by Dale Mayer
“Me too,” he said, nudging her nose with his. “How do you feel about slow, relaxing mornings?”
She narrowed her gaze at him. “What have you got in mind?”
The corner of his lips tilted as he leaned in closer to her. He kissed her on her nose, her cheek, and then her bottom lip, gently suckling it into his mouth.
She gasped, and he sealed her mouth with his, capturing her breath before giving it back mixed with his own. She relaxed, sagging deeper into the mattress as he settled down, partially on her and partially on the bed. Her hands, by their own volition, had slid up around his neck, stroking through his hair and down his shoulders. When he lifted his head, breaking their kiss, she just lay here, her eyes partially closed, loving the feeling of being held, of being loved. Her whole body was warm. She was still so relaxed from her couple hours of sleep, and yet, he stirred some slumbering flame from deep inside.
He stroked down her arms, dropping kisses along her collarbone.
“That feels so good,” she whispered.
“Doesn’t it,” he murmured, his tongue licking a spot on her shoulder and then the hollow on her collarbone. She still wore her shorty shorts and her camisole, but that was all she had on. His hand stroked underneath the cami to slide up to cup her breast. She arched into his hand, feeling him gently teasing the hard point. She was small breasted, a bit ashamed in case he’d hoped she was a little more voluptuous. But when he lowered his head and suckled one through her camisole, she arched and cried out.
His voice thick, he muttered, “So beautiful.” And did it again.
There was an answering pull deep in her lower belly as he moved from one breast to the other. Her camisole was soaked through, but it added a layer of friction to the puckered nipple. Before she knew it, he had the cami pushed up over the top of her breasts and was even now suckling her breast deep into his mouth. She twisted beneath him, murmuring. He eased a hand down her belly and her thigh, stroking her, calming her. She settled in, both loving the attention he was giving her body and at the same time wanting so much more.
When he slid his fingers down, gently under the elastic band of her bottoms, she lifted her hips willingly. He slowly pulled the flimsy material down her legs, and somehow they got lost in the tangled bedcovers. And then suddenly they were kicked off, and he sat up, straddling her thighs, tugging her camisole up over her head. She covered her breasts as soon as her arms were free. He shook his head gently, grabbed each of her hands and pulled them up behind her head before sliding down to kiss her gently. “No hiding,” he whispered. “You’re beautiful.”
“I’m not very big,” she said. “Most men want more.”
He stared at her in surprise, looked down at her breasts and smiled. “They’re perfect.”
Blaze had said it so simply with such honesty that she believed him. And she relaxed. She wiggled underneath him. “Now that I don’t have any clothes on,” she teased, “you’re the one who’s overdressed.”
She slid her hands down inside the elastic and gently pulled his boxers partly down his buttocks. In the front she lifted the elastic over his erection and said, “Shift your position one way or another.”
Suddenly he was freed, and she was flipped with him, settling down on top of her.
She sighed and he whispered, “Am I too heavy?”
“No,” she said and repeated his words back to him. “You’re perfect.”
He lowered his head this time and kissed her hard, kissed her deep, their tongues dueling in a dance as old as time as she opened her thighs wide, her hands stroking up and down his back, her ankles hooking around his calves, and she slowly rocked her pelvis up and down against his erection.
He lifted his head, gasping. “I know we were planning on making this slow,” he said, “but if you keep doing that …”
She lifted her pelvis and ground against him. “This? You might want to remember that, although we’re taking it slow, we don’t have that much time.”
He chuckled and slid down a little lower until the tip of his erection was pressed against the heart of her. And he entered, slowly, just the tip inside her heated folds of skin, and he whispered, “You’re so wet, so hot.”
“So ready,” she said, hooking her arms around his neck, lifting her hips and plunging his shaft in as much as she could.
He cried out and ground his hips, seating himself deep inside. He lay here shuddering and then rose up on his forearms and started to move.
