She uncapped a bottle of tequila and turned the bottle up in her mouth. A shot of courage to face her father and the town together wouldn’t hurt.
Somewhere in the back yard, off-duty officers fought over grilling rights while her father showed off the landscaping he’d designed with the help of some of the local boys. He’d boast until no one cared to listen any longer, then he’d keep going because no one dared piss off Chief Andrews.
She’d just stuffed one juicy mushroom in her mouth when the doorbell rang. The mushroom slid down her throat whole the second she opened the front door and found Mitch, sexy as hell in a black suit and a day’s worth of stubble, holding a wine bottle. Even dressed as a gentleman, he held the air of supreme badass, a thought that sent heat radiating to all the places his fingers had touched the night before. Especially the place he’d made her orgasm.
Lacy blinked through her teary eyes, the knot of food lodged in her throat momentarily forgotten.
“Oh shit, Angel.” Panic registered in his eyes. Mitch dropped the bottle on a nearby bench, turned her around and pressed her back hard against his chest. He wrapped his arms around her middle, and his fists bit into her abdomen with a sharp, upward thrust.
Please God, do not let me throw up on his shoes. Anything but his shoes.
A cough built in her throat. With a gag, the mushroom flew from her mouth and landed with a moist thud on the front porch.
“I’ve been told I have an unnerving effect on people, but jeez.”
He rubbed over the bare spot on her back, the skin-to-skin contact made regaining her breath twice as difficult. “What are you doing here?” she managed between gasps of air.
“You left without your eggs this morning, and I did promise eggs.”
Her gaze dropped to his lips and the hollow of his neck, imagining what kissing him here on the front steps of her father’s house would feel like. What would her father say to his only daughter making out with a Nashville detective while half the town watched on? She smiled. She couldn’t, but boy would that frost dear old dad.
She wanted to inhale Mitch’s scent, spicy cologne and laundry soap and something else she’d never encountered before. Something that was all Mitch.
Down the street, a car door slammed, snapping her fantasy in two. Her brother’s laughter drifted out from the backyard. Sticking it to dad was one thing. A glorious thing at that, but she couldn’t commit John to months of scrutiny and teasing when the guys caught wind of his little sister doing a Nashville cop.
She pulled the front door closed behind her, blocking Mitch from the party in the backyard. “Now is not the best time.”
He took a step forward, and the need to press herself against him pulled strong in her belly.
“For making eggs, no.” His grin grew wide. “But that can wait until tomorrow morning. Tonight I fully intend to show you what happens to girls who leave warm, empty spots in my bed in the middle of the night and scare the hell out of me. Now, aren’t you going to invite me in, or should I call on your father for an invitation?”
CHAPTER SIX
How did she end up sleeping with the only one-night stand who could track her down and show up on her doorstep at precisely the wrong time?
A car door slammed in front of her father’s bungalow style house. Lacy made out two of her father’s lieutenants, dressed in dark polo shirts and kakis, making their way across the freshly mowed lawn from the curb.
Her gaze darted between the lieutenants and Mitch. She’d never hear the end of the ribbings if they caught her with one of the big city detectives they despised. She’d never hear the end of it from her father. God, John would ridicule her with his dying breath. She’d be the laughing stock of Rebel. She had to get Mitch away from the front door, and fast.
“Invite me in.” Mitch cupped his fingers around her hand. The innocence of the gesture contrasted with the passion-starved look washing over his eyes and sent shivers of ice-cold heat up her spine.
“No,” she whispered, scared her voice would attract the approaching officer’s unwanted attention.
Why was he doing this to her, tonight of all nights?
To say her family was overprotective was the understatement of the millennium, but pile on every off-duty officer in the county and she’d never live it down.
Not that she cared about pissing off the old man, it was a sport she excelled at, but she really didn’t need the added drama in her life. She enjoyed their arrangement. She stayed somewhere in the lines of his expectations, and the chief stayed out of her personal life. One look at Mitch and he’d have her tailed again.
Mitch parted his legs and planted his feet into the porch. He craned his neck and tossed a glance back to the approaching uniforms then back to her. “You want me gone? Invite me in.”
God, don’t do this to me.
“I can’t,” Lacy tried again. She hoped he’d read the sharpness in her voice and take the hint. “Private party.”
“Isn’t that what you said last night?” he started, ignoring her glances over his shoulder. A half-cocked smile played on his lips.
The lieutenants were halfway to the stairs followed by a cruiser full of officers who had parked on the street. She had to get Mitch to move on before they reached her. By the time the rumors of her with a cop circulated to the bar, she’d lose her best tipping customers to Connie.
“If you’re not going to invite me in, you left something at my place.” He dug in his pocket and revealed a strip of pink lacy fabric.
Her thong. God no. This couldn’t get any more uncomfortable. As soon as she thought it, she knew she was wrong. Mitch, on her doorstep, threatening to expose her could go all kinds of wrong.
Every inch of her body reacted to the memory of last night, in his bed, with him in control. His fingers taking her to the brink before he entered her and finished off the job.
She knew he could read the warmth spreading across her face, she could see it in his eyes, and in less than ten seconds, so would two of her father’s top guys and four uniformed officers.
