by Mary Hughes
“You seem to know Blackthorne pretty well.”
“Not really. He’s a bit of a loner. Only has one friend, who married a Meiers Corners gal. I met Blackthorne through her. I can’t believe you got him to smile.”
I chuffed a surprised laugh. “That lip-lift was a smile?”
“For him, yeah.” Elena shut the door and locked it. “Listen, he’s the reason I brought you in.” She lowered her voice. “You’d recognize him again?”
“I’m trained to identify and retain distinguishing characteristics.” I didn’t tell her I’d recognize Blackthorne anywhere from just the color of his nipples.
“Good. I’ve got a job for you. He normally lives in Minneapolis, as a sort of fixer for Ric Holiday.”
“Holiday Buzz advertising? The guy who could sell deep-fried chocolate bars to an anorexic? That Ric Holiday?”
“Yes. I’d like to know why Blackthorne has suddenly taken a job here.”
“Why not ask him?”
She grimaced. “I did. He’s not talking.”
“But I’m not MCPD. Assign Dirk…” A brief image hit me of my brother stalking the shadowy assassin like Elmer Fudd. “Or you?”
“I’m swamped. Besides my regular work, I’m keeping my eye on the new owner of Nieman’s bar, and then there’s a rash of missing ‘persons’ I’m investigating. Frankly, you’ll be doing me a solid just keeping your brother occupied.” Brnng. Her cell phone cut her off. “Sorry. I have to take this.”
The conversation on her end was short. When she thumbed off, I expected more instructions, but she said, “I have to go. One more thing. The shift captain.” She thumped the huge desk. “Titus wants to see you when he gets in.” She pronounced it Tight-Ass. “He’ll be here at midnight.” She eyed me critically, almost as critically as she’d eyed Blackthorne. “You should take some time to recombobulate. And when you talk to Tight-Ass, try to be…” She reddened.
“Not such a Ruffles?”
She quirked her own variation of a smile. “Yeah.”
I had less than an hour to clean myself up before Titus arrived. That wasn’t quite enough time to go home and come back—at least, not if Mom was awake and talking—so I went to the restroom. I’d been at the MCPD before so I knew where they were. I put on my jacket and shirt to walk there. I wasn’t shy or particularly modest, but I didn’t like offending anyone else’s sense of propriety.
I regretted that decision. The cut blouse was no protection and each step rubbed scratchy wool against my poor skin. By the time I got to the restroom I was biting back whimpers, my eyes stinging with tears.
The first floor ladies was three stalls, scarred wood countertop, sink and mirror. Various sticky notes decorated the mirror, including a couple that read “Glock For Sale. Retired officer, rarely used. Contact Blatzky”. I stood in front of the mirror, peering at what showed of my pale, round face as I opened the buttons and peeled off wool and cotton. I set the shirt and jacket on the sink.
My chest was red and raw. Smeared blood streaked my skin. No wonder it hurt so much.
“Nasty.” Behind me, a shadow separated from the gunmetal-gray stall doors.
“Crap!” I spun. Aiden Blackthorne was right on top of me, his eyes burning. I swallowed hard. Inanely, I said, “Can I help you?”
The corners of his lips turned up, making me want to grab him by the ears and scuba dive. He said, “I want to help you.”
My experience with people trying to help was my mother baking brownies for my GirlGroup Troop, treats which sent us all running for the bathroom because she’d substituted sauerkraut for sugar because they both began with S. Not that I was doing so well on my own, but the pain made me whiny and he got the brunt of it. “Nobody can help me. Have you paid your parking ticket?”
“I have ten days.” His head tilted as he considered me. “Let me treat your wounds.”
I coughed. “No thanks. You’re not supposed to use ointment for burns—”
“Not ointment. This.” He seized my wrists. I was so surprised I let him lift my arms up and away from my body, exposing my chest to whatever he wanted to do. Which was to drop his head, open his mouth…and lick me, one broad swipe across the length of my collarbones.
