsome beast poised for action above her. He wanted her, and she wanted him. What else was there?

  “I love you, Winslow Parrish. I should’ve told you that before, and I’m sorry I didn’t, but I’m saying it now. I know it’s too soon, but I don’t care. I loved you the second I saw you on that tower.”

  Wow. That was a lot of words all at one time, but not once had she heard no.

  “I love you, Tate,” she said, meaning it. Gosh, she loved saying his name and kissing him and holding him and… everything about him.

  “There’s a lot you don’t yet know about life, and I’ll be honest. I want to be the one who teaches you.”

  “Like?” she asked coyly, still working on besting his self-control, sure she could get her way if he’d only let go of her hands.

  “Like protection and timing,” he said quietly, hoarsely. “Like making babies out of love instead of out of lust, which is what’s going on between us right now. We need to give ourselves to each other at the right time and in the right place. For the right reason.”

  Oh. That. She stilled, finally hearing him. Yes, she knew about the birds and the bees, about how it only took one time to get pregnant. Though she doubted she could get pregnant after all that her poor body had been through, Mother Nature was still in charge. It’d be a miracle, but it could happen. And here he was, protecting her from herself this time.

  But if he had a condom in his pocket… Just one…

  His thumbs stroked circles over the pulses at her wrists, still above her head, holding her where she couldn’t touch or tempt him. “I’ve learned something today,” he said earnestly, his gaze piercing her with its intensity, his brows pinched in their usual V, those three wrinkles shadowed, but not with anger.

  He tracked her lips when, with another lick and a nibble, she asked, “What did you learn, Tate?”

  “Just this,” he said before he covered her mouth and French-kissed her until her toes curled. There was not one part of her mouth his tongue didn’t caress, map, or taste. This man! Succumbing to his passion left her breathless. She moaned to touch him back. By the time he ended the kiss, she was caught in a floating-into-space kind of dizzy. Scrupulously, remarkably, and oh, so thoroughly kissed. Wow.

  “I learned that it’s never too early to fall in love, Winslow,” he told her, his voice deep and husky. “And it’s never too late. But you deserve more. I’m not going to take you here in this hospital room, where anyone can walk in on us.”

  Oh, yeah. About that... She’d gotten so enthralled with what she felt with Tate, that she’d lost track of, well, everything.

  He bumped his magnificent forehead to hers. She nearly crossed her eyes looking up at him. “But the moment you’re up for it, I’m going to kiss every square inch of your body. I’m going to lick you and eat you and leave raspberries all over your ass—and other places. I’m going to make love to you upside down and right side up, over and under and…” He delivered another scalding kiss, melting her until she hadn’t the strength to squirm.

  Easing back, he nipped her bottom lip, leaving a sting. “I’m never going to let you go, woman. So get healthy. I’m damned hungry.”

  He’d scattered her wits so thoroughly, Winslow simply breathed, “Umm, okay.”

  Tate tucked her under the covers, not ashamed for one heartbeat at what he’d nearly done with Winslow, but embarrassed, make that aghast, at his loss of control while on duty. Men got in trouble when their cocks did their thinking for them, and his couldn’t seem to shut up.

  “I’m going to step outside and check with the officers,” he said as
he placed a reverent kiss to her forehead. He needed space to cool off, and so did Winslow. “Be a good girl and get some rest while I’m gone.”

  She yawned, so damned adorable with those big green eyes, soft and alluring after their tumble beneath the covers. “I’m not a girl,” she groused, teasing, exciting his body with just the sound of her voice.

  That brought him back to her side. He dropped over the edge of the bed, one palm beside her sleepy head. “Oh, yes you are,” he whispered, nose-to-nose with the girl he planned to build a life with. “I’m sure of it. Now go to sleep, so I can do my job instead of doing you.”

  That elicited a girly giggle, the perfect answer. “Well, okay,” she breathed. “I am tired. Have you heard anything from your boss yet?”

  “I’ll let you know when I do.” He pressed an index finger to her lips. “I promise to wake you, now shhhhh. Rest. You’ve had a big day.”

  “Almost had a hard day,” she mumbled as she turned to her side, facing away from the door. The tease.

  Winslow had no idea what she did to him. Tate wiped the grin off his face and left her to rest, snagging Isaiah’s gear bag before he shut the door. He checked with the officers outside her door, but they hadn’t heard any more on the shooting than he had. One of the nurses, Breeze, came by. She ducked into Winslow’s room, took her vitals, and did whatever nurses did. Smiling at Tate when she left, Breeze continued down the hall.

  She was a pretty enough woman. Shapely. Confident. She stopped for a second to chat with the cleaning woman with her cart and mop, then waved to some guy in green scrubs farther down the hall before she ducked into another patient’s room. Breeze looked almost as gorgeous as Winslow.

  Tate scanned the halls, searching for anything out of the ordinary. The cleaning woman looked busy at her work. Stout. Matronly. Her salt-and-pepper hair seemed out of place for a janitor, but what did he know? Sometimes older people had to work past their prime. Age discrimination laws and people’s poor choices happened.