Chance of a Lifetime (3 page)

“Have you?”

“One glass of wine at the dullest party that’s ever been held in the history of corporate America.” She stepped backward two steps while he watched her closely.

“Let’s be sure. Just walk down the center line, ma’am. One foot in front of the other.”

A straight line, no stepping off right or left. She’d been doing that for the past seven years. Mom and Dad had believed in her, and she’d tamed the wildness. But tonight she wanted to let it loose. She’d have the control to rein it back in. Tomorrow.

“Mind if I take my shoes off first?” She gestured to the shiny three-inch heels. “I wouldn’t want to catch one on the pavement and make you think I was something I wasn’t.”

He inclined his head. Holding onto the car, she took off one shoe then switched her grip to do the other. Now he was even taller. Dropping the shoes behind the seat through the open door, she turned, propped one foot on the back wheel. Reaching up a few inches under the skirt, she unhooked the garter and rolled down the stocking deliberately, knowing she was revealing her leg from the side almost to the hip.

Let’s see how far we can take this.
The sheer stocking came off like a dandelion’s seeds at a puff from her lips, blowing lightly in the air. After she did the other, she turned to find him watching. Avidly, a man’s desire in his eyes. His jaw flexed. Smiling, Stacie approached and draped the stockings over one of his broad shoulders, coming close 16

Chance of a Lifetime

enough she could feel his heat. Since something in his eyes told her she should be cautious about coming too close, she took a step closer.

“Thanks,” she said simply. “That’s the best compliment I’ve gotten in months.”

As she moved by him, she made sure her hip brushed his before she walked toward the center line.

17

Joey W. Hill

Chapter Two

Jake Chance had dealt with countless women who tried to use their wiles to get out of punishment for their crimes. But this one… He wasn’t sure what she was up to, but it was almost like she was enjoying herself, not in the slightest bit interested in how much trouble she could be in. She was a knockout, a girl-next-door innocence in a fuck-me elegant black cocktail dress.

It had a low back held together with one horizontal strip that passed just beneath her bare shoulder blades, just wide enough to cover a bra strap. Below it, the cut of the dress dipped to the small of her back, increasing his focus on a perfectly shaped pert ass that he’d like to grip with both hands as he bent her over the hood of his car.

Hell. Though he was getting harder by the minute, he was just going to have to grit his teeth and bear it. This wasn’t his jurisdiction, but he lived out here. The county sheriff wouldn’t mind him putting a little fear of God into a reckless driver. He
would
mind him fucking her senseless up against the side of his car.

The lacy dangling strap of her garters he’d glimpsed teased his imagination. A man could slide his fingers under hooked garters, feel the silky elastic stretch over his knuckles as he gripped her hips, drove into her. Her stockinged legs would tighten over his back, heels to his ass as he buried himself into wet, blissful pussy.

The deft way she’d taken off her shoes told him she wasn’t drunk. He might be the intoxicated one at this point. Having her walk the center of the road put a few feet of space between them, which he desperately needed.

Stepping onto the white line, she placed one foot before the other, deliberate as a deer. Those bruises he’d seen at her neck continued down her back. They’d been concealed by makeup but became more obvious in the play of the dying sunlight on her skin. Women lied about things like that, but the genuine surprise she’d shown at his 18

Chance of a Lifetime

question, the fact she displayed none of the familiar defensive wariness around a cop, told him she was telling the truth about how she’d gotten them. It still pissed him off though. There was more to this story. A woman shouldn’t be handling a grown man with dementia by herself.

Putting her hands out to either side like a bird, she looked back and gave him a mischievous, thorough look with midnight sky blue eyes. “My, that’s a very big gun you’re carrying, Officer. You’re scaring me.”

His lips twitched.
Then you better get your ass down that line before I decide to pull it out
and use it.

Had he lost his mind?
He cleared his throat. “Just walk the line, ma’am.”

