Gently he pumped his fingers deeper and deeper, her velvet heat gripping him tight until he sank up to his knuckles. Tanya worked with him, her hands digging into his shoulders, nails scraping his skin raw, her mouth open and panting. Water droplets clung to her lashes as if they were miniature diamonds.
She was beautiful like this, aroused, panting, her focus entirely on him.
Could what she read on a page feel like this?
Cole pried his hands off her. Though he could make her come this way, he knew what he wanted to do. He disentangled their limbs and pushed Tonya back against the wall when she would have followed him. She reached for him and he grabbed her wrist, pinning it against the tiles. Her brow creased and she frowned.
“Cole,” she moaned.
The way her voice quavered, notes of need threaded through it, nearly broke his control. But this was about her pleasure. Not what he wanted.
“Stay there,” he ordered.
Cole sank to his knees. They’d been in the shower so long the tile floor was warm. He grasped her hips, holding her flush against the wall. His Tanya wasn’t very good at following rules. She kept swaying forward, as if he wouldn’t notice. He kissed a trail across her stomach to the little green globe tattooed on her hip. A small indicator from years ago that she had an inner badass. He traced the orb with his lips and remembered how she’d squeezed his hand the whole time.
He grabbed her thigh and directed her leg up and over his shoulder, opening her to him. He spread her folds and pushed the thin clitoral hood back to expose a very erect nubbin.
How close was she? Would she come fast? Or would he push her to the point of release?
Cole looked up her body. Her hands were flat against the wall and her chest heaved, droplets of water falling from her breasts and running down her stomach. She stared down at him, her pupils so large her eyes seemed to be black, bottomless pools.
“I’m going to kiss you here and you’re going to come,” he said.
“Ohmygod,” she chanted. Her hand came off the wall and she worked his short cropped hair between her fingers, seeking something to hold on to, her nails gently scoring his scalp.
He chuckled. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
Cole thrust two fingers deep in her channel, stretching her. She rose up on the ball of her foot and the thigh around his shoulders tensed. She was close. He focused on giving her the steady rhythm that was sure to send her over the ledge, twisting his fingers as he went to hit all the sensitized nerves. He closed his lips around her clit and flicked the nub with his tongue. Tanya’s fingers twisted the short hairs until his scalp prickled in pain, but still he didn’t stop. She would come.
Tanya’s hips moved with him and her spine bowed away from the wall. She squealed and raked her nails down his neck. He thrust his finger deeper and sucked her clit, rubbing the underside with his tongue. She moaned and pulled him closer with her thigh.
Tanya came apart all at once, erupting in a near shriek of ecstasy. Her body went taut, her spine bowed forward even farther and she seemed to ripple with the intensity of the climax. It was the only word he could use to describe the way she shook and shuddered. She slumped against the wall, her face turned sideways and eyes closed. He lifted his face and gently pulled out of her. She shivered and sucked in a breath. He stroked her thighs and guided her foot to the ground.
Cole kept his hands on her, just in case her legs gave way. He rose, sliding his hands up her body.
Tanya’s eyes flickered open, her gaze still a little unfocused. A smile spread across her face.
“That was—wow.” She blinked at him, her cheeks pink and rosy.
Cole took her by the hands and pulled her forward into the direct spray of the water. Tanya’s smile widened into a grin and she wrapped her arms around his neck. She kissed him with the shower washing away the day’s troubles and leaving them in this perfect moment.
The way she looked at him, it made Cole feel as if he hung the stars and made trees grow. He was ten feet tall and capable of anything.
It was how he used to feel.
Cole turned the water off and drew Tanya out of the shower. He grabbed a towel and dried her off when she would have taken over the task herself. She was his to love and cherish. Neither said a word, but they smiled and chuckled for no reason. There wasn’t any reason to speak. They communicated without words.
When he was finished he grabbed her robe from where it was hanging on the back of the bathroom door, wrapped her in it and picked her up. Tanya squealed and clung to him, putting her forehead against his. He carried her to the bed and laid her down. After a quick towel off for him, he crawled in next to her. She curled up against his side almost immediately and they both sighed.
Chapter Seven
Tanya woke from her catnap feeling luxuriously warm and pampered. She stretched slightly and found herself smooshed up against Cole’s side, her husband softly snoring. She snuggled in closer and glanced over him to the clock. It was much earlier than she’d suspected.
Only 9 p.m.
Way too early to go to bed.
She wiggled out from Cole’s hold and tiptoed toward the bathroom, but stopped when she saw the stack of cards on the TV table.
There was one more sitting in the “used” pile.
She glanced at her sleeping husband and peeked at the latest card, curious what his inspiration for the shower scene had been. The clue had her smothering giggles. She could see the inspiration.
Tanya knelt and peered inside the red box.
It really was way too early for bed.
She selected the card at the bottom of the pile. What was the fun in going for the card on top?
“Variety is the spice of life. Sometimes it pays to change up the roles,” she whispered under her breath.
Tanya clapped her hands over her mouth to stifle the giggles. Two weeks prior she’d read her very first female Dominant book and while it had been hot, she couldn’t see either Cole or her fitting into those roles.
