Irresistible Force (10 page)

James shoved his hands into his pockets, letting his annoyance slide away. “I came back by to allow Ms. Appleton the chance to say a final good-bye to Bogart.”

The deputy eyed the dog that had come forward to sniff his leg. “I see. Seems like a big to-do over a dog.” Then he seemed to catch a whiff of something. “You frying oysters, Shay?”

“Yes.” She unfolded her arms, forced them to her sides. “We just finished, or I’d offer you some.”

“That’s all right. Does smell good.” Even though he spoke conversationally, James could tell the lawman was assessing a situation he didn’t quite understand and wasn’t sure how to respond to. “Just wanted to be sure everything’s okay. I felt kinda bad about what I said this morning. About your false alarms, Shay. Turns out you did have cause. Wanted you to know I’m going to take your complaints seriously from now on. Even if it looks like I don’t have to worry about your guest here.” He tilted his head toward James. “That’s a nice jacket you got there, Mr. Cannon. Roomy.”

Ah, the deputy had noticed his change of clothing, and that the jacket was a good cover for a concealed handgun.

“I stopped by to let Bogart say his good-byes, and Ms. Appleton was kind enough to allow me to use her shower.”

“I see.” The deputy smirked. Definitely, he was getting a picture of things. More than what was going on. “That’s real neighborly of you, Shay. Most folks wouldn’t be quite so kind to a man who had broken in on them.”

Shay folded her arms under her bosom. “As Mr. Cannon explained earlier, it was a mistake.”

“I see.” The deputy’s mouth twitched again. “Nice music. And you look very nice, too, Ms. Appleton. Things look downright cozy. You two take care now. Have a nice evening.”

James watched the deputy let himself out before he turned to Shay. “I think—”

She had turned away from him. But she could not hide the fact that she was shaking. No doubt she was embarrassed, probably angry, too. He hoped she wasn’t crying. He hated it when women cried, though she didn’t seem the type.

He came up behind her and placed a hand on her trembling shoulder. “I’m not sure what that was about but you shouldn’t let it upset you.”

To his surprise, she turned into him and moved forward to lean her forehead against his chest. She wasn’t sobbing but gasping, as if she couldn’t get enough air.

His hands slid up her back, trying to rub away the tremors that rippled through her. “You can tell me what’s wrong, Shay. I won’t judge. I want to help.”

She lifted her head and looked at him. Her eyes were wet but her face was creased with laughter. It escaped her now in little hiccups. “Deputy Ward,” she gasped between chuckles. “In one short day I’ve gone from nut to slut in his eyes.”

It took James a second to make the emotional adjustment from comforter to coconspirator in her little joke. “You think? Maybe I should—”

She placed her hands palm flat against his chest, her fingers dragging lightly against the fabric to bring her into closer contact. “Maybe you should stop trying to help me.”

He gazed down at her, his hands curving without his consent into the contours of her back, his fingertips divining her spine through the heft of her sweater. “Maybe I should. Still, you should have told him about Eric’s visit.”

She held his gaze. “Why didn’t you?”

He opened his mouth but she didn’t let him get out a word.

“You really want to help me?” She lunged up on tiptoe and kissed him.

The moment her lips met his, he felt a current of electricity leap from her lips to his and run straight as lightning down his spine to his cock.

The sensation seemed reciprocated in her female parts.

Shay moaned and reached up to hold his head down to hers for another few seconds. For weeks she had been battered and bewildered by circumstances over which she had no control. In this moment, she was in control and it was a glorious, heady feeling that she wanted oh so much.

But good things don’t last.

She tore her mouth away from his reluctantly, closed her eyes and swallowed. Another mistake. But such a thrilling one.

Why didn’t he say something? Let her go. His hands remained warm and persuasive on her back. What was he waiting for?

She leaned away from him and opened her eyes. He was staring back at her, his breathing a little labored, his own eyes now dark with an intensity that had all but swallowed up the blue. He wanted her. Equally shocking.

