by Kaliana Cole
They’d eaten around midnight after dozing in the dungeon chair and then dragged themselves through the shower and into bed. Bailey was more than a little sore as she rose from bed, but she strived to hide it. If Jory had even an inkling he had caused her any harm, she would never get to taste his unbridled fervor again.
He gave her a rueful grin and kissed her brow. “Nice try, brat. Go and soak in the bath. I’ll bring you some coffee after I show these guys where to unload this stuff.”
Bailey didn’t argue. The steaming water soothed her aches, and Jory made an awesome cup of java. It was even better when he stripped off and slid behind her in the big tub ten minutes later. She gave him curious eyes. “They lost your stuff and turned up two weeks late—they can unpack it all themselves.”
Bailey settled back against his chest. The hard wall of warm, sinewy muscle was much more comfortable than the enameled-steel tub side. Water sloshed over the top as the level rose, but neither made a move to drain any out. The hair on his thigh felt rough beneath her palm when she caressed the lean length. “This feels good. I don’t want to move.”
“Where are you sore, baby?”
“My arms and shoulders are achy from fighting the restraints, and my butt is a little tender.”
“I’m not surprised, I wasn’t exactly easy on you last night.” His fingers splayed over her shoulders and kneaded softly. Bailey moaned softly and let her head drop forward to give him better access. He had magic hands. “I’ll be gentler next time.”
“Don’t hold back on my account. Last night was worth every ache.”
“Have you noticed I haven’t apologized?” His thumb swept up the side of her nape and she couldn’t contain a louder moan.
“Mmm”
“You’re not hearing a word I’m saying, are you?”
“Less talk, more touching.”
“You’re like a little cat, rubbing and arching into my hand.”
“Want me to purr?”
“I heard plenty of that last night. Plenty of that, too,” he added as the phone trilled.
They ignored it the first time, but when it rang again, Jory slipped from the bath. Bailey watched as he briskly dried that divine body off and walked from the room, wrapping a towel around his slender hips. He wandered back with the phone and leaned against the doorframe, doing a whole lot more listening than talking.
His attention was firmly fixed on the conversation, and Bailey used his distraction to ogle his fine body uninterrupted. She wished she wasn’t feeling so delicate, because she would love to trace every well-defined muscle with the tip of her tongue and sip the water beading in the hollow above each collarbone.
Her gaze returned to his face to find her the subject of an amused look. She mentally shrugged. She was shameless in her love of his body. He’d get used to it soon enough.
There had to be a name for the muscles that curled along the top of his hips and disappeared under his towel, but she couldn’t remember it if she had ever heard it. The sexy ridges pointed in like damn arrows at the bulge growing under the towel. Love handles? Mark had called his love handles, but they’d been soft and grabbable. Jory’s were hard enough that she couldn’t get a grip with anything but her teeth. She ran her tongue between her teeth, wishing it were Jory’s flesh. Sensual hunger was building fast despite a deep ache that told her sex of any sort was going to be the wrong kind of hurt.
It took a moment or two for her to realize the phone was held in one hand beside his hip. How long ago the conversation had stopped was beyond her. She hoped her face showed more intelligence than she was feeling right then, because Jory’s body stole her wits.
“I would love to take you up on that offer your eyes have been making, but you’re too sore. I do admire your courage, though, brat. We have got somewhere else to be. That was Andy. He wants us to come in to the station. They think they’ve caught him.”
Bailey didn’t have to ask who. She slid from the tub. The turn in the conversation had killed the rising ardor dead. “Um, Jory?”
“Yeah, baby?”
“Can you go and get one of the boxes with clothes in them? I don’t seem to have any.”
He laughed and promised to find them after he got some on himself.
* * * *
Andy was sitting behind his computer, fingers flying and a look of utter concentration on his scarred visage. They slipped behind the counter and made it all the way to his side before he processed their presence. “Hell, Jory! Don’t be sneaking up on a man like that.”
