Force of Attraction (24 page)

He had her pinned to the wall so tightly the bricks dug into her back. There'd be scrapes and bruises in the morning but she didn't care. She was about to screw Scott Lucca, right here, right now.

She pulled his shirt from his waistband and ran her hands up under it, exulting in the heat of his skin and the solid ripple of muscles on his back. He grabbed one of her hands and pushed it down to his zipper. She didn't need any more encouragement.

She jerked it down and then her hands were inside his waistband pushing jeans and shorts down over the rock-hard contours of his butt.

He grabbed her by the waist and hoisted her up off the ground. His lips directed his quiet words right into her left ear. “Hold on tight, Cole. I'm going to give you all of me. As much as you can stand.”

She kicked off her sandals and wrapped her legs around his waist, locking her hands behind his neck.

He reached between them to direct his shaft at the right angle, felt the slick heat of the outer folds of her sex part against its head, and shoved toward the goal.

A faint cry escaped her as the fat head of his cock entered her. At this angle, he felt even bigger than she had expected.

“
Shhh
. Take it slow.” His whisper was thick with a sex-drugged urgency.

“Slow?” she responded, sounding offended at the idea. “I need fast.”

Gritting his teeth he took her firmly by the waist, and drove her hips down on his swollen shaft with an upward thrust. A series of little inarticulate cries began erupting from Cole as he slid home.

The sounds exploded in wonder by Scott's ear as the ripples of her climax massaged the length of his cock.

Damn.
She was so responsive he almost lost control and he hadn't even begun to move. She might need only one thrust, his body demanded many more. Now. While her body was sucking him in.

He bucked under her, pounding into her hot wet darkness like a jackhammer. The old Scott Lucca finesse deserted him. He was running hot and wide open. She was so wet, and felt so right. This was how it had been with them from the first. It shouldn't feel like the first time after all this time. But even the miracle of it was losing fascination to the seeping urgency of sensation that locked their bodies together.

He felt her climax rising again and she was calling his name in little breathless whispers that feathered his ear. A second later she gripped him hard, her fingers digging into his shoulders as he continued to pump her. Afraid she would cry out loudly, he reached up and stuck his thumb in her mouth to distract her. Her lips clamped down on his thumb as she began sucking it like it was a lollipop.

Her second climax went on much longer than the first. The clutch and caress of her sex echoed by her firm sucking of his thumb finally wrung from him a helpless “Holy shit.” She really was going to be the death of him.

Then he lost control.

He buried his head deep in her neck to keep from shouting in relief as he flooded her with his climax.

For a moment the world stopped. When it came back it was distant, shadowy, muffled, a dim shadow beyond the vivid touch and scent of their coupled bodies.

Scott threw back his head and sucked in a breath. He felt as if he'd run a marathon—no, a hundred-meter sprint—and won the race.

Finally he looked down at her, still wrapped tightly around him by her arms and legs. Her forehead had fallen forward against his chest. Her shoulders were quivering and he thought he heard little sobs. He lifted her face up to his. Her cheeks gleamed with tears.

“No, now. Tears? Did I hurt you?”

“No.” She looked up into his shadowed face, a smile quivering on her kiss-swollen lips. “You're just so … intense.”

He grinned. “You're the one. Damn, Cole.” With his thumbs he swiped the tears from her cheeks. “You're sure you're okay?”

“I—” She shook her head. Even now, trembling from the backwash of desire, she hesitated to admit her weakness for him. “I'm okay.”

He took her by the waist as she slid off his body and then held her against him a moment, as if to absorb the last of her ecstasy.

Finally he leaned a little away from her, but not enough so that she felt in any way abandoned.

She saw him check the street again, ever the police officer, as he hoisted his jeans back up over his hips and quickly fastened them. He didn't bother to button his shirt. He helped her pull her top down from where it had rolled up her torso as they coupled and smoothed her skirt back over her hips.

Cole let him do most of the work. She was too spent to do more than sag against the wall.

The sudden roar of motorcycles into the alley from the opposite side they had entered sounded like a helicopter landing overhead.

