The Sweetheart Kiss

by Cheryl Ann Smith

  The two large men on either side of her—one tattooed and sporting blue tips on his dark hair—cheered on the fighters. She knew virtually nothing about the sport, but found herself cheering, too.

  When the match ended, she relaxed back and searched the room for Wheeler. There was still no sign of him. Where could he be? Had he left?

  Blue tips bumped her with his shoulder. “Would you like a beer, sweet thing?” She stared. “A beer?” he repeated.

  “Um, no thanks.”

  He got up and left. The next match was called. A cheer went up and drowned out the announcer. Two men climbed into the ring and walked the perimeter with upraised fists to the boisterous welcome. One man she knew very well.

  Wheeler. Dressed in a tight tank and tight shorts, every inch of him was displayed for her viewing enjoyment. To her surprise, he had a tattoo on his upper left arm. Jess’s heart pounded while she watched him go to his corner and talk to a young man in a red T-shirt. This explained the bruise.

  At least he wasn’t on a late night booty call. A sense of relief filled her. And a bit of sexual energy, too. Wheeler oozed sexy.

  The match started.

  In the dim light outside the ring, he became her sole focus as he fought his opponent with obvious skill. Kicks. Punches. Whenever he landed a blow, the crowd cheered. Obviously a fan favorite, he seemed not to notice the commotion around him. He was focused on winning.

  But Jess noticed him. Sweaty and muscled, she couldn’t turn her eyes away. Her breath caught and her body hummed. His muscles bunched and the tattoo added an additional edge to the detective she hadn’t seen before.

  All of the control she’d held on to since meeting him vanished in the loud and warm room and in the rawness of the fight. Sam was both dangerous and beautiful to watch.

  And when the match ended with his win, and he walked to the corner of the ring to take a water bottle from someone, he looked out into the crowd and noticed her for the first time.

  A sexual sizzle shot through her. This was better than a wedding to make her think naughty thoughts.

  His serious expression changed to a grin and a head shake when she shrugged and smiled innocently. Jess Lucas. Stalker.

  Tipping his head to the right, he indicated she follow him.

  When she finally made it through the wave of bodies, he was standing near an opened door between two tall bouncers that led to a hallway behind them. An animated woman in a very tight and very short red dress was talking to Wheeler.

  But his eyes were looking for Jess. When he spotted her, he excused himself and walked over, still wearing his gloves.

  “Hi,” he said and ran his eyes down her body. Little tingles spread through her. Wearing jeans with holes on the knees and a midriff-bearing, old gray college sweat shirt cut off at the bottom, she wasn’t dressed for fight night. He didn’t seem to mind. Appreciation filled his eyes.

  “Hi.”

  “You followed me,” he said, stepped close, and placed a gloved hand on her shoulder. “GPS’d my phone?”

  “I did.” Her breath was ragged. He was raw and gritty and very close. And his eyes were locked hard on hers. Her lips parted and her hand went out to touch his inked skin. “And I’m not sorry.”

  He lowered his head until his mouth was by her ear and his warm breath tickled her skin. “I didn’t figure you would be.”

  Pulling back just enough to make them face to face, he took her mouth in a deep and hard kiss. Heated from the rawness of the fight, she moaned and stepped in, uncaring that he was damp and that others would be watching. She needed that kiss.

  Wheeler held her in place against his body, and kissed her with a hunger that stole her breath. Then he nudged her backward between the two men watching the door and into the hallway. Turning, he pressed her back against a wall and kissed her until she was weak in the knees.

  Clichéd, maybe, but true.

  Drat, she was so damned aroused.

  * * *

  Despite a lack of privacy, he couldn’t stop kissing her, didn’t want to stop kissing her. Her warm and pliable mouth drove him nuts as his erection strained the seams of the form-fitting shorts and threatened to turn him into the Naked Detective. She fit against his body like she was made for it and tasted of heat and want.

  All of his reasons why he shouldn’t get involved didn’t seem important in this moment.

