Truth & Lies: A Queen City Justice Novel (23 page)

Rey was dying to take another crack at that bastard, since he hadn’t so much as batted an eye the last time Doc and Kier had tried to get something out of him.

Chapter Sixteen

Friday, December 12—8:00 p.m.

Oakley Neighborhood, Cincinnati, Ohio

“Your turn to pick the movie,” Deck said, holding out the remote to Dana.

“What? You mean I’m not going to have to sit through day two of the Jackie Chan marathon?” she asked.

He pulled the remote back toward him before she could take it from him and raised an eyebrow. “Oh, like that’s worse than that chick-flick marathon I endured last week?” Of course, that had been fairly educational. He’d learned that she was scary-good with languages. She retranslated the sign language in
Jerry Maguire
, and forced him to watch
An Officer and a Gentleman
in Spanish so she didn’t get rusty. Fortunately—or unfortunately, he wasn’t sure which—she’d kept the English subtitles on so he could follow along.

Just then, Dana’s cell rang. She dug it out of her pocket and punched the talk button. “Yenichek.”

She listened for a few moments, nodding. Deck couldn’t tell by her end of the conversation what was happening, but from the excitement clearly telegraphed on her features, he knew it was something about the case. “You got it, boss.”

“What’s happening?” Deck asked.

“You’re sick and tired of me and are dumping me off at DCT tomorrow,” she said.

“I am?” Since that birthday kiss yesterday, Deck had become decidedly not tired of her. In fact, his main thought since then had been how to best justify getting her into bed.

He’d broken like cheap glass, and he didn’t even care.

And now he had to send her away?

“They tracked down Michael Milton and brought him back. When you take me to DCT tomorrow, John Giordano is expected to pick me up and the team will follow him. We’ll know where he’s keeping the women and we can nail him permanently.”

“That’s…good.”

It wasn’t good. Every cell in Deck’s body screamed at him to stop this plan before she got hurt.

“That wasn’t very enthusiastic,” she said, reaching for his upper arm and letting her fingers trail down until she rested her hand on top of his forearm. “What’s going on?”

He shook his head. “I know this is dumb. You’re an experienced field agent. I just…” Deck swallowed hard. “I’m worried about you.”

“You don’t think I can handle myself?” she asked, sucking in a breath. She snatched her hand back, and a wall went down over her face.

Deck reached for her, but she stayed out of his grasp. “Dana, I
know
you can handle yourself. You’re a good agent. That doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to worry about your safety.” The wall was still in place. He didn’t know what hot button he’d punched, but clearly it was a major one. “I care about you, dammit.”

Dana’s eyes finally met his. She didn’t say anything, but her lower lip started trembling until she clamped it between her teeth.

“I realize this isn’t great timing, but I don’t want you to think that I don’t… I don’t know…respect you. Because I really do.”

He started to say something else, though a moment later he couldn’t for the life of him have said what, because Dana scrambled up to her knees and leaned over the arm of the easy chair until her lips were a fraction of a millimeter from his.

“I—”

“Shut up and kiss me, Marine,” she said, easing even closer, the heat in her eyes enough to make him catch his breath.

“Sir, yes, sir,” he whispered as he tunneled his fingers through her hair and brought their mouths together. Her lips were warm and soft, and she tasted like heaven.

As he deepened the kiss, she whimpered, or maybe it was him. At that point, he couldn’t have said.

It took almost no encouragement at all to draw her over the side of the armchair until she was lying across his lap, her arms wound around his neck, her body pressed to his from hip to chest.

Dana pulled back, panting, to meet his eyes.

“Oo-rah!” he said hoarsely, unable to keep the grin from his face.

Her answering smile lit up her face, complete with dimples. God he was a sucker for her dimples.

“At the risk of ruining this moment,” she began, running her palm down the side of his face. He closed his eyes and leaned into the caress. “What does this mean?”

He opened his eyes and stared into the warm gingerbread depths of hers. Were they really going to have a “state of the relationship” conversation?
Now?
“That’s a pretty broad question.” He absolutely didn’t want to say anything to screw up this moment either.