She put a hand on his chest to hold him off. “Don’t kiss me again.”

“I’m not going to.” And James meant it, right up to the moment he said it.

Then he knew he lied.

CHAPTER NINE

Something broke open inside Shay at the second touch of James’s lips to hers. The release sent the scorching heat of lust flooding through her body.

From the moment her scuffle with the intruder at her door stopped and she looked into his face, the confrontation between them had altered. Regardless of the circumstances, her resentment of James had been fueled in part by the need to fight the inexplicable surge of hunger she felt for a stranger and to cling to her good sense.

She sighed as he dragged his firm mouth back and forth across hers. She’d never felt instant attraction before. It was absolutely wonderful! And scary.

Could she? Should she?

For once her mind and body were in sync, luxuriating in the pleasure she didn’t want interrupted. Her mind offered up all kinds of reasons she should submit to the excitement raging through her body.

He is a stranger.

He doesn’t know about my past, about my failures, or my lousy luck.

I will never see him again.

He only knows me here and now, the today of my life.

I can be anyone, even a really wild woman who takes what she wants, and what I want right now is him.

Shay trembled as James’s hands found new areas of her back to explore. Then she thrust her tongue between his lips. He tasted different, delicious! Oh hell! Nothing was going to stop her now, even if she had to tie him down.

James, at least the small part of him still paying attention to reason, suspected he was making a mistake. The rest of him was fully along for the ride.

Some women’s kisses were flirtatious invitations. Some planted a kiss on a man that went straight to his dick, raw and raunchy and promising more.

Shay Appleton was kissing him like her life depended on it.

He fought for objectivity. He was accustomed to dealing with women of all sorts in every stage of emotional distress. Shay was overwrought. This was just a physical reaction from emotions strung out too far for her rational mind to conquer. But he knew it would. Eventually.

He waited for her to recover, not really kissing her back but not pushing her away. Lord, but she tasted good.

Logic fought for the upper hand. She didn’t like him. Hell, he had no business liking her. Too prickly. Not his type.

His libido counterpunched with a physical argument. It dropped his heartbeat to his groin where it pumped up his dick with every pulse.

Firmly ignoring the sensations lower down, he tried to lift his head to gulp a breath of sanity but she reached up and held his mouth to hers.

This time her kiss was one of complete abandon, openmouthed and wet with lots of tongue.
Damn!
She moved closer, her hips pushing forward against his in invitation. She had more moves, too. Like rubbing her pelvis against his groin as her breasts massaged his chest.

His restraint was shredding. All the years of being a by-the-book officer who broke no rules, gave no favors, and accepted no bribes, not even the occasional freebie blow job offered by a working girl, counted for zilch. His professionalism was wilting under Shay Appleton’s sexy assault. Everything else about him went rock hard with lust.

Calling on the last shred of his self-command, he reached out to try to hold her away. Yet when his hands reached her hips in anticipation of giving her a gentle shove, they grasped her instead and hauled her in until she was up on tiptoe.

She moaned into his mouth and then caught his lower lip in her teeth and sucked it into her mouth.

Ah damn!
This wasn’t what he expected. Still, nothing much had happened … yet.

His hands weren’t paying much attention to his head. They shifted from her hips down to encounter the firm curves of her ass. He could feel the heat of her through her clothing, and wanted more. His hands slid up, his fingers slipping under the hem of her sweater, and found the warm soft skin of her back.

What the hell?

He turned his head and slanted his mouth across hers, giving in to the impulse to see just how far she’d go. Because, deep down, he’d been fighting his attraction to her since he walked in her door.

Shay didn’t retreat. She reached for his shirt jacket and pushed it back over his shoulders. Then she was pulling at his Henley, trying to get it up out of his pants.

She felt him shiver as she ran her hands under his shirtfront and over the warm contours of his chest. The crisp hair she’d longed to touch earlier tickled her palms. She heard a little sigh escape him as she walked her fingers down his ribs and smiled under his kiss. The man who’d been in control of every encounter between them so far didn’t feel so much in control at the moment. The heavy thud of his heart under her palm said he was far from it.

