Cuffed

by K. Bromberg

  “Blue,” I say, and then cry out in shock when his hand smacks my ass as he makes his way over to the Piper. “Grant. What are—”

  “Shush.” He slowly lets me down so that I slide down the length of his body. The friction of my slow descent makes my nipples bud so hard they hurt, but it has nothing on the ache banging hard between my thighs. “We’re chasing the moment,” he says, flashing a smile before his lips are on mine again.

  The trailing edge of the wing is at my back and he pushes my ass against it while we speak with tongues and moans instead of coherent words.

  The adrenaline is a high, but so is the taste of Grant Malone. And, Christ, how I want more of him.

  Our hands are everywhere and not enough places on each other. His fingers find their way between my thighs, and the groan he emits when they find me wet, willing, and wanting for him is enough to make me come on the spot.

  But that’s cheating.

  If he wants to make me come, he’d better work harder than that to earn it.

  “Turn around,” he demands.

  “Should I assume the position?” My eyes flash up to meet his, my bottom lip between my teeth as I make a deliberate show of turning around. I lay my torso and breasts against the wing and wiggle my ass in a tease as I hiss at the cool metal beneath my bare flesh.

  “Christ, Em.”

  “Are you gonna frisk me, Officer Malone?” I say in my huskiest of voices.

  His chuckle rumbles through the space as I wait for him. The sound of his hand working over his own cock is chased by his groan of appreciation, and just knowing he’s doing that because he likes what he sees is fire to my blood.

  “Frisking someone has never been so tempting.” His foot knocks my feet farther apart before he leans forward. “Spread ‘em,” he says in my ear, the scrape of his chin against my shoulder as he retreats again causing chills to race over my skin.

  Then there is an anticipatory silence as he stands behind me and I wait. Adrenaline begs me to rush this, my need paramount, but there’s something about how sexy this is that has me biting my lip as I stand there, bare to him, aching for him to satisfy me.

  I startle when his hands hit both sides of my right ankle before slowly sliding their way up my leg. When they hit the apex of my thighs, he rubs his thumb back and forth along my slit before pressing into me. The only sounds in the hangar belong to my hitched breath, his labored groan, and his thumb working me at a leisurely pace. And once he has me wanting enough that I’m pushing back against his touch, he stops, repositions his hands, and then starts his ascent up the other leg. But this time when he reaches the top, I groan when he removes his thumb without stroking me.

  Then gasp when his tongue does it for him.

  His tongue is hot and I’m wet and . . . holy hell. My eyes flutter closed at the feel of him. The tease of what’s to come. The desperation for all of him.

  I wriggle under his manipulation and plead when he stops. He takes one long, last lick with a libidinous groan before stepping back so that our only connection is where his hand runs back and forth over the curve of my ass.

  Every part of me wants him.

  “Is there a problem, Officer,” I ask coyly, so very aware that he’s allowing me to continue this charade of control he’s afforded me for the past few hours.

  I don’t think he realizes that he could ask me for anything right now, and I’d give it to him.

  Something changed between us today. Shifted. The fear I had over him, about him, is gone. I just need to accept it. Everything in me is whispering that a jumping-high orgasm slamming through my system to remind me how incredible his cock is will help do the trick.

  “It seems I have forgotten my handcuffs.” He chuckles and lands a smart slap on my ass.

  “Oh, am I under arrest?”

  “Definitely.”

  The palm of his hand slides down the line of my spine.

  “What’s the charge?”

  “Making me want you. Every minute of every goddamn day.”

  His hands spreading me apart and then his mouth blowing ever so softly over me.

  “What’s the punishment?” I’m breathless, spent before we even start.

  “I’m going to fuck you. Thoroughly. Properly. And hopefully slowly . . .” His words seduce me, but it’s his dick slowly slipping into me that consumes me. It’s the feel of his thumbs caressing over my ass before one of them presses unexpectedly against the tight rim of muscles above it that excites me. I part moan, part wriggle back against his fingers to let him know I want him. “But the way you feel right now, I can’t promise the slowly part.”