She loved watching his face, the emotions, the joy, the building passion as her fingers stroked and caressed, and she reached up at one point and nipped him in the chest.
He groaned and plunged harder and faster and deeper.
She wrapped her arms tight around his chest and just hung on for the ride. Finally his hand slid between the two of them and, finding the little nub, sent her over first. She cried out, her arms opening wide as she collapsed on the bed, but he came down, following her off the cliff only seconds later. He stayed in position on top of her for a long moment, but his weight was held on his forearms, protecting her even now. She wrapped herself tight around him and whispered, “So good.”
He dropped a kiss on her forehead. “Close your eyes and rest. You’ve got a few minutes. I promise I won’t let you oversleep.”
And she didn’t answer. She just drifted off again.
He knew he didn’t dare let her sleep too long. They hadn’t set up anything for coffee or for breakfast, and they would need time for that. She would also want a shower after this. He lay with her tucked up in his arms and held her protectively close. He had meant what he had said about seeing her racing across the driveway in her pajamas. He didn’t know too many women who would do that. And, of course, it wasn’t the house or her own safety which she was initially worried about; it was everything for the wedding. He had to admire that too.
His phone buzzed. He reached across to the night table, found his cell and checked his message. It was a text from the deputy. He gave Blaze a name that matched the registration in the car and said Rodney Pratt currently had no job, was living not very far from where Camilla lived—of course not in her ritzy subdivision but in a cabin back off the forest. The deputy would head out there today to try to talk to him. Blaze texted a reply. Good. I’d like to know why he’s targeting Camilla. I’ll be standing watch over her while she is at the center most of the day. Blaze also warned the deputy about the shepherd in this area too. I’d like to keep that dog alive and pick it up when I can, he added.
With that done, he sent his father a text, saying he’d be at the center all day helping Camilla with the wedding reception setup and beyond, and then he sent Badger another follow-up text and cc’d Jager on it, making sure they were both in the loop about the shepherd. With that, Blaze tossed his phone atop his jeans on the floor, slid out of bed gently and had a five-minute shower. When he came back out, towel wrapped around his hips, she still snoozed. He bent, kissed her gently awake and whispered, “Sorry, sweetie, but it’s time to wake up.”
She opened her eyes, a slumberous heat melting toward him, and he could feel his groin tighten again. He shook his head. “As much as I’d love to,” he whispered, dropping a kiss on her nose, “you need to get up, have a shower, and then we should eat breakfast and go to the center.”
She looked at him in confusion for a moment and then, all of a sudden, reality slammed into her. She bolted upright. “What time is it?” she asked.
“It’s ten to seven,” he said. “You go shower. I’ll put on coffee and get us some breakfast.”
She was already scrambling out his bedroom door, down the hall and into her room. He just smiled, got dressed in his same clothes, realizing this was one night he should have brought an overnight bag, and then made up the bed and headed to the kitchen. Everything looked the same, but he couldn’t help himself from looking in the room with all the boxes. Everything appeared to be normal.
In the kitchen he put on coffee, started making scrambled
eggs and put on toast. When he heard her come out of the shower, he called out, “Breakfast in ten.”
By the time she came down, the toast was just coming out of the toaster, and she stopped in the doorway and sniffed the air. “Oh my,” she said, “I could get used to this.”
He chuckled. “Sit down and eat. You can’t do all the work ahead of you running on nerves alone.”
“No, but I feel remarkably calm,” she said. “Must have been something new in my early morning routine that was good for stress relief.”
“We can make arrangements to repeat that every morning if you like.”
She flashed him a cheeky grin. “You’re good for the soul and my body.” Then she picked up a forkful of the eggs and tasted it, her eyes closing, “Oh my,” she said, “and you can make this for me anytime.”
It didn’t take long for them to finish breakfast and to start loading the boxes in his truck. When that was finally done, she said, “I think that’s everything,” but she was obviously getting frazzled.
