by Joanne Rock
They stared at one another for a moment, the sound of ragged breathing filled her ears. His. Hers. The soft pants mingled between them. He held her away from him as his gaze swept her whole body.
“Wait. I want to look at you.” He seemed fascinated with the lace on her bra strap, running his finger underneath the thin strip of material without venturing deeper into the cups, where she wanted his touch all the more.
“I want to see you, too.” She reached for his belt, ready to strip away the rest of his clothes faster than she’d ditched his shirt, but he imprisoned her wrist.
“I’m running the show tonight.” His hold didn’t hurt her, but the grip didn’t allow her to move, either. “I’m skating on thin ground right now.”
He didn’t explain that, but she sensed it had something to do with whatever he held back from her, whatever dark secrets lurked inside him.
“Okay. Just don’t make me wait too long.” Her breath came fast as she waited for him to release her. His slow perusal of her in the shadowed light from the hallway made her feel hot. Sexy. Wet.
“I make no promises.” He flicked the bra strap off her shoulder with one careless flip of his finger. His other hand still held her fast.
A pleasurable shiver trembled through her, tingling over her skin and stirring the heat between her thighs.
“Please.” She moistened her lips with a sweep of her tongue, willing to resort to whatever tactics necessary to get his hands all over her again. His mouth, too. Her whole body trembled in wary alertness for his next move. His next touch.
“I’ll please you, all right.” The edge to his voice mirrored the firm grip of his hands, the unapologetic scrutiny of her body as he unfastened her jeans. “As long as you understand this is all I can give you.”
“That’s all I need.” She swayed toward him, dizzy with his scent. His taste lingering in her mouth. “You don’t seem to recognize that this is so much more than I’ve had in a long time.”
His arm snaked around her shoulders to gently clench her hair in his fist. He held her there, staring at her, knowing her most intimate secrets when she understood so little about him.
Then his mouth landed on hers again and she forgot to think. Breathe. Do anything but cling to him and let those kisses drug her. Her scalp tingled and tightened as he released her hair to run his hands down her back. He pulled her off the table and into his lap, her legs tangling with his until he resituated her crosswise, her limbs draped over the couch while he cupped her bottom to his groin. Hands curved around her buttocks through her open jeans before he skimmed the denim farther down her hips.
Heat burned away everything but the promise of fulfillment he could bring her. He might shut her out of his head and his heart, but his body was all hers for tonight and she knew that meant more than he would admit. Sex would be their meeting ground, their entrée to something deeper they couldn’t avoid.
And if she was wrong, she’d take away scorching memories to keep her warm if Warren walked out of her life as quickly as he’d burst into it.
CHAPTER 14
WARREN CAREENED HEADLONG into a kind of sexual unconsciousness, a realm where it was easy to forget everything else. At least until tomorrow.
She poured over him like honey, her skin hot and sweet as he tasted her neck, her throat. Her rump shifted in his lap, incinerating any reserve with his ability to hold back. He gathered her up in his arms and squeezed her closer, increasing the pressure of her hip against him.
The movement incited something in her, wresting a cry from her throat as she rubbed her breasts over his chest and broke his kiss to nip his shoulder as she wrestled his belt out of his pants. He freed the hooks on her bra and slid the pink lace off so he could feel her without impediment.
The warm silk of her skin fried his brain cells, robbing him of any thought save having her. All of her.
His fingers abandoned their mission of touching her in an effort to remove the rest of her clothes. The soft, mewling sounds she made in the back of her throat didn’t help since he knew she craved his touch as much as he wanted to give it to her.
Her eyes went wide as he lifted her off the couch all together, skimming the denim from her endless legs and taking a bogus scrap of pink that she must pass off as panties from her hips. Tabitha naked was a sight that would fill any red-blooded male with reverence and oh, man, he was feeling mighty damn grateful for the view right about now. His twill pants didn’t come off as quickly as her clothes, but who could work fast with a zipper embedded in his skin?
When they were both naked he covered her, pinning her to the sofa with his body, his legs spreading hers. This was what he wanted, what he’d tried like hell to deny, what he’d want tomorrow even more fiercely for having indulged himself today. The woman could tempt him.
He yanked his gaze up to her eyes to find her staring at him with equal intensity, soul bared for his viewing. He should look away. Focus on the sex. But some sort of communication happened without his permission or his foreknowledge, an understanding that surpassed mutual orgasms or any kind of cosmic sex encounter. He closed his eyes to shut it out, knowing he was too late.
Sheathing himself in the condom she’d produced from somewhere, Warren refused to let it rattle him. He lowered his mouth to her breast and drew on the taut nipple, savoring the taste of her on his tongue. She wriggled and writhed and guided his hand between her legs, directing his fingers to her sex. Inviting him inside.
He held back, touching her only with his forefinger, circling around that most heated of places. She stirred beneath him, arching up to meet him, to open herself. And ah, hell, but it took willpower to wait.
Reaching up to her mouth, he slid one finger between her teeth, allowing her to draw on the digit. The slick soft feel of her around him brought an answering throb in his cock, as if her mouth worked directly on his shaft. Sliding his finger away, he carried the dampness south to mingle with the heat between her legs.