  I purposely tighten my muscles around his cock and moan at how full he makes me feel. “No woman complains about thoroughly and properly,” I murmur, the cool of the wing beneath me and the heat of what his dick is doing within me driving me to distraction.

  “Good,” he says as one hand twists around the length of my ponytail and tugs my hair back some to hold me in place as he drives into me harder this time.

  “Yes.” The word is a drawn-out sigh and each thrust brings a new round of pleasure, a new way to sustain the adrenaline of the jump.

  “You like that?” He grunts as his thumb rubs circles to stimulate the nerves in my ass while the head of his dick expertly manipulates and taunts and teases the ones within me. With each touch, each graze, he pushes me up that welcome precipice between pleasure and pain.

  “Please,” I beg, and it’s the last thing I have to say because he’s as primed and desperate as I am and ready to take the fall.

  Again.

  “We are lucky everyone was gone so we didn’t have to take the walk of shame back here,” he murmurs against the crown of my head.

  He is leaning against the headboard of my bed, and I’m resting my head on his chest. I’m comfortable and more peaceful than I have been in days . . . and I know it’s because of him.

  “Do you always take your suspects back to their place after you frisk them?” I murmur.

  “No, but it sounds like you skydivers do after a jump.” He chuckles, its vibration rumbling against my chest.

  “Adrenaline has a way of doing that to you—making you need that extra release.”

  “Is this an occupational hazard I should be worried about?”

  “No. God no.” I pause and then add, “But I won’t deny that all of my staff have had their fun at one time or another.”

  “And that’s why Leo was laughing.”

  “Ha. At least we left plain sight,” I say with a laugh as I think about Leo and that hot little number he all but mounted against the side of the Blue Skies shed after a particularly thrilling jump.

  “I don’t think I want to know.”

  “No, you don’t.” I can still hear the rest of the jumpers hooting and hollering for him to get a room, but the sweet, little thing he was with was so excited to have a catch like Leo, she had no shame.

  We sit in silence for a bit, his fingers trailing up and down the line of my spine, moving the towel, which is still damp from our shower, down a bit more with each subsequent trace of his finger. I think of the day. Of how I came back determined to pick up and “go gypsy” to escape the feelings and the memories I can’t seem to stop. Oh how quickly that changed when he put his trust in me. He gave me his biggest fear and didn’t walk away like I wanted to do to him.

  Shouldn’t I be able to face my biggest fear then, too?

  “Thank you for getting me down safely,” he murmurs as if he’s reading my thoughts.

  “Thank you for trusting me to do so.”

  “You needed a leap of faith, Em. You needed someone to prove to you that they trust you, so in turn, you should trust yourself.”

  “There are so many things you don’t understand . . . things I wish I could . . .” My fingers draw absently on his chest over his heart.

  “No. It’s okay I don’t need to know.”

  “I’m just not ready to explain—”

&nbs
p; “You don’t need to. I’ve done enough damage. I pushed you when I didn’t realize I was. I guess I just want you to understand that I’m here for you. That I care about you. That whatever it is you need from me, I’ll try to give you, so long as you tell me. I can’t read your mind.”

  I draw in a long, deep breath as if I’m trying to digest and believe what he is saying to me. As if I’m willing myself to whole-heartedly trust him.

  “Trust is hard for me,” I whisper, feeling as if I just peeled back my soul and opened it to him. In reality, my revelation is nothing new but it’s still huge for me to admit.

  “Understandably.”

  Another deep breath. Another confession that needs to be expressed but that is totally unfounded. “I blamed you for the longest time you know.”

  “Blamed me for what?” he asks, trying to pinpoint what of the many things I could pin on him.

