by J. P. Oliver
“You’re amazing,” he panted. “You’re perfect—”
“H-hold on,” I huffed. “Let me just…” His hips stilled. Slowly, the stretch became less strenuous. He wasn’t pornstar huge, but he was big. After a tense, hot moment, I gave a nod. “Keep going.”
Ryder wasn’t one to disappoint.
Every push of his hips brought me to a point of relaxation—though that wasn’t quite right. I was relaxed enough to let him in, but every slide was like an itch I wanted to keep scratching. I tightened my hole around him, his hips stuttering deeper into me, and hitting that spot.
The friction was delicious.
I moaned something incoherent and told him, “Do that again.”
He did. Again and again and again and again, until it wasn’t just testing anymore. It was fucking—making love—the damp slap of our skin quiet enough for our ears only, the room static except for him driving into me.
He kissed my neck, licking a warm stripe to my ear.
“You feel amazing,” he whispered against my ear.
I whimpered, nipping just beneath his jaw. “Baby, your cock, I….”
Ryder let out a possessive growl at the pet name. Each of his large hands held and lifted my hips, changing the angle. The pace was still slow, but like this, I could feel the push against my prostate each time.
Every thought left my body. My world was only Ryder and the swell of pleasure I felt in my chest.
“Don’t stop.”
“I won’t,” he groaned, just a hoarse whisper in my ear.
I’d never thought ears were sensitive either, but he was good at finding little spots like that. His tongue grazed the shell of it, and I literally cried out when he rolled a nipple between his fingers. I felt like an instrument he had mastered, melting like butter between his fingers. It was music, growing in volume, rising in octaves, a crescendo coming, coming, coming…
“Ryder,” I gasped.
It was close. I could see the edge of the cliff and I wanted to pull him down with me.
I moved my hips to meet him in each thrust.
He groaned in my ear, rough like gravel.
His hand grabbed my own and held it beside my head. It wasn’t rough, just searching; our fingers threaded together, and I let out a choked noise, gripping onto it like it was the only thing keeping me on Earth.
With a snap of his hips, I was falling.
I came hard, voice torn from my throat, silent as my body shuddered against his, still working to find its own climax, telling me in a low, fractured voice, “I’m almost… almost there, baby, I….”
I felt the warmth of his cum inside of me, a liquid pressure that had me gasping.
The animal noises drew to an instant silence.
For a single minute, the world was still, and then woken up by the sweetness of his kiss to my cheek, searching again. I turned my head.
Our mouths met lazily, wet and pliant.
“Perfect…”
It was the last word I said before I felt his weight collapse on top of me.
17
Ryder
No match.
No match.
No match.
No match.
No match.
No match.
A thousand criminals; a thousand faces. We’d been wading through them all morning and since the moment we started, I hadn’t taken a step away from the computer. Not to get coffee. Not even to use the bathroom. I stared at the grainy photograph taken from Nori’s security camera; the idiot had waited till the last minute to put his mask on, just outside her door. Elsewhere, a coworker was running the license plate we’d been able to glimpse in the background, as well as the make and model of the car. The trail was closing in. I didn’t want to miss the moment it made a match.
I rubbed my eyes.
How long had they been staring at a screen in the dark?
No match.
No match.
No match.
...Match confirmed.
It was a small, electronic sound—the confirmation I had been waiting for that had me shooting out of my seat. Surely, there were others involved—someone to drive the getaway car, and maybe even a cohort—but this was the first domino. The beginning of the end for these fucks.
They’d finally slipped up.
I grinned.
Match fucking confirmed.
Hours passed, every one of them slow.
I wanted to be the one on the street, part of the small team bringing these guys in, but Asher had insisted I stay behind. I was too close to the case now because of my mother, and if I lost my temper on either man, it would make a potential trial more complicated than it needed to be. I needed to stay back, which I understood.
I just felt kind of fucking useless because of it.
A hand rested on my shoulder. My head snapped up to see who—
“Oh.” I forced a small smile, taking the cup of coffee from Ace. “Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it,” he said, looking me over carefully. “I’d guess you’re running on fumes at this point.”
“Fumes and fury,” I mumbled.
“Those assholes are gonna get hauled in soon.”
I swear Ace’s timing was fucking cinematic. Less than a breath later, the front doors of the precinct swung open, a small parade of officers and suspects making their way towards the interrogation room. I just didn’t expect to see what I saw.
It had to be a trick—my mind playing games—but I was on my feet before I could fully second-guess it, because, no, no fucking way. I knew one of the two men they were wheeling in, cuffed at the wrists.
The man noticed me rushing at him in the corner of his eye.
When he looked at me square, both our faces were flush with recognition.
Benji Wilde.
My fist rose, spring-loaded, and I would have decked Benji without hesitation—if it wasn’t for Eli and his stupid fast reflexes. His hand came around my wrist, effectively holding me back. I tensed, body consumed by a burning desire to give Benji, who tried to dip away from my almost-onslaught, a taste of his own medicine.