My pain…lifted. Just along that swatch, so I knew it wasn’t coincidence. My belly fluttered. He had a magic tongue?
He licked again, and though his hot, rasping tongue should have been excruciating, it was lovely, exhilarating. As he continued licking, my pain melted away.
Gradually I became aware of how intimate this was. His rough tongue, the heat and moisture of his mouth, excited me—and he was heading lower. In a few more swipes he’d be tonguing the tops of my breasts. My belly thrilled at the thought.
So when he released my wrists, I slid my fingers into his black hair, thick and strong yet silky warm, and urged him to go lower. Faster. “More.” I moaned it.
With a satisfied growl, he complied, swiping heat into the valley between my breasts.
I sighed in pleasure and lifted my breasts, encouraging him to do more, again. My flesh tightened in anticipation.
But he raised his head and looked me in the eye, an unspoken question in his. How far did I want him to go?
In response I smiled. As far as you want.
He made a small, choked noise and dashed to the bathroom door. Before I could panic, he flipped a shiny-new thumb lock with an urgent click and stood before me again almost instantly.
That revved me hotter.
Cupping my chin, he asked another question with eyes gone velvety black. Are you sure?
I didn’t know what this hot attraction between us meant, or if it was more than physical—after all, how permanent could an assassin get with a cop?
But for now? I nodded and smiled again.
With a sigh, he reached around and unhooked my bra with one quick flip. His eyes flicked over my revealed breasts as he tossed the bra onto the counter. Before I could wonder how interesting he’d find my small, tight body, his gaze went nova. “You’re perfect.” He bent, grasped my breasts, one in each hand, and lifted them to his mouth.
It was hard, hot and fast. As if he wanted to devour them both at once, he kissed and licked and sucked nipples in quick turn. Whichever breast he wasn’t lavishing with attention he stimulated with his thumb.
I gasped. His kisses were hot; his suckling was incendiary. His fingers were extraordinarily strong and clever. I’d been with older boys—these were a man’s hands fondling me, strong and sure. I closed my eyes and savored.
He finally settled on my left breast and suckled the nipple until it was diamond-hard with longing. My fingers threaded into his hair again and tightened in response to each tug, until I was practically pulling his hair out by the roots. All he did was make a tiny sound, half-pain, half-bliss.
He kept suckling. Each draw on my nipple yanked a silken cord of need deep inside. The sensations came closer together, hotter, deeper, until I was churning with them. My belly was heavy, my lips swollen, my legs yielding and my skin screaming to shed the rest of my clothes. All that, just from suckling.
My mouth ached with the need to suck on him in return. My fingers were still tight in his hair so I wrenched on his head, trying to lift him from my breast, to get my hands under his shirt and peel it off over his head.
He made another small sound, an uh-uh of undeniable not slowing, and continued to suckle.
With the last of my willpower I reached over his bent head, grabbed his sleeveless T-shirt as far back as I could and started winching it toward his neck.
I’d made about two inches of headway, barely enough to expose the small of his back, when the suckling drove me completely insane. I gave a throttled shriek and tried to rip the shirt off.
He chuckled. With a see-you-soon lick to my ripe nipple, he straightened and finished what I’d inadeq
uately started, stripping himself of the shirt even faster than last time.
My eyes drank their fill. If he was a vampire it didn’t show in his skin, a sun-drenched bronze. His nipples were tight and dark. His chest was smooth and hairless. I reached for it.
He tossed his shirt on top of my bra and reached for me at the same time. As I palmed his pectorals, he crushed me to him. My breasts and palms flattened against male flesh, its warm scent filling my every quickened breath. He grabbed my mouth in a searing kiss and his taste filled me. I basked in him, touch, scent and taste, meeting his mouth and clutching his chest and rippling against him with the need for even more.
Opening his hands on my back, he went exploring, gliding along my skin until he met the thick wool of my trousers.