  He dragged her off into the empty training room and locked the door behind them. One light over the door kept it from total darkness. “Take off my gloves.”

  She clawed at them, unfamiliar with the process. He kissed her between quick instructions, until his hands were free. He slid his fingertips under her cropped shirt.

  “I have to feel your skin.”

  She moaned.

  The shorts did nothing to hide his aching erection as he ground against her. Her hand slid up to cup his ass as she pressed back. “I want you,” she said.

  Sam groaned. “Not here. Not for our first time.”

  “Why not here?” She nipped his neck and hooked a leg around his. “We’re alone. Please, Sam.”

  How could he refuse? He tore at her clothes, and quickly realized she wasn’t wearing a bra. “Shit.” He leaned in to admire her breasts and took a nipple in his mouth. He teased the peak as she shoved her hands in his hair and moaned again.

  “Are you sure you don’t want wine and flowers? A bed?” he said and moved in for the other nipple.

  “If you don’t get me naked soon, I’m leaving.”

  Chuckling, Sam lifted her up and carried her to the massage table. Jeans removal took seconds. Her panties took longer as he dove in with his mouth to tease her through the thin fabric.

  “Oh, God,” she said. And then the panties were gone. “Hurry!”

  He lifted her to sit on the edge of the table and pulled off his clothes. She reached for him, running her hands down his chest. Sam stepped between her legs and kissed her.

  With a gym full of people just outside the door, he knew that a long seduction was out. He paused to ask her one last time if she was sure about this, but she wasn’t about to let him back out. She took his cock and awkwardly took him inside her.

  “Shit.” Jess was hot and tight. He slid deep.

  Jess locked her legs around his waist and moved with him as he rocked in and out of her. He held her close, kissing her, nuzzling her, building friction between their bodies.

  It was nearly impossible to hold back.

  Like a teen on his first sexual encounter, he knew this wouldn’t last long, so he slipped his hand between their bodies and teased her clitoris.

  “Mmmmm,” she said and watched him with those beautiful eyes as she came, gasping her release. He followed her with a groan and a final thrust. He kissed her softly, happier than he’d been in, well, forever. Jess was no ordinary woman. And he’d just made her his.

  “That was amazing,” he said and frowned. “We forgot protection. I always use condoms.”

  “Me, too. But I’m clean, and thankfully, I’m on the pill.”

  “I am, too.” He nipped her neck.

  “You’re also on the pill?”

  Sam chuckled. “I’m clean.” He scraped his stubbled chin against her neck and she squirmed. “The pill shrinks my cock. That’s why I stopped taking it.”

  Jess laughed.

  This was the conversation to have before sex and not while their bodies were still locked together. But at least they were protected. They did not need a baby.

  He nudged her back and climbed onto the padded table with her. He had to hold her close or they’d both fall off.

  “This is my first time in a training room.” She looked around the sparse room. He played with her breasts. “Believe it or not, fornicating with football players was strongly discouraged both in college and after.”

  Sam lifted his head. “Fornicating? Is that what this was?”

  “There was no wine and
flowers, so yes.”

  “Should I apologize?”

  Jess scowled playfully. “If you do, I’m pushing you off this table.” She kissed his chest and the puckered scar from the bullet he’d taken in Chicago. “Did you ever plan to tell me about the kickboxing?”

  “Eventually.”

  Full lips teased his skin. “Why do you do it?”

  He kissed the top of her head. “For the kids. The money we raise goes to programs that supply backpacks, school clothes, coats, things like that for kids who can’t afford them. The bonus is that I get to beat up fellow cops for laughs.”

  “The fighters were police officers?”

  “Most of them. Firefighters, too. We like to give back to the community. And pound on each other. All in good fun.”

  Jess pulled back. She was smiling. “Who knew you’re a good guy, Detective Wheeler? I thought you were just a cranky detective who liked to harass female PIs.”

  He snorted. “If you tell anyone, I’ll Mace you.”