  “My lack of trust.” His fingers still for just a beat before they move to my chin and tilt my face so I’m forced to look at him. His eyes question me, but his lips refrain from verbalizing. “It was so much easier to blame you for everything than to blame the man who was supposed to love me.”

  He nods ever so slightly; the compassion in his eyes is truly overwhelming. “I can’t tell you I understand, Em, because I haven’t walked a day in your shoes, but I can tell you that I respect what you are saying. That I hear you. That I’ll prove to you that you can trust me.”

  I feel so stupid, needing to hear him say those words, but now that he has, I feel as if a weight has been lifted off my chest. “Where do we go from here?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean . . .” I pause and try to figure out how to put what I want to say into words. “Never mind.”

  He pulls me in tighter against his chest. “Where do we go, Emerson? First of all, you’re not going anywhere. I love that you’re a gypsy and free spirited—I wouldn’t change that for the world. I’d never take that away from you. Though, I’d appreciate it if you keep the taking off without telling anyone where you are to a minimum. It makes the cop in me want to track you down to make sure you’re okay.”

  “You wouldn’t . . .”

  “Don’t tempt me,” he teases but with a hint of an edge that tells me he’d do just that if need be.

  “I won’t. Remember, we’re working on trust here,” I say dryly.

  “I’m aware.” He plants a noisy kiss on my forehead. “Since you’re staying put, then we keep doing what we’re doing. You get your loan despite how much I’d like to punch that slimy fucker you’re getting it through. I get my promotion despite the asshole trying to take it from me . . . and we . . . move forward. Together.”

  “This is all a huge change for me.” I try to wrap my head around how two months ago, I was thinking about the next flavor of the month, and now, I’m sitting here discussing tomorrows with Grant.

  “What is? The having someone care about you part or the feeling settled in one place?”

  “Both. None. All of it.” I laugh as I hook my leg over his. I meet his eyes and find myself admitting things to him I haven’t yet digested myself. “I’ve survived this far by closing myself off and not allowing myself to feel . . . and then you enter my life with your lights and sirens blazing, and it’s as if you’ve handcuffed me so that I can’t escape from you. So that I’m forced to feel. So that I think in wants and needs. So that I wonder how I ever lived without it. I love it. I hate it. It’s overwhelming, and it’s just . . .”

  “Well, get used to it because I’m not going anywhere and neither are you, even if I have to handcuff you and your gypsy ways.” There’s humor in his voice, but there is also an earnestness that tugs on my heart. It makes me just that much more thankful that he showed up today.

  “Better make sure you bring them next time,” I tease as my body reacts to the memory of earlier in the hangar.

  “I’ll make sure to put my extra set in the nightstand.”

  “Promise?”

  He leans forward and presses the most tender of kisses against my lips. “Promise.”

  Our eyes hold for a moment. “You’ve pretty much obliterated my rules, you know that, right?”

  He makes a non-committal sound. “I was wondering how long it was going to take for you to realize that.”

  I shrug. “I have a selective memory.”

  “Is that what it’s called these days?” The way he says it makes my body become all too aware of how thin the towels wrapped around us are and how easily we might be able to slip out of them. He kisses me again as my fingers reach for the towel at his waist. “There is one thing I forgot to do earlier—you know, proper police protocol.”

  “Falling down on the job again?”

  He chuckles against my lips. “Only if I’m falling on top of you.”

  “Cute,” I say and then sigh as his fingers find their way between my thighs. “We were talking about following proper police protocol.” It’s hard to get the words out.

  “Then I guess it’s time to get this strip search under way,” he says before his lips meet mine.

  And just like that, we slip into something beyond my rules.

  It should terrify me after the past week I’ve had, which was filled with doubts and questions, but there’s something so comforting about the moment.

  About being with someone who sees my scars and still thinks I’m beautiful.