Bailey saw what looked like surveillance footage on the screen before he shut it down. A tall, naked brunette behind bars.
“Oh my God! Was that Marley?”
“Was what Marley?”
He had a decent poker face, but she had the master to compare it to. “The very nude woman who was dancing against the bars on your computer just now.”
Jory roared with laughter. “You’re trying to get rid of the evidence, aren’t you?”
“Damn digital recording. It’s not like the old days where you could just rewind and tape over them again. I’ve got to wait until the surveillance footage gets archived next week and then make it disappear. I hope no one stumbles across it in the meantime. Marley is a spoiled little shit, but I don’t want every cop in the state ogling that fine ass.” He coughed and reddened as he realized what he had said.
Bailey found his blush endearing. “It’s okay, Andy. You’ll come ’round eventually. Marley is as persistent as you are stubborn.”
“It’s all your fault, Bailey. She only drinks when she’s with you. I can handle her sober, but she doesn’t know when to quit when she’s drunk.”
“Did you keep her on the other side of the bars all night?”
“Of course I did! Do you think I’m stupid?”
“You’re male, that goes without saying, but she is going to be seriously pissed now. I’d start sleeping with one eye open, Andy.”
Jory pressed his heat against her back and rested his hand on her hip. Bailey couldn’t help but arch into him. “Leave him alone, brat. We didn’t come here for you to pick on the deputy.” He kissed her hair and turned his attention to Andy. “You have something for Bailey to look at?”
“Yeah. These came through from Denver last night. They have arrested a suspect in the club ram-raiding case. They have sent a digital lineup here for you to look over. If they have got the right guy, you’ll need to go down there and make it official, but it is no good you going all the way down there if he is not our guy.”
Bailey relaxed. She could do this. She’d done it at Shivers, and she could do it now for Andy, as long as Jory stayed right where he was. His touch steadied her and imbued her with strength. “Let’s see it then.”
Andy pulled up a digital lineup, full body shots with larger facial images below. Bailey had no trouble identifying the driver of the truck who had given her so many nightmares. “Second from the left. No doubt about it.”
“Great, let me make a call, and we’ll find out where we go from here.”
The warmth of Jory’s hands weren’t enough. She pulled them around her until she was firmly in his arms. He didn’t object, just held her tighter. The solid heat of him at her back was a comforting presence, as strong and steadfast as the reassuring beat of his heart.
The wait was interminable while Andy spoke to his counterparts in Colorado. Eventually he put the phone back on the cradle. “The DA’s office would like you down there first thing Monday morning. Your identification is enough for an indictment, but they want a formal statement. Craig Weston and Latisha Edwards have been extremely helpful in providing surveillance footage of him staking out several of the clubs. Damien Young will be facing two counts of murder, and they are still adding up the other charges. They got him, Bailey.”
She could see the exultation on his face. Andy wore the uniform because he believed in it. Nothing was more important to him than putting the bad guys behind bars and keeping the world
safer for his people. He took it personally if something happened on his watch.
“Thank you for chasing up on it. I don’t think they were taking me very seriously until you started hounding them about it.”
“They took it seriously. Don’t worry about that. I just shifted it a little higher on their list of priorities. When are you driving down?”
Bailey craned her neck back to look up at Jory. “I’ll head down tomorrow and stay at a motel for an early start. You can stay here. I’ve put a big enough hole in your vacation hours.”
“At least take my Jeep. I’ll be worried the whole time if you take your old piece of shit.”
Bailey ignored his dig at her old car, but he was right, it would be foolish to expect the old girl to make the trip when there were better alternatives, not to mention air conditioning and a decent stereo. “Okay, I can live with that.”
“Jory, I saw some movement at your dad’s place this morning. Some tiny little thing that didn’t look old enough to be out of high school was poking around. Should I be moving her on?”
“No. Just keep an eye out for her. I’ll head over and introduce myself tomorrow.”
