Officer Next Door (12 page)

He’d more or less swept her off her feet and into his house, and while she’d thrown together an overnight bag, she wasn’t as prepared as she wished she was.

“Yeah.” He nodded. “I’ll have to go upstairs, though. Wait here, or come with me if you want.”

“I’ll come with you.” The idea of having a whole bed to spread out in was undeniably appealing.

When she stood, her foot slipped a little in a wet spot on the floor – pizza sauce. The slice Liam had dropped was nowhere in sight, though Holden was curled beneath the coffee table with a suspiciously satisfied look on his face.

Liam led her upstairs, taking her by the hand. “Don’t fall.”

Her blush deepened. She didn’t
always
trip over things, though she probably had a fat chance of convincing him of that now. As it was, she let him hold her hand for the sheer pleasure of being touched by him.

She also watched his ass – yes, it still appeared to be sculpted from granite – as he climbed the stairs, her heart in her throat as she anticipated what would come next.

His bedroom was a lot like hers, a room with pine floors and a sloping ceiling. Neatly-made with a dark blue comforter and pillowcases, his bed was irresistible, especially when he sank down onto the side of it.

He pulled a condom from a bedside stand and wasted no time in tearing it open. When he rolled it down over his cock, fingers sliding against the sides of his shaft, her core shrank, achingly empty.

“Come here, beautiful.” He took her by the hand again and pulled her to him, into bed. As soon as her thighs touched the comforter, he had his arms around her, had her on her back against the mattress.

“Not to sound like a total fucking creep,” he said, his lips brushing her collarbone, “but your bedroom is right across from mine. I was just trying to go to sleep the first time I saw you across the way, getting undressed. Couldn’t have stopped watching if my life had depended on it. I think I’ve been hard 24/7 ever since then.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck, aware of the window across the room, opposite the foot of his bed. She liked the idea of him watching her shadow cast on her bedroom blinds – combined with the fact that she’d been watching him too, did that make her some kind of deviant?

She didn’t know, didn’t particularly care. All she knew was that she’d won the neighbor lottery – having a sexy officer next door was the jackpot, and having Liam in particular was even better. And she could feel that he was indeed hard, just as he’d claimed – so hard she couldn’t resist arching against him, inviting him in.

He groaned and braced himself against the mattress with one arm as he reached below with the other, wrapping his fist around his dick. He guided himself to her that way, flexing his hips and driving himself into her with one long stroke.

He stretched her body to its limits, that was for sure. The last time she’d been with anyone had been back in DC, with a former boyfriend whose name she could barely remember as Liam rocked into her again, going even deeper. All her past encounters with the opposite sex seemed ages ago as he buried a hand in her hair and lowered his mouth to hers.

He kissed her just as deeply as he had before, and with him inside her, it felt even more intense. An involuntary moan escaped her, and he went even harder, grinding his hips against hers as he hit a spot that made her see stars again.

She couldn’t keep up the kissing for much longer; she was breathing too hard.

He seemed all right with that. Breaking off her kiss, he withdrew his hand from her hair and propped himself up a little higher on his elbows, filling the empty space between their chests with the heat of his breath, the weight of his gaze.

It felt so, so good to have him inside her. Even better than she’d imagined when she’d watched him climb in and out of the shower, even better than she’d thought when she’d pressed her lips to his on the couch, initiating what was quickly proving to be the best sex of her life.

It wasn’t just that he was unbelievably hot, or big enough that she’d blinked the first time she’d seen him naked. It was everything about him, from his hard body to the soft heart he’d revealed by inviting her over in the first place. She knew he hadn’t just been scheming to pull off what they were doing now, and that evidenced a sweetness she found irresistible, especially when it stood in such stark contrast to his strong, tattooed body.

“Say my name again.” His breath rushed over her cheek, combing lightly through her hair.

“Liam.” She dug her nails into his shoulders, unable to resist.

He moaned, and the sound struck a chord somewhere deep inside Alicia, doubling her pleasure. She held him tighter, until her arms and nails ached.

