Task Force Bride

by Julie Miller

  “What should I do?” she whispered in a moist, breathy caress against his neck that sent an electric current straight down to the south side of his belt buckle. She closed her teeth gently around his earlobe and Pike groaned at the delicate maneuver that was somehow shy and bold at the same time. “Is that okay?”

  “Oh, yeah, honey.” He kissed her lips again, praised her, thanked her. “Told you you were a natural.”

  While her fingers roamed curiously across his shoulders and chest, Pike worked his gun from its holster and set it safely on the floor beside them. He went back to remove her glasses, and her eyes widened like beautiful lakes warmed by the stars. “You’re liking this, too, right? I mean you’d tell me if—”

  He silenced the foolish protest with another kiss, telling her with his lips and hands and hardening body just how much he was liking what she was doing to him. Pike hoped to God she knew the difference between those intimacies they’d done for show and the serious reality that was happening between them right now.

  Any sampling of her shy kisses, any suspicion about her hidden curves and beauty, was coming to life and going far beyond his expectations with each needy grab of her hands, each stroke of her tongue that grew bolder and bolder against his, each soft groan of pleasure that hummed in her throat. His pulse thundered in his ears. His fingers burned to discover every inch of her. He was a thirsty man, getting drunk on the finest whiskey that no other man had been privileged enough to taste.

  He vaguely remembered the panic that had set them on this course—the dog, the break-in, the tension that must have been simmering between them for months. There was only now. Here. Hope.

  And it wasn’t enough. Sliding his hands down between them, Pike loosened the belt and buttons of her coat and pushed it open. He smiled against her mouth as he met the soft wool of her suit jacket. He unhooked that belt and worked the buttons free. Her fingers were in his hair as he uncovered the layer of cotton blouse. Pike moaned his frustration and stole another kiss before resolutely attacking the buttons there. And then he was sliding his hand inside and palming one of those full, beautiful breasts. He squeezed at the silk and lace covering it until it poked to attention and drew his lips toward the tempting peak.

  “You’re so pretty, Hope.” She gasped when he closed his mouth over the pebbled nipple, wetting it through the slip and bra she wore. “So, so pretty.”

  She arched against him, then quickly drew back, no doubt discovering the eager bulge behind his zipper. “I don’t know what... I can’t even think. I want...”

  “It’s okay, honey. You can touch me.” Her instincts were good. She’d already unbuttoned his shirt and slipped her hand inside to brand his skin. “Do whatever you want. Or if this is going too fast, we’ll stop right now.

  “But you...” Her hand drifted down his side and cupped his hip. A few inches closer and she could finish him with a hand job. Pike groaned in anticipation but held himself still. He wouldn’t push her. He wouldn’t do anything that might frighten Hope and spoil this perfect moment. “You’re...” Her face colored a beautiful shade of pink. “...ready.”

  Oh, man, was that an understatement! But there was something equally important going on here. That trust he’d always wanted from her was growing stronger.

  “I won’t break, remember?” He tunneled his fingers into her hair again, loving how dusky and pretty her eyes looked up close like this. “I can stop. You’re driving me crazy, but the timing’s not right. Not yet,” he promised, in case she was thinking, for one naive moment, that he didn’t want her with every fiber of his being. He gathered the blouse and suit and coat together and pulled them over her. “Not yet.”

  Her fingers fumbled at the buttons of his shirt, trying to do her part to ease the throttle back a couple of notches between them, but failing miserably. “I’m driving you crazy?”

  He laughed at the incredulous statement coming from those delectable, kiss-stung lips. “My brother says I haven’t got any game when it comes to women. I’m better with dogs and fish and my hunting rifle.” He caught her hand and stilled the distracting fingers against his chest. “But you, Miss Thing, are a real talent.”

  “Your brother’s wrong.” The knot furrowing between her eyebrows told him Hope was dead serious with that compliment, and Pike leaned in to kiss the worry spot. “You can be very charming,” she insisted.