As she put one foot in front of the other, her hips swayed. He could swear she was exaggerating the motion. It taunted the part of him that enjoyed a little fight out of a woman before he overpowered her and made her scream with pleasure. It’d been a while since he’d let a woman get that close. Women now were too jaded and distrusting, thanks to the bastards men could be. But this one…

She did the walk with perfect precision, executing a graceful pirouette at the end that made the skirt swish around her thighs.

“And touch my toes?” As she went down, that short skirt inched up, close to showing him what was beneath it. When she rose, she cast an innocent look over her shoulder. “Did I do it right, or should I do it again?”

She was not going to make him laugh. But his lips had to press hard together to resist it. “We actually require you to touch your nose, not your toes.”

“Oh.” She dimpled. “My fault.” Dropping her head back on her shoulders, she brought one pale limb up, one slender finger touching her nose, then the other. As she lowered her arms, the spaghetti strap tumbled off the curve of one shoulder.

The bra she was wearing had to be one of those strapless demi-cup things that held breasts up on a shelf, as inviting as cold beer sitting at easy gripping level in the fridge.

If she was one of those trashy types willing to give him a blow to evade a ticket, maybe 19

Joey W. Hill

he would have taken advantage of it. No. No, he wouldn’t. He was a good cop. But something about the feverish quality in her eye intrigued him. She wasn’t drunk or on drugs, but something was driving her, a need so powerful he could feel it pulsing off her. Something in him was responding to it full force.

Padding across the asphalt in her bare feet, she came back to him. The wind caught wisps of hair to caress her neck in a way he’d like to do. This was a woman who should belong to someone, who should be cared for. She wasn’t promiscuous or irresponsible.

Despite catching her in a situation that suggested otherwise, he knew the difference between chronic irresponsibility and the need to run from something, to cut loose because the rubber band elasticity of her soul was stretched to breaking.

“I need your license and registration.”

She bit her lip. “I don’t have them. I mean, John may keep the registration in the car, but—”

“This isn’t your car.”

“No.” She shook her head.

“Is that your boyfriend?” He tried to keep it professional, authoritative, a voice that would compel her to tell him the truth the way a doctor’s authority compelled a patient to tell him anything.

“John?” She blinked. “Oh heavens, no.” That smile touched her lips again, but he noticed it looked as if it were attached to a millstone. “Why is that relevant? You can’t require me to talk about my personal life, can you?”

“Actually, there’s a statute that says I can. It’s very complicated.”

She gave him a dubious look, went and sat down in the driver’s seat of her car, slipping those shoes back on, this time without the hose.

Stacie tugged the heel straps over her ankles, crisscrossed and re-buckled them, letting her hair fall forward over her face. He was back to giving her that detached, speculative look. What was she doing, really? What would one moment of fun help?

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Chance of a Lifetime

Especially when it could be so easily disrupted by the slightest mention of the life she’d tried to leave behind for one night.

“I think I should tell you, I stole the car.”

“What?” That cop look snapped back on his face so fast she wondered if she’d imagined him responding to her brief, pathetic attempt at flirtation. He probably got hit on all the time.

“Well, he was being such an ass. I mean, it’s bad enough I’m there as his show pony, but to tell me I can’t even laugh when I want to laugh. And his boss does look like a giraffe, I’m sorry.”

Jake pinched the bridge of his nose. “So you took off with his car.”

“I got his keys out of his coat. It’s not like he knows how to drive it anyway. He likes pretty cars and pretty women and has no idea how to handle either one of them.”

When she looked up at him, she couldn’t keep herself from lingering over the terrain. Or from saying the words that came out of her mouth, which seemed to be disconnected from her brain. “I bet that’s not a problem you have, do you? Officer…”

“Chance. Lieutenant Jake Chance.”

Jake sighed. He needed to cut this one loose before he did something incredibly stupid. “Let me run the plates, make sure he hasn’t reported it.”

She nodded, but he wasn’t sure she even heard him. Her mind seemed to be elsewhere. Before he went back to the car, he couldn’t help himself. He stepped forward, brushed her shoulder, catching his fingers in the strap to tug it back onto her shoulder. Dipping her head, she laid her cheek against the top of his knuckles. Not sexual at all. A simple gesture of gratitude for the kindness. It was intimate, familiar, as if they’d known each other for awhile. When she looked up at him, it was so obvious what she wanted and needed, it left him nowhere to go but in retreat.