Two riders rolled to a stop just yards away from them, their headlights throwing a glare that blinded them.

Fear, bright and icy cold, splashed through Cole. It was as if her skin had suddenly been ripped off.

“Oh God, oh God, oh God.”

Even as Scott moved in against her to shield her, she was already backing into the wall, flattening herself as if she might be able to slide between the bricks. The police officer in her had fled, leaving behind a trembling and vulnerable woman.

 

CHAPTER NINETEEN

“Don't move.”

Scott's whisper wasn't necessary. Cole was too frightened to do more than shake. She heard the motors die and then sounds of jackboots scrape the pavement.

“What have we here?”

“Pussy on the half shell. Served up and waiting.” The second man dismounted.

Scott made a move with his hand, an action that was hidden by his body. “Don't move, I've got this.”

“Come on, bitch, let's see what you're giving out in the alley.”

Cole felt him work to free his weapon but the holster tucked into the small of his back had been dislodged by their lovemaking. She heard him swear softly as the men neared them, two chilling silhouettes backlit by their headlights.

“Cole.” His breath feathered across her face as his hand slid up and gripped her shoulder hard. “When I turn around, get my weapon free.”

Before she could answer he turned toward the men and took a step, completely blocking her from view, and raised his hands. “We don't want any trouble.”

“Shit. He thinks we want trouble.”

The second man chuckled, spacing himself in case they needed to tackle Scott. “Don't try to be a hero, friend. It's just a bitch. Back off and it'll be like you were never here.”

“You don't need a knife. And I'm telling you, you don't want to start anything.” Scott's voice was calm, his words a signal to her that this wasn't going to go well unless she did something. Fast.

Heart pounding so hard she could scarcely breathe, Cole slid a hand under the tail of Scott's shirt and slowly moved it up until her fingers closed over the butt of his gun. The holster had gotten twisted. She needed both hands to free his weapon, and she was going to get only one opportunity.

“Let's see her, junior. We want to play, too.”

“Sure.” Scott took a step forward as she jerked hard. His gun came free.

“Hey. What's going on?”

The sound of more male voices was the last thing Cole thought she wanted until she heard them say, “Stop. Police.”

“Fuck that.” The bikers moved back to their bikes, gunned their motors, then burned rubber as they swung their motorcycles around and roared out of the alley in the opposite direction.

Scott turned his head toward Cole, a ghost of a smile on his features. “Reholster my weapon, and then don't move or speak.”

He turned, arms raised, toward the police officers coming their way with drawn guns and flashlights. He remained so that his body almost completely shielded her.

“Step away, slowly, sir.”

“I'd rather not.” He turned his hand slowly to show he held his badge in his right hand. “DEA law enforcement.”

One of the officers shone his light on the badge.

“Who do you have with you, sir?”

“My wife.”

“Ma'am, are you okay?”

“I'm fine.” Cole stuck her left hand out from under Scott's right sleeve and offered them a little wave. At the same time she reached up under his shirttail with her right and tucked his gun into his waistband.

“She's shy.” Scott smiled at the two officers. He saw them exchange glances. “I know. We were breaking a few rules. We were just warming up for the ride home. No fault no foul.”

One of the officers snickered. “Take it home. It's not safe out here.”

“So I noticed. Thanks.”

When the police had turned away Scott pivoted toward her. She plowed into him and gripped him as tight as she possibly could.

“You're shivering.” Scott took her by the shoulders and tried to push her away so he could see her face. “Cole?” But she clung to him like he was a life raft.

He closed his arms and held her. “It's okay. We were never in serious trouble. I would have announced I was in law enforcement next. I just didn't want—” He felt her body heave and shudder inside his embrace. It felt suspiciously like a sob.

He couldn't quite believe it. Nothing made her cry but slaughtered puppies and—him.

“Shit. I'm sorry, baby. I know I shouldn't have brought you out here like this. I didn't think…” He closed his mouth. That was the problem. He'd been too horny to think—about her, about the possible dangers, about her reputation, and worse.

