Tempted by Love

by Jennifer Ryan

  “I enjoy the work. I’ve gotten to know several of our regular customers.”

  “You’re excellent when it comes to compounding prescriptions. Parents love that you can make them the kids’ favorite flavor.”

  “My favorite part of the job. Makes me feel like a mad scientist.” She smiled, thinking how as a kid her favorite toy had been the chemistry set she’d begged her parents for when she was seven.

  Noel glanced back out toward the pharmacy and storefront. “I love this place. It’s provided everything I needed in my life. You’ve been such a help to me here. I count on you so much.” His voice faded off at the end.

  “Noel, is something wrong?”

  “Everything seems out of my control sometimes. The girls are off living their lives. They speak to their mother all the time, but I feel like I’ve lost touch with them.”

  “They’re spreading their wings, but they know you’re home waiting for them to come back.”

  He nodded. “I miss my wife.”

  Alina didn’t understand.

  “The illness took her away from me. I see glimpses of her, but she’s fading away before my eyes. She’s still fighting, but every day it gets harder for her. We used to talk about the future. Empty nesters, we’d travel, go out to dinner on a school night, see a movie in the afternoon.” His wistful smile faded to a deep frown. “Now she talks about what I need to do for the girls after she’s gone. That I need to find a way to be happy again. She talks as if it’s already over.”

  Alina, setting aside her suspicions about what Noel might be doing at the store, rose, and went to him, drawn by his grief. “Noel, it’s going to be okay. There’s still time for this round of treatment to work.”

  “I hope so, but I see the difference this time. She’s tired. I’m tired. The doctor told us the worst thing we can do is lose hope. I find it hard to even offer her optimism when I feel so cast aside sometimes.”

  “Lee is a strong, practical woman. I’m sure she’s fighting as hard as she can, but still wants to be sure that you and the girls will be okay if the worst happens. Her planning for that outcome doesn’t mean she’s given up or even believes it will end that way.”

  “She goes through the motions every day, but I feel the growing distance she puts between us.”

  Alina put her hand on the side of his arm. “You guys are in this together, Noel.”

  “Then why do I feel so alone?” He took her by the shoulders and pulled her into a hug she didn’t expect. He held her close, his arms wrapped around her back, his cheek pressed to her forehead. “I miss the feel of her against me. I miss the way we used to make love. God, it’s been forever since we did that.”

  A shiver of panic went through her the second she felt him harden against her belly. She gripped his sides and tried to push back and away from him, but he held firm. She raised her head to tell him to let her go, but he swooped in and pressed his lips to hers. She tried to turn her face away, but his hands came up and held her head still. That gave her the opening to move her body away from his, but he still had her in a lip-lock that made her cringe.

  “Noel,” she mumbled against his lips, which only gave him the opportunity to slide his tongue into her mouth, cutting off her protest. She socked him in the side.

  Shocked by the blow, he jumped. His teeth grazed her lower lip and cut it.

  She tasted blood.

  She thought he’d end this ridiculous, inappropriate groping, but he had other plans and grabbed her to him again and went in for another sloppy, disgusting kiss. She had no choice. She kneed him right in the nuts just like her brothers taught her.

  He dropped to his knees and grabbed his junk.

  “What the fuck was that?” she yelled, her breath sawing in and out, a wash of panic and adrenaline racing through her veins. “Don’t ever fucking touch me again!”

  All of a sudden, Jay filled the doorway, gun in hand. He pointed it down at the floor, but trained it on Noel curled up in a ball at her feet with his hands on his nuts as he rocked his body and moaned. Jay glanced at her face, narrowed his gaze on the blood trickling down her lip and over her chin, then glared down at her partner. “Shoot him, or book him for assault?” The deadly tone said he’d do whichever one she wanted.

  “I’m okay.”

  “You’re bleeding.” His words came out tight and as fierce as the look in his eyes.

  “Put the gun away. He’s no threat now.”