It seemed to spur him on. He kept going, rocking her with each thrust, making the bed groan beneath them. Her pussy drew tighter and tighter around his cock, and they were close enough that his body created friction against her clit, adding that extra something that promised to push her over the edge again.

She couldn’t wait, so she rocked her hips against his, complementing his movement and increasing the friction, the pressure she needed to come again.

He thrust even harder, and it worked. In one breathless moment, she slipped past the point of no return, spiraling into another climax.

There were no words. In fact, she couldn’t even manage to get his name out again as her pussy contracted around his shaft, stricken with fierce pleasure. He was so hard inside her, and she felt so soft beneath him, her body weakened by bliss that left no room for resistance – not that she wanted anything else, or for it to end. Ever.

It did end though, after several moments of writhing beneath him, her arms still around his neck and her nails still anchored in his shoulders. When her climax ebbed, he picked up the pace, driving himself even harder into her, leaving no doubt in her mind that he was close, too.

When she regained enough breath and presence of mind to speak, she said his name. The way he responded – head tipped back, muscles taut with tension as he breathed her name – brought aftershocks of pleasure, traces of the bliss he’d just given her, for the third time.

She watched with eyes wide open, her gaze riveted to his face, straying only occasionally to take in the sight of the rest of him, his naked body locked together with hers. When he came, he did it with his eyes shut, his lips cracked open.

She ached to kiss him, taste him again, but it was too intense – she could hardly move, not with his powerful body pouring into her like that. The bed shuddered, headboard knocking against the wall, and she felt him so deep in her core that little bursts of silver light illuminated her field of vision as she tipped her head back against the pillow.

He stopped, breathed hard and pulled out slowly. Her vision was a little hazy, but she forced herself to focus on him, not wanting to miss a thing. He was still hard as a rock, and the condom was full – the sight of him sitting up on the bed, head still tipped back, made her want to do it all over again despite the fact that she felt too shattered by pleasure to lift a pillow.

There was a little wastebasket by his dresser. He tossed the condom into it and returned to the bed, gathering her up in his arms again before she could even react. Just like before, he held her close against his body, breath streaming across her skin and through her hair. “God, that felt good, Alicia. Better than I imagined, and I imagined the hell out of that, believe me.”

She melted from the inside out, every nerve-ending in her body still buzzing with pleasure. “I know what you mean – I feel the same way.”

He made a sound low in his throat that might’ve been one of agreement, or approval – there was no telling, but he seemed satisfied. As he held her close, she was hyper-aware of his naked body against hers, of the lingering firmness of his erection against her thigh. Despite what they’d just done, she couldn’t stop noticing all the things that already had her thinking of doing it again.

“It’s not even dark yet,” he said. “I’ll be damned if I know how I’m going to make it through the night. Figured that would get some of the craziness out of my system, but I don’t think it worked.”

She shifted against him, settling with her temple against his shoulder, using his muscle as a pillow. He wasn’t soft, but he was surprisingly comfortable to lie against. “I told you I didn’t want to sleep alone.”

He grunted. “Do you want to sleep at all? ‘Cuz I don’t. Not as long as you’re here.”

“You need to sleep,” she said. “You’ve been up for how long?”

He just shrugged, the motion rippling through his muscles. “Need and want are two entirely different things right now.”

If she hadn’t been so tired and so comfortable lying naked against him, she might’ve felt giddy. Knowing he’d been dreaming about her the way she’d been dreaming about him just didn’t get old. She opened her mouth, prepared to reply, but something stopped her short – a strange noise.

It was a scraping, clattering sound, and it was coming from the stairs that led up to the bedroom. The hair on the back of her neck stood up, and she jerked against Liam as her overheated body cooled by a few degrees.

He did the same, pulling his arms from around her faster than she could blink and rolling over in bed to face the stairs.

Alicia dared to peek over the muscled swell of his shoulder.

Holden appeared on the top step and wasted no time in trotting toward the bed and leaping up onto the mattress, settling on top of the comforter.

Alicia breathed a sigh of relief, which turned into a shaky laugh.

Liam swore softly under his breath. “Forgot he was here.”