Bikers. Coincidence, or something more? He needed to get her off the street to find out.

After a few more seconds he bent and kissed the top of her head. “I'm sorry but we need to get off the street. Now.”

She dropped her arms and stepped back. In the dim light he could see tear tracks on her face. He scrubbed one away with a thumb. “You poor kid.”

Cole pushed his hand away. “I'm sorry. I freaked. That was unprofessional.”

Scott didn't reply to that. It was one thing to be a police officer in full gear facing down the bad guys you knew were out there. It was another thing altogether to be caught butt naked in a public alley. “Don't worry about it. It's over.”

For a few seconds Cole didn't move, locked in the creepy-crawly sensation of nightmare memories hatched by the last few minutes.

The outlaw biker grabbing her butt on the empty stretch of highway.

His leer as he moved in close to let her know he had rape, and probably worse, on his mind.

If she hadn't had her gun
 …

If Scott hadn't been carrying tonight
.…

“Cole?”

Cole jerked as if slapped. Scott was standing in front her with her shoes in his hand. Slowly the chill of the alley asphalt under her bare feet began to penetrate her senses. She took them. “My panties?”

Grim-faced, he moved a little away and scooped up a rag of red lace from a darkness her eyes could not penetrate. “There you go.”

She waved them away. The action helped move her back to the edge of rational thought. The way she had behaved required an explanation. She put on her shoes saying, “I need to explain.”

“Later.”

He glanced back up the alley, still as Hugo on alert. She could feel the air around him vibrate with watchfulness and something she couldn't guess at.

He turned and grabbed her hand. “Let's move.”

As he moved toward the street, he pulled her in under the protection of his arm until he could get them off the street.

Instead of returning to the pizzeria, he hurried her into a coffee shop and ordered two double espressos. His expression was harsh as he waited for her to take a sip. “Tell me what happened out there.”

“I had a flashback, sort of.” Cole felt her cheeks catch fire with embarrassment. “There was an incident near Harmonie Kennels last week. With a guy on a motorcycle.”

Scott went still as stone. “What guy?”

“I didn't know him. But he wore a Pagan jacket.”

“Start at the beginning. I want to know everything.” The passionate lover in the alley had been replaced by the law-enforcement officer interrogating a witness.

She told him the story as matter-of-factly as she could.

Scott tried to hear what she was telling him about how she'd pulled her weapon on her assailant and held him off. But the primitive protect-my-woman rage building in him was quickly blocking reason and logic, or even his relief that she was a trained and prepared law-enforcement officer who knew how to protect herself.

“Why didn't you tell me about this at the time?”

Cole met his hard stare. In the bright lights of the shop she felt that she had overreacted. Scott's pissed-off expression seemed to confirm that.

“You were with your family. But that's not the only reason. I didn't tell anyone.”

Scott's gaze sharpened. “What about Richards? He loaned you the bike.”

“No. I didn't want to come off as a victim.” She paused. She'd probably blown whatever credibility she had on that score in the alley just now. Even so, it helped her ego to say the words out loud. “I'm a cop. I was armed. I can take care of myself. I did that.”

When she was done Scott's expression was so hard and cold his face might as well have been made from local Cockeysville granite. His eyes were scary. His once kissable mouth was pinched to a white line.

After a second he scraped back in an almost violent action and left the table.

Worry curled through Cole's middle as she watched him stiff-arm his way through the front doors of the coffee shop. But she had seen the look on his face. It said
Follow at your own risk.

He needed space. She would respect that. For five minutes. And then she was pretty sure she'd be in need of something to smash, too.

Scott paced back and forth in front of the shop, trying to marshal his emotions. Three years earlier he wouldn't have stopped on the sidewalk. He would have thrown a leg over his motorcycle and roared off into the night in search of X. He would have searched until he found him or, if not him, some Pagan with whom he could start a fight so he could pound on him until he felt better. The outlaw way. He'd absorbed that part of his undercover persona a little too well. He'd been a Ranger, and SWAT. He knew how to inflict pain. But his temper was what had washed him out of the most elite Special Ops.