Irresistible Force (11 page)

Shay whimpered as he parted the wet silk of her lips with his fingers. Her body shuddered, grinding her sex against his hand, frantic for release and afraid it would be snatched away too soon. It wasn’t.

She couldn’t catch her breath but it didn’t matter. She didn’t need to breathe. She only needed to feel James inside her as quickly as possible.

She lifted herself up so she could reach for his zipper. She jerked it down and then her hands were inside his waistband, pushing jeans and shorts down. To her surprise, he levered easily off the sofa with her astride, allowing her to push his clothing down over the rock-hard contours of his butt.

“Hold it.” He dove into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out a foil packet.

Shay looked at it, brought back from the frenzy of the moment. James was prepared. He had produced a condom.

“I—uh.”
Am always prepared
would sound a little too overconfident.

“Boy Scout?” She was giving him an out.

They locked gazes. “Yes.”

“Better that way.”

James quickly sheathed himself and then grabbed her by the waist with one hand. Reaching down between them, he directed 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 Shay as the fat head of his cock entered her. He was bigger than she had expected. She took a couple of quick breaths, telling herself to relax.

“Shhh!”
His voice was a thick whisper. “Take it slow.”

“No. I want all of you. Push harder.”

Grinning, he took her firmly by the waist, and drove her hips down on his swollen cock. With an upward thrust of his hips he slid into her, balls deep.

A series of little inarticulate cries erupted from Shay as he slid home. The sounds exploded in wonder by his ear as the ripples of her climax massaged the length of his shaft.

Damn!
He hadn’t even begun to move. She was so responsive he almost lost control. 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 depths like a jackhammer. She grabbed him by the shoulders and held on, riding his rhythm with eagerness.

Seconds later she gripped him hard, her fingers digging into his shoulders as he continued to pump her. He felt her climax rising again as she called his name in little breathless whispers that feathered his ear.

Afraid her cries would upset Bogart, who had wandered off in the direction of the kitchen, he reached up and stuck his thumb in her mouth. Her lips clamped down on his finger as she began sucking it like a lollipop.

Until that moment, he hadn’t known he was wired from thumb to cock. The clutch and caress of her sex, echoed by her firm sucking of his thumb, wrung from him a helpless, “Aw God.”

He was running hot and wide open. He wanted her so badly he thought he’d bust a vein. And yet …

Just a few more strokes, he promised himself, gasping for air that had suddenly deserted him. Just a little more pleasure. One, two, three long slow pumps in and out. He savored the sweet agony of suspense until it wrung from her a feminine moan of protest.

Then he lost control.

He buried his head in her neck to keep from shouting as he pumped out his climax.

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

Sweat ran into his eyes and trickled down his back. Her breath was hot against his damp neck. Her skin glistened with perspiration where his hands still held her. Her hair smelled of dinner and coconut conditioner. At that moment, it was the sexiest smell ever.

After a few more slowing breaths, he became aware of the cool evening air in the unheated cabin, and thought about the unlit fire. Yet it registered as a distant thing. Something he would worry about later.

From the corner of his eye, he spied Bogart. He lay parallel to the cabin door, guarding instinctively against intrusion at a moment when his handler was far from alert and ready.

He smiled.
“Gute Hund!”

Bogart lifted his head then lowered it back to his paws, thanks accepted.

Finally James looked down at Shay. Her forehead was propped 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.

“Did I hurt you?”

“No. It was just so … intense.”

“Yeah.” He wiped the tears from her cheeks with his thumbs. “You’re sure you’re okay?”

“I never—” Shay shook her head. She wasn’t much of a sharer. And he didn’t seem the sort of man you admitted all your weaknesses to. “I’m okay.”

It took her a moment to rise up off him. When she did, it was to slip on her sweater, which he noticed only came to the top of her thighs and revealed the lower curves of her naked butt as she walked away.

“Where are you going?”