He tucked her into his arms and said, “Stop, and let’s just think about this. Now you have a list. Let’s go over it.” She listed off everything in her head. “Now go grab that tablet of yours, and let’s check it again.” And, once they did, she realized they had everything.
She locked the door, reset the alarm and hopped into her car. She headed down the road, and he followed. His gaze searched for not only the dog but for the intruder. The vehicle was still parked where it had been, but, of course, he had the keys. They were in his pocket, and that was where they would stay until somebody had an explanation for what the hell was going on.
At the rec center, he unloaded the boxes for her, relieved to see Blyth waiting. With the two of them inside, he called out, “I’m going to deal with the shepherd again.”
Camilla lifted a hand, and he said, “If you’re here alone, lock the door, please. I’ll be back in about fifteen minutes.”
“Why don’t you make that thirty and pick up coffees?” She kissed him and then shut and locked the door.
Chuckling, he got into the truck and headed back out to the same spot across from her place. Now parked, he exited the vehicle and walked over to where he’d sat before. He called to the shepherd. “Hey, Solo girl, I’m here. Every day I’ll be coming. This spot and the other spot, so you don’t get too used to me in one place, but it’s still me, and it’s still okay.”
He put a treat on the end of the fallen tree and sat here, waiting. When he heard a fine crackle underfoot, he watched out of the corner of his eye. And, sure enough, a dark shepherd, looking a little worse for wear, leaned forward and gobbled up the treat. Then she disappeared. He put another treat down and sat back down a little closer to it this time. She came again. When he put down the third one and sat that much closer, almost an arm’s distance away, she didn’t approach. He backed up a foot, and she came. He studied her coat, seeing the mats and the dullness of her color. She was also bone-rack skinny.
“You need food, don’t you, girl?” At his voice, her ears pricked, and she looked at him. Huge golden eyes stared at him but filled with mistrust and, of course, fear. He sighed. “I’m not here to hurt you, sweetie. I’d just like to take you home, get you cleaned up, get you fed and let you know the world isn’t such a horrible place.”
Solo responded with a very low growl, hardly loud enough for Blaze to hear. Alerted now, he listened intently.
“That’s not working too well, is it?”
At the new voice, Solo bolted into the underbrush. Blaze turned slowly to see who was most likely Camilla’s intruder. Dressed in black pants and a black hoodie, the hood over his head, a tall, skinny male stood in front of Blaze, only this time with a gun.
Blaze studied the gun warily. “You know how to use that thing?”
“Sure I do,” he said.
“Did you have it when you broke into Camilla’s house earlier this morning?”
The shaky gunman made a startled move, then asked, “How do you know about that?”
“She followed you into the woods with a fireplace poker.”
He watched the younger man’s jaw drop in surprise. “That would have been a great fight, wouldn’t it?” He snickered. “A fire poker against a gun.”
“She had Solo on her side so she didn’t need a gun.”
The man’s face darkened and he looked around for the dog. “I’ll take care of that canine bitch today too. Damn thing bit me. I ran onto the road on the side where there was more traffic and lost her. But I’m back to pay her back for that one,” he said a bite to his tone. “Her and you.”
“Are you prepared to pull that trigger?” Blaze asked. “Are you sure you want to do that?”
“Hell yeah. Besides, this will set me on a new career path.”
“And what’s that?” Blaze asked.
“A hired killer,” the kid said.
Inside, Blaze’s stomach settled with cold dread. “That’s your goal in life,” he asked, “to be a killer?”
“Why not? Think about it. You got to specialize in something. I figure I could be really good at it.”
Blaze contemplated that. “So you throw a few rocks through a window and a glass door. You damage some cardboard boxes of wedding decorations, and you enter a house in the middle of the night, and that makes you a stone-cold killer?”
The young man stiffened, and his expression turned to one of rage.
That was what Blaze had been expecting—that same anger that needed an outlet, like throwing rocks through windows and glass doors and destroying stuff. Whatever had gone wrong in this kid’s life, it was still wrong. Blaze sighed and said, “Who hired you to do this?”