She felt their intense stares closing in.
Mitch seemed to anchor in place. His persistence grew more evident with each vanishing second.
“I’ll meet you tonight,” she whispered, trying to bargain him off the porch with seconds to spare. “The bar. Your place. Anywhere you want, just don’t do this now.”
Mitch leaned in closer with Officer Helms walking up the sidewalk behind his back. Seconds ticked off in her head like heartbeats. Oh, shit. This was really about to happen. His lips grazed her ear. “Are you begging?”
Lacy sucked in a breath and held it. The world seemed to jerk to a stop around her. Everything but the officers closing in and Mitch’s heated breath on her ear. Begging. She should have known that would be the only way to get him to comply.
She had seconds to get Mitch off the porch before the third degree started, but she couldn’t bring herself to let him win. “I’m negotiating.”
With a hand on his chest, she pushed Mitch from the front of the door, out of the approaching officer’s path. “Please.” It sounded like begging, but she told herself it wasn’t. “Go before you get me in trouble.”
Mitch met her plea with an annoyingly arrogant smile.
“Detective.” Officer Helms climbed the last step and beat a hard hand over Mitch’s shoulder. “Didn’t think the chief would stoop to inviting Nashville badges into his home.”
Lacy watched the rest of the group greet Mitch and pass, all with Cheshire cat like smiles plastered across their faces.
She folded her arms over her chest and released the gasp she’d held in, feeling like the overfilled balloon everyone watched in anticipation of the great pop, only to be rewarded by the rushing hiss of released air. They may have all given Mitch a pass, but she’d hear their ribbings later. She saw the spark of conflict in each man’s eyes when they passed by her for the front door. “Why do I suddenly feel like the oddball on the wrong side of
a department joke?”
Mitch’s face grew serious. He reached a hand for her, but dropped it as if he thought better of touching her in front of the passing parade of testosterone. He half laughed. “You’d never be a joke.” His shoulders relaxed, and his body moved forward after the group passed, the closeness pushed her through the now open front door. “Your father mentioned the party this afternoon, and I thought it would be an opportunity to meet the boys.”
“You’re working for my father? He invited you?” That sent alarm bells clanging in her head. Sleeping with a cop was bad, but sleeping with one of her father’s guys – hell wasn’t a deep enough hole to hide her embarrassment.
“Not exactly with.” He glanced around the front hall and finding it empty, backed her into the coat closet door. The sharp corners bit into her back, but stepping forward would push her right into his chest. Not the worst position to find herself in, but given the circumstances... God, Lacy. Did you really just think that? She had to get a grip on her overactive hormones. No one worked with Chief Andrews. They either followed orders, rolled over, or got the hell beat out of them. Mitch would have to figure that out for himself. “And he didn’t exactly invite me.”
Exactly what she thought. “Then, Detective, seeing as how you must be one of Nashville’s finest, I’m guessing you can find your own way out.”
He moved forward on her. His hard chest bumped her swollen nipples, his shoulders pinned her in place. Below, he cupped the apex of her thigh with one steady hand. Through the thin fabric, his fingers burned into her mound. The easygoing grin he’d sported for the sake of the officers vanished, and his eyes took on a fevered hue of brown. The shade she’d seen in the bedroom the night before.
Heat flooded her face. “What are you doing?”
“Picking up where we left off last night. You left before I was finished.”
“You left before I did.” She pressed her mouth into a hard smile. “I woke up in the middle of the night to a deserted bed. I had to call Connie to rescue me.”
“I know.”
“You know?”
He trailed his hand down her inner thigh. “I had a Nashville guy search for Connie’s cell number. By the sound of her voice, I don’t think she appreciated my early wake-up call.”
Lacy backed up into the wall. “You did what?” And why hadn’t Connie called to warn her that her one-night-stand was now up to stalker status?
“You didn’t leave me much choice, Angel. Leaving in the middle of the night with a possible murderer on the loose? I called your cell, but you never answered. Was I supposed to just assume you made it home safely?”
Possible murderer stuck in her mind. She was pretty sure the pictures she’d seen on her father’s desk in his home office were of a dead girl. That made her murdered. No possible about it.
“I’m a big girl, Detective. I don’t need you watching over my every move, just like I don’t need my dad’s guys trailing me.”
His eyes darkened. “When you do something that foolish then yeah, you do.”
“You didn’t seem concerned about my safety when I hopped on a strange guy’s bike last night and ended up in his bed.”
That comment stumped him, but only for a second. “You really enjoy pushing buttons, don’t you?” His hand stilled.
“You like riling me up, don’t you?”
His intimate touch in the sanctity of her home with the threat of the whole police department mere yards away should have sent her into self-preservation hyper drive, but it didn’t. The intensity of his touch only made her want it more.
Instead, she bent her knees, settling her sex harder into his hand and rocked against his two dominant fingers. The sensation made her body tense.
Unwilling to relinquish the upper hand a second time, she decided to play his game.
“This isn’t going to work.” She moved against the steady pressure, finding the spot that needed his attention most. “You’re not going to scare me away, and I’m not going to beg. Neither of us can win.”
