He grunted, grabbed the headboard with one hand, his cock with the other, and changed the angle of his assault. Downward. She swirled her tongue over the rim of his head, then sucked him in. He groaned like a tiger purring.
“That’s right, baby, suck me hard.”
The slick valley between her splayed legs pulsated with need. She wanted him there. His hard shaft. His soft tongue. His clever fingers. Anything. Everything.
She tipped her head forward, seeking to take him deeper. Moaned at the rush of dizzy want that inundated her along with the drops of liquid oozing from the tip of his shaft. Never mind. This was good, too. So good.
She worked him with her mouth, pulled back and laved him with her tongue till his moans echoed through the room. His grip on his cock weakened and it flipped out of her mouth. She reached for it, frustrated by her bonds, unable to get it back. He switched hands, laid his forearm against the wall, fingers spread for purchase, then fed himself back to her with the other one.
She took it eagerly between her lips. Let him push it in and ease it out, let him guide it to where he wanted her to lick and suck. Let him take himself to the brink and back till his voice was hoarse with need. But she wouldn’t let him go over the edge.
She glanced in the monitor.
She was supine under him, bound hand and foot, and he was kneeling around her shoulders in a pose of complete domination, forcing himself on her, into her mouth.
Anyone watching would think he was in control.
They’d be wrong.
She closed her eyes and tasted him, savored the feel of his power over her, of hers over him, relished the sensation of being wanted this much.
Crazy much. Nothing-else-matters much. To-die-for much.
As she wanted him.
“I’m about to explode,” he rasped. “Make me come, baby.”
“No,” she said, and licked up his whole length, light as a wisp. Then stopped.
“Make me come and I’ll give you something sweet.”
“I’ve already got something sweet,” she pointed out with a swirl at the tip.
They both knew he could come anytime he wanted without her help. He was playing her game because her defiance turned him on. She suddenly understood that. It turned her on, too, to disobey him. To see how far she could push before he simply took what he wanted. What she wanted.
Then pushed him even further.
“Make me come, Caro. Now.”
“Say you love me.” The words left her lips before she could stop them.
He froze, glared at her. “Don’t do this,” he said, his tone rife with warning.
But now it was out in the open, she wasn’t about to back down. “Say it, Mick.”
“I’m telling you, don’t go there.”
“I know you love me.”
“You’re confusing lust with love.”
“Am I?” She searched his eyes, his desperate, ice-blue eyes, for the truth.
“Fuck!” he roared, leapt from the bed and crossed to the wall in two strides.
He grabbed a thick wooden paddle with two hands and brought it crashing down on a nearby metal bondage frame. The wood shattered into a hundred pieces.
His muscles bulged, sweat dripped from his rutted brow. His expression was murderous.
He cursed again. Wide-eyed she watched him seize a thick leather strap, whirl, and beat the crap out of what looked like a pommel horse standing next to the frame. When the cover and padding were ripped to shreds, cotton batting, slices of suede and splinters of wood littering the floor at his feet, he turned on her.
Her pulse doubled.
Tripled.
His chest heaved, his jaw clenched; he snapped the strap once between his hands.
She’d never felt so naked. So vulnerable.
So certain.
“Say it, Mick. Say you love me.”
He threw the strap to the floor. Wordlessly, step by step, he stalked over to the bed. He raked his gaze over her, paused on the juncture of her spread legs, flicked up the white teddie that had bunched around her waist, lingered on one scarlet nipple that had slipped out from it, then met her eyes.
With white-knuckled fingers, he gripped the two ends of the silk scarf he had looped around her neck, then climbed on top of her and sat on her thighs. He exhaled, carefully winding and unwinding the fabric around his fists. Finally, slowly, he pulled them taut across her throat.
She could smell the scent of his desperation, feel the feathery weight of eternity against her windpipe.
She waited, heart pounding. Trusting him.
The fabric loosened and his hands moved up, grasped her face, and he leaned down to brush a kiss over her trembling mouth. His fingers trailed down her throat, glided over her shoulders bringing the teddie’s spaghetti straps down with them, till they reached her breasts. He bent to kiss each of the crowns, moving gently over them with his lips and tongue.
She moaned, and he looked up, then straightened.
He was still erect. She could see his sex, large and livid between his thighs, feel his solid sac suspended between her legs.
“All right,” he said. “I love you,” he said. In a motion he untied her bonds and swung off her. He peeled off his chaps, dropped down on the bed beside her and closed his eyes. “Now go to sleep. We have a long day tomorrow.”
***
Stunned, Caro lay still for a long time, not believing what had just happened.
Had he actually said it? Then turned over and gone to sleep without...without so much as another word, or a kiss or...finishing what he’d started?
This had to be some kind of punishment. Punishment far worse than if he’d turned that leather strap on her.
Okay, maybe not. She was grateful he’d taken his anger out on the pommel horse, or whatever that thing was. It confirmed her trust in him—that he’d never hurt her.
But why was he so angry?
It was almost like the minister. As if she’d awakened feelings in him he’d been horrified by, and just like the minister, he was punishing her instead of acting on them.