  Jay holstered his gun, bent to Noel, grabbed him by his shirtfront, hauled him up, and slammed him into the door so hard the handle went right through the Sheetrock wall. Jay held him against the door, Noel’s feet dangling inches off the floor. “You ever touch her again, you won’t have any balls left to kick.”

  “Let me go.” Panic filled Noel’s wide eyes. Sweat trickled down the side of his face. “You can’t do anything to me.”

  “I can call the cops and have them arrest you.”

  Alina put her hand on Jay’s rock-hard shoulder. Noel’s weight didn’t even faze him. Jay held him against the door like he weighed no more than a child. In his line of work, he probably tossed guys up against walls all the time. “Jay, honey, let him down.” Jay didn’t move a muscle. She slid her other hand up his shoulder and pressed her forehead to his back. “Please, honey. It’s done. I need you to let him go.”

  Jay’s muscles bunched for a split second, then he dropped Noel hard to his feet. Noel’s legs might have buckled had Jay not held him up. He spun Noel and marched him out of the room and down the hall to the back door. Alina followed. Jay shoved the door wide and pushed Noel out of it. Noel stumbled a couple of steps before he caught himself.

  “Get out of my sight before I forget I’m a cop and there are rules and laws, both of which you broke tonight.” Jay pulled the door closed, turned, and walked toward her.

  Before the door closed, Noel yelled, “You don’t deserve her.”

  Jay walked right to her, picked her up in his arms, and held her tight. “I may not deserve you, but I am trying damn hard to be the man you deserve.”

  Alina held him close, her arms wrapped around his head. “You’re everything I need. I’m so glad you’re here.”

  The door opened. Jay spun around, pulled his gun, and shoved her behind him all at once.

  Noel stopped dead in his tracks, hands up. “I need my car keys,” he growled and walked to his locker to grab them off the shelf. He slammed the door, dropped his head for a second, swore under his breath, then turned to her.

  Jay still held her mostly behind him, his gun at his side.

  “We’ll talk about this tomorrow.” Noel headed to the back door again.

  “No. We won’t.”

  That stopped him in his tracks. He slowly turned to stare at her.

  “You will take tomorrow off and spend it with your wife. I don’t want to see you at all tomorrow. When you return, we will not speak about what happened or why. You will treat me with respect and as a fellow colleague. Right now, we are nothing more. Maybe, given time, we’ll find our way back to being friends.”

  “Alina, I never meant . . .”

  “There’s no excuse for what you did. To me. To your wife. I won’t say anything if you drop this right now. If not . . .” She left the rest of the threat to tell Lee unsaid.

  Noel stormed out, slamming the door behind him.

  “I should have shot him.”

  The unexpected laugh bubbled up from her gut. She held her hands over her stomach and tried to stop, but couldn’t.

  Jay turned to her, his grim face morphing into a reluctant lopsided grin. “You think that’s funny?”

  She shook her head. “No. Not at all, but, yeah, kinda.”

  “Did he hit you in the head? You’re not making sense.” The grin disappeared the moment his thumb swept under her stinging lip. He went into the bathroom behind him and wet a paper towel at the sink. With soft strokes, he gently wiped her mouth, dabbed at the cut to stop the bleeding, and washed th
e stain off her chin. “Better?”

  She took his hand and kissed the back of it. “You make me feel better.”

  Jay tossed the dirty paper towel into the trash and ushered her back toward the office.

  She cocked her head to the side. “How did you get in?”

  “The door was unlocked. I wish I’d come in sooner, but I got a call.”

  She tilted her head. “Did you see Noel let Mandi out?”

  “Yeah. I figured you were closing out the register and locking up the drug cabinets. Instead you’re fighting off an attempted rape.”

  She shook her head, her mind not wanting to believe Noel would have taken things that far. She needed to believe that, to stop the tremble of fear that shot through her again.

  “Don’t shake your head like that. You don’t know what would have happened had you not taught his balls a lesson. Caden and Beck?”