“None of your business,” the kid said.
“Honestly, I think it is,” he said. “You came after Camilla, and you come after me here. Surely we get to know who hired you.”
“Hell no.”
From the other side of the road, only about twenty feet off, a man’s voice called out, “Blaze, you here?”
Blaze dove for the kid’s feet, but he shrieked and bolted out of the woods. Blaze went in pursuit, and the kid was running as fast as he could. Blaze wasn’t used to this type of tread with no pathway, but the kid seemed to know what he was doing and where he was going. The trees were dead thick, and he was suddenly gone. Swearing, Blaze looked around. “Oh, don’t get too comfortable,” he yelled. “Next time I’ll kick your ass.”
He made his way back to where the dog had been. Only there was no sign of her. When he came to the clearing where he’d been sitting, he found the deputy, Henry. “You came in the nick of time,” Blaze said. He pointed at the woods. “The kid who owns that gray car just pulled a gun on me.”
The deputy’s gaze widened. “Seriously?”
Blaze frowned, turned around fast, realizing, when the kid had been running, he didn’t have the weapon anymore. Spying it, Blaze pointed to the gun in the grass. “That one. He’s got sights on being a hired killer. Somebody hired him to do this.”
The deputy pulled a bag from his back pocket and picked up the weapon. “I can’t believe this. Nothing ever happens in this town.”
“That may be,” Blaze said, “but something is rotten right now.”
“That’s Rodney though,” Henry said. “He’s just one of those … You don’t want to say a loser kid, but, yeah, a loser kid. He’s the kid who, you know, if a group goes to steal a vehicle, he’s the one left holding the bag. If they need a fall guy in a store while shoplifting, it’s him. Meanwhile they’re all outside, laughing at him.”
“That may have been,” Blaze said, “but he’s not a kid anymore. He’s got to be twenty-five or twenty-six.”
“He might even be older than that. I don’t know,” Henry said. “I will be sure to round him up though.”
“At least, at the moment, he’s not armed.” He looked around and whistled for the dog. But there was no response.
“I hear you’re looking for the shepherd. Is she
in here?”
“I’ve been feeding her on both sides of this green belt,” he said. “Sometimes I stop on the other side, and I put down dog food, and then I come here, and I give her treats. The trees in the middle are really thick.”
“It’s mostly thicket,” Henry said absent-mindedly. “It’s really a bitch to cross.”
“Exactly, and yet, Rodney knew a way through,” Blaze said in disgust. He shook his head. “I’ll leave the dog for now because she’s had enough disruption, and I know she won’t come back out again while all this is going on. And I was instructed to pick up coffee and take it back to Blyth and Camilla at the center.”
“Right. Lizzie’s wedding is today, isn’t it?”
“It is, indeed. The reception will probably go until early evening. Still, it makes no sense what this kid is doing,” Blaze muttered to himself. “You don’t go from throwing a rock through a window to pulling a gun on someone.”
“And he escalated very, very quickly,” the deputy said. “Don’t forget. The sheriff is in the hospital too.”
“Right. So Rodney probably did that too,” Blaze said as they walked toward the road. “It’s not that he escalated, but he was probably being directed to ramp up his actions. Now I have to find out who is behind it.”
“You don’t think it’s just him?”
“No, he made it very clear,” Blaze said, “that somebody was behind this. And he was getting paid.”
“Wow,” Henry said. “You just never know people, do you?”
“No,” Blaze said. “In this instance, definitely not.” At his vehicle he waved and said, “If you get any more answers, check in with us at the center. I’m on coffee duty now.” And with a big grin he headed down the road. But the grin fell away as he contemplated all the ramifications of not having caught that weasel this morning.
Chapter 13
Camilla was so frantic getting everything set up amid those horrible feelings of being late and that something would still go wrong that she worked like a crazy woman. When she saw Blaze in front of her holding a tray of coffee cups, she almost shrieked.