Which in this case made little sense.
She’d never expected to fall in love with Mick, certainly hadn’t wanted to, but as long as it had happened to both of them, what was there to be angry about? You just accepted the situation and dealt with it.
What was going on with him that she didn’t know about? Was his job that important to him that he would let her go in order to protect it? Somehow she knew that wasn’t the answer. Or was he that frightened of love? Of the consequences of bonding with another human being? Or maybe she’d been right when she’d accused him of simply using her, amusing himself until he moved on.
She shuddered out a sigh. This was insane. It was useless to try and figure things out tonight. Better to wait until the case was truly over.
She let the exhaustion of so many nights without real sleep creep over her. And made herself a promise. She would have him, she vowed. One way or another, Mick McGraw would be hers.
***
A man’s shout pulled her from an uneasy slumber.
“No!”
Mick.
She came awake at once.
“Please,” he growled.
He was clutching her in his arms, gripping her tight to his chest. Almost desperately.
“No. No, don’t—”
“Mick.” She tried to move out of his death grip, to shake him. “Baby, wake up. You’re having a bad dream.”
His eyes flew open. For a split second he stared at her in terror, then they cleared and focused, Iceman calm. “Sorry.” His arms dropped away and he rolled to his back. “It happens...once in a while.”
“No problem.” She watched him take in a deep breath. “Your mother?”
His gaze shot to her. “What do you know about my mother?”
“Not a lot. Just what you told me. And Tim mentioned some things.”
His expression turned sour. “Good ol’ Tim. I’m getti
ng a little sick of his meddling.”
“You could have told me yourself, before he felt compelled.”
“I don’t need your pity.”
“No. You need my love.”
“I don’t need anyone.”
But his eyes told her differently. His posture. The way he wasn’t jumping out of bed and running for the hills.
“You need me.” She nestled at his side. “You want me.” She put her arms around his rigid torso. “You crave me. You crave my body. You crave my passion. You crave my love.”
His gaze drilled into her, pinioned her. “Yes, I crave all that and more.”
She canted on top of him, lying her body over his like a protective shield between him and the world. “So why are you so afraid?”
“Leave it alone, Caro.”
“Is it because of work? Because of your promise? No one has to know, Mick.”
“The world knows, Caro. We fucked in front of an open window at a crime scene, and admitted it to the brass. They’re not idiots, and they’ll never let us work together after this.”
“If not work, then what?”
“You’re forgetting, I’m the Iceman. Nothing can melt me. Not even love.”
“I don’t believe you,” she said, and kissed him, long and tender. “I’ll show you how easily you melt,” she murmured.
And proceeded to do just that.
He resisted at first, but his body betrayed his readiness as she mounted him, sheathed him and made them one.
She made love to him, pouring her love over him like a salve, praying she could heal his wounded soul. In the end, they came together in an intense, aching climax. Then he rolled her under him and lay atop her, silent as a corpse except for the sound of his labored breath.
“It’ll be all right,” she murmured. “I won’t make demands on you.” Not too many, anyway. “You’ll see. This won’t change anything.”
“You’re wrong,” he whispered, drawing a finger over the curve of her slave collar, touching the edge of the silk scarf still coiled around her throat above it. “This changes everything.”
***
Mick didn’t go back to sleep. Caro wouldn’t let him slide off her, so he waited until her embrace went slack and her breathing under him deep and regular. It didn’t take long. She was a wreck, physically, not accustomed to the long, grueling hours of the task force combined with his demanding carnal use.
Not to mention the psychological strain she was under. Too bad for her that part was only going to get worse.
Once she fell asleep she was out for good, so he was able to gather up the condom wrappers, straighten the bed and the room, gather his things, put on gym shorts and sneaks, and even brush his teeth, without waking her.
He pulled a chair to the end of the bed and straddled it, watching her sleep for a moment.
She was so pretty sprawled across the big four-poster, hair all disheveled, limbs gracefully posed. He loved the way her painted nipples stood out against her pale skin, contrasting with the white innocence of the teddie.
Like her. Purity and decadence. The virgin whore. Every man’s wet dream.
What would happen when she was no longer so innocent? When he no longer had anything to teach her about sex and her own secret desires?
He watched the tension slowly relax in her face, her sweet lips curving in a smile.
He’d love her all the more, he realized. Finally, there would be someone with whom to share both his dissolute fancies and his strict personal code. Someone who understood him. Someone who wanted him, not despite them, but because of them.
His worst nightmare had come true.
He’d found his soulmate.
And he couldn’t keep her.
He’d understood that last part all along. But seeing his father again tonight had brought it home with a fierceness that still razored through his heart. Brought back all the terrifying memories. The rage, the despair. And sealed his fate more surely than a coffin lid.
Dear old dad was back, bent on vicious revenge. Revenge on Mick, for what he’d done. Revenge on everything and everyone he loved.
He stood abruptly, went to the bed, touched Caro’s face. He let his fingers trail down the pale, tender column of her throat to the wisp of orange silk, felt the pulse beating steadily in the delicate blue vein under it. So vulnerable. So trusting.