She turned back from the entrance to the kitchen, her expression unreadable as she avoided his direct gaze. “You look like you need time to recoup. Want a beer?”

He grinned. “Whatever you got, I want it.”

*   *   *

James lay awake in the darkness, staring at the LED lights on the clock radio across the room. It was 1:41
A.M.
Shay lay curled against him on the bed they’d moved to sometime during their second session. So deeply asleep, she snored like a truck driver. Bogart, too, could be heard dream-woofing softly now and then as he slept on guard by the front door.

What the hell had happened tonight?

He’d had good sex and bad sex. And a lot more in between. He’d never had sex quite like this. It was like sex at the end of the world, all desperate need and raw hunger and … anger. Shay Appleton defined enigma: an intense defiant contradiction that attracted him while messing with his head.

She didn’t want to talk. She didn’t want to hear words of praise or tenderness. She wanted what he wanted, sex. Lots of it. Hot, eager, pulse-pounding, body-rocking sex. Until, exhausted, they could no longer remain awake.

He should have guessed. She did nothing halfway. Angry, hurt, scared, all her emotions were expressed straight up, in your face. Now he knew what it was like to have sex with her. And he wanted to be reminded again and again.

He closed his eyes. Tomorrow. Tomorrow they’d have to talk.

*   *   *

Shay gazed straight ahead. It was very dark, so dark that when she shut her eyes and opened them again she couldn’t tell the difference. A moment later, she realized the covers were over her head. She flung them aside.

She lay on her stomach, head turned toward a doorway. Pale moonlight came from beneath it. A finger of dread slid up her spine. Was the bathroom door blocked? She always blocked it at night.

Even as she stared at it, the shadow of a pair of feet appeared at the bottom, partially blocking the interior light.

A moan escaped her. No! This couldn’t be happening!

*   *   *

Still half asleep, James opened the bathroom door.

A scream split the dark, lifting every hair on his arms and along his spine. Instinct made him reach for his weapon. But he was naked. No gun. In the sofa cushions. Too far away.

“No! No! Stay away! Stay away from me!”

He heard Bogart’s bark, bright and sharp. An alarm that meant he was coming to help.

James reached back and flipped on the bathroom light, adrenaline gushing through him so quickly his heart seemed to expand in his chest.

The light angled sharply into the bedroom, in stark relief to the shadows. He looked first toward the bed, empty. He swept the room, looking simultaneously for Shay and a makeshift weapon.

She stood in the far corner, only her feet lit by the partial light.

Bogart streaked in, barking loudly as his big head swung from side to side, trying to detect an aggressor. After a second, he paused, black eyes gleaming as he stared at James.

James shared his confusion.
What the fuck?

He groped along the bedroom wall until he found a light switch and flipped it.

Shay stood with her back to the windows. Her eyes were wide and both hands covered her mouth.

James took a few steps toward her. “Shay?”

Her gaze did not track to him. Instead, she stared at the bathroom door. That’s when he realized she was still asleep. In the midst of a nightmare he did not share.

Bogart barked again, running up to press against his partner’s leg in confusion. James bent to stroke him.

“Gute Hund.”
He pointed.
“Geh raus.”

Bogart turned away and after a quick glance at Shay left the room.

James’s attention was still on Shay. He moved into her line of vision and said in a sharp, commanding voice, “Shay Appleton!”

She jerked and blinked, then her hands slid away from her mouth as her gaze focused on him.

“That was you?” The words sounded forced out of her, almost airless.

“Yeah. I needed to take a leak. Sorry if I scared you.”

“It was you.” She shook her head tightly then pressed her palm to her forehead. “This was a very bad idea.”

He smiled. “I thought it was really nice.”

She lifted her head, her expression empty. “You need to leave.”

“Now?” He glanced at the clock. “It’s 4:38.”

“I don’t care.” She moved across the room, seemingly unaware that she was naked, and began pushing him. “You have to go. Now. Please.”

“Okay, okay. I get the idea. Just let me put my clothes on.”

