One-Eyed Jack (The Deuces Wild Series Book 3)

by Irish Winters

  Automatically, his nostrils flared to draw in more of the sweet, sultry fragrance that came along with Roxy. He couldn’t quite come up with the exact name for the scent. A cross between coconut, flowers, and sex, he found it deliciously erotic. Enough to make a man drool. The fire in his blood spiked the need in his pants.

  Releasing her, he took a step back, but he was no better than Nugget when it came to wanting—very much—to please Officer Thurston. A better man would’ve done a quick about face and retreated to higher, safer ground, but apparently, Isaiah’s better days were behind him. In two quick steps, he had her in his arms before he knew how it happened. It just did.

  Like the last time, she didn’t resist, not even for a second. Instead, her sharp fingernails dug into his biceps and her lush mouth opened to receive him. This was so, so wrong, but damned if Isaiah knew how to stop what kept happening between them.

  “Not here,” she murmured even as her tongue tangled with his.

  “I know a place,” he growled, his palms smoothly cupping her ass, lifting her off her feet as he took decisive action. Her holster rubbed against his thigh and she had to be feeling his underarm holster and his pistol, but he could do this quick. Couldn’t he?

  There were five points of egress from the kitchen: one to the main dining room behind him, the one at the right to the smaller, staff dining room where separate bedrooms waited for him and Roxy, one to the left hall where the Brattons now—hopefully—slept in their two bedroom suite. The single door directly across from Isaiah led outside to the covered patio at the rear of the home, and the last exit next to the door to the staff quarters went downstairs to the wine cellar in the basement.

  Five points of escape from the house—or intrusion into it—that Isaiah had thoroughly vetted prior to Roxy’s arrival to be certain they were defendable. With the security system now activated, all exits were secure.

  He had yet to tell her that most of the house was barricaded from their use. Tucker did that to ensure their living portion was defensible. That consisted of the massive front entry, the formal dining room, kitchen, and just enough rooms to house Candace Bratton’s family and her security entourage. Isaiah certainly didn’t plan to update Roxy now, not with his hand on her smoking hot ass, and not with what he had in mind for the rest of her. Something out of character, outright dangerous, and downright dirty.

  Palming the first door in the hall past the staff’s dining room open, he set Roxy to the edge of the queen-sized bed to his right. He didn’t need lights for what would happen next.

  Groaning, she sank beneath him, her hand clamped around the back of his neck, taking him down with her. Gingerly, he took a knee at her side to keep from crushing her with his full weight. Skimming his palms up her arms, he ended at her jaw. Cradling her face, his thumbs memorized the contours of her high cheekbones and mapped every nuance of her chin, absorbing the satin touch of her skin as he kissed, tasted, and nibbled.

  “Hold that thought,” he growled as he eased his holster off and set it on the nightstand within reach.

  Hurriedly, she unbuckled her belt and did the same, securing her revolvers on the opposite nightstand. From that moment on, everything happened in fast motion. Her fingernails raked over the shirt on his back until they met his belt. A growl percolated against his lips when she wrestled with the buckle.

  “Damn,” she complained.

  “I can do that for you if you’d like,” he breathed into her mouth.

  “Then do it,” she ordered, arching her hips against his belly, setting him on fire.

  This is so wrong. Yet so, so right. Frantically, Isaiah divested himself of his clothes while Roxy peeled out of hers. All knees, legs, and nothing between them but the dark, they slammed back together in a frenzied flash fire that threw sparks to the ceiling. He couldn’t get at her fast enough.

  “Someone should be standing guard,” she breathed even as her fingers wrapped around the base of his aching manhood, gently squeezing more flames into his throbbing veins while her warm, wet tongue licked his hungry lips.

  Gasping at the depth of need her touch incited, he managed a rugged, “I know.” Damn, how I know. The blaze crackling in his veins ramped into a cat-o-nine-tails, scouring up his spine with the desire and need to deliver one helluva good time to this woman. Organized thinking took a back seat to passion.

  But everything was happening too fast. Whether she knew it or not, pumping him was the worst thing she could do. “Stop moving your hand,” he ordered, “or this will be over before it begins.”