She could, however, become the aggressor.
Tanya put her card in the pile with the others and removed her robe. If she knew her husband at all, he preferred her naked to any fancy lingerie. She tiptoed to his side of the bed and vaulted onto the mattress.
There was no surprising Cole. He jerked awake, halfway sitting up until she pushed him back down. He blinked up at her, groggy and confused.
“It’s my turn, okay?” she said in her best brook-no-argument tone.
Cole didn’t consent, but neither did he tell her to let him go back to sleep. He settled back down and she pulled the blankets back so she could straddle his waist. Tanya braced herself with a hand on either side of his shoulders and leaned forward, her breasts rubbing against his chest, and kissed him. He slid his hands up and down her back.
Tanya didn’t linger, but scooted down to his thighs.
“I read one of the cards while you were sleeping.” She grasped his cock and began slowly pumping his length. He grew harder and longer with each pass. “It said to reverse the roles and the first thing I thought about was in some of the books I’ve read, it’s the woman who ties up her guy.”
Cole opened his mouth to reply, but she cut him off.
“I didn’t think that would fly, and really? You aren’t the type to be tied up. But I didn’t think you would mind if I did dirty things to you. Do you?”
Cole grunted something that might have been, “No.”
“Didn’t think so.” She grinned and scooted down farther.
Tanya took the head of his cock in her mouth and flicked her tongue over the slit. He shuddered and she caressed the underside of the mushroom cap. His hips came off the bed and he thrust into her mouth. She opened her mouth to accommodate more of his length and pumped the base of his cock.
She sucked in her cheeks and bobbed in time with his thrusts. Cole’s hands dug into her hair, acting as a guide.
Yeah, her husband was no submissive. That was never goi
ng to happen. Good thing she liked him alpha and tough.
Cole sat up and grabbed her around the waist. He practically manhandled her, dragging her forward until she was almost on top of his dick. It wasn’t hard to see where this was going, and Tanya was more than willing to oblige.
She lifted up on her knees and guided his cock to her entrance. Cole thrust up at the same time she sank down. They groaned, breath catching, bodies adjusting. She rolled her hips and found a better angle.
“Oh,” she moaned, rocking back and forth. He rubbed the perfect spot deep inside.
“I wish I knew what you were thinking,” Cole whispered. He hadn’t moved again.
“It feels good,” she panted.
She shuddered and dug her nails into Cole’s shoulders. He kneaded her ass, but let her continue at her own pace. She didn’t want to come yet. Not this soon. She lifted her hips and thrust down.
Cole grasped her thighs and urged her onward. Tanya wrapped her arms around his neck and stared into his glittering eyes. She felt his hand on her breast, rolling her sensitive peak between his fingers. The pleasure-pain of it had her gasping and blinking back spots.
“That’s it,” Cole growled against her neck. He switched his grasp to pluck her other breast.
“Mm.” She let her head fall back, thrusting her chest up.
Prickling sensations began at the base of her spine, like air bubbles under water on skin.
“Oh—Cole!”
The sensation rushed up her spine, through her body. Her muscles constricted and fireworks went off in her vision. She struggled to keep her eyes open. Cole’s jaw dropped and his face went taut. They froze as pleasure rippled and echoed between them.
Cole hugged her to him and slouched forward. She chuckled into his short hair.
“What card was that again?” he asked against her neck.
“Changing up the roles. Figured I could be the aggressor.”
“Awesome. Let’s do more of that.”
Tanya snorted. “Okay.”
“Can we do the cuddling-sleeping thing now? Is there a card for that?”
“If there isn’t a card, I think I have some cardboard around here somewhere and we can make our own. How’s that?”
Cole lifted his head from her shoulder, the sleepy expression lifting for a moment. “I like that idea.”
Oh crap.
What had she started?
* * * * *
Bad boys, bad boys whatcha gonna do?
Cole sat up and reached for the phone on his nightstand. He answered it before he could form a coherent thought.
“Westling,” he whispered, already sliding his arm out from under Tanya and slipping out of bed.
“Got a barricaded situation at Wade Drive and Lovelady Street, near where we did the drug warrant.” The voice on the other end of the line was Jake’s Southern-flavored drawl.
“Shit. Is this connected?” He was halfway dressed, shoving his feet in shoes, shrugging into his shirt and picking up odds and ends so he could creep out of the bedroom and not wake Tanya.
“Unconfirmed, but suspicion is affirmative.” Jake’s voice was grim. A barricaded person with the potential for bombs sounded like a recipe for a long night.
“Okay, it’s going to take me twenty, twenty-five minutes to get to that part of town once I get going. Need me to call anyone?”
“If you could get Aaron and Erick, that would cover it.”
“I’m on it.”
They didn’t bother with goodbyes, just hung up.
Cole paused in the kitchen to get the rest of his gear on and shirt tucked in. He stopped by the fridge and grabbed a go-bag, something Tanya kept on hand for when he was called out at odd hours. It had a few protein bars, bottles of water, packets of electrolytes and usually something special. There was usually more in it than he would eat. The bags made him a popular person on scene during the long hours.