  * * *

  Jess got a stich in her side from laughing at the horror on his face that’s she’d discovered his secret soft side. Lying at a funky angle didn’t help. She tried to shift without breaking her hold on Sam. In the cool room he was like a yummy furnace. Unfortunately, he was also without a muffin top or double chin to use as a hand-hold as she rolled too far back.

  She felt the table vanish from beneath her.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  A tangled heap would best describe her piled on the floor like an unbelted accident test dummy, after being slammed into a wall at 50mph in a Mini Cooper. Of course, test dummies had clothes. Or at least, she thought they did.

  Her humiliation was complete.

  “Jess!” Sam scrambled to the edge of the table and looked down. He reached for her. “You okay?”

  “Other than a sore tailbone and being naked on a sketchy floor, I’m fine.” She untangled herself and took the hand up, rubbing her butt. “So much for post-coital snuggling and sharing our feelings. I don’t think I could get back on the table if I tried.”

  He rolled off the table. “Good, because I’m only up for forty-seven seconds of snuggling before I need a beer and pork rinds to refill my man tank.”

  Trying to squelch a laugh, her jiggling body ached with the effort. “Don’t make me laugh,” she pleaded.

  He smiled and led her around the table, lifted her up, and deposited her on the surface. “Lie on your stomach.”

  She groaned and rolled over. At this point, he could ask anything and she’d agree as long as she didn’t have to walk anywhere for the next few minutes. He moved beside her and gently pressed down on her lower back with his fingertips. “Let doctor Sam do his magic.”

  “I thought you already showed me the magic a few minutes ago. I’m sure I got a thorough examination.”

  Sam chuckled and started a massage that was part therapeutic and part erotic. The man was shameless.

  “You can never have too much magic,” he said as his hands kneaded her lower back and buttocks. Then he moved lower. Her legs parted of their own volition. The detective was a sex master. What could he do in a bed?

  “The pain is in my spine, not between my legs,” she scolded without heat while he teased her clitoris. Damn, it felt good. “Ahhhh.”

  “Like that?” He leaned to nip her left cheek. “How’s your back?”

  Feeling somewhat exposed, she was surprised to realize that she’d put her trust in this man, a near stranger. Then again, they’d crossed a boundary once tonight already. He wasn’t as much of an enigma as before. Getting naked with someone shifted any relationship, even a non-relationship.

  “What back?” He deepened the pressure and she had her second orgasm, face down, on the massage table. When she could breathe again, she rolled over. “You are some healer, Dr. Wheeler. My painful tailbone is cured.”

  Jess reached for his erection and gently pulled him close. “Come here,” she ordered. “I’d like to cure what ails you.”

  And she did.

  * * *

  Later, when they returned home, showered, and made love one more time, Sam felt her warm breath on his chest as Jess slept like the dead beside him. He played with her hair, the spikes sticking up at crazy angles. He normally liked longer hair, but on her, the cut was sexy-as-hell. Of course, everything about her was sexy. She resembled Kate Beckinsale in Underworld, without the sprayed on leather pants or vampire teeth.

  Hot.

  Maybe they should go shopping. He’d love to see her in black leather from head to toe.

  “What are you thinking?” Jess lifted her head and blinked sleep from her eyes. He’d wanted to have her in his bed, if only to get his yen for her over with. Now that he had her there, he couldn’t imagine going back to a professional relationship. She was fire and silk and strength, all wrapped up in a sexy package. And she had him hooked.

  “About Kate Beckinsale,” he admitted. “She’s my crush.”

  “Interesting,” she said. “She’s my girl-crush, too. Anyone who can kick butt in skin-tight leather deserves my vote.” Sliding up, she kissed him. “I have those pants.”

  Sam leaned back. “Are you serious?”

  “Yep. Taryn, Summer, and I watched Underworld during a late-night horror movie marathon. They teased me about looking like Kate so the next day we went out and found a reasonable facsimile of her leather pants. I wore them for one girl’s night out, and then stored them away after four guys on the dance floor asked me to bite them.”

  “Did they burn up in the fire?”