  “Ball busting and some self-defense moves,” she confirmed, her Brother Boot Camp. They were always there for her, but they wanted her to be able to defend herself. She’d thought it silly. No one ever thinks they’ll need those skills. But she’d enjoyed roughhousing with the boys. Now she appreciated their efforts despite her many protests. “If he’d gotten up, I’d have broken his nose with a nice uppercut with the heel of my hand.”

  Jay’s mouth pressed into a frustrated grimace. He hooked his hand around her neck and pulled her into his chest. She turned her head so she didn’t hit her swollen lip. Jay kissed the top of her head. “Damn, sweetheart, I’m sorry I was late.”

  An uneasy feeling twisted her belly. “I might be crazy, but I think Noel wanted you to catch us in that kiss.”

  He held her away by her shoulders. “What do you mean?”

  “We never—never—leave the back door unlocked. With the drugs we have in here”—she shook her head—“that’s just an invitation for someone to rob us. When Noel accepted me as a partner, he warned me that he’d been robbed twice in the past. That’s why we’ve got the cameras, the roll-up security doors at the counter, the coded locks on the doors to the pharmacy area and back here, the extra heavy duty locks on the steel back door.”

  “Why would he want me to find the two of you together? He’s married. He wouldn’t want his wife to find out. Besides, I know you’d never cheat on me.”

  His trust in her made her heart melt. “I would never hurt you like that, Jay.” The way his mother had hurt his father. And Jay. Heather’s betrayal had broken up the family Jay knew, changed it, and not for the better. They’d all had to grieve the loss of what they’d had and find a way to live with a fractured family, Jay in the middle of his mother and father and his father’s new family.

  “You don’t even need to say it.” Jay kissed her cheek. “So why does Noel want me to think you’re cheating on me? He can’t possibly think he’s got a shot with you.”

  “The whole thing seemed odd. We were talking about his wife.”

  “And then he tried to jump you?”

  “Exactly.” Alina had a feeling this had more to do with her suspicions about the discrepancy she found in the prescription refills and her research into their database. The more she thought about it, the more it made sense.

  “What is that look on your face?”

  She sighed and looked up at him. “I think he wants my DEA boyfriend to leave me.”

  Of course that raised Jay’s suspicion meter to one hundred. “Why?”

  She paced into the office, turned back to him, opened her mouth, but snapped it shut again.

  “Alina? What aren’t you telling me? Does this have to do with your accident?”

  Her mind reeled at that thought. She tried to add that piece into the puzzle she still hadn’t figured out and couldn’t find where or why that would fit with the other things she knew.

  “If you don’t start talking, I’m going to go full-on interrogator on you.”

  She took his hand, pulled, and led him to the chair in front of her desk. “Sit.”

  He cocked his head. “Do I seriously need to sit for this?”

  “Mostly so I don’t get a crick in my neck staring up at you.” That got her a slight smile.

  Jay sat but leaned forward, forearms braced on his thighs. “Spill it, sweetheart.”

  “Okay, I need you to listen and understand that I can’t tell you everything right now. If I do, you’ll go all DEA super-agent on me and I really need more time before I know if there’s really a reason for you . . .”

  “To help,” he finished for her.

  She shook her head. “Blow up my whole life.” She dropped her head and stared at her feet. The magnitude of what might happen finally hit her. She’d been pushing it aside, trying to figure a way out of this, but once she knew about the dead people’s refills without doctor’s approval, she couldn’t ignore it.

  Noel had done a very good job of keeping her busy the last few days so she couldn’t dig deeper, but she needed to do it. Even if it cost her the business. She wouldn’t let it cost her career, too.

  His eyes narrowed. “Sweetheart, I’m trying to be patient, but you need to start telling me something that makes sense right now. Does Noel have something to do with your accident?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You don’t think so?” That question held a world of suspicion and concern for her safety.

  “It doesn’t fit in with the other thing I discovered. And I’m not even sure if it’s more than the one thing I discovered because I haven’t been able to look into it. But I think there’s more. And if there is, then it’s big, and I have a really huge, blow-up-my-life problem because I own half this business. I could be implicated. I could go to jail.”