That made her want to push him further.

She slid her hands up to his nipples, hard little nubs that grazed her palms, and plucked them with her fingers. This time he sucked in a quick breath. And then he took charge. One hand moved from her back, down over the full curves of her butt, fingers flexing to cup her low. He pulled her to him in a quick motion that spread her breasts across the hard planes of his chest and her sex against the proof of his arousal.

Things became pretty chaotic after that. She jerked his shirt off and then she lost her sweater and jeans as he waltzed her backward toward the nearby sofa, all the while connected by hot wet kisses. It was like a struggle with only one goal, mutual satisfaction.

When they reached the sofa, he sat back, pulling her down with him. She threw a leg over his thighs and sank down onto his lap, all the while never losing their lip-to-lip connection.

Mind smoked by the heat of lust, James retained just enough police discipline to remember his weapon. He reached behind his back, found the gun tucked into the holster at the small of his back. He pulled it out and reached as far away as possible to tuck it barrel down between the cushion and the arm of the couch.

He saw her eyes widen as she followed his actions, and when she looked again at him, there was a question there. He’d seen the question before, in other women’s eyes. Some were excited by the fact that he carried a gun. Others found it a complete turnoff. He couldn’t gauge Shay’s response, only that she had one.

After a second she looked down.

Operating strictly on autopilot, because his head was now definitely in his pants, he leaned forward and whispered against her ear. “Shay?”

“What?” She looked up at him. Those autumn eyes of hers were smoked by desire but her expression was now guarded.

“We can stop right here.”

Caution turned to misery, the sexual flush in her face fading. Her response wasn’t even a question. “Don’t you want to?”

Hell yeah!
his dick demanded.

His head told him not to give in to the urge to lick the drop of sweat streaking into the deep cleft between her breasts. White cotton had never looked so naughty as it did cupping her breasts. As it was, his zipper was going to leave teeth tracks in his shaft if he didn’t release it soon.

He cupped her face in his hands and lifted her face up so that she had to look at him. “I’m there. If this is what you really want.”

Shay didn’t want to think about
want
. She could only feel. And what she felt was the frantic feminine
need
to screw the balls off this man. And that frightened her.

She closed her eyes. This was stupid! Another mistake! But she’d made so many, what was one more?

When she looked again she saw the expression of a man ready for sex and hoping like hell he was about to get it.

James went perfectly still under her glare, his cock throbbing in insistent need in time with his heartbeat.

She did not move away. The warm damp seat of her panties pressed against his groin. The heat of her crotch caressed his dick through his jeans. It was a risqué position for a woman who a second ago was about to screw him six ways from Sunday but now looked like she wanted to extract his tonsils without administering anaesthetic.

Shay reached down between them and brushed her hand with slow deliberation across his turgid fly. “This is not any rescued-damsel-in-distress thank-you bullshit. Okay?”

“Got it.” The only distress she seemed to be in was over the decision of whether to throttle him or screw him. By the expression on her face, the outcome was still up in the air.

She wriggled back on his thighs so that she could fold her hand over the thick length of his dick beneath his jeans. “It’s just a one-time thing. So don’t be a bastard about it later. Okay?”

“Okay.” He grinned. She had chosen to screw him.

When she leaned in to kiss him again, he decided to take further decisions out of her hands. He caught her by the waist while his other hand slid up under her hair and cupped her head to hold her still under the sensual assault of his kisses.

Shay yielded control, concentrated her attention on the in-and-out motion of his tongue between her lips. Kissing had never felt better, sexier, hotter.

As her mouth opened wider under his, James began a slow grind, his engorged cock rubbing insistently against her through the barrier of their clothing.

After a moment he slipped a hand between her thighs and pushed aside the crotch of her panties then sank a thumb deep into her hot juicy wetness. Desire doubled with a jerk of his dick. He’d give her the best he could manage.