It was the honorable fucking thing to do. Damn it. He nodded awkwardly, extricated his hand and moved away.

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Joey W. Hill

As he strode back to his car, Stacie closed her door, leaned her head back on the seat and watched him in the rearview mirror. So was that it? An odd moment shared with a stranger, one they’d each recall later, her with some embarrassment, him with some perplexity? Would either of them wonder what would have happened if they’d taken it just a step farther?

It had been a while since she’d had the heart to believe in Fate. She studied the way the dark sleeve of his shirt stretched as he bent his arm to bring the radio to his mouth.

Perhaps, even though she hadn’t had the courage to give Fate a chance lately, Fate had decided to give her one.

Chance. Jake Chance.

He couldn’t make the decisive move. He was a decent guy, she could tell, and he wouldn’t disgrace the badge by taking advantage of the authority it gave him. But if she made it clear this wasn’t about that, not exactly… That she was willing to cross boundaries if he was and move into a territory where a whole other set of rules applied…

A smile flirted around her lips. She couldn’t possibly.

Oh why the hell not?

She twisted the key in the ignition. As the engine came to life, his head snapped around, those gray eyes narrowing, his jaw flexing in a very attractive way.

Lowering the window, she leaned out. “Lieutenant Chance.” She hit the gas once, punctuating her call with the response of the Porsche. “Can that muscle car hold its own in a good chase, or does it just look good?”

A series of expressions crossed his face, faster than the car could move, but she was almost sure one of them was arousal at the unmistakable taunt, the purr she put into her voice.

“Don’t even think about it.” He was trying for that stern look again, the one that got her juices flowing even hotter. “Miss…”

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Chance of a Lifetime

Jesus Christ, what was her name? Jake took a step forward and she goosed the pedal, rolling several feet. “You’ve managed to get out of a ticket up to this point.” He tried for calm, even though that light in her eye made him feel anything but. Fire was licking through his vitals, and the revving of that engine reverberated in his own body.

“Don’t push your luck.”

“Stacie. I don’t want to get out of a ticket.” Her lips curved, the girl-next-door suddenly the siren of his most prurient dreams. “But tell you what, Lieutenant Chance.

If you can catch me, you can try to get me out of these clothes. Though you better have handcuffs, because I fully intend to resist arrest.”

He swore. “Dammit, woman—”

She hit the gas. A spray of gravel and dirt peppered the front of the Trans Am as she peeled the back tires deliberately, skidding back onto the asphalt and heading up the deserted highway, the car’s flanks flashing in the light of the rising yellow moon.

“Goddamn it.” Tossing the radio back in the car, he yanked open the door, sliding behind the wheel. Little idiot probably wasn’t wearing her seat belt. Or any underwear.

Firing the car, he hit the gas, not bothering with a seat belt either because he wasn’t sure he’d get it over the hard-on she’d just brought to full life on him, even though common sense told him he needed something to chafe it back down to a size that would allow him enough blood in his brain to think.

Her boyfriend hadn’t reported the car stolen. Probably figured she’d steam it off and come back. No, not her boyfriend. Her escort. He went up to a higher gear, remembering she’d said that. His vixen wasn’t attached. Well, that was about to change, at least for tonight. Though for some reason, the idea of taking her home and keeping her was plenty appealing.

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Joey W. Hill

Chapter Three

Oh he had good reflexes. She’d only gotten a quarter mile on him when he was closing the gap. She of course was holding back some, not just because she was now a little more cognizant of how fast she was going but also because flat out on an open road a Trans Am wouldn’t have a chance in hell against a Porsche. She didn’t have any intention of losing him. She grinned at the thought.

However, those refitted cars had some serious power under the hood. She suspected the driver did as well. As she whipped into a turn, she accelerated coming out as if there were an egg under the gas pedal, a slow roll, just the way a fast car liked it. The Porsche leaped forward. As she straightened, she watched that black muscle car take it the same way, coming on low and mean after her.