  That earned him a throaty mewl. “But I thought you’d like it,” she purred.

  Instantly, his heart launched into a set of jumping jacks like a teenage boy who’d made third base on his first date might have done.

  “That’s the problem. I like it a lot, only now…” He pressed himself into the entrance of her core, testing to be certain she wanted this as much as he did. “I can stop if you’d rather not,” he offered, not exactly lying, but burning to hear her breathy ‘yes, yes, yes!’ again. For the first time in his life, he understood the fierce drive to procreate. His brain felt like a damned racehorse pounding toward the finish line.

  When she thrust her hips forward and growled, “Just do it already,” Roxy closed the gap between them so quickly that he jerked with the relief, thrilled at the slick feminine heat encasing his length and working him like a glove. Velvet and steel, they were a match made in heaven. In just seconds, Roxy came apart in his hands, and when she did, her muscles clamped down on him. Squeezing him. Pushing him to the point of no return.

  Closing his eyes, Isaiah punched deeper into the warmest heaven on earth he’d ever known, his dreams of what paradise felt, tasted, and smelled like now complete. Lowering his nose to her forehead, he inhaled all that was right with his crazy, over-controlled world. The scent of her delicate sweat. Her coconut shampoo. Whatever flowery scented cream she’d applied over her beautiful cheeks and forehead. All of it. He took in every last epithelial wafting off her warmed-up body and made them his world. His universe.

  A tear welled at one corner of his eye when he sensed Roxy seemed to need the same thing he did, that she was just as amazed at the attraction between them as he was. That maybe, just maybe, she was just as hungry for him as he was for her. Yet he’d plundered her like a pirate in town for one night, mauling the first wench in sight.

  The need to regroup and reconsider his obvious lack of finesse tweaked Isaiah’s conscience. Maybe this—this thing—could grow into more than the slam, bam, thank you ma’am he’d reduced it to. Maybe he could make this right.

  Her palms still rested on his shoulder blades, keeping him in place as aftershocks vibrated her core, clenching him as if she needed him to keep her from falling apart. That he could do. Dropping his nose into the warm crook of her neck, Isaiah buried his face amidst the tangles of black silk and satin skin. Strands of her hair tugged at the day’s growth on his chin, and right or wrong, there was nowhere else he’d rather be than tangled up with Roxy Thurston.

  She grunted against his cheek, an oddly indelicate female sound that made him smile. “Wow. That was fast.”

  “We do seem to come in a rush,” he agreed, his heart still pounding out an exquisitely fierce set of push-ups in his chest and throat. Swallowing hard, he licked his lips and prepared to get back to the business of standing guard. Somehow.

  “You think?” The hint of snark in her voice seemed gentler here in the dark.

  Still trying not to crush her, he met resistance when he eased up. “No. Stay,” she grumbled, her arms once more tight around him and her heart pounding as hard as his. The gentle rhythm of it melted into his steady thump, thump, thump until all he felt was the harmony of—their heartbeat. It felt so right lying in her arms. A man could almost believe this was that something more that Tucker had found with Melissa. That this could be what his fellow psychics, Ky and Eden, had. What Agent Tate Higgins and his new
wife Winslow had. What everyone else seemed to have except the kid who yearned for it most.

  “Damn it, Zaroyin,” Roxy said, her fingers rubbing circles over his shoulder blades. “I don’t know which end’s up when I’m around you.”

  That earned her a smile. “I could show you which end is—”

  She bit his earlobe. “You know what I meant, smartass.”

  “I do,” he admitted, grinning at her not so gentle play. He’d never been with a woman as physically strong nor as tomboyish as Roxy. Hell, he’d never been with many women at all. He’d been that stupid little good boy who colored within the lines. Look at all he’d missed.

  “I don’t seem to have much control around you, either.” And I don’t like it. Well, okay, maybe I do like it, but I don’t know why I’m drawn like a magnet to you, of all people. It’s weird and it’s wrong to be doing this on duty, and… I want to do it again.