  Roll your eyes all you want, but I’m breaking the rules again. Have a good day. – Grant

  I look at the card in my hand again and then back to the arrangement of dahlias that were just delivered to Blue Skies. It’s strange and sweet and crazy that he’s sending me flowers on the day of his interview. Shouldn’t it be me who is taking care of him today?

  I smell them again. I want to be mad and say they’re ridiculous, but I find it hard to stop staring at them. My cheeks actually hurt from smiling, and I know by the side-glances Leo keeps giving me, he’s noticed.

  “Did someone die?”

  I look up to see Travis standing in the open doorway, ball cap in hand and eyes curious.

  “Seems to me someone has taken a liking to Em,” Leo says.

  “Humph.” Travis looks at the flowers again, then to the card in my hand, and then back to me with obvious curiosity. “When you get my age, you look at every flower like it’s waiting to adorn your casket . . . so don’t bring no flowers around me and jinx me.”

  “I won’t.” I laugh. “I promise.”

  “Well, you enjoy those then.” He nods and offers a smile before leaving the office.

  Leo and I both watch him retreat across the tarmac to the Skies’ hangar. It takes a while at the pace he walks.

  “What’s going on with the loan and the prick?” he asks as he rubs his hands together in mock anticipation of when I own this place. “It feels like it’s taking forever. When will you know?”

  I blow the hairs that have fallen out of my ponytail away from my face and shrug. “Two, three more weeks? Your guess is as good as mine. We had to file an extension and get approval from the Skies family to do so because some paper had to be resubmitted or something like that. Honestly, I have this sick feeling that he’s holding out, thinking the more desperate I get to have this close and fund, the more willing I will be to sleep with him.” I roll my shoulders. “I’ll never be that desperate,” I say with a laugh as I look back down to the card in my hand and smile. “Thanks again for not telling Grant who the loan company was when he was in the other day.”

  “It isn’t my business to tell.” He shrugs. “Although, I’d gladly watch him go all badass cop on the fucker, if for no other reason than to prevent him from doing it to someone else. I know you can handle yourself, but you’re a badass in your own right.”

  I look at him for a beat, his words striking me. Here I stand, always a mix of uncertainty beneath the surface, and yet, Leo is telling me he sees anything but.

  His words remind me of something my mom might
say to me and it makes me smile at the thought.

  “You know what, Leo?” I ask, turning the card over in my hand again.

  “Huh?” he says without looking up from whatever he’s doing on his laptop.

  “Can you cover my classes today?”

  “Sure. Is everything okay?”

  “Yeah.” My grin widens. “I’m going to take the day off.”

  “You’re going to what?” He looks as if I just punched him.

  “I’m going to take the day off,” I say as I grab my keys from my desk drawer.

  “Take off or ‘take off’?” he asks considering I did just disappear for three days.

  “Take off as in the afternoon. Life’s too short not to. I deserve it.”

  “You do.” His laugh follows me all the way out of the office until I hit the stairs of my apartment.

  I’m dialing my phone before I even take the first step up.

  “Em?”

  “Hey, wanna play hooky with me, Des? I need your help.”

  There’s a chorus of barks in the background as she sputters. “Where is my friend and what have you done with her?”

  “So, a week ago you were a wreck and now you’re a damn ray of sunshine. Let me guess, you found a great new sex toy that’s rocking your world and you haven’t told me about it yet? Hm? Or should I guess his name starts with G and ends in a T with a whole lotta hotness in between?”

  “Shush,” I say as I laugh and lower my head as the elderly lady down the pasta aisle stares disapprovingly our way.

  “She’ll get over it.” Desi waves a hand her way. “Well? The answer, please.”

  “What if they are one in the same?”

  “God. Damn.” She hoots throwing her arms up in a touchdown sign as we push the cart toward the end cap. “I knew he was packing. He is packing, right?”

  “You’re perverted.”

  “And there’s a problem with that why?”

  “Because you’re supposed to be helping me shop for food, not getting me kicked out of the grocery store for offending the customers.”