If I thought that would stop him, I didn’t know him very well. His hands continued to glide down, rubbing the cloth over my buttocks, then grasping me and pulling me into him. My hips met a large, firm and growing bulge. He backed off on the kiss, his tongue flicking and teasing. Now he was trying to go slower, but I wasn’t having any of that.
I stood on tiptoes and went after his mouth, thrusting my tongue between his lips and rubbing my hands over him, feeling the pinpricks of his nipples roll under my palms.
He huffed, and his teasing tongue got serious, diving back into my mouth to claim me. I thrust my tongue in return, finding much more of him to deal with. Lips that were thin but sexy when viewed were exquisite acres when tasting and licking.
He pushed a hand between us and for a moment I thought he was still trying to slow things down and moaned my protest. But a couple wags of those clever fingers managed to undo my belt and pants. The uniform slacks slid languidly open for him and coyly slipped off my hips.
With a satisfied purr, he opened one hand on the base of my spine to hold me in place—and thrust the other down the front of my panties.
I gasped.
His fingers unerringly found my clitoris, the bud already rising to meet them. I groaned. He stroked. His purr became more pronounced. He stroked again, and again, setting up a good hard rhythm. I whimpered. His purr became a rumble that shook my ribs.
I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him like I was going to mate his mouth. My naked breasts rubbed against his torso as he beat fingers against me. His hips rocked hungrily in the same rhythm. I dropped a hand to try to open his pants too.
He raised his mouth from mine. “Not yet. Don’t touch me, I’m too aroused. You first.”
It took my breath away.
He lifted me by the waist and swung me toward the wall. I thought maybe he was going to smash me against it but he set me on the broad tiled ledge under the window. He pulled my pants off over my cop black shoes and socks. Not very alluring—until he stepped between my legs. He looked damned good between my thighs.
I reached to pull aside the crotch of my panties but he had something else in mind. He seized my mouth in a pyrotechnic kiss, brilliant bursts of lips, teeth and tongue. When I was dizzy with it and my hands limp on the ledge beside me, he slipped fingers under the crotch panel and directly into my sex.
They slid in like they were greased. I mewled. He gave a throttled groan. The purr, which had subsided, revved up again, twice as loud, deep and dark as a lion’s. A thought filtered into my brain that this pleased rumble wasn’t a man’s sound. It was more primitive—a beast’s, and a predatory beast at that. All the hairs on my body stood up at the thought.
Then his thumb landed on my clit and he began flicking while he thrust fingers, and I moaned and my muscles melted, scary thoughts yielding to lust.
He rubbed and kissed and thrust until I felt the final tightening, the winching toward the top of the roller coaster, the point when all the pumps were primed and climax was inevitable.
We weren’t on the path of arousal anymore. Orgasm was coming.
Naturally that was when the pounding started at the door. “Sunny?” It was my brother Dirk.
“Don’t pay any attention to him,” Blackthorne murmured. “Feel my fingers inside you. Claiming you.”
“I do,” I panted.
“Sunny, are you in there?” Dirk yodeled.
“No!” I yelled back.
“You’re almost there.” Blackthorne kissed me and savagely thumbed my clit. My fingers bit into his shoulders, denting the hardest muscles in the world. I gave myself over to his ministration…
“Sunny!” The door banged. “I have a message.”
“Later, Dirk. Go away!”
“Grab my tongue.” Blackthorne drove his tongue into my mouth on a vicious thrust.
I whimpered. My sex felt like fireworks about to burst. “What?”
“My tongue.” He thrust it again, big and hot, into my mouth.
More out of self-preservation, I grabbed it with my lips. Felt him pull the rough wet heat of it back, revving the sensitive skin of my lips. I wondered if that was what his cock would feel like, big and hot and hard, thrusting into me, driving deep.
I came in a shock wave radiating from my clit. Big, round pleasure rolled through me from under his thumb, expanding outward in rising circles. Release swamped me and I cried out softly into the mouth of the man who’d given it to me.
It swept away all tension, all pain. Left only a sparkling of bright happiness.
When I opened my eyes, Blackthorne stood there, gaze soft on me. “Feel better now?”