He made it out of the house in less than ten minutes from waking up, and was on the phone before he made it out of the drive.
Adrenaline coursed through his veins, but there was a bad feeling in his gut. The bust from Saturday hadn’t sat right with any on the team. They’d all been waiting for the next move.
Cole made it to the location in twenty-three minutes. The staging area where he would meet up with his team was always several streets, blocks or buildings away from their target to provide cover and a safe point to regroup, prepare or deploy.
The command center trailer used for organizing and housing the negotiators, brass and bomb squad equipment was in position, and the ballistic engineered armored response, or B.E.A.R truck, sat nearby idling, the top turret—where a sniper or lookout might be positioned—open.
They had to have a lookout in place. It was hard to tell since all the streetlights had been shot out so as not to give anything away, but if he peered closely, he could see a faint glow of the night vision screen that gave away the lookout’s position.
He parked and jumped out of the SUV, heading straight for the command post. Their captain, Thomas O’Neil, was sitting next to a grim-faced hostage negotiator named Lily Slade. Cole had worked with her since the beginning, and he knew she was the best. The woman had a black phone in hand and was shaking her head.
“He’s not answering his phone anymore and the hostage’s cell is going straight to voicemail,” the negotiator said. “And you’re certain there’s no landline?”
Those words were cause for alarm. A hostage situation was a different ballgame than just a barricaded person.
O’Neil shook his head. “No, the house is vacant.”
“Sir?” Cole said as quietly as he could.
O’Neil waved him into the trailer. “We have a perimeter established. Get your entry team together when they get here. I want to hold you guys in reserve for now. I think we’re going to have to go in, and I want you on point. I might also get you to help me rotate people out. There are a lot of SWAT guys out there who are on loan from other PD’s and if we go in I want all our people in place.”
Cole nodded, completely in agreement. The ability of the other officers wasn’t the issue, it was familiarity. Their team trained, sweated and bled together. He knew what each would do before they did it. In a pinch, he wanted someone who knew him as well as he knew himself to have his back.
“Yes sir.”
“Officer Lawrence has you a ready area by the B.E.A.R.”
Cole got out of the trailer as fast as he could. He didn’t covet O’Neil’s responsibility. He was perfectly happy where he was on the team. If he were lucky, it would be a very long time before he was promoted further. Cole paused at his SUV to suit up in his heavy tactical gear before heading over to the B.E.A.R.
Aaron, Jake, Erick and two other members of their team were in a cluster at the back of the armored vehicle with their heads together.
“Hey, Sarge,” Aaron called.
“Morning, guys. Who brought the donuts?”
There were a few chuckles, but they were all riding the adrenaline wave.
One of the worst things about SWAT was the relatively short bursts of high-octane action, contrasted against long hours spent waiting for new developments. They stood around the B.E.A.R. listening to their radios and the next to no progress being made on the hostage situation.
“Anyone watching the Games?” Cole asked after a stretch of five minutes with nothing more interesting than diverting a car down another street.
“I watched water polo yesterday.” Jake squished his face up. “I don’t get it. The announcer said it was polo meets hockey in the water. Just looked like a bunch of guys dunking each other.”
Aaron shifted his weight from foot to foot. “Went out and watched the qualifiers for white-water rafting. I hope they keep that course up after the games. I’d like to go take it for a whirl.”
“Yeah, when are you going to take the rest of us white-water rafting?” Cole asked. Aaron was always taking trips to put his kayak in the wat
er on some new bit of river. He’d mentioned taking the team more than a few times.
“Whenever you get a life vest,” Aaron replied with a grin.
Each radio clipped to their shoulders chirped. “Entry team, standby.”
As one, the team began their personal last-minute gear checks.
“Sergeant Westling.”
The voice of Cole’s captain was like a spark to tinder. He turned to face the man silhouetted against the command center lights. Cole met O’Neil halfway between the trailer and armored truck.
“Yes sir?”
O’Neil put his hands on his hips and sighed, sounding tired. “We’re rotating officers now. You stay with your team. We haven’t been able to reestablish contact with the suspect. Because there might be explosives on the property, we can’t use gas. We’re going to send in the robot through the back to see if we can get some eyes on the inside. Depending on what the robot sees, I want you in position. Brief your guys then report back to me. I want you to see what we see if you’re going in.”
An electric charge shot through Cole. The world came into sharper focus as he set off to brief his team. The hard part was that he was ready to act. To do something. And here they were about to wait some more.
His men perked up when they saw him.
“Okay, team, listen up.” He shivered despite the heat and humidity of the night. Fuck, he wanted to do something now. He quickly related what O’Neil had said about the robot, but launched into strategizing their entry.
They spent another five minutes covering the finer details before Cole headed back to the trailer to meet up with the bomb squad, who controlled the robots remotely. The interior of the trailer was a who’s who of the Metro City PD. It was understandable they would want to have all the faces on hand if the situation went nuclear and spilled over to impact the Olympics.
O’Neil saw Cole and waved him over to where the robot’s operator, Officer Becca Jameson, was set up. Becca was one of SWAT’s three female officers and a true marksman. Her primary role was as a sniper, but she did double duty on the bomb squad.
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