“Before or after I leave?” Bailey asked.
“After, I think. I’m not that scary, but you would terrify anyone.”
Bailey smiled understandingly. Meeting his sister for the first time was personal and fraught with emotional risk. She would feel uncomfortable to say the least.
“Something I’m missing here?”
“You probably saw the sister I never knew I had, Andy.” Bailey grinned to see Andy blink heavily. There was very little in his town he didn’t know about. Jory used his startled response to escort her out of the building. “That should shut him up for a minute or two.”
Bailey climbed up into the Jeep with only the slightest twinge of soreness. “Want to drive past and see if we can catch a glimpse?”
“No, brat. I can wait until tomorrow. You’ll just have to wait, too. We will swing past work, though, and pick up my truck. I am not meeting my sister for the first time driving a beat-up pink Mustang.”
“You’re man enough to wear pink.”
“Wear it, yes. Drive it? Hell no. She’d be thinking I was so far over the rainbow I ought to be coughing up Skittles.”
Bailey nearly wet herself with laughter.
Chapter 12
Bailey’s night in Denver stretched into nearly a week. The assistant DA asked her to stay for the preliminary hearing scheduled for Thursday. Her evidence at that would make it unnecessary for her to attend the actual trial.
She was able to wrangle some time with Nathan. Michele was actually quite accommodating, but when Bailey saw her she figured out why. The svelte woman was a little thick through the waist. It was hardly noticeable yet, and Bailey didn’t say anything, but the woman was definitely pregnant. Trying to keep up with a four-and-a-half-year-old while dealing with morning sickness wouldn’t be fun.
A helpful woman from the DA’s office contacted the family court and arranged for a special visitation day, and Bailey enjoyed the chance to take Nathan to the zoo, and since he was dinosaur-mad at present, for a visit to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. His excitement over the skeletons on display brought Bailey untold pleasure—there was nothing as rewarding as the unrestrained excitement of a child.
The devil inside her made her hand him back suitably buoyed on sugar and artificial colorants. Mark and Michele would have their hands full until he crashed from the sugar high. Petty as hell, but soooo rewarding.
Every night she spoke to Jory. The meeting with his sister had gone better than he had imagined. Apparently Dale was extremely shy and quiet, but was interested in getting to know her half-brother. Jory found it a bit of a spinout. The twenty-four-year-old was young enough to be his daughter and looked all of sixteen.
Bailey would get a chance to meet her because Dale was there to stay. She had finished her teaching degree in the spring and had snared a position at Liberty Springs Elementary when school resumed next term.
She couldn’t wait to meet her. Dale sounded like a quiet soul just ripe for corruption. She and Marley could take care of that. Emma and Casey would probably be more than happy to pitch in and lend a hand, too.
Damien Young was facing a twenty-year sentence without parole after taking an early guilty plea. Bailey left the courtroom feeling that justice had been done. Jail time would be no walk in the park for the decidedly pretty man. She had restrained the slightly twisted urge to blow him a kiss as he was led from the room.
When Bailey returned to the motel room, she broke down and cried. Deep sobs had wracked her body, but afterwards she felt cleansed. That chapter of her life was closed, and so many good things awaited her.
By the time she was cruising along the interstate, heading home just a little too fast on Friday, Bailey was more than a little eager to be reunited with Jory. Sleeping alone wasn’t much fun at all. She needed his touch, his kiss. To lose herself in his loving. She felt the driving need to celebrate life.
* * * *
Jory was sitting on the front porch swing when she pulled up. She grabbed her bag and headed up to join him. He didn’t rise to meet her, but his smile was a blatant invitation to paradise that she couldn’t refuse. The bag fell to the timber deck, and she climbed up on the swing, straddling his legs. His hair felt like hot silk as she draped her hands behind his neck. She breathed in his rich, spicy scent. “I missed you.”