  Maybe to a thirty-two-year-old virgin with panic attacks and trust issues who was just now discovering her sexuality.

  But Pike’s grin faded when a telephone rang.

  “Is that yours or mine?” Hope patted her clothes, but with her trench coat and jacket tangled between them, she was having trouble even locating her pockets as the phone rang again. “It’s mine.”

  Pike was content to cuddle and hold on to the connection beyond their task force mission he and Hope had just made. “Let it go.”

  “At this hour?” Her cheeks were flushed again, and she was pushing at his chest and the couch behind her, struggling to sit up. “It’s my life intruding. My stupid past keeps trying to ruin any chance I have at a future.”

  He felt the vibration of her phone against his thigh and eased out a weary sigh. The moment that had just happened between them was gone. Forgetting his own discomfort, he swung his feet to the floor and sat up. “What does that mean?”

  She shot to her feet as the phone rang a fourth time. “Someday, Pike, you’ll find out what a sad, screwed-up life I have.”

  “Had,” he corrected, pulling her phone from her coat pocket and handing it to her before she could find it. “There’s nothing wrong with you.”

  She answered on the fifth ring. “Damn it, Hank! Leave me alone—”

  Hope’s entire body went suddenly and utterly still.

  Pike was on his feet in an instant, sliding an arm behind her waist and lowering his ear to listen to the mechanically disguised voice on the line. “Who’s Hank?” The tinny voice laughed. “And here I thought you were a good girl. You’re an opportunistic slut, just like the rest of them.” There was an ominous pause. “You be careful.”

  When a click ended the call, Hope collapsed against him. “Pike?”

  “Get in the dressing rooms and stay out of sight.” He took the phone from her and tucked it into her pocket before shutting her inside. Then he scooped up his gun from the floor and ran to kill the lights, check the doors and peer through the windows to account for every car, pedestrian and window with potential eyes on Hope’s shop.

  He saw nothing suspicious, no one showing more interest in Fairy Tale Bridal than they should. But he could feel it in his bones that that pervert had been watching them on the couch, that he was watching the place right now—that he’d taken a shy woman’s hard-won sense of confidence and composure and shaken it right down to the ground.

  Pike glanced back at the long leather couch, feeling a little shaken himself at how fast and how far Hope Lockhart had gotten under his skin. But he made the man recede and the cop in him take over. Finishing the sweep, he holstered his weapon and pulled out his cell to call the task force leader.

  The senior detective picked up on the first ring. “Yes?”

  “Montgomery? Pike Taylor.” Hearing the noise of precinct HQ in the background, Pike checked his watch. It was just after eleven o’clock. Didn’t the guy ever sleep? Pike wasn’t sure he could now. “He’s on the hook. He’s coming for her.” No need to clarify the unsub they were talking about. “He just called and threatened Hope.”

  “I’ll notify the others. Nick and Annie are already en route to process the scene. I’ll be there ASAP.”

  “No. You can’t send in the cavalry yet. Remember? Too big of a police presence may scare this guy off. Let’s just address the break-in with a routine response.”

  “But if that blood you mentioned matches the DNA in our system—”

  “It’ll match. It’s his. I know it is.”

  “Then let me send—”

  “No. The guy is lo
ng gone. Hans can track him by scent now, and he’s not here.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want more backup?”

  “I’m sure. I’m not putting Hope through this for nothing. If he goes underground and we don’t catch this guy now, she’ll never be able to stop looking over her shoulder.”

  “How’s she holding up?”

  “Like a champ, given the circumstances.” Pike’s long strides carried him quickly back to the dressing rooms. He trailed his fingers along the smooth leather on the back of the couch, slowing his steps, then stopping—processing what his instincts were trying to tell him. With the height and angle of that couch, the perp shouldn’t have been able to see anything from the street or parking lot once he and Hope had stretched out together. Either the two of them making out was a lucky assumption on the caller’s part, or...