I could only nod.
He glanced at the door, shaking from Dirk’s hammering. “Good. I’d better go.”
Chapter Six
Blackthorne reached for the counter and nabbed his tee, rolling it on almost as fast as he’d zipped it off. He’d left me on the ledge and I couldn’t physically stop him.
“Wait. Don’t go.” I eyed the distance, slid off, misjudged the pliability of my leg muscles and nearly landed in a heap on the tile floor.
He caught and steadied me. “I have to. You’re a professional and this is your place of employment. We don’t want to give the wrong impression.” He had my bra in hand and he slipped it over my arms, reached behind me and hooked it, then adjusted it so it perfectly cupped my breasts.
Wow. He wasn’t like most men, just tearing off clothes. He cleaned up after himself. Maybe he was even one of the rare males who moved you out of the wet spot after.
I could get used to that kind of thoughtfulness all too easily.
Speaking of thoughtfulness… “You can’t go. You didn’t get…” I waved at his zipper. A very impressive bulge raised it. “Your return gift.”
There was a brightening of his black eyes. “I got to see your face as you climaxed. That was the most beautiful gift I’ve ever received. Step.” He’d set my pants on the floor. As I set my shod feet into the holes he said, “I must go, and you must let in your brother and colleague.”
On cue, Dirk said, “Sunny, open up. I have a message from Captain Titus.”
I looked down at Blackthorne’s dark head. “Don’t you have just a minute?”
“He’s calling attention to your being locked in here.” Blackthorne pulled up my pants, zipped, buttoned and belted. “Here’s your shirt and jacket. Once you’re together, open the door.”
“How will you get out?” I glanced at the small window. I might have shimmied through it but no way Blackthorne’s frame—a couple hundred pounds of bone and muscle if I judged him right—would fit. “Dirk will see you. I thought you didn’t want him to get the wrong impression.”
“Watch.”
As I stared, he stepped back behind the last stall and faded into the shadows. I blinked. Peered harder. I could just make out his outline…maybe. I thought that was him.
Fingers wiggled in a “hi”. I smiled.
“Sunny!” More pounding from the door.
“Coming, Dirk.” I threw on what was left of my blouse, pau
sing before putting on the jacket to stare with amazement at my perfectly smooth chest where the skin had been red and scratched and bleeding. Then I shook my head, buttoned brass and went to let Dirk in. I twisted off the thumb lock and opened the door.
He pounded air a couple times before he saw me. His face brightened. “There you are.”
“Here I am. And here we go.” I took him by the arm, turned him and marched him out the door. A dark shadow filtered through behind me and disappeared. I shook my head. “What was so important that you had to interrupt me in the bathroom?”
“Captain Titus—”
“Wants to meet with me at midnight, I know. Elena told me.”
“No! He’s here early—and he wants to meet with you now.”
Aiden Blackthorne hadn’t planned to invade the police department, trash a door and ravish Sunny. Earlier that evening when he’d begun his nightly three-hour routine of strength, speed and weapons training followed by meditation at Napoleon’s Gym, he’d had no thoughts in mind of making Sunny orgasm. Fantasies, yes. But he hadn’t actually planned it.
Ten thirty p.m. he stepped from the shower, dressed and glided off into the night. He wanted to put in some time at the truck terminal, to reinforce his cover but also because the truckers needed his help. Besides, while he’d eventually have to talk to his friend Ric about Eloise, he didn’t know what he’d say. The mindless physical activity of loading and unloading freight would give him time to think.
As he moved, he checked his surroundings and tested the air, as was his habit. An acrid scent/taste punched his awareness.
Blood.
Though clanless, Aiden was, by nature, a protector. He spun toward the scent and opened his senses.
Human blood, but not the usual mix. Pungent as lemon juice, this blood was tinged with the adrenaline and other chemicals that meant a human in distress. Half a mile east south east.
It was Sunny. She was hurt.
He didn’t think, just acted. He blew into mist and flung himself in the direction of the scent/taste.