  As if she’d read his mind, her body lifted against his hips, inciting round two. “I could show you a thing or two about contr—”

  Isaiah swallowed her reply. Her, teaching him sex, was the last thing he needed. From out of nowhere had come a need to possess her, so strong that it compromised his control and his heart. The fierce magnetic attraction worried him. This wasn’t love. It couldn’t be. Love was a deal breaker for his kind of psychic. If anyone in the universe had to be in control of his surroundings every minute of every day, it was Isaiah Zaroyin.

  He was that guy, one of very few Level Ten psychics in the world, who could influence others without them knowing it. His was a powerful gift and along with great power came… You got it. A responsibility so overwhelming that at times, it weighed on him like an anchor and a curse.

  The consequences of owning a mental gift like his had already wreaked havoc in his life. He refused to ever be naïve again. Yet here he was, out of his ever-loving mind and breaking all the rules. Again. Twice in the same freakin’ day! This kind of lust could get somebody killed. It had to stop. Soon…

  Roxy’s hand slid down his bare belly, trailing smoldering brimstone in its wake. “Come on, Isaiah. I want your lips. Kiss me again.”

  Chapter Ten

  What made Isaiah too tempting to resist? That sexy mouth of his, for one. The taste of his lips was wine in Roxy’s mouth and she was drunk, head over heels, out of her mind, sloshed. How could he do that? With just one kiss, she’d fallen like a tramp on two-bit street, trolling for a quickie. How could this have happened? To her, an MPD officer of the law? And how could she stop the storm of emotions he’d set loose?

  Whether he knew it or not, he’d incited a craving for all things Isaiah in her gut and in her heart. Worse. Because of him, she’d just tossed her reputation and her badge to the wind for the second time in one day. If Captain Quinlan ever found out…

  A nip at her bottom lip stole every last worry and fear of what Captain What’s-His-Name might think. She was thoroughly, utterly lost to the power of the hot-as-hell man storming her senses. Her brain and body focused on the finely muscled, masculine body pressing her into the mattress of a bed she had yet to lay eyes on. If not for the dim light from the hall, she wouldn’t have seen the tempting glimmer in his dark eyes that drew her like an addled moth to a delicious flame.

  Oh, who was she kidding? Roxy clung to Isaiah like a life raft in a hurricane while he entered her again, and she did it because she wanted to, damn it. She wanted every last inch of this sexy beast and she wanted him now.

  Inhaling deeply, she breathed his breath, loving the taste and scent of every molecule and atom of him. She wanted his body and every last chamber of his heart, as if this thing between them had anything to do with their hearts. For now, it was nothing more than chemistry, a flame she couldn’t put out because—she didn’t want to.

  “More,” she demanded, and Isaiah complied, filling her to the hilt, going deeper and going stronger, working her into a fever pitch. Before she could count to ten, it happened again. She hung on to his massive forearms as he took her higher and sent her on a whirlwind into the stars. Like the pleasurable escalation of a sneeze, she came apart too, too fast. A sensation like that ought to last more than a few seconds. Shuddering waves of warmth oozed down to her toes like the fiery trails of fireworks, these more delicious than the first. And she was—oddly—complete.

  Something about this man made her feel incredibly healed, yet still, so incredibly broken at the same time. Roxy pressed her face into the hollow of his neck, worried what he’d see if he looked too closely. Suddenly, the room wasn’t dark enough.

  Surging one last time, his release followed hers with a grumbly purr that made her want to pet him. Her fingertips itched to stroke every bit of his bare skin. To drive him wild. Isaiah was that untamed panther of the pampas, taking her by surprise and pouring himself into her with passion and some kind of erotic power she had no defenses against. Maybe even—loving her. For that was what this felt like, the kind of true love she’d read about in fairytales. The kind of love her mother had with her father. The way Isaiah held her with so much tenderness and care, it couldn’t be anything less, could it?

  Even as Roxy banished the thought, for the first time in her life, thoughts about motherhood and babies came to mind. Maybe just one baby. A little boy with dark eyes and dark hair. With this guy. If he stayed. Couldn’t this, please, just this once, be her fairy tale come true? Or would he end up being just as cavalier and thoughtless as every other guy?

