by Alison Paige
Joe shifted uncomfortably beside her. Kate hazarded a glance. His sandwich was gone. He held the half-empty chip bag in his lap while the hand draped over his knee flicked the gold ring around his finger. He stared out over the fields again as though lost in thought.
“Okay, what’s with the ring?”
Joe looked at Kate and then the ring. He tilted his wrist up, fingers splayed. “Police academy. Riley gave it to me the day I graduated.”
“Means a lot to you?”
“Meant a lot to him. Tom Riley turned my life around. Got me off the streets. Gave me direction. Yeah. Means a lot.”
Her heart pinched at the sincerity in his voice, the pain and love in his eyes. “He was more than a mentor to you,” she guessed.
Joe stared at his hand, flicking the ring with his thumb. “My dad was a no-show. Mom was out of the picture before I turned twelve. And I was on the streets by fourteen. Don’t know why Riley took me in, but he saved my life.” His gaze shifted to hers, deadly serious. “I’d kill for him.”
“I know what you mean.”
“I figured.” After a moment staring into her eyes, so deep she felt he’d seen her soul, Joe smiled.
The corners of his mouth flickered. The tightness around his eyes softened. “Never told anyone about Riley. Not really. Not how much I… Just never told anyone that before. Weird.”
“He’s your Mary Jane.” Kate shoved the rest of her sandwich back into the small paper sack.
Joe cocked a brow, his smile brightening. “Say again.”
“Soon as the bad guys find out how much Spiderman cares about Mary Jane they use her to get to him. Makes him vulnerable. Riley’s your Mary Jane.”
“No. I knew what you meant. I’ve just never heard a woman reference Spiderman before.”
Kate gathered the paper remnants of Joe’s lunch and added it to her bag. “Spiderman was always kind of my personal hero. My favorite.”
“Mine too,” Joe said. “’Cause he was always just a regular guy.”
Kate met his eyes. “Exactly.”
They stared at each other, electricity bouncing between them like a summer storm. She swallowed hard and glanced away. “So…I guess you trust me.” The meaning of it didn’t sink in until she said it. He’d trusted her with something profoundly personal. Her and no one else.
“Guess I do.” He reached out and brushed a flyaway strand from her eyes, tried to coax it back toward her braid. It didn’t stay.
Her skin was so soft Joe couldn’t help touching her cheek, running his fingers down to her chin. He held her between his thumb and forefinger, and coaxed her lips to his—a tender brush, his mouth on hers, warm and soft.
She smelled good, like wildflowers and vanilla. He breathed the scent of her deep into his lungs. When he leaned back he saw her eyelids flutter open. Green as jade, so beautiful her eyes made his chest hurt. Jeezus, she was lethal to him. She made him dizzy. Not good in his line of work.
His body warmed, blood surging to his cock in seconds. He dropped back to the tree trunk, tried to will his hard-on away. This thing between him and Kate was getting out of hand. Not that it should matter. Given enough time he’d screw it up anyway. He always did—somehow. The weird thing was, this time he actually gave a damn if he ruined things with Kate.
“Speaking of Spiderman.” Kate moved to her hands and knees. She crawled closer, straddling his outstretched legs. “Y’know, some of those drawings used to get me really hot. Especially the way his tights hugged over his cock. I swear they gave him a hard-on when he was around the secretary, Betty. And you know the Black Cat’s pussy had him strokin’ off every night.”
Joe’s cock swelled, pressing tight against the zipper of his jeans, his heart rate quickening. “I think most guys had a thought or two about the Black Cat’s pussy.”
His line of sight gave Joe a clear view down Kate’s pink sleeveless blouse hanging from her body and her plump breasts barely contained in her white lacy bra. He kept his hands loose in his lap, her erotic take on the comic deepening her voice and making his body tight.
Kate rubbed her hand up his leg, stopping to massage the tense muscle of his thigh. Her thumbnail brushed the jeans over his sex and then again, jolting sensation through his body.