She shrugged, and the stark vulnerability on her face allowed him to say what he was really thinking.

“Well, hopefully, it means that in about”—he took an exaggerated look at his watch before returning to her face—“four minutes or so, we’re going to head up the stairs and finish what we’ve started several times.”

The hesitation was gone and the heat was back in her eyes. She swallowed. “Works for me so far.” Her voice had turned husky.

“And then tomorrow, I’ll take you back to DCT, which I will hate like hell, not because I don’t think you can handle yourself, but because I don’t like the idea of you in any danger no matter how capable I think you are.” She trailed her fingers down the side of his throat, then buried them under the neckline of his T-shirt. He tried not to lose concentration. “Then, in my ideal world, this case will be over in a matter of hours, the bad guy will be apprehended, you’ll return here—
safely
—and we can see where things go from there.”

“Yeah?” she asked, her eyes telegraphing a world of hope.

He nodded, mesmerized by her expression.

She swiveled around until she straddled his lap before leaning in close. Her lips met his and turned the memory of every kiss they’d shared into a faded version of itself. This was the real Dana Yenichek. She held nothing back. Not her body, not her heart, and definitely not her passion. Her nails lightly scored the back of his neck as she tilted her head to take his tongue even farther in to her mouth.

He needed to get her closer. Deck put both hands on her hips and pulled her to him, until his hardness met the soft juncture of her thighs. He couldn’t stifle the groan that tore out of his throat.

She pulled back to look into his face only to see an expression of intense satisfaction.

Oh, holy God. This was going to be so, so
good
.

She hopped off his lap with a laugh, smiling as she backed toward the staircase. “Well? What are you waiting for, Marine?”

Deck grabbed his crutch and followed, drawn to her like a magnet. She didn’t take her eyes off his as she backed up the stairs.

Deck didn’t even resent his slow progress, as it drew out the moment. His body was throbbing in time to his heartbeat, but he could see the same flame licking at the gingerbread depths of her eyes, and he knew that the extended trip up the steps was as intensely torturous and anticipatory to her as it was to him.

There was a look of feminine power that he’d never seen there before. As much as things had steamed up between them when she was holding back, he couldn’t imagine how nuclear this was going to be.



Finally, after what seemed like a million years, they reached the landing. Deck hadn’t taken his eyes off her all the way up the stairs. She knew he wanted her for
her.
For everything she was. And he’d forgiven her for her past lies. All nervousness she might have otherwise felt vaporized.

She crossed her arms in front of her to grab the hem of her T-shirt, then whipped it over her head, dropping it on the floor off to the side. Deck raised an eyebrow as they progressed another step down the hall toward the bedroom.

Her bra followed, and he bit his lower lip.

She kicked her shoes off, and his breath audibly hitched.

They’d reached the doorway to the bedroom, and she let her jeans fall to the floor before kicking them off. She stood before him in a pair of very brief, silky underpants.

“You’re playing with fire,” Deck whispered.

“Just call me a pyromaniac,” she said with a waggle of her eyebrows. “And isn’t it a good thing that we’re in a firehouse?”

Without warning, he tossed his crutch to the side and tackled her to the bed. She gave a startled oomph along with a laugh at his caveman tactics.

Her laughter stilled in her throat when his lips met hers. He didn’t just kiss her, he
inhaled
her.

She clung to his shoulders, her palms stroking over the hot, rough cotton of his T-shirt, only to delve under it to the even hotter silk of his bare skin. She tugged at the hem, and he separated from her far enough that she could pull the shirt over his head, tossing it wherever it landed.

Her breasts met the smooth skin of his chest, and she sighed. He kissed a moist path down her neck to her breast, sucking her nipple into his mouth. The friction of his tongue against the tight bud was so sharp, she cried out. She felt him smile against her skin.

She struggled to reach the waistband of his cargo pants, whimpering in frustration when she couldn’t make the canvas release the metal button. Deck gently pushed her hands aside, flipped open the button, and tugged down his zipper, the sound of the teeth loud in a room that was silent save for their fast breaths.

“Hurry,” she urged.