“Me too,” she admitted as guilt stole into her consciousness. Apparently, she hadn’t fully adjusted to dog ownership yet.

Liam turned back over to face her again. “You all right? You seem kind of jumpy.”

The memory of fear swirled with lingering guilt inside her, though she felt safe in Liam’s bed. A part of her didn’t want to admit what had her on edge, mostly because she didn’t want him to think she was a gullible idiot.

Another part of her longed to stop keeping creepy little secrets from him. “I guess I am kind of jumpy. With everything that’s happened lately…”

He placed a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “The Levinson brothers will be caught. We’re still searching, and the police are all over it too. They can’t run forever, and if they try to hide, they’ll be found.”

She nodded, eager to believe what he said, though the Levinson brothers were only part of what had her practically jumping out of her own skin every time she heard a strange noise.

“I’m sure they will be, but it’s unnerving to think that they might still be lurking in Riley County. Plus…” She took a deep breath and went for it. “Try not to laugh – I’m still creeped out by all the ghost stories that’ve been flying around.”

To his credit, he didn’t laugh. In fact, he looked totally serious as he met her eyes. “Really? Working at Wisteria is that scary?”

She shook her head. “Actually, no. There are always other people around at Wisteria, and the sun is usually shining. Other than Brutus, it’s really not scary there. It’s the things I’ve experienced at home that really get under my skin.”

She checked his expression, searching for any signs of amusement.

She found none.

“I’ve always had a vivid imagination,” she added. “I haven’t watched a horror movie since I was 16 years old – I’ll lie awake at night for weeks if I see anything like that.”

“You told me about the woman you saw at Wisteria – what did your friends call her, the Lady in White? And the stuff that went on in your house… That’s what you’re talking about, right?”

She nodded. “That, and when those chills hit me earlier – well, right before that, I thought I heard a strange noise again, just like the one I heard in my own hallway. Like someone I couldn’t see was walking nearby in a long dress or something. A second later, I was freezing, like I’d waded into ice water.”

She waited for his judgment, meeting his eyes as her confession hung between them.

“Maybe Holden made the noise,” he suggested. “Both of us were pretty freaked out a couple minutes ago, and it was only the dog.”

She held back a sigh of mingled disappointment and relief. He obviously didn’t believe anything out of the ordinary was going on, but at least he didn’t think she was just making crap up. She, on the other hand, knew what she’d heard – a soft whip of fabric, out of place, given the situation. Instead of pushing it, she continued to rest against Liam, trying to relax.

Was it stupid that she really believed there might be something otherworldly going on? Maybe, but what other explanation was there, unless her senses were failing, along with Holden’s?

“You’re safe here,” Liam promised, and she believed him.

* * * * *

Goddammit, he was dying. And he’d missed the meet-up.

Or at least, if he hadn’t missed it already, he would; it’d been a day and a half, and Troy was still in Riley County.

Randy was probably at the blind down in Hamlin County, if he hadn’t left it already. It wasn’t anything more than a little lean-to in the woods, a hunting spot buried in miles of pine and cypress, sassafras and sweet gum. Hardly a two hour drive from the border between North and South Carolina. Randy wouldn’t be able to stay there long, would have to move on alone.

Bad fucking luck that their dad had been a sheriff’s deputy in Hamlin County, that the house fire had shoved Troy and Randy into the public eye years ago. There was always the chance that someone in Hamlin County might recognize them, and it was too close to North Carolina and Riley County for comfort. It had only ever been a meet-up spot, a place to touch base before fleeing the area altogether.

Randy would recognize the need to move on, if he hadn’t already. And Troy knew he’d do it, knew he’d do what he had to in order to stay free. There was no sense in both of ‘em getting caught.

Besides, the blind was a miserable place, out deep in the woods with the copperheads and cottonmouths, biting flies. They’d spent days at a time there as kids, not daring to come home without a kill, knowing what their old man would do to them if they showed up empty-handed. It’d been pure hell, but there’d been a silver lining: no roof over their heads had meant no beatings, and they’d learned to kill without batting an eye.