  Greedily, Roxy held on tighter, ashamed at the depth of her neediness, but not ready to let him go. Not yet. If this was all a lie, she’d deal with it later, but if—please, oh please—this feeling with Isaiah was true and real, she wanted to hang onto it a few minutes longer.

  A deep masculine rumble in his chest vibrated straight to her heart and feminine pride surged through her. She knew it to her soul. Isaiah was happy, and she was the one who’d given that to him. She could feel it radiating off him. This one stolen moment was like a comforter she wanted to pull over their heads and hide from the world. If only.

  Yet he didn’t push back. Instead his arms went slack, and collapsing his weight against her, he pressed her pleasantly into the mattress. Holding her, his palms still cupping her ass, and her legs still embracing him.

  Roxy held him as tenderly as he held her, stroking his muscled back. The man was elegantly fit, not thick-necked and muscle bound like so many guys at the gym she frequented. He had the grace and body of a runner, lean and lithe, yet solid. His abs were washboard hard and tight, the rest of him was the same.

  Their connection both warmed and chilled Roxy. This wasn’t love, and she was a fool to have thought it could be. At the most, Isaiah was just temptation in the wrong place at the wrong time. He and she were simply horny. That was all. She squeezed her eyes tight against the heartbreak sure to follow.

  “I want a date,” he growled into her ticklish ear. “A real date. Soon, damn it. No more skulking around in the dark.”

  “Ha,” she snorted, doubting his sincerity. Wasn’t this what all jocks did, schmooze their way out of your bed so they didn’t have to look you in the eye in the morning? Make you feel special and unique, as if you were their one and only, right before they…

  “I’m not dumping you, Roxy. The minute this joint operation’s finished, I want dinner and dancing,” he added huskily. “Maybe more.”

  Yeah, right. And I’m dumb enough to believe in princesses and dragons. Roxy pressed the heels of her palms to the front of his massive shoulders, but she couldn’t move Isaiah an inch. If anything, he seemed to relax more, weighing her down, fastening her to the mattress. He seemed too happy for his own damned good, but no man invaded her privacy like this.

  “Not fair. You can read my mind,” she accused, “but I can’t read yours.”

  “Ah, so you were thinking of dumping me.”

  She could feel his grin wrinkle at her neck. “No, I… Hey, do you have x-ray vision?” blurte
d out of her before she could control her big mouth.

  Easing his bare chest away from her still throbbing breasts, Isaiah peered down at her in the dark. One hand slid over her hip and up her ribcage until it ended at her cheek. She blinked, not able to see him clearly. But man, he had big warm hands. Like a fool, she leaned into his palm, relishing the scent of their sex on his fingers and the tenderness he seemed willing to share.

  “I’m not Superman,” he told her, his voice unusually rough, “and no, I can’t see through walls. I don’t fly over tall buildings, and I can’t read your mind. But you do lead with your chin, and I’m a pretty good judge of body language. You’re always on the defensive. I’m not sure why that is or what happened in your past to make you that way, but I’ll never invade your privacy to find out. Although…” His forehead dropped to hers as he thrust his hips into hers. “I do seem to have breached your defenses twice today.”

  She heard the question in his tone. He wasn’t sure about what he’d done—what they’d done—yet. He was concerned she might think he’d done her wrong. Roxy solved that with a quick peck on the end of his nose. “Guess thinking you could see my underwear made me defensive,” she admitted, though she knew he was right. There was more to her story, but trust was not her strong suit. There might come a day she shared that sad tale, but there might not.

  Isaiah trailed the pad of his thumb over her cheek as if he were wiping tears away, which he most certainly was not. Roxy didn’t cry. “Would you tell me if I go too far?”

  She nodded, thrusting forward to get him moving, but failing. Isaiah obviously wasn’t going anywhere until he was ready. Oddly, the dominance he wielded so easily didn’t threaten her like it did when others pushed her around. With Isaiah it was—nice. Make that steamy. “I think we’ve already gone too far, big guy.”