  “Make sure Annie brings something to sweep for hidden cameras, too. We may have a spy right here in the shop.” Pike thought about the funny little guy who’d been flirting with Hope that first day. He turned toward the flower shop across the street where the guy worked. What was his name? Leon? Hope said he’d been doing odd jobs around here for months. How easy would it have been for him to hide a camera in here? Pike raised his gaze to the ceiling above him. Would Leon have access to Hope’s apartment, too?

  Hope was waiting anxiously for him at the dressing room door as soon as he pushed it open. Her clothes were rebuttoned, cinched up tight. But she’d lost the clip for her hair, and the long curls fanned around her shoulders, leaving Pike with the impression she didn’t have all her protective emotional armor back in place yet, either. “Is help coming?” she asked.

  Pike reached for her hand and she squeezed both of hers around his. “Don’t send any backup,” Pike repeated, for Hope’s understanding as well as the detective’s. “Not yet. He’s taken the bait, but he’s not in our trap yet.”

  “Roger that.” As irritated as Spencer Montgomery sounded at being ordered by a younger officer to stay away from a crime scene, the senior detective let Pike take point on this. “We’ll keep our distance. But call for backup the instant you need us. In the meantime, do your job, Taylor.”

  That went without saying.

  “Yes, sir. Hans, pass auf!” Holding hands wasn’t good enough. He verified Hans was standing guard at the door before pulling Hope into his chest and wrapping his arm around her. Her arms snaked around his waist to hold on and he pressed a kiss to the crown of her hair. “We’ll keep her safe.”

  Chapter Nine

  Hope would never have imagined that she could be afraid inside a church. Nor would she ever have expected to see Pike Taylor being afraid of anything besides sticking his oversize foot in his mouth.

  But he’d been reluctant to let her leave the shop after lunch. “There won’t be anyone around to keep an eye on you,” he’d argued.

  “No,” she’d gently corrected him. “You and Hans won’t be there to protect me. But I won’t be alone.”

  And she wasn’t. Hope had her bride-to-be client, the client’s mother, the minister, her friend Robin Lonergan to consult on floral arrangements and Leon Hundley, one of Robin’s employees, at the church with her.

  The planning meeting for the client’s summer wedding was going smoothly. Everyone had shown up on time. There’d been no strange requests and the autumn sun outside was bright enough to illuminate the interior of the spacious sanctuary without turning on any lights.

  And yet Hope couldn’t shake the idea that there was someone else here with them—someone moving through the denuded trees and orange-red shrubs swaying in the breeze outside the church windows, peeking in, or clinging to the shadows in the farthest corners of the building where the sunlight couldn’t reach.

  Hope startled when a branch scraped against the window near the end of the pew where she was sitting. And even though she should be taking notes about what floral displays the church would allow in the sanctuary, her attention fixed on the movement outside until she saw the mourning dove that had landed in the tree and shaken the branch suddenly take flight again.

  Her brave words from that morning might come back to haunt her. Even with the German shepherd beside him, a tall, rugged cop on the premises right about now would go a long way toward dispelling this anxiety that fueled her imagination. “Just like you told Detective Montgomery. I can’t have cops around me all the time, or we’ll scare this guy off. And you have to patrol the neighborhood like you do every other day or he might suspect we’re up to something. Try not to worry, Pike. I’ll be surrounded by people the entire time I’m gone, or I’ll be in my car.”

  “Try not to worry, she says.” Pike had reached into her coat pocket and pulled out her phone. He punched in his number and put the phone back in her hands. “Call me when you leave the church and come straight home. I’ll meet you here. And if you sense anything hinky while you’re away from me, call. Push one number and I’ll answer.”

  She’d nodded, touched by his concern. Then he’d palmed the back of her neck and pulled her onto her toes to plant a hard, quick, very personal kiss on her mouth. And there hadn’t even been an audience except for the omnipresent dog.

  “I’ll be here.” And he had been until she’d given directions to her assistant running the shop, and had driven away.

  Hope could still feel that kiss. The same way she could still feel the arousing heat of his hands moving over her body from the night before, and remember how uniquely different and altogether exciting the hardness of his long, lean body had felt beneath her exploring hands.