“I remember staring at the bulge between his legs,” she said, “thinkin’ how hot it would be to pull down those tights and take his hard cock in my mouth. God, it’d be so hot to suck him off while he was still wearing the rest of the costume.”
“Wonder Woman did it for me.” Joe opened his legs as Kate’s hand slid farther up his thigh. “She always had her legs spread when she flew around in her see-through airplane. Used to think about her flying overhead or tying me up with her lasso.”
Kate palmed his cock through his jeans, stroking him so Joe arched against her hold on reflex. She squeezed then turned her hand and rubbed down between his legs, over his balls. He opened his legs wider to give her access, and she scraped her nails against the stiff fabric. His muscles pulled, sensation vibrating through his sex.
“Kate…”
“How about you be my Spiderman and later I’ll be your Wonder Woman?” She didn’t wait for an answer, her little hands moving to work his belt and unfasten his jeans.
Joe’s fevered thoughts pushed concerns about ruining things with Kate from his brain. His cock was hot and swollen with need. He wanted her mouth on him. He wanted to drive his sex through those sweet red lips and feel her sucking him off. He’d worry about…whatever, later.
She tugged at the waistband of his jeans, and he marveled at how effortlessly worries faded when he was with Kate. It was easy being with her, natural. Then Kate’s fingers touched the naked flesh of his cock and he couldn’t think about anything else.
“Stand up.” A wicked smile bloomed across her lips. “I’ve got an idea.”
Kate rushed over to Wizard and untied the rope on her saddle and brought it back. “Give me your hand.”
He did, and she looped the lassoed end around his right wrist then threw the rope over a tree limb a foot or so above his head. She pulled so his arm stretched up, and tied his left wrist to match.
The rope was thick and the knot loose. He could free himself easily, but that wasn’t the point.
“Now I’ve got you, Spiderman.” She crushed herself against him, rocked her hips to squeeze his cock along her belly. She flicked his lips with her tongue.
“This your lasso of truth?” he asked as she dropped to her knees.
“Better. That’s a lasso of lust. Gives every man it captures a rock-solid boner.” Kate jerked his jeans down past his knees. His cock wagged out in front of him, brushing her hair before she looked up at him.
He winked. “It works.”
Kate licked her lips over her smile and caught his shaft in one hand, the other cupping his balls. Joe moaned, his hips rocking forward, his hands wrapping around to fist the rope.
She stroked him from root to head, kneading his balls, and licked a bead of pre-come from the very tip. His breath caught, his body shuddering, every muscle pulling at once. She opened her mouth on him, her lips hot and moist sliding down his shaft, her tongue molding around him, suckling.
Kate grabbed his hips with both hands pushing him back as his cock pulled from the hard suction of her mouth. Electric tingles hummed through the molecules of his body, all of it rushing down to his cock. She reached the tip and nipped with her teeth. And then she took him in again.
His hips found her rhythm without conscious thought. Like the surge of the tide, he rocked in and out of her mouth, the suction pushing and pulling him closer and closer to the brink.
Joe looked down at Kate, at his fat cock driving into her mouth, her red lips snug around him, her eyes closed, fingers digging into his hips. And he drove himself deeper, felt the soft back of her throat against the sensitive head of his cock.
Kate moaned and pulled his hips to do it again. The sight was mesmerizing, the sensation maddeni
ng. His heart thundered in his ears, pressure building so fast he could hardly breathe. His hips thrust into her, driving deep, careful not to push too hard. She took him, all of him, the suction so exquisite every muscle in his body seized.
His thighs trembled, his sack pulling snug. He was close, so close. Then she cupped his balls.
“Jeezus… Huuuu…” His cock popped from her mouth, sliding wet and hot along her cheek as he thrust. An instant later his knees buckled as Kate’s mouth latched onto his balls, suckling as swift and sure as she had his sex. Her hand pumped his cock, frantic, as she drew on one testicle and then the other.
Fuck. A flood of heat washed through his body, his hips driving so fast he could scarcely stand. His body responded to Kate with an alarming force. He was free falling, control gone, tumbling in a swirling flood of sensation.