His father would not go away. He’d haunt Mick and taunt him, goading him, constantly reminding him of how alike they were, how he was bound to end up, no matter how much he fought against it. Until the violence erupted and one of them ended up dead.
Of course, he had known that from the second his father walked out of Corcoran prison a free man. He’d counted on it.
What he hadn’t counted on was Caro.
Mick ran his hands softly over her body, smoothing the teddie into place, snapping the bottom snaps between her legs. Letting his fingers linger in her warmth, still moist from their lovemaking. And sighed with regret.
For so long, he’d been able to redirect the violence within himself, by joining the police force and channeling it toward doing good. Keeping a rigid code of behavior, avoiding potentially dangerous entanglements. For all that time—except for the short lapse with Lauren and her abusive husband—he’d kept it together. Fooled himself into thinking a predilection for kinky sex was as far as it went with him.
But deep down, he’d always dreaded that one day the house of cards would come crashing down around him. And now it had. In spades.
He’d screwed himself and he knew it. Soon everyone would know it. In a weird way, he relished that fact. It upheld his belief in the order of things, the inevitability of fate. Crushed those few ludicrous hopes and dreams he’d secretly harbored for all those years—that he could crawl out from beneath the rock his father had buried him under from day one, and make something of himself other than a violent jailbird. That he might somehow be permitted to keep just one person he loved.
Foolish, foolish fantasies.
He carefully placed Caro’s hands on her abdomen and folded one over the other. She looked so beautiful. Like a fairytale princess sleeping on the beach. He leaned over her and kissed her lips, her nose, her eyelids. He was the wrong man to awaken her. He was the dark, evil prince, not the one on the white steed destined to make her his queen.
“I’m so sorry, baby,” he whispered. “For what I have to do to you. I love you.”
***
He left her. Took his things, got in the Camaro and drove past the iron gate.
It was best this way.
He waited till the gate closed behind him with a solid clang, then pulled out his cell phone, got Julio Martinez’ number from dispatch and dialed it.
“Yeah?” a muzzy male voice answered.
“Detective McGraw for Sergeant Martinez.”
The receiver clattered and the voice said, “I told you not to let your fuck-bunnies call here.” There was the sound of a hard smack.
Mick’s brow lifted. “You really have to get rid of that guy,” he said when Julio came on the line. “Before he kills you.”
“Who is this?”
“McGraw. I need you to do something for me.”
He heard rustling, a curse in Spanish, then, “It’s four-fucking-o’clock in the morning, McGraw. This better be about Caroline.”
“She’s in San Marino. Got a pencil?”
More rustling. “Digame.”
Mick gave him Su’s address and the codes to the gate and the alarm. “The task force meeting starts at 9:00 a.m. sharp,” he said, “I’m counting on you,” then hung up.
He decided not to wake Bobby, but dialed his voice mail at the station instead to leave a message.
“Hey, partner. It’s a little before five and I’m heading out for my run, and then home to change. I’ll try to get past the reporters without too much damage and be in by seven. Listen, I wanted you to be the first to know, I saw my father last night at Brimstone. Bit of a coincidence, wou
ldn’t you say? I’m hoping you’ve found Smythe by now. They were both in Corcoran, you know. See if they ever connected, okay? I’m betting cellmates.”
He closed his eyes briefly. Wondered if he should say any more. No.
“Plan on going to the party tonight at the Tether Club. I’ll pay for you myself if the department won’t. I’m going in, regardless of what happens today, and I’d like you there. But remember, I don’t want Caro within a mile of the place. I have a bad feeling. Keep her away, Bobby. I mean it.”
He opened his eyes when a car behind him honked. “As for anything else... You do what you have to do, bro. I’ll understand.”
He punched the off button. And mentally ticked one more item off the morning’s to-do list.
It was so early, only the die-hard reporters hung about the entrance to his apartment building when he steered into the parking lot through the back alley. He pulled his PPD baseball cap low over his eyes and slipped out of the car, setting out at a slow jog toward bungalow-town. No one spotted him.
He did his usual circuit, past the Connors’ craftsman with its manicured lawn and magenta azaleas. The cop on watch at the end of the block waved, yawning, and lifted a pad of paper to the window. He must have gotten a long list of license plates tonight. Mick gave him a thumb’s up and proceeded on past the Atkins place. There, too, the officer watching from the back of his camper in the neighbor’s driveway indicated he’d had a good night for suspects.
This was where he should head down Elizabeth Street toward the Taylor/Slocum house but, instead, he detoured over to Caro’s duplex. He spotted Brady and Denny’s car a few lots down. Making a quick decision, he jogged up, opened the door of their unmarked car and dove into the back seat, ducking down.
He looked up into the muzzles of two service revolvers.
“Morning gentlemen,” he said with a grin.
“Good way to get you’self killed, Detective,” said Brady, holstering his weapon.
“I’m feeling lucky today. Anything interesting last night?”
“Just the rumors,” Denny answered with a cough. “’Bout you and Officer Palmer.”
Slave To Love (sizzling erotic thriller noir - full length) Page 28