  She was learning just how seriously the man took his job, and she truly believed she couldn’t have been assigned a more skilled and dedicated protector. She could even understand the logic behind his repeated efforts to help her get along with Hans.

  So where did that make-out session on the couch last night fit in? Even she wasn’t so naive to think that had been part of their undercover charade. But was the passion that had flared between them just a case of convenience? A man got horny and she got curious enough to test the simmering sexual needs she’d kept buried inside her for far too long? Or was there something more tender, more caring evolving out of the friendship she and Edison Pike Taylor were forging between them?

  Another flurry of movement, from the center aisle of the church this time, stirred Hope from her thoughts. Their meeting was breaking up. People were leaving. With one more glance toward the window, she stood to say goodbye to her clients and assure them she had their next appointment in her planner.

  While the minister walked the two women out, Robin summoned her assistant from the back of the church. “Leon, would you take those sample arrangements back to the van while we finish up the paperwork?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Leon strolled to the front of the church and started packing the decorative arrangements into boxes and stacking them up on a dolly.

  Robin tucked her short dark hair behind her ears before carrying a spray of silk carnations up to the altar to set them into one of the boxes before Leon finished up. “Oh, and my husband and daughter are coming to pick me up here, so you can head on back to the shop. I know you worked over lunch to help me set up here, so unless Shirley has any new deliveries that need to go out, go ahead and take the rest of the evening off.”

  “Will do.” Leon closed the top box and pulled his uniform cap from his hip pocket. “Thanks, Ms. Carter.” His neck reddened above the collar of the green company shirt he wore. “Er, I mean Mrs. Lonergan.”

  “That’s okay, Leon,” Robin assured him. “I’m still getting used to the name change myself.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He settled the green cap over his short dark hair and winked to Hope. “See you later.”

  “Okay.” She smiled back and then gathered her notebook and color cards and dropped them into her tote bag.

  “You were a million miles away.” Robin waited at the end of the pew for Hope to join her.

  “I wish. Sorry if I got distract
ed at the end there. I got stuck inside my head, overthinking things.”

  Robin linked her arm through Hope’s as they followed Leon out. “What are you worried about? Surely not this wedding?”

  “Not at all.” At the task force’s request, to ensure that the truth of what they were doing wouldn’t accidentally get out, Hope hadn’t been allowed to share the details of their operation with even her best friend. But Robin had to know there’d been some big changes in Hope’s life recently. Surely, it wouldn’t hurt to share a little of why she was so distracted these days. “Someone broke into my shop last night. Disabled the alarm system and the camera.”

  “Oh, my gosh. Are you okay? Was anything stolen?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You should have told me.”

  Hope grinned as she pushed open the front door of the church and headed down the concrete steps to the parking lot. “Oh, right. I’ve been a third wheel my whole life, Robin. You and Jake haven’t even been married a month. Like I’m going to be the one to interrupt your honeymoon.” She squeezed Robin’s arm, letting her know she didn’t feel slighted in the least by her friend’s preoccupation with her new husband and adopted daughter. “Besides, I think the dog on the premises scared the intruder away.”

  “That’s right. The scenery at your shop has changed recently. Officer Taylor sure has been hanging around a lot.” Robin hugged her arm tighter, leaning in with a shamelessly nosy question. “Is he as scary as you thought he was? What’s he like?”

  “Blunt. He likes to tease.” Hope felt the warmth creep into her cheeks at her next thought. “And he’s a really good kisser. Of course, I don’t have all that much experience—”

  “That’s okay. You know what you like and you like how he does it? Then he’s a great kisser. I’m so happy for you. I knew if the right guy came along, he’d see you for the treasure you are.”

  After their first introduction at a neighborhood business development meeting three years earlier, Robin had quickly become Hope’s dearest friend and confidante. She hated lying to her about her relationship with Pike. “I guess I kind of figured I’d be growing old by myself. My feelings for Pike have really surprised me.”