  “Holy shit, Alina. Why didn’t you come to me the minute you suspected something that could touch you?”

  “Because I don’t have all the facts. If I turn over the little bit I do know to the DEA—”

  “I love you. I would protect you.” He cut her off, stunning her into silence. “I would make sure you didn’t go down for something he did.” He stood and cupped her face. “I won’t let anything happen to you. Don’t you get it? I can’t live without you.”

  Tears gathered in her eyes. One spilled over her lashes. Jay swept his thumb over her cheek, wiping it away.

  “You love me?”

  “You know I love you. Don’t you? Haven’t I showed you in every kiss?” He brushed his lips tenderly against hers. “In every touch?” He softly brushed his fingers through her hair. “In everything I say and do for you? You’re everything to me. More than I expected. More than I deserve.”

  She shook her head. “That’s not true. You’re such a good man. You deserve everything good and wonderful this life has to offer. You see all the bad but you still have such a good heart. I wish I could bring so much more joy into your life.”

  “You do. Every time you smile at me. Every time you come into my arms and offer me every bit of yourself. You fill me up. You make me happy. You make me want to be a better man. Before you, I had work and nothing much else. Now I see a future with you and our kids and a life worth living to the fullest.”

  That, right there, tore open the floodgates on her heart and every bit of love she had rushed out.

  He pressed his forehead to hers. “Sweetheart, I truly, deeply love you.” His gruff voice reverberated with the emotion he put into his pledge.

  Her heart swelled so big in her chest she thought it might burst free.

  She stared into his gold-flecked brown eyes, put her hands to his face, and said the words she’d never said to another man. “I love you.” The words echoed the deep feeling filling her heart and soul. Now that she’d said it, she felt light and free to love him without any restraint.

  Jay’s eyes filled with wonder and excitement, then heated with a passion unlike anything she’d seen in him. His mouth covered hers with a need that sparked her own passion. She matched the thrust of his tongue, not even feeling the sting of her lip. His hands w
ent down her neck to her shoulders where he shoved her white coat down her arms, off, and tossed it aside.

  He pressed his big body into hers. She rubbed her belly against his thick erection and sighed when his hands covered her aching breasts and squeezed hard, then rubbed softly over the mounds.

  She attacked his belt before he hooked his hands under her arms, lifted her like a feather, and set her on the edge of her desk. His hands swept up her thighs, drawing her flouncy skirt up to her hips. She worked the button and zipper free on his jeans and tugged them down his hips, avoiding the badge and gun. She had other things to focus on, like his washboard abs and hard cock. She grabbed the thick column and rubbed her hand up and down the length. His groan set off a wave of heat low in her belly that dampened her panties. Those he attacked with both hands, one yanking one side down her hip as the other dipped inside, found her slick core, and thrust two fingers into her. She screamed out her orgasm. His dick jumped in her hand. She stroked him harder and made him growl. His grip tightened to the point her panties tore. He kissed her neck, jaw, and forehead and fumbled for something in his pocket. He used his teeth to tear open the condom.

  Impatient for him to be inside her, she took the condom and rolled it on his hard length, then leaned back and wrapped her legs around his waist. He thrust into her as she pulled him close and locked her feet at his back. Jay cleared the way behind her with one sweep of his hand across the desk, sending papers, stapler, and phone to the floor. She didn’t care. All she wanted was more of the man lying over her, kissing her like she was his every heartbeat, loving her with a passion and magic only they shared for each other.

  The phone on the floor blared that annoying sound it makes when it’s off the hook, Jay’s cell phone rang, but they ignored both, lost in each other. Hell, the whole building could go up in flames. Nothing would stop them. She lost herself in the push and pull of his body over hers. Inside hers. But it was the look in his eyes when he stared down at her, thrust into her hard and deep again and again, and said without words that he was with her now and forever.