  She shook her head. “I think I’ve found your fetish. And, no, they’re in storage.” Kissing him again, she climbed up and over him. “If you ask nicely. I’ll dig them out just for you.”

  Sam grinned. “Please?”

  * * *

  It was almost eleven when Jess dragged her aching body out of bed, showered, and took Spike for a long walk. Sam had gone into the office to catch up on other cases. Since it was Saturday, he said he liked the quiet and wouldn’t be long. Jess had a case to close out and decided to take Spike with her.

  The client was the owner of a small boutique lingerie store. She was being sued by a woman who tried to fit a pair of EE breasts into a C cup bra because the item did not come in her size and she just had to have it. The clasp, under the weight of her pendulous breasts, popped open and hit her in the eye, causing a tiny scratch.

  The resulting injury claim was paid out by the insurance company—although sighting the temporary visual damage was caused by the plaintiff—but Mrs. Johnson wanted more than her doctor visits paid for. She claimed that she suffered the loss of marital relations due to the four days she had to wear the eye patch and therefore was entitled to 4.5 million additional dollars.

  The lawyers tried to point out that not one part of her body that would be involved in said marital relations was harmed by the injury that could only been see through a high-powered microscope, but Mr. Johnson tearfully claimed that the unsightly eye patch had caused him severe and permanent erectile dysfunction.

  Nancy Dorset of Nancy’s Naughty’s, hired Brash & Brazen, Inc. to prove Mrs. Johnson was nothing but a scammer out for a big payout. The case would be heard in two weeks. Jess was on a deadline.

  She already spent two days following the couple around, hoping they were the types that liked sex along a walking trail or in a public bathroom, somewhere where Jess could snap a photo. So far, all she’d gotten was them on a trip to a Mercedes Benz dealership and a walkthrough of a million-dollar mansion with a pool, built next to a fancy golf course.

  Since the Johnson’s were both unemployed and liked to sleep in, she found them home with their gold colored Ford Focus parked in the driveway. She rolled down the windows and waited a few doors down the street. And waited. For three hours.

  When the couple finally emerged just after four o’clock, Mrs. Johnson was sporting a skirt too short f
or anything but clubbing—or anyone over twenty—five-and a coat that appeared to be made of rabbit fur. Her husband had on a pressed pale blue suit of a style that was stolen from the seventies.

  They got in their car and took off, their exhaust pipe coughing out black smoke all the way down the street.

  The sexually deprived duo ended up at a high end jewelry shop on Packard. “They’re confident of a win,” Jess said and parked across the street. The couple vanished inside the store for an hour while Jess and Spike discussed bushes and fire hydrants, and the pretty pug that trotted by.

  Well, she talked. He licked the windows.

  The mutt needed therapy.

  “There they are,” Jess said and straightened on her seat. The Johnson’s exited the building and the missus paused, holding her hand up to the sunlight. Light beamed off the ring, temporarily blinding Jess, and the astronauts in the International Space Station.

  “Wow.” Jess snapped a picture. Even from there, Jess suspected that the ring cost more than she’d make in a year. Mr. Johnson slapped his wife on her bodacious butt and hurried her into their car. Before the woman got her seatbelt on, he had her in his lap and his tongue down her throat.

  Ick. It appeared that diamonds were indeed a girl’s best friend. And Mr. Johnson’s, too.

  After a couple minutes of that, they made it half a block when Mrs. Johnson dropped her head out of sight. Jess clicked the camera to video.

  Mr. Johnson managed to steer the car into an empty parking lot behind a closed restaurant with his eyes half closed. Jess gave them a minute and got out. They were both so focused on overcoming his erectile dysfunction that they didn’t notice Jess. She filmed for a minute, getting nothing but heavy petting, thankful that she hadn’t had lunch, then got back in her SUV when they fired up their car. For the next three hours they shopped and finally got it on in the car, wedged between a panel truck and a Yukon. Just when Jess couldn’t take any more of their antics she finally had enough footage for an X-Rated film festival.