His flesh hummed over his body, his muscles tense, spring loaded, chest so tight he didn’t breathe, release a coming promise he could nearly taste. She took him into her mouth again and the sultry warmth, the hungry draw was more than he could take.
“Kate, stop. No. I’m… Fuck. Kate.” He couldn’t talk he could hardly think. He plunged his cock into her pretty red lips again and again, too close to release to turn away. Joe yanked against the ropes, but he couldn’t get free, he couldn’t think. He couldn’t think.
She held him, her fingers digging into his ass, driving his hips, controlling the pace, the depths and draws of his thrusts.
“I’m gonna come in your mouth.” His jaw clenched. “Fuck! I wanna…come in your…mouth, Kate. I want… I’m…” Jeezus, he couldn’t stop. He couldn’t stop. And then it was too late to try.
Sweet pressure exploded through his body, liquid heat flooding from the top of his scalp down his chest and out his cock. Muscles flexed, turned to rubber, tension washing out of him in a rush, shooting out his sex, filling her mouth. And still Kate suckled him for more. She fondled his balls, teasing a fresh spasm of come through his shaft, until she’d emptied him completely.
When Kate pulled the sweet heat of her mouth from his cock, Joe shuddered from the loss. He staggered, struggled to catch his balance and his breath.
“Kate…” He swallowed, lethargy fogging through his mind and body. “That was amazing. Jeezus, I can barely stand.”
Kate sat back on her heels, touching her lips with the tips of her fingers. Her smile looked a mix of pride and pleasure, her jewel-green eyes peering up at him through long black lashes.
“You’re bound to go a little weak in the knees when Wonder Woman sucks you off,” she said.
“Wonder Woman’s got nothing on you, honey. No one does.”
A half hour later one question kept repeating through Joe’s head like the skip of an old LP. What the fuck are you doing? What the fuck are you doing?
He was falling for her, that’s what. Joe knew the signs. Hell, they were hard to ignore. His chest squeezed every time he saw her, and her laugh literally made his heart skip. And that wildflower scent of hers had a way of going straight to his cock no matter what they were doing. Not good. He’d screw things up for sure now. And that thought, more than any other, made his hands shake. Dammit.
Joe hung his saddle and bridle on their hooks in the tack room and crossed the aisle to Kate’s office. She didn’t seem to notice him come in, her focus intent on the computer screen at her desk.
The blue screen cast a soft light on her face, giving her sultry features an angelic glow. Damn, why’d he have to go and fall for her? He liked having her around and now she’d wind up hating him. His love interests always did.
“I’m going to—”
“Ah!” She jumped at the sound of his voice, slamming against the captain’s chest behind her, rattling pictures and trophies and horsefly spray.
Her hand went to her chest, eyes wide. “Geez, Joe. You scared me out of my skin.”
“Something wrong?”
She relaxed, her shoulders dropping from their tense line as she shook her head and went back to the computer. “It’s nothing. Just a weird feeling. I don’t know. It’s nothing.”
Maybe her sixth sense was picking up his superhuman ability to royally screw up relationships. What the fuck are you doing? “Gonna grab a quick shower. You headed to the mess hall?”
Her attention stretched from the computer screen to him like a fly off flypaper, never quite breaking free. “Uh, yeah. Sure. In a minute.”
“I’ll wait.” He was probably being overly cautious. He could see the mess hall from Kate’s back office window. The big cinderblock building was down the small gravel drive and across the service road. Anyone standing in the doorway could see straight along the aisle of the stables.
Joe wasn’t taking chances. He crossed his arms over his stomach and leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb.
Kate looked up at him. Smiled. “You don’t have to do that.”
Yes. He did. “I know. I want to.”
Her smile brightened. She straightened, toying with a pen in her hands. “Honestly, Joe. Go take your shower. I’ll meet you over there.”
Joe shrugged. “Don’t want to leave you by yourself.”
Kate practically glowed, her smile sparking her eyes, pinching the high curves of her cheeks. She came around the desk and crossed the room to him, pressing her warm hands to his chest. Her wildflower scent swirled between them.