His eyes narrowed and darkened. He locked his free hand around her hip and pressed his erection into the delicate flesh of her thigh, showing her how much she excited him, making her wet with need to feel him inside her again.
She’d never met anyone who could send her blood spiking to a boil in frustration one second, and have her sitting on the edge of ecstasy, ready to take the risky dive the next. “The challenge is the fun part. You want my fingers inside you. Don’t you? You want them to make you come, but your too inhibited by what’s right to ask?”
The explicit question made heat rush from her middle to the back of her neck and tops of her ears. She could deny him easily enough with words, but the way her body undulated against him only gave away how much she wanted him to give her release.
“Yes,” she hissed and rocked her hips against him. The soft tissue of her clitoris budded with blood. It was only sex after all. Uncomplicated, uncommitted sex. They didn’t have to like each other. Physical attraction was enough; at least that was what she told herself.
Mitch’s smile darkened to match the far-gone look in his eyes. “Tell me you want me to finger-fuck you right here in your father’s front hall.” His lower lip grazed her ear lobe, sucking it into his hot mouth. “Tell me you want to come into my hand again. Beg for it,” he whispered. His warm breath blew over her cheek.
Through her thin dress, he searched for the waist of her panties, and when he found them, he knotted the fabric into his fist.
The narrow strip of cotton covering her clit drew tight around her already aroused sex and rubbed just off center of the spot demanding more pressure. If she could just angle her hips the right way, she’d have a full on orgasm.
She let a low moan slip at the exquisite pain and shifted her hips side-to-side, searching for release.
Mitch Kilpatrick would end up breaking her heart if she let him in even an inch, but in that moment of seductive weakness, she didn’t care. With the buzz of pending release clouding her judgment, she told herself she’d be protected. A week tops and he’d be convinced his case wasn’t linked to Wray and hand it over for the Rebel Rapids boy to pursue. Gone from her life and out of heartbreak range for life.
His mouth covered hers. His deep, heated growl of anticipation drowned out her weak plea for more.
He pulled firm on her dress and the line of her panties underneath until she felt herself leap over the brink and orgasm against the cotton-soft fabric. Her legs shook, and his arm circled her middle and held her up against the wall. For several seconds she stood, pinned by his body, her hand on his shoulder, breathing in his spicy scent, muffling her moans into his chest.
The fog began to lift, and she glanced around in haste to ensure they were still alone.
Mitch pulled his hand back, leaving a starburst wrinkle in its wake along the front of her dress. His lips hovered over hers. He surveyed her face, searching her for a satisfied reaction she begrudgingly gave.
“The next time you come, it’s going to be with me buried deep inside you and you screaming yes until you forget everything but how good it feels to ride me and how to beg for more. Remember that every time you sneak a glance at me tonight across the backyard. If you want me again, you’re going to have to beg for it.”
Mitch straightened her dress with a hand down the front to smooth the rumbled fabric back in place and adjusted his hard-on, winked and turned toward the guests in the backyard. Leaving her panting and wet for him. Aching for more and angry he’d made her want him, she cursed under her breath and watched him walk into the fading light of dusk.
This wasn’t going to end well, but she could at least resign herself to enjoy Mitch while he lasted.
***
Chief Andrews knew how to throw a party. The shindig, sprawled across the acre and a half that backed up to the Hiawassee, looked more prepared to hold a four star wedding than a birthday party.
Mitch knew what small town chiefs made, at least a
ballpark figure, and couldn’t stop from wondering how much of this little gathering had been paid for with department funds.
Three white canopies covered two tables of food and a stocked bar with an impressive wine list at the far end of an expansive back yard. A band, complete with a small platform stage, took up the back corner.
To the left of the back door, Helms greeted him with a cold beer bottle aimed at the center of his chest and a cocky-ass grin.
“Damn, Detective. You’re either stupid as shit or brave as hell. I can’t decide which.”
Mitch took the beer and swallowed a gulp, keeping his gaze hard on Andrews across the lawn. “A little of both.”
Helms shifted his weight back and forth on his feet. “We had a call this morning from the closed crime scene you asked about. Seems some hunters came across some ropes they thought looked interesting.”
Mitch grunted and took another swig.
“Funny thing is,” Helms went on, his gaze directed at the chief as well. “By the time one of our uniforms could get out there, the ropes were gone. The hunters said some detective came out flashing a badge and told them to get lost.”
“Are you getting at something?” Mitch grounded out around another sallow. At this rate, he’d have the bottle drained and on to the next before Helms has the balls to come out and accuse him.
“Nope. Just making conversation.” He kicked at the manicured grass. “But it won’t take long for the chief to tire of your ass and call in a rouge detective to Nashville. You might want to be more discreet with the badge flashing next time.”
“Thanks for the tip.” As unhelpful as it was. “What do you know about that area where the girl was found?”
Helms knocked back a healthy swig this time. “Popular with hunters and horny teenagers. It’s a favored make out spot with the high school kids. The chief has us scope it after football games and school dances. Doesn’t keep adults from getting it on out there. Why?”
Confess (The Blue Line Series Book 1) Page 7