Shay backed off but only as far as the bed. She grabbed up the sheet and wrapped herself in it.

James shoved a foot into one leg of his jeans he had scooped up off the floor. “Look, I understand if you’re a little weirded out by how fast this all happened.”

She shook her head. “You don’t understand. You won’t ever understand.”

“You’ll never know if you don’t give me a chance.”

“You don’t know anything at all about me.” Her voice was suddenly all challenge.

“Fair enough.” He paused to wrestle himself into a sweatshirt he’d pulled from his backpack. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to know you better.”

He straightened up to look at her. “Because I do, Shay.”

She shook her head again, not looking at him.

He thought about saying something else. But then he realized the argument was over. She’d told him to get out. The message was loud and clear.

James finished dressing in silence.

When he was done she followed him into the living room. “Don’t come back. Don’t call. Don’t text. Don’t anything.”

James swung around. “Why? Just tell me why. Was it something I did?”

She just stared at him, her expression as closed as a fist.

“Okay. Right.” James glanced down at Bogart, who had been watching them.
“Hier.”

Bogart trotted over to his handler’s side.

James made it to the front door before turning back to Shay. “I don’t know all that went on between you and Eric, but don’t judge me by him. Not all men are assholes.”

CHAPTER TEN

Yardley Summers, owner of Harmonie Kennels, held a hand folded over her eyes to shade the rising sun as she watched K-9 partners Officer James Cannon and Bogart go through their paces. It was a drill they had been through so many times they should have been able to do it in their sleep. Yet something was off today. James didn’t seem to fully trust Bogart, keeping him on a short leash. Bogart was clearly insulted by the lack of freedom and giving attitude.

“Let him run. Get out of Bogart’s way.” Her voice carried rapid-fire across the otherwise quiet, misty chill of the morning. Weather was never a factor when they drilled. It only made things more interesting.

She watched as James let out the leash but it wasn’t enough. She’d chosen a routine task for them, pick up the trail of a suspect and track him down. They were botching it.

Clamping down on the temptation to say more, she watched in mute exasperation as two of her best graduates fumbled around like newbies.

Bogart seemed unable to settle down to the task. He kept looking back at his partner for reassurance, as if this were his first trial.

James wasn’t giving back confidence. Instead of smiling and encouraging his partner verbally, his expression was tight and his hand too heavy on the lead.

Bogart began jumping and leaping around James, clearly riled up for the hunt but frustrated by the lack of direction.

Yardley muttered under her breath then gave vent to her feelings. “Just unclip him. Dammit. Give him the scent again and then get out of his goddamn way.”

James did as she directed.

Finally, after another sniff, Bogart swirled around, long tail moving in slower loops as he sniffed and then ran on ahead, free now to find his way. Suddenly he paused and lifted his head. His panting ceased. Two seconds later, he wheeled and headed off into the brush where the culprit had been told to hide.

James ran after him, offering encouragement in a high-pitched rapid tone now that they both knew they had the scent.

Yardley didn’t bother to follow. She knew the conclusion so well it wasn’t necessary. She swore under her breath as she set her cap on her head and then folded her arms, one booted foot thrust forward so that her hips were cocked, to wait for her students to return.

Through sweat, determination, and by what her grandmother called “just plain cussedness,” Yardley had made Harmonie Kennels one of the top breeding farms for K-9 service dogs on the East Coast. Teams were sent here for her rigorous training programs. Using her sterling reputation in the business, she insisted on having the final say-so in the pairing of her animals with their human partners.

She had put this team together because they shared similar natures. James had the same energetic yet tenacious quality as Bogart, and good instincts. Good instincts couldn’t be discounted. Partners who trusted their instincts often solved cases using details that by-the-book partners missed. She was certain James and Bogart could become one of the finest K-9 teams she’d ever produced, but only if they learned to trust each other completely. Just now, they were acting like a couple who’d had the Big Fight. The bond between them had been disturbed and they were both the worse for it. That made her furious.