Joe’s cock thickened. Hell.
“You’re very gallant, you know that?” She pressed up against his chest on tiptoes and kissed him quick. But the chaste touch still sent his heart galloping.
“Right.”
“Anyway, I’m not alone. There’s a ton of people right across the way in the mess hall and I’m pretty sure I heard someone down at the other end of the stables cleaning a stall or something. Besides, this is my home. I’m never really alone. Trust me.”
She was probably right. He needed a shower, or a frontal lobotomy. Something to dull the heatstroke effect of her in his head, on his body. He couldn’t think straight.
“Five minutes.” He held up as many fingers.
“Absolutely. I’ve got a few more things to add to this spreadsheet then I’ll meet you over there.”
He pinched her chin between his thumb and finger and kissed her. Lord, he was gonna screw this up. He should pull back now before that warm, sexy smile of hers turned to hate. Easier said than done. Joe pushed from the wall, chucked her chin and headed for his cottage.
The half-circle sun on the horizon warmed the breeze rustling through the trees around the stables, swirling across the gravel road and stirring the long grass in front of his cottage. Joe shoved his hands in the front pockets of his jeans, only half-aware of the loud crunch his sneakers made over the jagged white stones.
Maybe things could be different this time. Something was different, he just wasn’t sure what. The only thing he knew for sure was that he didn’t want her to end up like every other woman he’d had in his life—hurt and blaming him.
No. The odds were against this thing between them ending any differently. It wasn’t worth the risk. He had to end it now before his natural wrecking-ball tendencies kicked in. Simple as that.
Hell, it wasn’t like he was in love with her. Yet. The sex was fantastic, sure, but some things were just more important. Besides, once he got a handle on whatever was weirdly different with Kate, he could probably go back to enjoying the sex for what it was—outstanding.
Joe took the steps to his cottage two at a time. He grabbed the doorknob and twisted before the fluttering paper even registered in his brain. He blinked.
It was a photo.
A photo fluttering at eye level on his door.
A photo of Kate and him tacked to the door. There was notepaper caught underneath.
Joe stepped back. His brain cooled, focused, shuffled the information into coherent thought.
There was a photo of Kate and him tacked to the door, a notepaper fluttering underneath. He listened, glancing over hi
s shoulder, scanning his surroundings, realizing he’d been walking around in a fog for days. Dammit, this thing with Kate had to stop.
He tried the door. It opened. His internal alarms didn’t flash any warnings. He went in and made a quick check of the place, and stepped back out to snap the papers from the door. He pinched the photo and note between his fingers, laying everything inside on his chest of drawers.
The photo was of the two of them walking from the riding ring to the stable. Taken yesterday, judging by the clothes they were wearing. Someone had scratched out Joe’s face. They’d made a hole.
Joe shifted his focus to the note. The handwriting so jagged and scribbled, he struggled to read it. After several tries he puzzled it out.
She’s mine! You can’t love her like I can! I won’t let you!
Joe dropped everything and ran.
He smelled the faint haze of smoke the moment his foot hit the porch. Denial pushed it from his brain. He jumped the steps, racing for the mess hall, each footfall like a hammer strike in his head. His breaths whooshed in his ears, his heartbeat loud, echoing like he was in water. He was drowning, panicked, running blind.
His mind spun. She was there—she had to be. She was safe, eating dinner, just like she promised. Kate, the kids, they were all safe. Everything was fine. But the twist in his gut wouldn’t let him believe it.
When he rounded the end of the stables and caught sight of the smoke billowing out through the wide entrance, he knew.
The stables were on fire.
And Kate was still inside.
Chapter Eight
“They’re saying arson.” Clayton twirled the melted curry brush between his hands. “Couple saddles are toast, most of the plastic brushes and stuff, and a few bridles. There’s some damage to the inside wall and the roof, but other than that, the building’s safe.”
“Did you—” Like she’d inhaled fire, the back of Kate’s throat was raw—made her cough. She swallowed, pulled the fireman’s blanket tighter around her shoulders and tried again. “Vet?”