Hands touched my face, soft and unworked. They turned my gaze away from Benji; before I could yell at whoever was grabbing at me, I was looking into melted gray eyes, and my breath was held in my chest.
“He’s not worth it,” Ace murmured.
His thumb smoothed under my eye.
With a shaky sigh, I knew he was right. I just really wanted to hit the guy.
“Keep it movin’, Wilde,” said one of the arresting officers.
The three of us watched as Wilde simply huffed and shrugged away from the officer’s hand. “I’m moving. Just tell Detective Playboy to keep his hands to himself.”
Oh, it took every bit of willpower to bite my tongue.
Ace’s hands fell away, one of them slipping into mine, the effect instant and soothing. He’s not worth it. He’s not worth it.
“We’re gonna get answers,” Eli said, clapping me once on the back.
We both exchanged a knowing look, communicating a silent, mutually understood question: what the hell, Benji Wilde?
Maybe I wasn’t getting a lot of work done today lingering around the interrogation rooms, but no one really blamed me. I needed to see this through for my mother; I’d expect nothing less from any of the other men here.
The man we’d caught in Nori’s security camera was the one who pistol-whipped her. His interview had been short; he’d immediately lawyered up, knowing the evidence against him was already built pretty substantially. Benji Wilde, on the other hand, agreed to a plea deal.
I was watching it all go down, parked outside the one-way mirror.
Ace had volunteered to work out the plea with Benji; apparently he’d been pretty good at interrogating back in Denver. Before they’d all turned their backs on him, his squad would even call him “the Negotiator.”
I raised a brow as he did up his tie, hand on the door.
“They really called you that?”
“No.” He frowned. “But they should have.”
I snorted a little. “Okay, Negotiator.” I leaned forward to give him a small kiss—for luck. “Go negotiate that idiot’s ass off.”
And negotiate he did. After less than five minutes of Ace laying out just how bad this could be for him in an emotionless, unaffected tone, Benji was spilling detail after detail.
I narrowed my eyes at him.
Benji fucking Wilde.
We’d all grown up together—me, the old gang, and Benji—and though he’d been younger than us by a year or two, we knew him around Harlan High for being a bona fide troublemaker. Especially when it came to Gavin Joy. The attempts at getting under Gavin’s skin had been endless, but Eli and Ty were always around to make sure none of it got out of hand or physical. Gavin had always been the smallest of the four of us, so it came natural: wanting to protect him.
Thinking back to how Benji had been in high school, I wasn’t surprised to see him on the suspect’s side of the interrogation table.
“Look, yeah, I helped the fucking guy, but you don’t get how not involved I was.”
Ace crossed his arms. “Enlighten me, then. Just how uninvolved were you?”
Wilde ran a hand through his messy signature undercut.
“I only drove the car,” he started, glancing at the tape recorder on the table between him and Ace. “I never went into any of the houses—never even left the fucking getaway car, man. The job had always been about lifting whatever shit he could pawn off, and I’d get a cut of the cash. Okay? There was never anything about hurting nobody—I didn’t even fucking know he’d decked the old bag—uh…fuck. I mean, Mueller’s mother. I had no idea.”
He swallowed.
Ace’s grimace deepened. “There’s more.”
Benji shook his head. “Fuck—the second I found out about it, I called in an anonymous tip. I’ve done a lot of stupid shit, but beating up old ladies? That’s low. Even for me.”
I wanted to think he was full of shit. I wanted to hate him and pin it all on him because it would be easy.
“Fuck….”
But I couldn’t. It sounded wrong—but I actually believed him.
By the time it was all said and done—once Benji and the prick-of-the-day were behind bars for the night, I caught Ace by the arm on his way to the water cooler.
“You did amazing,” I said.
Ace shrugged, trying very hard to not look too pleased with himself. “I did my job.”
“Your job was amazing.”
He grinned.
It was contagious. “You’re on your way out, right?”
“Yeah, Captain Asher said I could—”
“Will you come home with me tonight?” I asked.
If I wasn’t so good at reading Ace’s eyes by now, I might have been squirming, waiting for his answer in the silence—but I did know them by now. They were shining, fresh off the high of a well-won victory and the invitation I’d extended. He rubbed at the back of his neck, catching himself staring.
“Yeah. I’d like that.”
Bad guys in custody and a sexy sleepover?
Today wasn’t that bad after all.
My soul felt a little calmer knowing he’d be by my side through the night.
Shutting everything down, Asher was more than all right with letting me off a few hours early; the day had been a long and emotional one. I’m sure he didn’t want me lurking around holding to threaten our new guests, either.
Ace had given me a ride to work that morning after last night’s…activities, so he was the one to drive us both to my place, his car already here. It was a quiet ride; comfortable but tired. Halfway between work and my place, Ace surprised me yet again by timidly lacing his fingers with mine over the gear shift.
“I ever tell you I have a hot tub?” I asked.
He huffed a small laugh. “Why does that not surprise me?”
“Because…hot tubs are amazing? And I’m amazing, so naturally…”
“Objection: leading.”
“Leading to the correct conclusion,” I said.
His grin was unmistakable. “I haven’t been to your place before,” Ace said.