Tracing the slick seam he played with her, fondled her, plucked her sex until her breath caught and held, eyes rolling back before her lids fluttered closed. She was so near the edge her whole body thrummed with the tension of it, heart hammering her chest and his with the want of release.
Only then did he ease a finger inside her, first one and then two. He reached deep, stretching, massaging her clit with his thumb.
Her head twisted from side to side, finally burying in the couch cushion behind her as he worked his way in as deeply as he could go. Bending to kiss her, he caught her moan as she unwound for him with one shuddering cry after another. Her nails raked his shoulders, his forearms, as she held on, hips twisting against the pleasure.
His body hummed with one kind of satisfaction while he waited to find another. Edging back he stared down at her, cheeks flushed, nipples tinged with color. She was an incredible sight. Her lips were plump and wet, her panting breaths warm on his chest as her cries turned to occasional gasps while residual spasms eased.
She reached for his shoulder, splaying a hand across his chest as if she would continue where they left off.
“Not so fast.” Tilting away from her, he gathered her up in his arms and lifted them. He sat on the couch and had her straddle him, her thighs spilling over his so she was positioned right where he wanted her. “I’m not nearly done with you yet.”
A fleeting smile danced over her mouth, eyes glittering with satisfaction.
“If I had my way, you wouldn’t be done for a very long time.” She made a show of sucking on her finger and then circled the tip of his cock with it, playing on the way he’d teased her earlier.
Gripping her hips, he lifted her, savoring the feel of feminine flesh as he pushed his way inside. The floral scent of her skin rose from her neck and shoulders to intoxicate him. He inhaled deeply.
Her eyes widened as he seated himself all the way inside, red hair cloaking her in a fiery contrast to her pale skin as she fell against him. The sweetness of that gesture, the tr
ust implicit in her total submission stirred something deep within him. Unexpected tenderness threatened to level him as she wound her arms around him, holding on to him as if she wouldn’t ever let go.
He didn’t want to acknowledge the sudden connection he felt to Tabitha that went far beyond duty, but it seemed to suddenly be there as naturally as his next breath.
He gripped her thighs, withdrawing from her slightly and then burying himself inside her all over again, hoping he could find a rhythm of mind-blowing monkey sex that would make him forget all about this…bond he felt for her.
In a state of frenzy he palmed her deliciously curved ass and worked her hips to accommodate a faster pace, willing her to understand his need to forget. To lose himself in this.
But she only kissed him and teased him, swiveling her hips in a move that would make a pole-dancing stripper proud. The blatant carnality of the act should have dislodged the tenderness he felt. But instead the massive sexual windup only seemed to fuel his sense that something was right between them.
When he couldn’t hold on any longer he tipped his head to hers and release came in one butt-kicking moment after another in an endless chain of spasms.
Holy hell.
He couldn’t think, talk or take a deep breath. He felt more wasted than when he’d swam in an Ironman competition two years ago in a need to move on after his divorce.
The swimming and running and biking had made it easy to forget about Melinda. But having amazing sex with Tabitha had been counterproductive to say the least. Because right now, he only wanted her more than ever.
Maybe the time had come to quit running and simply share a small piece of himself. Not just any piece. But the one that would scare off Tabitha the quickest, because God knew he wasn’t doing a very good job of staying away when left to his own devices.
* * *
HOW COULD A MAN slip away when you were holding him so tight?
Tabitha loosened her hold on Warren even though she didn’t want to. She’d pushed for this closeness and she would not make him regret it. Not after he’d given her so much pleasure her body could barely contain it all. Her whole being sang with the thrill of fulfillment he brought.
“I never finished telling you about the ballistics screwup.” His words shocked her as they sat together face-to-face in the dark.
Buster paced the nearby kitchen in his makeshift pen, his nails ticking along the linoleum with each step. The clock chimed softly in the hallway in the silence that followed while she gulped down her surprise.
“I didn’t know how much you were prepared to tell me.” She knew how tough it had been to share her shortcomings. Her past. She couldn’t imagine how hard it must be for a detective to trot out his past as a wrongly accused killer when the victim had been an abusive father.
What a nightmare of a household he must have been raised in. Chills raced over her skin that didn’t have anything to do with the drafts in the old house. She wrapped her arms around him to share warmth and comfort.
“In all honesty, I was relieved that I got a reprieve because it’s still rough for me to revisit that time.” He lifted her off him to sit next to him on the couch, then he tugged the fleece blanket over them.
Now she ducked into the fleece all over again, amazed how much warmer it felt now that she had someone to share the cover with.
“You didn’t connect the pieces for me, but since you told me before that your brother’s prison time is almost up, I gathered that it must have been him who kept silent while you were accused of the crime.” She hoped it was okay to tread through those waters, but she thought maybe it would help to give him a jumping-off place. She wanted to make it easier for him. To take away some of the pain that had to come from any memories.
“Oh, yeah. He kept silent all right. I hated him for that when I first found out he’d sold me up the river, but eventually…” He scrubbed a weary hand over his eyes, taking an extra moment to scratch his temple. “He convinced me I’d be better off serving the time as a juvenile since we had been abused and since my sentence would be lighter.”