“We have all night,” he told her, chuckling.

“But I need you. Inside me.
Now.
”

The passion in his eyes turned feral in the blink of an eye.

In seconds, Deck was bare to her touch. She wrapped her hand around him, delighting in the hot, hard, silky texture of his erection against her palm. He groaned and eased her hands aside and whisked her panties down her legs.

Deck pulled her tight to him and rolled to his back. Dana’s legs fell on either side of his hips, and she pressed directly against him, his hard length against her moist heat. It felt so good, she couldn’t help but tilt her hips, causing enough friction that they both moaned.

He kissed her again, his tongue saying without words everything he was feeling.

She slid back and forth against him again, the hot, hard tip of him barely slipping inside. He gripped her hips with both hands, pulling her down by degrees. With one controlled thrust of his hips, he was buried in her.



Deck groaned. He couldn’t remember anything that had ever felt so good. Maybe nothing ever had. It wasn’t until he’d tilted his hips back and thrust again that he remembered he wasn’t wearing a condom. He opened his eyes, and the sight of Dana, her eyes closed, her face flushed and her lower lip caught between her teeth, made him almost stop caring about protection.

Almost.

“Dana,” he managed to rasp out in a voice that no longer sounded like his own. “Condom.”

Her eyes snapped open, the look of ecstasy replaced by one of stunned surprise. “Oh.”

“In the nightstand,” he said, pointing to his left.

Dana scrambled over to the side of the bed and retrieved the protection he’d bought after they’d set each other on fire in the laundry room, suspecting it might only be a matter of time before they ended up here. He thanked heaven for the foresight.

She ripped the plastic packet open with her teeth and rolled it down over him. It was only seconds before she’d straddled his hips again. He dragged her down until he could meet her lips with his own. She gripped his head as tightly as he gripped her hips, their entire collective consciousness focused only on this moment and their overwhelming need.

She rose up and slid down over him, sheathing him in her heat, and Deck got a taste of what paradise must be like.

A cry tore from his throat as she rocked against him. Months of celibacy warred with his need to last, to make this as good for her as he could.

He locked his fingers in her long hair, holding her still for his mouth. She lightly nipped his jaw, his throat, his ear, each sharp sensation bringing him closer to ecstasy.

He wasn’t going to last for shit. Sliding his hand between them, he put his thumb against the bundle of nerves that would send her as far over the edge as she’d brought him.

It took only moments before she cried out and convulsed around him. The sound of her raw desire shredded what little was left of his restraint. With a powerful buck of his hips, he tightened his arms around her, called out her name and let himself release into her pulsing heat.

It was seconds (or maybe hours) later when he realized not all the dampness between her forehead and his shoulder was sweat.

Dana’s breathing sounded uneven, even as she fought to keep it steady. With a hand on her shoulder, he pressed her back far enough that he could see into her face. Her beautiful gingerbread eyes were damp, and small red splotches marked her cheeks.

“Oh, baby,” he whispered. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

She shook her head and tried to hide her face once again. He refused to let her.

“Then what’s the matter?”

She shook her head and clung to him like he was the only thing keeping her from falling off a cliff. “Nothing, I swear… That was. Well, it was
perfect.
I didn’t expect that.”

He wrapped both arms around her, stroking her from the nape of her neck to the base of her spine and back again. Their bodies were still joined, and he knew he had to move soon, but the feeling of her skin cooling under his palms and the trusting way she held on to him kept him from rushing that moment.



Dana felt like she’d been sideswiped by a Mac truck. She couldn’t ever remember crying during sex before. For the first time in her life, she’d opened herself up completely—nothing held back—to someone. It was beautiful and scary and wonderful, and…

And terrifying.

She felt like a raw, open nerve. Only it wasn’t pain she was feeling it was…
hope?
Had she ever felt real hope before? Certainly not on this level.

Quickly and with a minimum of fuss, Deck eased her back to the bed and disposed of the condom before spooning behind her and pulling her tightly into the curve of his body. In spite of the maelstrom of confusing emotions racing through her head, she had never felt so safe or so protected.