“I missed you, too, brat.” His hands swept fire from her knees to where they came to rest on her waist. “Where’s my kiss?”
Bailey moved in and pecked the corner of his lips where they curled endearingly. “That kiss?”
“I think you can do better than that.”
She laid a trail from one side to the other, feeling his smile grow beneath the teasing caresses.
“I mean the ‘I’ve been a manipulative little wretch and I need to be punished’ kiss.”
Bailey gave him innocent eyes. She couldn’t think of what misdemeanor he was referring to. Sometimes it was a little hard to keep up with them.
“I had a couple of beers with Andy last night. Marley was very talkative when she was behind bars, apparently.”
Oh, shit! That misdemeanor.
“Mmm, seems what I heard of your conversation the other night was staged purely for my benefit. Marley and you both knew damn well I would be sitting about, listening. You were on a fishing trip all right, but it wasn’t the swimming variety of catch you were after. I fell for it hard, didn’t I?”
“Hook, line and sinker.” Bailey kissed his top lip and licked impudently underneath. “Any regrets?”
“None, but you may have one or two after I’ve finished with you.” Bailey squealed as he gripped her hard and stood up, but wrapped her legs around him the moment his hands slid to her ass. He marched inside and headed straight for the bathroom.
Her clothes departed fast under his hands, but she wasn’t having such an easy time of it with his. It wasn’t too bad while he turned the shower on, but her fingers refused to cooperate the moment he laid his hands on her bare skin. His touch was pure nirvana. Other than briefly cupping a breast before tearing his hand away with a groan, he kept his hands off the good bits, but it didn’t matter much to her hungry skin. After being without his touch for damn near a week, she was lost. He chuckled knowingly and brushed her useless fingers away from his belt buckle.
Bailey bit her lip as his T-shirt joined her scattered clothing on the floor and hungrily watched his muscles dance and leap as he attacked his pants. Her eyes were glued to his bobbing cock as he stepped out of the jeans. He was poker hard, near purple with need, and her cunt wept with a fury to match.
Herded beneath the spray, she growled in pure frustration as he evaded her attempt to touch him. It was pathetic how easily she could be distracted by his soapy hands. She’d work hers toward his cock and he’d tweak a nipple and the thought was gone. He washed
her all over, soapy fingers sliding with diabolical ease over every inch of her skin.
Pressed against his chest while his hands travelled her back, her thoughts fell into line enough to direct her actions. She swiped her tongue across the broad expanse of his chest and found a small but erect male nipple. Her frustration grew when she couldn’t suck it into her mouth. His skin sat too damn tight against his muscles for that. But a hand could mound it enough if she dug her fingers deep. The tortured groan as she latched hold of the mounded flesh spurred her on. She sucked as hard as she could, tongue flickering at the tiny bud.
“Fuck!” She gloried in his curse as his hands lost focus, but she smiled and the disc slipped from her mouth. Her hand was coming back up when he intervened. “No you don’t, brat. I’ve got plans for you, and I can’t think when you do that.”
“That makes two of us. Less thinking, more touching. I’m going to die if I don’t get you inside me soon.”
“What am I going to do with you?”
“You could start by fucking me.” It was worth a try.
His groan was the sweet music of male capitulation. “You’re still in trouble.”
Bailey didn’t care as he lifted her up and put her back to the wall. The kiss of cold tile was lost in his deep, sliding thrust as he entered her. She locked her ankles in the small of his back and gripped his shoulders beneath the steamy spray.
It was hard and fast and left her as hungry as she had begun when it was over, despite hearing her climax echo back from the tile. Jory’s eyes held the same burning need. Once their breathing had settled a little, he lowered her to the ground and washed her again. His hand was blissful torture on her oversensitive folds. His cock was still more than half hard as he washed himself, and Bailey swore she could see it plumping out once more beneath her gaze. Jory shook his head and pushed her from the shower. “You’re still in trouble.”