The horror of that logic congealed in her chest. What a horrific betrayal to carry around for the rest of his life. How difficult it would be to trust anyone again. She blinked back tears, then decided, what the hell. He deserved every tear burning the backs of her lids.
“What a terrible burden to put on you.” Grief stung her heart at the thought of his older brother making such a request. No matter how much the boys resented—hated—their father, asking Warren to falsely admit to a crime was wrong.
“I’ll admit it felt like the end of the world at first.” He squeezed her shoulder, drawing her into the confidences she suspected he’d been stomping down for days. “But the truth is, my father was out of control, my mother lied to every social services worker who ever looked in to the case, and I might have been dead before I turned eighteen if my brother hadn’t—”
He closed his eyes and Tabitha stroked her hand over his chest in a sorry effort to soothe away the hurts.
“He shot your father to save you.” She recognized how an eighteen-year-old might see the world that way. And maybe it was true. But it had still been too much to put on a sixteen-year-old’s shoulders when there could have been other ways to handle it. Like, say, the eighteen-year-old owning up to what he did, damn it.
Then again, what did she know? Sometimes people who’d been traumatized couldn’t see their way through their pain well enough to find a way out.
“He shot my father with the same caliber rifle we kept at our Connecticut house for hunting season. In fact, he’d taken me hunting the same day as the murder and made sure I took a couple of shots.”
“So ballistics matched the murder weapon to your hunting rifle?” She remembered him saying that he’d gotten into the field to make sure mix-ups didn’t happen.
“Yes. I found out afterward he’d wiped clean the gun that he’d never fired, while mine showed my fingerprints. And I failed the gunpowder test they gave me at the police station.” He shook his head. “Between that and the circumstantial evidence, the D.A. found enough to convict. But if someone with a little more field experience had looked at the bullets closely, the ammo fired from my rifle couldn’t have killed my father since the firing chamber in the weapon left a distinctive imprint.”
She was stunned. Not just at the miscarriage of justice, but that a man who’d been so robbed by the system could embrace law enforcement as a lifetime mission. Even Buster in the next room seem to sense the wretched pain of the past and whimpered from his kitchen pen.
“And your brother never spoke up?” She didn’t understand why Warren seemed to write off his sibling’s contribution to a murder conviction, but then she knew bonds between family could be complicated.
“He saw my father getting worse more clearly than I could. Andy saw the progression of the beatings—the rage—better than me or my mother, who had grown comfortable in her permanent state of denial.”
That was sad for more reasons than she could count. What a horrible, heartbreaking position for both boys.
“Did anyone suspect your brother?” She didn’t know how to ask if Warren had ever tried to implicate him. Better to dance around the tough questions, she decided, and see what information rose to the surface. She didn’t want to stir up more than he cared to offer.
“The police didn’t suspect him because he was out of the house, free of the abuse. But Andy knew with him gone to deflect some of my father’s…attention…I’d be dead before I hit eighteen.”
“And you went along with him?”
“Not at first.” He shifted. Tense. “I didn’t put the pieces together to confront him until I was halfway through my stint in juvie when I finally faced up to a truth I probably knew all along. Seeing how hard some of those kids had become made me recognize that brittleness in myself. In my brother.”
“So then he confessed to you but asked you to keep quiet about it because his time w
ould be harder than yours.” She knew she couldn’t possibly comprehend the full extent of family dynamics that came into play there, but it was difficult to find compassion for the man who’d made Warren suffer that way. Something about the way he held himself very still when he said juvie told her bad things had happened in that place.
“Being there was an eye-opener, and I didn’t exactly have some picture-perfect childhood. There was a move at that time toward more rehabilitative efforts and the net result was giving some bad, bad kids too much free rein to hurt the ones who still had some heart left. After what I’d seen inside those walls, I knew I didn’t want my brother in a real prison.” His blue eyes glittered with an icy ferocity.
The coldness in that glance might have scared some people, but mostly Tabitha was just scared for him. Whatever he’d seen during his so-called rehabilitative months would likely haunt him for the rest of his life.
Her heart hurt for him and the piece of his soul he’d lost during that time.
“But it wasn’t your call to make whether your brother went to prison or not. It’s up to the justice system.” And she hated it that the system failed him. First by social services not taking the abused children away from a dangerous household and later by misleading evidence.
He picked at a piece of lint on the blanket as some of the tension seeped slowly out of his shoulders.
“Eventually that’s what happened. A cop who’d come out on a domestic violence call at our house took an interest in the case and did a second ballistics test that proved the bullet that killed my father couldn’t have come from the firing chamber of the hunting rifle. Two weeks after he secured those results, this cop found my brother’s rifle that he’d bought illegally.”
The wind outside creaked through the house and Tabitha realized the whole world seemed quiet except for the howling gusts—Buster had settled down since his lonesome cries earlier. She took comfort in that quiet now, finding peace in simply sitting with Warren while the world went crazy outside the walls of the graceful old farmhouse.