“You’re just noticing that for the first time?”
“No—shut up.”
I laughed.
Ace gave a small shrug. “I don’t know. The nickname Playboy has been thrown around more than once, so is it out of line for me to be imagining some seventies-era bachelor pad? Shag carpet and fireplace and lava lamps—”
“Um? Hello?” I pointed to my clean-shaven face. “I’m missing the most important ingredient: the porno stash?”
Ace gave me a once-over, humming, “Touché, Mueller.”
There was something exciting about having Ace in my space (ha ha, another rhyme).
When I fooled around with people, it was always at their places—that was true even with Ace before I’d realized how deep into it I had fallen. Now that we were on a different level, however, I wanted to extend this to him. To let him in emotionally and, well, literally.
It wasn’t a huge house; modest enough just shy of downtown and very much mine. Pictures of family and friends that went all the way back to elementary school were everywhere on the walls, along with music paraphernalia, photos and accolades from work and the academy, and a pretty decent movie collection.
I toed out of my shoes and set my gun aside, watching as Ace took the space in, silently looking at the photos that lined the mantle. I came up behind him slowly, happy to have him to myself after a long, successful day.
He hummed as I pressed a loose kiss to the back of his neck.
“I’m gonna get the water heated,” I said.
Ace chuckled, turning to look up at me. “You really have a fucking hot tub?”
I hooked a finger in his shirt front, towing him along as I backed up towards the patio doors. “Did you think I was kidding?”
“You’ve done it before—”
Our lips connected, the kiss breaking only when I felt we’d gotten to the back door.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about…”
Ace lingered in the doorway, watching as I opened the cover and got it running. The engine was newer, so the thrum of it was low and pleasant, the jets roaring gently beneath the water. I glanced over my shoulder with a coy little wink.
He rolled his eyes. “If you think I’m getting in that thing—”
“Oh, you’re getting in that thing.” I passed him by, returning moments later with two glasses and a fresh bottle of wine. “Here, a little bit of liquid courage.”
Ace propped himself against the edge of the hot tub, looking too sly and enticing in the glow of the patio’s faint string lights. “You trying to seduce me with liquor and hot tubs?”
How would I ever survive the same without knowing he could be so funny?
Laughing, I swept in close, kissing him sweetly. His hands held my face gently; hearing him hum beneath me was like the little cherry on the cake. Ace was happy to be with me—he wanted me. It was a fact I could very much get used to.
I set the glasses and wine aside for later.
Taking Ace’s hand, I led him around to the other side of the hot tub, putting on my best seductive grin. The patio was decently private, but if someone was busy playing Peeping Tom, well, they would certainly be getting an eyeful. As I began to undo the buttons on my work shirt, Ace was sputtering.
“What?” I asked, winking again as my shirt fluttered to the ground. The button on my pants followed. “Never skinny-dipped before?”
His face was satisfyingly red. “I… No, I can’t say that I have….”
I stepped out of my jeans and boxers all at once; the cool night air felt good on my skin. Maybe it was the hippie in my blood, but being naked outside had a certain romantic quality about it. His wide eyes followed the lines of my torso south. That was fine by me. I tugged off my socks.
�
��Well?”
Ace’s eyes snapped back up to mine. With built-up courage, he tugged his shirt slowly off his body.
I stepped into the tub—nice and warm and bubbly—sighing as the hot water did what it did best, soothing the muscles immediately. As he stripped, I poured the wine for us, unashamed to say I was ogling every move Ace made.
“You want to make a show out of it?” I asked.
He paused, thumbs in the band of his boxers.
“I wouldn’t mind a striptease.”
“Please,” he said, grinning.
As the boxers fell to the ground, his posture got a little shy. I made sure to boost his confidence with a hearty wolf whistle. Ace shushed me, looking around to be sure no one was watching as he waded into the tub. We each took our glass of wine and sipped; it was old stuff, bitter and robust. I’d been saving it for something…special, I guess.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hm?”
I wagged my finger for Ace to come closer. Shyly he did, moving through the water until he was sitting between my legs. It was an intimate position I hadn’t been in since….
“Um…hey, I know we already, you know, did this, but…I’m sorry,” I said. “About all the shit I gave you the other day. That wasn’t…” I wanted this—wanted it so badly now that we were here—but it was still something to try for. Work. Effort. My heart wanted it, but was it ready? “I was just trying to push you away because I was afraid of all the good shit you make me feel. You really calm me down.”
Ace was silent, nodding slowly.
“I…” And fuck it, if now wasn’t the time to tell him, when would it be? He deserved to know, after all we’d already been through. “I haven’t been in a relationship in a really, really long time.”
Ace shifted to get a better look at me. “I thought you didn’t do relationships…?”
“Yeah, there was a reason for that.”
I took Ace’s silence as a sign to continue.
“His name was Kyle.” It still hurt to say it, even now. I took a sip for luck and set my glass aside. “We were together. I was, um…fuck, I was in love with him. It was around college. My first real intense relationship. I thought it was all going to work out. I thought we had a good thing going, but—”
